Relevant Engagement

Pineapple Bubblegum Anyone?

We're finding clients and potential customers are sometimes having trouble understanding how social media can help with their overall marketing strategy.

We decided to be proactive and create a small video highlighting some of the possibilities......ever think about pineapple flavored gum?

Signal Attenuation

Basic marketing tenet: companies need to make money and they need to listen to their customers.  How to make it all work together?

It is about Signal Attenuation: gathering all of the discussions, extracting value, quickly reducing the noise and getting to the valuable discussions.  The faster this information can get back into the the feedback management loop the greater chance the corporation has for extended success.

Social CRM - Harder Than Social Media? Maybe, Maybe Not

Social CRM: How do you plan for something more complex than Social Media?

There is a huge body of opinions today that believe there are still no real viable, clear or tangible at this point in time.

Maybe, maybe not.  I do feel that success starts with a good understanding of the business objective.  From that objective you can build a framework of issues, strategies and tactics.  Basically you develop a direction and start to catalog your options.  Based on the value and need of the business and the customer, your resources and technology investments will start to clearly present themselves.  You mitigate risk when you apply a thoughtful approach to solving a very complex issue. 

Analytical approaches that can help with your efforts:

1. Understanding the “value-to-cost” ratio (also referred to as NPV or ROI) of the project/investment or initiative.
2. Secondly, determine the volatility of the investment: make an assessment of the risk/uncertainty involved in combination with how long you can afford not to make a decision.

Ignite Your Brand Online

Curious how to get started?

Let us help you ignite your brand online.

Pressure

I love being held accountable. 

12 years ago I told a peer of mine how excited I was about the implications I could make out of the digital tide headed our way.  Transparency and Accountability.  Because there are so many factors involved in pulling off a digital marketing effort attention to detail is critical. 

I'm encouraged to see a multitude of articles lately that discuss the same issues.  You can find one in particular that I really enjoyed.

Thank God for the Recession

Our industry is under tremendous pressure - as much as it hurts, it's good pain.  We're thinking more strategic, being more innovative, focused more on the customer making sure our engagements are relevant and meaningful.

Reshaping Our Understanding

I've been consulting on strategic approaches for new world trends by utilizing simple steps/strategies and the importance of framing up your brand from the perspective of the customer.  The idea of reshaping our understanding has been a consistent thread throughout my years of consulting.

For this topic (in particular) I've found it best to describe these complex issues in simple ways to get broad acceptance.  As I discussed the changing tide of events with a friend of mine, she shared a great simile that worked well in my mind.

Reshaping our profession is like wanting to make a square ice cube round.  You don't hack away at the corners of the ice cube - you melt the ice cube and pour the water into a new mold.

THAT IS RESHAPING!  Take all of what we know (cause there is good stuff in our experiences) and use new techniques to solve challenges based on the world we live in today. I was very pleased to see a presentation by Clay Shirky that just nailed home some very salient issues facing marketers:

• For years we've been operating on a "lousy understandings of human behavior."
  
• TV is still a popular pastime, but the rise of social media shows people also want to produce and interact with content.
• Previous media channels did not let us engage with the medium - people couldn't interact, produce or share at the depth and speed they can today.
  
• Most instances content creators have intrinsic motivations that aren't, for example, about money.
• "We are living in the middle of the largest expansion of expressive capability in the history of media."

Go here to read more: Social Web Reshaping How Media Works

New Pricing Model for Social Media

I read an interesting article this morning: CPSA: The New Pricing Model For Social Media?

David Berkowitz, the author, highlights a list of measures that clearly were not built for Social Media and gives great rationale as to why they shouldn't be used.  He also points out, and he's right, basically we're dealing with yet another measure we have to learn, work with publishers, educate clients, etc.  I think the sad truth is that is the way it is going to be moving forward. 

I responded to his article - below is my response.

David, I agree we need another TLA (three letter acronym) like we need a hole in the head.  That said - I like the fact that you're keeping this dialogue alive. 

I like CPSA because (as you said) it gives us something we can share with our client so that they feel like they're paying for something social and relationship-oriented.

On the other side of the pancake.

I don't like CPSA because (to your point) it is vague.  The tactics recommended within a Social Media plan are as varied and unique as a fingerprint.  To compound this issue CPSA basically seems to me to be a new higher level model that uses key performance indicators that could be applied to Social Media plans right now but are more independent and isolated:
- Repeat Rate
- Time Spent Rate
- Take Rate or Download Rate
- Send to A Friend Rates
- Comment Rates
- Linking Rate

Maybe we should consider looking at the tools available to us that listen to the social ecosystem (BuzzMetrics, Spiral16, Radian6, etc.) and the results our efforts produce.  In the social space, what has our current spend created in terms of conversation/relationship sentiment (positive, level, or negative).  A possible measure could be around the impact our efforts have on that sentiment score and our ability to sustain a positive level.

Does "Social Media" mean something to your organization?

I'm curious as this topic gains traction (which it has) I'll certainly engage you all more frequently.

New Rules of Marketing (outlined by Unilever)

I have and will continue to call topics "New World Trends" because I believe it takes time for concepts to take hold and acknowledged as truths.

Recently Ad Age published the "New Rules" of marketing.  They were supported/endorsed/discussed in-depth by Unilever CMO Simon Clift recently.

Here they are for your consideration:

1. Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them. As Mr. Clift said, "We may be ahead of our competitors, but we're most definitely behind consumers." The consumer is not a moron, she's the person defining your brand.
   
2. You can't hide the corporation behind the brand anymore -- or even fully separate the two. Even this editor's creaking computer only took 0.13 seconds to show that Philip Morris is owned by Altria Group. Welcome to radical transparency, where bad corporate behavior will damage your brands, and vice versa.
   
3. PR is a primary concern for every CMO and brand manager. If "marketing" and "PR" are not the same department, tear down the wall. Spend time deciding whether PR is underleveraged in your organization.
   
4. Cause marketing isn't about philanthropy, it's about "enlightened self-interest," as Mr. Clift puts it. That doesn't mean it doesn't count. Don't be ashamed of your profit motive, because great branding and doing good are increasingly one and the same.
   
5. Social media is not a strategy. You need to understand it, and you'll need to deploy it as a tactic. But remember that the social graph just makes it even more important that you have a good product. Put another way: The volume and quality of your earned media will be directly proportional to the impact and quality of your product and ideas.

Ad Age: Unilever CMO Simon Clift: Author Jack Neff: Published April 13, 2009

Focus on the relationship, not the technology

that is one of the key posits in the new book Groundswell.

I'll be posting a lot over the coming weeks about this book - there is a lot of information in the book that is relevant to what is happening in the marketing industry today.