Social Media Strategy: A Business Development Perspective

Over a cup of Starbucks with @heycrane this morning, we landed on the subject of discussing different methods that sales and business development gurus can employ on various forms of social media to connect with more people and subsequently, more opportunities to someday sell their stuff.

Sure, not everyone sells products or services. But Just about everyone sells something - ideas, their personal brand, their knowledge and experience, etc.

There are so many platforms and tactics and strategies that will help generate more relationships online. But will business transactions actually happen via social media? Probably not. That was never the intention of web 2.0 IMHO.

This confusion regarding the objectives of the social media universe may be one of the reasons that a fair amount of C-level executives have trouble buying into social networking as a viable alternative to the more traditional approach of "smile and dial" cold calling. In reality, closing business happens in face to face or voice to voice interactions, not online.

C-Levels who are weary of social media applications in business should consider the amount of time and resources that can be saved by having their sales force approach prospects on platforms where the prospects have "opted in" and are receptive to the messages coming their way. Older mediums, like phone and email for example, deliver messages to end users without the garnering their permission. It makes sense then that the mediums that are not in a sense permission-based, would yield lower conversion rates.

You might try this
Here is a snapshot of one approach I use that has allowed me to capitalize on the reach and and available data present on social platforms. Is this the only way to do it? Heck no. But does it help open doorways to relationship selling? Absolutely!

Start on Twitter
Micro blogging in itself delivers speed and efficiency to the basic concepts of networking - actually, I believe that is it one of the MOST effective ways to network. I use the cocktail party analogy. Picture the Twitterverse as an online networking event that is open 24/7 and free for all to attend. You can come and leave the room as you wish, and you have the ability to make your party or circle of conversation as large or as small as you like.

I'm becoming a proponent of the balanced follower vs following dynamic, i.e. an equal ratio of followers to people you follow portrays a certain sense of street credibility. Follow too many people, and you appear desperate or not fully engaged. Follow too few, and you may appear lofty or disinterested in what others have to say.

Either way, Micro blogging in general creates visibility and access to other people with lightning speed. For the sales and business development professional, not everyone you follow will be in a buying cycle at the time you connect with them, but the technology will automate the delivery of their information and may someday alert you to potential opportunities as they become relevant to the user on the other end.

Tip: So many people get caught up on the technology itself, that we sometimes forget the basic rules of networking:

• Don't be pushy. People will ask you for advice when they need it.
  
• Offer to give, give, give and someday you might just receive something back. But don't go in expecting to receive anything.
  
• Be legit and honest and ask questions. People will tune you out if push your ideas too hard. Rather, blog about your ideas and then invite the Twitterverse to read if their interested.
  
• Be a connector - listen to what people REALLY need and try to connect them with someone who can deliver it to them, even if it's not your product or service.
  
• Talk about more than just what your selling. Take down your guard. Show people who you really are. This means talking about more than just work and careers and objectives.
  

Transitioning the relationship to a profile-based platform
What Twitter does not deliver is very in depth information on the individual. That's done on purpose. Yes, there are limited user profiles available, and reading peoples Tweets can help frame up background and situations, but more relevant background data can be found robust profile-based networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and the barrage of niche networks out there.

How many of you ever collected baseball cards when you were a kid? Platforms with robust profile functions are really the same concept. As on baseball cards, these networks provide the stats. The difference is that these stats provide a valuable lens into who the other user is, their background, their personality and interests, how they communicate with contacts and friends, etc. Social media has made it possible to learn more than just a batting average so make use of the data that's there. What's more? The data comes straight from the user themselves and can be regularly updated. Keeping tabs on RSS feeds makes it painless to keep tabs on all of this intelligence as the new information comes in. TweetDeck helps as well.

All that said, social media professionals will need to make a gut feeling call as to when it is appropriate to suggest connecting on other networks.

Tip: Having dialog with a potential prospect on Twitter? Suggest that you connect with them elsewhere so you can learn more about each other. Ask them what networks they prefer and how they use them. It's likely that if they are on Twitter, they started out on social media on another platform.

Now take it offline
I strongly believe that social media will never replace a handshake. The platforms are merely tools that deliver more efficient ways to gather information and connect people to people.

Tip: The savviest of sellers will recognize when it is time to take the conversations offline and create face-to-face or phone dialog. Social media creates the opportunity to open those doors, but cyberspace will never replace having a cup of coffee and bouncing ideas of a real human being.

So there you have it. This is just one approach to playing the social media game that I've been using.

What are you doing to find success on social media? Are you willing to share it on Chasing Change?


Photo Credit: www.emailbookclub.com

Nailing the Revenue Model: Jott.com

Last week featured a web start up that failed in figuring out how to make money by offering there service. That's both sad and common. So to be positive this week, lets look at a company that seems to have nailed the money part of the start up game.

Months ago I wrote about Jott, a service that provides a platform which enabled users' to dictate message via there cell phones, have those messages transcribed to text and then delivered to them via email and SMS.

I became a beta tester around February. For me, Jott made good on it's promises and provided a valuable service that saved significant time and helped me prevent things from slipping through the cracks. Over a few weeks, I found I was averaging between five and seven Jotts a day, using it for both personal reminders and work 'to do's'. Essentially, using Jott provided much more than just easy and efficient reminders - it gave me piece of mind that I wouldn't miss anything important.

Make Money: Keep your Customers
Around late August to early September, Jott came out of Beta and continued to offer a free version of the platform supported by an ad network, but expanded to offer two additional tiers of service with full capabilities.

I'll admit, when the switch was made I was not a happy camper. As a beta tester, I had been use to the full platform of services including individual emails, the ability to set text and email reminders days out, and access to bolt on modules to link Jott with other applications. In the switch, I was bumped back to the bare bones and felt that I, as an early adopter, should have been "grandfathered in" on the full platform.

To Jott's defense, I did receive multiple emails informing me of the date of the switch and the options that would be available for me to purchase. Knowing my own personal inbox habits (which I would bet is similar to most of you) I do tend to get trigger happy with the delete button when cruising through email sent from services I subscribe too. I'm human, and very busy. While I'm sure folks at Jott were measuring open and click through rates on these emails, an additional push on social networks might have helped to increase awareness. Just my opinion though.

After receiving yet another email from the Jott team regarding the upgrade, I took a chance and emailed Doug Alley, Jott's VP of Business Development with my questions on why they chose the route they did, an some of my opinions on alternative strategies.

Jott Responds
Doug was quick to respond with a very professional email and a detailed explanation, siting some very important things to remember about monotozation:

• Start ups need to keep there lights on so there services cant stay free forever.
  
  
• People are willing to pay a reasonable fee for services that provide them with good value and consistent delivery on the promise.
  
  
• Information Privacy is critical to fostering and keeping adoption high. Monotization from data mining can be a slap in the face to the end users.

I appreciated Doug's fast and professional response. I believe that a companies willingness to address feedback from their customers' speaks volume about their culture and brand. Doug didn't once apologize for the decisions he and his associates made - and that was OK. He stuck to his guns and went to great lengths to support his line thinking.

What Doug did do was respond to a customer who felt neglected and left behind. At a recent transportation marketing conference, I heard Ann Minor site that over 68% of customers leave because they feel like they are not receiving the attention they deserve, where as only 14% leave a provider because they are not satisfied with product or service itself.

The result is that because Doug made an effort to pay attention to my concerns, I upgraded my account and am again a happy customer. And additional features like Outlook plugins, an iPhone app, and Twitter links put the icing on the cake.

Moral of This Story
Monotization is not just about developing a pricing structure that works. To be truly successful in growing your revenue and keeping customers, companies need to engage with there customers, really listen, really communicate, and turn them into raving fans of there business.

Then the money will come.

Here's a great article by Read Write Web that Doug turned me on to. What I think is most interesting is the comments from the readers...

Some Start-up's Die

It's a shame that it had to end this way, but all start-ups are not created equal. Wil Schroter, in his book, discusses the concept of building backwards and looking at how your business and technology will generate profit in the very early planning stages. I agree with that 100 percent - it costs money to keep the lights on and stay fed.

But so may start up's with great ideas miss this boat. Some developers approach ideas under the guise of "We just want to see if we can develop something really cool. It's not about money." Unfortunately, all too often, that attitude results in those same words being inscribed on those same start up's tombstone months later.

Blog Rush's Obituary
My friend and fellow blogger Mike Figliuolo turned me on to Blogrush during a lunch meeting earlier this year. It was a neat concept that would crawl the classify and content of your blog and deliver your feed on other relevant blogs via a sidebar widget. The benefit to individual bloggers was automated exposure to other potentially interested readers, based on a point system rooted in viral spread of the widgets (thus Mike's introduction of Blogrush to me).



Sadly, I received this email message today:

After careful consideration, we have decided to shutdown the BlogRush service. If you have the widget code on your blog you will need to remove it. When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web. Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web.

During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 Billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world; even up until the moment we closed down the service. BlogRush didn't grow without its fair share of problems -- from security issues to abusive users trying to 'game' the system to much lower click-rates than expected.

We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service's full potential. Our team worked very hard to try and build a service that would truly help bloggers of all sizes get free traffic to their blogs. This was our primary focus. Not once did we ever try to monetize the service with ads or anything else.
BlogRush never made a single penny in revenue. We wanted to be able to help our users FIRST and then worry about monetizing the service later. Unfortunately, the service didn't work out like we had hoped. (It happens.)

I want to say "Thank You" to all of the great bloggers that at least gave BlogRush a test to see if it would work for them. We sincerely appreciate you giving the service a try. We have received several offers & inquiries about acquiring BlogRush, but we are choosing not to go that route. While many might think this is crazy, we truly feel it's the 'right' thing to do for our users. Believe it or not, it's not always about the money. In fact, BlogRush will have lost a small fortune when it's all said and done, and it was by choice. There were many things we could have done to monetize the service but we wanted to make sure it was going to benefit our users first.

Last but not least I want to say that I hope the failure of this service doesn't in any way discourage other entrepreneurs from coming up with crazy ideas at 4AM (like I did with this one) and from "going for it" to just try and see if something will work. Without trying there can be no success. And as we all know, ideas are worthless without action. The Web wouldn't be what it is today without entrepreneurs trying all sorts of crazy ideas.

On behalf of the entire BlogRush team, we wish the best of luck to everyone with their own blogs, ideas, and crazy ventures.

Sincerely, John Reese http://twitter.com/johnreese


Moral of the Story
Monetizing is not evil and people will pay for a service that provides them value. If the strategy is thought through and executed correctly, you just might get to keep your doors open for a while...

You can also follow Mike Figliuolo on Twitter