The New Customer Demands New Marketing

There is no shortage of commentary and reports on the success, or lack thereof, of social media as a viable, effective marketing component. The analysis is premature. I find it troublesome that people are evaluating social outcomes when there are so few setting appropriate strategy, plan, and execution.

Let’s start with a few points:

• Just about every brand has a Facebook presence and is branching out to utilize other platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and many others.
• Social participation is table stakes and far too many brands simply treat their social presence as table stakes.
• Brands lack an understanding of what their audience wants from then in the way of content and social engagement.
• Most brands lack differentiation and creativity in their social presence.

The point is that is everyone is in on social marketing. There is no value added for brands in their social presence. That is, unless they have a unique offering for their audience with their content, creativity, and presence on social channels. Social marketing has quickly become commoditized.

But let’s put social media and social marketing aside for a minute and look at marketing evolution and the new consumer. I would say the earliest days of marketing started with the door to door salesman. The salesman would look to add a personal touch to the product or service he represented. The main challenge with this approach was scalability. The next phase was likely advertisement in newspapers. This was a chance for brands to get in front of a larger audience. This approach of advertisement was then broadened in the early days of radio and later television. Brands sponsored programs to help connect with their target market and build imaging around programs.

Today brand image and style remain extremely important. But more and more consumers feel that they are manipulated by advertising. Many feel that the ads are merely a façade for brands and what they stand for.

The new consumer wants to feel that brands stand for something that they themselves value. The new consumer is looking for greater brand transparency and truthfulness. And if a consumer thinks a brand has done an injustice, they will call them out in public space. The consumer opinion and influence is stronger than ever and they are pickier than ever because they now know they hold power. It is tougher and tougher for brands to capture consumer preference.

The new consumer is powerful and thus a new marketing approach is required. The new marketing approach must have the following elements:

• Complete understanding and empathy for their target audience.
• Brand commitment to their target audience to deliver not only an outstanding product/service but also a strong and engaging ongoing user experience.
• A publisher mentality – brand delivery of valuable content to their audience to reinforce who they are, what they stand for, while having complete understanding of the audience’s wants, needs, and desires.
• Creativity that allows the brand to stand out in saturated marketing channels.
• Listening – the new consumer is very social. Listening to them allows brands to shape their products/services closer to user-perceived perfection. Listening also allows brands to address problems immediately before a PR nightmare occurs. It also provides an opportunity to amplify positive feedback.

Many say the CMO position is dead. I disagree … it is more important than ever. Maybe too many CMOs are stuck in a legacy minded approach to marketing and are not attuned to the power of the new consumer.

Yes … I am a social media enthusiast, but not because it is a shiny new object. The reason I got involved in social media 5+ years ago was because I saw a dramatic change in consumer behavior and action. Consumers rallied worthy products and harassed ones with nothing more than marketing charades. This led me to social marketing. I am not sure how long social marketing will be in vogue, but I am most certain that adapting to consumer behavior will always be imperative.

So as you plan your marketing strategy, don’t be enticed by hype. Be completely driven by the consumer. Understand how your competition is attempting to win customers. Use the channels where your audience goes and produce a most dramatic presence in a creative way. Be bold and stick out way beyond commodized marketing.

Rather than be driven by reports and so called experts, be led by the new consumer. And most importantly, WOW the hell out of them. Be true, honest, transparent, content driven, engaging, and amazingly creative and different. That’s how you drive brand preference.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Separating Personal and Professional Social Presence

For the past five years plus, I have established and maintained a professional brand as Social Steve. The focus of my Social Steve brand has been to share experiences, best practices, and my perceptions in social marketing having worked with a number of clients and brands. Being completely transparent (as I always try to be) my objectives are two fold … 1) promote social marketing as a key driver of business success through sharing experiences, and 2) be viewed as and respected as a social marketing thought leader.

As I look to establish and maintain my own professional brand, I have made a handful of conscious decisions to separate my professional and personal social presence. Some of my own rules of thumb have been as follows:

• Facebook – I use Facebook for true friends and not professional friends and acquaintances. My litmus test has been – “If I want you to see pictures of me and my family in our bathing suits at the beach, I’ll accept your friend request.” This really makes people I work with separate from personal friends. While I really have nothing in my closet to hide anymore, I do reserve Facebook for my own personal world. Early in my social media consulting career, I made the mistake of accepting clients in Facebook.
• Tweeting – 85% of my tweets are about social media and marketing. 10% is about music (my drug of choice). 5% is about family excursions. The reason I add 15% of tweets of the personal nature is simply to give my audience a feel that there is a real person behind the professional tweets.
• 96% of my articles on the SocialSteve Blog are about social media and brand marketing. This is what people come to my blog for. There have been a few exceptions. I have blogged about Martin Luther King Jr and my sister – two people that have served as outstanding examples and models for me in my life.

Now I am not saying this is the way it should be for everyone, but rather that each person should consciously determine what is right for them and set up their own ground rules. And while I have determined some conditions to practice in my own social presences I continue to learn along the way. Continuous social learning is imperative for people and brands. Each entity needs to produce, execute, and assess how their audience reacts. Demographics, psycho-demographics, and natural behavior cause variations of different target audience’s reactions.

Now just a bit of data and then my analysis based on my own blogging.

• Most of my marketing and business blog posts get very little, if any, references on Facebook. I experience a much higher rate of mentions on Twitter and Google+ for business related postings.
• Personal stories (such as the Tribute to My Sister last week) have had very little postings on Twitter and Google+ and have had a relatively high rate of references on Facebook.

For brands, I think this has some key implications. Most users are on Facebook for friendly socialization as opposed to connecting with brands. Yes, brands can have strong Facebook programs that build relationships and brand preference, but their Facebook implementations must have a strong brand personality and not corporate-like or advertorial. While Google+ lacks the adoption of Facebook, the circles functionality allows the separation of socialization for different purposes. It remains to be seen if Google+ connection segmentation will be valued by people and if their user base sees growth.

For me, I know how I use my various social channels for different purposes. By no means am I saying this is correct and one size fits all. In fact, I’d rather this post be the basis for a discussion rather than my typical guidance. What do you think? Do you see a need to separate personal and professional social presence and if so, what are your self-imposed guidelines? I would love to learn from you. Chime in and join the conversation.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Making the Most of Digital Connections

In today’s digitally connected world, you can communicate with just about anyone. You can find them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and a number of other social platforms. This is a luxury. Do not take it for granted.

Now, two questions for you. Are you going to actively seek out those people that may be important to your career or your company? And if you do connect with them, how are you going to take advantage of having digital access?

I have seen most people leverage digital connection to advance their career. Many use LinkedIn to hunt for jobs and stay connected with past and present colleagues. On the other hand, most brands are not seeking out the appropriate connections. Only 35 percent of companies use social media to research and engage with customers. At the same time, consumers post comments directed at brands and expect a timely response – 32% expect a response within 30 minutes; 42% expect a response within 60 minutes; and 57% expect the same response time at night and on weekends as during normal business hours.

So let’s assume individuals do use the digital world to connect and communicate with other people. Are they doing it right? In most cases, I would say no. Far too many aim at pushing their own agenda and selling something. How do you gain peoples’ trust and confidence? Not by saying, “Hi, I want to sell you something.” I cannot tell you how many people connect with others they have never met before and take this approach. I myself have no shortage of vendors contacting me on a weekly basis trying to sell me something before we have even started a conversation. Just this week someone found me on LinkedIn and sent me a message stating, “I’d really like to introduce our services to Hyper Marketing.” Never met the guy and this is the first sentence. What an immediate turn-off.

Are you approaching digital connections the same way? Digital connections should be valued as a wide breadth of technologies that allow relationship building. Brand marketing (whether it is for an individual, product, or service) is not a short term program. The goal is to build trust and preference and that does not happen with one or two communications.

I am most interested in learning about products and services that can help me. But how about starting the conversation by getting to know what I do, my needs, and then aligning that information with your offerings. Doesn’t everyone feel that way?

I think most consumers are interested in learning about things that they value. It is just a matter of where you start the relationship. The general rule to follow is that you should be a valued relationship (first) and when your audience is ready to make a purchase decision, you are their brand of choice. Use your digital connections to build relationships and leverage their connection this way.

So take the right steps and seek people out that matter to you and your company. Do this on a continuous basis, not just at the time of need. Don’t let the initial correspondence go right to selling. Strengthen your connections and deepen relationships over time.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

Four Key Takeaways for Social Media in 2012

Overall 2012 was a great year for social media. Almost all brands recognized the need for their active participation in social marketing. While many brands still struggle with a social strategy and a plan to yield winning measurable results (see “Know What Successful Social Media Looks Like,” most recognize the power of word-of-mouth marketing that social provides.

When I look back at the year, I see four key takeaways that not only shaped 2012, but should serve as considerations for your social strategies and implementations in 2013.

Social Saturation

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, just about everybody and every brand is in … social media is ubiquitous. Yes, this is great, but it also means that the social channels are saturated with everyone trying to get attention. How do you get attention? Stand out. How do you stand out? By delivering the most compelling and awesome content, information, and entertainment aimed specifically at your target audience. This doesn’t mean talking about your brand, but rather talking about your audiences’ needs, wants, and desires. Start by answering the question, “Why Would Anyone Want to be Your Friend?”

Content Marketing

Many brands figured out that the way to stand out is to have a winning content strategy and plan. The reality is that people are more apt to share content then simply talk about a brand. When looking at “Content Marketing – Social Marketing: You Can’t Have One without the Other.” Brands can motivate word of mouth marketing with killer content and there are some recommendations in the article “A Marketing Lesson about Brand Proliferation using Social Media” how to achieve it.

Earlier this year, I provided some content suggestions in a number of articles including “4 Posting Considerations to Optimize Social Media Engagement,” and “7 Tips for Blogging – Maybe Your Most Important Social Media Activity for Business.” But when you are developing a content strategy, don’t just consider your own original content. Add curated content that reinforces your brand’s subject matter expertise and position. And don’t forget “The Power of UGC (User Generate Content) for Social Marketing.”

I have been preaching the importance of content marketing as an integral part of social marketing for a number of years and 2012 was certainly the year that many others got on board. But let’s not claim victory yet. In 2013, brands need to consider “Evolving Social Media Marketing – From Content Marketing to Contextual Content Marketing.”

Following User Behavior

All marketing efforts must be aimed at the target audience and most successful implementations come from having keen customer insights and adopting marketing strategies to user behavior. There is no marketing or business channel where this mentality reigns so true as in social marketing. I captured a number of social marketing lessons learned this year simply by looking at human nature and behavior.

One story I found fascinating was presented on NPR and it covered the “rule of reciprocation.” While this story was not a social media story, I found direct applicability to social and covered it in the article “Why Giving is So Important in Social Marketing – The Rule of Reciprocation.” Whether it is the rule of reciprocation on some other recommendation, the guiding principle for social success must be putting the people you look to attract first. Such was my position in the article, “Putting People Before Profits Leads to Profits (And That’s What Social Media Is About).”

Once you have that guiding principle down and steering your social marketing direction, you are conditioned to take on some finer details. While I touched on many issues, three areas I see needing greater attention are 1) what’s next after social engagement, 2) understanding social influence, and 3) customer services on social channels.

In the article “Why You Should Not Be Satisfied With Social Engagement,” I highlighted that brand social engagement is not enough and brands should strive for greater social success. The pinnacle outcome of social marketing is customer advocacy.

With regards to social influence, I still see much misunderstanding. As a start, recognize that there are three different types of social influencers: a) traditional influencers (i.e. Wall Street Journal, NY Times); b) emerging digital influencers (bloggers with large followings and standout in a particular subject matter; and c) influencers by connection (i.e. “big man on campus”). In the article “A Real Look at Social Media Influence,” I defined these influencer types and what it means to work with them to increase brand awareness and earned media.

And the last area of social marketing that I believe needs attention based upon user behavior is the utilization of customer service on social channels. Generally speaking, I do not believe that social channels should be used for customer service and you can condition your target audience to go elsewhere to resolve problems. But read “The Dos and Don’ts of Social Media and Customer Service” if you are so inclined to get a deeper understanding of this prospective.

Facebook is not the Golden Goose

Finally, with all the talk of social media, I would be remiss not to mention Facebook. But I do not think that Facebook deserves all the attention it gets – at least not from marketers. Yes, they have one-billion-plus users, but how many of those users want Facebook to be used for brand engagement … follow user behavior. Facebook is not the golden-goose for social marketing.

Facebook made some big announcements this year and introduced a new look and feel (timeline). But the most revealing announcement from them was that only 16% of brand posts actually make it to fans newsfeed.

I shared suggestions trying to make sure you have a better understanding to determine how much you should vest in Facebook for marketing success. Consider checking back on the following articles:

• New Facebook – Interpretation for Brands
• Making Facebook Work for Your Brand
• The Facebook Issue No One Wants To Discuss
• Why Facebook May Not Be Your Brand’s Community

And I would not count out Google+ just yet. While user adoption is slow, I do think they have a winning formula as I highlighted in “Why Google’s Search+ Is a Bigger Deal than You Think.”

Social Success Elements

So there you have what I consider being the four key takeaways for social media marketing in 2012. If you want some other helpful social media tips to drive success, here are some other articles from the year worth checking out:

• Know What Successful Social Media Looks Like
• Why the “Social Media Person” Needs to Be More than Just the Social Media Person
• The 4 Social Marketing Mandates
• Where You Start in Social Media Strategy Defines Where You End Up
• 3 Key Elements of Social Media Marketing Success

I hope this helps you and I look forward to sharing more with you in 2013.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Evolving Social Media Marketing – From Content Marketing to Contextual Content Marketing

If I had to pick one key area of evolution of social media marketing in 2012, I would say it was the integration of content marketing into social strategies and plans. For many years I have said that brands need to think like publishers. It is brand content that is often shared among users as opposed to brand products/services. And many brands get this. They are looking at a marketing plan that is integrated – owned and earned media with paid media.

I captured the importance of content marketing as a prerequisite of social marketing in the article “Content Marketing – Social Marketing: You Can’t Have One without the Other.” But content marketing is not enough. Brands need to evolve to provide contextually relevant content in 2013.

Why is this so? Pretty simple answer – there is no shortage of content on any topic under the sun. How many food articles, health articles, or other topical areas are there? So many that it is hard to stand out. Brands need to answer the question, “Why would anyone want to capture and engage with my brand and its content when there is an enormous amount of topical content elsewhere?” There are two parts to the answer. One is that you need to have awesome content. No one is going to be attracted to content that is just okay. And the second part of the answer is that the content must be relevant to individuals’ needs, wants, and interests. Brands need to understand their target audience behavior. By their actions, the audience is literally saying, “Make it worth my while, and I will follow you, like you, engage with you and subscribe to you.” And their behavior also suggests that they get turned off if they are overwhelmed with an abundance of irrelevant content (by their perspective, not yours).

So you have a content plan in place. How do you make it contextually relevant to the different individuals within your target market. You need to concentrate on three areas in order to provide contextually relevant content.

1) Demographics and psych-demographics. Demographics dictate certain preferences of a group based upon such things as sex, age, geography, and household income. Psycho-demographics further consider interests as indicated in social profiles, postings, and digital behaviors.
2) Location. Location based service will evolve in 2013 beyond checking in. There is an opportunity for brands to deliver contextually relevant content and promotions based on location determination. But it is important that brands allow users to turn on and off notifications based upon the users’ preferences. Brands cannot overwhelm users with content like I see certain companies do with email.
3) Buying behavior. No target audience data is more telling than purchase history and buying patterns.

So when I list the three areas above, you should be getting a sense that social media marketing needs to be driven by more applicable data in 2013. I think many people are scared off by the term “big-data.” But big-data is most important. Avoid getting overwhelmed by concentrating on those areas that can drive success. In social, we want to make sure our audience stays engaged with the brand. (I outline measuring social results here.)

As you build out your social strategy and start to think about integrating user data without boiling the ocean, consider:

• Location data and compelling marketing programs for users. Allow them to drive delivery preferences and avoid spamming them and turning them off.
• Integrating social profiles and user conversations to define the content delivered to them. Start there and think about putting further control in users hands with regards to the content they receive (similar to content selections offered in portals).
• Integrating consumer buying behavior to social marketing to drive content and social engagement.

2012 was a year of great strides in social marketing. Many moved beyond the mentality of “oh – let’s put up a Facebook and Twitter page.” But do not rest well … move forward. Think about what you can do to gain greater target audience relationships. For now, I suggest starting with contextually content marketing considerations. But I will be with you here offering additional recommendations throughout the next year. I most appreciate your viewing and sharing my content!

Best to you in the holiday season.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Putting People Before Profits Leads to Profits (And That’s What Social Media Is About)

A local news station runs a news vignette titled “Shame, Shame, Shame” from time to time. An investigative reporter tells the story of a business sleaze and uncovers shotty business dealings that screw consumers.

Recently, there was a story on a small airline that basically gouged travelers that could not fly to their destinations because of the Sandy hurricane. The airline only refunded the equivalent of $50 to passengers. The reporter’s tag line – “Shame on Spirit Airlines for putting profits before people.”

This line has stuck with me. It highlights how many unsuccessful brands approach social media. They look at social media as a set of channels to do direct sales. As I mentioned in the past people need to know what successful social media looks like. And the right approach to social media success is to have an unwavering focus on the interests, needs, and wants of your target audience. Put the people first. If you do so, profits will follow.

This slant was highlighted once again this week. I heard our Chairman at Ryan Partnership, John Kuendig, tell a story of his first meeting 17 years ago with founder, Dave Ryan. John shared how Dave told him that if you focus on the people (keeping clients and your employees), the revenue and profits will come. Not that we don’t care about numbers, it’s just that putting people first is the right line of attack for successful business.

This is so true for all aspects of business. But there is no other business or marketing practice area where this is more imperative than social marketing. Why? Because social marketing is not just about your brand’s social engagement. Social marketing also comes from people talking on their own about brands … the brand need not be actively involved in the conversations. This happens all the time. So brands need to make sure that they are truly viewed as committed to the people. And while social channels are an excellent place to prove this customer-centric mentality, they also reveal facades and insincere attempts at relationship building.

You’ve seen it in your life. How many times have you come across someone who seems friendly and caring only to find out that they are a manipulator acting solely for there own gains. And people are quick to call out ill-fated maneuverings and operations in public social forums and platforms – so beware.

Conversely, if brands use social marketing as a vehicle to listen to their audience, make sure they are delivering valuable information, compelling content that is interesting and entertaining, and overall have a keen focus on delivering to people, success will be the long term result. Success that can be measured in loyalty and advocacy. And loyalty and advocacy certainly lead to revenue and profit. Yes, you should care about revenue and profit, but social media makes brands more transparent (whether they elect to do so or not). This transparency can work for you or against you and I think it is pretty obvious to say that if you continually demonstrate care for the consumers and prospects you will be on the right end of that outcome. Focus on people and their positive experiences with your brand. Use social to build meaningful and strong relationships … the residue of sincere care will be revenue contributing to increased profits.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Why Giving is So Important in Social Marketing – The Rule of Reciprocation

I learned about “The Rule of Reciprocation” in a less than obvious place … on the radio. After commuting by train into NYC for some time, I recently started to drive from my home in New Jersey to the Ryan Partnership office in Wilton, CT and it has had some definite benefits. One of the great things about this change (in addition to working with some of the best clients and marketing’s most talented people) is that I get to listen to a decent amount of NPR (National Public Radio for my readers outside the US).

This past week, I heard a story that highlighted the secret sauce ingredient for social marketing without even mentioning social media once. The piece started by telling the story of Phillip Kunz, a sociologist at Brigham Young University. In 1974, Kunz and his family got a record number of Christmas cards. Most of the cards that came were complete with well wishes for Phillip and his family as well as the writers sharing their own news. I know you would say that this is pretty normal, but there is one other little thing I left out of the story – Mr. Kunz didn’t know any of them.

The story, which is also documented by NPR in their article, “How The Rule Of Reciprocation Binds Us” goes on to describe that Phillip Kunz ran a little experiment to see what would happen if he sent Christmas cards to people he didn’t know. Kunz found names and addresses of 600 random strangers in nearby towns and sent those people Christmas cards. Why would so many people write him back at all? The answer – The Rule of Reciprocation.

So here lies panacea for social marketing success – The Rule of Reciprocation. Marketers need to constantly think in the Christmas (or Hanukkah, Kwanza, etc.) spirit of giving to yield results. If social communication is focused on giving, well wishes, stories, and adding value to the target audience’s needs, wants, and interest, those individuals will reciprocate with stronger relationships, loyalty, and possibly advocacy down the road.

The rule of reciprocation is embedded in human nature. Robert Cialdini, is an emeritus psychologist at Arizona State University, stated in the NPR piece “We are obligated to give back to others, the form of behavior that they have first given to us,” he says. “Essentially thou shall not take without giving in return.”
And this is the human behavior rule social marketers must follow. A different approach is required for social marketing than marketing advertisement. Both are extremely important to brand success, but the strategy and execution must be very different in social media and advertising. Social marketing must be about giving and delivering value to the target audience. A few brand promotions can be sprinkled in social channels, but the overwhelming amount of communication must be about giving, human stories, and genuine care and motivation for building strong relationships. Then The Rule of Reciprocation yields strong results.

Cialdini offers a few examples of the ramifications of The Rule of Reciprocation. In one scenario he describes how the act of leaving a mint on a restaurant check tray results in an average tip increase of 3.3 percent and if a second mint was added, servers got a 20 percent increase over their normal tip. While this is not a social example, it is easy to see how the same “giving” approach can pay dividends in social execution.

In my personal life I am truly inspired and driven by the saying, “It is better to give than receive.” But truth be told – in my professional life as a marketing executive helping brands execute social marketing strategies to yield measurable results, I am led by a slight twist on this saying … “If you give, you will receive.”

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Content Marketing – Social Marketing: You Can’t Have One without the Other

Think about it for a second. When you share something with your friends and family, isn’t it most often some kind of content? An article, picture, or video?
So marketers’ social strategy must start with a content strategy.

In a previous article that I wrote, “A Marketing Lesson about Brand Proliferation using Social Media,” I introduced the following diagram:

The point I was driving was you have your brand definition and position at the core of the brand reputation and your audience’s perception. Content is used to leverage your brand position. Continuous and compelling content creates a way to make sure people stay engaged with brands so that the brand is top of mind with the target audience. If that content is truly valuable, the audience will share it with their network. And those that share the most should be engaged with directly to create advocates.

You can get more on this approach at the referenced article. But what I want to touch on in greater detail is the synergy and use of a content combined with social marketing. Assuming you accept the importance that content plays in your social efforts, the next question is where should the content reside? Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc?

The answer is you need a content hub where all your content resides. Then, social channels should be used to reference the content, proliferate the content, and to engage with the target audience.

The content hub should be tied to the brand site. Social channels should be used to present abstracts of the content and refer back (URLs) to the content hub. This is the correct approach for a number of reasons:

1) The portfolio of content should be in one place. If a user wants more brand content, they should not need to go search for it. It should be at their fingertips.
2) While social marketing is not about direct sales, certainly we do not want to miss the opportunity if your reader has that interest. Having the content directly on the site where there is also product information and ecommerce creates increased consideration and sales opportunities.
3) Given the wide breadth of social channels and users preferences, it is difficult to manage content across all channels. It is much easier to manage reference posts and engagements on the social channels.
4) We see numerous different user preferences for use of social channels for brand engagement. Marketers cannot simply assume that Facebook has 1 billion users and all the users want to use Facebook for brand engagement. Brands need to be active on all the social channels that users look to engage with brands at.

More and more, I am finding that addressing brands’ social marketing strategy is not enough. Content strategy and planning MUST be part of the strategy. Once marketers have a plan for content stylization and topics to cover, they must plan where the content resides and the best way to get it proliferated. They must also think about ways that the content builds awareness and relationships and spawns word-of-mouth marketing. At the same time there needs to be subtle ways to capture a sales opportunity when the customer is ready to buy. The content hub, social proliferation approach I suggested here accomplishes all of these goals.

Think big, execute the details, and

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Social Media – The Great Magnifier

Too many marketers think that they can use social to create a brand position. But rather, social media magnifies exactly who you are, what you stand for, and the value you deliver to your audience.

The truth comes out. And social media is the channel that unveils the truth. Marketing executives cannot use social platforms as channels to create facades for their brand position. Audiences can see authentic care and value versus gross marketing fabrication.

Have you ever had a “friend” that has made promises of help and then never really come through for you? I’ll bet you consider them phony. Well the same happens in brand social marketing.

Consider the following ongoing concern when thinking about social media as the great magnifier. Some people emphasize that social media has certain detrimental sides to it, for example, online bullying. Yes, this is a horrible byproduct of social media. But the reality is that these well-illed people that use social media to further bully innocent victims are no good bums to start with. Social media magnifies their poor judgment and inexcusable behavior. Conversely, good hearted people have used social media to raise awareness for people in need. They have advocated and acted on their behalf. Just look at many of the good social uses to rally support for the victims of hurricane Sandy.

All technology innovations have their plusses and minuses. Take automobiles for example. You can say automobiles lead to increased deaths … true. But they have enabled a cultural evolution of increased productivity and connections. The same can be said for social media … it has its negative aspects, but used correctly, in can promote greater brand success.

So what does this mean for brand marketers? Last week, I talked about the “3 Key Elements of Social Media Marketing Success.” It starts with commitment. In the context of social media execution, I highlighted the need for commitment to socialize, listen, engage, and take action. But commitment starts way before social media. The company/brand must have a true commitment to the needs of their target audience, continuous product/service innovation, and ultimately delivering an exceptional customer experience. Assuming this is in place, social media marketing will be a most imperative and successful channel. Social media will magnify the company’s commitment – not only from the brand’s owned social channels, but in the entire social space. Brands will witness people magnifying their value in the form of word of mouth marketing and advocacy. And yes, brands can see measurable results of this outcome.

As I work with a number of brands, I can categorically tell you that the ones that are sincerely committed to their audience and product innovation have a much greater success rate in the social strategies, plans, and executions I deliver for them. Thus the message to you – there must be a corporate culture in place that is committed to delivery of superior value to the target audience first. Then social technologies can be exploited.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

Brand Personality in Social Media

“And here is the host of our show …”

What if a brand could draw attention like a reality show? The brands reality show?

In the past, I have said that brands need to think like publishers. But now I am going to take this one step further. Brands need to have a “social host.”

So let’s look at a couple of brands that have a “personality” front. Consider Progressive Insurance. Many of us know “Flo.” Progressive has managed to take a boring brand category (insurance) and kick some personality into it. Next, think of Ford Motor’s use of Mike Rowe – a somewhat known celebrity. Both Ford and Progressive have managed to make their potential audience feel a bit closer to their brand by injecting a spokesperson for the brand.

And this is exactly where brands need to take their social presence. Both Flo and Mike Rowe act like a “host” for the brands. So why not have a social host. Someone that acts on behalf of a brand to deliver useful information, entertainment, and becomes the brand’s real personal presence.

What I am suggesting is that brands need a real brand host as well as content coming from the brand manager’s point of view. The brand host extends the voice, presence, and feel of the brand to increase the attractiveness of the brand. Most brands are overly cautious with regards to an informal voice. While this is understandable, the informality is what allows common people to connect. Thus the perfect solution is to maintain a brand voice AND have a more informal brand social host. Both can have presence in the brand’s social channels and the balance of brand voice and host voice will draw deeper audience relationships.

How important is the personality of the host? Let’s look at some non-social examples … some reality shows and then you decide. Currently there are three singing competitions on TV. American Idol, The X Factor, and The Voice. Basically they are all the same product with slight “product feature” differentiation. But the one thing that makes them very different to the audience is the personalities of the hosts and judges. When you think about it, this is what really makes them compelling, or not.

Social strategists should take some direction from these singing competitions. If you represent a brand here are a handful of suggestions:

1) Have a genuine understanding for your audience’s likes, wants, and needs.
2) Determine the type of content that will be perceived compelling and desirable by the audience.
3) Consider the type of person that will be strong, inspirational, and personable for the brand audience.
4) Re-examine the brand position and what the brand stands for.
5) Have comfort in stretching the brand presence. This is one of the main purposes of having a social brand host. Let the brand speak as the brand and the social host speak as an extension. As an extension, they should stretch the brand voice.
6) Select your social host and let them loose. LET THEM LOOSE – take some risks.

In looking at the suggestions above, take note that the main emphasis is on the audience and appealing to them. This is the priority. Put the brand speak aside.

I know many will be uncomfortable taking this “social host” approach I suggest. Many will say that the voice of the brand must be solely brand speak. I will tell you that this is legacy minded marketing. Recognize that the digital world has dramatically changed the way the target audience reacts to brand marketing. It is not even a matter of being bold anymore. It is a matter of being relevant. Having the right social host will be a step in the relevance direction.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve