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Out on a LIMSThe Blog for People Who Risk Life and LIMS on a Daily Basis

Social Media Experiment

Volume IIEntry 9 of 39 in 20142 min read3 comments ↓

Written by Gloria Metrick on . Published as written. It may not reflect how these systems work today.

I've been reworking my marketing plan and working to make some changes and, as such, have been thinking about a variety of marketing vehicles. As a subset of this, I have been thinking about how each piece fits in, including social marketing.

Thus, last week, I wrote about blog post that came from some of those thoughts:
http://outonalims.com/2014/05/15/social-media-marketing-comments/

Also, I had decided to try some new things, change a few things around. One thing I noticed others have been doing in LinkedIn is to include non-paid positions in their "Experience" section. I have gone back-and-forth with myself about this. On one hand, many people probably expect this section to be a listing of past jobs. However, it's often true that we all do more than just what our paid positions give us the opportunity for. Thus, listing non-paid positions is a way to show a versatility and skills that we do not get the chance to show possibly in any other manner.

On the other hand, by listing these positions, it implies that we have taken on multiple positions or changed positions. In my case, I now wonder if by listing items such as my chair position at the SmartLabs Exchange or my new spot as Exhibitor Co-Chair of a book festival, if I've shown I can be versatile or if people think I've given up GeoMetrick Enterprises to take a position running book festivals.

In fact, I do suspect there are some people across the world who do now think I'm no longer working with LIMS and Laboratory Informatics. I had been somewhat on the fence about leaving the bookfest position in there, except that my profile summary clearly states that I'm working with LIMS and Laboratory Informatics, not book festivals.

Often, as small businesses, we are not certain how a specific area of marketing or action will play-out for us. While we probably ask our colleagues doing similar things, sometimes you just have to take the first leap and find out.

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/

The conversation

3 comments from 1 person on May 20, 2014. Gloria replied once.

  1. LiMS Journal (@LIMSjournal)

    Interesting post. As you have said many times as a LIMS consultant, you need to understand the objectives of a new LIMS and what your requirements are.

    You make this statement in your post: "While we probably ask our colleagues doing similar things, sometimes you just have to take the first leap and find out."

    That sounds a lot like picking a LIMS based upon people you know who have that LIMS and then saying, heck, let me just give it a try and see if it works.

    I know that a marketing plan is not in the same league as a LIMS but the idea of planning is still a good idea. I use a mind map tool for this type of planning, xmind in particular.

    Some basic questions might be:

    Are you set in your ways and unwilling to change your business model?
    Are you willing to go outside your comfort zone?
    Do you want to simply get more billable man-hours?
    Do you want to be a hired gun or solution provider?
    Are you willing to hire people or is this constrained to a one person business?
    Are you willing to invest in new areas of knowledge or focus only on what you know?

    Answers to these questions and many more will help you define your requirements and with that you can focus on a marketing strategy and set of tasks that will be supportive of your objectives. Perhaps you have already done this soul search already and so you know precisely what you will be marketing and how. What you are marketing has a huge influence on how you will market it.

    So the final question is: "What is it that you are trying to market?"

  2. Gloria MetrickAuthor

    I don't agree that it's like picking a LIMS based on what people I know said and just trying it. And you shouldn't assume that we small businesses aren't doing things like mind-mapping, which is still important, even if it's not quite as fashionable as it was five years or so ago. Small businesses do a lot more of these things that larger businesses such as yours because we just have to do more to get the word out about our companies than those with sales and marketing groups do. Nor would I ever select a LIMS based on just asking a few people I know about it.

    Having a strategy (whether by mind-mapping or whatever tool each company uses for the task) is more like doing the LIMS selection.

    But, when you get into the details, whether to try linking things between one tool and another, or in trying some new post, that is more similar to saying that you know how to use the LIMS and implement it but do not happen to know how to get a particular feature to work. In a large system, as in the marketing world, there are so many options that there is no one person that knows them all. Thus, I could pretend to know everything but, being an expert in these systems (and know where my marketing limitations are), I'm smart-enough to know when to ask.

    Those of us running small businesses might help each other but we have limited opportunities to try things out. Thus, even asking each other, not every option has been tried by everyone else in your circle of businesses.

    And, for those of you who might have pity on the small businesses, it's not necessary. We get the opportunities to try quite a lot of things that the people working for the larger companies never get to try,at all. While we don't have entire marketing departments running lots of stats on numbers to drive our decisions, we have the opportunity to learn by doing and no-one to demote or fire us if our choice isn't ideal. One more good thing is that we can and do share these things with each other, which the larger companies can't and wouldn't want to do.

  3. LiMS Journal (@LIMSjournal)

    I think this topic is important for lots of consultants and others in the LIMS biz. I hope you will continue to post follow-ups to this blog with you findings on what you find works and what does not. I agree that small business can do quite a bit with all the great tools that are out there. I think small business has about as much advantage as the larger businesses but it is important to get feedback from real world users like yourself.

    I look forward to you follow-on blog posts.

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