If you’re like me, you’re overwhelmed with the amount of marketing information being presented on an hourly basis. On top of that, keeping up with new technologies and terminologies is mind-boggling.

Quite frankly, my eyes have begun to permanently glaze over. So I was happy to hear that the marketing folks at Eloqua agree with me.

“You are correct,” says Joe Chernov, Director of Content for Eloqua, which provides marketing automation products and services. “People tune out when confronted with too much information. And, companies often use confusing concepts and jargon to explain what they do, especially when it comes to marketing automation. We wanted to turn our focus outward and get people’s attention through entertainment as well as substance.”

The result is Eloqua’s wonderful new Grande Guides campaign, complete with spokesperson Juan Eloqua, a “cheeky yet romantic” businessman who specializes in growing coffee — and revenue.

“Our CMO, Brian Kardon, came up with the idea for Juan Eloqua — it was one of those ‘lightning strikes’ type of ideas. Another idea was to film coffee barristas answering people’s questions, but we quickly realized that would be an execution nightmare.”

Campaign goal is more than just buzz

Casting, filming and editing the videos took eight weeks using a professional camera crew and a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) actor. Brian wrote the script; Joe was responsible for developing the Grande Guides.

“We had to go back and reshoot the videos because we wanted Juan to introduce the various Guides,” says Joe. “So that added to the execution time.”

The campaign launched August 24, 2010. “We put it out on various social media platforms and set it free,” says Joe. “However, we want more than buzz. We’re sending out over 100,000 emails asking people to subscribe to the content.

“And, because we’re always looking to add information to profiles in our database, we’ve put up forms to collect this information, which we’ll then use for our own lead scoring. We’re also hoping to reactivate inactive prospects.”

Grande Guides present one concept at a time

What I like best about this campaign is that Eloqua is seeking to educate people — the foundation of successful B2B marketing — while having some fun in the process. As such, the Grande Guides have been designed to look like a beloved moleskin notebook with valuable content . . . the kind you don’t want to throw away.

“The point with the Guides,” says Joe, “is to boil down complex concepts into a document someone can read in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.”

The first in the series, The Grande Guide to Lead Scoring, for example, gives you a detailed overview of the topic, why it’s important, and how to do it. Information is presented in an easy-to-read format with lots of subheads, call outs, graphs — and coffee stains.

Be sure to check out the Guide. You can also follow Eloqua and the campaign via Twitter, Slideshare, and Facebook.

Social media gurus tell you to have a strategy. “Not having a strategy” was the #1 marketing mistake people listed on the survey Mac McIntosh and I did (the upcoming e-book will list the other nine).

I’ve parroted this advice from the gurus. “You must have a strategy before you begin social media,” I say at my talks.

But here’s the deal. I’ve been wrong. Yep. Dead wrong.

Strategy, when it comes to social media, is overrated. Strategy makes it sound like the water is deep. Jump into the lake from the diving platform and you’ll need to figure out how to reach the shore. You need to know how to swim.

The social media lake is pretty shallow. Step in and you’ll get your ankles wet. Maybe. The water might only reach your pedicured toes.

In shallow water you can easily walk to the shore using what you already know – how to put one foot in front of the other.

Social media isn’t anything radical. It’s simply this: talking to other people. Some of them you know already. Some of them you don’t. That’s what makes it fun. It’s like being at a really cool cocktail party without the bother of dressing up and driving.

Social media strategy keeps you from being authentic. “We’ll cover all things relating to [insert topic here],” you think.

Strategy is important. It’s the first step in developing a new Website or a direct mail campaign or something of that nature. I’ve seen lots of marketing failures due to lack of a well-thought out strategy.

But sticking to a social media strategy is stifling. What if you have a terrific insight about something that has nothing to do with [insert your topic here]? Do you post it – or ignore it?

Ignore it and you lose authenticity.

You hear a lot about being “authentic.” Posting your location at some restaurant none of us have heard of isn’t authentic. Posting what you’re eating for dinner or that you have a headache isn’t really authentic either.

What is authenticity? It’s posting who you really are. It’s all the parts that make up who you are: your family, your interests, your pets, your likes, your dislikes.

Most of all it’s your unique insights.

Only you have your own perspective on what’s going on around you. Sure, you can read someone’s blog post and Tweet your “unique” take on it or post your Foursquare location – along with dozens of other people.

I won’t remember where you ate dinner or which blog post you read – last night, last week, last year.

Or, you can pull into your work parking lot and take a minute to enjoy the fact that a wild turkey is standing on one leg in your parking space — and tell your followers about it.

Personally, I’d rather hear about the turkey. I’ll remember the turkey and that you stopped to enjoy a gift from the universe because let’s face it – how often do you run into a wild turkey standing on one leg in your corporate parking lot?

It happened to me once. I’ve never forgotten it and always look for him now when I pull in. He hasn’t graced the parking lot since.

Being “social” on social media doesn’t require too much “strategy” or knowledge. You already know what to do.

Be nice to people.

Answer their questions.

Respond to what they have to say.

Post your own take on what is going on around you.

We’re all stuck in front of our computers pecking away all day – peck, peck, peck. It’s refreshing when one of us breaks loose.

People recognize authenticity and like moths, want to hover near the source. Maybe you won’t have 20,000 Twitter followers or be known as a “guru.”

But you’ll be true to yourself and your followers. And as Shakespeare said, you then can’t be false to anyone.

My lucky duck son got an iPhone 4 for his birthday and the day it arrived, a friend of our family eagerly asked if he could “FaceTime” us. (See Apple’s YouTube channel for some pretty cool video.)

After participating in the call, all I can say is “Coooool.” Real time video calling — an activity we’ve seen in futuristic movies and George Jetson cartoons — is here.

It took only a few seconds for me to grasp the marketing implications, and what I predict is that FaceTime or applications like it will totally and irrevocably change marketing.

Right now I regularly receive calls from really dumb telemarketers who work for clueless companies. These people call me pitching products and services . . . yet they have no idea who I am (something social media is supposed to solve).

I even had one telemarketer from a major company ask me, “So what exactly do you do anyway?” after pitching some kind of business product at me.

A simple two-second Internet search would have given her links to my Website, my blog, my Google, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, and some of the articles I’ve written.

Once marketers start using video calls to reach prospects, however, things will start getting nasty.

Granted, relatively few people have an iPhone 4. However, given the rate of technological advances, video calls will be commonplace in a few years. FaceTime will migrate from iPhones to iPads and other smart mobile devices.

Say I’m reading the Wall Street Journal on my iPad over breakfast and in comes a FaceTime call from a telemarketer trying to sell me something and like most telemarketers, he has no clue who I am.

Can you imagine the amount of ill-will this company will have created with one simple call? Forget negative Tweets — let’s talk about posting actual dumb FaceTime marketing calls on YouTube, Facebook, and blogs.

As marketers, myself included, we talk about how social media will help us get to know our customers / prospects — even as they get to know us.

Although you the marketer have “joined the conversation” and work hard to not use social media to push you-focused content, lots of other companies / marketers / consultants use social media as another one-to-many broadcast medium.

Just witness the number of self-serving DMs you receive when you follow people, the self-promotional spam posts on LinkedIn Groups, and the companies that use blogs and social media to push press releases and other corporate dreck.

FaceTime and apps like it will change this scenario.

FaceTime, I predict, will force companies and organizations to really think about how they market to people and what they want to accomplish — or face extreme opposition and blowback.

This is already happening with social media as evidenced when the moderator of the Nestle Facebook page talked smack with its Fans — an event that became fodder for major online media pundents. (See Michelle Tripp’s excellent write-up about how this went down.)

What do you think? Will marketers abuse FaceTime the way they’ve abused social media, direct mail, and the telephone? Or will it force them to change their ways?

Intuit and all of its Websites, including Quickbooks Online and Quicken, went down Tuesday night at approximately 7:00 PM Pacific time.

The sites were still down as of yesterday afternoon 3:00 PM Eastern.

When I logged on to QB Online early Wednesday morning and saw the message about the site being down, I didn’t think much of it. I know software-as-service companies do routine maintenance or encounter minor glitches.

However, when I logged on later that afternoon and saw that it was still down, my heart gave a thump.

So I did what has now become my habit for breaking news: I checked Twitter. Running a search for “Quickbooks Online down,” I quickly learned that all Intuit sites were down.

I also learned that Intuit hadn’t given any explanation for this outage that was obviously impacting a lot of businesses.

qbguy @diannahuff Intuit really has their hands full with a massive service outage since late yesterday. So far, very poor response and updates.

If we as marketers and corporate communicators have learned anything since the rise of social media and the mistakes of BP, Toyota, etc. it’s that when a crisis occurs, you have to communicate immediately. Period.

You have to tell your customers what’s going on, why it happened, and what you’re doing to resolve it.

I was able to log on to Quickbooks Online this morning where I found this message:

Update June 16 2010 at 8:00pm PST:

We’re beginning to restore all affected Intuit websites and services. Customers already have access to some sites and we’re continuing to work toward full restoration.

Our preliminary investigation indicates the outage occurred during a routine maintenance procedure Tuesday night. An accidental power failure during that procedure affected both our primary and backup systems, taking a number of Intuit websites and services offline. While power was quickly restored, we’re working diligently to validate our systems and bring them back into full operation.

We apologize for disruptions we’ve caused and understand the importance of our services to our customers. We will continue working nonstop until all affected websites and services are fully restored.

If I had seen this message on the Quickbooks home page — versus the one they had yesterday about the site being down — I would have felt relief. I also wouldn’t have gone to Twitter to see what in the hell was going on or posted my own frustrated Tweets.

Intuit may “understand the importance of its services,” but I’m not quite sure the company understands the gist of how its outage impacted people — companies couldn’t run payroll or process credit cards. For some, that was quite painful.

Plus, the outage created a real sense of fear. I know that I debated for a long time about using Quickbooks Online. It was scary to put, what is essentially the core of my business, in the cloud.

Intuit’s outage and lack of communication about it only added to my fear.

Think about how people would have responded if Intuit had communicated truthfully and authentically with all of us. I really don’t mind when companies make mistakes or run into technological glitches. God knows I have enough of my own.

But when you’re holding access to people’s financial data, you need to do more than simply post a “Our site is down and we’re working on it” message.

I’m no crisis communications consultant by any stretch of the imagination, but if I had been in charge, here’s what I would have done:

>> Had a plan in place for just this type of crisis.

>> Posted an honest message on the home screens of all affected sites in order to ease people’s fears.

>> Posted regular updates to the original message to let people know what was going on and when service was expected to be restored.

>> Responded to people on Twitter and other social media sites.

I’m sure this is an overly simplified plan, but it would have gone far in helping all of us know what was happening.

Plus, it would have improved my trust and confidence in using Intuit and its financial software-as-service option.

What do you think?

I repeatedly hear horror stories from small business owners of how they hired someone to oversee / manage their Website or social media profiles, and then find out after the person flakes out that they don’t have access to their accounts.

This is because the vendor opened accounts using their own name rather than the business owner’s name. Or, the vendor didn’t send the business owner the login and password information and then skipped town.

Here’s how to easily prevent this from happening to you:

1. Open accounts or set up social media profiles yourself and then send the login information to your vendor.

2. If you agree to let your vendor open accounts for you, stipulate in the contract that accounts must be opened using your name / business name and that all login information must be sent to you within eight hours of the accounts being opened.

Being in control of your own Web hosting, WordPress login, social media profiles, and other account information ensures that you own and control your content / marketing assets. If something terrible should happen, you’re not left scrambling for login information — something that happens more frequently than most people realize.

Do you have a horror story of how someone you know — or perhaps you — lost access to your Website or social media accounts? Post it here!

I became a student of how to effectively network at business functions when I met my good friend Mac McIntosh in 2001.

Mac, I discovered, was the consummate face-to-face networker and was a joy to watch. When I bumped into him at local marketing events, he would be quick to introduce me to influential people in the room.

Instead of handing out a business card, Mac always had something of value — a copy of his newsletter, his little calendar card you can tuck into your wallet, etc.

Most important, he always amazed me with the details he remembered about people.

I remember thinking, “Man, I want to be like him!”

So I read lots of books, such as Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty and Endless Referrals.

I repurposed my online newsletter articles to make them look like pages from a magazine and would hand those out versus my business card. I even took my online newsletter and made it a print publication for a couple of years — and would hand that out, too. (It also made a great direct mail piece.)

I got to know people and tried hard to connect faces with names. (That’s my one failing. I don’t remember people’s names but I always seem to remember their details.)

I made myself useful and volunteered for committees.

It worked. I went from not knowing a single soul when I moved to the east coast in 1998 to having the extensive network I enjoy today.

You can find lots of information about social media and the new marketing rules, but here is the one simple truth:

The same good manners you used when you networked face-to-face still hold true when you network online.

• Be polite and charming.
• Have a firm handshake.
• Look people in the eye.
• Be generous and introduce people to others.
• Become known as someone who refers people to others — it will come back to you in spades.
• Don’t interrupt the conversation in order to talk about yourself.
• Ask lots of questions.
• Be helpful by directing people to information / resources.
• Dress appropriately.
• Know your alcohol limits — i.e. don’t embarrass yourself.
• Hand write your thank-you notes — people will remember this thoughtful detail.
• Don’t air your dirty laundry or speak ill of others.

A good rule of thumb for being an effective online networker is this: if you wouldn’t do it, say it, or wear it at an offline business function– or if your mother wouldn’t approve — then don’t do it online.

Do you have tips for successfully networking online? Post them here.

(Hat tip to Chris Koch @Ckhoster who inspired this post with his post about Facebook’s privacy disasters.

I deleted my Facebook profile months ago because I don’t trust the company or how it handles people’s personal data. My entire business life is online and it made me uncomfortable to add my personal life to the mix.

And too, I’m not egotistical enough to think you all care when I’m at the gym or what kind of Jane Austen heroine I’d be based on some personality test (for the record, I love Elizabeth Bennett, but then again, who doesn’t?).

HOWEVER! So many companies ask me about Facebook and how to use it for business, that I realized I had to bite the bullet and get back into it. So I made a compromise: I’m not accepting any Friend requests and am instead focusing on building a Fan page.

So here is the deal: I’d love to to use my own Fan page as a mini lab on how to build effective Fan pages for B2B.

If you have a great example of a B2B Fan page, post it in the comments below and/or add it to my DH Communications Fan Page Wall.

If you have ideas on how B2B companies should or should not use Fan pages, let me know that, too.

Let’s get a dialogue going from which all of us can benefit.

HubSpot’s Fan page is terrific. I especially like its Discussion tab where people can post questions and someone from HubSpot answers them. This type of direct engagement is exactly why a company should be practicing social media.

Network Solutions has been running a radio spot advertising $4.99 Websites, an ad that makes me want to scream.

I want to scream because I get so many calls from small business owners who are pulling out their hair. They’re not getting any traffic, they can’t find their site in Google, and no one is calling them.

Half the time it’s because they’ve fallen prey to these sales pitches.

People, here is the simple truth: Go with a $4.99 Website and you’ll get $4.99 worth of results.

Think about that for a minute. If you’re a manufacturing company with over $1 million in revenues each year, you need to generate XX number of calls and emails to generate that $1 million (or more) year after year.

People are online searching, interacting, reading, emailing, chatting, Tweeting, blogging, video watching, and Facebooking.

Doesn’t it make sense to put your money where your customers are?

Yet I meet people all the time who will spend more money on a daily cup of coffee than they will developing a Website that attracts new customers.

Spending the equivalent of a Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato isn’t going to get you a site that helps you generate $1 million in business — or even a few hundred thousand.

That’s because a $4.99 Website doesn’t even begin to cover the costs associated with successfully marketing your business online, including:

1. Custom Web design — The problem with using those templated, one-size-fits-all Websites offered by all-in-one “Web solutions providers” is that you end up with a a cheap ugly site that looks just like all the other businesses using that cheap ugly template.

Your business is unique and as such, your site should incorporate your brand, your message, and even your own photographs.

Your Website is also your virtual storefront. I don’t know about you, but when I’m out in the real world, I can tell instantly whether or not a business is doing well — I just look at its store front. Either I want to walk in — or I walk away.

Your Website is the same. Don’t scare people away with crappy design.

For great design, you can call Rachel Cunliffe at Cre8d Design who specializes in WordPress, Jim Somers at Sonora DesignWorks, Matthew Nelson at Digital Marketing Frontier, or Mike Smith, a Web developer.

2. Search engine optimization — Forget all the crap you’ve heard about putting keywords in a “meta tag.” Google is constantly changing and adjusting to marketplace revolutions, including Twitter, Facebook, and video, and what was true yesterday isn’t true today.

If you want people to find your site in the search engines, you’ll need to hire an SEO firm who knows what it’s doing. You can call someone like me, or Jill Whalen at High Rankings, Andy Komack or Derek Edmond at Komarketing Associates, or Susan O’Neill at @Website Publicity. (I know all of these people and how they work and *highly* recommend them.)

3. Content, content, content — Your Website is a dynamic entity that needs to breathe and grow. You help it grow by constantly creating new content: blogs, e-books, white papers, reports, guides, videos, podcasts, e-newsletters, articles, Webinars, etc.

Ignore this step and you are hosed. It’s that simple.

4. Social media — You use social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, YouTube, Google Buzz, etc. to alert your customers, fans, followers, influencers, and others that you have new content.

These people pass your content on their fans, followers, influencers and others — driving traffic and building links to your site.

Ignore this step — and step #1 — and your site will wither and die no matter how much great content you have.

5. Time — Whether you do all of this yourself, hire an experienced online marketing person for your team or outsource it, marketing your Website takes time. Lots of time.

Web marketing is changing constantly. Last year at this time we didn’t have Google Buzz or Facebook’s new “I like” feature. Matt Cutts hadn’t yet said that Google is looking to see if sites have video — and ranking them accordingly. Smart phones were cool but marketers didn’t really see that mobile marketing is dramatically changing how we all approach the Web.

Sure, you can spend $4.99 and build yourself a cheap Website. But if had the same $4.99, I’d buy a cup of coffee and then sit down to write my resume — because relying on a cheap Website to grow my business would essentially mean I’d be out of business.

“Does anyone have a template for social media rules and responsibilities for corporate teams?” is a question posted more than once on the LinkedIn B2B Social Media Group.

Inbound and Social Marketing Manager Barbra Gago of Genius.com published a new e-book on this very topic. “How to Build a Socially Armed Team” covers the details of social media marketing for corporations, including:

• Getting buy-in from senior management
• Leveraging your staff
• Sample policies
• Rules and responsibilities
• Training

Good job, Barbara! This e-book is definitely needed.

The e-book is available via free download — no registration required.

Marketers have definite opinions about Twitter auto-DMs (direct messages): they either hate them with a passion and will even unfollow someone who uses auto-DMs or they use them themselves.

Personally, I hate them and delete all that I receive. I especially dislike the auto-DMs that read like a “real” reply. UGH.

However, because people do use them, I wanted to know why. And, being a results-based marketer, I wanted to know if they saw any real ROI from them.

Unfortunately, the people I wanted to take my survey — those who use auto-DMs — did not. Of the 49 people who took my brief survey, only four souls were brave enough to post that they use auto-DMs.

Not surprisingly, the other 44 respondents posted their dislike of auto-DMs. You can view the full survey results online. Some interesting things to note:

1. Auto-DMs are annoying. Of those who responded that they don’t use auto-DMs, 32% said they were annoying, and 27% saying they were trying to connect with people, not sell them something. Along the same line, 26% said auto-DMs took the “socialness out of social media.”

2. They’re annoying, but not that annoying. Only 10% of respondents said they unfollow people who use auto-DMs.

More interesting, however, is that many people posted in the comment section that they actually saw value in auto-DMs — but only if the person / company sending the DM is offering something, such as a discount or a link to a piece of high-value content (that’s called good old-fashioned marketing, folks).

Moral of the story: Twitter auto-DMs do annoy people but not enough that they’ll unfollow you. Offer them something of value, however, and they’ll change their perception of you.

(Personally, I don’t remember anyone sending me an auto-DM of value. I just know I delete them — the same way I throw junk mail poorly targeted direct mail into the trash.)

I also asked people to post their personal opinions about Twitter auto-DMs. Here is what others had to say:

“The only good auto DM is one that offers something to you — e.g. a magazine that offers a subscription deal as a thanks for following, or a business that offers a code to get 10% off your next online order as a thanks. Anything else is annoying.”

“While I mostly ignore Auto DMs or they have a neg effect on me, I respond to Auto DMs that offer something educational and relevant to the topic that prompted me to follow someone in the first place. But DM has to be worded very casually and professionally (language not sales-y).”

“If you want to show gratitude to your followers by, for example, offering them something useful, they’re OK as they establish a friendly rapport from the start.”

“I think auto DMs do more harm than good, as they irritate instead of building credibility and goodwill. Also, I believe that if people are interested in learning about my services, they’ll click the link in my Twitter profile when they follow me.”

“Totally ineffective. It is old-school, broadcast marketing. Makes me think the people that do it just don’t get it.”

“A DM from an organization or company that offers something I really want/need to know about may get my attention, but so many of them are random hits at uninterested non-prospects who just find them annoying.”

“I think they are annoying, ineffective and one of the worst things about Twitter. Social media is meant to be personalized and thoughtful – not a reason to use antiquated and poor email blast techniques. Which is exactly what an Auto DM is…”

“I feel that they are counter-intuitive. They are more likely to annoy or be ignored. I have not seen any benefit to them. Every Auto DM that I have received is a thank you or a link to their website (which is listed on their profile or I already know about).”

So there you have it. Based on this data, I recommend the following “rules” when it comes to Twitter auto-DMs:

1. Don’t post “junky” messages to everyone who follows you.

2. If you’re posting under your B2B company name or as a service professional / consultant, offer something of value, such as a link to a free report or discount that’s offered just to your Twitter followers. Use a special link so that you can track it.

3. Track response. If you see people unfollowing you, ask why. Track your special link to determine conversion rate (number of new followers each day / week versus how many clicked through to the page).

Thank you to everyone who took my survey!