Interview 8 With Webnotes

For those of you who don’t know, Webnotes is a fantastic tool for taking notes on the web.  It lets you highlight and annotate any webpage and/or PDF.  I’ve had professional relations with them in the past.  I made both the PR screencast and the regular Webnotes screencast.  They’re a fantastic company, super nice guys, and Alex King, their director of marketing agreed to answer my questions.

What is your name and official title at your company?

Alex King- Director of Marketing

What is the name of the company you work for, and what does it specialize in?

WebNotes – We provide research tools to academics and public relations professionals.

When did your company decide to create its online, social media presence?

About a year ago, when I came on board.

Why did your company choose to establish that presence?

Honestly, because everyone else was doing it. We didn’t have much experience with anything other than Facebook, so starting a blog, twitter, etc were all experiments for us.

Which social media tool or service (twitter, Facebook, youtube, etc.) has proved most beneficial to your company and why?

LinkedIn has been the best because it has allowed us to find and talk to market professionals who have been able to give us guidance. All of our market research has been spread between immediate contacts and networking on LinkedIn, so it’s been phenomenal.

Is your company using multiple services? If so, which ones?

Yup! Twitter, LinkedIn, and our corporate blog are the primary ones. We do have Facebook and Youtube pages, but those are less helpful for us right now.

If the answer to the above question is yes, do you feel there is a benefit to having a presence on multiple social media outlets? If so, why?

There’s the phrase “fish where the fish are” that comes to mind. You have to be where your target consumers are, and engage in the mediums that they are engaging. Our target customers happen to be all over twitter and LinkedIn.

Is your company using these services mainly as a marketing tool, customer service outlet, or just as a way to connect to its customers in general? In other words, what’s your overall objective for social media strategy?

Twitter is one of our customer service outlets for interacting with people, but it also helps in our goals to find end users and pick their brain. LinkedIn is purely a market research tool and our blog is purely a marketing tool.

Do you have someone on your staff entirely dedicated to managing your online presence? If so, what do you feel are the benefits of having a dedicated social media staff member?

Nope. Just me, wearing all sales/marketing hats :-)

What sort of clients or customers do you see embracing these social media tools? Is it just the geeky type, the brand evangelists, or are you starting to see average everyday people using them to connect to your company?

Public Relations professionals and students just happen to be fairly tech savvy, so we are lucky that they happen to use these tools fluently.  That said, I think everyday people are picking them up and seeing the value that can be created.

How does the volume of communication from social media outlets compare to that of traditional communication sources for your company such as e-mails and telephone communication? In other words, are more customers calling you, or are they communicating with you through social media?

Most customers find out about us through our website, via word of mouth, twitter, our blog, google searches or other tech blogs.  From there, nearly everyone converts into a more “traditional” correspondence. For this reason it’s hard to say which is a better form.

Do you give the customers that contact you through social media means any sort of special treatment such as priority customer service or special incentives? If so, why?

Nope. We treat every customer exactly the same, which we hope is the most authentic thing we can do… after all, social media is all about authenticity

Thanks so much, Alex!