Social Media& Business???? by marita roebkes

Social Media & Business …really ? ©

Social media is for kids Social media is for geeks

Social media is MySpace, Facebook Twitter, bookmarking, music, Hi5… all that waste of time

NO – I am a business man 2

Social media is fluffy

Social media is for job seeker

Neeeeeeeeeeeee

Mr. Business Man, what is your success strategy? As a smart business man, I have a professional relationship to my customers I have a CRM system that has all the data points: - What purchased - When purchased - Who purchased - Where purchased - I create and watch my analytics - I know the decision makers, budget owner, influencer… - I know everything about my customer - I have an outsourced call center in India that takes calls and does cold calling - I have sales processes so I know exactly if: … there is a budget … there is a project … there is a decision maker … there is a need - I have a website that generates 500,000 unique visitors every month - We have advertising with a huge CP.. Something - And we have our own SEO strategy for our web marketing - We invest more in marketing and web optimization than our competitors - I am strategic, have totally automated business processes… - Our company spend millions in process optimization. - We were finally able to create a ZERO TOUCH sales process! - Social media – are you kidding me??????

Mr. Business Man, when was the last time you talked to one of your customers? Oh we have a very professional sales organization. 85.73% of all customer touches are actually outsourced. 54.3% are male and 44.7% are female We have different call centers by customer demographics who talk to those people We have a small direct sales force Some of our sales people talk even themselves to those customers. But our Zero Touch model will change that very soon. Why do you ask?

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Mr. Business Man, how is your business going? As a smart business man, I watch the development of our economy With that current recession obviously sales is stagnating and partially declining. But we will close down two factories and layoff 5,000 people so we plan To stay profitable in the next year We will soon kick off one of the most powerful advertising campaigns ever: - Whenever somebody visits our website, we track the IP address, automatically retrieve the domain, and instantly create a demographic visitor profile - We than blow advertising right into their face - We purchase more advertising spots in these silly social media sites and make it so that all users send it to all friends - We purchase user list and blow out email shots like never before – not spam, but real cool marketing messages -We buy 10 minute video spots with a key that tricks Tivo so our ads go BANG right into the movie You see we catch these suckers, we show them who is smarter and we gotta sell the hell out of these people. Man you need to get this we are in WAR! And we fight hard to kill those customers – that’s why check every sales person we hire if they have that KILLER INSTINCT. See that is clever sales & marketing!!!!! Now DO YOU GET IT – we don’t need stupid Social Media!

Pehwwww… Let’s talk to some customers ©

Mr. Purchase Director how do you make purchase decisions? Well, you know things have changed. - I just check search engines here and there to see what else is out there. - I click randomly around but not sure why I even do that. - Most of the time I check with a few peers who I am connected with - I visit forums and online groups to get an idea what products are considered hot and what products seem to have only problems - I belong to a few online communities where likeminded people discuss business challenges and compare notes on contracts and things like that - But many of the decisions are already made in the departments and man â&#x20AC;&#x201C; these guys are connected. They know exactly what they want and where to buy it So when it comes to the procurement process, we still ask a few vendors to bid, But that is just an old process relict. We actually know exactly: - What we buy - where we buy it - We dictate the price - We have clearly defined terms - And the rest is receiving procedures

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Mr. Purchase Director how is your vendor relationship? What vendor relationship? Today nobody has time for anybody. If I call a vendor, it takes me 5-10 minutes to go through their phone computer - You know what I mean, “please listen carefully to the new menu as… - These guys are sooo busy with themselves - forget it - I have no reason to talk to any of those outsourced call center - And I’m totally sick of their marketing BS - So I either buy the cheapest product and don’t care if they go belly up OR -I buy stuff from young upbeat companies who work their bud of to do business with us And I do more and more with these guys.

How do you find those new vendors Mr. Purchase Director? Believe it or not, I get a ton of tips in Twitter I am part of several Xeequa business communities I have my LinkedIn account and simply ask others I am in Facebook and see a lot of business groups I scan SlideShare and get new ideas And I read blogs and simply be well connected. While these new companies are risky, underfinanced and all that, but lovely to work with. Dealing with the old dinosaurs is awful. No wonder we are having a recession.

Just VERY hypothetically speaking – I mean it is way to futuristic and I know there is no way we can really do that but just theoretically… What if we would consider Social Media sort of a little serious - If we would create an online community with all those tools - And if we would now invite all our customers and prospects - And instead of spending money in advertising do a bid more in product management and have the PMs talk about the products on our blogs - And maybe put all the events up and ask our community to join - And even let them, block and put content in - And instead of having them argue about us in one of those Yahoo groups where we don’t even know about, let them do it here and we can learn - And maybe introduce new prospects to customers and develop a sense of trust - And maybe build special groups based on interest - And maybe let all customer know that we care and listen - Our product design group could get direct feedback - Our support would not only learn but actually be supported by experienced users - We may put our partners into that as well - Instead of the reference selling we would have the references permanently there - Maybe customers would come back to us and even bring friends with them - Maybe we create a couple educational videos and all customers have access - And there is at least a bid of branding because they visit our community - Maybe we even augment this by contributing content to all those other places - Maybe we even empower our partners to setup their own communities - Maybe that is what customers want? Maybe they want a bid more attention - Maybe the customers would make purchase decisions not only based on what they see elsewhere but based on the reasons why our existing customers decided to buy our products? ©

Well I know I’m a big pessimist But if we don’t do all that… - Maybe our competition is already building such a community - Maybe the customers will join and never come back - Maybe our younger team members will leave because we are so stubborn - Maybe even the sales guys will leave because of the declining compensation - Maybe if we continue with advertising that nobody really cares about our profitability is much greater danger than I know - Maybe if customers belong to a community of our competitor they are no more interested to join ours later on - Maybe it is like in the 70’s when people where laughing about computers or in the 80’s when people where laughing about PCs or in the 90’s when people tried to block CompuServe telephone numbers in companies so that employees couldn’t surf the Internet? - Maybe 300,000,000 (300 Million) Social media users of all ages are already smiling about us and now call us dinosaur? - Maybe we are already out of business without even knowing? You know what – I quit

Thank You (650) 384-0057 Inspiration@Xeequa.com

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About

Xeequa is an online social business software provider. The companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Social Business Suite helps corporations to create a better business experience for customers, prospects and partners by providing a community platform to conduct a more trustful dialog, provide user generated business content and engage in online collaboration. Xeequa`s Social Business Suite is designed especially for corporations or industry associations and includes social networking, alliance networking, forums, blogs, event tracking and online collaboration such as opportunity or project management. The solution supports corporate organization structures and provides an extended level of privacy rules created for corporate use. The advertising free Software as a Service (SaaS) is subscription based and scales from small businesses to global enterprises. Xeequa has representation in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia. More info on http://www.xeequa.com or 1-650-384-0057.

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