Business Insight Zone

Great comment today from Nancy Bailey on my May 2009 post, “Twitter follow-backs: the 5-step lightning approach.” Here’s what she said:

I am fairly new to twitter so I apologize if this is a lame question. I have a company account where my staff posts job openings, news etc. We really don’t want to follow anyone but ourselves but gain lots of followers. Each of my staff has a personal account where they can follow Ashton [Kutcher] and whomever they please. Every week I go on there and find that my company account is following all sorts fo random people. Is this some sort of auto-follow? How can I stop this? Is this is even a wise approach? What would the downside be of having a company follow random people?

Lots of things to chew on there, which is why I’m discussing this in its own post rather than in the original comment thread. Let’s take them in order.

I am fairly new to twitter so I apologize if this is a lame question.

Hey, when it comes to the business use of social media, we’re all fairly new. So, no worries.

I have a company account where my staff posts job openings, news etc.

Great . . . but from looking at the Hire Profile Twitter account, I immediately wonder whether you wouldn’t get more out of Twitter by using it more interactively. You have only a handful of posts that reference other Twitter users, but in my experience (which, if I say so myself, is considerable) interacting with others on Twitter is the royal road to gaining traction there.

We really don’t want to follow anyone but ourselves but gain lots of followers.

Big Question #1: Why? Twitter is of some — but limited — use as a pure broadcast medium. Most people use it for both exposure to interesting content and interaction. If you don’t follow anyone and don’t interact, you’re missing out on a big part of the appeal — and, potentially, a big part of the benefit for your business.

Big Question #2: How? The accounts that follow few but attract many tend to be in the vein of Mashable, Conan O’Brien, and The New York Times. In other words, they have a big footprint before they ever get to Twitter. For the rest of us, following a fair number of people is one of the key ingredients in the recipe for drawing lots of followers. (By the way, this doesn’t mean you need to follow everyone who follows you — I don’t.)

Each of my staff has a personal account where they can follow Ashton and whomever they please.

You’re way ahead of some employers, who blindly prohibit employees from accessing social networks despite the value (including business value) that can be derived from them.

Every week I go on there and find that my company account is following all sorts of random people. Is this some sort of auto-follow? How can I stop this?

It does sound like you got signed on to an auto-follow program at some point, because Twitter won’t follow anyone for you automatically.

As for how to fix: go into your Twitter account — via the Twitter site — click on “Settings,” and then click on “Connections.” It will show you which applications have access to your Twitter account. From there, it’s easy to revoke access for any or all of those apps.

Is this is even a wise approach? What would the downside be of having a company follow random people?

The two big downsides would be:

1. Twitter spam, where malicious (or just obnoxious) followers send you Twitter direct messages you don’t want.
2. Wasted time. If you’re using Twitter to promote your business, it makes sense to interact with business pros who share interests with your firm.

So, Nancy, does this help? What other questions do you have?

And to the rest of you in the audience — what advice would you add for Nancy? How can she get the most out of Twitter without making it her full-time job?

After talking about how I follow up with new acquaintances when I get home from attending a conference, I got feedback from a friend of mine who manages the neat perfecta of being (a) a nifty human being, and (b) a stone-cold sales pro. She elaborated on a practice of hers that I also follow, but that I didn’t mention in the post.

Here’s what we both do:

1. As we’re talking to the new acquaintance, or shortly thereafter, we jot down something about them that’s not related to business. My friend called this “some non-business rapport-building topic I’ve discussed with the person.” I might call it “common ground.”
2. When we follow up with them later, we include some reference to this shared interest. My own follow-ups have included things like “Next time you’re in Austin, I’ll be sure to take you out for some REAL Texas barbecue” and “It’s always great to find someone who shares my affection for the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

As my friend points out — and as I’ve experienced myself — this kind of contact makes the other person feel special, and that we’ve connected on a personal level, whether or not any business arises from that connection.

I like doing business, and I like connecting with people — so why not operate in a way that satisfies both impulses at once?

So how do you make personal connections with business acquaintances?

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Image by Victor Bezrukov.

I’ve faced down a few stacks of collected business cards like that one in my time, and a friend asked me to talk about this subject, so I thought I’d share my process here.

1. Collect information at the event. Business cards are still useful, in their way. So is a pocket notebook to jot things down while you’re talking to a new person — including their basic contact information, if they’ve run out of cards. Since I’m a heavy Twitter user and often have a smartphone with me, I’ll follow a new acquaintance on Twitter right then and there if it’s appropriate.
2. When you get home, clear your desk and clear some time for following up.
3. On the newly-cleared expanse of my desk, I spread out the cards from the conference in neat rows. Something about doing this helps me to focus on each card individually, while keeping in mind how many follow-ups I have to do in the allotted time.
4. If I’ve collected a ton of cards, the law of averages suggests that there may be a few from folks I already know or (rarely) don’t care to know better. For speed’s sake, I sweep through the entire grid of cards on my desk and pull out all of these discards (dis-cards?) at once. I keep them in case I need to consult them later, but I file them away in a big plastic binder of a type that Kevin Kelly recommended a few years ago on Cool Tools. I don’t alphabetize the cards or anything — I just tuck each card into the next available slot. (The few times I’ve needed to go back to this binder for reference, it’s been easy enough to find the right card based on the mass of cards around it from people I met at the same time.)
5. Optional step for those as obsessive enslaved to instant gratification orderly as me: tidy the remaining cards into fewer rows. You’ll feel a nice little rush of instant productivity
6. I trawl through my social networks looking for the people whose information is on the remaining cards. I may follow them on Twitter, request to be a contact on LinkedIn, (rarely) request to be Facebook friends, add their blog’s RSS feed to my reader, or any combination of these. Typically I just open up all of these networks at once in a tabbed browser and rotate through them as I handle one person at a time across all networks.
7. After I’ve located a given person on each relevant network, I write them an e-mail or make some other sort of contact via social media. Easiest of all are the people who specifically asked for follow-up on some business issue: you write them an e-mail, remind them of your conversation, and let them know that you’re also following them on Twitter (or wherever) to make it easy to stay in touch. (This would also be a good time to make an entry in your CRM, if it’s relevant.) But even if there’s no immediate business reason to connect, you can comment on one of their blog posts or Flickr pictures, respond to one of their tweets, or, if you can do it sincerely, broadcast a tweet recommending them to your friends, like this: “Met @JohnDoe at the XYZ conference this weekend. Super-nice guy, a pro’s pro in project management, well worth following.” They won’t soon forget that.
8. Finally, you file away each card as you’re done with it. One of my favorite aspects of my process here is that it’s so easy to see your progress as the grid of cards on your desk shrinks and shrinks. (I told you I like instant gratification.)
9. Extra credit: set yourself a reminder to follow up with your favorites from the conference at intervals after the inital contact — say 10 days, 25 days, and 45 days. Don’t make it a mechanical exercise; use it as an opportunity to remember why you liked them the first time, and then really re-connect about something that’s important to you both.

Now, over to you: what do YOU do to follow up with the people you meet at a conference?

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Photo by J Aaron Farr.

That is the question. Please let us know by answering our poll below:

(If the poll doesn’t render correctly, you can answer via this link.)

Since I’m a heavy user of Twitter both personally and professionally, people often ask me for my advice on how to use it. To help answer them in detail without repeating myself, I’m putting up this post to link to some of my writing about Twitter and its use. I expect I’ll update it periodically to include new items.

• 15 January 2009 — Using Twitter for Business: my presentation to HIMA.
• 29 January 2009 — Hello, world! (Or, how to introduce yourself in the social media)
• 20 February 2009 — What Works Better than an Auto-DM.
• 24 April 2009 — My approach to FollowFriday on Twitter.
• 25 May 2009 — Twitter follow-backs: the 5-step lightning approach.
• 23 July 2009 — Complaining on Twitter: a minor point of etiquette.
• 28 July 2009 — An easy way to find relevant Twitter followers.
• 6 August 2009 — Don’t put all your eggs in the Twitter basket.
• 7 August 2009 — How to get people to follow you back on Twitter.
• 27 August 2009 — Can you judge a book by its cover? (On Twitter you can!)
• 10 September 2009 — What not to say in a Twitter auto-DM.
• 1 October 2009 — Dumb questions, redux: Twitter auto-DM version.
• 12 October 2009 — Why to be patient with Twitter follow-backs.

By the way, if there are other topics you’d like me to address, feel free to suggest them in the comment thread. Likewise if there are ways I can organize this information better for you.

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Photo by Lindsey Bieda.

(I’m warming up for my March 16 South by Southwest Interactive session by trying out various metaphors that bridge sports and business — and especially the use of social media in business. Feel free to chime in with your own metaphors in the comments!)

Lou Gehrig, Glenn Hall, Cal Ripken, Brett Favre: all of them gained fame not just for the skill with which they played their sports, but for their durability. Game after game, year after year, they put up with all kinds of punishment, yet still kept coming back for more.

(Since I was reared in Texas and my parents grew up in the South, I didn’t grow up understanding hockey. But a friend of mine who grew up in New England and played every available sport in his youth said that the hardest athletic thing he had ever done, by far, was to tend goal. It’s hard to imagine the toughness of Glenn Hall to play goalie for 502 consecutive NHL games.)

Some people do the same thing at work: show up every day, no matter what, and work hard. But is that enough of an analogy? In social media, the closest thing might be to blog every single day. But the most diligent blogger, like the dedicated sales rep or A/R clerk, doesn’t face onrushing linemen or a puck/baseball traveling faceward at a million miles an hour.

So, you tell me: What’s the business equivalent of Lou Gehrig’s streak?

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See also:

• Sports metaphors: the All-Star lineup.

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Gehrig photo via Wikipedia.

As the date of our SXSW Interactive session on sports metaphors for business approaches, I’ll be posting more here on that topic. I thought it would be useful to have a single omnibus post that collects all the other posts in one place, and that points to sports-metaphor articles from other sources.

Here’s what I’ve written on the topic so far:

• Jan. 7 — Enter the arena . . . of sports metaphors.
• Jan. 12 — Sports metaphor: “a captain’s innings.”
• Jan. 13 — Making lemonade in the bottom of the 9th.
• Jan. 14 — A little sports retrospective.
• Jan. 15 — An intemperate analogy: Wall Street and steroids.
• Jan. 19 — Sports metaphor: “a nose for the basket.”
• Feb. 1 — Sports metaphor: “consecutive games played.”
• Feb. 5 — Sports metaphors: David Brooks gets in on the act.
• . . .

By all means, if you have your own sports metaphors you’d like to share, feel free to enter them in the comments here. And if you know of other posts and articles that could be listed, please leave a comment or drop me a line to let me know.

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Photo by Joel Dinda.

My friend Tyson Goodridge, who runs his own social media firm, has assembled a cast of social media marketing worthies (plus — full disclosure — yours truly) to answer a set of seven questions about their work practices.

Here are the seven questions:

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
6. Habit you want to kick in 2009
7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010

You can read Tyson’s explanation of the project — and see the full list of participants — in this post:

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers

So far, he has interviewed Powered CMO Aaron Strout (a good friend of mine whom you may remember from several of my previous posts) and Kate Brodock (whom I know slightly via Twitter).

If you’re interested in knowing how some very savvy people* in social marketing think about their work and organize their days, you’ll be well-served to check in regularly as Tyson posts more “7 Habits” interviews.

* Plus, and I repeat this just for the sake of fair warning, me.

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Last week I found out from my friend David B. Thomas that his company, SAS Institute, has won yet another award for being a great place to work. (You may remember Dave from last summer’s exchange about “Social Media Manager” — the title that he and I both bear.)

This time around, SAS won the Big Kahuna award in the category — the coveted #1 slot in FORTUNE magazine’s annual list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” It comes as little surprise, since SAS has made the list in each of the 13 years that FORTUNE has compiled it.

Lest you think that SAS sacrifices its bottom line to coddle its employees, you should know that it is the largest privately held software company in the world, and that it continues to grow steadily.

Dave was nice enough to field a few questions about his experience with the company. My questions and his answers follow.

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How long have you worked for SAS? What roles have you held there?

I’ve been at SAS since May of 2007. I started as a corporate PR representative, working with local media and national general media, and overseeing our awards program, including the Fortune Best Companies Award. I handed that off when I took the job of Social Media Manager in January 2009.

Based on your own career experience, what distinguishes SAS as a great place to work?

A lot of companies talk about work/life balance, but SAS really does believe in it and practice it every day. If I have to stay home with my son when he gets sick, there is absolutely no stigma in that. If I want to go to the gym in the afternoon (something I don’t do often enough), that’s seen as a positive thing.

The benefits all have a bottom-line value, but even in tough times like this past year, SAS sticks to its guns. Jim Goodnight announced at the beginning of 2009 that we would take a hit to the profits rather than lay anyone off. That was the most principled stand by a CEO I’ve ever experienced.

Plus, they really do trust employees. I saw that in the creation of our social media policies. We talked a lot about the upside and the downside, but there was very little discussion of enforcement and penalties because that’s not the way management thinks around here. And the outcome is we haven’t needed heavy-handed enforcement or penalties.

SAS is no stranger to this type of award. What is the company doing to sustain its performance as a great place to work, given prevailing conditions in the economy?

The Fortune #1 ranking was only one of our big pieces of news today. The second was that we achieved 2.2 percent growth in 2009 with total revenues of $2.31 billion. Even in a really tough year, we managed to increase revenue and be profitable. That’s the validation that our commitment to employees works and is an integral part of our business strategy, not a superfluous add-on.

In your view, what’s the very first thing an average company could do to mimic SAS’s success as a great place to work?

Try to take the long view. If you truly want to build a company with lasting potential, plan for your success five or ten or 20 years down the road, not quarter by quarter. Give your employees a stake in the outcome and show them that you trust them to do their best, and chances are they will. And don’t block their access to social media!

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Thanks to Dave for taking the time to share his thoughts — and congratulations to SAS for its sterling performance.

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Related:

• David B. Thomas on “Social media at Fortune’s Best Company to Work for in America”
• In defense of “Social Media Manager.”

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All going according to plan, I’ll put up a series of posts in the next couple of weeks about using social media in a job search. I’ve been thinking of this both because (a) lots of people use Hoover’s information to help them look for work, and, (b) since I spend my days immersed in the business uses of social media, friends who are looking for work sometimes turn to me for advice about how to use it better.

When I was talking to a friend about this earlier today, I ran into probably the most common objection I hear about professional networking. In so many words:

How do I build my professional network without imposing myself on others and pestering them for favors?

It’s a good question. Many people I know want to succeed in their careers, but don’t want to be seen as grasping or needy. So how do you bridge that divide?

Here’s what I conveyed to my friend — the same advice I’ve given a number of times before:

THE secret to networking for folks who are reticent to ask for help: make it about LEARNING from others and OFFERING help.

I believe you can be helpful even when you don’t have a job or many contacts — by answering questions, by promoting others’ good work, or simply by offering moral support. Plus, in my own experience and in what I’ve observed for others, you can often quickly develop contacts — and land jobs — based on your willingness to listen to others, learn from them, and offer help without any kind of quid pro quo.

What do you think? How do you build your professional network?

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Image by Think London.