DOEJO BLOG POST ON TFA CEO HOWARD TULLMAN'S SOCIAL MEDIA TALK

DOEJO BLOG
 

Howard Tullman’s tips for successfully leveraging social media and technology to grow your business

 

October 10th, 2012

Yesterday we saw Howard Tullman speak as part of Chicago Ideas Week. Tullman is the President and CEO of Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, an accomplished entrepreneur and a Doejo client. He shared his tips for leveraging social technology to grow your business. His top tips include focusing on interests over data, employing "smart reach" and using status as a business incentive.

Here are the social media and technology tips Tullman shared with the audience:

Be Responsive

Today’s web is all about speed. Everything that is created is immediately ripped off. To be a leader in this competitive market you need to be able to identify and understand your consumer’s interests. True leaders will respond to them, using this data to improve their product. “You need to know what the customers are looking for and respond to their feedback, immediately changing your product and your service,” Tullman said.

Don’t just rely on data

The most critical attribute about the Internet is the heightened engagement it provides. If you wait until someone finishes a search to understand what he or she is looking for, you are too late. To succeed on the modern web you need to be able to influence interactions in real time, targeting the consumer before they finish the interaction. If you only rely on data you will always be playing catch up. For more information on how to target new customers based on their recent search engine activity, Tullman recommends checking out Chango, a search retargeting platform.

Interests outweigh demographics

Interests have become more important than demographics. Metrics mean everything and personal data is the most important kind data we can capture. Today's marketers already know who you are; they are now trying to figure out what you are interested in. Capitalizing on the trend towards personal data can help you get ahead by understanding the feelings and potential trends of your target market. 

Use social media to gauge market swings

Twitter is a powerful marketing tool that helps you to better understand customer acquisition funnels, build traffic and increase value while providing instant feedback. The conversations on social media will go on with or without you so you want to be engaged. “If you are not where your customers are and you are not in those conversations then you are nowhere. This is the way people are aggregating data on how to serve and better interact with their customer, their clients and their vendors,” said Tullman. If you are not there a competitor will be.

Recognize the increased demand for context sensitive information

Today there is an increased demand for context sensitive information. We now need to make decisions in real-time. These changes signal “the end of the old media idea that a fixed price and fixed content will work. Today the consumer wants to control this and decide on the fly,” said Tullman. These change have lead to an integration of mobile and social. Tullman says we will continue to see market segmentation and differentiated pricing in many businesses.

Context trumps content: use ‘smart reach’

The best way to sell your product or service is though an interactive experience that employs smart reach and precision targeting. Tullman explains smart reach as getting the information to your consumers exactly when they need it and want to use it. “If you hit me at the wrong time I don’t really care what the message is. If you hit me at the right time the content is more important than the message,” Tullman said. How will the acceptance of context over content change the future of marketing? “Our location is becoming a bigger part of the whole interactive process. We are going to see that using phones, GPS and geo-fencing, which is going to give marketers far better tools for precisely targeting what is going on around us,” said Tullman.

Free is no longer enough

Free isn’t cheap enough; businesses in todays marketplace also need to provide value, increase productivity and save time. To be a viable business you must also build relationships. “The worst time to try to build a relationship is when you need something—make sure to be helpful and additive to the consumer,” said Tullman.

Status is the major incentive

Tullman says another key to building a sustainable business is using status as a social driver. Gamification is as huge behavioral driver on the web where almost everything—even money—maxes out as an incentive except status. Acknowledgement, rewards, reputation are new social drivers that are just beginning to be mined as tools that provide incentives for people to behave in different ways. Now that we have the ability to measure, confer, publish and share status it has become even more powerful. A good example of using status as an incentive is Klout, a site that concretely documents online influence. Klout partnered with Rent the Runway for “perk” that offers users additional savings to users based on their Klout score.

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THE STATE OF INNOVATION IN ILLINOIS

The state of innovation in the State of Illinois is great. And here’s the thing: in large part because Governor Quinn convened the Illinois Innovation Council, the development and publication of the Illinois Innovation Index (a longtime pet project of Lance Pressl), and the terrific private-sector work by Matt Moog and the Built in Chicago team, we actually know what we’re talking about. We’re not asking fairy-tale questions or relying on the kind of made-up metrics that have in the past been the traditional fare for politicians, government agencies, and other community boosters. Hopefully, those unhappy days are behind us.

And the best news is that, as the Index has demonstrated, we’ve actually got the goods right herein Illinois : real growth, real innovation, tremendous expansion in new businesses, and real results―all concretely documented for the first time. I’m especially sensitive to this situation because I’ve recently returned from an “innovation” conference in another state where one of the featured speakers baldly asserted that his community was the nation’s leader in start-ups and innovation. Then he smiled and said that if all the folks there just kept repeating his factoid with a straight face, one of these days it might be true. And pigs might also fly. Now, there’s nothing wrong with aiming high and shooting for the stars, but you need actual results to back up the stories you’re telling. You actually lose credibility (and your most important audiences) if you try to manufacture movement and momentum where neither exists.

What’s so exciting to me about the documented progress we’re making in Illinois is that―in some very smart ways―we’re using technology and new digital media to help us keep score. I’ve always said that, in every business, what gets measured is what gets done, and absolutely everything can be measured. By creating some standard reporting formats in the Index and encouraging the unprecedented collaboration of a number of the state’s crucial business, planning, and economic development organizations, we have created an important new tool to raise awareness and promote innovation. We’re seeing this innovation spread beyond the obvious high-tech sectors to enhance critical infrastructure assets and address other needs regarding our roads, rail, airports, and broadband―all critical elements to keep Illinois on the cutting edge.

Now I’m not pretending that the Index automatically makes everything clear and obvious. There will still be plenty of false starts and unfocused efforts. Until September of last year, when the Index was first published, I’d say that we didn’t know much about what we didn’t know. In addition, while we’ll never be big boasters or blowhards (it’s just not the Midwestern way), we are getting a little more comfortable about telling our stories and tooting our own horns. Even more important, we have finally started to believe that anything that’s worth doing is worth failing at as long as you give it the old college try. I don’t think we’ll ever be celebrating failure around these parts, but we’re getting smarter and smarter about failing fast and that―along with ferocious persistence―is the essential component for eventual start-up success.

Now that we have a clearer, much-improved view of where we’re headed, we have to understand that there’s a great deal of work still ahead of us―as individual businesses, as a community, and as a state. We must all work together to build a sustainable, supportive, and vibrant entrepreneurial environment that fosters continued growth and critical job creation.

In addition, we have to be sure that we don’t get entirely lost in the numbers. Measuring more is pretty easy; measuring better is much harder because it requires value judgments. And better, in the end, is all that really matters. People perform best when they know what is expected of them and are told honestly how they are doing. We need to be certain that we continue to recognize, acknowledge, and praise the people and companies that are making a difference in our state and in our economy. The Index is one of the ways we can “keep score” and make sure that we keep moving forward and demonstrating our progress to the broader public.

We need to give everyone a real stake and a sense of ownership in this journey because, without the help and encouragement of the public, we can’t really accomplish our larger goals, which will ultimately benefit everyone. You never know where your next idea or inspiration may come from: it’s almost certainly not exclusively from within the four walls of your own business. Therefore, it’s critical to broaden the reach and scope of all the networks we’re creating. True innovation is change that creates a new and higher level of performance and productivity. As we seek to accomplish far more with far less, continued innovation is clearly the key.

I want to close my comments with two final suggestions for the path ahead.

First, we need to concentrate on doing what we do better than anyone else. We can’t chase too many rabbits or we’ll end up hungry with none. So it’s critically important that we avoid the wild pursuit of too many different ideas, since trying to be all things to all people is a formula for certain failure. We want to be known as the “go-to” people, the “go-to” city and the “go-to” state for a few, important, sustainable and long-term industries where we can optimize the competitive advantages that we already have. What’s the right number? No fewer than we can handle and no more than we can afford.

Second, what are these areas? Transportation/logistics, finance (such as Chicago Board Options Exchange/Chicago Mercantile Exchange), management consulting, advanced manufacturing, digital media, health care, pure science (Argonne), data centers, energy storage, and education. Let’s focus on our history, strengths, and the amazing combination of industry, schools, and talent to build the best and most successful businesses and institutions in these spaces.

Let’s have the courage and the discipline to avoid spreading ourselves too thin and competing in areas where we will never make a material difference. I know it’s hard to say, but if you’re interested in fashion, advertising, or journalism, you need to get to New York. Wanna build rockets and space shuttles? Get yourself to Denver, the new center of gravity for our entire space program. Wanna make a difference in Illinois? Go with what we already do so well and commit to making it better.

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READ THE WHOLE POST HERE

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