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 Importance of Blogging Beyond the Obvious

No surprise, I am very bullish on blogging, but you should know there is great value in maintaining a blog with continuous updates. Before I discuss some strong benefits that are not so obvious, let’s go through some of the fundamental values of blogging.

Probably the best reason to blog is that it helps to establish a brand or individual as a subject matter expert in a particular field or vertical. Assuming the brand or individual has strong knowledge and expertise in a specific area, blogging helps to reinforce the entity as a thought leader for topics covered.

In addition to demonstrating to your audience your expertise, blogging provokes conversation and engagement. And when you continuously deliver content in a topical area, your SEO and listing on Google is increased.

And now for the not-so-obvious …

How many times during the week do you have a thought about something that happens in your profession? Do you take time to think it through and detail a solution or position? When you are committed to blogging you force yourself to think it through and work out details. As a result, your knowledge and expertise actually increase. Certainly bloggers work through more solutions than an inactive content producer. Not only that, bloggers sharpen their thoughts and become more attuned to their profession. The preparation and action of blogging take you deeper into your profession. The fact that you have thought through the topic and detailed a solution or stance now makes you better prepared for discussions on the topic whether they are online or offline.

Another important aspect is that when you write an article on a topic, you now have a documented stance and position. When you engage in conversation with others, often the same topic comes up. Point people to what you have written.

I can say without any hesitation that blogging about social marketing has made me a much stronger digital/social marketing executive. So what is keeping you from blogging? Show your stuff.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

Social Media Highlights the Important Difference Between Marketing and Sales

Marketing is not sales and yet so many seem to forget that. If marketing is not sales, why would we measure marketing success by sales figures? And if marketing shouldn’t be measured by sales figures, does it have any importance in companies?

Some tough questions here, but let’s start with a definition. According to Wikipedia, “Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers. It is a critical business function for attracting customers.” But I would take this a bit further and add that marketing is the act of creating desire, want, and need of a brand and motivating the target market to act. This “act” can be a number of things. Yes, the act can be a purchase, but it can also be many other valuable dealings.

You see, a salesperson asks, “What can I do to get someone to purchase my product today?” A marketing person should ask, “What can I do to get someone to want my product for a lifetime and share my product value with others?”

When you look at these two different questions, you see how brands should utilize social platforms. Social media is best used to build trusted relationships. As brands build trusted relationships they continue to deliver value to a target audience. The relationships create awareness, brand consideration, loyalty, and advocacy. Continuous communication and delivery of valuable content is what reinforces these attributes. And by the way, these things can be measured, and they tee up sales. So while these “marketing efforts” may not result in direct sales, they absolutely have value for companies.

The difference between sales and marketing is short term survivability and long term sustainability – when done correctly. And this is a value of social marketing – it provides long term sustainability as opposed to short term sales when done correctly. Thus the term social marketing is emerging. Social marketing is a valuable business function. Social media is the technologies that make social marketing possible.

Not surprisingly, you do not hear the term “social sales.” Yes, social marketing can tee up sales, but is not typically successful when going at sales directly. We do hear of social commerce. And social commerce “involves using social media, online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services.” Social commerce includes:

1. Loyalty and referral marketing
2. Social CRM
3. Mobile social commerce
4. Better location-based marketing
5. Group buying
6. Social shopping
7. Ratings and reviews
8. Recommendations and referrals
9. Forums and communities
10. Social ads and apps

In most cases of social commerce it is the audience that takes an action. The promotion of sales in social channels comes best from the target audience as opposed to the company itself. It is more authentic and trusted selling. But you can only expect your audience to come rally advocacy and word of mouth as you continually deliver value to them. Don’t push sales in social channels. Let your audience do it as you market to them.

Think about social marketing; ease up on social selling.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

Conservative Social Marketing is Dead – Be Bold

No – this is not a political statement. Conservative social marketing … yes, 98% of brands and companies are too conservative. Nothing bold and thus, nothing that stands out.

The fact is everyone has a social media presence now. But most are “just doing it.” They do some sweepstakes or promotion to get a large following and then just idle along.

Do you really expect your audience to continue to sip your kool-aid, or do you think they will be better served and have greater interest if you spike your social communication and engagement a bit?

I heard a great line this week from Jeffrey Hazylett, author of The Mirror Test and Running the Gauntlet as well as chairman of the Hazylett group that you should consider. He said, “I might get described as a bull in a china shop … that’s an inaccurate description of me or of any agent of change. You see, I’ve never broken a plate or crystal glass.” Isn’t this exactly what you want in your social marketing … To startle and maybe even shock your audience to truly grab their attention and continually keep them interested?

Everyone is looking at social marketing best practice. I do think it is important to look at others and learn from them. But do not just copy others. Do something different. Be bold. Here are some considerations to push you and your brand to the bold side:

- Creativity and originality, first. This is most important as you take toll of the other points that follow.
- Examine your audience behavior and engage in their manner, not yours.
- Have a cause beyond your product.
- Amaze your audience with responses that they would never expected.
- Establish a reputation as a committed content producer beyond product/service.
- Consider video production – be an independent video producer with compelling and entertaining content.
- Make listening and responding the heart of your social marketing – true social engagement.
- Time is of the essence – put real-time marketing in the hands of your most trusted employees … Social communications beyond the “marketing communications” people.

Look, just about anyone can launch their social marketing now. But I guarantee you that you will get negligible results if you just do it and do not take some risk in being bold. There is way too much status-quo noise out there and you need to rise above the hum and make your brand sonic.

I would also add that there is a difference between being bold and being stupid. Consider the Ford debacle in India. Their recent ads of women in bondage in the hatch of a Ford car were not bold, they were stupid. Always start with your audience. Understand them. If you truly know your audience, you will be able to separate stupidity and boldness. The Ford ads were down right offensive. Especially in a country that is getting horrible press related to gang rapes.

Some of the keys to your social marketing success is to a) know your audience and their behaviors and motivations b) learn from others successes and failures, and c) turn it up a notch and demonstrate creativity and originality. When I say conservative social marketing is dead, I am referring to a “me too” attitude and execution. This approach to social will keep you in the noise and never elevate you to standing above the crowd. Is this what you want? Think not. Be bold.

Make it happen,
Social Steve

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

Social Media Balance – Successful Secrets

We all need it in our life – balance – and it is no different for social media success. At the most macro level, social media balance means the right proportion of entrepreneurial spirit AND some old school business fundamentals. Let’s look at both sides of the coin.

On the entrepreneurial side, the most recent successful example comes from Oreo. Oreo showed their ability to think and react in “real-time” marketing as demonstrated in their now famous Super Bowl tweet.

Not bad for the number of retweets and favorites for a cookie.

I was reminded of Oreo this week in the article, “Oreo’s Real-Time Marketing Strategy Requires Entrepreneurial Spirit.” Oreo’s success comes from both fast thinking and creativity – now called real-time marketing. “Real-time marketing requires an entrepreneurial spirit, simple message, willingness to prepare and readiness and ability to act quickly. All the attributes of a startup.”

But there is another side required for success as well. And that is having a social business maturity. This comes from years of marketing and business experience. I thought of this when I read the recent report “The Evolution of Social Business: Six Stages of Social Business Transformation.” If you take time to read the report, it can be pretty scary. You are likely to find many deficiencies in your operations. But don’t be disillusioned. The most important thing is to know the direction you need to go for success and to methodically implement your plan to get there over time. Make sure you do EVERYTHING great. While speed is dictated for so many in this lightning speed digital world, greatness differentiates the winners and losers.

When I think of some of the greatest social marketing brands, I think of Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Ford. These are brands in the most crowded industries. They must be great to stand out. And they did not get great overnight. They have been committed to audience development via social marketing. They not only produce creative social implementations that create user response spikes, but they remain committed to listening and engaging with their audience. This keeps their audience connected and engaged for the long run.

As another point in case, I’ll give you an example from the agency I work at, Ryan Partnership … we manage social marketing for brands. As part of our ongoing social management, we use empirical data to drive continuous improvement. This past week I looked at data on social channel engagement for one particular brand. The data was extremely telling. Since we took over the social management for this account, we found a steady and consistent audience engagement. Yes there were a few spikes of engagement for specific posts, but more importantly, the brand’s audience is engaging regularly.

The point is that yes … a winning post that is executed in real time marketing is worthwhile, but even more important produces slow and steady growth on engagement. Why? Because continuous engagement leads to loyalty and establishing brand preference. Then compelling content leads to advocacy. Marketers need to unleash their audience and put their brand in the hands of their audience. This leads to social marketing success. You tell the stories of your brand, let your audience add their own slant to that story and motivate them to share with their network.

In other cases at Ryan, we have implemented creative marketing programs that result in strong incremental social following. You need it all … programs to drive spikes and continuous commitment to your audience to keep them engaged.

So when I talk about social media marketing balance, I am really highlighting two elements: 1) equal parts entrepreneurship and solid business and marketing foundation, and 2) standout posts, promotions, and sweepstakes to get immediate incremental awareness and following and at the same time continued value delivery to your audience. This approach keeps your followers engaged and attached to your brand, and motivates them to share.

Yes, the digital world dictates a need for real time marketing, but at the same time fundamental business and marketing practice will produce sustainable, long term winning results.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

How Often Should You Post?

I am probably asked this question more than any other from brand clients? The simple answer is you should post as much as your audience is likely to want to hear from you.

Yes, this answer is somewhat ambiguous, but let’s peal it down a bit. First off, asking this question is not the place to start. Ask yourself, are we jumping to tactics before we have a strategy and plan? Far too many marketers forget marketing fundamentals when establishing a social marketing presence. Consider “Where You Start in Social Media Strategy Defines Where You End Up.”

Next you have to have a rich understanding and empathy for your audience. Social is not about pushing your agenda. It is about your audience, not your product/service. Yes there is a cross section of what your audience values and reinforcing you’re offering. This comes from having a solid message and content strategy. I cannot emphasis enough how important a well thought out content strategy is. Think about providing your audience content that adds value to your offering and reinforces your brand as the knowledge leader in your industry vertical.

So once we have the marketing fundamentals and content strategy in place as described above, we can answer the question of posting numbers, cadence, and timing. If you are producing content that continually provides valuable information and/or compelling entertaining content, you can post more often than if you are simply providing product push. Think about those brands that ask you to subscribe to an email list and then send you a product blast every day. Doesn’t that get tiresome and turn you off to the brand? The same is true for social posting. If you just post product spam, expect your audience to get disenchanted, not engaged, and potentially un-follow your brand.

If you provide valued content, start by posting once a day. See how your audience responds. Examining empirical data to evaluate true audience response is imperative. As an example, I pulled some posting data from Social Bakers for two top notch social brands – Coca-Cola and Starbucks. Starbucks has 34M fans and Coca-Cola 60.5M fans so the magnitude of responses has large variation between the two.

There are three tables for each. I think it is important to look at the number of posts, user engagement (talking about this) and heat maps depicting activity times all together. These three charts help you draw conclusions with regards to the optimal posting for your brand. Yes there are best practices, but each audience reacts differently and you must know your audience behavior and execute accordingly. Notice that responses rates increase with hiring postings. Also, if you witness peak responses as in the case of Starbucks at the end of the month, examine the type of post that produced that spike and take note that the audience responds strongly to that content. It may be worthwhile to do more postings of that particular style.

Also noteworthy – is that postings to different channels should take on different forms. Twitter should be used for quick useful factoids and points of inspiration. Twitter should include a number of curation pieces and RTs from people that reinforce what the brand stands for. FB should be used to engage and extend the conversation and stories of the topics on a brand content hub as well as “tangential” postings of conversations and pieces that the content hub speaks to.

So to answer the question directly, “How Often Should You Post,” start with once a day on Facebook, a couple of times a day on Twitter. Make sure to provide content your target audience will value – not just product promotions. Examine the results (response to types of posts, best times for responses) and modify your posting timing and cadence based on the empirical data.

It is really not rocket science. It is more like the psychology of your audience – understand what makes them tick and play to their emotions.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

Know Your “Ps” When It Comes to Content and Social Marketing

Way back when I got my master’s degree in Marketing they used to teach the four Ps of marketing – product, place, promotion, and price. While I think there is still some validity in this model, the digital age has caused a need to revamp marketing executive’s approach. This was covered in last week’s post “The New Customer Demands New Marketing.” Use this approach to yield social marketing success and consider the four Ps of content and social marketing.

Content marketing and social marketing go hand-in-hand … you cannot have one without the other. When developing your content strategy to reinforce what your brand stands for, consider People, Publishers, Producers, and Passing-on. These are your four Ps of Content and Social Marketing.

People – as always, you must start with an understanding of the people you are talking to and engaging with. Forget about the content you want to push. Be sensitive to the content that your audience wants and will value as it relates to your brand category and beyond. For example, if your product is a packaged food, you can offer recipes that include your product as well as tips on healthy living. But, always make sure the content excites your audience.

Publishers – marketers must think and act like publishers. According to Wikipedia, publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature, music, or information. This is exactly what marketers must do to keep their audience interested and engaged. Publishing compelling content keeps the audience loyal to the brand and strengthens user experience.

Producers – the role of a producer is to oversee all aspects of multimedia production ranging from idea development, character development, and shoot supervision. The producer is responsible for the overall quality and survivability. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_producer) There are two reasons why a producer mentality is important for social marketing. First, visuals drive more traffic, click-throughs, and engagement in social marketing than straight text. And the second reason is the need for a storyline and character. Your social presence should be based on a brand story complete with a personality. Even if you are not producing videos, include pictures and think about what you want your audience to feel as a result of your productions.

Passing-on – if your content is truly valuable, informative, and/or entertaining people will want to pass it on, but you have to make it easy for them to do so. Consider sharing tactics such as inclusion of sharing widgets throughout your content posts. Also consider additional ways and incentives to motivate your audience to share your brand content.

Yes, it was a nice little spin to go from the historic four Ps of marketing to the new four Ps of content and social marketing. But on top of that, there is real substance and value in considering your content socialization to include elements for your People, which include Publishing and Production that continues to have digital life as it is Passed-on.

Make It Happen,
Social Steve

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