Social Business Strategy – The Law of the Squeezing Social Media Networks
What happened in 2014 in the field of digital marketing can best be compared with the Law of Bernoulli.
This law is very simple to understand: put your foot on a water hose and turn on the tap. What happens next, in my imagination, is a bubble of water that appears in the hose, just like in the Tom & Jerry cartoons from my childhood. On one side of the bubble, the pressure is higher. And on the other side, at the far end, only a little bit of water comes out. Take your foot of the water hose, and “voilà”, there is again plenty of water. Agreed, Bernoulli’s law is more complex than that, but this is supposed to be Bernoulli’s law “for dummies”.
In 2014, we’ve seen that Facebook started putting both feet firmly on our social media water hoses. Where we used to enjoy delicious free organic reach for our content, with “Facebook Zero” that organic reach came to a standstill. If we want to reach our Facebook friends as a brand, an hose them down with our updates, we’ll have to pay “please-get-your-foot-of-the-water-hose”-money to Facebook.
What is less known is that not only Facebook is doing this. Other titans like Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn are taking steps in this direction.
Why do they do that? Obviously it comes down to money.
But it’s about more than just money … Read more 
(Slideshare) How to plan & design your social business CULTURE ?
A couple of weeks ago I published a blog post with a “way-too-long-title”.
But what the heck, I still decided to call it “How have IBM, Adobe, and Dell become a Social Business? And what can a smaller company learn from them?”.
Sometimes you just need to do what you think you need to do, even when it’s not in line with digital marketing best practices. Read more
From Content Marketing to Meaningful Marketing: Crossing the Chasm
Crossing the Chasm is a marketing book by Geoffrey A. Moore that focuses on the specifics of marketing high tech products during the early start up period.
It provides a great analogy for companies aspiring to move their content marketing initiative beyond content marketing, through social business towards meaningful marketing.
In this blog post I’ll explain why I believe the path to meaningful marketing starts with content marketing, gradually becoming a social business, and then towards meaningful marketing.
The question is how do you move from content marketing, to social business, towards meaningful marketing ? Read more
Employer Branding using Real Customer Stories, Through Employee Peer-to-Peer Connectivity
Current employer branding implementations are incomplete.
Employer branding is much more than a slogan send through traditional stories to future employees.
If you want to attract the right candidate, usually hard to get candidates, you’ll have to do more than setting up branded job sites with “feel good” content. Read more
How do you become a C-Level Digital Marketer?
RU Ready for C-level?
I was really impressed. On his business card it said “Chief Social Media Officer”. He worked for a rather big, international company.
He told me he was busy with an impressive social media project, and was full of “influencer marketing”, “sentiment analysis” and “advocate” marketing. They were active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Wauuwww.
Just until I asked him how many tweets per week he was getting from customers. Then it became quiet. “Euhh, one or two” he answered. “But we are only starting to be active” he added quietly.
When I checked their Twitter stream just now, their latest Twitter post dated of one month ago. LinkedIn hadn’t been updated the last year, and they had 18 followers on Pinterest.
Everything is difficult in the beginning, you think, and it takes a while to grow a following, right? They had been active for 5 years on Facebook.
And when I check what they publish on online, mainly promotions and news about their own company and products, then it doesn’t surprise me they only have a handful of followers. Read more
When Content Marketers Lose Contact With Customers
Content marketers behind bars, locked away from customer contact…
When Tammy Cannizzaro, Director of Marketing at IBM, wrote about “The Content Wars“, she talked how increasingly difficult it will become to ignite and connect with your buyers:
- She talked about how people consume content in a different way. Only the best brands are finding ways to engage prospects by creating exceptional online experiences.
- Prospects are jaded about marketing, she says. They are target of too much messaging. Only when your content mimics a conversation with your customers you will create meaningful engagement.
- Only the exceptional will stand out. Your content needs to be relevant, differentiated and compelling.
Although she touches the very basic foundations of what modern marketing is all about, I couldn’t keep thinking about what’s going to happen when everyone is fighting for the attention of that same customer, all with these same tactics. Read more
The Changing Social Role of Employees.
The Naysayer rockband from Richmond, VA.
(Image Source: Reaper Records)
Employers should expect their employees to be active on social media in the interest of the company. Employees should see this as an inherent part of their job.
The times when “being active on social media” was reserved for the boys and girls “at the marketing department” are gone. Today everyone in the organization has a role to play. Especially people that are somewhere involved close to a customer touch-point.
What’s a modern employee to do on social networks, in the interest of the company? Read more
Sharing Company Secrets: Can you trust your Engineers on Social Media Networks ?
Image Courtesy of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Is it a good idea to have our engineering department be active on social media? That’s what Thomas asked me lately.
Thomas is a hardware circuit design engineer. I’m just calling him Thomas. It could be any engineer.
He had just followed one of the training sessions I organized around the increasing need for change towards a digital, social and content oriented company.
I’m into the bad stuff
“Very interesting stuff, Tom”, he said. Maybe the first hour a bit too much marketing stuff for him as an engineer, but still.
But that’s not why he came to me. He said : “Usually social media is all about the good stuff. But we engineers (support engineers, hardware developers or software developers), we’re also into the bad stuff: we actually fix problems! For some of us that’s even a full time job.”
Should he be active on Social Media if all he does is fix problems? And can you trust the guys on social media networks who sit on our intellectual property and secret roadmap information? Read more
Why would you want a lot of followers? I don’t, and I know why
Image via @DCantuBiz
A few weeks ago I was training some people on social media. When I told them that having a lot of followers doesn’t make sense, they looked at me as I was from another planet.
As a person, would you want lots of followers?
I’ve always wondered what it would be to have thousands of followers. And somehow I now have thousands of followers on Twitter.
And what is it bringing to me? In the course of the last year I have come to know some fantastic people on Twitter and LinkedIn. They have shared with me some great content. They have taught me what books to read. And they have given me more insights into how digital and social marketing works. My networks amazed me at times: when I had a question it responded and gave me answers.
What I also noticed is that only the followers that I care about, care for me. I think that’s the type of followers you want. Having a network you care about, and a network that cares about you.
Having lot’s of followers that don’t understand that caring is the most important thing on social media, is like asking a question in the desert. Nobody will respond.
But when you have a network of peers, people like you, people you trust, and they trust you, that’s the type of network you want.
Check out the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer, which confirms what I’m saying. I recommend it.
As a company, would you want a lot of followers?
I can imagine that you as a B2B company want lots of followers. After all, social amplification can be extremely powerful.
The Ultimate Content Marketing Implementation Plan: Pragmatic, Powerful, and Guaranteed Success
Atomium in Brussel by night, or at 5 am…
(picture soure : http://www.lightcatch.nl/)
If you are interested in a Content Marketing, implementing it, thinking about it, or living it, then this is for you. I can tell you, this is for you because I’ve been pondering about this post for a long time.
Ever when I started this blog, I wanted it to be a blog which give my fellow marketeers information, education and advice coming from real life experiences. That’s why this blog is called B2B marketing experiences in the first place. No bullshit, just usable stuff. I don’t need to see my blog post on Huffington, Financial Times or whatever other big and famous website. I don’t want to use high level talk and difficult concepts or difficult words. No bullshit, just usable stuff.
Imagine what happened this morning when I woke up at 5am.
Yes indeed, ^é#@!, too early. I could not sleep anymore. My mind was spinning like hell, thinking about this blog post. And here I am sitting behind my computer writing this blog post. It’s exactly 7 am. I never thought I would be doing this, because I am usually not an ‘early bird, rise-n-shine’ kind of guy.
I need to get this out of my head, this is powerful stuff.
How to Implement Your Content Marketing in a pragmatic, do-able way, which is acceptable to your organization, which educates your organization on how to do it, which delivers quick win’s and is built to be embedded for ever in your organization? Now that’s a mouthful.
So this is what kept me awake. But I think I’ve cracked it. And I-me-personally, I think it’s powerful. Maybe arrogant, yes, but if it’s useful to you, you probably don’t care.
Ready? I am sorry, this is what you call a #longread…
So here it goes… Read more
