As I was preparing to write my first blog post for Women in Consulting there were a number of possible topics vying for attention. However, the one that seemed most pertinent as a starting place was this.

Being passionately interested in social media I read and talk about it a lot and it struck me what a confusing topic it is for most people! There are so many different social media tools that it’s mind boggling, and unless you’re right on top of the subject it could be very disheartening to figure out where to get started.

Most people assume they need to be blogging, using Twitter, Linked In and Facebook but there are many new tools such as FourSquare www.foursquare.com that are gaining traction and finding a place in both B2C and B2B marketing campaigns. What to do, especially if you have resource constraints?

It’s tempting to panic and think you need to implement each of the more popular techniques such as Facebook simply because everyone else seems to be jumping on the bandwagon but I recommend a more studied approach. Social media may be very trendy but we shouldn’t forget that traditional marketing techniques still play an important role.

That’s why, before taking the social media plunge, we should get back to basics and remind ourselves who our audience is. Do they embrace social media and if so, where do they “live” online? Finding this out will entail googling some keywords and topics that would be of interest to your targets to find out where they congregate.

Once you get a handle on what communication method they favor you can select the most effective way to reach them. You may find that they prefer forums, which was the case with a colleague’s client, in which case your best efforts with Twitter and the like would be wasted. Being absolutely sure about where your audience communicates allows you to leverage the 80/20 rule and spend your precious time on one or two activities that will ensure maximum return on your investment.

What do you think?

Tags: facebook, linkedin, social media, traditional marketing, twitter

Do you remember the pit in your stomach that would form when you faced test questions in school that you couldn’t answer? Maybe you felt anxiety as you glanced at peers who were busily writing or turning the pages of the test while you stared at your page, feeling helpless.

Perhaps you wrote answers that were part fact, part educated guess, in the hopes of getting partial credit.

Or maybe you whizzed through, only realizing near the end that half your answers were wrong because you had repeated the same incorrect assumption.

Figuring out how to use social media to promote your brand and expertise to generate bottom line business results shouldn’t be a best guess or leave you feeling lost or anxious. Neither is it wise to breeze along assuming that what you’re doing is right. Least of all, you shouldn’t avoid it because it’s too daunting or assume that social media doesn’t really matter to your business.

The truth is, social media is here to stay. The strategies, techniques and tools will undoubtedly evolve over time, but the bottom line is that you need to be in the game and need to know how to play it well before you fall critically behind.

The May 17 workshop, “Generating Business Via Social Media,” is designed to give you a comprehensive and in depth understanding of how to develop an integrated marketing strategy that incorporates social media and how to use the three big social networking sites—Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook—properly and optimally.

At the end of this intense six-hour workshop, you will have the knowledge to develop and execute a sensible social media strategy for your business. If you already have one, this workshop will help you calibrate your efforts. Six hours of time for that kind of payoff. I think it’s well worth the investment.

This will be a hands-on and interactive session. I highly recommend that you establish an account on each of these sites if you haven’t already done so, bring your laptop and be prepared with questions you want to ask our expert presenters. The speakers will provide several demos and are prepared to dynamically adjust their presentations to address your knowledge level, questions and issues.

Topics to be covered include:

• Characteristics and challenges of social media channels

• How to develop an integrated marketing approach and utilize social media for your business

• Developing a targeted approach for finding the right people to follow on Twitter and generating the right followers

• Strategies for what to tweet and when

• Best tools for organizing Twitter activity and measuring success in meeting your business goals

• What it takes to have a complete LinkedIn profile

• How to strategically build out your network, successfully connect with people and establish trust

• The best LinkedIn tools and how to use them

• How to build a company profile

• How to build your online group—groups and answers

• What Facebook can and can’t do for your business

• Differences among Facebook personal profiles, groups and fan pages, and which makes most sense for your business.

• Best practices for fan pages

• Understanding the Facebook newsfeed algorithm and why it’s so critical

• How to integrate and leverage social media channels

Please don’t miss this opportunity to prepare your business to pass the social media test.

Sign up now. Register at the Kintera web site by May 1 to receive the early-bird discount.

Tags: facebook, integrated marketing strategy, linkedin, social media

As my term as president of Women in Consulting comes to an end this week, I find myself reflecting on all the incredible experiences I’ve had throughout the last two years.

We celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2008 with not only a gala event, but a new look & feel for our website and a new blog. In 2009, we expanded our social media presence to include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

We expanded the reach of our organization, with strong and vibrant satellite groups in San Francisco, the East Bay and North Bay/Marin, as well as the South Bay and Peninsula.

We created a mentoring program and offered workshops to help consultants grow profitable businesses.

We expanded our Leaders Network to provide a venue for seasoned consultants to meet and exchange thoughts and ideas with their peers.

We expanded our profile in the community–partnering with a wide variety of organizations and associations, including the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, the Association for Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), FountainBlue, Astia, IMC NorCal, NorCAL BMA, and others.

We provided benefits to our community from groups like People OntheGo, SD Forum, Cubes & Crayons, Vertical Response, MarketingProfs, Egnite, WeMeUs, Zoomerang, and PR Newswire. And we continued our partnership with Million Dollar Consultant Alan Weiss and the Society for the Advancement of Consulting.

We held silent auctions to benefit Girls for a Change and collected donations for the Georgia Travis Center in San Jose.

Not only did we offer a top-notch set of outstanding speakers for monthly programs, but we launched teleseminar and webinar programs as well.

We continued to offer outstanding value to members and affiliates through our renowned mail list and other resources.

In fact, through the worst recession in nearly a century, we grew our community to be nearly 500 strong–with our ranks of full members swelling by nearly 40% this year.

And we did all this as an entirely volunteer run organization, with over 100 consultants taking on pro bono consulting roles for WIC.

Why, in a time when many organizations are struggling or even closing their doors, is WIC thriving? Because in addition to everything I’ve already mentioned, one of the most important things WIC provides is a strong, collaborative community–a place where consultants can come to learn as well as to socialize, to build their businesses as well as to connect with colleagues, to share experiences and develop referrals, to grow as individuals as well as part of a bigger whole.

For all of these reasons I feel extremely lucky to have had the privilege of guiding this organization over the last two years. And I feel extremely confident in turning over the reigns to the extremely capable and passionate Avery Horzewski to take WIC to the next level.

Thank you to all of you who are a part of WIC. WIC is community and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with each and every one of you. Here’s to more wonderful WIC happenings in 2010 and beyond!

Tags: collaboration, consulting, Growing a Consulting Business, linkedin, mentoring, networking, social media, twitter, WIC's 10th anniversary celebration, women in consulting

In my first “Skeptic’s View” post, I admitted to signing up—grudgingly—for many of the social media tools because they simply aren’t the way I prefer to communicate. However, as a consultant who helps companies develop and implement effective customer communication strategies, it’s my job to understand the various mechanisms by which users want to interact—and more and more users want to interact using social media.

Since diving into the various social media tools, I’ve discovered a lot of value. In addition to giving your clients something they want and expect, you have the potential to gain incredible customer insights and see a side of them that might otherwise remain hidden. I didn’t think I would, and I did—and that stands true for every tool that I’ve tried thus far.

LinkedIn: A Multifaceted Networking Tool

Of all the social media tools available, LinkedIn is the one that I entered with the least amount of skepticism. I “got” the value that it offered, because it was clearly developed for business people. But it wasn’t until a February 2006 Women in Consulting (WIC) meeting that I really started using LinkedIn.

I implemented a number of best practices from that meeting and started benefiting almost immediately; and I continue to benefit today. The single greatest thing about LinkedIn is it offers so many ways to connect with your network and stay on top on of what everyone is doing.

LinkedIn: What’s the Big Deal?

If you’ve never tried LinkedIn or you created a profile but you’ve not done much because, quite frankly, you “don’t get what the big deal is,” here are a just few reasons to consider tapping this resource:

• It’s expected. A LinkedIn profile is pretty much the status quo now. Not having one is considered out of place if you’re a business professional. That said, assess the need for a Linked profile based on your client base (there’s that audience thing again), your professional connections, and your business. If nothing else, this assessment should drive how you build your profile. If it’s deemed not appropriate right now, then at least you know you’re basing your decision not to join on factors that matter most to your business.
• Project and job offers are a real possibility. If you stay top of mind, employ marketing and networking best practices, and you “know your stuff” (in other words, you’re good at what you do), your first tier connections will recommend or even use you. You may even find work via referrals when a second or third-tier connection solicits their network, asking if anyone knows of a good “fill in the blank.” I know I have received project offers via LinkedIn, simply by following some of the basic LinkedIn best practices.
• It’s a way to stay top of mind. LinkedIn is a lot more than an online rolodex. You can easily keep your network up to date on what you’re doing, with numerous tools for staying top of mind.   
  1. Twitter-like status update bar. Your connections do read these. Maybe not everyone, and maybe not every day. But people do read them.
  2. Connection updates on your home page. Not only do your connections see what you’re up to if you update your status, but your home page contains a flow of what your connections are doing. I love this feature. I quickly and with little effort know what my connections are doing and feel more connected than I do with quarterly emails or calls. If offers opportunities to reach out to them. The key is being authentic and sincere. I regularly look at my home page feeds and respond when I have something to say related to what a connection is doing. Sometimes it’s encouragement and congratulations; other times it’s a suggestion; and yet other times it’s just to say “hi,” it’s been a while since we talked. The opportunities for connecting are as varied as your connections.
  3. LinkedIn update emails. LinkedIn also sends (if you elect to receive them) regular updates of what your connections are up to—this is the same type of information that appears on your home page. So, you don’t even have to go to LinkedIn to stay up to date.
  4. Multiple interaction points. The home page and email updates don’t just filter status bar changes. They track new connections, when you answer questions, when you join a group, when you update your profile or recommend someone. All of this is fed to your connections’ LinkedIn home pages and email updates (if you allow it).
• You can demonstrate thought leadership. There are so many opportunities to demonstrate your thought leadership and join the conversation in LinkedIn, including:
  1. Let your network know when you’ve written an article/blog post, presented at a conference, wrote a book, gave a talk, etc. using the status update text box.
  2. Answer questions posted in LinkedIn Answers. There are a host of categories from which to choose. Remember, whenever you answer a question, your response is posted in your connections’ feed (at least they should be—you control what’s sent).
  3. Pull your blog posts into your LinkedIn profile.
  4. Start and join discussions in your groups (join groups, too, if you haven’t). By the way, Women in Consulting (WIC) has a LinkedIn group.  

LinkedIn: Best Practices (Tips & Tricks)

• Complete your profile:
  1. Spend time considering how you want to present yourself, how prospective connections might view you when reading your profile.
  2. Gather the information you’ll need to complete your profile (if people are interested, I’ll include this in a subsequent post).
  3. Edit your public profile settings—remember the more you show, the more people outside of your network can learn about your services, expertise, and skill set.
  4. Add connections. I don’t advocate being a LION—LinkedIn Open Networker; be selective. Your connections can reflect on you. You can also open yourself up to people who are a bit “spammy” in their communications. In fact, with every social media tool, I advocate quality over quantity—but I also advocate using these tools to build relationships, too.
  5. Build your recommendations.
• Join groups related to your areas of interest and expertise.
• Spend time on your home page reviewing what people in your network are doing.
• Review the applications that LinkedIn offers for ones that might benefit you.
• Participate:
  1. Post status updates on your home page.
  2. Answer questions posted in LinkedIn Answers.
  3. Interact with other group members, asking questions, answering questions, sharing information, joining discussions
• Don’t make it all about you and your products and services.
• Don’t SPAM
• Request introductions form your network, or send InMails if you have a premium account, to people you’d like to connect with. (See “Working Those LinkedIn Connections” for more on InMails and how to use them.)

LinkedIn: Bottom Line

If you’ve not joined LinkedIn yet, check it out and see if it’s right for you. But don’t show up for the party half dressed. You’ll likely send a negative message.

If you’re on LinkedIn but only half dressed, put on some clothes. Complete your profile. Give some real thought to the best way to do it, looking at it from your audience’s perspective. Be authentic—can’t stress that enough—and don’t be “sales-y.”

And remember, why you should care. LinkedIn is a great way to:

• Build brand awareness, promote events, demonstrate thought leadership, and disseminate information
• Stay in tune with what others are thinking
• Increase your visibility and community size
• Collaborate online
• Keep your database current
• Recruit volunteers, employees, and resources

Tags: growing a consulting business. consulting learning and development, linkedin, Running a Consulting Business, social media lessons, social media success, social media tools, strating a consulting business

This is the second part of my recap of the EBWIBR Social Media Luncheon that I attended on Friday, April 3rd. I learned quite a bit in the two presentations given by Nancy Friedman of WordWorking and Kelly Parkinson of Copylicious. It was obvious both presenters had far more to say about Twitter and LinkedIn than we had time for, and I look forward to hearing these women speak in the future about Social Media. In the meantime, here’s a recap of Kelly’s presentation which focused on using one of LinkedIn’s powerful networking tools: InMails.

If you’re like me, you’ve set up your LinkedIn profile and you’ve got a nice set of contacts. Perhaps you’ve sent out recommendation requests and got those set up as well. Maybe you’ve joined a few LI groups. And then you let your account sit there. What a lot of people either don’t realize or aren’t taking advantage of is that LinkedIn can be a great social media tool as well.

Let’s talk results first: when Kelly tried InMail (initially as sort of an ‘experiment’, and not expecting huge results), she had a 41% response rate and 6 new clients. If that doesn’t make you sit up and take notice in this economy, I don’t know what will. I should note that I would like to know how many InMails Kelly sent because while that’s a great response, InMails do cost money. (And Kelly if you read this, please comment if you can.) But as the saying goes, sometimes you’ve got to spend a little money to make a little money.

What is InMail? InMails are a proprietary LinkedIn networking tool. It is a paid service and may seem pricey at first: $10 a pop. However, there’s an enticing aspect to this and for some, a significant upside: no cold calling. Now, if you’ve been in business for a while, you probably don’t do a lot of cold calling, or only as your last resort. But if you are new to the game (as Kelly was at the time), or in a, ahem, down economy, you might find it necessary to pick up that telephone. Before you break out in a cold sweat and do that however, consider InMails. Quick, easy, non-invasive and here’s a bonus: if they’re not opened, you get a 100% refund on the InMail and you can use it to send to someone else. You only pay for what actually gets opened. For me, that softens the blow of the $10 price tag a bit.

Also, keep in mind that you won’t be blasting to hundreds of people at a time. One of the myths about using LinkedIn that Kelly pointed out is that being a ‘power user’ is not necessarily the best way to go about it. Are you really going to have any meaningful contact or interchange with 8000 connections? Chances are more likely that if you cultivate a smaller but highly relevant set of contacts and selectively add to them when doing InMails, you’re chances of making contacts that actually go somewhere are much higher.

How do I use InMails? If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, you’ll need to get that first. And honestly, if you’re just getting started on LI, you’ll probably want to explore the basic features before you jump into InMails. But in the event you’re ready to jump in, or have been on LI for a while now, sending InMails is not rocket science. Basically you would want to do a keyword search on LinkedIn to find the people you’d like to contact. In Kelly’s case, she use ‘marketing manager cleantech’ as this was where she wanted to focus her work. Hint: as in any marketing outreach program, targeted InMails will probably get you a much higher response rate. Use the very user-friendly LinkedIn UI to set up the emails, compose your message and hit ‘Send.’ Easy as that.

What should I say in my InMail? Keep it short and suggest a brief initial contact: ‘Let’s talk for 15 minutes on x/x/2009, etc.’ Nobody likes to be sold heavily on the phone, or even in person, right? Bless your email outreaches with the same brevity and you’re more likely to get a response.

Another great tip from Kelly: as you’re going to send your InMails (and I think this works for almost any outreach marketing you do) remember that you are the expert and they need you. Approach this kind of outreach with the attitude of ‘why, of course you want to hear from me, because I can really help you.’ This takes the pressure off of ‘making that sale’ and comes from a more honest, non-aggressive and, I believe, successful position than what we sometimes are taught as ‘good’ sales techniques.

I haven’t tried InMails yet, but I intend to do so in the future. I’ll report back here with what success I have, if any, and I hope to hear from any of you out there on The Internets who have also tried InMails and what your experience has been.

In future posts, I’ll be exploring other networking features of LinkedIn and how to really work your profile. For now, I’ll be focusing on Twitter though as I’ve only begun to scratch the surface there.

Tags: consulting, email marketing, InMails, linkedin, marketing, networking, professional development, social media, social networks

I must confess that I grudgingly signed up for many of the social media tools. They simply aren’t the way I prefer to communicate. At the same time, the entire phenomenon intrigues me. The reason for my simultaneous disinterest and intrigue in relation to social media can be traced back to my education and that which I love and love to study: communication.

I much prefer to speak to someone face to face or over the phone, or watch/hear someone express their views on TV or over the radio. I like the richness that those modes of communication provide, both in the nonverbal cues that accompany the words as well as the depth of information that they provide because they’re not limited to 140 characters or a screen page.

However, so much about social media gets my nerdy side operating in hyper drive. What is it about Facebook that has people spending endless time sharing brief snippets of their lives, taking quizzes, writing notes, and the like–and why should businesses care (my consultant self asks the latter part of this question)? Why is everyone chomping at the bit to express their thoughts in 140 characters or less on Twitter? And why have these become almost the standard for hooking up with friends–and now colleagues?

I am on Facebook. I do Tweet (although right now I’m more in stealth mode, listening to the conversations). I blog. And I am active on LinkedIn. However, as I mentioned, I went on Facebook and Twitter reluctantly. I needed to, I didn’t want to. As a consultant who helps companies develop and implement effective customer communication strategies, it’s my job to understand the various mechanisms by which users want to interact–and more and more users want to interact using social media.

Bottom line: it doesn’t matter if you like social media or not, if your audience does, you need to consider it–seriously.

You CANNOT Not Communicate–this is one of my favorite phrases. I even use it as my company tagline. It’s also a good reminder that everything you do–and don’t do–sends a message. If you write off social media because you’re not interested in it, then you likely risk alienating at least a portion of your audience. More importantly, you risk losing a pretty amazing opportunity to get to know your audience in a way that you might not otherwise be able to do.

And it’s this latter component that has this skeptic convinced that there’s value in exploring social media. In addition to giving your customers something they want and expect, you have the potential to gain incredible customer insight and see a side of them that might otherwise remain hidden. 

My next post will be ”A Skeptic’s View of Social Media: LinkedIn” (a tool I’ve been using for quite some time and the one that I was least skeptical about). I’ll then do one on Facebook and the Twitter. And if someone wants me to cover another social media tool, let me know.

Tags: facebook, Growing a Consulting Business, linkedin, Running a Consulting Business, social media, social media success, social media tools, startng a consulting business, twitter