When sites like Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook launched, they were met with a moderate amount of skepticism. Even some of my colleagues – specialists in the field of branding and marketing – peppered me with disbelief that actual leads could, in fact, be generated through online social networking.
I admit. In it’s infancy, there was little known about the impact of social media on lead generation. Additionally, there wasn’t any real strategy for how to effectively blend social media into the marketing mix. As we experimented with various methods, social media finally got some traction. Now it has “grown up” and we finally have some numbers and trends that make sense.
Recently, I had the opportunity to listen in on a webinar entitled “The Science of Timing” presented by Social Media Scientist, Dan Zarrella, of Hubspot. Just in case you don’t have time to listen to the entire 53 minutes, here are some of the highlights that caught our attention. (We tried to be as accurate as possible while taking notes but this guy talks faster than we do. Let us know of any corrections.)
Twitter
- Don’t be afraid to tweet frequently, especially if you’re tweeting quality content. (No lunch menus, please.)
- People who tweet up to 22 times/day actually increased the number of followers.
- There’s very little difference in B2B and B2C when it comes to twitter.
- Best time to tweet is 2 – 5 pm EDT
- Best days to tweet are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, & Sunday
- Best practice for driving traffic to your site – tweet one link and allow time to pass before next tweet to allow link to ‘breathe’
- Do not tweet identical tweet repeatedly. Learn to say the same thing differently with each tweet.
- Adding “Founder” or “Official” to your profile increases the number of followers.
- Learn the best time to post a tweet you wanted retweeted at www.tweetwhen.com
Facebook
- Pages that post every other day are likely to have more followers.
- There’s very little difference in B2B and B2C when it comes to Facebook.
- More articles are posted during the week.
- More articles are shared on the weekend.
- Best time to post is 11 am EDT or 7 pm EDT.
Email Marketing
- There’s very little difference in B2B and B2C.
- Abuse reports are highest on Saturday and Sunday; lowest on Monday.
- Bounce rate is highest on weekends.
- Open rate is higher on Saturday and Sunday. This came as a shock to us. Apparently it’s Contra Competitive Timing. This means that when fewer people are speaking, you get more attention. The higher open rate on the weekends is because fewer people are marketing on those days – at least for now.
- Unsubscribe rate is higher on weekends also as more subscribers have time to consider whether to continue receiving your information.
- Click rate are highest on weekends.
- Best time of the day to send is early in the morning as early sends are the first ones that get read. This makes sense when you consider your own email behavior.
- Don’t be afraid to send more frequently.
- View unsubscribes as good. It means they’re not interested.
Blogging
- Most blogs are read in the morning.
- Men have a tendency to read blogs at night; women in the morning.
- Best time for page views is 10 am EDT or 11 pm EDT.
- Comments spike early in the morning on Saturday and Sunday.
- Best days to blog for SEO/links are Monday and Thursday.
- Blogs that publish once a day get more benefit. (Yikes! We better get going.)
And, finally, the best quote of all, “If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense.”
Tell us your experience with timing and results from your social media efforts. Inquiring minds want to know.
Recently, a colleague and I attended an off-line face-to-face networking event. We were both excited to meet the lone accountant in the group. We have been on the hunt for an accounting firm to partner with and had yet to find a good fit.
The conversation with the accountant started out enthusiastically as she shared her “elevator pitch” (aka the 10-word introduction that states who you work with and what you do in general terms). My colleague posed a question. Simple. Direct. It really only needed a ten word response at most.
My colleague inadvertently unleashed a lengthy narration of the inner working of the accountants firm. Frankly, it sounded like she was reciting her web site – THE ENTIRE THING!
Apparently she didn’t notice our eyes glazing over with the amount of information she was providing. We would have politely interjected – had she taken a breath. I wish I could say we were captivated by what she said. Unfortunately, it felt like we were held captive.
The bottom line? We dismissed that particular accounting firm from our list of potential partners.
Sadly, this is an all-too-common scenario; one in which well-deserving, qualified firms never benefit from their networking efforts because they “over-sell” themselves during the initial interaction. (See “Nine Steps for Building Trust Online & Offline“)
Apply a few simple guiding principles to your online and offline networking activities to ensure your net works for you, including:
* Share your well-developed “elevator pitch” with those you meet
* Allow others to engage you with further questions
* Provide answers that are crisp, clean and targeted
* Ask genuine questions that demonstrate your sincere interest in them
* If further discussion is warranted, exchange business cards to schedule a time to share more detail
Strategic Coaching Takeaway: What steps can you take to ensure your net works like you intended?
The process of client acquisition is rarely a short, straight line. Given the wide range of vendors and suppliers available, a potential client can easily veer off course on its path to buying your product or service—especially when making a virtual connection.
Prospective clients pass through various stages of assurance when interacting with your company. Each stage provides an opportunity to develop trust and move a prospective client to a satisfied client. When executed successfully, each succeeding step develops more trust and establishes the credibility you need to sustain long-lasting relationships.
Although the originator of these powerful nine steps in unknown, we’d like to give a big ‘shout out’ to recognize their contribution to building trust online and offline.
A client moves from:
- Unaware to aware when a person sees your Web site, receives a forwarded email/fax from a friend, or reads a story about you.
- Aware to curious when a person is touched/affected by the title or content from something you provide.
- Curious to interested when a person discovers something you provide that might help them.
- Interested to believing when a person begins to believe that the business owner/company is real/legitimate.
- Believing to wanting when a person sees what you are doing/offering and wants to move forward to see what you have to offer.
- Wanting to in-motion when a person responds to something you have offered and replies by phone/fax/email. This is a very BIG step.
- In-motion to buyer when a person believes/trusts you, wants the product/service you provide, and begins to pay you.
- Buyer to satisfied customer when a person is happy with the product/service you provide and their trust in you is rewarded.
- Satisfied customer to advocate when a person gets more/better service/benefits than they expected and it occurs on many occasions. He or she then begins to refer you to others.
Move a client from being unaware of your company to being an advocate for your company by systematically building awareness, trust, and confidence across the nine stages of trust development.
Strategic Coaching Takeaway: What upgrades would strengthen trust between you and your clients?
July is a typica
l month for vacation. I admit! I’ve taken a few long weekends myself.
Kids are out of school. The summer heat drives people to the beach (unless you’re in the Gulf region). And, longer daylight hours motivate the masses to move about. Plus, we’ve been trained from the timw we were a kid to take time off each summer to play. Even all of Europe goes “on holiday” in July. No wonder its tough finding anyone at their desk.
As a result, revenue-generating activities can take a hit in July as you hear “get back to us the middle of August when everyone’s back from vacation”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help in the moment.
All is not lost, however. This newly found time can be used to tackle some of the many business development pieces that the busier times don’t always afford.
Here are ten to jump-start your summer sales:
- Launch your blog. Seriously. You’ve probably been talking about it since 2001 (or was that just me).
- Update your value proposition. The economy changed. Buyers are value-conscious. Make sure your value proposition is still in step.
- Hit the refresh button your brand. Like furniture left untouched, it likely has gathered a little dust and could benefit from a little spit-shine.
- Create your strategic plan. My clients tell me it makes ‘em sweat.
- Develop your disaster plan. More on that next post.
- Reconnect with former clients. It’s 5X more costly to acquire new clients than it is to nurture former client relationships.
- Launch your social media strategy. I read somewhere that “if you’re not marketing online, you’re not marketing”. Good stuff.
- Update your website.
- Learn something new. See point #7.
- Generate more leads. Not everyone is on vacation. Find those that aren’t.
If you don’t find any of these appealing, you can always revert back to old comfortable standby’s of shuffling papers and worrying.