Cindy King's International Business Blog » networking

7 Networking Tips For International Business Students

Cindy King — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:00:59 +0000

On this blog I write to inspire professionals in the trenches of international business. But this blog also attracts a high number of international business students, and yesterday I received this message on Facebook:

I’m a recent university graduate with a major in marketing I came across ur blog and found it very interesting. I have not found a job yet but my main focus is international marketing maybe in research. I really enjoy studying other cultures. Any advice on where to look for job openings or what my next step should be?

It’s obviously the season for questions from graduates looking for work.

Many international business graduates want to know how to begin their career.

Unfortunately I don’t have time to answer the high volume of questions that come in. So here are some networking tips for international business students looking for help in directing their life towards an international career.

#1: Don’t Be Vague

Most of the questions I get from university students are vague about what they want. They tell me what they have done in detail, but not what they want to do. And because of this they seem to want a career counselor. No personality comes through.

Show people your passion online. You’ll eventually find the right circles to hang out in. Follow your interests. Let your passion show. When you network online people like to see who you are.

#2: Don’t Make Everything About You

The more adventurous students phone me to tell me they’ve just finished this degree and are looking for a job. I’ll be honest, this is not of interest to me.

Develop strong professional social networking skills. Social media networking is a great way to develop relationships with people. But you must first connect person-to-person in some way.

#3: Don’t Show Disrespect

Unfortunately most of these phone calls are usually very late in the evening or on weekends, times I prefer to spend with my family and friends. That’s a huge turn-off.

Study the people you want to connect with. Find out what time zone they’re on and respect their business hours. Find out what communication methods they prefer. I use Skype daily… but only for my business contacts and people I’m interested in getting to know better.

#4: Don’t Go After The Wrong People

All of the messages I receive from university students are not directed to the right person, because:

I’m not a career counselor
I don’t have a list of job openings tucked away somewhere
I don’t keep their vague messages on file
My interests are not focused on university students

Get clear about who your future hiring manager is and do the research. Research requires work. You may need to spend several weeks to:

Find out exactly what you want to do: get specific
Network to find out where the right people are located
Find out what they are interested in talking about online
Figure out how to grab their attention

#5: Don’t Use Boring Tactics

The truth is that all of the communications I get from university graduates are boring. They are a waste of my time. They are a waste of everyone’s time. Boring messages from people you don’t know quickly get deleted and labeled as spam because no one has time for that today.

Develop unique ways to grab attention. Have a look at this example:

Social media is a great way to connect with people who may hire you. But you have to do your research and get your communication style right.

And of course social media can connect you with the right people in different countries too. Why not become familiar with the social networks popular in the countries you want to target? Get on them and network with the right people.

#6: Don’t Stay Stuck

Do you want to continue living in the comfort of the environment you are used to and still say you want an international career? There are two conflicting desires and might be the reason why you are stuck.

People like to help others who are clearly passionate about something and take action to achieve their goals. People don’t like to help others who appear to want too much and not do anything about it.

Adopt guerilla tactics: change country and hustle. If you really want to start an international career and feel stuck: change country. This is what I did. And this is how many people who are in international business started years ago.

Changing country can be a great way to start an international career. Be warned though: you’ll have to get used to being out of your comfort zone.

#7: Change Your Focus

The best advice I can give university graduates is to stop talking about their studies and to start taking action.

Take responsibility for your life and become an international business professional. Now. Connect with people, get to know them and give them the opportunity of getting to know you, BEFORE asking for job help.

The focus of my blog is to give business professionals practical inspiration to get unstuck so they get more international clients faster. I love deep discussions on topics related to this. So, if this is also something that resonates with you then please start by leaving a comment below.

How did you start your international business career?
How do you network online to find international jobs?
What’s your best tip for international business students?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphandjenny/4612732045/

9 Tips To Learn More About Your International Markets Over The Phone

Cindy King — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:00:48 +0000

When it comes to market research for international audiences, it’s tempting to outsource everything if you can afford it. And today many people today try to do their international market research online. But when you do lots of online research you can get complacent.

No matter what your business is, there comes a time when you must have direct contact with the people. People in your international markets. You can pick up lots of useful information when you communicate with others in person. And this information can prove to be vital when it comes to people who live in a different country, have a different lifestyle and a different way of thinking. Unfortunately I meet a number of people who seem to avoid picking up the phone.

Here are the most useful tips I have found when connecting with people in your international markets by phone.

#1: Do Your Prep Work

First of all, remember why you are seeking direct contact. Take a few steps back and review your situation. You want to see the big picture and not get bogged down in too many details. You’ll hear more feedback when you are open to what could be of interest to you.

#2: Get Comfortable With The Phone

Get social!
(CC licensed Flickr photo by the waving cat)

Sometimes it’s easy to pick up the phone and call people located in your target country. And this is great! Phone calls can be a great starting point.

And if you think it’s impossible to reach the right people by phone, try thinking outside of the box. Look at the contacts you do have. Look at the social media contacts you already have, and the ones it would be easy to cultivate. With the notion of six pixels of separation, slowly start networking and look for a way to begin to get feedback from the right source.

#3: Who To Connect With

This is where many people jump into sticky mud. In some cultures you could get away with reaching out directly to the person you’re interested in. But in many cultures this is not the best place to start. And you could hinder relationships by Why not start with the outer circle of your contacts and gradually move inwards towards the people you are most interested in connecting with? This takes a bit longer, but if can give you insights into how best to proceed.

#4: Review Context Before You Call

: Don’t make it difficult for others to understand you.
(CC licensed Flickr photo by Richard Scott 33)

Context is everything. Review the reasons why you are calling this particular person before you pick up the phone. Think of what you’re going to say. Now imagine the person on the other end of the phone. Will this seem normal to him?

One clear goal per phone call usually works best. Because if you ask for too much information or want to get too much out of a call, this can confuse people from different cultures or send wrong messages. You want them to quickly understand why you are calling them and the context has to be relevant to both of you.

#5: Stay Focused

There’s a balance to find in being clear about what you want and remaining open for helpful feedback. And this is how a few well planned questions can come in handy. But in order to get useful feedback from your international contacts you’ll also need to go with the flow because that’s where you can uncover some gems of information. So, you’ll need to remember to stay focused on the big picture.

#6: Keep A Mental Tab Of What You Can Say

I just mentioned having a few well planned questions, but you can also review a few other things you can say to get the conversation going. And when talking to people of different cultures over the phone you might find you need to adjust your usual communication tactics. Here are some good things to keep in mind.

Confirm what you know, what you understand from this and ask if this is accurate.
Ask if there’s more information you need to know
Ask for suggestions and then try to understand the relevancy

When doing international market research by phone I like to cross-reference the same general questions with several sources. This makes it much easier to understand cultural differences.

Clarity will help you to figure out how everything fits together. (CC licensed Flickr photo by Jerrycharlotte)

#7: Get Over The Fear

It is normal to be apprehensive about calling someone you do not know. And when you are calling to a different country it can even be daunting. Add in the factor that you may not know if the person speaks English and you may not feel like reaching out. There’s no need to be afraid. People are basically polite. Even more so when they feel they are helping you.

#8: Cultivate Curiosity To Open Communication

When you call someone thousands of miles away, they will be curious why. This can be a great way to start conversations and get the information you’re looking for.

#9: Create Better Connections With Your International Markets

Make these eight steps a habit. Whenever you interact with someone related to your international market be open to feedback and try to learn a little bit more. This is how you’ll learn to build stronger connections and ultimately have a better foundation for understanding your international markets.

A Better Understanding Of Your International Markets

The knowledge you can gain through simple phone conversations with your international markets can help you improve your international strategies and get more international clients. Of course you’ll need more research, and even in-person meetings, but connecting by phone is very easy to incorporate into your schedule and can help you to understand your international markets much better.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

9 Tips To Learn More About Your International Markets Over The Phone

Do You Need Social Media Localization?

Cindy King — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:00:23 +0000

Social Media Localization

It’s funny how things sometimes happen in a series. Last week all of the North Americans I spoke with asked me the same question:

“Do you need to adapt your social media communication to different cultural audiences?”

It intrigued me that all of these questions came from North Americans and I think I have an answer as to why this happened… more on that later. I want to answer this question first.

By the way, for those of you who are not familiar with the term “localization” this refers to adapting all of your communication to different local cultures. It’s much more than just translation and includes all aspects of communication. Localization means adapting your communication make sure your message gets across in the right way.

Adapt Your Communication For International Audiences

The short answer is: yes.

To create genuine communication you must adapt how your social media communication to the different cultural audiences you want to reach.

Adapting your communication always gives you better results when communicating with different cultures, and sometimes it’s critical to do so. If you don’t adapt your communication you can lose relationships which leads to losing clients and business.

More Cultural Differences Are Visible On Social Media

But there is also a longer answer because the localization of social media communication goes deeper than cross-cultural people skills. Social media communication can be a little bit more challenging than other traditional forms of communication such as print communication or emails.

Here are two characteristics of cross-cultural social media that magnify the cultural differences others see in you.

Your cultural differences are obvious. It’s hard to hide from who you are on social media and this means

You get close when you’re social. Social media gets you closer to people. It is a social environment and people tend to let their guards down when they are behind a computer. It’s easier to say things online that you wouldn’t say in person. It’s easy to forget about trying to respect the other person’s cultural differences.

This is why you should always pay attention to the messages you are conveying to others and how they are perceived on social media.

People Skills To Connect With Different Cultures On Social Media

Good cross-cultural social media skills require both:

Strong “soft” skills or people skills
Good cross-cultural skills

Over the years I’ve noticed how most North American business professionals don’t have time for these “soft” skills. They prefer to focus on the skills that are easy to measure and ones you can learn through courses. This may be why this question seems to crop up more often there than in the other cultures I network with.

Cross-cultural skills are not so easy to pick up or develop, they:

Require some personal work
Usually require international experience

Localization Of Social Media

Some of the people I spoke with needed some more insights

Here are the personal observations I shared with them regarding cross-cultural differences on two popular social media platforms.

Different Networking Practices On Twitter

Prior to my cross-cultural twitter interviews I chat with my guests and try to learn more about how they use Twitter in their country. For some people it may come as a surprise to learn that English speakers in different countries do not have the same habits on Twitter.

Some cultures are more at ease in striking up instant friendships, and some cultures need a bit more time. This impacts the relationships you form on Twitter. And if you use Twitter for international networking it also means you need to use cross-cultural communication skills even on Twitter.

Different Job Hunting Practices On LinkedIn

One of the people I spoke to yesterday needed to advise his clients on business networking on LinkedIn. Communication on LinkedIn is just the same as any other communication.

Every time I navigate on LinkedIn I’m struck by it’s the strong North American atmosphere. In cross-cultural terms most of the people I run into on LinkedIn have very strong traits of “individualism”. Obviously LinkedIn is mainly a job hunting platform which brings out these North American traits even more.

Even if you come across people from different cultures on LinkedIn there is a very strong probability they use it differently than a North American on LinkedIn.

Different Perceptions Of The New Like Button On Facebook

It’s easy to see how different people use Facebook and thanks to the newly improved Insights box on Facebook Business Pages you can monitor some international metrics. But the fun thing I’m noticing lately is the differences in appreciation of the new “Like” button. So many of the North Americans in my network seem to identify more personal endorsement just because the button is now called “Like” and not “Become A Fan”.

The reaction to this small little word reminds me of the need to localize social media buttons in some Eastern countries.

In most Western cultures having a real photo creates credibility and in some Eastern cultures it creates discomfort. Cartoon gravatars work much better.
In Western cultures it’s easy to use the notion of being a “friend” on social media and in some Eastern cultures the use of the term “friend” creates uncomfortable situations for fear of offending others by not being their friend.

Those are extreme reactions to small things in social media. And when you dig deeper and analyze communication on Facebook, you’re sure to encounter subtle differences in perception which can have significant impact on your Facebook marketing.

No Standard Social Media Localization Plan

Even with the knowledge of some of these differences you still cannot expect to come up with a standard international social media localization plan or generalizations for all international markets. It’s hard to do. Social media marketing for international audiences is still evolving due to a number of reasons:

Some countries are still catching up to social media and at different speeds.
The cultural differences between generations within different countries makes it difficult to provide a cookie cutter solution for using social media.
We should see growth in online communication from several countries thanks to recent changes by ICANN to allow URLs with different alphabets.
The demographics in many countries are undergoing dramatic changes and this will eventually impact cross-cultural communication with these countries. Cross-cultural generalizations established in the last century are rapidly becoming obsolete.

Social media marketing in different cultures follows the same basics as in your own country: you need to get to know your audience well before you can create an effective communication plan. The good news is that you can use social media to help you get to know your audience if you take the time to go slowly and do the person-to-person networking you need to learn how to adapt your communication.

Now, Over To You

Have you adapted any of your communication on social media to different international audiences?
What are your favorite social media platforms for your international audiences?
What cultural differences do you notice on the different social media platforms?

It would be great to hear from you. Please share your comments below.

Networking With The Wrong Questions

Cindy King — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 23:00:21 +0000

International Business Networking

International business and cross-cultural communication university professors have been sharing my blog with their students for some time now. I see this by monitoring the statistics on my blog.

A few of these university professors embrace social media and also connect with me on Twitter and Facebook. And it’s fun when they ask me to join in on their classes using Twitter.

Many of the students are awkward and don’t know how to create meaningful conversations with me. They stick to stilted requests for the information they need. But some students get it and engage with me on social media with conversations that truly interest both of us. Some students even create cross-cultural communication blogs to review my blog as part of their homework assignments.

It’s great to see students move out of the student role into real social media networking because we are usually passionate about the same topics and they become fun connections on social media. Unfortunately these students usually come and go very rapidly.

Homework Assignement Cop Out

I also regularly get requests from students to help them complete their homework. Most of these requests would take me at least a good half hour to respond to.

You can read more about why I don’t respond to requests to do homework assignments but essentially I just don’t have the time to do this. Besides, this blog is not about doing university assignments, it’s where I share the experience I have after over 25 years in international business.

New Trend In Requests From Students

Most of the requests I get from students are on this blog’s subject: cross-cultural skills in today’s media for international business development. But what’s interesting is that I’ve been getting a different type of request recently. This time students are asking me to help them with university assignments on social media.

Now this might corresponds to my involvement with Social Media Examiner and it’s rapid rise to popularity, but I’ve also noticed the online chatter about well-known universities now starting social media programs.

Social Media Survey

I’d like to share with you a survey I received recently from a university student who said her professor had asked all students to contact bloggers with these questions.

How does social media change advertising for businesses? I don’t think of social media as advertising. It’s more like business networking to me. Yes, businesses can do some advertising on social media. But Facebook ads and paid tweets represent a small minority of the social media tactics.
Do companies benefit more by advertising through social media? Why, or why not? I wouldn’t know. I don’t use social media for advertising. Social media does improve your visibility online, but this is a vast topic and you’d need to fine tune your question to keep this answer reasonable.
How have social media changed in the past five years? It would be easier to answer this question, if you asked “how has social media changed in the last year“. There have been too many changes for me to want to answer this in a short survey.
Can you predict the way social media will change in the next ten years? We can barely predict how social media will be in a year’s time, 10 years is a bit too far into the future.
How have social media empowered consumers, and given them a voice? Well, I think people have always had the voice on social media.
How does social media change the way people now communicate? Again this seems a funny question to me. I’m not a scholar and haven’t done any research… but I do think social media came about because communication changed fundamentally a while back. Even if some people haven’t yet connected the dots to understand this, it’s not the other way round.
Has social media become overly addicting? Why or why not? Again, this is a question someone who is new to social media would ask. Very rapidly when you use social media on a regular basis, other questions take the lead, such as personal productivity and focus.
Do social media change consumers’ purchasing decisions? Why or why not? Of course. People are influenced by what their friends say and recommend. Social media is social.
Twitter grew a lot faster than expected. Why is Twitter beneficial and effective? Again it’s about networking and Twitter is real-time networking.
Can you predict that social media will always be free like most of it is now? Why or why not? As I said, I don’t think anyone knows with reasonable certitude what’s in store for social media in the future.
What are some disadvantages of social media? You need to jump in and actually use it for a while to understand what’s really happening. If the person who wrote these questions had actually used social media, theses questions would be very different.
What are the main advantages of social media? Being closer in tune with society today.
Is LinkedIn the best social network to communicate professionally? Why or why not? How does LinkedIn help consumers find jobs? LinkedIn is a place for job hunters to meet potential employers, and vice-versa. Plus it’s predominately North American in culture. So it’s good for people who fall into those categories.

Now although this student asked for detailed answers by Thursday, I’m sure you can see why this is impossible even if I was in the business of helping out university students.

Improving Questions To Get A Response With Meaning

First of all, it’s very easy to see by the questions that the neither the professor nor the student know anything about social media or why businesses should use it. This survey will not give any good results about social media.

What’s interesting is that to correct this survey you need a few of the important skills you also use in international business networking.

Prior research is essential to get the questions right. These are not the right questions to send to a blogger.
Don’t make assumptions. This survey starts off by assuming bloggers use social media as advertising. The survey also associates consumers with LinkedIn which is not accurate. There are several wrong assumptions here that make these questions irrelevant.

When you know you don’t have enough information to ask the right questions, start off simple and spend time first to scope out the main areas of your topic.

This might mean taking action in two or three steps to learn enough before you know which questions are the right ones to ask. And it takes a bit more work than blasting off an email.

In fact, it also means you’ll need to create in-person connections if you want to actually get the valuable information you need.

So, if the student who sent me this survey reads this, what should she do?

Start by reviewing the my blog and revising the list of questions
Leave a short question or two in the comments here, but step back and ask basic questions on the topic
Tell me about yourself, where you’re from, what you are studying, why and what you actually like about the questions you want answers to… but only in a couple of short sentences
Avoid wide open ended questions that need a book to answer them
And avoid writing a mini saga about yourself
Say hello on Twitter
Give a shout out on Facebook
Continue the conversation and let it ping pong back and forth a bit to create some sort of a connection

Above all, stop being the student in a constant stream of anonymous cookie-cutter requests more suited to the last century and start being a real person who is interesting to talk to. It’s better networking. You’ll end up getting much more information this way and you’ll also start understanding what social media is about.

What about you?

As a blogger, have you noticed an increase in questions from social media students?
What would you recommend social media students do to learn more about how social media impacts business?
Do you think email is still a good tool to use for surveys?

Please leave your comments below.

How to Connect Globally With Social Media

Cindy King — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:00:05 +0000

Cross-Cultural Social Media

Here is my article which was first published on Social Media Examiner:

Do you know how to use social media to target a global audience? After all, social media provides a low-cost solution to engage your prospects, customers and partners located in different regions of the world.

As Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motor Company, says, “U.S. brands looking to leverage social networks internationally know that while their messages need to stay consistent regardless of the region, the language, cultural reference points, platform and tactics, all need to be tailored for each market.”

He continues, “Whether it is customer service, IT, HR or product development, there are a number of uses for social media. And when you add to that all of our constituents—customers, employees, shareholders, dealers, retirees—it becomes a very complex assignment.”

Here’s a look at a few of the difficulties and how you can overcome them…

The Information Available

In the past, statistics on social media were difficult to come by and they were not always relevant. But there are more Internet statistics available today even for social media. McCann’s Wave 4 Power to the People report is one resource available to gain insights into how to use social media internationally.

The trouble with an international social media strategy, as Erik Qualman of Search Engine Watch points out, one size does not fit all. Having more relevant statistics does not get you very far. You still need to learn how to adapt what you do on social media to effectively connect with people in other countries. And before you can do this, you need to know a bit more about what social media is like over there.

Social Media in Different Regions of the World

A good place to start is to look for general insights into the social media environment in the places you would like to reach.

The Nielsen report Global Faces and Networked Places clearly explains why localization has won the day in many countries and says, “Succeeding in China takes more than producing a translated version; it requires investment in a local infrastructure and a mentality of running a Chinese social network that understands the domestic nuances of social network behaviour rather than simply rolling out a generic social network in Chinese.”

Here are more insights from two social media players well-known in their own countries:

Have a look at this interview of Laurel Papworth in which she gives an analysis on what’s happening in social media in Australia and Southeast Asia.

Fred Cavazza says, “The main differences in France‘s social media are based on the local offering and local players: Dailymotion, Skyblog, Viadeo, Dofus, BlogSpirit, CanalBlog, OverBlog… and there are 3 distinct groups in France around culinary, political and IT gadget blogs.”

Fred Cavazza raises a good point. Let’s have a look at the main challenges presented by local offerings and local players. These are areas where you will need to adapt to fit in with what works in the local social media environment.

Cultural Differences in How People Respond to Social Media

Cultural differences always impact how people use social media. Here are some insights from a few culturally minded social media players.

Engagement—Jack Yan says, “There seems to be a gap between Americans and New Zealanders on Twitter usage, for instance. Kiwis, for the most part, seem to engage a bit more and there are relatively fewer accounts, proportionally, made up of automated tweets. There seems to be more of a demand on American tweeters, for instance, to provide a lot of content, and I suspect that this drives the automation. This arguably comes back to the different cultures: one historically more collaborative, the other historically more individualistic.”

Hesitation—France shares a trait with many countries: hesitation and observation before engaging in new social media. Thierry de Baillon says, “Where Anglo Saxons are prone to quickly dive into new platforms and get new habits, Frenchies stick with old ones, watching others acting while taking their time.”

Networking—Lucy Chatburn sees more networking activity on both LinkedIn and Facebook in Turkey than in the UK. “This could be because networking doesn’t come naturally to many British people. And a LinkedIn profile is definitely not seen as an essential career tool in the UK.”

Shyness—Mixi, a leading social network in Japan, added a special feature to make it easier for people to make friends.

Of course, there are many more ways cultural differences impact social media. Before you can find the right way for your business to connect with people on social media platforms in different countries, you do need to:

Develop cultural awareness
Do your research
Adapt your communication and social approach

Evolution in Local Players

Other challenges in international social media are related to changes in popularity of social media platforms. A snapshot of the social media environment in any country may not remain current for long. Social media environments change.

Facebook’s growth has had an impact on many countries outside of North America. Orkut’s popularity in Brazil and India is changing.

This is why it is difficult for businesses to know how to:

Anticipate where to spend time
Identify the most relevant social media platforms for their business

Good monitoring practices and a local presence are keys to success.

Can Social Media Help Your International Business?

There are many reasons why this is a tough question to answer. As we have seen above, statistics do not always reflect how people use social media. There are also:

Different speeds of adopting social media
Differences in how locals use social media
Differences in how businesses can use social media in different countries

On the one hand, local statistics can be misleading. Another culturally minded social media player, Martin Lindeskog points out that “The broadband/high-speed Internet connection is very common here in Sweden.” However, he also notes that “you can’t find many examples of companies that have embraced a new type of media strategy in full scale yet. There is a lot of talk about Twitter, but you don’t see many companies microblogging.”

On the other hand, although statistics only tell part of the story, a detailed view of the local social media environment can give you valuable insights. According to Fred Cavazza, the social media market in France was evangelized long ago by local players, and this made the road to success easy to maneuver for Facebook in France.

Successful International Social Media

If you are serious about using social media within an international marketing strategy, you will need:

Strong cross-cultural skills
Local professionals

The right people will help you through the complexity in finding:

Preferred offers
Communication preferences
Use of different platforms
Where and how the people you want to reach use social media in their country

A Source of Inspiration

In addition to connecting with business networking partners abroad, there is another good reason to keep an ear open for what is happening in international social media: there is richness in diversity. And this can help you stay in tune with social media as it evolves for everyone.

Monitoring how businesses in other countries use social media helps you to:

Get ideas for new things to try in your own country
Spot new trends in other areas of the world which might, in time, affect your own industry

As different people around the world adapt social media to their own cultural tastes and the driving forces in their local markets, we are sure to see:

More innovation
Different uses for social media in business
Opportunities to adapt the strategies and tools we are familiar with to new international markets

Observing these changes and understanding why they fail or succeed increase our understanding of what social media is all about. Although North American businesses are using social media more than businesses elsewhere, there are many examples of innovation and inspiration to be found outside of North America. This alone is why following international social media is useful to many businesses.

Now, over to you…

What have you learned by observing social media in other countries?
What is the most interesting difference in international social media to you?
What anecdotes can you share about social media in different countries?

Please share your comments with us below.

Social Business Communities

Cindy King — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:33 +0000

International Networking On Social Media

A business blog is a great long term investment to establish online visibility. But it takes a combination of skills to make your business blog successful. And it also takes a fair bit of social networking to make your blog successful. This is why belonging to good social business communities can make a difference to your blog’s success.

Blogging Communities

There are a variety of different blogging communities, but only a few of them are really geared towards the business blogger. Most of the blogging communities are aimed for a mixed audience of people who want to make money online with a few professionals using their business blogs to promote their offline business.

Here are some of the blogging communities I’m a member of.

Authority Blogger. This is a small friendly group run by Chris Garrett. Members are mainly professional bloggers.

Problogger. This is a big community of probloggers run by Darren Rowse.

Third Tribe. This communities goes beyond blogging, but there are many great bloggers participating here. The only trouble is that it’s a big community and still very active since it’s launch a short while ago.

Group Blogging Platforms

For some reason I prefer to participate in group blog projects rather than guest posting. So I’m active in a few different ones:

ClickDocuments. This is for content marketers and it’s a very well run group project that’s fun to participate in.

Sales Bloggers. This is a sales blogging group of dedicated sales bloggers. The professional level of the people in this group is refreshing and it’s a pleasure to participate here.

Bloggertone. This is a fairly new group blog which started off with a large Irish community and is becoming more international. I like the international community here and that fact that it is a dynamic community.

Social Bookmarking Sites

Sometimes it’s easier to connect with people in smaller business communities. And this is where social bookmarking platform for business articles can be interesting.

BizSugar. This is a social bookmarking site for business articles and it’s still small enough where it’s very easy to network with other members.

Social Business Networking

As you go about networking on different social media platforms it’s easy to find small business communities where it’s worth spending a little time. You can find these on:

Facebook Business Pages. More and more businesses are creating Business Pages on Facebook, and even though they are on Facebook as a marketing exercise, they are also great places for social business networking too.

Twitter Lists. Although this may take some time, it’s worth spending a little time to network with your own Twitter lists or through the Twitter lists of others.

LinkedIn Groups. Some LinkedIn groups are more interesting than others. If there are some good ones related to your areas of interest, this could be a great place to find other business bloggers.

When Business Blogging Communities Come Together

As I mentioned earlier, two social business communities are teaming up this week to run the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest March 15^th- 19^th

It’s an opportunity to join in and widen your own social business communities.

Networking in social business communities can help you to improve your business blogging and open your social networking circles for faster online success.

What about you?

What are your favorite social business communities?
How do you use social communities in your business networking?
What role do social business communities play in your online success?

How To Use Facebook For Business

Cindy King — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:00:32 +0000

Facebook

I just read a good article by Tom Pick on Facebook for B2B marketing. Here are few things I came away with and a few more ways for professionals to use Facebook.

Facebook Prejudices Impact Your Marketing

As Tom pointed out, in the business world, you will often here something like this:

“LinkedIn is for business and Facebook is for friends and family”

Well, the trouble I have with this is that this smells of prejudgement. And prejudgement is not good because it leads to self-inflicted limitations.

These prejudgements linked to personal identity issues are very similar to what you see in cross-cultural communication.

The extra baggage you carry around will hurt your business. Your marketing will suffer and so will your sales. A whole new world opens up when you simply put the baggage down on the ground long enough to take a look around. You can still decide to pick up the baggage and hold on to it a bit longer, but the more often you set it down, the more you’ll realize prejudgements are just baggage.

Businesses often approach me to help them get more clients using social media communication. But they have a big problem:

They operate on this assumption or prejudgement that social media is not “professional” enough for them to use

And then they expect to simply be able to order in some clients with someones who is comfortable using social media.

But this cannot work. It may be called “media” but it doesn’t work like the way “media” used to work in the last century. You are the master of your own social presence online and no one else can create the relationships you need to get results from social media.

Facebook Humanizes Your Business

There is a very important point Tom makes in his article: People buy from other people.

Facebook results show up high in Google searches and people use Google before making purchasing decisions.
Facebook allows you to present your business in a way you might not be able to on your business website. And many of your potential buyers will appreciate this more approachable version of your business.

Sure, there are tons of things I hate about Facebook and I can easily see how Facebook doesn’t fit in a traditional business world. But there are a few essential reasons why businesses cannot afford to ignore Facebook.

Sheer size, if it hasn’t hit you yet, do some research until it does. Facebook is huge.
Google results. Google cannot afford to not pay attention to Facebook either.
It gives you a good platform for content marketing. If your business can benefit from being online, your success is centered around content. That’s how you get noticed in the first place.

In addition to this, there are more and more examples of how businesses are using Facebook to create another form of communication with their “traditional” markets to strengthen their market presence.

Facebook Is Best For Nurturing Clients

Of course, once you humanize your business, as Tom points out, you can do a better job at nurturing your clients. But there’s also another reason why nurturing clients is a great tactic to use on Facebook.

Facebook is about real people

There’s only so much you can get away with on Facebook, because the relationships are much more social and people easily pick up on crap of any sort.

Compare this to your experience on LinkedIn. I often get requests from people looking to hire cross-cultural professionals. And the companies explain they’d appreciate my help, because if they put out a question on LinkedIn, they’ll get a ton of people claiming to be the best in their field. But how can you choose the best people?

This is where a strategic presence on Facebook would make all the difference in nurturing the right impression.

Now that I’ve bounced off a few of the points Tom made in his article, here are a few points of my own I’d like to add about marketing your business on Facebook.

Facebook Business Pages

I’m only online for business. I much prefer to hook up with my friends and family either on the phone or in person. So Facebook is easy for me to navigate: I simply block and hide anything that is not relevant to my business. It only takes a minute or two of regular upkeep on most days, but my Facebook feeds do look clean and professional.

But I understand that some people enjoy using Facebook to keep in touch with their friends and family. This is where the Facebook Business Pages come in very handy.

Did you notice I don’t like using the term “Fan Page”? Facebook itself uses the term Business Page, but everyone likes to refer to the prominent fan button and call these Fan Pages.

It might not be much, but I do consider these as Business Pages. This keeps my focus sharper and helps me to find a communication style on Facebook that fits both the social environment on Facebook and my own business objectives. We’re all learning what it means to humanize your business on Facebook. The simple task of getting rid of the cute personal stuff makes it easier for me to find the right tone and not get annoyed with the distractions.

Facebook Vanity URLs To Get Good Keyword Results In Google Search

When I realized some of the keyword URL’s I create on for my Twitter lists were giving me top level results on Google searches, I quickly created 5 new Business Pages… simply because I wanted the SEO value they could provide. Hey, I’m going after a couple of heavy keywords and I wanted to get them before anyone else did.

Unfortunately I sat on them for several weeks before daring to ask friends to fan all of these pages. So I lost one of the vanity URLs I was after: International Business, but I used International Business Ideas for the vanity URL instead.

Here are all of my Facebook Business Pages:

CKbiz – my main Business Page. I had already used the URL CindyKing.biz for my profile page.
GetInternationalClients – an old website I want to bring back from the ashes as soon as the Drip plugin for WishList Member is released
InternationalBusinessIdeas
InternationalSocialMedia
InternationalMarketing
InternationalSales

After creating these Facebook Business Pages, I found out that you can also create vanity URLs for any of the links on your Business Pages. So for example, you can create a vanity URL with keywords for the tabs on your Facebook Business Page and use these to promote. This may also be a good option for some businesses.

In the end, I’m happy with the extra Business Pages I created on Facebook because this gives me more options relevant to my own business.

Facebook As A New Bookmarking Tool

The reason why I sat on these new Business Pages for a few weeks was because I was figuring out the best way to use them. And I decided to use 4 of them just like I use the Delicious bookmarking site.

InternationalBusinessIdeas
InternationalMarketing
InternationalSales
InternationalSocialMedia

Here’s why…

I “follow” a couple hundred blogs on my Google Reader. This is the first thing I do every morning, as I have my morning coffee I check to see what’s in the news. I need to stay current of what’s going on in my industry, it helps me build a better business network. And I also use the Google Reader to stay current on the skills I need to do my job.

So I have a number of folders in the Google Reader. There are days when I’m more interested in one subject than the others and it makes it easy for me to use the Google Reader this way. And of course I have folders for each of the keywords used for my new Business Pages.

So, as I read through these folders, I now share the links to the interesting articles on the corresponding Facebook Business Page.

Facebook As A Business Networking Tool

Of course, I try to interact with fans on all of the Facebook Business Pages. And to do this I consistently use 2 techniques:

As I share the links, I write an update with a question I’m really interested in and hope others find it interesting too.
Use the “@” function on Facebook to give a shout out to others and hope the question brings them back as well as appeal to the readers of their feed. Many people keep the settings so my update and link is published on their feed when I shout out to them with thie “@” function.

My hope is that over time this will help me to:

Connect with others on Facebook interested in these topics
Cultivate more feedback in the future
Nurture my smaller business networks
Better segmentation to understand my audience more

So, at the moment I’m essentially spending the same amount of time I used to spend bookmarking articles, except I’m now using these Facebook Business Pages as networking tools.

Facebook Content To Write A Book

Each of my Facebook Business Pages will slowly become a source of content on these different topics. I find this format more appealing than the collection of bookmarks on Delicious or any of the other social bookmarking platforms. And more networking can be done around these links than on a social bookmarking site. This in turn leads to even more content.

At the end of the year, or maybe sometime next year, there’ll be enough research and content to sit down and put a report or an ebook or even a book together.

How Are You Using Facebook For Your Business?

My own prejudices were not a comparison between Facebook and LinkedIn. Mine were more about wasting times on silly games. I would never have been able to come up with this business plan for Facebook if I had kept my prejudices about Facebook. The trigger event for me was seeing my Twitter list for “International Business” in the top results for this keyword and realizing that Facebook vanity URLs would soon be showing up there too.

Have you had a trigger event to change your perception of how Facebook can help your business?
How are you using Facebook for business?
Are you like me and using Facebook to reach an audience based in a different country than yourself?

How to Market Your Business With Twitter Lists

Cindy King — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:00:48 +0000

Twitter

Here is my article which was first published on Social Media Examiner:

Twitter is a networking haven for businesses. But is there an easy way to draw the right people to you with Twitter?

The answer is yes and there’s a great Twitter feature that can help you: Twitter lists. Twitter lists can grab the interest of people you most want to meet, help you make a great first impression and can help you with marketing segmentation.

Below I’ll show you some unique ways to use Twitter lists. But first…

How Do Twitter Lists Work?

Twitter lists creates separate lists of people. If you haven’t already used Twitter lists, watch this video to see how you can get started.

There are two interesting points to remember about Twitter lists:

You don’t need to “follow” people on Twitter to include them in your lists.
You can have both public and private lists.

Now here’s a look at what you can do with Twitter lists.

#1: Listen with Private Lists

Twitter lists are great to monitor and listen to different groups of people. No-one else can see your private lists, so this is a good place to start using the Twitter list feature. You can create private lists to:

Monitor your competitors
Carry out specific market research
Keep track of different networks of friends and colleagues

Private Twitter lists can help you segment the fire hose of information streaming in through your Twitter feed, according to Rohit Bhargava. Segmenting people into lists also helps you more effectively listen to and monitor your market.

John Jantsch says Twitter lists make it easier to listen to what others have to say.

And monitoring people without following them makes it easy to carry out specific market research or intelligence gathering. Once you’ve finished doing your market research, you can simply delete your list without making any changes to the people you usually follow.

#2: Craft Your Brand With Public Lists

There’s not much space to brand yourself on your Twitter profile page. You do have space for a few words in the bio box and you can add in background graphics. But you can also add another dimension to your branding by carefully crafting your public Twitter lists. Here’s how.

Choose appropriate names for your lists
Spend some time finding the best name for your list. There are a few things to keep in mind when naming your Twitter lists:

Engage the right people. You’ll get more people interested in looking at your list if the name sparks their interest.
Remember to communicate with everyone. Don’t limit your audience. The right name could help you reach more of the people you want to connect with.
The SEO bonus. Another reason to think about how you label your lists is for search engine optimization (SEO). Look at the screenshot below. This Twitter list is in a good position in Google search results for a competitive keyword.

The bad news is that if you change the name of your list, the URL of your Twitter list changes too and you’ll lose the people following that list. So take some time to get this right.

Choose appropriate Twitter lists for your public profile
When creating your Twitter lists, you want to think of how lists help you:

Connect with your Twitter followers
Achieve your main goal for using Twitter
Continue the story you began in your Twitter bio

As you build up a following on Twitter, your followers will be interested in your Twitter lists. The choice of Twitter lists found on your Twitter home page is important for engaging with people.

Choose the number of public lists
Remember, there’s a limited amount of space available for your Twitter lists on your home page. Although you can create a larger number of lists, only about 4 to 6 will appear on your home page depending on the character length of the names of your lists. Your audience will have to click on the “View all” link to see all of your lists if you have more than this.

So you may want to think carefully about the number of lists you want to create and the order in which you create them. Put your most relevant lists at the top.

Advertise your Twitter lists
Create Twitter widgets for specific Twitter lists and put them up on your blog or website to engage people and establish your areas of interest and expertise.

Better Marketing With Twitter Lists

Twitter’s list feature can add some extra marketing power to your Twitter strategy if you take some time to get it right. You also need to find the right way to make your lists work for you. This will depend on your goals for Twitter, your audience and how they like to connect with you.

A good Twitter list improves your visibility in your market. Here are a few more benefits:

The people you follow in your public lists will appreciate the recognition.
By providing a useful resource, you’ll increase your credibility in your market and attract more followers.
As you become more popular, you’ll be listed on other people’s lists. This is another way to measure your social media influence.

What are your thoughts about Twitter lists? How are you using them? Do you regularly follow other lists? Please share your thoughts and comments below.