Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category
Following is a post we wrote in January of this year, predicting Social Media would end up looking very different at the end of 2011, mainly due to the change in interest from quantity of online relationships to the quality of them. Were we right? Read the post below and let us know what you think:
JANUARY 2011:
So, the new year is just about here and you’re putting some last minute adjustments on your 2011 marketing strategy. Looking back on 2010′s social media efforts, you realize you spent a lot of time trying to gain significant Twitter followers, Facebook fans, 5-Star Yelp Reviews and Foursquare Mayors. Well? What did it do for you? Can you show it brought you more business? Did your brand awareness significantly increase? Chances are, probably not.
For what it’s worth, you’re not alone. This whole social media thing is in its infancy. Just like the marketers who were trying to figure out the best ROI for television advertising in the early 1950′s, we’re trying to figure out how social media will help us sell more thingamajigs.
That being said, we doubt as much emphasis will be put on quantity in 2011 as it will be on quality. The assumption that 10,000+ Facebook fans is an automatic opportunity for marketing success is already an old-hat. More Facebook users are “hiding” irrelevant content on their own Facebook feeds than ever before. When asked why, over 90% say it’s due to too much irrelevant content coming at them.
The next twelve months will be a fascinating time of watching (and helping) marketers fine-tune their online brand connections to the qualitative associations that will have a positive impact on bottom lines. Having the biggest number of potential customers will be replaced by having the most reliable number of quality customers. It’s an age old process of marketing substantiation. The only thing that changes is the communication tool. Yesterday it was TV. Today it’s Facebook and friends. Tomorrow? Who knows – stay tuned. It’s right around the corner.
(Yuck. We really don’t like the term “Social Media,” but we feel compelled to use it here so you’ll get the point of our message. Do yourself a favor, though, and stop thinking Social Media – start thinking Online Brand Management. It makes much more sense)
But for now…
The idea of hiring college interns or fresh, young twenty-somethings to manage social media is a hot topic these days. And a crazy one if you ask us. It’s like hiring someone to manage your TV advertising because he watches 3 times as many shows as you do. Oh, and he knows how to do everything with just one remote control. What the heck does that have to do with marketing?
Here’s what we’re hearing a lot these days…
Boss to employee: “We’ve got to get going with this Facebook and Twitter stuff. Do you have any idea where to start?”
Employee: “I’ve got no idea. Heh, unless you want to hire my wife. She’s hooked on Facebook these days. But my kids don’t even tweeter.”
Boss: “What about Cindy down in HR? She’s young. I’ll bet she tweeters. Maybe we could give it to her. She could do it a few minutes every week.”
Employee: “Yeh. She’s got a little free time. I see her on Facebook.”
Boss: “At work!?!”
Employee: “Oh yeh. All the time. But what about getting a college kid? We could hire him as an intern and wouldn’t have to pay.”
Boss: “Hmmm. Good idea. Who wants to pay someone just to do Facebook. Why don’t you check into that.”
So, let’s see. The average business today has what is, probably, the most powerful opportunity in years to properly position and market their brand to a highly targeted and relevant audience, and they want to hand that responsibility off to a youthful, untrained kid. CAN YOU SAY CRAZY?
Oh sure, Brandtailers has interns. Great ones, hand picked from the best colleges with the best advertising and PR programs (ala Chapman University). But we don’t entrust our client’s brands to them! Yes, we get some of them involved with our clients online efforts – but only after 60 hours of training and testing and only with constant supervision, guidance and ongoing webinars to improve their talents. Even then, they’re often doing the background work, i.e. gathering research and info for interesting posts on Facebook. We do not leave a client’s online brand in the hands of anyone who doesn’t completely understand the full marketing strategy, goals and objectives of a client’s brand. The online world is not a separate place from all other brand messages – it’s another place. A new one that has more potential to grow your brand than any other media has since television’s hay days.
If you’re a business leader reading this, please take our advice. DON’T “Just Do It”. Read a few case studies about businesses who understand the place Social Media has in marketing, and the powerful part it can play in the 21st century businesses’ success, or failure.
Here at Brandtailers, we value Social Media which is why we asked Justin Brackett, Chief Weather Maker at SocialVillage.net and Co-founder of DevelopSocially.com, to contribute his voice.
Story. Each of us has one to tell- especially your organization: who you are, what you do and where you are going. Nobody can tell your story better than you, it is in your DNA, culture and inside of you. And with the age of digital media, you now have, more than ever, the opportunity to tell the world about your business or organization.
Digital media is key in telling your story, yet so many organizations are now saying: “We have digital media; what now?”
These five simple steps will help guide you in curating the relevant and timely message for your organization:
Step 1: Go where your audience is.
It’s important to identify the digital platforms your target audience gravitates toward so you can meet them there. Go where your tribe aggregates. Contrary to what you may think, digital media is not just the latest craze for high school and college kids. Those 25 and over account for 84 percent of Twitter users, and the fastest-growing demographic for Facebook is people over 35. More than 5 billion pieces of content, such as videos, blog posts and outside links, are shared on Facebook every week. So take the time to do your research, listen and find out which digital media platforms your target audience uses the most. Then build your marketing plan and strategy around the best way to share your story on those platforms.
Step 2: Dialog with your audience.
If your organization wants to successfully utilize digital media, you have to create a dialog. Don’t just use digital media to inform people about what is new, what is next or what discount is now available- that can be one sided and bland. Add content that your target audience will value, whether it’s links to other sites, informative videos or encouraging blogs. Ask thought-provoking questions and solicit opinions about your posts. And always, always respond to any and all comments your fans leave on your organization’s Web sites. The more your fans feel connected to you, the more they’ll tell others about what you’re doing! Never leave any comment, @reply or feedback be unnoticed or unanswered.
Step 3: Start a groundswell.
Your organization has a built-in, ready-to-go fan base and tribe—your digital media fans and followers. People become loyal digital fans when they or their kids have had a positive experience with you. Empower these people to talk about your organization and what makes you unique. Ask them to guest blog for you, post about you on their Facebook wall and Tweet about you. This will add valuable content to your search engine results, as well as exposing your organization to people who will listen to your fans but not you.
Step 4: Enlist and Empower your staff.
Seventy-five percent of your staff already has their own Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Four Square accounts, and many of them are actively blogging. Ask them to spread the word about the events, offerings, philosophy and culture of your organization. But set up guidelines to encourage your staff to be conscientious of what they are posting and how it reflects on your organization. Help them understand what’s acceptable to post and the damage that could come from a careless comment or photo posting.
Step 5: Look ahead.
Build on your current marketing strategy. Move ahead of the conversation by listening for new opportunities to meet your digital media fans’ desires and requests. Supplement conventional forms of media like print and traditional events like home shows, open houses or conventions, with social media. By combining traditional and digital media, you’ll get a better return on your marketing money with deeper ROI and connected relationships.
We knew information overload would become a deterrent to the online world, just maybe not so fast. After all, the concept of being able to talk to (and hear from) almost everybody in our universe has been so exciting the past few years that the number of friends, followers, likes, retweets, blog comments, etc. created a lot of egomaniacs trying to win popularity contests. No more. Statistics show many people are now spending more time unfriending others on Facebook than they are sending friend requests. Another report says there is as much unfollowing as following going on in the Twittersphere. Not to mention emails, RSS feeds and blog posts that are being ignored more than ever. Let’s face it. It only took a few years for us to be over the excitement of this new technology that connects everyone, everywhere, 24 hours a day.
That’s why the new buzz terms are desired relevance and quality engagement. Larry Page always said his dream was to develop the “perfect search”, meaning someone would type in a couple of keywords and only one Google search result would appear because it was exactly what that person was looking for. That’s a great example of relevance and quality engagement, isn’t it? Hopefully that’s what they’re trying to accomplish with Google+, the 10,000 pound gorilla’s latest attempt to overpower Facebook. Watch a demo and see how one of Google+’s core benefits is focusing in on quality over quantity engagement. Google understands how quickly we have become fed up with TMI (too much information), and it appears they’re trying to offer an alternative that at least moves information overload into smaller buckets. We say good luck with that Google, but hey, at least they’re trying.
Yet the biggest challenge with achieving quality over quantity experiences is how the powers of the online world will most likely get there. We want relevance, so they need to know more about us. This is why search engines and websites are developing even creepier Big Brother tools to watch and respond to our every move. The more apparent this becomes, the more we complain. The powers that be say we’re spoiled; that we want to have our cake and eat it to. We say there’s got to be a better way. While that battle will take some time before it’s resolved, the average individual’s impatience with information overload is ready to explode. Which is why we at Brandtailers foresee the next group of genius geeks will be those who can take a person’s way-too-big to be useful anymore world, and hone it back down into something meaningful, useful and, most of all, enjoyable.
Compared to the 152 million Americans who use Facebook daily, statistics show only 13% of Americans actively engage on Twitter. Oh sure, there are 175 million registered Twitter accounts, but only about half of them follow 2 or more people. About 90 million Twitter accounts with zero followers and 56 million accounts following no other accounts.¹
And yet Twitter seems to get the most social media attention second to Facebook, right? Why?
Surprisingly it’s not because Lady Gaga tweets about her sex life, or because Coby posts pre-game comments. It’s because of what happened during the election in Iran, the earthquake in Haiti, the Tsunami in Japan, the killing of Bin Laden and, most recently, the many tornado warnings tweeted across the south. It’s because Twitter’s powerful ability to instantly deliver important information anywhere in the world is undeniable. And people are catching on. In fact, Twitter celebrated its fifth birthday on March 21 and announced that “While it took about 18 months to sign up the first 500,000 accounts, we now see close to 500,000 accounts created every day.”
How many of these new accounts will be made up of active users? Here are some recent new statistics:
1. Most new active Twitter users are 25-49, well educated, affluent, early adopters and tech savvy.
2. Most new active users engage in the environment daily, and are considered influential within their online world.
3. Most new active users follow companies and brands to learn about products and services and to offer advice, input and recommendations regarding them.
4. Most new active users (79% to be exact) are more likely to recommend brands they follow.
5. More new active users are conducting B2B business than B2C business.
Let’s focus on that last one. Why is B2B so popular in this environment? Maybe because tweets can be very targeted and relevant, creating reputations of knowledge and influence. Think of a tweet as a potentially powerful blog in 140 characters or less. Then think of how easily it can be spread (aka re-tweeted) as a recommendation. Worthwhile messages can go from one influential person’s following of 500 people to 500,000+ potential customers in a matter of minutes. Try getting those engagement numbers from a direct mail piece! And to top off Twitter’s B2B strength, remember that the more relevant the 140 characters are to a potential customer’s keyword searches, the higher the tweet post will show up in organic search results. This message content can enhance a business’ overall SEO. Not bad for a free communication tool, eh?
Twitter will most likely continue to morph into something no other social media resource can offer. It’s live search capabilities, along with its increasing credibility as something more than celebrity stalking, will no doubt add millions of new active users over the next year or so. With massive numbers of active Twitter users, you find untapped potential.
Time will tell. What do you think?
¹Stats from Hypebot
