With this option, our social media team will collect contacts that partners have listed in Kutenda, search for their profiles on twitter and follow them on your behalf.

This process means Kutenda will do the back-end work to connect you with your suspects, prospects and clients via twitter. From there, you can reach out to these contacts, engaging them via social media to develop trust and keep your business front of mind.

This ‘auto-follow’ service is only available on an opt-in basis. In order to take advantage of this, partners must email to help(at) Kutenda(dot)com stating interest in the ‘auto-follow’ twitter services.

Not signed up for Kutenda’s social media services? Contact a consultant at Consultants(at)Kutenda(dot)com to learn more about what’s included and how we can help grow your business.

P.S. Don’t forget, also included in Kutenda’s social sedia package is our new LinkedIn service. There’s no extra cost for ‘Ignite’ and ‘Connect’ partners so reach out via Consultants(at)Kutenda(dot)com today and we’ll get you set up.

Colleen Jones, marketer and author of Clout: the Art and Science of Influential Web Content, defines priming as “introducing words, images, or ideas now to influence people’s choices a little later.”

Priming is a staple of effective marketing, and is particularly important if:

•    you sell complex products or services
•    you have a long sales cycle
•    you have a resistant/cynical audience
•    your market isn’t fully defined or mature
•    you have an expensive product
•    you need to establish a high degree of trust
•    you don’t have an established relationship with the prospect

Priming is an exercise in subtlety and restraint, but it can be brutally effective all the same. Consider this example Jones cites in Clout: one of the best ways to encourage people to vote is to ask them, the day before the election, if they plan on voting. This simple question boosts the likelihood a person will vote by 25 percent! It acts as a powerful nudge that the recipient cannot even detect.

In push-polls, a less benign form of priming is used. A partisan pollster might ask what sounds like an innocuous question or present a damning hypothetical scenario, such as, ‘If you knew candidate X finished a pot of coffee without brewing another one, would be you less likely to vote for him?’ The facts are immaterial: the pollster is simply creating a tie in the voter’s mind between candidate X and antisocial behavior. Believe it or not, push-polls actually work (and are often as ridiculous as my example).

Whether it’s black hat or white hat in nature, priming allows you to maintain an air of objectivity while planting a seed (e.g. data backup is important) that you’ll cultivate later with more overt, less-partial messaging (e.g. our data backup plan is tops). It is a setting of the stage that masters in rhetoric and human psychology use often. (Socrates was the master.)

Sometimes priming is so subtle it doesn’t seem like priming at all. For example, here at Kutenda, our sales team swears by a very simple but proven strategy for engaging prospects: write a short, casual email to with a link to an interesting article or site. It doesn’t have to relate to work. As long as it will resonate.

How is this priming?

Remember, priming is about planting an idea, feeling or association. By sending an interesting article, you’re telling the prospect that you are a source of interesting information. Do this a couple times and you can set up a Pavlovian response: you send, they read, you send, they read. Rinse and repeat until the email contains a call to action!

If all of this sounds very calculating, that’s because it is! Assuming you’re confident in your product and truly believe it has value, you shouldn’t feel sheepish about using basic human psychology to advance your cause.

Kevin Brown, VP of Kutenda

One of the leading providers of business management to the IT industry, Autotask–together with Kutenda, will host a free webinar offering how-to leverage the In-house IT opportunity with SMB clients, on June 21st, 2011 at 1:00pm ET.

The webinar is for IT professionals interested in leveraging the In-House IT opportunity with SMB clients.  It will discuss why In-House IT is a lucrative opportunity, and how to get your foot in the door.  If you would like to register please visit:

‘Attack and Conquer the In-House IT Opportunity!’

Presented by Len DiCostanzo, Sr. VP, Dean of Autotask Academy at Autotask Corporation, and Kevin Brown, Vice President at Kutenda, the webinar will teach participants:

• What IT topics SMBs constantly think
• How to approach SMBs about solving their problems with your IT solutions
• How to make the case for SMBs to outsource IT functions
• The MSP sales process and why it is important to nurture prospects over time
• Actionable tactics you can use to put these insights to work – proven by an IT veteran!

‘Attack and Conquer the In-House IT Opportunity!’ is a free webinar on Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 at 1:00PM ET by Autotask Corporation and Kutenda.

To register, or to learn more, visit:

‘Attack and Conquer the In-House IT Opportunity!’

Affinity Track focuses on providing quality search engine optimization and marketing services to their clients. By utilizing both organic SEO and effective paid search campaigns, they help businesses improve their performance online and get real results.

Emily’s guest post focuses on some of the key components needed to create a successful local online presence. From local listings to on-page techniques, the tips are designed to be bite-sized pieces to help you begin right away. Check out the post and get started with your local search campaign today!

Follow Emily on Twitter: @ekthompson

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