Social Media Marketing Strategy

What is the Role of Blogging vs. Newer Social Media

2014-02-18T12:41:00.002-05:00

There is no doubt that business blogging is an essential part of content media strategy whether the target is B2B or B2C. The immediacy and ability of blogging to communicate detailed information and to provide deep links to website content or other calls to action can’t be matched. However, new platforms like Pinterest and Instagram and even tools like infographics cause some to question the value of blogging, even in B2B.

As an individual I started blogging “early days.” Candidly I was afraid my brain would atrophy when I retired from full-time teaching and blogging seemed a way to keep it alive. It turned out to be even more—a way to learn about the emerging discipline of social media marketing. I kept the diy-Marketing blog going for several years, until it was so content heavy that its response was unacceptable. I started another strategy blog and found an interesting response to a series of Social Media for Good posts. However, by that time my primary professional activity was the Internet Marketing textbook, providing updates for adopters of the text and thinking about a 4^th edition. Blogging proved to have less value in that context.

I have a new Google+ page each year so Internet marketing instructors can search current material for their courses. Debra has a Google+ community and a Facebook page for the book, and I contribute to both. I have 3 Pinterest boards and Debra and I share another. I have been amazed at the way people pick up on my Pinterest postings even though I have done nothing to promote them beyond the users of our text. I try to see most of the posts from all the platforms are fed through to my Twitter account.

So what? In doing all of this I’ve come to have strong opinions about where content curation fits in and the role of content creation.

Content curation specifically keyed to our textbook has the potential to fill an important role for the users. Since personal brand development is no longer a huge objective for me, curation doesn’t do a great deal for me personally.

Creation of original content, as Debra has often pointed out, contributes to visibility on the web in a way that mere curation does not. Even more important to me personally is that my blog is my voice on the Internet. It is my creative opportunity to say what I believe and to try to make a contribution to the discipline. Consequently, I have started a new blog with a limited focus. “SocialTechnology for Good, or for Mischief” allows me to continue the postings which received favorable attention in the earlier blog. There is plenty of mischief around but it is the personal privacy implications that particularly interest me. I’m working on visibility because I want people to find it. My rule is only to write a post when I can make a contribution, even if the contribution is only careful research.

That brings me to infographics. I like them and have a Pinterest board for infographics. However, they are so numerous that they litter the Internet landscape. Many have no lasting value. They represent visual curation, not the creation of original content. Consequently, I do not agree with those who regard them as a substitute for blogging. If the blogger has a point of view and a message, that requires a verbal argument, not statistics with pictures.

Even with careful attention to distributing and optimizing content, there is only so much any one individual can do. That is the point of the graphic. Some platforms lend themselves to original content—websites and blog postings because they do not have length restrictions, videos (short or long form) because they are inherently informative and engaging. Many of the platforms that have become popular recently are really “announcement platforms” They are invaluable for distributing content but for business use they usually need to link to more detailed content like a blog post or a web page.

Likewise there is only so much any given brand should do. The old rule is still just as true—the choice of communications platforms depends on objectives. As you choose just factor in an additional consideration—curation vs. original content!

Please consider this an invitation to visit the new blog!

What Objectives and Platforms Do Philanthropic Organizations Use?

2013-11-30T10:19:00.002-05:00

I just pinned an infographic from Sprout Social for stats on how philanthropic organizaions are using social media.

Social Media for Good XI

2013-07-01T09:40:00.000-04:00

According to Mashable one government agency, the Interior Department, has Instragram figured out. This image is of the super moon in late June. "Beautiful photo of the #Moon over #TurretArch in #Arches National Park last night." Take a look at their site, see the number of views and comments, and make your own assessment. Don't the images make you want to visit some of these places? And maybe submit a photo to their summer contest? Notice that the contest is posted on the White House blog. Interior has a news page, but I don't find a blog. The White House would probably have more followers anyway!

Their Instagram page has over 50,000 followers, another testimony to the power of the channel. And their social media concentration on Instagram suggests a good understanding of the channels available.

In-Store Customer Tracking: Innovation or Invasion?

2013-05-23T12:14:00.000-04:00

How retailers can best compete in a digital world is a vexing subject. Recent news items on stores like Home Depot and Nordstrom using customer tracking technology in their stores caught my attention. Depending on your point of view, this is either another useful ma

nifestation of big data or a big invasion of privacy!

The technology goes by various names—hyperlocal, in-store tracking and in-store positioning are common descriptors. Geofencing is a related retail tool that performs slightly different locational functions by indicating when a person enters a specified area. In-store tracking allows stores or malls to monitor your movements while you are on the premises, producing Google Analytics-type metrics like which departments in a store people visit and how long they stay in each. A heatmap from one of the technology providers, YFind, shows a mall application—visitors and unique visitors to specific stores and “dwell time” for each visit.

Euclid is the technology used by Home Depot and Nordstrom, although Nordstrom describes its use as “a test” that provided useful data but has now ended. The chart shows how their technology works and most

of it is straightforward. A shopper enters the store, her smartphone automatically pings looking for wifi, the system captures the phone’s MAC address to identify the shopper, then uses it to send repeated pings to the cloud as the shopper moves around the store. MAC address is the thing I had to look up; it’s the ID permanently burned into every device that can connect to the network.

The fact that all of this is done without active participation by the shopper, in fact without the shopper’s knowledge, is whatbothers privacy advocates. The systems suppliers insist they only collect and provide anonymous data to their customers. You be the judge.

Recently Ad Age interviewed Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare. The video contains interesting speculation on “reinventing retail” including the prediction that users could soon be automatically checked in when they enter a store. I wonder if users will be comfortable with that, but the video is worth watching.

If you want to up the creepiness factor, consider the possibility of providing leads to retailers as consumers enter the store. According to Media Post, a start-up called Purple Cloud monitors consumer activity with regard to a ”specific product on a Web site, which triggers an email to the retailer and a photo of the consumer taken from their social network profile.” The retailer can then send a tweet or email to the prospective customer, presumably as he enters the store. On the face of it, that is seriously creepy. However, the customer must download the Purple Cloud app to make this all work, so that may be a mitigating factor. Watch for more on this emerging technology.

For sure, we are going to see more changes in the in-store shopping experience! Whether they will result in genuine privacy problems remains to be seen.

Social Media for Good X

2013-05-05T09:59:00.002-04:00

May 3 was World Free Press Day, celebrated by traditional and digital media around the world. UNESCO's 2013 prize was awarded to Ethiopian journalist Reeyot Alemu who is currently in prison for writings critical of the government. She worked for various traditional media outlets and eventually founded her own magazine. The Electronic Freedom Frontier points to the case of an Etiopian blogger, Eskinder Nega, just sentenced to 18 years in jail for similar "crimes." Freedom of the press is a digital issue as well as a traditional media one.

This map from Reporters Without Borders via the Guardian newspaper shows the status of press freedom around the world. Content creators in all media spaces are affected by press freedom or lack thereof, and supporting freedom of the press around the world ia important to all of us.

Social Media for Good IX

2013-04-23T10:39:00.001-04:00

Here's an interesting tweet from UNICEF in the UK. Matt Rhodes from Fresh Networks tweeted it, saying it's at the edge of social media.

I agree. It's a compelling call to action, and a reminder of the limits of social media.

Or is it a reminder of the reach of social media?

Either way, it is definitely creative fund raising!

Is Social Commerce the Next Big Thing?

2013-04-19T14:41:00.000-04:00

There have been high hopes for e-commerce on social platforms almost since the beginning. For instance, I wrote about pop-up stores on Facebook a couple of years ago. There are current uses of the pop-up store, but they all seem to be classified as retail events.

What is the state of actual social commerce? One prediction, captured in an infographic, seems to extrapolate the reach of social platforms to an estimate “50% of Web Sales to Occur Via Social Media by 2015.” Given what we can see in mid-2013 that seems to be a wildly over-optimistic prediction.

Here are some recent developments and announcements:
• In January Facebook announced that Stipple technology would be available to create interactive images on posts and in ads. Stipple technology is similar to Thinglink, which I tried out in a post a few months ago. I repeat my warning that you must own the image in order to lawfully use it for this purpose. (Note: Thinglink was added to the mix in April).
• Pinterest continues its rapid growth. I read one article that called it a “virtual shopping mall.” Since it is easy to use it is especially attractive to small business. Much evidence suggests it is very effective in driving traffic to retail sites.
• Perhaps piggy-backing on the success of Pinterest are other visual sites. Some that are drawing considerable investor interest are:
- Polyvore is touted as a “social discovery” site where fashion shoppers create and share sets of images. It is experiencing rapid growth and is reported to have a higher conversion rate from referrals than Pinterest.
- The Hunt which allows members to post images of items they like and ask other members to help them locate the items at retail. Its current revenue model is not clear.
- Wanelo “Want, Need, Love” is another visual site in which users create their own feed based on products they like. The site appears to be driving traffic to retail sites. Whether affiliate revenue is sufficient to sustain the site or whether it can develop as an actual e-commerce site is still an open question.

These sites have one thing in common. They are currently being used to drive traffic to retail sites, not as e-commerce platforms. That is probably positive for ad revenue; e-commerce is still arguable.

A newcomer that is clearly a social e-commerce platform is Chirpify. It describes itself as the only in-stream social commerce site. According to Chirpify, users can buy, sell, or fundraise on the site. They accept PayPal as well as a variety of credit cards, but I wonder if others will be concerned about the security of transactions.

It is clearly a hot space! Existing and new platforms are likely to continue driving a growing amount of traffic to e-commerce retail sites. However, actual e-commerce on social platforms doesn’t appear to be anywhere close to 50% of web sales, nor does it appear that it will approach that by 2015!

Is Social Media Key to Customer Experience?

2013-04-05T11:11:00.002-04:00

Is customer experience the overriding strategic marketing concept in the age of social media? It’s a chaotic marketing environment made up of customers with all kinds of needs and usage habits, multiple screens, myriad channels of communication, and exploding content, both marketer-generated and user-generated. The concept of customer experience links all of these together into a unified system that results in a satisfied customer, so I argue that it should provide ultimate guidance for marketers.

What is a definition of customer experience that marketers can use as a guide? There are a lot of formal definitions, but I like what GM VP Alicia Boler-Davis said last year. She explained that GM has expanded its definition:

to include what happens before, during, and after the sale – instead of just what happens in the dealership.
“We’re no longer thinking about a vehicle sale as a transaction or a singular event. . . We’re thinking about it as part of a relationship between the customer, the dealer, and GM.
“Put another way, the customer experience begins long before our products make it to the dealer showroom. It begins with our very decision to build a vehicle… and involves every customer touch point after that. It involves the entire enterprise.”

Ok, that’s not a new concept; relationship marketers have been preaching it for years. But it is incredibly challenging in the face of today’s myriad—and growing--number of customer touchpoints. Social media marketers know well that the content in many of the social touchpoints is controlled by customers, not by marketers, and that complicates the situation.

The PWC graphic illustrates just how hard it is. Their Digital IQ survey revealed that 66% of US online adults use social media; 59% of respondent companies have provided mobile tools for their employees, but only 37% (30% of top performers) make use of external social media communities. Businesses are far behind their customers in the use of social media, which isn’t exactly news!

Here’s a Forrester graph that makes the role of social media clear—and more than a little scary! Above the dotted line in this customer experience journey map the Forrester team shows many customer touchpoints—you can think about what they are for your business. Some touchpoints make the customer happy, others do not. Already the customer experience is not “seamlessly satisfying”—the marketer’s ultimate goal. The unhappy customer doesn’t leave it here, as so often happens these days. She tweets out her frustration.

Below the dotted line we see that the only internal process visible to this customer is social media! And one can intuit that the social media team does not have the skills, or even more likely, the organizational power to tweet back in a manner that satisfies the customer’s complaint. The customer’s problem has not been resolved by the channel she chose to use—social media.

What does it take to develop a customer experience strategy that results in seamless satisfaction? A Forrester blog post lists six necessary elements:

Strategy. Forrester says:

The strategy discipline is your game plan. It's a set of practices for crafting a customer experience strategy, aligning it with the company's overall strategy and brand attributes, and then sharing that strategy with employees to guide decision-making and prioritization across the organization. . .The customer experience strategy defines the intended experience.

Customer Understanding. Need we say more? Understanding the customer is the marketer’s basic job description. To what extent are your customers using social and mobile media? How is this affecting their search behavior, their shopping behavior and their purchasing?

Design. Whether it’s a wonderful product or whether it’s a website that not only looks pretty but works well, good design is important in an age that seems increasingly visual. Think again about the statement from GM, above.

Measurement. Don’t all digital marketers preach the importance of measurement? I still like the old quality management phrase, “what gets measured gets managed.”

Governance. Business policies must focus on customer satisfaction and lead to the internal policies that create it. Creating good customer experience is a job for all employees at all times!

Culture. Good governance leads to a culture of openness and transparency that creates an environment in which customer centricity can flourish. That just happens to be the same type of culture that encourages successful use of social media.

So I repeat my initial argument: customer experience strategy should be the cornerstone of marketing strategy. These 6 elements, however, make it clear that the organization as a whole is the player in customer experience with social media able to play a key customer-facing role. So marketing needs support from the top levels of management if it is to execute a meaningful customer experience strategy.

Social Media for Good VIII

2013-03-28T15:58:00.001-04:00

Health-related websites and social media networks are certainly not new, but they seem to be growing in popularity. According to some interesting statistics on All Facebook, health-related pages represent a burgeoning category on Facebook. In fact, they increased in number of pages in the third quarter of 2012 by more than other fast-growing categories like travel.

Health related social media can perform many functions from providing support to patients and their families to raising money. The feature on Living Kidney Donors Network on local TV caught my attention last week.

This is a great example of direct and worthwhile action prompted by a Facebook post. Hear the story on the WCVB video.

Remember that it's not the size of the page by any measure; it's the good it does. And take the good being done by this social network page as a happy thought for the Easter weekend1

The Migration to Mobile III--All Shopping Can Be Local

2013-03-22T13:06:00.000-04:00

It used to be a sign that you were cool with current technology; you did research on your computer before heading to retail stores to shop. That’s no longer true. Now shoppers can use their smartphones or tablets to get the information they are looking for right at the POP--and maybe a coupon to boot! That is a powerful concept and it is driving profound changes that go all the way down to the individual retail location.

It doesn’t start when the shopper nears the store or walks in the door, though. It starts by building a meaningful SoLoMo strategy. One interpretation of the mobile shopping funnel captures the essence.

http://www.brafton.com/news/smx-advanced-buzz-social-local-mobile-marketing-leads-to-sales-800526890

Social marketing helps build—or maybe for the small local retailer builds all by itself— awareness and a positive brand image. Retailers use tactics ranging from paid advertising to instore promotions and events to lure followers to their social platforms. Mobile marketing—whether paid ads or content marketing—reaches people when they are actively researching a purchase or provides a triggering cue by suggesting a reason to purchase. Local marketing reaches them at the point of purchase, giving them compelling reasons to buy at that moment.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/25/mobile-shopping-apps/

Adding another dimension to that argument is data about the role of various types of shopping apps during the 2012 holiday season. The huge growth is seen in retailer apps and the lowest growth in the daily deals apps, whose difficulties have been much in the news. I wrote about the Macy’s shopping app during the holidays. The mapping application still seems to be available only for the Herald Square store but deals, wish lists and other retail services are going strong. At the moment they are offering me a 20% off promo code, which might be useful, and a bridal registry, which definitely is not! My initial reaction was “so much for personalization,” but how do they find out unless they ask?

The data also highlights another important mobile issue. Price comparison apps also experienced explosive growth. Showrooming—checking prices in stores then buying more cheaply online—seems to be ongoing.

But there’s good reason for local retailers not to hit the panic button. The trend can be their friend! No less a retailer than Walmart is encouraging people to use their phones in stores. Wired explains it well:

Walmart’s stores are “geo-fenced,” which means the location-aware app enters “store mode” when you walk through the door. Once in store mode, you have access to an interactive version of the weekly on-sale circular for that store. You can see what’s new in the store. You can scan bar codes with the phone’s camera for prices and keep a running list of everything you’re buying so you’ll know the total cost when you get to the register.

How can retailers without Walmart-level resources turn showrooming to their advantage? The advice from the Retail Customer Experience site is:

1. Embrace omnichannel.
2. Bring the best of online shopping into the store.
3. Implement innovative in-store technologies.
4. Empower in-store personnel.

Putting it all together they say:

Innovative in-store technologies can help shoppers engage with brands and create a great, enjoyable shopping experience that leads them to both return to the store and to act as brand ambassadors through social media, leading to more visits from their peers.

Very interesting—it all comes full circle. Use both the human touch of your store employees and the power of technology to give your customers a great shopping experience and they will share it with their friends on social media. Like all good advice, it’s easier said than done, but the guidelines are there!

The Migration to Mobile II -- The Second Screen, or Is It the Fifth?

2013-02-27T14:22:00.002-05:00

“Second screening” has interested me from the advent of mobile. I used to think I was too old to watch TV with a mobile device in hand—that it was just for Gen Y and below. However, now even I find myself doing it along with a lot of others—amazing!

So first the terminology. It’s not standard, but this is general usage. TV was the first screen, the desktop computer the second. The third was the cellphone (now the smart phone) with the fourth being the tablet. The Pew chart shows the increase in ownership of various mobile devices and the corresponding decline in desktop ownership.

eMarketer recently quoted data suggesting that connected cars would provide the fifth screen. That is quite a challenge for marketers and their content! I do hope, however, that cars will be driving themselves before drivers start, for example, start browsing the Internet from their car’s dashboard!

What’s important is that behavior is changing right along with ownership as I pointed out last week. It’s safe to summarize that communication is still most important but brand-related activity continues to grow. Actual shopping, not so much. However, recent Nielsen data indicates that consumers are likely to research on smart phones and purchase on tablets. So second screening is taking place even within the growing mobile shopping space.

Three recent event illustrate what is happening and how brands, teams and people can benefit. See these summary infographics:

The Summer Olympics
The Super Bowl
The Oscars

All had their own issues. Olympics social media activity was overwhelmed by viewer angst about NBC’s coverage (#NBCfail). The Super Bowl had that power outage—what else did viewers have to do except tweet about it? The Oscars have taken heat in the past for not doing a good job with social media. This year the level of social media activity was less than that of the Super Bowl and the Grammys according to Mashable.

The Grammys seem to do a consistently good job of self-promotion. Here is their advice for other event producers:
1. Be semi-obnoxious, promoting platforms and hashtags at all opportunities.
2. Tell your audience what they will get for following you on social media. In the case of the Grammys that included behind-the-scenes coverage and unique content.
3. Let your audience know you are listening. That takes a trained social media team at work during the event.
4. Spell it out. See Number 1! The Grammys used the transitions to ads to promote platforms, sites, etc. often using their celebrity presenters to do so.
5. Be active on social media during your event. More than listening, have proactive official posts and tweets to encourage engagement.
6. Think about social media long before the event. The Oscars actually did a good job of that. Consumers were fairly accurate in predicting Oscar winners.
7. Use social media to help the viewer keep up. Use captions, crawlers, etc. to list platforms and hashtags, making social engagement easier.

Whether it’s a brand-related event, a business conference, or a non-profit activity, the work it takes to integrate social media can pay off handsomely in visibility!

Social Media for Good VII

2013-02-24T10:25:00.000-05:00

On January 24 Twitter launched Vine, a platform for 6 second looping videos. Right now they are mobile-only. The free app can be downloaded at the App Store.

The New York Humane Society was one of the first users. They tweeted a video of Parker the cat.

The good news is that Parker found a home as a direct result of the video. NYHS was smart enough to tweet again, the image I captured, announcing that Parker had found his new home.

Good job!

Migration to Mobile I - How is Consumer Behavior Changing?

2013-02-18T12:28:00.000-05:00

The long-awaited mobile revolution has finally materialized in the United States. It took us longer than other parts of the world, but now that it’s here it is indeed revolutionizing the way consumers do many things.

The graphic and lengthy quote from the NPD Group shows the continuing flow of activity from desktops to tablets and smartphones. According to their press release 37% of consumers who once accessed content from their desktops now access from tablets and smartphones. Does that imply “all the time” or “some of the time?” That’s not clear. The graphic shows Internet browsing and Facebook to be the two activities benefitting most from the switch. “Twenty-seven percent of smartphone owners have decreased both their Internet and Facebook usage on their PCs because they now use their smartphone for these activities,” they say, so the answer appears to be “some of the time.”

What surprises me most is in the text; smartphones lead tablets in the percentage of consumers who are switching to mobile access. Thinking about that, I believe the answer is not in larger screens per se; it’s in the fact that more people own smartphones than tablets at this point. For Pew research on the subject see:

• Changing activities of cell phone users
• Current activities of smartphone users Note that Pew identifies 2012 as the tipping point where more consumers are using smartphones than traditional cell phones.

So the switch is underway. What are they doing; what content are they accessing? The Marketing Sherpa chart shows more brand interaction, peer input, and product and pricing research. New purchasing behavior and payment methods are down the list, but I’d expect them to increase as consumers become more comfortable with mobile. Will showrooming continue to be a curse to retailers? Not clear. Local also seems to be on the upswing, and I’ll return to that in a later post.

Consumer behavior is being changed by the availability of mobile and improved mobile experience. What can we expect as 2013 moves on? In its 2013 predictions Mobile Marketer calls it SoLoMoCoDa, with Co mmerce increasing (along with Da ta) fueled by NFC and other developments in payment platforms.

They’re not so much doing different things; they're doing things like search and Facebook on different screens. More about that in the next post.

Social Media for Good VI

2013-02-12T10:36:00.000-05:00

The SmartBrief headline was too good not to click—"Researchers Use Twitter to Try to Catch Colds". It lead me to computer science researchers at Johns Hopkins who have an active public health research program based on analysis of tweets.

They’ve studied allergies and found that people not only talked about them on twitter but many of them were taking the wrong medications. They’ve also studied headaches and the spread of flu. The SmartBlog post gives information on how they do it.

CS doctoral student Michael Paul comments that using Twitter to do this type of research is much faster than traditional public health information gathering, but less accurate.

So consider it another weapon in the growing arsenal of health-related social media tools!

What Makes a Good Social Media Team?

2013-02-11T10:36:00.000-05:00

Nike’s announcement last month that it was bringing “all” social media activity in-house stimulated a flurry of speculation, some of it off-base. “In-house” does not necessarily equal “all”.

I participated in the attempt to integrate direct marketing into traditional marketing in the late 80s and early 90s. History is being repeated in the social media era. The direct marketing agencies I first knew were entrepreneurial. Many were subsequently acquired by general agencies as a quick way to gain direct expertise because their brand marketer clients were demanding it. As brand marketers acquired direct marketing skills many established in-house direct marketing departments. This was especially true of telephone marketing where it became an axiom that brand marketers hired service bureaus to learn the business, then brought telephone marketing in-house.

Do you see any place in that paragraph where “social” could not be substituted for “direct?” I think not, but even that covers up an important issue. Sarah Hofsterrer, CEO of digital agency 360i closes the loop. She says:

some brands will move in the direction of taking social media management in-house, but that does still leave room for the agency to consult a brand in a strategic context, even though the activation is in-house.

That mirrors perfectly what happened in direct-response marketing. Brands with in-house departments often sought the strategic advice of agencies, especially when they were launching new initiatives. Brands also recognized that agencies are mostly a variable cost while in-house units are fixed costs. Smaller companies need to be especially aware of the cost issue, but all need to strike the correct balance. Digiday has some cost estimates and other good observations from large brand marketers.

Marketing Charts quotes a survey of companies of 100+ employees that found that while 27% have a team that works exclusively on social media (most others assign SMM along with other work) only 3% outsource SMM completely which suggests that the in-house trend is in its infancy.

So if history repeats itself--as it seems to be doing--more brands will be developing substantial in-house social media marketing expertise. I recently highlighted a video from one social media team, the Mars Curiosity Rover, doing an excellent job. The three social media marketers sat around a table and had an interesting conversation. What about requirements when the social media team gets larger?

There are many lists of do’s and don’t’s but Jeremiah Owyang has a post that details not only the makeup of a social media team but gives job descriptions for each category and takes a look at social media teams by level of corporate social media maturity. You should read the entire post.

He defines the social media team as follows:

The Corporate Social Media team is business program lead by a corporate social strategist that achieves business goals using social tools by coordinating with multiple business units across the enterprise.
In that definition he gives the basic answer to my question. What makes a good social media team is not specific skills, it is strategic focus.

Are you ready for complete control over SMM? Can you demonstrate ROI and thereby justify the costs involved? Can you locate employees with the needed skills, including the ability to orchestrate social media content and response across the enterprise? And finally, is your SSMM at a level that qualifies it as a strategic activity?

The best advice is to go slow. Don’t dump your agency quickly or rudely. You are probably going to need them to help build a strategic SMM team and to back it up from time to time in the future.

In-house social media teams simply aren’t an either/or proposition!

Social Media for Good V

2013-02-09T12:11:00.000-05:00

Secretary Clinton ended her tenure at the State Department with multiple media events. The one of most interest to social media was her Global Town Hall on January 29.

With Australian newscaster Leigh Sales she took questions from college students in India, Nigeria, England, Japan, Columbia, and Lebanon. Social technologies used were Facebook, Twitter, Sina Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter), emails, and IP Video Conferencing.View the video here.

Were you aware that Clinton was the first Secretary of State to require that departmental employees are trained in the use of social media?

Is this propaganda? Most certainly. Does it contribute to global understanding? Personally, I find it hard to argue that any reasonably open event that promotes communication across borders and cultures is not a good thing.

The Importance of CEO Social Media Engagement--How-To Guidance

2013-02-04T12:57:00.000-05:00

As often happens, a great article is posted soon after I write a post on a subject. This time it is the importance of social media engagement by CEO s and the McKinsey guidance is too important to ignore.

It’s worth reading the full article (free registration required) on the McKinsey Quarterly site. They give examples from the social media experience at GE for leadership requirements in the social media era. Importantly, the leadership requirements are not new. The necessity for social media engagement adds new dimensions to the requirement for effective leader communication that has existed all along. These are things leaders need to do:

1. Create effective content. Some content like product demos may be best created in a studio setting for excellent production values (see rule 2). But a leader on the go should take pictures and videos that provide content for personal messages on blogs, twitter, etc.

2. Leverage social channels and followers to disseminate messages.

3. Learn to manage, and help employees manage, the torrent of communications.

4. Drive strategic social media use. As I keep telling students, “Yes, you can use that channel? Should you?” The question is whether it reaches the right audience and if it’s worth the time and effort. The article uses the term “strategic orchestrators.” I like that analogy. A leader doesn’t have to be able to play all the instruments to conduct the orchestra effectively.

5. Create an organizational infrastructure that facilitates effective social media engagement at all levels of the firm.

6. Stay ahead of the curve—the hardest thing of all. But the article points out that the Internet ofThings is on the horizon and all of us need to be paying attention!

Not all of us have the resources of a GE but all can adapt these guidelines to the scale and readiness state of our organization. They are essential in the age of social media!

Another Shout-Out for the Importance of CEO Social Media Engagement

2013-01-29T12:56:00.000-05:00

A recent study by social media agency BRANDfog gives additional support to the belief that CEO social media engagement is important. The survey included employees from 800 US and UK firms of various sizes in a variety of industries. According to their press release:

• 80.6% of respondents believe that social media is an important communications channel for CEOs to engage with customers and investors
• 68.7% of respondents believe that C-suite social media engagement enhances the perception that a brand is honest and trustworthy
• 83.9% believe that CEO social media engagement is an effective tool to increase brand loyalty.

The emphasis in this passage is mine! There are a whole host of reasons why CEOs and other C-level executives are reluctant to engage in social media, but increasingly the excuses just don’t hold water. Listen to BRANDfog CEO Ann Charles:

“We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the culture of modern leadership, brought upon by social media but sustained by the strategic inventiveness of smart CEOs. . .The role of the CEO has been transformed by social media and CEOs have no choice but to become more visible, social, and accessible than ever before.”

What are some of the benefits of CEO social media engagement? They include raising the corporate brand’s profile, communicating corporate vision and mission, attracting desirable employees, increasing brand loyalty, and even increasing purchase intent. (Study pdf)

The study also speaks to the importance of social media in times of corporate crisis and the belief that CEO involvement can be helpful. That goes back to my often-repeated question: How can a CEO know how to use social media under pressure unless (s)he has experience and is comfortable with the social channels? The answer is simple; experience and comfort level is crucial.

That said, what channels are the CEOs in these companies most likely to use? The answer is no surprise—Twitter! Are they linking to more detailed corporate information? I hope so! Many also use LinkedIn; why don’t all of them have a professional presence there? Facebook is fine and corporate blogs round out the important channels. The blogs, along with the website, are where the detailed information lives; that’s where the links should go. (See the complete infographic of study data here.)

It’s not a new message, but this study makes it clear that it’s still a hard one to get across. My personal opinion is clear. Why should customers trust a brand whose C-level executives are afraid to engage openly and transparently with them?

Increasingly the answer is: they will not trust those brands!

Social Media for Good IV

2013-01-21T11:36:00.003-05:00

You may have heard that the Obama campaign is transforming the campaign organization into a movement for grassroots action. It has its own Executive Director and an introductory video by the First Lady.

Will people who signed up for a political campaign now sign up to be active in their own local areas? For what causes or issues?

It remains to be seen. What is interesting from a marketing standpoint is the desire not to abandon an existing community. It's what, for example, the March of Dimes was able to do.

It will be interesting to watch.

Consumer Product Reviews--Impactful and Mobile

2013-01-17T11:31:00.000-05:00

A Cisco study called “Catch and Keep Mobile Shoppers” (infographic) highlights changes having a major effect on retailing. The key take-aways:

• 71% of shoppers interviewed want access to digital content in stores, either on their own devices or via touchscreens
• Online resources like ratings and reviews on retail websites have strong influence in shoppers' buying decisions
• Overall, they want mobile, self-service access to information and personalized services.

The study adds that 1 in 3 are using mobile searched to guide purchases. That’s up 20% from the previous holiday shopping season.

http://bit.ly/WinEnG

Taking a broader view a study by Baynote found consumer product reviews among the most influential purchase decision factors (infographic). Reviews ran a close fourth behind price, free shipping and merchant reputation.

Adding to the chorus is a study of consumer electronics purchasers just released by Weber Shankwick and KRC Research. It caught my eye because it focused on the consumer electronic category and found that consumer reviews have become more important than expert reviews. That’s saying something in that category! This report also has takeaways about what marketers should be doing:

• Include reviews on the website. That means being open and transparent by including negative reviews. The report notes that 31% of the reviews have to be negative to cause consumers to doubt product quality.
• Product pages should read more like reviews. Avoid product speak and marketing speak!
• Encourage reviews on the retailer’s own site and on others, including social networks. Making optimal use of social networks require a community manager to encourage reviews and ensure they receive a customer service response if necessary.
• Marketer’s can’t directly influence reviews, but they should carefully curate the external ones that are posted to their own site. The report also suggests care in disseminating information to professional experts so their reviews are more likely to focus on issues of importance to consumers.
• Buyers consult reviews at various stages in the purchase process, so provide content that is relevant to each stage.

This report doesn’t specifically address mobile, but it’s obvious that the type of content they recommend can—and should—be mobile as well as available on a traditional website. The content should also include a healthy component of consumer-generated product reviews!

Charity:Water - A Case Study in Venture Philanthropy

2013-01-14T12:57:00.000-05:00

I first heard of Charity:Water when a student sent me a Mother’s Day card representing a $20 donation in my name. I responded with a $20 donation of my own and was intrigued by the young organization’s use of email and video--and the very personal involvement of founder Scott Harrison--to cement donor relationships. This was about 2007, well before most other charities understood the power of digital media.

The business model of Charity:Water is also exemplary. They call it the 100% model; 100% of what they raise from public donations goes directly to water well projects. There are few non-profits with the kind of charismatic leader who can raise all the funds necessary to run the charity. The Clinton Global Initiative is one other that I know of and it makes the point about a well-placed leader. In recent years Charity:Water has been using GPS to locate projects on Google maps and to provide proof of successful completion to donors. Overall, it is a model of how to run a charitable organization in the Internet age. One thing you quickly notice is that they encourage supporters to raise money for them and that’s where a lot of social media comes in.

This is why we featured them as an Internet marketing “best practices” case study in the first chapter of the Internet marketing text. The organization has lessons, not just for other non-profits, but also for commercial organizations that wish to remain close to their customers.

GPS is useful but Charity:Water has just taken another big step. According to an article by the AP, “Harrison, a former New York promoter for nightclubs and fashion events, didn’t want to guess at how many water projects were actually working. He wanted to give donors more assurance, knowing as many as a third of hand pumps built by various governments or groups stop functioning later. His solution: why not create sensors to monitor the water flow at each well? But raising millions for a new innovation could prove impossible.” That, perhaps, is the drawback of the 100% model; if a large operational investment is needed it could strain the fund-raising ability of even a charismatic leader.

Enter Google. In December it announced a new charitable grants program to fund organizations that are using technology in innovative ways. It’s first 7 grants are fascinating—from DNA barcoding of endangered species to educational programs for under-represented students and for math and science education. All have a major technology component.

Matt Bannick, managing partner of the (Pierre) Omidyar Network says this represents a new approach to philanthropy. He describes the new approach:

“Seeking out ideas to fund, rather than existing projects, turns traditional notions of philanthropy on its head,” Bannick said.

“Rather than looking for organizations that could do this specific work that we’re hoping to get accomplished, let’s look for fabulous entrepreneurs … that have a new and innovative idea that we can get behind,” he said.

These are two developments to follow with interest. Charity:Water continues to innovate in ways that bond with its donors. Entrepreneurial high tech firms like Google are looking for ways to use technology for social good. The approach of taking a risk by funding innovative uses of technology by leading-edge non-profits is the idea behind “venture technology.” Will we see more—and even more effective—ways to use technology in the future? Hopefully we will!

Social Media Prepares for Super Bowl XLVII

2013-01-10T12:33:00.000-05:00

Last week I got a permission-based email from Toyota inviting me to submit a “road trip” picture and have a chance to appear in their 2013 Super Bowl ad. No, thanks, Toyota, but good job tying it in with your current ad theme, “Let’s Go Places.” I had forgotten the theme, so I had to check. What I found was a PPC ad promoting the contest on the SERP page and a vibrant website where it was hard to escape the content. There’s still time if you want to enter!

http://www.toyota.com/

The email reminded me to check on how purchasers of those $4 million Super Bowl spots are integrating them with their social media. Leveraging the expensive ads in other channels isn’t new but social media is the ultimate manifestation of leverage. As you can see from Toyota, it gets the conversation going early. I think the key question is how much value it creates for the consumer.

The most interesting list of Super Bowl commercials I found was on The Business Insider.com, which appears to be updated regularly if you want to follow the hype. With input from the list on Ad Age and a delightfully edgy site for geeks who like ads, here’s what I found:

• Pepsi is also soliciting photos of consumers, in this case engaging in “movements” I don’t yet get the point, but it ties in with the half-time show, headlined by Pepsi’s “global brand ambassador” Beyoncé.

https://apps.facebook.com/crashthesuperbowl/

• Doritos is repeating its ‘best ad’ contest. It was heavily promoted; every site I visited for research displayed a PPC ad for inviting viewers to submit a video. The finalists are up now and awaiting your vote. When I checked the page, it encouraged me to “Share the Word.” By the way, it’s all being done on Facebook, not a website as in the past.

• Axe says they have big news “taking our interaction with our fans to new heights” that will be announced on the Super Bowl. The brand is well known for edgy ads, but I can’t find any hints of what the big news is.

• The most innovative social media use so far is the newly-rebranded Lincoln Motor Co.’s twitter-based ad. Tweets about wacky road trips were solicited by Lincoln spokesperson Jimmy Fallon and three were selected to be “animated” for the commercial. It’s an attempt by the brand to appeal to a younger demographic.

• Also creative is Pizza Hut’s just-announced contest for a pre-game ad. Here’s how USA Today describes it: “The pizza giant is asking football fans to submit very short videos of their best, silliest or most creative recitation of the words every quarterback shouts — and which Pizza Hut says is the heart of its name: "Hut. Hut. Hut." In other words, simulate the start of a football play, but with creative zeal.” Ok, if they say so!

There are other ‘usual suspects’ like Coke that usually integrate social media into their Super Bowl campaign plan. I checked Coke’s Facebook page and website but didn’t find any hints. Keep an eye on breaking news; I‘m sure there will be other social media aspects announced.

http://www.businessinsider.com/2013-super-bowl-ads-everything-we-know-2012-12?op=1

But I can’t end this without my so-far-favorite ad, even though it’s not social media. I just can’t get past the thought of Kim Kardashian being replaced by a bull dog—Mark Cuban’s racing bull dog at that! Go Mr. Quiggly—and continue to follow the Super Bowl of Advertising!

Social Media for Good III

2013-01-04T14:37:00.000-05:00

We hear the words daily on news reports--“amateur video,” “powerful images,” “unable to independently verify.” The caveats are required from responsible journalistic sources, but the fact that major news organizations use social media for important news coverage attests to its power.

Citizen videos have been key to our understanding of what is going on in Syria. They make it hard to ignore the awful realities there—much harder than if they were out of sight. That is the ultimate contribution.

It’s less easy to understand the lives of the people who take huge risks to make and upload videos. This article, and the image of Omar Abu Al Huda and his cat in a safe house in the small town of Idlib, Syria gives human perspective to the story. The link is from the Global Voices site, whose newsletter is a fascinating read. It has a link to a partner site, Syria Deeply.

Either or both are well worth following.

SoLo--The Importance of Google+ Local

2013-01-03T12:51:00.000-05:00

http://bit.ly/Rv2F2z

SoLoMo has become a familiar acronym to all marketers. This post isn’t to discount the importance of mobile. It is to point out that in order for mobile to work for the local retail business those businesses have to get their local strategy in order. Google, Google+ and local search are key to that local strategy. Hence, SoLo.

After the holiday shopping season just past there should be no doubt about the importance of local search, much of which was mobile. This chart breaks down local search and it shows the importance to local retailers and restaurateurs and to others as well. I am surprised every time I get a heavy, expensive set of paper yellow pages. They are outdated before they get to my door! Who does anything except search???

I’ve been writing about Google’s evolving efforts in local for several years now, and it has evolved again. Obviously Google is not the only player in this field but no one else integrates various platforms/tools as well, especially since the purchase of Zagat. If you have any doubts about the power of the union, when I looked up Zagat I found a feed from their G+ page on the SERP page. An interesting way to get followers!

Google morphed Google Places into Google+ Local in May 2012. At that time PR Web identified the changes as the integration of Zagat reviews into the business page, integration across other relevant Google properties, and a circles filter to feed reviews from friends/family/colleagues circles. Last week Google announced the ability for business pages to interact with anyone on G+ whether members of their circles or not. It’s clearly pushing G+ pages by increasing their usefulness.

The integration is an interesting issue. The NYTimes had a useful article on the new SERP pages. It took me awhile to figure it out. I searched for “snowblowers Cape Cod” but I didn’t see maps. What I discovered is that you have to hover over the paid listing and then click on the little arrows you see on the page capture. Ok, it works, but it takes some effort. When I clicked on the link above the map, I got the company’s web site. When I switch to Maps view, I get a map and the ability to write a review. There don’t seem to be any reviews at present, nor does the firm appear to have claimed its business page and provided the information it wants customers to see. I can’t find a G+ page for it.

Here’s the process for integrating a G+ brand page with the Google local listing. In case you wonder, a business doesn’t have to ask for a local listing. Google uses various databases of its own and commercial ones like yellow pages to create the listings. That’s the reason they may be inaccurate and that it’s essential for businesses to claim their listing and provide accurate information. Here’s a post with detailed instructions and example that will be useful if you need to need to claim and verify your page, starting from your Google+ brand page. Of course, the business does have to set up its own brand page to create this integration.

I find the semantics confusing. There’s the G+ brand page and the G+ local business listing. Here’s Google’s own explanation of how the new local listings are going to work: no mention of Google+ brand pages. However, it appears to me that Google+ is an important brand in the Google portfolio. I expect to see more integration in the future. That makes it important for local businesses to keep up with developments, starting by verifying the business listings or reviewing ones they haven’t checked on for awhile. Business owners need to be sure that their listings are correct and up to date and that they are taking advantage of all the social options that bring their customers into the process.

Social Media for Good II

2012-12-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

The Country Garden center in Hyannis, MA had a surplus of tulip bulbs at the end of the fall selling season. They could have just thrown them in the compost pile. Instead, they decided to offer them to a local non-profit and asked their Facebook fans to nominate an organization to receive them. They got a reasonable response for a week-long event in a small population area, during Christmas season at that! They probably also got more Facebook Likes, which they are working on. Great idea!