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Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
 At yesterday’s Social Media World Forum in Santa Clara, CA, I attended a panel discussion entitled “Benchmarking Advertising on Social Networks.” The panelists represented American Airlines, Harley Davidson and Warner Brothers Records. I also recently attended a social media discussion with Dell Computer at the TechTarget Online ROI Summit. Here’s a recap on how these top brands are leveraging social media to acquire and engage with customers and fans.
How is Social Media Being Used?
- American Airlines (AA) uses social media in targeted geographies, known as “geo-targeting” to boost passengers on specific flights. They also provide travel-related content beyond flight information as a value-add to their passengers (restaurants, entertainment, lodging, etc.)
- Harley Davidson uses social media for new customer acquisition and to build a community of evangelists among its customer base.
- Warner Brothers recently brought its advertising in-house as it experiments with ways to monetize content that is often free on sites such as YouTube.
- Dell Computer uses social media to engage with prospects and customers and to track and respond to what people are saying about them. Dell uses blogs, online forums, bookmarketing/share widgits, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, flickr and LinkedIN. Through social media, Dell sold over $2M of product last year using a Dell Outlet promo code. Employees can engage with prospects and customers online and follow a code of conduct that requires them to identify themselves as working for Dell and to “use their best judgment”. (To see the largest collection of social media policies, check out the Social Media Governance website.)
Benchmarking Process
- AA benchmarks by setting measurable goals, such as the number of passengers on certain flights.
- Harley Davidson uses Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as 1) relationships (no. of fans or friends), 2) click-through-rate (CTR) on paid ads, 3) visitor engagements (number of times content was shared among friends) and 4) media value (profile visits, cost-per-click).
- Warner Bros. tracks and measures the amount of traffic that they drive to an artist’s site, and the number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers.
- Dell uses tools such as Buzzient to see the most active sources of a topic as well as Radian6, GoogleTrends, Google Alerts and TwitterSearch to measure their “share of voice” in comparison to competitors. They track changes in Twitter follower count, number of re-tweets, changes in website or blog traffic and their Twitter influence using a tool called Twinfluence.com.
Use of Facebook and Twitter
- AA uses Facebook to spur conversations among their passengers and to hook people to content, what they call “virtual hubs.” Twitter is used as a listening tool to monitor what people are saying about AA. Six full-time customer service reps monitor Twitter and reach out to people to assist them if appropriate. Twitter is used to deliver flight information as well – especially delays due to weather issues. As a result, calls to the AA customer support 800 number have dropped.
- Harley Davidson uses Facebook for initiating conversations with and among fans. Twitter is used by fans to see “what’s happening this moment” at Harley Davidson-sponsored events.
- Warner Bros. views Facebook as a place for conversations to happen. They post photos of fans with an artist and the fans will tag themselves. Twitter is viewed as a “digital billboard” to drive traffic to Facebook or an artist’s site. It also is used for scavenger hunts in which fans use clues delivered by Twitter posts to find CDs and concert tickets.
- Dell monitors Twitter for both positive and negative mentions of the company or their products as 20% of Tweets mention a product name or company. They have several Facebook Pages to build fans and discussions among their target user segments.
Summary
Key advice from these brands:
- Listen first – find out where your audience hangs out online and what they’re saying about you
- Integrate social media into your overall communications mix, being consistent with content and messaging
- Set measurable objectives and monitor results
At the end of the day, social media is another avenue to build a strong community and trust among your prospects, customers, partners and investors.
For more information, check out these blog posts:
Technorati Tags: Integrated Marketing, marketing trends, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Tags: Integrated Marketing, marketing trends, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
 Social media is on top of everyone’s mind. Most professionals have already set up their profile on Linkedin. While many individuals are becoming conversant with Twitter and Facebook, the jury is still out on how effective and compelling these new tools are for selling in a business-to-business environment. Yet, that isn’t stopping marketers from integrating these tools into the marcom mix. Forward-thinking businesses of all sizes are being creative and clever in their social media efforts as they find new ways to dialog with and listen to customers and prospects.
A word of warning: social media is a different type of marketing tool where control of your messaging is an illusion. To avoid any miss-steps and potential embarassment, your company should have a policy on the “how, who, when, and where” questions of social media:
These are just a few of the questions which need to be addressed. The good news is that a number of companies have already penned a policy statement for their company. The marketing strategists at the Arlington Mill Group are experts in this area and wrote a blog post which offers some good advice on establishing a social media code-of-conduct.
Chris Boudreaux (of the Arlington Mill Group) has pulled together the web’s largest collection of social media policies. You’ll find policies from small companies, enterprises, non-profits, news outlets, and governments.
To quote directly from Arlington Mill Group’s recent blog post:
The ideal policy will look different for every organization, and change as your company shifts its participation in social networks over time. While developing this type of policy is hard work, it is worth it… If you haven’t examined this area of your business, now is the time to get started!
Technorati Tags: Integrated Marketing, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Tags: Integrated Marketing, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Yesterday I had the privilege of hearing Clara Shih, CEO & Founder of Hearsay Labs, speak on the topic of “Marketing in the Facebook Era” at a DMA of Northern California luncheon. Clara recently wrote a book on the topic: The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff, available on Amazon. Prior to founding Hearsay Labs, Clara created Faceconnector – the first AppExchange application to dynamically pull Facebook profile information into Salesforce.com.
Here are 10 key take-aways from Clara’s presentation:
- Facebook now has 300 million users (1/3 of the Internet population) and 1 million developers across 180 countries
- Facebook and Twitter have created new social norms in which people are sharing more information about themselves
- Marketers need to be where their audience is, and increasingly it’s on Facebook
- College students don’t use email much anymore – they communicate via text messaging and Facebook wall posts and messages
- B2B and B2C CMOs are shifting budget to social media, even in this down economy
- Facebook has taken off because it modeled itself after real-world networks (college, work, friends) unlike other social media sites like MySpace that focused on virtual friends; as a result there is a level of trust among Facebook friends
- Direct marketers take note – users expect personalized interactions and relevant content based on their profile information
- Fans of Facebook Pages are the ultimate in “opt-in” marketing and can become a company’s volunteer sales force
- Marketers should create drip marketing campaigns on their Facebook Pages and can drive and measure response rates with special offers
- Facebook advertising is hyper-targeted. Ads can be served up based on the public profile of the viewer - location, age, education, and interests
Clara’s new company, Hearsay Labs, helps marketers and small businesses build relationships and grow revenue by leveraging Facebook Pages and Twitter handles. The application provides a behind the scenes view of Facebook and Twitter, including analytics on Fans and the ability to create business rules based on Fan actions.
It’s an exciting time for marketers as we experiment with these new ways of engaging with our community of prospects, customers, and partners. And Clara is clearly on the forefront of this wave.
Technorati Tags: Clara Shih, DMA Northern CA, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter
Tags: Clara Shih, DMA Northern CA, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Sunday, August 30th, 2009
 If you believe, as I do, that content and social media are key marketing tools these days, then the next thing you need to learn about is headlines. Why are headlines important? Because you’re using social media and content to bring people into your marketing conversation, but the average prospect is exposed to thousands of headlines a day. People simply can’t and won’t read everything. They’ll be highly selective.
The tweet you use to encourage someone to click over to your content is, in actuality, a headline. The title of your blog post is a headline. The subject of your email is a headline. The name of your White Paper is a headline. How intriguing and relevant you make that headline determines if the public takes a further look at what you want them to read. Not everyone will read it — just the people who want to learn more about your subject. Bingo! They’re exactly who you’re looking for.
There are several aspects of headlines you should consider – the format, and the wording.
First, format:
- Short is best, as long as it is also interesting and relevant. A good headline tells readers what to expect in 7 words or less. (Note the title of this blog post — 6 words.)
- Classic headlines capitalize each word except conjunctions and prepositions. Consider the formality or informality of where readers will see your headline to decide if this matters or not. Whatever you do, don’t mix styles in the same headline.
Then there is wording:
- Include words that give a clue to the subject of your story (“Write” and “Headlines”…)
- Don’t tell all in the headline — create a little intrigue (“Great Headlines”)
- Use active verbs in the present tense to engage interest (“Learn…)
- Be interesting — Choose words that will catch the attention of the readers you are targeting.
- If you can’t be clever, be direct. If you can, be both.
- Use two-part headlines if it helps you be clear , but keep each part short. (Virtual Events: Green and Growing)
Over the next few days, look at what you read. You probably skim headlines, tweets and search results, and take the time to click further or read on only when a headline grabs you. Make mental notes of what it was about the really good headlines that caught your attention. Then start producing your content and exploring how to make your headlines more interesting.
Not sure what constitutes marketing content and how it relates to social media? Take a look at the diagram in my recent newsletter article: Content: The Heart of Today’s Integrated Marketing Process.
Technorati Tags: content, headlines
Tags: content, headlines
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Friday, July 24th, 2009
By “It”, here, I mean content. In the sense that marketers and publishers use the word, “content” means (according to Wikipedia) information and experiences that may provide value for an end user/audience in specific contexts. You may think of content as something contained on the Web, but it can be in other media as well, including broadcast media, CDs, and even print.
The key to content being useful for marketing purposes is that it must be information or an experience that can be easily:
- Captured
- Stored
- Forwarded
- Repurposed
What does content have to do with social media? Updates or announcements with associated links posted on social networks are a great way to draw users to your content! And from there visitors — the ones thinking of buying — can find their way into your sales funnel. Increasingly buyers are finding their own way through the sales cycle via the internet.
If you’re ready to give this a try, first, stop and consider what you would want social media to do. Who do you want to reach? Which social networks are those people in? What action do you want users to take when they see your social network presence? What happens next?
Nothing happens unless you make it so. When you have thought through your strategy and figured out how to move ahead, be sure you follow these basic rules:
1) Learn to write great headlines – The posted information needs to include a very short, intriguing “headline” or subject line that gives readers a good idea of what content they will see when they click the link.
2) Make the content truly relevant and valuable – When your company draws users to information that makes them more knowledgeable, you do them a service and boost your brand’s credibility. Make sure your content is related to your industry or product and will make visitors smarter for having visited.
3) Don’t push – Most visitors, still in the information-gathering stage, can be put off by advertisements pushing a product before they know enough about the subject. Let them learn at their own speed. Today’s buyers will anyway.
4) Provide a call to action – If visitors like your content and they’re ready to learn more, giving them a link to more detailed information on your products or services will encourage them to explore further. Use a simple info form (name, company, email address) to enable access to more in-depth information such as White Paper downloads. Now they’re genuinely prospects.
5) Stay open and accessible – If the content is a blog post, allow visitors to leave a Comment. Include RSS capability so they can subscribe to your blog. If they want to receive updates from you, give them a simple form to subscribe to your newsletter and emails.
6) Keep your content fresh – Develop and maintain a Content Calendar with topics, dates and contributor names. Publish new content frequently. If your website becomes stale, people won’t keep coming back. If there is something new and interesting, they’ll tune in.
Every time you post new content, by all means, tweet about it on Twitter or post an update on your Facebook page. If the content is really delightful, people will share it with others and help you spread the word.
Technorati Tags: content marketing, Social Media
Tags: content marketing, Social Media
Posted in Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Social networks are, to oversimplify, just about communication. But, oh, the ways you can use them to communicate! Where to begin? Let’s look at some of the many ways businesses are using social media. It isn’t all just for marketing, either. Think of the ways your company could benefit from active listening, publicizing/promoting, and community building.
Product Management/Product Marketing
- Grow a community of evangelists – Create a fan page on Facebook or set up a group of Twitter followers, and share information with them that they will want to pass on to their peers and colleagues.
- Be an industry influencer – Grow a followership on Twitter, and tweet about trends and news that others will want to “retweet”. Remember not to sell. Be a thought leader.
- Or follow industry influencers and thought leaders – You may want to start out following other industry thought leaders to see how they’re doing it. If you have vital information to share, then you can become one of them.
- Track emerging trends – Be selective about following others’ blogs, tweets and posts in order to stay on top of the latest industry trends.
- Crowdsourcing for new product ideas – Build a community, and ask for input on what the market is looking for through LinkedIn groups or your own online communities.
PR
- Issue a social media release before or with your Press Release – You can create buzz within your industry by pre-announcing information to key social networks. Or you can simultaneously issue the press release and link to it in a tweet on Twitter.
- Listening to what social networks are saying about your company – Stay on top of what is being said about you on social networks with Google Alerts and more advanced social media monitoring applications like Radian6.
- Develop your own industry thought leaders – Use social media releases with quotes from your execs to help establish them as thought leaders in your industry.
Customer Marketing, Customer Service
- Customer service communications – Comcast pioneered this almost by accident. One of their customer service reps started using Twitter to communicate with customers on service issues. It has become immensely successful for Comcast. (Google “Comcast Frank” for more information.)
- Listen to the “voice of the customer” – Customer-focused marketers get their best tips on what customers are thinking by talking with them directly, and this can include through social media. Facebook fan pages and Twitter are both viable options. Create virtual customer advisory boards. Find out what networks your customers are using and join in.
Core Marketing
- Brand building – First you need to be clear about what your brand is, then use social media to reinforce it. The more personal nature of social networking (compared to traditional one-way communication) means your customers can relate more closely to your brand — if you do it right.
- Community building – Online communities defy the boundaries of traditional communities. They engage customers with shared interests regardless of their geographies. You’ll need to be honest and transparent to allow the community to grow. Hire a community manager who will be a trusted community liaison.
- Share links to important relevant content – Use social media to stay on top of the news. When legislation, court opinions, scientific findings or any other new developments relate to your industry, link to them and become your market’s trusted source for content that concerns your customers.
- Drive traffic to your website/blog – Of course, you’re keeping your website new and fresh, through a blog or other regular new content of interest to your customers. Rather than waiting for people to find your content, alert them to it through Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter. Use content in your integrated marketing campaign.
Events
- Generate event traffic – Let your customer community help spread the word about key events by posting the details through your social network. Make it interesting and engaging, and encourage them to pass it on.
- Event content capture – Use Twitter to share high value bits of information that originate in your event with a broader audience.
Market Research
- Surveys and polls – Use TwitPoll or other online survey applications to gather opinions. Remember the rules about randomness of samples. Larger samples from respondents chosen without bias will more accurately represent the population.
- Track emerging trends – With your own polls you actively gather data from your own sources, but you may also be able to identify trends via information developed on social networks like Technorati.
HR
- Recruiting staff – When you’re ready to hire, think of which social networks would be most likely to reach qualified candidates. LinkedIn is a great resource to find people with specific backgrounds.
Whatever ways you use social media, remember not to do all the talking. Don’t allow it to be just about you or your company. Be active listeners, and participate in conversations to get genuine feedback from your target community.
We’ve given you 19 different ways your company can use social media. Choose the ones that will be of highest value to your organization and only pursue ones to which you will be able to dedicate a resource.
Do you know of other business uses of social media? Please comment and share with our readers. That’s part of participating in the social Internet!
Technorati Tags: Add new tag, customer service, events, market research, product management, product marketing, uses of social media
Tags: Add new tag, customer service, events, market research, product management, product marketing, uses of social media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Sunday, May 10th, 2009
In this social media age, smart businesses are listening to what people are saying about them online. Because blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks are available to anyone who has something to say, when customers are dissatisfied, that is exactly where they go to complain — and probably not to you.There have been a number of PR upsets recently, where companies failed to respond quickly to comments about their company that were spreading like wildfire through social media channels. Amazon, Motrin and Skittles are a few recent examples.
OK, it’s a bit of “the higher they are, the harder they fall”, and most of our readers’ companies don’t expect such threats. Still, if someone not authorized by your communications department is writing about your company or your products online — good or bad — it is important that you know about it. And if you are deploying what you hope will be a viral marketing campaign, you absolutely need to know.
There are a number of tools that let you listen to what is being said on the web. One of the easiest to use is Google Alerts. Since Google has spiders out there crawling and finding everything that has been published on the web, they are able to let you know, if you wish, what they found. It’s easy to sign up and free.
For example, I receive email Alerts from Google on KickStart Alliance, our business name, and on morecontrary, my Twitter username. Google comes up with some “false positives”, such as where the words kickstart and alliance appear in the same text, but I also get solid hits when one of our articles is republished (as was the case recently on the Women in Consulting site). Google Alerts can be a bit slow to pick up mentions on other websites, but if you aren’t worrying about damage control, it does let you know what is happening.
The appearance on the market of numerous social media tracking and monitoring tools verifies the need for companies to find out what is being said about them online. Marketing Pilgrim lists 16 social media monitoring sites you can use to track what the world is saying about you and yours. You need to buy their report to get their analysis, but the post names the suppliers. Of these 16, Radian6 is probably the biggest and best known, with their dashboard display, analysis tools and real-time monitoring.
Some other reasons to track what people are saying are:
- To assess how your marketing campaigns are working. As Radian6 puts it, to “know which content is making an impact.”
- See who clicks on a short URL you use in your Twitter tweet, (Twitclicks shortens the URL and lets you track clicks on it.)
While you’re at it, wouldn’t you like to know what people are saying about your competition? You can add a Google Alert on your competitors’ name to stay on top of what is happening in your market.
Technorati Tags: Add new tag, social media monitoring
Tags: Add new tag, social media monitoring
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Friday, April 10th, 2009
If you’ve been pondering whether, or how, to get your business involved in social media, a good way to evaluate the concept is to use social media for internal information exchanges and get used to some of the tools and applications. The familiar ones used externally, such as Twitter, have internal counterparts. Yammer is Twitter-like, but only works for members within your internet domain (i.e., only users who have email accounts in your business). Like Twitter, Yammer allows for short messages of 140 characters or less.
You can create internal networks similar to Facebook (i.e., Jive, Community Server), and use them to share information on market trends and the competition or to collaborate on cross-functional projects such as product development or product launches.
Internal blogs can be used to submit concepts for peer review. Unlike Blogger, WordPress or Typepad which are available and readable by anyone that finds the URL (including search engines!), Ning readership and feedback can be limited to the fixed community within your organization.
Get in and get your feet wet, and see if using these social media tools doesn’t suggest ideas to you about how you can use them or their counterparts outside of your organization to share information with customers and prospects!
Watch the KickStart Accelerator monthly e-newsletter for articles on B2B social media. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up now.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Communities, social networks
Tags: Blogs, Communities, social networks
Posted in Marketing, Sales, Social Media | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
We’re getting familiar with the “Big 3″ social networks here lately. By that, I mean Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, which are the ones with the most users (and probably in that order, too, but things can change overnight in social media). Probably many of you are using LinkedIn, but I’d wager that not many are using Facebook or Twitter. So I’m taking this opportunity in my first KickStart Alliance Blog post to give you my take on the Big 3.
Facebook – Started by students, it enables users to keep their friends (that’s a key term) updated on what they are doing. Friendships on Facebook are two-way — we’re either friends with each other, or we’re not. In its original form, friends are chatty and personal, and it really was the kids using it. That’s changing. The average age of Facebook users is rising rapidly. To the extent that business people use Facebook, their updates portray their personal interests. Facebook recently made Facebook Groups available for business use. There are still some bugs, but early adapters are experimenting. Stay tuned. I still rate Facebook as “personal”.
LinkedIn – This network advocates that users only connect with people they know and trust. Like Facebook, it is a two-way relationship. We both have to agree to be connected. LinkedIn profiles read like online resumes, but LinkedIn is also an online “mixer”. You can obtain introductions to people you don’t know directly. Say I want to know the head of Marketing at XYZ company. You know him, and we’re connected on LinkedIn. I can ask you to introduce us. LinkedIn recently added Groups where people could ask each other questions, however increasingly, members are misusing Groups for self-promotion, creating a lot of noise. Still in it’s basic form, LinkedIn is a good business network. I rate Linked in as “professional”.
Twitter – Usually described as a microblog, it enables updates of 140 characters or less. Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, the relationship you have with others is unilateral. You can choose to follow someone, but they don’t have to follow you back for you to get their updates. Twitter can be used from anywhere with a variety of devices – cellphone, browser or Twitter app on a computer. Twitter uses range all over the place, from personal to business, but who you follow will dictate the kind of updates you’ll get. If you choose to follow someone who primarily writes about your industry, it becomes a good business tool. You can follow industry thought leaders and stay informed. Based on the demographic of people who are using Twitter, I classify Twitter as for “business”.
So in a nutshell, I’m saying Facebook is personal, LinkedIn is professional and Twitter is business. Not always, but to a great degree. What do you think? I invite your comments.
[Oh, and BTW, you can find us on Twitter @morecontrary (me), @marygospe and @mikegospe!]
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