The Funnelholic

I sat down for an interview recently with Steve Woods, author of Digital Body Language blog and CTO of Eloqua.  He is brilliant so his questions were really challenging and initiated alot of post-interview thought on the topic.  In particular, he asked initially some really big questions about social media which started my recent spat of posts on the topic: Fear of a Twitter Planet and Bull Market on Users, Bear Market on Revenue.  I hope you enjoy the interview, I think it has some commentary in there that spurs discussion.  The Digital Body Language blog is really good with some takes on b2b marketing not seen in the b2b blogosphere today.

Read the interview here: Funnelholic interviewed on Digital Body Language blog.

I need to get off the social media stump soon, but it’s the one topic of conversation I keep having with people and it’s on my mind.

The statistics for the social media market are staggering. Social media sites are attracting visitors like mad with minimal amounts of effort.

Here are some numbers to consider (thanks to Nateonk):

1. Facebook is growing by 600,000 to 700,000 users per DAY.  The site has 150 million registered users today and is obviously growing.

2. Twitter has 6 million users. I love this statistic: 11 percent of Internet users are on Twitter.

3. LinkedIn, the professional social-networking site, has over 35 million users.

I have said this a number of times, but there is a whole generation of people who are turning on their computers, opening their social-media application first, leaving it on and living their Internet day in the application.  Just last night I was out with a bunch of social-media loving twenty-somethings, PSOGLE and Meadball. Somehow, I ended up arguing against the power of Facebook and Twitter with these young guys. But they were confirming the points I make every day: social media is incredibly relevant as more and more people manage their Internet experience out of these applications. I don’t have the statistics, but I honestly believe no one under the age of 27 has a @yahoo email address or goes to Yahoo! or MSN. They use Facebook and have GMail.  They are “doing the Internet” differently than my generation, and it’s all about social media. It seems like my peers are more likely to live on LinkedIn and Twitter.

So, you would think that this would translate into an entirely new paradigm for Internet-revenue generation, but it doesn’t. The revenue generated from these social media sites just does not come close to their popularity. Everyone tells me not to read Valleywag, but I do and do so religiously. Anyway, they had a post on Facebook’s inability to  generate revenue commensurate with their enormous number of users. Do the math and you realize social media might be headed for trouble:

1. Facebook is trying desperately to justify the $3.7 billion dollar valuation and failing.

2. Twitter just has to get bought; I can’t see anyway out for them. They’re going with the old-school Web site model — building traffic now and figuring out the rest later. There have been a lot of posts on how Twitter can make money and none have resonated with me.

3. I have hope for LinkedIn, but I am not hearing much about their revenue.

The net-net: I was asked by Steven Woods from Eloqua: Can social media scale? According to him, the market is growing and frankly starting to dominate, but won’t scale without revenue.

Stay tuned.

I worked with Denny Head at Avaya Inc., where he built and managed what he calls the “lead refinery process.”  The process generated over $1.6 billion in sales qualified leads. Impressive, no? Now Head is working as consultant for eDemand Leads Consulting LLC, helping clients build a refinery of their own.

I, for one, believe in Head’s refinery for a lot of reasons, but the main thing to remember is this: the ultimate mix for lead management is both phone AND marketing automation.  One approach is better than nothing, but mixing the two together is extremely potent. Head understands that technology alone will not solve the problem — it must be coupled with proven processes from everything ranging from the demand campaign to closed loop reporting.

Industry analyst estimate that 80 percent of marketing leads are wasted due to poor quality and the inability to get leads to the right salesperson at the right time. Head combines sales and marketing experience in the high tech industry to provide the unique view of quality leads from the sales perspective.

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Is there anything hotter to blog about than Twitter?  I have been off the word processor for the whole month of January as the Funnelholic was dominated with thought leadership interviews and now, here I am, and the only thing on my mind is Twitter.

I started on Twitter as most do, just signing up and not understanding what it is or what to do.  Everyone said I HAD to get on there, so I did.  Months later, Guy Kawasaki writes his now heavily read “Looking for Mr. Goodtweet,“  I did every tip on his list,  and the rest is history.

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