The following presentation contains the script given for the presentation. Use this to help aid your recall of the live event or to help as a “voice-over” for the presentation. Please email Todd Wilms (t.wilms@sap.com) or any of the presenters in this deck if you have any questions. Happy hunting using these social media tools. –tw______________________________________________Welcome to Social Media in your Territory. We have heard from many of you over the last year that you are interested in using social media to connect with your audiences – your customers, your prospects, your leads – executives, practitioners, managers – from across your territories, your sectors, industries, or your close-relationship named accounts. Some of you are using social media; many more of you don’t know where to start. We are prepared to spend the time in this session helping you use social media in to connect to your audiences – no matter who they are – with some practical next steps to get you on the right path, and then some additional resources to keep you active for the next 12 months.
There is nothing funnier than real life. Therefore, instead of starting with a joke, let’s go with 4 “worst of” social media tactics to help us all feel a little better about how we go about this. At least we have never done . . .
Now, we assume you already are interested in social media. Because we only have 50 minutes, this session assumes you have already decided that social media can be advantageous to your engagement with your accounts. If you aren’t there yet, we can’t convince you to use social media. We certainly can’t force you ;-) These techniques will help you connect with your customer-base, but they do take time, they take some dedication – commitment. So, Why . . . You . . . Social? This is going to help you set yourself apart from the competition. It is going to help you achieve status as a trusted advisor – we are going to talk a lot about that in this session. But, almost more important is this . . . this is where the conversation happens. This is no longer just college students – this is no longer just for consumer products – where Fritos/Doritos/Coke/Snickers come to play. Your customers are here, and it is your job to find them.
I am Todd Wilms, of the SAP Social Media Audience Team, in Jonathan Becker’s organization. With me today are (names of other speakers) who will help you learn the techniques you require for social media.OK, so you have some accounts you want to improve your relationship with, you want to foster your ability to influence and to provide valuable SAP solutions into their organizations. Social media is all about connecting and engaging with audiences. We will use that term “audience” a lot. Each audience is unique to you and your goals. Who do you want to reach and why? We will start with your agenda – what is your strategy? From here we can help you quickly develop that social plan, before we move on to specific tactics – want to know how to tweet? We got you covered . . . We will finish this off with some excellent presenter who will tell you their story of doing this and doing it well. And before we leave the stage, we will take your questions and let you know everywhere you can go for more information – from key people wihin SAP to how to get your masters in facebooking . . .
So let’s start this with your classic – Who, What, Where, When, Why, How? Most of us jump right to “how.” We start with tactics. If you are starting this process with ideas like “I need to be on facebook,” or “my manager wants me on LinkedIn,” or “twitter seems right for me – the guy down the hall landed a big account with twitter,” you are starting this off on the wrong foot. These tools are exactly that – tools. It is like saying “my boss likes to garden and uses a garden hoe. I should use that to tune up my ’56 Chevy.” Its all about the right tool for the right job. That is all these are - tools. So for our “Who, What, Where, When, Why, How,” let’s just put “How” aside until the end.Who: Sounds simple but knowing who you want to connect with – who is your audience is centrally important. If you are saying “everybody” or “um . . . customers???” You are probably going to have a difficult time. For some of you, this is a “roll your eyes, why are we spending time on this” moment. But, I can’t tell you how often this step is skipped and now you have built your social house on a foundation of sand. Saying “Who” requires you to empathize with your audience and ask WHAT.What: What is important to them? You have to know what you are going to do with them – what content, information, engagements are you going to have with them. Again, empathy – but you have to put yourself in their shoes – what makes their life easier. Here we get into the idea of you being a distributer of Value or of Volume. Doing both is really hard – really time consuming. Do you want to lean toward Value or toward Volume? So, if you know your audience (the WHO), you should decide if you want to Value. Value is feeding them content and have a more personal relationship with them. This will put you on the path of managing your “Personal Brand,” which we will discuss in a bit. Or Volume, where you need to think like a Magazine Publisher, a “Curator of Content.” Once you decide on WHAT, you can start thinking about WHERE to connect with these folks.Where: This may be pretty easy for most of you. Where do your audiences hang out? What channels do they use? Are their communities, groups, or associations they frequent? Are their SCN or LinkedIn groups they go for information? Here is the trap – if you think HOW too early, you miss the WHERE question. Let me explain by example: my wife is an attorney for UBS. They can’t access Twitter or Facebook from the office. So if she is a target, tweeting or posting to facebook won’t work. Knowing “where not” is just as important as knowing “where.” When: Let’s assume when is “right now.” But you may want to prep your audiences for some event in the future – an invite to SAPPHIRE NOW, for instance.Why: “To make money” (pause) – really great reason!! Aside from WHY for you, WHY do they want to listen to you? What do you have to offer them – where are you leading them? You have to know what your goals are. Now, here is the rub with WHY in social media. Let’s do this by analogy: Like many things, you can’t rush success. So, social media is not a one night stand. You don’t use social to approach a customer and ask for a “lilsumpthinsumpthin” at the bar. You may get lucky once in a while, but you lose a lot of great opportunities this way. Meaning, don’t start tweeting inviting people to a demo . . . you have to build some trust with your audience first – give them good content – good information.OK, now what do you do with “Who, what, where, when, why, how?”Here is your worksheet to get started:
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Who: decide the audience – in a much detail as possible – who you want to go after. Create personas – archetypes of people or think of that one person you know who best represents this audience. This will help keep you focused as you get down your path, you can always Think . . .
. . . . What do they want? Here you decide if you want to be a Value or Volume Distributer. Value: You are going to work on your personal brand. You become the thought leader in the space and you will have a detailed cultivated presence on your social channels. You are the gateway to SAP because customers look AT you as the person to give them insight. You find them great content, but you also CREAT great content. This means blogs, comments, tweets, engagement in communities and groups. This is all about your personal brand.Volume: You are going to be a curator – think like a magazine publisher. What goes in this edition? You source, find information that is relevant to your audience. You send them other peoples content and information that they think is interesting. This means you may put together emails or newsletters to your audiences; you are probably going to tweet a lot to get great content into your audiences. But, like the term states, it is about VOLUME. You want to have relevant content of course, but you want to nurture your relationship with them by always being top of mind with them – the person that makes it easy for them to get the information they need.
Where: If you are VALUE: you need to start thinking about groups, communities, and blogs. Do a “Google Search” on keywords for your area of expertise – your market. Where do your audiences hang out? If you don’t know, find a few articles that you learned from – do you see any trends where they were written or by whom? Find those groups, communities, locations. Now insert yourself in those groups. If it is that simple, join those groups. If not, contact the editors or leaders and ask about joining or what you can provide them. We set up programs where we get to join and get premium access in trade for something we have. SAP is such a stellar brand and has so many resources; most of these groups want something from us – access to customers or customer stories, great content from us, etc. You can get creative and do a little bargaining with them. Obliviously, go for the low hanging fruit first, but – honestly – 90% of the time when I approach these groups, I can easily arrange a trade that works for both of us. Happy to discuss this one off line with anyone tonight or after the conference.Now you have to cultivate your brand. Make sure your OWNED properties are what you want them to be. These are things like Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, etc. If a prospect comes across these without knowing you, do they see Thought Leader or do they see “salesperson?” I will give you all the links at the end, but we have created a series of playbooks on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Blogging that you can use to help you fine tune your practice on these tactics. But for now, make sure that you link your properties so when you tweet or blog or update facebook, it shows on your LinkedIn profile. We want folks thinking of you like THOUGHT LEADER. If you are Volume, it is less about YOU and more about what you provide them. Twitter will generally play a big role here, but you want to source as much content as you can for these folks and provide it to them – spoon feed it to them as best you can. Now, this is a social media presentation, but there is nothing wrong with good old email or newsletters here. Hell, I don’t care – send them carrier pigeons if that will help. Semaphores? Sure. But the idea is you source content for them. How do you do this? Start like the Value folks: do a Google Search. What sites, blogs, content, locations, do you find when you look at your area? What will appeal to your audience – who they are? In generally, twitter is a great strategy as you can update many times a day and share great information. But before you start your own handle and start tweeting, you need to think of a few things? Is there another handle you can use or partner with? Can they re-tweet your content for you if they have a large audience already? If you have to build your own audience, make sure you invite your future audience members to follow you – again email or phone or email signatures etc. But you want to make it easy for people to find you or know that you have great content to share. Once you lure them in, you have to – you have to – you have to . . . can I say it again – you have to provide them great, regular content. This is not every other Monday or only around close of quarter. If you are volume – you need to think VOLUME . . . try starting out each morning over your cup of coffee sourcing all the great content you have or see and tweet or distribute it our – share it with your audience.
When and Why: are both very similar. You folks know this better than anyone – how to finesse your audience. What is the ultimate destination you are driving your audience. For instance, when you start out, no matter if you are Value or Volume – you need to not push. Let them see - experience what you have to offer. Then you can start to further engage them into a more intimate relationship with you. You know this better than anyone . . . My point here is to not rush it. Social media is about trust. Hard to win, easy to lose. I will say this – if you feel “I have to win X by end of Q1 and you want to start a social program to do that, you are probably going to get frustrated and not see the value in a social program.” If you think of this like a long term relationship
This is what everyone has been waiting for. Just tell me what to do with Twitter, right???So, we will review: twitter, facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and communities.Twitter: As stated this is great for Volume, but still valuable for Value. Twitter is a megaphone. Little content is actually generated in Twitter, but much is shared. A few tips: don’t start your own handle unless you don’t have an existing audience you can tap into. Promote your handle far and wide if you want to build an audience – great content will also help with this as people will promote you because you are adding to the discussion. Don’t retweet generally available content – like Kim Jun Il dying. Nobody cares that you know this too. Everyone knew that. . Think again of whom you are targeting and what they want. Read the twitter playbook – it is excellent. Keep a copy at your desk for the first few weeks.
Facebook: read the playbook. Facebook should only be updated 3-5 times per day. So think about what is valuable. Facebook is great for personal use, but less valuable for a business setting. It is a tactic for your arsenal but I would rush to facebook first.
LinkedIn: “think Facebook with a tie.” Central to both Volume and Value. Value – make sure your profile is really tight. Make sure you engage in the right groups – answer questions, post questions and start discussions. Act like the smartest person in the room. Insert yourself. Volume – gather great information from these groups and communities – start sharing it with your audiences.
Blogs: If you are Value and you can write, start blogging. Share your ideas – if only 500-600 words, but share. We have a relationship with Forbes, but anywhere you can blog, you can share that and promote it to your audiences. If you are targeting an specific audience, blogging should be about getting it published anywhere you can and then alerting folks to where it is. If you can’t blog, comment on others great blogs with your own thoughts or ideas. Promote those blogs (with your comments on them) to you audience – they will see the blog and see YOUR comments. Brilliant!!Volume: Volume is about sourcing these great blogs and promoting them through twitter, etc.
Communities/Groups: If you are Value, get in these groups where your audiences hang out. Provide them great insight and information, comments or start discussion. The idea here is to present great content.Volume: Join these groups to gather great information to share out.
Know where to go and who to see about social media in your terr-i-tor-ee.