What nobody tells you about Social Media

The Sales Pitch Is Deceiving.

In the days before Madison Avenue was paved with gold, a good door to door salesman often sealed his sales pitch to the vulnerable housewife with,
“Don’t worry, it won’t cost you anything upfront”.

Similarly the perception today is that Social Media is a cost-free medium that Marketers can use in the face of shrinking budgets.

But don’t believe anyone who tells you this. Whether for a small or large enterprise, Social Media has hidden costs that are revealed once you engage it. The first cost is in man hours. The second is data management. This post will focus on the former.

The Human Touch.

Social Media platforms rely on real time conversations and that’s not something that can be automated. It takes flesh and blood to moderate, converse, answer questions, mediate and to engage an online audience. This kind of resource is often underestimated and should you try to rely solely on automation, it may open the door to negative PR.

A case in point was the ‘Best Job In The World’ campaign devised by Sapient Nitro for Tourism Queensland, where resources were severely underestimated and the project could easily have fallen apart, except for the quick resolution of those involved.

Having worked with ad agencies for over 20 years, I can picture the initial campaign pitch:

“We need a Blogger, so we’ll run a promotion to find them, and for six months they’ll extoll the virtues of tourism in the state from a cool house on a tropical island. It’ll be everyone’s dream job.”

“OK – and the cost?”

“A Blogger’s salary and a PR campaign. We’ll do some channel marketing via POS and run some classified ads. We’ll get the tourism suppliers to chip in, and get some cross promotional activity happening. If we want candidates to come from overseas we can run it through Reuters and Breakfast TV via our US parent group’s PR agency.”

What Happened.

While this particular campaign launch was successful and generated an enormous amount of global publicity, the people behind it were ill prepared for the influx of responses.

With a goal of 400,000 impressions, the campaign site quickly hit a million and crashed. The team were forced to engage ten servers and thirty seven staff to respond online, to review the 34,684 application videos and to keep the conversation going 24/7. And to top it off Sapient Nitro staff were also rostered to participate, in order to stop the whole thing falling apart.

It has been claimed that the site garnered 47,548,514 page views in 56 days. The publicity it generated organically has been estimated as being worth AU$100million from an initial spend of $1.7m. International campaigns were later created to maintain the interest, increasing the spend, plus, the Blogger’s tenure was extended.

Fortunately – the winning candidate was diligent in their blogging. But the requirement was far too big an undertaking for one person to handle.

After the launch, moderators were still required to maintain all the connected feeds, that’s Twitter, Facebook and YouTube supporting the blog. It was also necessary for others to be involved behind the scenes to provide support in site building, gaming and maintenance across all channels, also teams were required for editing, research, moderation, production and community management, while PR support was ongoing.

Human Resources necessary for Social Media.

Dependent on the approach, I usually suggest that a company that invests in Social Media should appoint a full time Community Manager.

This role should be held by someone inhouse, as it is their role to liase with Marketing and PR to find relevent information to feed through the chosen channels and to have the ability to resolve conflict by reporting to management in instances of crisis management. They should also be thoroughly familiar with the brand culture and competant in Customer Relationship Management.

A Community Manager can work with the Planner to manage the volume of communications and dependent on the bredth of strategy, should have a team of Moderators to assist them.

Moderators can be a team of rostered part timers who have the ability to maintain the brand personality and use the correct voice. For example if your main demographic is Formula One enthusiasts, your moderators must understand the culture and jargon, with an enthusiasm for motorsport.

It is very important to use your Social Media team as a community barometer and for them to be able to report sentiment or identify trends. This will give you the opportunity to identify brand advocates in your audience and allow for targeted communications down the track.

Another piece in the HR puzzle for Social Media is the Data Manager. Having a person who can report and assess sentiment, demographics, statistics and categorise your various communities, will give you unique insight upon which to improve services and build campaigns.

It won’t work without the batteries.

Entering into Social Media unprepared is akin to buying a new appliance from the door to door salesman and finding that it’s useless without the pricy but necessary accessories.

While you might find the cost involved to buy a website rebuild or a customised page on a Social Media platform reasonable, you must also consider the ongoing cost of human resources when setting down your budget.

Consider, when you experience six star service, it always involves the human touch. And logically the core of brand interaction with online communities is based on excellent customer service that evokes a personal touch. It has to be maintained and have continuity to reflect the desired cachet. Be aware and calculate the ongoing costs, because now, you can’t say that nobody told you.

You don’t need Social Media Strategists

By Mr Flibber. Copyright © 2008 Dominick Reed

Social Media is dead

While some people prefer a cosy niche, I don’t like pigeon holing people. It feels too narrow in scope to bring out potential.

I’ve never been enthused that Advertising creativity is specialised within the traditional silo’s of media. I have always seen advertising as a whole, with channels appropriated to suit the customers. And now I am at odds with self appropriating the title of Social Media Strategist.

I can carry this title because I came to use the tools and platforms long before many in advertising were aware that they were potentially of consequence to marketing. Ten years ago I was initiating mobile phone marketing, online forums and various web tools that companies could use to reward, educate and motivate staff. At the time it was considered HR oriented, and not appropriate to Customer Relationship Management, but already, back then I knew the time would come.

Instinctively I knew that as the general public became more educated they would decide how they wanted to engage brands, and that time has come. This is a new era. A time where consumers will shape brands, customer service and product development by choosing at which level they engage. More importantly, by making public their views of the brands observed day to day.

I appreciate that company titles make people comfortable. But I envisage a future paradigm where we will have planners who have advertising and marketing skills across all channels. There won’t be Digital specialists, Social Media specialists and Traditional Media specialists.

We will all be adept at thinking through the big picture and running an idea into many facets of branding. And most importantly, gathering the public feedback and devising engagement via Social Media platforms will not be left to Public Relations staff, but will be entrusted to those who understand the full impact and quality of this data, in the manner of Direct Marketing analysis.

This requires an understanding of the psychology of your target market and marketing of your brand as a whole. This insight will guide you in the best way to move forward.

So if a Social Media Strategist approaches your company, ask them what they’re actually offering you? Many such people focus on sending out blanket emails to bloggers or to online survey groups offering sampling, but how do they integrate that into your marketing as a whole? What data will they give you in return and how well do they know the online influencers they are dealing with?

You may be approached by a Social Media ‘Expert’ who is a smart phone application developer or those who will tack a forum or a blog onto your website, but they may only be offering the physical structure. Again, what will they broadcast, how will they converse with your customers and what data will they collect? Do they train the advocates that moderate these platforms or will it be left to you? Do you know how best to interact with online communities?

My advice would be to find a company that is already offering a three hundred and sixty degree view of your brand’s marketing. Find a company that builds your brand personality in a variety of ways across traditional and digital media. But they must also have Senior people able to use Social Media as a quality research tool, who understand the online stakeholders who can build your brand by word of mouth and to provide utilities that suit your customers, as well as being cognisant of the importance of online Customer Service.

Backing that up they’ll need resources that can provide you with the bells and whistles of new media that engage customers. That would be in the form of widgets, Smartphone applications, online TV and radio, to name just a few of the goodies on offer in the Social Media grab-bag.

It may seem premature to declare the death of the Social Media Strategist. I call myself one because via long term immersion, I am one of the rare few brand advertisers that understand this medium, overlooked by many in the industry. But I know that as I educate others, this will no longer be a specialty, because brands ultimately deserve broad thinkers.

The title Social Media is already redundant among early adopters. It is now known as the Semantic Web. It is the natural evolution of communications and in a relatively short time, your brand will also evolve. So please, future-proof your brand by putting it in the right hands.

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New Wave Marketing. Listen, the customer talks back

By Mr Flibble. Copyright © 2008 Dominick Reed

Once upon a time…

When business Sales departments evolved from companies sending out traveling salesmen, to using a business tool called Marketing, it used advertising to create inspiring imagery coupled with adjectives that would inspire the householder to buy consumer durables. It shifted sales from talking one to one with customers, to storytelling that would bait them. Ostensibly it began broadcast – or to ‘talk at’ – the public.

First World general public could choose to take note or completely disengage in the advertising space. That is until Direct Marketing emerged. Businesses then began to re-engage the customer one-on-one.

But they were still talking at the consumer, mailing out personalised advertising, until telemarketing kicked in. The knee jerk reaction to telemarketing was antipathy from the public. It’s not that it was wrong to connect directly with customers, they just really hated the intrusion of being approached unasked and were vexed by the relentless sales spiel.

In today’s market place, consumers are better educated to marketing ploys and hence more resistant to the advances of advertisers. Many say that they are not easily influenced, don’t read, listen to or watch ads and don’t worship at the altar of brands. Millenials have shown to be very anti traditional advertising, which as they mature, bodes poorly for mainstream advertising, digital marketing and DM alike.

Word Of Mouth. The next wave of marketing.

Gradually, the next wave of marketing is emerging in Australia; we’re a little slower than the USA in this. In fact North American early adopters are already showing signs of fatigue. But the Australian public have recently raced ahead, in terms of time spent engaging with the next wave. So the opportunity is here.

It’s a reversal of all that advertisers have been accustomed to. It’s no longer what brands broadcast. It’s in fact, all about what the public say about your brand, and they’re doing it online. This is being referred to as Social Media.

Essentially Social Media is a description of the multiple platforms that facilitate the online conversations that billions of people are having online. In order to work with this, the first thing a brand needs to do is to listen to the online conversations that involve their products or services. Appraise how your brand is perceived. Then see what’s happening around your competitors.

Evaluate your brand in the eyes of your target market. Look at what they suggest you need to change and improve on, register what it is they like about your brand. See who influences them online. See who they are and what they represent.

Why is this action vital? Because the current statistic is: 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations.

Eighty six percent of Australian’s online are looking to their fellow Internet users for opinions and information about products, services and brands, and Australians’ engagement with online word of mouth communication is going to increase in coming years as social media plays an increasingly important role in consumer decision making.”*Hitwise

Advertisers have often held that while you may be talking to the lowest common denominator, you shouldn’t underestimate consumers. When you begin to assess your online brand engagement, a picture of public perception will emerge, and it can often be brutal and confronting.

The next step is to allow your customers to engage in dialogue with you. Effective Social Media relies on two-way dialogue between customers and with the brand, and that doesn’t mean simply broadcasting offers or statements about the brand. It is answering comments and discussing topics with consumers.

The key to this is transparency and trust, requiring a brand champion with access to information that can help customers choose your brand and who can also address customer service issues. While it requires a specific voice and personality, it is not PR broadcast.

In simple terms your entry point into Social Media could be setting up a twitter stream and politely responding to any comments made about your brand. It could be establishing an authenticated correspondent to speak on behalf of the company in popular, relevant online forums, or it could be as simple as enabling comments, the ability to share links and ratings on your website’s pages, that are moderated, answered and monitored by a company representative.

This is only the first step, but is a vital stage if a brand is to engage social media properly, avoiding the pitfalls that less prudent marketers have fallen into.

https://socialmediasavant.wordpress.comMarketing