Socialnomics – Social Media ROI or Social Media Measurement?

While I don’t like to equate social media with ROI, but rather positive measurement, here is some good stuff:

The technical definition of ROI is (x-y)/y where x = sales and y = investment.

Social media is a marketing tool (as well as other functional organizations’ tool such as customer support). Marketing is NOT sales – Marketing increases the probability of sales by creating awareness and generating qualified leads. While this is still an endless debate in companies, marketing should not be measured on sales. There are other applicable measurements that should be made to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing. A sales organization wins sales, but they require the support of marketing (and many other organization partners).

Social Media Conversion and the Social Media Marketing Funnel

The billion dollar question – define for me how social media converts sales. Now that social media is getting serious consideration and/or implementation by just about all companies, this is the number one question I am getting asked.

First, let’s get a couple of things straight: 1) Social media is not a sales tool. 2) It is a marketing tool, among other things. It can increase the probability of sale – just like a well planned marketing campaign. It takes a salesperson to complete a sale (usually), but a good social media program produces many qualified leads.

I choose to answer the social media conversion question in the context of the marketing funnel principle. In the simplest form, the marketing funnel looks like this:

Simple Marketing Funnel

There are variations for the marketing funnel, but generally, some “marketing endeavor” creates awareness and interest, and a “salesperson” completes the sale. Ultimate conversion is accomplished by sales, not marketing. The sales force relies on marketing to generate qualified leads.

So now let’s talk about social media and the conversion process. A winning social media plan and implementation delivers greater numbers throughout the marketing funnel AND provides a cyclic capability not experienced elsewhere.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING FUNNEL

In the diagram above, the marketing Funnel State is shown down the center. The first three states (awareness, consideration, and sale) are the same as in the simple marketing funnel, but social media is one of the best ways to generate awareness and motivate consideration. (I covered an execution scenario in the article “Executable Game Plan for Winning Ultimate Customers with Social Media”. The steps described to get Attention, Attraction, Affinity, and capture an Audience are an expansion of the funnel states of awareness and consideration.) The next state is the conversion. As mentioned above, conversion is a sales function, not a social media function, not a marketing function. Once again, a good marketing campaign and a good social media program generate awareness and increases qualified leads. They amplify the probability of conversion.

There are two very important additions to the social media marketing funnel – loyalty and advocacy. Social media has the power of making stickier (loyal) customers and turning them into your marketing engine (advocates, referrals). You can reinforce your customers’ purchase decision by engaging in appropriate social media activities. This is the power of social media – the ability to create advocates for your brand – advocates that produce the most compelling marketing of your brand. (See “Using the Social Media “A-path” to Capture Ultimate Customers .“)

The left side of the Social Media Marketing Funnel is labeled Group. This highlights the population before and after a specific funnel state. Yes, the population decreases as you move down the funnel, but social media endeavors produce a feedback loop where promoters spawn awareness, to a new target market population. This continues to be a cyclical program thus increasing the population in every funnel group. Social media is more than a campaign. It is continuous communication and conversations. If you continue to produce valuable information, you will continue to increase awareness, promote loyalty, and motivate advocacy.

The right side of the Social Media Marketing Funnel explains the Individual State or frame of mind of filtered group population after a specific Funnel State. For example, after a population gains some awareness of a brand, some individuals have interest. This is similar to the movement from Attention to Attraction in my A-Path model . There is an evaluation before sale. After a person purchases something and begins using the brand, they form a more complete assessment of the value potentially leading to brand loyalty and even a stronger satisfaction defined. Ultimately, some very happy, loyal customers will turn into advocates (see A-Path model ) and generate word of mouth referrals.

The Social Media Marketing Funnel model provides guidance for systematic implementations. There are two important takeaways here:

1) To begin, your product, service, and/or brand must have true value and differentiation for a target market. No offering will ever be successful unless this is true, independent of social media.
2) Your social media game plan should be designed such that Listening, Conversations, and Relationship building activities (see LCR Mentality) stimulate specific Funnel States (Awareness, Consideration, Loyalty, Advocacy). You can implement social media promotions to motivate conversion and sale, but as I always state, social media implementations aimed to sell most often have negative ramifications. It is best to have your sales team sell.

Bottom line – social media is an excellent vehicle to increase the probability of conversion. You can drive awareness and produce qualified leads. Think about the guidance provided here, listen to your target market, deliver them value, and build relationships. You will see an increase of prospects, customers, repeat customers, and customer promoters.

(Acknowledgement – The content above answers the question I have been asked hundreds of times – “How does social media convert?” The model I have defined here is a social media extension of what Adam H. Cohen termed “The New Marketing Funnel”)

Social Media Conversation: I Know You’re Talking, But Are You Listening?

“Social intercourse” – that is actually the second definition for conversation in “The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.” Okay, so the first definition for conversation is “an informal spoken exchange of thoughts and feelings; a familiar talk.” Can you really blame me for liking the second one more? Furthermore, conversations are no longer just spoken. The digital age has changed that, but the fundamentals are still the same.

Are you having social media conversations or are you just marketing and promoting? Are you just talking without listening? Have you ever had a good relationship with someone that just talks and doesn’t listen? Then why should you expect your target audience to have a relationship with you or your brand if you are not listening?

Readers of my articles are probably familiar with my recommended LCR (Listen-Conversations-Relationships) Mentality for successful social media implementation. The LCR Mentality talks about one aspect of listening. Specifically it states …

“Know your target audience and find the existing places and communities where they are talking, tweeting, blogging, commenting, etc. Spend some time there and just LISTEN to what they value and need. Understand the way they talk and their vernacular. If you want to be a valued member of the club, you got to talk their talk, not yours.”

There is no doubt – this is extremely important. But there is another listening aspect that is equally important. In a conversation, listening is a continuous process and it should be in social media as well. You must actively and continuously monitor (or listen) to what is being said about you. Yes, this takes time, but it can not be an ignored process.

Why is active and continuous listening important:

1) You should know if the content you are producing is generating “word of mouth” results. In addition to measuring “hits”, you also want to know if “the baton is being passed on” and the message continues down the line. Referrals/advocacy are much more compelling than your communication. If your content is good, of value, and/or compelling, your audience will help it travel. Retweets and referrals are a good barometer of “goodness” and value of your communication.
2) Positive sentiments related to you or your brand should be captured. Reference the positive mentions. One of the key objectives of social media optimization is “helping your content travel.” I follow a number of twitter accounts who reference every mention they find. Find positive things stated – get it out for the crowd to hear.
3) When someone says something negative about you or your brand, you must nip it in the butt – immediately. Bad news travels fast and it is best to catch and squash it. If you find negative occurrences, you should take one of two paths. If the comment is actually reflective of the truth – fess up, apologize, and state the corrective action taken. We all make mistakes and I have found that good will comes from this approach. If the comment is hogwash, just state the facts – objectively. Do not get lured into a subjective debate. Recently, I read of a comment from a disenchanted customer that blogged about a retail store where they felt they purchased something they did not want and were stuck with it. The customer bad mouthed the store beyond the issue. The store owner replied in the blog and stated that they were in business for 20 years and had always had a no return policy that was always communicated. This was the factual objective issue. They then offered to speak with the customer directly as opposed to continue to debate in a public forum.

Let me give you a couple of useful tools to help you “listen.” There are no shortages of free and paid services for this. I’ll suggest a few free ones I use …

Monitter.com – searches twitter by geography. You enter search words, distance, and a zip code and it returns the tweets for the search criteria within the distance set relative to the zip code. This is extremely useful for localized businesses.

Collecta.com – searches Twitter, blogs and blog comments … pretty comprehensive.

Socialmention.com – similar to Google alerts … it is an email automated search, but picks up tweets and search results in blogs as well.

There are numerous others and you can drive yourself silly trying to keep up, but these are the latest I have been using. (Until I read the next review tomorrow and find the next hot one … feel free to add your suggestions in a comment below ). A good list is provided at “A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions”. It includes paid solutions as well as free ones.

But please, “listen” to me and do me one favor – be a better listener! I guarantee you it will pay dividends. Do you hear what I am saying?

Executable Game Plan for Winning Ultimate Customers with Social Media

There is nothing mystical about using social media to rally evangelists for your brand. About four months ago, I wrote an article “Using the Social Media ‘A-path’ to Capture Ultimate Customers” that highlighted how you go about it. (Thanks for some great responses to the article.)

Talk is cheap, how about some actionable execution (no charge). Today, I’ll take it one step further and give you a game plan for one possible execution scenario. (Typically, I tailor plans to specific objectives, but this is just a simple example.)

First a quick review …
The “A-path” is about moving potential customers from interest to promoter step by step:

1) Get their ATTENTION
2) ATTRACT them
3) Gain AFFINITY for you
4) Have regular engagements with you and keep them as your AUDIENCE
5) Get them to be your ADVOCATES – the greatest level to reach.

So let’s see how to move a prospect from ATTENTION > ATTRACTION > AFFINITY > your AUDIENCE > your ADVOCATES. Since I hear executives constantly say, “We need to be on Twitter,” I’ll start there. (Twitter is a very good social media tool, but it must be integrated with other social media outlets to be most effective. Twitter, alone, will not likely produce winning social media results.)

ATTENTION
To get your potential customers’ attention, you must understand how they might capture information they desire. This means understanding the keywords and tags they may look up which happen to intersect with the content you deliver. I recommend you first come up with a list of potential keywords, and then look at the popularity of each side-by-side with the easy to use Google Trends. This gives you a feel for the vernacular commonly used for the topics you cover. Once you decide on your keyword/tag, create or use a Twitter hashtag. (See “HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business”.) You are now set to get attention, but that is not enough … attention and attraction go hand and hand in this example.

ATTRACTION
The way you attract in business is you deliver something of value. What is it your customers value in the form of information, recommendations, subject matter expert tips, etc. – This is what you should tweet about to attract your target market. If you can do so within 140 characters (include your hashtag), go ahead, but if not, tweet a catchy headline and redirect the crowd to the full article or video/presentation/etc. Remember, insert the hashtag to make it easy for people to find you (get their attention). A good way to measure the Attraction-Factor is the number of responses provoked by your tweet. (Using the bit.ly URL shorten tool provides a count for you.)

AFFINITY
You gain affinity by continuing to deliver value. That is, continue tweeting valuable information. Concentrate on what your potential audience wants and needs, not what you want to sell. Continue to position your brand by delivering subject matter expertise. Here is the start of a relationship. The relationship is the most important part of social media. People want to do business with those that they feel comfortable with. Use social media to establish this comfort level and relationship. A good way to measure whether you are getting Affinity-Traction is the increase in the number of “good” (not spam) followers you are getting on Twitter, and the hits to your specified URL.

AUDIENCE
If you have managed to capture a group that has affinity for you or your brand, you should now look to convert them to your audience. Examples of becoming your audience (there are many more than this) are RSS or bookmarking your site/blog, becoming a Facebook fan, connecting at LinkedIn, subscribe to your eLetter, etc. This is really systematically accomplished two ways: 1) continue to deliver value and thus your affinity group takes one “stickier” step to make sure they capture what you put out, or 2) to incentivise individuals to join. The incentivication is really a sub-program. Some have used surveys and games on Facebook (i.e. Southwest on Facebook ), some use giveaways, whitepapers, promotions, discounts, etc. Measuring your audience is fairly straight forward – but you should measure so you can see a cause-effect relationship of your activities … know what works well and what does not.

ADVOCATES
Some advocates will emerge from your audience because they genuinely like you or your brand and what you deliver and they are, well, social on social platforms. When this happens you are now extending to the reach beyond your audience – to your audience’s audience – one positive degree of separation from you. This new extended group automatically feeds into the A-Path – you already got their attraction and you have a good chance of traversing them to Affinity > Audience > new Advocate. An advocate may also simply mention your brand to friends or colleagues. I see these two scenarios as residual effects of good social media playing, but you really need a stronger, calculated strategy to capture advocates. That’s simple. Establish one-to-one relationships with the most social and vocal individuals in your audience. Zero in on their needs. Deliver to their needs. Build and increase trust. This will lead to ADVOCATES.

You should always listen to what people are saying about you or your brand in a social media context. This is true for advocates and nay-sayers. There is no shortage of tools to do this from a simple Google search to a host of other solutions. The best aggregation of monitoring tools I have seen is “A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions.”

Just a few more pointers and then you can go off to conquer the world …
1) Validate – make sure that you are using keywords in “Headline” tweets and/or hashtags that are commonly used by your potential audience. Do not assume what you call your trinket or service is the same thing the potential audience would use to find you and your competition.
2) Respond – search for retweets of your tweets, replies to your tweets and mentions of your username. Make sure to follow up with either a thank you or appropriate response. (Note A: TweetDeck can capture “replies” and “mentions”, but only if the “@” character is present prior to your username. Thus it is useful to use Twitter search as well.)
3) Personalize – I emphasized the importance of one-to-one relationships to strengthen advocates. Therefore, do not correspond one-to-one in a generic fashion. Try to make communication specific to the individual to yield a stronger relationship.
4)Have fun!

Remember, one size does not fit all and this is just one scenario. A successful social media endeavor must be tailored to specific objectives and competitive environment. Now go kick some @$$.

Best,
Social Steve

What Brands and Social Media Players Can Learn from The Grateful Dead

Yeah – I know, many of you are thinking Social Steve puts the name Grateful Dead in the headline and expects many hits … it is like putting the “sex” in anything and stirring interest.

“They love each other … Lord, you can see that it is true” words – Robert Hunter

But hey, give me a chance here … arguably, no band has ever had a connection, a relationship with their audience like The Grateful Dead. Isn’t this what we want to accomplish with our brand (whether it is a person, product, or service)?

“Steal your face right off your head” words – Robert Hunter

So while I like The Dead, I would not consider myself a Dead Head or big fan. So I had to get some coaching here from my friend, “Exciting Artist”* (read note at end of article). I asked him, “When The Dead got in their pinnacle jamming, were they playing off each other or playing off the audience?” His answer: “Both … because the audience is considered part of the band, the nth member. When an audience was present, at best it allowed for a closed circular loop to be formed between band and audience with the mutually gratifying energy constantly flowing around and throughout.”

“got some things to talk about here beside the rising tide” words – Robert Hunter

Think about this for a second … if you are so in tune to your audience and sensitive to their vibe and perception, enough to truly think of them as one of you, can you imagine how strong the relationship of your brand and its audience will be? The Grateful Dead were a brand that stood out in the music universe like no other band. They redefined the relationship of musicians as a selling model. I know this will disenchant many Dead Heads to call them a brand, but it can not be denied. Granted, they are so much more than a brand. They created a music culture that did not previously exist. To put this in marketer’s terms, consider the iPod – so much more than a brand – it redefines how people use their product to the extent that it has produced a cultural change.

“If I had my way, I would tear this old building down” traditional – arranged by Bob Weir

Why? Simple. Being so in tune to your audience. If you know The Dead, one can often see a difference between their east coast and west coast performances. The west coast audience was a mellower crowd. Thus the energy exchange between band and fans and the music itself took on that tone and palette. When The Dead played Madison Square Garden in NYC, the east coast heads seemed to be a more discerning bunch, not willing to “just go with the flow.” Their expectations were high and the energy exchanged between band and fans reflected this. The entire Garden came alive, bouncing with excitement WHEN the music was right.

“The music plays the band” words – John Barlow

In a piece I wrote called, “Simplifying Social Media,” I emphasize the LCR (Listen-Conversations-Relationships) Mentality. I insisted that a strong social media program requires …

LISTENING …
Know your target audience and find the existing places and communities where they are talking, tweeting, blogging, commenting, etc. Spend some time there and just LISTEN to what they value and need. Understand the way they talk and their vernacular. If you want to be a valued member of the club, you got to talk their talk, not yours.
CONVERSATIONS …
Once you have gained a solid understanding of your target audience and how they socialize in the various forums and communities, start to engage in the conversation. Remember, don’t sell. This should be more of a friendly conversation or networking nature.
RELATIONSHIPS …
Continue conversations and work on building trusted relationships. Trust is established by having good rapport and delivering value. You deliver value to a target audience group, but you establish relationships one-on-one. That said, put out valuable information to your target audience and follow up with one-on-one conversations.

Forget about marketing terms for a second. Isn’t this exactly what The Dead did?

While you may have read about my LCR Mentality before, I am bringing it up again in the context of The Grateful Dead. One must approach a social media endeavor this way to be successful. The Grateful Dead broke all of the rules, but the most important thing that they always did was to have a commitment to their audience.

Another note here on The Dead. Trying to understand how intense a paramount Grateful Dead show can get, “Exciting Artist” made a great quote. He said, “I don’t listen to what they are playing, I listen to what they are listening to.” Wow – I think this further drives the importance and power of listening and how powerful and intense the result can be.

Bottom line – you want a strong relationship with your audience, know them, listen to them, engage with them, PERFORM FOR THEM.

“strangers stopping strangers, just to shake their hand .everybody’s playing in the Heart of Gold Band” words – Robert Hunter

(Note on “Exciting Artist” – First, thanks to “Exciting Artist” for his help on this article. I will be representing “Exciting Artist” as he releases some amazing prose on “Soul Evolution” and a journey tale nouvelle about man’s connection with life and beyond. These pieces are complemented with a meditation form that has been life changing for me and others. It will have the same effect on many more (maybe you) as soon as we get his works “out there.” I am very excited to work with someone that will have such a profound positive impact for so many. Many will get to know “Exciting Artist” in 2010.)

Thank You TweetPackage.com

Thanks to tweetpackage.com for listing me (Twitter: SocialSteve) as one of ten to follow on the topic of social media (#socialmedia, #SEM). Check out http://bit.ly/advj3.

Much appreciated,
Social Steve

Social Media – Should Make Companies Rethink SEO

I feel this article might be combustible, but I have been itching to write it up for some time now.

I’ll get right to the point … Social media should make companies rethink budget allocations for SEO. I suggest they re-shift their SEO budget to social media. Yeah, many of you will think this is self-serving, but hear me out …

First, I want to clearly state that SEO is important and should not be ignored. I am simply suggesting that no budget should be allocated to SEO. I’ll get to my SEO suggestions in a bit, but let me start by addressing why I suggest social media capture the budget:

1) SEO is push; social media is pull. That is, your company is “pushed” to an audience via search. If you use social media correctly and provide valuable information and content to your audience, you will be “pulled” to them.

2) As social media becomes more prevalent, people will rely on their friends and network for recommendations as opposed to using search. Case in point … I needed new tires for my car. I asked my friend who always seems to get the best deals where to go. He recommended tirerack.com (never heard of them before, but I do now recommend them to you). I go to the tirerack website and find that the tires on my car are priced at $105 a pop and get a poor customer rating. I find another tire that I never heard of (Kumho) at $75 each and very good rating. I ended up buying 4 Kumhos and they are working out great. No search used, just socialization to find where to go and then I look for customer reviews to help me make my buying decision.

3) A good social media implementation delivers increased search rankings. This is probably the most important point. If you administer a winning social media program, the natural residual result delivers your SEO. In Michael Stelzner survey/report, “Social Media Marketing Industry Report – How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses,” 52% of the surveyed respondents sighted “help us rise in the search rankings” as one of the benefits of social media.

If you look at the first two benefits (“generated exposure for my business” and “increased my traffic/subscribers/opt-in list”), these are the exact benefits SEO looks to increase. You can have it all with social media.

To further highlight how social media naturally increases your search ranking, listen to this … I was talking to someone I recently met and he was telling me about how his social media efforts were targeting influencers in his space. The specific social media campaign was aimed at attracting some of the most respected newspapers and magazines (yes print, not online). They were successful … the Wall Street Journal and Business Week both did a blurb on his site and mentioned their URL. This drove traffic to their site and as a result of all the traffic, increased their search ranking – a winning double whammy.

So you get your search ranking anyway! Social media should be your priority.

As I first mentioned, this is not to say that you should ignore SEO, BUT are you really going to pay an “expert” to do this for you? Google’s ranking algorithm is tightly guarded. It might be the only trade secret more guarded than the Coca-Cola formula. If no one really knows the algorithm, what is an “expert”? The best source (and it is FREE) for SEO suggestions is http://www.top10seotips.com/. There are other good ones as well. Here, Steve Wiideman has 10 simple tips that a web developer and marketing manager can implement collaboratively. He also provides other suggestions.

You want to win using the web – I suggest you have a social media plan that is integrated with your marketing and operations plans as well as a simple SEO implementation. The expert required is someone who can provide the bridge between your marketing and operations plan to a social media implementation, not an SEO expert (and for that matter, not one labeling oneself a “social media expert”).

I realize that SEO is a strong “spend” industry and thus I have really stirred some controversy, but if we as marketers are going to be accountable and take a leadership role in driving measurable success, we must spend wisely and deliver maximum results – even if initially unpopular.

Awareness – Is it Always Good?

Many have said that any publicity is good publicity. Gaining awareness is what marketing professionals strive to accomplish.

But given two recent events, I question this mentality … Case in point 1 – Serena Williams’ tirade at the US Open semi-finals. Case in point 2 – Kanye West’s I know better the rest of the world abrupt interruption at the VMA awards. Can either of these two situations really be a good thing for these celebrities? Will there be endorsement or popularity fall out? Time will tell, but I find it hard to believe that something positive (other than self reflection) will come to these two as a result of their actions. Remember, social media serves as the tool for a democratic audience.

Mastering (?) Social Media

Mastering (?) Social Media – A Perspective for Companies

Is there such a thing as Mastering Social Media?

I agreed to do a presentation on social media at a local community gathering. (The event is September 21, 2009 at 7pm at the Maplewood Library in Maplewood, NJ.) When the flyers and newsletter were circulated, the event read “Mastering Social Media” to be presented by Steve Goldner (aka Social Steve). I was horrified. I do not believe that anyone has “mastered” this less than mature toolset of listening, connecting, marketing, collaborating, engaging with your friends, colleagues, and potential and existing customers. And now, to have my name attached as being the one to deliver the secrets and goods of Mastering Social Media – how presumptuous and pompous. As it is, I am appalled at 99% of the self proclaimed “social media experts.”

Claiming mastery of social media is like claiming mastery of marriage. Does anyone claim to be a master of marriage? I’ve been married for 20+ years and anyone that has reached this milestone knows that marriage is hard work and that hard work is extremely rewarding. I am far from an expert, but I know that putting my heart and soul into marriage, continually listening and learning, has yielded an extraordinary relationship. You know, in a different facet, social media is very similar … you start with something you are very passionate about, apply your knowledge and expertise, and continually listen, communicate, learn, and strengthen relationships.

So now I am giving this presentation on Mastering Social Media. How can that even be done, yet alone, how can I be the one to give these answers? But wait, I rationalize what I have always known. There is no formal playbook to guarantee winning all the time. There are a few general rules of thumb or principles, and a few practices that have their roots in traditional marketing. No, this is not something that I have manufactured, but rather sound philosophies and doctrines that I have simplified and integrated. While I will not claim that they will allow you (or me) to master social media, I will tell you that you will experience increased measurable winning results. This is nothing new that I haven’t already preached, just a consolidated overview …

To start, I recently introduced the concept of the LCR Mentality in an article “Simplifying Social Media.” LCR stands for Listen-Conversations-Relationships. In order for anyone using social media to gain awareness and generate qualified leads for their organization, they must abandon the mindset of promoting and selling in place of a way to establish valued relationships much like in their personal life. By listening, you establish the commonalities (and differences) you have. Having this information (data) allows you to have relevant conversations with your audience and its individuals. Good conversation leads to the start of a relationship. Building stronger relationships yield better customers. (See “Using the Social Media “A-path” to Capture Ultimate Customers”). While the LCR mentality requires specific social media executable steps, I emphasize a LCR frame of mind. A continued conscious effort of listening, conversing, and building relationships will pay residual dividends to your organization.

If you have the right mindset, you are half way to winning the social media game. The next requirement is to integrate social media into your marketing plan. Social media should be viewed as one element of the marketing plan – not the marketing plan. There are a couple of pieces of traditional marketing that must be in place – 1) your positioning statement, and 2) the marketing communication objective/plan. (Also see “Before You Start with Social Media.”)

Your positioning statement is not something that is communicated necessarily, but is the base of all communications. It indicates the target customer, the product/service category, significant benefit, competitor, and key differentiation. Once formally defined, all communication should be tested against the positioning statement to ensure appropriate and compelling correspondence.

The marketing communication objectives and plan define the communication or campaign goals, the target audience and their perceptions, content or information to establish subject-matter expertise status, and a call to action. Your goals define what you are attempting to accomplish (generate leads, build awareness, shift an attitude, build a client database, etc.) and quantify desired results (hits on a website; new subscribers, “friend/connect” or “fans”, leads; requests of info, etc.). The target audience can be a subset of your target market segment – you may be speaking to a specific sub-segment. You need to do an honest assessment of your audience’s perceptions (both positive and negative) and determine what perceptions you want to strengthen and reinforce and which ones you want to change. All of this should support the positioning statement. The intent is to move your audience down the marketing funnel. You do this by having a call to action to get them more engaged with your company. CAUTION – do not try to sell them here! Work on getting a deeper and stickier relationship.

I am not suggesting that these steps will make anyone a master of social media, but they will steer you on the right road. Social media is a relatively new area. There are some known best practices and some more that will evolve. Monitor and measure your endeavors. Tweak your implementation based upon measured results … “individual mileage may will vary.”

Social Media Slam Dances with Punk Rock

Really, this is not so radical, just a new way to get attention.

Takes me back to the days when I had spiked hair and shaved lines in the back of my head. So now that I am bald I simply jam with social media. (Still love and listen to tons of music.)