**I've just uploaded the newest version here - http://slidesha.re/hNHbao
This is the detailed Digital and Social Media Marketing PowerPoint deck I have shared with the LAMP @ AFTRS Social Media seminar attendees. It is a general summary of some of the strategic development I have done over the past 36-48 months across digital marketing, social influence marketing, digital PR, measurement and analytics etc. I have much more material (and of course knowledge) on each subject contained in this deck. This deck is meant to provide newcomers some insight and guidance into a global enterprise level digital marketing and social influence marketing approach. **Some slides are not converting properly so I have reverted to a .PDF file. If you want a copy of the PowerPoint version please contact me.
2. Notes:
1. To watch the videos throughout this deck simply click on the video thumbnails.
2. Some slides also include additional detailed notes so it is best to download the PowerPoint to
access them in the notes section below the slide.
3. All of this material is a limited and generalised view of my more detailed knowledge on each
subject contained in the deck for example; Digital PR, Search Engine Marketing, Social Influence
Marketing, Measurement & Analytics and Integrated Marketing etc. I have also developed more
detailed training and strategy decks as well as playbooks, guidelines, task lists, roles &
responsibility definitions, workflows and everything else associated with strategy development,
training, execution and the operationalisation of digital marketing.
3. About Martin
Martin is the Producer of the critically acclaimed and award winning The Battle of Long Tan documentary
and from 2005 to 2009 he led Digital Marketing @ Microsoft defining, developing and executing Microsoft’s
B2C and B2B global digital marketing and social influence marketing strategies & disciplines.
Prior to Microsoft, Martin successfully led and grew the ecommerce division of a large Australian media &
entertainment company from less than AUD$22 million in annual sales to more $AUD700 million in annual sales.
Martin has worked in senior marketing roles across radio, film, music, games, entertainment and the technology industries for companies such
as News Corporation, Village Roadshow / PBL, Austereo, Telstra, BMG (Bertelsmann), Sydney 2000 Olympics and Tabcorp. He specialises in
digital & consumer marketing, social media marketing, social CRM, search engine marketing and online analytics and he has also advised
organisations such as Australian Rugby Union, Cricket Australia, film distributors, games publishers, media and government on how to engage
with consumers, commercially exploit their content and enhance their digital marketing capability & strategies.
In late 2004 Martin established Red Dune Films and acquired the film, documentary & story rights to the Battle of Long Tan from the seven
Australian Long Tan combat commanders. In 2006 he produced the ASTRA award winning & TV Week Logie award nominated Battle of Long Tan
documentary for The History Channel (FOXTEL) which was narrated by Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation, Avatar & Clash of The Titans).
The innovative marketing & publicity strategy Martin (and Graham Cassidy) developed for the Long Tan documentary & film has so far resulted
in unprecedented media coverage comprising two 60 Minutes stories, magazine cover stories, a national media partnership with News Limited,
a national 40th anniversary service in Canberra which was televised live on the Nine TV Network, a public thank you and apology by Australia’s
then Prime Minister John Howard to Vietnam Veterans, tens of thousands of online video views and fans and an eventual upgrade to the
soldiers gallantry medals. View TV coverage here. Martin is also producing a feature film on Long Tan with Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy,
Double Jeopardy, Breaker Morant) directing as well as a variety of other feature films and alternate reality games (ARG’s).
Born In Melbourne but now living in Sydney, Martin originally began his career as an Actor before serving with Australian Army Special Forces -
2 Commando Company, 1st Commando Regiment and then studying innovation at Swinburne University earning a Master’s Degree and
Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
4. Some great resources
Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies.
Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff
Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
Chip Heath & Dan Heath
The Movie Business: The Definitive Guide to the Legal and
Financial Secrets of Getting Your Movie Made.
Kelly Charles Crabb
5. An Internet Watered Down: or how to save the mobile web.
Great resources John Pettengill, Razorfish
Digital Outlook Report: 2009 Digital Mom.
Razorfish Razorfish & Café Mom
Click here to get all these
Power to the People Social Media Tracker reports in one location.
Wave 3 2008 & Wave 4 2009.
Universal McCann
Consumer Experience Report. Global Digital Insight: Understanding the
Razorfish connected generation.
Universal McCann
7. ARG’s: Alternate Reality Games, Marketing & Social Media
A view to a USD$25b Opportunity
Watching TV shows when and where you want to is quickly becoming commonplace in a
world awash with Hulu, TiVo, and iTunes. But if the fragmented media landscape is great for
consumers, it's hell for advertisers.
Now, big brands are turning back to an idea as old as P&G-sponsored soap operas -- hiring
agencies to create entertainment designed to promote products. Only this time, companies
are doing it via playful webisodes and websites. They are also experimenting with alternative-
reality games, or ARGs. These puzzles build anticipation for a product release by sprinkling
clues on the Web and in the real world.
Spending on these forms of branded entertainment, as it's being called, grew 13 percent in
2008 to $25 billion, according to estimates from the research firm PQ Media.
8. ARG’s: Alternate Reality Games, Marketing & Social Media
The Dark Knight: Why So Serious? Click image to watch video
10m unique participants in over 75 countries
42 Entertainment across 31 websites.
Why So Serious? Gave comic book fans and mainstream movie
goers the chance to live in the world of The Dark Knight.
Playing out the events of Gotham City in real time, the ARG
provided the opportunity to explore the strong characters,
themes and backdrop of the world while punctuating the
experience with activities that ‘eventised’ the web – like ringing
cakes with baked in mobile phones, clearing Harvey Dent of
vicious campaign attacks or helping the Joker to steal a District
22 school bus to rob Gotham National Bank.
http://www.alternaterealitybranding.com/tdk_sxsw
9. ARG’s: Alternate Reality Games, Marketing & Social Media
The Dark Knight: Why So Serious?
42 Entertainment
Click images to watch videos
Harvey Dent Why So Serious Comicon 08
10. ARG’s: Alternate Reality Games, Marketing & Social Media
Trent Reznor: Year Zero Click image to watch video
42 Entertainment 3.5m unique participants in over 60 countries
across 29 websites.
On Feb 10th, Nine Inch Nails and 42 Entertainment
launched the ambitious Year Zero project, a work of
cross-media art involving websites, emails, phone calls,
murals and live events with songs of Year Zero at their
core. Arguably the most complete and compelling web-
based piece of art yet created, Year Zero has become an
Internet phenomenon as well as a dynamic album,
changing the way people think about the future – and
the way they act today. These trans-media assets turned http://www.alternaterealitybranding.com/cannes2008yearzero/
Year Zero into more than an album you listen to, but a
place where you live.
11. Digital Music: Apple Content Strategy
The iTunes Store The App Store
6
iTunes Scale App Store Strategy
• On Jan 06, „09 Apple announced Best-of-Breed • App Store economics are
Services
5 that it had sold 6 billion songs identical to iTunes Store –
Songs Sold (billions)
Device Carrier Disinter-
Software mediation
4
since launch of the store on Apr i.e. 70/30 revenue split.
28 „03. • Despite likely large scale
3 • On Apr 3, ‟08 iTunes surpassed Device Applications and huge number of
Hardware & SDK
2
Wal-Mart to become the largest downloads, Apple will make
music retailer in the US. only a small profit.
1 • Just two months earlier, on Feb Sync Client Music • Main goal is a more
& Video
26, ‟08, iTunes surpassed Best & Content
iPod
0
Service
attractive platform that
Buy to become the 2nd largest
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FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09
...Apple makes money selling devices but drives hardware margin.
Source: Apple Press Releases & Microsoft music retailer in US. earns its keep through hardware + client +
Analysis service e2e differentiation...
iTunes Economics Quotes about App Store Strategy
“We‟re thinking about the App Store in the same way that we think about the
% of • Although iTunes drives billions in
US $ iTunes store. While it will generate some revenues, it will be a small profit
revenue it makes only a small operating
Music DTO Rev generator, and just as with the iTunes store making iPods more attractive, we
profit.
think the App Store will make the iPhone and iPod Touch more attractive to
Revenue ($/unit) $0.99 100% • Apple uses the iTunes service as a
customers. We‟ll hopefully see an indirect return by selling more iPhones and iPod
Royalty Costs $0.70 71% differentiator but monetizes via the
Touches…” - Peter Oppenheimer, CFO, Earnings Call, Jul 21, 2008
device.
Delivery Costs $0.10 10% • “Our objective with the iTunes store is
Billing Costs $0.12 12% “…One area where we have completely changed the value proposition for mobile
to run it just a little above break even.
devices is the App Store…Competitors are scrambling to copy our App Store but
Total COGS ($/unit) ~$0.92 ~93% And we think that it helps us to sell
it‟s not as easy as it looks and we are far along in creating the virtuous cycle of
iPods and Macs, and that is really our
Gross Profit ($/unit) $0.07 7% cool applications begetting more iPhone sales, thereby creating an even larger
strategy.”, Apple CFO Peter
market which will attract even more iPhone software development….” - Steve
Operating Exp ($/unit)~$0.07 ~7% Oppenheimer, Q1-08 Earnings Call, 22
Jobs, CEO, Earnings Call, Oct 22, 2008
Jan „08.
Operating Inc ($/unit) <$0.02 <2%
12. Mobile Phones: App Store Analytics
App Store Stats Revenue into ISV Ecosystem
• On Feb 14th, 2009 – 218 days after launch of the App Store – • App Store pours money into ISV ecosystem
there were 20,397 apps. In first month, 60M downloads drove App Store revenues of $30M
• Current App Launch Momentum: with $21M going to ISV‟s
At current trends, will drive $360M revenue in 1st year, with
1,400 new apps launched/week
$250M to ISV‟s.
400 new games launched/week. FY‟11 est. of $2B revenues w/$1.5B to ISV‟s
• 1B downloads estimated in 1st 12 months. • Ratio of 1 paid app for every 11 downloads.
• Download Stats: • Most revenue goes to a concentrated group of ISVs (perhaps
Days Since Launch of App Store 60 102 145 189 80% to top 25).
Incremental Days 60 42 43 44 40% revenue goes to top 10 apps
New Downloads (millions) 100 100 100 200 • Stories of developers making $100-200K abound, driving a
Cumulative Downloads (millions) 100 200 300 500 “gold rush” like focus
App Store Momentum App Store Categories
25,000
20,397
20,000 Applications
Number of Apps
27%
15,000
14%
10,000 3%
9% 3%
4%
5,000 8% 4%
7% 6% 5%
0
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
34
36
38
Note: Analysis, Feb 14, 2009 Weeks Since App Store Launch Note: Analysis, Feb 14, 2009
13. TV 2.0: More about Digital and Less about Television
VIEWING &
CONTENT AUDIENCE
STORAGE
PRODUCTION AGGREGATION
DEVICES
15. TV 2.0: Tomorrow
Traditional
Television
Interactive Online
Television Video
16. TV 2.0: Xbox, Netflix & Social Networking
Microsoft and Xbox were the only gaming &
entertainment company to understand the
importance of the shift in consumer behaviour
and the convergence of media channels. 1m of Click images to watch videos
Xbox Live members are already Netflix members
and have watched more than 13m videos (1.5b
minutes) through Xbox.
Xbox has the highest software attach rate vs
Playstation and Nintendo with less market share Xbox Entertainment Platform
than WII but greater than Playstation.
Xbox Live is already one of the largest social
networks in the world with more than 20m active
users and 56% of them pay!
At 2009 E3, Microsoft Xbox announced the
integration of Twitter and Facebook into Xbox Live
and upgrading of video to 1080p.
Xbox Twitter & Facebook
17. Gaming: Quick Stats
There are approximately 93m games consoles in the home. Worldwide Top Super Genres
70,000,000
The average age of a gamer in Australia is 30 years old. By
60,000,000
2014 the average age will be 40 years old.
50,000,000
84% of 16-25 year old Australians play games.
40,000,000
Units
46% of Australian gamers are female up from 41% in 2007 30,000,000
but by 2012 the proportion between male and female will be
equal. 20,000,000
19% of Australians are already downloading their games 10,000,000
from online vendors.
The average cost of producing games is now between $10m
and $50m.
Gamers take more advantage of Web 2.0 functions on the
Internet.
18. Current Media Landscape (By Discipline)
Landscape is fractured; territory battles continue between digital and offline media organisations and
agencies, particularly over interactive TV and video as GRPs decline.
Radio
• Media is trying to tap into the
media dollars allocated to Local TV
OOH
emerging media / gaming, digital, Guerilla Offline
and sponsorships. Emerging
Digital Newspaper
OOH (187B$+) Magazine
• Key growth opportunities exist at Channels VOD TiVo DRTV
the intersections: Mobile Set-top
video Broadcast TV
• Online Display and Video extensions Google TV
Gaming Cable TV
• Cable Television Online
• Broadcast Television Video
Search Content integration
Digital ($26B+) Online
Product Placement
microsite /
Display brand
extensions Sponsorships
Events
Size of circles is not proportional to agency head count or channel
spend. Emerging channels / sponsorships spend included in digital 18
and offline totals.
24. Traditional Marketing Models Fail to Model Complex Buying Paths
Traditionally, marketers modeled customers’ decisions as they progressed from awareness through consideration, preference, action, and loyalty
— through what is called the marketing funnel. The marketer’s job was to move people from the large end down to the small end. But now it’s
time for a rethink, as the funnel has outlived its usefulness as a metaphor. Face it: Marketers no longer dictate the path people take, nor do they
lead the dialogue. We must rethink the marketing funnel because:
• Complexity reigns in the middle of the funnel.
• The most valuable customer isn’t necessarily someone who buys a lot.
• Traditional media channels are weakening.
• Consumers force brand transparency.
25. Traditional Marketing Models Fail to Model Complex Buying Paths
• Complexity reigns in the middle of the funnel. Awareness is still important; you need to know that a product or
service exists in order to buy it. And the marketer’s endpoint is still a transaction. But, in between, other factors such
as recommendations from friends or family, product reviews, and competitive alternatives described by peers
influence individuals. The funnel’s consideration, preference, and action stages ignore these forces that marketers
don’t control. Rather than a clean linear path, the real process looks more like a complex network of detours, back
alleys, alternate entry and exit points, external influences, and alternative resources.
• The most valuable customer isn’t necessarily someone who buys a lot. In this socially charged era in which peers
influence each other as much as companies do, good customers can’t be identified solely by their purchases.
Companies also need to track individuals who influence others to buy. For example, a customer who buys very little
from you but always rates and reviews what she buys can be just as valuable as someone who buys a lot — her
reviews might influence 100 other people to buy your product. Tracking only transactions and loyalty at the end of
the funnel misses this significant element of influence.
• Traditional media channels are weakening. Marketers continue to use mainstream media messages to move
consumers into a consideration frame of mind. But passive consumption of media is waning. Individuals dismiss or
ignore marketing messages in lieu of information available from an ever-increasing number of resources, such as
product review sites, message boards, and online video.
26. Today’s Complex Buying Paths
Marketing complexity means that traditional
methods and metrics fail to address and capture
the whole story. Online metrics like unique visitors
to a Web site, number of pages viewed, and time
spent per page mimic offline media metrics of
reach and frequency. But traditional marketing
and traditional measurement doesn’t address or
indicate the engagement of an individual; they fail
to address or capture the sentiment, opinion, and
affinity a person has towards a brand as
manifested in ratings, reviews, comments in blogs
or discussion forums, or the likelihood to
recommend to a friend.
27. Marketing Needs to Shift Focus from Low Value Broadcast Campaigns to High-
Value Timely & Relevant Programs
28. Traditional Marketing Approach
Good at:
– Helping you better target your
marketing
– Predicting response rates
– Optimizing spend by reducing
marketing waste
– Understanding buying modalities
Not so good at:
– Answering the “When” question
– Lending itself to automation
29. Real-Time Marketing Approach
Good at:
– Identifying new sales opportunities and
changes in behavior
– Immediately triggering a marketing
response
– Building program equity through
automation
Not so good at:
– Understanding the entire customer context
39. “Social Media is like teen sex. Everyone
wants to do it. Nobody knows how.
When it’s finally done there is surprise
it’s not better.” Avanish Kaushik, Occams Razor
40. In all seriousness though, officially.....
SOCIAL MEDIA IS AN UMBRELLA TERM THAT
DEFINES THE VARIOUS ACTIVITIES THAT
INTEGRATE TECHNOLOGY, SOCIAL
INTERACTION, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF
WORDS, PICTURES, VIDEOS AND AUDIO.
41. Putting it more simply:
“Social media is
people having
conversations online.”
44. But it’s still a dynamic environment
So don’t put all
your eggs in one
basket!
45. Social media – The conversation prism
Social media is primarily
about conversations, so it is
important for you to
understand where the
conversations are taking
place.
46. Social Media’s Growing Importance
Total minutes consumed by Top 100 websites
*On Demand Media explodes; ComScore Networks and Piper Jaffray & Co.
47. The conversations are powered by:
• Blogs
• Micro blogs
• Online chat
• RSS
• Widgets
• Social Networks
• Social Bookmarks
• Message boards
• Forums
• Podcasts
• Video sharing sites
• Photo sharing sites
• Virtual worlds
• Wikis
(…just to name a few)
49. It is absolutely critical for
marketers to understand
WHY people are participating
in social networking….
50. Why users participate in Social Networking
Time and time again we hear agencies advising clients that they need to have
a Facebook page or develop a social networking application as part of the
social media program or marketing campaign.
If you don’t understand the fundamental attributes of why consumers
participate, for example meeting others, keeping up friendships or being
entertained then you are simply wasting time and money and in some cases
being counter productive to your marketing efforts.
If you don’t develop a presence or application which addresses some or all of
the attributes on the next couple of slides then don’t bother.
51. Why users participate in Social Networking
Why audiences engage in social networking:
• Meet people - 78% join to communicate with existing colleagues or develop new
acquaintances
• Be entertained - 47% join in order to find entertaining content such as photos, music or
videos
• Learn something - 38% join to get information from other people about topics that
hold particular interest to them
• Influence others - 23% join to express their opinions in a forum where their ideas can
be discussed or acted upon
52. Why users participate in Social Networking
More broadly:
• Keeping up friendships – Facebook is about connecting with people you know.
• Making new friends – We’ve all heard stories of people hooking up on social networks.
• Succumbing to social pressure from existing friends – People in the groundswell want
their friends there too.
• Paying it forward – Having seen that a site is useful, you may be moved to contribute.
• The altruistic impulse – People give blood because they think they should.
• The prurient impulse – People are fascinating. Some are sexy, some are entertaining, and some,
frankly, are stupid.
• The creative impulse – Not everybody is a photographer, a writer, or a videographer, but for thow
who are the web is perfect to show off their work.
• The validation principle – People who post information on Yahoo! Answers or Intuit’s tax wiki
would like to be seen as knowledgeable experts.
• The affinity impulse – If your soccer team, your PTA, or your fellow Swans fans have connected
online then you can join and connect with people who share your interests and concerns.
53. The Social Media Stack
In order to leverage the Social media opportunity you must first understand the Social Media Stack. It is not a traditional publishing medium where you
simply serve a banner ad and expect a response. All you can do is try to inspire conversations through some sort of creative and communication, then enable
and facilitate conversations through applications which allows you to connect to the users.
1. Platforms give you access to reach and connections
2. Applications enable the interactions
3. Ads can inspire the conversations
73. Trends
Gen Y: Emotionally Searching For Their Identities
Adolescents and early adults are at a period of self-discovery, shaped by their
environment, education and activities, and social culture. That's why they:
• Seek recognition and fame.
• Enjoy absurdity — and humor with an odd slant.
• Embrace a variety of subcultures.
74. Trends
Gen Y: Mentally Fickle And Creative
Few Generation Yers can remember a time when technology — from DVDs to PCs —
did not play an important part in their lives. Having grown up with deep exposure to
media and devices, they:
• Skim text and information quickly.
• Are easily bored.
• Are expressive and creative.
76. Marketing and customer behavior has changed
ediocre experiences just don’t resonate with today’s customers
M
Life would be so much easier for companies if their customers still responded to the
same old marketing pitches. But unfortunately, customers are heading in the opposite
direction and getting tougher to win and keep.
Forrester research shows that consumers:
• Aren't easily influenced.
• Care more about price.
• Use more channels.
77. Marketing has changed
But Companies Still Head Towards Customer Experience Mediocrity
What have companies done with their customer experience efforts to survive in this era
of skeptical, empowered customers? Not much. For example, when we evaluate
organizations' Web sites, they often fail even the most basic tests of usability and brand
building. What causes these problems? Ultimately, companies don't deliver strong
customer experiences because of:
• Siloed efforts.
• Industry tunnel vision.
• Self-centered design.
78. Consumers want more from brands
They want less promise and more experiences
From brochure-ware websites...
79. Consumers want more from brands
They want less promise and more experiences
To everyday experiences + interactions...
*Optimised for all devices & services
81. Consumers no longer care about
advertising.
They care about what their
friends and peers think.
82. And this is not a fad.
It’s a fundamental shift in
the way we communicate.
83. “IN 2008, IF YOU’RE NOT ON A
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE,
YOU’RE NOT ON THE INTERNET.”
IAB PATFORM STATUS REPORT USER GENERATED CONTENT SOCIAL MEDIA AND ADVERTISING, APRIL 2008
93. But it is still about the total sum of the parts.
TV + Radio + Print + Display + Search + Social
Media = a better integrated marketing
result.
You need to understand that advertising
now inspires the conversations.
94. Digital Marketing
Thinking More Broadly...
Lester Wunderman’s Nine Points For The Future Of Advertising:
1 Interactive marketing on the Internet is a strategy, not a tactic
2 The customer, not the product, must be the hero
3 Communicate with each customer or prospect as an audience of one
4 Create relationships
5 Know and invest in each customers Lifetime Value
6 Media is a contact strategy
7 Be accessible to your customer
8 Acquire customers with the intention of loyalising them
9 You are what you know
95. We have seen the rise of information democracy
From information asymmetry...
• Information was scarce
• Customers were ill-informed
• Exchanges were monologues
• Marketing was “command-and-control”
… To information democracy
• Information is ubiquitous
• Customers are well-informed
• Exchanges are conversations
• Marketing is “connect-and-collaborate”
105. Social Media Marketing
A Systematic Approach to a Social Strategy
Consumers using social technologies threaten traditional marketing institutions like brands and ad campaigns. For the most part,
marketers understand that there's no choice but to dive in and use some of those technologies — blogs, communities, wikis, widgets,
social networks, and all the rest — to their own advantage. We get questions from our clients all the time about how to implement
these technologies. But they're often asking the wrong question first.
Don't ask what technology to use. Ask first who you're trying to reach, what you're trying to accomplish, and how you plan to change
your relationships with your customers. Then, and only then, can you decide what technologies to use.
We outline below a systematic method for social strategy formation:
1. Listen. Benchmark the existing conversations around yours and your competitors brands, products and services.
2. People. Review the Social Technographics Profile of your customers. (see next slide)
3. Objectives. Decide what your goals are.
4. Strategy. Determine how your objectives will change your relationship with customers.
5. Technology. Choose the appropriate technologies to deploy.
6. Engagement. Social Media is not a passive medium and doesn’t follow traditional marketing rules so you need to develop
playbooks, policies, guidelines, clear roles & responsibilities and methods to successfully engage with consumers & influencers.
7. Measurement. You must develop a plan which allows you to determine and measure social media’s influence on your marketing
investments and efforts. It is critical that the insight and information is actionable.
106. SMM Program Goals: Improved Visibility, Strategy, Capabilities Across
the Social Media Spectrum
Ignore Watch React Engage Leverage Drive
107. “It’s about conversations, and the best
communicators start as the best
listeners.”
Brian Solis, Social Media Manifesto
109. Immerse yourself in the conversations.
(any or all of the above are a good place to start!)
110. Listening - Benchmark
Understand and Measure Existing Online
Conversations:
A Benchmark report allows you to answer questions like;
how many people are talking, what are they saying, and
whether consumers are frustrated or satisfied with your
products and services and many others.
It allows you to understand the entire social media landscape in relationship to your brand,
products, services and important issues for example your Share of Voice (SOV), where the
conversations are taking place, sentiment and who the key influencers are.
It should include a highly comprehensive executive analysis to produce actionable intelligence that
goes far beyond simple online "buzz" analysis. The Benchmark should provide detailed topic and
sentiment analysis as well as authority information about the key sites, authors, posts and
comments that comprise the "conversation ecosystem" around your brand.
113. Listening - Social Media Monitoring
You must also map the
Ecosystems relating to your
brands, competitors and key
topics so you can identify
where the conversations are
taking place, who the key
influencers are, what your
share of voice is and what
sentiment exists.
114. Listening: Share of Voice - 5 Key Scenarios (example only)
Share of Voice
Windows% Apple%
More Media, More Places 6% 60%
All Your Email One Place 20% 4%
Work From Anywhere 24% 10%
Share Memories As They Happen 5% 24%
Keeping Kids Safe Online 20% 17%
116. People: Review the Social Technographics profile
• Most people often approach Social Media as simply a list of technologies to be deployed as
needed — a blog here, Facebook page, community or Twitter account there — to achieve a
marketing goal or because it is the latest Shiny Object.
• But, a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what
kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.
• Forrester’s Social Technographics Ladder classifies people according to how they use social
technologies.
• By examining how the technologies are represented in any subgroup, strategists can
determine which sorts of strategies make sense to reach their customers.
117. Australian Social Media Participation Ladder
Forrester Social Technographic Tool -
http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html
Creators: make social content go. They
write blogs or upload video, music or text.
Critics: respond to content from others.
They post reviews, comment on blogs,
participate in forums, and edit wiki articles.
Collectors: organise content for
themselves or others using RSS feeds, tags
and voting sites like Digg.com.
Joiners: connect in social networks like
Facebook and MySpace.
Spectators: consumer social content
including blogs, user generated video,
podcasts, forums or reviews.
Inactives: neither create nor consume
social content of any kind
119. Objectives: Determine your social media objectives
By itself, the profile of a target customer only tells a marketer what's possible. Next you should decide what you want to accomplish.
FYI - an objective is not ‘establish a Twitter account.’ There are generally eight main objectives of social strategies for connecting with
consumers. To get started, pick the one that's best suited to your company's overall goals:
• Listening. Find out what customers are really saying in order to understand them better.
• Talking. Spread messages about a company.
• Energizing. Get a companies best customers to evangelise it’s products.
• Spreading. Get customers or users within a company to encourage others to adopt a product or service. (B2B only)
• Supporting. Help customers support each other to solve each other’s problems.
• Embracing. Integrate customers into the way the business works, including using their help to design products and improve processes.
• Managing. Empower employees and managers within an organisation.
• Social Impact. Improve society with non commercial applications.
For example - if your key objective initially is energizing your most loyal customers then executing against this objective allows you to
give a voice to your enthusiastic customer base and with the right social strategy this has the potential to increase sales.
120. Example: A Social Media / Social Influence Strategy Overview
Strategy 1: Social Media Program Management
• Objectives
• Strategy & Tactics
• Monitoring, tracking, analysis
Strategy 2: Engagement Programs
Strategy 2a: Audience Advocacy Programs Strategy 2b: Social Media / Digital PR
Identify and engage various audience Advocate groups to become a Identify and engage key writers, bloggers and mainstream influencers that
word-of-mouth channel that will facilitate learning and trial of multiple will facilitate through a formal proactive outreach program.
Microsoft products and services among their families, friends and peers.
Search Engine Marketing
On Network Off Network
Strategy 3: Online Experiences
Build and facilitate online experiences where customers can come together and showcase inspiring product stories, compelling examples and ‘how to’s’
delivered through the voice of our brands, partners and passionate customers.
On Network Off Network
User Generated Content
Wiki’s Ratings
Blogs Reviews
Forums Video casts
Communities Audio casts
Comments Photos
Feedback RSS
Social bookmarking Tagging
121. Social Media Plan
Primary objective: Harnesses genuine experiences and inform and inspire customers in ways that are interactive, dynamic, and
personal.
Objectives Goals: Brand = net favorability for our brand in web sphere = +share of voice,
1. Leverage the passion and experience of our most engaged audience to drive buzz sentiment, recommendation = Net Promoter
and excitement for our brands, products and technologies
2. Building on ‘help and how to’ enable engaged audiences to share their delight and Strategies
passion for our brand / product with others through UGC. 1. Social Media Management (SMM) – What really influences
3. Understand and monitor the sentiment and share of voice that we have online. Find 2. Engagement Plan – Reach out, engage and facilitate favourable conversations
strategic opportunities to participate in the conversation and increase volumes. a) Consumer Advocacy Program – Organize passionate audiences to drive the conversation
b) Social Media / Digital PR Program – Converse and influence the influencers
3. Online Experiences – Give us a voice in the community (on network and off network)
Questions to be answered
1. Can we move the share of voice online closer to relevant competitors? SMM
2. Will moving share of voice impact market share? Purchase decisions?
3. What is the right balance between advocates and our own voice? measure ID potential
4. Will strong advocates move the sentiment among audiences? advocates
What the plan is not
1. Strengthen partner ecosystem Increase Contact
volume them
2. Deep gaming scenarios
3. Shopping aids Advocacy Program
4. E Commerce plan to drive online sales of relevant products
Amplify
“UGC is useful to nearly 1/3 of consumers as they research products and services. their impact
Arm them
The most trustworthy of all UGC is that which appears on a company’s own website.”
Activate
David Card, Jupiter Research Online Experience them
123. Strategy: Determine how your objectives will change relationships with your customers
Your objective determines what business goal you want to accomplish. Having decided on the objective, you can move on to strategy:
how will you accomplish the goal? In particular, social strategy revolves around answering this question: How do we want to change
our relationship with our customers?
While activities like social marketing campaigns can sometimes have a short-term impact, the long-term value of activity in the social
world is the ability to change relationships with customers. By focusing on the relationships, not the technologies, marketers can keep
their eye on long-term change that matters. To flesh out this type of strategy, we should take the following steps:
• Describe the new relationship. Our current relationship with most of our customers is as a trusted supplier of software which just
works. In energizing our core customers, we will extend this relationship, giving our satisfied customers opportunities to discuss their
experiences on our website, and by doing so, motivate other customers to buy and help establish a better perception of our products.
• Measure the impact of the change. It's crucial that we have metrics in place to measure progress towards the objective. For example,
in energizing strategies we should measure to what extent visitors to social elements of the site are more likely to actually buy
something. If our objective is talking with customers, we should measure awareness, impressions, or online buzz. If it's supporting, we
should look for declines in support costs related to site visits. Regardless of the objective, our strategy is not complete without a
success metric.
• Identify barriers to the strategy. Change created by social strategies is often difficult for companies to swallow. For example, we are
starting to have more direct relationship with all of our customers. By featuring customers' opinions on its site, we will be admitting
that those consumers influence buying decisions as much as we do, a transition some Microsoft marketers might find difficult to make.
124. Strategy: Example Only
Strategy 1: Social Media Management
• Develop a baseline / benchmark of relevant sentiment and share of voice and map the ecosystem
• Monitor, engage and track relevant Social Media conversations
• Build engagement programs specific to individual scenarios focusing on most influential conversations
• Monitor engagement strategies against SOV/sentiment Strategy
Strategy 2: Advocate Community and Energise UGC
• Launch a Windows Advocate Community on MSCOM Australia
• Test and learn best practices for ‘onboarding’ advocates
• Grow advocate community
• Showcase User Generated Content (UGC) across the Windows network
Strategy 3: Online Peer to Peer Discussions – Forums
• Develop "owned" / managed forums with a friendly consumer "front end" focused on the needs of consumer
scenarios where Windows plays a key role
• Facilitating peer to peer conversation on Windows properties will increase Windows SOV in online conversations
currently being dominated by Apple and Yahoo.
Strategy 4: Digital PR and Social Media Newsroom
• Identify and consistently engage key influencers; bloggers and the media, to drive more favourable conversations &
Share of Voice (SOV) and minimise negative sentiment.
• Establish a Social Media Newsroom on MSCOM
126. Technology: Select and deploy appropriate technologies
By this point, you should have determined your customers' profile, what technologies they will accept, and at what rate. Since you also
now know your objective and have nailed down a strategy, you can now evaluate technologies.
This is why it makes sense to evaluate technologies only after you've finished the other steps. The technologies you choose will be
determined by the technographics profile of your customers, your issues, problems, objectives and strategies.
1. For example, you could recommend deploying Ratings and Reviews because 32% of Gen X online customers in Australia are likely
to be Critics. The best energizing technology would be to deploy these ratings and reviews on our Web sites and encourage
customers to post their own evaluations of our products. 76% of all Australians use online reviews to help them make purchases. It
has already been proven that ratings and reviews can significantly increase sales and increase sales conversions between 29-50%.
Forrester's research shows that 80% of customer-supplied reviews are positive.
2. In addition, we should also establish a online community to allow our energised customers to support other customers around our
products and technologies. Most people come to MSCOM and in particular our Windows sites for post-purchase information and
there are hundreds of thousands of people, forums and websites out across the Internet who deal with niche topics such as Media
Centre or Photos or Windows Tweaks & Tricks.
3. User-generated content. We might also enable customers to energize others by allowing them to upload their own articles, videos
and pictures of their experiences with our products.
129. Social Influence Marketing
Successful Social Influence Marketing Requires Engagement
By now, it’s clear that successful Social Media programs don’t follow traditional marketing rules; they can’t be
treated as channels because social networks aren’t passive Web pages. Instead, marketers should mimic how bands
promote themselves on sites like Facebook / MySpace — they engage their fans by posting frequently, providing
backstage gossip, and answering their questions. Marketers should emphasize and place a focus on relationships at
the center of their Social Media effort:
• Know what kind of relationship you want to develop.
• Provide real value.
• Get employees to be actively involved.
• Participate without fear, and respond quickly to feedback.
• Keep growing the relationship.
• Use the right metrics.
133. User Generated Content
Six Tactics To Successfully Engage With UGC
Interacting with customers at a more intimate level requires a different way of thinking. While the loss of control and exposure
created though the necessary openness can be troubling at first, there are some key tactics companies can use to stay on top of
the situation. Knowing where communities currently congregate and what is being said is critical before you attempt to enable
your own UGC. To begin with UGC, follow these six steps:
1. Monitor customers generating content about your brand, products and or needs.
2. Leverage your UGC community.
3. Participate in existing customer-driven communities.
4. Respond to negative commentary.
5. Select the right technology to engage your customers.
6. Enable your audience to create content on your behalf.
137. Structured Approach to Social Media
2. Strategic Plan 3. Active Engagement
• What are most effective ways to reach audience with • What affinity groups are evident and how do they
content and brand artifacts? 3. self-organize?
• Who are where can we begin the process and leverage Active • Which individuals represent the proper sentiment
network effects? Engagement for our metrics and goals?
• How can we use intelligence to improve search and • How has message and proliferation changed over
keyword strategy? time?
Brand 4.
2.
Messages & Evaluate
Strategic Plan CGM Effectiveness
4. Evaluate Effectiveness
1. Ecosystem Mapping
1. • What is the update and adoption rate and how are
• What is the baseline level of activity and my artifacts being spread?
sentiment occurring in the ecosystem? Ecosystem • How can I leverage the network to amplify the
Mapping
• What are the affinity groups centered impact?
around identified relevant topics? • How can we take this insight and optimize
• Who are the subject matter experts • Future marcomm initiatives
and influencers in these affinity groups? • Feedback loop
138. Audience Advocacy Program
Primary objective: Identify and engage Brand Advocate groups to become a word-of-mouth channel that will facilitate learning and
trial of multiple our products and services among their family, friends and peers.
Phase 1 Objectives Tactics
1. Organize passionate customers to drive conversations 1. Identification methodology and recruitment program to build & engage advocate base
2. Drive greater retention through deeper engagement across product lines 2. Horizontal community that supports multiple products, services & experiences
3. Facilitate peer learning and sharing 3. Points driven recognition program to deepen and drive engagement
4. Macro understanding of influential powers of different types of advocates. 4. Tools to facilitate sharing, learning and doing
Long Term Objectives 5. Deploy 3 types of advocates to test and learn where we can be most effective; FTE’s,
1. Provide us with an authentic way to gather and operationalize customer feedback formal advocates and self proclaimed advocates.
2. Exponentially grow WOM and increase customer lifetime value
3. Micro understanding of influential power of 3 different types of advocates. Build Goals: Growth and engagement patterns of advocates, +online registrations, +cross
engagement campaigns accordingly. product usage, -churn
Questions to be answered
1. Can we identify and activate our brand advocates? Refine ID/Profile Algorithms
Community
2. Will they be willing to consistently showcase their own inspirational/aspirational uses Advocate/Social Networks
Pilot Design
Scale
Other Users/Social Networks
Users/Social Networks
of multiple products? Campaigns
Start
3. Through this community platform, can we cultivate and grow our base of passionate, Here Ongoing Data Mining
Refine
engaged customers? Build ID
Algorithm
Outreach to
advocates Community
Strategy &
Recruit
Users
Tour
Community Opt-in
Overlay
4. Can we measure the impact on loyalty and retention?
Über user
Segments
Tour
Survey
Platform
1:1 Interview
Show & tell tendencies TRACKING
Special interests Activity level COMMUNITY
Challenge/Solutions Feedback
What the plan is not Dashboard
Referrals
Ratings
Tips/Techniques
Cool ideas
Reporting Cross-product usage Special spaces
1. Brand generated vertical communities
Content creation
Retention
Contests
Promotions
Refine
2. Viral marketing campaign with short-term results Scale/Growth Triggers Feedback
Engagement
Evaluate
Drives
Expand Community
3. One way, brand-to-consumer communication Scope
USER TYPE
RECOGNITION
Catalyst for deeper
engagement
Casual
Drives WOM
Über
Advocate
Most brand websites are largely out of sync with the tone and tenor of consumer Higher
Tier
conversation….to remain relevant brand websites need to provide social currency to Invite advocates for PROFILE
Recognition
deeper involvement Yes
influencers. Exclusive content
and communication
Advocate traits
Behaviors
Patterns
Social Media Monitoring and Analysis Report, Aberdeen Group, January 2008
139. Social Media - Engagement Models
Authentic Voice Community Connection
Leverage internal or Outsourced Play a role in the
external experts to evangelize to customers
customers Authentic current participatory
Voice environment
Facilitate relevant
Brand Ambassador conversation at its source
Provide a gated community for
staunch brand allies – access Brand Community Amplify participation with
and assets are key Ambassador Connection a brand or product
through relevance,
Provide a privileged entertainment and utility
relationship for industry
luminaries who are not Gather unfiltered
necessarily our brand allies audience insights from
online communities
140. Authentic Voice
Direct to Influencer Outreach Program
Objective
• Leverage internal and /or outsourced experts to evangelize to customers
• Place the brand message into the heart of the conversation where it has not existed previously
• Implement a toolset to prioritize and streamline the direct to customer communication plan
Impact to the Organization
• Improve sentiment and customer satisfaction improvements through high value, direct to customer
interactions
• Dramatically increase the workflow efficiency
• Tap into high impact low dollar marketing channel
Success Measured By
• Increased interactions with influential's
• Increase in related topic posts/mentions
• Positive change in overall sentiment and number of posts
• Improvement in number of interactions per SME
• Correlation of sentiment with active and passive participation
141. Brand Ambassadors
Improving Advocates, Partnerships and
Sponsorships
Objectives
• Provide a gated community for staunch brand allies – access and assets are key
• Provide a privileged relationship for industry luminaries who are not necessarily our brand allies
Impact to the Organization
• Have a highly scalable and measurable means to deliver content and information to group of influential's
• Open up a relatively free distribution channel through the influential's loyal base
• Map ecosystem in order to scale out and prioritize your list of Advocates and your messaging schedule
• Monitor ongoing health of Advocates
Success Measured By
• Passive and active participation metrics
• Sentiment and impact shifts
142. Community Connection
Facilitating Peer to Peer interactions
Objectives
• Play a role in the customers current participatory
environment
• Facilitate relevant conversation at its source
• Amplify participation with a brand or product through
relevance, entertainment and utility
• Gather unfiltered audience insights from online communities
Impact to the Organization
• Increase brand loyalty by demonstrating a keen understanding of an audience and the brands ability to deliver value to that audience
• Encourage brand or product discovery
• Gain a deeper audience understanding leading to the brand aligning its goals to audience motivations
• Open a more accurate feedback channel to inform product and audience groups
Success Measured By
• Site visits
• Interaction with content
• Positive posts and comments
• Numbers of people participating
143. Influencer Mapping & Outreach
• An Influencer is an individual that has influence over potential buyers or decision makers. In the
blogsphere we categorize an influencer not as someone with a voice, but someone with an audience
made up of potential customers.
• Influencer Mapping involves the identification of individuals that have influence over potential
buyers, allowing us to orient marketing activities around these influencers. Influencers may be
potential buyers themselves or third parties.
• Outreach defines our approach to engaging with those influencers in order to create connects on
ideas, information (or misinformation) or practices regarding your products and services.
• TruCast a tool that allows companies to track, analyze,
measure sentiment and participate in blogs, forums, social
networks, and online communities
144. Social Influence Marketing Best Practices
Best practices
• Listen before you talk: Listening can increase loyalty, trust and willingness to recommend a brand or company. When
participants feel heard within the community, 82% say they are more likely to recommend the company's products and services
than before they joined.
• Engage in an ongoing dialogue: Customers expect to have a say about their products and services: how they should fit into their
lives, how they’re designed and packaged, where they can buy them, and how they should be advertised. They are often
passionate about being able to help companies make decisions.
• Keep communities small: Although some social networks thrive on large numbers, online communities for marketers can be
small, as it promotes intimacy and exclusivity. You can’t have a conversation with a million people.
• Measure engagement / participation, not membership: Focus not on how many people log in, but how actively people
participate. Just 1% of people on big social networks create original comment, and another 10% comment on or respond to
content. The other 89% lurk. But by-invitation, branded communities can have participation rates of up to 90%
• Focus on people, not your products: People want to talk about common interests and passions -and not solely your products.
So focus the conversation around what they care most about.
145. REMEMBER
IT’S A DIALOGUE,
NOT A MONOLOGUE.
“I absolutely ADORE the “Me too! And isn’t
food at that the hostess stunning
restaurant.” as well?”
155. • At start of program, 49% of blog posts
were negative. Today, overall tonality is
22% negative.
• Direct2Dell currently ranked 700 on
Technorati, among the highest corporate
blogs.
• Direct2Dell gets more than 5m unique
views per month.
• Over 7,000 ideas have been submitted
via IdeaStorm.
• Studio Dell gets more than 200,000
views per month.
160. What is the most
important ingredient
for success?
161. Customer Insight =
Ability to solve problems +
Ability to exploit opportunities +
Ability to satisfy your customers
162. Great resources Radian6 PowerShift Blog
Avinash Kaushik
Web Strategy Blog
www.radian6.com/blog
Jeremy Owyang
Occam’s Razor Blog
Avinash Kaushik www.web-strategist.com/blog
www.kaushik.net
163. Engagement: A New Perspective on Marketing
As outlined earlier, if the marketing funnel no longer accurately reflects what marketers can influence, why do they still cling to
it? Because they can measure it, which is reassuring, even if it no longer accurately reflects the real buying process. And, of
course, there are no useful alternatives.
We believe that marketers need a new approach to understanding customers and prospects. This new type of measurement —
engagement — encompasses the quantitative metrics of site visits and transactions, the qualitative metrics of brand awareness
and loyalty, and the fuzzy areas in the middle best characterized by social media.
The Elements Of Engagement:
Engagement goes beyond reach and frequency to measure people’s real feelings about brands. It starts with their own brand
relationship and continues as they extend that relationship to other customers. As a customer’s participation with a brand
deepens from site use and purchases (involvement and interaction) to affinity and championing (intimacy and influence),
measuring and acting on engagement becomes more critical to understanding customers’ intentions. The four parts of
engagement build on each other to make a holistic picture.
• Involvement
• Interaction
• Intimacy
• Influence
165. Engagement: A New Perspective on Marketing
Involvement: This component is the most basic measurement of engagement and reflects the measurable aspects of
an individual’s relationship with a company or brand. It includes actions like visits to a site or a physical store, time
spent per page, and pages viewed. While this alone isn’t sufficient, measuring these activities is critical because they
are often the first point of interaction an individual has with a brand and are the foundation for making the
connections to other metrics. For example, Reed Business tracks visitors to its Web sites, the time they spend, the
articles they read by category or channel, and pages they view per week (and across other time periods). This helps
Reed Business distinguish between first-time and repeat visitors, and informs the company of the depth, frequency,
and level of interactions of their visits, helping it determine its content agenda. You can use Web analytics services like
Omniture, Web Trends, or Visual Sciences to measure these activities.
Interaction: This component provides the depth that involvement alone lacks by measuring events in which
individuals contribute content about a brand, request additional information, provide contact information, or
purchase a product or service. Where involvement measures touches, interaction measures actions. These include
click-throughs, completed transactions, blog comments, social network connections, and uploaded photos and videos.
Social media contributions increasingly play a role in calculating the value of a customer and are vital to tracking
emerging behaviors. For example, PETCO tracks when customers browse and sort by top-rated items and then buy a
product, allowing the company to identify the effect user generated content (UGC) has on purchases. You can use
eCommerce platforms to provide transaction data, while social media platforms like Bazaarvoice and UGENmedia
track actions like ratings and reviews, photos or videos uploaded, or connections made in social networks.
Editor's Notes
Physical distribution costs for gaming apps includes the following: Cost of games cartridges and shrink-rapped box Inventory risk Distribution to brick & mortar stores Retail margin in brick & mortar stores Defective merchandise Returns of merchandise Updates & bug fixes for games Economics of App Store are better for developers than other platforms. “Games sold via the App Store are the most profitable in terms of any of the formats we work on,” Simon Jeffery, U.S. president of Sega.
“ IPhone Software Sales Take Off: Apple's Jobs”, WSJ, August 11, 2008
Traditionally, marketers modelled customers’ decisions as they progressed from awareness through consideration, preference, action, and loyalty — through what is called the marketing funnel (see Figure 1-1). The marketer’s job was to move people from the large end down to the small end. But now it’s time for a rethink, as the funnel has outlived its usefulness as a metaphor. Face it: Marketers no longer dictate the path people take, nor do they lead the dialogue. We must rethink the marketing funnel because: Complexity reigns in the middle of the funnel. The most valuable customer isn’t necessarily someone who buys a lot. Traditional media channels are weakening. Consumers force brand transparency. · Complexity reigns in the middle of the funnel. Awareness is still important; you need to know that a product or service exists in order to buy it. And the marketer’s endpoint is still a transaction. But, in between, other factors such as recommendations from friends or family, product reviews, and competitive alternatives described by peers influence individuals. The funnel’s consideration, preference, and action stages ignore these forces that marketers don’t control. Rather than a clean linear path, the real process looks more like a complex network of detours, back alleys, alternate entry and exit points, external influences, and alternative resources. · The most valuable customer isn’t necessarily someone who buys a lot. In this socially charged era in which peers influence each other as much as companies do, good customers can’t be identified solely by their purchases. Companies also need to track individuals who influence others to buy. For example, a customer who buys very little from you but always rates and reviews what she buys can be just as valuable as someone who buys a lot — her reviews might influence 100 other people to buy your product. Tracking only transactions and loyalty at the end of the funnel misses this significant element of influence. · Traditional media channels are weakening. Marketers continue to use mainstream media messages to move consumers into a consideration frame of mind. But passive consumption of media is waning. Individuals dismiss or ignore marketing messages in lieu of information available from an ever-increasing number of resources, such as product review sites, message boards, and online video. · Consumers force brand transparency. Marketing and public relations teams used to have the influence to spin a message in their favor when something went wrong. But in these days of snoring cable technicians caught sleeping on a customer’s couch, captured on video, and posted on YouTube or blogs blasting CompUSA for selling an empty box instead of a camera, spin is out of control. Online social tools, coupled with increasing social behavior online, make it easy for the truth to come out. When companies try to spin the message now, they get caught in the act, only making the problem worse.
Marketing complexity means that traditional methods and metrics fail to address and capture the whole story. Online metrics like unique visitors to a Web site, number of pages viewed, and time spent per page mimic offline media metrics of reach and frequency. But traditional marketing and traditional measurement doesn’t address or indicate the engagement of an individual; they fail to address or capture the sentiment, opinion, and affinity a person has towards a brand as manifested in ratings, reviews, comments in blogs or discussion forums, or likelihood to recommend to a friend.
Engage at Every Stage means: Acquire new prospects and sales leads Convert leads or web site visitors into customers Grow customer value through repeat business Retain loyal, satisfied customers Reactivate customers who may have churned or been inactive Each lifecycle program may be composed of multiple campaigns and use multiple tactics.
Seek recognition and fame. Many Gen Yers were raised and schooled in an educational system focused on promoting self-esteem and a &quot;you can be anything&quot; mentality. As a result, they're more narcissistic than other generations. As Jean M. Twenge writes in her book Generation Me, alluding to the popularity of reality TV shows like Fear Factor, &quot;For many people, particularly [Generation Y], instant fame is worth eating bugs.” Twenge also points out that college students scored significantly higher in the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) test in 2006 than they did in 1987. Enjoy absurdity — and humor with an odd slant. Young consumers spend more and more time online seeking experiences that are both funny and entertaining. The popularity of peer-generated video has spawned Gen Y-focused sites like CollegeHumor.com and eBaumsWorld.com, which offer media with an odd, sometimes absurd sense of humor. Embrace a variety of subcultures. Generation Y is as diverse as it is unique. We found a variety of subcultures stemming from the clothes they wear, the music they listen to, and the media they consume and share. Niches like &quot;goth,&quot; &quot;emo,&quot; or &quot;prep&quot; each have their own attitudes, ideals, communication styles, and interests.
Skim text and information quickly. Surrounded by video games and television, Gen Yers have learned to quickly scan through information. Photobucket.com CEO Alex Welch summed it up perfectly when he told us: &quot;Our Gen Y users rapidly absorb content, without dwelling on text-heavy pages.&quot; In their book Got Game John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade write, &quot;Gamers have amassed thousands of hours of rapidly analyzing new situations, interacting with characters they don't really know, and solving problems quickly and independently.” Are easily bored. In an extensive research study of 14- to 24-year-olds, interactive marketing vendor Resource Interactive found a strong need for &quot;instant gratification and immediacy.&quot; The research firm also found that these young consumers will wait just three seconds for a Web page to load before clicking away. Generation Y needs constant stimulation —from multiple windows open on their PCs to non-stop music on their iPods. Are expressive and creative. Gen Yers are active online content creators. They are more likely than other generations to upload videos to sites like YouTube, publish a blog, create Web pages, and post to photo-sharing sites than any of their elders. That's why a site like Whateverlife.com, which offers free templates for personalizing MySpace pages, can become such a popular destination. Supporting this entrepreneurial trend, Gen Y is the most likely of all generations to agree with the statement &quot;I put a lot of time and energy into my career.”
Life would be so much easier for companies if their customers still responded to the same old marketing pitches. But unfortunately, customers are heading in the opposite direction and getting tougher to win and keep. Forrester research shows that consumers: Aren't easily influenced. Customers don't just rely on what companies tell them about their products and services. Our data shows that, during the past three years, consumers have become more likely to research products online and less likely to be influenced by advertising. Care more about price. During the past four years, the percentage of consumers who think price is more important than brand names has steadily increased. During the same time period, the percentage of consumers who are willing to pay more for products that save them time and hassles has decreased. Use more channels. It wasn't too long ago that just about all transactions were completed in person or over the phone. But consumers increasingly use more digital channels to connect with companies. By year-end 2007, almost 100% of Australian customers had adopted mobile phones and more than 72.9% were on the Internet — more than half of them over broadband.
What have companies done with their customer experience efforts to survive in this era of skeptical, empowered customers? Not much. For example, when we evaluate organizations' Web sites, they often fail even the most basic tests of usability and brand building. What causes these problems? Ultimately, companies don't deliver strong customer experiences because of: Siloed efforts. When customers interact with companies across a number of different touch points, they view these interactions as part of a continuous relationship that occurs over time. But few companies see it the same way: Each channel typically falls under the control of a different part of the organization, with different goals, decision-makers, and points of view on how to serve customers. How common is this problem? Plenty. Three-quarters of companies think that &quot;getting alignment across the organization&quot; is a significant obstacle to improving their customer experience. Industry tunnel vision. It's obvious — and understandable — why executives like to benchmark their companies against direct competitors. But when that's all they do, it leads to a dangerously incestuous view of the world that's disconnected from the customer's reality. Just because many major automotive sites devote most of their home page real estate to giant, flashy images, while burying and miniaturizing links to car models and local dealers, doesn't make it right. Self-centered design. Companies often lack a sharp, research-based understanding of their target customers. In this information void, people advocate for things that they personally like. When an exec says, &quot;I don't like this,&quot; or &quot;That works for me,&quot; they're typically focusing on their own needs. But if your target customers are teenage males, does it matter how the experience feels to a 40-something female VP of marketing?
In the USA this figure is 72% and I put the lower rate for Australians down to our natural built-in bull shit meter!
Step 1: Review The Social Technographics Profile Why do social strategies fizzle? As often as not, it's because they misjudge their customers. Forrester has developed a tool called the Social Technographics Profile for analyzing groups of vcustomers and their social tendencies. For example, L.L. Bean should review the Social Technographics Profile of its customers before forming a strategy. Based on this profile, online consumers who shop at L.L. Bean: Are more socially active online than average Americans. Starting at the bottom of the profile, you can see that nearly half of all online Americans are Inactive, untouched by social technologies, but only 36% of L.L. Bean shoppers are Inactive. This creates urgency for L.L. Bean to work on its social strategy, as most of its online customers are already participating. Would accept Critic activities like reviews. Thirty-four percent of online L.L. Bean shoppers are Critics: people who contribute to discussion forums or write ratings and reviews. Based on this profile, many of L.L. Bean's customers would participate in ratings and reviews if they were available on its site. Are highly likely to be Collectors. L.L. Bean shoppers are more than twice as likely to be Collectors as other online consumers. RSS feeds, a major Collector activity, are missing from the L.L. Bean Web site. Are also well above average in Creator and Joiner activities. One in four online L.L. Bean shoppers are Creators: people who write blogs, maintain Web sites, and upload videos. A similar proportion are Joiners: members of social networks. This gives a green light to strategies based on any of these activities. Step 2: Pick An Objective By itself, the profile only tells a marketer what's possible. Next you should decide what you want to accomplish. Based on our experience with companies building social strategy, there are five main objectives of social strategies for connecting with consumers. To get started, pick the one that's best suited to your company's overall goals: Listening. Use social technologies for research to better understand your customers. For example, Del Monte used a private community to understand the desires of pet owners. In social strategy, listening typically involves private communities or brand monitoring. Talking. Use social technologies to spread messages about your company. Executive blogs like GM's FastLane are a quick way to talk to, and with, your customer base.(see endnote 4) Interactive marketers can also extend the brand through social marketing activities like videos on YouTube, as Dove did with its Dove Evolution video, or with brand widgets like Discovery Channel's Shark Week widget. Energizing. Find your most enthusiastic customers and use social technologies to supercharge the power of their word of mouth. This works well for retail companies, which can use ratings and reviews from some customers to influence others. Other energizing strategies include designating brand ambassadors, as Fiskars Brands did with its Fiskateers scrapbooking community, or leveraging social networks as Victoria's Secret did for its VSPink brand. Supporting. Set up social tools like forums and wikis to help your customers support each other. Supporting can save costs, as in the support forums run by companies like Dell and Intuit. Supporting customers with a community can also increase their comfort level and increase sales. Embracing. Integrate your customers into the way your business works, including using their help to design your products and improve your processes. This is the most challenging of the five goals, and is best suited to companies that have succeeded in one of the other four goals already. Salesforce.com's IdeaExchange is a powerful example of how customers' suggestions can help improve products. L.L. Bean's key objective initially is likely to be energizing its most loyal customers. For L.L. Bean, giving a voice to its enthusiastic customer base with the right social strategy has the potential to increase sales. Step 3: Choose A Strategy Your objective determines what business goal you want to accomplish. Having decided on the objective, you can move on to strategy: how will you accomplish the goal? In particular, social strategy revolves around answering this question: How do I want to change my relationship with my customers? While activities like social marketing campaigns can have a short-term impact, the long-term value of activity in the social world is the ability to change relationships with customers. By focusing on the relationships, not the technologies, marketers can keep their eye on long-term change that matters. To flesh out this type of strategy, companies like L.L. Bean should take the following steps: Describe the new relationship. L.L. Bean's current relationship with its customers is as a trusted supplier with a large inventory and excellent service reputation. In energizing its customers, L.L. Bean will extend the relationship, giving its satisfied customers opportunities to discuss their experiences on the L.L. Bean site, and by doing so, motivate other customers to buy. Measure the impact of the change. It's crucial that companies have metrics in place to measure progress towards the objective. For example, in energizing strategies like the one we laid out for L.L. Bean, you should measure to what extent visitors to social elements of the site are more likely to actually buy something. If your objective is talking with customers, measure awareness, impressions, or online buzz. If it's supporting, look for declines in support costs related to site visits. Regardless of the objective, your strategy is not complete without a success metric. Identify barriers to the strategy. Change created by social strategies is often difficult for companies to swallow. For example, L.L. Bean now has a direct relationship with all of its customers. By featuring customers' opinions on its site, the company will be admitting that those consumers influence buying decisions as much as the company itself, a transition some L.L. Bean executives might find difficult to make. Step 4: Select And Deploy Appropriate Technologies — And Measure Results By this point, you've determined your customers' profile, you know what technologies they will accept, and at what rate. Since you know your objective and have nailed down a strategy, now you can evaluate technologies. This is why it makes sense to evaluate technologies only after you've finished the other three steps. In this case, Forrester recommends that L.L. Bean consider three social technologies: Ratings and reviews. Because L.L. Bean's online customers are likely to be Critics, the best energizing technology would be to deploy ratings and reviews on the L.L. Bean Web site and encourage customers to post their own evaluations of products. Studies by companies like Bazaarvoice have proven that ratings and reviews can significantly increase sales, and Forrester's own research shows that 80% of customer-supplied reviews are positive. User-generated content. L.L. Bean might also enable customers to energize others by allowing them to upload pictures of their outdoor experiences, as Dick's Sporting Goods does on its &quot;bragging boards.&quot; Given the relatively high number of Creators among L.L. Bean shoppers, encouraging them to upload photos or videos is likely to succeed. List making. With a quarter of L.L. Bean customers in the Collector category, the site can tap into their organizing skills and ask them to assemble their favorite collections for different activities, ranging from family road biking to ocean kayaking. Integrating these lists into product descriptions and search results, as Amazon.com does with its Listmania tool, will encourage cross-sell and upsell.
These 3 strategies combine together to make a community program where we monitor the conversations and participates through passionate users. Each strategy by itself will accomplish some measure of success but the strategies combined allow us to participate, evaluate messages and course-correct where need be. Without SMM we will not know which messages are having the most success, if our advocates are making progress and if the brand platform is reaching into the consumer influence. Without the advocacy program the voice will be ours only and won’t allow for relationship building and customer feedback. Without the brand platform we will not be able to leverage the CRM system, the content will live somewhere outside our network and customers won’t be having a 1 st run experience with our brands and products. Advocacy is 3 rd party.
Know what kind of relationship you want to develop. The simplest thing that a marketer can do on a social network is to repurpose existing elements from the corporate Web site, throw up a few ads as part of their sponsored group, and hope to generate some sales. This not only doesn’t work but also typically backfires, as users see that the marketer isn’t really trying. Similarly, don’t put up a one-time promotion or contest to get users to add the marketer as a friend unless you will follow through with them. Forward-thinking marketers like Condé Nast Publications’ Brides.com instead think about what kind of relationship they will develop with users over time — from the engagement to a time after the wedding takes place. Newly engaged women can download a wedding countdown timer that they can put on their own profile pages. Their friends see the timer and are likely to add their own timers once they get engaged. The Brides.com profile page also features links to the Brides.com site, which has deeper features and content, such as wedding photo sharing areas. Provide real value. SNS marketing needs to become a part of users’ lives, and one sure way to do this is to provide value in the form of entertainment, information, or promotions. For example, Chili’s sponsors “Secret Shows” on MySpace, where only “friends” receive clues about the date, location, and name of the band that will perform. Ad-focused marketer profiles like Jeep’s profile on Facebook don’t provide much incremental value that isn’t already found in traditional channels. Compare that with the “Yes I own a Jeep Wrangler, and wave to other wranglers” group that taps into the unique culture among Jeep owners. Short-term promotions like sweepstakes entries or free MP3 files may encourage sharing, but long-term brand impressions may not have changed substantially. For example, Apple gave away millions of iTunes to build its large community, but it now also needs to provide value at a different level or it will be forced to ante up again. Get employees to be actively involved. SNSes provide a platform for communication among friends, and yet, only a few brands have engaged in any sort of personal dialog with users on their SNS profiles. What kind of friend never says hello or responds to questions? Contrast this with Ernst & Young (E&Y), which created a group on Facebook expressly for the purpose of reaching out to college students interested in working at E&Y.19 Naturally, students post questions on “The Wall,” and employees like Dan Black, the director of campus recruiting in the Americas for the company, write back — sometimes in highly personal ways.20 Here’s a sample of one of these conversations: Nick Lao: “Hi E&Y I have a question: is the summer leadership program competitive? Is it beneficial to have that on resume during the recruiting process? Is there any other E&Y sponsored events during the summer other than this one? Thanks and hope to hear from one of you soon.” Dan Black: “Nick — sorry I missed your question first time around (eyesight is the first to go for us “thirty-somethings” I guess). Yes, the Summer Leadership Program is very competitive, since it’s the first opportunity that any student has to connect to the firm. If you aren’t selected for it, then you should apply for an internship the following year; if not selected for that you should apply for full time in your last year. Sounds tough? It is, but it’s worth it. I was rejected for an EY internship but perseverance won out when I came back and interviewed for a full time gig — here I am 13 years later . . .” Participate without fear, and respond quickly to feedback. Part of engaging in a dialog is that users will talk back — and not always in friendly terms. E&Y was prepared for negative feedback and had a plan in place to leave most comments standing unless they were profane. The firm has deleted very few comments so far and has notified users when it does. JPMorgan Chase’s credit card department used feedback from its Facebook group to create a “karma points” program associated with the Chase +1 program and also acted quickly on suggestions, such as changing the design of the profile to make it easier to use. Keep growing the relationship. So you finally get a SNS user to add you as a friend — now what? Marketers need to think through in advance how often they will refresh content on profiles or send out messages to the friends list to keep the relationship fresh. For example, the Victoria’s Secret group VSPink sends out messages to group members about upcoming contests, such as winning a “PJ Party.” At a minimum, marketers should message friends regularly but avoid using this channel to push out the weekly special. Instead, the messages and updates throughout the network should be building up value for group members, as noted above. Use the right metrics. Counting just the number of friends linked to the brand only scratches the surface of SNS value. As the MySpace and Marketing Evolution study with Adidas and Electronic Arts showed, the marketers’ SNS metrics could be tied back to the original goals of the marketing campaign — such as increased brand awareness and purchase intent — thanks to elements like viral downloadable badges. Chase +1 on Facebook rewards activities like taking a credit education quiz that users can then redeem for merchandise on Amazon.com or gift to a friend or charity of their choice. In the case of the Chase +1 campaign, three metrics were most important: 1) brand awareness in Facebook; 2) number of credit cards linked to the group; and 3) usage of the cards after the sign-up. The benefit of using these three metrics is that they can be used to compare Facebook’s performance against other marketing channels — and also as a baseline to tweak elements within the Facebook presence itself.
Six Tactics To Successfully Engage With UGC Interacting with customers at a more intimate level requires a different way of thinking. While the loss of control and exposure created though the necessary openness can be troubling at first, there are some key tactics companies can use to stay on top of the situation. Knowing where communities currently congregate and what is being said is critical before you attempt to enable your own UGC. To begin with UGC, follow these six steps: 1. Monitor consumers generating content about your brand. The first step begins with observing what content people are creating about your brand. For a more formal method, look to brand monitoring firms like Nielsen BuzzMetrics or Cymfony to collect and analyze data. On the less formal side, maintain a team focused on locating and tracking blogs and other media about your brand. This doesn't have to be the team's full-time job, but you need some of its time dedicated to this effort to properly identify and track UGC activity. Try using simple tactics such as Google Alerts or other automated content notification tools to track online activity as it emerges. 2. Leverage your UGC community. Consider selecting one or two popular individuals commenting on your brand to contribute to your marketing efforts. When Vespa initiated its blog, it tapped its owner base for volunteers to write the content. Reward participation, even if they say things you don't like — let contributors know that you're listening and that you are open to their suggestions and ideas. Continuously analyze what people are saying and respond with appropriate product and service changes — and thank them for the advice. 3. Participate in existing consumer-driven communities. Identify the most highly used destinations of UGC for your brand — then join in and become a member. Don't hide your relationship to the brand; be open about who you are and why you're there. Listen to what people have to say, respond, and be honest with your commitments. Consider sponsoring or advertising on the site as a show of support. If possible, contribute content of your own that matches the content being generated in the community — think like a content-provider, not an advertiser. 4. Respond to negative commentary. Start off by establishing clear guidelines about what is allowed and what is not — both for your staff and for customers on your branded UGC sites. Don't block negative content, but have a plan in place to respond. If you see a consistent type of feedback, make a blanket response addressing those issues. For individual cases, respond back to resolve the issue, just like you would for a customer service call. Most importantly, be clear about how you will respond, and don't block content because it's in disagreement with your point of view — leaving that content demonstrates transparency and builds authenticity for your brand. Over time, you'll see other people on the site writing back to each other in defense of your brand — General Motors' FastLane blog frequently sees its users carrying on a discussion about a post within the comments. 5. Select the right technology to engage your customers. The existing technologies being used by your customers will give you a good indication of what people are looking for. Try blogging if you have something to say and enable comments. Deploy a wiki if you have large quantities of content that are impossible for your staff to maintain because content changes so quickly. Consider social networking if you have an active audience that can benefit from the ability to engage and connect with one another. Allow photos or videos from your customers if it enhances their existing experience or provides additional value to each other — especially if creating that content is so dynamic that you can't possibly keep up or provide enough information to satisfy the need. 6. Enable your audience to create content on your behalf. One key point to consider — is your audience ready and interested in creating content by themselves on your site? And also, are you, as an organization, ready to do this? Open your mind to what you normally would allow or disallow on your site — and don't be overly controlling. Evaluate your audience, as well as your products and services, to determine whether enabling them to create content is the right move. Look to vendors that provide platforms for accepting UGC — and just as importantly, seek those with the ability to review and remove content before it is published on your site if that is a key requirement.
What is this graphic? The Topic Ecosystem is a summary of volume and sentiment in this space. The diameter of the spheres show relative post volume, while the color indicates the sentiment of the discussions. Due to the nature of Consumer Generated Media (CGM), posts often relate to multiple topics and are scored as such within the data collection system. The lines connecting topics show overlapping discussion; the thickness of each line indicates the frequency of shared conversations. TOPIC DEVELOPMENT In collaboration with your team, we’ll define the most relevant topics and keyword structures and start SM data collection. We approach this point in account set-up as an iterative stage. Refinement helps to establish topics that are relevant to each of the business needs we define together. We set out to pull in, score and make available to you the cleanest and most actionable collection of data for each topic established. Keep in mind that data analysis and engagement takes place within TruCast at the topic level. To do this, we leverage keyphrases to help pull in data for each intended topic. A topic may consist of a single keyphrase like the specific name of one of your products or may consist of multiple keyphrases, each with a distinct set of keywords. In a multi-keyphrase topic, each of the keyphrases would pull in data that would then be collectively featured under one topic – for example, a topic that includes conversations referencing your three biggest competitors, versus a single competitor. So it’s imperative we structure topics in such a way that you will be able to fully leverage the data for your business needs. What is a topic? A topic is a specific theme for your business – could be as granular as a single feature of a product or as wide as the general perception of your corporate brand. In TruCast we track and collect all relevant consumer generated media (CGM) posts – and couple them as conversation threads – that reference each of your specific topics. Topics should be structured to answer a unique question of interest: what the public thinks about you, about your service, about your top competitor, about your current TV campaign, etc. The topic description summarizes what each particular topic structure is intended and set up to capture. What is a keyphrase? A keyphrase (or keywords) is a set of search word combinations that will enable the TruCast application to ingest CGM content (original posts and comments) relevant to a topic. Data is often collected for a topic from multiple keyphrases. Keyphrases are not sub-topics, and thus TruCast does not allow you to parcel and analyze data (with our business intelligence Dashboards) or engage/monitor posts (Engagement Manager) per keyphrase. Once the content is ingested by keyword matches, those posts are then scored and earmarked to any and all matching topics and are assigned sentiment (Good, Bad, Neutral, or Mixed) per topic. Thus, a post may reference multiple topics, with each topic receiving a different sentiment score. Topic example: Lenovo IdeaPad Associated keyphrase: Include all – Lenovo, IdeaPad Include one secondary term - Y510, Y710, U110, Y410, novo, one touch, game zone, XP, Vista, facial recognition, veriface, partition, consumer This keyphrase will collect all posts associated with Lenovo conversations around Lenovo IdeaPad that includes at least one of the secondary terms. With this topic in TruCast, we will not be able to parcel sentiment and volume per associated keyword. For example, we will not be able to analyze and report on Y510 independent of other posts highlighting Y710, U110, Y410, etc.
Top dealers today recognize this.
Many marketers are expressing a desire to move away from gimmicks - and traditional campaign thinking - to solutions that offer more long term value and which builds relationships. But…. There are a great deal of hurdles that marketers who want to do less ‘subservient chickens’ and more ‘Nike+'s’ will face. This document isn't meant to be negative—it's a reality check. If marketers on both the Microsoft and agency side really want to extend their influence, we'll need to ween ourselves from the impulse to spin the &quot;Wheel of Marketing Misfortune&quot;. It won't be as easy as it sounds. So here's where we need to get to work: Microsite Madness The Microsite is actually a great thing. It allows us to quickly launch an initiative that can link out to and be linked to from other sources and allows marketers to bypass slower moving large scale site efforts. But increasingly, microsites are being cranked out by the thousands. Many of them are sold as &quot;high-engagement&quot; vehicles when in reality they become souless, glossy artifacts that come off as traditional promotions in a digital shell. Microsites as a format are not inherently bad, but we really need to think about why users will want to spend some time there, and even more importantly, why they would come back. Viral Addiction Let’s be honest with ourselves. Marketers are severely addicted to the idea of &quot;viral&quot;, and will do whatever it takes to make something reach this level of marketing nirvana. The problem with viral is that it's a crap shoot and all of the time spent chasing the &quot;viral dragon&quot; could be invested in improving the customer experience, which ironically is what creates authentic word of mouth in the first place. Again, viral is not a bad thing—but it's tricky business and marketers need to clearly identify the need for buzz before pursuing it at all costs Flashturbation (Silverlight) We need to think of Flash / Silverlight the same we think about incredibly powerful mediums such as television and radio. When done well, television can inspire and motivate us—when done awfully it comes off as annoying and makes us want to flip channels. I think Flash / Silverlight is a wonderful technology and tool, but like any powerful tool it gets abused way too much, often times at the expense of the end user. I urge designers and marketers to use the technology responsibly. Think about what happened to airbrush artists who spent all of their time pushing that technology to its limit. Where are they now? Death By Big Idea &quot;The Big Idea&quot; is still very much alive and well—but it's less relevant than it's ever been. Especially big ideas that start with a top down broadcast messages first. This is campaign thinking in its finest and does not translate directly in a fragmented 2.0 world. Bud.TV for example was a &quot;big idea&quot; fueled by traditional thinking—what followed was a &quot;big bang&quot; launch, but not the engagement. We marketers are going to need to diversify how we think, which means supporting both big ideas and lots of &quot;big-little ideas&quot; that can thrive in the niches. That's one of the biggest challenges marketers now face. Thinking in niche—the internet thrives on it. Award Infatuation Let's get this straight. Peer recognition is important and we should celebrate when one of our own does something remarkable. But the awards industry is here to make money too—and many of us are all too happy to forget about putting customers first in the pursuit of praise. Agencies especially have to come to terms with this and should all talke a cue from what's arguably one of the the #1 brands in existence right now. Google. We really need to think hard about how compatible awards are with being &quot; Googly &quot;. Actually, they are—but one needs to come before the other. Social Media Goldrush The &quot;social revolution&quot; is real, transformational and not going away. However, we need to proceed with a little caution. Not every tactic requires &quot;conversation&quot;. Marketers need an intimate understanding of how social networks actually function and what is has to do with their business and brands. Then, we need to try a few things and learn by doing. But there's gold in them thar hills—which means that ev eryone right now who is claiming to be an expert in this area could potentially steer you wrong. I am way more active than most when it comes to the social space and I would NOT consider myself an expert. Let's be smart about how we can take advantage of the behavioral shift in this area. We'll need to be better at establishing credibility before we can guide, and the last thing we need is snake oil salesman. Churn-n-Burn Because much of marketing is deeply rooted in quick hits that demonstrate short term spikes, we've gotten used to an intense industry to work in that it risks burning many of us out. The industry is fast paced and more than happy to put fresh meat to work. This is something that is not sustainable, especially in the digital space where there is a shortage of talent who truly knows what they are doing. We'll need to overcome this somehow and it will take some time. Shiny Object Syndrome Many have talked about BSOS (Bright and Shiney Object Syndrome), and most marketers are guilty of it. It stems from the addiction to always looking for the &quot;next big thing&quot; without gaining a deep understanding of what's on our plate at the moment. The result is a loss of credibility both in and outside of the industry. We'll need to do a better job balancing what's next with what's already here. The real risk here is creating initiatives that bomb because we missed the mark on where the customer's head was actually at in order to satisfy where our heads may be at. Banner-Palooza We're turning the internet into Times Square. While we digital marketers claim to be cutting edge, we're not willing to turn down the lucrative ad banner business. Again, there's nothing wrong with it—but for aspiring designers who work in marketing and someday want to design the next You Tube, banner ads will most likely not help you get there. Campaign-Itis If we're truly living in an &quot; application economy &quot;, then marketing/ad campaigns are not the end all be all though they are still important. But the biggest shift powered by digital is that the average Joe/Jane has become the new storyteller and digital experiences are becoming more important to an empowered consumer who frankly has more options than ever before. Point in case, David recently ordered a replacement keyboard for his family's HP computer and was severely disappointed to see that HP had downgraded their industrial design. The original keyboard was stylish, finished with metalic silver and felt right to the touch. The new keyboard only comes in black and feels like plastic. HP's campaign &quot;The Computer is personal again&quot; now feels like a lie to him. If he gets another PC, it will probably not be an HP—and no campaign can influence that. It's time for marketers to bring the product, the experience and the marketing together because the average consumer is no longer making distinctions between them. The future of marketing will take both storytellers + experience people to pull it off. Apple sells experiences not products and it does it well. So, that's the &quot;Wheel of Marketing Misfortune&quot; in a nutshell. There's no reason to sugercoat it. We're all smart people who want to make what we do better. Whether you're on the Microsoft or agency side—it's time to get to work.
Search engine results aren't realized simply from optimizing your website anymore. Gaining an understanding of the multi-channel nature of the Internet is key to successful online marketing campaigns.
Many cases can be made for different types of effective advertising. But what makes search engine marketing stand out from the rest? This infographic demonstrates the mindset of the buyer and their ability to easily convert while in the medium.
Collectively, segmented marketing initiatives will help increase your baseline traffic over time. The traffic bump infographic demonstrates the potential of gaining loyal readers with every marketing initiative.
Most people still prefer listings found on the first page of results, but as users become more savvy, they realize that sometimes better results can be found by looking further into the search result pages.
With so many tactical options available to today's search marketer, it can sometimes be difficult to determine which approaches are best for achieving specific goals. Should press releases be optimized for increased brand awareness? Or, will a PPC campaign achieve better results?
There are many aspects of the blogosphere that make it attractive to search marketers: the sharing and distribution of content, the potential for viral marketing and link bait, and the associated linking opportunities. But, so much more goes into the relationship we have with blog communities. This infographic describes both the tangible and intangible benefits of engaging with the blogosphere.
Impact of Social Media on Search Results A search engine marketing campaign isn't complete without including some elements of social media. While engaging in social media alone can provide impressive results, this week's infographic illustrates how properly planned tactics can have a positive impact on your search results.
Search marketers know it's important to optimize company websites in order to be found on search engines. But, customers' trust can be grown through so many additional avenues. This infographic demonstrates how various SEM tactics - in addition to just SEO - allow buyers to find out about products, not only on companies' websites but also on other popular sites throughout the web.
These 3 strategies combine together to make a community program where we monitor the conversations and participates through passionate influencers / users. Each strategy by itself will accomplish some measure of success but the strategies combined allow us to participate, evaluate messages and course-correct where need be. Without SMM we will not know which messages are having the most success, if our advocates are making progress and if our platform is reaching into the consumer influence. Without the advocacy program the voice will be our brand only and won’t allow for relationship building and customer feedback. Without the brand platform we will not be able to leverage the CRM system, the content will live somewhere outside our network and customers won’t be having a 1 st run experience with us. Remember, advocacy is 3 rd party.
Practical Examples of Involving SEO Expertise with Media & Blogger Relations, Social Media Monitoring The advent of digital PR and the technology tools that serve as compliments means changes in the way agencies provide client consulting and practice management. In the case of TopRank, we’re running both a internet marketing agency and a public relations practice , so we’ve always counseled our clients on the use of targeted keywords during interviews and in communications with the media as well as with content published to the web. In a push and pull PR strategy, keywords are used to optimize content and digital assets to enable the media to pull themselves to a client’s news. Optimize your media relations training . For media relations coaching with keywords, the phrases to use in interviews (along with the brand message) are the keywords the company news content is optimized for. When the interviews or articles are published on or offline, many readers will remember the topic, but not the names of all the companies mentioned. More often than not, readers will go to go to Google and search the topic of the article whereupon the company has prominent visibility in the search results. The traffic this tactic generates includes both consumers searching for products/services as well as journalists researching stories. I’m a blog. Can you relate? Another emerging practice area for many digital PR practitioners is Blogger Relations . Pitching in media relations is similar in many ways to individual link building. Pitching bloggers for PR purposes or as part of a link building program can be a slippery slope when approached with traditional tactics. Most bloggers don’t respond well, if at all, to a mass distributed email pitch. For successful blogger relations, more effort must be undertaken into qualifying bloggers to determine their degree of influence, topics that are important to them and their readers. Pitching is customized and personal by default, not as an exception. Spin cycle to transparency . Most tenured PR professionals grew up in the industry on spin so it takes a bit of re-training to get more experienced media relations staff in the habit of social participation and transparency. Blogger relations is a never ending task of practice and refinement as is link building for search engine optimization. PR is still about persuasion though, so there will always be some aspect of the pitching effort designed for a particular messaging outcome just like there is an intended outcome for a link solicitation with SEO. That’s not “spin” as we know it today, but it is still about influence, a “sale” to be made, a media “hit” to score. Social crisis management . Another change with the increasing popularity of digital PR is how public relations practitioners handle crisis communications and the rapid spread of information online. In the past, PR professionals could call their contacts within the media to keep a negative story from getting coverage. With more and more editorial decisions in the hands of user generated content, there’s nothing any company or PR professional can do to stop negative news from being posted, ranted, commented and spread amongst blogs, Twitter and instant messaging. Listen to the brand conversation . Today’s participatory web requires companies to be involved with online communities in order to gain any kind of foothold on what’s being said and discussed about their brands. The notion that, “ Conversations are happening with or without you , so get involved or get left behind”, rings true for brands and PR as well as for advertising and marketing. Brands need to be monitored continuously and when dissention is detected, it must be qualified and responded to quickly before it becomes a full blown crisis. Kryponite locks are a classic example of this and with the Bic pen fiasco still occupying top five search results , they could seriously use some SEO expertise with Search Engine Reputation Management. It’s about people, technology and keywords . Corporate PR and communications need to allocate ongoing software ( social media and brand monitoring ) and human resources (Community Manager) to this end in proportion to the value of their brand equity. The bigger the brand, the more you have to lose by not paying attention to what social communities and the blogosphere is saying. Social media monitoring is keyword based, so understanding keyword research from a SEO and branding perspective can be instrumental in an effective listening effort. As companies should “listen” to the social web for negative sentiment, they should also listen for evangelists. Reaching out to brand proponents and energizing their efforts with recognition and communication tools goes a long way towards building a brand online. It’s also the foundation for building community. Is it really about “Adapt or die”? When it comes to digital PR and the integration of online PR, social media and search engine optimization, it’s a critical moment for PR agencies and corporate PR departments: embrace the social web or it will embrace you. New methods of online communication and influence require new tools and skill sets on the part of online marketing and PR practitioners. Listening, participating and engaging with less direct message control mean agencies must adjust their organizations in order to adapt. It also requires new models for managing client expectations. Whether it’s optimizing news content for SEO, digital asset optimization for media and news assets or an integrated Push/Pull PR strategy involving both optimization and media/ blogger outreach , new corporate “neural pathways” must be laid in order for companies to realize their place in the social web .
Practical Examples of Involving SEO Expertise with Media & Blogger Relations, Social Media Monitoring The advent of digital PR and the technology tools that serve as compliments means changes in the way agencies provide client consulting and practice management. In the case of TopRank, we’re running both a internet marketing agency and a public relations practice , so we’ve always counseled our clients on the use of targeted keywords during interviews and in communications with the media as well as with content published to the web. In a push and pull PR strategy, keywords are used to optimize content and digital assets to enable the media to pull themselves to a client’s news. Optimize your media relations training . For media relations coaching with keywords, the phrases to use in interviews (along with the brand message) are the keywords the company news content is optimized for. When the interviews or articles are published on or offline, many readers will remember the topic, but not the names of all the companies mentioned. More often than not, readers will go to go to Google and search the topic of the article whereupon the company has prominent visibility in the search results. The traffic this tactic generates includes both consumers searching for products/services as well as journalists researching stories. I’m a blog. Can you relate? Another emerging practice area for many digital PR practitioners is Blogger Relations . Pitching in media relations is similar in many ways to individual link building. Pitching bloggers for PR purposes or as part of a link building program can be a slippery slope when approached with traditional tactics. Most bloggers don’t respond well, if at all, to a mass distributed email pitch. For successful blogger relations, more effort must be undertaken into qualifying bloggers to determine their degree of influence, topics that are important to them and their readers. Pitching is customized and personal by default, not as an exception. Spin cycle to transparency . Most tenured PR professionals grew up in the industry on spin so it takes a bit of re-training to get more experienced media relations staff in the habit of social participation and transparency. Blogger relations is a never ending task of practice and refinement as is link building for search engine optimization. PR is still about persuasion though, so there will always be some aspect of the pitching effort designed for a particular messaging outcome just like there is an intended outcome for a link solicitation with SEO. That’s not “spin” as we know it today, but it is still about influence, a “sale” to be made, a media “hit” to score. Social crisis management . Another change with the increasing popularity of digital PR is how public relations practitioners handle crisis communications and the rapid spread of information online. In the past, PR professionals could call their contacts within the media to keep a negative story from getting coverage. With more and more editorial decisions in the hands of user generated content, there’s nothing any company or PR professional can do to stop negative news from being posted, ranted, commented and spread amongst blogs, Twitter and instant messaging. Listen to the brand conversation . Today’s participatory web requires companies to be involved with online communities in order to gain any kind of foothold on what’s being said and discussed about their brands. The notion that, “ Conversations are happening with or without you , so get involved or get left behind”, rings true for brands and PR as well as for advertising and marketing. Brands need to be monitored continuously and when dissention is detected, it must be qualified and responded to quickly before it becomes a full blown crisis. Kryponite locks are a classic example of this and with the Bic pen fiasco still occupying top five search results , they could seriously use some SEO expertise with Search Engine Reputation Management. It’s about people, technology and keywords . Corporate PR and communications need to allocate ongoing software ( social media and brand monitoring ) and human resources (Community Manager) to this end in proportion to the value of their brand equity. The bigger the brand, the more you have to lose by not paying attention to what social communities and the blogosphere is saying. Social media monitoring is keyword based, so understanding keyword research from a SEO and branding perspective can be instrumental in an effective listening effort. As companies should “listen” to the social web for negative sentiment, they should also listen for evangelists. Reaching out to brand proponents and energizing their efforts with recognition and communication tools goes a long way towards building a brand online. It’s also the foundation for building community. Is it really about “Adapt or die”? When it comes to digital PR and the integration of online PR, social media and search engine optimization, it’s a critical moment for PR agencies and corporate PR departments: embrace the social web or it will embrace you. New methods of online communication and influence require new tools and skill sets on the part of online marketing and PR practitioners. Listening, participating and engaging with less direct message control mean agencies must adjust their organizations in order to adapt. It also requires new models for managing client expectations. Whether it’s optimizing news content for SEO, digital asset optimization for media and news assets or an integrated Push/Pull PR strategy involving both optimization and media/ blogger outreach , new corporate “neural pathways” must be laid in order for companies to realize their place in the social web .
Democratize &quot;Access&quot; - The content (words, multimedia, links) need to be available to all comers. We cannot set up artificial barriers (i.e., &quot;thou shalt present journalist credentials in order to download official jpegs of our logo&quot;). Ensure &quot;Accuracy&quot; - First off, given the electronic (and thus easily transfigured) nature of the Social Media News Release, we need to be thinking about some sort of &quot;trustmark&quot; scheme. Just as importantly, corporations need to see the benefit of providing &quot;official&quot; versions of their logos, graphics, and other multimedia, for use and re-use by all media types. Embrace &quot;Context&quot; - In the old days, you'd never clue a reporter to the assorted articles that had already been written about a client. Nowadays, you're a clod if you think they won't find these articles via a quick Google search, so, why not make the reporter's job easier by proactively providing links to industry-related research and yes, even to &quot;competitive&quot; articles (via del.icio.us, for example , where you can also append your own notes about each article)? Build &quot;Community&quot; - We need to make it easy for anyone who views the Social Media News Release to: comment on its content; re-mix its multimedia elements for use in blogs, on YouTube, and in the online versions of traditional print publications; bookmark it using Social Media tools, etc. We also need to track this response (T'rati tags, Sphere, etc.) and show a willingness to respond --- openly, and, as appropriate. Be &quot;Findable&quot; - Borrowing from Bhargava's ideas for Social Media Optimization and with a hat-tip to the wire services' increasing understanding of the importance of &quot;search optimized&quot; news, all I need to add here is the reminder that even the NY TIMES has considered how to run headlines that would make their content more readily &quot;found&quot; by the search engines. If the Gray Lady worries about Google, so should we all.