A Secret Group is easy to create and manage, and it is perfect for small-group interaction.

Keep reading to discover powerful ways these groups could help your business.

Facebook originally created Secret Groups for people to have small, intimate interactions with family and friends, but Secret Groups are also perfect for small businesses, coaches and professional development, like mastermind groups.

Why Secret Groups?

Most people think of Facebook Business pages when they think about Facebook, but businesses sometimes need private spaces for working, coordinating schedules and developing marketing and advertising ideas with a small group of people.

There are three types of Groups on Facebook.

It’s true that G+ (Google+) has created a system of Circles that allow for private conversations, but there are some nice features that Facebook has embedded within Secret Groups that are not as easily utilized in G+ as it currently stands. I’ll explain those Facebook features in a moment.

There are three types of Facebook Groups:

• Public (Open): everyone can see the Group, find it in a search and make posts
• Closed: everyone can see the Group, but only members can see (and make) posts
• Secret: only members can see the Group, see and make posts

But how secret is a Facebook Secret Group?

When you create a Secret Group, no one, except the members of the Group, will be able to find it in a search and no one will be able to find any trace of it on your personal or business Facebook profiles. And Secret Groups are not indexed by Google.

Even if you send someone the URL of the Secret Group, they will not be able to see the Group page. It’s that secret. I have even posted a Secret Group’s URL on a post in another Secret Group and no one could see the actual link at all!

You will get Facebook notifications (and/or email notifications—more on that in a moment) for each post from any member. And those posts will show up in your news feed, which can be a bit confusing until you notice the little lock icon next to any Secret Group post. So no one can read those, unless they are looking over your shoulder!

And if you choose to receive email notifications of posts to the Group, you will be able to reply to those emails and have your reply go directly to the Group comment for that post.

You will see posts to your Secret Group in your Top News Feed.

Features of Facebook Secret Groups

There are several features that I have enjoyed with my Secret Groups that any small business could use. They are:

• Group Chat: everyone in the Group can use the Chat feature at the same time. So you can have a conversation around complicated subjects to work things out without having to pick up the phone or back-and-forth emails. As far as I know, you can’t use this function on a mobile device (mobile browser or app) at the moment, though.
• Shared Document creation: the whole group can have input on one document and be able to edit what other members have put on it. This feature is similar to using Google Docs, and can be used to refine promotional text, press releases, responses to controversy, etc.

Create a document that all the members can edit.

• Private photo sharing: members can post photos that no one else on Facebook can see. For example, Secret Group members on an advertising team can discuss which images to use on an upcoming campaign. They could create albums with the name of their upcoming advertising campaigns and put several images in them to discuss in the comments or in the Group chat. You can tag the photos, but only with the names of the members of the Group.
• Shared email address: Facebook lets you create a custom email address you can use to email posts to the Secret Group page. You can email text and images. I’ll show you how to create that special email address in a moment.

How can a small business use a Secret Group?

Looking at these features, how can small businesses and coaches use a Secret Group? Here are few ways:

• If you’re a manager with staff who live on Facebook, you can create a Secret Group to keep in touch about hours, shift substitutions, emergencies and all sorts of things that a manager would normally use email or text messages for. Everyone can check the Secret Group posts for morning updates and these messages won’t show up on someone’s personal wall.
• If you have a remote virtual team working on a marketing project, you can use the Group Chat feature to work through ideas that come up randomly through the day that only need a couple of minutes of attention in the same way you would use Google Chat or any IM system.
• If you have a crisis management team using a Secret Group, you can take photos on your smartphone and send them directly to the Group using your private Group email address. You completely bypass the upload and tag process you normally use for Facebook photos. You can create group documents for how to handle a particular crisis for ready reference and be able to announce a group chat time that immediately shows up in the member’s Top News Feed.
• If you are a personal development coach, using the Secret Group system is great, even if it is a bit convoluted to get a fully Secret Group, as you will see. First you need to create a Closed Group. That way you can give out the Group’s URL and then they can click the Ask to Join the Group button (top right of the Group page). You don’t need to be personal Facebook friends with potential members for this to work. Then once everyone is a member of the Closed Group, you can change the Group setting to Secret (how to do that coming up).

Assuming you already have a personal Facebook account, follow these steps to create a Secret Group:

1. Go to http://facebook.com/groups
2. Click the green Create Group button.
3. Give the Group a name and choose the icon with the dropdown arrow.
4. Add any members who are your Facebook Friends by typing their names. You’ll see their account pop-ups; select to add them to the member box.
   If you will be including members who are not your personal friends, make sure you create a Closed Group first, then change it to Secret once all the members have joined.
5. Select the Privacy Setting and click the Create button.

There are only four easy things to do to create a Group; choose an icon, give the Group a name, select members and choose the privacy setting.

You can choose from a standard list of icons for the Group.

Give the Group a name and start to add members who are already your friends.

If you selected to create a Closed Group first, send the URL for the Group to the people you want to invite. The URL will take them to the Group page, where they’ll see an Ask to Join the Group button (top right corner of the page). Once they click that button, you (as an admin of the Group) will see their request on the right column of the Group page.

To approve people who have asked to join the Group, look on the right side of the Group page for the section called Requests. You can click the Add or Ignore link for each person who has asked to join the Group. Once everyone is in, change the Group setting to Secret. You can see how to do that next.

Adjusting Personal and Group Settings

To adjust your personal notification settings for this new Group, click the Edit Settings button at the top of the page, and select if you want to be notified when a member posts, when a member posts or makes comments, when a personal friend in the Group posts or only posts that you have made comments on.

You can also check or uncheck to be sent an email for the notification choice you made, and decide if you want to be sent chat messages. After you have figured all that out, click the Save Changes button. I suggest that you unselect the email notifications and just use the built-in notification system Facebook provides, but that’s my personal preference.

Edit your personal settings for notifications.

To adjust the Group’s settings, look for the link in the right column called Edit Group. When you click this link you have options to:

• upload an image that will be the Group’s profile image
• change the privacy setting (from Closed to Secret, for example)
• select to have only admins of the Group be able to approve members (highly suggested for all Group organizers to check this box)
• create a unique email address for the Group—click this button to create an email address that you or anyone in the Group (if you share it with them) can use to email text and images to the Group wall. You just need to add text before the @groups.facebook.com link. For example, GoldMasterMind@groups.facebook.com. If your proposed name is already taken, you will be able to change it until it is unique.

These are the settings you can adjust for the Group.

Edit the Group settings and create a unique email address for the Group.

Now you can create posts, upload photos, add links, create group documents and have conversations, all within the Facebook “cone of silence” or under the “cloak of invisibility”! I can hear you say, “But nothing is completely secret on the Internet.” I would agree with you, but as far as I can tell, the proverbial cloak works really well with Facebook Secret Groups.

I am a member of a few Secret Groups, one of which contains all the authors (of which I am one) of a certain recently published book. Our Secret Group was a lifesaver during the writing and editing phase of our book.

Because of a tremendous amount of overlapping subjects and text in the book, we were able to sort things out within the Chat, Group Chat, Posting and Image Uploading features of the Group. And we bonded very deeply over posts, comments, rants and raves. Knowing that no one else could see what we wrote helped to relieve the frustration and stress of a very demanding project.

What do you think?

What is your experience with Secret Groups? Have you used this feature yet for your business? Do you see any possibilities with a Secret Group for personal development? Leave your comments in the box below.

By the way, you’re not alone. There are still many business owners and marketers who don’t quite know where to start—they struggle to gain momentum and achieve measurable results from their efforts.

This post is designed to help you understand what Facebook can do for your business and lead you through a step-by-step process for getting started on building a compelling presence and optimizing your Facebook marketing.

STEP 1: Review Your Profile

Most likely, you already have a personal profile. Facebook’s Terms of Use stipulate you’re allowed one account in your own real name. (If you don’t yet have a Facebook account, just go to http://facebook.com and register.)

Next, choose your approach for using your personal profile. It’s entirely a personal choice. You may wish to keep your profile for connecting only with friends you already know and family members. Or, you may wish to blend both your personal and professional worlds.

My recommendation is to use your profile for a mix of both personal connecting and professional networking. Regardless of how you choose to use your profile, you’ll want to make use of Friend Lists and adjust your privacy settings so that you control who sees what content. (See Mike Stelzner’s post 3 Reasons Facebook Trumps Twitter for Business, where he talks about how these two features rocked his world!)

I’ll cover Friend Lists and privacy settings in a moment. First, here are several key areas to review on your profile.

Go to the Edit Profile section of your profile to edit each of these areas:

You can get to the Edit Profile area by first clicking the Info tab, then the edit pencil in the top-right corner. Also, it may help to know that anytime you edit much of this information—such as changing your profile picture, your relationship status, your bio, etc.—a notice goes out to your friends in their News Feeds (unless you previously adjusted your privacy settings very tightly!).

Remember to click the blue Save Changes button on each section if you make changes!

Hide Your Year of Birth

Under the Basic Information section, I strongly suggest not showing your year of birth as a layer of security.

Update Your Bio

Check to make sure your bio and contact information is the way you want it, ideally in a first-person, conversational tone. I also recommend filling out the “mini bio” section just under your profile picture (click the edit pencil); you get 245 characters and can include links.

Check Your Photo

I recommend having a professional headshot taken. In fact, get several from the same shoot and use them throughout your various social sites for consistency.

In today’s social context, stay away from overly formal photos. Instead go for a relaxed, informal—yet professional—look. Crop your picture to your head and shoulders only; when your thumbnail appears around Facebook, you want it to be recognizable. Also, stay away from using group photos of you and other people. If a potential key contact doesn’t know you yet, he/she won’t know which one is you.

If your profile picture is more than three years old, it’s time for an update. Your goal is to have people come up to you when they meet you in person and say you look exactly like your picture. This actually helps to build trust.

Select Your Relationship Status

Over the years, Facebook has added a few more possible relationship status choices. If, like me, you wish to remain private about this area of your life, select the blank choice and your status won’t be shown at all. There is an area in the privacy settings where you can choose who sees your relationships settings; I have mine set to Friends as I’m happy for my friends to see my relatives, which is the only other information in this section.

Understand How Likes and Interests Work

As you fill out the various books, movies, music, etc., that you like, Facebook will automatically connect you to the related Facebook Page/Community Page for those interests. When you begin to type the word, select from the drop-down:

To understand more about how Community Pages work, see this post.

Grow Your Network

Facebook allows you a maximum of 5,000 friends and I suggest—over time—you look to optimize this maximum. Having key contacts as friends allows you to maintain a more personal connection with them.

For professional networking purposes, proactively seek new friends who may be influential people in your industry and related industries, prospects, media contacts, people you admire, potential collaborators, and so forth. Just be mindful to not overdo the outgoing friend requests in any one session. Facebook views this as potentially spam behavior and you run the risk of your account being deactivated. Twenty requests at a time is a safe number.

To find new people to add, use the Friend Finder, Invite friends by email, and join relevant Groups and Facebook pages. When sending friend requests, always add a personal message.

STEP 2: Make Friend Lists

Friend Lists on Facebook allow you to do three things:

• Control which of your friends see what content you publish (see Step 3 on privacy).
• Filter your News Feed stories.
• Control who can see that you’re available on Facebook Chat.

First, you’ll need to make at least one Friend List. Go to Account > Edit Friends:

Then click Create New List:

A pop-up box appears with all of your friends, so give your list a name and select the friends you wish to add. You can have up to 100 lists, with up to 1,000 friends in each list. Friends can be in multiple lists. Nobody knows which list of yours they might be on; this is for your own private use.

NOTE: You can also add Facebook Pages to Friend Lists, which I highly recommend for ease of reading your News Feed!

Suggested Friend Lists might be: Family, Buddies, Colleagues, Clients, Students, Key Contacts, Favorite Facebook Pages, and so on. One of my favorite lists I call Social Media Experts and I source much of my news from this stream.

Filter Your News Feed Stories

On your home page (News Feed page), click the link for Friends and you’ll see your Friend Lists there. You may need to click the “More” button if you have several lists. You can now view your friends and Facebook page activity via these lists.

If you’d like to have your default view be a certain list, here’s a fun trick: Each of your Friend Lists has its own unique URL. Open the one you want to go to first in a new tab (right click), then bookmark that particular URL. Now that will be the default page view that opens.

Control Your Facebook Chat Availability

I’m not a fan of the Facebook Chat feature at all; I keep it turned off almost all the time because it’s just too distracting. But, you may wish to show yourself as being online to a select group of individuals via a Special Friends List!

Click on the very bottom right of your window where it says “Chat.” If you’ve already created your Friend Lists, you’ll see a list pop up. Beside each list, you’ll see a little “slider” that you can turn from green to grey. Green tells your friends in that list you’re online and grey shows you as offline to friends in that list.

To go offline completely, select Options > Go Offline.

STEP 3: Adjust Your Privacy Settings

One of the many questions I’m asked frequently is, “How do I know what is public and what is just between me and the person I’m talking to on Facebook?”  The short answer is simple: the *only* communication that is private between you and another person is email. Otherwise, all your own wall posts, posts on friends’ walls, comments, likes, photos, videos, links, activity on Groups and Pages and likes on external sites are visible to friends, friends of friends or everyone, depending on your privacy settings.

Facebook has received much criticism for their seeming lack of care about privacy. Yet, mostly, this pushback has been things like the Beacon fiasco and, more recently, the Instant Personalization feature. The fact is, Facebook offers extremely granular privacy settings so for every piece of content you publish, you can control who sees it and who doesn’t. That’s where the complexity—and confusion—arise, as the New York Times wrote about!

The best way to set your privacy settings is to go for the Custom option:

Click Customize Settings (#2 above) and for each section on the next page, choose whether you want Everyone, Friends of Friends, Friends Only or a Custom setting:

I recommend using a custom setting for “Posts by Me.” That way, your default for any content you publish can be viewable by Friends of Friends except certain lists. You can override the default at any time on the Publisher.

STEP 4: Set Up a Facebook Page

Once you’re happy with the way you’ve chosen to use and configure your profile, it’s time to set up your Business Page, often referred to as a “Fan Page.” Previously, we would join these pages by clicking the “Become a Fan” button; however, Facebook changed this a few months ago to their ubiquitous “Like” button.

With Facebook’s 500 million active users—half of whom log on daily for an average session time of 55 minutes—having an active Facebook page helps gain tremendous visibility for your business and meets your prospects/community where they are. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to “max out” your personal profile first. The time to start a Facebook page is right away!

What You Need to Know About Facebook Pages

• You need to have an account on Facebook in order to create a Facebook page.
• Your Facebook page will be tied to your personal profile as the admin of your Facebook page; however, only you and Facebook know the connection exists.
• You can have an unlimited number of Facebook pages.
• You can have an unlimited number of fans (Facebook users who “Like” your page).
• Facebook Pages are public—anyone can find and view your page whether they are logged into Facebook or not.
• All content posted on your Facebook page gets indexed on Google.
• You can target your posts by location and language.
• You can add applications to your page, including your own custom content—video, rich text, graphics, opt-in box and more.
• You can add additional admins (highly recommended).
• All admins have equal rights to administer your page, including adding and removing other admins (choose with care!).
• You can’t post content on your Facebook page from your personal profile (unless you use an @ tag from your profile and have your settings for that post set to Everyone).
• Select your page title and category carefully as they cannot be changed once set.
• Start here to create your Facebook page.

Study Other Facebook Pages

To get a sense of what’s possible for your own Facebook page, look at a variety of examples in your own industry and related industries. Here is Facebook’s own Directory of Pages; see also this fun site called Facebakers.

And, here is a great slidedeck with ten examples of business-to-business Facebook pages:

Recommended Six-step Approach to Building Your Facebook Page

#1:  Objective

First, be clear on what your primary purpose is for your Facebook page. Examples include raising brand awareness, enhancing customer service, building your email list, driving traffic back to your blog, building community, etc. You may have multiple objectives, and that’s fine; be sure to prioritize your objectives. Mike Stelzner and the team at Social Media Examiner have a great editorial guide for their Facebook page; you can view an excerpt in this post.

#2:  Design Strategy

Once you’re clear on the objective(s) of your Facebook page, the design needs to reflect that. Say your primary objective is to build your email list. You’ll need to feature at least one opt-in box. For instructions on how to add custom content to your page, see this post. Go to Social Media Examiner’s Facebook Page to see a sample opt-in box.

#3: Content Strategy

Ideally, just as with your blog, you’ll have an editorial guide (or content matrix) which includes a plan for publishing a mix of updates, photos, videos, and links. For a sample content matrix, see this Google doc. Use a platform like HootSuite or ObjectiveMarketer to pre-schedule your content. Depending on the nature of your business and your overall objective, for the most part, it’s best to publish a mix of your own content and what I call “OPC” (other people’s content). Sources of quality OPC include Guy Kawasaki‘s AllTop, Technorati, Listorious (a directory of Twitter Lists), along with your favorite blogs (subscribe in Google Reader or via email). Plus, remember your own Facebook Friend Lists!

#4:  Promotion Strategy

Now you’ve built it and need to ensure “they come!” There are many ways to promote your Facebook page inside Facebook, outside Facebook and offline. See this post for ideas: 21 Creative Ways To Increase Your Facebook Fanbase.

#5:  Engagement Strategy

Now you’re starting to gain traction! But you’ll need to allocate resources to ensure your Facebook page is being monitored and moderated—if not always by you, then by your team. If one of your objectives is to enhance customer service, you’ll want to be prompt in responding to fans’ comments and use a personal, approachable tone. BestBuy does a great job of this. See these two posts for ideas on enhancing engagement: How to Better Engage Facebook Fan Page ‘Fans’ and 13 Ways to Move Your Facebook Fans to Action.

#6:  Conversion Strategy

I usually find the tipping point in social media is between 500-1,000 fans/followers/friends/email subscribers. You’ll start to see measurable results with this size group. You’ll be building trust and loyalty among your fanbase with consistently good content and reliable responses. Now you must have a strategy in place to convert your fanbase to paying clients or customers. Perhaps you’ll offer a special event (live or virtual), coupons, discounts and other incentives to give your fans a strong call to action. The bottom line is to let your fans know exactly what you want them to do. And pace your offers. If you’re hosting live/virtual events, be sure to also use the Facebook Events feature. See this post for ideas: 10 Tips for Creating Buzz With Facebook Events.

By the way, just as soon as you have your first 25 fans, be sure to register your own unique username (sometimes called a “vanity URL”) for your Facebook page at http://facebook.com/username.

That’s it! That’s all you need for now—(1) a profile with a strategy and settings you’re happy with, plus (2) the makings of a robust, active Facebook page.

I trust this has been of use if you’ve been a bit stuck on how to really gain traction with your Facebook optimization. Did I miss something? What else would you like to see covered here? Got ideas of your own for what’s working well on Facebook? Let us know in the comments below!

Perhaps you have a Facebook Fan Page and even some fans.  But now what?  How can you encourage your fans to act and interact?

In my prior post I covered the various sources and types of content you can post on your Facebook fan page. I also talked about the importance of consistent updates.

However, just like the “Field of Dreams” – if you build a fantastic fan page with plenty of quality content, will they come and will they stay?

They will come and they will stay if you give your fans good reason to engage.

Given that over half of Facebook’s 400 million active users log in daily and spend an average of 55 minutes per day on the site, you can get your target audience to spend some of that time getting to know you, your brand, your products and services.

The secret is to create a fan page with the right blend of ingredients that resonates most with your ideal fans. And to ensure they’re made to feel a strong part of your online community.

As mentioned in Part 1, I’ve found there are essentially two components to Facebook fan page engagement: 1) Sharing quality, relevant content and 2) inciting comments. So, here in Part 2, we’ll talk about just how vital comments (and likes, wall posts and @ tags) are to the success of your fan page.

Now that you have a wide variety of regular, quality, relevant content posting on your fan page, here are some ways to get your fans to interact:

1. Ask questions

For status updates, try ending with a question. In the example below, Best Buy generated 274 responses so far to their question about what feature your can’t live without on your phone.

And, in this example, Skype got 147 comments to their question about meeting your partner via Skype!

2. Use the words “you” or “your”

Use the word “you” often – “What are your thoughts?” “What do you think about xyz?” Here, the Hard Rock Cafe is giving out a coupon code with the words “Our gift to you because you rock…”

3. Keep it short

The easier it is for your fans to read, the more likely they are to respond. Keep your status updates short and simple with one topic. You have up to 420 characters per update, but I recommend about half that for an ideal size. For longer updates, use the Notes app – or write a blog post and update.

4. Post in high-traffic windows

Get to know when your fans are most responsive. Depending on in which part of the world the majority of your fans are, you might want to post between 9:00am and 2:00pm in your timezone.

5. Respond promptly

Do your best to respond to fan questions (as wall posts) as promptly as possible. If you find you can’t keep up with the volume of questions, offer a free teleseminar or webinar where you answer the top questions for your fans. You can do this in the traditional way of having people opt-in to get the phone number so you’ll build your email list at the same time.

6. Address fans by name

Come back and reply often to your fans’ comments – Facebook currently doesn’t have threaded commenting, so I suggest addressing specific fans in your comments as @name. See my comment at the bottom of the screenshot below:

7. Comment yourself

Add your own comment as needed to get the ball rolling. However, don’t step in too soon. I often find that the comments come more freely when you allow your fans to run by themselves initially.

8. Thank your fans

Acknowledge your fans often with simple thanks. Genuine recognition goes a *long* way!

9. Surprise your fans

Don’t be afraid to stray “off topic” from time to time and surprise your fans. In other words, your content doesn’t always have to be directly related to your product or service. You might share an inspirational quote and add your own thoughts, for example.

If you happen to know a fan’s Twitter ID, send a tweet thanking her/him for the comment on your fan page. With a link of course.

10. Use @ tagging

You can tag other fan pages that you’re a fan of and your own friends (along with Groups you belong to and Events you’ve RSVPed for). When appropriate, and used sparingly, @ tags can be a very powerful way to have your post show up on others’ walls, which gives you more exposure and brings more fans or potential fans back to engage.

11. Use the Discussion Board

Give your fans a place to network with one another. Plus, often fans want to do self-promotion. You can encourage these types of activities on a specific discussion thread. Also, when you first launch your fan page, be sure to start 3 to 5 discussion topics so it’s not a blank  tab.

In this example, the most popular discussion thread on Chick-fil-A’s fan page is asking their fans where they’d most like to see a Chick-fil-A next. Topics are always listed in order of the most recently commented on.

12. Send updates to fans

Each tab on your fan page and each discussion thread topic has its own unique URL. To bring fans back to your page to contribute to a discussion and get them more engaged, send out an update with a call to action and specific link. (To find the Update feature, click Edit Page under your image then look for Send Update to Fans on the right of your Admin page.)

13. Monitor insights

If you’re a perfectionist, the goal is to get 5 stars and a perfect 10 score! Facebook uses algorithms to calculate your Post Quality as determined by the percentage of your fans who engage when you post content, calculated on a rolling seven-day basis. The number of stars depends on how your Post Quality compares to similar pages (for example, pages that have a similar number of fans).

The more activity your fan page posts generate, the longer you’ll show up in the News Feed of your fans!

As you build up your fan base, consistently add quality, relevant content and engage your fans. You’ll start to see results that translate into an increase in brand awareness and positive brand sentiment, email and blog subscribers, and of course, sales and paying customers.

Editors note: Check out Social Media Examiner’s new Facebook fan page by clicking here.

How are you engaging your fans? What did I miss? I’d love to hear from you. Add your ideas in the comments below. And do ask any clarifying questions as I’d be happy to answer you.

At a time when businesses are using social media to promote content and start discussions, Avaya has found that listening trumps talking.

“We’re listening to social media and responding,” said Paul Dunay, Avaya’s social media ringleader, who is global managing director of services and social media marketing.

“There is no Tweet that goes unturned. No forum post that goes unturned where our name is mentioned.”

What began as a way to engage and support customers has evolved beyond even Avaya’s expectations. And if Avaya ever doubted its investment in social media, those concerns are now put to rest.

A recent quarter-million–dollar sale, which began on Twitter, soundly answered that question.

Making the Case

Avaya started in 2000 as a spinoff of Lucent Technologies, but its legacy goes back more than a century to the original Bell system. From the earliest phone systems to advanced, unified communications, Avaya and its predecessors have been – and continue to be – at the forefront of the field.

It makes sense then that Avaya would be wherever people are communicating today. The company’s social media activity started informally and grew organically. First, it was mostly a matter of supporting – and keeping – existing customers, many of whom need replacements as old phone systems are retired.

At the time, Dunay followed Avaya mentions on Twitter, which were mostly questions that he forwarded to support reps.

“The old 1.0 way was a call center or inputting tickets on the web,” he said. “2.0 is we’ll try to reach out to Avaya support which is, by the way, me on Twitter.”

With the growth of social media, those mentions soon became too much for Dunay to simply watch on his own. He brought his case to Avaya’s CMO, and left with official backing to build a cross-functional, global, and virtual social media team.

“It was very easy for me to build my business case on retention of existing customers because it’s so expensive to get new ones,” he said

Customer Conversations ‘Everywhere’

Through word of mouth, Dunay found early social media adopters within Avaya’s 15,000 employees, starting with seven people across communications, marketing, support, legal and other business units. As the team began organizing Avaya’s social media strategy, they chose to focus on four main tools: Facebook, blogging, forums and Twitter.

From there, Avaya’s social media was “literally an explosion,” according to Dunay. That team of seven employees has now grown to 50 – all of whom volunteer to participate in social media on top of their regular jobs.

Today, the company has 42 Facebook groups, five Facebook fan pages, one external blog with 10 regular Avaya writers, 10 global Twitter accounts, and 12 LinkedIn groups. Internally, Avaya leverages social media just as much, with 14 internal blogs, 15 wikis, about 3,000 employees on Yammer and some on the recently launched Socialcast.

Facebook serves as the hub, with events, news, discussions and links to blog posts. The blogs discuss trends, innovations and cultural insights. Twitter allows them to post quick bits of information, respond to support requests, and monitor mentions of the brand and competition. Forums enable customers to get help from each other or from Avaya tech support.

With significant momentum, Dunay reported back to the CMO. “She asked, ‘Where are we talking to customers?’ I said, ‘Everywhere!’ She asked, ‘Where are we holding conversations with partners?’ I said, ‘Everywhere!’ We’re holding all the conversations in the same places with each one of those constituencies – and then some.”

Contests, videos and other resources engage Avaya’s Facebook fans.

The Eyes and Ears of Avaya

With active listening as the team’s main approach, members found they simply couldn’t be everywhere at all times – especially as mentions of the Avaya name grew to between 1,000 and 2,500 weekly. They turned to Radian6 technology to listen to and measure all social media mentions of not just the company’s name, but competitors’ names, product names, and types of conversations.

“We identified conversations we wanted to go deeply into,” Dunay said. “Wherever conversations about small business and communications happen, we need to be there.”

Avaya tracks a dashboard of mentions, and can choose to either ignore or respond to each. When one member “hears” something requiring further action, he or she posts it on an internal wiki and it’s assigned to someone on the relevant team to address it. That might be support, billing and finance, engineering, a partner, and so forth.

Dunay stresses that none of Avaya’s responses are automated. Who knows what a customer or prospect might say? If your response isn’t tailored to their comments, then you’ve missed the opportunity to connect on a personal level.

The 58-Character Sale

On average, Avaya interacts with a couple of dozen customers through social media on a weekly basis. By listening, the team also comes across sales opportunities. In June of this year, 58 characters of a simple Tweet started the relationship with a potential customer.

“shoretel or avaya? Time for a new phone system very soon,” the Tweet read.

“In less than maybe 15 minutes, we had seen it and figured out what the heck to say to this guy,” Dunay said. “I wrote back, ‘We have some highly trained techs who can help you understand your needs best and help you make an objective decision. Give me a call.’”

Dunay referred the gentleman to a business partner, and 13 days later, they closed a $250,000 sale. At the same time, the new customer’s follow-up Tweet went out: “…we have selected AVAYA as our new phone system. Excited by the technology and benefits…”

“We were there. We were listening. It pays to listen,” Dunay said. “I can’t say we hit 100% of the conversations where we’ve wanted to be, although it’s probably 60–70%. But on our brand name, it is 117%. We’re on every one of those.”

Avaya proactively identifies and responds to support issues using Twitter.

One Tweet Away

By proactively looking for mentions and conversations, Avaya sees issues before they even arise, before anyone contacts the company. A response to a social media mention truly makes an impression on customers, prospects and partners. “We are the early response center for things happening in the marketplace,” Dunay said. “They love knowing you’re one Tweet away.”

Avaya’s social media team grew quickly, but Dunay has an even bigger vision for social media.

“I don’t think it should be 50. I think it should be 15,000. Everyone should have a hand in it,” Dunay said. “We definitely want more people deeper and broader in the organization.”

“Our goals are to have deeper, more interesting and more pervasive conversations with as many people as we possibly can,” he added. “Why wouldn’t you take every opportunity for your brand to build better and deeper relations with every customer you can?”