Account Management - 15 Tips to Stay Ahead of the Game

Another work notebooks of mine was finished off over the weekend. It is full of pages that capture of the progress our business over the last 8 months. However, the back pages are reserved for something a little different. There I keep a log of advice I intend to heed in the future. This month, I’ve gone through the account management notes and captured the top 15 pointers below:

'You win new business on creative ideas and lose it on relationships.' You lose business because something has changed and the client doesn’t trust you any more to solve their problems. They don’t trust you to fix it. They instead say “we want fresh approach in our creative or say that want a fresh approach for a new product.” You must continually build and grow business relationships.

Relationships, Relationships, Relationships

• Treat your client as your best new business prospect. It worked for Ogliv…approximately 60 percent of new business came from either current clients, or through them. A good client will find a way to get you more assignments or pass your services alone to another diversion or company. If you have done a great job they are going to give you more business in more places.
• Listen. Clients really get angry when you don’t listen. Ask questions before offering opinions. Take notes. Put it in writing. But know this: Once you agree to something you absolutely, positively must deliver.
• Get agreement on strategy. Before you get into specifics hash out the strategy. Who are you trying to reach, what is it about this target audience you should know? Do your homework and think about what it is you are trying to accomplish for you client. Put in writing. This will provide a basis on how to manage a relationship when you don’t always agree because you won’t always agree.
• Build bridges at multiple levels. Make it a goal to meet everyone in management and establish an authentic relationship with them. Otherwise, when one person on either side of the relationship changes, the whole relationship with the company could change. (it’s common for companies move buyers around to bring in someone fresh and to lessen the chance for decisions to be made because of relationships and not on facts). So you must go beyond the role of the buyer to their supervisor, executives, and junior people. Take the time to talk to them and look for opportunities to meet with them.
• Give additional value to your clients. You cannot just focus on your product or company when you meet with client personnel. You must bring value that goes beyond who you represent. This could include trends in the industry, public news about their competition, etc. Look for ways to provide more value. Can you provide an expert in an area?  Do so on a complementary basis. Reward your loyal clients with first access to a new product or service.  Do you need a place to test new software, product or service? Offer partnerships to loyal customers and give them the product at a reduced price. Continue to look for ways to provide value, and your influence at your account grows.
• Attend the events! Do not miss an event. If you cannot attend, send someone to take your place, someone at a higher level in your company if you can. You must be there and take advantage of these events to grow relationships. Does it take time from the family? Yes it does, so you will have to find a balance.
• Communicate! Clients need to know that they will be informed and kept up to date
  
  
  regularly with clear communication. You can put out a lot of fires early on by being on top of your accounts and offering the information (or even problems) before the client has to chase you down to find out what is going on.
• Deal with issues not people. When you have problem with somebody do not comment on people - deal with issues. Focus on the issue, not the people.
• Be positive. Let that be your snowball effect.
• Make friends with your clients. It’s very hard to fire a friend.

How to be a Rock Star for Your Team

• Be Prepared. Dealing with multiple projects, accounts, stakeholders and unforeseen issues is to be expected in your daily workload. Things will happen fast and you need to have the ability to think ahead. Be organized and keep lists (an online with a task management system will make your life much easier!) Be prepared.
• Pay attention to every detail. Account managers must have exceptional knowledge about their clients and a project to be able to switch between multiple projects and communicate knowledgably with various agencies takes a great deal of skill and attention to detail. Being the client’s main point of contact, nothing should go to them without having been seen by three pairs of eyes, one of those being yours. You should be regularly checking file names, folders, and documents for formatting, and if there's anything they work on independently you should be casting an eye over this too. A document should never be disappointing to a client if you have checked it thoroughly first.
• Personal leadership of your team. In some ways, it is just as important to foster these relationships as your clients. Your team needs to be able to trust your decisions and embrace them as their own. Having personable qualities that get people to accomplish tasks is crucial. This will probably involve spending time to check in with them individually. Each person may have different needs, but at the end of the day all of them need you to stay cool, calm and collected when things get bumpy. Be their rock. And if they do something wrong tell them - in private. Explain the problem, look for them to recognize the issue and then work together to make sure it doesn't happen again. Genuine enthusiasm and the ability to share clear vision and goals are important as you lead your team.
• Passion. There will inevitably be down days, when nothing seems to be going right and clients are on at you for one thing or another. This is when as an account manager, we need to dig deep and remember why we love what we do.
• Do what you say you’re going to do. If you tell anyone you are going to do something, DO IT!

There may be other aspects of account management left out of these quick tips, but these points are basic and necessary. In summary, there are two main areas of focus; growing relationships and growing your value to the client.

Google - Social Signals & SEO

Social is Here

It’s now quite obvious that social signals for SEO are here to stay. The next question is how to approach this, how can you create an effective social engagement plan? As with all new beginnings, a lot of time and effort is spent on learning how to achieve the best results in the most efficient way and the trial and error process can be grueling. Luckily (and perhaps unbeknownst to most) Google released a social signals map which minimizes the trial and error process of social engagement and gives SEO’s a jump start for building the most effective social SEO game plan.

'The Signals Map

In August of 2009 Google’s new and innovative PuSH protocol- PubSubHubbub made its debut. The basic premise: social networks adopt the protocol (for free) and feed social activities from their network to Google’s Social Data Hub. In January of 2012 after a positive initial response including adoption by Delicious, reddit and Diigo, Google took the next step and integrated the data from the protocol with their Analytics software. The integration between the info coming from PubSubHubbub and Analytics gave rise to the new Social Reports section of Analytics.

To help illustrate how the protocol works Google released a map of the various social signals that SocialReports (PubSubHubbub) tracks, with the signals displayed as small hubs feeding into a central Social Data hub or “your social ecosystem.”

 

At first glance the map might not look like much, but a deeper look reveals that it can act as a great roadmap for building an effective social SEO plan.

What we can learn from the map

1) Not all social networks are created equally. 

This is not a new concept but it does get a different meaning in light of the map. Considering that information from a social network linked to Pubsubhubbub is fed directly to Google, it is fair to assume that social activities from connected networks get more attention than activities from networks that haven’t adopted the protocol. Therefore, it’s a good idea to try and focus on engaging through networks which have linked to Pubsubhubbub.

*Of course, every rule has its exceptions, and Facebook and Twitter are the exceptions here (non-connected networks that nonetheless get a lot of Google attention).

A list of some sites which have adopted the protocol:

AllVoices, Badoo, Blogger, Delicious, Digg, Diigo, Disqus, Echo, Gigya, Google+, Google Groups, Hatena, Livefyre, Meetup, Read It Later, Reddit, Screen Rant, SodaHead, TypePad, VKontakte, yaplog!, Cliqset, DotSpots, Dreamwidth, LiveJournal, MySpace, Six Apart, Tumblr, WordPress               

*Additional list source

2) Social activities (signals) should be diverse.

Just as Google doesn’t like it when one keyword is exclusively focused on, it probably doesn’t like to see a single type of social signal associated with a site or signals coming mainly from one social network. The map tells us that Google has unique receptors for 5 signals: posts, comments, bookmarks, votes and reshare. Therefore, we should aim to make our social engagement as diverse as possible and ensure that each signal is well represented in our social profile.    

*Keep in mind that any social signal coming from network that hasn’t adopted the protocol will be indexed as a post.

If you aren’t already engaging in a wide variety of Pubsubhubbub-linked social networks it’s better to get started sooner than later so that when social signals receive even more SEO weight (in the near future) you’ll already be at the forefront.' -Social Media Today

Vine - Twitter Branching out into Video Sharing

The highly anticipated launch of Vine is here.

In October of 2012 Twitter acquired Vine, a New York based company with a whopping 3 employees, for an undisclosed amount.

As of January 24 2012, they have launched and are spreading like wildfire. (The app reached No. 1 among free apps in the Apple social app store the day after its release.)

What is it?

A mobile app that lets you capture and share short looping videos. Like Tweets, the brevity of videos on Vine (6 seconds or less) inspires creativity. Then you can easily share them with your Twitter followers.

Vine is not part of the Twitter interface, but after you download it from the ITunes store, Vine settings give you the option to connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts so any videos you take on Vine can be tweeted to your Twitter profile or posted to your Facebook page with the touch of a button.

Example of a fun Vine: 

vine.co/v/b5PqdxaUUPa

Vine isn't the only mobile app jockeying to be the "Instagram of Video." Viddy, Tout, SocialCam and even the ill-fated Color all wanted to become the front-runner in this emerging social field. Twitter may have shut down that argument when it acquired Vine.

What does this mean for brands / advertisers?

It will be interesting to see how advertisers approach Vine’s length limitation (6 seconds)—whether they use it to tease longer-form content, or they embrace the quick, snackable length.

Then there will also be some marketers who may not be ready to jump fully on board just yet. Vine has encountered some problems with adult content, which may make some brands leery to associate with the platform. While Vine works out those kinks—including adding a higher age rating to the app—it’s a good chance for marketers to evaluate their mobile video strategies, and to look at the newer video options on the market.
 

Have you seen any Vine videos you really liked, or made some of your own? Share them in the comments.

Top 10 Social Media White Papers from 2012

Are you as addicted to white papers as I am? 

Well, the great folks at Awareness, Inc. have put together a fantastic list of the top 10 social media whitepapers of 2012.

To help you understand important shifts in the social media landscape and how they affect marketing, Awareness Inc combed through the juiciest research findings from 2012, pulling out 10 studies and 30 essential takeaways for any successful marketer and created a guide to help you with them. 

The ten white papers included are:

• McKinsey: The Social Economy: Unlocking Value & Productivity Through Social Technologies
• Altimeter: The Converged Media Imperative
• The 451 Group: Has Social Customer Acquisition Emerged as a Stand-Alone Market Segment?
• Lenskild Group / Pedowitz Group: Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study
• Denis Pombriant and Esteban Kolsky: Social Media 2012: State of Adoption
• Awareness, Inc.: The State of Social Marketing Report
• Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Social CRM
• IBM: State of Social Marketing 2012
• Marketo: Benchmark on Revenue Performance
• 2012 Silverpop: 6 Key Marketing Trends for 2013 & Tips for Succeeding in the Year of the Customer 

Enjoy the white paper goodness. 

Source: Awareness Inc.

A Background Check for Social Media

Do you wish you had the time to understand how this crazy social media thing came about?? (well besides watching the Hollywood film, 'The Social Network'...) Well you're in luck! 

Recently, I prepared a Social Media Report so if you're interested in learning about:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+
• Pinterest
• Linkedin
• Myspace
• Tumblr
• Foursquare
• Stumble Upon
• Reddit

The report covers the following for each social site:

• Milestones
• Financials
• Technical Growth
• Community Growth
• Leadership / Management
  
  
  And don't worry it's not all text, there's lots of fun infographics, so take a look!

http://www.slideshare.net/christyyoung/history-of-social-media-platform-growth

Want to see the full report?
Social Media Platform Growth  Report

Social Media World Forum

 

The thought of joining over 4,000 social media technophiles at Social Media World Forum in Kensington Olympic was an exciting one for me. I attended over the past two days, where I visited a few seminars and met some very interesting people. As a recent Googler, now working with a new media start up it was a great conference to attend to start to build our arsenal of vendors and see a few familiar faces. There was a great digital buzz with like-minded enthusiasts bumping elbows and share some great ideas. Here’s a quick selection of some of the best bits.

‘True dialogue’

Communication with customers is truly 2-way for the first time. Brands who engage in social media must be prepared to listen, react, learn and apply. Remember you are speaking person-to-person and not brand-to-person so; be real and authentic, approach users with empathy, and have a plan!

Brands must listen, like granny used to say; “you have two ears and one mouth, use them in proportion”.

‘It takes people, good people’

You can deploy all the right tools, but without good people you’re going nowhere. Find your brands voice and find generalists who specialise. You need people who can do a little of everything but are experts in their field, be it moderation, metrics, outreach, etc., then empower employees to be brand ambassadors.

‘You’re in there for the long haul!’

You can’t simply switch off after a six week campaign burst and you must have an always-on strategy to grow and maintain an audience between your campaign bursts. If you’re going to do social media then you need to jump in and do it properly, half-measures simply aren’t going to work. “You can’t do a bit of social media, it’s like being a bit pregnant”.

‘Don’t think about departments’

Social media crosses boundaries. Businesses that integrate social media and stop thinking in terms of Sales vs. Marketing vs. PR will come out on top. Business that don’t, won’t. Users see a single brand, they don’t care that Sales are separate from PR, they just want a consistent, joined-up experience.

Overall, it was a great event to bring together the insights into the fast pace world of the social media. If, like myself, you are excited to see the changes in social media, I’m sure you are thoroughly looking forward to the next Social Media World Forum Europe!

IPTV World Forum (ok...but what's IPTV??)

Today I visited the IPTV World Forum here in London at the Olympia Exhibition Centre. Now this may excite a few of you, but for most I'm sure you're probably wondering...What in the world is 'IPTV'???

So, let's start with the basics. Tell me about this IPTV thing...

Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.

IPTV services may be classified into three main groups:

• Live television, with or without interactivity related to the current TV show;
• Time-shifted television: catch-up TV (replays a TV show that was broadcast hours or days ago), start-over TV (replays the current TV show from its beginning);
• Video on demand (VOD): browse a catalog of videos, not related to TV programming.

IPTV is distinguished from Internet television by its on-going standardization process (e.g., European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and preferential deployment scenarios in subscriber-based telecommunications networks with high-speed access channels into end-user premises via set-top boxes or other customer-premises equipment.

The Conference

IP&TV World Forum is unique in uniting the varied players in the broadcast landscape to advance the opportunities presented by IP delivery. The event brings together broadcasters from a wide variety or platform backgrounds – smart TV, OTT, cable, satellite, terrestrial, & telco–to-network, compare experiences and brainstorm solutions. The conference is incredibly rich in service provider case studies: not only did 180 different service providers present in 2011, but the conference attendance was over 50% service provider companies, providing a uniquely high value networking experience.

Why Attended and What Can You Gain?

I attended firstly because that's part of one of the feature developments for my company. Beyond that, The IP&TV World Forum is the leading event on Hybrid, IP & Connected TV with over 91 Countries Participating. For my money the two providers that are worth keeping an eye on are Intel and Comigo. They both seemed to have 'gotten it' if you will, both technology wise and the user interface of their products. 

So if you are interested in getting plugged into this world or if you just like to be on the cusp of what's up and coming, check it out tomorrow.

For more information on attending this year (March 20-21) or next, check out: http://iptv-forum.com/