Are webinars still as valuable for lead generation as they once were? My thoughts: maybe. One issue of course is their ubiquity. The other is that most folks are on smartphones and tablets all day long and can't attend or access a webinar without experiencing technical difficulties. (I'm sure the Citrix's and Cisco's of the world are addressing this problem as I type this.) Vote on our poll for Does anyone still listen to webinars?! … [Read more...]
Decisions, Decisions: Features of Online Communities
Open or Closed? A community can be open or closed. An open community, in which all content pages and functionality are available to anyone, allows the content to be found on the Web – driving up your organic search results – and encouraging clients and even non-clients to interact and engage. A closed community, or one that requires registration and access via a username and password, has its benefits, too. You can decide exactly whom should receive access, and the members in … [Read more...]
Does Your Website Act as a Lead Generation Tool or Community — or Neither?
I'm happy that most companies, small businesses, and individual professionals are aware of the importance of having a website. But is your or your company's website still nothing more than brochureware -- with only pages for Home, About, Products and Services, Who We Are, and Contact Us? Though the cost of building and running a website today is low -- or even free, thanks to such services as Wix and Weebly -- the attention it deserves usually results in higher costs (time and hiring a Web … [Read more...]
One Blogger Alone Is Not Enough To Increase Eyeballs — and Sales
Some companies still think that the job of blogging should go to only one person -- whether internal or to a freelance ghostwriter. While this may make economic sense and address a task that needs to get done, companies will find that there aren't any more inquiries or sales leads. This is because content is only one part of the job; content marketing and distribution is the second and more important component. You can't have one without the other. When an employee or consultant writes … [Read more...]
If HootSuite and Yammer Got Married
There is a category of enterprise social software which is emerging which doesn't know what to call itself yet. But if engagement platform HootSuite and enterprise social platform Yammer got married, this would be it. Basically, the software encourages any employee to engage in social media activity outside the four walls of a company, and tracks which content -- and which employee -- has been influential and responsible for the intended engagement (prospects, leads, job candidates, … [Read more...]
Why Doesn’t Twitter Promote List Management?
The biggest complaint clients have with Twitter is that it's noisy, cluttered, and unfiltered. 'How do I find anything?' they ask. 'And how do people find my tweets?' They're right: discovery on Twitter -- in either direction -- is pitiful. However, the List tool -- which has been around almost since the founding of the microblogging platform -- could certainly make a difference. But the problem is that the average Twitter user doesn't use it. Other social networks purposely drive … [Read more...]
The New Data.com Social Key: Taking on InsideView?
Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, held in San Francisco this past week, included a number of new product announcements, notably the launch of Data.com's Social Key, a tool to deliver social data and integrate it with customer and account information kept in Salesforce. According to the blog, By injecting social into traditional with just one click, the Social Key humanizes your business data and brings it to life through real-time updates and a 360-degree perspective. Social Key will … [Read more...]