If you weren’t able to attend our October 15th event, “Beyond Blogs,” presented by Lois Kelly, not to worry!  Our Volunteer of the Month, Linda Frangipane helped outline her exciting and innovative topic!

The old way of reaching customers through “one-way messaging” is not working any longer.  We need to embrace the new way to reach and influence consumers through today’s giant web of conversations – Wikis, blogs, podcasts, Twitter,You Tube, Digg, and HubDub, to name a few.  This new way of “back and forth conversation” is where consumers feel they get reliable information and recommendations.  It’s where understanding is built, emotional connections are made and relationships are developed.  It’s where we need to be as marketers to build and strengthen brands.

 

The end goal for marketing is still the same –

Getting and Keeping Customers!

 

There are five reasons why traditional marketing no longer works and social media does:

 

·         Trust – Customers trust more of what their social networks are saying than what the traditional “one-way” messages are communicating.

·         Overwhelmed – They have too much information to sort through.

·         Being Heard; Having a Say – They want someone to listen to them; they want to be heard!

·         Emotional Connections – People do business with companies they like. 

·         Web 2.0:  Digital Natives – Immigrants – People born after 1980.  They’re going to change our world!

 

75% of Fortune 1000 companies are eager to get involved in social networking initiatives for marketing or customer relationship purposes, but 50% will fail!  There are five big obstacles for this lack of success:

 

• Companies Start with Technology – It’s not about technology; it’s about getting people to connect!
• Company/Product Focus vs. Customer Focus – Customers don’t want to talk about the products; they want to talk about issues with the products.
• Tactics vs. Strategic Value – Companies often start without a plan of what value they want to get from a social network.
• Command and Control Mindset (+ Legal) – People are talking about you anyway, so if you don’t host it, you won’t know what people are saying.  For Legal – it’s about balancing value vs. risk of a social network community.
• Nothing to Talk About – A social network can be very active for the first 4 weeks, and then have nothing to talk about.  Companies must be creative and keep the network interesting.  Always refresh with new ideas/information. 

 

Companies need to have a purpose, plan and design for their social media.  Create a social media marketing strategy using the SEAMS model – Sense, Engage, Activate, Measure, Stories

 

• Sense – via “actionable listening”.  Monitor what people are saying on blogs, forums, etc. and what this means to businesses. 

- Pinpoint influencers and current topics and issues.  80% of journalists are getting their stories from bloggers.

- Understand your customers’ social media behavior:

o   Where are they going and why?

o   Who’s influencing them?

o   Which on-line sources are they getting information from?

- Look at your own response.  Kayak is a company who reads every customer email and responds.  They change and make improvements based on what they learn from these emails.  Anyone can listen, but you must also react accordingly!

• Engage! - Learn to respond and participate conversationally.  You only feel alive and well when others are listening to you.  If this is done correctly, then you can take your enemy and make them your biggest advocate! 
  • Operationalize – Who to respond to what/whom
  • Two important needs for an individual are:
    1. Empathy
    2. Understanding

- Know the business so you can provide the right answer

• Activate Change:  Empower Processes
  • Customer Service – It’s where people are helping others; where problems are found and corrected
  • Public Relations – Blog – It’s how to become a thought leader … and thoughts don’t have to be all their own.
  • Training – Through social learning network, employees share insights, opinions and knowledge, and advance their career.
  • Talent Recruitment – People have their own blog at IBM and it’s a way to keep good people.  Through the blog, you are noticed by others and found for projects and promotions.
  • Buying – For example, Netflix uses a “friends” forum. People end up buying more movies after reading their customers’ movie reviews. 
  • Employee Communications – Makes it easier to connect with other people and find resources of how to get things done. 
  • Product Innovation – Companies find amazing product ideas and gain insights into product innovation. 
  • Leadership Communications – Leaders share with employees and their customers. 
• Measure - Determine which measurements make sense.  They must be tied with business goals.

1.      Beware of the disconnects

2.      Set measures at the start

3.      Synch with other business goals, measures

-          Look at the Benefit, the Metric and the Value of each.

     ●   Stories – Give your sales/marketing people something to interesting to talk about!

-          Find new story themes that will resonate at least once a year

 

 “If you say undifferentiated things that are expected, then you shouldn’t expect anyone to care.”

Friendly vs. Formal

-          We are moving toward a friendly style because we’re moving toward social media.  For example, friendly casino dealers earned 13% more revenue compared to straight-faced dealers.

-          These are differentiators – Be More Interesting and Approachable!

-          Marketing is a conversation!  It is about building relationships!

 

The #1 Reason People Are Embracing Social Networks:

People want to get help and give help.

People want the social intelligence because they trust the consumer more.

 

New Trends

-          Focus Groups are ineffective and companies are getting insights faster through social media.

-          Smart companies are doing shorter reports – only 2 pages – and only reporting what is going to make a difference in their business

-          Companies are hiring blogging companies – not to write about their company, but to write about a topic about their company.

-          Bloggers are being treated like journalists and they’re applying the same standards.

Beware of giving gift incentives to bloggers for promoting your product positively.  Give a non-monetary recognition.  Social exchange is a better relationship, especially where there is mutual value exchange.