One reaction I’ve noticed while performing social media assessments and giving social marketing strategy presentations to prospective clients is the worry in their eyes when the discussion comes to creating content for a multitude of online social media distribution channels.

B2B companies that already have a fairly well-defined traditional marketing group think a particular way, so it’s important to align your thinking with their current focus on product announcement dates, press releases, white papers, conferences, and so forth. If you can position your social media strategy to align with what they already know, you’re more likely to get them thinking about what’s possible instead of putting up roadblocks. All too often their worrying comes after you explain ‘how and why’ to use a variety of social media channels like Twitter (micro-blogging), blogging, audio and video podcasting, and various RSS tools to help with Internet visibility (and engagement, if they have a social networking site already or plan one soon).

One of their concerns is how in the world will they come up with content for all those channels (not to mention, who’s going to do that) and another is when to use all those social media channels of distribution. I have a simple way that gets folks enrolled.

A traditional marketing person’s ‘style’ of thinking is often calendar-based, meaning they look at least 6-12 months out (especially given they have a yearly budget to spend). I suggest that they consider two ‘types’ of content workflow, one that somewhat synchronizes with the scheduled marketing events for the year, and the other being more asynchronous, to fill in the gaps. Big waves and little waves, I call them.

The big waves utilize variations of existing content to repurpose and retransmit the news about the product release/update into your blog, Twitter, and one or more audio/video podcasts (either at your site or ‘with’ others who podcast about your products to their audience).

A specific scenario might be: Collaborate with the Product Marketing manager who knows everything about the product to get the typical white paper that is such a part of traditional B2B marketing efforts. Think about the subtopics discussed in that white paper and write one or more blog articles which relate to, and link to, the white paper. Consider some creative way to write short, text-based interviews with the white papers’ author(s) or related industry experts. This is a great way to start and gives you a segue from yammering on about the technical nature of the product to actually focusing on how ‘users’ are adopting the product. Keeping a keen eye on comments and emails will guide you in the direction to take those blog articles.

And remember, every time you blog also post a Twitter note about the blog(s) and, where appropriate, mention the availability of that white paper with a URL to it.

Next, schedule an audio or video podcast on the product (or service) release. Just have a conversation about the product, not a word-for-word redo of the white paper. Think about how Robert Scoble does his interviews with product managers and CEOs of smaller companies. It’s just 10-20 minutes and they talk about topics relevant to the product and how it makes life easier for the customer in some fashion. You will, of course, post a short blog article with a summary of the podcast and a link to it, as well as a Twitter with a URL to the podcast and/or blog article.

An important strategy to keep in mind: Whether you’re doing podcasts yourself or with a outside vendor, make certain they show up well in the search engines. Make sure the RSS feed is syndicated to all the major RSS aggregators so you get maximize visibility of that content. If you’re expecting a lot of traffic and comments you may want to configure a ROOM in Friendfeed.com or some other tool for monitoring the comments.

The idea here is to post content that’s fairly synchronous with your existing marketing activities. I say ‘fairly synchronous’ because it’s critical that the posts be thoughtfully timed. There are often reasons to post slightly before or slightly after the event. For example, traditional marketing activities include real-world social events you attend, like mixers, conferences and so forth, that are planned for the year. These are always good opportunities to blog, Twitter, post pictures, capture short videos and so forth, all aligned with your existing calendar of activities.

Now for the little waves of social media content. Just think of these as ’salt and pepper’ to keep alive the listener’s ear. If you already have one or two posts regularly coming from your big-wave planned marketing activities, then you might not see the need to sprinkle in little-wave blog posts and Twitters. But if your product release dates are, say, once a month or less, then you’ll want to find ways to talk about what’s going on in the industry, find out what other bloggers are saying about your product or company (setting up a custom room in FriendFeed may help here) and repost the ones that have some bearing on the product, especially those that mention creative ways to use your products and services.

As an aside, give the following a read for helpful hints in Tweeting news about your company.

Keep in mind that anyone who is reading RSS feeds like blogs and Twitter is reading a number of them at once. They are often scanning for news of interest and, at times, resending what they find to others. Regardless of how often you post for your company, make it educational, directly useful and/or highly interesting. If you don’t have anything that day or that week, breathe, relax and focus on when you will have something. I know that the mantra is post often and be regular, but I don’t think that’s all that useful, especially for B2B-type companies to be that stringent. It’s better to focus on quality of what you’re creating versus quantity. This isn’t a race it’s about educating and engaging with others and this is what will get their attention so you’re remembered.

If you have any questions or have a different opinion, be sure to let me know.

Tom

About two months ago a dear friend who is a senior trainer for a group that does personal transformational work started her own blog. It’s called Life As It Is, written by Ann McMaster, and it’s at www.AnnMcMaster.com. 

After the first month, I sent her a note that in about four weeks’ time she had gotten more than 4,000 visits. I was curious what she thought of this because I was excited for her. This is quite an achievement, though not too surprising given that she’s known around the world for the depth of her work over the last 25 years.

Her response was priceless. She said, “It’s easier for me to think about when I hold it that I’m just speaking to my friends … otherwise, I’d be more embarrassed.”

My reply was, “And that is the best way to thinking about blogging – as having a conversation with your friends. You’ve hit upon the magic that makes blogging so unique and popular.”

Kudos to Ann. Do check out her blog when you have a moment. You’ll find your life enriched with the experience of sharing her insights.

Tom

So here I am, sitting at the keyboard, wondering just what will be of value to others to incorporate into a blog about markets of conversation. My, has the evolution of the Internet been speeding along in so many marvelous ways. At times I’m frustrated knowing this, worrying that some clients just don’t seem to find the thread of opportunity at their feet, especially with the last four years of social media, social networking, blogging, user-generated content and all the things I’m sure you know if you’re reading this blog.  My goal here, as with my business, is to help business owners be more successful on the Internet by leveraging social marketing strategies to grow and prosper their businesses in new ways.

It seems like I’ve been around the Internet a very long time now. I started with Symbolics in 1983, which was a spinoff from MIT. There I had an opportunity to learn about ftp, email, editors, routers and all sorts of then-new terms that are old hat now. I’ll always remember Bill Gooch so patiently trying to show me how to use PINE and EMACS and a command-line-based program for mail called MAIL on Unix. In fact, what I remember the most about the 1980s, during all my Symbolics experiences, was how much people helped each other learn about these new software concepts, programming ideas and hardware devices. The group had spun off from the MIT AI (artificial intelligence group), and they were just brimming with new ideas and technology to transform the world.

Back in those days Symbolics introduced the first commercial workstation for programmers that used bit-mapped screens with windows and a mouse and a multi-tasking operating system. That’s what you get now for $399 from Walmart that can run on batteries, but in those days it was more like $80,000 and the machine required a 220v connection. What I liked was how communal it felt with regard to the willingness to teach and share with everyone what we were learning. The early days of the Internet were like that because the Internet (well, ARPANET back then) made it so easy to share ideas quickly. Sharing is an intoxicating experience.

It took another 10 years (into the ’90s) before the Internet started catching on commercially and then another 10 years (early 2000) before the social aspects of the Internet started to really show potential. The market for growth was largely hardware in the 1980s and ’90s, with a gradual evolution of more and better software for PCs that were like the original Symbolics: bit-mapped screens (versus character-oriented screens).

And now, hardware is a commodity, basically. Old and new businesses realize how important it is to focus more on how you engage with your clients on the Internet in a two-way fashion versus using the Internet for spray-and-pray advertisements in hopes that someone will see them. I’ll be sharing with you more in this blog about the emerging ‘markets’ of conversation that are the new ways we will work on the Internet.

Tom