What a Social Media First Aid Kit would look like …

I went to pick up my daughter tonight at basketball practice, and I spotted a First Aid Kit. Inside were the right tools, an instruction training manual of what to do when, and medicines with a timetable of when to take them.

It got me thinking about what would be in a Social Business First Aid kit!  Here’s my top 3!

1.   The Right Tools based on what you are trying to cure!!  If your social strategy is not working, you need to check out the tools you are using.   For instance, Pinterest tends to be very image focused , Google + tends to be more used by men, and LinkedIn tend to be focused on business users.  Knowing who you are trying to attract and add value too, is critical for success.

2.   Skills and training.  I think it is essential to have your team training on social.  Lunch and learns, learning by experimentation, and other ways are required to execute a successful strategy.

3.   Ways to listen and determine key influencers .  Just like a stethoscope and thermometer signals where there are good signs or a problem, every social strategy must include a way to Listen and to determine the right influencers to engage.   I have been playing with several tools lately to engage the right audience like Klout.com, Communi.it  and others.   Commun.it even suggests the right doses and timings for interactions.

Here’s a real case study from IBM on these 3 elements!  

In IBM, our ibm.com team must attract a high volume of leads from a new set of customers.  Since Social has become a tool for getting information on products and services, we wanted to explore how to leverage word of mouth.

We determined that for a focused product, that Twitter and LinkedIn were tools these buyers used most frequently.  For instance, after a Twitter search or deeper conversation in a LinkedIn group or forum, potential buyers might ask companies for more information, but they also often turn to their peers, other clients and trusted advisors.

So our ibm.com team decided to go social.  Our inside sellers drove prospects to their Rep Pages –- personalized ibm.com pages that play a “virtual business card” role for inside sellers. These pages have relevant information to clients, enhance the relationship, and give clients one-click access to interact with their reps.

After training on how to engage and nurture potential clients, the ibm.com team built Twitter profiles to establish a presence in the social networking world. The ultimate objective of this pilot was for sellers to use social media to add value to conversations and build a pipeline of leads.

We (IBM) also worked to identify the most prominent influencers in the our space, so sellers could then follow them and comment on or retweet their posts and learn and connect.  We developed a unique engagement strategy for each influencer, based on their activity and what they were saying.

To make it easy to maintain their Twitter presence, sellers also have a social message calendar, accessible via the feed reader function within Lotus Notes. The calendar features time-sensitive messages reps can tweet, with enough content for three tweets a day.

Over a 7 month period, these ibm.com teammates increased their Twitter followers by 5X

In the first two weeks of this effort, sellers’ Rep Page visits rose by 106 percent –thanks to a systematic pattern of Twitter mentions. The sellers reached 1.9 million contacts.

As we move ahead, social selling success will be reflected by the rep’s Klout score,  which gauges influence in the social world, an increase in the number of direct Twitter followers, and relationships developed with key influencers.