Cary Sherburne:  Hi, I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I’m here with Rick Littrell who is the CMO of Magicomm.  And I always get a little confused, is that Chief Market Officer or Chief Magic Officer?   

Rick Littrell: It depends on my mood.  It’s depends on my mood.  I wanted to give myself a flexibility of branding.  And depending on the audience, you know.  For this audience, I’m Chief Marketing Office with a lot of magic.  

Cary:  Okay.  

Rick: Okay?  

Cary: So what I’d like to talk to you about today because I know you’re very active on social media and you’ve done a lot of experimenting for your own business as well as for customers on how to use it.  

Rick: Yes.  

Cary: So, you know, people struggle with, how do I monetize social media?  I’m not sure that’s even the right question to ask, but can you just talk a little bit about what you think people should be doing.  Printing firms, in particular, should be doing around social medial.  

Rick: Well, I’ve been… I watch a lot of them on how they’re doing it and I’m a firm believer right now, best practices are still being developed.  I personally work… at Magicomm, we have a corporate Twitter account, I have a personal Twitter account, I have LinkedIn, and I have Facebook.  And I treat them all differently on what I position.  And I think it goes back on my personal strategy is, I’m trying to give them insights in how I think and whether, you know, they agree or disagree, but to provide some kind of value.  And then let them get to know a little bit about me.  I mean, Facebook.  I’ll post something about football or the NCAS tournament.  I’ll never do that on LinkedIn.

Cary: I’ve seen that.  

Rick: That’s right.  I’ll never do that on LinkedIn.  Twitter, I’ll do it in my personal account and won’t do it in my professional account… in the corporate account.  And for printers… I’ve seen printers try to put out… put Facebook pages… I’m mixed.  I’m not sure… I question how that will work because you’ve seen success on Facebook with fan pages and group pages in the consumer market and B2C, not so much in B2B unless you’re a big brand.  And let’s face it, none of us are.  I mean, even though in my own mind, do you know what I mean?  They don’t care.  And it’s not like people have more time.  

So it’s like, okay, how can you engage them, give them insight, and make them want to know you?  Like last night, I was at a dinner and somebody came up, “Oh, it’s you.  I finally connected with you because you sent a connection out to me.”  I have a large customer that’s a digital print manufacturer and I went through LinkedIn.  I went to 100.  If they had the title, if it was sales, marketing in that corporation, I must have gone through a hundred of them.  I got about 30, 40 connects.  And now I’m having them come up, “Oh, you’re the guy who connected me.  I didn’t know you.”  I go, “Yeah, but you need to know me.”  You know?  So, you can target industries and companies to use it to let them get to know you, what kind of person you are, what kind of service you provide, what kind of insight you are.  And you really got to watch yourself.  You’re not pushing, I’m really good. 

Cary:  Yeah.  Or 50 percent off on flyers today.  

Rick:  I’ve seen printers do that and I talk to them.  “How’s it work?”  “Well, you know…”  And I go, I get it, but I’m not sure that’s the way to do it, so.  I think we’re all trying to feel it out.  I gave a talk yesterday and asked people, how many are on Twitter, and you know, it was like this.  And not many.  I’m not sure what to do with it.  And by far, the people come up to me, “I don’t know what to do with it.”  And I said, well… 

Cary:  And a lot of people just think it’s just a time sink.  

Rick:  There’s some truth to that because you know, you can go on and like say chase shiny lights because once you see something... oh… and then you see another and then all of a sudden, there goes a half hour.  

Cary: The day’s gone.  Yeah.  

Rick: I mean, when I get on it.  I do it in the morning, I’ll do it during lunch, but I try to be in 15-minute increments because I’ll watch my time.  Because it can be… and that’s not to say sometimes an hour-and-a-half later, and I ended up nowhere close to where I started.  But… 

Cary:  But it is important for people to start experimenting… 

Rick: I think, absolutely.  It really is the key.  It’s get in there, see how you can use it, see how many of your colleagues and your customers are using it.  And also see how, you know, competitors are using it.  It is a competitive tool.  It is a marketing tool.  It’s a relationship-building tool.  Now, how do you use it?  How do you make that connection?  How do you let your customers and your vendors interact with you and your prospects?  And that’s… I don’t think it’s black and white yet, I really don’t.  

Cary:  Well, it’s exciting though.  

Rick:  Yes.  It’s very exciting.  It’s another channel.  

Cary:  Yeah.  Thank you.  

Rick: Okay, thank you.