2013 Insider Social Media Predictions

Image representing SlideShare as depicted in C...
Image via CrunchBase

Below is the SlideShare presentation compiled by Lee Odden (@leeodden) and Dell. It has a wealth of information from leading thought leaders in the space of social media and becoming a social business. The presentation is hosted on SlideShare and contains 18 slides. It is well worth your time to read each and act accordingly for your business. As always, I’d recommend that before you jump on any new social channel (new to you), do your research first. Is it a place where your prospects and customers are going? What are your competitors doing in the space? How does this new channel advance the achievement of your organizational goals?

Social Media Predictions for 2013 from Dell Social Media

A key takeaway reminder is included in the summary from the slides “The biggest opportunity for businesses in 2013 is to be a social business, not simply a business in social”.  This sentiment has been a common thread for the last little while, however, the challenge is understanding what it means to be a social business and how to sell that to the senior leaders in your organizations, if they are not convinced.

My greatest takeaway was from Philip Sheldrake’s, answer to what is the greatest overrated and underrated metric “Any output metric not correlated to your specific outcome metrics, is not just overrated, it’s irrelevant”.

Finding the deck in my reader this morning (through a post by Lee Odden), reinforced lessons from earlier in the week. I was fortunate enough to be a participant at the Waterloo Region Small Business Center‘s “Social Media Summit” and was in the audience when Kelly Craft, was presenting “Social Analytics” (will share Kelly’s deck when available). Her key point, among many was very similar in tenure with Philip’s but with Kelly’s own spin and unique voice. Some of the key points in Kelly’s presentation are captured in the tweet stream below. A full stream of valuable information is available under the hashtag #socbizwr on Twitter.

Social Business, Analytics
@krcraft on analytics
Social Business, Analytics
Notes from @krcraft

I enjoyed revisiting the thoughts of some trusted resources in the deck from Dell and connecting to some new minds. I trust that you will find the information equally of value. To your continued success on the road to becoming a “Social Business”.

The contributors included in the Dell Deck: Anita Campbell, Ann Handley, Gaurav Mishra, Geoff Livingston, Lee Hopkins, Lee Odden, Michael Brito, Paul Gillin, Philip Sheldrake, Ray Wang, Rohit Bhargava, Shel Israel, Toby Bloomberg and Valeria, Maltoni

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LinkedIn, What’s so great about it?

LinkedIn, Social Media
A powerful social channel for business

Is LinkedIn,  still the overlooked social channel for business? I was speaking to a colleague on a Skype call last week and as we’re both in the infancy stages of developing our businesses, we had the inevitable discussions about which social channels we should be utilizing in our businesses. Both of us are interested and work within the social media/business training and consultancy arena and felt it was important to have a solid grounding in each channel, but what was right for our audiences?

The usual suspects were discussed and evaluated. Our attention turned to LinkedIn. I’ve been on the network since 2006, but up until last year had really only used it to stay in touch with work colleagues from the past, participate in groups to gather more information and research on industries and events.  To a  limited extent, I had used the search functions to identify prospects and potential networking connections within a specific geographic area and industries.

When I began to get serious about it and read materials like Neal Schaffer’s  (of Windmill Networking) excellent book Maximizing LinkedIn, I learned to optimize my profile properly, how to engage in groups and discussions to share and learn with peers, mentors and prospective clients.  I saw my connections increase and they were for the most part  meaningful and rewarding. My experience with LinkedIn over the last year, has demonstrated to me it’s absolute power.  I shared my experience with my colleague, specifically sharing information on the search function. The next day I received the following email;

” OMG, I just ran a search for XXX industries and there are 9,000 prospective organizations within a 60 mile radius” 

My LinkedIn network, visualized
My LinkedIn network, visualized (Photo credit: For Inspiration Only)

As a reminder, my colleagues company is focusing on the absolute power of marrying Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media, and most organizations are in need of services like what they offer. The effect almost overwhelming. By applying filters, segmented the prospects and so forth, I’m sure they’ll get them down to a manageable number to approach. The first filter was looking only at 2nd level contacts to determine who they had that could become a warm contact through a LinkedIn introduction.

The network is constantly tweaking it’s platform to deliver increased user satisfaction. One of the latest additions, was the increased power delivered to the company page segment. What I particularly like is the products and services tabs, where you can have specific client recommendations appear right below each of your services. I’ll use HubSpot’s company page, as a great example of what you can do.

Are you using LinkedIn as effectively as possible?

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