Get to the Point Newsletters:
This link represents the inaugural issue of the High-Tech Marketing & Sales Get to the Po!nt newsletter from MarketingProfs. “This once-a-week guide is specifically intended for marketing and sales staff in the high-tech field.” In this issue, learn how inbound links not only drive sales but also improve your Google search ranking.

Put Sociability in B2B Sales:
Another High-Tech Marketing & Sales Get to the Po!nt newsletter from MarketingProfs, this issue suggests giving sales teams clear guidelines on social media and using a a social-savvy individual or small team (millennial/generation Y), within your organization to determine “the most strategically relevant venues that will offer the greatest return for your time.” “Figuring out the best use of social media for your organization can be more complex than the screening process, so delegate this task to someone with a pragmatic approach and a broad business perspective.”

A Brilliant (and Simple) Follow Up Email for Any White Paper or Webinar:
At the blog for Savvy B2B Marketing, Michele Linn describes herself as “a serial downloader,” always on the lookout for information. Michele offers how effective receiving a personal, follow-up response from ExactTarget was in the conversion process, after she downloaded a whitepaper, responded to the follow-up e-mail, and then received a personal response back. After engaging in an e-mail conversation, Michele signed-up for the company newsletter. She could have opted in to receive the newsletter when she downloaded the white paper, but “didn’t check the box for whatever reason. But, after engaging in this email conversation” she did.

Top 20 Risk Factors for U.S. Tech Firms:
Mass High Tech’s The Journal of New England Technology summarizes risk factors from the BDO Seidman RiskFactor Report for Technology Businesses. According to the report, “Competition and bringing new products to market” are the most common risk factors among large U.S. tech firms. BDO Seidman further found that “economic uncertainty and international instability” are among other frequently cited issues. (Peg’s Note: I include this link because the risk factors [see the complete article] look like good information to consider when developing user personas for the U.S. high-tech space.)

Is Social Media Making Corporate WebSites Irrelevant?:
Mashable‘s Editor in Chief Adam Ostrow poses the question of whether pointing to your corporate web site is the right marketing strategy, “given the emergence of the social web and the opportunity to engage with fans elsewhere.” As an example, Ostrow cites VitaminWater‘s recent ad campaign, which directs people to participate in social media, rather than visit the branded website. The multi-channel campaign features NBA superstars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

CEOs Who Use Twitter:
BusinessWeek reports “how Virgin Group’s Richard Branson, Zappos.com’s Tony Hsieh, and dozens more CEOs harness the simple powers of Twitter.”

Social Media Strategy

There is No Social Media Kit:
Altitude Branding’s Amber Naslund, also Director of Community for Radian6, blogs that “there is no social media shortcut.” Most social media answers depend on a variety of businesss circumstances and other factors. As companies plan out their own social media approach, what Naslund does offer are specific questions to help companies customize their respective strategies in these areas: Research and Groundwork, Auditing and Readiness Assessment, Goal Setting, Resource Planning, Internal Education and Training, Immersion and Participation, Learning and Evaluation.

Social Media ROE/ROI

ROI vs. “Impact on X” – Understanding what Social Media ROI is and isn’t.:
In the Brandbuilder Blog, Olivier Blanchard describes the difference between impact and ROI. “Impact can be measured in eyeballs. Impact can be measured in comments on a blog post. Impact may be measured in conversations. Impact can be measured in responses to a BOGO offer or discount offer. Impact can even be measured in smiles.” “But then you have ROI”, which according to Blanchard, “is a completely different animal: ROI is a very specific subset of Impact in that it relates specifically to the business’ bottom-line.” Blanchard cautions, “[a]nyone who talks about Social Media ROI as being somehow radically different from other types of ROI is demonstrating a profound lack of understanding of ROI as a whole.” To see “broad Social Media adoption for business actually happen,” Blanchard advises that participants correctly apply social media impact versus social media ROI terminology.

Social media success doesn’t start with ROI:
Owner of Spark Media Solutions, David Spark blogs that “you can’t make decisions on new media if you’re measuring it with old media metrics. A media plan’s building block is the CPM (Cost Per Thousands). It’s the metric that advertisers know, understand, and negotiate on. The problem is when you use an old media metric (CPM) to measure new media, you can’t measure it properly, and as a result, you miss out on fantastic opportunities. It’s the same reason why you don’t use a slide rule to measure the sky.”

“We’ve been trained that everything gets measured down to a sales lead. If that’s how you measure social media, then forget it,” said David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR and World Wide Rave . Scott mentioned this during a panel session entitled, “The Conversational Corporation: How Social Media Has Changed the Enterprise” held at Dow Jones in Palo Alto, Calif.

15 Ways to Measure Return on Engagement (ROE) of Social Media:
Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College in Elgin, Illinois. Last week, she tweeted 15 things public relations professionals can use to show a RETURN ON ENGAGEMENT (ROE)–the new return on investment–on their social media efforts. This link represents a recap of those tweets, as summarized in Evans’ blog post.

 Social Media Policy

Bosses concerned about Facebook, Twitter:
According to a Deloitte LLP survey, “60 percent of executives believe they have a right to know how employees portray themselves and their companies on online social networks, but 53 percent of employees say content posted on their Facebook and Twitter accounts are not a boss’s concern. That belief is even more prevalent among younger workers. Sixty-three percent of workers ages 18 to 34 say employers have no business looking at their online activity.” For more commentary on the Deloitte survey, see Mitch Joel‘s post at TwistImage: Reputation, Social Media and Your Boss.

Free social media ebook and video: New Media and the Air Force:
David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR and World Wide Rave , calls attention to The United States Air Force Public Affairs Agency, Emerging Technology Division, which just released a new ebook and video about how social media is used in the Air Force. In a recent Awareness, Inc. webinar, Scott said that if even the Air Force can adopt social media, other organizations can as well. He recommends the ebook for any organization seeking internal guidelines on how to implement social media.

Crafting Your Company’s Social Media Policy:
Michael Sheehan, also known as HighTechDad on Twitter, is the Technology Evangelist for GoGrid, a Cloud Computing Infrastructure provider. In this post, Sheehan describes how he and his company’s HR department worked together to develop a social media policy. The company policy, which Sheehan drafted, defines social media as “Blogs, Forums, Wikis and Social Networks and commenting therein.” In 14 bullet points, the company policy then succinctly describes the Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media.

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