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Social Media and the Upside Down Funnel

Original post date May 2010, the post was recognized as one of the best post on Social Media for 2010.

As with most new technologies, social media is starting to “settle in” and common applications of the platforms are becoming known. In many large B2B organizations, that means social media is finding a home in the marketing communications group, often landing in PR.

That seems fine for B2C organizations; however, I’m not convinced that it’s the right spot, and/or the only spot for social media in B2B companies.

The Upside Down Funnel

In most B2B organizations corporate marketing’s role is related to driving “top-of-the-funnel” activities. From advertising, PR, and now social media, the focus is on creating awareness…and hopefully, driving consideration and preference. There is another opportunity that may not be considered, a part of the funnel where marketing, in particular social media, can play a valuable role.

It’s at the very bottom of what I’ll refer to as the “upside down” funnel. To find such an opportunity you have to think about a funnel that starts with once a prospect becomes a customer.

Just as a sales funnel has stages so does the customer relationship management process. Companies should be actively pursuing strategies and tactics to retain, expand, grow and then leverage customer accounts to win business.

This is where I think the “sweetspot” is for social media in B2B. Here’s why: social media is about “consumers selling to consumers”, or “professional-to-professional.” If a company does its job of nurturing and retaining customers, it should be able to transition from having a relatively unknown prospect, to a known customer, to hopefully, a well-understood customer advocate…at least that’s the goal.

The Opportunity

If a company enables those customer advocates with social media it gives them a platform to spread the good word. The potential of this opportunity is huge, and for the most part, being missed at most companies today.

As we all know, word of mouth is the most effective marketing there is, enabling it with technology creates scale, and the ability to track it.

To do this successfully, companies have to first identify this opportunity within their organization; second, they have to change their current way of thinking about social media beyond its present use in marcomm and PR.

It means finding uses and opportunities within sales and customer service. Yes, listening to customers chat about your service on Twitter is important, but I’m talking about creative ways to use it for:

customer-to-customer referrals & recommendations
building communities
facilitating discussion groups

The goal is to find ways to emotional connect avid customers to the company and/or products, and then provide them with an outlet to communicate that passion.

What to Do

As relationships deepen, customers begin interacting in more personal channels. Through those interactions they are likely to share more intimate details about themselves, and their relationship with products/services and the company.

Companies have to be able to collect this information across channels to create a complete profile of a customer. If this can be achieved, an organization will have everything it needs to begin enabling, influencing and studying customer advocates.

Finally, watch out for the “silo” effect. Typically, at least three different organizations will be interacting with the customer as the relationship develops. But it’s only one customer interfacing with what the customer expects to be one company. The organization has to be “in sync” because the last thing a company wants is to provide a customer with a platform for communicating the wrong message. Turning an advocate into an adversary is not the goal.

How Social Media is Changing our “Work” Behavior

Original post date June 11, 2009
In 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolution, and fathered, defined and popularized the concept of “paradigm shift.” Kuhn argues that scientific advancement is not evolutionary, but rather is a “series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions”, and in those revolutions “one conceptual world view is replaced by another”.

Social media is creating a “violent revolution” as it relates to our definition of what is accepted as “work.” The paradigm shift is believing that it is acceptable behavior to spent half your time at work on Linked-In, Facebook or Twitter?

In a recent survey by Michael Stelzner, on social media marketing almost 10% of the survey respondents spent 20+ hours a week on social media marketing. Ask senior executives in marketing in my age demographic (age 40-44) and they’ll tell you; “I don’t get it…” In the past, spending time online at work to do personal business was viewed as a major productivity waster.

In a 2006, INC reported the productivity loss to be as high as $544 billion dollars (just think about that, if we all stopped surfing the net at work we could fund the Federal bailout of the Banking, Insurance and Auto industries). As a result, companies took dramatic measures to block or monitor access to sites, tools like IM and other “distracting” technologies.

Now after years of being told that being online at work was a bad thing, this new research and the appeal of Social Media sites, makes the case that it’s not only safe, but in certain cases, necessary to be online. According to the Salary.com & AOL survey, the average 2 hours a day American workers wasted in 2006 surfing the net is now the average time needed to do social media marketing…my, my how times have changed.

And what might be most surprising is that may be “OK” with the boss – the most active users of sites like; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are small business owners according to Stelzner’s report.

Other interest findings from the research:

A New Day is Dawning – although 88% of marketers reported using social media for marketing, 72% have just started (less than 3 months).
Once You Start…You Can’t Stop – the research points out a direct correlation between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly commitment. For folks just starting, the mean is 2 hours a week, compare that with folks who have been at it for years…an average of 20+ hours.
One Thing Leads to Another – the more time you log, the more tools/sites you’ll use. Similar to the old thinking that cigarettes and alcohol lead to the “harder” stuff, the same is true with Social Media usage. The “newbies” like to start with LinkedIn, hard core users are most interested in social bookmarking sites, FriendFeed and StumbleUpon.
Not the “Youngins” – contrary to popular belief, it’s the 30 to 39 year old segment that logs in the most time, with 44.8% reporting spending 10+ hours a week.
Small Business “Sweetspot” – small businesses love social media marketing because it has generated exposure for their business, leads and partnerships, and to close business.

So if you’re going to be logging some social media hours on the company dime you might want to follow a protocol to keep the lawyers happy. In an article entitled “Managing the Tweets” in the June 1, 2009 edition of Business Week the author lays out IBM’s social media guidelines.

The Social Manifesto

Original post date December 6, 2010

I’m on the plane returning from Munich, Germany, and I’m having a “Jerry McQuire” moment. Today’s Financial Times has an article on Mark Zuckerberg entitled; ‘This is just the early stage.’ In the article, “Zuck,” as friends call him talks about the new technologies and enhancements Facebook will be rolling out soon.

One of which is Facebook Deals, which according to Zuck, will transform the way local businesses reach consumers as they walk down the street. I had to laugh when I read that, as I thought about my previous night’s experience at the Christmas Market in heart of old town (Altstadt) Munich.

For those of you who have never been to Germany in December, christmas markets start at the end of November and go through Christmas. The markets, that seem to occupy every square in town, are a mix of vendors selling everything from Gluhwein (a seasonal drink of warm wine) to Christmas ornaments of all types. But, what is must remarkable, is the experience that it creates.

The streets are filed with families, tourists, business people, and college students as they mix drinking, eating, socializing and shopping. I was in a packed square with fresh fallen snow, carolers atop of the Rathaus, with probably 5000 people jammed into a city block, surrounded by vendors and stores filled with shoppers. It’s as close to as you can get to seeing the North Pole and Santa’s workshop.

So, it struck me as funny that Zuck could think that he could change that experience with Facebook. Zuckerberg tells the reporter, David Gelles, that “Facebook’s unique map of human relationships will change business forever.” To that I say, Facebook, and Zuck, you know nothing about human relationships, and, with the help of other new technologies, you are helping to destroy it.

You only need to watch a pack of teenage girls texting while at the mall, or a father on his blackberry at his child’s sporting event to see it. New technologies are enabling to us to be absent from the present…more so than ever. One thing I noticed last night was the revelers were not checking their phones or texting, they were in the moment, enjoying each other and soaking in the experience…except me.

I was busy sending texts and photos to my wife and my kids pretending that they were with me, when what I really wanted was to have them there or to hear their voices. It left me hollow, longing and lonely, the reason I’m having my Jerry McQuire moment.

New technologies are a double edged sword. They can enable good and bad, depending on how we used them. They promise greater “interactions” or “engagement” but that’s not to be confused with, or substituted for, relationships. They are not the same. And for business, don’t confuse your followers as loyal customers, because they are not. Most people are engaging for selfish reasons, they need or want something. What they don’t want, or need, is a relationship with a vendor who only wants to sell them something.

What it has done is enable us to be more self-centered and lazy. “But Scott,” you say, “how can that be? I’m busier than ever, new technologies are helping stay in touch.” Allow me to explain.

The phone eliminates the need to have to go see someone, email and text freed us having to place a call, and now you can simply tweet or post a comment and wait for someone to “Like” it, or leave a comment. No need to get involved, just do it and feedback will be sent to you. “Ah, 10 people like my comment…that makes me feel good.” Really?

Relationships take work and sometimes they can be painful, but they make us feel alive. They’re not easy, and you can’t automate them. Time is finite, and how we spend it, along with those experiences, helps define us. We can’t make more of it, or get it back. The more time we invest with technology means it is coming from something or someone, and it’s keeping us from something, or someone.

Perhaps what Facebook, and other technologies are doing is redefining how we think about ourselves. Technology allows us to express ourselves without having to invest a whole lot of time or emotion. We can go broad without having to go deep.

People now measure themselves by how many friends or followers they have. but what does that mean? To me it means that we are taking time away from family members or customers to interact with people who we don’t, or hardly, know. Why? Because it’s easy, convenient, provides immediate gratification, and we can carry it around with us at all time…it’s a social security blanket.

The voice in our head saying; “just go online and see what people are posting on your wall, it’s happening now…you should check.” It’s leading us down the wrong road. More time online means less time spent offline. I went to Germany…and I almost missed being there.

Facebook now has over a half a billion users. It’s a runaway train. It fills a need, but so does fast food. Plenty of people have told us that eating it is bad for us, but it’s convenient, cheap and the high salt content keeps us coming back for more. But just as fast food restaurants offer the 1000 calorie meal, they also offer healthy alternatives. It’s up to us to make the right decision.

Our Facebook pages may feed the ego and give us a sense of immediacy, but it won’t nourish the soul, or satisfy our desire for intimacy. To borrow liberally from Jerry McQuire; ”Technology, you don’t complete me…and you never will.”

Web 2.0 Please!

Original post December 21, 2006

I am soooo over the hype on the “second coming” of the Web. So here’s my Christmas present to you. Do you want to know what Web 2.0 is about?

The media has been hyping it for what seems like an eternity but I still haven’t seen a good simple explanation. Some like BtoB magazine are even calling it a “Revolution”.

Here’s what I think 2.0 is really about …it is about creating an engaging and useful online experience that is designed by your targeted audience…and of course, all the web tools/applications to enable this (Blogs, Podcast, Social Networks, etc.). Yes, that’s it. Creating opportunities within your digital properties to let visitors give you feedback on their experience — and you (Company X) actually paying attention and doing something about it.

The best part is that you don’t have to wait until the hype and new technologies start rolling out to build your own Web 2.0 site right now. In fact, you probably already have pieces of “Web 2.0” in site right now. A few tips for getting started:

Track/Determine Interaction Time and/or Engagement Level– go beyond measuring typically web metrics (traffic, clicks, etc.) to measuring Interaction Times. Determine not only if the visitor is returning to your site but also how much time are they spending on it. You also need to understand where they have come from, your sales process by product, where customers spend their time (in what channel to learn, shop and buy) and finally, how long it takes (on average). Hi-Tech customers, for example, surf among channels (both online and offline). Complex sales, as you would expect take much longer and consume more Face-to-Face resource time.
Build Information “Depots” – if you want customers to give you feedback, give them something to respond to and an opportuntity to do so by giving them vehicles/channels to communicate. HP is experimenting with giving IT professionals new media tools such as Blogs to engage with customers. And Intuit has created a feedback button called “We Hear You” that enables Quickbook users to submit product feedback. Keep in mind, if you want something of value (information) you have to give something of value. If you don’t have an even exchange you will not get the information you want…so get those offers together (white papers, research, etc.).
Go beyond Community Building – You’ll hear a lot of hype around “communities” and many of you probably have robust user communities. Get the communities more involved in building, testing and promoting your products, website, campaign,etc. Start measuring “Net Promoters” – a metric of customers who would recommend your products. Word of mouth is still THE most powerful marketing tool, but with recent regulatory changes, be careful on how you motivate customers to sing your praises.
Leverage Existing Tools – years ago we started to leverage an Online Training tool called Brainshark. It allowed us to create On Demand sales and marketing presentations using PowerPoint and a phone…very simple and convenient. But the most valuable part of the tool was the tracking. We were able to see who was viewing the presentation as soon as they opened it, how long they viewed it, how many pages and who they sent it to, etc. We able to measure the interest levels inside a company, decide on who to pursue and predict when we would acquire the account — all by watching how people interacted with us in a “virtual” world. This functionality now resides in most Webcast tools so make sure you are taking advantage of your investments in Webex, Placeware, etc.
Before, At and After the Web – think about what information you want to collect at each of those stages. Also, think about what you want the visitor to see and retain in each of those areas. This is the “customer experience”. Organize and integrate your activities by segment (customer, product, etc.) against these three stages to create a seamless experience that reinforces your message. With complex products/solutions, for example, each stage should communicate a portion of the total message, and subsequent stage should reinforce the previous stage. Breaking the message up into pieces and then, hopefully, rebuilding it in the mind of the visitor piece by piece as they go throught the buying process. So a customer may see a TV ad, then visit your website and finally call you contact center to place the order. You must anticipate, plan and, hopefully, direct the customer buying behavior to drive the response, conversion, close and yield rates.

The bottom line is that Web 2.0 is not “revolutionary”. The concept is not new, in fact, if we had to do the first round of the Web all over again we would of done it this way…let your visitors/customers design your website the way they want to use it. But what might be different this time is that I think we are ready to listen to them.

Have a great holiday! Talk to you in the New Year.