Copywriter Bob Bly has an interesting discussion on his blog about a new social media report by Michael Stelzner.

While Bob’s post focuses on how social media is time consuming and delivers little ROI with regard to the time spent on it, he also states in one of his comments that social media advocates refuse to measure social media ROI by “bottom line” results. 

It’s true. I cannot tell you in terms of hard numbers how social media has benefited my business — only that it has (tremendously).

However, I realized this morning that we do many things that have “zero bottom line results” but which impact our businesses in ways we can’t even imagine.

Take face-to-face networking, for example. About five or so years ago, I attended a Business Marketing Association meeting in the Boston area in order to hear my good friend Mac McIntosh give a presentation.

At that meeting I met a MarCom Manager from a major tech company in the area. We kept in touch, connected on LinkedIn, and she signed up for my e-newsletter.

A year or so later, she moved to a new company and hired me for a project . . . and then another project . . . and then another. She was also instrumental in getting me into her company to give a presentation on B2B copywriting to her colleagues.

So this morning I’m sitting here doing a new proposal for another large tech company in the area, and as I was typing the person’s contact information into ACT!, and noting that she had been referred to me by this MarCom Manager I had met years ago, I had a real ephinany:

You simply cannot measure social media / social networking by traditional or “bottom line” measures.

Social media tools, such as Twitter, are similar to having a chat over a cup of coffee — or a first date. And as Mac is always saying, you can’t ask your customers to marry you on the first date because you’ll scare them away!

If I had asked the MarCom Manager if she was going to send me work while sitting at that BMA dinner meeting, do you think she would have hired me a year later? Hell no!

It’s the same for social media. You can’t expect people to send you “juicy fat contracts” simply because they’re following you on Twitter.

What happens with social media (and face-to-face networking) however, is that people get to know you. They learn how you think, how you present yourself, even a little of your values and business principles.

Over time, they connect more deeply with you and begin to either inquire about your services or refer others to you. And that is where the magic happens, as I realized this morning.

If you’re looking for social media to send you leads and contracts, you’ll be disappointed. If you use social media to connect with others and build new relationships, you’ll find results and success — plus a whole lot of satisfaction.

Are you tired of gloom and doom headlines? I know I am. That’s why I decided that as a public service I would post articles about companies that are growing — and even hiring! 

If your B2B company is growing, drop me a line. I’d love to hear about it. Maybe together we can generate some positive mojo to help turn our economy around!

VerticalResponse Founder and CEO Janine Popick started her email marketing company during  the last recession in 2001 — and boot-strapped her way to success. In fact, the company grew over 50% in 2008 and is on track for a “good” growth rate this year.

What follows is an interview I had with Janine recently about her company and her insight as to why email marketing is still a great tool for small business.

DH: Why is VerticalResponse growing despite the recession?

JP: What we’re seeing is that small businesses are really looking at what they have. They look at the business cards they’ve collected and the names of people they’ve met and they’re wondering how to communicate with them.

No one is cutting back on customer retention — what they’re cutting back on is their Google AdWord spend or print advertising.  So email marketing fits right in with small business owners’ mindsets.

DH: Have you increased VerticalResponse’s marketing spend for 2009, and which marketing tactics are you using?

JP: My entire team is very conscious about how they spend money. We constantly track what is working and what isn’t. We have our cost per customer pegged and we’ll pull things on the fly if we have too.

We’ve made some changes. Instead of doing a large national conference, we’re doing regional conferences because the costs are lower.

We also have a VerticalResponse community — and we’re monitoring how our customers use social media tools such as Twitter. For example, instead of writing separate newsletter content and blog posts, we now write the newsletter, provide an online version of it, and then let people Tweet about it.

DH: What do you think small businesses are looking for with regard to email marketing?

JP: In a nutshell, they are looking for return on investment — and email marketing gives them that immediate ROI they’re looking for.

We have lots of customers who are doing e-newsletters and / or selling product through email — and many still have huge open rates. One of our customers is making $14K a month selling facial products online. When she remembers to do an email campaign, that goes up to $18K month.

DH: That’s interesting, because for awhile, you heard that email marketing wasn’t working anymore and that blogs/RSS would take the place of e-newsletters. But now I’m reading about how e-newsletters are still a great way to market to customers (which is something I’ve been doing since 1999 — and won’t give up anytime soon).

JP: RSS is awesome — if you’re a tech head. But the rest of the world hasn’t adopted it. Email is still a great marketing tool because not everyone reads blogs.

DH: Ok, last question. What has been your greatest success — one that you’re particularly proud of?

JP: The day we turned profitable — which happened in 2005. I knew then that going forward I wouldn’t have to go back to my family and friends asking for money. Instead, I could give them back their money!

Thanks, Janine! VerticalResponse allows you to cost-effectively send email newsletters, campaigns, and surveys, and it integrates with SalesForce.com — making it easy to send email to your customer / prospect list without having to maintain two separate lists. Very cool, Janine!

(Thank you to Samantha Rubenstein of Atomic PR for arranging this interview.)

While eating lunch last December, I read the copy for a full page ad run by Tourneau, the luxury watch maker, for “pre-owned watches.”  Bemused by the term, “pre-owned watch,” I Twittered about the ad — and even ran some keyword search results.

Who knew that a luxury watch maker would know that people were actually looking for high-end “pre-owned watches”? (I sure didn’t!)

Fast forward to February . . . when I received an email from Melanie Nerenberg, the Director of Marketing for Tourneau.

She had gone from my Tweets to my  blog and had found both interesting — and long story short, we ended up meeting for lunch yesterday in New York.

Melanie gave me the grand tour of the Tourneau flagship store as well as telling me how the company markets its products. I learned more about retail and luxury marketing in two hours than I have in my entire time in business!

And looking at the watches – and learning about watch technology — was pretty cool, too.

You can read lots of articles about the pros and cons of social media and whether or not social media helps drive leads for B2B. The people who say social media doesn’t generate leads the way traditional marketing tactics do are probably right.

However, you can’t beat the connections that you make on social media — connections you would never make with cold calls, direct mail, or even an optimized Web site.

Melanie, you are fabulous, as is your company. Thank you for a wonderful afternoon — I had a great time!

My client, Jeremy Shapiro (@JeremyShapiro), co-founder of ForeclosuresMass, and I were talking about Twitter profiles the other day.

Both of us agreed that we generally don’t follow people if the person’s profile is incomplete. If you’d like to get more out of Twitter, it pays to develop a complete profile using these five tips:

1. Add your “real name” via the Settings tab — I often search for people on Twitter that I’ve read or heard about (or heard speak) using their first and last names. Often, I can’t find them. 

You can make it easy for people to find you by adding your first and last name in the “Settings” tab of Twitter. This way, when someone does a search, you’re easily found.

This is especially important if your Twitter screen name isn’t your real name — as is the case with sales lead expert Mac McIntosh (@B2B_Sales_Leads):

2. Include your geographic area — If you don’t want to include your exact town, use the metro area to which you’re closest, i.e. Boston, MA, Silicon Valley, Seattle, WA. It’s also ok to list just your state – as Mac does in his profile and as I do in mine.

You want to list your geographic region because other people with the same name  may also be on Twitter. If you search for Jeremy Shapiro, for example, you’ll find five people with that name. Because my client Jeremy includes his photo and geographic region, I know he’s the one I want to follow:

I want to know people’s locations because I like to follow those within New Hampshire and Massachusetts — and it’s the same for other Twitter users across the US. (It also makes it easy to learn about TweetUps based on specific locales.)

I also like to follow a few people outside of the U.S. in order to get a different perspective on things.

3. Link to your blog / Website / Google profile — Twitter can feel a tad stalkerish: you’re following people you don’t know, people you don’t know are following you — so it’s good to give people additional info about yourself  by linking to your Website, blog, or Google profile.  (It’s also a great way to drive additional traffic and/or newsletter subscriptions.)

4. Write an interesting bio — Too many times people use the Twitter bio as a throwaway field and list ho-hum attributes . . . “Social media expert, Internet marketer, runner, coffee drinker, dad.”

(As an FYI, it seems almost everyone on Twitter is some kind of social media expert — I’ve stopped following these people because I want new perspectives.)

See if you can write a 140-character bio that’s 1) interesting, 2) makes you stand out and 3) is a pleasure to read.

Don’t be afraid to include a bit of personal information. In addition to living and breathing B2B marketing, I enjoy working out at the gym, reading all kinds of books, magazines, and newspapers (business and pleasure), and spending time with my son (who is a total geek), so I included all these things in my profile.

I knew I had my profile nailed when a colleague emailed me a couple of weeks ago to say, “Your Twitter profile cracked me up!” 

If you’re copywriter, writing your bio should be a piece of cake — it’s the same as writing one of those 25-word ad blurbs.

5. Include a photo of yourself — If you’re using Twitter for business purposes and you’re a woman, a photo of you posing provacatively probably isn’t the best way to present yourself. Jeremy says that if you’re a man, you don’t want a photo of yourself hoisting a beer.

Whatever you do, don’t fall back on the Twitter default avatar — using it means you’re a clueless Twitter newbie.

What are your pet peeves about Twitter profiles and what makes you decide to follow a person?

Last night my client, Dr. Helaine Smith, and I attended the MassNetComms Social Media Marketing event featuring David Meerman Scott – plus a panel discussion with David, Sam Houston, the Community Manager for gamerDNA, and Kevin Skarritt of Acorn Creative.

This was the first time I’d heard David speak — and of course, his keynote presentation lived up to his billing. (He also talked about Dr. Smith’s “Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex” e-book, which is a featured World Wide Rave.)

Over dinner, Dr. Smith and I agreed that we learned a great deal from the panel discussion, including why it’s important to try different marketing tactics to see what “sticks,” integrating your various tactics, and offering content that engages people.

Sam, for example, did a blog post at 2:00 AM one morning that listed all of the people in his industry on Twitter. He reported that when he got up the next morning, the post had already been picked up by other bloggers and was getting “Dugg.” He said he got over 100,000 views , with dozens of bloggers picking up his post — and the number of people following him on Twitter exploding.

We also talked a great deal about the aspect of “losing control” of your marketing messages — something that feels uncomfortable, but once you realize you’ve already lost control, makes a lot of sense. We concluded it’s better to simply join the conversation versus fretting about what people are saying.

MassNetComms did a great job organizing the event and developing a panel of interesting and diverse experts. All in all, a great way to spend an evening.

Dr. Helaine Smith and I pose with David Meerman Scott

Although online social networking can be a boon to your business, meeting people face-to-face is still the best way to develop relationships.  And this month and next you have some really great opportunities in the Boston / New Hamphire areas.

Marketing Metrics that Matter, hosted by NEDMA, March 25, 2009 — In good times, you can afford to have some parts of your marketing run on “auto-pilot.” If you don’t know exactly how you’re doing, or why, or what you could be doing to improve, you can live with the consequences. Not now.

Today, you must have a firm grip on what’s working, and have the insight to improve any aspect of that performance. Join Brendan Grady, Matisha Ladiwala, Brian Chertok and Mary Ann Kleinfelter for this fact-filled seminar about driving marketing effectiveness through rigorous, consistent measurement and constant improvement.

NEDMA is a great group! I often attend their events and always come away with loads of information — plus I’m always meeting new people. To learn more about this half-day workshop, visit the NEDMA site.

Marketing Your Way Through 2009 presented by the Vermont/New Hampshire Marketing Group, April 2, 2009 — At this all day event, you’ll learn about database marketing, social media, and the “state of the state” marketing.

I’m doing the social media presentation — which is a “hands-on” session for learning how to actually use tools such as Twitter and LinkedIn. 

I’ve not attended meetings of this group before, so I’m looking forward to meeting new people in the New Hampshire area. You learn more at the Vermont New Hampshire Marketing Group’s site – and register, too.

Finding Buyers and Sellers with Social Media presented by ForeclosuresMass, April 2, 2009 — ForeclosuresMass offers real estate investors and professionals educational meetings once a month, and at their April Turking the Key meeting, I will be talking about how to use social media to attract buyers and sellers of real estate.

I’m really excited about this one. I’ve attended a number of these meetings and love the group of people who turn out each month. I also learn a lot — everything from how to motivate and market myself to how to finance real estate deals.

In addition to the live presentation in Dedham, MA, FCM will be streaming video of the presentation — so you can attend “live” via your computer. To register, just visit the FCM site.

Google Universal Search, presented by Google’s Frances Haugin, April 8, 2009 — Hosted by SEMPO, and sponsored by Google, this promises to be a packed and stellar event. SEMPO is working hard to get the word out that you don’t have to be a search engine marketing “guru” or expert to attend these events – SEMPO is really big on educating those who are new to search.

You can meet your fellow search and Internet marketers — and learn what’s hot with Universal Search — by visiting the SEMPO Meet Up site and registering for the event.

My friend, colleague, and CEO of @Website Publicity, Susan O’Neil, called me last week with very exciting news: four Googlers from the GooglePlex (that would be Mountain View, CA) visited her company in Peterborough, NH and gave her team an advanced training session on paid search campaign management.

“This is the first time Google has paid a visit to New Hampshire,” reports Susan. “We have our regular visits with MSN and Yahoo, as well as meetings with Google at national conference venues, so this visit was very special. All of us were thrilled.”

Susan says that she and her team have been providing search engine marketing services for 11 years, but have had to perform continuous testing in order to discern Google’s preferences and patterns. Now that Google has increased support to Google-certified agencies like hers, Susan and her team feel they are an intregral part of Google’s SEM process — which benefits their clients, as well.

@Website Publicity manages organic and paid search campaigns for Yankee Publishing, Northeast Delta Dental, Green Mountain Coffee, and Yankee Candle Company.

They also offer SEO training sessions to clients — sessions on which @Website Publicity and I have collaborated.

Susan, congratulations on your Google visit. That is awesome!  And, I’m so glad to hear your  company is doing so well. Success couldn’t happen to a nicer person!

(Photo: The Google and @Website Publicity (WSP) team enjoyed a moment of sun and snow in front of @Website Publicity’s offices. From left to right: Gail Kenney, Mike Briggs and Amy Oles of WSP, Chrissy Hirsch of Google, Leslie Lewis and Holly Sanderson of WSP, Jesse Nichols, Lindsey Wall and Rayn Voccola of Google, and Dennis Shanoff of WSP.)

Facebook is hot. Everyone, it seems, is on it.

The 14-year old girl in my afterschool carpool lives and dies by Facebook. (She often states she wishes she had a 24/7 Webcam in order to record her life!)

People I haven’t spoken to in years Friend me on Facebook.

And judging from all the press, such as this article about Facebook taking over our lives in a recent issue of Fortune, Facebook is a communications revolution.

Here is the sorry truth — I don’t like Facebook.

I know people use it to network and find jobs. I know businesses use it to “communicate” with customers. I know, I know, I know.

But it just feels incredibly creepy to me to post personal information about myself . . . information my clients, business partners, and colleagues can read.

I cannot present myself online — and in particular, with Facebook — the way I would with the women I work out with on a weekly basis at the gym, the friends I have lunch with, and the people who have traveled life with me and who really don’t need to see my “updates” on Facebook in order to keep up with me. When we need to talk, we simply pick up the phone. 

At first, I worried about my lack of comfort with Facebook. I’m supposed to be well-versed in all things social media. I advise clients on how to use social media — and I’ve seen how it benefits my own business (especially Twitter, which I love).

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the essential truth:

You have to recognize and honor your own comfort levels when it comes to social media. 

Facebook makes me feel uncomfortable because it crosses a line between my business life and my personal life — a line I want to keep intact. Sure, I share some personal things with clients — because that’s how you grow relationships over time.

But do I want to share my vacation photos with them? No.

Do I want them to know what books I’m reading or the TV shows I’m watching? No.

Do I want them to know when I get up and when I go to sleep and where I’m eating dinner that night? No.

And truthfully, I really don’t think they care, either.

So, I will stick to the old-fashioned method of building solid relationships : having real life conversations that take place on the phone or face-to-face and that include skills that are still incredibly essential — LISTENING and LEARNING.

I, and by extension, my friends, colleagues, and clients, will be better for it.

Rebekah E. Donaldson and Cris L. Rominger, of Business Communications Group, recently published an e-book, “The New Rules of Outsourcing B2B Marketing: What Marketing Directors Need In a B2B Marketing Consultant Today.”

You can download it for free — no registration required.

Rebekah and Cris lay out the 10 questions you can use to help you rank consulting candidates; they then use the rest of the e-book to explain what a B2B marketing consultant should bring to the table.

I really like their ideas. They make the case that a B2B marketing consultant needs to be well-rounded — meaning that he or she needs to understand marketing as a whole and how the various pieces fit together.

The authors also go into detail about why inbound marketing skills are crucial: it’s because B2B buyers are “empowered and savvy” and they go online looking for the products and services they need.

If your B2B marketing consultant has no clue how the Web works — or what types of Web content play a role in the various stages of the sales cycle — then you’re going to miss out on an important piece of the marketing mix.

According to Rebekah and Cris, a B2B marketing consultant also needs to understand the importance of integrating all major marketing disciplines — from search engine marketing and email to social media and trade shows.

The authors conclude with a discussion about measuring ROI. In fact, they advocate asking potential consultants how they’ll measure ROI and how they’ll report the findings back to you.

All in all, a really great resource — whether you’re looking for a B2B marketing consultant or you are one.