While developing the Social Media Strategy for our Internet Marketing group client and reading various social media articles, I’ve been thinking how great LinkedIn is as a promotional tool.

Imagine the company A. Let’s assume the company A is a chocolate company (the example is purely inspired by my personal sympathy for this product). The chocolate company A has a corporate website, a Facebook Fan page, Twitter, LinkedIn…and everything which is a modern Must.

Facebook Fan page is full of light fun messages and all types of efforts  to encourage the communication between fans and increase number of “likes” and “talks”.

Twitter is full of short messages, I can hardly understand their meaning. That’s probably me; maybe it takes time and you need to follow for a while to have a full picture of what’s going on.

LinkedIn is a boring page with a few formal sentences that replicates the corporate website section “About Us”. In addition it has information about the number of employees  plus information on number of employees that are on linked it. This is pretty much it.

With LinkedIn buzz growing and even roaring , (you quickly realize it as soon as you google it), Chocolate company A has all the chances to find a much better application of its linked in account and benefit the business.

LinkedIn has the power to promote company among target customers, vendors, potential employees and overall professional community!

Possible Steps:

1. .Company starts to like articles on LinkedIn account,  that would be sort of easy to read “chocolate educational and scientific articles” (preparation facts, history about the chocolate, nutritional and dietary, discoveries by scientists, etc) to appeal to the curiosity and learning side of the “serious” linkedIn users.  This can be written by the company or external articles “liked” by the company (which is great as the company starts promoting someone else and that can be mutually beneficial).

2. Company Employees on Linkedin start to like these articles and then, as in arithmetic progression, the articles spread little by little to the world via the chain of “likes”. Company account simply piggybacks on the “likes”.

3. At the same time the company creates a group of professional interest that would attract the suppliers searching new business and confectionary industry professionals searching for jobs or promoting themselves. The goal of the company is to initiate a live community by starting several talks on challeges and opportunities in the industry. And then this will grow as a snowball: company A will feed a group with the articles and professionals will create a content to fulfill their goals. I believe this effort has all chances to become mutually beneficial too.

4. And also in parallel the company makes sure it enters already existing groups of interest in LinkedIn and regularly participates in the discussions.

When I read about the penetration of LinkedIn and see a lot of corporate accounts being quiet inactive (uncles it’s consulting and HR), I clearly see the possible great outcome for a particular business. At least it is definitely worth trying.

* Image is taken from http://www.4tegroup.com/blog/2011/09/it-staffing/is-linkedin-the-best-tool-for-recruiting-2/

Making changes in global industrial manufacturing companies is sometimes very tough. I experienced that when I was trying to drive unique visitors to the Russian webpage in an effort to increase awareness among the end-users.

The website for Russia was only a part of larger website which was managed from the company headquarters. The countries got absolutely the same pages but translated to the local language. No need to describe how inflexible the website was for the particular country.

The number of Russian website visitors was very low especially for the company with market leader position; the largest share of this small number came from the search engines (Google and Yandex).

I hired a SEO firm, who completed website audit and prepared the long list of recommendations of changes on the programming level of the website. Excited about upcoming progress I sent the request to the IT Department at my company headquarters. Surprisingly (or not?) the headquarters were reluctant to make any changes as they would impacted every country where the company had website. And those recommendations according to them were not necessarily good for others.

Besides, the new web platform was to be launched within year or two (this reasoning of the (sales) supporting departments always amazed me : they are always given years to implement ; whereas, implementation of the sales plans are never allowed to postpone by a few years :)).

With no flexibility to make website attractive for search engines on the programming level we in team with the SEO firm and a few company product managers focused on the following activities:

–  Improving the language of the website texts to appeal more to the end user in Russia;

–   Writing or simply putting the existing company product application notes on the forums and informational portals which our target users visit and read;

–   Registering the webpages (key words = product categories) on the internal catalogues of the search engines (applicable for Russian Yandex.ru);

–   Advertising upcoming exhibitions and seminars on google and yandex

Within 5 months we have been able to increase the number of website visitors by 4 times. That was quiet a success taking into account the fact that no page indexing, changes on the programming level were done.

But one of our distributors (who sells electrical equipment and tools) had a much more impressive success. They pretty much woke up famous next day after implementing just one thing.

Someone in their company came up with the idea  of creating short training videos that would give advice and tips of how to use smartly of fully utilize the benefits of a particular tool. Each 2-4 minute videos were devoted to a particular product.

The scenario of the video was always the same: a company sales person or technical support would sit at the table with the tool on the table and talk about it.

These training video was just perfect for the customer. The budget for such videos was small. And it drove the number of visitors by 10 times during that summer when this idea was implemented.

Today this website is a top website in all ratings in the Electrical category.

 No doubt, it’s really great when you have the power to make every change required for SEO and enjoy the growing number of unique visitors. But that is not always the case, especially in the large organizations. The good thing is there are always the solutions to overcome the limitations.

Integrating QR Technologies in MarCom campaigns undertaken by the traditional manufacturing companies, which I mentioned in my previous post, is exciting and…yet quiet challenging. The large corporations that traditionally focused on R&D and exceptionally good products with innovative technologies, are often slow, not to say passive, in activities that surround this product and enhance the overall experience of the customer (both a distributor and end-user).

In my experience with a large organization, for example, IT Technologies to support the operations, service and marketing were so out-dated and so helpless in supporting even simple tasks, that hardly justified their (IT Technologies) existence. I remember having a long discussion with the IT department and web team trying to understand why that was happening. That was one of my discoveries of real life corporate processes. Everyone realizes that an internal product, in my case management information system, is old, inflexible and unsupportive to meet the demands of Marketing and Service. However, it would take a few years before a new system would be installed, which, paradoxically, will be behind the technologies and needs again, once implemented.

Making a QR code campaign is small in comparison with implementing a new IT system. However, implementation of it, even with green light from Marketing director and approvals from Marcom Manager, Product Managers, Web&IT teams, takes ages.

The reason is that any initiative or project involves changes in work load and work practices of a lot of employees. Moreover, there is always a sceptical approach of putting efforts and time for nothing.

At the same time I see huge advantage of facing  such obstacles from a perspective of personal and professional development.

The large organization is a concentration of brilliant minds from whom you can learn a lot. Simply by travelling from cubicle to cubicle to the specialists of interest with a couple of questions in mind will bring you to talk to even more specialists that you actually would never think are helpful. With your 2 questions to be answered you will end up with in-depth answers, and…with 1000 questions yet unanswered and to be explored. I have to admit that I receive a great satisfaction of talking to the knowledgeable specialists, unfortunately, at the cost of time.

I see a large organization as a some type of university which widens your horizons and gives you wider and in-depth understanding of issues.

So how make things implemented and implemented fast? Unfortunately, I never got a great solution to this issue. But some tips for fastening and enjoying the process are here:

–          Travel from cubicle to cubicle and talk to people. You will learn a lot.

–          Approach people by asking their advice. They even more willing to share and help.

–          By talking to people you will also build awareness of your project/program/initiative. You will get a number of supporters; especially, if you involve some of their ideas, which are often great.

–          Keep informing about your initiatives your supervisor and supervisors of supervisor (better – in informal setting (i.e. near the coffee machine) , not to upset your supervisor by jumping over the head)

–          Overall, create a buzz of the initiative.

–          And also, the chances are: some colleagues of yours had something similar in mind but never had time to do that. Honestly, you make them a favour and their will appreciate.

* The image of cubicles is taken from http://www.traveljournaltamagotchi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/cubicles.jpg

During summer internship I was exploring the possible applications of QR technology to enhance the communication between my company and the customer. After googling “QR codes” and thinking through the steps to be undertaken I realized that there are quiet a few things to consider and do to integrate a small QR code in MarCom campaigns of my organization.

QR code should make sense. First of all, QR code should make sense in reaching the marketing goals. I.e. my goal was to increase the number of end-users registering on the corporate website. (the company does not work directly with the end users and the idea is to encourage the end users to come to us (via website).  even though the QR code could be a good solution to increase the number of web registrations, there were more things to consider:

1. Will it reach you target customer: what is smartphone penetration rate and QR code awareness  (in my case the target customer is  the maintenance/electrical around the world)?
2. Does the company have mobile-friendly environment to which the QR code will bring a curious target customer?
3. Will this add value to a customer or make a negative impression?

QR Code Generators. There is a number of free QR code generators available and it takes seconds to create the QR Code. Some of the free QR code generators offer to create QR Codes in color. However, customized QR codes, that will be designed especially for you with  company colors, logo, images and  etc, are offered by the companies (i.e. social media and merchandising firms). It should also be beared in mind that:

–          QR Code Generator you use is workable for the information type you need (URL, text, call, email, calendar event, etc)

–          QR Code can change error correction quality;

–          QR code can be of size that you need.

QR Code Readers

Most latest smartphones today have a QR code reader installed. However, for some the reader needs to be installed. In case the target customer does not have the reader installed, is incentive good enough to download the reader? Does he know that he needs a reader and where he downloads one compatible with your QR Code. .

Not all readers are compatible with all phones. Some readers work only on iPhones or Android phones. Some readers work on the Symbian OS found on Nokia phones and Java on low end smart phones.

Last thing before “going public”. It’s important the printed and ready to go QR code actually works. My advice is to bring all your friendly colleagues and friends who have smartphones to test it. And then, fingers crossed, launch it and track the efficiency.

Here is the links for QR codes that I found useful:

Free QR Code generators:

http://freenuts.com/top-10-free-online-qr-code-generators/

Fundamental information on QR codes and QR code generators

http://www.idautomation.com/barcode/qr-code.html

Risks for smartphones:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/are_qr_codes_a_real_security_risk_for_smartphone_o.php

QR codes blog and generator. Cutomized QR Codes:

http://www.beqrious.com/show/custom-qr-code-design

Best free online QR Code Readers:

http://freenuts.com/best-5-free-online-qr-code-readers/

Another useful link:

http://www.qrstuff.com

* Image of QR code is taken from http://www.simplyzesty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Qr-code-hotel.jpeg

Marketing in industrial sector, engineers as the target customer, latest buzz around mobile marketing and how to combine all of the above is an area of my interest. One of the articles in industrial marketing blog by Achinta Mitra, which caught my attention was devoted specifically to mobile marketing. The author briefly explored the viability of mobile marketing in industrial applications, gave some tips in understanding whether the mobile marketing makes sense for a concrete company and suggested to make a decision on implementing the mobile marketing strategy as soon as possible.

Having the previous working experience in industrial marketing I am always curious in ways of applying marketing tools in B2B and industrial sector and, to be more specific, in applications for manufacturing companies targeting the professionals, such as engineers and technicians. The examples and the strategies that are easily accessible and described in details are usually about the consumer products. What I usually read and hear is success stories and smart solutions that target consumer goods wisely interweaving with their everyday routine and lifestyles. Hardly ever I hear about B2B sector; hardly ever I read about excellent marketing campaigns targeted, for instance, at the maintenance engineers.

I devoted some time searching for industrial marketing blogs and articles; and more specifically I was curious to learn about social media and mobile marketing strategies in the industrial marketing. One of the blogs that I came across is called Industrial Marketing Today by Achinta Mitra. The author shares his knowledge in B2B and industrial marketing and offers the consulting services in this area. The reason the blog caught my attention, however, was the article “Is Mobile Marketing Right for Industrial Companies” posted by the author on May, 2011.

http://industrialmarketingtoday.com/is-mobile-marketing-right-for-industrial-companies/

The topic of the article talks for itself. The author explores the viability of mobile marketing in industrial applications, gives some tips in understanding whether the mobile marketing is right for a specific company and suggests to speed up with a decision on implementing the mobile marketing strategy.

The good idea was to give the statistics applicable for mobile marketing at the beginning of the post in order to emphasize the growing importance of the trend. Mr. Mitra states that global mobile workforce will constitute 30% of entire workforce worldwide; the smartphones will overtake the PCs by 2013, and over 80% executives use smartphones already. I completely agree that impressive statistics can serve a good role to emphasize the point. However, I imagined myself for a minute in my previous role as a Marketing Communication coordinator at my company, a global company manufacturing test tools for electrical engineers. And I also imagined that I am at the point of making decision whether to proceed with development of mobile marketing strategy or not. I thought was how impressive the article could have been and how much more credibility the author would have got from my side, if the article provided more specific statistics. (For example, some data on usage of smartphones and apps by the workforce and not only by executives; and more ideally – segmented by occupations in industries: i.e. engineers).

Then author gives some tips on how to understand the target customer better from the mobile phone usage perspective through Google Analytics tool. Basically, the company can learn about the type of devices the customer uses, location, source, etc.  I found this advice helpful, especially for the manufacturing companies that are often slow in adapting the latest technologies which are not directly related with the manufactured product.

And if exploring Google Analytics reveal that a target customer uses mobile to access the website, mobile marketing strategy might make sense. Here I had some doubts and questions: assuming my company has mobile-unfriendly website, there is no way the customers enjoy accessing  it  using  smartphone as they need scroll down all the time. So, I thought that Google Analytics report would not be a point where I make decision to “go mobile” or not. And even though looking at Google Analytics is a good starting point, more information and advice on learning how the industrial customer uses the smartphone, and, furthermore, how to educate the customer to use smartphone to benefit even further from the company products would have been far more useful.

Smartly, the article reminds the reader that the mobile marketing is not a goal and it’s just the means to optimize the marketing strategy and maximize interaction with the customer. And as any marketing strategy, the mobile marketing strategy should also contain tracking and measurement tool in order to evaluate the efficiency of the strategy.

Overall I was a bit disappointed with only a few specific pieces of advice given in the post. And what I would also hope to see in this type of post is a success story and an example of mobile marketing strategy in industrial companies.

However, I was very glad to find the blog specifically devoted to the industrial marketing and now I can always follow it if I continue pursuing the career in B2B or industrial marketing.

I am deeply impressed by commercials done by Amnesty International, a human rights organization. Their commercials captured my interest a year ago when I saw this one, with Russia being the theme.

Amazing, how with two Russian symbols – matryoshka dolls and a folk song – Amnesty international managed to draw a perfect picture of violation of basic human rights taking place in Russia. A fifty second commercial – complete story of what’s wrong in my country.

Amnesty International has a whole bunch of commercials stimulating people to sign petitions, to build awareness on violation of human rights around the world and inform the Amnesty International is one out there help protecting the rights.

These are highly emotional and powerful ads. Can’t believe if they leave anyone sensitive indifferent.

Here is a couple more of organization’s commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COSzUcS3RGk