Archive for the ‘B2C’ Category

How to Silence the Social Media Skeptics in Your Organization

December 21st, 2011

By Nina Buik, Chief Marketing Officer at HP Connect

Social media non-believers are unfortunately people we all have to deal with. It’s even more unfortunate when these digital skeptics are gatekeepers to funding or approvals in the corporate bureaucracy. Here are a few ways to tactfully silence the most commonly used arguments against social media—without risking your paycheck or your reputation.

Skeptic’s Argument #1: Social Media is Too Vast and Chaotic

Solution: Develop a simple, yet savvy social media strategy. Many skeptics are uninformed and intimidated by the ever-changing social media sphere, finding it to be unorganized and unpredictable. Laying out a results-based strategy tailored to your organization’s marketing plan can ease some of this anxiousness about losing control. Develop a social media mission—including analysis and desired outcomes—and distribute it to your entire organization. Make sure the social media mission aligns to your company’s mission statement, marketing goals, and PR objectives. Based on your social media mission, develop policies on the effective use of your brand by employees online. It may also help to cite case studies of industry competitors who have successfully leveraged social media and seen positive results.

Skeptic’s Argument #2: Social Media ROI is Too Hard and/or Expensive to Measure

Solution: Be creative in your budgeting, and set clear, measurable goals. Social media strategies should be incorporated into as many aspects of your company as possible. Many skeptics wrongly assume that social media falls strictly under the marketing realm, but this isn’t true anymore. Social media tools span numerous business areas, including sales, public relations, human resources, branding, and customer service. Make sure your budgeting takes all of these areas into account.

Also, social media communities provide a wealth of information and can serve as an instant method for obtaining feedback on your organization. Remember that your brand’s end users will join your community to share and obtain information in real time to help each other maximize the ROI from your brand’s products/services. They are actually providing your organization with invaluable insights regarding the use of your products or services for free! So make sure the skeptic is aware that social media is not an additional expense but can decrease current costs. It also helps to outline measurable goals when you present your social media strategy to company executives. Set easily attainable goals to begin with. If you are too lofty and unable to achieve your goals in the first few months, it provides the skeptic ammo to shoot down future requests for funds.

Skeptic’s Argument #3: Our Organization’s Reputation will be Affected by Negative Comments in the Social Media Sphere

Solution: Plan ahead and have a protocol for dealing with such issues should they arise. So the big question: Do you allow negative comments on your company’s blog, Facebook page, or forum? Let the skeptic know that allowing ALL comments to be posted reflects corporate transparency and can publicly show your followers when customer issues have been resolved. Use social media to sustain a dialog; encourage conversations and work your way through it. Even if the conversation is just a response to a customer’s negative comment, your organization can turn the sentiment around through genuine engagement.

It may also help to develop a list of worst-case scenarios and an action plan to deal with those issues should they arise. This will again ease a skeptic’s anxiousness. Also, appoint a respected employee from your organization to monitor social media activity and report feedback to high-level executives. These steps may be common sense and business-as-usual for most large companies, but it is surprising just how many small and medium-sized companies don’t implement these steps.

Skeptic’s Argument #4: Social Media isn’t for B2B/Non-Profit/Government Institutions Like Ours

Solution: Show them the list below. This argument is perhaps the most commonly used against incorporating a social media strategy. Most skeptics have the misconception that social media is somehow only relevant to B2C companies or online retailers. Numerous organizations from a diverse range of industries have used social media tools to cut costs, gain visibility, raise funds, and market themselves. This is a small sampling:

  1. The Nature Conservancy—(Lil) Green Patch Facebook App/Game: In 2008, the Nature Conservancy developed one of the first Facebook apps to raise awareness of deforestation through a fun, interactive game. According to the organization’s Marketing Director, the app has raised $67,000 for the organization and helped recruit 26,000 new Conservancy Cause members since its launch.
  2. HP Connect (Independent HP User Community) Personalized Social Network, myCommunity: A non-profit organization, Connect, uses its self-developed social network, myCommunity, to bring together its 28,000 members from more than 70 countries. The community plays an important role in organizing community webcasts, chapter meetings, networking, and member support. myCommunity also integrates with external social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
  3. City of San Francisco—Government Services via Twitter and Facebook: Citizens of San Francisco can personally interact with their local government, thanks to the city’s numerous social media channels. In 2009, San Francisco launched the first integration of Twitter with a government agency (@SF311 on Twitter), making it easier for San Franciscans to report problems like potholes and graffiti. Brian Purchia, a former technology advisor for the city of San Francisco states, “These kinds of Gov 2.0 services are not only convenient but also save taxpayers money by reducing call center costs. In fact, after the success of the @SF311 Twitter handle, the city also launched a Facebook app last week for the same service.”
  4. Library of Congress—Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and More: The Library of Congress (LOC) uses numerous social media channels to promote library news, events, acquisitions, and exhibits. The LOC also uses YouTube and podcasts to distribute “…video presentations on all sorts of subjects, from book talks by authors, scientific breakthroughs in preservation, and historical footage from the dawn of film.”
  5. American Red Cross—Using Social Media for Disaster Relief: The American Red Cross uses social media channels on an ongoing basis to recruit volunteers, raise funds, and improve operations. According to its website, “Every day, several hundred people talk online about how their lives intersect with the Red Cross. We read and learn from every conversation.” Twitter and Facebook also played a crucial role in helping the Red Cross raise approximately $200 million through its texting campaign after the Haiti earthquake.

Posted in Apps, Authenticity, B2B, B2C, Blogs, Branding, Budget, Cause Marketing, Community, Conversations, Crisis Management, Customers, Disaster Management, Emergency Preparedness, Engagement, Facebook, Government, HR, Interaction, LinkedIn, Marketing, Measurement, Monitoring, Networking, Nina Buik, Podcasts, Public Relations, Recruiting, Reputation, ROI, Sales, Sentiment, Small Businesses, Social Media Policy, Strategy, Texting, Transparency, Trust, Twitter, Video, YouTube | No Comments »

How Social Networks Help Us Choose

April 27th, 2011

By Berenice Ring, Professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas

Have you noticed how many decisions we need to make nowadays and the amount of details involved in each one? Surely life was much easier in the early 20th century, when consumer staples were sold in bulk and housewives had their goods chosen for them by the shopkeeper, whom they relied on and trusted.

If you wanted to buy a car in 1915, the choice was quite simple. The only automaker was Ford—who had introduced the assembly line—and the options boiled down to one model, the Model T. In 1987, Brazilian consumers could choose automobiles from six makers: Ford, Volkswagen, Fiat, GM, Gurgel, and Toyota. By 2008, 36 car manufacturers offered their vehicles, exponentially increasing our options.

A 1991 supermarket offered 15,000 items; today, in the same store, we find almost 50,000—including 100 types of yogurt and 200 models of mobile phones!

However, abundance of choices does not necessarily mean better decisions. As psychologist and professor Barry Schwartz points out in his wonderful book, The Paradox of Choice, the huge amount of options adds excessive strain to the decision-making process, causing exhaustion and discouragement. Furthermore, making one choice means relinquishing all other options, so that your preferred alternative seems less appealing and even elicits a sense of loss.

Until recently, people counteracted this frustration by consulting other people they trusted. But today, our world has become an ocean of information. For instance, if you’re planning a honeymoon trip to New York City, sites like TripAdvisor will provide complete information on virtually every hotel in the city. For example, if you decide to spend your hard-earned money on a wedding night at The Pierre, the famous hotel featured in several movies, you can read online comments by the site’s user community, ranging from “Great hotel!” to “Disappointing.” It is a huge benefit to get recommendations not only from your travel agent but from people who have stayed there recently. And upon your return, if you invite friends over for dinner, you can visit Epicurious on Facebook to find recipes, or you can search Twitter using the hashtag #recipes to find plentiful tips from users.

Some brands have grasped this new trend and offer their customers a dedicated section for comments and criticism, such as My Kmart and MySears Community. Other sites were specifically founded upon this trend, such as byMK and Polyvore, which allow users to express themselves.

The penetration of social networks today is amazing. A recent survey shows that 90% of respondents know at least one—and on average, four—social network websites. Facebook is the best example, of course, with more than 500 million users and countless communities. And if you want to find customer reviews of New York restaurants, the American site Yelp lists 12,000-plus establishments—not to mention more than 7,000 stores—along with user reviews of dentists, architects, and even surgeons.

As a Nielsen study confirms, “Recommendations by personal acquaintances and opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising globally.” The study of 25,000 Internet consumers in 50 countries shows that nine in ten people trust recommendations of people they know, and seven in ten trust online recommendations from strangers.

In this scenario, a good social media strategy can do wonders for a brand in terms engaging its audiences. Can the brand help consumers make better choices or play the role of an early 20th century “shopkeeper” whom its customers trust and rely on? Are brands making the best of this tremendous opportunity?

Posted in Advertising, B2C, Berenice Ring, Choices, Community, Consumer Reviews, Customers, Engagement, Facebook, Ford, Hashtags, Marketing, Networking, Retail, Strategy, Trust, Twitter, Yelp | No Comments »

The Perfect Bundle: A Netbook and an Aspirin

December 22nd, 2010

By Jeff Hasen, Chief Marketing Officer at Hipcricket

I’ve always thought that a drugstore was a place to treat a headache, not to receive one. But we’re in dangerous territory these days. No, not the kind of danger where your wife or girlfriend asks you to pick up a feminine product that will be in your hand just when your buddy—armed with a mobile device and Twitter and Facebook feeds—is in line for his daily dose of beef jerky.

Consumer electronics have found a home at CVS between the deodorant and Pepto Bismol. How convenient, you say? How crazy, I say.

Why? It’s illogical to ask the consumer, or heaven forbid, the stockboy to be informed about consumer electronics products being introduced virtually every hour in the era of technology on steroids.

CVS began selling a $99 Sylvania netbook computer over the Labor Day weekend and quickly sold out in many locations, according to news accounts. It features a seven-inch display, 128 MB of internal memory, and 2 GB of NAND Flash. The computer runs Internet Explorer on Windows CE 6.0. How wonderful.

If you walked down the street or into your local CVS store (otherwise known as your consumer electronics destination of choice), do you think more than three in 100 could tell you the benefits and downside of 128 MB of memory and 2 GB of NAND Flash? What the heck is NAND Flash anyway? None of your Facebook or Twitter followers can help here.

Consumers were driven to CVS by Sunday circulars that proclaimed the “New Netbook… Wow! $99.99.” InformationWeek reported that “several users said they hoped to find a way to eventually download some Android apps to the netbook.” If you are going to hold your breath for this one, please consult the pharmacist. Other users said they bought the netbook for their children, while still others said they would give the machines as holiday presents. Shouldn’t this treatment of children be reviewed by the authorities?

The netbook can’t run Microsoft Office 2007 but gives lucky buyers WordPad, DocViewer, XLSViewer, and PDFViewer. Not to mention the headache that can be treated by CVS’ aspirin. Which brings us to the consumer electronics stores.

Whole new categories and operating systems are—or soon will be—for sale. Tablets are being offered that promise an iPad-like experience for a fraction of the cost. Smartphones are so plentiful that you have to wonder if every device can be that smart.

The better retail experiences will feature informed, patient salespeople educating the eager and uninformed. They will deliver on the “moments of trust” for the store and manufacturer. But that will likely be the exception, given staffing levels and the near impossible task of having anyone keep up with all the products and services that the tech world is introducing.

You’ll be hearing all about the pain on Twitter, Facebook, and a blog near you. It’s fortunate that aspirin is as mobile as the netbook and smartphone.

Posted in B2C, Blogs, Customer Experience, Facebook, iPad, Jeff Hasen, Mobile Marketing, Retail, Smartphones, Twitter | No Comments »

Do CMOs Really Understand the Value of Twitter?

September 29th, 2010

By Kent Huffman, Chief Marketing Officer at BearCom Wireless and Co-Publisher of Social Media Marketing Magazine

In a recent blog post on Forbes.com, CMO Club CEO Pete Krainik noted, “Most Chief Marketing Officers see the value of engaging with customers—and the value of engaging them where they hang out, talk, and spend their time.” Pete is surely right about that. But then why are only a very small percentage of CMOs active in the social media world themselves, particularly on Twitter?

I attended the CMO Club’s semiannual CMO Summit in San Francisco last week. Again this year, it was an excellent event and was well attended by a nice cross-section of B2C and B2B Chief Marketing Officers from around the country, representing all different types and sizes of companies and organizations. On the last day of the Summit, I was part of a panel who discussed the business impact of social media and community building, including the most effective social media marketing tools. But surprisingly, I discovered that out of the 80-plus heads of marketing in attendance at the Summit, only 16 who carry the official title of CMO for their organizations are currently active on Twitter:

B2C Chief Marketing Officers:

B2B Chief Marketing Officers:

B2C/B2B Chief Marketing Officers:

This is obviously not a scientific study, but two things struck me when reviewing this list: 1) even though there were more B2C CMOs at the Summit than B2B, more B2B CMOs are active on Twitter than their B2C counterparts, and 2) very few “big brands” in either the B2C or B2B world are represented by their CMOs on Twitter. It’s also interesting to note that you can make the same basic observations when reviewing the list of the top CMOs on Twitter that I curate as Co-Publisher for Social Media Marketing Magazine.

So why is that the case? Do most CMOs not understand the value of Twitter and other social media tools? Or do they just not consider them a priority for their careers or their companies?

“Most CMOs barely understand the value of building relationships with customers and giving them a voice, let alone how to navigate and make use of the world of Twitter. Social media marketing to most in the C-suite is still something campaign based, but social media marketing needs to be woven into fabric of all marketing channels, strategically managed from a 360-degree perspective,” said Ted Rubin, Chief Social Marketing Officer at OpenSky and the most-followed CMO on Twitter. “The key here is to convince CMOs to get personally involved in social media by having someone with hands-on knowledge mentor them, so they get first-hand knowledge, build their own personal following, and learn from the ground up. That way, they can properly guide and manage the integration process,” Ted added.

John Dragoon, the Chief Marketing Officer at Novell, noted, “All markets are conversations, and good marketers are embracing new tools to have these conversations. The beauty of social media tools is they allow you to experiment quickly and learn even faster. Active participation is the key to success. And make no mistake—your customers are listening.”

Posted in B2B, B2C, CMOs, Conversations, Engagement, Kent Huffman, Listening, Marketing, Twitter | 8 Comments »

Size Matters: How a Large Online Network Can Transform You, Your Marketing, and Your Business

July 21st, 2010

By Ken Herron, Chief Marketing Officer at SocialGrow

Investment portfolios, airline seats, and chocolate fudge cakes. What do these three things have in common with the size of your online network? Big is good, bigger is better, and biggest is where you want to be.

As marketers, we have stuff to do, and failing to reach our objectives is not an option. Our brands and businesses require us to make things happen. Customers, sales, revenues… it’s up to us. Having large online social networks gives us the juice we need to make things happen.

Over the past few months, I have seen a surprising number of articles attempting to convince me that whether I’m a B2B or a B2C marketer, the focus for my portfolio of friend, follower, and connection-based online networks should be “engagement.” Hogwash.

Size matters. Size gives you power. Size gives you control. Size gives you leverage.

Everyone is an expert in something, but no one is an expert in everything. One of the reasons to be active on social media is to learn how to use cutting-edge and proven marketing strategies and tactics. If you follow one marketing professor on Twitter, you learn his/her approaches. How much better if you follow all of the top marketing professors on Twitter in the areas of B2B marketing, B2C marketing, public relations, corporate branding, and marketing research? The larger your network, the smarter you can be.

In the concept of six degrees of separation, all of us are, at most, six steps away from any other person. This is the heart of LinkedIn’s business model. If I have one connection on LinkedIn, I’m two degrees away from everyone my connection knows. Whether I need to buy or sell, I have a personal introduction to everyone in my connection’s network. As a marketer whose livelihood depends on your ability to get things done, would you rather have one connection on LinkedIn or 1,000?

What if you had a large mailing list of people who want to receive your communications because they’re interested in what you have to say? Each of your messages can reach more target customers. The larger your online network, the more people you can sell, real-time, 24x7x365.

As marketers, part of our value is to persuade our target audience to take action. If you’re Ashton Kutcher and develop the largest online network, you’re not just in the media, you are the media. You can directly broadcast to your five million-plus member audience anytime. That’s marketing. You want each and every one of your communications to command a level of credibility so high that other media outlets are forced to report on them.

As my boss likes to say, “Your message can only go as far as the size of your network.” Besides, as any five year old will loudly and unashamedly tell you when you’re standing in line with him at the bakery, “Who wouldn’t want the biggest chocolate fudge cake?”

Posted in B2B, B2C, Branding, Ken Herron, LinkedIn, Marketing, Public Relations, Research | No Comments »