This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to spend the morning with an exciting start-up company that will be launching their product at the beginning of 2012. Their CEO has a history of success with other ventures but is relatively new to the digital world of marketing outside of the standard SEO practices. They’ve retained the RockTeam to help with their social business strategy as well to augment their social media marketing efforts. The compelling part of this conversation was that this CEO was adamantly against the use of social media in business as it relates to productivity. With that in mind, how do you convince business leaders like this to re-think about employee productivity and business effectiveness outside the traditional linear channels of communication? Here are 5 strategies I’ve used which have been successful over the past few months:
1. Take the word ‘social’ out of the conversation: The word social has immediate negative connotations to business leaders today. Remember ‘instant messaging’ in the 90’s? Today, you’re hard-pressed to find an organization who’s not leveraging IM to *build* on productivity in the workplace. The word ‘social’ sits in this bucket today for many if not most people and I’ve asked business managers, leaders, CEO’s to remove the labels such as ‘facebook’, ‘social’, and merely think about those as concepts of communication as it relates to openness and becoming transparent.
2. Retool your conversation around the way people communicate. Building on the non-social them from Point #1, we go back to what is familiar to business leaders, communication. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Email, IM, are all channels of communication. Some channels newer than others but what is common is that all channels are relevant in todays digital world. There are more Facebook accounts than there are people in many countries in the world. Putting that into perspective for your decision-maker opens eyes regardless of their personal view of Facebook. Keep the conversation around communication and productivity and the *tools* available and the focus remains in tact for your conversation.
3. Relate the communication tools (not social tools) around the target audience. In my example above, this CEO is targeting a specific demographic of people which more than likely has a Facebook account. 5 years ago, they may not have had a social account of any kind but today, you can surely bet they are on Facebook and most of them are probably on it right now! This communication tool as well as Google+ and Twitter has an audience. How do you want to connect with them?
4. Now think about why they have these accounts? What is the driving factor for them? It’s not just to share what they ‘ve had for dinner or the latest photos of their pets in their funny Halloween costumes. They have these accounts because of the *access* they have to people they typically don’t communicate too over email. The moment of “ah-ha” hits here. Sure you can drive email marketing to you’re blue in the face but many folks are not normally ‘communicating’ over email any longer. There’s a segment of the B2C market that are leveraging Twitter and Facebook to learn about products, services, and most importantly how their friends/family *feel* about a certain product or service *you* are providing. The value proposition is high here and it’s an opportunity to capture your message and adding (not replacing) an audience to your marketing campaign. Throw in a real example like, “Addidas has reduced their speed to market by 40-60% by leveraging social media”. This is a true statistic and there are many more like this to support your conversation.
5. Finally, keep the discussion around the overall goals of the organization. Internally, it’s about productivity, communication, etc. Externally to your customers, it’s about quality, validity, and yes…communication as well (not social).
This conversation that I had on Saturday revolved around these 5 points and now my customer feels a certain level of comfort around the cutting-edge tools of communication to reach his target audience (not social ;-))
I’d love to learn your key resonating points with your customers/partners around social communication. Please share!
magento web design
Sat, Jan 5th 2013 5:15a Carlos Casas The magento Industry is provided by infinity with fresh, revolutionary, top rated engineering. We provide numerous magento device marketing and trouble- capturing ecommerce web design resources, demonstrated to enhance your magentomaking procedure and give a quick return in your expense. Complete satisfaction is guaranteed by infinity. Our providers contain software procedure audits, installment, start-up, instruction and total program marketing and support assistance. Being an business chief t [read] Keywords:
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Why one company’s internal social network worked where so many fail
Fri, Dec 28th 2012 6:14a Carlos Casas Why one company’s internal social network worked where so many fail: ibmsocialbiz:
Less than a year after its launch, more than 25,000 CEMEX employees use Shift, its social, internal collaboration platform, to communicate and collaborate with their colleagues around the globe. There are more than 700 blogs written by employees, including CEO Lorenzo Zambrano and the presidents of several international CEMEX divisions. In addition, Shift has spawned the creation of more than 500 work- an [read] Keywords: collaboration
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How Can Marketers Have More Influence?
Tue, Dec 18th 2012 5:10p Carlos Casas How Can Marketers Have More Influence?: ibmsocialbiz:
Join us for a FREE live virtual panel discussion to learn about the obstacles facing chief marketing officers, including control over marketing mix and access to customer data, and how to overcome the obstacles to gain greatest marketing influence and control.
Sign up now and get a free PDF download of the research briefing “The Gap Between the Vision for Marketing and the Reality.”
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. EST
PANE [read] Keywords: ibm
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Join Rockteam at Connect Lotusphere 2013!
Mon, Dec 10th 2012 10:14a Carlos Casas Rockteam will be heading to Orlando, FL on January 26 - 31 for IBM’s premier conference on social business technology, IBM Connect 2013! I invite you to join the team and connect in real-time! Today is the last day to take advantage of the early bird pricing at $2,095.00 per person.
Click here to access the registration page.
Instructions for RockTeam Customers: When you register for IBM Connect 2013 - you will be asked how you heard about the conference. When you respond to this ques [read] Keywords: collaboration
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Ed Brill Unplugged: Why IBM for Collaboration Solutions Today and Beyond
Thu, Dec 6th 2012 12:09p Carlos Casas Today IBM leads the industry in delivering robust enterprise collaboration software that empowers people to connect, collaborate, and innovate while optimizing the way they work. Register for this one hour webinar to hear special guest speaker Ed Brill’s unplugged perspective on why IBM is the industry leader for Collaboration Solutions today and why IBM will continue to be the industry leader in 2013 and beyond. Ed Brill is responsible for product portfolio management and strategy for IBM [read] Keywords: collaboration
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Join me for "Leveraging Cloud Technologies to Help Your Organization Work Smarter, Not Harder"
Wed, Oct 31st 2012 1:14p Carlos Casas Date: Thursday, November 8, 2012 Time: 2:00 PM EST
I’ll be a panel speaker for IBM SmartCloud with North American SaaS Leader Ted Brufke and Lisa Lucadamo Jerrett, Offering Manager for SmartCloud for Social Business. Here’s what we will be focusing on:
A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute found that “social technologies, when used within and across enterprises, have the potential to raise the productivity of the high skill knowledge workers that are critical to perf [read] Keywords: collaboration
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The Social Business: Leadership In A Social Era: Notes From #Pivotcon
Mon, Oct 22nd 2012 10:13a Carlos Casas The Social Business: Leadership In A Social Era: Notes From #Pivotcon: stoweboyd:
…three challenges for leadership. I think these form a power law: the first is twice as large/critical/difficult as the second, and the second is twice as large as the third. So I am going to take 2 minutes for the first, one minute for the second, and 30 seconds for the third.
1 Welcome To The Postnormal [read] Keywords: notes
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Joshuah Delos Santos, 13, Death by Suicide (my youngest 1st cousin)
Sun, Sep 23rd 2012 10:09a Carlos Casas We have failed yet another one. On Tuesday, September 18th, 13-year-old Joshuah Delos Santos took his own life. Martha Angelica Gonzales wrote this about her cousin, Joshuah:
Imagine being 13 and thinking about ending your life because you are being bullied… No one to turn to because you feel like speaking out will fuel the fire. So you hide from everyone and mask it with a smile because you don’t want to make it a big deal. Then, the day comes where you can’t take anymore and [read] Keywords: policies
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IBM Named Worldwide Marketshare Leader in Social Software for Third Consecutive Year
Thu, Jun 28th 2012 2:13p Carlos Casas ARMONK, N.Y. - 18 Jun 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that for the third consecutive year, IDC ranked IBM number one in worldwide market share for enterprise social software. According to IDC’s analysis of 2011 revenue, IBM grew faster than its competitors and nearly two times faster than the overall market which grew approximately 40 percent.*
The growing popularity of social networking continues to explode, with more and more organizations looking for ways to adopt social busi [read] Keywords: collaboration
connections
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