Ever heard the expression: “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?” Yes, I’m talking about e-mail. According to the recent book, “The Tyranny of E-mail” by John Freeman, we’re now spending more than 40% of our time in corporate America “working” e-mail (note the quotes around the word working). It’s not just you; it’s your entire staff, your entire company. The problem with e-mail is that it’s other people’s agenda, not your priorities.

Worse than that, with the explosion of spam and use of “Reply All”, information density is actually declining. Am I the only one who thinks we should have the death penalty for long e-mails? This tool is totally out of control.

Gen Y rarely, if ever, uses e-mail. Why? With their fresh eyes, they’ve found social media tools that are more efficient and more effective for communicating. When they want to convey time-critical information, they send texts. Otherwise, they use a rich information-sharing tool called Facebook. While these tools are great for personal communication, what if we could use similar mechanisms for corporate communication? Interesting… no? Read the rest of this entry »

Regular readers know that I usually focus on business social networking issues, and I will continue to do so. However, today I’m covering another “Interactive” topic of equal importance.

In speaking to hundreds of business executives around the United States each month, I find a surprising percentage are not embracing technology, specifically tablets (think iPad or Galaxy Tab), smartphones (think iPhone or Droid), and hundreds of thousands of Apps.

This is an incredibly dangerous head-in-sand strategy. Remember what Darwin observed: “It’s not the strongest or most intelligent that survive… but those that adapt to a changing environment most quickly.” While it’s true for species, it’s true for business on a hyper-accelerated time scale. Think about it. How long can you sit still and not respond to your competition, not enhance your products and services, not upgrade your technology and team?

We live in a world of accelerating change. Ray Kurzweil predicts that between 2010 and 2045 (just 35 years), we’re going to see an increase in what might be called “human-machine knowledge” of 1,000,000,000 times. Looked at another way, the amount of information we’re dealing with today represents just 0.0000001% of what we’ll have in that future. What a quaint, simple world we inhabit today.

To the point of this column: It is now becoming impossible to keep up in business without thoroughly embracing technology. Ii you are uncomfortable with technology, its time to reexamine your mindset. It is a mindset.

Start by buying an Apple iPhone 4S and get to know Siri, the integrated voice assistant. Read the rest of this entry »

Some businesses chase every new social media service, or at least get nervous about missing something as each new platform is introduced. They feel the need to be everywhere. The most common mistake I see consumer-focused companies (B2C) make is dissipating their limited resources and therefore under-investing in (or worse, ignoring) Facebook and Twitter. It’s a huge missed opportunity.

Surprisingly, business-focused companies (B2B) make exactly the opposite mistake. They see the tremendous success of B2C companies in Facebook and Twitter and rush right in. In fact, I see very few B2B initiatives that show apparent return on investment (ROI) in either platform. They’re the wrong tools for most B2Bs. Read the rest of this entry »

As a consultant, it’s incredibly gratifying to pause this Thanksgiving (2011) and look back on all of the great clients I’ve had the opportunity to work with in the past couple of years. Here’s a sampling of some the businesses and not-for-profit organizations I’ve helped with social media strategies during primarily 2010 and 2011. In some cases, projects have been bigger in scope (full-scale business plans and/or digital marketing programs with website implementations), and in others, “just” master training of, say, a sales team.

Thank you to all! Happy holidays,

Dave Nelsen

I’m currently vacationing with my wife in Ponce, Puerto Rico (celebrating our 25^th wedding anniversary) and another article is due. Thanks to the magic of the iPad and the Internet, it’s only a question of what to write about. Suddenly it dawns on me; I can’t believe I’ve not shared my “3 Rules” for using social media in business:

1)    Social media is like a cocktail party. What works or doesn’t work in one venue applies equally in the other. Good cocktail party behaviors include: Asking questions, actively listening, engaging in conversations, and building relationships. The same is true in social media.

Bad cocktail party behaviors include: Talking all about you, introducing yourself and then completely shutting up (or down), and any form of active (or passive) selling. Again, the same is true in social media! Read the rest of this entry »

When Google announced a new social network called Google+, I ignored it. Using a loose definition, Google had already “failed” at social networking three times, with Orkut, Wave, and Buzz. Are you using any of these? You never even heard of them?

I figured that Google engineers just didn’t get social networking. My opinion changed when I discovered that more than 10,000,000 people had joined during the first two weeks. And you can’t just sign up; you have to be invited by someone who knows you. Genius!

Now I’m using Google+ and am very impressed. It will change not just Facebook and LinkedIn (evolve or die) but, I believe, business-to-business (B2B) social networking. Have you noticed that B2B doesn’t really work on Facebook? Here’s why.

On Facebook, almost everything you do is shared with everybody you “friend”. The problem is that I have my family and personal pursuits out there on Facebook. I don’t want to share that with my professional associates. Do you dress the same for the office as you do at home? Didn’t think so.

Google+ changes all that with “Circles”. Read the rest of this entry »

You probably use Google many times a day. What if there was a comparable tool for finding people? Actually, there is, although most people don’t think of it or use it in this way. It’s called LinkedIn, a network of 125,000,000 business professionals.

Salespeople: What if you could find a boatload (a technical term meaning hundreds) of CEOs, or any other specific job title, within 50 miles of you? LinkedIn makes it possible to find and connect with these target customers. It’s the Advanced People Search tool and it’s free. Read the rest of this entry »

There are myriad reasons that business social media initiatives fail. If your company’s social media program is not working, perhaps it is for one of these reasons:

1. You’re pushing marketing information at them. News flash: Your prospects already have all the marketing information they need or want. In fact, as the classic book “Guerrilla Marketing” (not to be confused with “Gorilla Marketing”) reminds us, “Marketing is not about you; it’s about them”. This is even truer in social media where they must decide to Like, Follow, or Subscribe to us. Make it about them in a way that draws them into a relationship with you and both parties benefit.
2. You’re not being a real person. Read the rest of this entry »