One of the things I like to do is go to LinkedIn and answer questions and take part in different discussions that are going on. It’s a great way as a business owner or specialist to show their expertise, take part in interesting conversations and build stronger networking relationships.

I recently was shocked to see people using the discussions on LinkedIn…to give a sales pitch. Some of them were advertising webinars but most were direct sales pitches starting with a question like Do you want to save your marketing dollars and revolutionize your online marketing? which after you clicked on it was a big sales pitch about how awesome this marketing firm is and how they will revolutionize your online marketing.

Out of the 20 “discussions” appearing on the first page, 18 were direct sales pitches either about events or services offered by these companies. The thing I really found disturbing about this was that it was a marketing group on LinkedIn. These are people that are supposed to help other businesses with communication and engaging online if the title from the above “Discussion Topic” is any indication. This may be a news flash but one sided communications are not discussions.

Having a discussion is all about sharing your knowledge, appropriate links and opinion with others. It’s about engaging. However using the discussion area as a personal bulletin board to advertise your services is not only tactless…it’s also destroying the art of conversation within your social media group. This comes down to moderation by the Group Owner to make sure that people are using the discussion area to actually have discussions and not diatribes about how great they are but think about this for a moment – if everyone within your LinkedIn group is shouting BUY FROM ME! YOU NEED ME! in the discussion area…who is left listening?

Instead of shouting how great you are, show it by engaging in meaningful conversations and letting your obvious expertise shine through. People probably aren’t going to hire you because you say you’ll deliver amazing results. They’ll hire you because through conversations and relationship building discussions you clearly show that you know your stuff and have built up the trust so they can rely on your brand.

What are your thought on this? I’d love to hear from others about their experiences and get a discussion started here about your experiences with this, how you’ve dealt with this or how you think this can be fixed.

Eric Guerin, Adelie Studios

Customer since: 2007
List size: 342
Open rate: 48.6%
Favorite feature: Statistic Tracking
Website: www.AdelieStudios.com

Adelie Studios owner and producer Eric Guerin creates online marketing and advertising content with a specific focus in online video animation. Additional services include web site design, e-newsletter content management, distribution plans and techniques, training and services. Their customers are forward-thinking companies looking to leverage the power of engagement offered by online video — from two-person operations to Fortune 500 companies.

Standing out in a Crowded Landscape

The ability to tell a compelling business story in three minutes or less is critical to an online campaign’s success. And with so many free tools available online and the explosion of user-generated content, differentiating their services and showing the value of professionally produced video can be a real challenge. Also, Adelie Studios faces a long sales cycle — their potential customers frequently make buying decisions over the course of months. So company CEO and Executive Producer Eric Guerin went searching for an efficient way to stay top-of-mind with potential clients until they were ready to begin a project.

Eric considered many e-mail marketing companies, including Exact Target and iContact, but decided to go with Constant Contact in 2007 because of “the statistic tracking, easy to manage contact list features, customizable templates and the simple user interface,” he explains. “It was very easy and simple to set up. It took us just a few hours spread over several days. The interface made it a breeze.”

To increase brand recognition and showcase their expertise, Adelie Studios sends a “video of the month” newsletter with a mix of their entertaining online marketing videos, links to relevant blog posts, and useful information about online and viral marketing. They also promote seminars and webinars where they are presenting, including their participation in local Constant Contact events. “Whoever the client or highlighted content is helps us come up with a theme for the newsletter, and sometimes we tie it to the season, such as Halloween in October. The newsletter definitely helps shorten our sales cycle,” says Eric.

Riding the Wave to Increased Visibility

“Around the time we signed on with Constant Contact, I was selected by the Worcester Business Journal as one of their “Forty Under 40″ — businesspeople under the age of 40 from Central Massachusetts notable for their business accomplishments and ongoing community service,” says Eric. “To celebrate, we created a funny video poking fun at me. We set very clear goals to generate buzz, increase our contacts, increase our brand recognition within the region served by the Journal, and to open a discussion which would hopefully lead to a working relationship with the publication.”

Once they began sharing the video, it took on a life of its own, quickly making the rounds of Worcester Business Journal’s newsroom, leading the editor to ask permission to show it at the awards banquet with over 500 community leaders in attendance. This exposure lead to further distribution to the subscriber lists of the Journal as well as other regional business newspapers.

This one opportunity created benefits both immediate and long-lasting. “Before the event we had less than 100 subscribers — two weeks after, it had more than doubled, ” Eric shares. “Several of the subscribers we met at the event have hired us to create web-based marketing videos for them. One contacted us six months later, proof that regular contact kept us at the top of his list. We also developed working relationships with three local business journals to produce videos for them and to resell our online marketing video product.”

A Long-Term Relationship

With a current list of 342 subscribers, Eric says “I love when people email us after receiving the newsletter. It makes me smile because I know the newsletter was engaging enough that they took the time, not only to read it, but to reply,” clearly evident in the newsletter’s 48.6% open rate.

With such outstanding results, Adelie Studios took their relationship with Constant Contact to the next level. Eric explains, “We chose to partner with Constant Contact because they have integrity and look out for us as small business owners. As I tell my clients, the best way to launch an online video campaign is with your existing customer base and using Constant Contact as the first distribution channel makes perfect sense. And since we’re business partners with them, this assures our customers that we’re recommending a high-quality, reliable service — one we trust enough to use to distribute our own work.”

There is nothing better to me than getting to meet many of the people I have conversations with online in person. Social Media Jungle event organized by Jeff Pulver was no exception. There were around 120 or so attendees and he was able to assemble some of the areas best social media thought leaders to lead some amazing discussions. Here are a few quick observations of mine from various speakers at the event:

Jeff Pulver – “ Sometimes You need to be Vulnerable”

The organizer of the event kicked it off and had some great thoughts about connecting with people as people…social media isn’t a numbers game although that is how some people would make it out to be. He also assesses his relationships online regularly and has recently removed around 3,000 “friends” from his Facebook profile. He regularly assesses those that he is connected to – do they engage in conversation? Have they brought something to the relationship in the past year? If the answer is no, then he removes them.This example was to stress his point that it’s all about building relationships and you have a “social” responsibility to define yourself as a person. People don’t interact with brands – they interact with the people behind those brands. Connect with people AS people. So being vulnerable is the secret to success in social media.

Another interesting prediction Jeff brought up – He believes in less than 18 months Twitter will be sold for between 2-4 billion to either Google or Microsoft. We shall see…

C.C. Chapman – “It isn’t a numbers game. The human side of social media”

In C.C. Chapman’s presentation he built upon Jeff’s presentation focus by suggesting that you should disregard quantity of followers, friends, etc. and just focus on building trust. “Don’t forget your human. Be yourself.”

Richard Dale – “Twitter as the universal information stream: What if the Twitter stream told us every time a can of soda is sold?”

Raised some interesting questions about Twitter becoming more than it is. Will it have accounts you have to pay to follow? Will there be automated feeds to tell soft drink distributors to restock a vending machine? Automated traffic updates?

Laura Fitton – “Social Media for Social Good”

Laura talked about getting social media involved with charities such as WellWishes because she was passionate about clean water. She also brought up Twestival which hosted over 200 simultaneous TweetUps to raise money for clean water projects. The main thing she stressed is that the influencer is the idea and not the person behind it.

Justin Levy – “How Small Business can use Inbound Marketing/Social Media to Help Increase Their Business”

Justin talked about how he is part owner of Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse a steak house in Northampton MA and how he has cut their traditional ad revenues by up to 90% and had 12 consecutive months of increasing revenue – all because of social media. He also shared an acronym he made up: HELP which stands for “Hustle, Engagement, Learning and Passion.” He also added “S” for “Strategy” which is how social media “HELPS” his business continue to grow.

Chris Penn – “It IS a numbers game – thinking about what numbers actually matter”

Chris is a stats geek which I love (being one myself). His whole topic was based around “what numbers matter?” and it comes down to basic grammar the verb. Verbs carry the action in a sentence. What measurables in your statistics have verbs? You just need to define what actions are in your statistics to find what your truly valuable statistics are.

Stephen Dill – “Social Media Lessons Learned: From the perspective of a skeptical Online Marketer”

Stephen started by talking about the misconception that people feel they don’t have the time for social media. He then quoted Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting (who spoke earlier) as part of his presentation that “Twitter is Google Juice”. He stressed the importance of “benchmarking” on Google to measure the effectiveness of using Twitter. Stephen was competing on Twitter with a famous Confederate General who also had the same name as he did (having a famous horse jockey who won the Kentucky Derby I could empathize with his struggle). He stressed that rather than fall into the misconception that social media was a time waster, you should realize that the real power and reason behind using social media is the technology of search.

Leslie Poston -”Bringing Generations Together For Success In The New Millennium”

Leslie had a great presentation about generational engagement in social media. Her greatest point was the need for real mentoring. For “Gen Yers” to help the “baby boomers” embrace the possibilities of social media and the tools that are available as well as the “baby boomers” to help the “Gen Yers” to understand concepts and strategies they may not have learned growing up completely in a digital world.

Matthew Mamet – “Using online video to strengthen your relationship with your online community.”

Matthew talked about how social media in general is a noisy place to have your discussion but that video helps to change that because people use video to change their mood. He also had stats (again I’m an admitted stats geek) that 86% of people use video to change their emotional state. It just goes to show how an effectively produced video can reach your audience by utilizing emotional triggers.

Thanks also go to Joe Cascio, Doug Levin, Jason Jacobs, Leah Busque, Steve Garfield, Alex Chriss (also the event’s host from Intuit), Maria Thurrell and Mike Langford for sparking some other great conversations not mentioned here and to Jeff Pulver for putting on a great event!

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