The new MINI Countryman just launched thneir first exclusive commercial video. The slogan for their new car: Life is out there. Go live it. And once you have seen the spot you know what mmakes the difference between offline and online.

BreakingPoint: Insights in their social media strategy

Yesterday, I was refering to the case study by BreakingPoint to show the impact of social media for lead generation. And I promised to get some feedback from the responsible person at BreakingPoint on how they made these results happen. Kyle Flaherty gave me some insights in BreakiingPoint Systems social media strategy which I am allowed to share with you.

In his eyes, the succes of companies with social media needs to follow a company’s philosophy in a way that “social media should not be a separate entity in the marketing or communications strategy, in fact it must be part of your company DNA if it is to be successful.”

The main question I was asking myself was how they at BreakingPoint organize their social media activities and content production. Kyle told me that it was a long learning curve. Today, he is working with a team of eight bloggers (all highly technical) who fill their Twitter program (nearly 25% of company members are on Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn Groups, corporate blog, etc. And he describes the content production process as follows:

“For our blog it is a very organic process, which I believe works best. I send notes out to potential bloggers each month discussing certain themes and asking if folks are working on anything in particular. This sparks some thoughts around blog posts, which they send my way for editing and SEO. As for LinkedIn, every member is put through a qualification process and given very clear engagement rules for the group. I enforce these from time to time by explaining to people how they should engage, kicking out spammers, etc. I also will go into the group on a daily basis and pose a question to start up conversation and ask particular members to respond in order to facilitate communication.”

The question of people who want to involved in social media is always: What is the overall investment in starting social media activities? Kyle responds that the investment was not massive spendings. Although it has to be said that Kyle managed web development projects for years in his last job which probably saved the company some dollars.

“Two specific areas we spend money when it comes to social media. First is with equipment for podcasts and video, which is an important element of our social media strategy. In 2009 I spent only $2,000 (U.S) for equipment. The other element is our website and the development of a new blog (debuting in February!). This is obviously a more substantial cost, but one we would have done no matter what. In my opinion a good site development, depending on what you are doing, can be done for around $15,000 (note that I managed web dev projects for years in my last job). Otherwise our budget is spent on “traditional” marketing areas such as drip email marketing, events, demand gen, etc. But it is important to note that we integrate social media with each of these elements.“

From a sustainability point of view it is often argued that social media can save money as a positive factor compared to traditional marketing. Kyle tells me that using social media is not a tactic to save money but that the budgets spent follow the same KPI rules of traditional marketing efforts.

“We worry less about saving money and more about making our activities work for us. For example, we map nearly every dollar spent back to sales. If a marketing activity, whether traditional or social media focused, is not brining in sales we do not engage in that activity for much longer.”

Today, 30% of their generated leads are coming from social media activities – and all leads are new contacts.

Kyle Flaherty is Director Marketing and Communications and manages external communications, community relationships and influencer marketing at BreakingPoint. He also blogs on b2b marketing topics on his personal blog Dance with strangers.

Social Media Strategie? – Studie der 100 größten Werbemarken…

Eine aktuelle Studie der Universität Oldenburg in Zusammenarbeit mit der Agentur Construktiv besagt, daß inzwischen 60% der größten Marken in Deutschland auf Social-Media-Seiten aktiv sind. Untersucht wurde der Einsatz von Facebook, Twitter, YouTube und Blogs bei den 100 Brands mit den “größten Werbegeldern”. Die konkludierenden Aussagen der Studienmacher wirken allerdings etwas oberflächlich.

Interessant sind dabei zwei Ergebnisse der Executive Summary…

1. Welches Social Netzwerk und wie die Firmen dieses nutzen?
- 25% beschränken sich auf den Einsatz von einer Social Media-Plattform, ein Drittel der Marken nutzt zwei oder drei.
- 39% der befragten deutschen Unternehmen nutzten Twitter, 37% YouTube und 28% Faceboo, 12% setzen auf Corporate Blogs
- 5% nutzen alle untersuchten Social Media Plattformen: Sparkasse, RWE, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Hornbach und Vodafone

2. Wie werten die Studienmacher die Ergebnisse?
Etwas unverständlich und ungestützt wirkt die Aussage: “Eine umfassende Social Media-Strategie ist
noch die Ausnahme: Nur 5% bedienen zugleich Facebook, Twitter, YouTube und Corporate Blogs.”

Das lasse ich jetzt mal wirken auf meine Leser…

Wer besagt denn, daß eine umfassende Social-Media-Strategie die Klaviatur aller dieser vier Medien umfaßt? Macht es wirklich für alle Unternehmen Sinn hier überall präsent zu sein? Oder gibt es vielleicht auch Ausnahmen und sind deshalb die Banken, chemische Industrie und Lebensmittelhersteller noch etwas zurückhaltender (nicht mehr als 50% sind hier aktiv)? Und was ist mit XING oder LinkedIn? Oder mit Sevenload? StudiVZ oder MySpace? Oder mit den Bookmarking-Diensten? Die gehören also nicht zu einer Social Media Strategie? Oder doch…?

Auch die nachfolgende Aussage ist würdig, überdenkt zu werden. “So lässt sich (…) erkennen, dass die Top-5 Marken „Der Spiegel“, „Süddeutsche Zeitung“, „Hornbach“, „FOCUS“ und „Vodafone“ allein 54,3 Prozent aller Videos, Tweets, Artikel oder Nachrichten produzieren”. Das sind allein drei Medien-Marken, die auf Clicks zur Vermarktung ihres Contents setzen. Hier zählt noch der Gedanke an Reichweite und Quantität. Die Frage ist, ob hier Zielgruppen-Affinität und inhaltliche Qualität die Folge ist. Eine Frage, die sich auch alle Firmen stellen sollten, die auf Social Media setzen wollen. Und es ist ein Mobiltelefon-Provider, der sich schon ganz ordentlich in der Social Media Welt ins Gespräch gebracht hat. Ob positiv oder nicht, können andere beurteilen…

Spot On!
Wenn man am Schluß als letzten Punkt schreibt: “Generell gilt: Je aktiver Social Media betrieben wird, desto stärker ist die Resonanz der Internetnutzer”, klingt das sehr… generell. Gilt das nicht auch für gute Online-PR, gutes Webmarketing, aktive Salesarbeit und ordentlichen Kundendienst. Letztendlich ist doch die Frage, ob und wie der Social Media Einsatz in eine unternehmenseigene schlüssige Webstrategie und noch weitergehend in die Businessstrategie integriert wird. Ob die Kommunikation der internen Kultur entspricht und administrativ im Back-End aufgefangen werden kann, ob sie extern authentisch wirkt, ob sie nachhaltig aufrecht erhalten werden kann sowie einen zukunftsträchtigen Einsatz innnerhalb einer Kommunikationsstrategie findet. Hier bietet die Studie leider wenig Anhaltspunkte hinsichtlich eines strategischen Ansatzes…

News Update – Best of the Day

Have you ever wondered if there are fortune 500 companies that do social media right? 10 of them do! Just read Jennifer Leggio’s post… And if you want to know how to become an enterprise 2.0 company, just listen to Dion Hinchcliffe …

The social web geeks tell companies to work with the new world of engagement and multilogue. But how do companies have to balance corporate blogs and social media. Andy Piper gives some good insights…

The world is talking in videos – and baby videos seem to become famous on YouTube. Check these top 10 dancing baby videos out…

How to attract more visitors – The 10 most important visitor resources for blogs

How can you find a lot of users for your business blog?

Is there a secret, why corporate blogs and business blogs have more success than traditional corporate websites? Is it the modern architecture of blogging systems? Is it the exiting and exhilarant spelling style of bloggers? Or is a conspiracy of the digital natives against the internet retirees?

Nothing of it! Blogs and bloggers are simply using some very effective methods to attract visitors.

The 10 most important visitor resources for blogs:

1. Feeds – Blogs are read via feed reader predominantly, not via browsers any longer. Well-known blogs have more than 100.000 feed reader per day. On a normal day in Germany, there are some blogs with more than 10.000 feed reader.
   Highlight your RSS feed on your blog and take advantage of a feed service like Feedburner
2. Google – Visitors through search engines are the second largest visitor group of blogs. Bloggers use always methods of search engine optimization (SEO) in order to achieve good rankings with important key words.
   Write in a search engine friendly way. Use Google’s Webmaster Tools and install a SEO plug-in like wpSEO!
3. Pingbacks and Trackbacks – Links don’t just offer a value-add for your own users but also backlinks and numerous new users.
   Link all directions as often as possible and learn to use trackbacks in a proper way.
4. Twitter – with the micro-blogging service you can approach users faster than with your blog. News with real add-on information are spread via Twitter the “viral” way very fast.
   Work on broadening your Twitter follower base. Promote your Twitter account on your blog and vice versa. Twitter your blog postings at the right time!
5. Social Networks – Promote your important blog postings on XING, Facebook or LinkedIn.
6. Forums – Are you an accredited expert, for example a wine blogger?
   If you see in a forum the question: What are the most expensive wines or the 10 most dry French ones? Write a posting on your blog and post only the link in the forum.
7. Blog directors and RSS feed directories – Just some selected directories (Technorati, Blogoscoop, Bloggerei, Wikio) generate new visitors. Especially, if you are ranking well in these directories.
8. Your comments on other blogs – Make yourself heard on other blogs as a constructive business partner – far and foremost in not well-known blogs. This will result in new visitors. Beware the free of sense comments! This will damage your own blog reputation in the long term.
9. Comments of others on your blog – This is the secret of well-visited blogs:
   Be responsive to comments – You will win permanent visitors!
10. Guest writers – Invite readers/users, other bloggers or “VIP’s” from the offline and online world to write guest posts. Every guest author will be talking to others about it or link directly to this post.
    Your creativity has no limits: travel agents blog about journeys of their customers, hotel managers animate guests to write about their vacation resort, … Your customers don’t want that? Ask them if they want to publish some of their holiday pictures on your homepage! You will be surprised seeing the reaction…

Did I forget something? Is your ranking of visitor resources different? Where do you see options to attract more visitors for your blog? Looking forward reading your comments and reading your ideas and thoughts!

Guest writer Karl-Heinz Wenzlaff is the German expert and consultant for business blogging. He knows the useful tips and tricks, and is specialized on professional company blogs, product blogs or employee blogs. Some month ago, he helped me migrating from Blogger to Wordpress in order to set up a magazine theme.

Thank you for being one of my guest writers, Karl-Heinz.

Corporate Blogging: Studien belegen ambivalente Ansichten

Zwei aktuelle Studien machen deutlich, wie unterschiedlich Unternehmen Corporate Blogging gegenüberstehen. Während Unternehmen aus dem E-Commerce dort großes Potential bei Firmenblogs sehen, sind grundsätzlich Unternehmen noch eher skeptisch eingestellt. Die Option der Meinungsführerschaft, die man mit einem Blog untermauern kann, ist offensichtlich bei vielen Unternehmen als Argument noch nicht valide.

Viele Unternehmen mit ambivalenter Meinung
Eine aktuelle Studie von Schwartz Public Relations zeigt, daß derzeit nur ein Drittel der befragten Unternehmen ein eigenes Blog betreibt. Sprich: Die Mehrheit nutzt die Chance des weiteren Kommunikationsmediums derzeit nicht.

Die Unternehmen, die ein Firmenblog einsetzen, sind wiederum positiv eingestellt. Über die Hälfte der Befragten sieht darin den Benefit der Intensivierung von Interaktion mit den Kunden. Die Option, sich an branchenrelevanten Themen und Debatten mit Corporate Blogs zu beteiligen, ist für 23% ausschlaggebend. Als weitere Gründe geben die befragten Unternehmen an, mit Firmenblogs das Firmenprofil zu stärken (14%) oder aber auch einfach die Suchmaschinenoptimierung zu pushen (11%).

“Wir registrieren bei vielen Firmen eine große Verunsicherung in Bezug auf Themen wie Web 2.0 und Social Media”, kommentiert Christoph Schwartz, Inhaber von Schwartz Public Relations, die Studienergebisse. Zwar vermuten viele Unternehmen ungeahnte Potenziale, aber die meisten Firmen wissen nicht, wie sie mit diesen neuen Medien umgehen sollen oder fürchten zuviel Transparenz. “Da kommt uns Agenturen eine zentrale Beratungsaufgabe zu”, erkennt Schwartz.

E-Commerce Unternehmen wollen Blogs
Dem gegenüber steht eine internationale Online-Marketing-Studie von Adobe in Zusammenarbeit mit Scene7. Diese besagt, daß Unternehmen aus dem E-Commerce zur Stärkung der sichtbare Präsenz ihrer Marken und Produkte im Internet in Social Media investieren wollen. 90% der befragten Unternehmen werden demnach in neue Rich Media- und soziale Netzwerktechnologien investieren. Zudem wollen 32% in diesem Jahr ein Corporate Blog einrichten oder ihr bestehendes Blog erweitern. Dabei sind die Faktoren Benutzerbewertung, Kommentare und Ranglisten für 31% eine interessante Investitionsoption für die befragten Unternehmen.

Spot On!
Die gespaltenen Euphorie hat natürlich Gründe. Die Schwartz PR Studie zeigt, daß 36% den hohen Aufwand scheuen, 33% darin keinen Mehrwert sehen, 12% mit einem Blog nicht negativ auffallen wollen und ein Fünftel hat sich noch nicht mit dem Thema Corporate Blog beschäftigt hat. Die Adobe Studie hingegen macht klar, daß die Steigerungen der Klickzahlen und Seitenbesuche sowie der Kaufrate die wichtigsten Kennzahlen bei der Messung der Effektivität der Webaktivitäten bleibt. Vor allem in Verbindung mit Umsatzzahlen und Bestellmengenberechnungen läßt sich so die Effizienz der Webstrategie messen. Diese Aussagen decken sich mit einem kürzlich veröffentlichten CMO Report und macht deutlich, wie stark Internetaktivitäten der Unternehmen von Zahlen getrieben werden – oder eben nicht.

Adobe Studie: Teilnehmer rund 470 namhafte Händler, Agenturen, Hersteller sowie High-Tech-Unternehmen aus USA und EMEA-Region
Schartz PR Studie: Teilnehmer 335 Führungskräften aus dem weltweiten Technologiesektor

Top IT Consultants: What is your Twitter strategy?

Yesterday, we were focusing on the Twitter strategy from top strategy consultants, today we will finish this report with checking the activities from the top IT consultants. If these companies don’t use Twitter there is no reason saying they are the ‘technical specialists in communication’. We will merely focus on the official company accounts and the possible company brand accounts.

One thing before we start: Compared to the strategy consulting companies, IT consulting companies are quite ‘open-minded’ about the share economy. There is no hiding in the communication fields of the old economy. This is -in most cases- talking markets, showing transparency, creating value for the web busisness community and believing in the power of social software.

Let’s make the case…

Top IT consultant companies (in alphabetical order)
The questions that The Strategy Web asked these companies were like… Do you have a corporate Twitter account, how do you use it and what is your strategy behind it? Please find the answers, some were translated into English by The Strategy Web …

Company Account
twitter.com/BearingPoint
twitter.com/GovTwit
The first impression counts in business, the people say… “My personal Twitter strategy I learned directly from MC Hammer – ‘Forget the number of Tweeters – just stay interesting!’.” Paul Dunay, Director of Global Field Marketing at Bearingpoint, knows of personal branding, reputation marketing and the changing world of communication in the sense of ‘getting things gone differently‘.

Summary
Let’s talk about the GovTwit account first. This is one of the most excellent examples of a Twitter directory that probably exists on the web with Twitter IDs and links to official government blogs and URLs noted in Twitter bios. Beraingpoint knows how to share and all companies can learn from that example..
Nevertheless, the second one, the brand Twitter account, seems quite down to earth like a simple press release-RSS-push. But there is a clear strategy line as this Twitter account is the access point and traffic driver for the corporate blog which lives and broadcasts social media.

Company Account
twitter.com/CiscoSystems
twitter.com/CiscoGeeks
So, there are two different interesting Twitter streams: the first one for press releases, news on personal and management changes, and it picks up RTs of stories around Cisco from followers (Nice give-and-take scenario!). The second one (start Dec. 2008) pushes their Cisco AXP contest for application developers who are meant to “think outside the box”. No, the top brand account belongs to someone else. And Cisco started early sending tweets out… so this is to everone: you better hurry up to get your brand account.

Summary
Cisco has defintely entered the web 2.0 scenario big way. Using different social media like blogs, FlickR and sure, Twitter – to get all these activities around modern communication and messaging fly high. Twitter seems to be adding value to their marketing, their pr, and pushes corporate branding.

Company Account
twitter.com/gartner_inc
The man behind the corporate Gartner account is Andrew Spender -Vice President, Corporate Communications- and this company has more than 60 analysts (!) on Twitter. The corporate Twitter account from Gartner mixes internal knowledge, pr releases, communication on consulting issues, hints to their analysts and shares company experience from events and career opportunities. It’s the aggregator of their global Twitter and business knowledge satellites.

Summary
“Briefly, we use Twitter to communicate with a broad range of people. This includes IT end-users, technology providers, journalists, bloggers, etc. It has become a very effective way of developing a direct, credible, authentic two-way relationship with people who have an interest in what we have to say about the business of technology. Twitter is a great way for anyone to engage directly with our analysts and we’re always listening for feedback!” (Andrew Spender)
PS: Again, the most obvious account belongs to someone else…

Company Account
Many! – … and the brand account…?
There is nearly nothing that Twitter does not support for IBM: business sections here, here and here, events here and here plus community building accounts here. Is the brand account changing it’s owner? There were more follower, there is no actual IBM logo and there is definitely something going on…

Summary
IBM is a very active user of Twitter. It becomes obvious from the named examples that IBM uses new media for their communication strategy – not surprising as collaboration software is part of their business. “Social media tools are impossible to be taken away from an innovative communication concept.” says Petra Bauerle, Web Managing Editor at IBM – yes, she twitters as well.

Company Account
twitter.com/oracle
Similar ’strategy’ that IBM has: Twitter for big events like Open World and it’s push as well as it’s blog), for tech communities around Oracle Technology Network (OTN) as well as an ‘cocktail-mixing’ aggregator account. Wanna see all Oracle Twitterati? Go ahead… and check their wiki with Oracle and non-Oracle people.

Summary
“Generally, as a company, we encourage communication among our employees, customers, partners, and others – and blogs, social networks, discussion forums, wikis, video, and other social media can be a great way to stimulate conversation and discussion. They’re also an invaluable tool for experienced Oracle users who want to share information and tips on the use of Oracle products. (…) I’m not aware that we have a formal, documented plan for the use of Twitter, just as we don’t for other social media, but we definitely have a level of participation, since it can be a good way to reach out to and engage with a variety of communities.” Steve Walker, Vice President EMEA

Company Account
None – brand account options difficult.
“At the moment, the trend washes Twitter in the spheres of a brand name like Google: Twitter is not only seen a web-service for micro-blogging but a synonym for for the dialog in 140 words – you “twitter” like you “googled”! This trend makes the service and the micro-blogging attractive for a bigger user group.” Torsten Schollmayer, Senior Associate Marketing & Analytics

Summary
Sapient sees the value of also for business accounts for the benefit of social information finding and -exchange, and supporting own brand building – Twitter offers direct and konvergent 1:1 and 1:n-dialogue with clients, competitors and specialists. That’s the reason why Sapient will be on Twitter in a short time period in order not to lose innovation leadership in te market of interactive consulting. BUT: The brand account is gone, so we will wait and see what the digital consulting experts will be doing… The question remains: Why do they start so late on Twitter?

Company Account
Many – company does not make them public as project-based…
“The motivation for our involvement in Twitter and other micro-blogging tools is connected with expertise. Through the use of these tools, experts of Siemens IT Solutions and Services can not only exchange information or present their expertise, but also interact with customers and stakeholders. Networking and open innovations play an important role within the Siemens group, therefore we also designed the open source tool ESME (Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment), which can be use by every enterprise.” Janine Krebs, Media Relations

Company Account
None – brand account options difficult… or not?!
Unisys pr agency answered briefly: “Unisys has decided not to go with Twitter. The companies opinion goes along the lines that Twitter is interesting, generally speaking, but up to now, there is no response from clients to head for Twitter.”

Summary
I am sure there will be some activity when they have been reading about the Twitter options in this post… if so, tell us in a comment, ok?!

Spot On!
We can learn a lot about the pr and career chances, capabilities and possibilities of Twitter from the IT consulting companies, and nearly all of them are using Twitter in a big way. If you need some more background on the Twitter effect for the benefit of your marketing, you should listen to Jon Samsel’s advice. Generally, the especially the real-time business benefit is obvious…

Before companies even join, they can search on Twitter and monitor what people are saying for any term or terms about their employees, their company, their industry, their branch etc. – and then simply put the results into a RSS feed reader.

The real time focus makes it one of the most valuable resources in fast moving industry days. And it tells companies very early when customers have a problem with their communication (see Johnson&Johnson Motrin example) or customer service.

Seeing all the positive aspects… there is one thing that needs to be said about the no. 1 micro-blogging tool: All the positivism in mind and seeing the wonderful new world of communication, Twitter can also be a time-thief if not treated carefully. For some managers professional support will make sense. Tweets attract your personal psyche, shake their body of words and love the power of anticipation in dissipation just like … does.

Anyway, happy to hear what you think of these IT consultants strategies…

News Update – Best of the Day

Today, we will be serving the ‘How To’-Help – Enjoy it!

How to start a blog and make it effective … Jamie Herzlich knows facts about your competition (130 million blogs on the Internet – according to Technorati) AND has some very good advice that you are not getting lost with your blog.

How to start a corporate Twitter account…. Evelyn So has some interesting ideas on considerations before you dive into Twitterville, taken from a corporate, communication and customer point of view and background. Read comments also…!

How to Get More Out Of Google Docs… It’s on you! If you have the right input, just contribute, log in and add them to the page. Help writing this article. Yes, this is the power of a wiki.

PS: How to Present While People are Twittering? Years ago, people were whispering to each other at conferences, today they are ‘twittering’. Olivia Mitchell knows how to adopt and get attention when you are a speaker.

News Update – Best of the Day

IP TV Konsum: Einzelverkostung oder Gruppenerlebnis? Microsoft 3-Screens Studie zeigt die Veränderungen im Konsum von digitalen TV-Inhalten im Vergleich zum klassischen Fernsehen.

Twitter: Produktives Tool oder Zeitverschwender? Die Wirksamkeit des modernen Kommunikationskanals wird besprochen von der Salon Media Group.

Blogging: Beziehungspflege oder Reichweiteninstrument? Ein (weiterer) Leitfaden mit 10 Blogger Best Practise Tips von Liz Strauss.

News Update – Best of the Day

- Da treffen sich die Experten in Davos zum Weltwirtschaftsforum und wissen auch nicht so recht, wie es weitergeht in der Welt mit der Wirtschaft. Anatole Kaletsky von Times Online berichtet Erstaunliches über eine Studie unter den Wirtschaft-Häuptlingen…

“According to a survey that greeted the 2,000 captains of industry, Nobel laureate economists and heads of government arriving in Davos for the World Economic Forum, confidence among them has “plummeted” and hopes of an economic recovery have “evaporated” in the past four months. Only 21 per cent of corporate leaders now expect their businesses will improve significantly (down from 50 per cent a year ago) and most of them hope for nothing better than a slow and feeble recovery over the next three years. (…) The good news is that captains of industry, Nobel laureate economists and heads of government are usually wrong about the future.”

Manchmal muss man eben weniger den Nachrichten Glauben schenken, als der wissenden Hoffnung aus der Vergangenheit. Die Twitter-News #Davos sollte man auch nicht lesen, wenn man noch Hoffnung hat. Denken wir ab jetzt an Obama: ‘Yes, we can!’

- Ob und inwieweit Bewertungen und Kommentare wertvoll sind für das Business 3.0 überdenkt Michael Zeuthen in einem kurzen ‘Review’, wobei er u.a. auf die Vorteile für die Kundenbindung und Preispolitik für Unternehmen eingeht.

- Auch wenn die Publikumsverlage noch nicht 100%-ig dem Social Media Weg folgen, gibt es doch schon zahlreiche erstaunliche Aktivitäten. Leander Wattig hat die zusammengefasst und eine beachtliche Liste von Blogs, Communities, Foren, Widgets, Podcasts, etc. gefunden.

PS: AT Internet startet eine Blogger-Olympiade. Professionelle Blogger sollten sich schnell anmelden und ihr Können beweisen.

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