One of the more asked questions these days is how organizations can use social tech to drive revenue.  People want to know how they can use it B2B, and they want to know how to drive predictable rates of revenue.  These are the right questions to ask and I have a few observations that might help if this is you.

I have noticed that many of our clients start off in a place where they think the Web strategy is a separate thing from the social tech strategy.  This is clearly not the case.  These are two pieces of a puzzle and they snap together perfectly.  When we help people design Websites, we use the Constituent Based Design model, which focuses the entire Web strategy on identifying your main constituents and then building your Web properties to serve each one, and drive each one down a unique path to taking an action.   Once this is accomplished, we have created a DESTINATION for customers to come to.

Switch over to social tech and we can use the same constituent based model to identify what the methods are that we can create a CONVERSATION with each constituent type.   These conversations have to be seen as high value to the customer, prospect, partner, or whoever the constituent is.  In other words, the stream of communication we are providing on Twitter, Facebook, our blog, etc, needs to be something that primarily serves the person on the other end.  If that conversation is filled with marketing and sales chatter, it will be seen as a form of water torture spam and they will stop listening to our conversation.  Let’s assume you get this and you have created valuable streams of communications with your constituents, you are ready to go to the next step.

With a well-designed DESTINATION, you have a place to send the people that you are having the CONVERSATION with so they can take action.  We often do this by providing links back to the Web properties within our posts.  So we use the conversation to drive people to our destination.  This is all well and good unless you get greedy and start the water torture spam thing going and try too hard to drive people to taking action.  You have to EARN THE RIGHT to use the conversation to market to people.  That means giving them 10 parts value for every one part advertising/marketing.  In other words, you have to earn the right to sell to them.  You would think this would be obvious to marketers, but in their zeal to drive revenue, they seem to think that people really want to volunteer to receive your communication just so they can become sold to – and that is not the way of the world.

So back to the question I mentioned at the beginning…  How do you drive revenue from social tech?  You bolt together your Web strategy with your social tech strategy and use the conversation to drive people to your destination.  And, you make sure to earn the right to lob in that link, that coupon, that discount so they value the conversation enough to stay with it and every once in a while, take you up on the offer.  Maybe an analogy would help here…  If you are/were single, and wanted to get a date with a person, would you sidle up and say, “Hello, how are you? I want a date.  Can I have a date?  How about a date tonight, or maybe tomorrow night?  I will give you $100 if you date me.  I will give you a free ride to the movie.  It was a beautiful day outside today wasn’t it?  How about we go to the museum of art?  Would you like to go on a date? Can we go on a date?  What is your favorite food?

That is what some of you do with your social tech conversations.  Lighten up and earn the right to sell – you might be amazed at what you could accomplish…

Scott Klososky
Scott@klososky.com