Are today’s yuppies trying too hard to market and sell whatever it is they’re required to do? I ask this question because I always encounter the same faces at the street corner handing out colorful brochures, catalogs or flyers of a condominium up for pre-selling; and every day, I’m still asked to accept those flyers despite repeatedly telling them I’m not interested or not in the market.

I once interviewed one of them and was surprised to find out her daily quota for getting people to sign-up and give their full contact information is sixty. It was already past sunset when she approached me and as I began talking to her, you could see the sadness and desperation on her face – she was just shy of 30 contacts. How on earth is she going to meet her quota? “And why do you have a quota?” I asked, knowing that real estate selling is not a daily activity but a plus-and-minus numbers game spread across a month or more. It turns out she receives a monthly compensation on top of a sizeable commission if she closes a contract; somebody can dictate ridiculous quotas anytime and she can’t do anything about that. And why stand at that corner every day, or the mall booth? A friend of mine once told me that out of the corner-street and mall-booth flyering activities he did in a given period, giving away thousands of those back-to-back, sometimes-glossy sales paraphernalia, only three people became hot prospects; no one bought. Go figure!

In a recent “Social Media for the Workplace” training that I conducted, one question that came up involved customer complaints; and in that query, I was asked my opinion if it was better to disable posting on the wall of their Facebook Page for fear that others will read any complaints or nasty remarks. I revved up back to my years of dealing with customer service – the sound and practical principles behind it, not the call center function – and told the audience my most favorite customer service slogan: a complaint is a gift.* A short eulogy about that phrase just started coming out of my head and my mouth, emphasizing that I’d rather have someone tell me what’s wrong than keeping quiet yet stabbing me at the back (so to speak). Don’t dread complaints. Treat them as gifts you have a bigger chance of winning a forever-loyal customer. Customer service is not about the actual complaint. The true meaning of customer service is “a promise to deliver,” whatever it is you need to deliver to your customer, be it an answer, a solution to a problem, information, a replacement product or an additional service.

Recently, I had coffee with my young friend, probably three years in his working life, who started off as a sales rep of a technology company and for the past year has gone into the real estate business. He asked to meet so he could get counsel from me on the many things I do in social media. Our talk turned the other way, outside the intended topic. I hardly touched on social media marketing and networking because I realized from our discussion that my friend missed the primary step in marketing and selling: define your market first.

I was once consulting for an online newsmagazine company, whose general market was the overseas and migrant Filipinos, and that’s precisely where I began my work with them. “Who really is your market?” By that question I expected a long story describing a person, not a statistical narration with marketing graphs and lingos only Mr. Spock can understand. We ended up with a female named Maria and everyone came up with as much detailed information as possible, from the basics of age, marital status, kids, job, birth place and all, to lifestyle routines and habits, including aspirations and dreams. When we finished the detailed narrative, we had a three-page, single-spaced essay about Maria which we immediately relayed to every writer, graphics artist and photographer through a verbal, story-telling manner. What suddenly changed was a more focused effort from everyone to deliver content specific only to the likes and whims of Maria; anyone else reading the content was icing on the cake. In a few months, everyone saw the hits increasing, with RSS subscriptions, Facebook Page likes, and Twitter followers all rising. What we actually wanted besides these everyday web statistics was the amount of comments per story or article to increase, too; and it did! We didn’t need fancy marketing science but just a common sense understanding of what we wanted to achieve.

Going back to my young friend in the real estate business, I asked him what kind of market he was tapping into. He replied, “young families.” I asked why and he quickly quipped that the leisure place he was representing, which is at the outskirts of the city, provided a peaceful and private sanctuary for the parents and the kids to bond. “Say what?” was something I surprisingly silently uttered, being careful not criticize. “You mean to say these parents with kids ages five and seven and who are making ends meet should buy an expensive real estate property in your private leisure place of four hours driving distance so they can go there every weekend to bond?” Uh-oh.

If companies hire fresh graduates to represent them in the real world, isn’t it their unspoken duty to equip these young, new professionals with the wisdom, and not only skills, to know how to market and sell on a practical, real-life scenario? I remember the strategy that SGV and Company, an auditing firm, used when they hired fresh graduates: everyone was contracted to stay with and work for them for a minimum of two years at rock-bottom rates. However, the return of investing two years with SGV were tons upon tons of training that according to a friend of my Dad, only a trickle really leaves the company before the contract ends. After the contract is up, these yuppie accountants and auditors can opt to stay for the small salary and work their way up the partner level, or venture out into the job market and get a higher-paying job. So, for the latter types, they became accountants and analysts of non-accounting firms and companies. But here’s where the opportunity to SGV lies: these young professionals left SGV in high spirits, silently thanking their first alma mater for all the great training they received, in the classroom and out on the field. Guess who they are going to recommend to their new employers when external audits are needed?

If you are heading a sales or marketing department, or a head honcho of a small, mid-sized or large corporation, you need to go down to your ranks today and find out why things are not working the way they’re suppose to be. Chances are, your young professionals who are armed with enthusiasm and passion to start making a dent in the world are not being given ample, practical, common-sense training they should be receiving. The business world around you is full of people who have a decade or two of real-world experiences, both successes and failures, which can provide better counsel than just selling tips and techniques or team building exercises taken out of context of what you really do. A two-hour session from a two-decades-plus business veteran is not expensive but it can already do wonders for creative planning on what-to-do and how-to-do-it, and a half-an-hour, informal session is not a time-waster. Your front liners are bleeding to death, and they need your help now, before it’s too late. Pretty soon, they will realize it isn’t worth it and they’ll jump ship faster than you can spell Mississippi!

Though Sales is a world filled with people in love with making money, your young, eager professionals still have a lot of the idealism in them, wanting to be recognized as a success and, even better, a hero. By the time they get older, the need for making money catches up on the need for recognition; but then, if they started on the right foot, making money would just be a natural result of things.

Think about it!

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* I actually met Janelle Barlow in 1997 when TMI, her company, was asked to conduct its customer service training to the executives of a company I used to work with. After that session, it just made practical sense to preach all around the company that indeed “a complaint is a gift.”

Sources: Janelle Barlow Video | NuWire Investor | philjcking.com

Title photo by goang at Flickr.com

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I have been in love with technology all my life because my dad was a Mechanical Engineer by profession and at home he was Mister “Fix It!” As his only child, he made sure I was part of his everyday routine of fixing things in the house. Came the introduction of computers to me, I was blown away. From DEC PDP-8 teletypes and IBM System 360 to Sharp MZ-80A, Commodore 64 and Apple II+, my world of technology changed. While my career shifted from I.T. to direct sales and media publishing, down to broadband internet, telecommunications and, today, call centers, I will stick to the old adage of habit: once a geek, always a geek!

Fast-forward to 2010. After a challenging 2008 and tumultuous 2009, the end of 2010 became a career-turner, from a semi-entrepreneur type of work style back to the multinational corporate world. The latter is not a downside – it’s in fact a blessing both financially and professionally. And the one thing that helped me get to where I am is using social media as a means to market myself in parallel to marketing the products and services I (used to) represent.

You see, if you market a product or a service using your personal profile in Facebook and LinkedIn, people are also looking at who you are. If you take care of how you strike a conversation in the online social media sphere, you will do well promoting yourself. In the end, when things go haywire with the organization you work for or represent, you can always use “yourself” to find the next big thing. Be it another job, another client or love interest, online social media marketing and networking truly does wonders and behind all the things that people say good and bad about it – it really works!

Since 2009, I started experimenting in online social media, trying to understand how to use the “dang thing” for business, especially the small business. As some of my profiles will read, I am fanatical about small businesses, cloud computing, customer contact solutions, and social media. As a Country Rep in the Philippines of a Canadian hosted call center solution, I understood its market to be small and mid-sized outsourcers who need the cost-effective model of a cloud-based solution and its quick implementation method. I used the major online social media platforms a lot, including blogging, to market the solution and got many responses from it along the way. During these years, I also developed the knack to create and maintain other blogs that focused on my interests while continuing to use the power of online social media networking as a means for face-to-face networking.

Here are some key insights into my experience using social media that worked to my advantage:

Tasting the snowflakes in Salt Lake County, Utah – “They’re not salty at all… LOL!”

BE YOURSELF. Who you are in real life must equal who you are inside the online social media world. The moment you become someone else online, your real life friends and acquaintances will start questioning your sincerity. Remember, the world is getting smaller and you will never know who knows who until you meet them online, especially the friends of your friends. But don’t overdo things, like changing your status every five minutes because you’re moving from one place to another. At the onset, your network may find it entertaining. Before the hour ends, you’re becoming an irritant. Too many YouTube links or Facebook App updates also spoil the real you. Being a funny in real life is posting a joke at most once a day, not every hour.

Once in a while every week, I post a nice, cute, mind-boggling or plain-cheesy quotation, something I can say out loud to my friends and they will not find me queer. Once every two weeks I share a YouTube link – not music videos but something still relevant to me, my work and my interests. Every day I share a website or blog link that’s related to work or something about general business, cloud computing, outsourcing or social media.

BE CONSISTENT. My online network knows me consistently. In my LinkedIn Groups, I’ll never share a funny YouTube video or an obscene Flickr photo; rather, it’s always an article or blog about what I do or related to the Group’s interest or theme. The same goes with my Facebook friends and the Fan Pages I manage. There is never anything that’s off-topic. If it happens that human nature forces me to post something irrelevant, it will occur “once in a blue moon” and never repeatedly; at least, I know my network of friends and acquaintances will forgive me for doing so because it’s just too funny or too important. Behind all these consistent things I do, people who have never met me will find out that their perception about me online is almost the same as when they finally meet me. So, there’s no surprise to new, “real life” acquaintances and they have to adjust to the “real me.”

ALWAYS REPLY AND COMMENT BACK. When people post something on your wall, reply or comment back. It’s just like in real life: if people say hello and you don’t respond back, you’re a snob. There is nothing so different to online social media life and real life. People are human beings and by the natural course of things, they live life pretty much the same online and off. However, be careful not to publicize private matters. For example, if your friend posts, “I’m in love,” you don’t go commenting back “Jack is lucky SnOB!” not until your friend mentions the name. Reading behind and around the words, your friend is only being childlike or comical. If you’re itching to know if that’s really about Jack, send a private message instead. Again, put yourself in real life. Hearing your friend say those words in public doesn’t mean you have to shout your response; whispering your query is the same as a private message.

Commenting, replying and messaging is a perfect way of igniting good conversation with your online network. The rule of thumb is, much like in real life, try to have the last response; but my recommendation is “try,” not force the issue you must have the last say. Going back, I always describe the internet and online social media as all about conversations. Repeatedly having good conversations with new acquaintances is a business or job opportunity lurking in the back you will never know until you actually do something about it.

Seriously at work while in Las Vegas. Seriously?

RESEARCH BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE. There are people who would like to be my friend in Facebook. If I don’t know the name from Adam or Eve, I check the common friends we have. If the list is all over the place, I Google the person. If it still doesn’t ring a bell, I message the person and politely ask where we’ve met. If I don’t hear back after three days, I click “Ignore.” The point is, take care of your online social media profile. It has never been about the amount of people you are friends with online yet never have one single conversation with them.

I know of one person who kept accepting friend requests. Being popular, he used his personal profile as a means to fill up his network. In reality, he wanted followers, not friends. Today, he’s managing two or three personal profiles, with some followers belonging to two of his three profiles. He should have had the insight to create a Fan Page and allow people to follow him there. Only after creating the second personal profile did he think of creating his Fan Page. So now, he has four profiles in Facebook to manage; and all his Facebook profiles are mixed with real friends, family and strangers.

In LinkedIn, I usually always accept requests for networking because I’ve never had any experience to excessive spamming. Most of the people I don’t know who I network with are usually in LinkedIn for the same reasons I am: business opportunities, knowledge-sharing, job hunting or anything that has to do with each other’s profession or industry. The only one irritant I encountered was someone who kept commenting unrelated messages in my posts to the Groups I belong to. Ninety-nine percent of the time he wrote things about himself so (he thought) that people who read it will be enticed to hire him on the spot. In a cordial manner, I warned him to stop and he quietly did.

Remember, you carry your personal profile “for life.” Regardless if you change jobs, careers, companies or even spouses, your online social media identity remains the same until you die. Deleting your profile and starting from scratch is like going back to the day your started your Facebook or LinkedIn profile – a slow climb through the years and something I myself wouldn’t think of doing.

Lastly, I only accept friend or network requests from people with real names, real profile pictures and at least a few dozens of friends already. If they were my real life friends and were just starting out, I’d have no problem accepting them right away. Personal profiles with company names get ignored in Facebook or the Facebook and LinkedIn Groups that I moderate. I have no choice with Fan Pages – they work just like Twitter.

IN SUMMARY: My boss (today) hired me a few months ago because he knew exactly what I was doing. He saw it in Facebook and LinkedIn. Some people in the same industry we belong to already commented (to him) about the brand of product I was carrying, which they saw, read or heard from the hundreds of posts and blogs I’ve shared in the past. He read the successes I made. The job he and his boss offered me was a blessing because it and they came in the right time. “Hope is not a method” is the title of a book I once read yet rings very much true in today’s everyday life. Prayers and your faith in God help but I know and believe God also wants me to do some action, not lay down on the bed the whole day praying.

Everything I did with my online social media profiles made it easier for people to find me and offer me a business opportunity or a job. It also allowed my kids to know what I was up to everyday without talking to them. Case-in-point, my entire high school batch relates my name to the phrase “call center,” with most of my network in Facebook and LinkedIn doing the same. Some friends already started to relate my name to the phrases “social media,” “Facebook,” “LinkedIn,” “cloud computing,” and “small businesses.” If there is an opportunity to meet face-to-face or call, I will attempt to do so only if the background of the person has something to do with what I do. Transforming online to real life is the final step to breaking ground on doing business together.

Bloggers Unite!!! At the inContact head office with Marketing Communications Director, social media guru and blogger, Heather Hurst.

Today, I work for a publicly-listed American company called inContact, Inc. (Nasdaq: SAAS, www.incontact.com). inContact provides a suite of web-based, subscription-based, in-the-cloud contact center solutions for every size and every kind of business, globally. Six weeks after being hired, inContact sent me and my colleagues to Salt Lake City, Utah, for a week of intensive training and meeting everyone at head office. Then, it sent us to Las Vegas, Nevada to attend their annual start-of-the-year sales kick-off conference, done at chic Red Rock resort-hotel, casino and spa. It was easy for me to accept inContact’s offer because it had everything I was looking for from my previous Canadian employer, in terms of the way they want to do business in the region.

The power of online social media marketing and networking isn’t just about companies, brands, products and services. The biggest impact happens to the person doing it. So, if you’re not in it, everyone else doing it is your competitor in life and job opportunities. If you’re in it, do it right. Good things from online social media won’t happen overnight – but, trust me, it will happen!

Online social media marketing and networking – “If you build it (right), they will come (for you)!” – it’s (right) (for you)!

Online social networking is a misnomer in today’s ever-changing and fast-paced world. It doesn’t matter if you socialize or network through the web – it matters that you also do it face-to-face. In the reality that you network with new business or social acquaintances across the miles, you replace the personal encounter with the second best means of communicating – the telephone. Therefore, if you really want to build a social or business relationship with a network of new (or old) acquaintances, you can only be successful when it’s done “personally.” Thus, online networking is the first step and not the only means to which you build the relationship.

I used BMW with many people I have met through the years and continued to network with them socially and professionally. In times of need, you are never a stranger to one that is a social or business acquaintance. Because of BMW, they always remember you. The easiest way to do so is to send a birthday greeting by e-mail or through the messaging facilities of various online social networking sites. However, to greet one by text-messaging becomes more intimate. A phone call is better. A face-to-face encounter is best. If you acknowledge them during their wedding anniversaries, this brings you up the intimacy scale, or during the wedding of their children. In times of sorrow over the death of a loved one, the sincere effort to offer your condolences overshadows birthdays and marriages – you start to become a true friend (for life) by being there in their most vulnerable times.

In all birthday and anniversary greetings I’ve sent, I always make sure to spend time in creating a personal message on top of the usual greeting. I try to fit the content of my message to the character or personality of the celebrant or recipient, up to my understanding of who the person really is. This can be a quotation that fits well, a joke or a more intimate greeting than the usual stuff. A huge percentage will respond back with sincere thanks and follow up with questions like “how is the family?” or “what type of work are you doing?” This intiates a slew of responses between you and your network and pauses once they are satisfied with your answer (always make it a point to be the last one to respond in this exchange of messages). If the person is within your locality, offer to meet up for coffee after the special day, even for just half-an-hour. Again, business and social networking becomes successful if it’s face-to-face or by voice.

There was a time I needed more projects from North America, I used my BMW roots to touch base with my network. I didn’t get blank responses from my social and business acquaintances because I kept appearing in their lives at least once a year. I reached out (but done cordially with a friendly smile) and many offered to refer me to people they knew who may have projects for me. In fact, one person I have never met face-to-face who used to live in Trinidad and Tobago was now (during that time) living in Toronto. This was James. I eventually called James after an exchange of e-mails and had a pleasant but short conversation where he offered to refer me to someone he knew may be able to help. Lo and behold that person (named Cathy) represented the largest trade publication company in the world – Reed. I did a conference call with Cathy’s team and my team, won their initial trust just based on how we presented ourselves during the call, and Cathy eventually flew to meet up with me, visit our business premises and signed the contract with me. Cathy’s left Reed but we remain good friends until now. She now lives in Arizona doing small projects.

I met James through an e-mail network I joined in 2002. I got the project from Reed in 2006. In those in-between years, I kept in touch with James by e-mail and occassional but rare moments of calling him up when he moved to Canada. With James and many others I networked with, I always made sure they knew more personal facts about me, usually offering information about my family, personal experiences and professional facts. I always believe that 80% of the people in the world a honest and so I make sure to fill in as much information on my profile in many of the online networks I belong to, and to allow a snippet or so of my profile accessible to the public. It took years for James and I to develop some semblace of trust and, when the time came to ask for a favor, he gladly gave it without any inkling to ask for a commission or to cash in on the favor. Today, I give the same BMW effort to Cathy as I did with James. Last year, Cathy referred me to her friend who needed to develop a marketing program which I also implemented.

BMW also worked during the time I was financially down. There was one person I kept communicating with over the years, since I met him in during a job interview a decade ago. He was and still is the President of a large call center. We didn’t see eye to eye on the job but bantered on ideas about business. I continued an e-mail-based relationship with Vic and, when I had something to offer him (like a call center project), I’d call and meet him at his office. The last I met up with him was two years previous and because I had continued to communicate with him, one short e-mail led to his response for a meeting two days later with his personal interest, together with his VP Roland, to help me. Wow! I mean they were never close friends but because of sincere effort to continue communicating with them using BMW, the “stranger” barrier was almost nonexistent and thus trust between each other began to grow.

You might ask, “What about the holiday greetings?” There’s no harm in adding that up to BMW but not everyone are Catholics or Christians who practice Christmas. Father’s or Mother’s Days may not be that important to others, lest those who you do not know if they are married. So, BMW still serves the base principle to network sincerely without appearing to push yourself to the person.

Remember, that’s why they call it “social networking” because that’s precisely why people join these online sites – so network socially. When you start pushing yourself to sell things to people in sites like Facebook or MySpace, you’ll end up alienating yourself from friends and acquaintances. They will stop communicating with you, never respond to your message and start to become a stranger again. This happened to me when I sent a message to a celebrity who I wanted to help me with a new project. No response. A few months later, I sent another message apologizing for the intrusion and of the message itself and the acquaintance relationship started to go back to where we were. Hard lesson to learn.

Of course, there will be others who you will never know the dates of their birthdays, wedding anniversaries and such. But when your conversation with them starts to become more personal, you also open the door to simply ask without being intrusive. “Hey, Mary. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you when your birthday is?” It may take a few weeks, months or even years, but it eventually pays off. Just make sure you have your own reminder system to alert you a day or so before the important date so you don’t miss off. Facebook offers this feature automatically, and so does other online social networking sites. I’ve been a Plaxo member since 2002 and long before Facebook and the rest, this was one of the best online systems that allowed me to get a network’s birth date, remind me a day before and provide me with free e-greeting cards to send. However, stick with something you’re comfortable with.

There are countless more great stories to tell on the results of employing BMW in my social and business networking endeavors. What’s important is that I continue to be a real, live person with a real profile in my web network sites and a barrage of wall posts, messages and e-mails that are consistent in style and content as how I want people to perceive me to be. Remembering BMW is a hassle-free yet very easy way to continue the social and business relationship with people and make yourself mean well above the normal set of online or onsite friends and acquaintances. In due time and time of need, I had no big challenge to ask for their help when I needed it, just as long as it will not inconvenient them in their time or the effort to help me (unless they’re blood relatives). BWM works great on the real world and BMW works the same way in the virtual world, too.

The Most Effective Internet Marketing Formula Ever

by Zeke Camusio

What are your biggest sales turn off? Pushy salespeople in your face begging you to buy, buy, buy! However, they don’t offer anything valuable in return. They want you to buy the latest and greatest product but what’s the motivating factor? They don’t have one! As a result, people pass them over and won’t buy their products.

The following Internet marketing formula is the most effective six step plan to guaranteed SUCCESS!

Step 1: Distribute Content

Before you even ASK users to spend money on your products and services, you need to offer them something valuable. Would you buy products or services from someone you didn’t know anything about? Probably not!

The first step is to write informative content and distribute it through a variety of FREE marketing avenues including:

• Video Marketing – People respond to “visual” content as opposed to just text – greater impact on audiences and put a face behind the name!
• Article Marketing – By submitting to free article sites, people learn valuable information and want to read MORE information – a great way to brand yourself and put your name out there.
• Social Networking Sites – One of the easiest ways to spread the word about your business to mass people. Sign up for Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Create niche groups or create your own networks to really draw in target markets that appeal to your industry.
• Blogs – Stick to one niche/specialty and write interesting, informative posts that really capture subscribers’ attention. Blogs really make an impact by providing VALUABLE information and news. Blogs are another great way to position yourself as an expert in your field.
• Forums – Online communities allow you to interact with other members in a “friendly, informal” way. Generate buzz and interest about your company, products and services by interacting with others in forums. However, don’t just join ANY forum – subscribe to forums that really hit your markets and audiences!

Step 2: Reel Them in with GREAT CONTENT

You caught their interest and you now have a captive audience. What do you do next? Invite them to check out more valuable content on your site. Some examples include:

• Video Tutorials
• How-To Articles

Step 3: Subscribe for MORE GREAT CONTENT

Now you REALLY have their interest! However, don’t go in for the kill and hit them with the “hard sale.” You don’t want to scare them off!

Don’t try to entice with special offers either. Invite them to subscribe for more GREAT content (i.e. weekly newsletters, etc.)

Step 4: Send SUPERIOR CONTENT on a regular basis

Now it’s time to really WOW them with SUPERIOR CONTENT on an ongoing basis. Offer them something your competition doesn’t offer and make it GREAT!

• Send late-breaking special reports filled with the most up-to-date news in your industry – stay one step ahead of your competition! Research your target markets and give them WHAT they want to read.
• Be consistent with weekly newsletters and offer “real world” tips and information. Don’t talk down to your readers and keep the language simple and to the point.

Step 5: BUILD Relationships First THEN Offer Free Trials/Samples

Potential customers love your information you send on a regular basis. You’ve built a great relationship with them. NOW it’s time to offer them a free trial or sample.

Don’t give away too much though. You just want to give them a “teaser” of all the great products and services you offer.

Some examples might include:

• 10 minute phone consultation
• Trial sample of products
• Free half-hour DVD

Step 6: Customers Are Ready to Buy NOW!

At this final stage, your potential customers and clients have been given a “taste” of what you have to offer. They see REAL value in your content, products and services.

Many people say that online social networking sites like Facebook are not for them. From the many similar remarks I’ve heard, either they’re happy with their current networking site or they think they’re too old or busy to enter social networks. On the latter response, I remember a TV episode of “NUMB3RS” where the dad of Charles Eppes asked his son for his help in creating a profile in Facebook. He realized some of his (old) friends were in Facebook and wanted to join in. The following day, he was having coffee with a long, lost buddy.

But long before I discovered online social networks, I started my web-based networking with a bunch of high school batchmates using e-Groups. In its heyday, Yahoo bought the company and incorporated it into the Yahoo portal as Yahoo Groups, which continues to exist until today. Since its inception, I’ve joined about 50 online groups and also created 8 groups with 5 still very active until now. Then and until now, this was one of the best online social networking using the web as the medium to create conversations (more about “conversations” below). In those days, every article I read said that about 90% of the people who go online use it for reading and writing e-mails (and 10% also surf the net.) Up to now, many have still maintained the group conversations in Yahoo Groups because some who use the internet in the workplace cannot access the popular online social networking sites. Many corporate servers block these sites.

I remember joining Ryze, one of the first online business networking sites before creating a Friendster account in 2002. By 2006, I joined Facebook at the behest of my daughter because I wouldn’t create an account in MySpace which was the first online social network site she joined at age 11. I was also a Plaxo member long before it reinvented itself to a social-cum-business networking site using the brand name “Pulse“. I loved Plaxo because it incorporated an e-Card system, allowing me to be reminded of birthdays and use Plaxo to send them online birthday cards. (Part of my personal motto was “B.M.W.” which means “Birthdays, Marriages and Wakes.” These are the three important dates in a person’s life. When you remember these or are even physically present, that person will usually make you a friend for life.) With much convenience, Plaxo also sent e-mail messages to people I added in my address book to confirm their contact information and which also invited everyone to join Plaxo, which many did. The last good thing about Plaxo was when my Microsoft Outlook crashed, wiping out all my contact data. Through Plaxo, I was able to recover all of them. Then, the last online networking site I registered with was Linked In. In all, I’ve been maintaining only three online social networks — Friendster, Facebook and Linked In. Let me tell you why…

Friendster – www.Friendster.com.

Friendster.com

From the many articles I’ve read about Friendster, they’ve become very popular in Asia, particularly the Philippines and Filipinos around the world. When I was working for a call center in South America, I created one under the name “Ralph Pearson” thinking that I would be using it to network with the U.S. (because it was created in Mountain View, CA and its inital market was North America). Eventually, I shifted to my own name and have been using it since.

I started using Friendster as a networking tool with many of my friends and acquaintances. However, if I were to use this for business networking, I needed to create a profile that depicted who I really was. I also made sure that pictures also depicted my family (to show a semblance of family and balance in life) and some corporate event (lunch meetings or so). My written profile also had to be complete. The important thing was adding stuff in the interests and hobbies portion — you’ve got to be consistent to what you write and who you really are when they do meet me. If you golf, make sure it’s true. If you love New Wave as a genre of music, you’ve got to be prepared to have a conversation solely on that topic. So, make sure your profile is as honest as possible, not just “make believe.”

Going to the Philippines (from Canada) to start my entrepreneurial stint in the call center industry, I was able to recruit hundreds of prospective call center representatives or agents using Friendster. I would search using company names I knew that employed the same profile of agents as I was seeking or using keywords associated to the industry or interests that was common to my search. Mind you, Friendster only allows 50 messages per 24-hour day. So, I would continue recruiting in Friendster everyday for about 3 to 4 weeks and get to hire 20 or so agents. One thing you should be careful is what you type in the text of your private message. Knowing that I was recruiting, I made sure I mentioned details of the compensation and benefits package, company name, location of the call center, if it was a start-up, a sentence about the vision-mission phrase (not statement) and a complete cadre of contact information that allows them to call or personally visit the center. The shorter but very detailed and straight to the point your message is, the better it is.

I would guess about 70% of those who I sent Friendster private messages replied back, even negatively but thanked me nonetheless for inviting them. Like I expected, many referred back to my profile page (which was not set in Private mode and thus allowed anybody to look at it and message me), checking out to see if I was legitimate and, most importantly, if I were the real thing. In the end, I also became online social friends with some people I messaged with.

I used to ask all the call center people I met or worked with if they had a Friendster account. 99% of them resoundingly affirmed my question. This only means Friendster is one of the best “free” medium to recruit people. The huge percentage of its global demographics belongs to the 18-35 yeras of age, the prime, young age of entering the corporate world and going up the business ladder. So, besides recruiting agents, I also invited supervisors and managers, too. This is where I invited, met, interviewed and eventually hired my Operations Manager, Clarice Estrella, for Workspresso Inc. in June of 2008. She still works with us up to now.

Linked In -www.linkedin.com.

Though I was with Ryze for some time, I moved to Linked In because it had better GUI (graphical user interface) and was far easier to use. Within my network, Linked In would allow me the basic activities (adding people in their networks) and that of the groups I belonged to. Like many, I started linking with friends and acquaintances before I trekked to new ones.

Linked In is not my free recruitment tool for entry level or supervisor-level professionals because many that I’ve networked with are managers, entrepreneurs and professionals. Statistically, Linked In’s demographic data rate 49% belonging to the 26-35 years old and 24% in the 36-45 years old range, as compared to the younger crowd in Friendster, with 39% in the 18-25 years old bracket and 36% among the 26-35 years of age.

Leaving a marketing phrase in your Linked In “Status” isn’t going to work. I’ve tried that. You’ve got to go out of your way and find those likely candidates one at a time. There are good search parameters in Linked In that you can use for free, more powerful than the social networking sites. You may leave marketing messages within the groups that you join but many of them do not accept such types of text. If ever they do, my thinking is it wouldn’t even make a dent in interest, readership or eyeballs.

I got many messages from people who were inviting me to resell or market their products or services. The norm was to disregard these messages but, being the networker that I am, I responded cordially even if I was turning them down, but opened the door to other products or services they would have in the future that will be a match to what I did and, of course, letting them also know what I do. There have been plenty near misses on the course of these interactions but a few networks are now on the drawing board pending contracts and agreements between us.

I was also surprised to get positive responses from people who worked with venture capital companies when I peddled the idea (yes, it was only an idea) of a business and I needed seed money to make it work. I probably sent around 30 private messages and got 10 positive responses and 5 asking for more detailed information. Wow! But mind you, it’s still about the good basics of positive correspondence. You’ve got to edit and re-edit your message to perfection.

I created my first group in Linked In called “Call Center Directory Philippines” which now has 164 members since August 10, 2008 — without marketing this group to anyone in my offline and online social or business networks, not a single e-mail to join the group. So, that’s about 18 people joining the group per month on their own accord. Good or bad? I really can’t answer you there. I haven’t done anything other than manually accept the registrations to the group, adding each one to my own Linked In network and welcoming them to the group. I know in time I will find the right idea to use this channel but for now, it remains an open group for anyone with common interests in the call center industry in the Philippines.

Facebook -www.facebook.com.

Statistically, Facebook boasts 185 million subscribers worldwide. The United States has 58 million, Canada has 11 million and the Philippines with 1.17 million. With the latter, 61.3% are female, 40.6% are 18-24 years old, 32.2% are 25-34 years old, 10.9% are 35-44 years old and (surprise) 10.5% are 14-17 years old.

My daughter was 11 years old when she told me to create a Facebook account. At her behest, I did and since I knew the general functions of an online social networking site, I created a profile using the settings and texts that came from my Friendster and Linked In accounts. At first, I was just socializing with many of the people I added to my network belonging to those I met every week or so. I probably logged into Facebook once a week as Frienster was still more popular with the people I worked with.

A few months after I started Workspresso Inc., I went back to Facebook and looked around, wondering how I could use the site as a way to market my company and the things we did. At first, I only sent private messages, much like what I did with Friendster and Linked In. Lo and behold — I usually got no reply. “Hmmm… what’s up with Facebook?” I wondered.

I looked at “Groups” and “Pages” and created my first groups, “JustGo Philippines” and “The Travel Outlet Philippines”, as I was part of both companies — the former as a Project Director and the latter as a Consultant. JustGo Philippines has 189 members and Travel Outlet Philippines with 274. It was probably easier for others to invite their friends to the Travel Outlet since it was also easy to understand that it was a travel agency company promoting itself in Facebook; while JustGo Philippines, a travel portal still in the works, was harder to understand.

However, this March or April, Facebook reengineered its Pages to look more like a wall of streaming messages from its members — or “Fans” as they called it — and I’ve seen many groups trying to switch its members to its page. Egad! Asking people to transfer or move is not going to be easy. I haven’t done so with the groups I created as I do not know how to ask the members and why should they move or transfer. Until I get a “blinding glimpse of the obvious” (famous line from the book “Barbarians at the Gates”) will I attempt to do so.

Which only means that if you intend to do marketing in Facebook by inviting people to be part of your group, “Pages” is a more productive way of doing so than “Groups.” I just hope Facebook has some undercover plan to reinvent “Groups” to something equal or better than “Pages.”

I experimented with “The Travel Outlet Philippines” and sent two global messages on travel packages. For one, I got about 20% inquiring more about it and 3% purchasing for the product. The other package wasn’t that all enticing and I didn’t get a single customer.

I’ve also joined (and unjoined) several groups and pages in Facebook that provide me with information of my interest (and disinterest). There are social groups like “Barangay Merville” which represents 440 people who used to or still live in the gated subdivision I grew up and are now scattered all over the globe. Target, the retail company, is another group and page I belong to and just read how Target hired an experienced Facebook marketer named “AKQA” to help them re-do the things they were doing (see Article).

I’ve created 4 “Pages” in Facebook but have not yet marketed these pages. I also linked my blog to one of the pages that allowed an automatic way of creating content (called “Notes”) in the page and informed the members of the page that a new “Update” was available for viewing at the page. So far, I’m not at the 100 mark of members for that page.

In Summary

So, besides your usual e-mail and existing website, the online social networking does work to a certain degree. Of course, overdoing things (messaging your members everyday) will likely be a downfall to you honest intent of good information and knowledge about you, your organization and the things you do (or sell). You’ve got to be careful in how you present and market yourself in online social networks.

It's all about "conversations."

I remember reading about the internet and know that the idea of the market in the olden times as the best description to how people and organizations should treat it. Historically, markets (as in wet markets or dry markets) were the center stage of a region where people come to buy and sell. However, the other thing about markets during those times were the travelers who would come by and visit the market to tell people of their stories from regions afar, besides selling or trading their wares. In that era and the concept of the internet today which no one in the world owns (just like a public market), what makes it exist and profit are the “conversations” and “interactions” of people among themselves. By definition, a conversation is an oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas between two or more people. The moment you kill the conversation, you lose the people who may one day buy or sell with you.

Most corporate websites desist from allowing visitors (and even members) to have a conversation with them like leaving a remark or comment on the web page, thinking that many would just curse, cuss or humiliate them. So, they create their websites looking exactly like a catalog. It’s like allowing your prospective market to come in to your store but putting packaging tape on their mouths before they enter. Some may actually buy or transact with you because they need you and your product or service and there’s no one around to provide them the same thing. However, a big percentage would simply move on.

Think about it! Do you think 80% of mankind are evil? Which means everything that you do is under that impression? Don’t penalize the many because of what a few will do. Allow people to have a selection of ways (not just a toll free number) to have a conversation with you through your online storefront. Respond and reply back all the time, even if they cuss. You can opt to remove the bad messages anytime. You can also screen remarks but make sure it’s posted on your site immediately, not days later.

Online social networks and websites are all about “conversations.” And the thing about it is they also must be “Free, Fast and Forever.” To remove one’s ability to start a conversation on the web means killing the only means your site will succeed. The market is “people” and people want to have a meaningful conversation.