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Cisco Systems Michael Metz, addressing a recent B2B marketing conference, talked quite a bit about how the networking giant is using Web 2.0 technologies to help sell product. I was most interested in their use of click to chat and how it was deployed in smart ways to really make those prospects convert to customers:

Metz was most enthusiastic about new “click to chat” functionality, which was added in November. “We started on 15 low-traffic pages,” he said, noting that customers who engaged a live call center agent in a “Chat with a Cisco expert” chat window had a conversion rate of 43%.

When Cisco targeted the chat window with business rules—for instance, only offering it to customers who visited the pages three times in a week, made product comparisons or spent more than 45 seconds on a page—the number of sessions with the same high conversion rate doubled.

Here’s the whole piece: Multiple Home Runs from Web 2.0

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Doesn’t matter what you do–spinal surgeon, marketing consultant, iPod hacker, speech coach–you’ve probably experienced a common problem at cocktail parties and networking meetings. There you are trying to get to know people (or just plain relax with a drink) and you get someone who comes up to you and wants free advice.

If you’re a doctor, and someone asks you for medical advice, you can always tell them, “Fine, just take off your clothes and I’ll examine you.” Doesn’t work so well for the rest of us. Neither does wearing a t-shirt that says, “No I won’t fix your computer right &^%*#! now” if you’re a geek. The polite brush-off is just something that will ultimately hurt your business in the long run, so what you need are some strategies. (For more on this, check out an interesting article in the NYT, which unfortunately doesn’t go far enough in giving practical advice on the lead gen front.)

The first thing I do when people approach me about how to fix an online marketing problem is to start asking them questions. I usually start with who they’re trying to reach, what product or service offering they’re trying to communicate, and what they’ve found to be the most effective hot buttons. By the time I get to about the third or fourth question the person who has approached me starts to realize that their request is pretty complicated. I time it such that just as the little light bulb goes off I hand them my business card and encourage them to contact me at my office the next business day.

For others, I encourage them to go to my web site and sign up at our newsletter. There are already lots of articles on there, with more coming via email every 2-3 weeks or so. They can also register for free teleseminars, read my blog postings, take a free email course, and even become a member at our Lead Generation Center.

The point is, have something ready for the curious. Give them a little taste of your process–think of it as a sample. But have some solid boundaries in place. Reserve the in-depth discussions for business hours, or get them to sign up at your web site. (By the way, I tell people directly, “Go to our web site and sign up for our FREE newsletter.” I give them a specific call to action, not “Go to our web site.”)

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I’m going to keep this brief because I’m peeved, and my therapist tells me that I don’t act smart when I’m peeved. So here goes.

ATTENTION ALL MARKETERS: social networking is not some excuse to open up a sales channel on me and my friends! We are not your servants, lackeys, shills, or anything else. If we think your product or service is cool, we’ll talk about it, maybe show our friends and cousins how cool your thingamajig is. If we’re sorta into it, we might contact you to tell you how much we like your thingamajig. If we’re really into it, we’ll give you detailed information on how to improve it, or start a web site in which a bunch of us thingamajig-geeks get together and modify your thinamajig to our lives.

If we videotape ourselves doing this, or blog about it, or start up any kind of impromptu conferences about your thing, think of us as your brand champions and go out of your way to help us in any way you see fit (except please keep your crummy little fingers out of our pie and stow the chastising commentary and the “oh, you really shouldn’t use our sacred thingamajig *that* way”).

In other words, open up a channel so you can listen/watch/learn how we use your thingamajig, and learn how we move inside our social networks. Occasionally, push something out that will be of value to us (especially if it’s something we don’t know about your thingamajig or EVEN BETTER, someone new you can add to our circle as a thingamajig expert, but if he/she works for you, cop to it right away).

We understand that there are a ton of risks for you in this whole thing. After all, we might do the equivalent of creating a YOU REALLY SUCK video or rant out loud or publish an open letter to 500 of our closest friends, all through your auspices. Guess what, though? If your thingamajig sucks (or we think it does) then we’re doing that anyway, but if you give us an opportunity to do our thing with you, you might be in a position to make things unsucky.

That’s really all I have to say. Rant over.

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That’s right. I, Tom Myer, lifelong Windows user, can now be counted among the MacGeeks. Just received a new 17″ macbook pro. I thought I’d have a lot of trouble with it, but I’m not at all. In fact, the speed at which I pick up things makes me wonder why I didn’t switch over 5 years ago when the Windows aggravations started.

Let me give you an example of something so natural on the Mac that you wonder how you ever lived without it after only being exposed to it for a few minutes. That thing is SmartFolders. On the Mail application, you can create a Smart Mailbox, basically a bunch of rules for sifting your mail. For example, you can look to see if any recipient is at a certain domain AND the subject line contains a phrase AND there’s an attachment. This smart rule will forever build a virtual folder of mail, no matter where it really is and give you a view of it in one handy place.

Same concept in iPhoto. I was able to quickly categorize hundreds of photos using this technique, and I’m only just now scratching the surface of this invaluable tool.

Something else that’s cool on the Mac? Just about every single Windows tool I use is available. For example, within 15 minutes of googling Mac tools for Blackberry, I had installed a free Blackberry synching tool for Mac and was happily synching back and forth.

So, please, tell me if Hell has frozen over, but I love this Mac! It’s amazing. And yes, I’ve already bought a couple books on AppleScripting and other geek stuff.

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I just put together a 15-minute podcast on practical blogging tips. Check it out in our newsletter area.

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