Junto is Born!

Many of us have been inspired by the cooperation meme lately, and it appears that our collective spirit has given birth to Junto!

In case you haven’t been following along, Junto is a concept we’ve been discussing for a global communications and collaboration platform. It starts with a simple interface, combining video chat with a text box and a twitter backchannel, all streaming in public, real-time. It could be used for any number of projects or goals – organizations could use it for open innovation or to show how they are taking social responsibility in the world, groups with similar initiatives could use it for huge group discussions and meetings in order to accelerate the process of organizing and taking projects from idea to action, and individuals could use it to engage in dialogue and create shared meaning and shared understanding across geographic and cultural barriers. For more context, check out the original post here.

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9 Ways to Breathe Life Into Your Blog

grow

I’m not much of a numbers hound.

I don’t pore over my stats with a fine tooth comb, I don’t obsess about unfollows or subscriber numbers or any of that stuff. In fact, I don’t even have that nifty little widget here to tell you how many people subscribe – even though I understand the benefits of social proof – simply because it’s never been that important to me.

So it’s a bit contradictory for me to say that I’m proud to have recently crested 10,000 subscribers for this blog in the two years I’ve been musing here. It’s been an amazing adventure, and one I intend to evolve, shape, and carry forward for a while to come. I thank each and every one of you for making this place the rewarding adventure it’s been.

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Three B2B Marketing Trends (To Avoid)

Three B2B Marketing trends have surfaced during my travels in the past few months that are worth sharing with you as we move deeper into 2010.

signs

The first is that the overwhelming majority of marketers I am speaking with are thinking of social media marketing as something separate and distinct from the rest of their corporate marketing plans. I don’t believe this is being done intentionally, it’s just happening. We saw this same thing (and still do to some extent) happen when companies were first considering how to begin marketing on the internet.

While this approach may work on a small scale for a limited time, to realize the full benefits the social web has to offer your B2B marketing, your social media marketing needs to be integrated with your overall marketing plan and targeted to specific buyer personas. It needs to share the same overarching goals, share the same voice, and most importantly, share the same performance metrics. Thinking of it separately will not be giving it the attention it deserves (and the resources it needs) to truly help you realize its benefits.

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Crowdsourcing: Future model for big corporations or outcome of socialization?

“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”. – Bill Joy, Cofounder, Sun Microsystems

The word Crowdsourcing was coined by Jeff Howe of Wired Magazine, a portmanteau of the words ‘crowd’ and ‘outsourcing’. It is used to describe the phenomenon using group intelligence to solve problems and complete projects. A darling of Web 2.0, more and more companies are jumping on the crowdsourcing bandwagon, and even federal government agencies have begun to explore it, with the Federal Communications Commission crowdsourcing ideas on how to improve America’s broadband infrastructure.

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Definition of Social CRM – Explained!

In one of my earlier posts, I defined Social CRM as follows:

Social CRM is the business strategy of engaging customers through Social Media with goal of building trust and brand loyalty. Loyalty is defined as attitude towards a brand that inclines a customer to repurchase it and/or recommend it to others. Social CRM and Social Media are more about building trust and managing loyalty with customers than about managing relationships or transactions, which are focus areas of “traditional” CRM.

I received a lot of great feedback on this definition and want to elaborate further on it to answer some of the questions raised by readers of this blog.

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Maintaining Your Garden of Trust

This morning I was getting some seeds started for my garden, and I was reminded of a tweet from a few weeks ago where I said something to the effect of ‘customer service is now more like gardening and less like hunting – nurture relationships.’ Well, the SCRM crowd (social customer relationship management) pushed back. [@wimrampen @grahamhill @ekolsky @myjayliebs @mkrigsman @SameerPatel @pgreenbe @kitson, you know who you are!] They said this wasn’t the case, and that studies had shown that customers don’t really want a relationship with a brand. To me, “relationship” doesn’t have to mean I’m going to have you over for dinner. There are levels. It can just mean that I will recommend you to a friend. I let it go at the time, but I want to go for Round 2.

I think that gardening is as powerful a metaphor as any for the life-cycle of a process, and I do see a correlation between what it takes to grow a garden and what it takes to build trust with a potential customer, client, or future alliance. Here’s how I see it:


seeds

It starts with a seed. Tiny enough to get lost in the crease of your palm, seemingly insignificant on it’s own, it’s value not immediately apparent. This is that new contact, that new Twitter follower, yourself.

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Making Social Media Happen in Your Company

New video from @ChrisBrogan recorded at SAS’s headquarters in Cary, North Carolina in which he lays out some concrete steps people and companies can take to make social media happen.

Notable are the points on the utility of social media in undoing the lobotomy that seperated functions such as marketing and PR to now create a unified development and communications capability.



Looking forward to meeting Chris at #BroganMemphis as it seems he shares some of the unification goals of @TheSocialCMO through C-Level Social and smashing the silos with social media is currently one of our favorite pastimes!

Jeff Ashcroft

Balance between New Technology and Social Etiquette?

What is going on these days? It seems that every place I go— countless people are looking down towards the ground (i.e. their phones, IPODs, mobile devices etc). For example, I have seen couples who are out on “dates” and although they are sitting across from each other—they are not listening or engaged in the conversation to each other- but instead are focused on browsing the web or texting someone else. If we are not careful we going to have a generation of people with strained necks from spending so much time looking down at such devices.

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The Thrill of the Chase vs. the Drudgery of Dialogue

For many, the chase is simply easier than the work associated with building and nurturing lasting relationships. The chase offers variety, an adrenaline rush, and – win or lose – it’s off to the next pursuit. No working through misunderstandings and unrealized expectations.

No – this isn’t a post about personal relationships — parallels notwithstanding. This is about business development. And for some reason, many professional service organizations and B-to-B endeavors invest disproportionate amounts of time and energy chasing irresistible “opportunities.”

In almost every instance, the shortest path to revenue growth lies in meaningful dialogue (the stuff of lasting relationships) with existing clients.

This would seem to be of particular interest in today’s marketplace — where the slightest growth is challenging, and leveraging every investment is a must.

The math is simple. Deepening an existing client relationship is almost always a better investment than the costs — hard and soft — associated with the pursuit of a new target. Deepen an existing relationship, and not only are you on the road to increased revenue; you’ve changed your profitability arithmetic.

Just in case I have to say it — here goes: this is not a suggestion that we should not engage in the pursuit of new clients. It is a reminder to all of us leading business development efforts: when we invest more in the pursuit of new opportunities than in the care and nurture of existing relationships, we may have fallen victim to the thrill of the chase.

Relationships that endure and grow are the result of a calculated investment in the proactive art (and, yes – often drudgery) of dialogue.

Eric Fletcher

Even though the economy is turning this is good selling advice

A fantastic training resource for all of us is Selling Power’s site. They have daily short videos that you can watch to get tips.

I came across this video today about selling during a recession. The key take aways are:

  • First, buyers don’t purchase based on price. This is never the number one reason why people buy even in a recession. Instead, you need to show and prove that buying from your company is extremely low on the risk scale.
  • Second, you cannot come across as afraid that your job is at risk and that you are desperate to make a sale.

So, here’s the way I’d approach this.

  • First, you need to instill confidence in your customers and prospects. You need to establish key pillars that you can use to show that your company will weather this storm. It could be that you’ve weathered two recessions. It could be that you have a diverse customer base etc.
  • Second, ownership/Mgt must instill confidence in their employees. You must show them that you have their backs and that their jobs are not a risk. A wounded animal gets eaten.
  • Third, you must be confident and believe that this recession is an opportunity for you and your clients. Work hard, show them value and that you are the guy/gal that will help them get through this tough time. Drive to survive, drive to thrive.

Watch the video, it’s well worth the 4:30 minutes.

Chris Herbert