Social Media

Why You Should Get Started on Social Media..
It's a scary world out there for many brands not yet plying the waters of social sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or YouTube.
You know you need to be there. And you know many of your customers are already there. So how do you craft a social presence on the Web without coming across as shallow or trolling for marketing opportunities?
From a strict numbers standpoint, social media feels nebulous. Much of it exists in the realm of feelings, emotions, and sentiment. But social media also works like any other business initiative: start with goals, then act upon them.
And here's the best news: social media can be measured. It isn't just about hunches. Through a variety of reporting tools, you can calculate social ROI (define) to optimize your focus and messaging with your customers.
So that's the good news. But what about the challenging part -- how to get started?
It takes a little deep thinking. You should ponder some questions, as they will inform your overall strategy.
For example:
1.What kind of brand are you?
2.Are you launching a new product or refreshing an old one?
3.Do people love you?
4.What are they already saying about you?
5.Do they hate you? Why?
6.Has the audience you want to reach even heard of you?
7.What is it you want to accomplish? Generate revenue? Create awareness? Influence sentiment? Sustain loyalty? Solicit feedback?
Each of these scenarios may require a unique creative approach. But the goals are the same: to get people talking about, feeling good about, and ultimately using your product or service in an overwhelmingly positive manner.
You may believe that traditional marketing methods are achieving all of the above, and maybe they are. But here's something that should get you moving. According to a July 2009 Forrester Research report, spending on integrated campaigns through social networks and agency fees for creating owned social media assets will top $3 billion by 2014.
The reason for this dramatic increase? To keep pace with consumers' increasingly social use of the Web.
In other words, the landscape is changing. Dramatically. It isn't about how businesses are reinventing advertising.
These days, the consumer is largely in control. They no longer look for social engagement with products they find interesting. They expect it.
For the rigid marketer, that's bad news. To not change is to risk being left behind.
The Forrester report points to a recent social campaign undertaken by Chevrolet to promote its alternative-fuel vehicles. The auto manufacturer partnered with MySpace to create a virtual tree widget that grew when "watered" online through visits and downloads. When Chevrolet achieved its download goal, it planted up to 225,000 real trees.
Not surprisingly, Chevy's fuel-conscious customers were more than pleased to participate in a campaign that created real social value.
And really, that's what social media is all about: participation. Getting customers to interact with brands, yes, but also getting brands to interact with consumers in new, unexpected, and exciting ways. It's about power to the people, and when done correctly, both sides reap benefits and the landscape always remains interesting.

The Opportunity Cost of a Safe Online Strategy
If you play e-marketing to win, you're playing a portfolio of tactics for long-term gain. If you have sufficient budget, there's simply no other tactic that will give you the same results over time as a coordinated, multipronged effort. Much like a solid financial portfolio, your online strategy needs to be diversified, respond to market conditions, and have a goal and timeframe in mind to make any sense at all.
Some financial investors choose to simply float with the market in a broad index fund, expecting and finding their results will mirror those of the market. Similarly, some investors in online marketing may simply repeat the same Google search marketing campaign or broad display campaign without taking advantage of new opportunities or testing new approaches. They believe they're creating a more certain future, but what are they giving up in exchange for that perceived stability?

-Scale. It's very tough to scale in a significant way on the back of one channel, or even two. The elements of a multifaceted program tend to feed each other to create forward momentum. Sure, you could dump increasingly more budget into that single channel, but you would more quickly reach a point of diminishing return than you will with a well-crafted multidimensional program.

-Niche winners. The Internet is a collection of niche populations overlaid by broader, shared characteristics. If you only address your audiences at the level of least differentiation, you're missing the best opportunity to demonstrate relevance. Relevance is what drives results.

-Balance. Having a single-minded focus on revenue or lead-generation goals is different than declaring it the primary objective. An online strategy often encompasses multiple objectives, many audiences, and different timeframes. Some portions may be designed to support marketing objectives at different points of a customer or consideration cycle. A program's balance between objectives, audiences, and other variables will often shift with seasonality or over time or as other needs or circumstances change. Maintaining the flexibility of component parts that can be stretched or reduced, tested, or added or deleted enhances the ability to create the mix needed to satisfy the current need.

-Optimization. Optimization implies a prioritization among tactics, messaging, budget, or promotion. You can't do nearly as much with a one-note program.

-Multiple platforms. A corporate or brand site's page views are decreasing in importance as the importance of apps, social media, mobile, and other alternate touch points increases. Marketers need to be where their audiences engage or where they consume media -- which is across many platforms for most demographics.

-Learning. You can do conversion optimization testing on a site with a single or consistent set of traffic drivers; in some cases that might even be a more valid test because it rules out some of the variables involved. But how do you learn about how different audiences or sources are responding to your site or offerings if you don't give yourself the opportunity to test? Campaign testing that strives to rank and prioritize the value of different channels obviously needs those channels live to test. Staff training will also suffer with an overly simplified plan. There is an old saying that if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. If your staff is conversant in multiple disciplines and has real-world experience with different kinds of smart programs they will be better digital strategists.

-Perception. In some cases, some brands need to have a presence on the bleeding edge of new media channels to maintain their credibility with their audience. If you are a cool or progressive brand, sometimes you just need to be in the latest cool media scene.

-Relevance. Consumer patterns shift. Audiences use different media over time, or they use the same media differently. Either way, marketers must stay current with their audience and adjust their plans to be where, when, and how the audience wants them to be.
As with a financial portfolio, you have to be willing to accept some level of intelligent risk with your online strategy. Not every trial will result in a win, but it will result in knowledge that can be applied to an ongoing effort to balance and optimize results.

Marketing Strategy: Time for Long-Term Thinking
Short-term thinking has been an unfortunate but often necessary response to the recent economic crisis. If you are fighting for your job or your company's continued existence, then this week's, month's, or quarter's results are all that seem to matter. In those circumstances, brand building, customer development, and research efforts, among other things, take a back seat to direct marketing tactics that produce impressive reports and return dollars now. It's one of the well-publicized reasons that digital marketing has benefited from shifts in traditional marketing budgets. Now that we're seeing signs of a recovery, maybe we can pull back a bit from survival mode and take a longer-term perspective on our actions and their consequences. It would be shortsighted to assume that the last 18 months haven't impacted our future opportunities.
Update Long-Term Plans Based on New Assumptions
Some smart, well-capitalized companies have continued to introduce new products or refine existing ones, to reach for new customers and markets, and to expand customer relationships through social media and other efforts. These companies have clearly articulated goals and action plans weighted toward long-term success. It will likely work in their favor, but the big unknown right now is how much the U.S. consumer has changed in the stressful last year or two and whether the assumptions on which long-term plans were made will still hold.
Consumer patterns have changed in response to recessionary stress. Consumers realize that home values won't automatically increase every year, that credit won't always be available, and that a good job is not a given. Many surveys report an expected long-term change in consumer savings and spending patterns that may necessitate a matching shift in marketer's thinking and approach.
Long-Term Planning Must Be the Focus
For many companies, long-term planning was a luxury not available this past year. These companies must now embark on some serious planning to fill in their knowledge gaps and rebuild momentum that will make them a sustainable business. Quarter-to-quarter scrambles for sales will not safeguard them. Sustainable businesses have a reason for the actions they take and can articulate plans for the organization. They recognize environmental changes and respond appropriately to them.
Companies focused on the short term must immediately assess the damage they may have done to their marketing programs and businesses by ignoring the broad range of metrics necessary to a healthy business. It's time to again start tracking and acting on the ability to attract new customers, create demand, maintain margins, and compete for and win market share. At a purely tactical level, these companies may have weighted budget to immediate sales activities and in the process sacrificed pretty much everything else.
Where Does Your Company Fit In?
Almost no brand or company exists at either planning extreme. Wondering where you would be pegged? Ask yourself these questions:
-Have you continued to nurture customers all along the online continuum? Do they find you when they searching in your category? Do you engage and inform them on your site and through all appropriate interactive channels? Do you leverage customer information appropriately to up-sell and cross-sell in customer relationship management and e-mail?
-Are you budgeting month to month or quarter to quarter based primarily on expected short-term returns?
-Does your top management make company or brand decisions based on a broad set of metrics or is it only about top-line revenue?
-Are you optimizing on portfolio results rather than line items?
-Have you continued to support your R&D efforts, to update your sites, to clean your databases, and to experiment with emerging communication channels?
-Have you stayed current with your customers' mind set and their decision calculus as it relates to your category? Has it broadened your competitive set?
I'm certain that no one would argue that planning creates good results both short and long term, but it's an investment that may need some time to pay out. Now that some of the pressure is easing off, we must remember how to be good businesses and force ourselves out of emergency mode as soon as we can.