How Intuit Stays Relevant Using Social Media

Christen Wegner is a former journalist turned resident Gen Yer on the communications team at Intuit. When not on Twitter, she is usually texting, on Facebook, or writing for various blogs like Small Business United and TurboTax.

One of the hottest topics for any business, from the small to the large is social. So my first thought when Kyle Lacy sent me a tweet asking me to write a guest blog post I was like “Oh cool, Intuit is doing so much, yay, let’s share.”

So I started collecting info regarding all out campaigns, events, and information and started sharing that with friends and family. But what floored me was what I would find out after talking with a couple former coworkers. Companies are actually still banning their employees from social media – things like Facebook, Twitter, and gasp, personal blogs.

I guess I live in a little bubble and take for granted the fact that at Intuit, we are trusted that we will do what is right as THE voice of Intuit on social channels. And without those social channels there is no way Intuit could have done anything fun, interesting or relevant to what small businesses want and need.

One of those conversations was with a former colleague who told me her company has just blocked Facebook and MySpace from their computers stating employees were “wasting too much time on the social networks.” Of course, her IT department didn’t account for the mobile applications and now employees are frequently seen gripping their Blackberry’s and iPhones.

Thriving with social

When I joined Intuit, social media wasn’t new but it was this undiscovered territory. We were trying to find the right balance between keeping our employees happy and keeping them productive. Happily three years later I can sit here, write this article, have TweetDeck running in the background, and occasionally check out Facebook.

In fact, Intuit encourages employees to do just that. We have employees who train customer service reps, engineers and developers how to start interacting in such social channels. On our Intuit Community dozens of different employees interact every day answering questions, solving problems and simply act as a sounding board for our customers. And what is even better is the Community is where customers go to talk to other customers as well.

And our Small Business team was one of the first teams at Intuit on Twitter. Today we have more than 50 teams and individuals out there. What they learned early on meant a change in strategy for Intuit and insights into how we can help small businesses succeed.

Much of that success led to a desire for other social networking events like town halls, small business events, and a blog where regular experts discuss their tips and tricks (http://smallbusiness.intuit.com/blog/). All of this to help small businesses succeed in business and thrive in the social realm.

Over the last eight months we have managed the Love a Local Business Campaign in which Intuit is putting small businesses on the map. The idea is that fans, including customers, vendors, employees, and the community, determine what small businesses deserve some love with winners receiving small business grants.

That’s right, free money for doing what these small business do every day – take care of their customers and being social.

A big part of our strategy reflects a changing world where people and businesses are increasingly connected. We want to arm all small businesses and employees with tools , ways to listen, and create strong customer engagement as one small business community.

I don’t think any of this could have been done without access to our social channels. So thanks Intuit for letting me and my team stay relevant. And the hope is that our work helps small businesses stay relevant as well.

5 Ways ExactTarget will Change Social Media with CoTweet Acquisition

It is huge news that ExactTarget is acquiring CoTweet. Huge news because of the ramifications this business “deal” will have on the world of social media and corporate communications. ExactTarget is already a leader in the world of email marketing and soon will be the pioneer of cross platform collaboration in the social media environment. So why is this important? Why am I so excited with this transition? Here are 5 ways why this is important and will change the world of social media.

1. One Enterprise System is Needed for Collaboration.

The technology world has been scrapping to produce one system that will manage all accounts across the worlds of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Plaxo…. etc. ExactTarget and CoTweet now have the means to create an integrated system that will help in building out that platform. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a system that can be used by the individual but is closely tied to the return-on-investment (that is extremely needed) in the world of business development.

2. Measurement will Be An Investment and Priority

It is extremely hard to find a system that will measure ROI when it comes to using social media. I know that we can search, scrap, and put together a unique system that will measure influence and coupon discount codes but we are still lacking. Radian6 does a great job at measuring influence and helps in tracking a brand name across the different social sites… but it is hard to find a unique system to measure one-to-one online marketing. In order to monetize and work CoTweet into the enterprise system of ExactTarget measurement will have to be a priority. ExactTarget prides itself on ROI and measurement of email campaign and the same thing will apply to CoTweet.

3. Email and Social Need to be Combined

The next logical step for social media tools and marketing online is for email and social to be combined in one fluid marketing message. It is hard to find a system (Flowtown has started) that has combined all forms of Internet marketing in one cohesive message. If you send out an email you must copy and paste the same messaging to a blog… to Twitter.. to Facebook… and so on. This is speaking strictly from a corporate perspective. If you are a sole entrepreneur or a rock star like Chris Brogan it may be easy to build out a system that combines all forms of your online marketing…. for the corporate world it is extremely difficult.

4. Corporate Checks and Balances for Social Media

It is not a mystery that the majority of Fortune 1000 companies that are not involved social media because of the fear of…. content… plain and simple. Social Media is untamed and there is a huge need for one system to support PR, Marketing, and HR in their pursuit of using social media for content sharing. ExactTarget and CoTweet will create a system that allows for managers to double check all content being shared by individuals within the company. With almost two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies using Twitter and other social media platforms… now is the time to develop a unique product for content distribution.

5. Perfecting Customer Engagement and Communication

There is a power within social media that is just underneath the surface… ready to break through. We are talking about the power of the multiple customer touch point. If you can drive a users engagement through email marketing you could (and should) drive engagement on the other social media platforms that user is involved. With the integration of CoTweet and the investment into development from ExactTarget we are going to see a complete solution towards driving customer engagement online. I know that ExactTarget was not interested in just bolting on some functionality into their system… they were interested in meshing with a solution that has a proven track record.

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This is huge news for social media, the city of Indianapolis, CoTweet, and ExactTarget. I am extremely excited to be on the front lines. Here’s to the future of social and online marketing!

(Also a good post about this news from my friend Jay Baer)

ExactTarget Acquires CoTweet. What Does It Mean?

For most of my readers, you heard it here first.

I have had the privilege to meet, chat, and work with the brilliant team at ExactTarget over the past month. It is always fascinating to meet people that want to change the way corporate culture uses social media. It has been said that the future of social media is in enterprise expansion and we are officially witnessing the push into one virtual platform (thanks to ExactTarget).

As of 11 am (EST) ExactTarget officially announced that they will be acquiring CoTweet, a Web-based collaboration platform that allows companies to manage multiple Twitter accounts from a single dashboard, support multiple editors, track conversations, assign roles, and create follow-up tasks. Social tools have been random and sometimes carelessly developed because the developers did not have the financial means to build a top quality product.

I don’t know about you… but I am overly excited with this step into an enterprise system social media platform. I am overly excited because ExactTarget is an Indianapolis, Indiana based company… and… I am overly excited because Jesse Engle (co-founder of CoTweet) is an awesome guy.

This deal will result in (finally) the expansion of social platforms into a unique collaboration system for one-to-one marketing. I love it. See press release below.

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ExactTarget Acquires Twitter Pioneer CoTweet, Creates Social Media Lab in San Francisco

Businesses Now Have Complete Solution to Manage Social Media, Email and Mobile Communications

SAN FRANCISCO (March 2, 2010) – Global on-demand email marketing and one-to-one marketing provider ExactTarget announced today it has acquired San Francisco-based CoTweet, creating the industry’s first complete solution for managing communications across all interactive marketing channels including social media, email and mobile.

CoTweet will operate in San Francisco as a business unit of ExactTarget and will lead the company’s social media product development.  CoTweet co-founder and chief executive Jesse Engle will lead the San Francisco operation and spearhead the creation and expansion of the company’s social media lab.

“What we’re seeing in the market is organizations are moving quickly to try to capture the potential of social, but are discovering that it’s siloed and not integrated effectively with other forms of digital communications,” said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget co-founder and chief executive officer.  “By combining the power of ExactTarget and CoTweet, we can provide businesses a complete solution to tie together all forms of interactive communications and drive deeper customer engagement online.”

Founded in 2008 and based in San Francisco, CoTweet is a Web-based collaboration platform that allows companies to manage multiple Twitter accounts from a single dashboard, support multiple editors, track conversations, assign roles and create follow-up tasks.  The company has a growing client list, including Whole Foods, Oracle, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Ford, Dell, Pepsi, Sprint, Target, Intuit, Salesforce.com, USA Today and Coca-Cola.

“We see a huge opportunity to build on ExactTarget’s incredible business and customer relationships to help companies drive more measurable value from social media,” said Engle.  “As part of ExactTarget, we’ll have the global resources to cement our early lead, rapidly expand our platform and develop the next generation of social media communication tools.”

Forrester Research predicts social media marketing will grow faster than any other form of interactive marketing.  In its 2009 U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast Report, the independent research firm estimated social media marketing will grow at compound annual rate of 34 percent, reaching $3.1 billion by 2014.

“This acquisition is strong validation that valuable, sustainable businesses are emerging from the Twitter ecosystem,” said Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief operating officer. “An ExactTarget and CoTweet combination should lead to even further digital marketing innovation through use of the Twitter platform.”

The acquisition of CoTweet follows ExactTarget’s record-breaking 2009 that welcomed the company’s 36^th consecutive quarter of growth in the fourth quarter 2009 and saw annual contracted revenue soar to $114 million and total GAAP revenue exceed $95 million.  In 2009, ExactTarget also secured $145 million in venture capital investment, opened its first international office in London, earned the title of a “leader” in email marketing in the “The Forrester Wave: Email Marketing Service Providers Q4 2009” (December 2009) report and added NIKE Inc., Best Buy and Universal Music Group to its client list.  Headquartered in Indianapolis, ExactTarget now employs more than 600 associates worldwide.

About CoTweet, Inc.

CoTweet is the real-time business collaboration platform for Twitter. Working with companies such as Whole Foods, Starbucks, JetBlue, Ford, Pepsi, Sprint, Coca-Cola, the City of San Francisco/311 and Twitter, CoTweet has established itself as the tool of choice to brands to connect and engage with customers and stakeholders. Founded in 2008, CoTweet is based in San Francisco, Calif.  For more information, visit www.CoTweet.com

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and one-to-one marketing solutions. The company’s software as a service technology provides organizations a single platform to connect with customers via triggered and transactional email, integrated text messaging, voice messaging, landing pages and social media.  Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others. ExactTarget’s software powers permission-based multi-channel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Aurora Fashions, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, visit www.exacttarget.com or call 1-866-EMAILET.

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Media Contacts:

Cybele Diamandopoulos (FOLIO Communications for CoTweet) – 512.431.5759 or cybele@foliocommunications.com

Lindsay Tishgart (FOLIO Communications for CoTweet) – 512.327.1818 or lindsey@foliocommunications.com

Mitch Frazier (ExactTarget) – 317.670.9611 or mfrazier@ExactTarget.com

Carol Sacks (Tenor Communications for ExactTarget) – 650.520.8261 or carol@tenorcom.com

Lauren Sanders (Dittoe PR for ExactTarget) – 317.202.2280 X 10 or lauren@dittoepr.com

Why Aren’t You Integrating Your Marketing?

I need to rant. I picked up REACH magazine while hanging out in my apartment yesterday… do we all know what is inside the Reach magazine? Coupons… a ton of coupons from local

businesses…spreading their message and product across the city.

I am all about coupons. I use coupons to buy food, clothing, and services. There was only one problem with the hundred (or so) ads/coupons in the magazine. There were no links associated with social media on any of the coupons. I could not find one logo from  Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace throughout the entire catalog.

This does not make any sense to me… not one bit of sense.

Why wouldn’t you integrate the different forms of media on your coupons? Why wouldn’t you show every type of touchpoint to a buyer? Even the website addresses of the companies failed to show the social media connections on the homepage.

This is absolutely idiotic and ridiculous.

Setting up a Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account, or Myspace page is FREE. The only thing that social media can cost you (initially) is your time. Why wouldn’t you setup different accounts to capture potential clients in multiple ways… multiple touchpoints… multiple places.

There are multiple levels of marketing to capture the interests of an individual. It is absolutely ridiculous that a social networking was not mentioned ONCE in the catalog.

In my mind… I would want to capture every single individual who was on social media and was ALSO picking out my coupons… why would I want this type of individual? THEY ARE THE BUYER. They are the influencer. They are the one that spends money with your brand. They are the one you need to communicate with on a daily basis. If they are on social media… why not connect with them on a completely different level then Reach Magazine or newspaper coupons.

And on a second note… their friends are with them on the social networks. Welcome to the best viral marketing you could ever possibly want, need, or desire.

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5 Tips to Being Productive in Social Media

We had a packed house yesterday for the Staying Productive in Social Media seminar! It is always fun to communicate the importance of managing your time effectively. I wanted to send out the slide deck I used for the presentation… and… give you a few basic tips for staying productive.

Tip 1: Use the 4-Points Model

When using social media you should keep in mind the 4-points model. There are 4 points social media applications should touch in regards to your daily life: Business, Local Business Networking, Social, and Information. Choose four main networks where you spend the most of your time.

I use LinkedIn for business applications, Smaller Indiana for local business networking, Facebook for social application, and Twitter for information. LinkedIn can be described as my connection Rolodex. Facebook is to keep me updated on my friends and acquaintances from college and high school. Twitter is a wonderful information aggregation tool where you can follow influential people and the information they share. Smaller Indiana is a great place to connect to local professionals and share ideas on how to make Indiana a better place.

Tip 2: Commit Yourself

You get what you put in. How many times have we heard that? When using social media commit to a set amount of time a week to using your applications. You will find yourself spending to much time on your applications if you fail to designate a certain amount during the week.
I try to designate an thirty minutes to an hour of each day to information sharing (writing blogs, commenting on blogs, perusing my Google Reader) and an hour a day to using my other networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Smaller Indiana).

Tip 3: Setup Time Blocks for Social Media Management (Facebook Meeting)

If you use Outlook or Google Calendar (well.. any calendar) it is important to setup time blocks for use of social media. Some people may disagree with me but I find it extremely valuable in helping in building a habit and setting aside time.  Setup up social media meetings!

Tip 4: Try Rescue Time

RescueTime is an AWESOME time management tool for Internet use.  RescueTime is a web-based time management and analytics tool for knowledge workers who want to be more efficient and productive. If you own a company and you are looking for a great tool to help manage your employees time online… this is for you. Check out the video below:

RescueTime Reports from Tony Wright on Vimeo.

Tip 5 : Do Not Get Sucked into the Social Media Black Hole

Everyone knows the problem of the social media black hole…. let me run the scenario. You get on Facebook at 10:00 am. What are you doing? You are probably checking your messages… updating your status… and looking at pictures.

All of a sudden your chat box ignites with a flurry of activity. Friends from long ago are tweeting you, texting you, Facebook chatting you, and frankly… destroying your ability to get anything done. This is the social media black hole. Easy fix > turn off chat functionality on everything.

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I Don’t Care About Your Clients. I Care About Their Friends.

Here is a quick thought for your Monday morning. I always try to get a point across in all of my seminars surrounding the concepts in social media and the Internet. it goes something like this..

“As a marketer in this age of online communication.. I don’t care about your clients… I care about their friends.”

This concept has been gaining importance according to the rules of viral marketing and online marketing. When we are focusing on lead generation through social media it is extremely important to understand what SELLS your product or service. What story do you tell the end-user that pulls people toward your brand? How do you get people involved passed the direct mail piece or the tweet you sent out yesterday?

You get your current customers to tell the story for you.

You train your happy clients to tell their version of your story!

It is a fact of nature right? We tend to have friends that are similar to us… your friends… your business contacts… your important professional network… the closest people tend to have the same type of values.

We want to our clients to sell our story. Referrals are the best way to gain business leads and social media has created a platform to make that sharing… so much easier.

Education and the ability to teach your customers the art of sharing is and will be… extremely important to growing your business in this new age of online communication.

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Social Media Enhances Personal Experience in Business

Why do we tend to shorten experiences? Why… as a society… do we keep inventing new ways to make things faster, harder, stronger, and compiled. Information flying this way and that, overloading everyone from the iPOD Millennial to the AM Radio Baby Boomer (sorry stereotyping is a spiritual gift of mine). Technology has managed to help our society do more in less time. But (hat tip to Seth Godin on this one) the “do more in less time” philosophy has taken the personality out of the every day encounter. Seth makes a brilliant example in his post, Old Marketing with New Tools:

Cost and speed pressure means that when you get your car serviced, it’s unlikely you’ll be greeted by the mechanic himself, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, telling you exactly what he did to your car. Instead, you’ll get a difficult to decipher printout.

In some cases, new technology has taken out the face to face interaction with the business to the client. BUT we have seen an increase in social interaction (both online and off) in the realm of social media.

I overheard a gentleman talking about a social network (whether Facebook or LinkedIn it doesn’t matter). He was making reference to social networking on the Internet as impersonal and stupid. First off, I about flipped out of my chair and set him on fire. I understand that online social networking is not for everyone but the least someone can do is recognize the fact that it has VALUE. I turned around thinking I would be face-to-face with a twenty-something year old. Unfortunately he looked around 50 with his real age probably being closer to 35.

The simple fact that a gentleman/business owner was implying that social networking was impersonal is completely ridiculous. If you do it right.

The right way to make social networking work for you is two fold.

1. Join a social network (preferably a geographically local network). In order to know and be productive in the different social networks refer to my post: How To Be Productive in Social Media.

2. Use the social network to meet members of that specific network off-line.

Combine face-to-face networking with your online social networking experience. I use Smaller Indiana to meet new business owners/creative individuals in the Indianapolis community. This does not replace my off-line business networking with groups like Rainmakers but it does add value in meeting people who usually do not attend networking events.

The combination of off-line and online social networking is a powerful tool you can utilize for YOUR business. Try it out. Spend a few minutes on a local network and set up a meeting. If it doesn’t work. TRY AGAIN. If that doesn’t work. Third times s charm?

Also, if you ever hear anyone degrading social media, please call me. I’ll bring the blow torch. You bring the gasoline.