15 Social Media Tips for the holidays

Here's my holiday gift to my readers. To be honest, it's a regift, since these social media tips were originally published (in longer form) in the MarketingDaily. There are five tips on basic social media principles and approach and ten tips on criteria for planning social media programs.

Principles
1. Be human
Social media is about engaging with customers on a personal level, something marketers sometimes forget. In social media interaction, you should be asking yourself: 'What would a human do?' And do that.
2. Don’t overreach
Most brands, especially CPG brands, aren't all that engaging from a consumer perspective. So go easy on the pedal--the #1 reason that brands get 'unliked' on Facebook is that they post too frequently.
3. Add value
You can always add value, however mundane your product. You can provide useful information, take up an important cause or, if all else fails, give out coupons (which is what most consumers want anyway).
4. Listen and respond
95% of questions posted on their Facebook are not answered. 95%! I don't think answering questions is optional. You get to talk but you also need to listen and respond.
5. Use the f*ing tools yourself
Only 26% of CMOs are actually using social media tools. Not good enough!

Criteria
1. Brand-led
Start with the brand, not the social media platform.
2. Theme-led
Build your social media activities around a specific theme. This helps pull everything together and makes the program more impactful. 
3. Product fit
Develop programs that take advantage of things your company is good at or known for. These will have more credibility, authenticity and impact.
4. Customer interests
Develop ideas that appeal to your customers. Find out what they like and what they care about enough to spend some of their limited free time discussing with you.
5. Other marketing program fit
Leverage your existing marketing activity. Programs that build on advertising or promotion activity or sponsorship events have a head start. 
6. Social media fit
Pick the right social media platform for your activity--each one is great for some things, less suited for others. Not everything needs to on Facebook!
7. Impact
Select programs that are worth the effort in terms of the number and quality of people they will reach.
8. Efficiency
Define the objectives of your social media activities upfront and identify the metrics that you will use to see if they worked.
9. Risk assessment
Assess the risk are you incurring with social media activities.
10.  Long term vs. short term
Make sure, especially for longer-term programs, that you are going to be able to support them both financially and operationally.

Meanwhile, The CMO Council has published a survey which shows that marketers are continuing to struggle with what to do with social media. The survey polled both consumers and marketers and found a significant gap between what people want from brands and what they are actually getting.

As the report says: "The bottom line is that consumers want more—more experiences, more engagement, more rewards, and more reasons to connect with each other and brands through social media. And brands are missing the boat. They see the benefits of reaching out to customers through social channels, but they aren’t yet fully invested. While 52 percent of marketers reported they believe their brands have enjoyed greater influence thanks to their presence in social networks like Facebook, only 17 percent said that social media is fully meshed, aligned, and integrated into the overall marketing mix."

Lots more to do in 2012!

Moleskine misstep miffs most-loyals

Committing social media suicide by upsetting your most loyal fans is something of a trend. Netflix blazed a trail. And now it's Moleskine, maker of the "legendary" notebooks so beloved by the designers, following along.

With apparently no sense of a design community hot button issue, Moleskine thought it might be kind of cool to organize a competition to design a new logo. In other words, to crowdsource it. That's, to say the least, not going down too well with one-time Moleskine lovers, now turning into Moleskine haters. Here's a comment posted on Moleskine's Facebook page by Seth Johnson which is representative of the aggrieved point of view:

"Count me as another designer who has purchased and loved your products for years but feels slapped in the face by your shortsighted attempt to crowdsource a logo. No more will I be purchasing or using your products; no longer will I advocate for your brand."

Maria Raudva, in another post, points out that the inserts in each notebook say: "Moleskine notebooks are partners for the creative and imaginative professions of our time." She thinks the competition is more about plundering than partnering.

One way to measure your level of engagement with your customers is to see how much of their free time they spend with you on social media. Brands with strong customer relationships benefit from a steady stream of user-generated content that might be comments or videos or statements of their love and affection. That's probably what Moleskine hoped to tap into with its competition. But there's a big difference between giving up some of your free time and giving up some of your professional time for free.

Crowdsourcing has worked for some brands. It's worked well for Doritos who've used competitions to generate Super Bowl ads. I'm sure the professional community doesn't really like that competition either but they represent a miniscule part of the Doritos customer base. Not so with Moleskine, as it's finding out to its cost.

(If you are interested in a comprehensive perspective on rights of authorship in new media and how free contributions are leading to our collective impoverished future, read this interview with Jaron Lanier, published at Edge.)

Photo

Brands we're stuck on vs. brands we're stuck with

Photo by Stefan Gara on Flickr

There are some brands we are stuck on, others we're stuck with. Brands we're stuck on are those where we've developed a relationship out of our own free will (Apple, Starbucks, Zappos). Brands we're stuck with are those where we've become enslaved through contracts (phone carriers, cable companies), switching costs (banks, software) or incentives (airlines via their loyalty programs). Consumers may be loyal to both types of brands if loyalty is simply measured in terms of repeat business but their feelings about the two types brands is very different.

For brands we're stuck on, the social media world is their oyster--social media presents an opportunity for them to tap into the wells of existing consumer passion and spread the love around. If you ask passionate consumers for their help, they will give it and become even more engaged as a result.

For brands we're stuck with, social media is a troubling and inhospitable environment. If you hold your consumers captive, you can hardly expect them to be that friendly. Social media gives them an opportunity to vent. The marketing activities of brands we're stuck with should be more about pacification—making sure that the prisoners don’t get so restless that they try and escape. Or wall-building—further strengthening the contracts, switching costs or incentives that keep them under lock and key.

Reference: Post inspired by reading some of the work on branded relationships by Susan Fournier from Boston University

Social media bringing B2B and B2C marketers closer together

Social media has changed what's possible for marketers. It's shifted the curve towards the individual and away from the mass customer and opened up opportunities for communication to be more interactive. From one-way broadcast towards two-way conversation. Ways to interact with consumers that were prohibitively expensive and would never make it past the first cut of an annual marketing plan are now viable, even preferred options.

Is it also leading to a convergence of B2C and B2B marketing? Business marketing has always been further along the path in terms of focusing on the individual customer vs. the mass market. At the Enterprise end of the spectrum, the primary customer contact is one-on-one and personal. Client-facing sales people are a primary driver of brand value, responding to their customer's needs and keeping them well informed. Maybe there are lessons here for consumer marketers now looking for a more personal touch?

Cisco Social Media Measurement by Stephanie Marx

Cisco's Stephanie Marx included this chart as part of a presentation on how to measure the effectiveness of social media. Cisco's approach to the evaluation of social media programs is interesting in of itself but what also caught my eye were the categories used to organize the various measurement approaches: "Community Health," and "Market Perception." These look relevant to all marketing, consumer or business.

Some of the sub-categories actually reflect new areas of interest in consumer marketing. "Thought leadership" mirrors the developing interest in and recognition of the importance of content and "customer satisfaction" mirrors the interest in companies like Zappos that have made customer service a point of competitive advantage vs. a source of costs that need to be reduced via automation and/or outsourcing.

Perhaps, as consumer marketers try and figure out their social media strategy, it would be worth talking to/recruiting a few B2B marketers to get their perspective.

The People's Republic of Brand

Warning: This post is a shameless plug for an Landor Salon Series online event this Thursday. The content is designed to get you interested in this event and sign-up for it. There. I've made my intentions known. Read on, if you dare.

If you were going to put together a list of things to read or watch to generate interest in a panel discussion event on social media, what would you include? Here's some of the things I found while I was putting together a list for a pre-event pizza lunch and learn:

1) Social Media Revolution: Socialnomics09
Is social media a fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? This video is a little dated now but it presents a deluge of social media facts and figures that argue for "shift." And the Fatboy Slim music is great. A similar post, more up-to-date but less good on the music and graphics front is here.



2) Social Media is Dead. Long live Common Sense: David Armano
A SlideShare presentation from David Armano that looks at what social media is and isn't and digs into topics like: Community, Engagement and Localization that need to be considered and built into a social business plan.

3) How social media can change history" TED
Clay Shirky is the author of “Here Comes Everybody,” a book that discusses the impact of the Internet on the media, society, everything! In this TED talk, Clay Shirky reprises some of the themes of his book as he talks about how Facebook, Twitter etc are radically changing the way people communicate with each other and what gets talked about.



4) 5 ways Social Media is changing branding forever: Dennis Van Staalduinen
Is push marketing really dead? Is crowd sourced creative changing the game? Is humility sexy? Dennis says: "yes" to all three in this post. Plus he put together a SlideShare presentation with six pictures that "explain" social media. Heard of the Scobleizer starfish? It's in there.

5) Basics of Social Media ROI: Olivier Blanchard
Olivier understands that social media will not be embraced by companies until it proves its worth. And by "worth" he means, that social media programs can be proven to either increase revenue or cuts costs. Non-financial metrics such as visitor traffic, followers etc are all well and good but not enough. You have to speak in financial language if you're going to protect and grow your social media budget.

6) Does Your Company Need a Digital Readiness Checklist? HBR
Are you switched on for digital? Is your company structured and organized to succeed in a world: "Permeated by digital networks and devices, social media, and data analytics." Jeffrey F. Rayport provides a checklist you can use to see how switched on your are. Lotus Notes, blocked sites, information hoarding = Bad. Open platforms, open access, information sharing = Good.

Landor Salon Event details
The People's Republic of Brand
Brand has evolved into a democracy of sorts, where the collective voice can wield as much—and sometimes more—power than corporate communications. Will community be crowned king of the brand domain? Or will it ultimately be revealed as a pretender to the throne? Maybe both sides can strike a balance of power that works to the benefit of all.

Join our expert panel, marketing professionals, and members of the design community for a conversation about this new world order of brand.

Panelists:
Ben Blumenfeld, Facebook
Tara Suan Kirchner, Flickr
Tom Tsao, Yahoo!
Panel moderated by: Russ Meyer, Landor

Event details

Date: Thursday, April 29, 2010

Time: 6:00–7:30 pm PDT
Convert the date/time to your your time zone

Venue: Landor Associates
1001 Front Street
San Francisco

Attendance, in person, is by invite only but all are welcome to watch the online stream

Online Stream RSVP here

Twitter Hash for the event #landorsalon

Hitler meme's downfall. And YouTube's?

YouTube is removing all the parodies it can find of Downfall (Der Untergang), the award winning film by Oliver Hirschbiegel about the last days of Hitler's regime. Hilter's famous rant scene in that movie has become a meme that's spawned hundreds of variations, each featuring fake subtitles on various topics applied to the original clip (e.g. the leaking of the iPhone).

German movie production company Constantin Film says that the clips are an infringement of its copyright and has asked YouTube to remove them. It can find all of these parody clips using Content ID, a new tool supplied by YouTube. This tool lets copyright holders track user uploaded versions of their content and decide whether or not to block them, monetize them with ads or track viewing metrics.

Here's the perfect response to Constantin Films decision, perfect both in its content and the fact that it has been posted to Funny or Die, a source of video material that will benefit from YouTube's current stance. It has strong but appropriate language:

Constantin Films Pulls Hitler - watch more funny videos

Favorite quote: "I bring massive appeal and awareness to a film that had a niche demographic and this is how you repay me?" (And, as one of the YouTube Hitler parody channels pointed out, the meme has generated lots of dvd sales for the original movie as well.)

This is not a good outcome. As online rights advocates are pointing out, these videos are good examples of "fair use," a legal provision that allows copyrighted material to be used for purposes such as satire or parody. Even though YouTube does allow parody creators a chance to appeal content removal, its Content ID tool has significantly shifted the balance of power back to copyright owners. This will reduce the creation and distribution of future fair use memes (until people find other outlets, which is the likely result).

This is not a case where the artists themselves are upset about the manipulation of their content. Director of the movie Oliver Hirschbiegel told the New York magazine back in January: "Someone sends me the links every time there's a new one. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn't get a better compliment as a director. I think it's only fair if now it's taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like."

He's right. Constantin Film is wrong. And YouTube/Google is in an uncomfortable we-just-make-the-guns-we-don't-control-how-people-use-them position that doesn't fit well with its "Don't be Evil' company pledge.

Six of the Best: Facebook Friends or Foes edition

Photo: Friend or Foe? by Lighthelper :) (Flickr)

It's been a tough few weeks for companies on the social media front as this collection of stories attest:

1) Greenpeace vs. Nestle: How to make sure your Facebook page doesn’t become a PR trojan horse – Part 2: The BrandBuilder blog
I've written before about Nestlé's somewhat amateurish efforts in the social media space. But that was in the quiet backwaters of instant coffee where nothing much could go wrong. It was perhaps only a matter of time before disaster stuck, which it did when Greenpeace and others turned the Nestlé Facebook wall into a battleground as they aired their grievances about the company's use of palm oils and its supposed deforestation effects. Olivier Blanchard has a great, no-side taken, two-part series that analyzes what went wrong and what Nestlé could and should have done about it.

2) 5 Lessons from Social Media PR Disasters: The Atlantic
"Pop quiz for all of you hotshot social media mavens: Your client's Facebook fan page is overrun by angry protesters. What do you do?" Another angle on the Nestlé debacle plus lessons from several others including Domino's Pizza and Motrin.

3) Facebook Fans: You Get What You Pay For: eyecube
Rick Liebling says that when you dig a little deeper into Facebook Fan Pages, what you see is not a pretty picture. Nice stats mask "walls filled with off topic conversations at best, vile language and real antipathy for the brand at worst." Rick describes the case of TGIF which got hundreds of thousands of fans for its FanWoody Facebook page after a free burger promotion but ended up closing it down after it became a clearing house for complaints and worse about the promotion and TGIF itself. "TGI Friday's pretty much had to spray Agent Orange on their relationship with 600,000 people," Rick concludes.

Moving on to other social media:

4) Unsocial media and the unfriendly skies: What's up below deck? (Landor)
How do passengers express their gratitude to airlines for installing the technology that enables Wi-Fi on board planes? By using it to cause a stink any time something goes wrong, that's how. Exhibit #1: The Virgin America flight from LA to JFK that was stuck on a tarmac for several hours. That was reported "live" on Twitter. Then, of course, there was the big enough for two seats, Kevin Smith and his Twitter-expressed rage at Southwest. Kristin wonders why these generally media-savvy brands aren't: "using social media to their advantage in a way that reinforces what their brands are about."

5) The Social Media Bubble: Harvard Business Review
Umair Haque advances the bleakest and most negative hypothesis about social media that I think I've ever read. Worth reading just as an antidote to the normal breathless enthusiasm

6) Social Media Is Dead: Long Live Common Sense: slideshare
David Armano posted his presentation to the Chicago American Marketing Association. His key point: If companies want to integrate "social" in a meaningful way, they are going to have to modify process, staffing, training, culture and even leadership to get there. Some of the problems we've seen over the last few weeks show that there's still some way to go.

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy (and vaguely related areas). More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).

Businesses move forward with purpose

Photo: Vintage Woman Soldier Veteran Bugler, WAF U.S, Air Force 1950s by Beverlykahuna (Flickr)

Two powerful forces are combining to push businesses to catch up with Peter Drucker's ideas about them serving a higher purpose--just in time for his 100th birthday (which would have been today).

Drucker was a strong proponent of businesses going beyond maximizing quarterly profits for shareholder benefit. Why? In his words (from this HBR tribute): "Most people need to feel that they are here for a purpose, and unless an organization can connect to this need to leave something behind that makes this a better world, or at least a different one, it won’t be successful over time.”

So what forces are pushing companies in this direction?

1. The Recession: The recession may be technically over but the current economic conditions continue to impact both consumer confidence and marketing budgets. As Landor-colleague Allen Adamson points out in this Forbes article, such conditions foster purpose-driven branding: "a company whose employees can answer the question, 'Why are we here?' will be the company that makes stronger connections with consumers in search of solutions to life's new normal issues." This Advertising Age article and this WARC News item list a growing number of companies that have become mission-marketers in the U.S. and the UK including P&G, Unilever, Heinz, Wal-Mart, General Mills and Sony.

2. Changing Media Dynamics: The challenge with social media for traditional marketers is the "social" bit. It's less about broadcasting and publicizing, more about 1:1 conversations and dialogue. And the fact is you just can't have a very interesting chat about a box of cereal or a can of soda. As Dove shows, there's much more social media potential talking about real beauty than there is talking about the new range of beauty bars and lotions. As the media change and evolve, so will brands.

To what purpose?

Back to Drucker. The sort of purpose he had in mind was not something superficial as represented by so many mission statements that companies have today. But something grand-- like GE's ambition to be: "the leader in making science work for humanity."

I'll leave you to pick through the current crop of examples (here and here) to decide which of them seem grand vs. less grand. But, to give you some guidance:

More grand if:

The purpose is connected to the intent of the founder (or a later visionary): Pre-recession, Wal-Mart went though a few years where it was struggling to define itself. Should it move more upscale? Should it be more like Target? But then it looked back at its history and chose to embrace the vision of its founder, Sam Walton, which was, yes, to offer low prices but with the intent of helping people provide better lives for their families. With a renewed sense of purpose, Wal-Mart now has direction and energy for its marketing programs and employee engagement with its "Save money. Live better" tag line. Charles Schwab is another company that has rediscovered its purpose by considering its heritage.

Less grand if:

It's mainly about saving money: An umbrella campaign that features all the products in a portfolio can be much less expensive than spending money on each product individually. It's a temptation for companies looking for ways to cut their marketing budgets. All they need is some kind of mission-statement-thingy that can cover all their stuff. With this kind of thinking, they usually end up with something bland and uninspiring to customers and employees alike. Or, as Jack Neff describes in the Advertising Age piece, mission statements that: "Can provoke eye rolls nearly strong enough to cause head trauma among journalists, not to mention the more cynical or maverick elements within corporations."

In case you missed it: 10 Peter Drucker quotes (from earlier this week)

Who can we trust? Not the usual suspects

Photo: a L p Flickr CC

After years of moving from place to place and country to country, I finally stayed somewhere long enough to get called for jury duty. After signing in, sitting around and watching a motivational video that tried to sell the benefits of jury service to a skeptical audience, I was one of 45 people called down to the courtroom. The rest of the day was spent by the judge and attorneys whittling down 45 people to find the 12 people + 1 alternate who they believed could render a true, just and fair verdict. After all was said and done, I was selected as the alternate or, as described by the judge, the "spare tire."

But before that, somewhere in the middle of this tortuous process, there was an interesting moment around the topic of witness credibility. Whose testimony, the attorney asked, would be more credible: The police who had arrested the defendant or the defendant himself? One potential juror was excused when she said that she would believe the police because they always tell the truth. Another was excused because he had had a bad experience with the police and was not inclined to believe them anymore. Too much trust on the one hand, too little on the other.

Another potential juror asked the same question said that he would tend to believe the police more than the defendant because the defendant would have more reason to shade the truth than the police officers since he had more to lose. An acceptable answer. Not excused.

With that moment fresh in my mind, I read David Kiley and Burt Helm's article in BusinessWeek: "The Great Trust Offensive" which describes how companies like American Express and Ford are revamping their marketing to try and win back trust lost in the recession. The loss of trust has been quite dramatic. According to the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer, only 44% of Americans said they trusted business, down from 58% in 2007.

What's interesting is that, as companies try and rebuild trust, they are finding that traditional methods don't work as well as they used to. As Kiley/Helm say: "The days of consumers passively absorbing a TV commercial--or for that matter a banner ad--are over." Only 13% of those surveyed by the Edelman report thought that ads were credible.

And, looping back to my jury moment, "who" can speak credibly for businesses is an issue as well. CEO credibility also hit a new low in the Edelman report. Only 29% of those surveyed believe them (and only 17% in the U.S.). Like the defendants in a trial, CEOs are perceived by many to have too much at stake to be entirely trustworthy. Employees, on the other hand, are easier to trust and, in fact, Edelman found that conversations with employees are the most trusted corporate source (40%). Perhaps this is not such a new development. As Ron Nessen (Gerald Ford's Press Secretary) said many years ago: "Nobody believes the official spokesman . . . but everybody trusts an unidentified source."

Of course, the current erosion in business trust has been driven primarily by the recession and the financial crisis. But the lack of trust in company leaders and traditional media is also being fueled by (and fueling) the rise of social media. As companies try and rebuild trust, they'll need to be even more creative and determined to engage in this medium.

Bonus Book Review!

The likely reason that the Q&A between the attorneys and potential jurors stuck in my mind was because the book that I was reading to while away the court waiting time was The Truth About Trust in Business by Vanessa Hall. It's a perfectly timed book given the recent erosion in trust in business and marketers attempts to win some of it back. It presents a simple model for building trust based on: managing expectations, meeting people's needs and keeping promises. Not much new thinking but, since many businesses fail on one or more of these pillars, something worth revisiting. The book has some interesting case studies covering various areas including "trust in marketing and branding" with a scorecard to assess your products trustworthiness.

There's one area where I disagree with the author. She subscribes to the "Humpty Dumpty" school of trust--that, once trust is broken, nothing can put it back together again. I personally subscribe to the less extreme "Broken Leg" school which holds that trust can be snapped in an instant and it takes quite some time and effort to repair.