thinks

Great comment the other day from John Johansen on the discussion of when marketing becomes sales. John talks about “…the dichotomy of the social media focus on authentic content and conversations that don’t include marketing and the ease of using these channels for sales…”

He then goes on to ask, “Beyond just the blurring of sales and marketing, how do companies engage in authentic discussion with their audiences while at the same time looking to include their call to action that will lead those audiences towards a sale?”

It’s an interesting question, but a loaded one. Here’s why. Somewhere along the way, we’ve all come to believe the following:

Sales and marketing doesn’t represent authentic dialogue with our customers.

Why is that? Why can’t social channels allow for sales and marketing? Social channels allow for more honest dialogue, not less. The problem in John’s question is that he’s really asking, “How do companies use these tools when they have traditionally sold to people by pretending to be their friend?”

They can’t.

As this video shows, the rules of the game have changed.

For too long, marketers have built their promise around the idea that they’re here to be a friend, a pal, a trusted resource. Social channels require that you actually be that or stop pretending.

And that’s a very good thing.

After all, sometimes, we’re actually here to sell things.

What surprises many companies is that customers will often agree to let you.

@delloutlet - which Dell only uses to sell discounted, refurbished inventory - has over 1,200 followers on Twitter, more than “authentic person” (and good guy), @richardatDELL - and more than any other Dell business persona that I’m aware. HR Block has over 800 fans on Facebook. You might think, “‘Fans’ of a tax preparation company?!? For real?!?” Yes. For real.

Why do these - supposedly inauthentic - companies or marketing initiatives capture attention? Because they’re honest about why they’re there. They don’t hide behind fake personas. Notice, none of these pretend to be your friend. They’re authentically providing a service or offering you a sale, most likely information you can get somewhere else. But by going where their customers are and providing an authentic presence, they’re finding success.

So, really, the question is, when you use social tools, what’s your reason for being there? And do you authentically tell customers why you’re there or are you trying to hide the fact you’re selling something?

All right, Big Thinkers. Your turn. Tell us how you’re using social tools to grow your business in the comments below.

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How you connect with customers matters.

• Seth Godin points out why it feels like Forbes is spamming him. He says, “The end result of spam…is that it eats away at your brand.”
• Meanwhile, David Armano points out how Zappo’s and Southwest use Twitter, noting, “it’s never about the tools. It’s about how people use them.”

Connecting with customers needs to serve your customers’ needs, not yours. When you only use it to serve yours, it’s spam.

Even though all of these companies are using the Internet to connect with customers, which one would you rather be?

There’s no right answer here. Fred Wilson has a great post providing one - very informed - point of view into behavioral targeting, list building and privacy one - very informed - point of view into behavioral targeting, list building and privacy. Obviously, you need this data to grow your business - and to offer valuable services to your customers. But, it’s critical to act appropriately from a brand-building, customer and legal standpoint. What to do?

From my perspective, I think it’s most important to do well by doing good. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer - or better yet, your most conservative customer - then decide what to do. For instance, in a past life, we enrolled customers into a loyalty program at time of purchase unless they opted out, then provided the ability to opt out in both our purchase confirmation and the email confirmation sent. Oh, and in every follow-up communication.

And if you can, ask them what they’re cool with.

If it were you, how would you want a company you don’t know to treat your personal information?

How’s your week been? Mine. Not so great. Last Thursday, my web hosting company appears to have closed their doors, taking this site down with them. Gone. Dead. Kaput.

How would you like to spend your weekend trying to get your site up and running again from scratch? Worse, how would you like to do it on big revenue days like a Monday? Yeah, me neither.

I’ve learned - re-learned - some valuable lessons during this period. I thought you might appreciate avoiding my pain by hearing what they are.

1. Keep backups. I know, I know. We’ve all been told this. Here’s the thing. How many days do you want to spend getting your life together after if it goes away? Backup one day less than that. If you’re OK with spending a month putting your life back together, back up every 29 days. I did my last backup on November 4. When my site died on November 25, I got screwed. EVERYTHING between those two weeks was gone. Is gone. If anyone has a copy of my blog posts, boy I’d sure like to have them. Seriously.
2. Make a copy of the backups. No, really. It doesn’t take much to backup your hard drive with a site like Carbonite (PC-only today, though Mac is coming) or any number of Mac services. I had the nightmare scenario. My laptop - where I do all my writing - died the same week as my web host. Think stuff like that only happens in Ben Stiller movies? Surprise! Fortunately, I had a copy on a share drive in addition to the one on my laptop. I’d have been way more hosed if I hadn’t. It’s likely I still wouldn’t have content on this site. And just imagine what happens to your Google PageRank then.
3. Develop a checklist of emergency tasks. For instance, should you stop your paid search campaigns first or should you put up a page telling your customers what’s happened? Most small companies don’t have the resources to do these in parallel, so it’s critical you - and your team - understand what the priorities are. When you find yourself in a hole, first you need to stop digging. It’s bad enough that you’re losing revenue. Don’t make it worse by not knowing how to stop.
4. Make sure you have all your critical contact information for your hosting company, development shop and other key providers available in more than one location. For instance, I didn’t have my web hosting company’s super secret tech support phone number I’d dug up a while back anywhere but on my local drive (see item #2 above). While I found their main number on Google, they weren’t answering that line anymore.
5. Manage your DNS separate from your hosting. If my DNS was hosted by the same company as my website, I’d seriously be dead right now. In truth, I wouldn’t remotely know how to deal with that situation. Which is another item for #3 on this list now, isn’t it?
6. Pay attention to trouble with your service providers. I don’t recommend jumping ship every time you have a little bugaboo with your service. Managing websites/hosting/development is complicated and occasionally things go wrong. But if you start to see a pattern of issues with a provider, demand immediate resolution or start shopping for a new provider.
7. Always have a Plan B. What saved my butt was that I was already in the process of moving my site from one host to another. You don’t want to have to figure out what your alternatives are when you have no alternative. No matter how happy you are with your hosting company, development shop, analytics provider, marketing agency, what-have-you, you need to know who else is out there and what they can do for you. Take an hour or two every month at lunchtime and review alternative providers. That way, if you do need to make a sudden move, at least you’re not starting from scratch.

I know this list is incomplete. Preparing for emergencies with your site can be a full-time job. But, these are the critical items most businesses need to have covered. Please add anything I missed to the comments. And I hope you have a better week than I did.