MAD Perspectives Blog

161 Million members in over 200 countries, with 2 new members joining per second.  Wow!  This represents over 4.2 billion professionally-oriented searches in 2011.  So, this begs the question - how do you use LinkedIn? My friends and colleagues all know that I am a big fan (and for complete disclosure, i do own a few shares of LNKD). The common perception is that LinkedIn is a career networking site. It provides individuals with a mechanism to display their professional talents and find a new job. It helps recruiters find the best talent. It helps sales teams uncover network links to key decision makers.  These are all fantastic uses of LinkedIn.

But, have you thought about using LinkedIn to do market analysis? Or, to empower your employees? Here at MAD Perspectives, we use LinkedIn to pursue new business, learn about market trends, share thoughts and stay connected to colleagues. We have posted questions in groups to learn about new technologies.  We have answered questions posted in LinkedIn Answers. We have also leveraged LinkedIn to fulfill client projects, some directly tied to LinkedIn, others using the power of the network.

Check out our case studies:

     - LinkedIn for Competitive Analysis

     - LinkedIn for Accelerating Sales

     - LinkedIn for Solution Consulting Services

Social media has changed the way we share and obtain information at the the personal and business levels. Each of the social networks adds value to how we communicate and stay in contact with friends, companies and colleagues. It's up to each of us to determine how these platforms can best serve us. Don't be afraid to be creative!

What's your perspective?

Every day there are more articles showcasing the value of social media for business.  However, 80% of those articles reflect the value for companies marketing to and communicating with consumers.  The challenge, for companies selling products or services to other companies, is how social media can help them.  After all, when most people are on Facebook, they are there to communicate with their friends and family.  Sure, they may be job hunting, and Facebook has proven to be a good place for employers to recruit new employees.  It is also a good place for companies to connect with users regarding customer support issues.  However, Facebookt is still first and foremost a destination for the individual thinking about personal, rather than business, topics.

A recent article on The Next Web highlighting the high proportion of U.S. based LinkedIn members, with membership growing internationally. What was more interesting is how companies are taking advantage of LinkedIn, particularly those in high tech. One of the dominant metrics, for measuring success in social media , is tracking the number of followers. For a company in the B2B space, it is most important for followers to be individuals who can influence purchasing decisions. LinkedIn is the most relevant social network for attracting influential followers. Who's are the companies leading the pack?

    1. IBM, ~590,000 followers

    2. HP, ~449,000 followers

    3. Microsoft, ~424,000 followers

    4. Accenture, ~419,000 followers

    5. Google, ~409,000 followers

    6. Oracle, ~293,000 followers

    7. Deloitte, ~283,000 followers

    8. Apple, ~253,000 followers

    9. Dell, ~244,000 followers

    10. Cisco, ~240,000 followers

source:  Zoomsphere

It's not a surprise to me that tech companies lead the pack.  Tech company employees tend to adopt new tools more rapidly than individuals in other markets.  IBM, in particular, has invested heavily in "socializing" its entire approach to business. This is partly to promote their own business intelligence capabilities, but also to simplify how employees get and stay connected internally or externally.  

These companies use LinkedIn's company pages to promote the company and their product lines. The benefit of promoting products and services on LinkedIn, allows the company to highlight new products, customer case studies and increase attention to key product lines. Another benefit is the ability for users to provide recommendations for company products. Hewlett-Packard, in particular, has gained a significant number of recommendations across all of its businesses. In addition, they sponsor several groups targeting different customer segments.

Social media is changing the way we connect with customers.  LinkedIn provides an additional channel for communicating value and differentiation, as well as listening to what customers are saying.  Look into leveraging LinkedIn for more than your personal profile, there are benefits for large and small businesses. Check it out!

What's your perspective?

There is an ongoing debate about the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) companies. However, according to B2B Magazine, 93% of B2B marketing are using some form of social media marketing. As expected, Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular. However, tactics, resources and metrics are key challenges. These challenges are connected and reinforce the need for a comprehensive strategy, integrating your social media efforts with your overall marketing plan. However, it is first important to understand how you can best utilize each of these social networks.

Here are a few thoughts:

     - LinkedIn:  create a group for your brand, create a company page and promote products, encourage employees to provide links within their profile to the company webpage(s), share company presentations and videos, integrate twitter feeds and corporate blogs, recruit employees

     - Facebook:  share news and videos, , promote and share pictures and comments from events, highlight expert knowledge from both employees and customers, create community through customized product pages (invite Likes, discussion, links to more information on company website), recruit employees

     - Twitter:  listen to what others (customers, competitors, influencers) are saying, share content (provide links to articles, re-tweet influencer content, invite input from your followers to validate strategy

For additional insights and tips on using social media for B2B marketing check out Social Media B2B, Marketo, Hubspot, business.com.

Identify your goals. Consider how these platforms, or others, may augment your marketing, customer service, product development or sales efforts. Be brave and be patient.  Social media is a broadcast channel enabling you to reach a very wide audience.  It takes time to build a valuable following and to learn how to interact effectively with them.

What's your perspective?

Every company has a story to tell.  There is the story about its creation and growth.  There are stories about its products and solutions.  There are insights about its impact on society, markets and individuals.  These stories are told through a wide variety of communication platforms. Social Media 101 would recommend defining a plan aligned with your strategy, then using the most popular social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogging) to fulfill that plan. As we enter 2012, lets look at some additional tools that will expand the audience for your business stories!

1. Slideshare - As the name indicates, share your presentations.  Not only can companies post presentations and whitepapers, they can create audio to complement the information in the presentations. Slideshare is great outlet for establishing your position in the market, sharing insights in a visual manner, promoting new products, providing "how to" content, and more.  Tell stories through graphics, pictures and key highlights.

2. LinkedIn Groups - Every LinkedIn pundit promotes the benefits of a good profile, increasing connections and gathering recommendations. They also encourage involvement in groups, yet many of the individuals that I talk to don't realize the value of groups. There is a group for just about any industry, technology, profession or interest.  Your company can create groups specific to product categories or market needs. It provides an alternative channel to promote your company's value. Groups allow members to ask and answer questions between themselves or the group moderator. Stories evolve through these interactions.

3. HootSuite or TweetDeck - Simplify your monitoring and posting of social commentary. Each platform allows users to establish multiple accounts (i.e., on behalf of clients), receive notifications, schedule updates and view multiple columns of content on a single screen. These tools provide a single destination for managing your posts on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress, Ping and others. They provide you with instant access to content to keep your story relevant.

4.  Apps - 2011 saw the rise of the app as a means of sharing content on mobile devices.  Given the restrictions of these devices, apps streamline user access and interaction. Without apps, smartphones and tablets would not be enjoying such high levels of success. The challenge for B2B companies is identifying and developing apps to address employee and customer needs. Apple launched its B2B App Store in late 2011, acknowledging the unique needs of this market segment.  Apps simplify how employees or customers can engage with your company while on the go.  Some broad ideas for relevant apps could be customer service FAQs, order management, product highlights and demos, need feeds incorporating corporate, industry and social content.  Apps help you interact in a new way and share your targeted elements of your story.

Coordinating cross channel communication efforts will be the 2012 challenge for sales, marketing and customer support. Creating and adapting content for use across multiple platforms takes time and talent. Companies will face resource challenges to manage content development and distribution. In parallel, social platforms continue to emerge and there are several technologies that all marketing strategists should be addressing. They include the use of mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets), adoption of monitoring and analytics platforms and the importance of location based services.  

Be aware of how any platform can benefit your company's goals as well as increasing awareness and interaction. Use the same methodology you've been using to align and integrate your communications strategy. Define your audiences, the content they need and the best communication channels. Take your strategy to the next level -  testing and analyzing platforms relevant for your business and your customers.

What's your perspective?

Yes, it's that time of year to look back and reflect.  I took some time to see which blog topics garnered the most interest this year.  The list does not surprise me.  As B2B companies figure out their use of social media, they are facing questions of where and how to leverage social networks and interact with customers.  With no further ado, here are the top 5 MAD Perspectives blogs of 2012!

#1 - LinkedIn:  Companies are just beginning to realize that LinkedIn is more than a site for networking to find a job.  It is THE site for professional networking to find decision makers, engage in group discussion on industry topics and amplify your B2B brand.  Of course, it is also the site to represent your personal professional brand.  For enlightened companies who empower and value their employees, there is recognition that a powerful LinkedIn profile reflects positively on an employer.  Employees can provide links to key corporate sites.  A profile reflecting the value an employee provides to customers, reflects the culture embodied by the company.

#2 - Planning:  It is difficult to know if you're successful in any effort if you don't have a plan that defines goals, tactics and metrics.  Social media evolved from a individual consumer perspective.  The very nature of social media is immediate and authentic.  How can a company plan to engage socially without losing a sense of unaffected spontaneity?  It is a challenge for B2B companies as their messaging will always be related to their brand and products.  However, defining your audience and their needs will help in developing a plan to provide the right kind of content via the right communication channel.  Know your brand's voice and identify methods to share that voice.

#3 - Strategy:  You might find it interesting that strategy lagged slightly behind planning in interest.  Strategy and planning are closely related.  As we talked about strategy this year, we spoke specifically about how your social media strategy must be closely aligned with your brand strategy.  If a company does not understand its identity and does not have clear business goals, it is impossible to develop a social media strategy.  Your social strategy must be aligned with and support your company's business goals.  These could range from market awareness to customer support to product innovation.

#4 - Social Analytics:  This is a hot topic as we move into 2012.  This space is expanding beyond the ability to monitor and listen to what your customers are saying.  It is taking that data (and there is a LOT of data) and using it to drive planning.  Acting upon data collected is often the biggest challenge for any company.  The social universe gives companies unprecedented access to honest insight, opinions, and concerns.  Through their online activity on both search engines and social networks, customers are revealing their needs, being influenced by the opinions of others, sharing experiences and changing the entire purchasing process.  A critical part of any social media strategy, is defining how to monitor, capture and act upon social conversations.

#5 - Corporate Culture:  This is a carryover from 2010 and continues to be relevant.  Your company's culture directly impacts how employees will participate socially, if at all.  Command & control organizations who are leveraging social networks lack the authenticity of empowered organizations.  Social updates from hierarchical organization tend to revert to push marketing techniques of notifying customers of events, without inviting interaction.  In fact, this likely reflects fear of the unknown at the executive level.  Companies who empower their employees are creating strong customer communities through honest, ongoing interaction.  

2011 has seen more B2B companies adopting different forms of social media.  The pressure is on to show measurable results in 2012.  This  means that strategy, planning and analyzing will continue to be critical for success in this space.  Social media is useful for more than pure marketing, which seems to be the default entry point.  I'm curious to see if companies will utilize social networks for other purposes such as recruiting (Facebook and LinkedIn will fight to the death on this topic), customer support (in more than a consumer centric model) or product development (prioritizing roadmaps).  Broadening the use of social media may reveal the path to measuring its real success for B2B companies.

What's your perspective? 

We all live and work in an increasingly connected world.  Our smartphones and tablets connect us to information and people in ways that barely allow us any quiet time.  How do we measure the value of this connectedness?  Is there value to having thousands of Twitter followers, Facebook fans or LinkedIn connections?  Obviously the social media community believes in the power of connectivity, but do businesses? 

Connectivity is an interesting topic.  As humans we like to be connected to family, friends and colleagues.  We have more options than even to stay in contact.  I use Facebook to keep up with friends who scattered around the globe.  I use LinkedIn to manage my network of business colleagues.  Both Twitter and LinkedIn are my conduits for promoting my blog, sharing thoughts on current events and listening to what others are saying as it relates to business.  In addition, I still email (yes, i understand it may be considered a dying technology).  Why do I use all of these tools?  Because I want to be connected.

I want to learn from others.  I want to understand what is interesting to my colleagues.  I want to gain insights into new technologies.  I want to share my knowledge.  Anyone who follows my blog or my business, knows that I am a huge fan of LinkedIn.  I did not become an advocate until I had time to realize the power of the connectivity it provides.  While i was still employed by corporate America, it was simply a tool to augment or replace my rolodex.    Since leaving the corporate world, I'm exposed to a wider set of contacts.  I thought i had a good network working at HP.  It included fellow employees and business partners.  Since leaving HP, i have added contacts from a wider range of industries and roles.

Last year I was seeking information about a topic I had been invited to investigate for a client.  It was a topic where I only had high level knowledge.  I used LinkedIn Groups to post a question with hopes of getting more in depth information.  Not only did I get greater insight, I received invites for phone conversations and a face to face meeting, which resulted in a fantastic white board session.  The power of the connectivity provided by LinkedIn, in this case, was phenomenal and positioned me for greater success in my project.

I've used LinkedIn, again, recently to request introductions from my connections to some of their connections. I was seeking access to decision makers to discuss their needs and priorities around a specific topic.  Again, my colleagues responded favorably, happy to introduce me to the specific contacts I had defined.  As a result I have been able to gather a global view of this topic, again on behalf of a client.

As businesses and as individuals, social technologies are enabling us to connect more quickly and effectively. We've all networked on behalf of business in the past.  I remember scrolling through the rolodex to find the name of the contact who knew the guy who could help me close a deal.  Social technologies reduce the manual effort and time to achieve connectivity.  So, is this connectivity meaningful?  I would argue, YES it is!

Even a casual connection can lead to meaningful business.  It's all about staying in touch and reinforcing the value of the connection.  Businesses using social media should remember this.  Social networking is not just about pushing your content out via another channel.  it is about identifying the value your customers seek from you - and then providing that value.  Customer support is an excellent example.  Your customers seek answers to frequently and infrequently asked questions.  Social conversations via all of the big networks can help you understand the their needs, get ahead of critical issues and recognized trends that may impact product sales.

Connectivity is about more than the actual connection.  it's about the conversation.  It's about providing and receiving value.  This is where the power emerges.  I don't mean power from a control perspective, I mean power to move forward, make a difference, achieve a goal.  Think about the power of your connections.  What value do you see in them?

What's your perspective?

i'm currently helping a business consulting business complete a 360º view of their consultants.  Given that their consultants are their key assets, my goal is to make sure that clients understand the value these consultants provide.  We are doing this using LinkedIn. 

As is the case with many happily employed individuals, they probably have a LinkedIn account and profile.  However, they have not taken the time to develop a robust, meaningful view of their capabilities.  Many users of LinkedIn see it simply as a platform for storing contact details or job hunting.  In fact, it is much more.

LinkedIn is your opportunity to share your value with prospective clients, colleagues and employers.  There are few meetings that occur these days where the participants have not checked each other out on LinkedIn.  In fact, a colleague shared a story about his high school age son who is caddying at the local golf course this summer.  His son is checking out the individuals for whom is caddying before he heads out to the course.  This gives him some insight which allows him to introduce conversation of interest to the golfers.  Guess what the end result is?  Bigger tips!

As I work with clients on their profiles, we are seeking ways to amplify their value.  This can be done through development of an interesting summary, calling out key traits and behaviors that differentiate the individual.  In addition, profiles include the ability to reflect links to key pages within corporate websites, online videos, blogs or publications.  Of course, one of the best ways to validate your capabilities is through recommendations.  The best example I've seen is a colleague who invited many of his connections to provide recommendations.  He was shocked by the overwhelming response.  He was able to win recommendations from teammates, managers, colleagues in different organizations, business partners, and most impressively, competitors!  This says a lot about his style of doing business!

In addition, LinkedIn enables you to join groups which show your areas of interest, list specialties or outside interests, which help those searching for key capabilities.  Or, select from a group of apps such as Tripit, Box.net or Amazon to share other aspects of your professional life.  You decide what represents your value.  You decide how to organize it on your profile page.  This is your profile. 

Business is about relationships.  People want to business with people they know and trust.  How about using LinkedIn to speed up the process of getting to know each other?  Share your interests, value and capabitilities.  It is your opportunity to shine!

What's your perspective?

The BIG social networking platforms that are mentioned in almost every social media conversation are: Facebook, Blog, Twitter and LinkedIn.  However, for B2B companies, Facebook is unproven.  In fact, the most effective social networking platform for B2B companies is LinkedIn.  Hubspot recently shared the following results from a survey of 600 professionals knowledgeable of their company's marketing strategy.



LinkedIn is the favored channel for customer acquisition. You may wonder why this is, as many professionals think they should only be using LinkedIn when they are seeking a new job. LinkedIn is working diligently to change this perception and if we consider the results of Hubspot's study - LinkedIn is succeeding. LinkedIn wants to be the destination for helping you, AND your company, maximize your economic opportunity. How do they do they do this? Let me share some insights.

Your profile on LinkedIn is your online professional identity. Your network is a reflection of who you are.  As an individual you have the opportunity to use LinkedIn to learn from your co-workers, your network and other industry professionals (via LinkedIn Groups or LinkedIn Answers). Now extend this thought process to your company. LinkedIn gives companies an opportunity to showcase their identity and that identity is influenced by its employees, its customers, its competitors and its products or services.

LinkedIn enables companies to promote themselves in a way that is completely complimentary to their website.  Companies can:

     1. Find & Hire THE smartest people. LinkedIn allows companies (and recruiters) to identify potential candidates (who may not be actively seeking a new opportunity). They can gain insight into these candidates by reviewing their profile, their recommendations, their experiences and their links. Conversely, candidates can get a better understanding of your company by studying employee and executive profiles.
 
Using Company Pages, companies can reflect new hires (don't you want to see what kind of people were recently hired and into what kind of jobs) and more importantly, job postings. Because the company can better understand who you are, they are eager to post their jobs here. Here is an example of the number of job postings by various high tech companies:  Dell = 1,113, HP = 207, Microsoft = 4,290, Google = 1,947, LinkedIn = 155. Not only can you apply for jobs via LinkedIn, you can see who in your network works at the target company. And, the company can see which employees you might know and seek recommendations.

     2. Market their products & services. Companies can create marketing campaigns using keywords, demographics, earnings, roles/title and more to target the right companies and individuals. Imagine a software company with a product that addresses supply chain issues in the jewelry manufacturing sector. LinkedIn has the data to help them place ads on the right pages for the right people at the right companies.

Again, using Company Pages, companies can promote their products, offer special deals and even better - get customer recommendations. In fact, it is possible to create a rotation of product images/ads that will rotate and enable links to the relevant company web page. Additionally, LinkedIn allows companies to customize their product presentation by audience demographics. We all know we like to buy products that are recommended by others. This idea is not new - heck, it helped Zappos become the online shoe buying destination. But, now this idea is expanded to B2B businesses.  Your products and services may be reviewed and recommended by your customers, publicly. This is powerful.

     3. Amplify Reputation.  LinkedIn enables companies to enter into a different kind of relationship with their customers or prospects. Through the use of LinkedIn Groups or LinkedIn Answers companies can bring like minded people together. LinkedIn Groups allows companies to participate in groups or to create their own groups.  The groups may be focused around topics, products, trends, industry standards - whatever makes the most sense for the company. An example of a well moderated group is Small Biz Nation (yes, I am a member of this group).  This group is hosted by HP and Intel. The primary focus of the group is to raise and discuss challenges faced by small business, be they about accounting, tax or legal issues to technology, offices supplies or hiring. HP and Intel benefit by showing their interest in the concerns of small business owners.

LinkedIn Answers provides the opportunity for any individual to post a question - about anything. Companies can search for questions of interest to them and provide answers - thus extending their reach and understanding of customer concerns. Alternatively, companies can post questions to guide improvements in customer service, product innovation or sales methodology.  Imagine you are seeking information regarding the best video streaming hosting technologies. You can certainly Google it.  However, you can also post the question on LInkedIn and see who within your network can assist. Now imagine, you are a video hosting provider....get it?

LinkedIn continues to broaden its suite of services that can help both professionals and their companies optimize their economic value.  In addition to the attributes of Company Pages previously noted, your company profile can also incorporate Blog feeds, Twitter feed and YouTube videos - expanding the reach of these social media tools.  The customization of the product & services page also applies to the main page, meaning a CEO might see a high level overview of your company emphasizng differentiated value while engineers see a more technology centric perspective. For more insight, check out Mashable's article on Optimizing your Company's LInkedIn Profile.
I'm a fan and a believer in the value of LinkedIn (and hopefully a shareholder after the IPO).  If LinkedIn isn't part of your B2B marketing strategy, it should be.

What's your perspective?

     -

Do you use LinkedIn?  If so, you're one of the 90M+ people, in over 200 countries, that have a profiled on LinkedIn.  If you are a business person and you crave an online professional networking destination - LinkedIn is it.  You can:

     - Tell your professinal story
     - Get and stay connected with business colleagues - even if you, or they, change jobs
     - Pursue career opportunities
     - Get informed about people and companies before you actually meet them
     - Identify decision makers or influencers and get connected to them
     - Ask questions about ANY business related topic

There are competitors who offer business networking (i.e., Plaxo, Naymz, Xing) or job search (i.e., Monster, CareerBuilder, Ladders), but LinkedIn has created (and continues to enhance) the site for professional networking.  It is a critical part of your online social identity - particularly as it relates to your career.



I joined LinkedIn while i was still working at Hewlett-Packard.  I was happy in my job and was not particularly interested in online networking.  However, I responded to an invitation from a colleage and so began my LinkedIn journey.  It started as an "online rolodex" - a place to capture the details about the business contacts I made while jetting around the globe on behalf of HP.  Now, it is an integral part of every business day.  How?

LinkedIn provides me with insights about people and companies.  I learn about an individual's experience (roles, companies, responsibilities, value), education, social behavior (do they blog?  tweet?  join discussions?), personal interests, travel schedule and their connectivity (how many LinkedIn connects do you have?).  With the introduction of Company Pages last year, I can gain quick insight into the companies for whom they have worked.

I am about to head out on a business development trip to California.  As I was thinking about this trip, I prowled through my list of contacts on LinkedIn.  I was seeking colleagues that worked at companies that might be interested in my consulting services.  In many cases, my connections had changed companies and I had contacts at many companies that were of high interest to me as potential clients.  I used LinkedIn to reach out to these contacts and set up meetings.  I did not need to know their current email addresses - LinkedIn was my intermediary.

I also learn a lot about people simply from the way they have created their profile.  Many colleagues, who are extremely happy in their current jobs, have profiles that I consider placeholders.  They share the bare minimum of information about their professional background and interests.  They have less than 50 connections.  They do not have linkes to their company page or website.  I'll know they are job hunting when they beef up their profile and their connections! 

Have you worked on your profile lately?  If you need to connect to a key decision maker, increase your professinal visibility or are seeking a new job, check out your profile and think about what it says about you.  Chances are that your new contacts are going to check it out too.  Here is a quick look at the most important features:

     - Professional headline - this is who you are or who you want to be, it is not necessarily your current title
     - Picture - this should be a headshot and yes, you should have a picture.  Proessionals like to do business with people, not profiles!
     - Links - reference urls for your company's website, its blog (or your blog!), twitter, etc.
     - Summary - this is about you and the value you provide.  This is your opportunity to highlight what makes your special, what gets you excited and your dream role.  It should not be a description of your current job as you will have the opportunity to share that under Experience
     - Experience - reflect not only your title and responsibilities, but the value that you provide to your customers (we all have customers, some are external and others are internal to the company)
     - Recommendations - request references from your colleagues, customers and partners.  Their comments will be revealing to you and to your connections!
     -  Contact Seetings - indicate the types of contact you are interested in receiving

LinkedIn vs. Resume - LinkedIn is living and dynmaic, just like you.  The resume is not dead, yet, but it is a static snapshot of your skills, education and experience.  It is still relevant to have both a resume and a LinkedIn profile.  they should be omplementary.  You can walk into a meeting with a resume and your resume can include a pointer to your LinkedIn profile.  Like all things social, your LinkedIn profile should offer transparency and authenticity.  Let the real you shine through!

Go ahead, go check out your profile.  Then check out the profiles of some of your connections.  What do you think?  Let me know what your learn!

What's your perspective?

Stay tuned, next week I'll take a deeper look at LinkedIn value for companies.

It’s a new year and you’re making your resolutions.  How about a resolution to jump on the social media high speed train?  You’ve read the buzz but you’re a bit skeptical about time, effort and results.  These are fair concerns.  There is not a company who has engaged in social media that has not posed questions about how they are going to leverage this dynamic medium.  I have just a few bits of advice about getting started:

1. Get organized.  Figure out who in your organization will be your social advocates.  It will be beneficial if you think about how representatives, from different business groups, reflect your business.  These individuals can provide your customers with unique perspectives that can help them understand your business and its products, strategy and culture.  Align your social communication with your overall marketing plan and strategy.  Commit to a plan!
2. Define your social content strategy.  Think about who your customers are and what content will fulfill their needs.  Social media is about personalizing your business and its content.  This means that simply pointing customers to your website is not going to win a lot of new customers.  However, sharing your insights about industry trends, emerging products or markets, business benefits of your solutions or seeking input from your audience, will drive awareness.
3. Select the relevant social platforms.  You need to be where your customers are.  Here is a quick summary of some of the most popular platforms:
   •  
   •  - LinkedIn – for a business person or business this is the default platform to use.  It’s more than a virtual rolodex; it is a platform for sharing content about your capabilities, engaging in conversations with like minded individuals via LinkedIn Groups, and increasingly a tool for employee recruitment.
   •  - Blogs – I’m a BIG fan of blogging as a means of communicating with customers is a casual way.  Blogs provide the ability to flesh out your thoughts in a less formal manner than traditional briefs or whitepapers.  They also enable feedback from your customers which can educate readers about your company, impact product roadmaps, or simply influence further blog discussions.  A small firm can share insights abut what drives their day to day business while a large company can encourage individual bloggers, from different business disciplines, to discuss the topics that influence their activities and decisions.  In all cases, the blog should reflect a unique point of view.
   •  - Twitter – In many cases, twitter for business can be just keeping up with the Jones’.  However, many companies use twitter to actively listen to their customers.  By searching on keywords a company can capture a trend, discover customer satisfaction issues, and invite debate on a trending topic.  Twitter is immediate and democratic, meaning it is wide open like the Wild West.  However, the Wild West is now very heavily populated and the direct benefit for B2B companies is unproven.
   •  -  Facebook – this is the ultimate social platform for individuals.  And, let’s remember this platform was created by a college student to find, connect and communicated with other students.  Its role is consumer centric.  Its focus remains the individual despite a company’s ability to create a Fan Page.  Companies that have found success on Facebook are those with a consumer audience and who create a unique proposition on Facebook.  There have been debates about Facebook displacing the need for a traditional website.
   • For B2B, I completely disagree.  Facebook does not easily enable a B2B business discussion.  It does not allow you to share documents.  However, it is a great platform for personalizing your business.  Post pictures or videos from industry conferences, community events, internal celebrations.  Emphasize the company culture and the unique individuals employed at your company.  Now prospective employees have a much better understanding about the culture of your company.
   •  - YouTube – Video is pervasive and memorable.  YouTube has changed the face of video forever, making user generated video and its lesser quality – acceptable.  Video puts a face on your business.  I’ve seen whiteboard sessions, mockumentaries, product demos, and corporate advertising posted on YouTube.  It is possible to create your own channel which could be beneficial for companies who want to post a series of videos.  Like all marketing & communication efforts, video efforts must be planned and organized.  See my previous blogs on this topic

Don’t be afraid to just try one platform.  Be persistent.  Don't let social media be the resolution that fades away!  It’s ok to experiment and figure out what content and which platform works best for your business.  Despite all that you read, no single company was an instant success at using social media!

What’s your perspective?