8 Social Media Commandments for VARs
At the Cisco Partner Velocity conference in Paris, Will McInnes (pictured), a social media guru, shared 8 social media commandments with roughly 200 VARs and managed service providers (MSPs). The VAR Guy often yawns when someone claims to be a social media guru. But in this case McInnes is the real deal and his eight tips are pure gold. Take a look.
1. Know Your Networks: Whether it’s LinkedIn or Twitter, dive in. And forget user myths. In the UK, for instance, the heaviest Internet users are women 18-34 and men 50+.
2. Listen: Watch conversations on social networks for positive and negative comments about key technologies and business problems. Also, pay attention to User Generated Reviews. They can influence the success or failure of a product or service.
3. Be real-time: In social media, real-time is the topic of discussion. When events happen they’re reported first on Twitter. Capitalize on the real-time trend and you can win in real-time.
4. Be open: Products that have reviews (not necessarily positive reviews) have a 10 percent higher conversion rate for actual sales. People are more positive than generally expected in reviews. That extra nudge from the reviews often triggers a buy. Another key example: MyStarbucksIdea: In 12 months, Starbucks had 70,000 ideas, 94 that they said “yes” and 70 that became part of daily business.
5. Be Where They Want You: Your web site is important. But you still need to go out to key Internet destinations. With things like widgets, you can allow consumers to grab the blog and install it on their desktop or on their web site.
6. Work Together: Nobody owns social media. It’s a very big conversation. Marketing doesn’t own social media. PR doesn’t own social media. Don’t worry about who owns it. Instead, figure out how social media can help your business perform better.
7. Start Now!: There’s only one bad time to get started. That’s never.
8. Be brave: It’s not a brochure. It’s not an email campaign. You need to test what works for you. And there’s no single right answer for everyone.
Four ways to succeed:
1. Nuture Your Network: Treat your network participants as VIPs.
2. Enable Your People: Get them up to date and give them permission to run with social media.
3. Provide the Right Content: The VAR Guy certainly agrees with this one.
4. Listen and Respond: Use Google Alerts to monitor your brand, your business and other key terms.
Follow The VAR Guy via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; Twitter; and via his Newsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center. Plus, check out more channel voices at www.vartweet.com.
Good post. As a publisher working in technical communication, I’ve observed a strong tendency for marketers to view social media as simply another channel for marketing information. Yet, an important reason that customers use social media is to solve problems or learn how to better use a product/service. That’s where technical communicators and support engineers can make a big difference.
I thought that point 6 (work together) addresses this nicely, along with point 3 of the “Four ways to succeed.”
But, most important, I think you nailed it with point 2 (listen). As with any conversation, listen first, then talk. That’s important enough that it’s the tagline for a book from XML Press that explores the ties between social media and technical communication, Anne Gentle’s Conversation and Community.
Her point is that you need to start as a listener, then participate in ways that make sense to the community. The nice thing about this strategy is that it fits right in with point 7 (start now), because you don’t need to be an expert to start listening.
Hey Richard: Thanks for your feedback. All credit for the list goes to McInnes.
VarGuy,
I usually love your stuff but I think you missed the mark here. I visited the Nixon McInnes website after reading your post — more of a curiosity than anything else because I didn’t really see anything revolutionary from Nixon’s list. If you read the case studies that Nixon claims as “Great Work” (that’s the name of the tab), I’m wondering why the work was so great? What real business results that led to more revenue were delivered? If there were any, they certainly don’t tout them…
It seems like this is another case of a social media effort that is more about numbers of fans and a flurry of activity rather than real business results.
Sorry to be negative but I’m not impressed.
Hey Jim G: The VAR Guy appreciates the constructive criticism. Our resident blogger isn’t endorsing McInnes’ track record. But that list above really is rock solid. Our resident blogger has used many of the techniques mentioned in the list and, well, TheVARguy.com has emerged as the IT industry’s most widely read channel blog… …
Still, constructive criticism like yours keeps The VAR Guy honest and focused. So keep it coming.
-TVG
I agree. The list is rock solid. I’ve used many of those techniques as well. What I would really like to see from a Social Media expert is a method of truly measuring the impact and then tying those measures to meaningful business results — revenue increase, cost reduction, profitability increase, market share increase,etc.
I really like point number 6. At Velocity, did Nixon present any case studies with tangible results of how social media engagement truly helped a business using some of the measures I mention above? Now that, I would find very interesting…
Jim G: The VAR Guy will check his notes to see if Nixon shared any case studies with tangible results.
Cracking blog post!