Author: Todd Lohenry

The internet is filled with bright, shiny objects. Many of them end up here! A @toddlohenry project. Be shiny!!!
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Forrester reported over three years ago that the lead management market was heating up…

“Since the start of this year, I’ve been receiving a boatload of briefing requests from companies wanting to show me their lead generation and management solutions. Most recently, Marketo just announced their lead management solution. While honored, I also find reviewing these solutions confusing because there is a lot of variation in the product presentations and overlap between categories. And it’s not clear to me if lead management automation deserves to be a separate category or to be subsumed as part of the broader marketing platform. (I know Suresh Vittal includes lead management as a component of his enterprise marketing platform. But does the B2B need the same platform components as B2C?) Here’s how I see it and I’d like to hear your views as well.”

Click here to read more…

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I had a great connect with an old friend who is a real estate rockstar in Barrington, IL. She’s not willing to accept anything less than being the dominant player in her industry and she’s looking at social media as a way to help her accomplish her objectives. Couldn’t help but think of her when I saw this article…

“Brian Halligan is the founder and CEO of HubSpot, an Internet marketing software company that helps small and medium-sized businesses get found on the Internet and converts website visitors into leads and customers. He is also the author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found In Google, Blogs, and Social Media.

It used to be that you could efficiently grow your businesses by interrupting potential customers with outbound marketing methods like cold calls, email spam, and advertising. Today people and businesses are tired of being the targets of so much outbound marketing and they’re getting better and better in blocking it out.

At the same time, people and businesses have fundamentally changed the way they shop and learn, turning more and more to Google, social media sites and blogs to find what they want. Inbound marketing helps companies take advantage of these shifts by helping them get found by customers in the natural way in which they shop and learn. The following are Brian’s five steps to help you get “get found.”” Source: How to Get Found : The World :: American Express OPEN Forum

You can go to the source and read more, but just in case, those 5 ways are:

  1. Be remarkable
  2. Create content
  3. Optimize content
  4. Promote content
  5. Measure results

As for my old friend, she certainly has 1 and 2 down cold — I’m hoping to get the chance to help her with numbers 3-5… ;-)

In the meantime you can use the site tools [comments, contact form, call button] to contact me if YOU are an entrepreneur who wants to be found!

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Things we’ve been tracking in the past 24 hours…

 

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Here’s part 3…

As I introduced at the beginning of this post, using social media to react is just the beginning. But at some point it takes a shift to not only react, but also lead. Demonstrating the value of social media is our mission in 2011. In 2012, proving the value of the insights learned from customers and prospects in social channels will help connect disparate business units and functions into one connected and adaptive company.

This is about taking the perpetual switching of social media from on and off to on again and evolving campaigns to that of continuum engagement. A connected customer is always on and as such, an adaptive business must do just that, remain nimble.

Your task is not easy. The case must be made to leadership that there are material benefits in embracing change. To help, I’ve assembled three videos produced by Salesforce featuring my dear friend Dr. Natalie Petouhoff. In each of the three videos, you’ll learn how to build the business case, how to calculate ROI and how to make the cause for an adaptive business.

via briansolis.com

Here’s the final installment on how to make the cause for an adaptive business…

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OK, now this is cool! If you’re a webmail user — and by now I hope you are after hearing me tout Gmail — here’s an essential Firefox extension that you need to have…

“WiseStamp a Firefox extension enables you to easily customize & add personalized email signatures on any webmail service (Gmail ,Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail). Empower your personal and business interactions Get WiseStamp Now!” Source: WiseStamp an Email Signature that works for you!

Go to the source and download it now…

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I do! It’s one of the most important skills or disciplines I’ve developed over the past 3 years. Lifehacker recently surveyed their readership to find the best mindmapping tools…

“Mind mapping is a great way to add structure to brainstorming sessions and visualize your ideas. Check out the applications your fellow readers use to do their best brainstorming.” Source: Hive Five: Five Best Mind Mapping Applications 

Go to the source and read about the 5 favorites. Personally, I use Freemind, Mindmeister and Xmind in that order. What are your favorites? Comments please…

Update 10/21/09: Since I wrote this post back in March of 2009, I have become disenchanted with Xmind due to their difficult to manage licensing scheme. I have become enthralled, however with MindManager Pro. Whenever I have something I need to figure out for myself or want to explain to someone else [like a screencast] chances are I’ll mindmap it first to help me make sure I cover all the bases. I also use Mindmeister quite a bit primarily because of their cloud computing approach to mindmapping. I can publish a mindmap on the internet and embed it in a post like this:

They also have an iPhone app that flawlessly syncs with the online version. These days, chances are I’ll start my map in MindManager Pro and make it public in Mindmeister when it’s ready to go. Only problem is that MindManager is very $$$. You can duplicate the same workflow with Freemind [which is free] and Mindmeister. Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment or use the contact page to reach me — if you contact me, I’ll send you an invitation to try out Mindmeister!

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Things we’ve been tracking in the past 24 hours…

 

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via marismith.com

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Here’s the second installment…

For some of you, I’m preaching to the choir. Perhaps this comes across as rudimentary or common knowledge. But in my experience, social media is largely siloed in marketing departments. And for those businesses experimenting with customer engagement in social media, engagement insights and lessons are largely siloed within the service department. I challenge you to extend the value of social media beyond any silo to not just socialize the entire business but introduce new processes, systems, and methodologies that makes it more relevant and adaptive to an increasingly discerning connected customer.

The opportunity before us extends beyond Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and even in the communities that exist to connect customers to one another in branded forums. The challenge however lies in our ability to translate engagement into either direct or dotted lines to existing business metrics. Yes, we need to look beyond what I refer to as the 3F’s (friends, fans, and followers) to prove the value of social media. But this goes beyond just documenting converting numbers into KPIs that lead to ROI. This is also about translating insights into catalysts for business transformation.

To determine the ROI of social media, programs must be designed with the end in mind and compared to the performance of existing programs using existing measurement processes. Additionally, customers insights and trends must be documented to demonstrate the opportunity to improve customer experiences. For example, you can demonstrate that social media reduces inbound call volume and thus saves the company money over time. But that’s just the beginning. If you identify repeat problems, issues, or trends, your next step is to work with the affected business units to create or deliver a fix. Once this is communicated to customers through all available channels, customers en masse will feel acknowledged and appreciate the businesses ability to adapt to their needs and concerns. What’s the value of that experience?

via briansolis.com

Here are some thoughts on the ROI of social media…


Part 3 tomorrow…

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Yup. This about says it all…

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Ponder this…

At CES, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed that 40% of all tweets come from mobile devices, demonstrating mobile’s increasing importance to the social media company.

On stage at the AllThingsD event at CES, Costolo bantered with Kara Swisher about why Twitter is at CES, its plans to become simpler and more consistent across platforms, and the impact of its celebrity users.

During the course of the conversation, Swisher asked Costolo which devices and operating systems are the most important to Twitter’s future and its health. Costolo responded by saying that 40% of all tweets are now composed on mobile devices, up from around 20% to 25% a year ago.

Twitter mobile usage exploded with the release of the company’s official iPhone, iPad, Android () and BlackBerry apps. The mobile web site, SMS, Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for BlackBerry are the most popular Twitter apps after the company’s website.

Costolo also revealed that Twitter () now has 350 employees, 100 of whom were hired just recently in Q4 2010.

via mashable.com

Does this surprise you?

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Google Reader is the killer app for ‘personal news aggregation’ for ‘thought leadership’ marketing. It all comes down to effectively managing rss feeds…

What is RSS?
An RSS Reader is a simple and easy way to read your favorite news site or blogs. Instead of going out to these site to read the most recent stories or posts, the newest stuff comes to you, all in one simple page. Even more convenient is having a Reader which is online, reaching it from any place in the world.

In my eyes Google Reader is one of the best online RSS Readers on the web. For the first time user, just getting used to the whole RSS thing, this post will talk about: a) How to subscribe to a feed b) view your feeds c) the cool features built into Google Reader and d) just some nifty little tricks you can use while you’re at it. Remember, being a master of your RSS feeds is also a very important way to build up and maintain powerful social media accounts :)

The first thing you would have to do, is head over to reader.google.com and sign up for a free account. From there, you would want to start building up your subscriptions.

via blueglass.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above if you’re just getting started with Google Reader…

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Things we’ve been tracking in the past 24 hours…

 

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Don’t follow the ‘via’ link unless you’re really serious about understanding Blogging and Search Engine Optimization [SEO]. Comment or ‘connect’ so we can talk about how this applies to your organization…

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5 Interesting Bread Related Facts

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Darth Vader goes to Disneyland!

Darth Vader goes to Disneyland video – Holy Kaw!.

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Fishin’

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via flickr.com

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Thanks to Brian Solis for curating these videos and calling them to my attention…

Your businesses faces great change. This statement is true about customers, competitors, and everyone else affecting market behavior. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

Customer engagement, and specifically customer engagement in social media offers many benefits that businesses are starting to uncover, most of it unintentionally. While many champions knew in their gut that social media offered business value, to what extent is now something that is becoming a primary focus in 2011 to 2012 budgetary planning. From satisfaction and goodwill to thriving online communities to building loyalty and trust, customer engagement in social networks is revealing tangible advantages. Once champions recognize how to capture activity, document progress, and translate raw numbers into tangible business value, social media will become an integral and proven pillar in the foundation of not just customer service, but the very fabric of business.

via briansolis.com

Part 2 tomorrow…

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Tell me again why I should monitor my brand online?

The spotlight — or maybe the flood light — shines on bad customer service online. Companies should worry about public complaints and reports of their brand failures more than ever, suggests a new report from RightNow and Harris Interactive. Contrarily, they stand to make more money if they can deliver a superior experience, the report says.

The Customer Experience Impact 2010 report reveals that 82% of consumers in the U.S. said they’ve stopped doing business with a company due to a poor customer service experience. Of these, 73% cited rude staff as the primary pain point, and 55% said a company’s failure to resolve their problems in a timely manner drove them away.

Almost everybody surveyed, a full 95%, said after a bad customer experience they would “take action.” 79% of U.S. consumers said they blabbed about their negative customer experiences in public and amongst friends. Of consumers who took to social media sites including Facebook and Twitter to publicly air a complaint, 58% expected a response from the company, 42% expected a response from a company within a day, but only 22% said they’d actually gotten a response as a result of griping there.

via techcrunch.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above if you want the rest of the story…

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Last week, I finally got control over my Facebook place and immediately I went to merge it with my page. No joy! I brought the issue to the attention of Facebook and this was there response: “We are aware of the problem that you described and apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, we do not have a specific date for when this issue will be resolved but hope to fix it as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience.”

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