Marketing Autopsy Blog » social media marketing

Brands, Social Media, Authentic Relationships and Ultimate Success

Cuong Huynh — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 19:13:08 +0000

JD Lasica recounted the Your Brand, Their World event at Razorfish on August 18 in San Francisco. The goal was to draw social media thought leaders and experts together to “discuss the ways in which social media is changing the relationship between customers and brands, and what it means to marketers, merchandisers, product developers, customer service organizations, R&D and senior management.”

Participants included Garrick Schmitt, GVP Experience Planning for Razorfish and an expert panel consisting of Megan O’Connor, Levi’s; Michael Brito, Intel; Marisa Gallagher, Razorfish; Sam Faillace, Shutterfly, and Jon Swartz, USA Today (moderator.) In addition, an engaging audience of social media and marketing specialists was present to share their views.

Here are some of ideas and highlights coming out of the panel and audience interaction.

An interesting tweeting strategy for business: the 80-20 rule. Michael Brito tweets 80 percent personal and 20 percent business, which is a great reference for both beginner and experienced tweeple. If you are not sure about what mix your messages should have, this is a good starting point.
Social media should not be the ultimate marketing tool but must be an important element in the marketing mix. Not all companies need a Faccebook or Twitter account. Ultimately, the key is to know what you want to achieve with social media and select the appropriate tools to meet your goals.
While return on investment (ROI) is not an easy thing to quantify from social media marketing activities, Marisa Gallagher mentioned one of the best metrics: sales. This is right on because regardless of your goals for a specific campaign (brand awareness, survey participation, opinion gathering, etc.) what really matters to all company is sales.
On Twitter followers, following and the value of realistic interaction, a great bottom line message seems to emerge. It’s this: “You can effectively interact with maybe a small finite number of people, but do not discount the benefit of having many more followers/friends. They may be lurkers and never interact with you, but they have their own networks, can like/don’t like what you say/offer, and will share their opinions about you with the world.”
Someone from the audience offered a clear, simple and easy to understand roundup of inbound vs. outbound marketing. “Outbound is the traditional form of interruption advertising (commercials on TV, a billboard interrupting your thought process), while inbound marketing is about people opting in or getting recommendations from friends.”
Here’s a little “Ah-ha!” moment on why a company decided to deploy (or not) social media: “The auto companies don’t have as much fear jumping into social media as some of the other incumbents because it’s do or die for them,” as commented by Gallagher. Sure, we all know the phrase: “Live everyday like it’s your last.” That’s how you make a difference.

There are a bunch more great takeaways from that meeting. Read more of JD Lasica’s post “Social media, brands and the way forward” over at socialmedia.biz.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Brands, Social Media, Authentic Relationships and Ultimate Success

How to Build a New Media Corporate Marketing Team

Cuong Huynh — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:29:52 +0000

You know what I’m talking about. New media. You know, social media, social marketing, blogging, and Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc, for your company? Many have found success where many others have failed. In the corporate environment, pursuing social media marketing is a full-time job.

Corporate social networking functions require individual special skills and knowledge, plus clear corporate objectives and goals. For companies that want to get with it in social media and marketing, don’t just try a few things here and there using inexperienced resources. What you need is focus and dedication. The key is to develop a clear reason why you want to be in the blogosphere, and provide dedicated resources to achieve those goal.

Here are the minimum considerations that must exist for your social media marketing to stand any chance of making a difference. Anything less will be just a waste of your time, money and human resources.

Establish a clear corporate social networking policy, the rules of engagement so to speak. It does not have to be detailed or elaborate, but it needs to have the basics in place. Remember this is still emerging technology.
Create your team from enthusiastic and knowledgeable individuals. They don’t have to be your best marketers or sales persons. In fact they should not be. The key characteristics you’re looking for include: being savvy with new technology and tools, being passionate about the company, its products and services, and above all, being honest with high ethics.
Empower and authorize team members to do what’s best for the company. If your team is knowledgeable and passionate, then they’ll do anything to ensure the best interest and protection for the company and its reputation. They are smart, and they’ll do the right things.
Always be on the look out for opportunities to go viral, especially in support of customer-generated viral media. All you need is to be there, provide support, and maybe give a little nudge. It’s social marketing after all. Do it right and you’ll attract loyal followers.

What about corporate legal? Do you need to get their blessing all the time? Probably not. Just do what’s right. Here’s what I mean. As long as you’ve made the proper communication with legal department and addressed corporate policies from the beginning, legal may just be your best friends in the company to get your social networking job done.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

How to Build a New Media Corporate Marketing Team

Social Media Done Right: U.S. Air Force

Cuong Huynh — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:45:52 +0000

Need a little help to kick-start your social media marketing? Here are some tips from the Air Force.

From a post by David Meerman Scott on WebInkNow, the U.S. Air Force is now Armed with Social Media. The Air Force apparently now has a team called the Air Force Emerging Technology team, led by Capt. David Faggard of the Air Force Public Affairs Agency in the Pentagon. The group is responsible for “developing strategy, policy and plans for an ever-changing communication landscape for communicators worldwide”. This includes their main mission of using “current and developing Web 2.0 applications as a way to actively engage conversations between Airmen and the general public”. By any name, this is social media marketing at its core.

It is refreshing to see such a large organization committing and embracing social media as an important communication and public relations tool. This serves as a good example for private corporations who are still on the fence or even “not sure” on how to proceed with social media. When you are committed and do it right, social media can be one of your best marketing and PR friends. In the case of a global organization like the U.S. Air Force, what did it take to pull this off? I’m sure it was not easy flying. In Capt. Faggard’s words, “There has been resistance; but the leadership of the Air Force is very supportive of what the expert communicators say are the best ways to reach people”, especially young people.

Here are a few tips we can learn from the USAF on getting involved in social media:

Encourage, empower and employ all your human resources as communicators for the organization. The problem is not that people can’t represent their companies properly. It’s the lack of training and guidance from upper management on corporate policies governing such communication channel. Employees are always good resources to advocate for the company. For the Air Force, the program’s goal “is that every single Airman is an on-line communicator.” So what’s your corporate goal?
Again for the Air Force, the focus is on “Direct Action within Social Media (blogging, counter-blogging, posting products to YouTube, etc.); Monitoring and Analysis of the Social Media landscape (relating to Air Force and Airmen); and policy and education (educating all Public Affairs practitioners and the bigger Air Force on Social Media).” So if you’re not sure where to start your social media program, as a starting point, just replace “Air Force” and “Airmen” in the statement above with whatever appropriate for your organization. It’s totally applicable.
Capt. Faggard explains “counter-blogging” as when “Airmen counter the people out there in the blogosphere who have negative opinions about the US government and the air force.” Well this sounds 100% applicable to corporate marketing and PR to me.
According to Capt. Faggard, “We educate people in the Air Force about security of social media to make sure that people don’t expose secrets via Twitter or Facebook…” Again this is totally applicable to private corporations when running a social media campaign. Inaction is not a good option. The key is proper education and guideline must be provided to your team to carry out the mission.
“Besides Twitter, Capt. Faggard writes The Official Blog of the U.S. Air Force; has pages on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook; helps publicize a Second Life area called Huffman Prairie; contributes to iReport (user name USAFPA); and is on Friendfeed, Digg, Delicious, Slashdot, Newsvine, Reddit. There’s Air Force widgets. And there’s even a video mashup contest for high schools to show school spirit sponsored by the Air Force.” It’s a pretty impressive list of social media channels. However, it would be not be fair to expect a new corporate team to try doing all these things at the start. Just pick a few in combination that you’re most comfortable with and add new channels as you go. The important thing here is to get started.

Finally, courtesy of David Meerman Scott’s site, below is the detailed Air Force blog assessment flowchart shared by Capt. Faggard. It provides a visual representation of what social media work is all about. It’s obvious that you don’t have to be in the Air Force to understand and use it. We actually paid for this and I hope you’ll find good uses for it. I know I will.

In the end you don’t have to be a large organization to employ social media in your marketing mix. The Air Force is really using the resources it already has, and so can we.

Click on image to view larger version (172KB).

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Social Media Done Right: U.S. Air Force

For Marketers: This Is Not The Time To Retreat!

Cuong Huynh — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:47:48 +0000

This economy is not getting better any time soon. I think most people by now would agree, whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist. In fact it does not matter which side one’s on, because being either is not going to change current situation. There are only two things that matter: the external market conditions which you can’t control, and us ourselves which we can control.

Markets have always been cyclical. Adding on top of this are external unforeseeable events that either cause the market to go up and down, to improve or worsen. Lots of theories and analyses will be explored for many years to come. For me I like to keep it simple. Let’s get to the core of a marketer as an individual.

First, understand that it will get better, then it will go down again, then again it will improve, and so on. We can’t worry too much about this. We do need to keep an eye on it however. Meanwhile our energy must be directed toward improving business. To me this last statement is true in both good times and bad times.

So during this tough time, let’s not retreat and take the ‘wait and see’ stand. Out job is to help our clients/employers take products and services to market. People will always need products and services. Even with “luxury” things, there are always people who can afford them and/or want them. As smart marketers, we need to recognize the changing market winds and readjust ourselves. This means learn new tools and techniques, be more creative and innovative, and work harder.

It just makes sense.

How about you, what are your thoughts? Do you have a different perspective? What are some other good advice for a marketer in this environment?

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

For Marketers: This Is Not The Time To Retreat!

The POST Method: a Mental Note.

Cuong Huynh — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:14:54 +0000

Here’s something older but especially relevant in this time of continued growth in social media marketing. Most online marketers know it’s from a post by Josh Bernoff called “The POST Method: A systematic approach to social strategy” at Forrester Research, Inc. I include it here for my own benefits, and maybe for those who reads my blog.

P is People. Don’t start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you’re targeting college students, use social networks. If you’re reaching out business travelers, consider ratings and reviews. Forrester has great data to help with this, but you can make some estimates on your own. Just don’t start without thinking about it.

O is objectives. Pick one. Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.

S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you’re done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you’ll know where to begin.

T is Technology. A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.

Still very wise words.

Why Companies Should Not Get Into Social Media.

Cuong Huynh — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:50:41 +0000

It’s always scarier, and more difficult, for large companies to embrace social media than for smaller companies to do so. It’s been discussed widely around the web and blogosphere, and is a general consensus at least for now.

As time progresses, however, it’s refreshing to learn about larger companies actually making the effort. As Lee Odden posted on Online Marketing Blog in Oct 30, 2008, How Big Companies Use Social Media @ BlogWell, big guys like Dell, Walmart, Cisco, UPS and Home Depot are seeing values in social media, and are making a corporate effort to get involved. The Blogwell conference, organized by GasPedal, aimed to help large corporations navigate the minefields of social media marketing.

According the Blog Council, which is a community of senior executives in charge of social media at the largest corporations in the world, best practices for corporate social media participation include the following checklist:

Disclosure of Identity
Personal/Unofficial Blogging and Outreach
Blogger Relations
Compensation and Incentives
Agency and Contractor Disclosure
Creative Flexibility

Mr. Ogden blogs that “Disclosure and honesty are key”, which I think is right on. He further lists a number of characteristics that companies should take with them from the Blogwell experience:

Listen before you act.
Get to know your audience well.
Make sure you know the rules of engagement before you start interacting.
Then, when you do speak, be candid and transparent.
Disclose, disclose, disclose.
Make sure your legal department is on board with all your innovations.
But most importantly be human, and be receptive to the changes.

These all provide a solid foundation for companies to base their social media marketing efforts on. The single common thread that exists through all these and other guidelines, and will continue to come up time and again, is that corporations need to realize that in social media networking/marketing, there isn’t a corporate voice any more. There are only individual voices now. One can see why corporations are hesitant to jump in.

Traditionally, companies employ a rep/spokesperson/PR person to interface directly with the outside world. These individuals are charged with relaying to the public a consistent message and image about the company and from the company, and their activities are always coordinated with internal functions. From a company’s standpoint, it is important that this is done. Whether publicly or privately held, they have to approach this in a responsible way. There’s too much at stake, too much to lose.

One does not expect corporations to change their ways on a dime. In fact I think, in order to get started with social media marketing, companies should work within their means, but they must make a decision to move forward with it. In addition to the list above, I would add the following important elements to ensure a successful corporate social media marketing effort.

Social media marketing should be treated as any other new marketing campaign. It’s not reasonable to assume that social media marketing will replace all other marketing activities, therefore it has to live along side of them, along side the other marketing campaigns. By treating it as a campaign, the marketing team has to define its goals, budget, resources, time frame, etc. just like any other campaign. This way, there will be a much better chance for it to be approved, and it will stands on its own merits as a solid marketing effort, not as a fad that executives should be wary about.
Expected costs for the social media campaign should be realistically estimated. One may expect that social media activities only require time from someone on the team to post blogs, read and respond to other blogs, build online presence on different sites, etc. However, in a corporate environment, the marketing team should also budget for education time and team knowledge development, time to educate and coordinated with other decision makers on this thing called social media, and ongoing communication with them on the general direction, strategy and status of the social media marketing effort.
A clear corporate communications policy must be created for social media. Even though social media marketing is on an individual level, corporation communications must be aware of who within the company is saying what and on what subject. The goal here is not to control, restrict or influence (unless there are good business reasons to do so), but to be aware, coordinate and support. I’m sure the general counsel will have his/her own views about this as well. The key here is to recognize that social media marketing needs to be understood by the entire corporate team so that a strong internal policy can be written to allow marketing to get on with it. Then make sure all employees are aware of this policy. Social media marketing will force a company to update its corporate culture.

I believe, without at least doing the above, companies, big or small, will set themselves up for failure.

Here are some questions for you:

Do you agree that social media marketing should be understood by and coordinated with other decision makers in a corporation, and it’s not merely a marketing department endeavor?
What do you think the real costs are for a corporation to start an effective social media marketing campaign? What are the main considerations?
I’m still not sure that, as a blanket statement, smaller companies can start social media marketing much easier, faster and more effectively than larger companies. Is this just a myth?

Marketing Autopsy Blog » social media marketing

Brands, Social Media, Authentic Relationships and Ultimate Success

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