Awareness - Awareness

Is there a better model for “marketing associations”?

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:04:40 EDT

BMA Boston Board at Fenway Park; Winter 2007

There must be a better model for running a marketing association. I’ve been a member of multiple “M.A.’s” (BMA, DMA, AMA, etc) and I think my expectations are pretty simple. Mostly I am looking for two things: (1) education and (2) networking. While I do have a straightforward mission, i do have additional expectations. I want the group(s) (or associations or communities) to understand my needs and wants as a marketer without letting the officer’s personal interests get in the way. I don't want to go to an event where I learn about a dated topic (like “the value of printing”) or, even worse, a session where I am forced to sit through a product pitch. I want to network with peers who I can learn from, not a group of vendors trying to sell me stuff every time I meet them. I expect a balance of "meet-ups" and educational events. I want the dialogs that start at physical events to continue long after the hand shake and I expect social media to play a role in helping to facilitate that ongoing conversation. I want the leadership of the association to listen to my needs and wants and use them as the basis for developing programming. In general, I expect a positive customer experience. Is that too much to ask?

I say this because I have been actively involved in marketing associations for roughly the last 12 years. In fact, I ran the Boston Chapter of the Business Marketing Association for about 3 years. During that time, the chapter saw its largest growth both in terms of revenue and membership, won three awards, hosted the most successful and profitable physical events in the group's history and launched a webinar series that was syndicated nationally throughout regional chapters and attracted attendees from as far away as Japan, Europe and Australia. We succeeded in repositioning the group’s perception in the market from a traditional stodgy association run by vendors to a group on the cutting edge of marketing.

I left the organization in January of this year because I was watching the association fall victim to the same mistakes it had made previous to my tenure. The topics were tired, the events seemed stale and the speakers didn’t sound engaging. I’d really like to see the group expand on it’s momentum and embrace new speakers/topics to help stay on the cutting edge. Without getting into details, the final straw for me was an email stating rather bluntly “I don’t care about us executing on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or any other social network” and inferring that new types of marketing would not have a place in the chapter moving forward. In a time where many marketers are looking for more education on social media and are turning to their marketing associations to help figure it out, the group opted not to focus any effort or energy in educating their members on the benefits of this approach. Given my passion for the space and my belief in social media, I decided it was best to part ways.

I am sharing my background with you, not to toot my own horn or throw anyone under the bus, but to help make a point. Since I left the BMA I have looked long and hard at many of the other marketing associations out there and have come to the conclusion that none fulfill my needs. My view is tainted but it seems like most groups are operated by a select group of individuals that appear to have their own interests in mind - whether it is finding a job, selling a product or service or something else. Sorry if my view offends anyone. I do understand that my observations are a generalization - I’m sure there are individuals and chapters that have other interests at heart but I haven’t run across them int he recent past.

Granted, my experience in the last six months has likely made me cynical towards associations but I am looking for your opinion. Are marketing associations, in general, going the way of the dinosaur? Do you belong to any and if so, which are the best? If you were running the show, what would you do differently? What do you expect from the groups you are a member of?

My Agency Doesn’t Get Social Media: Solid Advice from Jason Falls

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:41:04 EDT

I had the pleasure of hosting a twebinar this week with Jason Falls of Doe-Anderson titled “Social Media: Your Agency Doesn’t Get It… Who Does?” I met Jason briefly for the first time this year at SXSW but only had a few minutes to connect with him in the blogger lounge before we both ran off to sessions. I have followed him on his blog and Twitter for a lot longer and am a big fan.

I was particularly excited about this session because the content the content is compelling and Jason is an expert on the subject having worked both with and for a host of marketing agencies. There are not many people with experience on both sides of the fence and I was anxious to hear his thoughts. Below are links to the slides, video recording and podcast of the session but before you view anything, here are my top 10 favorite quotes/learning’s from the session with Jason:

Martell Home Builders - A great social media case study: Local contractors have their project managers update project status on Twitter so customers can see where they are, how the project is going and provide a way to contact them. An excellent example of using the social web to improve customer service. What a great use of Twitter!
Note to “Classically Trained” marketers: Social Media is the antithesis of advertising. Dialogue is lost on classically trained marketers and it’s difficult to teach classically trained marketers the new way of doing things.
On Interactive Marketing at large agencies: Interactive is an add-on most of the time. Many think interactive, but struggle with integration.
Agency outsourcing: Most agencies will say they can do anything, and then go find a partner who can help them pull it off. If transparency and honesty are the most important thing in social media, agencies need to up front with clients when outsourcing services.
Questions to ask social media agencies: What is the strategy behind your recommendations? What social media mistakes have you made and what did you learn from them? Do they have blogs? Are your employees on twitter? Can you share case studies? Who does strategy, who does execution?
Note to self: Marketing “people” need to understand math
On B2B vs B2C: There is no B2B or B2C, it’s all about P2P: People to People.
Biggest challenge brands face: There are conversations happening everywhere and most brands don’t have the right people to manage social media.
About Twitter: Twitter is not a platform for marketing, however it can be used for it. It’s a platform for conversation.
On ROI: ROI is easy to measure in social media, if your social media programs are aligned with clear business goals.

Slides:

View more documents from Mike Lewis.

Recording:

Podcast:
Social Media Marketing: My Agency Doesn’t Get It… Who Does?”

Please fix the Internet's "Stream of Conciousness"

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (carter) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:28:24 EDT

Today Twitter broke again.. too much traffic.

3 Hollywood celebrities die and the consciousness of the internet can't handle the traffic. (by the way, I am saddened by their deaths, I don't mean to trivialize that)

I know I dedicate too much time to Twitter in this blog. There are so many aspects of it to comment on. From the spammers who are trying to exploit it, to the people building their "personal brand" by creating thousands of followers, to the companies making real efforts to add transparency to their customer communications.

At the end of the day, nobody likes the Twitter application itself. It's the public stream of consciousness we want to read and write to. People tweet form their cell phones, third party apps or by clicking a "share this" link in an article. So if it's all just the data, why aren't the bigger players stepping up?

The transition would be easy.. register your Twitter account.. some giant database run by a giant internet power suck all your information out, and we all move on. RIP Twitter.

Amazon, with your "elastic cloud services" you provide, you must be set up with a LOT of hardware and availability? How about setting up a web service for people to post status updates into one giant database, and track their friends? See my past post on some enhancements you might want to think about.

Google? How about you? I'm happy with the speed my search results come back. I've never seen a "FAIL WHALE" pop up during that request. It would set you up great for rolling out Google Wave.

All we want is some borg-like company to manage the info for us. Then all the twitter application developers would happily point to that stream to save their information. We'd also happily cross post to Twitter before it died completely. So let's all agree, Twitter was a great idea that was poorly implemented. Now get out of the way and someone build it right.

Passion is Contagious: Interview with C.C. Chapman

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:56:10 EDT

I have only known C.C. Chapman for a couple of years. We first met when we were both speakers at the New Marketing Summit (now the Inbound Marketing Summit). Actually, I think our first “in person” meeting was just before I interviewed him for New Marketing T.V. What’s really interesting is that while we both graduated from Bentley University (granted it was at different times - C.C. is WAY older than me ;-)) and shared several friends (shout out to @bostonsarah), we first connected through social media. You see, the first time we actually “spoke” was months before we met in person when we began chatting on Twitter and Facebook. C.C. said it best during the session “I guess this social networking thing really works.” Since our first meeting at NMS I have seen him speak 5 or 6 times and I always learn something new from him. It was great connecting with him last week and I hope you get some great insight from the interview below (slides, recording and a podcast of the Q&A session are included in this post):

Slides from Building Participation in Your Community: Passion is Contagious:

View more OpenOffice presentations from Mike Lewis.

Recording of Building Participation in Your Community: Passion is Contagious:

Podcast (Audio Only):
Passion is Contagious: An Interview with C.C. Chapman

Webinar Slides: Building Community with PR

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:05:45 EDT

Here are the slides from yesterday’s webinar with Deirdre Breakenridge. To view the recording, click here.

View more from Mike Lewis.

Lessons in Marketing from LOST

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:45:49 EDT

I am a huge fan of the TV show Lost. The writing is brilliant, the plot is both engaging and unpredictable and every episode leaves you wanting more. What else could you possibly ask for in a TV show?

What has been equally impressive to me, in addition to the top-notch writing and plot, is their effective use of social media and viral marketing programs to generate buzz. The show's marketing is an excellent example of not only the effective use of social media but also of the use of multiple marketing channels to build and maintain a loyal community.

Getting Lost:

If you have never seen Lost, the program chronicles the lives of the survivors of Oceanic flight 815. 815 is a flight from Sydney Australia to Los Angeles, CA that crash lands on a mysterious and supernatural island somewhere in the South Pacific. While there are no “typical episodes”, most focus on the survivors lives on the Island while featuring a secondary plot that is focused on an individual character during another point in their life (note to newbies, time travel is a big component of Lost).

Lost has leveraged the passion of their fans to launch several cross-media promotions including a Lost Magazine, 4 novels (one, called “Bad Twin“, was credited to Gary Troup (an anagram for “purgatory”), a survivor of Flight 815), as well as a series of alternate reality games, Mobisodes, podcasts and viral videos. One example was a video released by the show’s producers that provided a clue to one of the shows biggest and best kept secrets:

One of the aspects of the show that has captured the speculation and imagination of fans is the show’s elaborate mythology. This mythology has been the driving force behind hundreds (if not thousands) of viewer created sites and blogs focusing on theories and speculation on the Island’s past and the outcome of the show. Sites like DarkUFO and “The Numbers” not only feature fan discussion forums but also include user generated podcasts and videos, fan fiction, episode summaries, photos, spoilers and much more.

The marketing was effective because it leveraged the passion of loyal fans and multiple marketing vehicles (both print and online) to build an active community. Below Damon Lindelof, Executive Producer of Lost, talks about some of the innovative marketing and effective use of multiple forms of media to generate buzz for the show.

While you probably don’t have an ABC-sized budget to to drive your marketing there are some great lessons from Lost that marketers should consider as they develop there marketing programs.

Marketing Lessons from Lost:

1. Know your audience and empower them:

Success in marketing, especially in social media, comes from having a deep understanding of your audience. Without an understanding of who your audience is and which vehicle(s) is best to communicate with them can lead to the failure of your program. The producers of Lost took the time to know their audience up front and to communicate with them through the channels they were most comfortable using. They also took the next step by empowering their audience to contribute and drive the conversation. Empowering customers is a difficult concept for many brands to grasp because it goes against the way most of use have been trained to market. As marketers, we are comfortable delivering messages when we want to deliver them, to the audiences we choose, through channels we select. Allowing the audience to discuss and market our products and services outside of the guidelines and oversight of corporate marketing can be a difficult pill to swallow.

My good friend Chris Brogan recently wrote a post called “Empowering versus Marketing” where he said “Today, I'm thinking about how empowering people matters so much more than marketing to them.” As you think about your marketing programs take a lesson from Lost and ask yourself what can you do to empower your market?

2. Don’t be afraid to use multiple channels:

Lately I have been speaking at a lot of social media focused conferences and have been hearing how traditional forms of media are “dead”. Print is the vehicle that seems to get the most criticism and tends to fall into the “going the way of dinosaur” bucket. In my opinion, modern marketing is all about leveraging the types of media necessary to engage your audience. If you follow step one and take the time to know your audience and learn about their preferences you may find that print is the best way to reach them, or you may discover 99% listen to podcasts, you may find that 85% attend a certain conference every year or they all listen to a particular radio station everyday. While social media currently has a lot of hype and is buzzword of day for marketers, it’s important to not lose site of the fact that your marketing goals have not changed. While there are new ways of marketing your products or services, your ultimate goal is still to engage your audience, generate leads, build Awareness, drive conversions, etc. To do that you need to engage with your audience through the channels that they are most comfortable with. Lost used a combination of print (Lost Magazine, Novels, Messages in a bottle) and digital (podcasts, videos, mobisodes, fan forums) to facilitate a dialog, drive buzz and gain viewers.

As you look at your campaigns ask yourself if there are other channels you can use to communicate with your audience?

3. Identify the influencer’s

Identifying and empowering specific key individuals (or types of individual) can help build your audience faster than mass market to your target audience as a whole. This type of marketing identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers (or viewers in the case of Lost), and orients marketing activities around them. A couple of weeks ago I did a webinar with David Meerman Scott, author of New Rules of Marketing & PR and World Wide Rave, and he tells the story of the launch of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, Orlando. Cynthia Gordon, vice president of new media and marketing partnerships at Universal Orlando Resort, launched a program to tell the world about the new park by only informing seven influential bloggers. By targeting and enabling these seven individuals, word quickly spread to over 350 million. How’s that for an ROI?

Similarly, prior to the debut of Lost, the show producers previewed the pilot episode to more than 3000 at the Comic-Con conference in San Diego. The demographic in attendance was primarily young technology enthusiasts whom the producers of Lost had identified as influencers for the show. In addition, the producers launched multiple websites before the show hit the airwaves. These microsites provided limited details on the characters and storyline as well as provided ways to dialog and connect with other viewers. These tactics were aimed at identifying and empowering influencers who were likely to spread the word about the show and encourage others to attend.

As you are executing your marketing programs ask yourself, who are the influencers of your product or service and have you taken the time to engage them?

4. Take some risk

A common component of some of the most successful marketing programs in history is an element risk. Marketing innovation is all about stepping outside of what is comfortable and avoiding a natural fear of rejection.

Ironically, a big risk for the Lost producers was empowering their fans. As the show gained popularity fans began to speculate about the mysteries of the show. This led to “spoilers” being leaked and distributed online (from WIkipedia: A spoiler is any element of any summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot element which will give away the outcome of a dramatic episode within the work of fiction, or the conclusion of the entire work.)

Every marketing program contains a certain element of risk and the producers of Lost asked many of the same questions some of my customers asking before beginning a social media program: “Will customer empowerment hurt my brand?” “What if people say negative things about my brand?” “What if we build a site or community online and no one shows up or no one participates?” “What if this doesn’t draw any buzz or achieve any of our stated objectives?” “Did we target the right people?” The key for them was embracing the risk and remaining confident the programs would be effective.

After you finish reading this post ask yourself if their are ways you can make your marketing stand out? What is the competition doing and how can you take it to the next level?

5. Don’t be afraid to give up control

Lost producers encourage fans to build sites, foster conversations and spread the message and by doing this they gave up an incredible amount of control. They no longer controlled the messaging on fan sites and forums or whether the conversations were positive or negative. Television marketing has been based on the broadcast model which is the idea that you have one person who has something to say and you want to minimize the cost of having that message reach the most number of people. As opposed to marketing to faceless masses, the Lost producers said, “we see you as important assets for this show. You're our audience and we need to enable you to help make this successful. We think it would be great to have you join up with one another and discuss the show in your own voice.”

Since season 1 the producers have made it clear that they pay attention to the conversations of fans and take the time to enter into dialog with them. On several occasions the producers have highlighted fan theories during their podcast and rated them and incorporated fan discussions into episodes.

As you think about your own marketing don’t be afraid to give up control to your fans. Think about how they can help drive you messaging and create buzz.

What do you think? Is there anything else I missed that might be good takeaway from Lost?

Video: Creating a World Wide Rave

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:15:04 EDT

Finally was able to clean up the video from last week’s presentation with David Meerman Scott. Please try to ignore the “beeps” (if you can, I think you will find that David has some great things to say!)

Interview with Jeremiah Owyang with Paul Gillin

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:22:29 EDT

As part of Awareness’ “Best Practices in Social Media” podcast series, Paul Gillin sat down with Jeremiah Owyang (Sr Analyst at Forrester) to chat about how businesses can use online communities to better engage with customers. I enjoyed the interview a lot and hope you do as well. Thanks to Paul and Jeremiah for taking the time to connect in person.

If you are interested in subscribing to the podcast series, click here.

Marketing Agencies & Social Media

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:15:32 EDT

Below are the slides from today’s webinar with Emily Riley of Forrester. Hope you enjoyed the session! Our next webinar is scheduled for May 13th: “Creating a World Wide Rave using Online Communities” with David Meerman Scott, Author of “World Wide Rave”

View more presentations from Mike Lewis.

Agency from scratch

undisclosed@awarenessnetworks.com (lewis) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:06:17 EDT

Came across this great presentation on Slideshare:

Agency From Scratch: Re-Creating the Creative Industry by Uwe Lucas

View more presentations from Uwe Lucas.