What is Social Marketing? (Make Sure You Really Know)

I have notice there are an abundance of social marketing positions listed everyday and a massive pool of individuals applying for the opportunities. While there is much opportunity on both ends, I am not sure hiring companies and applicants really know what social marketing is and its real impact.

First off, let’s clearly distinguish that social media and social marketing are not the same thing. As I mentioned about a year ago social media is simply platforms for media posting and communications. In no way does the act of posting and communicating infer that brands are successfully marketing their product/service. The social media platforms merely present an opportunity for marketing …. Social marketing.

So the question at hand … What is social marketing? Social marketing is the strategy, planning, execution, and measurement activities aimed at getting your target audience to build a stronger relationship with your brand. This is accomplished through conversations, engagement, content production and curation, customer service, and overall, an enriched user experience. As a result, brands look to increase (and most importantly measure) awareness, consideration, loyalty, and advocacy. Advocacy is the pinnacle result of social marketing as the strongest advocates in the target audience help to promote and market your product.

Here is a list of the key elements of social marketing:

* Target Market Insights – thorough understanding of the target market’s needs, wants, motivations and digital behaviors. (Also see “The Most Important Word for Marketing.”)
* Content – awesome original content, curation of content to support brand position, and initiatives to provoke user generated content (UGC). (Also see “Ingredients to a Winning Content Strategy.”)
* Influence – identification and engagement of brand relevant influencers to generate earned media (Also see “A Real Look at Social Media Influence.”)
* Listening – active monitoring and listening to your target audience on all digital channels.
* Feedback to product group – not only listening for engagement purposes, but listening to capture new product/service offerings, features, support, and potential issues.
* Engagement – monitor for relevant conversation on both brand digital assets and non-brand digital assets. Actively participate in conversations and respond to all inquiries in a timely manner.
* Sharing Optimization – Complete assessment of brand site, social channels, content, and mentions on non-brand digital assets to yield guidance and recommendations to increase user sharing of brand’s content and posts.
* Real-time marketing – Consistent monitoring of current events to produce “on-the-fly” communication based upon planned processes and scenarios.
* Mobile – Recognition that the target audience accesses a high level of digital social content, conversations and information on mobile. Optimization of social engagement and proliferation of content for mobile consumption.
* PR – Integration of traditional and digital PR to yield maximum earned media.
* Metrics – definition of how success will be measured and continuous capture of empirical data. Analysis of metrics to determine ongoing strategy and execution modifications.
* Integration to other marketing endeavors and programs – social marketing is not a separate, isolated marketing initiative. Make sure it is integrated with all other marketing initiatives.
* Integration into CRM (customer relationship management) data and analysis – activities to capture a complete picture and definition of your audience.

So you see social marketing is much more than having a Facebook and Twitter presence. It is much more than simply posting and running promotions to increase likes and followers. As you look to move beyond social media hype to drive measurable results, consider what social marketing really needs to be in your organization.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

Why PR Agencies Should be Great at Social Marketing, But So Few Are

If there is a marketing group or function that should be a natural for driving social, media marketing success, I would pick PR. No other marketing function lives and dies by the success of maintaining strong relationships. And that is the key to social marketing success as well.

Successful social marketing is accomplished by building strong relationships such that your audience comes to the brand’s aid and produces word of mouth marketing, advocacy, and promotion of the brand. These actions yield a trusted source of marketing for the brand … much stronger than the brand’s own marketing.

When we look at the role of a PR agency, it is very similar. PR agencies look to manufacture earned media by key influencers for the brand’s target market. As defined at Wikipedia, “Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of information …Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The aim of public relations by a company often is to persuade the public, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, [and] products, …”

PR companies are very well suited for driving social marketing success because their entire success is based upon relationships. Relationships are what drive social success. Yet PR companies, for the most part, have not championed social marketing in a successful way. Why is this so?

I will start by suggesting that the emphasis of PR individuals is more focused on “what will the relationship do for me” as opposed to the true objective of building valued give-and-take relationships. Now I know that this statement will not be taken well by a majority of PR professionals. So let me give an example to demonstrate why I could make such an unpopular statement. When I was running a social group for a well known magazine publisher, I had a PR professional on my team. She was so guarded of her contacts at other publications, that even when she went on vacation she would not give me, her boss, the email addresses of her contacts to make sure all activities were taken care of. This is common practice in the PR profession and I understand the motivation. Yes, the PR professional should own the relationship with contacts that yield earned media. But does that mean they are the only one that can talk to the “partner”? If PR professionals are so concerned about a strong relationship to truly produce a win-win for both sides, the PR professional would introduce their contact to numerous people they represents. (Okay, maybe not. But this mentality is definitely foreign to the objectives of social marketing.)

Even when I have written articles for publications and a PR professional has brokered the arrangement, I am rarely introduced to the appropriate “publishing” people. Yes, I understand the “preservation” aspect of the PR professional protecting their contacts. But the mentality of holding back is not conducive to strong relationship building with your target audience.

Another reason why there is a deficiency in PR agencies driving social media marketing success is that historically PR agencies deal with one monolithic type of person – the publisher. The publisher wants hot news and something different that will help to distinguish their journal. Pretty straightforward. The reality is that a brand’s audience is diverse with different wants, needs, and desires. Social marketers can define a target market persona of the individual that they are talking to, to best fit their message and communication. But they also need to recognize that the actual conversation in the relationship is going to take different turns. As social marketers look to motivate the target market it will take greater communication to build trust with a diversified group. PR agencies are not use to scaling this dimension of the conversation.

Thus I think there are very few PR agencies that can deliver successful social marketing today. Most are taking their existing PR model and playing that to a social practice and that spells failure. The PR agency that is willing to say, “Hey, we understand relationship building, but we are going to make it more authentic to a larger and more diverse audience than we are used to,” has a chance for success.

Far too many marketing agencies have taken what they have done well through out the years and applied it to a new channel. This won’t work for the digital revolution because new marketing channels driven by new technology provoke new and different audience behaviors. Everything a successful marketer does is based upon complete empathy and understanding of the target audience. The reality is that I have not seen PR agencies, by and large, recognizing this reality and adjusting appropriately and successfully. Who is ready to be the exception?

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

PS – I get it. I understand why PR professionals are possessive of their contacts. I am not suggesting they change this for a PR practice. But if they also run a social practice, a different mentality is required. This requires a strong social leader that appreciates why PR runs the way it does and at the same time shapes the social practice to be slightly different. This also requires a bit of give from the PR agency to allow a changed approach for their social practice.

The Successful Social Marketing Framework

Social marketing should not be an add-on to other marketing efforts. Far too often, marketers put together a promotion or other marketing program and then look to tag on social. As dictated by user behavior marketers need to think social first. So let’s run through the successful social marketing framework that marketers should follow.

When it comes to social marketing, you cannot just do it. You need to start with a strategy because “where you start often defines where you finish.” In order to develop a solid social marketing program you need to know your target audience and competition, and at the same time reinforce your brand position. Do research and capture key customer insights, especially as they relate to digital usage and behavior. Use social monitoring tools to listen to what the target audience is saying. Go to specific relevant blogs and search the vast digital world using applicable keywords to find the appropriate conversations. Conduct a social audit on your competition – where are they active; what are they saying; how is their audience responding? And certainly re-examine your brand position – what do you stand for; how do you differentiate from the competition; what is your current communication strategy? These four activities are the basis for a messaging and content strategy, engagement plan, and social channel plan for your social marketing strategy.

Once the social strategy is defined, core social marketing activities are ready to be performed, not before. Social marketing must start with content production. Develop a content calendar, but also be prepared to produce real-time content based upon current events and conditions. Content production should include articles, photos, videos, curated content, and user-generated content. Of course social marketing includes community management. Community management includes postings and engagement with members of the brands digital assets. But another core function of the social media manager is “off community management.” This is seeding conversations and engagement on non-brand digital assets on behalf of brand.

In addition to core social marketing functions as a starting point, there are a number of ongoing activities that are also required. Once content has been developed and published, social managers need to make sure appropriate steps are taken to optimizing user sharing. Besides attracting a core audience, look to identify influencers that will help rally awareness and interest in your brand. This process of influencer marketing produces positive word-of-mouth marketing and earned media. The social manager must also generate formal monthly reports on social metrics – comparisons to leading competition and Social Action Index which quantifies awareness, consideration, loyalty, and advocacy trending. And then there is social gamification which is not “game playing.” It is a reward system that keeps the audience coming back and engaged. And finally you need to tie in social CRM (customer relationship management) which is a combination data collection to have linkage to other marketing efforts as well as customer social engagement.

The social marketing effort is a year round activity. Conversely, most marketing programs are for specific drive periods and then end. This fact coupled with user behavior are the two reasons why social marketing must be derived as its own top down effort. But that is not the end. Social must be connected to all the other drive period marketing efforts to have one cohesive marketing front for the audience. The social manager must be part of all market briefs and plans. Other marketing leaders outside of social marketing should expect the social leader to define how they are going to integrate the marketing programs into social.

The key difference in what I have defined is what comes first. There should be no chicken versus the egg confusion here. Social marketing must lead for customer awareness, engagement, and advocacy. Brands need to aim for continuous relationship building, not just during marketing drive periods. Yes, marketing programs provide the opportunity to heighten awareness, consideration, sales, loyalty, and advocacy, but the social light must burn eternally. Do you really want someone you trust, not to be there when you want to engage?

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

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

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

Why You Should Not Be Satisfied With Social Engagement

So many social enthusiasts emphasize the importance of social engagement. I open up many client presentations with two research statistics. The first one states that “engaged customers spend 30% more.” Everyone involved with social media planning should show some concern and responsibility for making sure that their efforts lead to the bottom line. This is one of the reasons why I put this stat upfront.

But what comes first? The chicken or the egg? Are true, loyal customers that already make brand purchases also engaging, or does the engagement lead to purchase?
So let’s start with the proposition that while social is not a strong vehicle for direct conversion/sales, we do need to tee up conversion and sales. This is everyone’s business objective and social marketing cannot elude this objective. (I covered teeing up conversion in a previous article “Know What Successful Social Media Looks Like.”

So while engagement has some positive influence on the ultimate goal of sales, are we not looking for something more powerful and influential? Engagement is one step in the process, but not the complete objective. You need advocates to tout your product. Advocacy, word-of-mouth, is the pinnacle outcome of social marketing. The second statistic I always present to clients is “71% likelihood of purchase when referred by social media.” Think about it. If you are making a purchase decision, what are your influences? Do you read reviews? Get recommendations from your friends or colleagues? Advocacy truly drives sales.

There is a relationship between engagement and advocacy. When you have engagement with an audience, you need to identify the power users. These are the people that are your potential advocates. Cultivate the power users. Give them special attention, recognition, and added benefits. You must have a strategy and plan for converting your brand advocates. Engagement is the precursor of advocacy. It is a necessary step, but you really need to strive for advocacy.

Thus, “You Should Not Be Satisfied With Social Engagement.”

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

12 Social Market(ing) Factors

We’ve reached the halfway point of the year and I hope your first two quarters were extremely productive. We still have half the year to “Make It Happen” in 2012, so it might be worthwhile to take a look at the list of social marketing factors that follow. I list out market factors as opposed to trends because trends come and go. Market factors have a direct and lasting relationship on business success. Thus the “Social Market(ing) Factors” you should consider are as follows:

1) Consumer Behavior – not Technology Platforms – consumer behavior should drive all marketing decisions. Far too often, marketers telegraph a marketing strategy to a specific platform because that technology generates much buzz. Understand a) which platform your target audience uses and b) how they use them to shape your channel decisions. But start with a marketing strategy first. One that should include a plan for brand proliferation and word-of-mouth marketing.
2) The Voice of the Consumer is Stronger Than Ever – this and this alone is the key reason why businesses need a social marketing strategy and plan. Undeniable fact – people are likely to talk about your brand. Their voice is more powerful and influential than ever. Yes, social media causes you to lose control of your brand. But it is happening irrespective of your social marketing participation. Smart marketers recognize this and find a way to influence conversations about their brand.
3) Listening – is more important than ever. The fact that the consumer voice is so strong means you need to listen to them. Learn exactly what they are saying about your product/service, your competition, and the brand category overall. Listening will help you shape your offering to deliver greater value. It will open up opportunities to engage and build strong relationships with your target audience. (See “Social Media Conversation: I Know You’re Talking, But Are You Listening?”.)
4) Reinforcing the Brand in New OPEN Ways – what does your brand stand for? How do you reinforce it? Consider the power of content, engagement, and conversations. All of these are non-advertorial, open ways of building brand relationships. “Open” means not only having a two-way dialog, but also putting the brand in the hands of the target audience to capture both sharing and earned media.
5) Content and Publishing – brands need to think like publishers and produce compelling content. Content that is valued by your target market provokes them to share something about your brand. I am not talking about advertorial content, but rather something that is entertaining and/or informative. Appropriate content marketing yields “associated marketing.” This means your product/service is associated as a strong and leading brand within its industry category. Construct the stories and knowledge behind the brand as opposed to speaking directly about the brand.
6) Curation – Your content is not the only content used to reinforce your brand. Consider curating content that speaks to the interest of your audience and/or reinforces a position that is germane to brand position.
7) UGC – user generated content is potent for a number of reasons. First off, we already spoke about the importance of brand openness. Allowing users to generate brand content is part of this new openness. UGC is most trusted because the content comes from an objective source. Also, users are most likely to share their own content. Thus it is in your interest to have them produce videos, write stories, take pictures, etc. that incorporate your brand.

(On the Topics of Content and Publishing, Curation, and UGC see “4 Ingredients to a Winning Content Strategy“.)

8) The Web Being Re-Organized Around People – just think about the Internet today versus 10 years ago. In the past, we would use the Internet almost solely to find information. Now we use it to find out what our friends, family, and colleagues are up to. We use it to communicate and engage with people more than ever. Marketers need to work to be part of this engagement and communication in a natural and authentic way.
9) Mobile – Yes, I know. We’ve been talking about mobile for the past 10 years over and over again. But mobile continues to increase in importance. Not only does it allow us to stay connected everywhere, all the time, but mobile provides a real-time consumer shopping guide at the fingertips of consumers. Shoppers actively seek information while they make purchase decisions.
10) Strong Growth in New Sharing Services – these new services are really apps, but they have one key distinction. They have a sharing component. Take services like Pinterest and Instagram where people share photos and pictures. Spotify and SoundCloud to share music. Look for more services to not only have functionality and utility, but sharing capabilities as well.
11) Firehouse of Data – the fact that the world is going digital in a big way means an exuberant amount of data is produced. Structured and unstructured data. Valuable and superfluous data. We will continue to see growth and maturity for data support, analysis, and brand action tools in the years ahead. At the same time, marketers and marketing decisions need to be driven by empirical data to yield appropriate consumer insights. Those that take the time to examine appropriate data will have an easier time capturing loyal customers.
12) Metrics Aligned to Overall Business Objectives – I think we are finally going to see a move away from Facebook ‘Like’ being the metric for successful and business-related social marketing results. Social marketers need to identify parameters that can be measured AND relate to overall business KPIs (key performance indicators). (See “Know What Successful Social Media Looks Like“.)

All your marketing efforts (social and other) need to be driven by customer insights. 75% of the factors listed above (the first nine items) are driven by consumer behaviors. Only 25% (the last three items) are industry or technology factors. As you build out your marketing strategy, that is the right ratio … 75% should be a function of your consumers and 25% should by a function of technology innovation. Put that all together and you have an approach that is appropriate to how consumers behave with and use technological innovations. It is not about chasing the shiny object, but rather following what shines for your target market.

Now you have half the year left to drive success in 2012. Go ahead …

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

Know What Successful Social Media Looks Like

I am really astounded at much of the conversation that the Facebook IPO has ignited. It appears that most people are equating Facebook and their valuation to a barometer for all of social media marketing success. This is ludicrous. Facebook’s valuation is simply speculation on Facebook’s revenue and profitability. Facebook’s revenue (at least so far) has been a measure of their ad revenue. Let’s be clear … Facebook ad revenue is simply a “digital display” offering. Display, although an important element of a holistic digital marketing plan, is not social media. So in the face of all the Facebook misconceptions, I want to set the record straight on social media success … you need to understand what it looks like before you can make sure you have a strategy to get it!

As I have defined in the past, social media is the combination of social + media or seeking or enjoying the companionship of others by the means of digital communication. I am a marketing executive and thus I look at social media from a marketing perspective. (Yes, there are other uses of social media beyond marketing.) As a marketer, we look to change consumer behavior and drive transactions. That is what successful marketers do.

Thus, as a social media strategist and marketing executive, I look at social media as one piece on an integrated marketing plan to change behavior and drive transactions. So it is those actual social media activities we need to concentrate on to change behaviors and drive transactions.

In the past, I have used the social media marketing funnel to describe the progression of changing behaviors and driving transactions. While the funnel shows a “typical” progression of the customer journey, the emergence of the digital world has turned typical to atypical. The funnel shows a linear sequence, even with its cyclic nature where advocacy re-feeds awareness. My experience examining customer behavior for the brands I work with reveals some slight variations. Yes, the funnel states are still there, and individual consumers can traverse the funnel states in a linear fashion, but we see more and more variations away from a linear movement as shown in the diagram below.

As we examine the new construct of social media relationships to change behavior and drive transactions, notice “conversion” is not part of the social media activities. Awareness, Consideration, and Loyalty states “tee up” a conversion. Social media is not a strong channel to promote a sale. (Yes, there are some examples where companies have done this successfully, but 95% of the time, social media should not be for direct conversion.) Think of forming a social media strategy to increases Awareness, Consideration, Loyalty, and Advocacy. Social media provokes these behaviors and these behavior changes drive transactions.

Awareness promotes consideration. Awareness can also drive a transaction. Consideration yields conversions and has a higher probability of doing so than simple awareness. After a purchase is made (conversion), social media activities can help to generate loyalty. Loyalty can result in repeat purchases as pictorially shown with a double arrow in the diagram above. Loyal customers can become advocates as well. You should think about post-sale follow up content and engagement to move your customers to a loyalty and advocacy state. And once you produce advocates you have a most powerful outcome. Advocates inspire awareness, consideration and loyalty. They work as the most trusted source of marketing your brand.

So when I say “Know What Successful Social Media Looks Like,” it means that you have a strategy and plan that consciously addresses how you are going to use social media to measurably increase awareness, consideration, loyalty, and advocacy. Not only do you need the plan, but you must measure results of your plan. Only in the rarest of rare situations does a social media plan hit perfection out of the gates. You modify your social tactics based on empirical results.

And how would you measure social media results? At MediaWhiz (the marketing agency where I head the social media practice), we have something called the Social Media BrandAction™ Index. This index is a complicated algorithm that has four sub-index variables that are measure – Awareness, Consideration, Loyalty, and Advocacy. Here are the inputs to the Social BrandAction™ Index.

Even if you have not derived a social media index equation, you should measure these parameters in the groupings as above and have a sense of your social media performance.

So hopefully now you have an idea what successful social media looks like. It is an ongoing effort that changes behavior and drives transactions. It is a continuous program that produces measurable results in awareness, consideration, loyalty, and advocacy. All of these elements contribute to the ultimate goal of conversion. But they not only contribute to conversion, they work to continue the relationship with the customers and strengthen brand reputation, loyalty, commitment and on going word of mouth marketing. Concentrate on your brand’s appropriate social activities that increase measured awareness, consideration, loyalty, and advocacy.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve