6 Tips For Driving Sales With Social Media In 2012

Will your sales teams be taking advantage of social media to generate leads and sales this year? A few years ago, companies were blocking social media sites with network firewalls to ensure that employees weren’t having too much fun on the job. While these platforms may be a distraction for administrative groups, they have become a valuable tool for sales teams. As social media continues its explosive growth trend through 2012, we’ll start to see more formal social media sales strategies emerge and even formal social media sales training. Here are some tips and tools that sales people can consider to take advantage of LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook & Google+ this year.

LinkedIn: With over 120 Million users, LinkedIn is the number one B2B social networking site in the world. While most users use the site to connect with current and former business associates, some saavy sales people have used LinkedIn to build a constant flow of new prospects and customers.

1. Focus On Your First Degree Contacts: Take the time to analyze your first degree contacts on LinkedIn. These are those contacts that are directly connected to you. Most people will find that their list is made up mostly of former work colleagues and school friends. Saavy sales people, on the other hand,  will use LinkedIn to connect to prospective customers. Sales people should get into the habit of sending connection invitations to customers and contacts immediately after every meeting or event. Just as great sales people spend time thumbing through their latest stack of business cards from the field, they should be reaching out to these folks with a LinkedIn invitation. While it’s still valuable to connect with colleagues, the salespersons goal should be to reverse their mix of first degree contacts. Set a goal to have 50% of your contacts be prospects and keep driving it higher each month.

2. Use “Advanced People Search”: Click on the small “Advanced” link to the right of the search field at the top right of your LinkedIn screen. This will enable a screen that allows you to search for people on LinkedIn by keyword, company, industry, level of seniority (Job Title), and interest. What more could you ask for when seeking out potential buyers for your products and services? Find prospective buyers and try to get introduced to them through your network, or find out what company they are with and pick up the phone for a cold call.

Twitter: With over 300 million users generating over 300 million tweets a day, Twitter has become a valuable prospecting tool for sales people who are willing to lend an ear to the millions of micro conversations going on.

3. Use “Lists” to Follow Prospects and Partners: Create lists on Twitter to follow prospects. Find out what they are talking about and what their current priorities are. You may need to do a little research to find out the Twitter handle being used by decision makers but it’s well worth the effort. By following them on Twitter, you’ll get to know them better and be able to identify opportunities to engage with your solutions. You can also gain access to prospects by following partners and competitors who share your same target audience. You can even use private lists so prospects don’t know you’re following until it’s time to engage.

4. Follow Topics, Keywords and Hashtags: Use tools like HootSuite and TweetDeck to follow Tweets around keywords, topics and hashtags that prospective buyers are looking for. If you’re in the advertising field you might follow the phrase “small business advertising” or “advertising help”. Listen for buying signals and engage with solutions without sounding too much like a salesperson. Once you’ve established yourself as a resource, the pitch will get easier.

Facebook/Google+: As the largest social networking site in the world with over 800 million active users, Facebook has evolved into a platform which can provide valuable prospecting information to sales people. Google plus has also successfully attracted over 70 million users and is growing at a phenomenal pace.

5. Sales Intelligence: Facebook and Google+ provide sales people with valuable inside information about what’s going on in their target prospects’ industries and companies. Sales people can browse client FB and G+ pages to see what they are doing, and what others are saying they are doing.  Status updates and updates from key employees can trigger engagements to introduce products and services.

6. Promote Clients & Prospects: Salespeople can use FB and G+ to spread the word about their clients products and services. This will help build rapport and strengthen customer relationships. Sales people should “Like”  or “+1″ their customers’ pages and share their updates though other social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.

While most of these ideas are centered around listening to and engaging with customers and prospects, sales people should also be taking part in social conversations themselves. They need to representing their products and services in social conversations. Clients will be using social networks this year more than ever, sales people can’t afford not to be there with them.

Twitter Launches Enhanced Profile Pages For Advertisers

As part of a site redesign, Twitter launched enhanced profile pages for businesses this week allowing advertisers to drive engagement and build their brands.

Currently available to only a select group, they are promising to make the new pages available to all users through a gradual rollout. The new profile pages allow businesses to display a 835 x 90 pixel header across page, right below the account information.

Users can also include auto-expanding promoted tweets at the top of their timeline on the page, allowing them to showcase special offers and messages to visitors. The auto-expand feature allows users to display media such as photos and videos from partner sites.

Because the profile pages are “public”, users don’t have to join or log in to Twitter to see them. This could become a great advertising tool for SMB’s. The pages are easier to setup than a web site and allow SMB’s to update with tweets. Some of the first brands to launch are Coca Cola, Nike, Dell and American Express so keep an eye out for the twitter.com/brandname ads that are sure to start hitting soon.

3 Crazy Ideas For Newspapers In 2012:

Are They Really That Crazy?

1.Earn A Degree By Reading Your Newspaper:

A professor once said that if you read the WSJ cover to cover every day for a year, the knowledge gained is equivalent to an economics degree.

Local Newspapers can get accredited or partner with local correspondence schools that are accredited and offer instruction via a special section in the newspaper each week. Subscribers can earn a degree or certification by reading a section in the paper every week and taking additional correspondence tests etc. online.  Readers can even complete assignments  outlined in the paper, and send them in. Additional fees can be charged for degree processing etc. This could be great for circulation!

2. Small Business Self-Serve Support Centers:

Most newspaper locations have lots of open space from old press and distrinbution areas, as well as open office space. They are also open around the clock.

They not only maintain networks of computers loaded with software and tools equivalent to self-serve Kinkos/Fedex centers, but they operate many of the printing and copying facilities that small business use.

With the cost of hardware dropping, newspapers could easily setup a bay of computer/desktop publishing stations which local businesses can rent by the minute. VIP membership programs can be sold that include local advertising or custom publishing services. This could be a great lead generator for sales teams, they’d be passing by local business owners all day long as they walk in and out of the office.

3. Incentivize Editorial Teams For Traffic & Clout:

Page views are the oil in the online content world. Newspapers should develop incentive programs that encourage editorial teams to produce, manage and build traffic to their own blogs, articles and online sections. The editors of tomorrow will be engaging readers through social networks and blogs not just writing articles. They should be compensated for measureable results, not just meeting deadlines.

5 Directory Strategies For Newspapers

As newspaper groups continue to consolidate operations and sales efforts, there are more opportunities for them to capitalize on the scalability of the internet. Newspaper web sites on their own don’t drive much traffic. In fact, as a “local” content provider their audience is limited by definition. Local audience is very valuable though. As they continue to consolidate and form groups, the collective traffic and audience that newspaper sites create can really pack a punch if they employ the right strategies.

Directory strategies in particular are an area where substantial gains can be realized if they can think beyond the $25-$99/month enhanced listing model.

While it’s true that local directory listings are easy to bundle with print and substantial revenue can be generated from monthly listing fees, there’s real value in the platform and strategy behind directories when coupled with the scalability of the internet.

An effective directory strategy  for newspaper groups should include the following:

1. A Masthead Branded Solution: Directories should be embedded within the newspaper.com site and accessible via a subdomain or sub directory rather than a separate domain. This leverages the newspapers brand and credibility, builds trust, and creates a seamless user experience. This design also results in substantial traffic and SEO gains for both the newspaper.com site and embedded directory.

2. Self-serve Sign Up  and Upgrades: As SEO drives more traffic  to the directory and profile pages there will be more opportunities to engage business owners directly online. Self-serve also facilitates partnerships with other sites. Widgets can be placed on sites to drive sign ups from chamber pages, partner sites etc.

3. Promotional Tools for Businesses: Beyond the simple SEO optimized listing, there should be a back-end dashboard which allows business owners to not only manage their listing but promote themselves online this will build engagement and encourage usage of the platform. It’s very easy these days to incorporate Twitter and Facebook syndication tools for coupons and special offers. The product should be more of a self-serve promotional tool than a listing.

4. Lead Generation: As new businesses signup and complete their profile pages, an email should be generated and sent directly to local sales teams. This will provide a pipeline of warm leads which can be turned into more dollars beyond the free listing or enhanced listing fee.

5. Search Engine-First Approach:  Rather than being concerned about how much traffic is going to the directory from the newspaper site, the focus should be on search engine traffic. A platform/strategy that generates audience directly from search engines will win. The architecture and design of the platform should be focused on increasing search traffic, not site traffic.

While sales teams remain agnostic to a directories back-end in the short run, newspaper groups are faced with a tremendous opportunity to employ the right directory strategy and platform to generate much larger audience and revenue gains in the long run.

Digital First Restructures To Drive Digital Sales.

Digital First Media which operates Media News Group and Journal Register Company announced some key changes in their organizational structure which will allow the group to drive digital revenue. In addition to a number of appointments on the editorial and production side, the new structure includes a streamlined sales structure which will allow the company to bring digital products to market faster.

The new sales structure includes a team of 5 Regional Ad VP’s and 6 Regional Directors reporting up to an EVP of Sales and SVP of Local Digital Sales. There were also some key appointments in the area of National Sales and Extended Audience Sales.

With over 800 products in 18 states, the focus on Local Digital Sales is the most exciting part of the move. While most newspapers have been focused on driving local digital, it’s been challenging to keep up with all of the new products and competitors that have entered the marketplace.   The restructure will allow Digital First to move quickly in the local space by streamlining product deployment and sales execution.

The company is also moving quickly to execute on some key local revenue opportunities which they’ve identified across all markets.  Digital First will begin rolling out the first set of initiatives next week which include social, local and mobile advertising solutions for SMB’s.

It’s refreshing to see that the days of the interactive product blitz are over at Media News Group. As we’ve stated before It will take common digital metrics, products,and accountability to fully integrate digital into legacy sales teams and this new structure from Digital First is a step in the right direction.

Adobe’s Tablet Publishing Suite Takes A Slice Out Of Publisher Margins.

Just as publishers are settling in on the hefty fees they have to pay for distributing content on Apple and Google devices (30% and 10% respectively), they were dealt another blow this week from Adobe.  With the release of Adobe’s Enterprise Publishing Suite, publishers can more easily produce tablet applications using Adobe’s Creative Suite. Neglecting to offer specific pricing, the company is offering custom quotes to mid-large sized publishers based upon the following fee structure:

1.Monthly Platform Fee: This is a monthly service fee that publishers will pay to access hosted services, produce branded content applications and access prebuilt analytics reports powered by Omniture, Adobe’s Online Marketing Suite. There’s been mention of $699 per month as a starting point for publishers.

2.Per-Issue Fee: This is a fee that’s paid each time content is delivered into applications created using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. This means that if publishers produce a daily issue they would be charged a fee every day for every subscriber who downloads new content. This fee covers the fulfillment of content into the app. These fees will start out at .15 per download and may decrease as volume increases.

Following the lead of Google and Apple, Adobe is trying to get a piece of the pie from content producers as well. If you add the 30% Apple fee to the .15 per-issue fee that Adobe charges, content producers would have to charge $1.50 per week just to break even. This is 50% more than News Corp is charging for The Daily. To deliver content daily on Google devices, the break even point is $1.17 per week or 17% higher than The Daily.

I’ve played with the Adobe pre-release for a couple of weeks now and it’s well worth the $699 software as-a-service monthly fee allowing publishers to more easily produce tablet apps directly from inDesign, but the per-issue fees are a little hard to accept.

Fortunately for publishers, there are other options. WoodWing Software, for example, has beat Adobe to market with their suite of tools which also publish tablet content directly from InDesign. While their setup and install fees may be a little higher, they are not asking for per-issue fees or charging monthly fees for hosted services. I’ve had the opportunity to tinker with their tools as well and they are just as powerful as Adobe’s without the monthly/recurring overhead.

While I’m a staunch Adobe evangelist, I have to disagree with their strategy on this one. I wish they would stick to what they’ve always excelled at, developing powerful publishing tools.  They should leave the content business to publishers or there won’t be enough business left to buy their tools.

Whatever the case, I think it’s clear that the tools are there for publishers to do it right this time and possibly turn the industry around. They need to take a tablet-first approach, and learn to create content experiences on new devices. This can’t be done with outside developers, the technology has to be embraced and become a part of the newsroom.

What Local Newspapers Can Learn From News Corp’s The Daily

1. Get back to the basics: While many newspapers are chasing the latest digital revenue ideas in an effort to stay alive, Murdoch has gone back to the basics of news gathering with The Daily. The application accesses location data but there are no fancy directories, mobile coupons , check in features or even the ever popular “Deal of the Day” programs that many newspaper companies are chasing lately. The Daily has gone back to the basics: charging readers for news. It would serve local newspapers well to start thinking about returning to the basics without the printed medium. The advertising gizmos will come after the new audience net is cast.

2. Separate the venture: The Daily was not rolled out as part of The Wall Street Journal or any other publication. It was built from the ground up with dedicated editorial and development resources. Too many interactive ventures at local newspapers are bogged down by legacy newspaper staff and management. In an effort to save costs, projects are spun off using internal resources at newspapers, they ultimately become under-resourced as focus shifts to the core in times of financial distress. Most newspapers are operating on a month-to-month basis which hinders their ability to execute on long or even mid-term projects. Rather than focusing on online-only ventures, they are constantly looking for ways to tie online to the core which ultimately takes interactive departments down with the ship. Local newpapers should create new business units for interactive ventures and make efforts to resource them independent of print operations.

3. Content is not king: The Content “experience” is worth more than the content these days. I admit that I’m more of a sales guy than a content guy, but The Daily content itself is not as impressive as the experience of exploring it on the iPad is. In fact, it’s missing topics like technology and business that cutting edge iPad users might find attractive. It seems like The Daily is geared toward the masses with “News” topics like John Hinckley Jr’s love life and “couples only” parties of NFL wives. In fact, it seems like editors are using online content activity to determine which topics to cover. Many of their topics seem to align with top trends on Twitter and Google. The Daily content is also available for free without the bells and whistles of the device if you’re willing to work a little. This is possible because the articles can be shared via links to web-based versions. Some enterprising readers have even taken the initiative to index content from The Daily on the web, making it easier for non-subscribers to access content without the experience. Check out this site to see for yourself: http://thedailyindexed.tumblr.com/ . It’s as if News Corp is not really trying to put a wall around the content, but rather the experience of consuming it on tablet devices. Perhaps local newspapers should do the same and strategize more about content delivery than content access as they search for pay wall models.

4. Get ahead of the curve: With approximately 20 million iPads in the market, News Corp. is taking a risk on acquiring 2.5% of current iPad users to break even on their admitted operating cost of $500K per week. It’s obvious that they’re getting ahead of the curve here. Local newspapers can follow this lead and develop similar content acquisition and subscription models. If they can muster the resources to develop the platform, it will cost local newspapers much less to serve larger audiences on tablet devices than it does to deliver in print. There are also more opportunities in crowd sourcing and social networking that make it less expensive to acquire local content. Local newspapers can start asking themselves how many subscribers it would take at 99 cents a week to support coverage in a local region. This is a well calculated risk that needs to be taken given the impending growth of tablet devices and migration away from print. People are still hungry for local news, they’re just looking for a more convenient and interactive experience, which tablets provide.

HTML5: Setting the pace for ad interactivity

HTML5 is not only making headway in web development, but also on the advertising front. As advertisers look for more engagement and interactivity than the simple click-thru provides, HTML5 offers great promise. Check out this video of an HTML5 ad on the NYTimes.com:

What’s Next For Newspapers and Yahoo!?

Newspapers and Yahoo! have made significant strides working together over the past few years. In the area of online display ad sales, newspapers have sold over $120 million dollars in premium ad positions across the Yah0o! network. Advertisers have also benefitted greatly from the extended local reach provided by Geo-targeted ad inventory. While there were some tough challenges at he beginning of the partnership and still many wrinkles to iron out, it’s clear that the partnership is working.

But what else can newspapers and Yahoo! do together to take on Google and Facebook? Can they take their partnership even further? Are newspapers willing to leverage their coveted local content on the Yahoo! network?  Can Yahoo! help provide the technology infrastructure that newspapers are scarmbling to develop? Is Yahoo! willing to explore pay models around content along with newspapers?

These are all questions that it would be helpful for newspapers and Yahoo! to discuss further. When their partnership began, Facebook was playing second fiddle to MySpace and tablet computing was just an idea. The pace is only going to speed up in the coming months. Assuming that they are able to take their partnership to the next level, the following is a list of ideas that newspapers and Yahoo! might consider:

1. Content Management:

Yahoo! has clearly positioned themselves as a content management company and a curator of content. Many newspapers are still struggling to upgrade their current content management systems. They are building development teams and purchasing expensive software platforms in search of a flexible and powerful content management platform. Yahoo! already has this. Why couldn’t newspapers make use of Yahoo!’s content management technology. This could save Newspapers millions of dollars and allow Yahoo! to have easier access to valuable local content.

2. Yahoo! Contributor Network:

Newspapers can take advantage of the content contribution platform that Yahoo! recently launched. They can employ the platform and monetization model on local news web sites. Contributors on Yahoo! can offer their content on Local News sites.  Newspaper editors may even choose to publish appropriate content from Yahoo! contributors in local print editions.

3. Yahoo! Search Quick Apps:

Local news should be integrated into Yahoo! as a Quick App. Newspapers are sitting on a goldmine of archived content that can be integrated into Yahoo!’s search platform. This tool would allow users to access location-specific news on-the-fly.   Whether it’s news from 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago, users will be able to search for local news by location through Yahoo!

4. Niche Audience Opportunities:

Newspapers are the experts at creating content for niche audiences. Yahoo! and newspapers can team up to launch national audience-based content offerings around niches like Prep Sports, Moms, and Baby Boomers. Much of the valuable content produced for niche print offerings never makes its way into the digital world. Yahoo! can extend the breadth and reach of niche local content for newspapers.

5. Yahoo! MyBlogLog Integration:

Some of the highest traffic areas on newspaper sites are blogs maintained and updated by local journalists. Newspapers should integrate their blog platforms with Yahoo!’s MyBlogLog services which will not only increase the visibility of blog visitors and their behavior, but will increase traffic for newspapers as their blogs are discovered in Yahoo!’s communities.

6. MyYahoo!/Personalized News:

Serving up millions of different home pages each day, Yahoo! has created a perfect platform for personalized news offerings. Local news can be integrated into MyYahoo! and users can be given the option to “subscribe” for custom or complete e-editions offerings that they can print out and take with them.

7. Multi-Platform Development:

Newspapers are struggling to deliver content on mobile, tablet and desktop platforms. Just as developers are getting the hang of HTML and flash development, new advancements like HTML5 are making cross platform development easier. Yahoo! has the expertise in place to convert and enhance newspaper content offerings for multiple platforms at a much a faster pace.

 

8. Directories & Search:

Rather than creating their own directory platforms, newspapers can offer directory listings and local search advertising packages that are “powered by Yahoo!”.  Listings on Yahoo! can appear on local newspaper sites and newspapers can sell listings and search products to local print clients.

9. Email Marketing:

Newspapers can use Yahoo! opt-in email databases to sell e-blast campaigns to local advertisers. Currently, newspapers are struggling to maintain and build their own databases and many are simply buying lists from email brokers and reselling to local businesses. Yahoo! can offer a fresh supply of emails for local newspapers to market.

10. Small Business Services:

Newspaper’s maintain “on the street” sales teams that market Yahoo!’s small business services like Domain Name Registration, Web/Email Hosting and e-commerce services. Newspapers can become preferred resellers of these packages to local businesses and can bundle these services in with existing offerings.

11. Web to Print:

Yahoo! can offer small businesses the opportunity to build and place local print ads online. Just as they are offering domain and hosting services, Yahoo! can offer local print advertising to small businesses.  Advertisers can build and place ads in local newspapers through Yahoo!’s web site.

12. Vertical Sales Opportunities:

Both Yahoo! and Newspapers are deeply engaged with Zillow on the Real Estate front. Yahoo!  should explore more revenue opportunities that take further advantage of the newspaper sales force and local relationships. What local directory, display  and targeted advertising programs can be offered to local real estate agents and brokers.

Newspapers: The Original Location Based Service.

For over 400 years newspapers have been providing location based information and services to consumers and businesses. What other entity provides door-to-door delivery of a tangible and unique location based product every day?

While local print subscriber bases may have eroded, online traffic is still on the rise. On mobile devices, news is one of the top-three content categories consumed according to comScore. For the past few years newspapers have been struggling to come up with new business models but some are starting to gain traction by embracing LBS on mobile devices. While we’re sure to see more innovation from newspapers as the tablet war heats up, the following three location-based engagement models are helping newspapers drive new audience and revenue.

1.       Location Based Crowd Sourcing: Local newspapers are taking advantage of mobile technologies to allow community members to report live news and information. Apps like Snap Scouts on the Android, for example, allow community members to participate in crime prevention by putting them on patrol in their neighborhoods earning points for “seeing , snapping, and sending” in anonymous crime info. The Los Angeles Newspaper Group has recently launched its SoCal Prep Sports iPhone and iPad app with the goal of sourcing photos, scores and live updates from audiences at high school sporting events.

2.        Location Based Editorial: Local newspapers are sitting on a treasure chest of detailed content about their communities. When mobile users “check in” to a location as they are so fond of doing these days, local newspapers can serve up editorial content about the location, historical photos, stories and reviews will enhance the users experience.. The Metro, Canada’s leading free daily newspaper has done this by partnering with Foursquare to add their location-specific editorial content to locations on the service. There’s even a Foursquare badge that users can unlock by checking in to a single-copy location. Newspapers can augment a location by adding context to the user experience with interesting content they have in archives.

3.       Location Based Contests: The Boston Globe has teamed up with SCVNGR a sophisticated mobile scavenger hunt and check in service to launch The Boston Globe Trek. This location-based contest encourages users to explore their city and learn more about local attractions by snapping photos and scanning QR codes at various locations across the city. They’ve issued a series of theme based challenges like romance, movies, sports and tech to engage new audiences.

By leveraging their strong brands, content and local sales resources with emerging mobile technologies, newspapers are in a great position to capitalize on location based services. They are still the best source for location based information, and emerging technologies can help them stay there.