Social Media for SMEs – getting your business noticed…

Mark Hillary: CEO, IT DecisionsBASIS Bangladesh Outsourcing Conference 2011 with the

International Trade CentreDhaka, Nov 30, 2011

Agenda today• Intro and thoughts – what’s

changing?• The tools out there• How best to use them• How do you measure success?• Examples, best/worst practice

Keep it simple, interrupt at any time, but we can also talk for longer at the end…

Mark Hillaryj.mp/markhillary

• Studied CS/SE, first job as a programmer• Ended up running global trading tech for an i-bank• Quit banking to focus on writing and also tech research for the

Commonwealth - and an MBA• Seven books about tech/globalisation• Several blogging awards, regularly blog from Reuters and

Huffington Post, London 2012• Teach MBA at Loughborough and LSBU• Run research company in Brazil – itdecs.com

When it works?

CommunityConversation

Creation

Great for kids… but business?

Opportunities…Let’s not kid ourselves – we are no longer

living out the Millennial outsourcing goldrush…

The world is not very flat… the Doha round talks have rumbled on for a decade without agreement

Tom Friedman really just showed us a path towards how the globalisation of services might work

The world has changed enormously, even in the past 5 years – after Facebook

We are living in a far more globally connected world --- in terms of business, culture, lifestyle…

Graduates today do not remember any life before being connected globally 24/7… Netscape 94 was tipping point

Information Technology is much more than just IT today…

The Arab spring… Occupy movement… almost all industries… individuals are now consumers of technology enabled services - in the past people using IT were specialists.

• As we talk, IT is changing the world and you are a part of that change and this is a great business opportunity

Offshoring is not about being the lowest cost location… it’s about working with the right

person, people, resources, company…

We are in a new era of globalisation with new possibilities

It’s no longer about selling systems integration or just bits of code… you need to truly sell “services”

• So where do you fit in if there are so many opportunities?

• If the supply chain for intellectual services is now global then surely you already fit in…

• So why aren’t you telling all your prospective customers that you are ready for business?

• A really important strategy for services in Bangladesh is to embrace the new world…. go global and go SME

• Your customers can be anywhere and they are already out there…

• You may not even know them if you sell a cloud based service – do you ever think about where your Gmail service is located? Why not?

Back to reality…• To serve them, you need a few things as

hygiene factors… political and economic stability, infrastructure, and educated people… you have all of this…

• Worry less about selling Bangladesh the brand and think more about how social your own business really is... You have to start communicating globally to sell globally

Structure changes?• You have the people, the companies, the

basic infrastructure… you just need to make sure that your companies are visible in the places where SMEs go looking to buy services…

• Job auctions like oDesk are making this easier, but are not the whole answer

Structure changes – customer services

Think from the perspective of the SME client… if you wanted a website built, if you want a mobile app built, if you want help building some bespoke CRM… where do you look?

Where are SMEs looking?Online… in the press, in the blogs, on social media,

in forums, on job auction websites… so to be frank, your SME clients are not reading Gartner research and deciding to give you a contract because of it. They are finding your company mentioned online, with client references, or links to a job well done, and they will care much less about you being in Bangladesh than how good the example of your work is…

Going Social

Could you run your business without a telephone or email?

So don’t you think that creating a social business is going to be fundamental to your success in the next decade?

Consequences?

So the opportunity is out there, but if you are not engaging in the places where your clients are then unfortunately you are nowhere…

Perhaps we should stop calling all this outsourcing and just start calling it “social business as usual…”

The tools of the trade…• Facebook• LinkedIn• Twitter• Wordpress• Google+• YouTube, Flickr, Scribd, Slideshare…

FacebookGreat for building

communitiesEvent promotion and

brandingEasy to integrate the

‘like’ button elsewhere

Great reach – everyone uses Facebook

LinkedInGreat for more business focused lead

generationBecoming an essential business tool –

the modern résuméGood search and marketing tools –

getting more sophisticatedUseful for industry leads, discussions

TwitterShort promotional discussionGreat for creating a buzz and

promoting something more substantial

Excellent for listening, seeing what people are saying

Listening on Twitter1. Start with a fresh account2. Follow the key influencers in your

field; journalists, analysts, advisors, consultants, executives…

3. Add search terms specific to your field

4. Just listen… either the subject or the person speaking will be relevant

WordPressBlog platform of choice

for mostCan be self-hosted with

free software or hosted by wordpress for simplicity

Open source, always being improved

Google+Great concept and tied

to GmailCircles idea neatly ties

openness and privacy together

Business pages just launched

Still too early to know if it will work out

Others… YouTube, Flickr, Scribd, Slideshare…

Great supporting toolsNeed a place to host

documents, slides, photos, video, but also where that content can be found online too

Easy to embed into blogs

Bolting it all together1. Who is your audience?2. What do you want to say?3. Why are you doing this?

Because we are at BASIS, let’s assume…• You are involved in IT services in some

way or other…• You are selling services, possibly with

some branded products or platforms• You are an SME, rather than a giant

What would an initial strategy look like?1. Core is your blog; gives you credibility

and helps SEO2. Develop traffic with twitter and interact

with the right people3. Create community with Facebook4. Reach industry insiders with LinkedIn5. Support multimedia with other platforms

Blog LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

ScribdYouTubeFlickr SlideShare

What do you get from all this?• Ultimate objective is more business• Often hard to measure cause and effect• Don’t get too hung up watching fans, likes,

followers, and comments…• How many requests for information,

meetings, lunches have you had?• Are influencers engaging more with you?

Finally, a few stories from the frontline… not all applicable to you directly, but all giving a glimpse of the power of social media for business…

BT: British Telecom• Rapper Mike Skinner tweeted

that BT broadband was terrible

• When BT fixed his problem he told all his fans how great BT is!

• Setup a small social media support team

• Now about 40% of customer queries coming into the firm via Twitter

Virgin Media

• Complaints about cable TV service often appearing on Twitter

• Started reacting to every single tweet – even the crazy ones

• Check user profiles to trying personalising the customer care

Teleperformance• Biggest contact centre firm in the world

with almost 130,000 agents• Not only called on to do social customer

service, but also need to market their own brand using social channels

• Executives started industry blogging • Result has been huge attention from the

analyst and trade press community

Disasters? Too many to mention!• United breaks guitars• Delta charges excess baggage fee to

US military coming home from action• Domino’s staff mess around with food• Rats in Taco Bell• Kenneth Cole… Cairo jokes• Habitat using Iran hashtags

Key things to remember:• It’s not TV. Not broadcast. Share,

engage, converse… don’t just Tweet press releases

• Listen to the community… huge value in listening to what they are saying

• Study the influencers and target them• You can’t control the community, don’t

try• Transparency and honesty are crucial,

don’t astro-turf or embellish…

Mark HillaryI live in São Paulo, Brazil, but please feel

free to get in touch online…markhillary.com

mail@markhillary.comtwitter.com/markhillary