The geeks will talk about the Don’t Be Evil Toolbar, made by Facebook and Twitter folks. Or maybe the components of EdgeRank– the relative weightings of likes, comments, and posts. No black magic, complex formulas, or more software to have to master. But here’s what really matters– more newsfeed exposure and traffic.

• Post when your particular users are most likely to be online– not a generic rule of thumb.  Hint: look in your web analytics to see, or consider when your TV shows air, stores are open, and customers are shopping. If you’re the NFL, you better be running Facebook ads when the Super Bowl is on to capture when fans are talking.
• Run Sponsored Post Story ads to amplify your organic postings. Odds are that only 5% of your fans are seeing your posts (the larger the page, the lower) and then only a percent of that are engaging with you (clicking like or commenting). The newsfeed is so competitive now, jammed with so much stuff, that you have to run ads now if you want to play. Sorry.
• People who are browsing Facebook are not interesting in shopping for Tide in the 150 ounce family size jug right then.  But they are interested in something funny and perhaps a discount for later. So don’t spam them with your product offerings, sales, and traditional banner ads. Give them something worth sharing– look at your stats to see what is shared the most and do more of that.
• Do not apply SEO methods to Facebook– any more than you’d wear swimtrunks to a wedding. Don’t try to stuff your keywords in your posts, page titles, or other content.  People don’t search on Facebook, they navigate.
• Actions speak louder than words– if you don’t build an open graph app that has actions (read, watch, listen, cook, etc…) you will get drowned out of the newsfeed. Posting alone carries little weight without ad amplification. Hey, Facebook is going public in June 2012 and they have to demonstrate revenue, right?
• Google+ is a lame social network right now– lots of Google users, but no traffic.  Forcing users to click on +1 is not a strong strategy for brands yet. Maybe that will change in 6-9 months, if Google can apply social relevancy to their products.

We have an all-star line up for our panel, who will likely disagree with what I have just said. Be ready for an interesting panel!

Original at Facebook vs Google in 2012– EdgeRank vs PageRank BlitzLocal

Brands and companies have understood the importance of communication with their customers. Traditionally, in a somewhat antiquated means of communication, chagrined customers would call a 1-800 number or write (if you were even less technologically inclined) to express their displeasure with a company. With platforms such as Twitter and Facebook that allow for instant response and timely interaction, good brands and companies have created accounts on these sites that are staffed full-time by a customer service representative.

1.     Responding requires a high-touch and thoughtful approach

Some great examples of brands that have taken to Twitter are:

-        Airlines:

• Delta’s @DeltaAssist
• American Airline’s @AmericanAir

-        Cable providers:

• Time Warner’s @TWCableHelp
• Comcast’s @ComcastCares

-        Motor companies:

• Ford’s @FordCustService

Engaging customers about their complaints is one of the best ways to retain brand loyalty and encourage their continued use. That being said, there is a right way and a wrong way of communicating with customers. There are two basic categories in which complaints fall: 1.“[brand] sucks” and 2.“[brand] help” – and knowing which to respond to is important. If a Twitter user merely tweets, “@Delta, you truly suck”, how is a brand supposed to respond? There is nothing in which to engage them with. However, if a Twitter user posts “@DeltaAssist traveling with an infant and had a confirmed seat on window but got moved to aisle”, it is Delta’s duty to respond to this customer.

However, one to three tweets should be the maximum for exchanges online; after that, the conversation should be taken offline by exchanging contact information. Sometimes, the problem can be resolved in just one tweet – for example: “@DeltaAssist: I’m sorry about your seat, please DM your confirmation # so we can check your next flight for you.” This takes care of the situation head on without going back and forth.

We’ve also noticed three great ways brands are responding to their fans on Twitter:

1.     Take advantage of over-share

If you’re in NYC, you’ve probably eaten at a food truck or three. The great thing about many food trucks is their ability to be mobile – they are restaurants on wheels! Brands such as the Souvlaki Truck have created Twitter accounts to monitor what they’re fans are saying about them. We recently tweeted to the @SouvlakiTruck recently about missing their food – they used to be right around the corner from us – once they saw our tweet, they responded by offering a care package to be sent to our office. The following week we were all dining on their delicious Greek food.  And because they were tuned in, the Souvlaki Truck was able to be proactive and garner 60,000 impressions from our tweeting our appreciation.

2.     Reveal the human side of brand

Recently, one of our interns tweeted to his colleague that we were out of sweet potato chips and hummus. Another great brand @PretzelCrisps, took it upon themselves to offer their snack as a viable alternative that goes great with hummus. They engaged him and asked for mailing address. Sure enough, that afternoon, bags upon bags of Pretzel Crisps were dropped off at our office. By revealing themselves as real people behind the social media platform and not just an automated bot that responds, the Pretzel Crisp brand was able to create a relationship with a new customer.

3.     Create personal interactions

One particular brand that has an interesting campaign on Twitter is Jell-o, which launched their “Pudding Face Mood Meter” in an effort to gauge America’s current mood. Jell-o is tracking tweets that contain smiling and frowning faces and are taking the opportunity to tweet to those users that tweeted frowning. While they are cued in to the collective American feelings at a current time, they are not making the interaction personal. It seems more insincere to tweet to someone who is having a bad day: “here, have a coupon for a free Jell-o pudding” as opposed to engaging the user if it’s appropriate to your brand message. This misguided effort to connect with new fans and the connection between the brand and the message they wish to convey is not obvious.

The few things we’ve learned from the culture of dissatisfaction are:

1.     That even though consumers are increasingly venting on Twitter and Facebook, certain brands are proactively transform complaints into praise.

2.     Brands can strengthen their existing customer relationships and create new ones by engaging the right way.

3.     As long as you make it a good story – the word will spread itself.

Guest author David-Michel Davies (DMD) is Executive Director of The Webby Awards & the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences.       He also serves as Chairman & Co-Founder of Internet Week New York. DMD has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, and Good Morning America to discuss Internet trends and news, and he has lectured to audiences at a diverse mix of conferences and companies including Interbrand, Microsoft and the Institute for the future.

Original at The Webby Awards Presents: Social Media & the Culture of Dissatisfaction BlitzLocal

One of their latest attempts to capture their fans attention is a game on their Facebook page called “The Quest for the Golden McRib.” The Quest is no simple or cheap flash game but a highly interactive set of challenges that incorporates Google Maps and real world McDonalds stores.  The game has loads of content and the mix of challenges will appeal to hardcore gamers as well as casual ones.  When the gamer successfully completes a challenge they receive a collectable badge that they can either keep tucked away or post it to their wall to brag to their friends.

The social aspect of this has huge potential to revolutionize the way we Facebook.  Gamification has begun, and you’ll probably be seeing a lot more of it over the next few years as others seek to diminish or negate the marketing edge of their competitors.  Although The Quest is ultimately a rather silly game; (elves with butterfly wings and pirate hats, rapping eagles, etc.), games on Facebook are still in their infancy. You can see that advertisers are contemplating new and unique ways to keep their brands fresh in consumers’ minds.  Ultimately, this is a win-win for everyone: the advertiser gets to speak directly to the consumer who is being entertained, as opposed to being forced to watch a commercial.  As gamification is further utilized and perfected, expect games to become even more compelling, common, and social.

Blake Beier is an Analyst with BlitzLocal, and a big fan of games.

Original at The Quest for Engagement: Fast Food and the Social Media War BlitzLocal

6)  Making The Wrong Type Of Facebook Page

*RcFishingWorld would be much better off on Facebook with a business page instead of a personal profile.

Personal profiles are the only pages most Facebook users will ever be familiar with, however, they lack many essential resources which business profiles otherwise would include. For example business pages give page administrators access to insights about your pages’ audience through statistical insights such as; page views, demographic views, traffic sources, and other key statistics otherwise absent in a personal profile. Even though business pages do not allow you to actually “friend request” your target market, they still give you access to your audiences news feed via the “like” button. Bottom line: make sure you make the right type of profile!

5) Not Posting Frequently Enough On The Wall

*Mortgage Advice is not engaging their 2,000 fans.

Take this business page as an example, “Mortgage Advice.” This page has over 2,000 fans, but they are not reaching out to any of their fan’s news feeds, because Mortgage Advice is not posting anything. By simply posting, “Check out Mortgage Advice… For such and such reason,” they would easily generate a couple hundred impressions and draw a small piece of internet traffic to their business, but they are not utilizing this potential. If Mortgage Advice added a few nice graphics and than reinforced their more professional look with some interesting wall posts, which were than updated and maintained, than even this business could generate some revenue on Facebook! Instead their simply letting their fans waste away.

4) Not Engaging Your Audience, or Worse Yet; Acquiring Fake Fans!

By neglecting fans, business pages are essentially shooting themselves in the proverbial foot. Edgerank and Post Quality Score are metrics of Facebook’s content management filters. Unlike the past, everything users post does NOT appear in your audience’s news feeds; information which users do not engage, is subsequently filtered out to save users time, relieving content which may be perceived as spam or unimportant to the user.

This also means fake fans will do more harm than good to your page because they bring down your engagement rates. Companies which entice clicks and engage people through interesting posts, will maintain contact, pages which do not engage their audience will be filtered out of their audiences’ news feeds all together!

Some tips for increasing your engagement;

• Make sure to respond to comments, and don’t worry about commenting on your own material.
• Never leave a fan hanging and always respond to whatever questions fans may post, positively enforcing fan engagement.
• Also feel free to “like” your own material, as this does not harm your Edgerank or P.Q.S. scores.
• There are many techniques to raise your engagement for example try to ask your audience questions,  instigating engagement. Using these simple guidelines, can quickly garner huge results and massively improve your pages marketing on Facebook

*See how each post only makes impressions on 10% of CiviliansNews.com‘s audience?

3) Not Running Sponsored Stories

Sponsored story advertisements are displayed for current fans and friends of current fans, in order to spur re-engagement. Re-engagement is for fans who at one time “liked” your page, yet lost interest over time. After a fan becomes un-engaged, ignoring your page for some time, their news feeds will start filtering out your pages posts, losing contact to your audience member’s news feed. In order to regain contact with these fans you SHOULD run a sponsored story Facebook advertisement, if un-engaged fans click the advertisement than just like that, your page will start making impressions again on that user’s news feed.

A tip for sponsored story advertisements: try to focus on third party articles which positively endorse your organization. This makes the sponsored story appear as if it may have been run by a 3rd party, so you don’t look like you’re tooting your own horn.

2) Not Keeping An Eye On Your Competition

Later this year Blitzmetrics.com is going to be bringing FREE social media analytic dashboards to all businesses who sign up on their website. These dashboards will be full of information about your competitors’ social networks as well as your own fans’ engagement. However, this free product is still not scheduled for release until later this year. Until then let’s talk about keeping an eye on your competition manually.

It’s really as simple as “liking” your competitors’ pages, than following their activity in your business page’s news feed. When logged in as a business page, the business will maintain a news feed consisting of things the business page “liked.” This is useful because, by liking your competitors, you can personally monitor their actions on Facebook everyday. Commenting on your competitors’ pages is also allowed as well. Spamming a competitor’s page is an easy way to violate Facebook rules and policies, however, it is still not completely disallowed. Often times, large companies will even disregard this type of engagement because even if you’re shouting out your own page on your competitors’ walls, it raises your competitors’ engagement rates, making this tactic a double edged sword.

Ignoring your competition is a massive mistake: make sure to keep a close eye on what your biggest competitors are doing everyday. Check out how they are utilizing social networking and employ techniques that they have used successfully for yourself!

1) Being Overly “Business-ey”

Have fun! When utilizing the social networks for business, it is always important to remember what you’re doing and where you’re doing it. The social networks are still a taboo, unknown realm of marketing. Most users are young people, and most of their time on the sites are spent concerned with high school friends and ex-girlfriends, which will often take precedence over corporate marketing campaigns.

As far as posting content, remember that users are unlikely to engage with the same monotonous business messages. Try adding a bit of provocation to your posts. A sense of professionalism is always inherently mandatory, however, don’t be afraid to dive into a funny joke, funny topic, or peculiar interest. Stirring up, or aggravating fans increases engagement and inevitably will increase the volume for which your material is shared.

Hopefully these basic guidelines help you run a successful business or fan page on Facebook. Good luck!

-William Larsen, BlitzLocal Analyst

This is an article from one of our analysts, who we encourage to share opinions. It may or may not reflect the views of BlitzLocal.

Original at The 6 Biggest Business Mistakes On Facebook! BlitzLocal

Soles4Souls is Not Letting Your Old Shoes Go To Waste

It is dysfunctional to think that Americans discarded millions of athletic shoes over the course of this past year; worse yet, leaving most of those shoes to rot away in dangerous landfills.  It has been estimated that the average American owns between 3-5 pairs of shoes today. So where do most of these shoes end up? Most of the shoes are worn, then thrown away to later rot in landfills.  When surveyed by the EPA in 2007, landfills were proven to be leaking pollutants in 82% of those surveyed.(http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html). With the increasing pressure to recycle, combined with the danger of modern-day landfills, many worn sneakers should be re-used or recycled across the world today.

Surely recycling is a better option than leaving shoes to rot, contributing to the massive waste piles and hazardous material leaking out of landfills today. As the world grows more connected, better uses for our used shoes are becoming more and more clear as well.  Most Americans reap the benefits of a society of abundance, while other societies around the world do not know such peace of mind. Wayne Elsey, founder of the charity Soles4Souls, is attempting to help people in need benefit from the tremendous amount of American used athletic shoes in our landfills today.

Excess. The filthy little word that illustrates over-abundance and waste. When examining the different facets of an average Americans daily life, excess is everywhere; over-sized SUVs, gaudy jewelry and twenty five pairs of shoes in our family closets! While the average American will own between 3 and 5 pairs of shoes at a time, the point in which we decide these shoes are no longer usable is the subject of this article today. These days, some people deem shoes unwearable, even if the shoes only have a single scuff! Other more patient sneaker patrons, will wait until their shoes are a little worn down before abandoning them completely. A gritty working-class person may even let their shoes go until they are worn through to the sole before deeming them unusable. In any instance, these shoes can still serve a good cause and can still be recycled, even after the original owners are done with them.

Soles4Souls is one of the organizations I recently discovered that had the fundamental aspiration to distribute used shoes to the people who need them, all over the world. Wayne Elsey, founder of Soles4Souls, apparently looked at devastation around the world, and envisioned aiding other countries with Americans used footwear. The epidemic of improper footwear runs rampant worldwide. Soles4Souls tackles this challenge by literally taking one man’s trash and turning it into another man’s treasure; quite noble to say the least. I learned that with that vision in mind, Wayne’s organization Soles4Souls has collected and distributed over 14 million pairs of gently worn shoes worldwide, in over 127 countries.

Even our earliest ancestors understood the importance of recycling what they used, and not wasting their resources. Why is it that this mantra seems to have been all but lost in regards to today’s footwear? While some may find it difficult to envision the lives of those struggling overseas, it is important to simply know that others around the world are indeed people; people with emotions, ideas, creativity, imagination, thoughts and feelings, who need shoes just like us. When Wayne envisioned supporting others with Americans’ worn-down sneakers, I imagine he was thinking of these people. The abundance of sneakers in America today is ridiculous and the footwear statistics are staggering. In my opinion, giving your sneakers to Soles4Souls is not only empathy; it’s common sense. It has been estimated that Americans purchase nearly a million pairs of sneakers per day. Instead of wasting these massive amounts of used sneakers, give them another chance. The landfills don’t need these excessive reserves of used shoes, but other people around the world do!

Original at Is Modern Waste Management Obsolete? Soles4Souls Is Recycling Used Shoes! BlitzLocal

Step 1. Open your favorite image editing software. I will be using Paint Shop Pro because I don’t have the patience to torrent Photoshop CS3.

Step 2. Create a blank canvas with the measurements 500px x 70px.

Step 3. Build the masterpiece you wish to place on your profile.

Step 4. Using the crop tool, divide the picture into 5 tiles, each 100px x 70px. (Most likely your software will display the measurements so you can get this precise size.)

Step 5. After saving all 5 files, upload them in REVERSE order and set them as profile pictures.

As you can see above, my masterpiece is in reverse order.

If you set each as a profile picture (in reverse order), revert your profile picture back to the original picture, your profile should appear like this.

Good luck, and let us know how it works out in the comments!

About the guest author:

Kody Wilcox is an Analyst with Blitzlocal and a Facebook enthusiast.   

Original at How to Make a Really Cool Facebook Banner BlitzLocal

Depending on the term, it could be 90%+ of these searches not being relevant, and at $5-10 a click, that’s a lot of irrelevant clicks to pay for to find a winner, even if that winner will pay you $10,000 for a new website.

The biggest problem with B2B is that when someone types in “dentist”, you don’t know if they are a dentist or if they are looking for a dentist.

The die-hard PPC folks will argue that you’re just not choosing the right keywords (go for more specific terms), don’t have enough negative keywords (exclude anyone searching with city terms—since these are likely consumers), or you’re not writing specific enough ad copy (supposedly, consumer won’t click on your ad if your title is “Hey Dentists!”) While these comebacks are true, they are missing the big point.

In B2B marketing, you must target WHO the user is, not WHAT they are searching on.

In search, you don’t know who the user is, but you have a clue by the nature of their search terms. In social, you know WHO the user is and you’re catching them before they search.

STEP 1: Isolate the Target

So while you can get a ton of consumer traffic by targeting “dentist” in Google, when you interest target “dentist” on Facebook, you’re targeting by job title and profession.  Try it. In fact, try a number of job titles and see just how many chiropractors, teachers, plumbers, administrative assistants, and marketing managers there are out there.

Voila!  Now you’ve pinpointed all the dentists, dental assistants, students studying to be dentists, retired dentists, and folks who have a dentist fetish—all of them on Facebook. Now narrow down to the specific target you want by age, location or even specialty—maybe you want to talk to just cosmetic dentists in California.

Add in lateral targets—magazines they read, associations they’re a part of, and so forth.  You can read more about micro-targeting here.

STEP 2: Get Your Testimonials and Trust Signals

You probably thought I’d next talk about ads, which is what most people do.  Nope, in social people don’t search—they are interrupted with banner ads. You can focus on ad copy in Google PPC because people are actively looking. In Facebook, you have to gently nudge people to take a look at you and momentarily distract them from spying on their friends, or whatever they happen to be doing on Facebook.

So you need distraction-worthy content, which comes in the form of what their friends are doing. If that potential dentist client of yours is perusing through what her friends did yesterday, she might be persuaded to click on news where those very friends are talking about your business—maybe how they used your software to get more traffic to their website, streamline billing operations, etc.

When you have a TON of testimonials (across Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on), paired with content that you’ve published in major outlets, paired with positive things that other reputable organizations have said about you—then it’s more likely they are coming to you versus you coming to them. Some people call this “inbound” or “pull” marketing because you’re leveraging that prospective friends to do the selling for you. Because, despite your Harvard MBA and years of business experience; sorry Charlie, they trust what their friends have to say more.

Ideally, get this content to live on your website or Facebook page, although this is not completely necessary. Let’s say that you wrote some compelling article in an industry journal. Send ad traffic directly to that site so you can leverage their trust. If you wrote your article correctly, the by-line (about the author piece at the end) will have a line or two about what you do. And if you did a good job creating real value in that article, as opposed to selling, they’ll contact you. No need to scream at them or place popup windows in their path—they’ll find you.

Step 3: Turn Your Ads On 

You wouldn’t have a grand opening party without first making sure your place has plenty of food and drinks, right?  In the same way, make sure you have the compelling content from Step 2 before you start advertising. Otherwise, you’re just wasting money.

Take the interest targets that you set up in Step 1 and pair it against the content you have in Step 2.  Think about WHO you are talking to, not WHAT they might be searching on. For example, if they are a dental hygienist, what content is most compelling to them? What if they are a receptionist—what might they find interesting? You’ll find that you might not have super relevant content for everyone. That’s okay—you’re just testing at this stage. Later you can mix and match what combinations work best.

Note that this is NOT landing page optimization, which is more superficially about elements that comprise the landing page—the image, the size of the button, the headline, and so forth.  We’re talking about the whole lead gen. lifecycle—creating a clear path between the targets, what we say to them, and what we want them to do. That last piece is the landing page—to get them to call the phone number, fill out the form, watch the video, etc.

Step 4: Run the Math

Set your Facebook campaign budgets low, perhaps $10 a day. Use the default CPC bids, since you don’t need to get into the nuances of how bidding works—this is not Google. What you care about is your Cost Per Click and conversion rates.  CPC divided by conversion rate is your cost per lead, by the way.  We created a calculator for your use, in case you are rusty on first semester statistics:

This is B2B, so your cost per lead could be over $100. Maybe you’re at $2 a click and 1 in 50 clicks results in a phone call.  Maybe it’s a lot more because you’re selling something that costs thousands, so that a hundred dollars is an acceptable price. Or maybe you’re competing in New York City, where the price is exorbitant from all the advertisers that overlap one another from poor targeting.

Whatever the case, if you’re doing this on Facebook, you have to be prepared for seemingly negative ROI for the first few months.  Why? Because we are catching people well before they are searching, so it could be months before they want that new website, CEREC machine, billing system, or whatever it is you’re advertising. With Google, the conversion timeframe might be that same visit. This is unlikely in your case, unless your product is an impulse buy and also under $100.

Some final thoughts:

We are often asked a common set of questions, so let’s address some of them here:

How big should my interest target be? You don’t need a thousand ads—just a handful that target just the people that you want to hit. If your interest target is over 10,000 people, then either you’re doing something wrong or your audience is nationwide.

Do I need new landing pages for Facebook? Probably. Video is what converts nowadays, so you probably need to fix your other landing pages while you’re at it. Camera shy? They aren’t choosing you for your good looks, so get your Flip video, some good lighting, and film a 2 minute intro. Say what you’d say if that dentist was sitting right in your office—don’t be “fake” or talk like a newscaster.

Will BlitzLocal do this for me? Sure, if you have at least $10k to spend in fees, not counting advertising budget. If you’re a dentist, we require only $2k a month in total (labor plus ad spend), since we’re targeting just one region and because our dental campaigns can be replicated. If we have to build something that is not reusable across many clients, then we have to charge more for it. We are not the cheapest game in town.

Do you offer free articles and training?  I would love to use your service, but cannot afford it. Sure. Send a note to info@blitzlocal.com and we’ll send you some of our internal training materials. You can also post a question at facebook.com/blitzlocal, where others can see and benefit from what you ask.

 About the Author:

Dennis Yu is Chief Executive Officer of BlitzLocal, a Webtrends partner that builds social media dashboards to measure brand engagement and ROI, specializing in the intersection of Facebook and local advertising. You can reach him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, his blog, or good old-fashioned email at dennis@blitzlocal.com. BlitzLocal is a leader in social and local advertising and analytics, creating mass micro-targeted campaigns. Mr. Yu is an internationally sought-after speaker and author on all things Facebook, and has been featured in National Public Radio, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, CBS Evening News, and other venues.

Original at Marketing B2B via Facebook: The Most Common Mistake You’re Probably Making BlitzLocal

The graveyard of failed startups is littered with the bodies of companies that have gone after the Microsofts, Cokes, and Proctor and Gambles of the world.  Why not? The reasoning is that just one Coke as a client can be worth 1,000 little clients, and is perhaps even enough to sustain your venture all by itself. Unfortunately, when you have one big customer that accounts for most of your earnings, they can also jerk you around; more on the “Wal-Mart” problem later.

Some people call this the problem of the elephants, deer, and rabbits.  It’s sexy to go elephant hunting, but the trouble is that it takes a team to kill the elephant. That team may have to wait for months on-end before getting anything; often starving in the process. It takes sophisticated tools and plenty of unpaid labor to get an initial meeting, much less deal with all the various levels of decision makers needed to get your first dollar.

Rabbits are small, plentiful, and easy to catch.  These are the small businesses that have $10 a month for your software, but can be such a pain to service that you get a case of “rabbit starvation”. Yes, it’s true; if you live in the woods and subside only on rabbit meat you will starve, since wild rabbit meat is so lean that it takes more energy to process than it’s worth.

So in true Goldilocks fashion, the rabbits are too small and the elephants are too big. And thus, startup advisors say, you should chase deer—medium sized, not too hard to catch, and enough meat to make it worthwhile.  Trying to serve the middle, however, is like trying to be everything to everyone. With no focus in the marketplace, you are unable to differentiate and unable to dominate a niche.

Back to “Paul” again; he has had minor success selling to elephants.  He is personally well networked, and one of the best salespeople I’ve ever met. But he is just one guy and there is only so many of him that can perform magic. It’s not scalable.  Further, the $10,000 proof-of-concept deals don’t seem to materialize into $100,000 deals, despite what the Excel spreadsheets to the board might represent.

He may have spent (gambled) $50,000 in energy to get the $10,000 deal. And the big brands that he’s dealing with know this full-well, and are happy to take advantage of the discounts their name can leverage. It’s like the prom queen that can be mean to the adolescent boys; teasing each of them into an endless stream of favors. And it is here that startups die.

In engineering projects, we know that you have to multiply the estimates by a factor of 3. If they say it will take 5 weeks, then you can assume 15 weeks is a more realistic estimate.   Same is true of sales. That deal that is 60% likely to close is actually 20% likely to close.  And instead of 2 weeks, it will be 2 months. You might be ready to go, but the main client contact may be slow to respond to email, the accounting people have some arduous PO process, or some new person wants to evaluate your software—starting the clock over.

Meanwhile, you’re burning cash.  It’s not like you can put payroll or your rent on hold. What you’ve expended so far is a sunken cost, so you just keep going like the gambler who bets double or nothing.  Even if you get the deal, you might not be paid until you complete the work, plus net 60.  So if the project takes 90 days to complete and you’re paid 60 days after completion, you have to float 150 days of cash.  If the pre-sales process took 90 days, you’re now looking at 240 days; not an uncommon cycle to close a big deal.

In those 240 days, anything can happen.  Facebook or Google comes out with a product or feature set that eliminates the need for your product. The company you’re dealing with has a re-organization, so your internal champion isn’t the decision maker anymore. Maybe you lost a key engineer—hey; lots of places are notorious for folks who are disloyal, jumping to whatever the sexy thing of the moment is. Your board or investor begins to pressure you, forcing you to spend more time on convincing them that you’re “so close” to hitting it big, while actually taking your focus away from execution.

Napoleon had his Waterloo because he overextended his supply chain. In other words; the clock ran out on him. If you’re going after the big boys, it’s easy to underestimate what it takes to win.  Mind you, self-service software is a different matter—we’re talking about selling deals to household brands that are used to dealing with big agencies who will roll out the red carpet with not a penny of cost on their side for months.

So here are some key insights to help you avoid a prolonged death—to have a decent shot at success versus running out of gas.

•       Law #1: Enterprise software is not bought, it is sold. Companies don’t just walk up to you and say they want to order the #2 meal, supersized.  Expressing interest after reading about you on TechCrunch is a long way from getting your first penny.  Enterprise software is sold via a network of experienced sales reps that have inside connections at the client company. That rep may have been an agency player with a big black book or someone who was internal until recently. If you don’t have teams of folks who can navigate these landmines, you’ll be constantly scratching your head as to why you got so close, but some inferior vendor won the day. You’re column fodder, buddy—the client was happy to waste your time to get you to fly in and pitch, just so they can say they talked to 3 other people before selecting the vendor they had in mind all along.  Moral of the story– don’t enter a battle that you haven’t already determined you’ve won via inside connections. In other words: never go into an RFP situation blind.        

•  Law #2: Ask for a token payment. Sure, you might be dealing with someone from General Motors. But does that person have power to sign a check? We no longer do custom work for free or do a ton of free consulting. If they want a proof of concept, we charge a nominal fee.  Even if it’s only asking for $1,000, the prospect’s reaction to this will be quite telling if they are serious. Case in point—one of the largest newspapers in the world wanted our help with Facebook marketing. They wanted every PowerPoint presentation we have ever done, some one-on-one meetings on-site, and some technical help to troubleshoot. We were flattered. But when we popped the question, they balked. I knew this person’s boss, who told me that this person was preparing a strategy to present as their own. This person was just swapping our name for his name and taking credit with no intention of engaging with us. It happens all the time. Watch for it now and you’ll see it often. A payment of a few thousand dollars is a gesture of good faith between both parties. And if you are looking at doing a partnership with a larger, more established company, be wary of “partners” that want you to take all the risk.
•       Law #3: Decide if you are positioning yourself as cheaper or better. You can’t be both. Even if you are, the marketplace won’t believe you. Plus, you’d be leaving money on the table if you can justify yourself as being of higher quality. Would you trust a heart surgeon that is offering surgeries this week at 50% off?
•       Law #4: Triple your prices. You’ll lose some customers, as you should. But the ones you lose are likely the ones that are causing you the most headaches which, in turn, prevent you from focusing on the guys that are happy to pay you more. Spend time on the customers who love you. Don’t abide by the squeaky wheel management philosophy. If you have 30 clients paying you $5k a month each on average, wouldn’t it be so much easier to have just 10 clients paying you $15k a month?
•       Law #5: Ignore the armchair quarterbacks. Often the most well-meaning of family and friends will insist on giving you advice.  While you trust their friendship, it doesn’t mean they can weigh-in on complex business decisions.  How much of your precious time are you selling to folks who aren’t going to buy your software or can’t help you refine your offering?  You’re talking to the wrong people, though many enjoy the entertainment of verbal jousting at your expense.
•       Law #6: Sell through a partner. If you can’t afford a sales force, leverage the client base on someone who already has a Fortune 500 client base.  That’s what BlitzLocal does with Webtrends, who opens doors for us that we would never get on our own.  In fact, we get to work with existing clients who have Webtrends as their analytics provider, which makes deals so much easier. It’s a win-win for everyone.

So that’s what it takes to go after the big boys.  If you’re not extremely lucky, you need the cash, connections, and focus to weather lengthy sales cycles. So think twice if you want to get Nike as a client.  They won’t even let you publicly mention them as a client if you do, so the referral value may be less than you anticipate.  But when you can find those particular clients who are partners that care about your success, too—then you’ve found a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

If you found this helpful, let me know in the comments below. If you want to argue, feel free to voice your opinion, too.  I can’t promise I’ll respond, but I will certainly try to respond to folks who ask for help. You can also reach me at facebook.com/dennisyu.

About the Author:

Dennis Yu is Chief Executive Officer of BlitzLocal, a Webtrends partner that builds social media dashboards to measure brand engagement and ROI, specializing in the intersection of Facebook and local advertising.   BlitzLocal is a leader in social and local advertising and analytics, creating mass micro-targeted campaigns. Mr. Yu has been featured in National Public Radio, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, CBS Evening News, and other venues. He is an internationally sought-after speaker and author on all things Facebook. BlitzLocal serves both national brands and local service businesses.

Original at Why Startups Fail to Win Big Deals BlitzLocal

I decided to play a little trick on my boss using the Facebook advertising techniques he taught me.

Using  the “Location” section in the ad tools, I entered Portland, Oregon which is where Blitzlocal headquarters is located.

In the “Demographics” section, I targeted males ages 30 to 40.

For “Education and Work” I typed BlitzLocal LLC and WebTrends.

The result ended with an estimated 80 people targeted.

About 4 days later, I get an email from my boss:

And this only cost me 6 cents.

Knowing that you can target down to where someone works, where they live, and how old they are– how might you use this in your business?

Original at Using Facebook Microtargeting to Play a Trick on My Boss BlitzLocal

These gag gifts were a hit in the office. Unpacking a box of goodies was the highlight of the day-everyone found something they just had to have! From sparkle poo to astronaut ice cream bars, the assortment was astounding, and entertaining to say the least. To quote a Stupid.com Facebook fan, “Yes, these are infantile amusements, but they have a really great selection of them!” Too true, sir! So, what kind of stupid are you looking for?

We’re looking to get them some more Facebook friends. Currently they’re at over 5,000. So, spread the good word, poop jokes, pranks and all around awesomeness. Lets see where they’re at the end of this year!

Original at Working Has Never Been So Fun, Or Stupid. BlitzLocal