Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry 2010

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry 2010 Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry 2010 The Foundation is the only research organization dedicated solely to the equipment finance industry. The Foundation accomplishes its mission through development of future-focused studies and reports identifying critical issues that could impact the industry. The Foundation research is independent, predictive and peer-reviewed by industry experts. The Foundation is funded solely through contributions. Contributions to the Foundation are tax deductible. Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation 1825 K STREET • SUITE 900 WASHINGTON, DC 20006 WWW.LEASEFOUNDATION.ORG 202-238-3426 LISA A. LEVINE, CAE, PRESIDENT Equipment Leasing and Finance Foundation Page 2 Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry 2010 Contents PREFACE....................................................................................................................................... 6 Purpose of This Study................................................................................................................. 6 Primary and Secondary Information Sources ............................................................................. 7 How to Use This Study............................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements..................................................................................................................... 7 THE SOCIAL MEDIA REALM .................................................................................................... 9 Executive Summary....................................................................................................................... 10 Overview................................................................................................................................... 10 Implications .............................................................................................................................. 11 Shift in Customer – and Employee – Power............................................................................. 11 Results and ROI........................................................................................................................ 12 Top Level Findings................................................................................................................... 13 Social Media for Equipment Finance ....................................................................................... 14 Best Practices............................................................................................................................ 15 The B2B Social Media Landscape ................................................................................................ 16 Social Media’s Promise ............................................................................................................ 17 Business Uses ........................................................................................................................... 17 Market Segment Differences .................................................................................................... 18 Summary................................................................................................................................... 18 Social Media and the Equipment Finance Industry...................................................................... 20 When Social Media May Not Make Sense .................................................................................... 24 Company Differences.................................................................................................................... 25 THE SOCIAL MEDIA PRIMER ................................................................................................. 27 Primer Outline .............................................................................................................................. 28 Prepare ......................................................................................................................................... 29 Understand the New Culture................................................................................................. 29 Form a Cross-Functional Social Media Team ...................................................................... 30 Identify Goals and Objectives............................................................................................... 31 Know Thyself........................................................................................................................ 32 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 33 Equipment Leasing and Finance Foundation Page 3 Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry 2010 Listen............................................................................................................................................. 35 Gather Intelligence................................................................................................................ 35 Get Your “Data House” In Order.......................................................................................... 39 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 41 Plan............................................................................................................................................... 43 Have a Plan and a Strategy ................................................................................................... 43 Identify What to Measure ..................................................................................................... 46 Identify Risk Areas ............................................................................................................... 48 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 52 Invest............................................................................................................................................. 54 Become Discoverable, Searchable, Shareable ...................................................................... 54 Individual Social Networking ............................................................................................... 55 Determine the Need for New Communities.......................................................................... 56 Select the Right Channels and Tools .................................................................................... 56 Dedicate Resources............................................................................................................... 57 Identify “Real” Content ........................................................................................................ 59 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 60 Engage .......................................................................................................................................... 62 Let the Brand Personality Shine ........................................................................................... 62 Determine the Level of Participation.................................................................................... 62 Understand the Four Horsemen of the B2B Social Media Kingdom ................................... 64 A Word About Facebook ...................................................................................................... 73 Promote the Effort................................................................................................................. 74 Reward Success .................................................................................................................... 75 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 75 Learn............................................................................................................................................. 76 Adjust, Abandon, Change ..................................................................................................... 76 Analyze, Monitor .................................................................................................................. 76 Calculate ROI........................................................................................................................ 77 Optimize................................................................................................................................ 79 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 79 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 81 CASE STUDIES........................................................................................................................... 82 Equipment Leasing and Finance Foundation Page 4 Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry 2010 Case Study: GE Capital ...........................................................................................................
Recommended publications
  • 48 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools | Dreamgrow Social Media
    DreamGrow Social Media Your Source of Social Media Marketing Information Free Facebook Page Evaluation Our Clients Social Media Marketing Services Speaking & Training About DreamGrow Facebook Account Avail Great Discounts on All Brands Register Free to get 80% Off Now! FashionandYou.com/Register-Now JomSocial Get Your Own Social Network with 4000+ of Joomla Extensions www.JomSocial.com Jet Airways Airfare Deals World-Class Service At Affordable Price. Book Jet Airways Konnect! www.JetAirways.com/Konnect_Service 48 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools Author: Priit Kallas | Filed under: Facebook , Social media , Tools , Twitter | Tags: Buzz Monitoring , Digg , Facebook , facebook monitoring tool , facebook monitoring tools , forum monitoring , free social media monitoring , free social media monitoring tools , free social media tracking , Google alerts , message board tracking , social media Monitoring , social media monitoring tools , social media tools , social media trends , Social Web Analytics , Twitter monitoring , twitter tools | 23 Comments » If you want to know what’s happening in the social web you need monitoring tools. Before you get out your credit card and start to spend money try out some of the free social 412 109 media monitoring services . This way you get a taste of what is available and if you need Like paid services. I have collected 48 free social media monitoring tools. In the Group A are the services that I use regularly or seem interesting to check out immediately. The Group B is an alphabetical list of tools for you to play with. Here we go: Group A Seesmic Twitter account: seesmic Seesmic is a suite of social media management and collaboration tools that provide everything to build their brands online.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Media Time Management Strategies for Tackling Information Overload Getting Organized
    Social Media Time Management Strategies for Tackling Information Overload Getting Organized Information overload is real, but it’s something that’s in your control. Managing your time in social media is first and foremost about deciding where to spend your time and why, and that requires a little bit of organization to start with. What Are You In This For? If your goal is to be engaged in social media for pleasure or just for personal connections, your approach is rather simple. You’ll choose the tools and sites where you find folks with common interests, and you’ll tuck the time in out- side your other responsibilities. But if you’re in this for business, at least in part, you’re going to need to think through some clearer goals than that Here are five sets of questions to ask yourself: 1) Realistically, how many hours do I have to spend in social media each day? Do I have resources/people other than me? What can I expect of them? (Note: if you’re serious about doing social, you need to find an hour a day to start with, at least.) 2) Which 2 or 3 tools and social networks make sense based on my listening efforts? What is my goal for participa- tion on those sites? What is the culture of those communities and how will my participation line up with that? 3) Have we evaluated our current online and offline communication efforts to determine what’s working and what we might supplement or replace with social media? Am I going to need to add this on to my existing responsibilities in order to prove its value before making trade-offs? 4) Has our leadership bought into this idea already, or am I establishing a presence so I can build a stronger case? Is time I spend on social media going to be viewed as an investment or a time sink? How do I make the case for the former? 5) What does success look like? How about failure? How can I measure both, even simplistically? (Hint: Objectives you can’t measure against are going to be really hard to celebrate or adjust, since you won’t know how you did either way).
    [Show full text]
  • The a to Z of Social Media
    FACT SHEET 4 THE A TO Z OF SOCIAL MEDIA A Blogroll: a list of sites displayed in the sidebar of blog, showing which other blogs the blog-owner AddThis: a social bookmarking service that provides reads regularly. a code users can put on their websites so that when people visit that site, they have the option to share BoardReader: a free search engine that allows users via Facebook, Twitter, etc. Its analytics service can to search for keywords only in posts and titles of show you which pages are trending, where people are online forums. interacting with your brand, and what they’re saying about your content on Twitter. Boxee: a social video application that allows users to watch online videos on their TVs and computers. Algorithm: a set of formulas developed for a computer Users can share and watch videos from a variety of to perform a certain function. This is important in the online videos sources for free. social sphere as the algorithms sites like Facebook and Google use are critical for developing content- Bookmarking: allows you to mark something you sharing strategies. found important, enjoyed, or where you left off to continue reading later. Bookmarking is made possible Application Programming Interface (API): a via online services such as Delicious. documented interface that allows one software application to interact with another application. An example of this is the Twitter API. C Avatar: an image or user name that represents a person online within forums and social networks. Chat: refers to any kind of communication over the Internet but traditionally refers to one-to-one communication through a text-based chat application B commonly referred to as instant messaging applications.
    [Show full text]
  • The Complete Guide to Expertise Marketing the Next Wave in Digital Strategy
    The Complete Guide to Expertise Marketing the Next Wave in Digital Strategy. Table of Contents Executive Summary .............................................................................................3 1. The Shift to Expertise Marketing ..................................................................4 2. Understanding Your Expertise ................................................................... 11 3. Showcasing Expert Content ....................................................................... 14 4. How Expertise Marketing Complements Existing Programs ................ 19 5. The Value of Expertise Marketing.............................................................. 22 6. Expertise Marketing in Action ................................................................................. 25 7. Uncovering Opportunities .......................................................................... 30 8. About ExpertFile .......................................................................................... 32 9. References ..................................................................................................... 35 2 | Expertise Marketing: The Next Wave in Digital Strategy © ExpertFile Inc. 2018 Executive Summary More than ever, organizations are being challenged to generate bold new ideas that build affinity, increase mindshare with their audiences and ultimately, drive revenue growth for their business. There is strong evidence that customers require a human connection from organizations; people buy from people.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Media E-Book
    E-Book This e-book and workbook are provided by the Kutztown University Small Business Development Center. Last update: January 18, 2015 For comments and inquiries, please contact: Main center Kutztown University Small Business Development Center 1-877-472-7232 15155 Kutztown Road Kutztown, PA 19530 [email protected] Outreach offices Exton outreach office 737 Constitution Drive www.kutztownsbdc.org Exton, PA 19341 Harrisburg outreach office @KutztownSBDC 3211 North Front Street Harrisburg, PA 17110 www.youtube.com/KUSBDCtv Lancaster outreach office 100 South Queen Street Lancaster, PA 17608 Reading outreach office 237 Court Street Reading, PA 19601 York outreach office 600 North Hartley Street York, PA 17404 An accredited affiliate of the national network of Small Business Development Centers. Copyright © 2015 Kutztown University Small Business Development Center. All Rights Reserved. E-Book The contents of these pages are provided as an information guide only. No legal liability or other responsibility is accepted by or on behalf of the Kutztown University Small Business Development Center for any errors, omissions, or statements on these pages, or any site to which these pages connect. The Kutztown University Small Business Development Center accepts no responsibility for any loss, damage or inconvenience caused as a result of reliance on such information. This guide is provided by the KU SBDC and all sample business stories within are fictional. Any similarity to real businesses is coincidental. Funding support and resources are provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through the Department of Community and Economic Development; through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration, and through support from Kutztown University.
    [Show full text]
  • GETTING SOCIAL in a Small Academic Library
    GETTING SOCIAL in a small academic library Elizabeth Ramsey Montana Tech of The University of Montana [email protected] WHY? • What are your overall objectives and goals? • How will you measure them? • What indicators will you use to determine when something’s not working and who makes that call? - Image: Some rights reserved by aussiegall MEASURING & ASSESSING • Facebook Insights and Impressions • Twitter Counter (twitttercounter.com) • PostRank Analytics (https://analytics.postrank.com/) • Social Mention (socialmention.com) • Google Analytics (google.com/analytics/) Facebook Insights Facebook Impressions Montana Tech Library I see way too many wide open Facebook accounts out there, meaning ANYBODY can look at your bio, friends, photos, whatnot; here are some good tips for locking it down. http://lifehacker.com/5813990/​the-always-up+to+date-guide-to​- managing-your-facebook-privac​y The Always Up-to-Date Guide to Managing Your Facebook Privacy lifehacker.com Keeping your Facebook info private is getting harder and harder all the time—mostly because Facebook keeps trying to make it public. To help you out, we've created a comprehensive guide to keeping your Facebook locked down and in your control, and we're going to keep it updated whenever... 127 Impressions · 0% Feedback June 27 at 12:00pm · Like · Share WHAT? • What content are you going to create or curate to gain interest? • Where will that content come from? • What schedule will you use? • Who will be responsible for content creation? - Image: Some rights reserved by solyanka
    [Show full text]
  • 10 Free Metrics Tools for Actionable Analytics
    INTERNET AT LIBERTY 10 FREE METRICS TOOLS FOR ACTIONABLE ANALYTICS Google Analytics Klout Google Analytics should be the No. 1 metrics Klout offers a daily summary of your organiza- tool in your arsenal. You get super-rich insights tion’s or team members’ social media influence, into your site traffic and user behavior — for with a ranking that factors in reach and impact free. Create better-targeted ads, measure your on Twitter (metrics such as retweets, follower site engagement goals, track Web-enabled counts, list memberships), Facebook and phones, mobile apps and even social referrals. LinkedIn. Also look at PeerIndex. Facebook Insights Social Page Evaluator Facebook Insights resembles Google Analyt- The Social Page Evaluator by Vitrue ics in many ways. As a Page admin, your dash- looks at your post quality and the number board gives you access to a trove of data: daily of people who have liked your Facebook active users, monthly active users, daily new Pages. It shows your effectiveness on likes, daily interactions such as comments, Facebook vs. your potential. What makes geographic location of your visitors, external this killer is that you can adjust your referrals, internal link traffic and more. earned media value using a slider. PostRank EdgeRank Checker PostRank provides detailed information on EdgeRank Checker steps you through the Tweets, stumbles, Diggs and FriendFeed all in process of determining how effective your one place. It’s suited to blogs and websites Facebook Page is in reaching your followers. with a lot of content. Under its free plan, you No download necessary. The higher your Edg- can track and compare your sites and your eRank score, the more likely it is to be visible competition — up to five sites in all — to get on a fan's Top News feed.
    [Show full text]
  • Marketing Toolkit, Designed to Help You Interact with Your Target Audiences and Establish and Maintain a Marketing Presence
    TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction & Overview 2 Brand Management Guidelines 3 Collateral Guidelines 4 Advertising 101 10 Media Buying 101 13 Example Media Insertion Order 14 Public Relations 101 16 Anatomy of a Message 17 Strategic Message Development Worksheet 18 News Release Guide 19 News Release Template 22 News Release Checklist 23 News Release Do’s and Don’ts 24 Regional Media List 25 Social Media 101 29 Getting Started in Social Media: The Social Media Audit 31 Regional Providers: Marketing Communications 34 © 2013 – 2015 Midwest Partnership, all rights reserved. 1 INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW Communicating the unique characteristics of your products or company, if done well, can increase your company’s awareness and sales opportunities. Yet knowing how to do this can be overwhelming and time consuming to a business owner. That is why Midwest Partnership has prepared this Marketing Toolkit, designed to help you interact with your target audiences and establish and maintain a marketing presence. This marketing toolkit contains helpful information, tips and tools to integrate advertising, public relations and social media tools into your marketing arsenal. By integrating various items from the toolkit throughout the year, you can create a comprehensive marketing program. In this toolkit you will find simple “how to” guides and templates for each marketing element and general rules for implementing them effectively. We encourage you to use this kit in your promotion efforts. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your Midwest Partnership team. Executive Director Sarah Gomez [email protected] Economic Development Coordinator Emily Hockins [email protected] Administrative & Marketing Coordinator Lynsi Pasutti [email protected] © 2013 – 2015 Midwest Partnership, all rights reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • A to Z: Social Media Marketing
    0 Copyright © 2012 by Jordan Kasteler All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the author. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts of preparing this book, they make no representations of warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss or profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. 1 Author: Jordan Kasteler Jordan Kasteler is an Online Marketing Strategist for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a non-profit organization. He has a history of entrepreneurship co-founding and serving positions in such companies as BlueGlass Interactive, an Internet marketing agency and SteelCast, a tech incubator housing several other self-started companies. His work experience ranges from in-house SEO at Overstock.com to agency-level SEO. In addition to consulting, he’s experienced hosting BlueGlass Internet marketing events and co-owning one of the search engine industry’s leading publishing sites, Search Engine Journal.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Media Policy
    Social Media Policy Appendix 1 - Glossary Social Media Terms A Application Programing Interface (API): An API is a documented interface that allows one software application to interact with another application. An example of this is the Twitter API. Atom: Web feeds are used by the blogging community to share recent entries’ headlines, full text, and even attached multimedia files. These providers allow other Web sites to incorporate the blog’s “syndicated” headline or headline-and-short-summary feeds under various usage agreements. Atom and other Web syndication formats like RSS are now used for many purposes, including journalism, marketing, bug-reports, or any other activity involving periodic updates or publications. Atom also provides a standard way to export an entire blog, or parts of it, for backup or for importing into other blogging systems. Avatar: An Avatar is an image or username that represents a person online within forums and social networks. B BackType: BackType is a social media analytics company that helps companies measure their social engagement. The service began as a blog comment search engine. Bit.ly: Bit.ly is a popular free URL shortening service that provides statistics for the links users share online. Use it to condense long URLs and make them easier to share on social networks like Twitter. Blip.TV: Blip.TV is a online video sharing site. It offers both a free and a paid platform for individuals and companies who want to host an online video show. Blog: Blog is a word that was created from the two words “Web log”. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
    [Show full text]
  • Developing a Cost-Effective Branding Strategy for Nonprofit Organization to Survive and Thrive in a Competitive Environment
    Survival of the Fittest: Developing a Cost-Effective Branding Strategy for Nonprofit Organization to Survive and Thrive in a Competitive Environment Subir Bandyopadhyay Professor of Marketing School of Business & Economics Indiana University Northwest 3400 Broadway, Gary, IN 46408 Phone No: (219) 980-6900 Fax No: (219) 980-6916 Email: [email protected] Charles Dayton Management Student Indiana University Northwest Email: [email protected] We acknowledge the assistance of Aishariya Bandyopadhyay in background research. The first author acknowledges the financial support from Indiana University Northwest Research Support Grant and the Byron Root Foundation. The second author thanks Indiana University Northwest for an Undergraduate Research Fund. The second author also acknowledges the internship offered by the Lubeznik Center of Arts at Michigan City, Indiana. 1 Abstract Most companies appreciate the value of a strong brand. It is well-known in marketing that approximately 3 in 4 consumer purchases are emotionally-driven and only 1 in 4 is made out of necessity. Branding helps companies make an emotional bonding with target consumers. Accordingly, companies typically commit substantial resources to develop strong brand image for their products. Unfortunately, nonprofit organizations do not enjoy the same level of resources to develop and implement a branding strategy. It is, however, possible today to develop, with the help of digital communication tools such as social media, cost-efficient yet effective branding strategies for nonprofit organizations. 2 I: Introduction In today’s competitive economy many corporate giants are struggling to stay afloat. This economic recession has been just as devastating to the nonprofit sector, and many are vanishing all together.
    [Show full text]
  • The Digital Scholar
    The Digital Scholar How Technology Is Transforming Scholarly Practice Martin Weller BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC First published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Academic an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 36 Soho Square, LondonWiD3QY, UK and 175 Fifth Avenue, NewYork, NY 10010, USA Copyright © Martin Weller 2011 This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher. For permission to publish commercial versions please contact Bloomsbury Academic CIP records for this book are available from the British Library and the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-84966-497-4 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-84966-617-6 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-84966-625-1 (ebook) Visit http://bloomsburyacademic.com/ to find out more about our authors and their books. You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers. Coverimage: © PeterPhoto123/Shutterstock To Ellen While industries such as music, newspapers, film and publishing have seen radical changes in their business models and practices as a direct result of new technologies, higher education has so far resisted the wholesale changes we have seen elsewhere. However, a gradual and fundamental shift in the practice of academics is taking place. Every aspect of scholarly practice is seeing changes effected by the adoption and possibilities of new technologies. This book will explore these changes, their implications for higher education, the possibilities for new forms of scholarly practice and what lessons can be drawn from other sectors.
    [Show full text]