News Flash. Advertising Isn’t Dying. It’s Adapting.

This is my last post on the Razorfish FEED 09 Brand Experience Report. One thing I have learned while reading and studying the social media report is that marketing and advertising is not dieing… it is merely adapting. This may be old news to many of you but (in the social media world) the cry of the DEATH OF ADVERTISING… is constant… loud and clear. I have even taken up the battle-axe and screamed to the heavens about the slow death of the ad world.

Truth is… advertising will never be dead. The cycle of product promotion will always be a staple in the world of entertainment and communication. It is changing and adjusting with the fast changing world of online communication! The digital experience of the consumer is changing the way we communicate as brands… as companies. From Razorfish:

“According to our research, the overwhelming majority of consumers who actively engage with a brand digitally–whether by entering a contest, “friending” a brand on Facebook, or even watching an advert on YouTube–show dramatic upticks across the entire marketing funnel. Simply put, digital brand experience create customers.” (pg 4)

This change is not only happening in the world of social media but beyond… Consumers are engaging with brands on a completely different level. Through digital marketing and brand experiences consumers now have the CHOICE to communicate with a brand.

So what does this mean to us… the business owner, marketing executive, and sales person?

Shifting your marketing… adapting and changing with your environment is only the beginning. The world is changing and the business landscape will shift with it. Are you positioning yourself to take advantage of the future?

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Why Do People Follow Brands? Conversation or Deals?

This is the second post about the Razorfish FEED 2009 Report… as promised. I was reading a post from my friend Todd Muffley over at Fat Atom and it got me thinking about the future of online communication. His post is entitled, “Is Social Media One Big Coupon Book?” The premise of the post is captured in two sentences:

“If Social Media does become one big coupon book, watch out Newspaper, Magazine, Radio, TV and Direct Mail (to name a few). The old school push model of coupon distribution may just go the way of the VCR.”

The post is (of course) fueled by the Razorfish study which states that of “those that follow a brand on Twitter, 44% say that access to deals is the main reason. The same holds true for those that added a brand on Facebook or Myspace, where 37% cite access to exclusive deals or offers as their main reason.” (pg 9)

Now, the Razorfish study does not give a voice to all 200 million people using broadband Internet access but it does create a platform for discussing the main draw of social media. I would venture to say that the main reason a user FIRST joins a fanpage or follows a brand on Twitter is because of a contest or promotion. Once the individual becomes a fan the SECOND step is interacting with that fan in order to build some type of trust. Repeat customers are the best customers… nay… repeat customers with friends are the best customers.

There is always a conversation buried in the depths of a relationship being built between a customer and a brand. Where that relationship starts? Who knows? The important thing to remember is to have the conversation… which eventually leads to conversion.

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130 Million Are Being Influenced Online

I was reading the new Razorfish FEED Digital Brand Experience Report for 2009. This report is unbelievable and has some amazing statistics to help further the goal of increased use of digital marketing. I am going to be devoting the rest of this week to breaking down the Razorfish report.

At the beginning of the report Razorfish states:

65% of consumers report having had a digital experience that either positively or negatively changed their opinion about a brand. 97% say that their digital experience influenced whether or not they eventually purchased a product of service from that brand.

Razorfish surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers (50.5% female, 49.5% male) in four major age groups. The consumers that were surveyed have spent $150 online in the past six months and have broadband access to the Internet. According to the PEW Internet & American Life Project, about 63% of all Americans today have a high-speed Internet. The use of broadband stat stat roughly translates to 200 million people.

With 65% of broadband users being influenced by brands online (130 million) it may be important to start debating importance of digital marketing. The use of the Internet is only going to increase over the next 5 to 10 years. It is important for brands to start learning and educating their employees and consumers on the values of digital marketing.

What is even more important than the 65% statistic is the fact that almost ALL of the 130 million people influenced by a brand made the decision to purchase (or not purchase a product) based on their digital experience.

Decisions are being made online. Are you putting enough emphasis on your digital brand… or are you wasting that money on a stationary billboard that individuals can not interact with?

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Think Big and then Think Small

I’m not going to lie to you. This blog post is completely… and utterly… inspired by Jay Baer over at Convince and Convert. His blog post titled Get More Bait in the Water has a great thought that pushed me to write this blog.

“Thought leadership via social media content is about thinking big. And then thinking small.”

I believe that we are so focused on thinking big that we deny the concept of thinking small when deciding on strategy and implementation. It can lead to inconsistent messaging and promotion. We are talking about the death of many small to mid sized companies.

The overall strategy of a specific marketing initiative is the concept of thinking big. How are we (as a company) going to achieve our goals? How are we going to move from point A to point B and dominate the market? The overall goal of strategy planning is to think big! But creativity can only take you so far. I can use my own social media and design company as an example.

We do a ton of creative brainstorming. My role as head of business development allows me the luxury of thinking big.. 24/7. Early on we ran into the problem of implementation. We had some huge ideas both internally and externally but they were not implemented properly (for our clients or our company). My business partner, Brandon Coon, took it upon himself to be the implementation guru.  We hired an awesome company ran by Nicole Bickett to help us with process and we acquired an excellent project manager named Amy Rowe.

It is so important to remember the small things that make a BIG IDEA work. The same concept applies to your social media strategy and implementation. You have big goals but how are you going to accomplish the social media goals?

A top ranked blog or seach engine ranking takes small posts and careful planning to reach that coveted spot. Great lead generation tools for your sales team takes little ideas implemented over.. and over.. and over to work. In the words of the great Chet Holmes, “Pig headed discipline and determination is key to business success.”

Be pig headed and stubborn… but remember planning and implementaxtion.

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10 Ways to Stand Out from the Crowd and Win

In today’s turbulent economy it is extremely important for every business (both large and small) to stand out from the crowd. Brand awareness is huge in the competitive world. It is no longer good enough to deliver a superior product or customer service experience…. you need to be known as well.

How do you use the tools on the Internet (mainly social media) to increase your brand awareness and drive the competition into oblivion? And by oblivion I mean… the junkyard of dead businesses.

1. Start a Blog

In my opinion, starting a blog is the center point to all marketing activity online. If you are going to be spending time in social media it is extremely important that you have a central location for all of your content. People want to connect with you on a completely different level once you have started the communication process. Use WordPress to start a blog. When writing content it is important to schedule blog posts ahead in order to be completely successful at managing your time.

2. Develop An Outstanding Identity

Branding is huge when standing out from your competition. If your logo and brand identity have a unique twist from a quality design firm… you will be able to reap the rewards.

3. Use a Flip Cam to Record Customer Testimonials

Flip cam is a unique video camera that allows you to record up to 60 minutes of high-quality HD footage. The Flip cams are small enough they can be taken anywhere… anytime. You never know when you might have the chance to record a customer or an employee talking about your company. Upload the videos to YouTube and play them on your website.

4. Start a Referral Program with your Current and Past Customers

5. Tell stories about your daily routine

Many customers (both potential and current) want to learn about your company from the actual individuals running and working behind the brand. Tell stories about the daily encounters inside the firm. Did you have a trip to a local amusement park? Did an employee win a race or a exhibition league championship? Business is personal again.. now is the time to shift the way you communicate with the world.

6. Create a Facebook FanPage to Showcase Your Ideas to Your Fans

Facebook FanPages are amazing tools withing Facebook that will add onto the human capital value of your company. Ben McConnell from the Church of the Customer gives an excellent idea surrounding Facebook FanPage marketing:

When fans interact with a fan page on Facebook, that interaction is sent through the fan’s news feed, which goes to all their friends, practically daring a chunk of them to see what the page is about.

7. Use Email Marketing to Stay in Front of Prospects

Email Marketing is not dead and it will give you an edge over the competition if done right. I will leave this up to the professionals over at Delivera: If You are Going to Win. You Have to Play the Game!

8. Sponsor a Tweetup or Social Media Meetup

I know.. I know.. Tweetup sounds like a complete GEEK fest! If can be a huge source of potential clients depending on your demographic. There are many small business and c-level employees who have started to attend Tweetups. I have yet to see a local Tweetup sponsored by a company. If you are wondering how many Twitter users are in your general area try Twellowhood.

9. Fully Utilize LinkedIN Recommendations

In my opinion there is nothing more powerful than a LinkedIN recommendation. Why is that? You can only get so real (other than video) in the world of the Internet. A LinkedIN recommendation gives your happy customers the ability to give you the KUDOS your company deserves.

10. Encourage Your Sales Team to Use Social Media for Lead Generation

Sell by Educating Through Social Media

Seth Godin had a great blog post yesterday talking about the fear of apples and the top two reasons people are not buying your product:

1. They don’t know about it.

2. They’re afraid of it.

Haven’t we been dealing with fear quite a bit this year? If you are a sales person (which most small business owners are) you may have seen the effects of this fear on your bottom line. The down economy has been killing the “risk-taking” gene of many professionals from corporate level employee to small business owner. The “risk-taking” gene is that diamond in the rough that allows for business to exist… to flourish. It reminds me on the William Shedd quote: A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.

Are your clients clamming up? Are potential customers not buying because they do not know about your product or service…. or they are just… afraid?

Companies that use social media for lead generation and product information have a huge advantage over the companies that do not use the tools. Social media gives you the ability to inform your potential clients on products with stories! What better way to inform?

Be honest with me… would you rather read a story or boring product/service information?

I would rather read a story… every… single… time.

What stories are you telling your clients?What about your potential clients? Do you have a blog where you are writing your business stories? The marketing for your business should read like a book… a book of stories… a book where your potential leads learn about your company.

When the time comes to buy on a product or service… who do you think they are going to call? You or the business who doesn’t care about educating through stories?

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The Power of a Decision. Be A Risk Taker!

There are times when I stumble through Seth Godin’s blog and he rocks my life into oblivion… this morning it happened again. Seth has a post about decision making and the power of making a decision in the world of business growth… as many decisions as possible. Interesting thought right?

From Seth’s blog:

No decision is a decision as well, the decision not to decide. Not deciding is usually the wrong decision. If you are the go-to person, the one who can decide, you’ll make more of a difference. It doesn’t matter so much that you’re right, it matters that you decided.

Don’t you feel like standing up and singing hallelujah? Don’t you feel like making some strategic decisions? I know I do.

What is keeping you from moving to the next step of business growth? Is it a marketing initiative? Is it jumping into social media (God forbid)? Are you letting yourself make decisions that might have a negative effect on your bottom line… that is key. Successful businesses take risks and live to tell about it.

And if you don’t live to tell about it…

At least you can say you tried your best and gave it your all. If you don’t make risky decisions and adapt to the changing world… you may be dusting off that resume.

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2 Steps to Starting Social Media

We all have to start somewhere right?

1. Start A Blog About Something You Love and Be Authentic

I know the concept of authentic content has been thrown around here and there between social media experts. It is a common practice to write about the concept of authentic content and communication. Many people ask the same question when debating on starting a blog: “What should I write about?” Write about something you enjoy! Write about something you do on a daily routine. Do you enjoy collecting stamps? Do you enjoy watching soccer and following sports?

I write about social media because I love it. It is easier for me to write because of the joy I find in learning about all things social media.

Write about something you love and find other people who are writing about the same thing. Utilize google alerts to find the people who share the same interest.

2. Start Small. Join a Regional Social Network and Dive In.

We have talked about regional (geographically based) social networks before in earlier posts. I am a member of a regional social media community called Smaller Indiana. I have found that my visibility as a business owner and social advocate has greatly increased because of my use of Smaller Indiana. If you are trying to build a personal brand identity through using social media a local social network will give you amazing exposure to local people.

It is getting harder and harder to make a name for yourself on the Internet when you are competing on a global scale with millions of individuals. If you focus on a niche geographic community you will find that it is slightly easier to be recognized. In order to get the most out of a geographic community don’t leave your relationships on the web, go out and meet the individuals you are collaborating with. A cup of coffee will go a long way at facilitating the building of a personal brand between two individuals.

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Diamond Marketing and Selling the Experience

This morning I was listening to a local radio station when a diamond store’s advertisement played across the speakers… I sat there at the stoplight listening to the words…

“We are the ONLY diamond store that buys direct from the manufacturer… cutting out middleman pricing… best quality diamonds… friendly service…”

Truthfully… the ad was lame. There was no story telling… there was no emotional buy. There was nothing that invited me to continue the conversation. I decided to look into the other diamond sellers and manufacturers in the city. You guessed it… they were all the same. They all said the exact same thing.

Frankly, I do not care that you had to fly to Hong Kong to buy your diamonds. I don’t care that you are cutting out the middleman pricing. I care that you treat me the right way when I walk in the door. I care about the experience of the purchase not the purchase itself.

When we are selling a professional product or service it is important to DIFFERENTIATE. It is a lost art. How do you differentiate in a world where everything is starting to sound similar… sound bland?   It is essential that you gain the trust of the individual before they buy. It is essential to encourage your customers to tell the story.

You can buy as many radio, yellow pages, or newspaper ads as your budget allows… it only breaks the surface. The experience sells the product. How are you using your website, social media, traditional marketing, and networking to tell your story.

Do not bore the world with details… tell them the story!

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Do Tight Corporate Social Media Policies Help or Hinder?

Linda Skrocki is the Senior Engineering Program Manager/Owner for Sun’s primary, external-facing community sites (blogs, forums, wikis, etc.). In addition to being a corporate social networking evangelist, she has managed many of Sun Microsystems highest profile web programs over the last 9 years.

What is your risk & transparency tolerance?

That’s a question every company must ask before embarking on their officially branded new media journey, but let’s be honest, tightly controlled content is nothing more than traditional website content and/or press releases. If that’s the most risk your culture/policy allows when it comes to marketplace conversations via social media platforms, don’t waste time and money implementing an external-facing officially branded collaboration site — it simply won’t be an environment conducive to meaningful, authentic marketplace conversations and certainly won’t foster healthy business relationship building that ultimately affects your bottom line.

If a tightly controlled or no approach is the chosen path, it’s important to note that conversations about your company, good and bad, won’t cease to exist. They’ll just have to happen elsewhere — most likely in places far less findable by you; thereby, giving you less opportunity to:

• amplify positive company & product feedback from the marketplace
• strengthen your company & products by listening and acting upon negative feedback
• rally interest and extend awareness by being able to easily participate in the conversations

(Re)evaluation of our fears

Still reading? Thinking your company’s social media policy might need a laxative? Not sure how to get started? Try this: Each overly rigid policy term is based on fear of a specific situation. Examine each term & it’s fear-based situation & ask:

1. Aren’t these legal bases already covered in our company’s employment terms and/or site Terms of Use?
2. Why are we trying to control conversations employees & the marketplace may have on social sites any differently than conversations they have at a bus stop, dinner party, etc.? Don’t we want them to drive awareness of our company and products?
3. Why are we scaring our employees to a degree that they don’t want to engage in cool and interesting marketplace conversations about the company and our products?
4. In the statistically* unlikely event that an employee goes hostile and says bad things about us,
   a) do we really think policy will stop them?
   b) wouldn’t we want the likely inaccurate rant to happen in our own backyard where it’s more easy to find and respond to?
5. Is it really worth sacrificing hundreds of thousands of fruitful conversations because we’re afraid of a possible nasty conversation?
6. What if the nasty conversation happens? Why can’t we just counter by publicly correcting the inaccurate points with facts and own-up to the accurate points by making our product stronger and gaining bonus points for driving this awareness?

Relax, Trust & See Goodness Unfold

I’m not saying let go entirely. Employees appreciate guidelines. They want to remain gainfully employed and don’t want to get themselves or the company in trouble. They may not clearly be aware of the company’s stance on topics to avoid if they are buried in pages of legalese. To augment existing employment terms, a set of brief, comprehensive social media guidelines will not only stand a better chance of actually being read by your employees, but will set everyone’s minds at ease by knowing how to effectively engage in the social media space.

If you need a solid example of an effective set of guidelines, Sun’s Guidelines on Public Discourse has stood the test of time and has proven to be amazingly effective not only for Sun but for other companies who have used it as a model.

* Example: http://blogs.sun.com, along with the Guidelines on Public Discourse, deployed in 2004. No approval is required prior to employees blogging. The original tag line “This space is accessible to any Sun employee to write about anything” remains in place. As of this post, there are more than 140,000 blog posts and only a handful of possible policy violations have been raised.

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