Category: Social media

LinkedIn for B2B marketing

Posted on by Brian Lee

In addition to teaching a social media class and doing speaking engagements on social media, I had the opportunity recently to talk about LinkedIn at an expo and be interviewed for a magazine article about LinkedIn.

My big takeaway is always about how LinkedIn is well-suited for research, networking, job hunting, recruiting and even business-to-business (B2B) marketing.

For that last item, it seems many people who use LinkedIn are familiar with groups, introductions and InMail, but few know about sponsored updates.

First, you need to have a company page. Don’t forget to populate it with your company’s background, products/services, etc.

When you post an update, the only people who will see it are those who are following your company page. If you’re just getting started, you probably don’t have many followers, and they probably aren’t necessarily your target audience.

To get your update in front of your target audience, you can make it sponsored, which is similar in setup to Google AdWords or Facebook ads, meaning you can be highly selective in the categories in which your audience fits. For example, you can choose geography, gender, age, industry (including which to exclude) and my favorite, job title.

Yes, this is how you can get your message into the news feeds of CEOs, HR people, etc. Think about this: how would you get in front of your selected group otherwise? You would probably have to do things like advertise in niche publications and trade show marketing.

LinkedIn offers you both a pay-per-click payment option, as well as pay per 1,000 impressions. I like the latter, as it seems more cost-effective, and you don’t pay for the clicks you do get.

I suggest your sponsored update be of some value to your audience, like a white paper, article or video, instead of some sort of solicitation. Your content should be housed on your website, and you should monitor the clicks as part of your conversion tracking (often done through Google Analytics).

Why review sites like Yelp are bad

Posted on by Brian Lee

Snarky comments on online news articles really annoy me, but a close second are the reviews found on sites like Yelp.

Let’s be honest. The reviews are often useless. You will often find someone who:

  • Thinks their reviews are the best thing since sliced bread and adds meaningless prose to sound more sophisticated,
  • Likes or dislikes something but doesn’t list their rationale,
  • Is hell-bent on writing the most negative review ever and/or enjoys nitpicking everything, or
  • Writes a suspiciously positive review.

On that last point, did you know a study shows that 20 percent of Yelp reviews are fake? I’m actually surprised the number is not higher.

Anyways, I feel bad for business owners who have to deal with undeserved negativity that stems from Yelp reviewers. And even when a business does something wrong, why not tell the owners so that they can fix it?

That’s why I’m interested in seeing how the new app, Goodsnitch, fares. It’s been described as the “anti-Yelp app” because it doesn’t allow one-sided, glory-seeking rants. Instead, users provide private feedback to the businesses.

Whether this service replaces Yelp remains to be seen. I’m hopeful, but Yelp is probably too prevalent, unfortunately.

Social Media: A chance to put out the fire as soon as there’s smoke

Posted on by Brian Lee

Last month American clothing designer Kenneth Cole inappropriately tweeted again, this time using the on-going conflict in Syria to promote footwear. After some deserved backlash, he delivered a brief video apology on his Instagram account. Many felt his apology was insincere, and lacked any sort of conviction. Regardless of where one may stand on the Syrian conflict, footwear or Kenneth Cole’s misguided sense of foreign-policy related advertising, it may be a good idea to take a step back and look at the impact a rogue tweet or post can have.

As our society connects grows faster and faster, the easier it is for us to share our lives with each other through status updates, check-ins, vines and tweets. But it also makes it easier for us make a mistake in the public eye. And even if we delete our mistake, chances are someone managed to see it before it was taken down.

For a personal account it might just be embarrassing at most. On the corporate level, it can be downright damaging. Screencaps and retweets make it even easier for followers to see the errant tweet, permanently capturing the mistake for all to see. Once they’ve been shared, it doesn’t take long for the ill-crafted message to spread. Remember the old adage from Mark Twain?

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Unfortunately social media only speeds up how fast that lie may be traveling around the world. But remember, it can also help the truth put its shoes on more quickly, too.

It’s just as easy to take to the virtual airwaves and issue a timely and appropriate apology. In fact, sometimes the speed social media runs at can put the brakes on a runaway train before it becomes a full wreck.

One particularly strong example was The American Red Cross and a tweet meant to be sent from an employee’s personal account. The tweet read: “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer … when we drink we do it right #gettingslizzerd”

Obviously not the message Red Cross wants to share with its followers. Within hours, the tweet had been deleted, and a new message had been tweeted: “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys”

The apology was timely, appropriate and even relatively humorous. The Red Cross handled the situation perfectly. Admitting its mistake, it deleted the tweet and moved forward. And in this case, it even ended up a plus for the Red Cross. Amused by the tweet, Dogfish Head Brewery started a campaign to solicit donations to the Red Cross, using the same “gettingslizzerd” hashtag to promote the aid organization’s endeavors.

Taking decisive and calculated action was exactly what the Red Cross needed to do, and now the incident is regarded in an entirely more positive light than had they issued a blanket standard-issue apology. And by using Twitter to share its recovery, it made sure to change the momentum of the discussion surrounding the group on the same social network the mistake was made.

Social media continues to grow as a great way to connect with each other in the world around us. Unfortunately we still make mistakes. But if we make sure to embrace the situation in a genuinely positive way, admit the mistake and move forward, something good may even come from whole ordeal.