Archive for the ‘conferences’ Category

I am sure you can conjure up what I mean when I say a social media leech. But just in case the image doesn’t help (that was a joke, BTW), I’ll let you know what I mean, share my issue with it and then turn it over to you. 

What I mean by social media leeches are those people that latch onto social networks, absorb all the FREE information that is shared, use it for their own benefit and then complain when the free information that they are continually exposed to is no longer new, earth shattering or insightful. This is a social media leech. 

Social media leeches are the ones that spout off that in social networks that people and companies must ‘give before they take,’ or ‘listen before they engage,’ and my favorite ‘share, share, share!’ and yet, they give nothing of substance or value in return to the communities in which they participate. Another word here might be freeloader. 

I am not going to point fingers here, but twice it’s happened that something I have shared from a conference (Online Media Boot Camp and BlogPotomac) was greeted with a comment that it was nothing new or earth shattering. And I’ve seen comments like this thrown at other people who are sharing tidbits from the conferences that they PAY and/or TAKE TIME to attend. Well, guess what? We aren’t talking to you, social media leech. We are sharing information with all the different people in our networks. They come from all different backgrounds, educations, experiences and businesses and, more importantly, they might not even be in your network. 

I have a few things to say to the social media leech. First, the minute that you stop learning and stop analyzing the situation or context in which information is shared or how a community is interacting around the information shared is the minute you stop being a thought leader or expert. Second, how about you shell out some money (or time) to attend conferences and share information like the rest of us? Third, if you think it’s nothing earth shattering or new, then I challenge you to be the one to raise the bar. Finally, next time you want to complain about getting something for free, consider the impression you leave about yourself versus the impression you think you are making against the person or community you are complaining about. Up for the challenge? 

I have no time for leeches because I am involved with social networks to learn from others, contribute my thoughts or opinions, and engage with others who are as interested as I am in advancing the marketing profession. If the social media leech doesn’t like that, I invite them to unfollow, unfriend and unsubscribe because I am not going to lower my standards.   

One last thought. Think of the social media leech from a business perspective. Can you imagine a business allowing a leech to keep picking their brain, utilizing what they learned (perhaps to even become competition) and never pay for it or return it in kind? Not for long, I can assure you. 

Kneale Mann said it best in his comment on Amber Naslund’s recent post, Our Responsibility To Our Communities: 

“We all share in the responsibility of the collective good. You don’t get to come over to my place, sleep in my bed, eat my food, wear my clothes and complain about everything.” 

I don’t know about you, but I am tired of social media leeches. I am not interested in connecting with people who leech without contributing anything back to the marketing community. 

Your thoughts?

[Image: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5319129]

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]

Monday and Tuesday I’ll be at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum and I am really looking forward to it! After attending the MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing Mixer in October, I have no doubt that the B2B Forum will deliver on its promise to re-charge, re-invent, re-engage us marketers! 

The B2B Forum will focus on three key areas: 

• Integrating marketing programs for better results
• Measuring and evaluating marketing programs to prove ROI
• Keeping customers and prospects engaged 

With the economical situation in the US and marketing campaigns, well, just not working quite the way they used to…we can safely say that these are the top three areas a lot of marketers are concerned about. 

I am looking forward to meeting a lot of new people, meeting people I’ve only known online and hanging out with good friends.

While at the B2B Forum Ann Handley and I will be taking turns doing one-on-one Twitter therapy sessions so if your attending and need some help integrating Twitter into your marketing or communications strategy, stop by! 

I also plan on blogging some of the sessions so you can see the value you’ll receive by attending MarketingProfs events. Some of the sessions I’ll be attending include: 

• Marketing 2.0: Integrating Social Media into Your Marketing Mix with Sandy Carter, IBM
• The 2009 Economic Impact on B2B Marketing Budgets and Practices with Roy Young, MarketingProfs; Sandy Carter, IBM; and Laura Ramos, Forrester
• Developing Online Communities that Increase Customer Loyalty with Diane Hessan, Communispace; Gretchen Harding, Intuit; Joanne Del Toro, Network Solutions; Nathan Beverly, WellPoint Corporate Marketing
• Tales from the Trenches, How Organizations are Measuring Value in Social Media with Katie Payne, KDPaine & Partners 

If you’ll be in Boston for the B2B Forum, I hope to see you there!

Has your organization been tinkering with Twitter and now you’re wondering why the heck you even bothered? Or, perhaps the shiny object syndrome has worn off and it’s time to get down to brass tacks by incorporating Twitter into an effective marketing & PR strategy. Well…

The O’Reilly Twitter Boot Camp is coming up soon! If you haven’t heard about it or are considering going, here’s what you can look forward to:

• $100 off the registration fee (the discount code is at the end of this post)!
• Mastering the basics of Twitter usage and terminology
• Learning best practices for building an engaged Twitter following
• Developing strategies for integrating Twitter into your existing marketing mix
• Exploring third-party applications that help manage and optimize how you use Twitter 

There are a lot of great sessions during this one-day boot camp! I’ll be on a panel discussing the Logistics of Integrating Twitter into Existing PR and Marketing. 

Twitter seems so easy, right? But how many organizations are actually efficiently and effectively implementing social media, let alone Twitter, into their communications strategies? If you are marketing, PR or communications pro with one toe (or even hip deep) in the social media water…this might just be the conference for you! 

The Twitter Boot Camp speakers are from all different industries and backgrounds, but I think they’d all agree on one thing: Twitter is indeed a useful business communication tool. 

What’s more? If you attend you’ll receive:

• On-site help signing up for Twitter if you don’t have an account
• Free copy of The Twitter Book by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein
• And food, of course…Continental breakfast, lunch, morning and afternoon snacks

And last, but not least… you can get $100.00 off when you use the code “ORMFF.” [And no, I don't get any kick backs.] Feel free to pass on the discount code.

Hope to see you there!

[Image: JS-Kit blog]