Stages of Social Media Adoption

I was having a conversation with Peter Kim the other day and we were talking about how it doesn't seem like people are talking about social media as much as they used to. Is it possible that we've left the echo chamber?

As I was thinking about this, I wondered if there was a model for the phases people go through in their social media conversations. This is what I would propose to show how people progress as they use social media platforms.

1. Awareness

This is when someone has initially heard about a new social platform. They may talk about it with their friends or read what people are saying about it on a different platform. It's unlikely they've tried using the platform yet; they may even go as far as to claim they won't use it.

2. Discovery

After someone has joined a social network, they start to feel out how to use it, connect with other people, get down the 101 basics for the platform. They also start to look for influencers on the service, the people that have already forged a path.

This is also the phase that people are likely to abandon a particular platform if they don't feel they're able to 'figure it out.' 

3. Sharing

This is the phase when people start to publish content about the platform. As they have learned the 101 lessons, or started to get their own insights, they want to share with other people how to get into the platform. This stage does reinforce people's use of the platform but can also create the echo chamber effect where original content gets drowned out.

At this phase, people are still talking with their friends or other people interested in the platform. This tends to drive the topics of conversation towards mutually shared interests -- typically social media -- rather than content about their business. In fact, people that skip this step and just start broadcasting all about themselves are usually ignored.

4. Use Case

For me, this is the threshold that indicates long-term adoption of a platform. When someone understands how they can use the platform effectively for their personal or business purposes. They stop spending so much time talking about the platform, or sharing the 101 tips, and begin to use it for the reasons that make sense for them.

This is also why it is difficult to find (or create) social media content that moves beyond a 101-level. Once you start looking at deeper use cases for a social media platform, it becomes specific to the needs of your business. That is hard to translate into general practices that other people can follow.

At this stage, people have figured out where the money is and they are going for it.

I would say that most people who have incorporated social media into their professional role, and have been doing so for a while, are more likely to be in this phase, and for those of us connected with other social media professionals, this may account for why we aren't seeing as much content being published about the platforms. We have figured them out and are using them for business now.

5. Integration

Once someone is familiar and comfortable with the tools, it starts to get integrated into their other social platforms. I don't just mean cross-posting, but really creating a value network for their own business that allows their customers to find consistent messages, response, and personality across different social media platforms. 

This is happening quicker on a personal level where people manage their own 'brand' across all the platforms, but I believe that we are starting to see - and will continue to see - this happen with brands. Smart brands are looking for how they can take the successes from each social media initiative and use them to improve their presence elsewhere. The lessons don't translate directly from platform to platform, but the power of working cohesively across social media channels is the next frontier in social business.

Making Excuses - For the Right Reasons

I had a very positive experience this week with Apple. Let me relate the story.

The backlight on my iPod Touch went out and I'd been meaning to get it checked for about a month. I finally took it into the Apple store to ask if there was anything to be done. As I was passing it over to the Apple Genius, he dropped it about 4 inches to the table we were standing by.

He checked out the iPod, cleaned out the connection area, basically tried the simple things to see if it could be coaxed back into working. When this failed, he said he'd check what it would cost to replace. He came back with a quote that was more than I really wanted to spend, and he recognized it before even giving me the number.

So he said that he needed to check in the back again. When he came out he told me that because he had dropped it, they would replace it for me at no charge. In essence, he found an excuse to provide me with over-the-top customer service. This was more than I had hoped for and expressed how thankful I was for that.

They didn't have any in-stock yesterday, so he took my number to call me when it arrived. I got that call today. And I'm now in the process of re-downloading everything to my new iPod.

Sometimes you do want your customer service reps to find excuses, just make sure they're looking in the right direction when they do. I will definitely be going back to Apple for the next shiny new device that they come out with.

Kelly Stonebock Interview

I had the chance to grab a quick video from my friend Kelly Stonebock a little while ago. She shares her experience coming to Austin and getting involved in Twitter.

And, if you haven't read her blog, it's got a great voice. Try it, you'll like it.

As someone who has found a job through Twitter, I can agree with the power of networking that she's talking about.

Interview with Bryan Person

I had the chance to sit down with my friend Bryan Person a little while ago and ambushed him with my Flip cam to answer one question about social media marketing.

He handled it without hesitation and had this advice about using facebook as a marketing channel.

I want to expand just a little on his point about consistency.

Consistent publishing is a challenge because it requires dedication after the 'honeymoon' phase of kicking off a new social media project. After you've gotten approval to launch a new channel, it's very exciting, and you want to prove that it's going to be effective. The motivation to produce content is high -- and because it's a high priority the time to produce it is easier to block out.

But once you've proved that it works, or you've built a decent community base, then other priorities start creeping back in. The channel becomes another project to manage among multiple priorities and it's easy rationalize scaling back on content creation.

What you should keep in mind is that content creation is a self-feeding cycle.

When you are producing, your community is going to remain more engaged. They will be more likely to add their own input, generate additional content, and share what you have created. You are then able to build on what the community is doing with more of your own content.

On the other hand, when you slow down your publishing schedule, the community expects less from you, they become less engaged. Your metrics start to dip, which may raise internal questions about the value to spending time on the channel. At it's extreme, this leads to abandoned pages, leaving a constant reminder that you've given up on it.

How can you maintain your publishing consistency?

1. Create an editorial calendar. Even if you just have a list of topics that you want to cover during the month, a sense of direction will help you stay motivated.

2. Read other people's work. The ability to comment on, or make a short post with a link, to news, entertainment, or other opinions can be an easy way to keep content flowing.

3. Cross-post from other channels. If you've got events happening, or are posting to other social media channels, find ways to re-use that content. It helps you extend your reach and reduces the volume of new content you have to produce.

What are you doing to keep up your consistency?

Building the Right Fences Between Marketing and Sales

Good fences make good neighbors

Traditional wisdom stands up because it's proved over time. In the case of this quote, it conveys the significance of setting clear boundaries and knowing how to respect those boundaries.

This is often a challenge for Sales and Marketing teams. Neither wants to give up control over the fruits of their labors but each has expectations of what the other will do when leads or prospects are "passed over the fence" so to speak.

This post is going to talk about the theoretical boundaries and then how to implement real fences. Both pieces are important and many companies get through the first step. Let's start with that, see what it looks like and if you can see why it's not enough.

A couple of specific criteria that Sales and Marketing should define are:

1. What triggers a lead passing from Sales to Marketing (MQL)
2. What actions must Sales take with every accepted lead (SAL)
3. What triggers a stalled lead passing back to Marketing (Lead Nurturing)
4. Who decides which current Prospects to include in Marketing campaigns
5. How can Sales remove Leads or Prospects from Marketing campaigns

Once you have those, or other definitions that make sense for your business, you need to build fences. Fences means you remove ambiguity from your database about who owns what and what actions can be taken.

I'm going to use Salesforce.com for my next set of examples because it's what I'm most familiar with.

• Lead Owner -- The Lead Owner should be assigned to show who will primarily will be interacting with the person.
• Lead Status -- Each value should be "owned" by one team or the other. There should be clear reasons when a lead status should change, and who is responsible for doing it.
  
• Lead Score -- If you are scoring your leads, make sure you can act when a score reaches your defined thresholds. Who takes ownership and what is the next specific Touch that needs to happen to these leads
• Opportunity Stage -- Marketing doesn't typically contact "Open" opportunities on which the salesperson is actively working. However, for Stalled opportunities that would make good candidates for nurturing, marketing should help retain and re-activate these prospects.
• Customer by Segment -- Once a customer has purchased, the relationship likely changes again. By setting up some clear marketing tracks around segments you can define and mark in your database, you can help your existing customers learn more about other products, upcoming events, and other opportunities to continue interacting with your company.

So, as a marketer, how do you know if you've got good fences? An easy litmus test is if you have to get your lists approved by Sales, 0r if you send them a list, and they return it with "Include/Exclude these...", then you have not built good enough fences. Giving each team responsibility for keeping their own data clean will make it easier for both sides to work together.

How are your fences? And what can you do to make them better?

Why ROI Matters to Marketing

Marketing can be seen as either a cost-center or a revenue-generator.

Which makes tracking the return from our marketing efforts of utmost importance. You are integral in the perception of your organization towards marketing.

In a recent position, I was the first full-time marketing hire for the company, and one of my primary tasks was to step up demand generation. After a few months, I had successfully increased the size of our database and had a decent response rate to our campaigns.

But, looking ahead, I could see that executing lead gen activities wasn't going to be my objective. The sales team was going to look at how many opportunities they got out of the leads, how many deals they got from those opportunities.

If I kept my focus on putting new leads into the top of the funnel, I'm wasn't going to be aligned with the rest of the organization.

That was when I started tracking the metrics that Sales was going to be looking at - Opportunities they worked on that came from Marketing Leads, and percent of new business that was generated by adding a marketer.

How are you looking forward to the metrics that will be important next quarter or next year?

ProductCamp Austin -- Content Driving Sales Process

The first session that I attended at ProductCamp over the weekend was by Fernando Labastida about using Content to Drive the Sales Process.

Fernando made some excellent points, starting with one that particularly stuck out to me at the beginning of his presentation.

He said that companies should not forget the role of relevant outbound marketing (getting your message into the right hands) or the tenacity of a Sales 1.0 mindset (making judgments about prospects and pursuing those that are most likely to close). The rise of content as a marketing tool, should not derail the objectives of marketing and sales.

The second point that was about creating a "buzz piece" of content. This is a piece that requires more effort, goes deeper on a topic, looks at a serious industry problem, or produces new research. When you have put in the time and work on a buzz piece, it becomes a foundation for your content strategy.

With this foundational piece, you have something that can easily be distributed by other people. It's not an advertisement for your products but content that makes the people sharing it look smart for passing it along. It gives you a piece to break smaller chunks of content out from -- allowing content re-use and enabling you to get the message into channels that might not have worked for the original. And, it builds your credibility simply because of the effort required to produce it.

How are you using content to make a big splash in your space?