All Shapes and Sizes

Guest post by Social Media Consultant Colin Clark

I spend the majority of my day every day thinking up creative ways for businesses to use social media tools to improve their bottom line.  The one thing that I’ve found is that if I put together social media action plans for 10 different companies, all 10 would be very different, even if they were in similar industries.

The reason for this is that it’s extremely important to look at all aspects of your business before delving into social media, because once you do you’re baring your soul to anyone who you interact with online.  Since every business is composed of different types people, every strategy must be optimized to ensure those people will be successful in communicating with people online

So many consultants are saying ‘You must blog’ or ‘You must have a presence on Facebook‘.  It may or may not be the case.  The only ‘must’ is that you ‘must’ use good judgment and good marketing fundamentals to put together a strategy that’s going to be successful.

Social Media: If I Want It I’ll Buy It. Don’t Sell Me.

Image by websuccessdiva via Flickr

Truth be told.. I am getting immersed in Lisa Hoffman’s blog over at New Media Lisa. She has been KILLING it the past few weeks. She wrote a post recently called Social Media Isn’t About the Selling Cycle – It’s About the Buying Cycle. The post is about the concept of shifting the focus on an individual from a selling cycle to a buying cycle. From her post:

“More than ever before, people are expecting and demanding exactly what they want in every facet of their lives. What does this say about the typical hyper focus on the selling cycle? And what would happen if we turned the telescope around and considered the buying cycle instead?”

I don’t know about you but (as a sales generator) it is kind of nerve racking to shift from a selling cycle to a buying cycle. Does that mean I can’t actively sell? Good God… and no it doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong…there is some romantic notion behind the thought of creating a meaningful relationship and allowing the buyer to find you in the process but how do you plan and measure for that? Don’t you need to balance between a selling and buying cycle when using social media marketing as part of your strategy?

There is only one problem between a relationship building sales approach when you are building a company: bringing sales in initially. There is a long and short tail approach to selling. Social media is the long tail.

It takes time to build up relationships and create the trust factor that allows people to come to you. That is the whole idea isn’t it? So work towards building the buying cycle to the point where you are the qualified destination for people searching for a solution. Work your butt off to create that special point where selling becomes secondary..

So the answer?

Building the Trust Factor: blogging, testimonials, social media, writing articles.. etc. etc. etc. communicating!

Building a Company: off-line networking, creating relationships in your community, traditional marketing

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The 10 Commandments to Understanding Social Media

I am obsessed with a book by Marc Gobe called Emotional Branding. It was written in early 2002 and is (in my opinion) a staple to understanding the concepts of emotional branding and marketing. He has a section in the introduction of the book (pg. xxviii) called The Ten Commandments of Emotional Branding. I was reading through the ten steps and realized they fit perfectly with understanding the model of social media and how to use it to better communicate with your clients and potential clients.

The Ten Commandments to Understanding Social Media

1. From Consumers to People.

2. From Product to Experience.

3. From Honesty to Trust

4. From Quality to Preference

5. From Notoriety to Aspiration

6. From Identity to Personality

7. From Function to Feel

8. From Ubiquity to Presence

9. From Communication to Dialogue

10. From Service to Relationship.

We are going to focus on each one of the ten commandments in the next couple of days. The concepts outlined in the book by Gobe were not dedicated to social media but they are essential to understanding how to use the tool. They are based completely behind the idea of understanding the emotional relevance of the communication tool called the Internet. Joel Desgrippes of BrandImage says it best:

“Branding is not only about ubiquity, visibility, and functions; it is about bonding emotionally with people in their daily life. Only when a product or a service kindles an emotional dialogue with the consumer, can this product of service qualify to be a brand.”

First on the docket: Consumers to People. I can’t wait. Stay tuned.

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Why Is It Important to Listen?

There have been many conversations surrounding the value of social media. How do we measure a return on investment using these tools? How do we guarantee that the tools are going to work in our favor?

There are a couple of things you should be using social media for in the near future. That will give you an intangible benefit to your company. The first thing is customer service. We will talk about the concept of using social media as a customer service tool in the future. I wanted to focus on the second reason which is reputation management.

Are you listening to what people are saying about you online? I can give you two bad examples and one good example of companies who are listening to what clients and potential clients are discussing.

The first bad example is that of Independent Federal Credit Union in Anderson, IN. I had a bad customer service experience at one of their branches in Anderson. You can read the entire post at An Example Of Terrible Customer Service: IFCU. The problem isn’t necessarily that they had bad customer service. The problem is that they had NO IDEA I had written a blog post about my experience.

When you are not listening to what people are saying about you… how can you change opinions?

The second example is from KSM Business Technology and Digitech in Indianapolis. You can read about the entire experience at the post about KSM Business Technologies Being Worst than Godaddy at customer service. The sad thing about this post is that they are a business technology and hosting company. They had no idea I had a bad experience with a couple of their reps and now it is blasted out over the masses on the Internet. They still have no idea.

This has nothing to do with the size of the company (the offending or the offended). This has everything to do with caring about the customer experience.

You want to know… You NEED to know… You SHOULD know…

If you can think of a reason why you should not be listening to clients and potential clients on the Internet. Please let me know.

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Tired of People Ignoring Relationships

I am tired of people ignoring relationships. I am tired of being a part of conversations about the “lack-of-time” for tools that build community value and relationships. 

Have we still not dropped over the edge? When you are reading studies that tout figures like:

• 36% of Internet users post opinions about products and brands online
• 84% of buyers look for opinions on products and brands online

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Calling All Pharma Companies: Docs Love Social Media

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the world of the doctor. Whether it has been actually getting medication or researching for a marketing report, I have been learning a lot about the medical world. I was perusing some content through Google Alerts and came across an article by George Koroneos at PharmExec. The article referenced a study release by Manhattan Research detailing the use of social media spiking about doctors by 60%. 

60%!!!! Holy crap.

Apparently the users tend to be female, primary care doctors, and smart phone owners. It made me think about the concept of pharma-marketing and an overall direct marketing strategy to medical offices and doctors. According to the study, physicians that use social media prescribe an average of 24 more scrips each week. 

We are talking 1,248 more scrips a year because of recommendations and the use of chat rooms and forum boards. 

What does that tell us? 

Viral marketing and word-of-mouth is working among primary care physicians. Now, this is interesting news for the pharma companies. The question is how can the utilize the information from the study by Manhattan Research?  Answering that question will be for another blog post. 

The importance of this study is that it shows a reasonable increase in the use of social media as a viral marketing tool. Doesn’t it change your perspective if you can see tangible numbers? 

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It’s Not About Professional Networking In Social Media

I was surprised when I was reading some stats from the PEW Internet & American Life Project via ReadWriteWeb. Apparently the majority of adult social network users are not using the networks for business or professional networking. According to the PEW report the majority of adults (89%) are using social networks to stay in touch with friends. A surprising 6% of all adult users on the Internet are using LinkedIN which makes more sense if you think about it.

LinkedIN has boasted around 30 million users and when you think about the odd 250 million Internet users worldwide… it makes complete sense.

My question for LinkedIN and other professional social networks?

How do you get more people onto your site? How do you utilize your far from perfect application development and draw in more business owners, corporate professionals, and white-collar individuals?

Or does it matter?I don’t think LinkedIN has to expand to the point when they are catering to the people who will not use social media.

It isn’t about numbers anymore. You do not need 60 million people on a network to start making money. LinkedIN should be focusing on it’s 30 million members… switching them over to the premium service.

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Should We Even Consider ROI in Social Media?

(hat tip to 123 Social Media for the posed question)

There is endless talk online and off-line of increased traffic to websites, comments galore, users joining your community, and community development. The question posed through all of this discussion is the concept of measuring ROI in Social Media.

Having an arm of our company, Brandswag, be a social media strategy and marketing division it is constantly on our minds. How do you take those GREAT campaigns and measure ROI? It is pretty simple. The majority of social media marketing is brand development driven. Of course, you have the companies like Compendium Blogware that measures organic search and leads through their proprietary software which caters to a form of ROI.

When thinking of ROI in social media it is all dependent on your campaign. If you are using Facebook for donations, writing a blog as a small business, or using LinkedIN for networking purposes it is important to figure out goals before hand.

If you want to build brand name recognition in a specific geographic location you are looking at a brand development focus. It is extremely intangible. Success is measured over a length of time and that is hard to pinpoint.

Social Media is amazing for brand development. Hands down one of the best tools you could use to further your name in a community.

Use the tool for what it’s worth. It is extremely possible to start mixing social media marketing into your traditional marketing campaigns and further the power of your marketing arm.

The success comes in the little things…that leads to the HUGE things.

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A Look Into The Brand of Twitter

Today’s guest post is by Jon Gatrell of Spatially Relevant

———————————————————

I’m always appreciative to meet good folks and develop relationships with folks online and this post is by way of one of those relationships. Kyle was kind enough to reciprocate with an opportunity to do a guest post in a response to my offer which started as part of my examining my Twitter network. Yup, Kyle and I met virtually by way of Twitter, so I think I have to make a confession based on the recent content around here. I use an Auto-DM capability which isn’t high on Kyle’s respectometer, but I do this for two reasons:

• I’m fairly confident folks just click and add with no additional context, so I want to engage them in some fashion so they can potentially start a conversation. Net-Net – It works.
• I travel a good deal, do a fairly large amount of tweeting from my phone, so I’m not always able to engage “in person” for a while and Auto-DM’s help validate that I’m “there”, if not in person.

The important point is I’m not trying to sell anything, just provide a snapshot into my views and to provide access to me while providing an introductory insight into my personality. In the end, I agree that it is about emotion, which is why Twitter is such an interesting topic for many.

Twitter is essentially an ecosystem with continuous growth and increasing capabilities which are core to the platform, but also market driven by the users. Twitter more so than any other online community does generate emotional responses from some and I think the graphics help do this while reinforcing the brand. That little bird is just something we all want to be free, open and happy. Right?

The Bird is the Brand

Brand is the culmination of many things, but it is often considered what is conjured up in your mind when you think about a brand. For Twitter, at least for me, it is the bird. I suspect I’m not alone and that this imagery is intentional. When you think of twitter there are probably 3 images you think of and probably in this order, depending on when you started using twitter:

• The Bird
• The Whale
• The Robot – I think the robot is gone, so here is what it looked like

While I cite three different images, the common theme in all of these images is a bird. Twitter has from the beginning focused on delivering a simplified user interface and a single visual. The bird has become so integrated that the developer community has embrace iterations of the bird. Magpie (arrgh), Tweetlater, Twitterfeed, Twittad and Qwitter all have integrated a bird into their core visuals and UI. You go to these sites and the first thing you know is they do something for Twitter, you don’t even need to read a thing. Each of these platforms and their use of birds are riding the brand tails of Twitter and the promise of Twitter.

At some point in time, Ev and folks made a conscious decision: Develop a single creative which can represent the community and integrate it throughout the user/community experience. This isn’t an accident. Creative represents a key brand element that if contemplated as part of the original brand roll out and subsequent activities can drive increased visibility of the brand and develop a promise visually. While I don’t know what the official brand promise is for Twitter, I will take a guess based on what I think of:

• Quick, easy and simple – “Effortless enagement, like a bird in flight”
• We try real hard – “look our birds are trying to pick up a whale”We are different – “I know that teal/weird blue is odd, but the bird looks better in this color and we respect our bird”
• We are everywhere – web, SMS, mobile apps. “No matter where you go you can see/hear a bird”
• We are open and free – API and dev community. “When was the last time a caged bird sang?”

Brand and creative go hand and hand, so as you look to develop a brand, you also need to put together a strategic creative roadmap/plan.

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Social Media Marketing is about Emotion not Automation

Doug Karr at the Marketing Tech Blog has a post this morning called You Know Your a Smippy When…

Before we get started into the Smippy world. I’ve known Doug for quite awhile and would count him as THE one that helped me get into social media specifically blogging. I pretty much take everything Doug says as fact and trust his judgment without fault. He is def. one of my SM mentors.

Part of his post is a rebuttal against my Twitter Auto DM Petition.

Now… I am not going to take offense to the Smippy comment. I actually think it is pretty hilarious. The beauty of social media is that you can freely express your opinions and other people have the right to disagree.

There is one thing I am NOT against and that is social media marketing. My company’s future is built off the concept that you can use social media for brand exposure, as well as, increased sales. Though I think there is a fine line with taking a marketing medium and bastardizing it by setting up direct responses without any regards to the person on the other end.

I’m going to cite an article by Seth Godin called  The Rapid Growth (and destruction) and Growth of Marketing.

Social media, it turns out, isn’t about aggregating audiences so you can yell at them about the junk you want to sell. Social media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed digitally online. We want to be connected, to make a difference, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.

The business owners and marketers that were focused in mass marketing in the past try to systematize processes, “How can we take this tool and automate it to get the most BANG for the BUCK?” When you use Twitter Auto DMs you are not respecting the fact that I chose to follow you. I don’t want to know about your new e-book. I will find it on my own if you were that compelling to follow in the first place.

Any product that automates social media tools is slowly sucking the personality out of your brand (personal or corporate). You cannot try and automate a tool that is rooted in permission based marketing.

If you aren’t taking the time to personally thank people for following you…

Aren’t you just collecting another mailing list?

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