by Todd Hyten

Web marketing: Take a tip from the maestro

Back in my days as a business reporter I once had the opportunity to interview Benjamin Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. Why should a business paper interview a philharmonic conductor? I’d heard he had a successful business as a colorful speaker.

Zander is a different kind of speaker and he made a good story. By turns entertaining and intellectual, Zander is indeed fascinating (look him up on TED). During our interview, however, one of the things Zander mentioned has always stuck with me. He said that in his orchestra, he made a point of trying to get his musicians to respond to mistakes with as simple phrase … “how interesting.”

Just think about that for a moment. The response he wanted to promote wasn’t “oh damn” or “oops” or “just shoot me” … it was “how interesting.” And he wanted them to say it out loud too. It gives you the freedom to explore why things happen, or how. And that’s how you get to a positive result quicker.

Recently, I just concluded a large, two-year project for a large networking company. The working group I shepherded (as strategic project manager) was very successful. It was by no means easy, with many obstacles to overcome, but in the end we did indeed overcome them.

One of my main client contacts and I had an interesting relationship. Whenever I got an unexpected result that was negative, I usually responded with “how interesting” while, conversely, the client often only responded to an unexpected positive result with “how interesting.”

It made for a good combination. As a team we focused on the “why” of a result, good or bad.

It’s hard to argue with our results. Just remember that lesson, and try to say “how interesting” more often.

11.11.10

by Todd Hyten

Business blogging: Ghost bloggers are … everywhere!

Photographer: Salvatore Vuono (from Freedigitalphotos.net)

Hello everyone. You know what happens when you are super busy? You don’t blog as much (as you can probably tell). Well, I’m still super busy but wanted to pass this thought along. Just judging from my own experience, I’m willing to bet a lot of businesses that have not started blogging may not know a key secret.

Professional bloggers are everywhere. If you don’t know what to blog about for your business , hire a professional to help you come up with content topics, ideas, a schedule, and to mentor your progress. They can even write under your employees’ bylines (that’s called ghost blogging). It’s way more common than a lot of people know.

Where do you find professional blogger help? Well, I, for one, am a great example. I’m a former journalist who has been working in the business-to-business marketing world for 10+ years. That means I know all about communicating a message from the client to a key audience.

Here’s a common flaw I hear a lot in my line of work: How can you blog about my industry – you’re not an expert? And here’s where the former journalist training comes in. Journalists, despite what most people think, are not experts at what they write about every day. No, really. They may have a “beat” that they cover, but it’s usually very broadly defined. That means that every week, frequently, they have to patch together a story on a topic they’re not that familiar with, and find sources that corroborate the main facts.

That process is like “instant learning” and it’s a skill journalists would be useless without. A good professional blogger has the same skills; they can immerse themselves in a client’s market, topics, talk to relevant contacts, and craft a narrative that matches with the company’s marketing goals.

So, consider hiring professional blogging talent if you’re company wants to start a blog, or needs help getting more frequency out of existing bloggers. You’ll be surprised how helpful they can be.

10.28.10

by Todd Hyten

Social Media: Does sharing trump conversation?

Photographer: jscreationzs

Remember back in the old days of social media (18 months ago) when everyone seemed to see the big opportunity in social media as “joining the conversation”? Well … I just read this great post by Tom Martin, and it helped crystallize something I’ve known but maybe haven’t fully recognized.

Martin takes aim at the “conversation” motivation of social media and juxtaposes it with data (from eMarketer) on the real motivations of why people “follow” a brand in social media.

His point is valid, but there are some apples-and-oranges comparisons. First, Martin is right in that people don’t primarily interact with a brand or business to “have a conversation.” The eMarketer data bears that out. Second, Martin is also correct in his criticism that this “joining the conversation” mantra by social media advocates may obscure the point that it’s really all about content.

He’s absolutely right: Creating and also sharing content is what is at the root of successful social media.

However, that’s not to say that being adept at reacting to customers via social media isn’t intrinsically very valuable and builds loyalty. Using social media as a customer service platform or “response engine” is a tactic that works well — but admittedly won’t work for every business.

But look at two case study posts I’ve written. Here are two companies that implement social-media-based customer service successfully:

So, Martin is right in that content and sharing (at least from what I’ve eyewitnessed) are at the root of social media success, and they pair well with motivations. That doesn’t mean, however, that the “conversation” element is not relevant. The “listen and respond” cycle is a “conversation” too if you think about it. I will agree, though, that there is a lot of hype about “conversation” — but that’s just fuzzy thinking.

Real social media practitioners should already know it’s all about content and sharing. But where does “listen and respond” end and “conversation” begin? It’s a gray area.