Many of my clients for consultancy services have been asking me the same questions.

Why aren’t architects downloading our information?

Why aren’t people visiting our website?

Why aren’t they coming to our events?

There are two main reasons why this might be.

Firstly because they don’t know about you/it/them;

Secondly because they aren’t interested.

Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come

In the past when there were fewer adverts in our lives, one could rely on being the thing, the company, the service that people knew about. Your flyer might be the one they remembered.

Today there is too much noise and people quite naturally shut it out. Ads on the tv, unsolicited emails and phone calls, unwanted promotional material. Today shouting louder than the next person isn’t going to be enough; in fact it can be counterproductive.

Instead we need to ask ourselves

Who are we trying to attact?

What are they concerned about?

What do they need?

Then focus on providing that in the simplest way possible, and measure if it works. It might not be what you’ve been trying to sell them, but it will make selling it a hell of a lot easier.
Image: Not like the others by Derek Gavey (Creative Commons)

I had a telephone conversation with a fellow professional this morning about their new website (which I won’t share with you here for reasons which will become apparent).

The person concerned has invested in an attractive new site which has some very useful features, is approachable and demonstrates their experience well. The firm have also set up a facebook page and a twitter account which is engaging and shares useful information.

‘Is it working?’ I asked. ‘Well I think so,’ she replied.
‘Do you have google analytics on the site?’ I asked. No. No analytics at all to speak of. It has been a rush and the web guy is busy all the time.

The problem with this is that this person doesn’t know if her social media activities are working, and she won’t until she makes her website perform the job it should be doing. That job is to generate more business for her.

So I thought I would post here 5 steps to make sure you have your website working for you as part of your social media strategy.

1. Be in the right places

Make sure you are in the online places that your customers and advocates use. Just as with choosing the right places to network, you don’t want to waste time in the wrong breakfast meeting. Do some research and make sure you can find out where they are, and make sure you’re there too. For professional people, Linkedin is an obvious place, but Twitter also has a growing user base in construction, for example. Go and have a look for your customers. Where do they hang out?

2. Be googlable for your terms as well as your name

The obvious online place everyone uses is Google. Make sure that people who do search for you can find you via google. You’d be surprised how many people can’t quite remember the name of that architect but they know they have an office in Ipswich. And ensure that your website is optimised so that people searching find you, when you are the answer to their question.

3. Be useful on your site as well as when tweeting

Make sure that you use twitter, forums, linkedin, facebook etc to link back to useful content on your website. This means that you need to provide useful content on your website. A blog is a very good, low cost way of doing this without incurring significant ongoing charges from webdesigners. Set up a pdf download plugin and image handling tools and you can do it all yourself. Next time someone asks you a question, you can blog about it too. This will attract more people to your website where they will look around.

4. Encourage measurable actions

Even if you have your own business, you must justify the use of your time using social tools, so make sure you measure the results. When I joined twitter the traffic to our company website increased dramatically, including search clickthroughs by 79%. If you have items that can be downloaded, track them. If you can create a newsletter or blog monitor the signups – these are people who want to hear more from you. Find ways to measure the intangibles like people calling direct from your website. Create actions which can be measured, to show you how your strategy is working, or not.

5. Measure and Test

Choose a range of actions to monitor and begin to measure them. Install google analytics on your website and blog (it is free) and learn how to use it. Create goals for the pdf downloads and for completions of your ‘request a ringback’ form. Then, try out different types of activity and see what works. Be ruthless with your time and measure the results. Then if things don’t work, you can analyse why and remove the glitches. And if things do work, you can do them again and more of the same!

There are my five steps to make sure you have the your website working properly as part of your social media strategy. Did I miss something out? Please do share it below.

Don’t know how to do these things? Why not ask me to help you?

Walk into a networking group meeting – you know the sort of event – a breakfast meeting, or maybe just a bit of ‘networking’ at another event. There will be people doing a range of things.

Some will be ‘sharks’ working the room with a view to pushing their business cards on as many as possible, and getting as many people’s cards as they can so they can spam the owners within 24 hours and then repeatedly until they get round to opting out.

Some will be ‘mates’ sticking with their friends, not interested in meeting anyone else and rather rudely ignoring the new people.

Not surprisingly, there will also be some ‘lurkers’ hanging around at the edge, wondering what to do.

And then there are the networkers, greeting new people, moving around too, introducing people in the room and writing on the back of business cards what they promised to do in their follow up. If you meet one of these people they’ll probably get in touch after the meeting with something you told them you need – not with a plug for their website, seminar or blog!

The woman who taught me about networking, Nicole Bachmann, told me that the networkers probably make up 15% of any networking group. The trick is to find them and get to know them. You can learn from watching what they do, and of course they are there to help you too, so whatever you need, they’ll be able to help somehow, at some point, or they will ‘know a man who can’.

Of course if you want to be a good networker, you have to be like them. And it’s easier than you think. Ask them about themselves. Be interested. Find out what they are looking for, and have a think about whether you know anyone who can help them. Remember, a good networker is an advocate for all her hundreds of contacts. She might not be able to help herself, but maybe one of her colleagues can.

It should become apparent here that good networkers tend to seek each other out. Its no fun going into a ‘shark pit’ of a networking meeting, but there may be some gems in there, some you don’t yet know, so I think its worth having a look, especially if you can use social tools online to help you find the right people quickly.

The funny thing is, I find people using exactly the same behaviours on twitter and linkedin. There are the sharks, collecting as many contacts (even on linkedin, those they don’t know at all) that they can and then spamming them with sales messages. There are the ‘mates’ who only want to talk to each other and are offended when someone on twitter sees a tweet and politely joins the conversation. And there are lurkers, reading what other people are saying but not taking part.

The question is, where are the networkers online and how do you find them?

Nicole is teaching how to Network at the Essex Business School next year if you’d like to check her out.

Image by hermanusbackpackers

So what do you want to use Twitter FOR?

In its purest form I find that twitter is good for:

• Listening
• Being Human
• Talking to People
• Linking to other things on the Web

There is also a longer ‘what is Twitter useful for’ post here, looking at the question in more detail.

All the uses I refer to are however linked to the same thing – conversations. If you are willing to jump in and be part of conversations, twitter is a great way to promote whatever it is you are promoting.

Here’s an example of a strategic use of twitter:

East Anglia’s Childrens’ Hospices are fundraising for a new hospice building in Ipswich (disclosure – the architects I work for designed it). They need to raise £3m in 12 months. EACH has a fundraising twitter account and a facebook page for their main appeal, which raises the huge amounts of funds required to look after the hundreds of children and families they care for all over East Anglia, but they (sensibly) set up a separate Twitter account for what has become known as the ‘Treehouse Appeal’.

The charity set up a separate facebook account, a separate twitter account, and a special page on their website. The purpose of these tools is to draw attention to the appeal, share information about the build (which is going on at the same time) and interact with supporters and enquirers.

On the appeal page they describe the project, showcase ways you can help support the appeal, provide a running total and a form for direct giving, alongside linking to their main website.

On the facebook page they post images, video, stories, links and encourage sharing of ideas and wider discussions about the appeal.

The Treehouse Appeal Twitter account serves a number of different purposes in this combination of tools:

1. The appeal has a presence on twitter, so twitter users are encouraged to visit the facebook page and the website for more information.
2. The twitter account can link to anything else on the web related to the appeal, and uses the #treehouseappeal hashtag in its tweets to collate and associate messages from supporters.
3. The twitter account is an immediate way to contact the appeal team without picking up the phone.
4. Following the appeal, like ‘fanning’ a facebook page, lets supporters keep in touch with the charity as part of their daily activities.
5. The account updates followers with news of appeal deadlines, and shares updates from all its supporters including those taking part in charity activities (listening out on twitter too).
6. The account connects with its main supporters the local paper and radio station, who also have twitter accounts.

By tying together all their online activities the appeal has been able to galvanise support from across the country in a way that isn’t possible with a static website. People feel involved, listened to and supported in their charitable activities by the twitter community. The appeal has raised over £1.1m just five months and is well on the way to meeting its target.

Now imagine who your community is.

How could you listen to them?

What do they need?

How would you talk to them?

What can you do for them?

How can you join together things with twitter to help them do their work?

See all the Seven Steps Here

I had a great reply from Cindy Frewen Wuellner over on this post and thought it was a good topic for another, so here goes.

Cindy’s question was that to do with having trouble following over 4500 people and keeping up with them all. At my suggestion she took a look at Refollow as a way of analyzing the people she follows and added:

Of my followings, none are ‘dead’ or ‘lazy’. No way to easily cull; I like them all. How do you suppose our friends w/ 20-40k ppl manage their twitter streams. @ImadNaffa says he just uses groups.

It is a good question Cindy. I follow over 3000 now and it is partly because I don’t want to miss anything, when I find interesting people I want to add them to the stream. But as I mentioned in another post, you can’t read everything, and no-one should expect you to.

Chris Brogan follows over 140,000 people on twitter and he also says that he spends around 60% of his time on twitter using Search. This is because he is looking for something.

Remember when the internet first started to get going in the early 90s and new people arrived who weren’t just the experienced techies? They started to read everything they found which was of interest. Pretty soon there was a cult of content consumers and everyone said ‘the internet is a time waster’. Then in the dot com boom the same thing happened but it had pictures.

Today we say the same thing about twitter but we have missed the point – twitter isn’t about browsing (though it is nice to browse a bit, I do this on the train) it is a tool for networking. Whatever you do you can’t have deep meaningful relationships with thousands of people, but you can build them step by step. Do this by search.

How to do it? Set up detailed advanced searches using the advance search on twitter for subjects of interest, geolocation and so on. Pick up the RSS feeds and add them to a reader, or put the searches into hootsuite or tweetdeck and make columns. Then when anyone (including people in your stream) tweets about your topics you can read a list of just those tweets and start engaging.

You can still read the stream too, but don’t try and read everything, you’ll just burn yourself out!

What matters here is what your objective is. My technique requires you to have one. Why not set up a behaviour that will deliver it?

Image: A Direction to Follow by batega

Remember this post where I talked about doing market research? In it I explain how to use the internet to find out what your clients, competitors, or just your favourite people are doing online, for free.

At the end of the post I mention briefly that you can manage this information using alerts, or preferably RSS, but I don’t explain what RSS is.

RSS is a way to arrange for information you choose – news, blog posts, search results, to be sent to you when they are published, without you having to go and search for them all over the internet. Here is a fantastic video by Commoncraft about RSS and how it works.

RSS in plain English by CommonCraft

It is the first ever instructional video Commoncraft made, and is pretty impressive. While you’re on YouTube you might want to check out their other instructional videos or even subscribe to their YouTube channel!

Now you can set up all the searches you want – on twitter, on google, wherever you like, and pick up the RSS feeds and view them all in a reader. Every time your topics are mentioned online you’ll get a new entry. When you’ve signed up for a reader, why not subscribe to this blog? Just click the orange RSS button on the right.

Many people who don’t like networking on the internet won’t use it because they are concerned that it wastes their time.

If you want to make sure you don’t waste anyone’s time, and instead become a trusted contact of everyone you know, and get business out of online networking, then it is essential to learn about how to use ‘Pull’ marketing.

So what is Pull marketing, and how does it differ from Push marketing? Here is my simple definition and some examples of how to use it, however you do your networking.

Push marketing is when the customer doesn’t want your product or service. Pull marketing is when the customer does want your product or service.

To understand Pull and Push marketing, you have to become the consumer. Put yourself in the shoes of your prospective customer. A good way to do this is to remember when you were last a customer yourself.

Remember the last time someone tried to sell you something you didn’t want? That’s Push marketing. You get a call from someone selling double glazing. You don’t want double glazing, at least, not now. If you’re anything like me you’ll find the experience frustrating and time wasting, but also it may make you feel a little bit guilty, because many people find it difficult to say ‘no’. Imagine what these feelings do to the reputation of your brand with your customer!

Now remember when you last needed help with something and someone put you in touch with the very person who could help you. The person they suggested was just right – perhaps they were a specialist, or provided the exact product you were looking for, for the right price. This is Pull marketing at work, and everyone wins. You get what you want, the supplier gets a sale and your contact gets brownie points for doing a good job.

The reason why Pull marketing isn’t frustrating is that it is a mechanism which comes into action when the customer needs something and not before. ‘Before’ is the waste of time.

Using Pull Marketing when Networking Face to Face

At a networking event, Push marketing would be if you collected everyone’s business cards and subscribed them to your unsolicited email newsletter, on the offchance someone might need it some time. This is Push marketing, because the person you are mailing doesn’t want your service. Millions of hours a day are spent dealing with this menace. If you push like this you might get some guilty customers, but you won’t get a trusted network.

Conversely, Pull marketing would be if you spent your time at the meeting getting to know the people there, finding out what they are interested in and need to know more about, and putting them in touch with people you know who can help them. This is Pull marketing, because you seek out people who need something, and help them get it. On the face of it you don’t get much from the deal, but if everyone in the room does it they’ll all know you a bit better too, and next time your ideal client comes along with a need they’ll probably put you in touch.

So that’s my definition of Push and Pull marketing. Personally I subscribe to the Pull version. How about you?

Next time I’ll look at how you can use Pull marketing with Linkedin, and then Twitter. If you’d like to get the updates why don’t you subscribe to this blog? You can add the RSS feed or fill out the box on the right to receive it via email. Of course, this is entirely opt in!

image: Push Pull by Robert S Donovan

Please Share this Post:

]]>