Notes from the Hive (Entries tagged as facebook)

I'm B2B So Social Media Isn't For Me

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 06:45:30 -0700

Because I spend my days working with social media I sometimes forget that the rest of the world isn’t seeing what I see and so I am always brought back to reality when I hear “I’m B2B so social media isn’t for me.”

I believe that most people in business are aware of the value of social media to engage consumers but haven’t made the leap to understanding the value to business clients. I say ‘leap to understanding’ because as a B2B business (business-to-business) we think of our companies as a body of products or services as it relates to the value of another company. This is where the shift and leap occurs as social media brings B2B into P2P (People to People). Social media puts us in the right places to begin building relationships with the people at those companies that are either making the buying decision or influencing the purchasing process. These people are our consumers.

So, let’s take a quick look at how social media does in fact play a role in the B2B market.

Recently Mashable posted a great blog giving 5 examples of B2B companies that have had great success using social media. These companies range from aviation maintenance, equine dentistry, commercial paper supplier and a paint manufacturer and are successfully using platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Not the sexy stuff you are used to seeing in headline news is it? Your business doesn’t have to have sex appeal to have social media success. You also don’t have to go for hundreds of thousands of friends, followers and fans to be successful – you just have to get the attention of the eyeballs of those that matter.

This is where strategy becomes important in gaining some traction and success using social media to generate leads and grow your business. Not sales and marketing strategy but engagement strategy.

A client of ours who is in the B2B service industry has been experiencing success getting in-person appointments with key decision makers by first connecting and engaging on Twitter, as well as using video creatively to break down the barriers and getting him invitations into accounts where in the past they never had success. Their activity on Facebook and Twitter as well as video blogging helps to keep their web site at first or second place in Google searches, which in turn generates leads.

Still not convinced?

Recent Hubspot studies support companies that use Twitter have greater success with their blogs, and companies that blog regularly have better results with search engines and those that use video do even better. The power of Linkedin is often times under rated by companies and underused.

There is no silver bullet and no single activity or platform that will bring instant success. It takes time and effort, and like any other form of communications and marketing, the quality of your message and your presence will be the final kiss of glory or death. These are tools – and in the right hands are quite powerful. The better you understand each platform, the better you are at using them, the better you know the audience, the better your chance of engaging with them to earn their attention and their trust, which increases your rate of success.

So get out there and blog, vlog, tweet, post, comment, friend, follow, like, digg, and link and we’ll see you at the top.

Spring Cleaning on Facebook

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:35:14 -0700

I admit that I have not attended to my Facebook business fan page and promise to start getting more involved soon. In the meantime my personal page was getting eaten alive with mafia wars and farmers from Farmville and I found it most annoying.

I am glad that folks have hobbies and like playing on line games I just don’t want the updates on my wall with big images and things that I don’t find relevant and doubt most of my friends do. Maybe I sound cranky, maybe I am sharing a sentiment that rings true with you as well.

I did not want to block my friends and I am interested in staying in touch but wanted to filter out the applications that clutter a wall with ‘stuff’. So I blocked those applications from showing up on my wall while still leaving my friends streams and posts visible otherwise.

If you want to do the same thing here is how you do that.

When a post shows up on your wall with an application you would rather never see again, right click on the application name that appears in small print at the bottom of the post and select OPEN IN NEW TAB. You can also just go to the application fan page.

Once you are on the application fan page you will notice some options on the left under the image. One of those options (thankfully) is BLOCK THIS APPLICATION. Select that and then go back to your own wall and guess what – a nice, clean, stream of genuine sharing among friends.

If you have other tips for Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or other sites, please share them with us.
Also Invite you to join us on Facebook

More Face time with Facebook

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:53:01 -0700

Let’s face it, when it comes to marketing don’t we want to be where the action is? If we want exposure then it only follows that we go where the eyeballs are. Given the finicky and fast changing trends today on the internet it pays to keep an eye on where the traffic is flowing.

Think back only a few short years ago. Twitter was not a well known property and yet seemingly overnight it became the hottest topic on everyone’s mind and the rush to join created a landslide of followers. Although Twitter has remained a hot property for connecting, research, search and creating awareness, many have become disillusioned with the volume of noise and the crowding of the space making it harder to sort the spamming riff raff from genuine folks to connect with. Twitter is still a valid arena but the attention and explosive growth now turns to Facebook.

Comscore recently released the December 2009 metrics. Comscore is best known as the industry barometer for the digital world and source of digital marketing intelligence. According to Comscore, Facebook more than doubled its U.S. audience from 54.5 million visitors in December 2008 to 111.9 million visitors in December 2009. It went from being the #11 ranked property to the #4 ranked property. It now accounts for 7% of all time spent online in the U.S. Read this report in its entirety.

Like Facebook or not, the appeal is that you have more control over your conversations and with who you connect on line. You are not limited to 140 characters and you can upload videos, pictures, have lists to manage personal and business separately and the opportunity to create group and fan pages to be a more interactive extension of your website. Facebook is not without flaws but it is growing in popularity. One aspect that I enjoy is having a closer look at how and with whom my friends are connecting and what they are sharing. With LinkedIn you can see who is connected to whom but you can’t really see how they are interacting. Twitter and LinkedIn lack the intimacy that Facebook affords.

Growing a friend following and a fan base may take a bit more time with Facebook, but given the trend it would only make sense that this is a marketing focus that you might want to pay attention to. Less formal than LinkedIn, your corporate culture and personality have an opportunity to take root and the opportunity to be more creative and experimental with how you reach out and connect and attract. With discussions, events, videos, photos, and a wealth of widgets you are now only limited by your imagination to making marketing fun. That’s right – fun!

One other enticement to get involved with Facebook – if you want to try your hand at advertising to specific people who are the most likely potential customers, well, Facebook's advertising is a smart system. Facebook collects an awful lot of information about members and they offer amazing controls and options to insure that your message is seen by those who are most likely to be a match. Sure beats search engine plans that in comparison could seem willy nilly. If you don’t have the marketing budget to pay for tire kickers and accidental clickers cruising through the digital divide then give Facebook a try.
Become a fan of Bumblebee Design & Marketing LLC and let’s explore the possibilities!

Social Media Predictions for 2009

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:16:02 -0700

As this year comes to a painful end we prepare for the battle toward success in 2009. Where do we invest our time and our challenged resources? What do we focus on to move our companies and brand into the buyer’s mind’s eye for sustaining and growing our companies? How do I create a ‘strategy’ for success in this market? Where is this market going?

There are so many questions to ask this year with less information to actually predict and project. One thing is for certain, 2009 will stand witness to mass mergers and closings, especially in small to medium sized companies. This, you can bank on. If you have cash and are in good credit standing, you will be in a position to buy out your competitors if that is a smart move, or you can just raid their customer base, picking and choosing which customers you want to serve.

Besides buying your way to the top, there needs to be a strategy for your own organization to grow and serve customers. Is social media for you? The answer to that question is that it has been ready, but are you? There has been such a rush around social networking and media that for many, it has been too overwhelming to understand, let alone begin to implement into our business marketing efforts. You may remember a book that came out years ago by John Naisbitt called “High Tech High Touch”. If not, it is still available and what he had to say so many years ago, long before facebook and twitter came into our world, is proving to once again be true. The bottom line to the findings in this book is that the more techy we get the more we long for the human touch. With the rush to massive on-line marketing through internet media and social networks, there was at first a kind of special connection only to quickly become diluted as the numbers became so massive that statistical measuring became a fruitless endeavor, and needless to say, the ‘relationship’ aspect got lost in the volume.

2009 will be about relevancy and meaning – and meaningful connections. The warm hand that touches you in the cold techy world is the one that will be heard. Customer Service will continue to rule as the number one factor that creates fans, blowing away content as KING. So it is not going to be how much you say and to how many people you say it, it is going to be what you say and to whom, and how quickly you respond after you’ve struck a nerve.

If you want to learn more about the predictions, there are innovative frontrunners in this industry that have shared their knowledge and views as well as their predictions. It is well worth reading. We are providing you a link to the article and the pdf which you can download here, courtesy of Peter Kim.

Or view the article online here: http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2008/12/social-media-2009.html

THE BLOGGING NETWORKS YOU NEED TO KNOW!: A Journey into Social Network Marketing, Pt. 3

() — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:24:38 -0700

So you started your company blog, now what? You need to get your blog seen by more people, more often and get comments and start building a community. Check out these sites and register your blog. These are the communities in the blogosphere that have the most users and pack the biggest punch!

Technorati – www.technorati.com
Register your blog or blogs, including microblogs like Twitter. You can make friends, share blog articles, comment, etc. From there you add your tags (stay tuned for an upcoming post from the Hive about tags), start making connections with like minded bloggers. With an index containing 112.8 million blogs and 250 million pieces of tagged social media, Technorati is one of the big boys. That’s a whole lot of reach, so sign up for your piece of that massive blog pie!

Digg – www.digg.com
Digg is as large as Technorati but goes beyond the blog. It’s a more general news aggregator and social content site. While a blog’s visibility is increased using Digg they also pick up content from larger news, gossip and media sites. While that may dissuade you at first, Digg is set up with community and communication in mind. It may not always be about you or your company but with these other types of sites added to the network you can find even more specific groups with more specific interests. Great networking tool!

StumbleUpon – www.stumbleupon.com
eBay’s shot at the website ranking and discovery biz, StumbleUpon focuses on personal recommendations based on your interest, to the point they want your stumbling tools right on your web browser. Like Digg, StumbleUpon utilizes user voting, as well as being able to submit just about any article, blog or video on the internet. You may also want to check out a site that’s coming to be the ‘new’ StumbleUpon, Twine (www.twine.com).

Other sites definitely worth your attention are Del.icio.us (www.delicious.com) and Slashdot (www.slashdot.com) for various blog and media sharing communities. As you work on your blog you need to make sure your readers have access so they can recommend your blogs for these sites! AddThis (www.addthis.com) is a great tool for that! With one button on your blog, your readers can submit your blog everywhere from FaceBook, Propeller, LinkedIn, even Fark and of course all the sites mentioned above - 43 in total at the time of this post.

As we continue to assist you in the journey into social network marketing, we look forward to your leaving a comment or let us know if you would like us to expand on any of these topics. Next up we’ll have some fresh information for you on tags and Yammer.com - the business oriented microblog network. Stay tuned!

Is It Time To Tweet? A Journey into Social Network Marketing, Pt. 2

() — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:36:47 -0700

One of the latest tools on the social networking scene, Twitter is also one of the most controversial. It’s a micro-blog, which means it’s a very specific type of blog network. You can only post entries 140 characters in length, essentially the same maximum size of a text message sent through you cell phone, which comes very much into play in the perks (or detriments) of Twitter. These short entries are affectionately referred to as “Tweets”. You set up your Twitter profile, much like any other social networking site. From there rather than friends or contacts you follow other Twitters and in return you have fellow Twitters following you, something like a subscription to a blog.

Sounds simple enough, so why the controversy? Well at first glance it looks like nothing more than a tool to constantly annoy your friends, family and colleagues with multiple times a day. I fell in line with the detractors for quite some time as well, until I did some more research and gave Twitter a real chance. It’s customizable enough so that you can pick how you receive your Tweets, not just overall, but specifically from user to user. You can log onto the Twitter site to read your Tweets or you can have them sent to your cell phone, in return you can send out your tweets via cell phone. A great perk for many bloggers reviewing films, going to concerts, panel discussions, etc. Your audience gets instant play by play reviews, remarks sent either to their Twitter or to their cell phone, it’s their choice. I like to keep track of the news at all times, so I have CNN’s Tweets sent directly to my phone, meanwhile I also follow some pretty tedious Twitters that feel the need to express every thought in their head. I have those Tweets sent to my Twitter page to read at my leisure so I’m not stuck on my cell phone reading these text messages all day.

Now the real question, is it useful and marketable in the workplace? When I was a skeptic I was very much saying no, no way, no how. It’s nothing but a narcissistic tool for people with too much time and ego.
I was wrong, dead wrong. While not for everybody, depending on your business and your audience Twitter is an extremely useful tool, more useful than any other social networking tool out there when used correctly. Twitter was considered a massive asset to the Obama campaign this past election. Just take a look at some Twitter pages, a massive amount of users are STILL following the Obama campaign almost a month after the election. Perhaps you run a bar, club or any other business involved in the nightlife, right there at your disposal is a tool to get your drink specials, list of performers, cost of entry at the door, etc. right into your audiences hands everyday, right into their cell phones. Perhaps you run a car service or delivery service, your employees can update your client base on traffic and weather that may affect the time of travel right there on the road with their cell phones. These types of situations make Twitter extremely useful to you and your audience without being overly time consuming like running a full FaceBook page or Technorati blog, just a minute here and there.

Beyond those circumstances even the big corporate guys are finding great ways to use Twitter. It’s a great utility for reputation, quality control and even when necessary, damage control. Zappos, the online shoe giant has a Twitter, even then it’s not just any Twitter. It’s updated personally by the CEO multiple times a day! Questions, comments and complaints can be directly sent to him through Twitter and he also uses it as a personal micro-blog. This combination is a great way to build a sense of informal community, it builds brand loyalty and it builds trust. All things that many find to be unattainable in today’s corporate climate. Another example of corporate success through Twitter is ComCast, a cable company with fairly negative image in the press. The ComCast Cares Twitter is run by the Director of Digital Care personally. The ultimate form of customer care, he directly replies to all Tweets involved in troubleshooting and other assorted tech problems for ComCast customers. You have a problem with one of your ComCast services? Just hop on Twitter and you’re talking to the Director of Digital Care immediately. If he can’t help you he sends you in the right direction, no talking to machines on the phone, no irritating wait times, no horrible elevator music while you’re stuck waiting. Nothing but instant results that once again build community, loyalty and trust for the consumer.

Twitter is still the new guy on the scene though, so keep that in mind. Much of your audience may not have found it yet. Mention it in your blog, in an email, get the word out and mention the perks of receiving your information in a quick, easy informal way. Get in on the ground floor and build your audience within Twitter. So is it time to Tweet? Take a look and see if it’s the right solution for your business!