The extent to which social business is going to work out well for you depends largely on what you aim to achieve with it. Take the time to develop comprehensive goals and objectives. Use the results from the Analysis phase to establish a baseline which you’ll use to formulate goals/objectives and measure them against.

Here are some questions to ask when you start thinking about goals and objectives:

• Which goals/objectives need to be achieved?
  • What are the expectations of your customers?
  • What quantity is expected?
  • What are the levels of quality that you’ll distinguish between?
  • What levels of quality are acceptable?
• What is the time-frame?
• What is the available budget (for people, training, technology, et cetera)?
• What are the expectations in regards to ROI?
• Which KPIs are important to your stakeholders?
• How do these goals/objectives tie into existing corporate goals/objectives?
• How are we going to compare social business results to “traditional” (online) marketing results?

Remember that social business is just as much about “social” as it is about “business”. Your goals and objectives shouldn’t only aim at your business but also at your customers. What is your social business manifesto going to look like?

Here are some guidelines to help you develop goals and objectives as well as a social business manifesto:

• Focus Know what matters to you. Be where you need to be. Don’t talk to a void.
• Brand it Make sure your social business efforts are well-branded so they’re recognized by your community.
• Be consistent Manage both your community’s expectations as well as your own in terms of interaction (form, frequency, tone, et cetera).
• Go beyond Social business should be an extension of what you’re already doing. If it was the same, then there wouldn’t be any added value. Look at what social business can do for you what other activities cannot.
• Provide value Give to your community, this could be physical (e.g. samples), emotional (e.g. relationship-building), financial (e.g. discounts), intellectual (e.g. white papers) or anything else that is of value.
• Be human Remember the social aspect and incorporate the human aspect.
• Leverage Your social business efforts should focus on leveraging the strengths of social media and communities.
• Drive action Make sure your efforts move people to do something. Whether it’s a click, a comment, a purchase or something else, point them in the direction that makes business sense to you.
• Measure While some aspects of social business are difficult to measure, strive to establish metrics for everything you do.

I’ll be back with an announcement next week. Until then, comments and questions are welcome as always!

Social business is not a “marketing shortcut”, i.e. requiring low time and money investment while paying high dividends in branding and sales. For social business to be effective, an investment proportionate to it will be required.

But how much should you invest? The short answer is “That depends”, but I’ll try to give you some direction here with a number of examples on three levels:

• High-Level Strategic activities such as social business strategy. customer/brand planning and integration with corporate (marketing) activities.
• Mid-Level Operational activities such as organizational roll-out, presence management and brand monitoring.
• Low-Level Day-to-day tasks on platforms like blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

High-Level

Social Business Strategy: $20,000 – $200,000

Includes:

• Analysis of the company’s social business position
• Determination of goals/objectives and related metrics
• Mapping of goals/objectives to strategic initiatives
• Aligning of strategic initiatives with current company activities
• Plan for internal approach (required people, technology, policies)
• Training and coaching

Obviously, the range is huge but you can imagine that it really depends, for example on your company’s size, your current social business position, the existing expertise and what you’d like to achieve with social business.

Mid-Level

Community Engagement: $10,000 – $40,000

Includes:

• Training and coaching in social media monitoring
• Training and coaching in social media presence management
• Training and coaching in social media communication and engagement
• Training and coaching in content creation
• Training and coaching in social media measurement

A lot of the cost here will depend on your strategy and things such as your current knowledge, the complexity of your market, the amount of corporate branding that needs to be aligned and the extent to which external parties (such as agencies) are involved.

Low-Level

Blogging: $10,000 – $40,000

Includes:

• Creation and styling of blog
• Creation of content
• Interaction
• Search Engine Optimization
• Training and coaching

Facebook: $6,000 – $30,000

Includes:

• Creation and styling of Facebook Page/Profile
• Creation of content
• Interaction
• Training and coaching

For both blogging and Facebook, the investment will depend on whether you’re building something from the ground up or whether you’re looking to restructure something that already exists. In addition, the amount of content and the decision to create or outsource content will play a role.

Let me be clear that these figures are purely indicative and a result of my own experiences and that of people I asked. However, I think these figures are realistic and should give you a rough idea of what it would cost to go into social business.

If you have questions or remarks, let me hear them in the comments!

The Fundamentals series continues the analysis phase with a mini-series on assessing the value and effectiveness of social business. This mini-series will cover the following aspects:

• Reasons to participate in social business (covered in parts A, B and C)
• Internal considerations (covered in parts A and B)
• Debunking myths (covered in parts A, B and C)
• Social business in B2B environments

Today, we’ll look at social business in B2B environments.

There’s one more misconception that I haven’t mentioned so far and that is that social business is more for B2C companies that B2B companies. While B2C companies and products gain more traction in social media—they have more customers after all—it is blatantly untrue that social business wouldn’t work in a B2B environment. I’ll explain why and give you some pointers on what you can do to make social business work in B2B environments.

They’re Everywhere!

In B2B environments, the business is also conducted by people. People are increasingly on the social web and the social web spans across all age groups with increasing adoption by 35+ year olds. And why wouldn’t you expand your efforts on trade shows and in trade publications to finding your customers online?

More importantly, social business allows B2B companies to focus more strongly on some of the key factors that really matter in B2B environments:

• Trust B2B sales typically require a higher investment than B2C sales and as such, deeper consideration. Trust plays decisive role in these considerations and the eventual decision to make the purchase.
• Relationship Social media enables people in B2B environments to have constant contact, building a relationship to establish rapport and trust. When dealing with long sales cycles, the effect of using social media can be profound.
• Information A relationship takes time to develop but information can be provided instantaneously. Providing the right information and/or high-quality content online—and distributing them through social media—helps improve your image and facilitate your prospective customers in their purchasing process.
• Loyalty What about after the sales? Social media gives you an opportunity to improve your after-sales relationship with the customer. Grab this opportunity to build loyalty and drive repeat sales.
• Protect I always advocate this and it applies to any business environment: protect your brand. You can decide not to engage on certain social media platforms, but do register an official account. You don’t want to have your brand hijacked on, for example, Twitter and causing you enormous damage.

Moving Forward

What can you do to help make your social business efforts more successful in B2B environments? Here are some pointers to get you in the right direction:

• Observe your customers Get an idea of what’s out there and what’s currently being said by your customers. If they are already sharing their opinions and/or experiences online, this is valuable feedback for you.
• Ask your customers Find out what your customers think about social media and how they’d like you to engage with them. This can be done with a survey or with one-on-one interviews.
• Work with your customers Include the right customers in your social business approach by “promoting” them to an advisory board. This gives you a foundation to work from and makes them feel rewarded for being your customer.
• Let your customers work for you Ask your customers to share their experiences with your company. This can be in the form of a media interview, a case study, a blog post, et cetera. You’ll generate interesting feedback and they’ll be able to take center stage by sharing their success stories.

The most important thing to remember, however, is that there is no single off-the-shelf approach that’ll work for everyone. Social business is still largely uncharted territory and the truth will reveal itself only through taking action.

If you have questions or comments, I’d love to hear them. Next week, we’ll start another mini-series as part of analyzing value and effectiveness by looking at caveats and pitfalls. See you then!

The Fundamentals series continues the analysis phase with a mini-series on assessing the value and effectiveness of social business. This mini-series will cover the following aspects:

• Reasons to participate in social business (covered in parts A, B and C)
• Internal considerations (covered in parts A and B)
• Debunking myths
• Social business in B2B environments

I’ve divided social media myths into three categories:

1. Adoption and Diffusion related myths
2. Engagement-related myths
3. Business-related myths

Today, we’ll look at social media myths related to your business.

A great number of myths and misconceptions circulate around social media. Here’s my attempt at clearing the air to show where we truly stand:

• Small businesses need to be on social media Social media can provide value for small businesses but they need to realize where that value can be gained. Is it Twitter or Facebook? Or maybe Foursquare is a better option?
• Social media is only for “cool” brands Again, social media can provide value to any company as long as you focus on the right people, the right topics and the right platforms.
• Social media can be done by interns Your younger employees might be more versed in using social media but are they also able to react to crisis situations as adeptly as upper level staff? Are they also able to tie the use of social media to the company’s business/marketing objectives? In my opinion, top-down support throughout the organization is needed to be successful internally.
• Anyone can do social media While there are no high barriers to entering the social web, there are professionals that have experience in applying social media in businesses. Find these people and let them help you. It’s very similar to SEO and web design; you could do it all in-house, but there’s expert help out there. We’ll get more depth into what matters when you’re considering the services of social business consultants at a later stage.
• Social media is cheap While many social media platforms are free or low-cost, creating accounts will only get you so far. There are more resources (time, people and money) needed to successfully create and implement a social business program.
• Using social media causes you to lose control over your brand Whether you’re using social media or not, people are out there and in control. They can talk about you whether you’re involved or not. Be happy that people are talking about you and embrace the fact that you can monitor—and act on—these comments and conversations.
• Social media ROI cannot be measured This statement’s not true either. Social media efforts can be measured, but do realize that the metrics involved are different. We’ll talk more about how social media measurement when the time is right.

If you know any other myths related to business, I’d love to hear them in the comments! Next week, we’ll look at social media in B2B environments, see you then!

The Fundamentals series continues the analysis phase with a mini-series on assessing the value and effectiveness of social business. This mini-series will cover the following aspects:

• Reasons to participate in social business (covered in parts A, B and C)
• Internal considerations (covered in parts A and B)
• Debunking myths
• Social business in B2B environments

I’ve divided social media myths into three categories:

1. Adoption and Diffusion related myths
2. Engagement-related myths
3. Business-related myths

Today, we’ll look at social media myths related to communication and engagement.

A great number of myths and misconceptions circulate around social media. Here’s my attempt at clearing the air to show where we truly stand:

• Social media is for broadcasting messages If this was true, it wouldn’t be social. This doesn’t mean that you can’t broadcast if it’s relevant to your network.
• Social media is about conversations It can be about conversations, just like it can be about broadcasting. The “social” in social media relates more to the content than the method of transmission.
• Consumer engagement is always the right thing to do There’s difference between doing something that can’t hurt and something that’s right. It can’t hurt to engage with your consumers, but is it worth it? If they’re wondering where they can buy your product, do you reply by chit-chatting about the weather? Be conscious about what you’re using social media for and you’re not using social media for.
• Social media is informal Twitter might come across as glorified text messaging, but not all social media is informal. There are bulletin boards, professional networks (like LinkedIn), and blogs that require more formal behavior and communication. In addition, the tone with which you communicate in social media shouldn’t deviate too much from the tone with which you communicate in your current endeavors (e.g. website, brochures, emails).
• It’s impossible to build relationships online I’ll admit that social media has changed the definition of “friend” to a certain degree, I don’t think it’s impossible to build quality relationships. On the contrary, social media enables you to build relationships with people you wouldn’t otherwise get in touch with in the first place!
• Set it and forget it You can’t create a Twitter account and expect people to come to you immediately. It’s like moving into a new house, telling nobody the address and expecting people to drop by. Fact remains that you need to put your presence out there.
• Social media is about quick wins While it’s possible to make a big splash quickly, there are many more long-term benefits. Social media is more about rolling a snowball down a hill than about making a big splash in the pool.
• Content is king I love this one. How many great books do you not know about? Probably plenty, right? How do you know they’re great if no-one tells you? My point is that content isn’t everything, it’s just the start. Distribution is the bridge with your audience that will make your efforts successful. Put your efforts into both content and distribution.
• Viral marketing is king This is a fun one too. Here the focus is on distribution but it’s always hard to predict virality. How do you exactly create a viral video? You don’t; the community decides whether your content goes viral, not you. Yes, there are factors that give you a better chance at success—and we’ll discuss some of them later this year—but there’s no such thing as off-the-shelf viral content.

If you know any other myths related to communication and engagement, I’d love to hear them in the comments! Next week, we’ll look at business-related social media myths, see you then!

The Fundamentals series continues the analysis phase with a mini-series on assessing the value and effectiveness of social business. This mini-series will cover the following aspects:

• Reasons to participate in social business (covered in parts A, B and C)
• Internal considerations (covered in parts A and B)
• Debunking myths
• Social business in B2B environments

I’ve divided social media myths into three categories:

1. Adoption and Diffusion related myths
2. Engagement-related myths
3. Business-related myths

Today, we’ll look at social media myths related to adoption and diffusion.

A great number of myths and misconceptions circulate around social media. Here’s my attempt at clearing the air to show where we truly stand:

• Social media is still immature While the adoption of social media around the world is still growing, it is by no means a new phenomenon. Bulletin boards have been around for more than 20 years, blogging and instant messaging for more than 10 years, and social networking for more than five years. Social media has been around for a while, but its significance has taken flight in the last five years because of the scale of adoption; not because of the novelty.
• Social media is a fad The fact that social media has expanded across platforms and geographic boundaries up to a point where it plays an integral of many people’s lives today should be enough to debunk the myth that social media is a fad. Social media’s growing adoption and diffusion, and its profound effect on social business has meant that new business and operating models are under scrutiny and development to best deal with a changing environment.
• Social media is for the children Funny enough, children are not as active on social media as most people think. Television and mobile are the platforms of choice for that demographic and the average user ages for popular social media sites support this. The average age of Facebook and Twitter users is around 30, MySpace around 25, and LinkedIn around 40.
• Traditional media is dead Yes, print media has been in decline, but—as mentioned above—new business and operating models are being developed to cope with emerging technology. Nevertheless, it’s nonsense to proclaim that print, television and radio are dead. All media channels will be able to co-exist side-by-side with social media and strengthen one another in the process.
• Mass marketing is dead Related to the previous point of co-existence, mass marketing isn’t dead either. If anything, social media adds depth to the width that mass marketing accomplishes.
• Email is dead Another demise that is greatly exaggerated. Email isn’t dead. You’ve probably noticed that when checking your email this morning, or when you got an email notification of this new post. Email won’t die anytime soon either, it’s too common, too versatile and too standardized.

If you know any other myths related to adoption and diffusion, I’d love to hear them in the comments! Next week, we’ll look at engagement-related social media myths, see you then!

The Fundamentals series continues the analysis phase with a mini-series on assessing the value and effectiveness of social business. This mini-series will cover the following aspects:

• Reasons to participate in social business (covered in parts A, B and C)
• Internal considerations
• Debunking myths
• Social business in B2B environments

I’ve divided the reasons to participate in social business into two categories:

1. As-Is and To-Be
2. Company Readiness

Today, we’ll look at a company’s readiness for getting into social business.

There are a number of considerations to take into account for assessing your internal social business readiness:

• Policy Is your communications policy prepared for dealing with social media? If your policy is more geared towards outward communications, then you’ll need to complement it with how to deal with inbound communications. We’ll dig deeper into creating a communications policy as we roll on so you don’t jump in unprepared.
• Change Is your organization able to pool resources from different departments together to engage in social business successfully? Are you able to build a team that consists of people who have different responsibilities and insights, e.g. senior management, marketing, sales, legal, IT?
• Action People are putting their thoughts about you on the social web. Regardless of what they’re saying and where and why they’re saying what they’re saying, the ultimate testament of your social business efforts is in your actions. In short, what are you willing to do with the feedback you’re receiving?
• Time Related to the previous point is the question whether you can devote the time needed to make social business a success. This doesn’t purely refer to the short-term time investment to get things going, but are you able to dedicate a good portion of people’s time to be successful in social business in the long run?

Contrary to the previous post, you do need a resounding “Yes” to the questions above to make the most of social business. As we continue this series, we’ll talk more about inspiring the organizational changes needed.

Next week, we’ll continue the Analysis phase with a fun part on social media myths. Hope to see you then and let the comments flow!

Are you engaging online with your customers or prospects, but afraid of taking that next step of monetizing that community engagement? Are you looking to market on the Web without coming across like a sleazy douchebag?

Is it possible to be involved in online marketing without being in either situation described above? Yes, it is and that’s exactly what the Third Tribe is all about.

What Is The Third Tribe?

The Third Tribe is an educational community founded early this year by Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse, Sonia Simone and Brian Clark and has grown to a massive community with thousands of members. The focus is on:

• Allowing you to learn from the brightest minds around the Web when it comes to online marketing
• Connecting with like-minded individuals on the practice of Internet marketing
• Providing useful help with marketing on the Web

Why Is The Third Tribe Valuable?

During its first months, the Third Tribe has already laid a firm foundation of content that will help you with becoming an effective online marketer. The content comes in the forms of audio seminars that come with transcripts, supporting resources and next-action worksheets as well. Here’s a run-down of all the seminars that are accessible through the Third Tribe:

• The Quick Start Guide to Making Money Online (Johnny Truant & Sonia Simone)
• Internet Business Models: Part One – the Problogger model (Darren Rowse & Brian Clark)
• Internet Business Models: Part Two – the Chris Brogan model (Chris Brogan & Sonia Simone)
• Internet Business Models: Part Three – the Copyblogger model (Brian Clark & Sonia Simone)
• Internet Business Models: Part Four – the Zen Habits model (Leo Babauta & Darren Rowse)
• Email Marketing Strategies that Work (Sonia Simone & Brian Clark)
• How to Get Your Customers to Do Your Best Marketing for You (John Jantsch & Chris Brogan)
• Action Email: Copywriting Tips for Insanely Effective Email Marketing (Dave Navarro & Sonia Simone)
• Product Launch Strategies: What Always Works and What’s Working in 2010 (Jeff Walker & Sonia Simone)

Advanced Affiliate Marketing with Social Media and SEO (Brian Clark & Glenn Allsopp)

That’s not all though. There are regular Q&A calls (that can be played back) where Chris, Darren, Sonia or Brian answer questions from the community.

And if all this isn’t enough, there’s still the best part of Third Tribe: the forums. Here’s where all the Third Tribers convene to offer each other a helping hand. Whether you’re looking for information, inspiration, advice, critique or encouragement, there’s bound to be someone inside the Third Tribe who can help point you in the right direction. Here’s a screenshot I took last Saturday of the forums to give you an idea of the amount of interaction that takes place (click the image to enlarge):

There’s also a plethora of sub-forums dedicated to specific niches. Here’s a look at that (click the image to enlarge):

If you want to read more about the background of the Third Tribe and the content that is currently offered, head over to the Third Tribe website!

What Are My Experiences With The Third Tribe?

I’ve been a member of the Third Tribe since the very beginning. Even during those early days—where there was only one seminar—the forums were quickly filling with input and participation from hundreds of early Tribers. Third Tribers come from all kinds of disciplines: email marketing, SEO, social media, you name it and there’s bound to be someone who can share valuable knowledge and/or experience.

I’ve been able to tap into the generosity of these good people and have contributed where I can. It’s a great model to grow both expertise and relationships and I’ve definitely got my money’s worth from being a Third Triber.

Join The Third Tribe

A lot more content has been added to the Third Tribe (both in terms of seminars and in terms of forum content) and even more will of course be added as we roll on. As a result, the membership price for the Third Tribe will be raised tomorrow (June 1), from $47 per month to $97 per month. However, if you join today, you’ll only pay $47 per month… for life. And you have the option to cancel your account at any point in time if you decide it’s not for you.

If you want to get access to superb content and an awesome community at a great value, join the Third Tribe today!

The Fundamentals series continues the analysis phase with a mini-series on assessing the value and effectiveness of social business. This mini-series will cover the following aspects:

• Reasons to participate in social business (covered in parts A, B and C)
• Internal considerations
• Debunking myths
• Social business in B2B environments

I’ve divided the reasons to participate in social business into two categories:

1. As-Is and To-Be
2. Company Readiness

Today, we’ll look at a company’s As-Is and To-Be considerations for getting into social business.

The first step of the analysis phase should already give you a solid idea of where you stand in the social web. Let’s revisit two key points that relate directly to your organization:

• Current Activity Are people gathering online to talk about you, your brand, your products/services, your employees, et cetera?
• Platforms Where do the people go to online to talk about you? Are they being influenced or are they the influencers? Find out whether and how they would welcome your participation.

Most importantly, really ask yourself why you’d want to participate in social business. If you’re getting into it just for the sake of doing it, you’re going to have a hard time. I’m not saying you won’t be successful, but your efforts will be less focused.

There are some that claim that if your consumers aren’t active on social media, neither should you. I don’t necessarily agree with this. That your consumers aren’t actively involved with social media now doesn’t mean they won’t in the (near) future. Part of the game of social business is being able to anticipate the future direction of your consumers and being prepared to capitalize on their movements.

To get a better idea of what your social business mileage will be, it’s important to give brutally honest questions to the following questions:

• Interest Can you tie into people’s interests, passions and/or hobbies?
• Community Are (the opinions or facts about) your brand or your products/services compelling enough for people to form or participate in a community?
• Niche Are there existing communities where your consumers are gathering right now that you can tap into?
• Showcase Can social media offer you a way to demonstrate the value or quality of your products/services?
• Expertise Does social media offer you an (extended) audience to demonstrate your knowledge, thought leadership or other innovative qualities?
• Coverage Are you already being talked about online? For example, if there are major blogs talking about you, this offers opportunities to post comments or write guest articles.
• Value Are you able to provide your consumers with information—directly or indirectly related to your products/services—that is helpful or entertaining?
• Influence Can your consumers actually influenced by social media to make purchases?

You don’t need a resounding “Yes” to all the above questions to get success in social business. However, asking yourself these questions give you an idea of how far your brand could stretch in social media.

We’ll talk more about value and effectiveness as we roll on in this series, but next week, we’ll look at assessing company readiness for social business. In the meantime, all your feedback is welcome!

The Fundamentals series continues the analysis phase with a mini-series on assessing the value and effectiveness of social business. This mini-series will cover the following aspects:

• Reasons to participate in social business
• Internal considerations
• Debunking myths
• Social business in B2B environments

I’ve divided the reasons to participate in social business into three categories:

1. Marketing
2. Reach & Community
3. Internal reasons & Reasons to avoid social business

Today, we’ll look at prevalent marketing-related reasons to participate in social business.

• Attractive Workplace If your company embraces social business and values its importance, you’ll make yourself a more attractive employer, especially to younger generations.
• Employee Engagement By allowing employees to understand social business and to engage with coworkers and customers online, you’re able to create a more engaged workforce.
• Business Intelligence Just like using social media can help you uncover more details about your brand and your customers, it can also help you stay up-to-date on what’s happening in your industry. Keeping up with industry news and with your competitors allows you to identify threats and opportunities as soon as they break. You’ll also be able to learn from competitors’ actions within the social space.

Social business isn’t for everyone. Many of the reasons we walked through the last few weeks will apply to many businesses, hopefully yours as well. At the same time I realize that social business might not be for everyone. Here are a number of cases where social business might not be for you (right now):

• Privacy and Regulation In industries that have strong privacy and regulation concerns, social business can cause major damage. You could proceed with caution but definitely consider whether it’s worth it.
• Big-Ticket Business If you only have a handful of big customers, you’re more likely to meet face-to-face or over the phone. You could add limited social media but it won’t provide you with the most value.
• Internal Turmoil Whether it’s an unhappy workforce or skepticism from upper management, if it doesn’t seem like your company can’t buy into the social business philosophy, you’re better off postponing any plans.
• Strategic Deficiency If the overall corporate and marketing strategy is not yet in place, it’s harder to find a specific role for social business. Some aspects of the early phases of social business can help plotting a strategy but they don’t carry a strategy.

Feel free to leave any feedback and/or nuggets of wisdom in the comments. Next week, we’ll continue to focus on the internal side of social business by looking at internal considerations.