It’s really not hard to gain more insights by looking at your results from different angles – for example, by different socio-economic groups, by industry, by geography, etc.  By adding a few appropriate ‘filtering’ type of questions to your survey (e.g., age ranges, geographic regions, industry, etc.), you can segment responses by type.

These types of insights can help you gain greater value from your surveys and give you greater insight into how to respond as a result.  Ennect makes this easy with its Compare-O-Gram feature, but other surveys may have similar capabilities.  If not, you can do a comparison by hand; it will just take more work.  Also, it’s nice to see results in charts, and Ennect’s Compare-O-Gram feature actually lets you view results graphically, enhancing your ability to quickly see differences.

It doesn’t require heavy lifting to achieve results that can reveal valuable insights for your organization.  For example, Duquesne University’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) wanted to study how businesses were dealing with the emergence of new social media channels.  Click here – Tech Survey Shows Impact on Different Organizations – to see the article.

By comparing the Tech Survey results with another published survey, it was apparent that organizations in the southwestern PA area had not adopted social media marketing strategies at the same pace as organizations nationally (42% locally versus 59% nationally).  For the SBDC, that meant that putting a lot of money and time into social media to promote their upcoming conference might not have the desired effect.

Using the Compare-O-gram feature, however, allows us to dig further to see what social media tools the local business community is deploying by ‘type of organization.’  The graphic below shows us that among for-profit companies (manufacturers and business services), LinkedIn is popular and, to a lesser extent, FaceBook and blogging. 

The insight for SBDC:  focus on the social media channels that their targets are more likely to use and eschew things like YouTube and MySpace and possibly even Twitter.

Additionally, if you’re a social media service or application provider, this kind of drill-down information can give you insights into what kinds of services you want to offer different types of clients and provide an indication of where you might be most successful with your prospecting. 

To learn more about how customers are using surveys to enhance their marketing efforts, click here.

Alerting the Flower World Via Email

Since it would be a bloomin’ shame for plant aficionados and backyard gardeners to miss the short window of opportunity to see the old agave flower, the marketing staff at Phipps turned to Ennect Mail to alert patrons to this special event and to a party in the plant’s honor.

“We send out a regular monthly newsletter to patrons to let them know about events at the Conservatory,” said Liz Fetchin, Marketing and Communications Manager at Phipps. “But we couldn’t wait for the newsletter to get the word out about the agave since it really is a short window for visitors to see this. We needed to turn around communications fast. Email marketing is ideal for this kind of announcement.”

Obviously Phipps Conservatory’s patrons appreciate the effort since the mailing received nearly a 20 percent open rate.  Hopefully, that will turn into a lot of binocular-aided viewers over the time that the agave is in bloom.

For more information on Phipps Conservatory, click here.  

 To read more about the Agave Americana, click here.  

And to learn more on how Ennect Mail can help you, click here.

By the time I got to work, the tune was jailed in my head and I knew I wouldn’t get a thing done until I set it free. I had to find out who this person was. Luckily the radio announcer had given me a clue – five descriptive words – essentially, a long-tail keyword (Click to see long tail SEO infographic) …

Little+Kid+Singing+Jason+Mraz

YouTube: I'm Yours (ukelele)

Off I went to deposit the keyword string into the world’s second most popular search engine: YouTube. And there he was:  a young Asian boy on ukulele who had the chords down perfect, but who obviously had no idea what he was singing.  Don’t get me wrong, the song is cute to listen to, but the visual component puts it right over the top. This heartfelt rendition of “I’m Yours” went viral within the office in just a few minutes and who knows where it went from there. (At this writing, the number of views = 21,835,809.) This, of course, is what you want to happen to YOUR videos.

Even without the radio announcer’s keyword tip, I might have found my target with a combination of other keywords: I’m+Yours+Mraz+kid, etc.  But the fact is: the little kid on the radio drove me to search, which got me to thinking…

What Drives You – or Your Customers – to Search?

If you’ve been watching my Ennect and Elliance tweets (What! You don’t spend every moment of your day reading my tweets?), you know I share search tips off and on.  I’m not a search specialist, but I’m convinced of the power of search. And I sometimes listen in on conversations among the search gurus at Elliance, who are convinced – along with the rest of the world – that search is the first step in the majority of purchases.

And to that I say – again – but what drives search?  In my case, it was the need to have my curiosity sated. (In Maslow’s hierarchy, I suppose that falls under “knowledge and understanding needs.”  I’m obviously still struggling to reach the “self-actualization” top of the pyramid.)

What concerns me is that many companies focus on search terms and miss the real reason people use search:  they have a NEED.  And needs can be driven internally or externally, which means companies can do things to activate search.  What?  Well, there’s a whole list of things: media coverage (PR), email marketing, marketing events, surveys, advertising, word of mouth, social media, and radio – just to mention a few.  I just interviewed someone who’s keyed into parents’ needs for quality TV programming for their children. She uses Ennect Sweeps to help activate interest – and search — for her organization’s mission.

My need today was stimulated by drive-time radio.  Here’s my multi-million-view question for you: What are you doing to stimulate your buyers’ needs?

Click here to see the ukulele kid’s video on YouTube.

I say we take KISS to a new level: “Keep It Simple and SOCIAL.”  With all the new social media tools and methodologies, it should be easy to do this.

Here are Five SIX! (ed: oops!) Tips for Keeping It Simple and SOCIAL:

S – Start SMALL.  If you’ve never tried social media before, don’t take on too much at once.  Think about what would make the most sense for your company’s business and for your own time and capabilities. If you sell highly complex products – and you have the resources to do so – you might start a blog to help explain complex processes or concepts and to solicit others’ ideas as comments.  If you sell consumer goods via an ecommerce site, try tweeting to raise awareness of special promotions on your website.

O – Set OBJECTIVES.  Before you start, think about how social media can best help you meet business goals that are measureable.  Establishing a yardstick will keep your activities directed toward meeting your goals.  If you don’t set goals, you will have no way of knowing whether your social media has been successful.

C – COLLABORATE.  Look around your organization, your partnerships, and your customers for collaborators – others who are capable of and interested in using social media to help your company grow.  You will often find people who have capabilities and knowledge that can help you improve your start-up efforts and you’ll also have someone else to rely on when you need assistance. 

I –INTERACT. The whole point of social media is engagement: listening to your followers and responding to them.  You can’t just set up social media and forget about it.  And, just as email can often eat up countless hours during the day if you don’t manage your time, so can social media. Remember to think about how much time you can afford to devote to interacting with others as a result of your social media efforts.  Before you begin, set aside a portion of your day to focus on your social media activities.  It will help you keep the reins on what sometimes can become a runaway activity.

A – ACTIVATE and ADJUST.  You will save countless steps by putting an action plan in place and following it, then by “just starting up.” Not only will you have a framework in place to grow effectively, but you’ll have something to measure against so that you can quickly make adjustments to assure ongoing success.

L – LINK your social media efforts to your other online and offline marketing.  Remember to put your LinkedIn and/or Twitter address on your business card, in your email signature, on your website and on all your collateral. Use it in your email and online event marketing efforts and in your online sweepstakes and surveys. Sprinkle reminders liberally.  It’s the simplest thing is to do and so many people forget!

Social media can be immensely rewarding to your company if you follow these KISS steps.  Hope you find them helpful. 

If you have other tips you’d like to share, we’d love to hear about them…

Stewart owns (is?) one of the most well-known brands in the country.  One word – HOME – embodies everything she markets and sells. When we think about “home,” however, it conjures up concepts like “safety, stability, comfort, relaxation…”  Yet, Stewart’s approach to social marketing leans more towards “experimentation,” according to a Jesse Stanchak blog post, “4 social-marketing tips from Martha Stewart,” that reported on Stewart’s presentation on June 14^th at TWTRCON in New York City.

According to Stanchak, Stewart’s a bit of a social media renegade suggesting that “you shouldn’t feel pressured to comply with other people’s ideas about how you should express yourself.” He points to Stewart’s tendency to “write in unpunctuated streams, and sometimes even in block capitals, though some tell her it’s against the rules.”  Stewart’s reply: “Who the heck made these rules? That’s the way I type.”

Stewart both tweets and blogs.  You can find her at http://twitter.com/marthastewart, http://www.themarthablog.com/, and http://dailywag.marthastewart.com/.   The latter is a blog about Stewart’s French bulldogs that actually led to a line of pet products which she markets in partnership with PetSmart.  It’s a great example of how engaging and listening to your social network can help a B2B2C company develop new market opportunities.

Stewart’s, of course, isn’t the only B2B2C company experimenting with social media, but there are a lot more who are hesitant to do so.  While it clearly makes sense to have all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, some companies use that as an excuse to not try social marketing.  And, sure, there are companies who have gotten burned, but if you’re monitoring your company and your social media appropriately, there are more benefits than brickbats for your efforts. 

To read more about how Stewart’s B2B2C business approaches social networking, click here.