Speaking in Manchester tonight, Al Mackin, Managing Director of SEO Consultancy – The E Word – launched their Manchester Twitter report.  This is one of the first white papers which aims to highlight some of the key influencers on Twitter in the region using slightly more complicated methodology than number of followers.  The aim of the report was to begin to identify best practice across key sectors, it makes for an interesting read.

Amongst some of the other content tonight, there was also an attempt to identify the social media capital of Europe. Surprisingly, this was highlighted as Madrid, in Spain, with London, Paris and Manchester following closely.  Head of Social Media at Juice Digital, Steve Downes, looked at an index analysis which showed that Manchester has a higher penetration of its population using Twitter when compared to London, which was interesting, so the region is really taking off, which was good to hear.

The landscape is really beginning to change out there, not just in Europe, but further afield too.  China has over 90 million people that have written a blog, a simply staggering thought when you combine it with the fact that they have more English speakers than we do population in the UK and a signal that global reach is stretching.  52% of Indian based businesses use social media activley, when compared to only 33% of UK businesses.  With 65M Tweets being sent every day and a further 300,000 new users signing up daily too, it’s no surprise that business wants to join the conversation.

Legal beagles Pannone took the stage to ground the social mediaphoria by reminding attendees that social media is not excluded from the law, including libel.  Their advice was to have a crisis management policy, a social media policy and make sure that if anyone really takes offence to something you posted, to remove it, unless you are absolutely sure it is true.    All standard stuff, but something to beware and plan for.  Three interesting facts that I took away were: -

1) Twitter (the entity) can potentially be jointly liable for any libellous Tweets if it is reported to them and they do not remove it.

2) Digital libel (unlike normal libel which normally has a one year window) re-sets every time someone view the post, which means that the window for action may remain open in perpetuity.  I’m no lawyer, however,  I’m sure that would be a nightmare if it happened.  A good reason to have a robust policy.

3)  Your staff contracts should be reviewed to include things such as digital bullying and defamatory statements made outside of work about you the employer.

Overall, it was  a good event.  Not the usual “jump on the bus” type of event, a little more educational and something for everyone.

It’s no surprise that we’re all taking in massive amounts of information nowadays, I recently noticed in a newspaper article that the brain processes about 16GB of new information a day.  With all this going in, it’s becoming harder to cut through to people, that’s for sure.  People are inundated with information and simply can’t absorb it all, therefore our brains just seem to skimming and cramming as much information as we can in order that we may need to recall some reference to something, at some point.

As a  result, we’re all filtering much more in our lives. Relying on trusted sources or tools to give us the bits we don’t want to miss amongst the noise.  Counting up my columns on Tweetdeck earlier today, I have thirty six, which are monitoring the fifteen hundred or so people on Twitter I follow and the 311 Linkedin connections I have.  The columns are set up to monitor key words, key people, sectors and topics which I’m interested in, listening to or want to keep an eye on.  By using filters in this way, I can keep a cockpit view on the things that really matter such as my most trusted business contacts, industry talk, new products or new connections being made by people I know.  This means I only need to take a glance at it, two or three times a day to catch up on what really matters, in reality, it means that the top 10% of so of people I follow, make it into a column, like a modern day black book!

The more valuable content you distribute, the more your reputation can increase and the greater value you have as a syndicator of value to your network.  The trick is to not do too much of it, otherwise you become a news information service and drift into obscurity.  I’ve seen people on Twitter who rapid fire out news, who get unfollowed just as quickly as they crowd out users screens with information, thinking it is of value.  Quality always trumps quantity when dealing with people want to filter.  The more you do it yourself, the more you recognise it’s value to others.

We all know lots of people. Your extended network can run to hundreds of people.  However, with a world on turbo-charge, it’s easy to forget the people you’ve met, that’s why it’s important to keep track of who you know.  Social media is one of the simplest ways to do this, particularly Linkedin.

If you do meet someone interesting, follow them up the next day on Linkedin.  If they accept your request to link up, then a number of things happen.  Firstly, you see who they know.  Secondly, you get an automatic update of their status updates and new connections.  It also means that if you keep your Linkedin up to date and also your status updates, you also get to keep front of mind with them.  Linkedin, unlike Twitter, pushes status updates out via e-mail and a summary of their activity, so it adds another layer to the platforms you may already use.  I blogged about this previously about how I use a Linkedin column in Tweetdeck (post here).

I’ev lost count of the number of people I know in the industry who I catch up with at indsutry dinners who always make a note to come and say hello.  Why?  Because, although we haven’t seen each other in person or even spoken on a phone, however, they do keep up to date with whats going on with me, and vice-versa via Linkedin updates.  If you’re new to Linkedin, I’ve put my Ten top hints and tips up here.

I told a social media agency off the other day. They made an approach via e-mail to me enquiring whether I integrated Social Media into my PR deployment. The e-mail was personalised, written by someone, not an e-shot. I wont embarass them or the agency by naming names. As an agency pedalling Social Media, the very minimum that I would have expected is that, prior to any approach, they should have already checked my social media landscape. Pretty basic. Had they done so, they would have seen that I already use Twitter, Blogging, Youtube and Linkedin as part of my personal and business communications. Now, if they’d of said, “we’ve done a scan of your landscape” (because were a social media agency) and we think you could improve your digital footprint like this…., then fair enough. Approaches like this, are inexcusable to me nowadays. I’ve blogged many times about Time, Attention and Trust (T.A.T) and how it’s never been easier to investigate your potential prospects (see this post for further info). It goes to show, that the smart businesses, individuals and agencies are using Social Media in the right way. To research their prospects and tailor make their approach. The less savvy agencies out there aren’t practicing what their preaching, not the smartest advertisement for their business or for social media as a serious platform for business generation.

“Social media is not a unicorn, it’s a horse!”  That’s how I opened up my bit of the panel session at the SAScon conference in Manchester today, when asked about the role social media plays within my business at Brother, highlighting that is should form part of an overall marketing plan.  The panel was exploring the challenges of actually getting social media going in business.  Rather than write a massive long blog about it, I’m going to bullet point the key points I made (in no particular order): -

1. T.A.T is what matters nowadays.  Time. Attention & Trust.  See earlier blogpost about it here.
2. Choose your channels carefully and only do whats relevant to the outcome you want.
3. B2ME is the new B2B.  Blogpost here.
4. Keeping relevant in peoples lives is what matters.
5. Engagement should lead to marriage.  If you are going to get going with engagement, ultimately you want that person to be a customer or stay a customer, that’s the end game or don’t get engaged.
6. Social media promotes authenticity and transparency and can create emotional connections with customers.
7. Getting it all going can be hard work.  I personally drove it in my own organisation.  If you don’t have the buy in from the leaders, it can all end in tears if the going gets tough.
8. Create a framework.  Develop a policy that is relevant to your business, don’t borrow someone elses.
9. I.T. have to be on board.  I’m fortunate in having a supportive European IT Director.  In many business they can get in the way or be a barrier.
10. 61% of businesses say sales and profit are their key drivers yet 64% of people practicing social media say it is hard to measure (source – econsultancy survey).  Social media should form part of your overall campaign integration, not be mutually exclusive of it.

Social media is a trend not a fad.  It’s here to stay.  Customers are no longer king, they are KING KONG (didn’t manage to get that soundbite in).   We all have intolerance of bad service and we have the tools to tell others.  If you want to win more customers, win their hearts and their minds and then let the six degrees of separation do the rest!

Another one bites the dust. $850M later, AOL are preparing to either offload or close the social networking site Bebo.  Another casualty of the Facebook domination of social media, less than two years ago, Bebo boasted around 5.8m users in the UK and Ireland.   However, it failed to keep up with the latest features, stay relevant, monetise its offering and differentiate itself from Facebook.  Around four million users deserted Bebo subsequently, Facebook, by contrast grew its UK user base from 15M to 23M in the same period.

There’s a limit to how many social media sites you can maintain.  Thinking of my own life, I use Twitter, Flickr, Linkedin and Blogs.  They keep me busy.  What’s notable however, is how much integration is going on between social media networks, perhaps that’s where Bebo started to struggle.  For example, Twitter can interface with Facebook, Blogs and Linkedin if you use the right interface, like Tweetdeck.

Social media platforms that fail to do this, in time, will fail.  The growing dominance of Facebook, which now has over 50M users worldwide is there to be seen, YouTube is still uploading terabytes of video every day, Linkedin supports millions of connections every day.  Launching a new social media networking site is going to be pretty tough for a new market entrant and survival becomes the key word for everyone else.

So, it’s bye bye to Bebo.  An expensive lesson for AOL but an important lesson for anyone else thinking about a social media platform.  Users are fickle.  They will desert you as soon as join you.  You have to stay relevant, do something really new and make sure you integrate!

Here’s an idea for you, I used it the other week.  When you are hosting a neworking event, say a dinner, collate a short biog of all the people that are attending.  Their name, their company, their Twitter ID, their company website, their Linkedin address.  Stick it all in one document and let people investigate each other before they come.  It gives everyone coming an opportunity to do their desk research, see who interests them, prepare some interesting questions, build a picture of the table.  It takes a little bit longer to prepare of course, however, the people that are coming really appreciate it.  Your guests may also (pre-event)  link up on Linkedin or follow each other on Twitter.  You, by design, will come across more as a connector of people, someone that “adds value”, (aswell as being a terrific host of course).

I’m still surprised at the number of events that I either speak at or go to, where a speaker profile does not include a Twitter ID for example.  I’ve provided mine, asked for it to be published, yet still it doesn’t appear as the conference organisers “don’t normally do that”.  For me, this is just doing the obvious nowadays, saving people time, making it easy for them to connect and becoming the first step in them joining your wider network of contacts.

I spoke to a group of salespeople and managers in the Midlands today about how to use social media networks to build a picture of your key customers or potential customers.  Platforms such as Linkedin and Twitter give a new level of transparency to people’s lives, their interests, their movements and what projects they may be working on.

By following people and connecting on these networks, you can use the information for the purposes of engagement and to tailor your approach, whether cold or warm, to make it more personal.  For example, before going to a meeting with a new client, look them up on Linkedin, learn a bit more about them.  If they’re on Twitter, you can get a much more dynamic picture of what they are doing.

Everyone agreed that cold calling is getting harder, as people get busier, over-worked and time becomes precious.  So, moving forward a more tailored approach is needed.  A personalised approach.  An approach with cut through.  This can only be achieved if you have built an understanding of the business you are targeting or the individual.

Social media platforms can provide you with more “Opportunities to Engage” with your customers, to provide more glue to doing business with you.  The more customers you retain and win, the high propensity you have to achieve your “OTE”.

Later this week, I’ll be presenting a short talk to a group of salespeople about social media and how it can help you “cut through” when prospecting for new business.  My thesis is that in a world where time, attention and trust are scarce within customers, interruptive methods of marketing have an unintended consequence.  That is, your intentions are good, you’re trying to inform a customer of a new product or service which you feel will really benefit them, however, due to their workload/pressure, they see it as an interference in their working day.

Let me give you a concrete example from today.  In amongst my post, I got two cold prospecting letters.  One – from a large advertising agency – was a chest beating letter of how good they were, how they had done a brilliant job for someone else, how many awards they had one and they included a free box of cereal from the client they did the work for.  So, no relevance, totally unpersonalised, they hadn’t taken the time to research our business, just expected that the brownie badges on their arm means that I should give them some time.  All I had was a crushed box of breakfast cereal.  Ahem.  I don’t think so.

Contrast that with letter two. A highly personalised piece.  My company logo featuring prominently.  Letter signed by the MD of the business, with full contact information to the decision maker.  Referencing things that they had seen about us in the press, things that you can pick up off of my social media feeds, offering solutions to those forthcoming projects.  Which did you think had the cut through?

I call this “B2ME” marketing, I’m always banging on about it.  Social media channels such as Twitter, Linkedin or Blogs allow you to quickly establish the movements, challenges, projects, problems and successes of your potential customers and create personalised communications to them.  Clearly, you can’t do this if you are – say – a credit card company, handling millions of customers.  However, if you are a B2B brand, targetting specific decision makers within key target accounts, frankly, you’ve no excuse to be sending plain vanilla letters.  They are a waste of time.  A waste of resources.  And have the opposite effect that you are intending.

So, to all salespeople out there, selling to large and major accounts.  To hit your OTE (On Target Earnings or Commission), you can powerfully use social media channels to incresae your “Opportunities To Engage.”  By doing this, you can learn more about your target customers and offer meaningful solutions to them.  Simple as that.

Behind all these wonderful social media platforms are people.  The whole reason for the technology is to connect with other human beings, help us make introductions to new contacts and build new relationships.

The end game – ultimately – is for these on-line interactions to lead to a physical meeting in real life, the end game.  Over the last few months, I have met some simply fantastic business people in real life, where our initial contact has come through social media neworks.  We have established commonality in our interests, our purpose and had a meeting of “like minds”.  Those relationships are already yielding mutual opportunities.

The secret is this (we’ll it’s not really a secret, it’s actually common sense).  In the establishment of the relationship, both parties have been prepared to give.  To give advice, conversation or a favour, without an expectation for immediate return.  By being generous, people quickly return generosity, that starts an association that – in time – leads to you becoming closer, friendlier, more trusting and more likely to see them as a trusted contact.

Often on Twitter, you see adverts for “gain a 1000 followers” overnight with our magic formula.  Twitter is about the conversation with a relevant audience (your followers).  It’s far better to have 100 quality followers of relevance, than 1,000 of irrelevance.  If you think success is followers, then you’re wrong.  Success is about your engagement and influence with your followers.  People with relatively few followers can have a much greater influence by being original in their thinking, this leads to great levels of engagement with others and propensity of re-tweeting.

By ensuring your follower base is relevant, you have the greater opportunity to have relevant conversations, which lead to building relationships, which ultimately lead to person to person meetings, which ultimately leads to opportunities.  Give generously!