Recap Week of Nov 23rd 2009

On-Off
Remember, we were social offline before online existed! Here are some facts, figures, and thoughts on how social media is changing our offline lives and business. RisMedia just published an article about Redefining Lives Online and Offline. Online social media is allowing us to experience cyberdisinhibition, “a willingness to behave differently than usual online", with 48.7 percent claiming to have met new people they never would have met offline. What is super exciting is the connection between the social impact of the telephone and the social media scene today ... just the thought! WOW.

Vision
An Iconic brand re-sets its vision using social media. A company with roots back to the 1880's controls almost 51% of its market and is adopting a social media strategy. For me, that speaks volumes. Here is the article but the best quote is below.

The brand is also recognizing the power of consumer-generated content and social media. "Among Coca-Cola's most powerful differentiators are the stories only our brand can tell," said Ms. Clark. "But we're not the only ones that can tell our story. Much of our content comes from our consumers. It's the phenomenon of social media. Consumers remind us daily that Coca-Cola is actually their brand, not our brand." To that end, the company is launching Expedition 206, an ambitious global social-media push.

A Business Necessity! After reading this article, I immediately got that feeling we are part of the BIGGEST business - social - communication development ever! In his article, Like it or not, social media is becoming a business necessity, Mikal J. Caldwell points out that "if Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth largest in the world by population, ahead of both Japan and Russia." How about this statement from Ford who is turning to social media for marketing boost:

"We didn't break the bank. We didn't use traditional media. We tried something different, and it is working" said Connie Fontaine, Ford Brand and Content Alliances manager.
Prius: http://www.facebook.com/prius
Ford: http://www.facebook.com/fiestamovement

Social
Business is War? Yes, there are those who look at business that way and this article was intended for that audience -- not the social crowd. It is interesting to see how social media practices and mindset are at play. JK Harris writes that "a better strategy is to build alliances with your competitors and let them help you become better and stronger." 7 shrewd strategies for forging alliances--and staying ahead of the pack is the title of the article but especially check out these 3 strategies:
Develop relationships with your competitors
Be prepared to cooperate and collaborate when necessary
Resist the urge to compete on price

Of all the authors represented on my book shelves, John Maxwell, one of the foremost authorities on the topic of Leadership, occupies the most spots. Nadira Haniff has posted an article titled The Law Of Accountability which is an outstanding match of social media qualities that are uncomplicated and powerful with John Maxwell’s 5 C’s of accountability:
1. Character
2. Competence
3. Commitment
4. Consistency
5. Cohesion

Strategy
We have known this for over 2,500 years...
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – 500 B.C. Chinese General.
Linda Evans in her article put it this way, “...Implementing social media marketing tactics for Marketing Tactics vs Social Media Strategy any reason without a sound strategy in place will ultimately lead to confusion, and then disappointment in your efforts in the social media space. It's a lot like throwing darts blind. You're throwing them without knowing what or where the bull's-eye is. Once in a while you might hit the dartboard, and it would be a miracle if you hit the bull's-eye."
Linda asks us to consider these points:
o Answer the "Why" - Do you know where your audience is?
o How to Deploy - and gain respect
o Define Goals - What is Success
o When to Re-Evaluate - This is a continuous process
For more specific tips on how to implement both tactics and strategy in your business, check out the business and marketing articles at MyBizTutor.

(SBS)Sustainable Business Strategy - Great article about 3 elements of social media to include: strategy, tools, and people. What if . . . we added simplicity? A (KISS) Keep it Strategic and Social leg would only beef up an already solid foundation. Here is a very simple article by ShoeStringBranding.
Holiday tip - check your favorite retailer’s Facebook and Twitter pages Now. Experimentation this year will bring Standardization next year. Marshal Cohen, chief retail industry analyst for the research firm NPD Group says, "Last year was all about value and price reductions and deep discounts, this year, it's less about the deep discounts and more about their attempts to use social media. Next year, they may actually figure out how to use it, and whoever comes up with a good formula, they won't even wait until the holiday. They will be all over it." Retailers seek early birds through tweets and don't have to wait until Friday!

Sales
The Magical difference - According to Bill Rice, if sales is the lifeblood of any organization then Social Selling Beats the Collector Every Time

Social sales people listen to people, talk to people, and meet people. They put faces on their contacts. They have people following them. They don’t have to have collect people–people collect them.

The magical difference with a social strategy is you are a leader. You more often than not are leading people to the sale, not dragging them there.

Future
R U thinking 2010? - Great article by David Siteman Garland, and I boiled it down to 3 keys for successful marketing next year.

1. Strategy: What are the concrete goals? No, not amount of followers. Hard analytics: Increase sales, amount of business partnerships, amount of leads, % increase to email list. ROI can measured by Pre-Social Media vs. Engaging In Social Media. No, I don’t recommend using social media for direct sales, but instead forming relationships for all businesses, quality customer service, personal touch and more. If you do all that, the sales will happen if you have the right strategy.

2. Technology: Understanding the technology and using the key tools is a no-brainer. But I’m talking about REALLY understanding the functionality, how to build relationships, and what sites are correct for your company and situation.

3. Key Resources: (1). NOTHING replaces human interaction (2). Engaging, replying, etc. is key to marketing success on social media. In fact, not doing it will cause a backlash: “Company X doesn’t ‘get’ social media.” It is called social for a reason. Worth repeating: NOTHING replaces human interaction.

Now What?
Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, sure, this all makes sense and sounds great, BUT how do I put it into practice??” Here’s a link to the training program that has helped me. Hope it helps you, too!

Recap Week of December 7th, 2009

Localized Social Media and in Real Time…
The city I live in (Temecula Ca) is a destination for many day trips in southern California (Casinos, Wine Tasting, historical Old Town). With the advancement of Real Time searches, I see a big potential for those businesses that are engaging in social media. Visitors naturally want current, time relevant information to make the most of their stay. Erin Harrison talks about the positive impact real time searches has on social media and Pat Romanski describes extending your reach (geographically) to bring awareness.

It will hopefully place the onus on brands to maximize their marketing output in social media, as they stand to benefit from this activity now more than ever in terms of achieving consumer engagement and driving traffic to their Web site

The appearance of social media content in search engine results will serve to enhance the reach of social media chatter, and will therefore enhance the benefit of positive conversations

This is why social media marketing gives neighborhood businesses a competitive advantage over the super warehouse stores. The quotes below are courtesy of Manish Mehta and the Huffington Post.

The "Mom and Pop" businesses in our neighborhoods have always followed sound and pragmatic business practices, rooted in developing, maintaining and strengthening relationships with customers. The customers and the businesses valued those relationships because "Mom and Pop" offered convenience. They listened to their customers and used their suggestions to improve the business. They provided great service and found ways to thank their clientele. Social media is really nothing more than the simple application of these business practices in a digital form.

As with the corner store, if your business uses social media to engage in conversations on a human level, you strengthen your business and allow your strategy -- both corporate and social media -- to evolve based on customer feedback

Reading this quote by Linda Evans from today's article, you can begin to understand why this is the case where small is big. If you need more excitement, read what foursquare is doing for business.

Small businesses have some huge advantages in social media over the Walmarts of the world. Businesses like this karaoke company example are nimble enough to go out, shoot video, and turn it out the next day to their YouTube channel. They also have a much easier time personally connecting with their audience because, more likely than not, they know the majority of them personally.

Those personal connections make it much easier to build your communities in social media sites like Facebook and MySpace. People readily become your fan, recommend you to other local friends, and tag and submit their own photos that help promote your local business

Overall it’s about selling awareness
I can't tell you how many time residents in my own town of Temecula, California told me that they didn't know we have a vibrant, unique, historical "Old Town" packed with specialty shops and diverse dining. It usually takes a large community event to bring out the locals but these events don't happen frequently enough to promote consistent revenue for those businesses.

My guess is that as business owner, you already own the tools needed to promote awareness to a large geographic area. blogtrepreneur.com makes this bold statement: "The fact that you are engaging in social media circles is effectively marketing enough for you. In other words, your presence is your marketing tool. By all means provide great quality information and get involved in a conversation relevant to your product or service, but never, ever direct sell something. Note that the minute you do this, you have lost all the credibility and trust that you have been working hard to build up through these social media channels." In essence social media marketing is about that kick back SOCAL attitude that’s not pushy yet is recognized for its rightful value. Lawrence Perry writes in his article, "Social media marketing is all about image-building and trust-building. You can use social media to broaden market awareness and that awareness will lead to sales." When people travel or purchase products they usually go for locations brands that they know and trust.

It’s just human nature to be "Social". Combine Technology, Economy (or lack thereof) and you have the ingredients for a Super medium that will trump Television, Newspaper and Radio combined. What you are hearing, reading about, or engaging in (for the advanced) is a new medium that was not created at some executive power luncheon; it is being developed, implemented and re-created daily by us . . . the collective consumer, customer, owner, retailer, entrepreneur. Wrap your mind around these fact and figures by tweetbloggin.biz under the heading "Here are some interesting and somewhat disturbing facts about Social Media as a marketing and advertising vehicle"

1. Three out of four Americans use social networks
2. Visiting social networks is more popular than personal email or online pornography 3. Facebook is used more than 80,000,000 hours daily
4. Michael Jackson, Barack Obama and Vin Diesel have close to 30,000,000 fans combined on Facebook. That’s the equivalent of the entire population of Canada
5. Generation “Y”ers will outnumber Baby Boomers in 2010.
6. 96% of Generation “Y”ers has joined a social network
7. Studies show that Wikipedia is more accurate that Encyclopedia Britannica
25 more interesting facts

Strategy
Social Media Marketing Compass by BryanNewMedia: "True North" in Social Media Marketing is developing a magnetic presence that leads your community to Know, Like and Trust your brand. Bryan has very simple (good thing) definitions regarding social media strategy. While he is finalizing his graph try this dynamic social marketing funnel and add How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie to your business library.

*Listen - "First seek to understand then to be understood".
*Engage -"They don't care how much U know until they know how much U care"
*Connect - "Be the perfect host, build a campfire for your community to sit around and swap stories"
*Share - "Become a trusted source by regularly and consistently sharing market leadership content".

Social Commerce
We are getting our first real glimpse at the impact social media will play on commerce as we enter the next decade...quote from ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni and article by Inyoung Hwang

Having a social media marketing strategy makes sense for retailers in this environment because it’s cost-effective and shows an effort to get closer to one’s customers
The momentum continues this holiday season as companies really start to value two-way communication,” said Tom Arrix, vice president of U.S. sales at Palo Alto, California-based Facebook. “Social shopping” is the main new e-commerce trend on the site
Our customers are spending a lot of time connecting with each other in these online communities, and we want to be there,” said Nick Bomersbach, director of jcp.com. “Oftentimes they’re talking about brands, and we want to have an open avenue to have that dialogue.”

Commerce
Social media helps this online-only company go from 0 ---> 1.2 billion in sales. I am talking about Zappos, a company you can read more about from Jeff Bullas's blog article . Just for the record, I want to say the Zappos is the only billion dollar company that tweeted me after a previous blog I posted about the company. This is a company whose actions surpass their words. Here are a few of the 17 revelations of this “etailer”:

The Differentiator: Customer service and interaction
It’s not even looking for a return on that investment (ROI). “We don’t assign metrics to it,’’ Hsieh says. “It’s really just about our unwavering belief that making the customer happier is going to win in the long run.” There’s no way...to trace a straight line from all this dialogue, digital or otherwise, to the company’s ability to sell shoes
Social Media Marketing Campaigns: This is built on building up the human side of Zappos, as if showing humanity and personality is totally counter-culture amongst faceless private (or public) companies. And asking only one thing of employees: “Just be yourself’’
Zappos’ 4 keys to great online retailing:
1 Do what you say you’re going to do, promptly.
2 Deliver the exact products ordered, on time.
3 Take returns without a hitch.
4 Avoid complaints and frustrated customers, with angry (and costly) messages

Recap Week of Nov 30th 2009

Listen
Listening is one of the first ingredients for a successful social media marketing mindset. 2 ears/2 eyes are better than 1 mouth/1 mouse. Read this quote by Sam Mutimer on how McDonald’s utilizes Social Media to their advantage -- Oh yea, have some fun too!

McDonald’s first steps are focusing on Acknowledging, listening and engaging with their audience, whilst being open to feedback. They also focus on making the journey fun. Social media can be an extremely fun and creative process, and they seem to be really focusing on these values

What is the result of active listening? You are able to provide directed, specific content of high value to a well defined group. What does that generate? Influence, trust, and authority that continues until your communications have reached the golden "trusted relationship" stage. John Bell's article on Radical Listening gives us 5 practical skills to learn.

Influence
How much social real estate does your brand own? If you consider each social site (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace), blog and/or website as a square on the Monopoly board, then you want to build as many hotels as possible for your “tribes” to congregate. Adam Wood has a great article talking about real-time searches, social real estate and your brand.

It is unrealistic to expect all pote¬ntial customers to flock straight to a brand's controlled web spaces when they are search¬ing for its name online. It is just as likely that the first page they will visit is a third-party site, such as a comparison engine, a blog or a forum post.

This presents an even more critical reason for brands to ensure they have a voice in the social areas of the web

brands are now forced to dance to social media's tune, because of its significant and growing influence on natural search results. Brands that take a healthy role in online conversations that concern them will be repaid in better natural search rankings for their sites and social-media pages; by con¬trast, those that ignore them may find their search results dominated by negative comments and unanswered issues

Think about it...just seeing a brand all over town projects a strong sense of influence and authority.

Customer
Opportunities Revealed...behind the numbers. Brian Solis' article Socialized Media: The Powerful Effects of Online Brand Interaction peals back the statistical numbers you are reading in many articles and blogs and shows us the reality of an "earned relationship" -- thanks Brian.

• Before we are marketers, we are consumers. We make decisions based on our experiences, observations and research. We also heavily rely upon recommendations of friends, peers, and influencers, and they have embraced social media as their platforms for exercising authority. It is the convergence of online and real-world dialogue that leads to action
• The buyology of consumers spans from awareness to consideration to purchase to experience to recommendation or discouragement
• If we are not present within the attention dashboards of our existing customers and prospects, we intentionally remove ourselves from their decision-making funnel. Consumers are among the new influencers as they now have access to the same tools and channels that reach peers and shape their impressions.

Social marketing and commerce
Marketing is the next word -> "Social Marketing". John Jantsch gives us 7 Simple Truths of Social Media Marketing with lot of great insight behind each one. What gets my attention is his simple little statement..."the fundamentals of marketing are the same, only the platforms have changed". Note: Another example of "Listening" as your launch pad to success in social media marketing. Good job John!
Read the notes from a CEO of content and document management solutions company.

Social media marketing has rapidly become one of the most powerful ways to build brands, grow customer bases and drive those potential customers to e-commerce Web sites. But what do these social media savvy customers do when they get there? What is going to drive them to follow through on the branding they’ve been exposed to and make a purchase?

Social media is all about the user experience. By putting a powerful social experience around the e-commerce part of your site you can give site visitors an interactive experience that will influence and accelerate their purchase decisions

Benjamins, C-note, clams, smackers, and greenbacks. At some point you are going to want to convert your Social Equity into some liquid funds useable in the real world. Here are some great thoughts from a new pdf entitled The Art of Social Sales available from thecustomercollective.com (hint: the 1st step is to Listen):

The social customer expects that you will respect what they do and how they participate in forums that might relate to what you are selling. Tread lightly. Rather than jump into the forums and communities where your customers are conversing online about products like yours—a death sentence—follow the advice of marketing maven Seth Godin: “date your customer.”
In the case of online communities and forums, participate as an expert and member rather than a sales pusher. Provide expertise to help solve problems. Converse with prospects or customers on relevant topics. Don’t push a pitch. Consider developing a regular podcast, an Internet based radio show, to provide some useful pontification
on a subject of interest to your customers.

Future
Only 27 more days until 2010...what’s on the horizon? Start mapping out your 2010 path. Here is a very short news article on social media trends for the new year:
1. Social media will be more local (I have seen this statement over and over)
2. Handsets will become an imperative part of social media
3. Less social will be the social media
4. Scalability will be the mantra
5. Email will take a backseat

Recap Week of November 16th, 2009

Articles this week offered perspective on how the customer responds when the sales, and revenue components unfold within the social media landscape.

Sales and Marketing mix like oil and water and business understands sales (easy to see the dollars) better than marketing. If you have been in business for any length of time, it is hard to shake the "transaction" based mindset for judging sales success. On the social scene, you may need to go beyond just knowing your product and forge a little more to better understand how your brand strikes an emotional chord with your customer base. By building relationships over time, as in the article titled Modern Marketing by Maryjo Faith Morgan, you have the opportunity to connect your brand in more ways than just a "ring it up" old school transaction. Social Media replaces "Transactional" sales with "Relationship" based sales and the concept of Social Equity, goes far in describing How To Maximize Revenue Through Social Media . So, here are 5 ways to build a relationship that will get your customer to Connect, Collaborate, and Commit to a solution that provides value to all.


Steve Goldner wrote an outstanding article describing the social marketing funnel which accounts for the trust factor. Steve adds value to the funnel diagram (below) by identifying the audience type (“Group”) and reaction (“Individual State”) at each progression through the funnel. I am calling it a "Relationship Conversion" diagram because it provides insight beyond a traditional sales funnel.

When (a relationship is) earned, a Relationship Conversion occurs which allows you to build social equity and create a Value Added Revenue (VAR) stream.



Listen, Give, and Engage are the three buzzwords for small businesses and Entrepreneurs who want cut through the noise and generate some social media success. Tying this together is today's article from blogtalkradio.com on how social media can help small business market more efficiently and effectively. Laura Ries says, "A hot brand ends up in one of two different ways. It burns bright too fast and fizzles. Brands like this are known as fads. Or a brand burns hot then continues at a steady simmer. Brands like this are known as iconic." If you are building your U-brand, learn from the mistakes that brought Crocs -- the 850 million dollar, 20% profit margin shoe company -- into bankruptcy. Get the full article here.



Top down social media integration: Consumer Package Goods (CPG) are products typically purchased off the shelf at your local store. Although CPG companies have well established marketing channels for mass advertising, there's a want and need to create social relationships. What's great is that social media is being absorbed into the "marketing system" as a whole from the top. Just read the mindset from the CPG industry. Just keep in mind that in order to remain competitive in today’s social economy, Stop Selling and Add Value.

Read the daily posts for the week (November 16th - November 20th)