First and foremost, I must say that it seems like there is a shift in the market and things are starting to look more positive (fingers crossed, of course). We are booking more appointments, making more presentations and preparing more proposals again. I hope I am not speaking too soon but it seems like we might be coming out of this whatever-you-want-to-call-it “Recession”, “Slow-down of the economy”, “Slump”, etc.

As we are meeting with marketers we keep hearing about “what they want to do“. They want to have a new website, they want to incorporate social media marketing and they want to have mobile apps. Of course, all of this is good but marketers and the agencies that work with them have to keep one thing in mind, and that is: wanting to do something is very different than wanting to achieve something.

I think we should all be talking about “what we want to achieve” rather than what we want to do. Once we set our sights on exactly what it is that we want to achieve then it gets a lot easier. With the outcome in mind, it’s a lot easier to draw the map on how we want to get there, what tools we need in order to get there and of course at the end measuring the success will be much easier. Websites, social media platforms/ strategies, online campaigns and mobile apps are all means of how we intend to achieve our goal. We need to set our goals first.

Ok, I know that I’m just paraphrasing this but it was too good to not share with everyone. I was reading a piece from Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba’s book “Creating Customer Evangelists” and within their book they outline six basic tenets of creating customer evangelists. Here they are:

1- Continuously gather customer feedback - Online services such as “Get Satisfaction” and “Uservoice” make this is a no brainer.

2- Make it a point to share knowledge freely - That’s what I am trying to do here.

3- Build word-of-mouth networks - I am hoping my readers help me with this one.

4- Create community: Encourage communities of customers to meet and share - I have written several posts on my blog about communities. “Is the customer community right for you?” and “What to look for in an online community manager?”

5- Create bite-size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite - I like what Seth Godin does with his blog posts. Even though they are not offerings but compare to other people’s posts they are bite size posts and make me want to read them. Who has the time to read those long posts these days?

6- Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or your industry, better - I have a community on LinkedIn by the name “Creative Dilemmas” take a look at it. I like to think of it as my attempt at making the world of design and marketing a little better by allowing members the ability to share their dilemmas and receive help from one another.

As I was working today, opening and closing windows on my desktop, tweeting on Twitter, following my friends on Facebook, connecting on LinkedIn, answering emails and working on preparing proposals for the clients all of sudden I realized I have not been looking at my desktop wallpaper for a while.

Peaking through all these windows was the scene of mustard fields and vineyards in Napa which I had specially selected as my wallpaper. A scene that relaxes me and brings me back down to earth and puts me back in touch with reality.

Make sure keeping up with social media you don’t lose touch with real life and what’s important to you.

Minimize your windows once in a while and take a look at that desktop wallpaper you selected for you to look at and I am sure for a reason.

This question came to mind as I just finished a fantastic webinar by HubSpot, a fast growing social media/Inbound marketing software firm based out of Cambridge, MA. The webinar was based on the results from a research that had been done in order to compare budgets, spending and results from social media marketing between 2009 and 2010. As you can see on the graph provided below, social media marketing is really catching on and B2B is trailing behind B2C in the adoption of social media marketing techniques.

The webinar also stated that the adoption and effectiveness of different social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook differ between B2B and B2C. I am wondering why B2B is still having a difficult time in adopting social media marketing.

I am quite certain that B2B companies are aware that their customers are online so what is the hesitation?

I would love to hear everyone’s (especially B2B marketers) thoughts on reasons why this is happening:

As we continue to consult with clients on developing their websites, I constantly encourage them to turn their site into Web 2.0 marketing tools. They often ask, “What do you mean by a Web 2.0 marketing tool and how would you go about doing that?”

With the rise of social media, platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook have arisen as the new channels through which companies generate leads, promote their brands and engage with their customers. As companies begin to embrace social media as a legitimate form of customer outreach their existing online and offline marketing materials must also support their social media marketing initiatives.

Your websites are the first and possibly last medium through which your audience gets to know your company and brand. You must make sure that your website is inline with your social media marketing campaigns. A website that supports social media campaigns is one of the main elements of a successful marketing campaign and what we call a Web 2.0 tool.

Here is a list of features that you might want to consider including on your website in order to make it an effective Web 2.0 tool:

1. Include your company’s LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter account on the homepage and possibly throughout all pages of your website so that your audience has every opportunity to follow your company.
2. Give your audience the ability to broadcast and share the content of your website pages.
3. Make sure management bios have individual social media accounts so that your audience may connect with them.
4. Include a “Feedback” button on the website so you can hear what your visitors have to say.
5. Make sure your messaging on your website is inline with the social media messages and tweets you deploy.
6. A company blog is a must and you should include it on your website.
7. If members of your management team have individual blogs make sure they are also included.
8. Consider creating a “Customer Community” and if you already have one, make sure your customers can find it and get to it easily from the website.

You have evaluated all possible options in order to engage with your customers and have come to the conclusion that creating your own customer community is the most practical solution. Creating a customer community is a task that requires planning and preparation. It requires expertise and know-how.

Planning, monitoring and moderating a customer community requires a community manager. Someone who is constantly involved and monitors the community. Someone who makes sure that members are engaged and lubricates conversations. You must accurately define and assign their responsibilities.

The question is: What qualities should we look for in a community manager? To answer this question I am going to refer to a statement made by Matren Mickos, former CEO of MySQL during the Social Media Week SF, who said that at his company he had five different community managers monitoring their communities and that they played a big role in the development and support of each MySQL product. The community managers asked him how their performance would be evaluated and he said: “Based on the “Three P’s”: Popularity, Pioneering and Participation”.

He further elaborated on what each “P” means. “Popular” in the sense that the community manager needs to be popular within the community itself. “Pioneer” as in innovative. Your community manager will have to come up with solutions and answers on the spot. Therefore, they must be innovative and must actively participate in the community itself. You can not manage a community without having a presence and without being involved in the community so therefore the third P “Participation”.

I was speaking with a client the other day and we were talking about the possibility of setting up a community for them. Of course we had not discussed the expectations and goals for this community but the question arose whether they should start their own community or join an existing one.

This is a very good question and it really depends on several factors:
- What you do and how niche your offering is. This leads to whether there is an existing community that your product is being discussed on.
- If the existing communities do fit and satisfy your needs and objectives from this undertaking.
- Whether your customers are open to participating in your community vs. an existing, related one.
- If you have the financial budget, human resources as well as the time to properly manage and engage with the community.

If you come to the conclusion that you need to start your own community I have the following recommendations:
- Initially, don’t expect a huge turn out. Start the community small and grow it gradually. Your community will need for you to listen to it, get involved in it and support its members.
- As you start small, keep in mind that you will also need to help it grow. You can not sit in the back seat and expect it to grow by itself. You need to promote it.
- Within your community find your active customers and energize them. These customers are going to be the leaders of your community and they are the ones that will lead conversations. You need to reach out to them and make sure they will participate.
- Listen to your community. They have opinions and they know what they want, so let them lead you. Their feedback is very valuable especially in relation to how you can continue and improve your community.
- Implement a reputation system as community members are driven by reputation and competitiveness but monitor the community and keep it healthy. Don’t let too much competition between members ruin your community.

See you at Social Media Week in SF.

As we meet with existing and potential B2B clients in the New Year, I constantly get the feeling that everyone is extremely anxious to see results, fast. With limited budgets, B2B companies are running out of patience and have really high expectations from their marketing investments. They want to see fast returns and when we discuss social media marketing, everyone expects to see immediate results.

B2B companies should keep in mind that due to their complex and often longer sales cycles, it is more challenging to develop and measure the influence of social media on their business in such a short amount of time.

This doesn’t mean “forget it” or “what’s the point”. It shows necessity in embracing and preparing oneself for the integration of social media marketing into their existing plans. Procrastinating and sitting on the sidelines will only make integration in the future even more difficult and from that point, they have to play catch-up. Companies should always ask themselves, “Where are my customers?” and “How can I reach them?”

As it appears in Wikipedia under the term “social media marketing“:

“Social Media Potential for Business to Business”

“Business technology buyers participate socially more than adult US consumers. Forrester surveyed technical and line-of-business decision-makers who buy technology. Socially, this is an extremely active group compared to US adults or many other groups. Almost all (91%) read blogs, view videos, or listen to podcasts online, and just 5% don’t participate in any social activity at least monthly. More than three fourths of respondents say that peers influence their purchase decisions, more so than any other media or information source.”

As you can tell, customers and prospects for B2B companies are also online and are constantly participating in social media. More and more, they talk about the likes and dislikes of product that they could potentially utilize. My suggestion is: Even if you don’t have social media as a part of your current marketing plan or if you think your target audience does not participate in it, at least “Listen” and “Monitor” to find out if:

1- People are talking about your product
2- People are talking about your competition
3- What your competitors are doing
4- Where these conversations are happening

If you are already participating in social media, make sure that you track every single one of these interactions and collect all relevant data. Without this, you cannot make any future plans for social media when necessary.

Another reason why B2B companies should not ignore social media is that it brings value to other internal departments within the organization, such as: employee collaboration and support, product development and customer support. Also, please keep in mind if you are having a difficult time getting upper management’s buy-in on the integration of social media marketing into your current plans, these internal benefits just might be the justification for further investments.

Social media tools are inexpensive and sometimes even free. Getting them to actually produce results requires investment in time, money and expertise.

Bluewolf, the leader in agile consulting, remote database administration and IT resourcing hired Arman Arami & Associates to assist with the design and development of the information architecture as well as navigation structure for their corporate website. Bluewolf had recently gone through a revamp of their brand messaging and repositioning of their offering and they wanted to restructure the information and navigation on the site in order to reflect their new positioning.
The new architecture and navigation would organize and classify Bluewolf’s service offering and packaged products in a much better fashion and therefore the audience would be able to find what they are looking for easier and within less number of clicks. Bluewolf is currently working on the design of their website based on the new architecture, please check back for a viewing of their website.

When the joint venture of Applied Biosystems/MDS Analytical Technologies with more than 20-years history decided to operate as AB SCIEX, a new company within the Danaher Corporation, they needed a website. A site that would combine the long term experience and breadth of offering with the freshness and innovation expected from a new venture.
Arman Arami & Associates worked closely with AB SCIEX in developing and fine tuning the information architecture and navigation structure for the website in order to deliver on the expectations. An information architecture that allows room for growth and keep within a grid and structure that would stay sound.