After doing social media client service work for many clients over the last four years and especially in 2010, we at Abraham Harrison have a lot of tips to give businesses when it comes to leveraging Facebook and Twitter — and social media in general — for business and for our clients and it seems to me that Webbiquity B2B Marketing Blog is in our head!  Here’s there most excellent Seven Ways to Use Social Media for Business:

1. Share content (your own and others’). Producing and sharing content with your market both attracts prospective buyers and educates them, potentially shortening sales cycles. Content marketing doesn’t always produce immediate or direct results, but it does increase brand recognition, credibility, online visibility and yes—sales—over time. In the research cited above, 74% of marketers who have been using social media for at least two years report that it has helped them close new sales. Social media marketing requires a commitment over time; it’s the not an approach where you can dip your toes in the water and expect immediate success. But for those marketers willing to produce and promote their own content (building credibility) and valuable content produced by others (expanding their influence network), social media pays off.

2. Get ideas for product development. Ultimately, no one knows the challenges that your prospects face better than your prospects themselves. And no one knows the benefits and shortcomings of your current products better than your customers. There’s no better source of information than your prospects and existing customers to help generate new product ideas. Marketers no longer have to rely on expensive, contrived focus groups; social media provides a vastly larger, richer, more real-world source of information.

3. Provide customer support. Customers are increasingly seeking support through social media channels, as well as complaining via social media about poor product and service experiences. Smart companies are providing social media support options and actively monitoring social media networks for brand and product name mentions. (For example, DirecTV is good at this; JustHost is not.) Using social media channels for customer support can both improve a company’s image—by demonstrating, publicly, responsiveness to customer issues—and reduce customer support costs.

4. Perform competitive and market research. The prospective buyers in your market have been talking about their challenges, and the relative merits and shortcomings of alternative solutions and vendors, for as long as your market has existed. Social media brings these discussions into the open. Marketers no longer have to rely on expensive research methods or proprietary data sources to get this information. Tracking mentions of competitors and industry terms using social media monitoring software provides a vast trove of inexpensive, real-time competitive and market intelligence.

5. Answer prospect questions. It’s no longer the biggest ad budget that wins. People want to buy from companies that are smart, helpful and responsive. Social media provides the mechanism to demonstrate those qualities. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn groups, community sites (e.g. Toolbox.com, Focus, Ulitzer) and specialized discussion forums all provide opportunities to respond to questions and demonstrate industry expertise. You probably can’t be everywhere, but again social media monitoring tools can help set priorities and provide notification of situations to address.

6. Develop relationships with influencers. Third-party validation has always been more valuable than advertising or other types of self-promotion. Traditionally, customer case studies, PR and analyst relations have filled this role. Social media provides a more direct path to identifying and building relationships with a variety of voices in your market: analysts, journalists, customers, bloggers and other key influencers. If you build and nurture this network, these people will help amplify and validate your message.

7. Facilitate offline connections (e.g., promote events, meet up at trade shows). As valuable as social media is for building and engaging online networks, there is still tremendous benefit to meeting with people IRL and deepening relationships through offline conversations. The social media “big four”–Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs–as well as specialized social event tools like Lanyrd, Meetup.com, Eventbrite and Amiando can all help with arranging and promoting offline opportunities to meet in-person with your online social acquaintances.

John Cass from PR Communications and I had a contentious conversation about social media enagagement transparency, technique, strategy, and rules of engagement.  When Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Blog and he planned on writing a blog post on this issue John approached me to ask me if I had any input.  Instead of being contentious again, I thought I would ask one of my staff to address the question and then post about it, unedited and unmolested by me — and here’s what Ellie Brown came back with,  Is Your Agency Showing?:

Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Blog and John Cass from PR Communications recently sent out a request for readers to give their thoughts on content writing and social media engagement on behalf of clients and whether or not this brings into question the issue of transparency.

Recently, there has been a tremendous upswing of companies and organizations adopting some sort of social media in their marketing portfolio.  And with this growth, more and more of these companies are hiring agencies to implement social media initiatives.  As Toby says: “Social Media is a beast that needs to be fed.” And sometimes the only way this can be done is to hire someone to do it.

The potential problem with this model is that the public could feel they are being misled by these companies and the agencies they hire to represent them.  The beauty of social media is the ability to listen, learn, and build honest relationships; but if you don’t know who you are interacting with, the relationship could be sacrificed.

However, I don’t think it matters who is doing the responding, as long as they are responding.  The goal of social media is to facilitate discussion and generate attention through tweets and posts by real people.  The company name on that person’s business card doesn’t matter.  The agency is an extension of the client, and as long as the agency is well-informed, genuinely interested, authentic and responsive –  everything should be good.

I recently started doing some blogger outreach for Abraham Harrison and I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance and impact of transparency in the work I’ve been doing.  Here are some things I’ve learned so far, both from training and from actually doing it:

• Be responsive, friendly, authentic and apologetic (if necessary).
• Respond with personality, not like a robot.
• If asked, be honest about who you are.  If necessary, respond with something like this: “I work for a PR company called Abraham Harrison and we are helping Company X spread the word about such and such cause.”
• Know how to answer questions, respond to comments but also when to ask your contact at Company X to step in and provide information.  Don’t make things up if you don’t know; better to just ask and find out the answer.

I’ve noticed that people really don’t care that they have been contacted by a PR company on behalf of so and so company.  Most are just impressed that there is an actual person behind the message.

I think that if there are people out there who can outsource their online dating successfully a la Tim Ferriss (I mean talk about transparency issues), then outsourcing your social media implementation shouldn’t be a problem.

I’m looking foward to see what Toby and John compile about this topic from all the experts in the field.

I love the folks over at Survivor Corps Née Landmine Survivors Network — we did some great work for them last year — and I thought of them when I saw this amazing “landmine sticker” campaign over at I Believe in Adv:

Digital PR rockstars, Kevin Dugan and Richard Laermer, are increasing their Bad Pitch Blog efforts and having a tele-seminar for anyone who needs to improve their approach to media  relations — and by default social media. They obviously don’t see me, Maestro Abraham, as an attendee, but they thought you guys might be interested.

It’s called Bad Pitch Night School (During The Day). More details are at http://crappypr.com and it’s on Wednesday, July 29th from 1pm to  2pm, Eastern time.

They’re giving out 10 free scholarships to some folks between jobs and some students as well. And every registrant receives a free, electronic copy of “Full Frontal PR” which doesn’t suck. (Via Socialmedia.biz and Marketing Conversation)

My firm, Abraham Harrison, a digital PR, reputation defense, and brand marketing firm, is looking for an experienced closer to work on a draw-plus-commission basis.

We have an existing lead and appointment system running well with around 20 proposals out waiting to be closed, 200 existing warm relationships with potential for proposal, and around 1,000 leads needing call scheduling – and more being continuously generated.  The backed-up deal pipeline is currently around $4MM.

We need a closer.  We are excellent at creating branding, getting calls with the decision-makers, building trusted relationships.  We need someone to turn these into done deals.

The salesperson can work from anywhere, but the client base is currently 99% US-based, primarily in DC/NYC, so there will be an advantage to being based in that area.  We will also consider a UK-based salesperson for that market on a commission-only basis.

The salesperson will have the support of an existing lead-generation/scheduling team as well as the President/COO for face-to-face meetings in DC/NYC.

Compensation is Negotiable.  Contact jobs@abrahamharrison.com for more information. (Via Abraham Harrison)

Strumpette published an article by John Bell called Bell on Who Owns “Conversational Marketing”? Nobody owns conversation marketing. Conversation marketing is not a thing, it is an understanding and an agreement. It agrees that PR, advertising, marketing, politics, and business will stop resenting and reviling its very own clients, “the people.” Firstly, since when did the people become “them?” I am a person. You are a person, right? Oh, no! I forgot, you are a senior communications executive director.

Well, I own marketingconversation.com — and marketing conversation is really what new media marketing should be. I spent three years working at New Media Strategies, promoting movies for Buena Vista and TV shows for Sci-Fi “on behalf of” the client — and it works.

The true problem, in my very humble opinion, is that old PR — and Edelman is surely old PR, as I discovered in a mere 90-appalling days — really disrespects “the people” the way loverboys essentially disrespect women. They want them, they need them, but they feel essentially superior to them, feeling entitled to use them for fun and profit.

The title of this piece highlights the issue: “Who “owns” conversational marketing? PR, Advertising or The People!” — aren’t we all the people? Aren’t you and I — expensive consultants, PR wonks, and Admen — people too?

I taught a creative writing course to high school kids. One of the kids was much wealthier than the rest. One day, he came to me to tell me that the rich were people too. Well, Admen, PR wonks, and marketing consultants are people too.

Loud, inauthentic, and bombastic surely work when one is busy — in the short run.

Oh, and the award for the most naive thing said this week is, “Conversational marketing isn’t right for every client. But when it is, we need to be pushing our client forward into that conversation.”

Truth is, the movie “Singles” said it best with the quote, “not having a thing is your thing.” What “the people” are responding to is the grotesque feeling of entitlement that Old PR feels — the level of noblesse oblige that advertisers, politicians, marketers, and PR professionals feel… when I was told that I needed to write copy that aimed at 7th grade reading ease, it was not said out of love, it was said out of loathing.

What differentiates old PR from new PR is this: old PR loathes its clients and “the people” while new PR — or the most effective Cluetrain PR — must love its clients and “the people.” I guess I can boil it down to “love the sinner, hate the sin.”

While most PR folks cherish their address books, their contact files, and their lists of Times, Post, and Tribune reporters, very few of them realize that the men and women who run message boards, organize WoW guilds, build islands on Second Life, run television prediction market sites, organize IRC channels, and publish blogs are the new reporters, publishers, and editors.

I wrote an article called, “Online Communities are Real Communities of Real People” where I ask, “Do you think that people who play Second Life, World of Warcraft, Xbox Live, MMOGs, and MMORPGs are freaks? Do you consider message boards, forums, virtual realities, and virtual communities to be a waste of time, populated by losers?” and then answer, “If so, then you need to leave online advocacy, new media marketing, online brand promotion, online word of mouth marketing, online outreach, blogger relations, and brand ambassadorship to someone who has lived, loved, and connected to people in real ways online. And continues to do so.”

So, if you are saying that Old PR needs to stay away from New PR until it gets over itself, then yes, I agree; otherwise, I do have to hand it to Very Old PR Agencies like Edelman Worldwide for at least going out there and making all the mistakes in the book.