Social Media Strategies: Don't Remain 'Anti-Social'

Paul Strack, president of CustomXM, was watching the local Saint Patrick's Day parade from the vantage of the balcony in his yet-to-open new sales/marketing office space overlooking Main Street in North Little Rock, AR. Strack was taking photos from the balcony, posting them on the social media site Instagram and tweeting them to his followers via Twitter. Several of his Twitter followers were also watching the parade from the street and they started exchanging comments. Strack invited them to come up and see his new office digs after the parade via Twitter.

Several of these folks took him up on the offer and stopped by the office. The new city-center office is intended to make marketing customers feel more at home (in contrast to CustomXM's plant located in an industrial park) and boasts a trendy décor. After giving them a tour, Strack suggested to one particularly impressed visitor, who was not yet a customer, that they should talk business sometime. Two days later Strack was walking into a meeting with this new potential client, the development director for a very large association, which happens to be a sweet spot for CustomXM.

Strack was pleasantly surprised by this turn of event—a fun, social media exchange turning into a potential new customer—but not shocked. "I can draw a direct line of new revenues since our involvement in social media—Twitter, specifically—and the ancillary growth from that," claims Strack. "We have had great success since 2009 combining these new and traditional marketing channels in an integrated approach."

Component of Cross-Media Marketing

CustomXM is a printer in transition, with a growing reputation as a marketing services provider that also provides printing. During the past two years, the company has driven an increasing number of integrated marketing campaigns for clients of all sizes, many of them including social media components, as well as direct mail with mobile linking codes, personalized URLs and even Augmented Reality markers.

"In all of our campaigns, we use social media as we preach a cross-media approach," Strack explains. In CustomXM's "Lunch and Learn" events, promotional messaging includes a mix of direct mail, e-mail and social media. "Our best successes occur when we use a 'refer a friend' approach that increases participants' chances of winning a door prize if they invite a friend who also attends. We put the link to the registration site on our social media platforms, drive people to the registration site, and from there they can refer a friend via e-mail. It's been very successful."

While Strack focuses most of his social media engagement efforts on the Twitter micro-blogging platform, Scott Cappel, owner of San Diego-based Sorrento Mesa Printing, focuses his social media engagement on LinkedIn. Twitter, says Cappel, is more like an RSS feed. "There's a stream of content, but you can't really do a lot of business intelligence research there. LinkedIn, however, is a place where you can dive deep and really learn about people and companies."

While he's bullish on LinkedIn and has made new customer contacts there, Cappel doesn't consider that or any other social media platform a panacea for business sales or marketing efforts. An early social media adopter, he has watched the platforms evolve over the years. Cappel believes that, while it's neither as gee-whiz impressive or interesting as it was a few years ago, it's absolutely essential to have a place at the table, especially on LinkedIn.

"Anyone in corporate America who doesn't have a network on LinkedIn is probably not someone I'll want to do business with," says Cappel, "because just being there proves they're paying attention." Successful marketing and C-level professionals, Cappel adds, are typically people who are interested in building their own personal brand, and LinkedIn is a great place to do just that.

LinkedIn expert Colleen McKenna, principal Intero Advisory, couldn't agree more. "A recent IBM study says that if CEOs are not socially engaged, their business will be less profitable and competitive within five years," McKenna cites. "I am not sure it will take that long." Not being part of a LinkedIn network, McKenna claims, can be counterproductive to business today and create questions about a company's viability. Don't they get it? If they are not social and engaging, are they relevant? How are they educating their customers? Are they reinvesting in their company?

"All good questions," says McKenna. "They may be fleeting thoughts in a prospect's mind, but they tally up. Buyers are 70 percent along in the buying process before they engage a salesperson today, so how a salesperson adds value and even has an opportunity to influence is significantly different than five or six years ago."

McKenna believes that social media interaction, and LinkedIn in particular, is a great leveler for small- and mid-sized companies. She claims it's easier for these companies, with few divisions and more centralized control, to create a strong and cohesive branding message through a LinkedIn Company Page than larger companies. "Not leveraging LinkedIn Company Pages in a meaningful way is a missed opportunity," McKenna declares. "A Company Page offers significant opportunities and, with the exception of the Career tab, there is no cost."

When asked what she says to small and medium business owners who claim there is no time for social media interaction, McKenna explains, "Everyone makes time for what they find valuable. Turning your back on social is like bolting your door and not letting people in. It's not going away and it's how business is being done today."

Mike Stevens, founder of WebsitesforPrinters.com and a one-time print shop owner himself (Express Press in Fargo, ND), understands the time demands on the busy print professional. Added to the suite of Cloud-based solutions Stevens offers to support printing industry businesses is a social media marketing tool, The Buzz (socialmarketingforprinters.com). The Buzz is a content generation business, providing clients with regular posts for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and, if needed, even customized blog content.

"Very few print owners have the creative writing skills—or the time—it takes to research, write and edit an active social media marketing program," explains Stevens. "They let us do it for them."

To those that question the value of social media, Stevens answers, "the next generation of print buyers just doesn't 'like' social media, their lives exist around social media." He believes that as younger professionals enter the workplace we'll find that many of them can be best reached through social media networks. "It is insane for any printer NOT to develop a good social media marketing strategy. The market is moving there whether we agree or not."

The Sales Power of Referrals

Jason Falls, vice president of digital strategy at CafePress and founder of the well-respected blog Social Media Explorer, makes his living helping companies build successful social media marketing strategies. "The way consumers decide what and when they buy today is fueled by two primary resources: search engines and recommendations from others. Social media fuels both in interesting and powerful ways. So, if you don't have time for social, you're eventually going to lose out on the primary mechanisms customers decide to buy from you."

If a company's Website is the virtual front door for any company, it's critical to direct potential customers to it. This is especially important for any company with a public e-commerce site, like Falls' CafePress (CafePress offers custom printed clothing, artwork and promotional products.) Falls offer some advice on the best way for a business with an e-commerce outlet to drive traffic to the site. "The trick is drawing the balance between humanized content—interesting, engaging posts that draw the audience in—and offers that push the revenue agenda. Remember that a social audience is generally interested in more than just a coupon or a deal. So, you have to balance the offers-based content with that which engages the audience on a deeper level."

Can a printer find success actually selling through social media platforms? Falls says any time you offer a coupon through a social site and it's used, you've just sold through social. "If you offer something that can be ordered directly on your Website, you can even track very minutely where your direct sales are coming from," he says.

There are hundreds if not thousands of consumer-based storefronts on Facebook, complete with checkout options. This is an area that may have some potential for printers, especially those that are willing to create storefronts for a specific product.

There are dozens of platforms available to help businesses create actual storefronts, complete with checkout options directly on Facebook (including 3dCart, Avenue Social, Moontoast, Payvment and Shopify, to name just a few.) When it comes to print commerce, or Web-to-print vendors, however, there's a complete dearth of social storefront options.

For his part, Scott Cappel thinks that social media is not the place for direct sales, at least not for what still makes up the bulk of many printers' businesses—the consultative sale. "A printer of record has to do a lot of things right," Cappel explains. "We have to really talk to clients to know where there's friction in their business, to take some of the load off their shoulders. Branded e-commerce portals are a great example of this.

"Social media engagement helps us learn who to talk to in an organization, but the rest of the conversation should still take place in person. Social media is here to stay but, in the end, it's still all about face time and personal interaction," Cappel concludes. "LinkedIn is great for introductions, learning about companies and facilitating a meeting. But face-to-face—that's still where business is done." PI

About the Author

Julie Shaffer serves as vice president of digital technologies at Printing Industries of America in Sewickley, PA. She can be reached at jshaffer@printing.org.