Social Media Success Takes Forever

Typical marketing campaigns can last from days to years. My shortest campaign was 5 days. A Super Bowl commercial may only run once.

Social Media is a different animal. Social Media should not be treated as a campaign but as a relationship. To make a relationship successful requires constant work (ask my wife). Social Media is an ongoing relationship between people, brands, etc. Engaging in short term campaigns typical of traditional and online marketing is like a sandwich board promoter, standing on the street shouting out tag lines and sales prices. An attention getter for sure but will you buy what they sell? Will you remember the brand?

Engaging in a long term Social Media strategy has obvious perks. For a decade I’ve been building micro-sites, splash pages, ad banners for companies.  They spend fortunes on these short bursts of marketing. Imagine if they didn’t have to build a new channel from scratch? A few years ago I was talking to a small PC gaming company whose products targeted women. Their games followed a continuous set of characters. I recommended setting each character and the group in general up each with their own Social Media presence. The idea was to keep communication going between characters and with fans. This would allow a small community to build up around the franchise, a robust and loyal channel for marketing. Rather than building new promotions for each new game, the company could spend months seeding game info through characters, even kicking off the game with a pre-story or augmenting it with side-stories. Between games the channel could be a little less active then ramping up as it got closer to product launch time.

Needless to say, they didn’t follow the strategy and still only dabble in Social Media, but at least they’re trying now. The idea of achieving success through short campaigns in Social Media is the opposite of what SoMe is all about. Take your time and commit to building your community and keep the conversation going because with Social Media, commitment and conversation is what it’s all about.

Image by antydiluvian

Why Best Practices Are Not

I hear the terms “best practices” and “think-outside-the-box” quite a bit, from colleagues, to vendors, to clients. The problem is, even thought I hear them in the same sentence, they are exact opposites. “Best practices” is a set of standard to be applied to any scenario, in other words: a cookie cutter solution, or an off-the-rack suit. Outside-the-box thinking is a new solution not based on existing standards, a custom suit. While I often find that clients and vendors say “outside-the-box”, they don’t really mean it, they mean something clever that is still very much in-the-box. I get it. I don’t blame them, an economy like the current one isn’t exactly a fertile place for people to take risks.

“Best practices” is a bit more disturbing. The term is being used as a value proposition or a differentiator more and more. The problem is that the world has changed. Social media has changed it. I’m not talking about Twitter and Facebook, or any of the technological aspects of social media, I’m talking about users. How a consumer interacts with a brand or vendor has changed, not just online, but in every facet of their lives. Consumers want communications on their terms. Users won’t just watch your commercial and go to your stored to make their purchase. They’ll Google for reviews, they compare prices, they’ll tweet for feedback, they jump to another brand because they had a better mobile site or switch stores because they got a coupon in the mail that day. People understand the power of the Internet and understand that they can get personalized attention. That understanding has led them to be more critical of customer service not just online or by phone but in brick and mortar stores.

How do you stand by “best practices” when there is so much diversity in the abilities, needs, and desires of your audience? How do you do it when your brand is not like other brands? I read a recent blog on “best practices” that claimed the optimal screen size for a web site’s design should be 1024×768. Well, my mother’s computer would only support 800×600, my go to web browser is 320×356. So, which is  the standard? The fact is, none are. Lazy developers, designers, and marketers like to fall back on “best practices” so they don’t have to do the work of getting to know their audience, or to avoid developing multiple options for different audiences. This blog is set up for 1024×768 as well as 320×356. That’s because I know my audience has a fairly new computer (2-3 years old) or a mobile device.

This is just an example of the problem with “best practices” from a technical web design standpoint, now think about social media. Twitter has alot of trouble telling us how many active users they have. Some access Twitter via www.twitter.com, others through any number of third party sites, desktop and mobile apps, and some through SMS. If this creates a nightmare of technical issues, think about the millions that use Twitter, their interests, their lifestyle, their content, their intentions, their networks. Think about the idea of transparency. That’s a big buzz word among social media experts. It is claimed to be one of the tenants of social media best practices. I just had a lengthy discussion (lengthy for Twitter anyway) with another Boston social media strategist about content of social media. He claimed that venting publicly about your insecurities was a sure way to lose business. In that respect, transparency is not a best practice, clearly you should not be transparent about your insecurities. But as another user commented, this is hypocritical. The originator of the comment claimed that it was fine for Twitter but not for a corporate blog (though Senator McCain would probably disagree with transparency on Twitter being okay). Even just in this one opinion there are significant differences in what is considered best practices on Twitter and best practices on a blog. However, if you’ve found that being honest and open is actually goof for business, how does best practices apply? It doesn’t.

The fact is that everyone is becoming a marketer, if not for their business, then for themselves. And everyone is a consumer, even businesses. Each has to define it’s own strategy according to it’s audience, goals, mission statement, desires, etc. What works for some on Twitter doesn’t work for others on Twitter. Your Facebook widget isn’t going to work on QZone. What feels comfortable for some individuals and brands in social media, doesn’t sit well with others. A soft-sell marketing strategy works for some industries but not others.

So, take your “best practices” and put them back “in-the-box” where they belong because some times you DO have to reinvent the wheel.

This Isn’t Your Father’s Marketing

Until very recently business followed a specific plan of engagement with consumers. Beginning with print, then radio, television then the Internet, communications were a one way street. Over the last 15 or so years, all of the existing channels were used to drive traffic to a brand’s website.

As web2.0 behavior and technology evolved brand engagement has changed. It is no longer centered around the brand but around the consumer. At this point the consumer is still receiving your brand messages through the traditional PR, TV, print, radio, web channels, but mostly they are interacting with the web and mobile. They are interacting with radio, TV and PR, rather than just receiving messaging. They are also interacting with social networks, text messengers, blogs, media (video, images, audio) all through desktop applications, web browsers and handheld devices.

Smart brands are engaging consumers at each of these points. As everyone knows, there are more channels of engagement as well as more brands, making it a fight for attention.

This makes it as important as every, to not only be EVERYWHERE your customers are, but to not cop out and do what the other guy is doing. I’ve met with dozens of brands and heard the same reply: who else has done it, prove the outcome, that’s too risky for us, it’s just a fad. Sure, you can wait for the other network to do a Facebook app, ou can wait to see if another manufacturer fails or succeeds on Twitter, but where will that get you? The brands that take the risks, that try the new things, that don’t just follow the crowd, are the ones that grab mindshare by the handful and leave you trailing in their wake.

So, be the brand that stands out, or be the one that gets left behind.

Who’s Responsibility Is Social Media?

15 years ago, when web sites began to appear on the horizon of corporate agendas, there was a great deal of confusion as to who should be reponsible for them. At the time, graphic designers weren’t technically savvy enough and IT specialists didn’t understand design and communications.

It’s around this time that people like me were entering the communications field. We came into web design when it needed a hybrid of design and programming. Of course, a decade later, there are entire departments and companies built around web design manned by highly specialized experts.

Social media is at the same place web design was in the early 90s. There are experts from PR, marketing, and web design all adding social media to their list of responsibilities. Few companies are dedicating positions or departments to social media. Many agencies are adding social media services to their offering, generally giving the responsibility to staff that has shown interest in SoMe. In these companies and agency, even in the industry in general, there is much discussion of who should be responsible for social media: PR, marketing, web design, etc. As a matter of fact, there are articles popping up all over the place discussing what makes a social media expert or poking fun at the idea of a social media expert at all.

In the coming years SoMe will no doubt me staffed by teams of specialists in analytics, character Twitterers, Facebook community managers, and more. It may be some time before social media becomes a must-have of a company’s marketing and communications plans. Until then social media will no doubt be helmed by the same type of jack-of-all-trades types that were there for the explosion of the Web.

What I’m getting at is: Should an existing profession be the one to take the reigns of social media for their employer or client? Or, should a new profession emerge, just like the webmasters of the 90s, to focus on pulling all the SoMe bits together? At least until they can afford to staff their department with specialists!

The SoMe Pro:

So what do we call these hybrids? “Social media expert” already has a bad wrap. Online Communications Consultant? Digital Community Ambassador? Anyone? Bueller?

Image by Rafa Llano.

Small Businesses Shy Away from Online Marketing

According to research from Webvisible and Nielsen, reported by Marketing Charts, small businesses are not leveraging online marketing as well as the could, and they know it!

While 63% of consumers turn to the Internet, and 82% of them use search engines, small businesses spend less than 10% of their budget on marketing online. Of those surveyed, only 44% even had a website. For small businesses that don’t think they are being searched out on the Internet, 39% of search engine users voiced frustration over not being able to find local businesses in their searches. This begs the question, why are small businesses not marketing online?

It’s a pretty easy question to answer really: lack of knowledge. This lack of knowledge takes two main forms:

Lack of know how – most businesses are comfortable with placing an ad in the local telephone directory, newspapers, radio, tv, etc. Most just don’t know how to do online marketing. This can’t be surprising considering how many large corporations fail miserably it as well!

Lack of awareness – many small businesses simply are unaware that services exist for small businesses. Everyone has met the folks from Comcast, the local radio station, or gotten a call from Yellow Pages. How many get a call or a visit from Google, Yahoo, or Yelp?

Large businesses are inundated with calls and email from media buyers and marketing companies, offering to market them online, yet that behavior hasn’t trickled down to small businesses. Clearly there is a far smaller profit margin to be had from small businesses, but perhaps it’s just a matter of putting together the right business model to make it worth while to approach small companies. When you consider that 23% of small businesses are using Yellow pages less and 42% are using newspapers less, it’s seems like an itch looking to be scratched.

Here are some fascinating statistics about small businesses and their online marketing:

• 51% believe both the quality and ability of their site to acquire new customers is only “fair” or “poor”
• 30% of business owners feel that they typically do a better job of marketing than a close competitor
• 78% believe they advertise in the same places as their competitors
• Only 7% of small business owners say their primary marketing goal is to get more visitors to their website
• 61% spend less than three hours a week marketing their website
• 99% of small business owners are directly involved in the marketing
• 65% believe it is very important to know where their customers come from
• Only 9% are satisfied with their online marketing efforts
• 78% of small business owners dedicate 10% or less of their budget to marketing Of those, 30% do no Internet advertising

This is where those looking for information on local businesses turn:

• 82% use search engines
• 57% use Yellow Pages directories.
• 53% use local newspapers
• 49% use Internet Yellow Pages
• 49% use TV
• 38% use direct mail
• 32% White Pages directories

Here is the complete MarketingCharts article.

Image by smccard.

Characters that Twitter and Blog

As more brands are sinking their teeth into social media, I’ve begun to see more fictional characters appear as well. There are a few very obvious character blogs, but most of the social network characters I’ve seen are in Twitter.

Disclaimer: I ran the Robinson Crusoe Twitter for NBC and am running the KaBloom brand Twitter.

The most prolific and indeed benchmarks have been the Mad Men Twitterers. I’m fortunate enough to talk with their puppet masters daily so I have some behind the scenes info, but I’ve been following them since they began some time ago. If you’d like to learn more about the Mad Men Twitterers click here.

Most character Twitters, at least the effective ones have been controlled by fans. There’s good reason for this. Fans that are already in social media are much more knowledgeable of the technology and the use of the social network than brands, in this case entertainment, are. I’ve seen some absolute duds as far as character Twitters go. Shows often choose the wrong characters to Tweet. Or they don’t follow the main purpose of Twitter: CONVERSATION. In other words, they don’t Follow anyone back or engage with them. No surprise here, many brands are having a difficult time engaging in social media themselves, or loosening up on the reigns with their marketing teams. So fans have stepped in and in most cases done amazing jobs as puppet masters to these characters. They stay in character, reference past shows, in some cases even develop the characters beyond the show, making up background info or expanding on it. Shows that attempt to shut down fan Twitter accounts would be foolish, as it gives fans another way to interact with the show universe. If shows decide to take over accounts or work with fans to leverage this outlet it’s a win-win situation. Currently there are a few people getting companies together to be Twitter voices for fictional characters. I’d spill the beans here but there will be plenty of press about it this week. I’ll link to it from this post.

Here is a list of some of the shows and their Twitter characters. I’ll be updating this list as I track down additional fictional characters on Twitter. If anyone has additional characters they’d like to point me to I’ll be more than happy to add them.

Mad Men

• Don Draper
• Peggy Olson
• Roger Sterling
• Pete Campbell
• Joan Holloway
• Paul Kinsey
• Sal Romano
• Bertram Cooper
• Bobbie Barrett
• Betty Draper
• Francine Hanson
• Sally Draper

True Blood

• Sookie Stackhouse
  
• Eric Northman
  
• Merlotte’s Bar
• JessicaHamby
• DeantheCollie
• KitchenBitch
• VampireBill
• Pam_atFangtasia

Knight Rider

• KITT – this was active for awhile but I haven’t been able to find the account. Anyone?

Crusoe

• Robinson_Crusoe

Eureka

• S.A.R.A.H
• Sheriff Carter

Chuck

• Chuck Bartowski

Days of Our Lives

• stefanodimera

24

• j_bauer
• tony_almeida
• agenthotpants

What To Do With Contradictory Statistics

Benjamin Disreali once said “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics“. Very often major initiatives are undertaken that are based solely on statistics. What happens when statistics contradict each other or seem to point you in contradictory directions?

I was reading a recent article from MediaPost about the effectiveness of blogs for lead generation and read two interesting facts:

A study by HubSpot showed that 3/4 of corporate executives and business owners claim that blogs are “important” and “critical” to generating leads.

A Forrester Research study showed that consumers consider corporate blogs to be the least reliable source of information, with only 16% of those surveyed claiming to trust corporate blogs.

While the article say these as contradictory statistics for the purposes of their article, I find that rather than being contradictory, they tell a different story all together. Are corporate blogs untrusted by 84% of the public? Yes. Do 75% corporate stakeholders see corporate blogs as critical lead generation tools? Yes. What I get from this is that there is a huge disconnect between consumer perception of blogs and corporate perception of them. It says to me that corporate blogs generate leads from only 16% of consumers, meaning that there is another, untapped, 84% that need to be reached in other ways. The article does say that corporate blogs only account for 8% of leads while other online tactics such as SEO and email marketing accounts for almost half.

Many people form theories, then look for the numbers to back them up. There is nothing wrong with this, at least it gets you started. However, when the numbers don’t sync up or point in another direction, don’t be afraid to follow them to their conclusion and don’t be afraid to look at them from a different angle.

Image by Kay.

Mobile Video Model: Ad-Supported or Subscription

At first I wasn’t sure why this argument was still going on. Hadn’t we already answered the question of what model works best for online video? Subscriptions failed miserably, but ad-supported models worked fine, since that is how users were already engaging with online advertising. Of course we all know the traditional broadcast model: ad-supported AND subscriptions. Of course the answer to which model works best for mobile can’t be answered based on desktop video successes. I fell into the same trap that I tell others to avoid: planning strategy based on best-practices of other technologies. Mobile is a different animal all together.

Ad-supported is most likely the easiest to manage, since there is already proven models with solid infrastructure in place. But considering the shaky service most of us get, do we want to wait for yet another download to our phones before we get to content? Users are already paying subscriptions, so do video providers provide packages to cell companies similar to what channels like HBO and ESPN offer able companies? These video services would then be either up-sell packages for providers or a way to differentiate services. A similar option may be a variation on subscriptions. iTunes has shown that users will pay minimum costs for content.

As bandwidth improves and smart or video-enabled phones increase in market saturation, the demand for video will surely increase. It will be interesting to see which model wins out, or if a new one appears. What’s most likely is that consumers now will have a direct impact on how the pay for mobile video. Currently there are only a few million mobile users that view video on their phones. By 2010 there is expected to be 58.6 million video phone users. Of course those of us in North America are seeing significantly slower adoption. Currently we represent only 16% of the worldwide total of mobile video revenue compared with Europe, Africa and the Middle East with 42%.

Which ad model do you think will win out? Should mobile providers be looking at new models?

Image by Maynard.

Job Interviews Are Marketing Too

As many who follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the myriad of other social networks I’m on, I am on the hunt for a new job (and taking on new clients in the meantime). I’ve interviewed with former clients and employers, companies I’ve never heard of and some I’d sell my mother (sorry ma) to work for. It’s a tough economy and, with a baby on the way, I’ve been keeping my mind open when interviewing for everything from marketing director to creative director (my last job) to graphic designer (who I used to manage). I’ve also been keeping my eyes and ears open.

Interviews are a great way to get a peak inside how other companies work. It’s also a great way to get to know a company on a personal level. This is brand interaction not unlike service calls with Comcast or a purchase at Best Buy. It is nothing less than one-on-one brand engagement between company and consumer.

In the weeks since I was laid off I’ve had about a half dozen interviews scheduled. Two companies cancelled at the last minute, both while I was in the building already. Both rescheduled. I have a rescheduled interview in the morning and was supposed to have the other today. I showed up to find that the owners, who I was supposed to meet with, had left for the day. They plan on rescheduling.

Another interview went great. They were going to meet and call me in a few days. That was weeks ago. I dropped them a note to see if they’d made a decision, needed more time, were busy, etc. Nothing. Not even a firm email saying “thanks but no thanks”.

What companies are forgetting is that interviewees are potential employees AND potential partners, vendors, clients, even brand ambassadors. Interviews are business interaction and they are also very personal. What an interviewee leaves the interview with is brand perception. The same rules that apply to dealing with customers should apply. 1 person with a bad experience will tell 10 people, unless they’re on Twitter or Facebook in which case they’ll tell a few hundred. Leave them wanting to come back. Whether to apply for another job or to buy another item, you’d rather have them come back to you than the competition.

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Since beginning this post I had another interview. The interviewers were very nice and interested. They offered me beverages and didn’t get distracted by their phones. While I may or may not get a call back, I would consider them in the future and I’d recommend another candidate to them.

US Airways’ Hudson Crash Begets Social Media Flight

Senior US Airways pilot Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger was gaining 215 fans a minute on a Facebook page set up to honor him, within days he had 300,000 fans and 14,000 wall posts. According to Virtue’s Social Media index, US Airways reached a 3-day average 0f 135%. Most know by now that the first image of the US Airlines Hudson River crash appeared on Twitpic via Twitter. The photo, taken with what looks to be an iPhone by a passenger on one of the ferries that rescued survivors, beat out the major media as usual.

While this is a great story of survival, it is also an educational story for businesses. It took eye witnesses to report the crash first, it took consumers to launch fan pages on social networks. In a climate where people are frustrated by big business’ lack of transparency and communication, their excess and greed, a story like this should have been a top priority for US Airways. Where were US Airways on Facebook, Twitter, etc?

Even now that all of the information is coming out, a quick trip to US Airways site (usairways.com), and you’ll find that clicking on the link for “Information about flight 1549″, pops up a page with nothing in it (I’ve since retried the link and it works). The first public report of the crash was on January 15th, at 12:36 pm. US Airways’ website’s press release is from January 19th, at 12:11, almost exactly 4 days later. To their credit, a video statement was posted on the 15th, crew names released on the 16th, but the first statement from US Airways was 4 hours after the incident.

Companies are going to have to start being better prepared for emergencies such as this. With millions of camera phones and Internet access, consumers will be distributing the news at lightning speed. In order to be in control of their brand’s news, corporations will need to be able to get their news out in record time, not just on official websites and to the mainstream press, but through the social networks that the rest of us use.

Image by Janis Krums

Addendum:

The recent crash of a Turkish airliner in Amsterdam was again reported first on Twitter. @nipp first reported the crash. Unfortunately, unlike the Hudson River crash this one did not provide a link to a first hand, first-on-the-scene picture. These just goes to show that consumer generated content is quicker to the draw than big media.

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