This two part post is about "listening" to what is being said on-line and the more complicated aspects of acting on something once you've heard it. I'll focus on listening first and will follow up with one on action & engagement here shortly.

So, what the heck am I talking about? You may be aware of this thing called the Internet and there are a lot of people on it. Not only are they consuming content, they are creating content with increasing frequency and ease. Yes, this includes Twitter, blogs, blog comments, and everything in between.

It sounds a bit trite at this point but there really is a conversation going on and you need to be listening to it in some way as part of your marketing efforts. It's not just about your product or brand but about what people need, what they are unhappy with, where your competitors are falling down, where a new entrant is eating you alive, or where one hater has decided to make it their mission in life to bring your product or service to its knees.

All of this plays out every minute of every day in as little as 140 characters in a Twitter status update.

A note of caution – it is loud so be prepared to turn the volume down a bit with tools, process and methodology.

Here is what I use and what I would recommend using as a starting point. I am sure there are other tools & techniques including one that might do all of this in one product. If it exists, please let me know.

1. Identify 'where' you'd like to listen – Twitter chatter, Linkedin Questions, news outlets, competitor's websites, blogs, blog comments, etc. I'd suggest anywhere you can although you will get some overlap.

2. Identify what you are going to listen for – keywords can create huge false positives especially if it is a frequently used word….like 'Gist.' One note here is that although unique names are easier for you to listen for, it is also easier for your competitors to keep tabs on you so keep that in mind during your next branding/naming session.
3. An RSS reader is your key interface (I use Google Reader)
4. Use Twitter Search to build searches on Twitter content and select "Feed for this query" in the upper left and drop it into your preferred RSS reader
5. Use Google Alerts and select to receive these keyword alerts as RSS feeds
6. Use BackType to monitor blog commenting content and enter search terms as above one by one and select Feeds->Search Results
7. Use Digg and search for keywords/themes then subscribe to these results as a feed
   

Also, check out Tweetdeck to watch Twitter posts (you can set up search terms in this app by clicking on the magnifying glass in the upper right).  The benefit of Tweetdeck is the ability to act on what you have heard by replying publicly, replying privately, or "retweeting" (sharing) someone's post.  More on action and engagement coming shortly.

This framework should give you pretty complete coverage of the on-line conversation and is a must have in any marketing plan.

I was happy to get an invite from a good friend to attend this event last night in Bellevue.  The speaker was Michael Hilton who is EVP of Marketing at Concur and was the company's founding CEO.  Concur is a great company here in the Seattle area that provides enterprise expense management software and, more interestingly, made the transition from premise-based, perpetual software licenses to SaaS, subsricption-based licenses and lived to tell the tale (although they certainly took their lumps along the way).

Michael and I chatted briefly before the event about the evolution of enteprise marketing strategies and if all the social media hoopla (my word) can lead to measurable results and booked new revenue.  I think we both agreed that you have to be doing something with it and Concur has made it part of their overall marketing mix.

During the presentation, Michael shared some great insights with the group and I wanted to share a few of the highlights:

• Search is the awareness king and their #1 source of leads that lead to new business.  They derive about 2/3 of their traffic from natural vs. paid search
• In 2009, they are 100% on-line for ad spend (no more print advertising).
• They measure their marketing success based on "qualified leads" generated and Sales applies this label based on a defined acceptance criteria
• Big users of webinars preferring scheduled events vs. on-demand content
• Experimenting with Twitter, Facebook, & LinkedIn
• Doing some really cool things around enabling customer communities and allowing customers to provide feature suggestions and vote on their importance as a community.

If you look at your sales pipeline right now, can you count at least one huge deal that has been there a long time and promises to be the game changer/make your year/validate your business event?

Most sales pipelines (especially those from early stage companies) have at least one large 'deal' that sits there.  The reasons are many and predictable – have not received a yes or no, wants to meet again, still looking for who has budget, project owner changed, re-prioritizing projects due to budget constraints, gone silent, etc.

The bigger the deal, the more important to you, and the longer it sits in the pipeline as a whale but not making any real movement means it will not happen in a time frame that is meaningful to you – this quarter, this year, before funding, etc.  That doesn't mean it won't happen.  It just means it will come together when it comes together if at all.

Chase big deals but be disciplined about measuring progress including having clearly understood desired end states at each step in the sales cycle that signify meaningful progress versus more meetings and email exchanges that provide limited clarity.  Mostly, and it sounds corny, don't put all your eggs in one basket as it rarely works out when and how you imagine.