The Musician Mentality for Blogging

What does it take to be a consistently great blogger? I suggest you follow the mentality of a true musician. A true musician is passionate about their music and simply wants to bring it to the people. It doesn’t matter if they are performing for a small intimate audience – they just want to bring their craft to their fans.

I remember seeing Willie Nile, a fantastic singer-songwriter, pop rocker, at a house party in New Jersey. Willie has played with some of the biggest names in the business in large stadiums. On this particular night, he played to literally 50 people in the living room of a guy’s house. The place was rocking. At one point he said, “If I am not having fun, it is not worth it and I would just give it up.” Here the man has been making music for 40 years and is still having an awesome time bringing his value to a passionate audience, independent of their size.

The point here is to blog with the primary purpose of bringing something valuable to your audience. I say this to you if you are an individual blogger or blog on behalf of a company or brand. As soon as your primary motivation becomes self-promotion, you inherently lose your value.

Now I am not saying that you should not be interested in growing your audience. I would be lying if I did not admit to you that I would love to have an audience growth of 10x annually. But as soon as this becomes the primary motivation, the value you deliver to your target audience will shrink. If you focus on a number game, something falls out … your writing power dwindles. I have witnessed this with a number of great social media bloggers that have gone from great thought leaders to mere PR machines.

Don’t get me wrong. PR, earned media, coverage in leading journals, and increasing numbers is extremely important. I have benefited from a great marketing director, Keith Trivitt. He is a stellar PR professional and has gotten me coverage in a number of leading marketing sites including AdAge, MediaPost, and others. But as soon as I concern myself simply on numbers, I will lose my most valuable, committed audience – you the readers of The Social Steve Blog.

My focus continues to be sharing my social marketing knowledge and experiences. There is nothing that inspires me more than sharing, coaching, and mentoring. At some point in my career, I hope to be a college marketing professor to take this transfer of knowledge to the next level.

Back to the music metaphor that I started with in the beginning of this posting. How many musicians/bands have you seen gone astray when they have reached the “stadium-level” of their career? Many lose their skill, their craft. It becomes more about the adulation than the music. This is the point I am making. Stay committed to your craft and bring it forward to your audience, no matter how big. Let this be your driver. It is not just a suggestion to be humble. You need to have the mindset of “I need to deliver great information and/or entertainment” and hit individuals with it. Pretend you are talking to a small intimate audience – even if your audience is large.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Post Script – As many of you know, I continue to draw inspiration and learn so much from my younger sister. On her private network, she posted something that I think everyone can learn from so I would like to share that with you as well …

As we know, October is breast cancer awareness month. Philosophy has come out with a shower/shampoo line called Graceful Journey. With the shower gel, comes an inspirational quote for each day of the week. I would love to share them with you, as they have made an impact on me.

FAITH: For every new storm, there is a rainbow, and so it is with life. If you have faith, there will be a rainbow, you will have the strength to weather the storm.

JOY: Sometimes it’s the smallest things in life that bring us the most joy. It can be as simple as a shared laugh or a warm smile.

GRACE: How you climb up the mountain is just as imperative as how you get down the mountain in the end. It all comes down to one word…GRACE

ACCEPTANCE: To surrender your worries and accept what is beyond your control is to know peace.

LOVE: Love is the greatest gift we can give to others and ourselves. Love is all that truly matters.

GRATITUDE: Life is full of beautiful moments to be grateful for. When we walk in gratitude for every moment, we empower ourselves by empowering our spirits.

STRENGTH: Through challenges we discover strength we never knew we had, emerging more confident and braver than we were before.

Why Facebook May Not Be Your Brand’s Community

This past week, I participated and presented at a Digital Academy for one of my pharma clients. I took them through best practices and the importance of what it means to have a social mentality to drive winning results. One of the key points that I made (and it is applicable to all brands) is that you need to think about how your audience may and may not use Facebook before you jump on the band wagon. There may, in fact, be better social networks or channels to be used as determined by consumer behavior.

First, let’s talk about healthcare brands and then I’ll dive into a broader perspective. If am a Facebook user and have a certain condition (say diabetes or high blood pressure or anything for that matter), I may not “like” that brand and/or engage with that brand because that is something I do not want visible to my friends. It is just not a topic that I share with old high school friends and the vast number of people I am connected to. Yes, you can say that Facebook has privacy settings to protect this, but in all seriousness, how many people drill into that level of privacy and mess around with privacy settings at that detail. So it is the target audience behavior that dictates such decisions.

But that does not mean that the use of social is a bad idea for pharma companies. There are two other options – run with the pack where they already exist or be the go to community for information and discussion of the topic the brand provides solutions for. I always recommend that social starts by finding the relevant conversations, where they happen, and go there to start discussions (even if you are building your own social network). There are existing communities and discussion forums on just about every topic in the world. Go there and be an active brand voice. Help by providing information and solutions as opposed to being advertorial. The other option (and it takes a strong commitment) is to work like a publisher and be the go to destination for a particular topic. This requires the site to have awesome original content, curation, and places for people to have conversations.

Too many brands assume that Facebook is the most important social channel for them. As explained in the pharma examples, it may not even be a worthwhile channel. The issue that not enough brands are considering is how users behave and act on Facebook. Too many marketers think that the “like” is the end of their effort. They run a sweepstake to capture a like and claim success. The reality is that no user really cares about brand presence on Facebook. That is, unless the brand provides something valuable, engaging, and compelling. And when brands do this successfully, it almost always focuses on user interested topics as opposed to product push.

Whether brands use Facebook, an existing forum or community, or establish their own community, they must focus compelling content that relates to their brand as opposed to being about their brand. A good example of this is “Dove Inspired.” Do you think that any women would actually be compelled to follow a Dove social channel if Dove talked about moisturizing soap … not likely. So instead, Dove established a program and a following for users to highlight women that inspired them. The focus was not on product, but rather an understanding of the target market and developing a topic that would keep the target marketed engaged. This is something I call “associated marketing.” Dove stays top of mind, by keeping their audience engaged with something of importance to them. Dove associates their brand with something relevant to the target market.

Recognize that Facebook is a social network where friends congregate. Sometimes a brand will have a greater success in a different social network where people with similar interests and needs connect. There, members are not necessarily friends, but their concerns create a strong association and/or support network.

And one more note getting back to the question about establishing a brand’s own community. You cannot build the field of dreams and expect the crowd to come. You must ask, “Why would anyone want to come to our community?” The answer to this will come from two areas: deep customer insights; and complete commitment to being the go to destination for the target audience and the topic(s) covered.

So a handful of suggestions in closing:

1) Understand your target audience and what interests them
2) Cover topics that are relevant to your audience and associate your brand with matters that are important to them
3) Be a valuable source
4) Work to establish a friend nature, not a brand broadcast pipe
5) Determine if you can establish a strong presence in an existing community or if there are benefits of establishing your own … if you establish your own community, consider a publisher mentality where you have an editor in chief and support staff.
6) If you do establish your own community, have a strategy that not only motivates conversation between the brand and users, but also creates a platform where users with similar interest engage with each other.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

4 Posting Considerations to Optimize Social Media Engagement

If you are doing social postings for a brand, do you ever stop to think about what your target audience values or are you just posting a product-push? I am still surprised at the amount of pure and blatant product push brands post on their Facebook and other social channels.

Just stop and think of your own personal use … you are catching up with friends, looking at photos of their night out on town, their family, or something of that nature, and then you see a post in your newsfeed that reads “Doctors report that ___ deodorant keeps you 90% dryer.” That will really motivate you to take action and buy the product, right?

And the sad reality is that “Your Average Facebook Post Only Reaches 12% Of Your Friends.” But all is not that bleak. You can post compelling content AND increase the number of likes that see your posts. Facebook uses edge ranking to determine what posts are seen by what users. One of the key factors of post visibility is whether or not particular users engage with the brand. Engagement is such actions as liking posts, commenting, or posting on the brands page.

Engagement is key to social success – both from a strategy and empirical approach. I have stated this numerous times. But three things happened this week that motivated me to hit this topic again.

First, I read a pretty straightforward article on digiday.com titled, “5 Most-Liked Brand Posts on Facebook.” Second, my article last week about my sister’s strong motivation coming from social engagement as she fights cancer, “Tell Me You Don’t Think Social Connections Matter After Reading This” was read far greater in a week’s time than any other post in the same time period. And the clincher was that someone I work with asked me for examples of compelling posts as we prepare to help one of our existing clients.

There is no “known” formula for good posting (although the edge rank site referenced above does provide strong guidance). But there are things to consider to optimize your audience engagement. Here are four considerations:

1) An inspirational human story – everyone loves a story of the underdog winning. Highlight a customer that deserves kudos.
2) Tap the passion of your target audience – whether it is a sports team, music group, charitable organization, or some other aspect of your market’s passion. Talk about them. Highlight them. Tie your company values or product position to something they stand for.
3) Nostalgia – everyone likes to be taken back to the “good old days” when they remember a show, concert, moment in history. Something that stirs a strong positive feeling. Go back in your history and tie it to an important date.
4) Breaking news – CNN is not the only source for breaking news. You can be too. Try to align it with the interest related to your offerings or your audiences’ interests. Curate pop culture events.

Think about the posts that interest you the most. Are they human interest stories? One that captures your emotions and passions? Something that takes you back in time or gets you in the know first? Think beyond product promotion … social marketing is best for socializing, not promoting.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

The Secret Success Factor for Social Marketing

Let’s face it. There have been some great executions of social marketing and more often some very poor implementations. And I would profess there is one common element of the successful ones. Doing what is not expected. A little surprise or exclusivity.

We often hear a number of social strategists talk about providing exclusive information, promotions, pictures, or other media on the social channels where you want to attract a following. I think it is important to raise this mentality up one level. Social marketing is not about the creation and success on a social media channel. Social marketing is about getting your brand socialized and generating word-of-mouth recognition and referral from your target audience. The channel is far less important then the word-of-mouth action. We do not look to contrive advocacy on a specific channel, but rather spark and provoke sharing in the most natural way based on target market behavior and their usage.

And another word of caution … Everyone is in search of the holy grail of making something go viral. If you start out with this objective, I guarantee you, you are playing in fantasy. And even worse, if you find something that has had viral success and attempt to copy it, you are doomed for failure.

So forget about a channel strategy or making something viral to begin with. Think about how you are going to deliver the unexpected to your market. A great example of this is Tony Hsieh’s and Zappo’s approach to overachieving customer expectations – over delivering. They always seem to pleasantly surprise me. I always receive my shoes a day before they promise they will be there. It is this customer experience that opens me up to turn to them as a recommendation source, a social source.

Another example for you … While doing some due diligence and research for one of the CPG brands I work with, I found a simple, but excellent execution. It started with a particular brand monitored for mentions of their product. When an advocate mentioned that they loved their product on Twitter, the brand, unexpectedly, sent that person a free t-shirt and other brand trinkets. The person happened to be a mommy blogger and then further professed her love for the brand by telling the story on her site. This is a great example of driving a loyal customer to greater advocacy. A friend of mine has this saying – “Luck is the residue of design.” In brand marketing, we are not comfortable leaving success up to luck, but certainly these customer surprises increase key advocacy metrics.

Think about your personal life. How nice is it when a friend does something special for you that is unexpected? Take you to lunch. Show up to give you a helping hand. Or simply send you a note to tell you how special you are. Doesn’t that make you feel good?

So if brands are looking to win the hearts of a target market, why wouldn’t that play to human emotion the same way? People expect to be advertised and sold to. If we want to go beyond and exceed their expectations, maybe it is as simple as not selling and not advertising as a start and reaching out to them in an engaging way. But you cannot stop there. Develop brand affinity and loyalty by a continuous user experience that has social integration.

Consider a social marketing strategy and execution as follows:

 one that enhances your customers’ user experience,
 is continuously engaging in a way that is beneficial to the targets,
 over delivers to exceed customers’ expectations
 provides pleasant surprises, and
 produces uniqueness and carries some element or value not experienced elsewhere (certainly differentiated from the competition).

It is too often forgotten that development of brand social marketing should follow the same motivators that contribute personal relationship building. This means easing up on a corporate marketing feel in favor of a more personable approach. Work to evolve to this mentality and surprise your market segment.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

When Brands Go After Moral Issues, $hit Happens

I have heard Bruce Springsteen preach on his recent tour about how our country is more divided than ever and unfortunately his sentiment is correct. Whether it is moral issues, economic remedies, or governmental philosophies, we as a nation see more fundamental differences being vocalized.

And there is no room for brands to be part of these debates. I say this not from a moral and ethical point-of-view, but as a person who is strictly assessing appropriate business conduct aimed at maximizing business results.

These past few weeks, we have seen two brands take wrong steps to become active in one of the most heated issues in society … the rights of gay citizens.

Dan Cathy, Chick-Fil-A President and the company’s founder S. Truett Cathy, has shown a strong anti-gay stance and have passionately stated opposition to gay marriage. Among other things, he has been quoted in interviews stating, “I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.”

So why would I bother to cover this issue? For brands, the issue is that it affects business. Simple as that. While there are a host of undocumented cases of people pulling their support and patronage of Chick-Fil-A, I’ll highlight a few publicized actions.

In February, Northeastern University officials revoked plans for a campus franchise after “student concerns reflected [Chick-fil-A's] history of donating to anti-gay organizations.” And one month earlier, New York University student Hillary Dworkoski launched a petition to close the only Chick-Fil-A franchise in Manhattan.

But the other side of the debate has its wrong doings as well. Case in point, Oreos. As part of Gay Pride Month, Oreo showed its support by posting a rainbow cookie on their Facebook page.

Yes, there was some support for this gesture, but backlash as well. Actual groups popped up on Facebook denouncing Oreo’s actions and stating such things as “Kraft foods and Oreo cookies have decided to toss the morals that formed our great nation right out the window and literally toss them right down our throat! Boycott Oreo cookies and hit them where it hurts…in the wallet.” There was much conversation on Twitter as well. While there was 80% positive sentiment support for the action, almost 20% was negative. Can a brand actual say, “I don’t care about 20% of my target market and if they don’t support my views, I can do away with their business?”

This is the real issue. Everyone working behind a brand must be responsible for demonstrating actions that support business objectives of the brands. Gay rights play no role in the brand conversation.

Whether you like it or not, a brand has an agenda to push, but it is not a moral agenda. It is a product or business agenda. Brands must focus on increasing market share, revenue, and profit. And every brand action should be done with those objectives in mind. That is the responsibility of the employees behind brand execution.

I have one suggestion to remedy the errors made by both Chick-Fil-A and Oreo … maybe they should collaborate and come up with an Oreo-crusted chicken fillet being served at Chick-Fil-A. Maybe that would create some harmony in the world.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

Why Would Anyone Want to be Your Friend? – A Brand Question

The beginning of the school year was blistering hot. The ice cream truck made a regular appearance in front of the grade school at 3pm in the afternoon. On one particular afternoon, Billy and Tommy left school via the front door at the same time. Billy was a popular kid. Tommy was a wanna-be. Tommy offered to buy Billy an ice cream and Billy quickly accepted. After that, Tommy thought he was in … was part of the cool kids and friends with Billy. But that was it … Tommy never reached out to Billy and they never talked. Thus, it was the end of a perceived friendship.

Okay … granted … I am a poor fable writer. But you get the point as it applies to social marketing. The point above seems so childish and everyone can understand the absurdness of Tommy’s expectations. So why do brands expect to run a promotion, get users to like them, and then think they have built a social brand friendship? Aren’t we ready to stop talking about the value of a “like” and talk about the value of continuous engagement with prospects and/or customers?

This past week, I presented at a webinar for a publisher who had a person pull out at the last minute and asked me to fill in. I am always glad to share my social marketing knowledge and perspective (as my schedule allows). The topic was social media ROI … a topic I love to speak about because there is so much misunderstanding in this area. To be honest, I really did not know what the other presenters would say, but was glad to share the methodology behind the Social BrandAction™ Index I have defined.

One of the presenters described how her brand had attracted over 1 million likes on Facebook and at the time of a promotion had almost 20% engagement. So I went to their Facebook page and found that they have 1% engagement. That is poor and given the nature of their brand, it is horrible. Yes, it is easy to get people engaged when you are giving out ice cream or some promotion, but if you really want to keep them as a “friend,” consistent engagement is the only true metric (as shown in the “talking about this” parameter on a Facebook page). You get consistent engagement by provoking two-way conversation as opposed to broadcasting content, asking questions, taking polls, and covering topics that stir lively discussion – just as a few examples.

Hear me on this one – Facebook is an engagement platform and if you are going to have a brand presence there, you better think about activities that provoke engagement. Look at your performance metrics. Are you producing results?

And secondly, Facebook is far from being the only social marketing channel. In fact, it may not serve your brand very well. If it is not likely that your brand is apt to produce active conversation and engagement, think about other social marketing platforms that might serve your brand better. There are many more out there, and a gazillion people use other ones everyday. (For example, the most telling metric for Pinterest is “repins” while they do have “likes” and “comments” as well.) I am not saying Facebook is not a strong and important platform. What I am saying is that you should understand Facebook user behavior and use appropriate metrics to determine results. You should also have a full appreciation and knowledge of your target market’s behavior on various platforms and have a strategy optimized for participation and actions.

Far too many are still building the social field of dreams. They think “brand friendship” comes from one promotion causing a “like” and that defines success. If you are really content with this definition of success – have at it. But there are much more efficient ways to produce meaningful and measurable results with social marketing. Each solution should be very particular to the brand of reference. You should expect the people or agencies working your social marketing endeavors to be able to define a social marketing strategy and plan that clearly articulates creative concept, socialization plan, channels, and measurement of success. All of this complete with an integration plan for other online and offline marketing efforts. The only way to define this strategy is based upon target market and customer insights. If you are not getting that, your expectations of success are fantasy.

So ask yourself as a brand manager, “Why would anyone want to be my friend?” You better have a compelling answer from the perspective of the audience you look to attract as opposed to just drinking your own rhetoric.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

PS – What I have addressed here may seem so simple and a no-brainer. The reality is that I continue to see an over abundance still thinking that buying someone a “social media ice cream cone” defines a brand social marketing effort. I hope you don’t think this will work for you. Drive true measurable success! Make it happen! Now!

Social by Design

Social by Design … not a new buzz phrase, but rather a business imperative.

For years I have been professing that social media is not a tactic, but rather has to be a way of life for brands. It is not about putting up a Facebook page and a Twitter feed and posting away. Social must be at the core of a marketing strategy. Yeah, I know … you’ll think someone named “SocialSteve” is likely to say that … how self-serving of me. But wait a minute and hear me out.

The most powerful call to action a marketer could hope for is to have one friend, one colleague, one family member refer to another a suggested product or service. This is due to the fact that the recommendation comes from an objective source, a trusted source. Let’s face it; an ad is a recommendation from a most subjective source.

Social by Design means putting a brand in the hands of your target audience to produce organic sharing and word of mouth. Social by Design yields brand amplification. Maybe the one brand that understands this most of all is Coca Cola. As Coke has an objective to double their business they look at programs that are Social by Design. As they state it, they are moving from creative excellence to content excellence. They call their content strategy “liquid content” and look for their target audience to be the source of brand proliferation. This video is a must see as it crystallizes what is meant by having a strategy that is Social by Design.

Part 2 is follows:

Social by Design is much deeper than brand advertisements. It is not about running the most creative Super Bowl ad that millions of viewers see once. It is about exponential amplification of brand content. And I am not talking about advertorial amplified brand content. Ads are rarely passed on from people to people. Value information, entertaining content – that is what is passed on. And brands can certainly be part of this mix. They need to think like publishers and be comfortable placing content generation in the hands of their audience as well. User generated content (UGC) programs not only provoke calls to action but gives participants incentives to have others view content and engage.

Social by design produces crowdsourcing in an organic way. It takes time but builds strong momentum.

This week, VISA touted their new “Social by Design” program built around their sponsorship of the upcoming Summer Olympic Games. This is the first time that VISA has built out the campaign from a social strategy. They emphasize it’s not an experiment but a sign of things to come. Mr. Burke (VISA global CMO for core products) said, “Will every campaign be social by design? There’s a very good chance of that. But definitely every program will incorporate a social strategy and that’s always a question we’ll ask.”

When discussing Social by Design, I’d be remiss if I did not mention Facebook in the discussion. From my search on the topic, they are putting out the most material on the topic. Facebook references three elements of social design: Identity, Conversation and Community. Community refers to the people we know and trust and who help us make decisions. Conversation refers to the various interactions we have with our communities. Identity refers to our own sense of self and how we are seen by our communities.

While I agree with this delineation, I find their explanation biased to a Facebook property. (You can read their full explanation if you like at referenced URL.) Facebook is one important piece of social exchanges, but it is far from the only sharing platform. Recognize that one platform does not define execution of a social design. People have numerous social identities on a multitude of platforms. They listen and engage in numerous ways (both online and off). The community (or people that help them make decisions as Facebook puts it) are clearly much wider than solely Facebook friends.

Social by Design means that the strategy starts with social thinking. It is not an afterthought. Here is how one should go about Social by Design:

1) Customer insights – target market wants, needs, interest, behaviors, influence sphere, purchase path, digital usage patterns
2) Thematic brainstorming – what are the topics that will attract your target audience and likely activate them
3) Motivation strategy – how will you get your target audience to get involved and engage
4) Proliferation plan – how will the content (brand, UGC, and earned media) flow exponentially

As you will notice, the social by design approach is heavily weighted towards your consumer – much more so about them than your brand. Social by design emphasizes what I call associated marketing. By associated marketing I mean that you look to have your brand associated with something that is very important to your target audience. Your brand consistently reinforces what is important to your audience as opposed to talking about your brand.

Once you start on the Social by Design path as suggested in the four steps above, then you can bolt on your existing marketing approach and plans as a next step. But start by being Social by Design.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

What You Say Versus What People Hear – A Simple Little Social Media Reminder

It has happened to all of us. We say something and it gets misinterpreted. Some 30 years ago, we began to see this with email communication. And now we see it even more problematic with social media.

The reality is that written and digital communication diminish (sometimes completely lose) the personality behind the sender. There is no inflection of voice and no body language being conveyed to complement the words being expressed. Do not discount the value lost.

Then there is complete stupidity with regards to the use of social media. One example is the Kenneth Cole debacle. During an up-rise in Cairo they tweeted – “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at URL -KC”. Another, maybe less known blunder was served by the hands of Walmart. Shortly after an earthquake struck Mexico and Walmart Mexico tweeted “Now we really made other stores shake with our prices.”

These examples are obvious poor attempts at being funny. Sometimes called snarky. Let me put it to you this way with regards to being snarky. If you feel that you do not have to appeal to an entire audience and you want to make some chuckle, feel free to be snarky. If you are a brand that wants to attract all, you need to be sensitive to all. Snarkiness rarely resonates with all. Snarkiness works for some people… people who determine, “I don’t care about the rest of the world. This is who I am.” If you are comfortable saying that, go for it. More power to you. (I have even felt this way at various stages in my life.) But brands do not have this luxury. And the voice of the brand should not as well.

Sometime back, I wrote an article “The Most Important Word for Marketing.” The article emphasized the importance of empathy – having a strong sensitivity for the feelings, thoughts, and/or attitudes of others. So being a strong social media brand communicator and engager is not just a simple matter of being snarky or not.

Earlier in my career, I often invoked the 24 hour rule on some of my email communications. That is, when I had something very important to say or I was addressing a controversial subject, I would write an email, save it, and then read it the next day to make sure the correspondence was of an appropriate tone. Unfortunately, we do not have that luxury in the digitally social world that is now. Timely communication and engagement are mandatory. Another issue is that our digital communication is brief and short on detail and explanation – often limited to 140 characters yet alone 140 words. So there are definite challenges.

While we may not have 24 hours to think it over, I still strongly suggest you take a few minutes, at least, and think before you hit the send button. Also, make your limited words count. Consider the following:

1) What is the intent of your communication? Is that what is actually written?
2) Think about how things will be received and heard as opposed to what you are writing and sending. This is often a fine line, but an imperative line that cannot be ignored.
3) Social media use by brands is not about selling, but rather about building relationships. The reality is that we are building relationships to eventually sell and build loyalty. So as you communicate your brand story, don’t think about what you are selling, think about what people are buying. Once again, a very fine line. What or how are people buying into your brand?
4) Given the evolution of a social world empowered by digital media, your brand really is not your brand. It is the people’s brand. Work to grow comfortable with this change and understand the ramifications.
5) Overall, be more astute to the existing and potential consumers of your brand and maybe just a little less about your company.

I do not think that anything I put forward here is earth shattering. Certainly you can read this and say yes, of course. But I cannot tell you how much I see this common sense fail in execution. Therefore, I feel it is necessary to run through a quick checklist that addresses the issues highlighted here before you hit the send button. It doesn’t take much time, but the quick confirmation will make your overall social media efforts drive stronger relationships and better measured results.

Also, remember what I stated upfront with regards to the shortcomings of digital communication … the lack of personal interaction. Thus, you must work harder to make your digital communication more humanistic, sincere, and real.

Make it Happen!
Social Steve

Making Facebook Work for Your Brand

Last week, I explained the new Facebook and its importance (challenges and opportunities) for brands. This week, I would like to take this one step further.

The question to ask is “how will people appreciate, engage, and interact with your brand’s Facebook page?” If you have a brand Facebook page, are you going to be happy with building the “Field of Dreams?” Build it and they will come? Or is the answer that you need to understand your target audience and their behaviors?

A while back, I wrote an article “The Most Important Word for Marketing.” I stated that empathy was imperative because nothing topped having the knowledge of your target audience. Empathy makes it much easier to define your product/service, story, position, and message for your potential customers.

I will add one more important factor as it relates to having a successful Facebook brand page and interactivity. That would be understanding your potential and existing audience’s behavior. As marketers, we want to change behavior to our brand’s benefit and ultimately drive transactions. To best understand your audience’s behavior, simple – talk to them. Next step, collect data and evaluate. What types of posts do the best? What day and time of day works best for reaction and correspondence? The information is there, it is just that so many do not bother to look at it.

Recognize that digital behavior varies by people (demographic and psycho-demographic groupings) and vertical industries. A good source for understanding digital behavior is Forrester’s Social Technographics. Check out both Forrester’s post and Forrester’s slides.

When planning your strategy and communication plan on Facebook, think about engagement and interactions. Nothing could be more important. Do you know why? Why your CEO might think this is important? Because “engaged customers spend 30% more” (according to a Bain and Company report). Pretty powerful!

Now let’s talk about Facebook engagement for a minute. So many people are transfixed on the number of likes for their brand. Well you know what? I can get you one million likes, no problem. We’ll just give away a brand new iPad to every new fan. Yeah – I know this sounds crazy. But it’s just as crazy for so many brands to worry about the number of likes they have and not pay equal or more attention to how they are going to get those fans to interact.

So I always tell all my clients that the number of fans is important, but not the end all. It represents the magnitude of people that “could” engage with the brand. So pay attention to building up that number. But let’s pay equal, if not more, attention to getting our fans (or “likes”) engaged. And now Facebook puts this number out front and center for us.

It is called “talking about this.” So in the example above, Starbucks has almost 30 million likes, and about 300K talking about them. This is about one percent of their likes. I suggest brands work to get at least five percent.

The “Talking About This” number is the unique users that have interacted with the brand on Facebook. This includes:

• liking a page
• posting on the page wall
• liking a post
• commenting on a post
• sharing a post
• answering a question
• RSVPing to a page’s event
• mentioning the page in a post
• tagging the page in a photo
• checking in at a place
• sharing a check-in deal
• liking a check-in deal
• writing a recommendation

All of these activities are very important. When a Facebook user “talks about this” (the brand), the action shows up as a post on their friends’ news feed. Thus the action and exposure of the brand is shared … the brand is shared with a larger audience. In the article I wrote last week, I talked about the mere exposure brands got on users’ Facebook page. Just 16 percent. The new Facebook (paid) reach generator increases likelihood the posts will be seen on fans’ news feed.

Yes, getting your post viewed is extremely important. But you should also be building a plan to increase the value Facebook plays for your brand and your audience. Anyone can put up a Facebook page. Be the brand that designs a Facebook page AND interaction strategy and plan that yields measurable results.

If I were to give one suggestion how to go about a winning Facebook mentality it would be to think like the producers of “American Idol.” Why is American Idol so appealing? I think it really comes down to three factors:

1) To begin with, American Idol has really good, compelling owned media. The contestants they present are talented and provide something that most people enjoy.
2) They make the audience part or their product. You, as a viewer have an active and important role in their product offering.
3) Even if you are not one that votes on contestants (review Forrester’s Social Technodemographics for participation levels), the fact that so many do interact adds validity and value to the product. The American Idol is selected by the target audience. Not some executives that are removed from pop culture.

Think about what it means to proactively give your audience some important function, aspect, or voice for your brand. Don’t be afraid … it is likely to happen without your involvement. So given this is the reality of the social world we live in, influence that participation to your benefit.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

New Facebook – Interpretation for Brands

Do you know how to use Facebook to optimize your INTEGRATED social media/marketing strategy and plan? Are your driving MEASURABLE results? I have some recommendations.

There was no shortage of coverage on Facebook’s changes for brands as of February 29, 2012. I won’t go through the announcements (as so many have done already), but I’ll give you the highlights before I explain “why you should care” and “what you should think about.”
First here is a summary of Facebook changes:
• By default, both fans and non-fans will be directed to a brand’s timeline tab when visiting their Facebook page. Timeline also means that there are new or changing features and navigation:
- New cover photo (at the top of the page) in addition to the small existing profile picture,
- Fan engagement is separated and not integrated in with brand’s postings as shown on timeline,
- Splash pages and “like gates” are no longer an optional landing page, and
- More admin control on look and display of posts
• Page administrators have the ability to “pin” content at the top of their page for one week such that it does not scroll down as new content is posted.
• Reach Generator – guarantees brand posts will be viewed on more fans’ news feeds (more detail below)
• New premium ad formats (sponsored stories, page posts) – Photo, Video, Question, Status, Event, and Link
• Offers – postings of a discount or promotion from brands to their fans

And just one more thing before we get into the new Facebook and its social media marketing ramifications. Let’s not forget about the objective of social media and how success is measured. Social media is about building relationships. Social media success is about being able to measure an objective.

Building relationships in social media is defined in the A-Path model I have presented numerous times. The A-Path of relationships as a brand to your target segment’s individuals is Attention > Attraction > Affinity > Audience > Advocacy. The way we measure social media success is to measure Awareness, Consideration, Loyalty, and Advocacy. The intersection of social media relationship building and social media measurement is described in the article “Social Media Model that Defines the End of the World as we Know It.”

Got the foundation? OK, let’s talk Facebook. Go through the next few sections and stop to think about how Facebook can (now) be used for your marketing efforts. Based on the new features and information Facebook unveiled at the 2/29/12 fMC, we all need to start to think about Facebook marketing differently – for better and worse.

Facebook Brand Page – A Destination Site
Facebook timeline is impressive. The new look is aesthetically pleasing. This is a positive move by Facebook. Yes, there will be those that rant and rave because people do not accept change so well, but in the long run (and maybe not so long) I think most will come to accept and appreciate the new look for brand pages. I like the new feature set – especially the ability to “pin” content or a promotion at the top of a brand page for a week and keeps it from scrolling below as you place new posts on your brand timeline.

Let’s be clear here. Facebook is working to make your Facebook brand page a destination site where dynamic content resides. Think of this from two perspectives. 1) How do you leverage the Facebook brand page changes and is that destination now more compelling than your static website. 2) Prior to timeline, most people’s Facebook brand experience was on their news feed as opposed to specifically going to the brands’ Facebook page – just think of your own experience as a user rather than your role as marketer.

Facebook is NOT a Brand’s Community
Facebook is a great place to build attraction and affinity for your brand once you have gotten someone’s attention. It is NOT your community and there are better platforms where you should build your audience. One of the biggest issues with thinking Facebook is YOUR community is that you do not have access to or own the data of your “Facebook likes.” Thus, if you do not have these users’ data, they are not your true audience. Rather the people that like you on Facebook are just potential passers in the night. Having customer data is key for any and all marketing efforts.

This is not to say that Facebook serves no value – hardly the case. It is a starting point; not an ending point. You want to use Facebook for attraction and build affinity with your target segment. And as you do this and the individual feels a stronger relationship with your brand, you want to collect their data. Point them to content in your OWN community and invite them to join YOUR community. I always ask my clients a rhetorical question … Would you rather have 25K Facebook likes or 25K members of your community? Where do you think you can monetize better?

Facebook Freeium Model
The next point is that in essence, Facebook is not free. It really is a freeium model for brands. You get some functionality for free, but if you really want the key benefits, you need to pay. Up until the fMC on February 29, 2012, brands were led to believe that they collect likes for their Facebook presence and their posts would be directed to the news feeds of the people that liked them. In reality, this is NOT really the case. The reality that Facebook unveiled is that, on average, only 16% of fans saw brands’ posts. (This is due to their edge ranking algorithm that determines which post shows up on an individual’s news feed.) Facebook now offers “reach generator” to up the view percentage on news feed to a guaranteed 75% and as high as 95% for delivered posts. So now brands have to assess whether their Facebook strategy makes sense without “paid media” or if they are willing to foot the bill ($0.30 per like for a 3 month period). What are the measured results a brand is likely to get with and without reach generator – work your metrics.

Additional Paid Facebook Features
Facebook did announce new premium ads (in addition to their existing non-premium Marketplace ads). One of the biggest change users will see is that premium ads will appear in brands’ timeline and users’ news feeds if the user or one of their friends liked or interacted with the brand’s Facebook page. The ads will look like status updates. Facebook hopes this will generate more user interest.

Now what happens if brands want to reach other people with their advertisement – not just their fans? These premium ads have the opportunity to be displayed in non-fan news feeds if the user’s friend has liked the ad. The premium ad can also be displayed on the right side of the page for users that have not liked the brand and there is no interaction with the brand from their friends. These “stories” are really premium advertisements targeted to non-likes based on brand-selected demographics and other data people share on the social network.

One other change for these premium ads … Facebook looks to change the digital advertising model. These premium ads will not be priced like other typical CTR (click through rate) ads. Click-through rates for Facebook ads have been very low and Facebook’s position is that CTRs are a poor measure ad performance. Thus Facebook has partnered with Nielsen to implement a gross rating point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_rating_point) model.

Facebook Position for Brands
Facebook is positioning brands to be more true to the intended use of a Facebook user experience. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO said, “People do not expect to be talked at – they want to be a full part of the conversation.” The new premium ads (“sponsored stories”) are meant to be delivered like other “normal” Facebook status posts. This means that brands must be creative and provide valuable information or entertainment in their paid premium ad and sponsored story posts. No user is going to want to see a blatant ad in their news feed from a brand. This could disenchant users and backfire on brands. Be careful how you craft your premium paid posts. Facebook is putting some spin on their new premium ad position. They are careful to call these posts “stories” – not ”ads.” Brands must follow suit and execute these “stories” as well, stories – not ads.

One Additional Facebook Payoff
As Facebook prepares for their IPO, one of the significant hurdles that they faced was not having a mobile ad play. They did not have this functionality in their mobile app. Everyone questioned their ability to generate revenue from mobile users. This segment represents a substantial portion of Facebook use … approximately 50 % of Facebook use is via mobile. Now the problem is solved. Facebook is now simply delivering “ads” in the news feed. Tell the investors it is “ads” in the news feed; tell the rest of the world it is a brand story in the news feed. I think this is called poetic justice based on the crowd you are playing to.

Summary – Facebook Part of an INTEGRATED Social Media Strategy
It remains to be seen how users react to seeing brand stories/ads in their news feed. Now don’t get me wrong. Social implementations must have an integration of both organic social and paid social. But given the reality that brand posts only reach 16% of the intended audience without the fee-based reach generator, Facebook is now primarily a paid media channel. Yes, you can use their new timeline feature set to build a beautiful, dynamic destination site, but Facebook’s new position should definitely make you rethink your brand’s Facebook use.

There are great opportunities to use Facebook in the early parts of you’re A-Path relationship building, but all brands should make strategic decisions with regards to where they want to shape and build their audience. My recommendation is that Facebook is NOT a place to build audience. Think about the behavior you want to change in your target segment. Think about the steps and channels used to build strong relationships. This will lead to the appropriate use of Facebook in your integrated plan and this is likely not the same way you thought about Facebook yesterday.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve