Profitecture Blog
10 Great New (Mostly) Social Selling Tools
Gabe Villamizar, director of social selling at HireVue, gave a great presentation at the AMPlify conference in Waltham, MA this morning about “10 Social Selling Apps & Tools Your Sales Reps Need to Have.” I hadn’t heard of most of them, but I will try them out. These tools go beyond simple monitoring and filtering. They actually make sense of what’s going on in social media and put information in a format that’s useful in the sales process. Here’s his list. Brandr – Create ready-to-post messages and images bearing your corporate brand and design. Pablo by Buffer - Search a library of 50,000+ royalty-free photos and f…
Social selling – get on the bus or be flattened by it
If you think “social selling” is just the latest marketing buzzword, then spend a half hour checking out the websites of the startups covered on TechCrunch on VentureBeat each day. Every one of these dynamic young technology firms, which are raising millions of dollars in venture capital funding, has one or more blogs and multiple social network accounts. This at a time when the most recent research by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth finds that blogging among the Fortune 500 is actually on the decline. What these growing companies understand that many big corporations apparently don’t is that the terms of engagement wit…
HootSuite Basics and Updates
Those of you who know me, know I’m a big fan of HootSuite, the social media dashboard, as a tool for research, filtering and engagement. When I began using HootSuite, my productivity soared! However, it’s not the most intuitive to learn and recently they added some updates. The following is a basic tutorial on how to begin with HootSuite and a review of the recent changes. Don’t forget to download the free app for your smart phone – no jumping through extra hoops here. Once you set up your dashboard the app will automatically appear as a duplicate on your phone. Create Your Account There is no download to do, simply go to www.H…
The Power of Bottom-Up Branding
Every marketer should read the recent Harvard Business Review article, “Branding in the Age of Social Media,” by Douglas Holt. The former Harvard and Oxford University professor asserts that most businesses are failing with social media because they’re using the same tactics they used in the days of mass media. This familiar strategy is called “branded content.” The idea is to create memorable content that people come to associate with a brand. It's not a new idea. Back in the 1950s brands sponsored popular TV shows, and legendary advertising campaigns like “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” were based upon the same id…
25 B2B Marketers Sound Off on 2016 Priorities
I was delighted when B2B Marketing Zone – a website and newsletter that I devour - asked me to be one of 25 contributors to its "B2B Marketing Trends for 2016" e-book. I love this content concept, and it’s an idea more B2B marketers could adopt. Contact influencers in your market – or even your own customers or subject matter experts – and ask them for short paragraphs on a topic, then combine that content into an e-book. Then do what Tom Pick and Tony Karrer of B2B Marketing Zone did – make it easy for people to compose posts like this one and share the book through their social networks. Your contributors will be flattered …
Top 10 B2B Social Media Tips and Tricks for 2016
Our Profitecture social media coaches take great pride in helping our corporate students get the most out of social media with minimal impact on their already busy schedules. And coach-student relationship doesn’t end with the Social Media Boot Camp certificate of completion. Our coaches make themselves available to all alumni seeking social media refreshers, advice and feedback for months and years to follow. It’s with this commitment to continuous improvement and social media excellence that our team kicked off 2016 with an e-seminar dedicated to our Social Media Boot Camp alumni. The e-seminar featured Paul Gillin presenting the…
What’s next for B2B social media in 2016
By Paul Gillin, January 2016 I was recently contacted by a B2B publication looking for some thoughts on what’s coming up in the next year. I thought some of the questions were interesting and worth sharing here. What trends are gaining momentum in B2B social media right now? B2B marketers are finally realizing that merely throwing content into the ether is both expensive and wasteful, so they’re trying to target their content better to the audience and purpose. Marketers realize that buyers are people, not demographic segments, so they are appealing more to the motivations that influence human behavior. That’s one reason we s…
Are your employees doing your brand more harm than good?
If you’re a savvy marketing leader, you’re already implementing or thinking about implementing an employee advocacy program. Employee advocacy is a popular topic with B2C and B2B marketers these days. It should be. But are your employees doing more harm than good? What is employee advocacy? Employee advocacy is not a new concept however the name and the tools to implement it are relatively new. Employee advocacy is empowering your employees to extend your brand’s reach to their network. Not so complicated, right? And thanks to social media and platforms like Dynamic Signal’s, employees can quickly and easily share corporate-appr…
The Buyer Journey & Social Selling
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” Chinese proverb The journey of the buyer usually begins with a single step called search. Buyers have questions and they are searching for answers. Google puts the number of B2B researchers who are online using search to research business purchases at 90%, which is where you can be helpful by providing the content that feeds that need. “If only it were that simple.” Common refrain Creating and tagging content is what we marketers do best. Need a testimonial? A case study? A stat? We’ve got that. How about a demo video? We can get one made, but will it be effective? That …
5 Tips for Social Selling
Conventional wisdom these days says that social media is a poor lead generator. Conventional wisdom is wrong. While social media doesn’t lend itself to the hard sell, it provides some excellent opportunities to find and qualify buyers who can become leads. Here are five ways to do that. Research prospects Nothing is more flattering to prospective customers than showing interest in them personally. The Web is the greatest prospect research tool ever invented. Look up the LinkedIn and Twitter profiles of prospects before you contact them. Google them to see if they have online bios or blogs. Look for connection points. Was your prospect…
Struggling to find content for your content marketing program? Our Oct. 21 e-seminar is for you
By Paul Gillin October 2015 U.S. companies will spend more than $4 billion on content marketing this year, and an estimated 90% of B2B marketers currently have content marketing initiatives. In the age of search and social referrals, attracting prospects with high-quality content is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. But creating content that’s relevant to sophisticated buyers is no simple task. The most successful content marketers enlist subject matter experts (SMEs), or the people who design, build and support the products, to tell their stories best. “My job is to get engineers talking to customers and then get out of the…
Dos and Don’ts of Employee Advocacy Programs
By Paul Gillin, September 28, 2015 With Facebook logging its first billion-user day and LinkedIn closing in on 400 million members, many savvy companies are realizing that their most credible marketing resource – their own employees – are quite literally staring them in the face. That’s why they’re adopting employee and business partner advocacy programs to tap into the social networks of their own people to spread messages at a grassroots level. But making these programs work isn’t necessarily cheap or simple. Here are some do’s and don’ts to consider if you’re thinking of launching an employee/partner advocacy initiati…
Up Periscope!
by Victoria Bianchini, September 22, 2015 When Periscope burst onto the surface, it quickly captured the attention of technology pundits and early adopters across the globe. Live streaming video is not a new technology, but putting the ability in the palm of your hand is a powerful proposition. Still, plenty of people stood back and waited to see how it would be used. Travel brands were some of the first to take us along for the ride and now you can find organizations like the National Forest Foundation, the Weather Channel and the Delaware Tourism Bureau adding real time video to their media mix, calling viewers to tune in with the now …
The Klout Challenge
by Robin Scharpf, September 15, 2015 I do not believe your Klout score matters. I’ve been coaching B2B executives to build social media skills and habits for seven years. My team at Profitecture has coached over 4,000 B2B professionals. To date, there are no instances where a Klout score positively or negatively affected a B2B professional’s success with social media. But yet, Klout is still around. It launched in 2008 and Klout scores still appear on Twitter profiles when viewed in HootSuite. I no longer see scores on profiles viewed in Twitter, but then I haven’t looked too hard for them. You see, I believe influence and socia…
4 Signs Your Social Authority is Growing
You’ve taken the plunge into social media. You’re posting, tweeting, and sharing. Now you’re wondering if all this time and energy is worthwhile. How do you know you’re not spinning your wheels? Our knee jerk reaction is to look at numbers. We all want proof - especially senior management. But, it’s really not ALL about the numbers. There are some signs your social authority is growing (and you’ve probably taken them for granted). Are you starting to think about your industry differently? Diving into social media is like jumping out of the nest for the first time. It’s a whole other world out there! And you didn’t even…
No Mystery To Social Media ROI
If a tree falls in the forest, can you cut it into firewood and heat your cabin for the winter? Because that would be good and justify the work effort. You might even say you got a good return on your investment, but that's kind of obvious, which is what I always think when people bring up the return on investment for social media. Social media is media. It's marketing. It's messaging. It's digital and it can be measured. The problem, we say, is that we lack unified standards, but that shouldn't stop you from tying your social media strategy and plans to the rest of your marketing effort. Step one, like our friends at Buffer say, i…How to Get Subject Matter Experts Active In Your Content Marketing Program
Getting subject matter experts (SMEs) to support a company’s content marketing programs can be one of the most fulfilling experiences a B2B marketer can experience. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most difficult to achieve. SMEs are the core of the business. As a result, they’re expensive and their time is precious. Some – usually a majority - are not skilled communicators and fear that they will embarrass themselves or the company. Their managers may also guard them closely, fearing that their own organizations will suffer the loss of an SME’s time or believing – with some justification – that spotlighting will make the…Are you a cutting-edge marketer with SME social media power?
Cutting-edge marketers are expanding the role and visibility of Subject Matter Experts (SME), according to IT Solutions Marketing Association’s 2014 study, How B2B Buyers Consume Information. Are you one of them? Let’s face it. When a B2B customer is making a complex buying decision, marketing is one of the last resources to which the buyer wants access. The buyer wants access to SMEs - product managers, sellers, engineers, consultants, and other clients. Buyers want to engage with people, not brands, to learn the ins and outs of the product or service for which they are about to invest significant time and money. Yet, too often it’s…Finding Coaching Moments that Shine
As a business coach in the social media realm, there are all kinds of moments ranging from apprehension and fear to inspiration and joy. Having coached business executives on how to grow their social authority for more than three years, my job is to find those moments of inspiration (in my students) and show them how to harness, direct and leverage it. Students arrive in class on the first day either hoping for magic to happen (change doesn’t work that way), doubting the value of social media, or thinking our class is a technical how-to with regard to each network. My goal on Day One is to welcome them outside the box of their own four w…The Ideal LinkedIn Profile: Tips and Suggestions
by Catherine Cameron-Heldt There is no doubt as to the power of LinkedIn for professionals. But, doubt does arise when people put together a LinkedIn profile for the first time or those who are in our class and want to make their profiles “active”. So what makes a LinkedIn profile strong? Here are just a couple of tips and suggestions: Profile Picture: One of the first things people see is your picture. We’re visual people. It’s essential you have a professional picture on your profile. Research again and again demonstrates that a profile picture legitimacy and confidence. Vennli reports that your profile is 7x more likely to b…Or send us an e-mail to
