I don’t know if you’ve notice, but over the past few weeks I’ve been commenting on Twitter about self-promotion and the need to bring it back. With the impetus of social media being towards limited, if any, self-promotion (unless I missed the memo that it was okay), I’ve notice that the pendulum for people engaged in social media has finally swung from 100% to 0%. 

I don’t know about you, but I have about 5-8 people nationally that I feel confident referring for marketing, PR or social media consulting. Locally, it’s even less than that. For all the people I know on- and off-line, it’s a little sad that I have such a small pool of people to refer. And isn’t that the point of social media to build relationships that could potentially lead to referrals? That’s what we tell companies all the time, right? 

What’s the issue? Sure, we all follow the social media “rules” and we try to build relationships with people first and foremost and that’s great…but then it falls apart. 

The people that I feel comfortable referring are people that I met online first, then offline, and then they’ve shared links to their client work or have outright been a part of their clients’ campaigns online. I’ve been able to see their campaigns and get a 360 degree view of the person, how they think and their abilities.  I’ve also had conversations with some of them about their campaigns or projects. 

There are people who I follow on Twitter or Facebook that I that feel comfortable saying I know them pretty well, but honestly I have absolutely no clue where they work and/or what they have done as marketing, PR or social media professionals that would deserve a reference. 

I have people asking me all the time to refer consultants, agencies or speakers on particular topics because, in their minds, I am “well connected.” And I am consistently drawing a blank, which, needless to say surprises most people. 

Honestly, I have to question this “no self-promotion” rule and why we all (I am guilty of it too) make people feel SO uncomfortable to do so. It goes back to my favorite adage “people don’t know what they don’t know” and right now I don’t know what you all do. 

I am not talking about blatant, outright self promotion…I hate that as much as the next person. But once we have gotten to know someone, haven’t they earned the right to share online with us the campaigns they are working on or a project they are proud of? 

And yes, I get it…sometimes there are NDAs or confidentiality issues. But find a creative way to let us know what it is you are working on or what benefits you might provide a potential client/customer. 

I’d like to be able to refer all the smart people I am connected with…but I need more than just knowing what you share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or your blog to be able to do that. I need some kind of evidence that you are strategic, tactical and deliver results so I can feel comfortable telling people to give you a call. 

Please, help me out. I’d like to be able to provide references for you or your business. If we know each other and have connected either here on my blog or on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn let me know what you’ve been working on or share with me some of your recent campaigns/projects. 

Anyone else having this issue? What can we do to help people get business or job referrals? Is the lack of self-promotion actually hurting us?

[Image: iStock]

While at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum I attended Sandy Carter’s packed session on Marketing 2.0: Integrating Social Media into Your Marketing Mix. This session was an in-depth look into how IBM integrated social media into their traditional marketing mix/plan to engage with an active online SOA (Software Oriented Architecture) community. For this particular case study, we learned that Sandy and her team used social media to continue building the community, get feedback on their sMash beta, share information on an event and for lead generation.   

One of the really interesting aspects that Sandy talked about is how they engaged the community for their sMash software. IBM reached out to the online community to get software requirements for developing the software, test the software, provided feedback, re-test and even for the product name.   

Sandy shared a story that at one event the 13 sMash developers were asked to stand up for a round of applause and over 1,000 people in the audience stood up! Truly amazing! 

From a B2B perspective hearing a case study like this is truly inspiring to say the least. Having been a technology marketer for 15 years, I’ve always tapped into customers for alpha and beta testing, but in a more traditional manner (usually a phone call and meeting). 

Based on my experience, I’d like to warn marketers out there that tapping into social customers is a lot different than offline customers. Why? 

Well, let’s think about this from a dating perspective… 

Remember when you were in high school and you really dug a girl/guy and all your friends knew about it? Then that one special day said girl/guy comes up and flirts with you, your friends see it and you all think “Wow! See that he/she is interested…when’s the first date?” 

But in reality, they aren’t really interested in you, who you are, or what you have to say nor do they have plans to ask you out on a date. When you realize that there’s a feeling of embarrassment, anger, mistrust, humiliation, etc.

The social web works in the same way in some aspects. When people (customers in this aspect) are used to being heard, sharing their thoughts, getting respect and feedback from others in the community…they don’t like to be played.

If you are a B2B business considering tapping into an established online network of customers, you really need to be sure that you have the internal mechanisms to implement what the community shares or wants. Because if you pick and choose or just ‘flirt’ to look good, you can cause more damage in the long run. 

IBM was successful tapping into the community because they were willing to listen, incorporate the feedback (many, many times!), have the internal mechanisms and buy-in, and let the community build sMash. They didn’t say well, we’ll listen only to these 5 people because their suggestions are convenient and already fit into our already established software requirements and release roadmap and we’ll ignore the rest until “we’re” ready.

While this is an example social media being used for software development, I think my analogy lends itself to any social media campaigns. 

So, are you a tease or planning on being one?

[Image:iStock]

I’d like to introduce you to Ramon De Leon of Domino’s in Chicago. How I met Ramon is quite simple: Twitter. This morning I tweeted out Tom Martin’s latest post “Is Pizza Hut’s Twintern Job Post Ethical” and I got the following response from @DPZRAMON: “Could be just a publicity stunt for Pizza Hut. Why advertise in NYT? @tommartin is rt- that shows they don’t get it.”

By clicking on DPZRAMON’s Twitter bio I could see that he was with Domino’s in Chicago. So, I asked him the obvious question: “Hi there! As a Domino’s owner, how are you dealing with what happened? Is it affecting business at all locally? (Agree, PH stunt)”

Ramon’s responses:

“The effect was minimized b/c since Tues(4.14) I went after the Chgo convo’s about this.Did not hide;made myself extremely visible.”

“I used monitter.com and joined as many Chicago Tweets on this issue as poss;I started answering B4 ppl were asking.Tks 4 asking”

Obviously, from a social media perspective, I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about Mr. De Leon. Ramon honored me with a phone call so I could get the scoop on how he uses social media to connect with customers. What I found out was indeed quite interesting!

Ramon De Leon (aka DPZRAMON) – King of Online Sales

Ramon has been engaged in online sales of Domino’s pizza since 1999 and has been engaged in social media since 2005 (long before the term it’s known by now). Ramon has long been a Facebook member and has connected with students for the past 4 years. His Facebook strategy is simple: Connect with local university/college students, give them the best service & pizza ever, and develop relationships that will last beyond their college years (as in delivering pizza to their place of business). According to Ramon, “it’s a social cycle.”

Social media, potholes and pizza

What do these three uncommon things have in common? Ramon, of course. When Ramon heard that CBS2 was doing a story on potholes, he reached out to them to share his collection of pothole videos (made with 12seconds.tv). Why potholes? Well, Ramon has 75 drivers who encounter these potholes often while delivery pizza all over Chicago. Apparently, if hit just the right way, potholes can really mess up the quality/appearance of a pizza, thus affecting customer service. Ramon was featured in nearly half of CBS2’s 3 minute story…all while wearing his Domino’s shirt.

Turning the camera on CBS 2

When I was checking out Ramon’s blog (before I learned his back story) I found something that amazed me. Ramon was able to turn the cameras on TWO CBS2 reporters and interview them (be sure to take a look at the two videos) after they interviewed him for their potholes story. I don’t know about you, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen that happen. But here’s a hint: the only way that it happens is if you develop a relationship with reporters by giving them something newsworthy to begin with!

But wait, there’s more!

Not only does Ramon use social media for customer service, video blogging and public relations, he also monitors what customers are saying and when necessary uses social media to apologize.

A passion for pizza and social media.

If you speak with Ramon it is so obvious that he is passionate about Domino’s, customers, and social media. In fact, he constantly monitors social sites for mentions of his stores and he provides a flyer that includes all his social sites on a flyer, which is taped to all Domino’s pizza boxes leaving his stores just to make sure customers can find him online. He also attends a lot of social media conferences to keep up on the latest social media best practices. If you don’t believe me when I say Ramon is passionate, maybe you’ll believe Gary Vaynerchuk.

The million dollar question(s)

So Ramon, we all want to know…is all this social media stuff increasing your bottomline? Ramon’s answer: YES!

And, of course, we are all wondering…why isn’t corporate taking some lesson’s from Ramon? Well, it appears they are, but let’s give them some time to wrap their heads around it, okay?

Lessons Learned

1. Monitor conversations
2. Engage customers on & offline
3. Provide quality
4. Relationships are job #1
5. Reporters can be your friends
6. Be honest
7. Be passionate
8. Have fun!

DPZRAMON is the pizza guy to know in Chicago! Thanks Ramon for your time and sharing your story with us!

[Image: EasyFindGuide]

Geoff Livingston’s and my original post “Top 25 Ways to Tell if Your Social Media Expert Is a Carpetbagger” was really meant as a silly riff in reaction to the sudden rush of folks offering social media services in the wake of the economic crisis. The post was never meant to be anything more than half rant/half humor, but the 180+ comments on both of our blogs indicate that we touched a much bigger nerve. Since it’s a prescient topic, we’d like to offer a more serious, positive post to help marketers make a good choice in consultants

A couple of precursors. We’re just starting the list. Feel free to add, balk, or digress.

Secondly, not having a few of these isn’t a death sentence. Social media communications is still a really new industry, and there are no silver bullet experts or methodologies. To help separate the wheat from the chaff, we are sharing these general suggestions, but if many qualifiers are missing in your potential partner’s offering, as a marketer, PR or communications professional you should probably be concerned.

Lastly, we’ve cited examples. This is not an echo chamber or buddy list (sorry to our buddies not on the list, we only wanted to list one per qualifier). In some cases, we’ve never met said examples, but we know their work.

Finally, there are many qualified SM consultants/agencies. In the case of larger agencies, we can’t vouch for them, but can safely recommend individuals. It would be impossible to list all of the many qualified social media partners. Instead, we refer you to Charlene Li’s Altimeter Wiki as a starting place. We also invite you to give hat tips in the comments section.

OK, here we go again:

1. Believes in the generous web and practices cross-linking in their blog (example:Kami Huyse)
2. Highlights others’ work in their blog (example: Chris Brogan)
3. Integrates social media as part of larger marketing strategy (example: Razorfish)
4. Doesn’t pretend to be an expert in all things digital; instead simply focuses on what he/she/they do best (Example: Common Craft)
5. Gives away best practices in an effort to educate, grow social media in general (example: Todd Defren/SHIFT Communications)
6. Understands that Radian6 and other monitoring tools are vastly superior tracking tools in comparison to Technorati (which really isn’t an indicator of much these days) (example: Fleishman’s Matt Dickman)
7. Will tell you that there is no magic bullet for determining social media ROI and that you need to go further to accurately monitor, measure and determine the effectiveness of social media. (example: K.D. Paine)
8. Understands that social media is an important part of the larger word of mouth marketing principles (example: Ogilvy’s John Bell)
9. Others cite this person/agency’s work (example: see the many here)
10. Realizes that search engine optimization represents an absolutely crucial part of social media (example: TopRank’s Lee Odden)
11. Understands that social media expands beyond search engine optimization tactics that lead to Diggs, Stumbles (StumbleUpon) and link baiting (example: Key Relevance’s Li Evans)
12. Integrates brick and mortar events with social media activity (example: Voce’s Josh Hallet)
13. Has and continues to work on notable social media projects (example: Andy Sernovitz)
14. Understands that conversations are the starting place and not the end game. And though ROI is critical, knows that without conversation you’re not going anywhere (example: Paul Chaney)
15. Understands that social networking and conversation is more than collecting followers and subscribers (example: Mack Collier)
16. Listens to you when you are discussing your challenges (example: Connie Reece)
17. Helps and guides clients so that they can understand the benefits of social media and implement it properly (themselves) (example: Amber Naslund)
18. Knows that social networking works best when they are conversing, sharing, and being human (i.e. doesn’t self-promote) (example: Jason Falls)
    
19. Educates clients on understanding that they no longer own or control their brand and educates them on how to create customer evangelists (example: Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba)
20. Won’t act as your social media ‘voice’ or ghostwrite for you (example: Laura Bergells)
21. Understands the difference between social media tools and communications strategy (example: Ogilvy’s Rohit Bhargarva)
22. They won’t recommend blogging as a first step into social media (example: David Armano) and when you are ready to begin they consult you on how to be successful (example: Drew McLellan)
23. Doesn’t allow clients to be affected by Shiny New Object syndrome (example: Beth Kanter)
24. Understands that social media is more than just creating and delivering content or regurgitating existing promotional copy (example: Joseph Jaffe)
25. Understands that social media isn’t the sole terrain of marketing or PR and helps clients educate internally to other departments (example: Media Badger)

Being fairly new to the social media scene from a business perspective (i.e. implementing social media for business), I hesitated about writing this post. Then I decided that I needed to… if only to, perhaps, offer a different perspective to a recent social media campaign.

This week the team at Edelman selected 25 bloggers to debut Pepsi’s new can design. Very exciting, right? Since I read Mack Collier’s, Chris Brogan’s, Shannon Paul’s and Valeria Maltoni’s blogs daily, I saw each one post their experience and perceptions day-by-day (in that order, which was interesting to me in and of itself). I am not sure who the other 21 bloggers are, but if I find out I’ll be sure to add on to this post with their experiences. (Apologies in advance to the other 21, but I haven’t had the time to sort through everything on Twitter.)

Mack didn’t reveal who the company was; he just mentioned that it was one we all knew. Chris missed a few key components of the ‘analog’ campaign, Shannon did a video unveiling with her friends Ken Burbary and Craig Daitch, which was totally cool because we as viewers could experience it firsthand. Valeria took pictures of the packages she was sent and added some brand thought leadership.

Here’s the thing. While it’s cool to share this kind of excitement with fellow bloggers (and I give credit to Edelman and Pepsi for that, who wouldn’t want kudos and word of mouth buzz from colleagues in this space?), wouldn’t have been better to engage Pepsi evangelists?

In just one Google search I found:

• The Pepsi Fan Club
• Pepsi Collector’s Club (They have local chapters in Chicago and Southern California!)
• Mike and Joanne at the Pepsi Collector (they have had over 67,000 views!)

Evangelists LOVE your company and your products…hence the name, right?! As Mack Collier put it so eloquently: “Evangelists for this company would have gone absolutely apeshit over the packages!” Just think of how explosive this could have been if Edelman/Pepsi reached out to any of the above social networking sites that they built themselves based on the love of Pepsi. WOW!

If I was doing social media for Pepsi (a dream, I know), here are 10 steps that I might have thrown on the table:

1. Join the above forums/groups and listen to what the Pepsi evangelists are saying.
2. After a bit, join the conversation. Let them know that they are loved in return.
3. Share some exclusive Pepsi goodies with them.
4. Ask the groups how they feel about the current packaging.
5. Share some ideas about some new branding concepts.
6. Get their feedback.
7. If, and only if, feedback is positive about a new brand, select 25 members and ask their permission to mail them a surprise package.
8. Get their reaction to the packaging.
9. Utilize their excitement (with their permission, of course) for exposure outside their community (i.e. traditional marketing)
10. Continue the conversation…daily, on-going, as long as the community exists. (i.e. DO NOT use the community for your branding efforts!)

These are just my ideas. What are your thoughts? Do you like the campaign? How would you have handled it? Does social media work within the chamber? Am I missing something?

If you are Edelman or Pepsi and see this post, please stop by! Inquiring minds would love to know how the campaign came about and your objectives for blogger outreach! Thank you in advance.

[Image: istock]

Added 10/30/08: Darryl Parker has been tracking the Pepsi 25 and his conversation with Edelman’s Pepsi’s B. Bonin Bough over on his blog, Employ the Web!. Check it out for more insights on this campaign.

Added 10/31/08: David Armano’s post on his experience: Classically Un-Classic.