The rapid expansion of social media as a fundamental value-added service of a team or the organization in the market has created a plethora of new enterprise roles and responsibilities—from community managers to directors of social media and to chief content officers. Although their backgrounds vary greatly, I’ve found the best ones to be very well grounded in traditional marketing expertise, to have a solid understanding of the power and promise of this new medium, and to have a genuine desire to create dialogue and candid interactions with their respective constituents. One such example is a content curator.

When executing a social market leadership strategy, you have to develop digital relationships that become evangelists of your brand and quantifiable value.

To do this successfully, if you’re trying to sell more than your products and services and share unique intellectual property (IP) as part of your personal or organization’s brand as well, you’ll need to post compelling content online; this includes new videos, blog posts, tweets, and LinkedIn and Facebook status updates. The challenge is that other than a handful of exceptions, such as Butterfly Publisher, there are relatively few tools with the ability to disseminate content and help you proactively manage this deluge. Read the rest of this entry »

Want to use Enterprise Social Alignment to stay ahead of your competition? The following Top 10 Social Market Leadership tactics will help you stay ahead of the curve!

1. Develop a profile of your target buyer. Research them on LinkedIn, and create a profile of what they find of interest/value.

2. Don’t think of your interactions as a single event; instead think of them as a campaign with a focused social media effort to create awareness for the client organization.

3. In advance of each interaction, research top industry trade publications; for corporate clients, identify internal and external communication channels, such as newsletters, SharePoint sites, intranets, and private social networks.

4. Submit focused and relevant content (articles, videos, blog posts) often, driving awareness and traffic to your personal or corporate brand. Read the rest of this entry »

In several client meetings this past year, the conversation often centered on the need for a social media policy—what the organization was going to give its employees access to, what personal accounts/social networking sites were permitted, and what the employees could or could not do, say, or be online. Whether you work for a progressive organization or a conservative, risk-averse one, it seems that everyone has an opinion on the best approach. Here are four prevailing camps:

Ostrich Look-Alikes

‘‘I’m on Facebook to keep up with my teenage daughter; it has no relevance to our business, and it’s going to go away soon enough. Besides, bandwidth, viruses, and time-wasting are all good reasons for us to block complete access to any and all of it from our company.’’ Seriously? You don’t think employees are getting online with their smart phones or personal laptops, or around the corner at the coffee shop? Here is one of my favorites: A local, well-recognized brand that promotes on Facebook a payment application it developed that blocks access to Facebook for its employees! Read the rest of this entry »

Now more than ever, smart, strategic, profitable revenue growth is critical to organizations of any size. Make no mistake about it—performance trumps all. You as an individual, your team, and your organization all have to consistently deliver quality products, exceptional professional services, and an unparalleled customer experience. Otherwise, the rest is a moot point.

A strong social network can help extend the market capitalization of your performance.

Its applications are invaluable in the following three areas:

1. Within the organization where you need the support of your colleagues to deliver on the promises you make in the market
2. With distribution channel partners who can help uncover previously untapped market opportunities or extend your reach with exponential value-added services; and
3. With great customers. Social networks can help you focus on your core competencies while you explore innovative business and revenue models. Read the rest of this entry »

Received this LinkedIn note about 1/3 of my contacts having changed jobs or titles in 2010. Not only it’s clever of them to show me pictures – we’re a visual society, vs. simply their names – many of which most of us can’t remember or connect to the right person / context, but each is a hyperlink to their profile. This is right up there with "call your mother on holidays." But I love the question at the bottom of the page – What DID You do in 2010? and a clear, logical call to action – Let Your Connections Know.

From: LinkedIn 2010 Review

Date: January 18, 2011 9:27:31 AM EST

To: David Nour

Subject: David, 413 of your connections changed jobs in 2010.

 

David, 2010 was a year of change. 413 of your LinkedIn connections started something new. Here are a few of them:             See Beth’s new job! » Where is Edward "Ted"? » And MICHAEL? » What did you do in 2010? Let your connections know.

© 2011, LinkedIn Corporation

Sociologists call this being "ambient aware" – the more you know about your portfolio of relationships, the more proactively it helps you manage those relationships. So, here are a handful of questions for you to ask yourself:

1. How well do you really know your "connections" in LinkedIn, "Friends" in Facebook, or "Followers in Twitter?" Amazing that we’ll connect with anyone – regardless of whether we know them or not, respect, trust, or value them or not. I actually heard a presenter tout that he can help you get a 1000 LinkedIn connections in just a couple of hours!! Really? Where do I sign up? Needless to say, I’m no longer involved with the organization who actually thinks this yahoo will add value to its members!
2. Are you using social networks consistently, intently, and strategically – as part of your broader marketing gravity / relationship development efforts? I used LinkedIn for my most trusted relationships. If you want to simply connect with me, let’s do that on Facebook (facebook.com/davidnour, and if you simply want to hear of my thought leadership, follow me on Twitter (@davidnour).
3. How are you listening, engaging, and influencing your most valuable relationships via social networks? The worst thing you can do on social networks is to sell – it unequivocally turns everyone off. The best thing you can do is to listen to their ideas, engage them in a unique perspective, and influence their thinking and call to action.

Would love to hear your perspective on dos and don’t on social networks…

David

Great get together with 12,000+ HP professionals last week.  We all heard and discussed great ideas which could propel one forward.  The key and fundamental differentiator between those who simply take good notes and those who deliver great results is the transference of those notes into action.  The impact you’re after is a change in behavior – start by implementing one relationship-centric idea THIS week!

Top recommendations to focus on in 2011:

• Diversity, Quality and Investment Efforts you choose to make in your most valuable relationships
• Translating relationship investments into impact delivered
• Relationship Map Pivotal Contacts™ (relationships you need) to your existing Relationship Bank™ (relationship you have) to accelerate your ability to reach your relationship-centric goals and objectives.

Best, David