Matthew Chase's marketing innovation in outdoor sports

Gerber and Farm League got me to click through this morning. Damn it.

2012-10-10T10:54:00.001-07:00

I haven’t clicked on a banner in over a year, but this morning I did. I have to say kudos to Gerber, Farm League and anyone else involved. Was it great contextual advertising or random I’m not entirely sure, but the targeting was spot on and for once, appreciated. It’s a great example for other brands in the outdoor industry.

My first email of the day had me off reading The Lives They Lived by the only two writers I probably know by name at ESPN, Mary Fenton and Megan Michelson, about the tragic avalanches over the past year. A great article and very personal to many of us in the area.

The combination of context with the article, imagery, the tagline “unstoppable” and “play film” intrigued me. Finally, the fact it was on ESPN and they’ve been known for an entertaining piece or two helped. I’d missed the Unstoppable campaign to this point. It’s very targeted and not intended to work for a lot of people, as it should be.

This took me to the “hello trouble” piece. 20 minutes later I’ve checked out the whole campaign and have even run off an looked other work Farm League has done. They definitely entertained and have me thinking about knives and Gerber. I won’t go into the intricacies of what makes it good, but I’d love to hear what people think.

Instagram can be a great showcase for Action, Outdoor and Adventure Brands–Part 2 of 2

2011-11-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

Continued thoughts on Instagram from earlier today….

Thought 6: If you're a professional creative, you can also post serious pics

There are a number who have been already hard at work. Although she’s not in sports, check out Daniella Rosario from Brazil (IG @daniellarosario - pics to the right). If you don’t have Instragram here is her blog http://www.daniellarosario.com.br/ . Note, that I’m asking for forgiveness after the fact here so check her out.

She’s also kind enough to promote other photographers she likes so cruise her collection on IG to find more examples. At this resolution, any theft would probably be outweighed by the additional awareness of the work I’d guess. Note, that theft is still an ongoing issue on IG, so take that into account and consider watermarking your pics.

Thought 7: Explore the Iphone editing apps available to you

I swear I can edit a photo on my iphone 2x faster than on a laptop. Camera+ is where I suggest you start. The filters in IG are great, but you can do so much more outside. Fact: In two years of being an Iphone owner, photo editing apps have been the only ones I was happy to pay for. That’s me though…

Thought 8: Get on the Pop page

From what I can tell, you'll want +200 followers to start making the page. As professionals, I'll leave the artistry to you. Not surprisingly, I can tell you IGers tend to favor quality pics that are interesting. The key is to have a large enough base of followers since the IG pop page algorithm has a lot to do with momentum in the first hour.

Thought 9: Feed word of mouth

For integrated marketing (buzz word alert!) add IG to your website as well as post pics to Facebook, Twitter and/or Tumblr. Another approach I’ve seen is to host\judge a contest of user photography in your genre. This can position you as an authority.

Thought 10: Direct the right audience to your feed

Figure out the right hashtags (#actionsports etc) so your feed can be easily discovered by community members interested in topics related to your work and tag your pics accordingly. I’ve been lazy with this, so do as I say, not as I do. Also, think about creating a #[yourbrandname] hashtag. Then, create an RSS feed so non Iphone users can follow using this format http://instagr.am/tags/[hashtag name]/feed/recent.rss

Last thought: It’s about integration, so don’t forget about your other social channels

Instagram killed my Twitter time as indicated by my Klout diving 30 points over the summer. Oops.

Instagram can be a great showcase for Action, Outdoor an Adventure brands P1 of 2

2011-11-09T12:38:00.001-08:00

You know that Instagram has exploded onto the scene unless you live under a social media rock. In my experience, compared to any other platform, the level of engagement is amazing. Social media became fun again and a lot less like work.

As we cruise into fall though I started wondering if this could translate into professional benefit for the action, outdoor and adventure industries. It’s not a definitive guide, but I did come up with 11 thoughts for creatives, athletes, destinations and brands.

To start, I asked an accomplished action sports photographer who’s had success on Twitter. "In comparison to Twitter, I don't know if you can target your audience nearly as well (on Instagram). Sure, they might like your photos, but does it have any pertinence to business? I know for sure I've received jobs because of my presence on Twitter. I've yet to feel that from Instagram. To me, it feels more like Facebook. That said, I think it's yet another piece of the social media puzzle that you need to interact on. Something that can't be ignored either." I thought about this and put down my thoughts on using IG professionally.

Thought 1: Use Instagram for posting any “good” pics regardless of what you use now

I mean, why not? It interfaces beautifully with all the major network (e.g Fb, Twitter, Tumblr etc) and with its open API has an extensive community of 3rd party apps being built. Most importantly it has an exploding user community and a rich array of editing tools.

Thought 2: Think about starting with a small group of trusted friends and a larger community of people who wouldn’t know you from Adam

When I built my community on IG I stayed away from friends and focused on new people engaging (liking and commenting) on photos I liked. As I parsed through them, I looked for people who also had photos that interested me and started following them (and engaging). My “real” social graph is starting to track me down now, but I liked the anonymity as I experimented. [Find me on Instragram @matchase – Photos to the right]

Thought 3: Building a community doesn’t have to take ages

For me the time required to build a community of +1000 on Instragram was about two months. Twitter took a year.

Thought 4: For creatives, post pics that reflect what you do without compromising what you get paid for

For example, on our campaign for One Eyed Bird in February called Military Rider, I wish I had been on Instagram. I took all sorts of informal shots and Facebook just didn't give the same engagement I see on IG. In fact yesterday, I saw that Travis Rice (athlete and film maker) was doing just this by teasing followers (@travisrice on IG – Screenshot to the right) with pictures of the course being built for his new event in BC with Red Bull called "Supernatural". Try and string together images and tell a story whenever possible. I don’t do this very well but love it when people do.

Thought 5: Crappy, lame photos are like crappy, lame Tweets. Nobody likes them.

Take interesting pictures . This means restraining from pics of food, flowers, your feet, the sky or yourself. That’s hard for the “me” generation I know, so feel free to upload those directly to FB.

Look for the second half of this later today

Introducing my Integrated Marketing Process

2011-11-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

For the planning wonks out there, when it comes to integrated marketing communications (I can feel the eyes rolling), there are a lot of variants and everyone involved has their own perspective. This is great if you're like me since I'm always looking for new ways to skin that cat. In the spirit of sharing and collaboration, I've always wanted to make my own approach public, but could never finish.

Soooo....I'm biting the bullet and getting started by posting a very high level view, with a well intentioned plan to expose details, additional steps, and links to publicly available resources over time. God help me if I ever decide to write a book.

This tinkerer's Frankenstein comes from working with amazing clients that always teach me something new as well as the great agencies, brands and management consultancies I've worked at over the years.

When it comes time to create a strategy or campaign, I like to have a robust process to pull from. It ain't sexy, but there you go. Like any good toolbox, I never use it all at once and sometimes not even as originally intended. I'm always mixing and matching to find a strategy that's rooted in what works and still able to branch out in fresh and uniquely competitive directions.

Marketing Process Mindmap

Pokember |Matthew Chase's Blog | Seattle Marketing Consultant

Revisiting the social faceoff between Backcountry.com, REI and Moosejaw

2011-03-07T16:07:00.001-08:00

Out of curiosity I decided to check in on three of my favorite brands (8 months later) to see if anything changed since my March 2011 post. The basic intro to this is I decided to pit Backcountry, REI and Moosejaw up against one another back in March using my box of “cheap bastard” social media tools (Social Mention, Vitrue, Trendpedia, Allfacebook, Youtube, Klout, Twitalyzer, Linked In) with the goal of finding an assessment anyone could do fairly quickly (e.g. 3 hrs).

In terms of social media, I tried to look across platforms such as networks, microblogs, blogs and video as well as the core branded channels: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In terms of criteria I was interested in who had the best volume (reach), sentiment and influence. One caveat is I used publicly available free tools, so while the playing field is level, they are only looking at activity on branded channels (e.g. twitter.com, stumbledupon.com etc.) rather than on each brand’s site.

The nut of it

In summary, REI is finding success influencing their audience through volume while Backcountry saw drops in sentiment since last winter. What’s missing is the impact of REI’s success offline in their stores and the community. I’ll be curious what my “friends” at these brands have to say.

has had a strong proportion of positive sentiment online, particularly around video but as their video reduced since winter so did their overall sentiment. BC is a smaller company and pure play etailer with a much higher % of staff that are core to the lifestyle (my educated opinion). I noticed that they staffed up over the summer adding more General and Administrative folks (e.g. marketing). I’m guessing they can’t wait until winter to kick back into gear.

generates over $1b annually and is doing very well across social platforms with good sentiment, however their success is due to greater volume and reach than their competition. In terms of channel influence, they are particularly influential on Twitter. Over the last 8 months they were able to make gains by keeping the pressure on and watching other brands tire.

is struggling in comparison, despite their loyal following.

Here is how they broke down in terms of criteria. I go into more detail further down.

Social Criteria	REI	Backcountry	Moosejaw
Social Sentiment
Social Influence
Social Volume
Blogging
Video Volume
Video Sentiment
Facebook Influence
Twitter Influence
Klout

Social Sentiment

The best tool I could find to measure sentiment across channels is Social Mention. To keep it fair in terms of keywords I looked at their online brands only by using “backcountry.com," “rei.com,” and “moosejaw.com” for comparison. The definition of Social Mention’s measurements are:

Strength is the likelihood that your brand is being discussed in social media.
Sentiment is the ratio of mentions that are generally positive to those that are generally negative.
Passion is a measure of the likelihood that individuals talking about your brand will do so repeatedly.
Reach is a measure of the range of influence. It is the number of unique authors referencing your brand divided by the total number of mentions.

(Note: I linked the actual queries this time to the headers so anyone can investigate)

REI.com	Backcountry.com	Moosejaw.com

What changed?
REI had a big tick up Strength: 5% to 9% Sentiment: 9:1 to 59:1 Passion: 50% to 29% Reach: 18% to 23%	BC was up and down Strength: 4% to 15% Sentiment: 22:1 to 8:1 Passion: 42% to 49% Reach: 17% to 16%	MJ was up and down Strength: 6% to 1% Sentiment: 10:1 to 13:1 Passion: 24% to 43% Reach: 33% to 12%

Nerd notes: Use the advanced search to filter for English and any unwanted keywords (not sure why but REI was getting a bunch comments related to real estate). Additionally, I realize determining sentiment is tricky business, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt especially since it’s free.

In round 1 Backcountry’s sentiment was the differentiator. Since then that’s dropped while REI’s has skyrocketed. However, the strength and passion around Backcountry has gone up quite a bit.

Winner = Backcountry.com – but barely

Influence

For influence across channels, I worked with Razorfish’s Social Influence Marketing (SIM) methodology (see pg 26 in their Fluent report) which looks at a brand’s social influence based on their share of voice and net sentiment. I used Social Mention to get the data to plug into their formula. This required me to flesh out the market and total conversations, so I added Altrec, Evogear, EMS, Sierra Training Post and Campmor.

What changed? REI is up 3 pts, BC is up 1 pt and MJ is down 1

Using the SIM calculation in a world where only these brands existed, REI has pulled ahead from BC by 3 pts . Moosejaw scores a bit lower at 8.9 since their share of voice is much smaller.

Winner = REI.com

Social Volume

I used SMI Score from Vitrue to look at volume and the proportionate mix of tactics. The volume of REI’s output is clearly dominating. Interestingly though, Backcountry is quite a bit different than the others with their emphasis on video versus general sharing on social networks. For reference, the SMI score looks at:

Social Networking - general sharing
Video Sharing - high engagement of viewing time and authenticity of dimensions
Status Updates - aka Micro-Blogs; key influencers who chatter and actively push content
Photo Sharing - social meta data
Blogs - general blogsphere, commentary mentions

In round 2 everyone’s total volume has increased considerably but REI is proportionately still pulling away. What is interesting is everyone is focusing more on social networks and backcountry's mix now more resembles REI. In the first round BC’s volume of video sharing was 86.07% and now it’s 4.39%. Perhaps this will change when they have another winter season’s worth of footage to pull from.

Winner = REI.com

Blogging

Trendpedia was the tool of choice last time but it’s no more sadly (the downside of free tools). This time I could only use Social Mention again for sentiment in this channel.

Backcountry.com	REI.com	Moosejaw.com

Within the world of blogs over the last several months Strength goes to BC, Sentiment to REI, Passion (whoa REI, a goose egg) to MJ and reach to REI.

Winner = 3-way tie

Video

In terms of video I checked You Tube as well as Social Mention filtered just for video.

Backcountry.com	REI	Moosejaw
You Tube Channel Views: 19,888 Upload Views: 693,421 Subscribers: 649	You Tube Channel Views: 624,645 Upload Views: 2,270,309 Subscribers: 4,416	You Tube Channel Views: 11,316 Upload Views: 129,482 Subscribers: 75

REI is clearly still able to put more out and generated greater channel and upload views. Also, BC saw the most dramatic drops with Passion going from 80% to 12% and Sentiment 31:1 to 4:1.

Winner = REI.com

Facebook Influence

Within influence on Facebook I used Allfacebook. I know this is a particular point of pride for BC, but they need to look over their shoulder.

Both Backcountry and REI have more than doubled their fan base in the last 8 months, but REI has almost closed BC’s previous lead. Moosejaw is still a distant third.

Winner = Backcountry.com barely

Twitter Influence

On Twitter I previously looked at Klout, but it involves so many channels now, it gets it’s own section. This time I’m focused on the impact metric from Twitalyzer. This is measured by the Percentile each brand is in.

REI	MooseJaw	Backcountry

REI appears to have the higher Twitter influence but not by a ton. Backcountry has made big gains here going from the 83rd to 94th percentile.

Winner = REI

Klout

	REI	Backcountry	Moosejaw
Overall	59.41	50.98	45.99
True Reach	9k	2k	876
Amplification	7	9	7
Network	45	41	36

REI is overall doing very well with Klout not surprisingly. It’s hard to compare the score over time since Klout has made so any changes. We can say in relation to one another, Moosejaw has fallen to third.

Winner = REI

Interesting Tidbits

Curiously I took a look at Linked In where I noticed a couple interesting tidbits:

Backcountry has increased it’s “general and administrative” (39% to 43%) employees in relation to “research and development” (45% to 39%)
Only REI however has kept up, in terms of personnel, with the industry

REI	Moosejaw	Backcountry.com

I’m back for a little personal writing… It’s been fun getting One Eyed Bird up and running in Seattle.

2011-01-04T17:02:00.000-08:00

Ok, it’s been a few months since I’ve posted but I’m back now. Although I still post at socialinsight.oneeyedbird.com, I really want to maintain a personal place where I can jabber about all the other crap I think is interesting. It’s hard to write for multiple blogs, so we’ll see how it goes. The last several months were really busy working with Dirk Collins at One Eyed Bird as we got things up and running in Seattle, launched the website, ran campaigns, started the Action Sports, Adventure Travel and Outdoor Industry group for the Pacific Northwest and of course took advantage of La Nina by skiing our brains out. I’m looking forward to everyone’s feedback. Also, I continue being pretty active on Twitter, so come check me out there as well.

Getting an Action Sports, Adventure Travel and Outdoor industry meetup in Seattle organized has been a blast

2011-01-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

I can’t wait to see how AAOI Seattle grows among organizers, sponsors and members as we go into 2011. What is AAOI Seattle you say? Read on….

Sara Lingafelter, Kristy Graves, Jonathan Colman, Dirk Collins and I started the Action Sports, Adventure Travel and Outdoor Industry meetup series (AAOI Seattle on Facebook and Twitter) in the latter half of the summer. We just didn’t see a lot of collaboration and connectivity across categories and companies in the PNW. If you go to a region like SoCal, Salt Lake City or Denver\Boulder this is a very different experience.

The region has slew of big time companies (View larger map) with some of the largest including K2 Sports, Columbia Sportswear, Eddie Bauer\First Ascent, REI, Zumiez and Helly Hansen.

Note : I started mapping players in the region above, beginning with product companies and a few venues (e.g. resorts). I’m not currently including companies without a headquarters or division based in the area. I’m up to 56 so far and will continue adding them, hopefully with your help. In particular OR and BC are a little void.

Unfortunately, the region’s companies have been quiet about their influence, so we created a valuable, casual environment that floats all boats. This means acknowledging the customer/audience for these industries is quite often the same people and that it’s important to make members welcome regardless of their level or function professionally. We’ve already seen people fresh out of school in merchandising to engineers and seasoned senior marketing execs contributing. I can’t believe we’ve had more than 100 people register for our first two events, one of which required travelling an hour and a half for a full day at Stevens Pass!

A micro-recap of the events are below:

Inaugural Meetup at Bandolero

The October 19 meetup featured a killer array of Tequila as well as insights from Sara Lingafelter (Waypoint Outdoor) on social media and Dirk Collins (One Eyed Bird and Teton Gravity Research founder) around film based branded entertainment.

Stevens Pass Whiteout

The Dec 16 Whitehout got everyone out to tear up the pow for a day. We had it all going on and were treated to a great interactive discussion on sustainable use of our mountains by Chris Rudolph (Marketing Director, Stevens Pass) and Jonah Harrison (Washington Climbers Coalition, Access Fund).

If you’re in the industry and would like to participate let us know by signing up for the email on the Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.

Blogging at OEB http://bit.ly/9xg0GL until further notice

2010-05-19T14:51:00.001-07:00

Hey all I’m moving to Social Insight @ One Eyed Bird for blogging until further notice. Thanks for following me and reading what I have to say over the last couple months. I hope you join us over there to continue the discussion. Dirk Collins and I are teaming up to take it to a new level. I’ve been asked to join him and build the Seattle office this year. Sadly I’m not so ambitious as to think I can manage two blogs. The site just launched so we’re working out a few kinks between now and June 1.

About OEB

“One Eyed Bird is a lifestyle based marketing and entertainment agency. We provide brand and campaign management focused on integrating high quality film, events and social media. Our specialty is creating authentic, personal experiences within action sports, outdoor adventure and cause related missions. With credibility among core influencers we help build long term relationships between brands and their audience.”

Social media strategy with Northface #2

2010-04-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

According to Joey Shepp http://bit.ly/97MbGk in “February 2009 the North Face had no social media strategy. They considered their efforts an utter-flop for the brand.” and gives credit to Amy Mengel’s article in April 2009 to giving them a kick in the a... with big results (I provide an initial update on Northface’s strategy last week). He mentions that hiring a content, creating custom Facebook pages, having athletes post and posting more as the reason why, but I’m not so sure. It maybe an better “marketing” strategy, but it’s not “social.” As I have said before, a social marketing strategy encourages a two way conversation. He does mention creating the “microsite, NeverStopExploring.com (branded content from brand influencers, athlete contributors) and the community at PlanetExplore.com. These last two point are a bit more interesting, at least functionally. While they seem to have more tools at their disposal, after an initial review it still feels like “social media” for Northface is just another marketing channel rather than a way to build social relationships with their customers.

Social marketing strategy at Northface #1

2010-04-02T15:55:00.001-07:00

I was reading Amy Mengel’s http://bit.ly/cYvFXw comparison of Mountain Hardware and Northface’s social media strategy a year ago and thought I’d give an update on the Northface side since they lost the first smackdown.

On Twitter, the @thenorthface is now following 787 (327 a year ago) and has 11,380 (1839 a year ago) followers with 1,100 (91 a year ago) tweets since October 2007. In her assessment a year ago, they were really only just getting started and were keeping the marketing to a minimum while attempting to make direct engagement with followers.

They've obviously ramped up their usage considerably, but in revisiting their timeline, it looks like it’s all marketing with offers, events, athlete and partner promotions etc. and they’re no longer trying to have a two-way conversation with their customers. That’s too bad. There also seems to still be an imbalance between with the number of folks they’re following, which would indicate little attempt to engage. As it is, only 7% of their community can actually send a message directly, which tells me their not quite ready to dialogue for real.

On Facebook they have more that 220k fans, which is a whopping 594% up from 37,000 fans a year ago. In that time, they’ve added another 8 photo albums (now at 13) and fans have added another 290 since last year (from 100). They have also built another 34 pages that are specific to local stores, which I like. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same as Amy’s description. Interestingly, as I go through the posts, there are a lot of one way messages from the Northface and comments. Nobody is dialoguing though which is, again, unfortunate. I’m of the mind it’s the brand’s responsibility to encourage this behavior. It appears this is just becoming an advertising and PR platform for the Northface.

On YouTube they seem to have actually reduced the number of videos to 48 (from 60)in the last year. Not much as changed here.

As for their website, just read Amy’s assessment which boils down to finding a confusing but extensive array of reviews, rss feeds, blogs and podcasts that miss the opportunity to drive community and a personal level of engagement with their audience.

All in all, I’d say the didn’t gain a lot of ground. For the next post I’ll look around into other activities by Northface to be fair…

Seattle Social Marketing Strategy at REI #3

2010-03-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

In my review of some of REIs social media practices, I have found myself looking inevitably at some specific tactical choices. I ran across some recent info regarding their use of location-based mobile marketing and product reviews.

According to Ron at the Spring Creek Group, http://bit.ly/ceqrdA, companies like REI are working hard to create a seemless experience for customers regardless of their touchpoint. Specifically, location-based mobile marketing campaigns are increasingly tied into larger campaigns. REI has been working with Placecast to integrate their ShopAlerts application into their wider marketing campaigns (not surprisingly North Face is taking similar approaches). “Participants who opted into receiving updates from several major retailers including Sonic, American Eagle Outfitters and REI had this to say” in a recent survey:

60% said that they found the location-triggered messages to be cool and innovative
79% said it increased their likelihood to visit a store
65% made a purchase as a result of a ShopAlerts message
73% said they would definitely or probably use the service in the future

Additionally, REI uses PowerReviews for customer review technology which just received a third round of venture funding totaling $6m. Their review features aim to keep potential customers from having to leave destination sites to find reviews elsewhere. “Retailers and ecommerce sites can't seem to get enough of social technology. Indeed, five out of 10 social-media tools have been adopted by more than 50% percent of brands and retailers -- with the Facebook Fan Page leading the way at 86% -- according to a study released late last year by the e-tailing group” as highlighted by Gavin O’Malley. http://bit.ly/9ssWQH

Seattle Social Marketing Strategy at REI #2

2010-03-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

Social media is a combination of tools that enable online interaction with the traditional ability to manage a social relationship with others. Brands that understand that have personalized their relationships with customers rather than continue done the one-way push communication model. REI is one of the companies that appears to understand this.

Chris Pemberton writes about outdoor companies decision to build or buy tools to help hem with this strategy http://bit.ly/dzuG1g. When looking at tools, he believes these brands “need something with real utility. It needs to be a compelling utility to the user first and foremost.” REI for example (read more in Ad Weeks article http://bit.ly/d0YcwC) made the decision to sponsor an existing Zumobi app rather than build an mobile phone app themselves (as opposed to North Face and others). There are essentially a few core principles. Primarily you need to focus on providing a quality social experience for your customers that provides real value for them. Their decision will depend on the strength of their brand, where their target audience interacts, their objectives as a business and the quality of related technologies. In summary, it depends and it doesn’t have to be an either or situation. Your strategy may ultimately be a blend of several approaches.

Seattle Social Marketing Strategy at REI #1

2010-03-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

REI has been a great adopter of social media as a core pillar of it’s marketing strategy. As a local brand I decided to look at some of the things they’re doing. Bill Johnston writes a nice article for Online Community Report http://bit.ly/9QmyVD while interview Jordan Williams, their Manager of Digital Engagement. REI is “transforming from a push-marketing organization to one embracing a truly customer-centric, two-way marketing and communication mode” however, this only embraces the culture they have already built “as a mission driven retail co-op (member based organization) focused on getting people outside” so their many involved are excited “to be working on online community because it’s such a natural fit.” Williams says they “want to honor what’s already there while at the same time enable online and mobile connections that will allow it to grow organically.” For them, they have always had deep ongoing community engagement through events, classes, community and outings so it’s great that they can merely extend this online. For them “Facebook is their most valuable external social touch point” which is “more interactive and multimedia that say Twitter might allow.” However, they too understand that participation isn’t nearly enough and “the way to make an impact is absolutely on the strategic planning and organizational development side” not technology.

Blog Consulting LLC points out that REI, even through their email correspondence with members, diligently redirecting them to their social media presence on various platforms to enhance their ongoing experience http://bit.ly/b2mp5Y. It doesn’t take long while you explore these venues, to recognize the enthusiastic adoption of their audience. As I mentioned their courses above, REI has “uploaded over 105 videos to bring that information right to your home computer.”

Social Media is not Facebook and Twitter

2010-02-25T09:07:00.001-08:00

The more I talked to friends in the action sports and outdoor adventure industry, the more I run into the idea that Social Media = Facebook and Twitter and “whatever” you do there qualifies you as engaged. More often than not though they treat these tools as online distribution channels more akin to television or radio which are one way forms of communication.

Social media and web 2.0 are interlinked terms that describe an approach to engaging audiences, delivering messages and changing behavior online. Facebook and Twitter are merely two trendy platforms where this can take place. What differentiates these strategies from others is the philosophical and tactical emphasis on enhancing social behavior online and requires two-way relationships. If you are a social person that knows how to build friendships, then you already know the concepts including:

You’ll meet more people if you go to where the party is: Individuals are extending and interacting with their social networks online at levels impossible offline. Before social media human’s could effectively manage 150 personal relationships (see The Dunbar Number), but online their reach can be extended 2-3 times. For organizations to effectively deliver a message or change behavior, their audience needs to spread the word, so it’s important to interact through the “appropriate” social network where related interactions take place. This is why Facebook and Twitter are important. They’re like the cool bar in town, but social interactivity isn’t going away if they close their doors.

It’s more fun to go to the right party where the people and experience match your interests: Most people rarely go to just any party. They go where people are interesting and the experiences they’re looking for take place. In the same way, online communities and social networks where individuals connect and interact will continue to develop, but in niche areas of interest. Organizations that can tap into exactly the right audiences gathering around exactly the right topics have reached targeting Mecca and should engage viscerally. However, they must choose between subdividing mass communities (e.g. Facebook groups), organizations creating private communities (e.g. Red Bull, Burton), special interest groups spreading (e.g. music, sports), local groups increasing in popularity (California, Seattle etc.) and “white label” tools (e.g. Ning) where anyone can create their own.

Create your own club: If you want to control the party experience you want socially, then have your own dang party. Likewise, to engage an audience online most effectively, organizations should host their own communities where their message is at its core and full data access, analytics, security and functionality can meet their specific needs and goals. This replaces an organization’s web site strategy with a new approach online interactivity. A well nurtured community where value is consistently being provided among participants (between org & members, as well as among members) that can create unparalleled audience engagement.

Sharing is a two way exchange: We tell kids this all the time. Organization’s also must promote digital sharing of information, media and other content within social networks. Pushing content digitally at an audience is not social. For it to be social, an exchange needs to happen between two parties. Ideally this includes community members sharing among one another, not just with the host organization.

Give value to get value: Organizations need to contribute value digitally for the benefit of the broader online community before they can expect anything of value in return. This goes for individuals and organizations. Producing value increases awareness, trust and influence which is critical for changing behavior. The rub is that organizations must learn what the audience deems valuable, which is different that an organization telling them what they need to know.

Believe in the wisdom of crowds: A well incented community can work together and produce amazing value (e.g. Wikipedia) and organizations can harness this as well (Google Maps). An organization should put the crowd to work building their pyramid.

Reach out and touch someone: Organizations can reach out directly to skilled communities to accomplish specific tasks or projects if they’ve been properly nurtured and incented (e.g. contests).

Listen and respond: It’s vital when two parties directly engage that there is a two way conversation. This rule doesn’t change just because it’s online.

Outdoor adventure industry uses same big non-endemic agencies everyone else does

2010-02-15T17:18:00.001-08:00

I’ve been making some not so casual observations about marketing agencies (specifically AOR or Agencies of Record) used by the outdoor adventure industry. When I first started, my going theory was that endemic brands would use endemic agencies. I expected that these agencies would be as core to the industry as the brands themselves. How naive I was. What I’ve found tells a very different story. It appears that smaller brands will often use an endemic agencies, but by and large, when they get big enough, they go with same big shops everyone else does. Anyway, here is a list of some that I found. It’s not exhaustive, but it’s a good start. I’ll add more as time progresses. It's important to note that some AORs can serve a specific function such as public relations and advertising. It doesn’t necessary mean they’re providing comprehensive marketing services.

Spot LLC – Mojo Sports
Sierra Designs - Scream Agency
Factory Design Labs – North Face
Kastner and Partners – Red Bull
Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners – Columbia sportswear
Verde PR – K2 Sports
Shine Advertising – Epic Kayaks
Make – Oboz Footwear
Brand Amp – Leisure Trends Group
Iron Man – Leverage Agency
New Balance - . Mother New York
Wieden and Kenney – Nike
TM Advertising – Sport Chalet
Wolrich – Pale Morning Media
Altrec – McCann Erickson
Outdoor Retail Show - Mullen

Simple marketing tip on calculating the reach you need for the clients you want

2010-02-04T10:35:00.001-08:00

Ever wonder how they figure how many people to engage in your marketing to get the clients you want and the what the ROI on that investment would be? I consciously used the word engaged because this doesn’t mean sending them a single mail. This is a multi faceted marketing strategy to touch your prospects several times in different ways. Imagine the following basic scenario:

There is a small new agency who believes their average client will generate $150,000 per year. According to their strategy they plan to retain about 60% of those clients year of year. Since larger deals and higher margins come from previous client’s, they consequently think they’ll grow their earnings form retained clients 5%.

According to industry benchmarks that think they can convert 8% of their total reach into interested leads. Of those, they know with a little digging and following up, about 30% will actually be qualified opportunities with the necessary authority, budget and need. Once they get they business development team involved to make some personal relationships with this opportunities, they’re confident they’ll eventually see 30% of those become actual clients.

Using a bottom up approach, they decide they want to clear $1m in the first year. Now it’s just math….See the table below. The result is they need to find 7 client’s that year, which means they need to build a targeted list of at least 972 prospects before they start the campaign. The really cool thing is that this is a gift that keeps on giving. Getting a new client is the hard part. Just with these 7 client’s, they could generate $2.3m over the next 4 years.

Top business to business marketing tactics for professional services companies

2010-02-02T09:57:00.001-08:00

Is your company in the professional services world? Maybe your a marketing or design agency. Perhaps your management or technology consulting firm. It’s funny how when pontificates and thought leaders get together how little they invest in getting their own marketing ship in order. Yet, it’s clear that well known brands command higher rates, higher conversion rates and better loyalty. It just makes everything that much easier. In the professional services world, strong marketing strategies must recognize it’s a referral business, that you’ll be seen as a though leader when you’re seen thought leading (seminars, events, conferences, case studies etc), that everyone expects you to have a solid web presence (website, search engine optimization etc) and that good PR is still valuable if used right (news and industry publications online or in print).

The following is some useful data from the book “Professional Services Marketing” which was citing the “How Clients Buy: 2009 Benchmark Report.” This in conjunction with my post B2B Social Media benchmarks for better strategic marketing planning, would give some useful ideas for consulting companies in particular. That latter plays up a much higher role for social media that the study below.

Bryan Elliott: Telling the story of the SoCal Action Sports Network

2010-01-19T21:09:00.001-08:00

I love what these guys are doing. “It isn't about features and benefits, it's about telling a story. Bryan Elliott, founder of the SoCal Action Sports Network tells the story about how this little group that started with a handful of people has grown to 5,000+ members representing the top brands and retailers in industries including Action Sports, Consumer Electronics, Food & Beverage, Music & Entertainment, Automotive and more.”

Pokember |Matthew Chase's Blog | Seattle Marketing Business Consultant | Matthew's Profile

Tips marketing: Posting to social media from your blog (sheepish update) painlessly as possible

2010-01-19T18:02:00.001-08:00

Sadly, there will be a revised process posted as an update. However, I decided to leave this post intact, so the problems were highlighted. I had some glitches (see blow) with the experience I was looking for and how Ping.fm handled it as well as some related tools.

If you’re like others just getting into social media, keeping abreast of all the different tools and setting up what works for you can be painful and doesn’t ever seem to end. I wanted to share what I’ve been working on so that others can benefit and maybe give some feedback.

Ok, for me it starts with my blog. This is the central location where I talk about all the things I’m professionally enthusiastic about and hope to help others be successful with. I didn’t have much time for it when I was selling my soul to Microsoft, but as I reclaim it, I’ve found it a great tool and outlet for my goals. I chose to use Blogger because I’ve been using so many of Google’s other tools, that I figured I’d stay in the family until I outgrew it. I do see some benefits of having used Wordpress in hindsight, but I’ve got it pretty much dialed in now. However, I hate using their online blog editor and I’m inherently lazy, so I want to be able to broadcast all my entries to as many locations as possible without doing much more than writing the post. For me, this primarily meant posting microblog versions to an RSS feed, Twitter, Linked In, the major bookmarking sites and a full length version on Postereous (I’m hereby giving up on Postereous. It just made more work and I don’t see the benefit. Having a mirror of my blog there sounded ok initially. I’m also annoyed they won’t delete my account). I’m sure there are a lot of other options, but it’s a start. Lastly, I wanted to be able to relatively easily monitor the results. Here’s what I did:

I’m currently using Microsoft Live Writer as my editor. I haven’t found anything comparable for free yet and had the extensions I needed to do what I needed. It’s as easy as using Word, which is a good thing. Anyway, when I’m done, I can post the blog to Blogger and;
Ping.fm (I will probably only use this as a tertiary tool for now. I discovered I couldn’t use WLM as my editor, Blogger as my host and Bit.ly as my shortener without adding steps with ping.fm) via and extension called xPollinate (gone per my problems with Ping.fm). Ping.fm is an aggregator, which rebroadcasts status, micro-blog and blogging posts to multiple social media sites. In my case it posts to Twitter, my Gtalk status and Postereous (fyi I currently reserve Facebook for more personal socialization, so I left it out). There are a lot of options on what gets posted where and how, so this has been a great choice (oops! and i wanted so bad to like it based on recommendation from others). The downsides have been I haven’t been able to get it to autopost to Diigo and Delicious automatically yet, nor have I been able to get their groups feature to work if I post from outside of their interface. This feature would have allowed me to use ping.fm’s full range of workflow features, but alas it wasn’t to be.
For monitoring activity on my blog I setup and use Google Analytics
I setup Feedburner to manage and monitor my RSS feed
I setup Add This on each blog post on my site and RSS feed to make sharing or bookmarking posts as easily as possible and because it came with decent analytics.
I use bit.ly (over the ping.fm equivalent) to shorten my URLs and to monitor their activity on micro blogs like Twitter and LinkedIn
Lastly, I used the LinkedIn’s Twitter extensions to pull in my feed as status updates and a list of the last 5 or so posts in the sidebar.
As for bookmarking sites, I’m still forced to go manually to the ones I use which include: Digg, Delicious, Diigo, Technorati, Reddit, Stumbledupon and Squidoo. Basically, I just click on my Add This links at the bottom of the post to do this. This takes 15 minutes or so, and the one part of this process that seem really SUCKS!

I’m still futzing around with the best tools to monitor and post micro blogs while integrating to the above process. Twhirl and cotweet (I was going use Twhirl because it integrated with Ping.fm. So back to Tweetdeck on my PC and Tweetie on my iPhone) are two candidates at the moment. I would consider my filtering and engagement capabilities adequate but with a lot of room to improve.

Pokember |Matthew Chase's Blog | Seattle Marketing Business Consultant | Matthew's Profile

Seattle social marketing strategy: The experiential view

2010-01-17T13:09:00.000-08:00

But in fact social media is part of a broader shift towards experiential brand-building that is happening both online and off. Smart brands are listening and responding and embracing just this aspect of social media: the capacity to engage audiences more deeply and thereby transform communication into dialogue… and experience. At a very high level that’s why social media makes so much sense as a centerpiece of experiential strategies for building brands—because experiences, whether in a blog or a real-world brand environment, make people talk… and word of mouth recommendations yield extraordinary impact on key marketing metrics. (Source: Article)
Pokember |Matthew Chase's Blog | Seattle Marketing Business Consultant | Matthew's Profile

Social responsiblity and cause marketing linked in 2010 trends

2010-01-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

‘Eco-Friendly’ is replacing "Luxury" as the new status symbol. More than twice as many global consumers say they would rather drive an eco-friendly car (67%) than a luxury car (33%), and an even larger percentage would prefer to live in an eco-friendly house (70%) vs. merely a big house (30%), according to results from this year’s goodpurpose study, conducted by PR firm Edelman. (source: Article)

When it comes to Local vs. Designer Brands sentiment also appears to be moving away from well-known national and international designer brands in favor of supporting local businesses and products. While 69% globally would rather have a brand that supports the livelihood of local producers than a designer brand (31%), North American and most European countries in the study - as well as Brazil - more overwhelmingly prefer supporting the livelihood of local producers, each indicating more than 80% preference.

Another 57% of consumers say a company or brand has earned their business because it has been doing its part to support good causes. Asian countries China (85%) and India (84%) had the highest scores in this area, the survey found. Additional findings about brand preference:

67% of consumers say they would switch brands if another brand of similar quality supported a good cause. These numbers are highest in Brazil (83%) and Italy (74%).
83% are willing to change consumption habits if it can help make the world a better place to live.
Though twice as many people would rather drive a hybrid car than a luxury car, preference for hybrids is significantly higher in Japan (89%) and France (89%).
68% of global consumers and 80% of those in the US say they are “okay” with brands that support good causes and make money too:

Pokember |Matthew Chase's Blog | Seattle Marketing Business Consultant | Matthew's Profile

Seattle marketing strategy innovation data for 2010 Part 1

2010-01-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty excited about the possibilities for 2010, so I thought I'd share some recent data I came across. Advertising expenditure on the internet will account for 15% of total global marketing spend in 2010, according to recent research. A study conducted by GroupM concluded that the proportion of the amount spent on advertising that goes towards internet marketing will be 2% higher than in 2009. According the study social media and micro-blogging for marketing purposes was growing increasingly important. Tactically, display advertising has reduced in popularity, while search marketing and mobile advertising is still on the rise. Search is expected to account for 43% of the total online marketing spend in 2010, up from just 38% in 2006. Display advertising's proportion of the total online advertising budget will drop to 34% - a 1% decline from the year before and 4% lower than the figures recorded in 2007. (Sources: Article1, Article 2)

Ben Swinburne's (Forbes magazine's #4 best brokerage analyst) predictions for advertising and marketing spend in 2010: "You gotta love Morgan Stanley media analyst Ben Swinburne. The hard-working fellow who’s always sharp as a knife on the earnings calls has collected together a slew of comments from advertisers about their upcoming spending plans to support his bull-case on [marketing] spending for 2010. Swinburne is predicting growth of 3%-5% . . ." Article

Paid advertising on online social networks is expected to drop 3% in 2009, to $1.1 billion, but is expected to rebound next year and begin to emerge from the experimental phase, rising 13.2% - to $ 1.3 billion - in 2010 and going up from there, according to a recent forecast by eMarketer. According to the firm’s new report, “Social Network Ad Spending: A Brighter Outlook Next Year,” ad spending on social networks is expected to hit $1.4 billion in 2011. (source: Article).

Share of Ad Spending by Medium - July 2009

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Outdoor Sports Industry posts by Matthew Chase

2010-01-17T12:06:00.000-08:00

Here are my outdoor sports industry related posts

Community Building, Crowdsourcing contest from REI and Arbor
When will we have a high performance green ski?
Recon Instruments - headmounted display, GPS and social integration
Why isn't the outdoor and action sports industry more progressive with social media?
Outdoor Action Sports hanging in there
Patagonia dumps SIGG!
Thinking of teaching your three year old to ski?
Tips on how outdoor and action sports brands can crowdsource the right way
Skull Candy is one company that gets how to deliver value to ones lifestyle
Comet skateboarding is on the crowdsourcing bandwagon
Check out how small struggling longboard brands can compete with the big guys

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Action sports industry posts by Matthew Chase

2010-01-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

Seattle social marketing strategy posts by Matthew Chase

2010-01-17T11:36:00.000-08:00

Here are my posts related to social marketing strategy.

Seattle social marketing examples from Matthew Chase
Social marketing strategy for Business to Business Companies
B2B Social Media benchmarkes for better strategic marketing planning
How do Accenture and Slalom consulting use social media? (Updated)
Tips on promoting your reputation and concepts using a book
Recon Instruments - headmounted display, GPS and social integration

Study Finds Correlation Between Social Media and Financial Success
Seattle marketing strategy innovation data for 2010 Part 1
Seattle social marketing strategy: The experiential view

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