I often get teased about being an Eagle Scout. When you were off playing sports, taking violin lessons, or sleeping away weekends in high school, I was the dork who was at a Camporee, tying knots, teaching first-aid, and yes, even walking the occasional senior citizen across the street…
But one thing that Boy Scouts did teach me was, obviously, their motto- “Be Prepared”.
For marketing and social media types, being prepared is one of the key ingredients for success. Here’s why.
1. At some point, you are going to need (and want) your network of friends, fans, followers and supporters to be there for you. If someone rants on your product or service online somewhere, wouldn’t you want these people going to bat for you? If you’ve cultivated this network online, they will. What are you doing now to cultivate those relationships?
2. If you’ve just met someone at a trade show and they want to learn more about your product or service, why not send them to your blog instead of your website. At your blog, you’re wowing your viewers with oodles of interesting content, probably have some great testimonials, and real-life interactions of your customers engaging with and talking about your industry. That’s credibility, and a lot more interesting that an static website that gets updated once a quarter.
3. If you and your company are tapped into Social Media, you should be well aware of what people are saying about you. You’re constantly listening. You’re taking the pulse of what’s happening in your space. If your competitor has just launched a new service, you already know about it, because well, you’re prepared.
Some data hit the interwebs last week breaking down recent trends in corporate social media use. With the amount of time we spend working with and talking about social media, it’s easy to forget not everyone thinks these tehcniques are valuable and is willing to integrate them into a larger corporate strategy. The good news is, that according to Burson-Marsteller, most Fortune Global 100 companies are using social media platforms.
It reported Twitter as the most popular, with 65% of the largest 100 international companies having active accounts, compared with 54% on Facebook, 50% on YouTube, and just 33% with corporate blogs. That pattern was reversed in Asia. More businesses there were likely to rely on corporate blogs than Facebook pages or Twitter. The study also showed that only 20% of these companies use a combination of these platforms together.
So, progress has been made: businesses have tried these tools and sticking with them long term. The remaining challenge, then, is for companies to find a comprehensive and definitive way of defining and measuring success. That’s where Paul Gillin comes in.
Since December, Paul Gillin has been conducting his own study on multi-channel social media strategies. His quick findings are that:
- The metrics companies are using are all over the map
- Few organizations are taking a disciplined approach to measuring ROI
- There is a consensus emerging on what’s important and that companies are starting to focus on the metrics
What the Burson-Marsteller study doesn’t show(as an article on ReadWriteWeb pointed out) is if social media marketing techniques are gaining “significant corporate acceptance”. There are people at these companies using these platforms, but we’re just not sure how integrated their tactics are with the company’s overall strategy.
What interests me is the gap between the industry interest in Twitter and the low number of young users, teens and college students. According to the New York Times, and my own experience with teenagers, they prefer texting to tweeting. Will they see the light when they get older, or will we have forgotten about Twitter 10 years from now? That’s something for another day….
In Interview #11 of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” series we interview Laura “Pistachio” Fitton- fresh from her first vacation in SIX years- welcome back Laura. If you haven’t already met Laura, it might make sense to listen to her tweets (disclosure, she tweets a lot) and read her book, Twitter for Dummies. Right now she’s in in the middle of her next entrepreneurial venture at One Forty.
About Laura
I am the CEO and founder of oneforty inc., which has been widely dubbed “Twitter’s AppStore.” We help people get more out of Twitter by discovering and sharing the most effective Twitter tools for their work and life.
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
ADD. No really, I am constantly scanning the horizon and that definitely contributes to my uncanny (you could even call it excessive) luck.
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
Check email & Twitter, usually via CoTweet. Habit. It’s just no good if I dive into the day not knowing something really important that we’re going to want to respond to.
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
I really struggle to feel efficient. It’s pretty hard. But I am also coming to some peace with some of my chaos because I recognize how powerful an engine serendipity is when it comes to being able to act on really big opportunities that would have been impossible to plan, predict & work towards.
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
Made to Stick definitely stands out in my mind because I am fascinated by which ideas catch on and which never do.
5. 3 things on your desk right now/3 things you can’t live without
A symbol of my daughters (in this case, their Christmas letters)
A smartphone (currently the iPhone, but I’m very open to trying others)
My MacBook. I brought it on vacation to Costa Rica and pretty much only used it for planning travel logistics and Skyping with my kids. I do have the self-discipline not to work when it’s not working time, but really my whole life is on this thing.
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Definitely fear. I can say with 99% certainty that fear has never led me to make a good decision. It’s really tempting to be fear-driven, but for me it’s always been counterproductive.
7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Getting more comfortable and facile with the GTD parts of my personality so I can grow professionally and strike a balance with the stochastic, opportunity-catching side.
