Posts Tagged ‘MarketingProfs’

You’ve probably figured this out by now… being a part of a community (on and offline) is very important to me. Whether that community is a made up of peers, customers, friends, or advisors it doesn’t matter. The beauty of being a part of a marketing community is that the members are typically equally passionate, they care about the profession and everyone has something of value to offer. 

Sure we all come at marketing with differing perspectives, experiences and practices; we often have strong debates about the future of marketing; and we often question where trends are leading us, but through it all being part of a community makes us confident, strong and smart marketers. 

And marketing isn’t just a job to me―it’s a major part of who I am as a person (Go ahead, think it: she’s a marketing nerd!). Sure, there are other things in life that I enjoy like art, culture, history, politics, reading, movies, beer, cowgirl boots, scarves, but marketing is a passion that consumes the better part of my day (okay, I’ll fess up…nights and weekends too!). 

What you might not know is that I’ve been engaged in social media for the past five years and have found a home in many online communities. You probably also don’t know that The Harte of Marketing is my second blog [my first was a blog under a nom de plume where I wrote about cowgirl boots, scarves, books and my (mis)adventures on eBay. Trust me...I know what it's like to get only a few comments over the years! ]. Having been involved in social media as a consumer versus a marketer has provided me with a great deal of insight that pops out every once and a while. 

Personally, I can’t think of a better way to put my actions where my words are then by joining the MarketingProfs team as Community Manager. I’ve been a long time fan of MarketingProfs and I’ve come to depend on them when I need an answer to a question or insights on solving a challenge. Truth be told, a bunch of my marketing smarts are a result of being a MarketingProfs member (and, well, sometimes I just needed that gut check, which was thankfully found).

Just like most community managers, part of my job is to engage in marketing and MarketingProfs communities on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other forums; to listen; and to make sure that we are delivering content that continues to be valuable and relevant to our members. I’ll also be the liaison between the community and the MarketingPofs team. There’s a whole lot more that goes into being a community manager, but I didn’t think you’d want a laundry list.

So, I guess you could say, there won’t be too many drastic changes…I’ll still be myself, marketing will still be my focus, conversation and engagement will still happen and I’ll still be blogging here and over at the Daily Fix.  And, I’ll still tweet and retweet things regarding MarketingProfs, just like I always have. It’s just that I’ll be part of a much larger marketing community now (MarketingProfs has over 320,000 members! Wowza!). 

And if you’re guessing that the uber-smart Ann Handley will be my boss, you’d be correct. I am really looking forward to joining Ann, Allen Weiss, Roy Young, Susanne Sicilian, Kathy Bushman, Shelley Ryan, Tara Curran, and the rest of the  brilliant, creative and passionate MarketingProfs gang! 

As for Harte Marketing and Communications, I’ll still be doing a wee bit of consulting with folks who truly need marketing and social media help, but it will no longer be my day-to-day focus. 

Thanks for letting me share my exciting news!

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!

You know I am a big fan of marketers educating themselves on trends, best practices, etc., so I just wanted to let you all know about two great upcoming events. I will be speaking at Learn About Web and I’ll be attending MarketingProfs as a blogger.

MarketingProfs’ Business-to-Business Forum 2009 – June 8-9, Boston MA

You probably know this by now, but I am a HUGE MarketingProfs fan! I have been a member since around 2000 when “Profs” actually stood for professionals and professors (image a site that worked for me on both fronts!). And the ability to get to know Allen Weiss and Ann Handley over the past year has just made me a raving lunatic…um, I mean evangelist. I also am part of the Daily Fix team, which is a complete honor.

I attended MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing Mixer last October and all I can say is that I walked away with a complete marketing high. My passion for marketing was somehow even more invigorated. Crazy, I know. The speakers were superb, the food was great, it was well-organized, and the ability to meet so many new people (a lot whom I only knew from Twitter) was wonderful.

By clicking on the MarketingProfs badge, you can learn more about the event AND save $200!

Learn About Web – September 14-15, Denver CO

Learn about Web (LAW) is an event that Craig Sutton of BrightWeb Marketing is putting together. The first LAW was back in the fall in his home state of Washington. Now Craig is bringing LAW to Denver.

I first met Craig at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in September and I can tell you he’s a straight-shooter that has a passion for helping businesses grow…especially online!

LAW is a great conference for small businesses that are looking to boost their brands online and will be offering tracks in social media, web design, and search marketing that will be taught by some of the best in the business including:

• Jennifer Laycock
• Jennifer Leggio
• Andrew Hyde
• Mack Collier
• Deb Robison
• Amber Naslund
• Thu An Bui
• Anita Campbell
• Shashi Bellamkonda
• Douglas Waltman II
• Gennefer Snowfield
• Matt McGee
• Harry Brooks (sorry Harry, couldn’t find you on Twitter!)

But don’t take my word for it! Mack Collier has done a great job of capturing his experience at LAW last year. And if you use the code from the LAW badge, you’ll save $199!

The Fine Print

I have made a decision to not monetize my blog for two reasons. One, because this blog (it’s also the HMC website) is about sharing information on marketing, communications and social media and conversation…I don’t see a point to monetizing that. And two, because unless there is something in it for you, whether it’s a discount, free item, etc., you gain nothing from me slapping ads all over the place.

The fine print… While I personally find value in both of these events, like I stated above, I am also talking about them because I am attending the MarketingProfs event as press and will be blogging about the event while I am there and I will be speaking at LAW. And yes, by having ads here I do get an affiliation fee.

Even if I wasn’t attending either even and could share a discount with you all, I would. I believe in marketers continually keeping up-to-date on the changes in our industry and attending conferences are one way to do it. So is this monetization, yes…temporarily. By the way, please don’t take this as an invitation to ask me to post ads here, because I won’t. I have a relationship with both the folks at MarketingProfs and Craig Sutton and that just didn’t happen overnight (Hint: social media works).

I am back from the MarketingProf’s Digital Marketing Mixer and, in a word, the feeling I left Arizona with is passion. I know the word passion is over-used and rarely meant, but I am sincere in its use.

The social media sessions were great and the ability to talk to the speakers to get their thoughts, advice and insights was really helpful.

I felt inspired after day one. But day two, well, that’s when passionate set in.

It was during the keynote that Gary Vaynerchuk delivered. If you don’t know who Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) is, you owe it to yourself to find out. His passion for people and social media rings clear as a bell and is contagious. When you hear how he reaches out to his customers, creates new customers, and follows up with customers who may not be happy it’s nothing more than astonishing. Did you read that correctly? I said “he.” Not his company, not his staff, not his interns. Him. And he tells it like it is, whether you want to hear it or not. If you weren’t at the conference, check out Gary’s video and then read the rest of my post.

[Video courtesy of Hubspot. NOTE: The video is a little shaky. If it's easier on your eyes, just listen.]

Prior to the conference, I had only known of Gary from his creative, crazy and educational Wine Library TV videos. At the conference I was able to speak with him after the ‘E-Mail and Social Media: True Love Always’ session where he was a panelist (more on that topic later) and also later in the night at Rohit Bhargava’s (@rohitbhargava) book signing for Personality Not Included.

That is what is truly amazing about Gary. He gets the importance of people and talking to them and that’s why social media has worked for him. He could have jetted away after his keynote, but he didn’t. He stuck around, spoke to people and hung out for the entire day-and night. That’s the social in social media.

Now, really this post isn’t about promoting Gary Vaynerchuk, nope, it’s about you.

Here’s what I want to say and promise to you. If you are feeling doubtful that social media is viable or have problems sharing your passion for marketing and social media within your company let me know. I will do my best to provide blog posts that prove the opposite (Gary’s success is a great example). My promise is that from now on—if you’ll allow me—this blog is about you. Together we are a community. So tell me how I can help you. What topics do you want me to blog about to help you become even more passionate or passionate again about marketing, communications and social media? I am listening.

Thank you.