Get Your Sales Team Using Social Media: Customers Want to Deal With People, Not With Companies

I don’t understand why large companies create a single big Twitter account or blog that is named “@companyxyz” or “The Company XYZ Blog.” Usually these accounts end up just facilitating nothing but a long stream of advertisements and press releases, disguised in the form of tweets and blog entries. There is no hint whatsoever that an actual human being is behind these communications.

Customers don’t want to interact with companies. They want to interact with people.
Often companies are afraid to let individual employees publicly represent the brand, so a typical, misguided solution is to have a designated “Social Media Person” of whom nobody outside the organization ever knows the identity. Customers will not buy into this because they know that companies don’t help people. People help people.

Teach your salespeople, customer service reps, PR team, and anyone who has direct contact you’re your customers or the public the basics of social media. Invest in the digital communication skills of your team, and teach them how to use these mediums responsibly, but personably. Instead of one company blog, rotate the employees whose posts are featured on your blog page. Have several employees tweeting about everyday life at the company. Because nobody wants to hear what Big Company, Inc. thinks about *insert Next-Big-Industry-Trend here*. But they probably wouldn’t mind hearing what Bob from Sales thinks about what it means for them.

If your people truly are on board with your organization’s goals and passionate about what it does for its customers, you have nothing to worry about. But if you don’t trust your own people enough to excitedly represent your company on a personal level, then you have far bigger problems than social media.

3 Big Mistakes Businesses Make With Their Blogs

I can’t tell you how many businesses’ blogs are out there that were clearly only started because some “social media guru” told the owner, “Your company needs a blog! NOW!” While many types of businesses can benefit greatly from participating extensively in the blogging arena, lots of them get it completely wrong. Jeremy Griffin of Ignite Social Media even recently wrote a blog post giving detailing situations when social media is not the answer.
Here are some signs of doomed blogging strategies:
1. The bloggers do not respond to comments: Comments are there for a reason. They facilitate conversation and encourage discussion about the topics on the blog. They are a way for readers to give feedback, share opinions, and communicate with the blogger and other readers. Now, I understand that many blogs get a ridiculous amount of traffic and comments, so I don’t expect every single idiotic hater’s diatribe to be dignified with recognition. But if you are not responding to at least some of the relevant comments on your blog posts, readers (i.e. customers) will soon realize you really don’t give a damn what they have to say, and will go elsewhere.
2. The blog is purely an advertisement: This is the big offender. If your business has a “blog,” yet all it contains is an endless stream of updates about your website and testimonials about your products, potential customers will call “BS!” on you in a second. Successful blogs provide valuable, relevant content, and do it in a targeted, engaging way. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it is absolutely okay to occasionally tie yourself, your business, or your products into the bigger issues in your posts. But constantly talking about yourself and nothing else drives people away from your brand.
3. There is no visible person behind the blog: People want to communicate with other people, not companies. If you do not have regular bloggers with photos, short bios, and some actually personality, your readership and customer response will be lackluster.

What other bad blogging strategies have you seen? Is your company currently using any of these on their blog?

Blogging is Even More Important During Unemployment

TJ Wihera at Whys Perspective recently wrote a blog entry questioning whether Gen Y has an over sensitivity about blogging. The idea for the post was born after he witnessed a Twitter exchange in which someone scoffed at unemployed Gen Yers blogging about careers and business, and some Gen Yers then replied with offended responses. And this got me to thinking that the author of the original tweet, @AlexJMann, might not understand how blogging (and a history of it) can actually be even more important when one is unemployed. And then I thought, hey, maybe others don’t either.

So here is my short testimonial of how blogging can help you through unemployment:
· It can help you sort through your thoughts: Being unemployed, even for a short period of time, can wreak havoc on your confidence, your sense of self, and even your understanding of what your passions, strengths, and weaknesses are. Blogging provides a canvas on which you can paint your thoughts, organize them, and gain support and ideas from thousands of differing perspectives.
· It acts as a living resume: As pretty much everyone who has ever had to hunt for a job online knows, a one-page MS Word resume (and it should be ONLY one page) by itself is an incredibly tough way to impress anyone enough to call you back. However, if you have a blog to link to, recruiters can see your ideas and communication skills immediately. Additionally, regularly updated blog shows recruiters that you are actively managing your career, even in downtime. You will shine through as a superstar when compared with traditional job hunters.
· It is something consistent and positive when nothing else is: Unemployment is a scary, uncertain emotional rollercoaster. There are only so many jobs you can apply for in a day before you want to tear your hair out and scream from the lack of good news. Blogging makes you feel better because it is constructive. It exercises your critical thinking and writing skills, helps build your personal and professional networks, and is an outlet for the pent up stress inside you. Blogging during unemployment actually gives you the opportunity to publicly and honestly examine your thoughts on your work history, your industry, and your field without fear of any real backlash.

In short, I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with blogging during periods of unemployment. I blogged through my short stint of unemployment earlier this year, and it was incredibly helpful. What are your thoughts? Does being unemployed disqualify someone from contributing to the conversation? Does a temporary lack of a job completely discredit a person’s ideas?