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New York Enterprise Report
Networking 2.0
July 1, 2008
By: Howard Greenstein
In the rapidly evolving Web 2.0 era, it’s not who you know, it’s who you don’t know but your friends do. There’s no denying that face-to-face networking is still a powerful way to meet and connect with potential clients. But online social networking is becoming more and more useful for doing these same things and more. Since I wrote “Web 2.0 for Your Business” last year, the tools have evolved and users are more savvy. More people belong to social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. But how can business owners maximize these tools to make business connections, promote brands, add value, increase sales or close deals?
Selling on Facebook
Facebook, a social network that started as a resource for college kids, now has more than 70 million users of all ages. Facebook allows a person to create a profile, connect with friends and share pictures, videos and messages.
Historically, people have not thought of Facebook as a place to be “sold to” and, in fact, few people want to be directly “sold to” online. Facebook users can take advantage of a successful marketing tool used by consumer websites — recommendations. Almost everyone appreciates a second opinion when they go shopping. Forrester Research’s “2006 NACTAS Q3 Media and Marketing Online Survey” notes that 83% of people look for opinions from friends above other sources when looking for information on products or services.
There is no limit to the creative marketing uses of Facebook. Take photo posting, for example. Uses for this go way beyond sharing vacation photos or product shots. Enter EyeBuyDirect.com, an online seller of fashion eyeglasses. It launched its new “EyeTry” feature in September 2007, enabling online browsers to upload a photo and virtually try on thousands of frame and color selections. The glasses choices can be posted to Facebook. Shoppers ask friends (or random online surfers) for opinions on which glasses look best on them. Over 20,000 shoppers have tried the service, and those shoppers attract between three and six friends to view their glasses choices (and potentially become EyeBuyDirect customers).
“Customers who share their photos are almost 90% more likely to purchase because they are committed; they take the time to try frames on,” says the company’s CEO, Roy Hessel. “Placing your picture on the wall with EyeTry is a vote of confidence in the EyeBuyDirect community. Customers follow through with their shopping cart with only 10% of carts abandoned.”
One main feature of Facebook is the “news feed,” which gives you updates on the status of your connections on the network, their interests and events they’re attending. In my own experience, I updated my Facebook status to indicate I was interested in a conference on social media. One of my connections got my status update in his newsfeed, which read “Howard Greenstein is considering attending the Graphing Social Patterns Conference.” He contacted me about the conference and the subject matter; after a few conversations, I ended up pitching his company on a consulting project. Updating my status — a 20-second activity — has actually driven business opportunities to me.
How NOT to use Facebook
Companies can put up Fan pages on Facebook, allowing their customers to virtually show their love for the company, product or service. Some of the fan sites create ads that appear in the newsfeed on a customer’s main page, right next to their status and picture updates. So you might see your friend’s picture next to a product and a slogan. Like the EyeBuyDirect.com campaign, this type of social ad is based on the premise that we trust the recommendations of our friends when we buy.
But a recent case shows that companies must be careful when using this strategy. Marketing maven and writer David Berkowitz signed up to be a fan of video rental company Blockbuster. Soon, a banner that read “David Berkowitz is a Fan of Blockbuster,” with his picture, was visible above an ad offering a video rental trial. This ad appeared in the newsfeeds of David’s Facebook friend network. However, Berkowitz, an Internet veteran, had no idea that by becoming a ‘fan’ he was signing up as a product endorser. Calls and e-mails to Blockbuster went unanswered, and soon David’s blog was filled with entries, comments and even fake ads jeering at Blockbuster to pay attention and remove this unwilling spokesperson.
The takeaway: If you’re going to use a social network marketing strategy, you can’t ignore the network and the connections of the people in it. The companies and brands that are doing the most effective job are in the network to communicate with customers every day. They use social tools to answer customer concerns and let customers talk about their products. The back-and-forth is often right there for the public to see.
Recommended on LinkedIn
Like Facebook, the networking site LinkedIn is a user profile–based service created for business and professional development. Mike Wittenstein, a national authority on customer experience, design and implementation, effectively uses his LinkedIn network to save time. “When others find me on LinkedIn, either via profile search or being referred, not having to repeatedly restate credentials to these prospects” — since they’re right there on Facebook along with his recommendations — “improves my selling efficiency,” says Wittenstein. “I’m using my LinkedIn profile instead of a recommendations page on my website, because the impact, coming from third parties, engenders more trust.”
Many people ask their professional network for help with business issues — from what’s the best accounting software to the effectiveness of direct mail in the b2b marketplace. With the rise of the social networking sites, you can research questions or send how-to queries to your pool of connections. LinkedIn Answers allows any user to post a question to his or her connections or to everyone on the site. While it is useful to have this kind of information at your fingertips, this is also an opportunity for you to establish yourself as an expert in your area by answering the questions others post.
LinkedIn allows users to “request introductions.” Users can ask direct connections to introduce them another contact in their network. The implication is that your connection wouldn’t waste her contact’s time with an introduction unless she felt you all could benefit from the introduction. In this way, LinkedIn becomes a valuable source of filtering out random requests and facilitating good ones.
LinkedIn also has a tool that allows users to post recommendations to their contacts’ profiles. Users can also request recommendations from colleagues and current and former customers. These testimonials can help attract potential customers.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social tools are generally free, and while they require time to learn how to use them effectively, they can help leverage your presence in marketing and sales. These tools are new opportunities to get you and your business known. Each of these networks has different characteristics and advantages. It may take a little time to get familiar with them, but the rewards can be worth it.
“What Are You Doing Now?”
Once just a favorite tool of the early adopter techie crowd, presence systems like Twitter (twitter.com) are being used by more folks to share their status with friends and colleagues. Twitter is, at its simplest, a way to instant message a group of people all at once. Each user has his own feed of messages, and anyone can subscribe to see a user’s updates. Using Twitter can be as simple as answering the question “what are you doing now?” Entries are limited to 140 characters, and, unless specifically set for a privacy mode, they’re also posted to the main page of the site in a continuous news stream. Groups develop around individuals or companies, who “tweet” with relevant (or totally banal) news and information. The result can be a cacophony of information and may seem difficult to follow at times. Tools built into the service or available on third-party sites give users the ability to track conversations and trends around topics or products.
Shoe and fashion site Zappos.com has more than 300 employees using Twitter. The employees don’t just “tweet” about company matters. A recent corporate outing was well reported by Zappos twitterers, with notes about who had which drinks and who wasn’t feeling well the next day. This isn’t the kind of marketing a company looking to manage its image would create; it is a human connection strategy. The folks at Zappos share some of that human interaction with their followers, who become real fans of the company. Anyone with a problem with a Zappos order or product can get a quick answer by mentioning it on Twitter. If you’re not getting what you need, message “@Zappos” and CEO Tony Hsieh will hear you loud and clear. “Tony got involved with using Twitter after the South by Southwest interactive, film and music conference two years ago,” says Christa Foley, recruiting manager at Zappos. “He’s even put up a guide for new Zappos employees on how to use Twitter.”
