Duncan Pierce duncanpierce.org

Advice from Internet marketing pundits is becoming like rock and roll was to a previous generation—it sounds like just a bunch of noise. Every blog-as-media-outlet, thought-leader platform, and social technology company’s website screams top 10 ways to do this and how-to posts to do that.

And marketing professionals are left trying to filter the wheat from the chaff.

The challenge marketing and brand managers face today, however, is not the basic how-tos of social media. They need less of the top five and top sevens and top 10s, and more content that marries the tactical to-dos and the strategic approach that ties social media marketing into other channels and systems to drive business.

Whether it’s the blogs you read, the webinars you sign up for, or the conferences and events you attend, there’s got to be a level of push back if these channels aren’t answering your questions. It’s not just a matter of filtering out the B.S. from the meaty substance anymore. Marketing decision-makers need to hold their trusted resources to higher standards, too. It’ll make all of our efforts more effective.

So, if I were marketing your business, here are several questions I would ask when reading blogs, sifting through white papers, or listening to experts and practitioners talk about social media marketing:

Instead of giving me broad advice, can you please cite real examples of companies doing that very thing and seeing success?

Too many of us spout off ideas or hypotheticals when it comes to executing on social media marketing. And not enough of us do the work to say, “Here’s how you can do this and here’s an actual example that shows it could work.” We’re far enough along in the social world now that in many cases there are case studies to show proof. Let’s see them.

How are these companies budgeting for and around social media? What about staffing?

One company’s success story does little for my brand and my business if I don’t have a full understanding of how much it cost, how many people they had to throw at it, and how they worked around typical inter-office resistance to social media marketing efforts. Give me deeper context, so I can have a more clear understanding of the situation.

The case study is interesting, but where are the business metrics? What needle did this move for the company?

Like knowing the context of the case studies, if I don’t see business metrics, you’re just illustrating another example of how wonderful the make-believe world of social media is. I don’t want fluff. I want hard numbers that can help me prepare my own strategies.

How did you come about the metrics? What analytics or measurement services or mechanisms provided your data?

It’s frustrating to have someone say, “This lowered our call center costs by $64,000,” as a flippant aside to a customer service story. Back up and tell me how you were able to determine that number so I can better understand how to find it in my business. Surely you don’t think one issue solved on Twitter means that person would have absolutely called the call center? Show me the math.

Speaking of data, where did it come from? What is your sample size? And what’s the +/- of that statistical analysis.

Social technology companies anonymizing their own user data is interesting, but perhaps not altogether useful for my specific business. And if your sample size isn’t big enough, the data isn’t relevant. Further, if you’re really offering up research, there should be margins of error and context added to the information, so I don’t buy a bill of goods that turns out to be less relevant than I need.

Did you analyze just numbers or did you also look at the content or qualitative data that goes along with your statistics?

Everyone wants to tell me what the data says, but social media marketing is a world predicated on content. Why isn’t anyone analyzing the content to know what fosters better engagement? Feed me stats all you want, but I need some analysis, too.

These and many other questions will hold bloggers, speakers, consultants, and the like much more accountable for their advice and information. Better advice and information will make your jobs as marketers easier and the content you consume more effective. We’ve passed the sandbox stage of social media. It’s time to elevate our industry by forcing the tackling of these types of issues.

This furthering of the industry thinking is what inspired me to start my own traveling conference series. Explore visits five cities in the United States this year. The first event takes place on Feb. 17 in Dallas, Texas. Our speakers have been challenged to push your thinking. Attendees will be challenged to push back. In the end, we’re all going to learn a lot more and a lot more efficiently.

To sign up for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth, register online and use the discount code MPROFS for a 50-percent discount (just $200 total)! To stay apprised of plans, including exclusive ticket prices and early notifications on the other four events, sign up for the email notifications for the city of your choice on the Explore event page at Social Media Explorer.

P.S. Want to attend Explore Dallas-Fort Worth for FREE? Zero? Zilch? Nada? You could win a free ticket if you share this post on Twitter AND include the hashtag #ExploreMarketingProfs. Doing so puts you in the running to be one of four lucky folks who will win a free pass to Explore Dallas! We’ll draw the names randomly on Friday, February 10, and will notify you via Twitter.

A guest post by Sarika Periwal of karmaCRM.

Talking is the best tool of a salesperson. The only way that you have face to face of convincing a person to buy a specific product or service is by convincing them that they need it. This includes highlighting the benefits that the product brings to their life to make it simpler.

It also means that to be a successful salesperson you need to have impeccable communication skills. However, this is not an inherent skill but one that has to be developed through practice. Here are a few things that you should keep in mind when you next deliver your sales pitch to your prospective client.

Be clear in diction and pronunciation. To convince your prospective client to do anything, you need to ensure that he or she can actually understand what you are saying. The words you use need to be familiar to the prospective client. You must also be clear in diction and have correct pronunciation of the words that you use. It is not a bad idea to try out your sales pitch on a colleague before you try it out on a prospective client. They will be able to tell you just what to tone down and may even remind you of points that you may like to add to the pitch.

Keep it up to date. No service or product stays the same. In this age of competition, all companies are constantly offering newer and better products to their customers. As a salesperson, you need to be well-aware of what these changes are, so that you can communicate them to prospective clients. The information that you give them must always be the latest, and so your sales pitch has to be updated regularly.

Give all relevant information. Nothing is as irritating as being given half the details. After all, would it kill you to mention all the record documentation that you need before your client can make a purchase? Or mention all the features that would be beneficial to the client when he buys the product? A good salesperson will know which details must be shared and which they must let the client ask after. That makes the process more interactive and the client more satisfied with the answers he gets. And a satisfied client is always going to come back for another purchase from the company.

Be prepared to handle questions. If you do your homework well, it should not be a problem for you to handle any extra questions that a client asks. By demonstrating how well you know your company and product, you build confidence of the customer in your product or service. However, every once in a while, you may get asked a question that stumps you. In this situation, honesty is the best policy. Let the client know that you are unaware of the answer and that you will find out from the concerned authority and get back to them. Then do that in the follow-up call that you give them.

Sarika Periwal represents KarmaCRM, an online CRM system that helps manage customer data.

On this Free Friday, check out all the free Marketing Smarts podcasts organized neatly on one page for you. Hosted by MarketingProfs own Matt Grant, this weekly podcast features in-depth interviews with bright, engaging marketers. You’ll get insights and advice that will inspire you to pump up your marketing.

Podcast topics include:

• Making the Most of a Mobile Moment (with Tim Hayden of 44Doors)
• Sally Hogshead and the $500 Cup of Coffee (with author Sally Hogshead)
• Have You Killed an Innovation Today? (with author and professor David Owen)
• Calculating the ROI of Social Media (with guest Nichole Kelly)
• Unleashing Creativity, One Team at a Time (with author Alicia Adams)
• Why Humor Belongs in Marketing (with guest Tim Washer)

Visit the Marketing Smarts podcast page for a complete list of our info-packed episodes.

A guest post by Sarah Goliger of HubSpot.

When it comes to converting your leads into sales, lead management is a crucial and powerful tool. Most of your leads will not be ready to engage with a salesperson after their first conversion, but are potentially qualified and require further nurturing and development.

Lead management gives you the tools you need to filter out your less-qualified leads and provide them with educational content through targeted lead nurturing campaigns, which will bring them closer to being ready for that sales call.

However, this is only one of many functions of lead management, which can actually benefit your marketing and sales teams in different ways. Here are seven benefits of implementing really great lead management.

1. You can determine when your leads are sales-ready. Lead scoring, which is part of good lead management, allows you to gauge your leads’ potential interest in your product or service based on factors that are important to your business, such as job titles, what forms they’ve filled out, or other criteria that is important to you. You should work with your sales team and marketing analytics to decide upon the criteria that you will use to score your leads. As you continue executing your lead management strategies, you can collect information to help you further optimize your lead scoring schema. You can compare your leads’ scores against that of your ideal customer or your sales team’s top-quality leads to help you understand when your leads are ready to be handed over to your sales team.

2. You don’t lose your unqualified leads. About 50% of B2B sales leads are not ready to buy after their first conversion, according to a Gleanster survey. Instead of wasting your sales team’s valuable time or just tossing these leads out the window altogether, you should place them in lead nurturing campaigns. By using well-timed campaigns with matching content to their original interest, you can guide your leads along the path from unqualified to qualified or determine who is permanently unqualified. Sounds a lot better than losing out on half the ROI of your lead generation efforts, doesn’t it?

3. Your sales team can operate more efficiently. Lead intelligence tools allow you to provide your sales team with various important and highly useful pieces of information, such as the level of activity of a lead, which pages of your website they have visited, what marketing emails they have received, and more. Lead scoring is another helpful tool for allowing your salespeople to prioritize their calls based on which leads are the most sales-ready (or “warmest”). Thus, effective lead management allows your sales team to work more efficiently and convert more leads to customers in less time.

4. You can position yourself as a thought leader in the industry. The main idea behind lead nurturing is that you are providing content to your unqualified leads to educate them further about your field, your company, and/or your product or service. By sharing this information with leads to help them with their decisions, especially before they ask for it, you make it more likely that they will view you as an authority in your industry. It is also likely that they will share your content with others, thereby spreading the word about your company and your offers.

5. You can get a better understanding of your leads’ needs. Lead intelligence tools can help you determine your leads’ behavior patterns on a higher level. They’ll show you which offers your leads downloaded, in what order they downloaded them, which pages of your site they visited, how many times they visited each, and so on. The trends you find in this data can be used to inform your content strategy (e.g. 23% of our highest quality leads downloaded this ebook) as well as your lead nurturing campaigns (e.g. the email send for this webinar was most effective for leads who had downloaded that whitepaper).

6. You can establish trust by building relationships with your leads. By understanding your leads’ behavior and needs, and using this with closely targeted lead nurturing campaigns, you show your leads that you know what they are looking for—and you’re ready to help them. This not only educates them about the specific topic or product in which they are interested, but also builds more trust, thereby making them more likely to convert to customers.

7. You can better measure your marketing and sales ROI. Lead management gives you the tools to track and analyze your lead metrics throughout the entire sales cycle. Even after your leads have been handed off to your sales team, you can continue to refine, score, and evaluate as needed. You should be able to identify what works (and what doesn’t work) for your business and your lead management process, and optimize accordingly to yield the highest possible ROI.

Lead management isn’t always easy. The deep understanding of your leads and their needs is not something that anyone develops before diving into lead management. Creating and refining your strategy takes time, but you will end up with a seamless lead management process that will provide you with more qualified leads in less work for your sales organization.

Sarah Goliger is an inbound marketer at HubSpot, a marketing software company based in Cambridge, MA that makes inbound marketing and lead management software.

In recent months, Netflix made big changes to its service offerings. First, a 60-percent price hike, then an announcement that it was spinning its DVD mail service into a new company called Qwikster, and finally a decision not to split off its DVD service after all. Whatever you think of the changes, I think most of us agree that Netflix could have handled things a bit differently in terms of communications and customer experience.

Change is necessary for almost any business. In fact, two of the most important jobs of any marketer are to anticipate customer needs as they evolve over time, and then translate those emerging needs into the next thing you do for customers. Change can be positive and very profitable if these two jobs are done well. If not—as I believe we have in this case with what Netflix did—change can be stressful for customers and shareholders (and you).

With that, let’s take a closer look at a few of Netflix’s missteps—and lessons you can take away, as marketers, and use in your day-to-day work:

1. Leading with a price change. A 60-percent price increase was the first of many changes Netflix customers would hear about. Ouch. Right off the bat, customers were riled up. Although the reality that the 60-percent increase translated to just a few dollars more per month for most customers, the problem was that customers began to re-evaluate the value of Netflix’s service. Lesson: Carefully consider where price increases fall on the timeline of announcing business changes.

2. Failing to explain why in an authentic way. Prices often change for goods and services, but when times are tough, people want an explanation for price increases. To be fair, Netflix did write a detailed blog post on the changes. However, had they offered more insight into why the changes were happening in the first place, customers may have been more understanding and accepting. One possible reason it could have pointed to: Netflix’s licensing payments for content have become more expensive. Lesson: Be authentic. Most customers will understand business decisions if they are given a full explanation. And, don’t be afraid to provide more detail to your customers—it will help them better understand the change.

3. Losing sight of customer effort. When Netflix announced it was creating a second entity, Qwikster, it split its core services into two separate businesses. Let’s look at this from the customer perspective: One day, there’s one company handling all your entertainment content needs, and the next day, there are two companies. Customer translation: Two bills, two websites, two account logins, and two customer service numbers. Whose life was made easier by this decision? Netflix simply lost sight of its promise of convenience and effort in its target customer experience. Lesson: Every decision you make should be driven by the clearly defined, ideal version of your customer experience. Plain and simple.

4. Forgetting why your business exists. When Netflix launched and later added instant streaming, it filled a need for customers who wanted any media, at any time, through one service. By splitting into two companies, Netflix lost track of the problem they originally solved for their customers. The company literally moved backwards. Lesson: Remember the original need your business filled for your customers—the offering that made you successful in the first place. Even as your business changes and evolves, don’t stray from that mission.

5. Falling into the trade-off trap. Netflix made massive operational changes, and in doing so, short-shrifted their customers’ experience. It doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition, though. Does it take more planning and thoughtfulness to achieve both? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Lesson: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking operational excellence and customer experience is a tradeoff. You can have both. Top performers in any industry know this.

6. Leaving your customers behind. Netflix has always been ahead of the curve, but this time they were leaping a bit too far ahead of its customers. There will likely come a day when everyone will be streaming, and DVDs will fall by the wayside; but we’re not quite there yet. The infrastructure for streaming is simply not available to all consumers. In addition, not enough in-demand, “hot” content is available via streaming from Netflix (or anywhere for that matter). Netflix’s aim to solve an emerging need for anytime, anywhere streaming is smart and spot on. It just executed too early. Lesson: Be careful not to move your customers to a future they can’t have yet. You can make a good decision—just make it at the right time.

One thing Netflix did right: They recognized that it wasn’t worth pushing a bad plan forward and decided not to split the company in two (although they did keep the increased prices). They didn’t avoid a few bruises, though. The company lost 800,000 subscribers in Q3.

What did you take away from the Netflix debacle? What lessons did you learn?

I’m an early adopter of nearly every technology, but for some reason, Pinterest never appealed to me. Admittedly, this is probably because I knew what a massive time suck it could be and that I’d probably become obsessed with it.

When the time came to consider if Pinterest was a good fit for the MarketingProfs brand, a few factors had to be considered:

• What goal can it accomplish?
• How do we measure success?
• Who will manage it?
• What added value does it provide over other social networks?

Because Pinterest is becoming an increasingly important channel for marketers, we felt it was only right to take a stab at it ourselves. Our goal? Branding/Awareness of our Free Basic Membership. Measuring Success? All shared links are tracked with Google Analytics to test conversions and referral traffic. Who will do it? The great thing about Pinterest is that you can divide the work by assigning contributors, so we chose four team members across the marketing and content teams. What’s the added value? We feel it allows us to tell a broader story of MarketingProfs, of how we see and love marketing, a story that isn’t easily told elsewhere.

I’ll admit it. It’s been fun, really fun—and we are tracking nicely towards our success metrics. But like all new things, we have to take a step back and analyze if this channel is really an effective one for marketers everywhere.

Here’s the good news: Monetate, a company that provides marketing agility products and expert optimization resources, has done the digging for us and packaged it nicely in an infographic (don’t you love that?).

Here are my 3 top takeaways:

1. Pinterest is driving more traffic than Google+.
2. Pinterest’s unique visitors have increase 329% from September to December 2011.
3. To be successful on Pinterest, you should promote a lifestyle.

Check out the infographic below and be sure to comment on your current/future use of Pinterest. And to follow the MarketingProfs boards, click on over to our Pinterest Account.

Happy pinning!

“Mobile is a behavior. It’s not a technology.” That’s what  Tim Hayden, CMO of 44Doors, told me when we were discussing the “mobile moment”—that instant in which a customer or potential customer encounters your company on a mobile device—and why so many companies seem resistant to making the leap into mobile.

If these companies take a look at their analytics and see that fewer than 10% of visitors to their site are visiting via a handheld device, Tim pointed out, then they really won’t see the need for creating a mobile version of it.

And who can blame them? Just because the technology is available and relatively easy to deploy, if it doesn’t match the behavior of the audience, it’s not worth the investment.

Of course, as that percentage inches towards 20%, more and more companies will start taking notice. If 1 out of 5 visitors to your site were met with a frustrating experience, that could begin to pose problems, right?

How to avoid those problems, and why now is a good time to experiment with mobile were some of the topics we covered in the most recent episode of our Marketing Smarts podcast. As Tim put it, “This will be the primary device that consumers will use to initially find you and interact with your and you better prepare for it today.”

If you don’t, he adds, “You’re going to be quite figuratively caught with your pants down.”

What does such preparation for the rapidly approaching mobile moment look like? It means putting in the effort to ensure that when customers are coming at you with a smartphone or a tablet or whatever, that you are providing them with a positive mobile experience, the elements of which Tim described as follows:

1. Make Sure They Can See It

Mobile screens are small, so your fonts need to be legible, your images need to be recognizable, and your content needs to accessible without unnecessary pinching and squeezing.

2. Get It to Them Fast

Aside from ensuring that your site or page loads quickly, Tim also recommends getting visitors to a decision point as quickly as possible. Do you want them to subscribe to something? Make it easy to do so. Do you want them to get in touch? Use a prominent “Click to Call” button. Do you want them to take a survey? Make it short and sweet. Never forget, it’s a mobile moment; make it easy for the mobile user to get what they want and move on.

3. Budget for All Platforms

While Tim recommends that you practice due diligence and prioritize the platform you want to start with—based on user behavior—the adoption landscape is continually shifting, and you need to be prepared to eventually have versions of your site, landing pages, and apps for iPhone, Android, and in the not-too-distant future Windows powered devices.

4. Be Useful

Finally, if you are moving beyond mobilizing your Web properties and venturing into app territory, you have to ask yourself, “Are people really going to use this in a crowded sea of app upon app?” If your app doesn’t solve a problem that your customers have, or solve it more efficiently than the options they already enjoy, then they just won’t use it and the money you invest in it will be wasted.

Those are just some of the lessons offered by Tim in this episode of Marketing Smarts. We also talk about QR codes, stupidity in the use of emerging technologies, and, believe it or not, Billy Ray Cyrus! If you’d like to hear the episode in its entirety, you may do so here:

So, what, if anything, is stopping you from maximizing the mobile moment?

A guest post by Franz Keller of RSC Architects.

As a multiple-hat-wearing marketing director for a boutique commercial architecture firm, one of the many responsibilities I am tasked with is to make regular updates to our company website, as well as our social media outlets. I have also begun to keep an eye on our website stats, “follows,” and “likes” on our social media sites. The trends I’ve seen lately are interesting, if not a bit alarming. As our social media activity grows, our website traffic has remained relatively unchanged. So, I’ve begun to wonder: What’s the point of having both? Is social media going to be the death of the traditional website?

Our website, which was professionally designed, was rolled out just over two years ago. We spent an exorbitant amount of time and money creating a simple yet comprehensive site that would offer clients and prospects a glimpse into our portfolio and expertise. As the site was designed by a seasoned webmaster, not many people in our organization (myself included) would step up to make regular updates to the site out of fear of mucking up what someone else worked so hard to create. Therefore, we have retained said webmaster to make ongoing—usually quarterly—changes to our site. This typically involves project updates, news feeds, press releases, and any awards we may have won. The fee we pay is not outrageous, but it certainly adds up.

As the proliferation of social media sites took hold, I approached the owner of our firm with the idea of creating some pages for our company. Not knowing much about social media sites other than the amount of time his kids were wasting on them, he rightfully had many questions: Will Facebook increase sales? Will we get new clients through LinkedIn? What the heck are we going to post on Twitter?

“Who cares?” I replied. “It doesn’t cost anything, and plus [insert competitor’s name] is doing it so we should,too.” And with that, we leapt feet first on the social media bandwagon—not really knowing where we were headed. I immediately created a corporate Facebook page, company LinkedIn page, and Twitter account. I implored my fellow employees to create LinkedIn pages, put social media links in their email signatures, and have their colleagues “like” us on Facebook. We even had our webmaster add Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook buttons to our website, for a fee, of course. In no time, we were a social media juggernaut.

Now, by design, the architecture industry is not one that would benefit from social media. Most firms aren’t offering coupons, launching new products, running specials on our services, or getting foot traffic through our doors. Yet a large portion of us use social media sites for other things, such as announcing new projects, welcoming new hires, and posting other relevant company or industry news. Similarly, this is why most of us created websites in the first place.

Depending on your level of web design acumen or if you employ an in-house webmaster, social media can be that everyman medium to getting info out into cyberspace instantly. On our end, we post professional photography of our projects, news and announcements, and if we’re going to attend an upcoming event. We even link our quarterly e-newsletter to our social media accounts. So, what the heck do we need a glossy and expensive website for anyway?

Quite simply, the answers are: stability and familiarity. Think of the company website as a landline phone number and social media as a prepaid cell phone. Both will allow you to make a call, receive a call, and offer a number at which to contact you. But there is sense of trustworthiness, standing, and permanence to a landline phone number that you just don’t get by using a prepaid cell phone.

Social media can be viewed in the same way—anyone can use it and it doesn’t take a whole lot of expertise or credibility to set it up. In fact, it’s often difficult to judge if a company Facebook page is “official” or merely set up by an outside user or group. Furthermore, people are more apt to click through to an actual website in a search engine result (such as Google) than clicking through to a URL that is linked to a business page on Facebook or LinkedIn, or worse, tweeted on Twitter. Social media feeds quench our thirst for instant gratification and therefore, the information is fleeting. We receive a news update, and as quickly as it’s received, it’s forgotten.

A static website offers a permanent location where visitors can return time and time again and find the information they need, and not have to scroll through endless pages of status updates. When a person clicks the Twitter button on a webpage, the page URL is then tweeted in their Twitter account to all their followers. Some of their followers will read the tweet and few will actually click the link in it. The same thing happens on a Facebook page. You have to go to the info page to view the URL to the actual business website. Specific to our industry, while it’s nice to post project photos on our social media sites, nothing beats a portfolio of full-screen, easily-navigable, high resolution photos on your website.

While social media does in fact help to boost a company’s search engine optimization (SEO), nothing beats a properly coded website for SEO, and companies would be wise not to abandon efforts of raising SEO value through a business website over increasing your business presence in social media accounts. It is important to remember that social media was never meant to be used to push businesses—rather it is a way to stay in touch. As many of us still use social media solely as a way to stay in touch with family and friends, most people I’ve spoken with feel that it’s a bit unprofessional to push or oversell a business on social pages. It’s like getting a telemarketing call when you’re at home eating dinner.

Your company website should be the place where you push your business. Our company’s Internet marketing strategy—whether via social media, e-newsletters, or any other correspondence—has always been to drive people to our website. It does not work the other way around. Sure, we have links to our social media sites on our website, but we are in no way trying to push visitors away from our site. To promote your actual website over a Facebook or LinkedIn page drives traffic to your main website and will increase its popularity, and its SEO value.

To have a well-structured presence on the web, it’s important to treat your website and social media pages as you would if you had to manage two competitive and insecure employees. Allow them to coexist, nurture a working relationship between them, and try not to let one get more attention that the other. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of each, utilize them accordingly, and don’t allow one to usurp the other. You will find that, working in tandem, social media and your old-fashioned website will lend credibility, professionalism and a sense of internet savvy to your company.

Franz Keller is Marketing Director at RSC Architects.

A guest post by Sean O’Brien of PGi.

Companies are incorporating video meetings into their business routines to communicate with distant business partners, grow and nurture customer relationships, and keep teleworkers in the loop. However, unlike other technologies that most professionals are comfortable with, many business users are still learning how to get the most from video technology.

At PGi, we host a lot of virtual meetings, conference calls and web conferences. Now with this year’s launch of iMeet, our web-based video conferencing application, we host an awful lot of video conferences, too. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions and suggestions to help you enter your next video conference with confidence.

• What should I wear? For everyday meetings: As long as there are no pajamas on screen, whatever your work dress code is should be fine. For formal meetings, client presentations or interviews, remember that dark, pastel and solid colors show best. Red clothing and big, shiny jewelry should always be avoided as it may cause a glare with the lights.
• When should I join the video conference? Arriving on time—or even early—is always appropriate for any meeting. For a video meeting, show up a few minutes early to ensure your computer and webcam are working properly. Give yourself the opportunity to adjust your webcam settings and get comfortable on camera.
• How should I prepare for a video conference? Treat it like any other meeting—you always want to come prepared, whether you are meeting virtually or face to face. If you are presenting to the group, be sure to have tested any digital materials in advance.
• What about international video conferences? Consider the different time zones of your participants. While someone in Australia might join a conference call with people in the United States at 7 AM local time, they probably won’t want to turn on their webcam if they are still home getting ready for work.

• Is lighting important in a video conference? Like any camera, a webcam’s picture may be improved or ruined on account of lighting. Avoid bright and dim lighting, back-lighting (such as when your back is to a window) and harsh overhead lights.
• Where should I sit and where should I look? Be aware of visual distractions like pathways behind you or the camera, or open blinds. Position yourself to eliminate as many distractions as possible. Sit within reach of your keyboard, but not too close to the webcam. It can be difficult, but remember to look into the camera, not at your screen. Pay attention to what you do on camera. Avoid tapping your feet (which can make the rest of your body move slightly) or making other movements that could be distracting.
• Any tips on camera placement? For most people, placing the camera higher than eye-level and angled slightly down is more flattering than placing the camera at eye-level. Experiment with webcam placement and, if needed, add a stack of books under your laptop to achieve your preferred angle.
• What is the appropriate amount of eye contact and body language? Eye contact doesn’t have to be continual, but make sure that your eyes don’t leave the camera range so you portray that you’re focused. Make sure that your body language isn’t over the top. If you make hand gestures, be sure that they’re in the camera’s range.
• Should I display images? If your video-conferencing system permits visuals, then yes, share them with those in the meeting. Including visuals and videos makes the meeting more interactive.

How do I end a video conference meeting? Just like with any meeting, make sure to leave enough time for questions, and to assign action items and follow ups. Sometimes, it’s fun to capture a few screen grabs when folks are talking on video to remind attendees of an important point during follow ups.

As with anything, practice makes perfect. Video-conferencing technology isn’t necessary for every meeting, but it’s a great complement to your management toolkit. And getting comfortable “on camera” can make you an even more effective and productive leader. By following these suggestions, you and your colleagues can ensure that even if you aren’t in the same room, the connection will be just as valuable, that you’ll make the best impression and get the most value from your next virtual meeting.

Sean O’Brien is executive vice president of strategy and communications at PGi, the meetings expert.

Want to gain and retain more customers through improved cross-channel customer interactions? Then check out this Free Friday’s offering: the opportunity to attend the free seminar Optimizing the Customer Journey: Strategy and Case Study.

Guest speaker and vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, Shar VanBoskirk, will give you the scoop on how to optimize your interactive marketing and improve your customers’ brand experience in four steps using CORE principles:

• Customize
• Optimize
• Respond
• Empower

By attending this free seminar, you’ll learn how to speed up your customer journey; identify and empower your brand advocates; and how to develop a unified cross-channel view of your online customers.

The seminar is on Tue., Feb 7, 2012, at 1 PM Eastern time (10 AM Pacific time). Get details on this free seminar here. Enjoy!

The Public Relations Society (PRSA) recently announced an effort to update the formal definition of Public Relations. They invited PR professionals to submit their suggestions for how to define what we do. And they unveiled the three leading contenders to become the new official definition of what we in PR do at work.

The top three were compiled from more than 625 responses PRSA received. If you go to the site and click on “read annotations” under each definition, you can get a good idea of why certain words and phrases were used.

I’m really not crazy about any of them, although my initial preference is for definition #1:  ”Public relations is the management function of researching, engaging, communicating, and collaborating with stakeholders in an ethical manner to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results.”

I don’t like using the word “stakeholders” in this definition. Perhaps the phrase “various relevant publics” might be better. In the context of, say, marketing or media relations, a consumer may not really be a stakeholder, since he or she might easily have other options when considering a product or service. Thus, there is really no “stake” in what an organization does or says in that case.

Here’s candidate #2: “Public relations is a strategic communication process that develops and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their key publics.”

To me, #2, has a basic weakness in the words “mutually beneficial relationships.” This assumes there is any relationship at all between an organization and a key public, and it also assumes that what the organization wants would be beneficial to that public. Not necessarily so, for reasons similar to the problem with #1 and more.

Definition #3 is: “Public relations is the engagement between organizations and individuals to achieve mutual understanding and realize strategic goals.”

I think this is too simplistic is too simplistic and, like #2, makes some risky assumptions, in this case regarding “realize strategic goals.” Whose strategic goals might these be, and how can we assume all parties involved in the “engagement” have even remotely-similar strategic goals? And, by the way, I don’t like the word “engagement.” It’s a buzzword at the moment, but it may be passé in a year. We shouldn’t include buzzwords in a definition, or the definition may become obsolete before the ink dries.

Jack O’Dwyer, who has been chronicling the PR industry for some 40 years, raised a good point in his comment to my own blog post on this subject. None of the proposed definitions make reference to specialization in PR. “The real story of PR,” Jack says, “is that large special practice areas have been built up in the agencies over the past 20 years and the O’Dwyer Co. is the only one tracking them (health care, tech, financial and about nine others). We had 594 such rankings for 2010, a gain of 20%.”

Although it means making the definition longer, perhaps we should heed Jack’s advice and make mention of the fact that PR can and often does take many different forms and functions since it’s hard to lump IR (Investor Relations) into the same boat as media relations or employee relations.

I have a feeling we’re going to end up with a definition that still falls far short of what PR does and its real role in an organization, but I am happy to see PRSA making the effort. Next, I’d like to see PRSA address issues of PR for PR and better PR education and training.

What if you wanted to open up a coffee shop in a hip, urban neighborhood? Chances are you would already face competition from other indy shops, Starbucks, and the local equivalent of Dunkin’ Donuts. How could you go about differentiating yourself?

The main problem is simple: You and your competitors basically sell the same thing. This means that your point of differentiation will have little to do with your product and everything to do with creating an aura around that product that others find fascinating.

One way to do this, according to this week’s guest on Marketing Smarts, Sally Hogshead (our SocialTech keynote speaker), would be to offer a $500 cup of coffee. The $500 cup of coffee would make your shop fascinating because it activates several fascination triggers that Sally describes in her book, Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation.

First of all, the $500 cup of coffee activates the “mystique” trigger: “Why does it cost so much? What could possibly be in it? Is the sugar actually crushed diamonds? Is the cream really liquid gold?”

Second of all, it activates the “prestige” trigger: “Well, if they serve a $500 cup of coffee, they must attract a rather high-rolling clientele. I wonder who I’ll meet at the shop?”

Thirdly, this holy grail of java might trigger the “passion” trigger, creating a heightened desire for the coveted $500 cup. “If it costs $500, it must taste amazing!”

Finally, since there is something undeniably decadent about it, the $500 cup of coffee would trigger the “rebellion” trigger, for in the days of the Occupy movement, dropping five bills on a cup of joe definitely sends the signal, “I don’t care what anybody thinks about this! I’m going to do it!”

What about the remaining three triggers? Well, if you got the message out that you put as much care into brewing your $2 cup as you do the $500 cup, with the same focus on quality and consistency, then you’d be pushing the “trust” trigger.

If you set a limit on how many $500 cups you were willing to serve—”Only three left!”—you’d be working the “alarm” trigger.

And if you could make the claim that you were both the inventor of the $500 cup of coffee and that studies had proven it 2,000 times more powerful than a regular cup, you’d be playing with the “power” trigger.

That, in a nutshell, is how you might apply Sally’s approach to the puzzle of brand differentiation. However, as Sally explains in this podcast, things get a lot more interesting when people begin thinking about how her lessons could be applied to their own lives. After all, as a study she conducted along with the folks at Kelton Research showed, people would be willing to pay, on average, $288/month to be the most fascinating person in the room!

What make fascination on a personal level so interesting is that, as Sally demonstrates, we are hard-wired to be fascinating (as well as to succumb to fascination). In other words, it should come naturally to us. The sad part is it doesn’t.

Why not? Well, according to Sally, we tend to lose touch with our “unique fascination strength” as we grow up. Thus, becoming fascinating means rediscovering those things that made us (and potentially make us) fascinating in the first place.

As Sally puts its, “The goal is not to learn how to be fascinating; the goal is to unlearn how to be boring.”

If you’d like to unlearn how to be boring, and learn how to become more fascinating, please feel free to take Sally’s F-Score Personality Test and check out our entire conversation right here:

Of course, you can also listen to this and past podcasts in iTunes. If you do so, feel free to leave us a review over there!

Finally, if you would like to see Sally live, then come on out to SocialTech 2012 in March in Seattle!

Social media has always involved sharing quality content with your network, but in its current state, B2B companies need to understand how social media can connect with their sales cycle. Companies need to find prospective customers for their products and services, and they need those prospects to find them.

Traditionally, B2B marketers were responsible for generating leads at their companies. That role of marketing has not substantially changed with the advent of social media. But many social media purists have rejected the notion of using any part of social media to fill the sales funnel. They tell you that the funnel doesn’t even exist anymore. But no matter what these experts say, you still need to bring in new customers.

One important key to using social media to generate leads is to make sure you have calls-to-action (CTAs) as part of all the content you create. The best example of a CTA is a link at the end of a blog post that offers a reader the opportunity to learn about a topic in more depth by downloading an ebook. Many B2B companies go through all of the trouble of creating a blog and sharing the links through their social media profiles, but never provide a way to convert those visitors into leads. That is a huge missed opportunity. If links in the footer are not possible, whether for technical reasons or philosophical reasons, a CTA in the sidebar of the blog is also effective.

Part of driving traffic back to your site or blog requires building trust with your followers by offering value in the form of shared content. One of the best ways to build that trust is to share content by others more than that by you or your company. Many experts offer ratios for sharing content. I have seen it as low as five to one, and as high as sharing 12 links of others to every one of yours. And in the B2B world where the 80-20 rule seems to hover over all parts of business like an apparition, many subscribe to that ratio of posting 8 out 10 links to well-sourced content from outside of your company for every two that point back to your pearls of wisdom.

I sense some anticipation building in the reader and you are wondering what new ratio is just around the corner, but keep that ketchup in the bottle just a little longer. Before we get there, let’s talk about what kind of content you should be sharing. Remember, you are trying to build trust and provide value to your followers with this information. Your network needs to know that you have vetted what you are sharing, and not just retweeted or posted links based on headlines. The better quality content you share, the more likely people are to click on your links. This perception of quality will also be applied to your content, thereby increasing the number of clicks.

We are talking about lead generation for B2B companies. And those CTAs link to landing pages. A landing page is page that allows a prospect to complete the transaction of trading their contact information for a compelling offer. This can be a webinar sign-up form or a page to download an ebook. Without landing pages, it is impossible to convert the prospects to leads. And these are so important to the process, we have added them to the sharing ratio.

In The B2B Social Media Book, we present the 10-4-1 rule of sharing. For 10 links you share of third-party content, you can share four links that point to your own content. But the new wrinkle to this ratio is that it includes one direct link to a landing page. This is a direct sign-up for something your prospects will value. Sending traffic directly to the landing pages increases the conversions because you are increasing the number of people who reach the landing page.

This rule is platform agnostic. It is true for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Consider it on Google+ too. Any time you are sharing content, you should be following this rule. This doesn’t mean you need to share 15 links to content on every platform every day, especially if you are starting out. You should be trying to hit this ratio as an average.

Like many social media rules, this is one that should be a starting point, and you need to determine if it works for your company by tracking the data of your sharing patterns. Most sharing tools and links shorteners can provide you the data you need to understand your success rates. Although the most important metric is how much traffic you send to your landing pages, and what percentage of those visitors convert to leads. With these ideas in place, you can start using social media to generate leads for your B2B company.

“As much as people embrace all things digital, they’re much fussier when they turn into actual shoppers. In fact, QR codes and social media have very little impact, according to new research from Catapult Action-Biased Marketing, a Westport Connecticut-based researcher.” Those are the opening lines of a recent Media Post Marketing Daily article, “Shoppers Spurn Social, QR Codes.”

Wow. So let’s dig deeper. According to Catapult Marketing’s Brian Cohen, digital shopper marketing director, “We looked at 1,200 consumers, and the role that social media is playing is not as large as we thought it would be. It’s a good consumer and advocacy tool, and it builds brand awareness.” But he went on to say that when the consumer’s mind turns to actual shopping, they aren’t tuning into social media. Rather, they are checking out company websites, Internet ratings, and review sites. Especially for big ticket purchases. Well, I think that makes sense.

As for QR codes, Cohen cites the rapid adoption of new technologies by marketers without full consideration of the customer. He points out that many consumers who don’t own iPhones see smart codes and that translates to: “You can’t play” to them. He also states there’s a “fatigue” among iPhone users where QR codes are concerned; interaction with them is down 20%. Besides fatigue, QR codes aren’t always delivering interesting or useful material.

The study revealed two consumer mindsets when engaging with QR codes:

• Will it save me time?
• Will it save me money?

Did the research only paint a less-than-rosy picture of digital media? No. If marketers use it intelligently to share tips, ideas, engaging videos, and worthwhile content, it does help build brand awareness.

Research studies like these have value because they reveal important data at specific points in time. Marketers love to adopt new technology but they need to understand how consumers are engaging with it,what works, and what doesn’t. They also need to know whether they’re optimizing each digital tool effectively.

That constitutes value to consumers over and above their need to save time and save money, obviously. But it’s only part of the marketing picture; other tools are necessary to drive actual purchase decisions.

• What’s your take on this research? Does it corroborate your own analysis of the effectiveness of social media and QR codes?
• Do you think the results of this study point to a need for marketers to rethink their social media strategies?
• Do marketers sometimes jump on new technologies too soon without understanding their implications? Or how best to use them?
• Are we simply bombarding the consumer to the point of fatigue with all of this? Should we use less but better targeted social media?

I’d love to hear from all of you social media mavens out there on this one!

Like an awkward actor on stage, McDonalds has found itself at the mercy of hecklers. McDonalds promoted a tweet for feel-good stories regarding the brand, #McDStories, only to find the hashtag taken over by Twitter users with a sense of the absurd.

Now, #McDStories serves as a case study for what not to do when promoting a tweet. So, what can you do to avoid ever causing such a hashtag nightmare for your brand?

1.) Be self-aware. Know your brand. “If your brand is controversial, political, has been getting bad press, has fierce competition, etc., promoting your tweet may not be a good idea,” says one of MarketingProfs own marketing and tweeting stars, Corey O’Loughlin.

“Here’s why: Promoting your tweet puts you on EVERYONE’S radar—not just your fans’ who would normally love to hear from you.” And when you are top of mind for all of Twitter, it is far more likely that you’ll attract attention from haters.

“When u make something w/pride, people can taste it,” – McD potato supplier #McDStories mcd.to/zIlXXu

— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) January 18, 2012

2.) Know why you are promoting your tweet. “What’s your desired outcome?” asks O’Loughlin. “What’s your call to action? What’s the promotion linked to? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, don’t tweet.”

3.) Do a test run. Send the tweet as a NON-promoted tweet to see what reaction it gets. If it’s not positive, why promote it?

4.) Support your tweet. One promoted tweet won’t stand on its own. You need to develop a plan for the promoted tweet. Be sure to support the promoted tweet with other tweets. If you’re promoting the world’s best mocha, also tweet about mochas, recipes, etc. Don’t leave the tweet out in the cold by its lonesome.

5.) Know when to pull the plug. If your promoted item is getting out of hand, pull the plug ASAP and start your damage control. (Reminder: Have a damage-control plan for your social media efforts.) “Hoping it will go away is not an effective social media marketing strategy,” says O’Loughlin.

Wondering about your own Twitter reputation? Check out our free guide, “How to be a Twitter Superfly in 12 Simple Steps.”

A guest post by Eric Anderson of White Horse.

Armed with smartphones and a determination to change the way they buy, shoppers are storming retail aisles. On-the-fly comparison-shopping, scanning, and research are creating new ways for marketers to influence in-aisle buying behavior. But as smartphone usage in the United States reaches critical mass, retailers’ response must evolve rapidly.

We set out to identify the areas of greatest opportunity for retailers and CPG to develop a mobile experience strategy that aligns with changing mobile behavior. Our research included a 390-person survey of smartphone users, as well as “shopalongs” with smartphone shoppers in a range of retail environments. The infographic below excerpts six key findings from that study, which is available for download.

Eric Anderson was recently named to iMedia’s annual list of 25 Digital Marketing Innovators in recognition of his work in applying new analytical methods to digital media. He has more than 17 years of marketing experience and 13 years of digital specialization. At White Horse, he has led marketing strategy for clients like Columbia Sportswear, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, and Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield. His book Social Media Marketing: Game Theory and the Emergence of Collaboration was published by Springer in 2010.

On this Free Friday, we’re inviting you to the Digital Marketing World: Smarter Marketer FREE virtual conference on Feb. 10.

This free virtual conference is extra-special because it’s both hosted by MarketingProfs and features MarketingProfs folks for its three info-packed sessions.

At 11 a.m. (Eastern time), MarketingProfs’s own Jo Roberts, product marketing manager, kicks off the open house  by discussing Five Traditional (Gasp!) Marcom Methods that (Still) Deliver Today. You’ll find out why in-person encounters, offline communications, and paid media promotions are vital to marketing plans. And Jo will give you the scoop on getting the most out of them.

Then Matt Snodgrass, our product marketing manager, pushes it to the next level by discussing How Gamification is Changing the Way We Market. Attend this one-hour session to learn about the basics of gamification and how this strategy can power up your marketing efforts.

And because we want you to use your membership to its fullest extent (and know how and where to get all the cool stuff we offer), Anne Yastremski, VP of Marketing, and Valerie Witt, VP of PRO and MPU, share how to make the most of MarketingProfs. They’ll give you tips and advice specific to MarketingProfs users. Plus, they’ll be answering questions in a live Q&A.

To learn more about this very special conference, get the details on the Smarter Marketer page. And then be sure to register for your free pass to DMW: Smarter Marketer.

A guest blog post by Lorianna Sprague of Web Talent Marketing.

Are Google’s Search changes unfairly putting Google+ content above other social media sites?

In October 2009, following the partnership of Bing and Twitter, Google announced a similar partnership whereby Google would include tweets in search results to serve the most up-to-the-minute results for search queries.

That agreement with Twitter came to an end in July, one month after the release of Google+, and ended Google’s real-time results in search. Bing and Twitter say they have continued their partnership as of September 2011, but there are no tweets or any sort of real-time results in Bing search today—not even for topics that are trending on Twitter. So, while they may have a partnership, it isn’t clear what they are doing with it.

With the release of Google’s Search, plus Your World there is a lot of discussion about Google forcing its social network on users in an effort to push out the competition: Facebook and Twitter.

This has been reinforced by comments made by Twitter:

“For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.

Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.

We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.”

Twitter believes it is being intentionally suppressed, and that it’s bad for the world.

However, in November 2011, Google released an algorithm called Freshness. The goal of Freshness was to quickly crawl the web and find up-to-the-second results for trending and news worthy topics in order to serve searchers with the most relevant and up-to-the-minute content possible. This has, in effect, gone out around Twitter—to some degree. Where a trustworthy news source may have written an article about breaking news and released it to Twitter instead of waiting for search engines to crawl their content so it could be found, now Google will find this breaking news through Freshness and serve it at the top of search results. Which areas will it miss that Twitter may be correct about? Things like Egyptian protests, and the here-and-there tweets about some major development that isn’t being covered by major news organizations? But is their fear really valid?

Let’s explore.

With the violence that broke in the Middle East this past year, a lot of the news came to the United States and other nations through Twitter and other social media sites. A lot of major news organizations failed to cover the stories in a timely enough fashion for news hungry searchers, and Al Jazeera English picked the stories up and became the source of a lot of news for many people. For those who could not get televised broadcasts of Al Jazeera, mainly people in the US, they turned to the web and Al Jazeera’s social profiles, such as Facebook and Twitter. I was one of those people.

Once major news organizations realized that they were losing audience to Al Jazeera, they picked up the stories and began coverage. Al Jazeera remained the most up-to-the minute reliable source other than nationals within the countries themselves, but, at that point, it was easier to find news and information about what was happening in the Middle East. While Twitter played a launching role in these developments, I don’t see Twitter’s role as being so influential in the future. Now, Al Jazeera is on top of social media and locating breaking news, and other news organizations also have their ear on the pulse of social media. What made it possible for the tweet to be found to begin with was that the Twitter user had a network who shared, and their networks shared, and so on. This is how social media works. If something breaks on Twitter, and it matters, people will pick it up and share/retweet. Whether this trends or not, those tweets can go directly to the Twitter accounts of news organizations to alert them to the news worthy story. The same can be said of first-hand footage of the Japan earthquake and tidal wave of last spring or events in the Sandusky trial. Twitter is no longer the only way to find news and updates on these major current events.

On a side note, tweets from individuals have little ability to be proven by 140 characters alone. When pictures and video are shared, it carries more weight and is more likely that news organizations will pay attention to it. So, there is room for a tweet alone to abuse the power of tweets automatically being included in search results simply for the keywords they may contain. Tweets should be verified before they are spread to the masses via a major player like Google , whose credibility will automatically be put behind those results and can be put on the line as a result. If Google cannot crawl the links in tweets and verify the sources and weigh their credibility, then I cannot imagine Google is comfortable putting their “relevance” stamp of approval behind Tweets.

A quick disclaimer: I am uncertain of the specific limitations standing between Google and Twitter users’ status feeds.

What does this have to do with Google’s Search, plus Your World? It means that Google has the searcher and its own well being in mind—not taking over the social media world and squashing Twitter through intentional suppression. Furthermore, this change isn’t mandatory. There is a button in the upper right-hand corner of the Google search screen that allows you to toggle between personalized search and un-personalized search (although, this is only relevant if you are logged into your Google account). If you are not logged in, you will automatically be served un-personalized results. This does not mean you won’t see a change in your un-personalized results, check out this article by Danny Sullivan about the change in relevance for Google search results.

I ran a test to see if Google’s new search method unfairly suppressed Facebook and Twitter results, as is being claimed by a number of people. On a test with all of the same advance search options (US-based, English results, most recent search results, etc.), I found that Google was the only one of the major three engines to include results from Tweetmeme and other sites that measure and report of Twitter trends; Facebook showed up for all three. I ran it a few more times on other topics trending in Twitter. Twitter profiles for individuals whose names were trending showed up in all of the search engines,including Google. Their Facebook profiles showed up in Google and Bing. None of the search engines showed an actual Tweet as a search result. So, if Google is suppressing Twitter, then so is Bing.

I re-ran this test again on Jan. 16, 2012, and found that for the term “tony allen,” which is trending in Twitter on that day, a tweet shows in the number two spot on both Bing and Yahoo. There are no Tweets in the Google feed. But it could be argued that the Google results are more highly relevant to the query—the tweet is fairly ambiguous. If I tailored my query in each search engine to look for “tony allen” only on site:twitter.com, Google’s results certainly leave something to be desired.

But if I changed the topic of these queries from Tony Allen to MLK (Martin Luther King), the results show something entirely different.

Google has indexed more recent Twitter status updates for the query “MLK” than either Bing or Yahoo. So, Google still seems to be the better place for up-to-the-minute, relevant search results.

Finally, Google results from Google+ were non-existent. For Google+ to be pushing Twitter and Facebook out of SERPs, it will have to increase in number, frequency, and be relevant to the topic—just like any other search results.

I believe, as I have always believed in regard to Google, that the main goal is to make each user a segment standing alone. Who you are, what you want, what you are looking for, and care about are unique to you. Google wants to give each user the most personalized and relevant online experience possible—that way they can tailor their advertising to you specifically and get the best conversions and ROI possible for its advertisers.

Lorianna Sprague is an SEO specialist with Web Talent Marketing, a growing Internet marketing company in Central Pennsylvania that servers medium to large companies nationwide.

“Marketing only has so many things to talk about, and eventually you get to the point where it has to be about the mindset.”

Julien Smith, author of The Flinch and co-author (along with Chris Brogan) of Trust Agents, is pondering a question in this week’s episode of Marketing Smarts. I am curious to know why he thinks that so many books, supposedly about marketing and business, seem more focused on self-actualization and personal empowerment.

“At the core of it,” he says, “after talking about it in so many different ways, you just realize that the only thing that really remains, that stands as an obstacle in front of people, is people … Each person is their own largest obstacle.”

It’s an interesting notion: There are a finite number of proven marketing strategy and tactics; it’s not hard to find out what they are. Because everyone has the same tools at their disposal, success or failure depends on one’s willingness to put in the effort, apply them, and do the work. Therefore, effective marketing books need to focus on enabling the will (Julien calls it “[creating] the emotional state that will make the thing work”), rather than detailing step by step what needs to be done. (After all, you can get that stuff from the web!)

That being said, Julien points out that, in some cases, “People really do want to be told exactly what to do.”

I lived the truth of this last statement years ago when in charge of a new employee training program. I discovered that, when you are starting a new job, you don’t want a general framework in which you can figure things out on your own (and thus armed, “sink or swim”). You want someone to tell you what works and to help you organize your time and activities until you’ve your footing in the new role.

Finding your footing, however, is just the beginning. As Julien and Brogan emphasize in Trust Agents, the only way to “get to the next level” is to stop working strictly by the rules of the system and to start figuring the system out … so you can hack it.

Hacking the system—what they call “making your own game”—doesn’t mean ripping people off or taking advantage of others. On the contrary, it means finding points in the system that allow you to use it in ways for which it wasn’t initially intended.

To illustrate, Julien uses the example of people like Brogan and Robert Scoble “hacking” the social web by accumulating hordes of “friends.” The guiding assumption of most social platforms, at least in the early days, was that people would only connect with actual friends—people they really knew. By expanding the definition of “friend,” as some pioneers did, in a way the system allowed but didn’t anticipate, some people were able to create surprisingly large and complex networks, and then use these networks to achieve unprecedented power.

What does such power look like? Julien describes the people who have achieved it as, “almost like ‘Ghost in the Shell‘ type, really powerful, highly leveraged individuals that can go anywhere, can get anything for free, and they can make tons more money than anyone could ever make, without batting an eyelash.”

The technology produces this power—”The internet really does change everything”—and once we realize this power is possible, the only real question becomes: Will this new power be used for good or evil?

If you’ve read Trust Agents, you’ll recall that the authors go to great and frequent lengths to explain that they’re not talking about gaming people, taking advantage of them, or ripping them off. As they state early on, “In this chapter, we’re talking about taking advantage of systems, not people,” and then later acknowledge ” … how tricky it is to write about this stuff without running the risk of sounding like leveraging your relationships is the equivalent of using people.”

To navigate this trickiness, Julien says that he asked Dan Ariely at one point, “How do I talk about the social norms and the fact that they’re exploitable while saying, ‘I’m not unethical and I don’t intend to take advantage of people’?

I think that the only way you can do that is a) by actually being ethical, but also b) by realizing that it is not unethical in itself to take advantage of a systemic weakness just because others ignore or don’t see it. You might even go so far as to say that you have something like an ethical imperative to act on your insight once you’ve had it.

“Systems are exploitable,” Julie insists,”If you don’t exploit them, it’s almost like you’re wasting your life.”

Now, if you’d like to immerse yourself in such ethical conundrums and even uncover the “secret message” of Trust Agents, check out the podcast in its entirety here (or in iTunes):

If you’ve read a business book that has changed your personal life as well as your professional life, I’d love to hear about it!

Podcast Transcript: Marketing Smarts, Episode 15 featuring Julien Smith

A guest post by Dragos Ilinca of uberVU.

In search of the elusive social media ROI, brands are doubling down on metrics around engagement, influence, or monitoring. The key pillars of social media (monitoring, analytics, engagement, reporting, and collaboration) work together; they should not be disconnected from each other or from the rest of the business.

Social media can only deliver results and ROI if it’s used as a tool to solve actual business problems. The simplest example of this is customer service: A brand needs to monitor for negative comments, engage with customers and then report whether the social customer service initiative has achieved some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

In this infographic and the downloadable “4 Pillars of Social Media Success” whitepaper, we have tried to demystify how the most successful social media practitioners are using all these social media pillars to solve business problems, rather than just running social media initiatives for the sake of it.

Dragos Ilinca is the CMO and cofounder of uberVU, a social intelligence platform that helps enterprises and agencies understand and connect with their customers, get more from their social media marketing, manage their reputation, and provide better customer service.