Category: Drew’s Articles

The Anatomy of a Social Business Community

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Most brands dream of having a vital user community that creates on-going dialog between the brand and its customers.  But few have succeeded on the level of the SAP Community Network which is led by Chip Rodgers.  I interviewed Chip for an upcoming case study on FastCompany.com and in advance of his presentation at the B2B Corporate Social Media Summit September 28/29 in Philadelphia.  The following is my Q&A with Chip. Admittedly, it is long one but well worth studying if you are thinking about creating your own community.

DN: Can you give some background on the SAP Community Network?
The SAP Community Network actually started about eight years ago, and so we’ve had a little bit of time to ramp up. We currently have about 2.5 million members, and it’s a very active community. We get between a million and a million and a half unique visitors a month and about 3,000 to 4,000 posts a day in discussions and blogs and wiki pages.

DN: Tell me about the membership of the SAP Community Network.
It’s about 50% customers and then another probably 30% partners and then we have a large group of employee members as well. There are also independent contractors, developers— just people who are interested in the SAP ecosystem. It’s open to anyone that wants to join. There are a few core pieces of information that we ask for and obviously unique email address.

DN: From a content standpoint, with all these members, are you constantly feeding this beast yourself or is it somewhat self-sustaining?
I have two teams. The content team works with about 400 SAP experts to feed the community with a lot of our formal content: white papers, articles, solution briefs, eLearning, videos, etc. I have a team of about 12 working with a group of stakeholders that are SAP solution managers or folks from support or people in solution marketing that have all the actual information, the expertise and are actually the ones that are building the content.  I’ve also got a group of six that are managing the community-generated content, so that’s our blogs and forums and wikis, and similarly they’re working with a group of about 700 moderators that are in the community.

DN: You know the scale of this community is kind of mind-boggling. Can you draw a direct line between your activities and your ROI?
More and more we’re able to show that there is a connection. We’ve gotten to the point where we’re running a lot of webinars on different topic areas, different product areas. We’ve really cut back with list-buying and some of those traditional marketing costs to get people to come in and listen to a webinar, learn about a new product area, and then take the next step as a pipeline opportunity.

Drew: You started this in 2003, which predates Twitter and Facebook, and I’m curious how you brought [them] into your community. Are they adjuncts or are they truly integrated into this?
Having this background of engaging with the community, when Facebook and Twitter came along, they were natural extensions and ways of engaging with the community. We now have a group that is really focused just purely on social media. We work together to leverage the community and our social media activity. A little bit more specifically, we do a number of things like, if you post a blog in the community, we have an RSS feed to a Twitter account so it automatically tweets the title of the new blog that was published. We think of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, even YouTube, as kind of extensions— concentric circles around the community— to reach community members and try to get the word out.

DN: Was it tough in the beginning to get management behind the community?
We laid a lot of groundwork for social media within SAP. We were fortunate that we had a board member that thought it was the thing to do and defended it every time. When we first opened the communities with blogs and forums and wiki, some executives were nervous – saying, “why should we create a place just for people to complain?”  But our feeling was that there are plenty of public places for people to criticize the company, why not create the place where we can be a part of the conversation?  And fortunately, our board defended it.

DN: Has the community ever defended the brand?
What we’ve found is if you work with the community and build trust, and you’re open about how you engage and you answer questions and address issues that come up, the community will support you. It’s not always SAP that has to defend [itself] when someone goes haywire.  We see this all the time where somebody says something negative or even a little wacky in the community, and your knee-jerk reaction might be, we have to answer that. And what ends up happening is a lot of other community members come in and say, “Well you might have a point here, but this is way over the line.”  The whole group kind of comes together.

DN: What are the other ways that you report on the success, or what are the metrics that you guys look at to rationalize your existence?
We actually have a few metrics. One is just purely in terms of activity and contributions in the community, page views, member satisfaction, things like that. We do those transactional kinds of things with the community to makes sure that we’ve got good content that people find interesting, so that’s one level of measurement. One of our KPI’s is driving activity to those webinars that turns into real pipeline opportunity dollars. It’s traceable back to activity in the community.

The third is a part of the community called SAP EcoHub (http://ecohub.sap.com). It started as an online store for our partners to set up storefronts and sell their products.  We’ve expanded it to include SAP products as well. It is connected to the community so that if there are conversations going on about certain product areas, we have links in those conversations going back to EcoHub. If you happen to be on a conversation you can see the product.  That is an increasing channel for us, for our partners and for SAP to drive revenue directly.

DN: You have a few people that are in the conversation, how do you make sure that they are all on brand?
We do have a social media corporate policy, guidelines, best practices case stories, and training courses.  We have an active internal social community, so there’s a lot of discussion and activity and assets [and] resources available to people when they start to put a toe in the water in social media.  A lot of those principles are similar to when anybody goes for media training, for example.  There are a few guiding principles like, “Don’t talk about things that you don’t know about.” And stay away from forward-looking statements like, “We’re going to do this,” or “We’re going to do that.”  But otherwise I think a lot of it is just common sense.

DN: You have this substantive, meaty community where people are actually participating, and you’ve already proven its worth and along comes Twitter and Facebook. Has there been conflict because [social media] is a separate group, and it’s not part of your group?
There is a social media group driving policies, best practices, training, reporting, and other aspects of social media for SAP, but we’re all part of marketing. It’s interesting because community and social media are somewhere in the middle of several traditional corporate groups.  It’s a little bit of marketing; it’s a little bit of communications; it’s a little bit of support, there’s an aspect of listening for product roll-in, and there’s an aspect of sales channel. So there are always discussions about where does it really belong. But community and social media are about people connecting – so if you’re doing it right, the entire organization is responsible for connecting with customers and partners in their respective areas.  So yes, we are separate groups, but we have a communities and social media council of leaders from each of those groups as well as social media ambassadors embedded throughout organizations and geographies at SAP.

DN: With 2.5 million community members, your activities are dwarfing anything SAP might have on Facebook [or] Twitter. How as the marketing/social team dealt with this?
We actually work very well together and leverage each other’s strengths on a nearly daily basis.  But it’s interesting that when we were first having discussions about Communities joining marketing, our CMO was saying “There’s an opportunity to learn from what Community Network has done.   We need to have more conversations and engage with our audience. We can’t just create another email blast with a bunch of creative and offers.”  It’s been a cultural change within the company.

DN: Have your content development efforts had a measurable impact on SEO?
We are very much SEO champions, and it’s been through experience. We had to figure out what to do on all those pages to do better with search engine: where things are laid out; how are we tagging pages; what are the titles in the pages, how are URLs formed. So many things factor into it. We had this three-month project just to go through everything and then get the word out to all the stakeholders and get everybody to update all their pages. I mean it was dramatic; We were bumping along at around 400,000 unique monthly visitors, and all of a sudden we shot up to like 900,000. It was unbelievable— just blew me away.

How to Sell More by Selling Less

Posted on by Drew Neisser

He was harder to shake than a telephone poll and just as dull.  Another financial advisor spouting out his expertise into my ears before I’d even downed my first cup of coffee.  I didn’t know the guy from Adam and he sure as heck didn’t know me.  Nonetheless, he droned on until my patience expired, forcing a polite but stern, “thanks but no thanks,” followed by a hope-ending click. [Funny enough I just got another cold call much like the one described here. Make them stop!]

Later that week, I attended my fifth Media & Technology CEO Summit put on by my friends Tom Livaccari and Ken Shapiro, two UBS financial advisors who are about as far from the cold-calling yacker as you can get.  Long-time proponents of the approach I call Marketing as Service, The Livaccari Shapiro Wealth Management Group offers a textbook case on growing your business by selling less and doing more.

Know your Niche
For Marketing as Service programs to be effective, it’s essential to have a tightly defined target to whom you can deliver a meaningful benefit.  Having been entrepreneurs themselves in the ‘90s, it’s not surprising that Livaccari and Shapiro decided to focus their practice on advising entrepreneurs and CEOs of Internet, media and tech companies. Remembering the unique issues these entrepreneurs faced, Shapiro noted, “We always wished we could find an advisor that would in essence partner with us.”

Start Small
Since Marketing as Service programs can be costly, start small and build from success.  When Livaccari and Shapiro first realized they could help their clients by bringing them together, they started with a roundtable discussion among a few CEOs facing the same issues. The program grew quickly. Reported Shapiro, “They found [the events] so valuable that [attendees] suggested other CEOs that they thought could benefit from similar discussions in the future.”

Vary the Value Add
At the core of every successful Marketing as Service program is something of genuine value to the target.  For Livaccari and Shapiro, the value to their prospects and customers is more than just useful information.  Explained Shapiro, “Clients tell us that these summits have helped them stimulate meaningful ideas, make valuable connections and in one case even initiated a conversation with a party that later acquired their company.”

Rely on Relevance
One of the more obvious aspects of Marketing as Service is the benefit of pinpoint relevance to everyone concerned. “Because the content and the other participants in these events are so relevant to our clients and prospects’ lives we find they are eager to join us,” added Shapiro.  “This leads to these events being excellent ice breakers, which enable people to experience first-hand our consultative and value-added approach.”

Differentiate by Doing
The essential notion behind Marketing as Service is the fair exchange of value between buyer and seller, during which the seller earns the trust of the buyer by doing something meaningful instead of just talking about how good they are.

“These events are an excellent way for us to provide prospects a window into the way that we interact with clients, put their needs first and help them with a wide array of issues that are not commonly addressed by others in our field.”

Triumph with Trust
It is the mandate of any form of marketing to build trust. Without trust, there is simply no brand, especially in the financial services arena. Marketing as Service programs like Livaccari and Shapiro’s CEO Summits are particularly good at building trust.  “From these events prospects often begin a dialogue with us regarding whichever matter is most pressing to them, and over time this often leads to them becoming a client as they gain comfort with us, our approach and our thought process.”

Extend your Engagements
Done correctly, Marketing as Service programs offer unique opportunities for meaningful engagement that go well beyond a specific event.  With the goal of being recognized as “uncommon partners,” Livaccari and Shapiro have built a community of likeminded CEOs who are thus positively inclined to share what they’ve learned. “We know that as long as we put our clients’ needs first then over time they become our best sales force as they share with their friends the positive experience they have had.”

Final Note:
Having been in their client’s shoes, Livaccari and Shapiro have built a successful practice by simply doing what they wish others had done for them when they were entrepreneurs. Its not rocket science. Just smart marketing.  For more insights on their approach, see the Q&A with Shapiro on these pages.  (This article first appeared on FastCompany.com.)

Oh and if you found this content useful, feel free to subscribe via email or RSS in the box at the top of this page.  Thanks.

What’s the Difference Between Google+ and Carmageddon?

Posted on by Drew Neisser

The northbound 405 freeway came to a standstill Sunday afternoon just before Seal Beach.  For the next twenty minutes I worried that Carmageddon was more than just clever name for a traffic jam and I would miss my flight back to New York.  Radio reports said otherwise.  In fact, it was just your run of the mill auto accident, a temporary glitch quickly forgotten.  Arriving at the terminal early, I couldn’t help but wonder if the contrasting hype versus reality of Carmageddon was an appropriate metaphor for Google+ (the new social networking service from Google that hopes to rival Facebook).

The Hype
Even if LA was not on your itinerary last weekend, chances are you heard about the feared mother of all traffic jams anticipated because of a temporary shut down of a 10-mile stretch of concrete connecting the City of Angels with the San Fernando Valley.  Every major news outlet covered the so-called Carmageddon, which also inspired a real rant by Stephen Colbert and a comically imagined one by Adolph Hitler.

Like Carmageddon, the stories about Google+ came at us fast and furiously especially in the tech arena.  Some believed it was a monumental affair.  Wired’s Ryan Singel offered high praise, “Google+ is smooth fast and intuitive – a product that feels far more akin to the revolution that was Gmail.” Stephan Shankland of CNET was even more effusive, noting, “Circles is the next biggest improvement, far and away over Facebook.”

Then last Thursday CEO Larry Page reported that Google+ had gained an eye-popping 10 million members in its first two weeks.  Page also noted, “we are seeing over 1 billion items shared and received in a single day.”  Explaining that Google+ was “still only in field trial with limited access as we scale the system,” Page implied that once unthrottled, extraordinary growth was simply inevitable.

The Reality
Fearing the worst, most Angelinos actually stayed put for a change, avoiding the 405 in unprecedented numbers.  Not only was there no Carmegeddon, traffic was so light that one intrepid driver zipped around town, reporting that it was the best conditions he’d ever seen!  More amazingly, the city’s construction crews finished up 18 hours ahead of schedule making this the biggest non-event since the premier of the infamous Ishtar.

While the reality of Google+ is far from certain, voices of caution are already emerging.   Blogger Robert Scoble told his minions that Google+ was for “geeks and early adopters” and not your mom. C-Net’s editor-at-large Rafe Needleman shared his reservations, “I like G+ but I’m finding setting up my network kind of slow going.” And David Berkowitz of 360i posted a yellow light on MediaPost.com, noting, “Google+ will hardly win over the masses overnight.”

In fact, Google+ is using a clever “invitation only” marketing ploy that piques curiosity, especially among social media practitioners like myself.  For these folks, trial is not an option but an expected mandate, one that also comes with a critic’s eye.  And from this critic’s perspective, so far Google+ is underwhelming, lacking the “the gang’s all here” reach of Facebook and the disarming simplicity of Twitter.

Now What?
For the mayor of LA and his constituents, the fact that Carmegeddon never happened was a triumph of perverse engineering.  Scaring people off the streets with weeks of apocalyptic predictions was brilliant, pretty much guaranteeing that the worst was not to come.  Leave it to Los Angeles to make headlines with a media mirage titled after an obscure video game.

As for Google+, its future is hardly certain despite smart marketing and early user adoption rates.   Undoubtedly new users try it out but only a few brave souls are prepared to forsake Facebook in its favor.  This lack of commitment reflects a growing sense of social media fatigue.  As one worn out user noted, “I’m already on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.  Who has time for all this crap?”

Lots of other questions remain, the most fundamental being–is there a meaningful plus in Google+ that will propel the user experience well beyond Facebook’s?  So far, Circles (the primary organizing principle) is more of a roundabout than a great leap forward.  Hopefully Google has more pluses up its prolific sleeves. Otherwise G+ may go the way of Carmegeddon, a much-ballyhooed balloon of hapless hype.

Note: this article first appeared on MediaPost.com.

 

 

 

Making a Joke Out of Viral Videos

Posted on by Drew Neisser

How Cisco’s Tim Washer is lightening things up in social media by making a joke out of the conventional approach to marketing. (this first appeared on FastCompany.com)

The funny thing about comedy is that it works ridiculously well with viral videos. Yet in the it-isn’t-creative-unless-it-sells world of B2B marketing, humor is as rare as the one-armed paperhanger, disarming us with unexpected efficacy. Trying to sell in comedy at most B2B companies is like pushing Jell-O up a hill, a raucously sloppy affair, best left for masochists or the jauntiest of jesters.

One such jester is Tim Washer. Currently the Senior Manager of Social Media for Cisco’s Service Provider division, Washer has spent the last seven years gaining guffaws where few have dared to tread. A former stand-up, Washer’s approach is indeed laughable, helping him to stand out at BDI’s recent B2B Social Communications Forum, where he revealed these seven rules of viral videos you probably shouldn’t share with your boss.

1. Strategy is for Stooges
Washer’s first big viral success happened back in 2006 while he was at IBM promoting perhaps the unfunniest of all tech products: the mainframe computer. The series called “Mainframe: The Art of Sale” which brilliantly mocks typical sales training videos, garnered hundreds of thousands of views, terabytes of press coverage and unlikely interest among college students— a happy byproduct of this effort. Reported Washer with refreshing honesty, “I never did sit down and think okay–here’s the strategy for the video.”

2. There’s No Point in Copy Points
“For a comedy video to be successful it needs to be inspired by some artistic idea versus you sitting down with a PowerPoint and saying, ‘How do we create a video that does all this for us,’” explained Washer. Recalling the spark behind his first viral hit, which had nothing to do with copy points, Washer remembered, “One time I thought, these are million dollar machines, wouldn’t it be silly if a sales person was going through the white pages, cold calling to sell the mainframes.”

3. Forget About Closing the Sale
Acknowledging the long sales cycles of complex tech products, Washer is under no delusion that his viral efforts will lead directly to sales. “I don’t think we are going to sell any products because of this video [but] hopefully we piqued curiosity.” All kidding aside, Washer firmly believes that even in B2B sales, “you are still having a very human connection with somebody at a corporation,” thus more than justifying the need for ice-breaking comedy.

4. Lower Your Expectations
Despite having created a number of viral hits for both IBM and Cisco, one thing Washer can never be accused of is over-promising. Noted a straight-faced Washer, “It is important not to burden the project with too many expectations, such as a call to action.” Instead, he prescribes a more indirect approach: Driving video viewers to a companion site like a blog rather than to a product page. By continuing with the joke, the marketer increases the chances of ongoing engagement.

5. Metrics aren’t Important
Despite having racked up over a million views for his B2B videos including one that remains on ComedyCentral.com, Washer is not a big fan of hard metrics. “We are much more thrilled if an analyst who follows us tweets about the video and just says something positive,” he offered. This emphasis on the qualitative impact of comedy is truly what drives Washer. “One of the strongest human connections you can make is to make someone else laugh.” explained the all too happy Washer.

6. Don’t Take my Partner, Please.
Acknowledging the challenges of cranking out comedy on the cheap, Washer noted that his only flops were when he had to execute without his usual partner for budgetary reasons. “One thing I have learned is the importance of collaboration,” noted Washer, who usually teams up with, funny enough, Scott Teems. “We always come up with something much better together. It’s not just getting two funny people to work together; it’s got to be chemistry, and that’s tough to find.”

7. Strive for Silly; Root for Ridiculous
Explaining his most recent effort for Cisco, the TV Support Group, Washer imagined a world of depressed TVs who had been abandoned as families turned to other devices for entertainment. “Being ridiculous will get you attention on YouTube and help you stand out,” offered the conversation-seeking Washer. “Social media is for telling interesting stories; it is not the place to go with a direct marketing message.” added the momentarily serious Washer.

Final Note

From this writer’s perspective, creating laughs is a genuine service to humanity, one that opens the door to meaningful engagements between marketers and consumers. That said, being funny is hard and it is easy to miss the mark unless you are a professional like Washer. For more of his tips, see my extensive interview on earlier on TheDrewBlog.com

There is Something Funny About This Guy

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Tim Washer, Senior Manager of Social Media for Cisco’s Service Provider division is among the funnier presenters I’ve seen. And that’s no accident, Tim has spent much of his career in comedy, writing for Conan O’Brien, doing stand-up and helping IBM and Cisco find their funny bones. Here are some the highlights of my interview with Tim after the BDI B2B Social Communications Leadership Forum and in preparation for my [coming soon] post on FastCompany.com on Tim’s secrets to creating viral videos.

 

DN: Why do you think comedy is such a good idea for brands?
Let me first qualify, it is not for all brands. I have seen that it works well for large technology companies. It is probably not the best fit for a financial institution, for pharmaceuticals, those industries. However, comedy just has a way to connect with people like nothing else can. Of course you can create a connection through generating a sad emotion, but no brands want to do that. But if you can make an emotional connection with someone, it is an extremely powerful, and can build strong affinity, which is not easy to do in social media.

DN: So what are you goals for your work at Cisco?
With the humor, which is a very small part of our content, we are trying to start a conversation, be authentic, and show we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Once you show someone you’re willing to joke about some issues and don’t take yourself too seriously; you have gone a long way towards creating rapport. You also show you are transparent and authentic.

DN: Can you give me a specific example?
If you look at the [Cisco] TV Support Group video, look at all the coverage we got, we have big bloggers writing about it. But at the same time I am hoping it builds rapport with our audience. There was no product messaging in the video. We just hope the audience finds this entertaining. And if not, ok, thanks for your 2 minutes. What I do is service provider marketing – we work with very technical people. We work with the large carriers and engineers, and so a lot of what we need to produce for them is white papers, technical dry material. So we take 5% of our effort and lighten it up a little bit.

DN: What are the keys to successful B2B viral video?
The first thing is to not include product messaging, your audience can read that on your website. Try to keep the videos short – under two minutes is ideal, but not always possible. A rule I learned in stand-up comedy is to try to get your first laugh within the first 20 seconds. Comedy is about pain – focus on the pain points that your product or service solves, and you’ll mine comedy gold, and start a discussion that can be continued on your blog.

DN: Not trying to sell anything is rather…
Counterintuitive.

DN: Well that’s going to stop a lot of conversations right there.
Sure it is. Of course I have had these conversations over the years with people who own the marketing budget: “Now why in the world would we invest in something that we don’t put our brand on or mention the product?”. Personally I believe that’s not the best use of social media. What is successful in Social media is telling interesting stories and creating conversation. It is not necessarily the place to go out with direct marketing messaging that you would include on a brochure. I think the main goal is really to engage people.

That’s what we did with the TV Support Group video. We took one consequence of a problem and exaggerated it. In the past years, families have been moving away from their TV sets and using other devices for entertainment. So now your television set is feeling depressed and abandoned, which lead us to the concept of a TV support group.Being absurd and ridiculous will get you attention on YouTube, that helps you stand ou from all the other videos and noise.

DN: Do you know when you have a hit?
You just can’t predict what is going to be viral. You can’t set out and say hey let’s make a viral video. You know, [delivering] knowledge is very important. If you share knowledge, it tends to go social–people will share that. But another way is just being silly, ridiculous and entertaining.

DN: Ok so we have don’t try to sell anything, be silly and ridiculous, what are some other keys?
Not just comedy, but being authentic [is critical]. If you’re taping an interview with an expert, do not have him/her recite talking points but share a genuine conversation. I think while you do want to showcase your own experts, I think it is important to involve and invite other people, such as academics and industry analysts to be part of your conversation.

DN: How important is the story?
The story is the most important of all. Story trumps messaging. At the same time it is a challenge because most corporations believe getting the message out is most important, if you’re coming from marketing or communications. You need to set that aside if you want to create something that will work on YouTube. Not every case, but in some cases you need to set that aside and say let’s tell the story here. Whether that is the story of one of your clients, or of how you are having impact in the community outside of the product you make, that’s all good stuff.

DN: How do you manage internal expectations?
In social video and media, it is important not to burden the project with too many expectations. It’s also important to let executives know that there will most likely be some negative comments. Humor doesn’t appeal to everyone, and when audience members can be anonymous, it’s easier for them to heckle. it’s important, especially for companies selling products that cost six-figures with 18 month decision-making cycles, to assure execs that you most likely won’t close a sale with a YouTube video. Again, it’s about starting a conversation and reaching new audiences and maybe prospective customers. .At the end of the video, I include a hyperlink back to a blog where I try to continue the conversation. I think it’s important to send folks to a blog and not a product page on the company website. The other thing is I think, just like in advertising, you’re not going to appeal to everybody–you’re not going to get 100% retention. But you will get some of the folks, some of the people might go and look at your blog.

DN: At least people you like because they have a sense of humor.
That’s right. That’s why I so strongly believe it is important to experiment in social media. You have the rest of traditional marketing that’s already doing a great job for you, reaching these people though other channels. So diversify your approach a bit, and experiment on occasion, with some humor, and just see how it does.

Do You Have Room for One More Network?

Posted on by Drew Neisser

If you count yourself among the members of the social tribe (MOST), then inevitably you are facing some degree of social media fatigue. Even those of us who make a living in social media find the challenges of listening, responding, creating and tracking content on multiple platforms overwhelming at times. Kirsten Gronberg, community manager at start-up CMP.LY, admitted in a Yogi Berra-like fashion that all her job related tweeting, checking-in, liking and blogging was actually “getting in the way of work.”

Writer Corey Guilbault relates his social fatigue to the “abundance of noise from a bazillion broadcasters making it hard to hear anything.” Valerie Romley of Moving Target Research is even more fed up, exclaiming, “I’m totally over any and all social networking which is a huge time suck.” That said, Romley does admit that LinkedIn remains a great source for finding “referrals to qualified partners and vendors.”

Oh no, not another network!
Which begs the question, have we reached a saturation point that limits if not dooms the opportunity for new networks to blossom? Valerie Grubb, who runs a bustling real estate consultancy and actively reaps benefits from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter proclaimed, “I just don’t need ONE MORE SITE.” Mia Malm, an SF-based PR consultant echoed these thoughts concluding, “I think most people have at this point established what networks they want to be in and those networks have a critical mass.”

A week ago I would have agreed with these prognostications but having experienced two new network enablers, Referral Key and MixTent, now I’m not so sure. Both of these new services have a fighting chance of catching on, addressing areas of business social networking not fully covered by LinkedIn and certainly not addressed by Facebook while taking full advantage of the connections you already have on these networks.

Referral Key is a viral juggernaut
Of the two, Referral Key may be the most profoundly viral application since Twitter came on the scene in 2006. Like its name implies, Referral Key, is designed to enable peer-to-peer referrals among small businesses, finding strength in the simplicity of its offering. Once you sign up for Referral Key, you can then solicit all or selected peers on LinkedIn to send you referrals, offering the referrers any kind of reward you desire including cash.

Thus far, the secret to Referral Key’s virality is the most compelling email subject line I’ve ever seen: “Are you taking on any new clients?” To gauge the power of this line and interest in yet another network, I used Referral Key’s system to send about 100 invitations to selected colleagues culled from my larger LinkedIn database. Within 72 hours, an astonishing 70 of the 100 had joined Referral Key. Another 10 responded to my email politely declining but reinforcing the undeniable power of a “killer” email subject line.

Sure Referral Key got our attention, but will we use it?
Of course, responding to an email and delivering referrals is hardly the same thing, and it remains to be seen if Referral Key will end up being the useful source of leads for small businesses that it promises to be. Stephan Paschalides, co-founder of NowPlusOne, a research and innovation agency, wonders if Referral Key will really catch on. Explained Paschalides, who is certainly open to the idea, “I invited a bunch of people, but none of them invited other colleagues yet–maybe there are too many work/networking-related sites out there.”

MixTent, another new entry in the B2B networking world, takes a completely different approach from Referral Key: It asks users to rate colleagues already in their LinkedIn networks. The rating process has a fun, game-like component, in which users choose from a pair of colleagues, based on the question, “which would you to prefer to work with?” in a particular category (in my case, Marketing, Consulting, Writing, Social Media, etc.)

MixTent gets mixed reviews but there are great lessons here
After rating 25 pairs, MixTent asks if you would like to share your positive ratings with your preferred associates. This triggers a potential email with the subject line, “Hi, I just voted for you on MixTent.” MixTent encourages you to share this email, which in theory attracts more people to the “tent” and unlocks more aspects of the service to the user. Based on the limited response to the emails to 35 peers for whom I voted, it’s a bit too early for me to declare MixTent a viral peer to Referral Key.

Whether or not Referral Key or MixTent becomes the next big thing in social media, there are two important lessons here. First, email is still among the most powerful weapons in marketing, assuming you write compelling subject lines. Second, there are still unmet needs out there that the social media giants will either ignore or be unable to address. These chinks in the armor will create opportunities for highly focused start-ups that can work around or better yet within the giant ecosystems created by the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn, overcoming the social fatigue that will hold the less viral ones at bay.  (If this article seemed familiar, that’s because you read it already on MediaPost.com)