Are You Really LinkedIn?

It’s amazing how much I’ve come to rely on LinkedIn.  Don’t get me wrong – I am  not a social media addict.  I don’t Twitt yet.  MySpace makes me nervous.  I use Facebook, but primarily because I have some clients that are obsessed with it as a business tool. 

LinkedIn is different – it’s used (at least by me) for business purposes only.  I use it for research on clients, partners, investors, etc.  I use it to get answers to questions.  I use it to connect with current colleagues, past colleagues, and sometimes for recruiting purposes. 

Let me preface my upcoming rant with this – I am not an “open networker”.  I send invitations to connect to people I know and have worked with, and accept invitations to connect from people I know and have worked with.  Personally, I don’t believe in the “open networking” thing because I think it defeats the purpose of a community like LinkedIn, but hey…to each his own.  So now that you know where I stand on that…

What is Social Media, and what can my business do with it?

Social media is hot.  If you’re a marketer and you don’t know that, you must be busy reading your back issues of The Industry Standard. 

From a business standpoint, 90% of companies are trying to figure out how to address social media, and the other 10% are just pretending they know what they’re doing with regards to social media.  Much like the early days of the internet as a new medium, social media vehicles are developing so quickly that it’s almost impossible to keep up and address the business opportunities associated with social media.

My guess is that social media is going to be a topic covered in this blog for years to come, but just in case this is the last time we discuss it, here are a few things you should know about this phenomenon:

Building The Internet Marketing Department

Clients and agencies frequently ask me about how I’d structure an internal internet marketing department.  Clients typically ask because as they see their internet marketing programs expanding, they naturally begin to wonder if they can save money and take more control by bringing the entire function in-house.  Agencies typically ask because they see client dollars shifting at a rapid clip towards the internet, and they naturally begin to wonder whether they can create a new revenue stream within the agency.

No easy answers here.  Factors include company type, size, industry, budget, existing leadership, financial goals, etc.  It goes without saying that every situation is unique.  Over the next few months I’ll provide some deeper insight into the topic, but here are two initial pieces of guidance:

Website Copy – Why Lorem Ipsum Turns into a 3-Month Delay

Raise your hand if your website redesign or relaunch has been delayed due to website copy modifications, or specifically the idea that 2-3 members of your senior management team need to review site copy before it goes live. 

Based on experience, I am certain there are a bunch of you with your hands raised.  4 of every 5 website projects I’ve been involved in veer off track due to delays in the copy approval/revision process, not necessarily the copywriting process (although the initial copywriting phase is a delay candidate as well).

Why so many cooks in the kitchen, you might ask?  From what I can gather, the reasons are fairly simple.  In a mid-size organization, a Director or Manager level employee “owns” the website project, and may even have a webmaster or marketing manager as a “co-owner”.  Then you insert 1-3 members of the senior management team, all of whom (rightfully so) hold a stake in the success of the website.  Those members of the senior management team may be involved in the early phases of the website revamp process – they want to sign off on final design, general site structure, etc.  But what they REALLY want to get involved in is the copywriting of the website, or at least the critique of copywriting piece of the website.

Right or wrong (and senior management getting involved in copywriting is not necessarily a bad thing), here’s why senior management wants to get involved, and why it always causes delays:

Local Search – What’s up Doc?

We all know that doctors don’t always have the time, knowledge or resources to market their practices.  That being said, there is one cheap, efficient, fast method that doctors can use to drive new patients, and retain current patients – local search listings.

For the sake of this exercise, we’ll use this new search engine called Google.  Hopefully everyone has heard of it.  Let’s assume I am looking for a pediatrician in Morristown, New Jersey – naturally, I go to Google and type in “pediatricians morristown nj”.  Although your results may differ slightly depending on location and your preferences, here is what most will see:

http://www.google.com/search?complete=1&hl=en&safe=off&q=pediatricians+Morristown+NJ&aq=f

BFF: Marketing & Sales?

My apologies on the use of the modern acronym.  For those who don’t know, “BFF” stands for “Best Friends Forever”.  Now, on with the post…

I was recently re-reading a post from Brian Carroll in his B2B Lead Generation Blog, titled “Collaboration Huddles and 35 Other Ways to Improve Sales and Marketing Teamwork”.  Although I can always grab something useful from Brian’s posts, within his list of 35 I immediately stopped when I read #15:

15. Get the marketing team out in the field with the sales team regularly.