One of my favourites is “River Cottage”, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a chef well known for less dependence on the outside world, food integrity, and the consumption of local, seasonal produce.

In the latest episode, Huge came up with a few creative ideas that immediately made me think about content opportunities for B2B companies to better market their products and services.

1. Pick a Theme

This chef is constantly exploring all the angles of seasonal food. He doesn’t just do mixed ideas and dishes but rather focuses on maximising specific content. The latest episode was about “fish”

B2B pointer: Start by segmenting your solutions (products and services) by audience. If you produce a piece of content that is aimed at a specific target with a crafted title/theme, chances are the impact will be higher. Also more relevant people will find you through search engines.

2. Provide a taste of your knowledge

Huge went to a local fishmonger. The shop was displaying a rich selection of fresh fish. He asked: “What’s the difference between a local fishmonger and the one from the supermarket?” The reply was: “My customer knows more about fish“.
Then, the chef decided to take the fish to a local square where many people walked by, improvised a food stand and shouted: “This man has fresh fish and I’ve got great tips!“. Huge then started to sell the different types of fish by delivering easy recipe ideas. “This boneless piece of hake goes fantastic with olive oil, garlic and white wine…“.  In between the tips, he would fillet, marinate the fish and wrap it in aluminum foil for customers to put straight in the oven!

B2B pointer: Loads of potential customers need your solution (Many don’t know it yet). The way you get closer without interrupting, is by providing a bit of specific education (no strings attached) to help them make a decision and move forward. If, on top of that you deliver the solution on a golden tray, easy to take off your shelves (like the fish already marinated and ready to cook in the aluminum foil) you’ll improve distribution. Also, if people learn about your product and want to go ahead right now, is there a contact form, an email address or phone number easy to find?

3. Go reality-show style

Chef Hugh then went to the house of two college students that knew very little about cooking. He took them for a walk to the local fish market, taught them a bit about the different types mixed with recipe ideas, made a purchase and went back home to show them how to make a simple, inexpensive and delicious dinner.

B2B pointer: Hire a video production team. Pick a new customer or an existing one willing to explore one of your new products/services. Go out to them. Show the problem (customer’s pain). Listen, acknowledge and deliver your thoughts/approach. Even better, take that customer to your warehouse/office/factory so he/she can meet with your company experts.
Video content is very powerful and will certainly make you different. Chop the whole story into 2 to 3-minute episodes and promote them in your social media channels. Finally, do screenshots of the different story sequences and create a short ebook on PDF. The title should describe the problem you’re solving. Get it out there for free download and send it to the customer segment via email.

4. Get other experts on board!

Finally, Hugh shared the stage with two local chefs that showed us how to make a few quick meals with the catch of the day.

B2B pointer: Think about your partners, contractors, sales team, etc. These folks know your solution really well! Let them show your audience how to get the most out of it in their own style. This move will not only give you the chance to showcase the diversity of experience within your company but also, it’ll save you a lot of time if you were thinking about creating content just yourself or your department.

Has any show sparked business ideas for you recently?

Besides the traditional activities that you have been executing all these years, here are a fresh bunch of social media ideas by platform to boost event results (please share more tips in the comments below):

Main content hub (or Blog)

• Create a microsite or dedicated landing page for the event with all the relevant information. This should be built several months before the event if possible.
• Publish blog posts about the event but more importantly around the main topics to make it more engaging. Remember that there will be a lot of people that are not aware of the event, so if you focus on providing valuable what’s-in-it-for-the-audience content, many will feel identified with certain problems and feel  that the event is a must.
• Consider using Tumblr.com. If you’re short of time, Tumblr could help you launch a blog as landing plage for the event. You can easily publish videos and photos during the event straight from your mobile, on the go.
• Implement a chat widget for live chat. We use Zopim.com. It will give you powerful, real-time insights and the ability to chat with people that have questions before and during the event for instance.

LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Foursquare

Email Marketing

YouTube, FlickR, Slideshare

We did a post last year about Foursquare for business networking, but I came across a great video interview with a company that provides feedback on how and why they use this platform.

The Corcoran Group sell multimillion dollar apartments, mainly in New York. Their approach consisted on leaving “tips” for specific locations such as shops, bar, restaurants, etc. Why on earth would a busy, money-making company, be leaving tips on Foursquare?

Matthew Shadbolt, Director of interactive marketing, shares some great insights  (short video at the bottom) but, here are three BIG ones:

• “The idea of how you find a great apartment, has much more to do with what’s around the building or apartment itself, just as much as what’s in the apartment. We call this: going beyond the four walls”.
• “We believe it’s helpful to guide people around the city through the lens of the Corcoran group’s expertise”.
• “Foursquare is a great place for us to share local insights and expertise and transfer what real estate agents have always done but in the mobile space and in a more meaningful and helpful way to our audience”

What I love about this approach is that is focused on helping prospects and customers in line with business objectives, rather than interrupting them with marketing messages. By facilitating the access to deals, they’re presenting themselves as a company that knows the area,  improving their positioning in people’s minds.

Thinking beyond four walls

This post is not just about Foursquare. The idea is that you can see more than your own company in the big picture and work in sync with an ecosystem that will make your brand more powerful than if you’re the only one pulling from the rope.

I can hear already Management asking: “So, what’s the return on investment for every tip, tweet, video we post?”. That’s a valid question, but it’s up to you to broaden their views, painting a bigger, more beneficial picture about how can your company be more successful. It will help to first build a strong purpose to back up any plan. In the case of Corcoran Group, they didn’t start with “we aim at X amount of tips that will return X amount of leads”. There’s nothing wrong in measuring that. It’s better to understand first the “why” behind what you’re doing. Example: “We believe it’s helpful to guide people around the city through the lens of the Corcoran’s group expertise”. Find your angle.
Obviously, as Matthew explains in the video, Foursquare is not a stand-alone tactic but rather one piece within their overall strategy.

Tactics don’t last forever. Twelve months from now, the company might no longer see big value in Foursquare and may move on to another platform. If your problem is time, simply don’t juggle with five platforms at the same time. Start small. Focus on small wins that can demonstrate specific results and you’ll gain trust from the board. Hopefully, time and also resources will be allocated to your social media programme gradually.

What social media ideas have you tried beyond the four walls?

Right there, that’s how good he is. Getting the latest armor will not necessarily make him the best against others. The shield and the sword are simply extensions. They protect him, make him reach farther and win more battles.

Too many professionals see social media tools as this separate thing, as something that will make them magically win business, customers, etc. The equation is pretty simple: if your business, product and service are not good enough, social networks will not revert that for you.

I interviewed John Jantsch, founder of DuctTapeMarketing.com and author of the book, “The Referral Engine”.  He said something similar: “…It does all start with being referable. If you’re not doing something that people want to talk about, no amount of reading my book is probably going to change that“.

Think of a bad book. Even if an effective team of digital marketers make it go around the world through social media, all they’ll be achieving is “reach” but not what matters: good reviews, loads of people talking about it and spreading the word.

I recently thought about some business that came to us via Twitter and LinkedIn. I pictured the entire scene: The lead, that post we published, the relationship we’ve been building throughout time, that coffee we had… and one day the “social media phone” rang. That simply facilitated the entire process, it gave us constant visibility of each other and a platform to stay in touch, that ultimately even became the glorious messenger for the business query. It was the quality of the information, the way a concept was explained, the answer to a question what really closed the deal. Social media was just the facilitator, our extension.

What do you think?

Here’s the BIG question (and problem) with the “saviour campaign” approach: Who is manning the front desk while we work on the next campaign?

There’s nothing wrong with marketing campaigns. They must be part of our strategy. However, all we’re doing is engaging our brand in a series of microcycles that reach their peak but then crash without building up brand equity neither endurance in the long term.

The secret lies on staying very focused on your listening stations and connecting with your community of customers and prospects… all the time, and not just in-between campaigns.
There are several ways to know how well you’re doing. For example, comparing month-to-month the number of queries from people, the number of answers delivered by your department and others (IT, Sales, Customer Service). You can track those indicators per day or if it’s too busy, I would suggest even to break it down by the hour to get a better perspective about the busiest times and proactively request back-up, as it would normally happen in an inbound call centre.

Being available to your community all the time (“Business as usual”) is perceived as more valuable than showing up only when you have something to sell. The best example is the Old Spice campaign. Many said it was one of the most successful social media campaigns because it was creative and delivered ROI. As Gary Vaynerchuk geniously pinpointed later: “Have you paid attention to the Twitter activity from the Old Spice account after the party was over?” Their official posts reduced dramatically. That was a clear indication of how much Old Spice cared more about the campaign itself than people.

The goal would be to build blocks that elevate us, reaching more people every time we launch a new campaign. The only way to do this,  is by genuinely engaging in conversations with our community while we plan the next campaign.

Every time, the Twitter or  Facebook “phone” rings, be there to help: Deliver valuable information, acknowledge relevant comments, answer questions, feature followers. If you want to achieve endurance you must earn people’s trust along the way.

Remember, it’s showtime 24/7 now. You can’t just go on stage only to increase sales, people will notice

According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute: “the biggest challenge for corporate content producers is to actually come up with engaging content all the time”. Due to the overwhelming abundance of content out there and the imminent catching up by competitors or simply better content producers that your company who is giving the first steps, this race can feel daunting.

A great part of content marketing nowadays is a mix of compelling information, entertainment, reach, openness and a big dose of personal touch nurturing that mix you present to your audience.

No one can create 100% engaging content all the time just like no event is 100% satisfactory to everyone; neither is a get-together or any social endeavour. However, your company can take a strategic approach to connect with your target audience and support business goals. Should you aim for perfection? Yes, of course. Even if you know that along the way you will land some nice triumphs,  some average interactions and the occasional hiccup. It’s about following a strategy & also making adjustments but commiting to repetition of the core pillars (more below).

Assuming your team has got the skills to produce good content the key is that, according to the business function they represent, these individuals are fully aware of the goals and possible benefits for their business wing so that their creative process is fully in line with the direction.

Here are some ways in which your team may have the business goals present in their minds (obviously the team needs to be creative enough to avoid the hard-sell):

Sales

Ask collaborators to produce content in line with the different stages of the buying process. A blog post or video, even pictures can cater for stages such as the consideration stage, comparison stage, closing stage, etc. Think how your possible buyers think and make it easy for them to have questions answered even before they ask them. Have a look at this great article over as Social Media B2B covering more about these stages.

Purer Marketing/ Promotion

Remember about entertainment. Even if storytelling is nowadays a buzzword, it is what the community wants and engages with. Ask your content producers to abandon the hammering announcements and build your messages around stories. I am not asking you to create a sitcom (although if you can, people may like it). It’s down to internalising the story as a vehicle. Let me give you an example before I get too abstract: If you are pushing a new product, change in the company, partnership you can present it to the community in a video/ post that actually walks the viewer through how this novelty came into being. For instance, when we opened our London office we created this video in an effort to escape from the typical written announcement.

Publicity

Is your content likely to be picked and shared by authorities & influencers? For instance, is it written/ formatted in such a way that it is easy to be grabbed by an important journalist or blogger who may want to write about it? You cannot artificially generate this interest by others but you can certainly ask your content team to keep best practices in mind and also an eye on the type of content your target influencers are fond of. Then, simply be consistent. Thanks to Ivan Walsh for inspiring this thought.

Customer Service

Even though we are all in the customer services department, senior customer services people in your company should probably take the lead on content production. These experienced people should aim to cater for the different stages in your particular customer services matrix. This could come down things such as tutorials or explaining after-sales processes better.  Why not bring in storytelling to the equation and showcase how you solve specific problems or a client’s success story with your department?  See how Zendesk go about this concept. Ask your content team to also share how you make things better based on complaints (e.g. based on this backlog we have done this and that and rewarded patient clients with X).

Community Building

Caring about the people who relate to your company has always been a business function. We all know that this has been neglected for years and is now changing back to what it should be, with the help of social media and the consumers’ resonance. Ask your collaborators to listen to what the community wants (literally see what key individuals have “liked” “tweeted” or even criticized). Sense what makes them tick and take a leap to try to meet that need. The more you do it, the better you get. The more you serve them, the more room they will give you to actually present brand new inputs that they were not looking for but they like, because they come from you.

Now go and review your content strategy. Is it supporting your business functions? I know for a fact after writing this post that we have a lot to work on here too. Let’s get down to it and if you feel like, leave a quick comment below, we can all do with your great examples and thoughts

Are you proactively working on your company’s reputation online? For those of you that still ask “why should I bother?”, then answer: Is your offline company reputation important?

Last week we received a few calls and a couple of LinkedIn questions about company reputation and visibility (looks like many companies are “on a mission”)

I’m aware that many of you are still thinking, delivering when and how you’re going to use Twitter, Facebook and more importantly a company blog (phenomenal reputation management tools). Also, many of you have to even go through several stakeholders, Legal and other departments to deploy your social media presence. However, today, I’d like to share something that you can launch straight away, a no-brainer, something that shouldn’t require many approvals and also a fundamental way to leverage your company’s visibility and reputation. That’s a LinkedIn company page.

I would have assumed many professionals were on board but turns out only a small percentage of companies are taking advantage of this valuable resource.

Why is a LinkedIn company page so important?

First, answer this: what does your business offer and what are people saying about it? The majority of companies would probably have to spend some good time collecting testimonials here and there to finally deliver… by email? A LinkedIn company page portrays all that powerful information in one shot (one page) and it’s available to anyone in the world that wants to check out how good you are, even while you sleep
LinkedIn is also a strong business network with more than 80 million professionals so the chances that people will visit your personal profile and your company’s, is very likely.

The “Services” tab is one of the hottest additions.  You can load products and services and have your clients leave a recommendation (social proof). In order for this to work, you must proactively ask your customers to endorse your company. If you don’t make it simple for them (provide link), it won’t happen magically.

An opportunity for people to get closer

You can also “Follow” a company on Linekdin. This means that every time there’s a new member in the team, a new opening or people leaving, this information makes it to the LinkedIn news stream and via email reaching hundreds or thousands of business professionals.

3 important bonuses

On the upper right, there’s a useful call-to-action for people that want to learn more and get in touch!
Also, every single tab of your LinkedIn Company page has a spot for you to include a video. This is fabulous since it provides a much deeper taste for your audience. Videos are proven to be super effective tools to educate your community and help them make a decision.

Finally, you avail of free page analytics. All graphics compare your company’s numbers against similar companies.

What’s your experience with LinkedIn pages? Will you set up yours?

As you know, we are very fond of Seth here and as I was taking notes I decided to share a quick (I said quick, not short) transcript of this useful webinar. You’ll feel that most are Seth’s word and some are mine I Regardless I hope you take away a few things that can work for you and others you know.

Seth is self-proclaimed contradictory, so pick what works for you.

I hope that you grasp why I’m sharing this in this format, sequence and burst; but if you don’t, the hints are the points highlighted in green

On blogging:

1. Don’t be a generalist. Be a specialist
2. Break news (breaking is being the first, I think I’m more doing number 6 below)
3. Write about timeless things!!! (think Zenhabits by Leo Batauta)
4. Be the first one to blog about something and explore encouraging the  competition to blog about it too.
5. The more you share the more people come to you, it’s ironic
6. Announce news
7. Short bursts are easier to spread because we don’t need to read all in order to feel confident to spread it
8. Write long definitive posts (contradicts above, it doesn’t matter!) Every now and then it works perfectly. It’s contradictory because there is no map. No magic rule on length of content
9. Don’t write about your kids or pets
10. Write about your kids (again contradictory), use analogies he means, still he’s like a modern Heraclitus constantly contradicting himself
11. Be snarky, nearly libellous (Seth says be careful), accuse (sort of), shout (sort of), be over the top. Pick a fight. It doesn’t make you trustworthy though (I’ll stop to see a car crash but wouldn’t pay for it)
12. Be sycophantic, spread link love
13. Include polls, meters and eyecandy
14. Think about SEO, tag your posts. Black hat doesn’t scale. Seth is obsessed with scaling
15. COIN a term or two. Whoever coined “blogs” or “the long tail” can be found (Chris Anderson)
16. Do e-mail interviews. Plenty of people would like to be in front of your audience.
17. Answer your e-mail (doesn’t scale but it works). Contradiction
18. Use photos, salacious are better… lol
19. Be anonymous (contradictory). Anonymous people have more freedom (a post by a fake Steve Jobs is of interest)
20. Encourage your people to Digg and Reddit your posts
21. Post yout photos on Flickr; still spreads ideas. Well curated galleries rule
22. Encourage your readers to subscribe to RSS. People who depend on “drive by traffic” are in a losers game. The Big game is subscriptions. NY Times would be out of business, Rolling stones too otherwise. RSS to email is OK, but when e-mail becomes spammy RSS through a reader is the way
23. Take your readers and bring them to a month’s education, linear, step by step. Seth blogs daily, sometimes you spread a concept gradually
24. Include comments to create a virtual water cooler. Often comments are better than posts
25. Assume that people visit you at your blog for the first time
26. Highlight your best posts on you Squidoo lens. Enter your RSS and highlight your favourite post
27. Point to useful but little known resources (you get the credit, not Google, not the developer). Here’s a resource by the way to find search for free pics for your posts: http://compfight.com/
28. Write about stuff that people are interested in (gadgets, web 2.0, things for people that are on the web)
29. Write about Google
30. If you have ads, they should be even better than your content
31. Don’t include comments (contradictory). Seth doesn’t allow them because he doesn’t want his writing to be influenced, fair enough. He also thinks that people should comment on their own blogs about your posts (food for thought for the likes of Disqus and Intensedebate or WordPress?)
32. Don’t use trackbacks, they are broken
33. No ads. Seth’s a maximiser, and he cannot write the best and be the best advertiser. He only wants to spread interesting ideas so he sticks to that
34. Keep tweaking your template (you’ll learn a lot)
35. Write about blogging/ write about Twitter. It works, period
36. Digest good ideas of other people
37. Invent a whole new art or interaction (postcards, secrets)
38. On weekdays there are more readers, traffic
39. Cover different topics, neverending parade of topics
40. Post on weekends, more attention (contradictory)
41. Don’t interrupt your writing with a lot of links. Talk to people quietly
42. Dress your blog well like your clothes, tipography, colours, pictures, etc
43. Edit yourself, ruthlessly
44. Don’t promote yourself and business at expense of reader’s attention
45. Be patient. Forget an overnight success. Seth is in post 3500. If you can stick to it 3 to 5 years, it’ll work.
46. Give credit to those who inspired, don’t steal ideas
47. Ping Technorati, ask the tech guy how
48. Write about one thing only in deep detail
49. Write in English (the Language, no irony here, it just reaches more people)
50. Better, write in Chinese
51. Write about obscure stuff that obsesses a minority
52. The goal is simple: Ask yourself if your community would miss you if you were gone. If the answer is no, quit (read “the Dip”, that’s my own comment)
53. Don’t be boring (comes from previous point)
54. Write stuff that people want to read and share

If you are still here reading you’ll notice that I missed 3 ideas out of the 57, what do you think about my attention span? Leave a comment below, be kind.

Bonus 1

Why do people spread ideas?

In real space/ real flesh and bone life, ideas are absorbed by way of interruption (ads, billboards, rent space on busy street). Internet works so well because people spread ideas person to person. Here are some thoughts on why ideas spread.

• It makes “me” feel generous
• “I” feel smarter
• I care about the outcome, I want to be generous to YOU (the idea owner)
• Because I have no choice (e.g. tattoo, iPhone,)
• Because there’s a financial benefit (like an Amazon affiliate). Most people fail on this watch out
• The idea is hysterically funny and laughing alone is not fun
• Everybody is lonely and loneliness will never go away. Give people something to share and they’ll love you
• Because I’m angry and want to bring it out (flip side of above)
• Because close people I know will benefit  or all will benefit (Groupon)
• Because you asked me to and it’s hard not to say no. Watch out on pushing this, but it works.
• Because I can introduce other people to other people. That’s why people spread Facebook (combination of selfishness to connect to others and believing the idea that connectedness is good).
• Because if everyone knew this idea I would be happier
• Because your idea makes it easy to spread an idea I am uncomfortable spreading
• Because I care about someone that would be happier or healthier
• Because it’ll annoy someone (e.g. teenagers do things just to annoy parents)
• Because the tribe needs to know about this to avoid an external threat
• Because it’s my job
• Because I love your art, cannot repay you so I have to share it. You see it with great musicians and writers

Bonus 2

Where do these ideas come from?

• By being innovative (Michael Dell was innovative and then he hired an army of people that weren’t; the company sneezed…)
• Risky ideas don’t come from watching TV
• Often, good ideas come from books
• Good ideas come from bad ideas (look at 30 crappy iPad apps and you’ll probably work out a great number 31)
• Almost never a good idea comes from an annual review
• Ideas occur when 2 worlds collide (ballerina dating a weightlifter)
• Ideas often happen when you need them (just in time)
• Ideas fear experts but adore beginners (stay naïve)
• Ideas come in spurts, don’t come forever nor systematically
• Ideas come from trouble
• Ideas come from our EGO
• Ideas come from Nature (Velcro)
• Sometimes come from fear, but often come from confidence (more powerful)
• When you feel the texture of the universe, feeling aware, you are most definitely going to have an idea
• Sometimes they sneak in when you sleep
• Out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower
• Mediocre ideas like copying but bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones
• Ideas don’t need a passport
• Expose yourself to other universes

Yes, I took a screenshot of the final slide and grasped a thought which I found motivating:

“In this era anyone can play for free, anyone can put an idea into the universe. You are not gonna make it signing NDAs

The new world demands collision and driving without a map…

Go make something happen”

Social media has been sold to everybody the wrong way (I make the word “media” responsible). As a result, a big percentage of companies have the perception that this is something they need to use to “push” a message (exactly like TV, radio or newspaper) and hopefully increase sales = revenue.

I’ve made a quick video to share with you a basic example of Social Media ROI in sales. The keyword of the game, after you devised your strategy, is “patience“, especially when the goal comes down to revenue. Why? Because if you treat people as “disposable customers” (that’s how they will feel), then the question “Now what?” will become a bigger issue than anything else.
It takes time, consistency and hard work to build a reputation and just seconds to through it all away.

(If you cannot view the video please follow the link: Social media ROI)

It’s also great when social media doesn’t come out of the Sales & Marketing Departments. For example, if it starts in Customer service and/or HR , they will focus more on improving quality of communication and interaction while capitalising in long term relationships (Internally & externally). This moves them away from just being seen as pure “cost centres”.

What are your thoughts?