Paul Dunay is an award-winning B2B marketing expert with more than 20 years’ success in generating demand and creating awareness for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations.
Paul is the global vice president of marketing for Maxymiser a leading web optimization firm, and author of four “Dummies” books: Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley 2009), Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies (Wiley Custom Publishing 2010), Facebook Advertising for Dummies (Wiley 2010) and Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2nd Edition (Wiley 2011).
His unique approach to marketing has led to recognition of Paul as a BtoB Magazine Top 25 B2B Marketer of the Year for 2010 and 2009 and winner of the DemandGen Award for Utilizing Marketing Automation to Fuel Corporate Growth in 2008. He is also a finalist for the last six years in a row in the Marketing Excellence Awards competition of the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), and is a 2010 and 2005 gold award winner in Driving Demand.
Buzz Marketing for Technology, Paul’s blog, has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008, a Top Blog to Watch for 2009 and 2008, and an Advertising Age Power 150 blog in the “Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs.”
Paul has shared his marketing thought leadership as a featured speaker for the American Marketing Association, BtoB Magazine, CMO Club, MarketingProfs, Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), and ITSMA. He has appeared on Fox News, and his articles have been featured in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, BtoB Magazine, MarketingProfs and MarketingSherpa.
Paul holds an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Computer Science from Ithaca College.
Hi Paul:
Bit of a nit to pick, but social media has been around for lots longer than 5.5 years.
The Cluetrain Manifesto (which is based on the premise that corporations, governments and mass media would be disintermediated by people connecting to each other using the internet) was published 10 years ago.
Let's not define SM as facebook and twitter.
TO'B
@ Tom – ok fair point
Paul,
I'm going to have to echo Tom's thoughts. Story telling and packaging are skills that transcend the technical platform that you use. Reach and measurement may have some aspects that are unique to each individual platform, for sure, but I think the advice of "go hire journalists" fits in the best category of how to find someone with the closest thing to 10,000 hours of experience.
I think that it's really the first part – expertise and credibility in your particular space – that is the truly hard part. That takes time to build. To simply hire it, you might end up seeing that begins to look like social media "superstar" economics in competitive spaces.
It will be interesting to see how this evolves, but agreed, different hiring practices are needed.
@Steve – excellent feedback Steve – thanks for commenting and congratulations on your book!
Good point people think they are going to make a fortune sitting around doing no work at all instead of considering network marketing as a job and the knowledge you need behind it.
Hello Paul
Liked your blog! Added to what companies need to look for in a social media 'expert', is that this person needs to understand the function that each (new) SM has in the companies communication strategy as a whole. This requires a deeper insight in the use of SM than being a catchy writer or up-2-date on the different available platforms. It requires a thorough understanding of strategic marketing.
In my opinion the best thing that companies can do is train- and allow their (marketing) employees to get confident with SM.
The way SM is being used today by SMEs is still very limited compared to what it could be. Jumping onboard now without proper in-house knowledge means they will continue to be one step behind. Companies firstly need to invest in getting to know this/the new medium/media now.
-How can the individual platforms be utilised best?
-Which platforms should be used and which ones can be left aside?
-Etc,
This will help companies to become used to SM, rather than just start posting everywhere. And by going through this learning curve themselves they are creating a long-term asset (knowledge) rather than a short term benefit (a HR asset that has current, ending expertise).
I think you raise valid point on social networking. Great story-telling is key. Why is 60 Minutes still a top rated show after all these years? Great story-telling.
Mix the media. Reach out. It's all part of social networking. Things don't happen overnight, so be patient.
Jeff Ogden, President
Find New Customers
Lead Generation Made Simple
http://www.findnewcustomers.net
@ Jeff – great point
Paul, this is a really great article. I really enjoyed everyone’s comments as well. I personally agree with some of the things stated and really think all SM sites are tools. Using one or the other SM tools is not going to make the difference in your success. I feel you have to have a firm marketing strategy with a plan of attack that is focused on specific results that you are trying to accomplish.
I was talking with a few clients the other day about this very topic and how there is going to be a time when you need to hire a professional that does nothing but works on blogging and social media presence. There will however be a time of learning to get this right because you do have the two sides – 1. expert using the tools with no knowledge of the industry & 2. expert of the industry with no knowledge of the SM tools. It will be interesting to see if these two positions will become one or if they will need to work together as a team to build the company’s brand online.
Great article. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Paul
I think one of the major factors (and, usefully, one that can be sensibly tested in interviews) is empathy with the audience – to a degree that I think a psychologist might be a better model for the role than a journalist. For me, this underpins the competencies that you’ve listed so succinctly:
1. Story-telling (you need a kind of intrinsic understanding of what people are interested in)
2. Packaging (what’s the format people will respond to)
3. Reach (where is it that the audience are able to be influenced)
4. Measurement (what are we realistically expecting people to do and how will we track it?)
That’s my rather belated tuppence worth anyway…
All the best for the new year.
Paul
@ Paul
Awesome thanks for commenting Paul
I like your 4 compentencies – I have been thinking about a new blog post on the 4 S’s of Social Media Marketing and this is very close to it (will have to crank out that blog post now!)
The 4 s’s I am thinking about are
– Story telling
– Stickiness
– Social
– Share widely
something like that – will shine that up a bit more and get that blog post out – so stay tuned!