We Cannot Segment the Digital Revolution

Blogs. Social media. Interactive. Transmedia. Content marketing. Social TV. Smartphones. Tablets. Mobile. Are all these things really separate? Or should we looking at them holistically from the user and consumer perspective?

A few things happened this past week that helped to solidify for me that the digital revolution is a twisted web of marketing synergy and all attempts to segment individual executions and pin-pointed results are flawed. I’ll take you through three “a-ha” moments that happened for me this week that resulted in my position that ”we cannot segment the digital revolution.”

First off, Michael Lazerow, former Buddy Media founder and CEO, now CMO for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, wrote an excellent piece, “3 Steps to Become a ‘Customer Company’.” Lazerow’s 3 steps to become a customer company are:

1) Customer Companies Listen to Every Customer
2) Customer Companies Publish Great Content
3) Customer Companies Service Customers Across Every Channel

The article also includes a video from Salesforce Chairman and CEO, Marc Benioff. Benioff makes the point that a customer company is connected … connected to customers, partners, employees, and products.

Then this week I had the pleasure of reconnecting with a great social friend and transmedia expert, Karine Halpern. (Please check out some of Karine’s slideshares, she has some great information to share with you.) Karine and I were talking about moving transmedia forward to deliver commercial success. Now most brand executives are just learning what social marketing is, so I would venture to say, most don’t understand what transmedia is. Transmedia “is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies.” Sounds pretty close to content and social marketing integration, but it is slightly different. But the point is that most brand managers are beginning to understand the importance of storytelling, content marketing, and social marketing, so I think the strategy, plan, and execution should stay in that context. That is, keep the marketing plan in the context of what the decision makers understand.

There is always a new buzz term coming out. The new buzz is good for hype and headlines, but if we are really concerned about executing and delivering results, we must stick to fundamentals. And these fundamentals must be in context for brand managers and marketing executives to understand. Marketers now realize the importance of digital marketing, but they remain confused about terminology. I see these decision makers understanding the need for:

• content and storytelling,
• social marketing,
• interactivity and engagement,
• the role of digital influencers and the importance of advocates,
• positive online review presence,
• SEO
• integration of owned, earned, and paid media, and
• mobile.

So maybe it is best to keep digital marketing terminology in these contexts and not slice things down in greater detail.

And the third point to highlight comes from some marketing headlines about Coca-Cola … “Buzzkill: Coca-Cola Finds No Sales Lift from Online Chatter.” Eric Schmidt, senior manager-marketing strategy and insights at Coca-Cola stated “We didn’t see any statistically significant relationship between our buzz and our short-term sales.” He also cautioned against reading too much into the research, noting that it covers only buzz, not sharing, video views or other aspects of social media.” And yet these elements not included in the study are the power of social marketing.

Quickly after this initial report, Coca-Cola’s Wendy Clark, senior VP-integrated marketing communications and capabilities, defended Coke’s social media stating it was crucial. I’ll put it this way … what is the value of having your audience feel positive about your brand? Does it turn immediate sales? No. But does it define long term customer loyalty and brand sustainability? Yes. If your audience feels strong about your brand, when it comes time to make a purchase, their brand preference will show.

Clark turned to Coke’s own blog to state that it was true … social buzz or chatter does not generate sales lift in isolation. But she also added that the key point is that “no single medium is as strong as the combination of media.”

And I agree. As I tweeted earlier in the week …

(If you want to see to two videos I referenced, they can be viewed at “Social by Design.”)

So if you pull the three examples together that I have highlighted above, I am suggesting that marketing strategy, planning, execution, and measurement is getting too siloed. We cannot segment the digital revolution. The consumer uses all digital technologies, platforms, and services to support all of their purchase decisions. If you are to be a customer company, you will follow the behaviors and actions of the consumer and build a holistic digital strategy. If you are responsible for a specific digital marketing effort, find connection points with other marketing efforts. Build synergy. And lastly, and probably the most important, no one digital marketing endeavor should be credited with sales. If you look at the journey of the digital consumer, you will notice that they hit multiple touch points before ultimately making a purchase. Should we be crediting the last digital touch point as the only sales enabler and element that carries an ROI? This is flawed.

Thus I strongly suggest that you do not segment the digital revolution. Long live the revolution and what it stands for … connecting with the customer.

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

Revisiting the Importance of Owned-Earned-Paid Media Integration

If you are not approaching owned, earned and paid media holistically as a one set integrated strategy and execution, you are not producing optimal results. No doubt!

Well over one year ago, I wrote a piece “Integrating Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media.” I emphasized that a well coordinated plan weaves strategy and execution across owned, earned and paid media at three time intervals: pre-reveal, reveal, and post reveal.

As we now look at how social media practice and platforms are evolving, the lines between these media are becoming more blurred. Take Facebook for instance. As a brand, when you post some content, that is owned media working for your brand, right? But if you look at the actual Facebook rules and user behavior, maybe not – or at least maybe you should have incorporated some paid media to really maximize results. Confused? Let me explain.

Up until Feb. 29, 2012 (Facebook’s fMC) most brands thought that you post something on your Facebook wall and it will show up on your “likes’” newsfeed. Thus, simply placing “owned media” to reach your audience. Well actually, that is not what happens. It turns out that Facebook revealed that on average only 16% of your likes see your posts. This is due to their edge ranking – a Facebook algorithm that decides which stories appear in each user’s newsfeed. The edge ranking algorithm is based upon a) the degree of affinity between the person or brand posting and their “likes”, b) the post content type (picture, text, URL, etc.) , and c) the timeliness (or freshness) of the post. If you want to up your deliverability percentage, you can do two things: 1) work on the your factors that influence your edge ranking in relationship to your users such as number of responses and engagements as well as the three edge ranking criteria just mentioned, and 2) use Facebook newly announced reach generator to guarantee delivery to at least 70% of your likes. By the way, reach generator is a paid service offered by Facebook. So now your “owned media” effort can turn better results with some “paid media.”

I’ll give you another example relating earned media and paid media. In the social practice I head up at my agency (MediaWhiz LLC, a Hyper Marketing Inc. company) we have a social offering we deliver to clients called “digital influence and outreach.” Essentially digital influence and outreach is finding influencers within the brands vertical and pitching them content relevant to the brand. But it is more complicated than that. No influencer wants to be pitched brand content, understandably so. In order to be successful capturing earned media from influencers, you need to understand their wants, their needs. They want to be successful with their audience. Thus you must be sensitive to how the influencer appeals to their audience. You must produce content that works for the influencer. You must assess the intersection of what they want to accomplish and what you want to accomplish for your brand and NOT sell.

So where does the paid media come in? If some influential blogger is going to carry some content that references your brand in a story, it is beneficial for their reader to see other reinforcements of your brand via paid ads. Not to mention that the blogger is likely to favor your content if you support their blog with some paid media. I am not suggesting that you explicitly pay them off for support of your brand. But I am suggesting that you consider some paid placements where your brand will be highlighted to create some synergy. Think of this as added brand reminders for the influencers’ readers.

When you look at combining and integrating owned, earned and paid media consider these benefits for each media contribution to the overall big picture:
Owned media – should be used to constantly reinforce who you are and what you stand for. Your owned media is not an advertisement for your brand, but rather well thought out content that crafts the story of your brand and the expertise and value you deliver.

Earned media – here you should actively follow, engage and interact with topical influencers to build strong relationships, and work to stimulate content from others. I often call this associated marketing … it associates your brand with independent credible sources. The sources are viewed as authentic (no brand subjectivity) and they are trusted.

Paid media – is important. Social media (both owned and earned media as well as sharing) does not replace paid media. Social media provides an opportunity to make paid media work better. Paid media not only creates awareness, but also supports owned and earned media in that it reminds people of the brand.
While consumers do not draw lines between these media, each type does invoke a different consumer feeling or emotion. Think about how you react or value the different types from a brand. How do you feel about great brand content; an “authority” mentioning a brand; and seeing an ad from a brand? They hit different chords. Each plays a different, non-equal value. But as a brand, if you plan a coordinated media effort with different touch points of owned, earned and paid media, you have an opportunity to resonate on multiple emotions. And the impact on the consumer is stronger when they are orchestrated together.

So where do you begin? That is really dependent upon many factors and I could never recommend something here that works for all. But I will give you a few general pointers. Start by considering the points outlined above for each media type. Stay committed to owned media … constantly produce material that keeps your audience engaged and wanting to come back for more information and/or entertainment. Stay active building relationships with influencers. This takes time but “earning” the coverage and mention is quite valuable. And with regards to paid media, determine appropriate spend levels and periods focused around compelling events related to your brand … a release of a product, seasonal change that has direct ramifications to your offering, etc.

So many people say think big. I agree. But thinking big means thinking across all your media platforms to integrate your big creative ideas.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Lessons Learned in Social Media

There is no shortage of trending lists, reviews, and top 10 lists looking back at 2011. I know many are cynical and think they have seen enough of them, but frankly I like them. They give me an opportunity to learn some things I missed. The problem is that anyone can produce these lists and get them out in the public … the “power” of social media. Yes, there is some good stuff out there, and there is some garbage.

When I look back on 2011 and think about the social media takeaways from my perspective, it is simple … just look at what I have written about. OK – I spared you the pain of going through all of them and did it myself. Funny enough, I pulled the best of the best together and grouped them together and what happened? You get the summary of important social media themes and learnings for 2011. Here is what you may have missed:

Understanding Social Media

The Simple Explanation of Social Media provides an easy to understand explanation of what social media is, what success might look like, and important considerations.

Integrating Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media explains how the three different types of media should be planned to produce synergy and great results. (This was my most popular and top rated article)

Content

Content is the core of social media. Content must be awesome … would you ever share something that was just okay?

4 Ingredients to a Winning Content Strategy calls it like it is.

There actually is something more important than content. Find out what it is in Content is Super Important !!! (But Not King).

Social Media in Your Company

Social Media at Your Company – Policies prepares you and your company to leverage the power of your employees while putting some best practice rules and regulations in place.

It is easy to be impressed by someone that appears to know much about social media, but are they going to produce results for you? Before you get underwhelming results see 3 Helpful Tips when Hiring for Social Media.

Why Most CEOs and Top Execs Don’t Get Social Media explains some key issues from the C-Level Suite perspective.

Planning and Understanding Your Audience

Why is “empathy” The Most Important Word for Marketing. You better understand your audience through and through. How else are you going to appeal to them?

7 Things You Need to do to Turn Social Media Successful Results provides some common sense that is often forgotten when social media planning takes place.

Marketing Demographics and the Ramifications of Social Media:
Introduction to Psycho-Demographics explains marketing beyond traditional demographics.

Ever wonder Where is the WOW in Social Media? Take a look at what might be missing in your social media approach.

ROI and Measurement

Social Media ROI – Don’t Be So Short Sighted – Think Longer Term is probably the biggest mistake people make when it comes to social media. Get a reality dose here.

The Social Media ROI Conundrum is a solid examination at the challenge of forming a defined social media ROI and what to do about it.

Social Media Models

Measuring the Stages of the Cyclic Social Media Marketing Funnel takes a look at the traditional marketing model and how social media is applied complete with metrics.

Digital PR and Outreach for Important Social Media Conversations goes beyond your Facebook and Twitter implementation and explains an equal, if not more important aspect of social media strategy and implementation.

Unifying Loyalty, Rewards, and Social Media is an explanation of yet another integration point for your existing marketing and social media activities.

Social Media Model that Defines the End of the World as We Know It brings it all together and provides the balanced formula and approach for the winning social media program.

Wrap-Up
So we actually covered a ton this year and made some great advancements in social media. Social media is no longer that thing people are thinking about doing. It is part of just about every company’s, every brand’s plans. 2012 will show greater success and more defined best practices. And I plan to be there with you every stride of the way. I am looking forward to providing greater help and guidance and connecting with more of you. Thanks for being an extremely important part of my little social world. Let’s make an effort to engage more in 2012 and help each other out.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

Don’t Forget Influencers and Advocates to Optimize Social Media

Wouldn’t it be great if someone could do your marketing for you and actually succeed? And what if they actually did it better than you and accomplished more? If you heard that a restaurant had amazing food by their chef or a friend of yours, who would be more impacting and trustworthy?

OK – so you get the point. Word of mouth marketing is extremely successful at driving business – in any industry. And probably the best channel for marketers to do so is social media. So are your social media efforts designed to identify and capture influencers and advocates for your brand?

Last week I wrote an article and in it I posed the question, what comes first – great content to drive followers or capture followers and then giving them awesome stuff. (What comes first, the chicken or the egg?) Well the reality is that you have to work both at the same time. And I think you have to have compelling content from the beginning – even if many do not see that content … the new audience can always come back to it.

But I guess we all recognize that you need to work both at the same time. And the best way to increase your audience is to have influencers and advocates helping you do so. Yes a handful of people may have a strong appreciation for you, but not all fans are equal. That’s the harsh reality. In social media, not all men (and women!) are created equal. The ideal scenario is that your advocates also have great social reach. Social reach is a quantification of one’s ability to have their content, comment, and posts consumed. There are many proprietary algorithms used by various companies and there is no perfect one. It is not just the number of friends, followers, and likes that goes into the quantification, but also other parameters like how often they are retweeted, reposted, mentioned, and referred to elsewhere. While social reach scoring will get better over time, it is not too early to use some tool to help you identify those with relative stronger social reach.

And it is not just about people either. There are a number of blogs, portals, forums, and other digital outlets that can serve to drive your brand attention and interest. What happens when an influential blogger runs a link back to your owned media or for that matter they produce some earned media about your brand? Good things happen. (See “Integrating Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media”) Companies have always reached out to press, journalists, and analysts as part of their “influencer programs” as part of “traditional PR.” The evolution in digital space causes an opportunity for “digital PR and outreach” because there are a number of sites and communities that have significant influence. It doesn’t have to be The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. You can use QuantCast to help you determine how many people come to specific sites. There are also companies such as Vocus that have databases and services to help you determine influential journalists, bloggers, and media outlets.

But wait. Don’t just do it. If you want your outreach to influencers and advocates to pay dividends, you can not just push your content. Do you really think someone is just going to push your agenda? Why might they do that? Well, here are a couple ways to go about it…

Help Out Your Targeted Influencer
Anyone you are pitching to is going to say, “What’s in it for me?” They are not looking to help you out. They are looking for something that excites their audience. Does your content truly appeal to their audience? Can you give them something exclusive? If you deliver in these areas – you are helping them out and thus they are likely to help you. Create a win-win.

Relationships
I always like this saying – “You can tell a real friend by their willingness to help you move or paint your house.” How many fall into that category for you? The relevance here is that the stronger the relationship you have with the influencer, the greater likelihood that they help you out. Connect. Engage. Build rapport. Truly build a friendship or strong professional bond first. You will see the advocacy come naturally.

Do the Right Thing – Luck Will Happen
Put this in the category of what Jeff Pulver refers to as the serendipist nature of social media or how Paulo Coelho believes in the world conspiring to bring you luck if you follow the right path as suggested in one of my favorite novels of all time, “The Alchemist.” If you do the right – that is to concentrate on truly delivering good information and content at the core – something good will happen. “Luck is the residue of design.”

I’ll share a personal story on this topic. In 2008, I started my adventures in social media working on my own start up. (Story for another time.) I started tweeting in 2008 (I think) and blogging in early 2009. Given my marketing background, I had strong opinions about how to drive success with social media and looked to refute the hype of ugly colors that social snake oil salesmen painted on the industry. I had a very small following, but my mission was to connect with people I could help – not build a huge empire. Then one day I started getting batches of people following me. I commented to my wife something was happening and I did not know where the stream of interest was stemming from. Finally, I googled my name and found that someone mentioned me in a list of ten people to follow in social media. This list consisted of about 8 well-recognized entities including Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, and Mashable and in there as well was me. The list was produced by Neicole Crepeau. I really did not know Neicole, but my content resonated with her and she felt others would value it as well.

And that folks was the start for me having a meaningful following. Yeah, no doubt, I always would have liked to connect with and touch more people, but my focus was really to just try to move social media in the right direction and evangelize best practice, concepts, and thoughts. And low and behold, Neicole became a great advocate for me and helped my presence grow. So long over due public thank you to Neicole!!! And by the way, I have continued to connect with Neicole and really built a relationship with her. I think she has amazing advice and thoughts in the social media space and you should definitely check her out!

(Neicole is a blogger at Coherent Social Media and the creator of CurateXpress, a content curation tool. She works at Coherent Interactive on social media, website design, mobile apps, & marketing. Connect with Neicole on Twitter at @neicolec.)

So what’s next? Give your influencer plan some thought and …

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Brand – What is Your Story?

How important is a brand story? Let’s start with a true episode … about a week ago or so, I am bugging my 11 year-old daughter to go up and shower and get ready for bed. She says to me, “Dad, I have to watch Glee.”

“We’re DVRing it. You can watch it tomorrow,” I said.

She replied, “No I can’t. I have to watch it tonight. Everyone will be talking about it tomorrow at school.”

Marketers – do you realize how powerful my daughter’s words are? Not because I am biased and think the world of her, but this is exactly what we want for our brands … That our audience feels the need to talk about it tomorrow.

And this is accomplished by having a story line with continuous, periodic episodes. Episodes where the characters that are developed are your values, benefits, products, services, and people. The content of your episodes reinforces why you are in business, not what you are selling (as I mentioned in the article “Marketing Leadership (with a Hint of Social Media“) .

You need a content strategy that plays like the best TV production you know. Glee is about production, character development, and supporting other marketing channels (soundtrack downloads, touring concert, and merchandise). The content each week reinforces their “products.”

I am not suggesting that you need to create and maintain a production as elaborate as Glee, but I am stating you need a storyline. And each content piece you produce is an episode of “your” show, your owned media reinforcing your brand’s value.

And why is a brand story so important?

What’s the story morning glory
Well
Need a little time to wake up, wake up
Well
What’s the story morning glory
Well
– Lyric excerpt from “Morning Glory”, by Oasis

Because stories are what connect us to one another. And if you want to connect your brand with your audience and potential customers/clients and deepen relationships, you need not only have a good story, but also have to determine the outlets or channels where your story will be told and the scheduling for your content releases. If you want people talking about your brand, you need a well executed and coordinated content strategy.

According to Kristina Halvorson, “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.” In her article, “The Discipline of Content Strategy,” she goes on to say that the best content strategy defines:

- key themes and messages,
- recommended topics,
- content purpose (i.e., how content will bridge the space between audience needs and business requirements),
- content gap analysis,
- metadata frameworks and related content attributes,
- search engine optimization (SEO), and
- implications of strategic recommendations on content creation, publication, and governance.

I would go on to say that a complete content strategy (your owned media) must also define integration with earned and paid media as I cover in the article “Integrating Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media.” But I digress …

Mashable suggests:

- Knowing your voice
- Timing your content
- Knowing your audience
- Solving problems, and
- Being true

as their 5 Key Tips for a Successful Social Media Content Strategy“.” I would add that you need to think how you will stand out from the crowd (read creativity into this) and tactically plan how your content will be shared such that your audience continues to grow.

The point is you should have a brand story. This starts with a brand position but goes a bit deeper to explain why you do what you do. A brand story that is supported by a creative content strategy that views owned media as part of the product/service you deliver. Your content should be a production of episodes across different outlets and channels to continually reinforce the brand.

So what’s your story morning glory?

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Where is the WOW in Social Media?

I often reflect on the recent activities when writing my weekend column. This past week is no exception. I was asked an interesting question that really made me think. Someone requested that I send them some examples in digital that I thought were “wow implementations.”

So I gave this much thought and I realized I am really not wowed by anything, yet, as I think the opportunities significantly overshadow accomplishments in the digital space. That said, from my perspective, the wow factor for a brand would be:

a) demonstrating their ability to tell their story in a most compelling way,
b) setting the tone for their position, and
c) having their audience respond strongly, positively, and passionately.

Yes, I think there are events where this has been done. (Old Spice with video, Jimmy Choo with LBS, and others) But brand building, marketing and social media needs to be continuous as opposed to a campaign – that’s success! With this in mind, I’ll point to three components that together could create “wow.”

1) Telling a great story.
I was really blown away (no exaggeration) when I saw this presentation by Sarah Kay at TED. She is an amazing poet, spoken word performer, and human being. In her 18 minute presentation (highly suggest you watch it all!), I am not only touched and moved by her poetic grace and prowess, but also by her approach and recommendations for telling a great story. She is not a marketer, but all marketers should listen and be reminded of the simple human-side of storytelling.

2) Connecting, Influencing, and Growing Your Audience.
I think Ford has done an excellent job with audience development. The connections and communication they establish happen well before product launch. One of the keys to their success was the integration of owned, earned, and paid media. I believe that integration is imperative. I wrote an article on the topic after seeing a presentation at Social Media Week a few months ago. (See “Integrating Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media.”) But I think this can be taken one step further and that takes us to the next component.

3) Activating your audience.
To be a “people’s brand” you have to unleash and activate your audience. Let them take the brand position and express it … Have them create content, because after all, the consumers are controlling the communication whether we like it or not due to social platforms. For brands, digital marketing must move from impressions to expressions. Wendy Clark (from Coca-Cola) shows some great examples in her recent presentation at Ad Age. Fast forward to 15:43 into the presentation watch until 19:00. Brands must enable and incentivize UGC (user generated content). One of the things I have been working on to enable customer creation of content is the newly soft launched RecThis which is an iPhone video app you can download for free. We have not done our marketing push yet and have just done a soft launch of the app. It is available on iTunes for free. (Full disclosure – yes this is a shameless plug. I work for HFM US and I am part of the innovation team working on this project.)
The wow is not about cool social tools – it is about execution. I think most companies are afraid to create programs that promote an audience to express and share their creativity in relationship to the brand. They believe they are losing control of their brand. To them, I would say, Wake up and smell the coffee. It is happening anyway. Your company is not a dictatorship government that can stop the will of the people to express themselves. Help unleash the positive sentiment and creativity for your brand.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

PS – What are some examples you have seen where brands showcase expressions from their audience?

Social Media – Great for Reaching Celebrity Status, Except for Celebrities

Every brand would love to be in the public eye, like celebrities and pop stars alike. Feel the love; feel passion; feel the desire to connect and engage. Now I don’t think it is likely that brands will reach the level of connection of say Lady Gaga with her audience, but certainly social media, when executed correctly, can increase your audience and the passion they have for your brand.

And yet, it is almost ironic that so many stars that have already reached pinnacle admiration from their audience have failed and/or retreated from social media. Just one case in point – James Franco. Last week, Franco told Policito “Social media is over … You heard it here first.” He went on to say “My thought was ‘this is my Twitter. I can do whatever I want.’ But certain companies I work with contacted me about what I was saying.”

So think about this statement for a second and start to assess the difference between being a brand and being an individual while engaging in the social world. The social world demands that we are always on our game. Just one slip up produces a hurt to reputation. While we definitely need to have a person and personality behind social communication and engagement, brands must not be emotional. They must maintain a strong, rational position. Do not undermine the importance on this! If you represent a brand, and you want to reach celebrity status for your brand you will need to follow this guideline.

From the perspective of celebrities, it doesn’t exactly work that way. When everything is going great, celebrities want to show you their world and open up to the public. When things are not going well (and everyone has their hills and valleys) they prefer their privacy and solitude – rightfully so.

But brands do not have this luxury. Now I am not saying that brands should be deceitful and put “lipstick on a pig.” What I am saying is that brands can not hide in hard times. They must come out and face the music and publicly deal in challenging times. Have we not learned from BP and Toyota?

Brands should use social media in both good times and bad times. Social media is an excellent way to deal with mistakes. People don’t like to do this. Brands must! Want to create the best goodwill with your audience? Want to turn a bad situation into something positive? Use your social to fess up to your brand shortcoming – apologize and state the corrective action taken. Acknowledge that you know there is a problem. Listen to your audience. Convey strong and valid proof that it will never happen again.

And hey, when times are great, we all want to get the word spread. How do you do that? You start by creating informative and entertaining content/media. Not sales-ie stuff. Something of value for your audience. This is your owned media. You must have a plan that integrates your owned media with your paid media and on top of that, produces earned media. (See Integrating Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media.)

Last week, in my column “Social Media – Quarterly Review, Q1 – 2011,” I stated that the strength of social media was “the ability to build relationships with your target audience like never before” (as part of my SWOT analysis). I am not sure celebrities really want this. Understandably so, they want their privacy and space.

Brands on the other hand, definitely want this. Once again – people want to know there is a human side to brands’ social efforts. But that personal aspect can not be moody and can never include rants. Think of the personalization of brands’ social endeavors to be carried out by a diplomatic ambassador. Yes, the ambassador(s) can be fun and informal. But they also need to be careful with regards to snarkiness. Remember Kenneth Cole’s botch. Brands must focus on a strategy, plan and execution that build relationships. If they deliver value to those relationships with a humanized rational touch, they can achieve celebrity status. Celebrity status – tons of attention, attraction, and passion from their audience. It takes time – there is no overnight stardom.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Footnote – yes there are a number of celebrities using social media well. I would say that those that are successful, approach their individual social media activity more like an individual brand as opposed to their personal side.

Integrating Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media

If you have read my postings, even a couple, you are likely to know that I have really been pushing for integrated marketing. I talked about the need for a strategic balance of traditional marketing with new media. One area of great significance is the balance and planning of owned media, earned media, and paid media. There certainly are other areas, but let’s start by looking at these.

Here is how Forrester defines these media types …

So now that we have the basic definitions down, let’s talk about how these should work in an integrated fashion. I’d like to think that a picture paints a thousand words. Once in a while a single slide can do this. Now I am not talking about a complex infographic that often attempts to cram 10 typical slides in on one picture. Just one shot. (I’d like to think I’ve accomplished this with my Social Media Marketing Funnel or one slider on a digital strategy) And a little over a week ago, I was at a great session hosted by Oglivy and Facebook at Social Media Week NY and I saw this one-slider for integrating owned-earned-paid media.

It was presented by Karen Untereker, Senior Digital Strategist at Ogilvy Digital Influence, as part of her presentation on a Ford social media case. I’ve replicated this slide with some minor adjustments (not nearly as pretty as the original) and I’d like to provide you with my own “playbook” interpretation …

Looking vertically across the x axis, you can see there are three time phases defined – pre-reveal, reveal, and post reveal. It is important to recognize there is opportunity and synergy for each of these phases. I always say to my brands, we want to stretch the promotion time lapse and magnitude of the event, content, launch, etc we have planned. The integration of social media allows this to happen. You should look to keep the buzz meter maximized – both in amplitude and time.

The horizontals on the y axis are three different media types. Starting with owned media, it is good to leak some content early on. This could be in the form of a teaser, trailer, or even releasing excerpts before the big promotion or reveal. By doing so, you start to create some interests and following. It primes earned media for the official reveal, promotion, or release. Obviously the reveal or promotion time is when most of your content is released. But there is also an opportunity to produce and release content after the promotion. Content that talks to and summarizes the event or launch and reinforces the reveal in a compelling and entertaining way.

Earned media is leveraging your audience and advocates to help circulate and further promote your content. It starts by having content that is worthy of sharing. Assuming that is in place, you seed your content or provide references to it in places where your audience exists. You should focus on social media methods and tactics that make it easy for word-of-mouth (WOM) sharing (one click operations). Also, think about putting incentives to share your content (owned media). This need not be monetary incentives. Often, recognition, thank you responses, and status provoke people to share. Your “owned media” generation should be continuous as people like to share “new” things all the time.

Paid media execution takes place during the actual promotion time. This is both an economical and strategic decision. Economic because you want to minimize expenses; strategic in that it focuses at the premiere time. Maximize exposure – minimize expenses doing so.

What has been discussed here is a “playbook” for integration of marketing concentrating on owned, earned, and paid media. It is not an execution plan. The execution plan will vary for each endeavor for each brand. Do your prerequisite work as I’ve described in the past – define position, identify and understand your audience, set objectives and measure, listen, be real. See “Before You Start with Social Media,” “Simplifying Social Media,” and “Executable Game Plan for Winning Ultimate Customers with Social Media.”

Remember – social media is not this stand alone thing. It is part of overall marketing strategy, planning, execution, and measuring activities. Thus, orchestrating owned, earned, and paid media is the difference between creating a sonic vibe versus a ho-hum noise.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve