social media marketing

by Kenneth Rudich

A principal objective for social media marketing is to become better acquainted with the people that are most apt to connect with your business. 

The idea is to monitor the interactions with them and among them to tap into what they’re thinking, saying, feeling, or doing, and then translate that information into actions that will enhance the appeal of, or the affinity for, your company and what it offers.

This concept is at the heart of what is commonly referred to as added-value, and it plays a critical role in an organization’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiative. 

the new “listening” and “hearing”

In this new contemporary business environment, the skill, the art, and the science of listening – and hearing – have become more important than ever.

Because social media democratizes the conversation about products and services, it has all but completely erased the once considerable advantage of having a goliath advertising budget.  No longer is it possible for one voice to dominate the discussion, or drown out all the other voices, by virtue of spending more on media campaigns than anyone else.  Those days disappeared with the advent of media platforms that give a voice to all who want one.

Nowadays, the better intent for business is to become more watchful, more observant, of the people participating in those discussions, and then use those observations to determine how best to interact with them.  “Selling” has been replaced by “courting.” 

Businesses that do the best job of courting in the year’s ahead will likely also be the ones that excel at leveraging the modern day ability to listen and hear.

qualitative and quantitative listening

Not that listening is actually new or novel.  For the past thirty years, businesses have sought with extra effort to do a better job of getting into customers’ heads and understanding what motivates their purchase habits and decisions.  But the tools for doing it back then were nothing like those available today.

Substantial improvements have been made in both the quantitative and qualitative possibilities.

Quantitative monitoring tools and analytics for staying abreast of tendencies and trends have reached unprecedented levels of sophistication and availability.  Just as importantly, they have expanded in breadth and scope, recognizing that people don’t just speak with their feet anymore, but also with their keystrokes and clicks. 

The capacity to collect and store huge volumes of data, and then have the means to turn it into chunked forms of information (dashboards, for example), has become part and parcel to businesses of all sizes and shapes.  For many (if not most), the necessity to regularly invest in this kind of “listening” has become critically important to their survival.

But perhaps more striking are the monumental changes on the qualitative side.  People are using their voices like never before, and they are doing the bulk of it online.  The vitality of this dynamic gives greater access into what they are honestly thinking, not just doing.  Product rankings, remarks, critiques, criticisms, reviews, and forums add substantial insight to an organization’s harvest of intelligence. 

The important thing for a business is to doggedly follow it all, in real-time if possible, and go wherever it leads – the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

the new “hearing”

Listening is fine, but converting this information into actionable intelligence requires hearing and understanding, followed by the identification of ways to gainfully use it – to court people, to create better brand awareness, to convert more customers.  It is only then that you can make social media marketing a potential game changer for your business.

Different businesses have found different ways to employ social media marketing.  Here are a few examples of some questions they’ve been able to answer:

• does it help shed light on the key characteristics of current and potential customers, things like interests/likes, needs, wants, friends/enemies, demographics, ego?  Are you able to use those insights to enhance awareness, interest, engagement, conversations, and conversions? 
• can you identify the influencers and build campaigns specifically around them to possibly stir the multiplier effect of social media marketing?
• can you identify the effectiveness of different channels, the best timing for using them; or smartly mix and match them with the target audience segments?
• can you enhance your relevance with each progressively executed campaign?
• can you integrate the extracted insights and information into CRM on an organization-wide basis, and maintain consistency?
• are you able to gauge the pulse of what’s going on with customers, constituents, and stakeholders?  

If you can answer “yes” to questions like these (or others that may be relevant to your business), then you’re eliciting the benefits of e-llumination from your social media marketing initiative.

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by Kenneth Rudich 

Here’s a marketing riddle for you: when is old new and new old? 

The answer: when you bring the Grateful Dead into a discussion about contemporary online marketing. 

For those of you in the dark about the identity of the Grateful Dead, they were an American rock band formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965.  For those of you in the know, that simple description, if left as is, may well be the biggest understatement of the last five decades.
 
Lurking behind the laid back image of the band’s hippie subculture persona was a business enterprise worthy of idolatry.  Which probably goes a long way toward explaining why modern pundits and business practitioners alike are…well…marveling over it to the point of idolizing it.
 
One could arguably say they created the groundwork for much of contemporary online marketing — long before the internet even existed, no less. 

It’s a strange twist of fate when you think about it.  Instead of being motivated by the internet, the Dead were driven by a desire to be anti-establishment.  Anti-establishment meant unconventional, which they resoundingly were – in their art, their business, and their marketing.  They shrewdly pioneered ideas and techniques that made them stand well apart from corporate America, in isolation, all by themselves.  They were the epitome of anti-establishment. 

But I guess the joke – to the tune of probably hundreds of millions of dollars – was ultimately on them.  Because now corporate America, the so-called establishment they wanted so badly to distance themselves from, is widely adopting their ideas and practices.  The Grateful Dead is now the establishment that fostered the new establishment, at least in business and marketing terms. 

so what did they do?

Here’s just a brief summary: 

The band brought together a community of people based on common interests.  These people formed tight-knit friendships even though they were geographically separated.  Indeed, the bonds became so strong that the band accumulated a following of fans that would crisscross the country with them while they were on tour.  This following was known as the “Deadheads,” and they truly wanted to be camping out together with each other as much as they wanted to be with the band.  This scenario, of course, describes a social media marketer’s most cherished dream.  

The Dead focused intensely on creating value for their most loyal fans.  They established a telephone hotline that alerted fans to upcoming tours before any public announcements were made.  They reserved seats for their fans and capped the ticket prices, which they distributed through their own mail-order house.  As a result, fans never had to travel to far away cities just to buy tickets, or camp out to get them, and they got the best seats available.  If you read “An Economy Built on Quicksand” in this blog, you’ll recall that corporate America didn’t come close to showing this kind of customer care until about the mid-1980’s, and that was only because the competition from Japan forced them into it.  Remember, the Dead formed in 1965.  

The Grateful Dead incorporated early on and founded a profitable merchandising enterprise.  They even went so far as to let fans tape their live shows, foregoing those potential record sales, knowing that the viral effects of having it freely shared would ultimately pay off  in the sales of their tickets and merchandise.  And that was all before anyone had ever even heard the term viral marketing.  

old marketing, new marketing, old marketing?

I could go on, but I think the point is well made. 

For all the online marketers who pride themselves as having been the inspiration behind the nouveau marketing practiced on today’s internet, you may want to pause a moment and tip your hat to the real predecessors of that nouveau marketing.  After all, it’s a clear-cut case of old is new and new is old.

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click on image to enlarge

by Kenneth Rudich  

Ever been on an old fashioned roller coaster ride?  

Shortly after leaving the loading platform you find yourself at the base of the first and highest peak of the track.  Then the roller coaster begins the climb upward.  In the face of excited anticipation, it feels like an agonizingly slow and tedious process.  You can hear the conveyor belt underneath laboring as it strains to make the cars defy gravity.  The distance seems longer than it really is.  

At the summit, the roller coaster pauses for an ever so tentative second before finally creeping over the crest.  And that’s when it happens.  Right then and there is the defining moment we now recognize as the tipping point.
 
The next thing you know — Whoosh!  It’s like suddenly being dropped out an airplane.
 
After roaring downhill at breakneck speed, the runaway momentum carries you through a wild series of loops and twists and turns with infinite ease.  Everything around you is rushing past in a blur.  You experience an explosion of adrenalin inside, and your heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might jump out of your chest.
 
All too quickly the ride is over and it’s time to get off.  Your heart returns to normal and the adrenalin subsides.  But the thrill — that sensational thrill – will stay with you in your memory for a very long time.  

the social media marketing analogy

Social media marketing can be a little like an old fashioned roller coaster ride.  That is, you can go from laboring ever so hard at the front end to suddenly having it pick up the momentum it needs to thereafter carry itself with infinite ease.
 
And the benefits can linger for a very long time.  

the multiplier effect

But the real power of social media marketing doesn’t actually kick in until you’ve reached the multiplier effects of the fifth and sixth stages or steps, as shown in the stairway graphic above.  Til then, getting through the first four steps — attention, interest, engagement, and endearment — requires a degree of diligence that can sometimes make it feel like hard labor.
                
And it can be hard, too.  Think of it this way: you can’t have interest without first getting attention, you can’t have engagement without first getting interest, you can’t have endearment without first getting engagement, and you can’t have any of it without consistently plugging away at getting it all.  

But reach that coveted tipping point — spurring people into sharing and winning over advocates – and the rest of the ride will be a reward in itself.
 
Without you having to do much of anything at all, the user generated buzz will not only grow into an ever-expanding circle of influence, but it will do so by exponential leaps and bounds.  That’s the power of the multiplier effect.
 
The multiplier effect is both the prelude to and the gateway for going viral.  

of course, there are no guarantees

Admittedly, you also have to have some luck to go viral like that.
 
But remember this: If you’re not diligent, you can’t be lucky.  Viral marketing typically takes time, energy, and persistence.  

And may the best of luck be with you!  

Related Articles:  

Gardening and Social Media Marketing 

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by Kenneth Rudich

Social media marketing can be an intimidating prospect for the small business owner that is already pretty occupied with day-to-day stuff.
 
For busy people, time is typically in short supply.  And yet, social media marketing consumes time.  Thus, there is a built-in conflict between the two, and it must somehow be overcome if the social media marketing initiative is going to be an effective marketing tool.

facing the challenge

There are essentially four strategies to consider when it comes to managing the time element of social media marketing.  Determining which might work best for you is one of those things that must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.  They are:

1. do it in-house

The in-house strategy assumes you will find a way to set aside time for doing it yourself.  Note that it will require a regular — perhaps even daily — allotment of time.  Nonetheless, there are instances where it is not only feasible but advisable.  It often depends on the platform being used (e.g., twitter, facebook, a blog, linkedin, etc.), your aptitude with using it, and your marketing objectives.
     
Sometimes the combination of platform, aptitude, and objectives makes it only smart to do it for yourself.  A good example can be seen with the cuisine food trucks that use twitter to broadcast to fans where they will be parked on a given day or at a given time.  For them, it’s quick, easy, and effective.

2. a consortium

A consortium strategy offers the advantage of dividing the labor among a group of interested parties or businesses.  This is particularly useful when the social media strategy is more complex or time intensive. 

A systematic design for executing the social media initiative — that is, spreading out the workload — can make it more manageable for everyone without compromising its effectiveness.  In fact, it might even enhance the effectiveness of it.

The two strategies below illustrate how this might work:

1. When the businesses are geographically clustered but complementarily diversified.  Think of a shopping center or mall, or a small tourist town, where it’s desirable to drive customers to a particular location.  The consortium would be comprised of the businesses that benefit from the increased traffic to that location.
2. When businesses are geographically dispersed but share a common theme.  This might be a situation where the businesses cater to a common target audience but are geographically separated so as not to compete with one another.  For instance, a group of geographically dispersed sports bars could share content that appeals to their customers and builds a larger community without the risk of one stealing business from another.

3. outsourcing

All or part of the social media initiative can be outsourced.  Though this strategy requires a financial investment, it also minimizes the time investment.  Additionally, it may produce better results if it is outsourced to a provider that specializes in social media marketing.

4. hybrid

The hybrid approach cherry picks (mix-and-matches) the best solutions from the other options.  For instance, a consortium might outsource the work to gain several benefits simultaneously, like minimizing individual time investment, splitting the costs, and having it professionally managed.  Or an individual owner might wish to assume some responsibilities while outsourcing other parts of it.

summary

Each alternative has it pros and cons.  At the same time, they offer the flexibility of picking a solution that works best (or better) for you.  Plus, you’re not bound to stay with one if it is not meeting your expectations.   

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by Kenneth Rudich
 
The stampede to enlist social media as a marketing tool doesn’t mean that questions about the effective use of it have suddenly ceased to linger.  If anything, they are on the rise, making its touted potential still a bit higher than its proven worth.

Despite that, many organizations have rightly felt a need to take action anyway, and the stories about how it has improved awareness or enhanced the brand are starting to get widespread notice.  These initial outings have shown a glimpse of real promise for its future, and they’ve sparked additional thought about what might yet be done to make it work even better.

next

Up to now, the main focus of most social media initiatives has been on the external marketing and the benefits it can reap.  But what about the benefits that might be derived from an internal marketing perspective, and can they be used to further fortify the external marketing?

It’s important to recognize that social media marketing is partially planned and partially organic.  No one can know for certain what will actually happen after the launch of an initiative.  In the same vein that some people will skip reading the instructions on how to do something and go straight to tinkering with it, learning as they go along, the external audience gets to decide on how they want to interact with the brand, to what degree, and in what context.  As such, a brand bears the onus for trying to fit into their social landscape, not the other way around.
 
One strategy for managing this dynamic is to encourage participation from among diverse functions and disciplines within the organization.  Since each is geared to ask and answer different questions, the perspectives will differ, and each will have its own unique outlook to offer.  Plus, it’s a good bet the external audience is more interested in talking with the likes of product development, customer care, public affairs, or technical support than they are with someone like marketing.  

Combining these views in a way that is meaningful to the external audience will have a  favorable effect on the interaction.  As Professor Francois Tadda aptly points out, “No discipline knows more than all disciplines.”

the challenge from within

To be sure, it would be imprudent of me to suggest this is easy to accomplish.  The internal marketing will almost surely demand as much time, thought, attention, and finesse as the external marketing.  Guidelines will need to be developed, systems and processes must be put in place, and it will require training to bring all the key internal players up to speed. 

It’s beyond the scope of this post to delve too deeply into these matters just now, however, so I’ll wait until another for that.  Instead, I’d like to take a moment to mention a few of the potential benefits that can come with being able to pull this off.

harnessing a fuller range of benefits

This particular approach does not stop at strictly using social media as a tool for bolstering awareness and brand.  Nor does it merely increase the quality and level of conversation between a company and the market for its offering (though it certainly could).  Rather, one of the larger potential benefits lies with its capacity to strengthen the organization’s own internal operations.

Here’s a short list to consider:

• it creates a platform for fostering interdisciplinary collaboration;
• it helps to reduce siloing;
• it promotes greater internal understanding of each other’s perspectives;
• it promotes greater internal understanding of the customers’ perspectives;
• it raises internal awareness of the organization’s commonly held goals and reinforces them;
• it adds potency to the mechanisms for listening, monitoring, and responding to customers;
• it helps the organization to put forth a united face for the public eye to see.

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by Kenneth Rudich  

A well executed social media marketing strategy strives to leverage the potential for three key dividends.  

increased exposure

To most organizations, social media offers another platform for expanding the effort to create awareness, interest, and action.  It can stir a wholesome combination of real and virtual word-of-mouth promotion among people who trust one another, and it can do it in numbers that continually swell with each passing day.  

The critical aspect to making this work is to be absolutely certain your product or service claims match with the customer experience.  Be careful about crafting expectations.  It’s better to have the actual experience exceed the customer’s expectations than the other way around.  The former will build trust while the latter will erode it.  Trust begets trust and that will enhance the sphere of influence engendered by the social media marketing strategy.   

gathering customer, marketing intelligence

Actively following and listening to your customers and prospects is a good way to gather insightful intelligence about them.  Commercial social media monitoring tools can furnish reports that help you to assess the nature, tone, impact, trends, and key influencers of the topics that you care about most.  

You can also gather intelligence by monitoring the chatter in your own social media sites, as well as follow people who become fans to learn more about their other interests (and/or keywords) for use in future communications with them.
    
Be aware that this process offers the internal opportunity to exploit the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach to assessing the current value of your brand, and also for creating new value.  A diverse group of people from within your organization, representing multiple functions and disciplines, should be encouraged to participate in the intelligence gathering process, and then share their insights and perspectives among themselves.  The goal is to uncover all the angles and intricacies associated with any joint knowledge that comes to light.  This means bringing in people from all across the value chain, like product developers, R&D, distribution, finance, and so forth.  

customer, prospect interaction

A unique attribute of social media revolves around the ease with which you can interact with customers and prospects.  Anything that motivates them from a passive mode to an active mode, to interact with you or your products, will fuel the process for coaxing them further along the engagement path.
 
There’s a broad array of opportunities for doing this.  Surveys, contests, getting them involved in product development, giving or loaning them some products to evaluate and critique, sending them to a web site that encourages clicking or navigating through it based on something of interest or intrigue, are just a few examples.  

When doing this, consider the different stages of customer cultivation so as to design the interactions in relation to the individual stages, with the idea that most or all of the stages will be separately represented in one way or another.  For example, one activity might be geared toward arousing interest, another might seek to stimulate greater advocacy among the already established advocates.  

the big bang

The big bang is to have all three working in your favor.  Then you’ll be harvesting from your social media marketing strategy more than you’ll ever have to put into it.

Related Articles:

Social Media & Marketing

eight questions

by Kenneth Rudich         

Part 1 described social media marketing as requiring a sustained commitment to wooing your customers and prospects.  There’s also a diagram that shows the six stages of customer cultivation that it attempts to address.  The last stage, “advocacy,” reflects the ultimate outcome.  This is where your customers and clients do the selling for you.  If you’re really lucky, this is where your brand might even go viral.          

But we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.  If you haven’t yet gotten your feet wet with social media marketing but you’re in process of contemplating it, or maybe just starting out, let’s take a little inventory for determining your readiness; for assessing whether it will suit you or your needs; and, if so, how it might fit within the bigger scheme of things for you.          

a place to start

It’s seldom going to be the case that social media marketing is the only element in your marketing plan.  As the generic value chain for marketing reminds us, the real goal of marketing is to deliver value to customers and there are many activities associated with carrying out that task.  So, should social media be included among them, and will the benefits of doing it outweigh the costs?
 
A good starting point is to mull over a few questions for establishing some focus and direction.  These questions are intended as a preface to moving forward with planning for a social media initiative.  They will help you to decide whether it’s right for you.        

1. How much do you currently know about the various social media tools that are available?  Can you name them?   Do you understand their individual strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to your particular business concern?  Of those you know, which do you propose to employ and why?
2. How will social media marketing extend, complement, or integrate with the rest of the marketing that is already being done?  How will you ensure it reinforces the consistency and continuity of your current marketing effort?  Are you certain it won’t drain needed resources away from these other efforts?
3. Are you comfortable with relinquishing some control over the marketing communications function?  As mentioned in part 1, social media marketing is a two-way conversation.  At its best, it’s a guided conversation, but nonetheless a conversation.  And while it’s possible to guide it to some degree, it cannot be controlled.  There is a possibility – even probability — you’ll find yourself exposed to disagreeable people or harsh opinions.  Just ask Tiger Woods, Dominoes, or United Airlines.  Is this something you or your organizational culture can handle?  And possibly deflect, if neccessary?
4. Are you willing to re-allocate marketing or other resources, if necessary?  If cost is defined as being comprised of time, energy, and money, then you’ll need to carefully look at each of these.  Though frequently touted as low in cost, social media can consume a good deal of time and energy.  If you have the financial resources to outsource some or all of it, or already have the internal resources for taking it on, then it’s certainly worthy of consideration.  If money and time are both tight, then you’ll want to make sure you have a really compelling reason for doing it.
5. Who are your competitors?  Are they using social media?  If so, how?  How might you differ from their use of it?
6. What specifically would you like to achieve – more traffic, greater awareness, interest, advocacy?    Would you be content if you’re only able to move partially up the stairway, or is it your intent to extract everything social media can potentially offer even if it consumes more time and energy than originally expected?  How will you measure success from a benefits/cost perspective?
7. Do you have the patience and wherewithal for giving social media the time it needs to breathe and evolve?  Can you deal with the ambiguity of not knowing for certain what kind of ROI you’re getting?
8. Can you afford to not have a social media marketing initiative?  It’s not for everyone.  Again, only pursue it if there’s a compelling, identifiable reason.  For example, you want to foster a current and contemporary image because that’s important to your customers and prospects.  Or, conversely, it’s unlikely my customers/prospects will participate if I do use social media and therefore it’s not worthy of consideration. 

If facing these questions head-on didn’t dissuade you from wanting to initiate a social media marketing strategy, then you’re probably ready to begin the planning stage.  I’ll cover that in Part 3.          

There may be other questions that I have inadvertently omitted.  If you have suggestions, please bring them to light.

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by Kenneth Rudich                   

Long before social media marketing came into existence my father was an avid vegetable gardener.  Nothing could beckon him quite like that little patch of top soil sitting nestled at the edge of the yard.  He loved to work it just as much as he could — tilling and fertilizing and tilling some more; measuring out rows and planting the seeds; watering it daily and trimming back weeds.  
 
The hours turned into days, the days into weeks, and the weeks into months.  By the time it was ready for harvest it was a veritable island of abundance and variety, far more than a small family like ours could possibly eat.  And since my father loathed waste as much as he loved gardening, he’d gather the excess and give it to neighbors and friends.
 
In retrospect, I think he enjoyed this part the best, because people didn’t let him just drop by and leave.  No sir.  They invited him to stay for a while, maybe sip lemonade or drink a cold beer.  Sometimes they broke out the horseshoes and played until dusk.  Other times they sat on the porch swapping stories and laughs.  As the night wore on and the moon smiled down from its perch up above, the mood was graciously infectious and always endearing.               

Now that those days are behind I can see that my father actually cultivated more friendships than gardens.  No wonder that patch of top soil expanded in size with each passing year.  The yield that it gave was only half of the story.                   

Gardening and social media marketing have a lot more in common than you might otherwise think.  In both cases, it’s not what you plant but what you cultivate from it.                   

the woo, woo, woo of social media marketing

Social media marketing is clearly on the upswing as brand conscious marketers are racing to incorporate blogs, micro-blogging, wikis, media sharing, online forums, and social networking into their promotion initiatives.  Describing it as an explosion probably doesn’t come close to reflecting just how big it really has become.
    
But “doing it” and “doing it well” are not necessarily one and the same, especially if you’re looking for fast results or immediate gratification.  Social media puts a woo woo woo into the process of wooing customers.  Gone are the days when winning mere customer loyalty was enough.  Now, if you’re going to harness all that social media has to offer, you must seek to sway customers into becoming advocates, too.  And that, more often than not, takes plenty of time and some serious cultivation.  It requires an endless campaign of engaging them in an ongoing conversation.  This means having real and genuinely meaningful exchanges, and getting to know them really well.  It may also take some finesse to spur them into having meaningful exchanges with others about your product or service.  If successful, these exchanges can produce an ever-expanding sphere of influence over time.      

An earlier post of mine, “Three Words Describe Marketing,” advanced the idea that marketing can be boiled down into creating awareness, interest, and action (note: I began the article with a caveat that this was from marketing 101 – you know, keep it simple stupid).  In the fall 2009 issue of Moosylvania’s report on marketing trends, however, they divide social media marketing into six discrete steps, and you can clearly see the insinuation of a “social” influence in their version:                   

1. Attention: another way of saying, creating awareness.
2. Interest: arousing consumers to want to learn more.
3. Engagement: when consumers decide they want to interact with the product.
4. Endearment: when consumers have interacted with the product/service long enough to form an opinion or purchase decision.
5. Sharing: when consumers have experienced the product long enough to develop a degree of expertise about it, and start to share their opinions with other people.
6. Advocacy: when customers proactively promote or criticize the brand based on their experience, and they do it in a variety of social venues.

The way I figure it, this six step process adds at least two more woo’s to the single woo I’d suggested in the marketing 101 version.  And that takes me back to the tireless effort my father put into his garden, because he always went well beyond where others would stop.  His garden became a vehicle for creating and maintaining relationships.  Now social marketers must do the same, too.                   

parts 2, 3 and 4

In Part 2, we’ll explore whether social media marketing is for you.  Part 3 will pursue a more in-depth look at the concept of cultivating a social media strategy — maintaining due diligence, monitoring (listening), and adjusting as needed.  And in part 4, we’ll look at some actual cases—and how the challenges differ between larger organizations and small businesses, and what each must consider for effectively addressing those challenges.