Social Networking and the Election

by Allan Bird

If you have any doubts about the power of Social Networking just look at the results from this year's election. The Obama campaign was the first to utilize it and they raised a new record of $150 million in September up from their previous high of $66 million. A major part of that was accomplished through Social Networking utilizing everything from their presence on Image via CrunchBase, Twitter, My Space etc to name a few to connecting with people who held rallys in their homes and neighbourhoods. They also encouraged people to download phone lists and make calls and even offered the ability to "mine" your personal phonebook and match up demopgraphics and then download that to your iPhone as a list to make calls when you had time. The McCain campaign eventually saw the power of this and has jumped in with both feet. The benefit has been the personal touch and the empowerment that cannot be retracted and has made everything more transparent now and in the future.

This has the same application to the Auto Industry and by engaging and interacting with your customers in a meaningful way that is important to them you will reap the benefits. Get a blog going and a presence in the Social Networking world and you will find that you will build lasting relationships that result in more sales and a higher gross profit that everyone has been looking for in this new economy. Don't you buy from people you have a relationship with and trust ? What if they referred you to a relative or friend that was in the market for a car, would that increase the likelihood of making a deal ?

To read more on the election and social networking:

Election and Social Networking

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A Guide to Corporate Blogging

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeToday Reem Abeidoh looks at Corporate blogging and shares 13 Steps Fortune 500 companies take to Create a Blog.

In order to maintain a competitive edge, corporations are increasingly looking for opportunities to make them stand out. Although traditional media serves as a solid medium that disperses company messaging to the world, the trends of information consumption are evolving. After some initial hesitancy, corporations are slowly starting to realize that it is important to jump on the virtual bandwagon of blogging. This medium represents the missing ingredient that traditional media lacks: the ability to directly connect a company to its customers.

As of February 2008, 54 companies listed on the Fortune 500 have corporate blogs (source). I had the great honor of interviewing the social media gurus behind three of the top companies with blogs: Michael Brito, Social Media Strategist at Intel, LaSandra Brill, Manager, Web & Social Media Marketing at Cisco, and Tac Anderson, Web 2.0 Strategic Lead at Hewlett Packard (HP).

Below is the information Intel, Cicso and HP have provided me regarding how their companies utilize blogging to connect with their customers.

Why is Blogging Crucial to Corporations?

What is the first image your mind conjures up when a brand is mentioned? Is it the logo, the jingle on the advertisement or the experience you previously had with the brand? Blogging allows current and potential consumers to associate the brand with a face and a personality. It bridges the distant gap that has existed between the “inaccessible” company and the “average” consumer. Brito said, “It’s a way for us to appear less corporate and put a human face when we interact online. We believe people relate more effectively to other people instead of a logo or corporate brand.”

Additionally, the blog is a representation of the company’s values, beliefs, philosophy and direction. If they are involved in a medium that encourages a two-way conversation, it shows their consumers that they care about their opinions. Brill noted, “Blogging lets us communicate with our customers in a more personal and direct way. But more importantly, blogging gives us a much needed way for customers to communicate with us. Customers are able to interact with comments and potentially provide valuable feedback or insight that can be brought back into the business.”

Although direct interaction with customers is an incredible incentive, there are many other benefits to blogging. It has the power to position employees as thought-leaders in their industry, to assist in reputation management during crises; to build brand awareness and loyalty; and to increase brand visibility, traffic and links.

To read more and develop a Corporate Strategy Click Here

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Measure your Website's True ROI

Image via CrunchBase

by Allan Bird 10/16/2008

I attended one of the most enlightening Webinars yesterday, put on by Automotive News. It featured a presentation by Avinash Kaushik, an analytics evangelist for Google. He discussed what he described as the "Head and Long Tail Concept" which basically showed how most sites simply concentrate on the main keywords, such as the OEM Brand or Dealerships name etc as a way for customers to find them. While this is very necessary it only scratches the surface of what is available out there. The great differentiator is to invest some time in finding out who your demographic is and going after them with keywords that are of interest to that particular clientele. He also spoke of learning what is actually happening when people come to your website. Yes leads and sales are important, but what is working and not working on your site is worth it's weight in gold to a company. If people are concentrating on a particular element, why not highlight that and make it easier for them to find. An example may mean that some information on the 3rd page of your site is the trigger that gets someone to submit a lead, or make an appointment, or fill out a credit app. Get that content on the first page of your site.

Who comes back to your site again and again and what do they do when they get there?

Do you know ?

Yet there are tools available to tell you exactly that.

Dealers spend 90% of their money on the "head" and not the tail. Why not learn more about your customers and spread out the investment, in fact reduce the dollars spent and drive a higher number of customers to your site by purchasing less popular keywords that attract more people? Seems like a winner to me.

Another concept that got my attention was that most website content is decided in the end by the "Hippo" in the company or the Higest Paid Person's Opinion, who may or may not have a clue. It is hard to buck that person though as they generally sign the paychecks. Again you can quickly test out an idea by posting differnet types of content and then measuring the results to prove or disprove an opinion quickly and scientifically rather than emotionally.

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Meeting Price Objections from Trust

Charles Green on 10/02/2008 12:46 0 comments ,21 views

When the customer says, “I don’t know, that sounds kind of high to me…” what do you do? How does Trust-based Selling™ handle customers’ concerns regarding price? First, note the sales jargon for this situation—it gets called “objection handling.” The wording is revealing. It suggests we have a conflict with our customer, an oppositional situation—their side is objecting to our side. And our job is to “handle” it. Kind of like a counter-move in wrestling.
But what if you’re trying to create a trust-based relationship with a customer? In that case, this isn’t about “objections,” much less “handling” them. Instead, it’s about a mutual inquiry as to whether joint value can be created—or not. Price is—at bare minimum—a simple and necessary part of the discussion.
But much more importantly, when we hear price comments as “objections,” we immediately jump to a place of high self-orientation—the trust-destroying denominator in the trust equation. Omigosh, they’re pushing back against me—I’ve got to counter-attack.
Thought one in responding from trust—it’s not about you. In fact, it’s never about you. It’s always about the customer. What looks like a threatening price objection is actually a great opportunity to learn something important about a customer, and a chance to add value right in the sales process itself. Here’s why.
Most price “objections” are simply expressions of dismay or concern—feelings—on the part of the customer. Most fall into five categories. Helping the customer identify these feelings and these categories is a positive help in and of itself. The actual words spoken can be identical: “— that sounds kind of high to me.” But they mask very different meanings:
The categories are:

1. Naïve. Uh oh, that’s way bigger than I thought. Subtext: "I feel ashamed; I didn't understand what was involved in buying this product/service before talking to this person."

2. Out of Date. That’s more than we can afford. Subtext: "I feel embarrassed—I invited this person in thinking we could do it in this year’s budget. Now I see that won't work."

3. Engineer. Wait a minute, I don’t see why it should be that much. Subtext: "That doesn’t make sense—they must be quoting me the fully-loaded version, let’s reverse engineer it."

4. Comparison Shopper. Hey wait—how do I know you’re not screwing me? Subtext: "I want to get a good deal, maybe not the best, but in the top half, so I need to know the real prices."

5. Bazaar Lover. Aha, the game is on! Subtext: "I don’t care what you quote me, I’m going to get 20% off! I love this part of the buying process!"

Each of these subtexts requires a very different response. The good news is—the responses are obvious. All we have to do as the seller is to ask! Ask the buyer what’s behind their words; what kind of concern are they expressing when they say, “I don’t know, sounds a little high to me.” What are they feeling?
Our job is simply to explain that all reasons are valid, and that we simply need to know which is operative here. Simply by stating them for what they are, buyers one and two feel relieved of their shame and embarrassment. And while this transaction won’t happen, you just vastly increased the odds of them buying from you in the future.

Number three becomes a simple job of itemizing features and costs—as long as we are not attached to the margin on every little feature. An easy sale.

Number four is solved by the willingness to be transparent, within the bounds of what’s legal. Another easy sale—as long as your price is fair.

Number five just wants to have fun. So build in a little upside, and be prepared to give a little more up; and enjoy yourself along with the buyer.

This is not about “handling objections.” It is about using curiosity and customer focus to build relationships. The profits follow—as long as we remember we’re supposed to be on the same side of the table as our customer, and in a relationship that is the sum of multiple transactions.

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JupiterResearch reports social networking sites may erode email effectiveness

Image via Wikipedia A new Jupiter research report, The Social and Portable Inbox: Optimizing E-mail Marketing in the New Era of Communication Tools ," shows that newer marketing communication methods, such as social networking sites and text messaging could be eroding the effectiveness of email promotions.
The report states in 2007, 51 percent of e-mail users said e-mail inspired at least one online purchase, and 47 percent said the same for off-line purchases. However, in 2008, only 44 percent of users were inspired to purchase online and 41 percent for off-line purchases. In addition, 22 percent of those surveyed said they use social networking sites instead of e-mail, and a large amount more indicated they use their cell phones, text messaging and instant messaging (IM) as an alternative to email.
"Consumers' confidence in e-mail has become shaken by irrelevant communications and high message frequency, which are top drivers of subscribers' churn and channel skepticism," explained David Daniels, Vice President, Research Director and Lead Analyst of the report for JupiterResearch. "People receive such a high volume of e-mail that they are unable to pay attention to every message. It is so important for marketers to be relevant and succinct when they send messages to consumers' inboxes."

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Social Networking: Number Friends Vs the Quality of Each Friend

by Daniel Schawbel on 10/01/2008 07:37 0 comment

A lot of very influential people are sounding off that it’s not the number of friends you have on social networks that matter, but rather the quality of the relationships. For instance, many people would rather have 100 close knit contacts on LinkedIn than 600 “lose contacts” or people who you might not even know. Facebook considers users with 5,000 friends (the max you can have) “whales.” Basically having a lot of friends on Facebook, contacts on LinkedIn or followers on Twitter is giving people a bad name. There was even a recent study done that compared the number of friends and wall posts you have on Facebook to being more or less narcissistic.

Follow this link to a great discussion and analysis

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