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Interview: Social Marketing specialist Paul Dunay

Social Networking Sites has redefined the way we interact with each other off late B2B marketing has undergone a rapid change to live with our dynamic interest. Then comes a special brain child “Buzz Marketing”. This article revolves around a person who has made a huge success in B2B marketing and achieved great heights in social media marketing.

Mr Paul Dunay, Chief Marketing Officer of “Networked Insights”, a leader in social media analytics is an expert in B2B marketing with more than 20 years of rich experience adding many awards to his kitty. He has tasted success in generating demand and creating buzz for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations.

Paul had authored various books like Facebook Marketing for Dummies , Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies , Facebook Advertising for Dummies and Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2nd Edition.

Paul has been recognized by 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.

Paul dunay’s blog, has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008. 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, Marketing Profs and Marketing Sherpa.

Recently I had an opportunity to have a small chat with this B2B market expert and get mare insights… I would like to share the discussion with everyone…

Q1 - As a Chief Marketing Officer of Networked Insights can you share your insights on the need for a social media analytics? Why do we need Social Media analysts in current scenario when information is available online?

[Paul]: – Many marketers are growing tired of hearing about social media but it’s still a wide open space and we are still in the early days. There are so many places now to monitize social media so having a social media analytic firm as a partner of your brand you can really find some great opportunities. We see social media really helping to make marketing and advertising more efficient – if you can model how your audience reacts to your paid media by using earned media – you can find some great efficiency.

Q 2 - Blogging seems to have taken back seat among current generation youngsters. Average bloggers age is still around 30. Do you foresee a change?

[Paul]: Blogging to my Children  are still “daddy’s thing” they don’t feel the need for it as  they are happier with short bursts of SMSs or Status Updates  which as you know is very popular with the Millennial generation. It may be catching fire with more brands than Millennial. I hear marketers finally getting serious about blogging for themselves and for their firms. It will always have a place in the marketing tool kit just not as popular as Facebook or

Twitter.

Q 3 – Almost every main stream journalists are blogging and multi user blogging is a most viewed portion of all leading online web news sites. Share your view.

[Paul]: I started my blog as a one man show almost 5 years ago in retrospect.  I wish I had the foresight to really invite many bloggers to join me into making one big blog (read Huffington Post) on

B2B Marketing rather than just doing it myself. I don’t regret doing it “my way” because I learned so much about writing and creating content – but it would have been much larger much faster. Every person has their own network and you need to tap into as many of them as possible to get the reach you need – that’s the big lesson that the 10 media firms are learning now that 5 of them are multi user blogs!

Q 4 – Do regular users or corporate make any direct profit out of FB or twitter other than advertising? Site any corporate innovations around direct monetary benefits

[Paul]: Other than maybe Dell who is using Twitter to sell over stock merchandise and some mobile Taco mobiles in LA not to many firms are making money from Twitter. My favorite use of Twitter is for Social Customer Support – I think there is a fantastic ROI for anyone with products on the market (either B2B or B2C). Facebook is a different story – a year from now we will see many “store fronts “open up on Facebook – there are some now – Target, Brooks Bros, 1

800 Flowers, Delta Airlines etc but that is about to explode in my opinion and there are several “store front” vendors popping up all over – who wouldn’t want to try to monetize 600 million people?

Q 5- Unlike Mobile/Cell phone web site is yet to be get the treatment of “My Website” “My online Identity”, sense of possessiveness is missing. Do you foresee people coming out of Social networking sites and free blogging site with an aim to have something on their own?

[Paul]: I think  2 concepts wrapped into this question

1) Mobile and the personal nature of the mobile phone – it is truly unique in the sense that you are the only person carrying your phone and your rarely if ever share your phone with anyone. This is the great thing about mobile. And now they are like little mobile computers so you can really personalize the experience which is why mobile apps have been so hot.

2) I don’t see people fleeing social networks for something else – Facebook finally connected 1/12 of the world – we are just getting started!

Q6 – “Information threat” – Express your view about Social Media Security? Why organizations pay attention to this when information is internet?

[Paul]: I wrote about this topic years ago when I actually read the Terms and Conditions of Facebook’s page for business – bottom line is they are giving you so much for free – free photos, free blogs, free status updates, free video hosting that they own the rights to those things because they are on their servers. I don’t really see this as a security threat – just good business sense on Facebook’s part. Many people get very upset about the idea that they could sell their pictures or use them some other way – but frankly that doesn’t bother me._

Q 7- Share your personal view on “blogging frequency impact” due to Facebook and Twitter? Is there any impact? Do they complement each other in any way?

[Paul]: I can say from my own experience that my blogging has reduced in frequency due to Facebook and Twitter – but at the corporate level we have increased our blogging. The reason for this is it feeds Facebook and Twitter with content. So think of you blog from a corporate perspective as a “swiss army” knife that can feed other sites while you get the great SEO on your site._

Q 8 – Share with us one obstacle which you have overcome in the past?

[Paul]: Wow finding just one is hard! I would say one of the greatest obstacles I overcame was getting my boss to “buy in” to social media. I heard him say something about supporting our customers and wanting to delight our customers  which caused me to do a search on search.twitter.com for our brand name. This reviled many mentions of the brand but after a page or 2 I found one that was not so “flattering”. So I printed it out and walked it into his office and asked “who is going to delight this customer – he sounds pretty upset”. This got him thinking about how we could use Twitter for customer support and before I left the room I had a new job (in addition to my old job). So be careful what you wish for!

Q 9 – One project you are working currently which can be shared to our readers?

[Paul]: I am working on testing how to sequence media – I am fascinated by the idea that VW could put out a Super Bowl ad on YouTube and get 2 million views AND have a great TV commercial at the same time that got people talking. There has to be a great lesson in here for marketers who are doing print and online media – and that is – you need to sequence your media for maximum reach. I am not sure I have the secret yet – but I know there is something great to learn there and will be sure to blog about it when I find it!

Q 10 – Your advice to upcoming CMO’s

[Paul]: It surprises me how many marketers DON’T think like a publisher –we need to be creating content all the time to engage with our audiences. So my advices is get that Content Engine cranked up and find a way to double your output in the coming year!