Social tools for Social Media

     It’s also important to search and comb through services that track conversations and relevant topics such as Technorati, Blogpulse, Bloglines, b5, Google Blog Search, Blog Catalog, and also MyBlogLog. These tools allow you to proactively monitor memes and determine your level of engagement.

     Social Media isn’t limited to blogs and communities. Social Media is also fueling social networks and the ability to find and host conversations related to brands and products. For example, Creating Facebook groups as well as searching other related groups are incredible opportunities to have conversations with people and as well, influence groups of people in the process.

     Several companies I work with have created company-hosted groups across

relevant social networks as well encouraged enthusiastic customers to do host conversations in places such as Ning. Ning is a Do It Yourself (DIY) social network, and it’s definitely a place where people congregate to share and learn, among other things of course.

     Another way to help customers is to bring them to you through your own company blog as well as hosting an integrated social network/discussion forum. Companies such as Leverage Software facilitate hosted conversations directly at the company site as a way of embracing customers and also encouraging peer-to-peer interaction…thus building and strengthening their community.

     Companies such as Satisfaction are creating “people-powered” customer service forums where companies and customers can create a channel dedicated to helping people use products more effectively by solving their problems and answering questions all in one place. In many cases, services such as Satisfaction are complementary to all other campaigns.

     Don’t count out micromedia tools…creating a presence in Twitter and Jaiku can help companies on the spot as these conversations are taking place.

     In the case of Twitter, companies can create an account where they can proactively update their customers aka “followers” with new updates, answers, etc. Customers can also contact them through “direct” messaging or public @companyname posts. #hashtags is a growing trend within the service that allows users to callout topics such as #customer+service for others to locate through a dedicated search tool.

     Jaiku integrated channels last year, for example, allowing anyone, in this case, companies, to create a dedicated pipe to share and reply to users looking for specific information and conversations.

     There’s still a 1.0 component to all of this however. User groups and forums haven’t gone away. They’re still thriving, and, determining which communities host conversations that matter to your business in critical in maintaining customer service and also instilling satisfaction and fostering enthusiasm.

     Which communities and tools should you use? You have to start by surveying the landscapes and listening. The results will tell you where to engage. Monitoring the culture of each community and the sociology of the interactions, will guide you in how to participate.

     Whatever you do, don’t’ engage as a marketer and don’t participate from a top down approach – meaning be helpful, not “put out” from having to answer the same things over and over again.

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Becoming the customer

     We’ve all heard that in Social Media, we can’t control the message. To some extent, we can’t control perception, but we can help steer it. Be helpful and ensure that your solutions and benefits are clear in a way that can be understood by the different demographics of users that populate your markets. And remember, they need to hear things differently across each segment, from the head, to the long tail across every chasm in between. It’s not just about the masses, but the niche markets as well. They all contribute to the bottom line.

     Graphic, and insight, courtesy of Chris Heuer

     The importance of engagement is to ensure that you engage on their terms according to the rules, and culture, across each community. Remember, in life, you are also customers. You buy things, you complain about products and services you don’t like, and you recommend those that you love. So, you have to be a customer to think like a customer. Approaching them any other way isn’t genuine and is going to deflate relationships and spark the possibility of pushing customers away.

     Be the people you want to help.

     Most importantly, make sure that you integrate customer success stories into your PR and marketing initiatives. Feature them on your blog. Invite them to events. Partner with them to be proactive voices to help rally other customers. After all, customers are the very thing that keep you in business. Show them that you know this by reaching out to them, not just waiting for them to come to you.

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Customer engagement online

     I have talked with many companies who tell me they aren’t sure if they want to start an online conversation with their customers. Cord Silverstein asks this question in his post Engage customers or die. He says, Is it a good thing for companies to try to engage their customers online? Does the good outweigh the possible repercussions that could come from it? And finally what are some of your ideas on how companies can engage online with their customers?

     Cord’s post and comments start a great discussion on this topic! I think part of the concern companies have about engaging their customers in conversation online is that they have not already been engaging in ANY conversations with customers. Rather, marketing and PR have often created one-way communication vehicles (advertisements, press releases, articles/white papers). Ongoing, two-way interaction with customers is how we build customer relationships. Social media, ideally, is just one more channel by which to reach out and build relationships with customers. It is a great channel to use because it enables immediate, two-way conversation! Therefore, if your customers are interacting online, you need to be out there talking with them and learning from them in the online space.

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

With or without you

     Customers are having conversations about companies, with or without the company’s involvement with those discussions. Someone in Cord’s comments suggested the way to engage with customers online is to have your PR department be new media-savvy and do the correspondence. Having the “traditional” PR person as the one to respond concerns me, as I believe customers are looking for authentic responses, not carefully crafted company statements.

     Creating a place on your own site, such as a community or a blog, is a great way to keep the conversation in your backyard - as long as you allow comments and take the time to respond. Southwest Airlines has done a good job of engaging with customers online, and they use their blog as a feedback channel for ideas, concerns, and questions. Everyone at SWA takes the time to write and respond, including pilots and the CEO. For example, their recent business decision on whether or not to assign seats was put to their customers in a few different blog posts; the most recent one elicited over 360 comments!

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Conversation is key to customer relationships

     Think about it. Can you get to know a new person you meet without having some kind of conversation? Whether it is in person, over email, or on a Facebook wall, there has to be some type of interaction in order to progress the relationship.

     Customer relationships are no different! It is important to go where your customers are (be that online, at a retail store, in their own place of business), get to know them, find out their needs, and start doing something different based on what you learn. Customer trust and relationships will build, and the best ones will lead to more customers as they tell others about you. Start the conversation!

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

The role of marketing

     Marketing’s role in an organization is changing. It is no longer enough to push a product or service at a customer, thinking it will meet that customer’s need because they fit into a certain demographic. I may purchase a printer for my PC so I can print off email messages and documents; another person may purchase it to print their digital photos for a scrapbook. Both of us are between the ages of 18-36 and have a good income plus a college education. But that information is not enough to ascertain how that printer will be used.

     Knowing which magazines I subscribe to, which TV shows I watch, and what kinds of products I purchase do not really tell you my story, either. It is marketing’s role to truly understand the customer’s need from a psycho-graphic and behavioral aspect. In order to do that, marketers are finding it necessary to view their company, its products and services, and even each place a customer touches that company from the customer’s perspective. Only then can we begin to understand the underlying needs of a customer.

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Experts needed

     Marketers can no longer solely rely on their previous methods to understand customer needs. For example, focus groups will give us an idea of customer direction or a general understanding of behaviors, but we may not really understand what each customer segment needs without asking them. Why is this customer purchasing a printer? Have they ever purchased one before? What would they say they need from a printer? Better yet, what would they say they need to do with their computer? How much of that would be facilitated by the printer? Digging deeper into customer needs and behaviors is a new, yet critical marketing function that not many marketers are performing.

     Marketing teams are becoming customer needs experts as part of their role in the new customer-centric business world. It is imperative that companies work across the organization to put into place a repeatable system for collecting customer information, create a method for sharing that information throughout the organization, and finally, act on the information. Learning from our customers, then doing something with what we learn, is a solid way to create a barrier to exit for our customers. When we learn about our customer, then use that learning to do something different for that customer, we have created a unique value proposition for them that our competitors can’t match. This is because we now have customer insight that they don’t have. When we continue to learn from each interaction, and then change our behaviors to benefit our customer, we build a relationship with them, and ultimately, we build loyalty.

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Gathering info a little at a time

     We can begin learning from our customers with each interaction they have with us, at any touch point. When we remember and record those interactions, we can fill out the profiles we have on individual customers and share them with the rest of the organization. The use of Web 2.0 tools and social marketing techniques is a great way to have conversations with our customers in such a way that we can get immediate feedback from them on specific areas – as well as carry on an ongoing conversation. As we track these conversations with individuals over time and across our company, we begin to understand what they need from us. As we learn from our customers, whether we are in customer service, PR, marketing, or sales, we can begin to apply that to improving products, creating customer-focused services, and designing relevant campaigns.

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Growing the business

     As marketers begin to truly understand their customers’ needs, they can then create campaigns which are more relevant, more customized, and more likely to spur engagement with the brand. This should result in increased action on the part of the customer.

     When the organization remembers the customer’s previous interactions and uses that corporate memory to improve the customer’s experience for the next time, trust is built with customers. Trust, corporate memory, and relevant marketing are critical ingredients to building solid relationships with and getting loyalty from existing customers.

     And of course, growing business from existing customers is one of the most costeffective approaches there is!

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Case study: ACDSee

     ACDSee has a long tradition of providing quality software for digital photographers. This case study is an example of not only how social media was used to provide excellent customer service but also how it engaged a completely new market. This niche market continues to expand & thrive as customers tell others.

     Listening initially:

     A Community Manager position was established long before it was ‘vogue’. In monitoring online conversations it was noticed that the software was being used in an unconventional manner. This began a dialogue with customers as the company listened to understand how the software was being used.

     Engaging the new market:

• Identified evangelists.
• Trained & encouraged them to use social media tools:
• Google alerts, SEO, word of mouth.
• They created a site with a broad range of resources:
• Tutorials written in niche’s language & Videos.
• FAQ’s, tips on product use.
• Blog & weekly newsletter.
• Blogs, participation in online forums, real time chats at websites.

     Evangelists provide personalized customer support at a community-centric site.

• Provided tech support by IM with Hello.
• Created resources including Frequently Asked Questions.
• Customers self serve themselves.
• Encourage customers to support their peers.
• Presently non-customers & customers direct others to pertinent resources.
• Gathered product use tips from customers & consolidated them into resources.

     Listening & providing for the community’s needs:

• Feedback was gathered on desired features.
• New features that were specific to the community were integrated into the product.
• Evangelists maintain a continual conversation with the community.
• Community specific items created & offered as promotions.
• Integrated social media with traditional marketing, PR & affiliate marketing efforts.

     Expanding on success:

• Additional evangelists added to continue the level of support the community expects.
• Offering a public beta on a new product to allow for community input.
• Plans to apply the model to other user segments.

     Results after one year of active listening, engagement & participation:

• Brand was established in a month & half.
• ACDSee’s product is recognized as the preferred tool over much larger competitors such as Adobe & Corel.
• The community has embraced ACDSee products as the industry standard for organization.
• At present 97% of support is provided by evangelists in a personalized manner.
• The high level of customer service that ACDSee & the evangelists provide is frequently commented on.
• Company customer support is in-house and has been shifted to reside under marketing.
• Customer feedback resulted in a new precedent of providing patches.
• Establishing a system to gather customer feedback will be gathered before development begins (pre-beta).

     Suggestions for best practices:

• A community manager is invaluable to connect & collaborate with customers & in-house efforts.
• Listen to your community & engage with them in an authentic manner.
• Customers will notice & respect this then proceed to tell everyone.
• Experiment with social media tools & use those that connect with your community.
• Ex: our customers don’t subscribe to rss feeds, so we created a weekly newsletter.
• Write tutorials & FAQ’s in the customer’s language rather than industry standard.

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Engagement example: AOL

     Will Morris, AOL's man in Silicon Valley, and Frank Gruber, who works out of the east coast HQ, vowed to help engage unhappy customers across the Web as well as critics of the company’s products to help shed new light to each

discussion, clarify confusion, and simply help in general.

     Will recently wrote about it as a way of inspiring his co-workers to do the same, “Don't let people say silly things about your company. Yes I mean it. Your

company.” Morris continued, “Frank Gruber set an example for me last year. When he spots these comments, he follows up with a comment and (if possible) contacts the person who wrote it. And the response is normally good. If Frank can do it (as busy as he is), so can we all do it.”

     Frank Gruber added to the discussion, “Will Morris has been a leader at the AOL Silicon Valley campus for over 9 years…he is making sure that employees realize that they can make a difference by taking pride in their work and by engaging directly with customers.”

     Examples from Frank:

• The moment TechCrunch announced myAOL, a new personalized startpage, it was met by critics that had not even looked at the product but saw it was from AOL and immediately took a negative stance. As the myAOL product lead, Gruber took this on as a challenge. He made sure to comment and contact individuals to get real feedback on the product.
• Gruber took the time to reach out through comments and emails. In one such case, Gruber contacted open critic, Matt Harwood. Harwood took a position that was very much against myAOL when the Sneak Preview video splashed onto pages of TechCrunch in June. In August, he had changed his mind and opted to share his new sentiment publicly.
• Gruber responded, “Matt’s open dialog says a lot about his character and I really appreciate it. It is feedback like his that helps improve a product.”

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

Experience case study: FreshBooks

     FreshBooks is by far, one of my favorite examples for a company that gets it. They live and breathe customer service and mandate that everyone, at every level, engage with customers to stay connected with them. In doing so, everything from sales, marketing, and also product development, stay on track with what their customers really need and want.

     How FreshBooks Listens:

• Comments on its blogs
• Google alerts
• Created a hosted forum, which is very active
• They answer their phones…no automated attendant
• Twitter
• Customer dinners
• Attending conferences where their customers go

     According to Michael McDerment of Freshbooks, “Since day one of FreshBooks operation there has been a mandate to over serve FreshBooks customers. A customer service department was formed before even a marketing team. That original mandate has carried on today with all the same principles.”

     Real Support and staying tapped in! Every member of the FreshBooks team,

from the CEO to the Developers to the Marketing Department also doubles as

the support team.

     Real World Relationships! FreshBooks communicates with customers through their blog, forums, Twitter, a Newsletter called the FRESHBOOKS SUPPER CLUB, the real word version of the FreshBooks Supper Club. Basically any time someone from FB travels we take a group of customers out for a nice dinner for no reason other than to hang out and get to know them.

     Make customers part of the PR process. Feature them regularly on the blog and through other promotional materials.

     FreshBooks takes a “Treat people the way you want to be treated” philosophy because they feel that if the people are happy inside theirs walls, they will convey that happiness and excitement to their customers, and in turn, their customers will share that goodness with others.

     FreshBooks takes customer service on the road and is renting an RV in February and driving from Miami to Texas to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with customers. The idea of this came from the fact that they are attending two conferences (Future of Web Apps and South By South West) that are a week apart. Instead of flying, they’re driving and making key stops along the way to meet customers in their cities, host BBQs, and generally just show them that they’re important.

     Results: Freshbooks went from a 98% referral rate in 2006 to an unbelievable 99% referral rate in 2007.

     Source: Customer service: the art of listening and engagement through Social Media (Brian Solis and Becky Carroll) e-book

How to kickstart your mobile marketing

     With an increasing amount of traffic being driven to sites from smartphones, mobile should start to play an essential role in your marketing mix. So how do you kickstart your mobile marketing program?

Optimize Your Site for Mobile

     You can create an entirely different version of your website targeted for mobile viewers, and set up a mobile redirect. Through this feature, a line of code is placed on your website’s homepage to determine the size of a visitor’s browser screen. Based on each screen’s size, the visitor is either directed to the mobile site, or they stay put.

     Besides the redirect option, you can also use mobile CS to make your website mobile-friendly. The CS basically allows you to change the way your website is organized and displayed just on mobile devices.

Location Is Your Friend

     As we have previously noted in this blog, location is another marketing element you need to pay special attention to. Location will make real-time search more relevant. And because real-time search is closely related to our usage of mobile devices, marketers must figure out how they can take advantage of location-based technologies such as

Foursquare.

     “Mobile is only going to grow,” says David. “It is going to be an increasingly significant part of the way people access your company.”

     Source: The ultimate how to marketing guide (HubSpot and David Meerman Scott) e-book

Gmail

     Thankfully most small businesses now realize that using hotmail or yahoo as their business email address probably doesn’t send the right message. Using an email address that matches the domain for your business website is absolutely a must.

Why

     Some ISP hosted email can be a bit limited and running all your email through a desktop client like Outlook has its own set of limitations – most notably when it comes to the need to share with a team.

     Google Apps for Business has, in my view, become a very nice option for collaboration as well as email hosting. In addition to the mail, task and calendar sharing, you’ll also have Google Docs and Spreadsheet sharing capability.

     Customer Relations Management systems are great and powerful marketing workhorses capable of funneling leads into campaigns, automating nurturing routines, tracking conversion metrics and interfacing with ordering and accounting systems to create a complete sales machine, but sometimes you just need to keep track of who you contacted and when.

     Using Google’s free suite of tools you can create a nice lightweight CRM system with just a few tweaks along the way. Email has become one of the primary forms of contact and, particularly if you’re already using Gmail, exploring options that allow you to expand on the tool you use the most might be the fastest route to creating a useable CRM option.

How

Set up your domain to be hosted by Google

     Get a Google Apps for business account and move the MX records for your domain to Google’s servers. This way you can use GMail but have all your mail come from john@yourdomain.com. You can also create custom emails for your entire staff.

Use the labels feature

     You can create all the labels you want (think folders) in GMail to move and store all that email that comes in that you need to refer to. You can also use Google labs to tuck sub topics underneath a parent. To create these sub labels you simply use the parent label connected to the sub label ie: clients/nameofclient

Create a feature rich signature

     I use a Firefox add-on called Wisestamp because it offers more that the GMail signature can and lets you create multiple signatures so you can have work and personal signature for example.

Set-up the offline feature

     GMail allows you to access a synced copy of your inbox when you’re offline so you can manage your mail while on an airplane for example. Download Google Gears.

Use the canned responses feature

     Google labs offers a host of options that enhance GMail’s functionality. One that I like is called canned responses. The name is a bit harsh but what it allows you to store email copy that you frequently use and then insert it with one touch. I try to make my canned responses sound very human, but I do use this frequently.

Explore the App Marketplace

     Third party providers are busy creating apps built specifically to work with Google Apps. In many cases you’ll find tools in the Google Apps Marketplace that are new to you and versions of old friends you might want to migrate to Google Apps.

3rd party plugins

• Rapportive is a tool that adds social media data to your contact records, you automatically see LinkedIn or Facebook information on your contacts or anyone that sends you an email. You can also follow and connect with contacts on Twitter or LinkedIn directly from the Gmail interface. This is a great way to get a bigger picture of what your contacts are doing and have instant information on people that send you emails.
• Boomerang is a handy plugin that gives your emails some smarts. When you send an email, for example, you set it to remind you if you don’t hear back from the recipient in a set number of days. Or you set an email in your inbox to go away and put itself back in on a certain day.

     Source: The productivity handbook (John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing) e-book

Evernote

     Evernote syncs beautifully across all devices and allows me to outline my life without having to commit anything to memory.

Why

• I have adopted some principles of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, but greatly simplified them and that simplification is where Evernote really shines. Evernote has grown from humble roots of a stripped down note-taking tool to powerhouse suite of software services and applica tions that can be used to run entire organizations, but the simple roots remain.
• Evernote is my giant file cabinet for anything I want to capture. It is simple yet brilliant and most importantly, perhaps, is that all my activity in Evernote syncs over the air to every device I use. This allows me to work on my laptop, iPad, iPhone or any computer I happen to stumble upon and know that the data is the same everywhere.
•  In simplest terms what I do for a living is consume, write and share information, so my system is built largely around making it easy for me to discover, retrieve, produce and distribute information.
• The function that makes Evernote so easy to adopt for this purpose is the ability to add and capture information in numerous ways.
• I can send Evernote an email with content and files attachments.
• I can upload text, voice messages and images.
• I can drag files from my computer to Evernote on my desktop.
• I can save a file to Evernote from the print dialog command.
• I can clip any web page or web content directly to Evernote while I surf.
• I can write text notes directly to Evernote.
• I can add photos directly from a camera.
• I can add scans with ability to search them.

How

• I create separate folders (for blog post ideas, research for my books, etc.) and then clip, take notes and email ideas as I visit my RSS reader, read my email, meet with clients and surf throughout the day so I know everything gets captured.
• I use Evernote as a tickler file by creating folders for each month of the year and adding reminders of future actions into each. When I need to file some quarterly report I find a reminder when I review that month and add it to the to do list. (We’ve all been asked to follow up with someone in three weeks and this keeps it and the email exchange in the system).
• Because I can get information into Evernote in so many forms I also create and maintain lists of unrelated work things I want to track and find later. This can look like gift ideas, books to read, vacation ideas, wines and music. If I have a great wine I snap a photo of the label and shove it into that list.
• I have folders for random thoughts and when I hear, see or read anything that I want to capture I use my iPhone or a service called Jott to quickly record a voice message that’s transcribed and added to Evernote.

     Evernote has become the central nerve center of my work and its usefulness has spilled over into every facet of day-to-day life. I check in every morning to create a list of action steps and to dos and then routinely add content throughout the day. The secret (once more for emphasis) is that it’s so integrated into every tool I use so it is easy to create a routine to use it.

Don’t use Evernote for...

     I fire up Evernote in the morning and draw up my to do list from a combination of appointment commitments, project commitments and information from inside Evernote folders and then I record them in ink in a Moleskin notebook.

     I’ve intentionally kept this step analog as I feel a very strong pull to keep some aspects of my work and life rooted in things that are non-digital and offline. While it is easy to get sucked completely into the appeal of an entirely digital world, I can honestly say that I can’t be as creative or inspired unless I employ all of my senses.

     I work through my to do list each day and fuse my actions and sparks of brilliance into Evernote in real time and as they enter my thoughts. The more I put into Evernote the more I focus on being creative, knowing that I come there and find everything that I want to keep.

     Source: The productivity handbook (John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing) e-book

Social search

     Prospects are turning to sites such as Insider Pages to find sources for everything from plumbers to piano tuners in almost every community in America. Highly rated small businesses appearing on social sites are starting to get noticed! This is a great new medium. There is no cost involved and the benefits far outweigh the little bit of work you may put in to start building your online reputation. Smart small businesses are starting to encourage online reviews. (Merely point out to your happy customers that they might want to share the love.) Other businesses are printing and using their online reviews offline. Businesses with the most ratings and reviews seem to do the best. Coupons and offers are a great way to get noticed too!

     You need to start exploring this avenue now, if for no other reason than to manage your online reputation. Some businesses fear the impact of a negative review. I mean, you can’t make every customer happy, right? Most of the social directories have processes in place to fight spam and competitive revenge type reviews, but nothing works like a good offense. Make sure you are building reviews from happy clients. Send offline customers online and teach them how to use a site such as Judy’s Book.

     Some of the more popular social/local directories include:

• Craigslist
• Judy’s Book
•  Insider Pages
• Smalltown.com
• Yelp

     Source: Let’s talk, Social Media for small busniess, version two (John Jantsch) e-books

My blog must-have plug-in list

• Add to Any: a tool that makes it very easy for people to subscribe to your blog.
• Disqus: interactive commenting system.
• Twittertools: automatically adds your new blog posts to Twitter.
• Google Sitemaps Generator: creates a sitemap of your blog in XML format and pings search engines.
• Akismet: helps fight comment spam.Related Entries: creates a list of blog posts related to your current one and inserts the list into your post.
• All in One SEO: adds features that allow you to make each blog post even more SEO friendly.

     Source: Let’s talk, Social Media for small busniess, version two (John Jantsch) e-book