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Archive for social network

How Twitter Can Ruin a Marketing Campaign

By Kenna Dian · Comments (4)
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

HP.com brings a knife to a gunfight

When social networking sites hit the Internet, companies spent many, many months watching it with a wary eye. But once leading IT companies (such as Sun, Dell, and Cisco) took the leap, the race to integrate social media into a company’s marketing mix was on. This has led almost every company to declare social media as a major influence—if not the cornerstone—of its future marketing strategies.

Bold pronouncements aside, the reality is this: most companies are scared silly because they don’t have the faintest idea about how and when to use social media to their advantage.

They should be scared.

As a case in point, let’s consider how HP.com’s new “Change the rules of networking” campaign and associated Web page goes off the rails. This page launches the new face of HP Networking using the perfect combination of “hip & happenin’” content. Lightbox videos. Web 2.0 behaviors. Twitter. You name it.  With all these cool new ingredients, where could HP.com possibly go wrong?

Let us count the ways.

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Comments (4)
Categories : Branding, Marketing, Social Media & Social Networks, Strategy
Tags : Design, hp.com, product marketing, social network, Strategy, Twitter

How large companies are using social media

By Kenna Dian · Comments (3)
Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Social MediaReal people, real voices, real time

While the SMB & mid-size market are using social media to just get their name out to the masses, large companies are learning how to use social media & communities in tandem for a whole new purpose. And it is literally changing the face of IT.

Large IT companies don’t need to get their name out there. I mean, who doesn’t know IBM, HP, Apple, or Dell? I would bet that even your grandmother knows the name of one of these companies, even if she doesn’t know how to use a mouse. So, aside from using social media as a slick press release system, how do large companies use these outlets to their advantage?

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Categories : Branding, Communities, Marketing, Social Media & Social Networks, Strategy, Uncategorized
Tags : apple.com, dell.com, facebook, hp.com, ibm.com, Social Media, social network, Strategy, Twitter

The social media marketing director: high speed, low drag

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (0)
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

I just finished a great blog by Paul Dunay about why you should fire your director of social media. Paul, and his muse, RIM’s VP of Digital Marketing, Brian Wallace, posit that social media directors should have a two year shelf life while they evangelize and manage a company’s social media evolution – and then this position should be eliminated to avoid fostering the kinds of silo behaviors and infighting that run counter to driving social media into a company’s DNA.

I think this is a brilliant assessment, and one that speaks directly to the organizational problems that already plague companies with a broad Web presence. This problem was perfectly summed up by an IBM manager when I asked her how IBM’s teams work with each other. “Don’t think of us as a nuclear Web family” she quipped, “think of us as a largely dysfunctional family of foster children.”

Is your social media marketing strategy destined to go the same way?

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Comments (0)
Categories : Branding, Marketing, POV (point of view), Social Media & Social Networks
Tags : brand, Marketing, RIM, Social Media, social network, Strategy

Twitter for Business: Lessons Learned

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (8)
Monday, October 12th, 2009

If you are tweeting for business, a split personality and a less is more strategy works best.

We’ve received several pings from readers who wanted to hear more based on Kenna’s post about tweeting for business. After three months in the Twitter box, I’m ready to weigh in on my observations — and share four pieces of advice from the peanut gallery.

This isn’t for sissies. Unless you’re a social butterfly by nature, business tweeting gets in the way of your day job. Unfortunately, if you don’t have consistent presence, your company tends to fall off the digital radar. This begs a conundrum worthy of a paraphrase from Hamlet: “Whether ’tis better to have an inconsistent Twitter presence or bag the whole concept?”  For me, the answer lies in the difference between volume and value.

Less is more. Companies that yak ad nauseum creates problems when you are on the receiving side of the Twitter fence. Based on my list of tweeting companies, less would certainly be more. Companies that bombard me with a constant stream of disconnected tweets makes it difficult for me to figure out what really matters to the company – which leads me to my third tweeting gripe.

Tell me something I want to know. The business Twitter landscape is becoming a vast wasteland where companies push “Google-esque” links instead of sharing knowledge or information in a teeny package. I’d rather know, for example, that a company received an award or launched a new product, than being inundated with links to general purpose articles and stories I don’t have time to explore. For business, tweeting should be all about creating the company’s brand one drip at a time, not proving that you can make it through a Harvard Business Review without going into a coma. Simply put, when business is the issue, your personal epiphany doesn’t create my need to know. This, in turn, leads me to my last peanut gallery entry.

Split personalities work best. The most effective Tweeters are those who have a business and personal persona – and keep them separate. This allows me to keep up with the business side of their world, and eliminates getting alerts when their 3 year old is successfully poddy trained. Sure, I appreciate that this is a milestone in their life. For me, too much information.

OK, I could change my opinions after another six months wading through the Twitter landscape — but I wouldn’t hold my breath.  That said, I’ll check in later as behaviors play out. After all, the Web is nothing if not a moving target.

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Comments (8)
Categories : Branding, POV (point of view), Social Media & Social Networks, Strategy, Web 2.0
Tags : brand, Social Media, social network, Strategy, Twitter, Twitter for business, Web 2.0

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Follow Marty Gruhn on Twitter

  • Just reviewed HP.com's new networking zone & social media behaviors: How Twitter can ruin a marketing campaign http://bit.ly/9kqMEh about 13 hours ago from web
  • I love sales forces. They create the rules and then complain about the results http://bit.ly/aJvvSG 07:24:22 PM August 31, 2010 from web

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