The Pedestal Group

Putting our clients where they belong

Social Media – why and where

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Lately I have gotten a lot of questions about social media, where to be and why. So I thought I would hit the highlights here. And off we go!
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a must in my opinion. Being out there so you can be found and find others is critical no matter what your business. I recommend getting your profile to at least 80% and joining a group or two that are relevant. Some of the people I have met in the groups are truly facinating!
Plaxo – I like Plaxo for the search engine optimization benefits but haven’t gotten as involved there as I do on LinkedIn. One extra feature I do like on Plaxo is they send you reminders of your connections birthdays.
Naymz – This one is also good for SEO but I haven’t found it really useful on a day to day basis. Definitely not a replacement for LinkedIn.
Ryze – Have not been impressed AT ALL. I found the people there have been weird and the site very unresponsive.

There are other places you need to list your business / profile so that you can be found.
Google business – Google offers businesses the ability to post a local business listing. These listings are guaranteed to show up on the first page of results for a Google search for your company so clients will always be able to find you.
Google profiles – Google also offers profiles of individuals and those are guaranteed first page results as well.
Wink – wink.com is a site that is trying to summarize people’s profiles on social media. It is a good idea to own your profile.
ZoomInfo – ZoomInfo currently allows you to claim your individual profile and say in the near future you will be able to claim a business profile as well. Be sure to set those up!

There are many other services out there under the social media header, but these are the primary places I recommend all businesses list under. While I personally like Twitter and use it to stay on top of trends, I still do not recommend it as a business-generating tool.

I hope this helps and if there are other sources you like, let me know and I’ll update the post!

I am NOT a social media expert!

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Every day in one of the blogs I read or somewhere on Twitter is a new article complaining about all the “social media experts” out there. There are evaluation tools, ways to discredit people, and scores of others telling you to talk to them. Fine. That’s not the point. I have never claimed to be a social media expert – that would be crazy. There are too many tools, options, approaches and ideas to try to master. What I can do is talk about how social media works with a marketing campaign to target specific audiences. And that’s the key – when you develop your marketing plan (and yes, you should have a well-thought-out plan), you should include specific areas of social media. NOT all of them!

The way I identify what makes sense for you is to first discuss who are your target customers or “buyer personas” as David Meerman Scott calls them. Who are we trying to find that is the right person for YOU to contact? Why exactly are they the right person? And these descriptions aren’t for general consumption. I would never post them on a blog because some of the ways we describe people may not sound flattering. If you are bad with people who are sheep, we aren’t going to look for followers. We’ll look for leaders. But we certainly aren’t going to build a marketing message saying “no sheep need apply” because people don’t think of themselves that way.

Next, we’ll find out where those people are. I mean, there is no point it trying to reach neurosurgeons through an on-line game. Just like you wouldn’t use a healthcare magazine to find a programmer to work on a manufacturing app. That sounds pretty obvious, but when it comes to social media, it seems like EVERYONE is EVERYWHERE. The reality is they just aren’t. And there are ways to identify the right venue.

Finally, we’re going to determine the right vehicle. Again, you wouldn’t advertise on a billboard to attract subway riders so use the same logic for how to communicate. Many of my clients need information that is more thorough than a blog entry or post somewhere and they like to print things so I write a newsletter. I am sure there are some clients that keep each copy and print it when they need to read an article again. There are others that read it on the screen and others that don’t read it at all (some on purpose, some who intend to get to it and don’t). That’s fine – I have other ways of getting to them as well. Most of the time it is by PHONE. My favorite social media tool, by the way.

So I am not claiming to be an expert so please don’t lump me in that category. I am just a person trying to help you market your business as effectively as possible.

No Tug-Of-War with Customers

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Ever get sucked into an infomercial?  It’s okay -you can admit it. We’ve all been there. You are minding your own business when all of a sudden you’re hooked.  Whether you were watching a new towel that could absorb Lake Erie or a way to cut your pet’s toenails, you watched some part of that commercial. And many, many people then buy the item too. So what’s going on?  Unlike other purchases, infomercials target customers when they AREN’T looking for a solution to a problem.  In fact, in many cases they didn’t know they HAD this problem – I mean, did you know your blankets are disfunctional without sleeves? Did you?

An infomercial is so different than the type of marketing we all do every day.  We don’t get to talk to people who don’t even realize they have a problem or even who know they have a problem but haven’t focused on it to find a solution yet. We are talking to people every day who know their problem intimately, know what solution they want, and know what they don’t want. So what do we do differently than the guy selling the chopper that requires you to be a body builder to operate?

Traditionally we have tried to convince them that we have the solution to their problem. We have tried to convince them we know what they don’t want and we don’t do that. AND we’ve tried to convince them that we will fix it. This kind of discussion put the customer and the sales person on opposite sides of the issue.  The prospect still had the problem and it becomes almost a game of tug-of-war; give it to me! I want to take it away!

Now, with the new tools available we have the opportunity to show people we really mean it. We are on their side, we arent taking things away, we’re making them better. And we show them not when we interrupt what they were doing that was important to them – we get to tell them when they come looking. Now, we are like the person at the front of the store who hands the person walking in exactly what they came to buy. Wahoo!

Granted, selling through relationship-building takes a lot more time. It is time-intensive in fact.  In prepping for the economy to come back, what are you doing with your time?  Doesn’t it seem like a good way to spend some of the time you have now in building these avenues?  Start by determining who your target customer is or the Customer Persona as David Meerman Scott calls it. Once you understand that person, make sure you are where that person will look when they are ready. Can they find you? Does the information that comes up reflect who you are as a person and company? Because I promise, when they are ready, they will come looking and when they do, you will be better than a ginsu knife!