Monthly Archives: November 2011
For years, a truism among social media marketers is that B2B is a soft medium, better suited to raising awareness, thought leadership and passive relationship building than to pursuing hard sales objectives. We argued increased length of B2B sales cycles and difficulty of tracking customers from one platform to another as main reasons for not attempting full-scale CRM activities.
While those are both valid, one of the main reasons we steered clear was the sheer amount of work it would take to identify, track and funnel leads to sales in the absence of a comprehensive social CRM tool. Advising clients to build a custom database and assign community management resources to enter, tag and monitor individual leads by hand never seemed like a winning proposition.
And so, we stuck to strategies that made the most sense, to get the most bang for a client’s buck. And while establishing thought leadership by producing best-in-class content undeniably works, it’s got two things going against it, from an internal perspective. First, producing high-quality content on a regular basis takes a lot of work; second, it eats into time when employees could be pursing shorter-term wins through more familiar channels. Plus, we were always faced with the same measurement issues. If we can’t adequately connect follows, likes and mentions to the bottom line, how can we expect to convince skeptical managers and salespeople to participate in a program that seems like more work for questionable return?
Which is why I nearly jumped out of my skin with excitement back in March when I read that Salesforce.com was acquiring Radian6. Could we be on the verge of discovering the B2B social Holy Grail? Read More
The Challenge
Common sense asserts a wealth of marketing opportunity residing in the analysis of consumers’ publicly shared (and digitally documented) interests and interactions. However, there are significant challenges in separating valid information from noise, then structuring that valid data to draw actionable insights with the same level of confidence that businesses expect from their market research, web analytics, and other Business Intelligence functions.
The first generations of social media measurement and analysis have addressed these challenges as best they could. To advance beyond pseudo-science into the realm of truly actionable business analytics, the next generation of analysis will need to draw from the established standards and best practices of organizations’ existing analytics functions with established competency in building data-driven management practices from digital analytics.
Current State
Current approaches to social media measurement come in two forms:
1) Content-based monitoring or “listening” evaluates the content of conversations to assess current perceptions, and guide future engagement.
2) Context-based “social graph” analysis evaluates relationships and interactions within and across the social graph to assess networks and their capability to drive business objectives.
Businesses are currently trying to apply these two forms of measurement in various combinations for several objectives; to avoid or respond to brand crises, to build brand awareness and affinity, to enhance customer experience and loyalty, and even to influence sales.
JC Penney Utilizes Social Media for Charitable Giving This Holiday Season
Thanksgiving is right around the corner which means that Black Friday is right behind it, along with a gaggle of deals, offerings and crazy store hours. But this year, retailer JC Penny has decided to shift the focus from the crazy low prices and Christmas shopping to something that falls more in line with the giving nature of the season. They have utilized their social media strategy for making charitable donations. Not only will they be encouraging shoppers to give back to their communities, but they also have some really innovative ways of doing so.
One of their biggest initiatives, “QR Santa Tags” will encourage users to leave personalized messages to gift recipients using QR Codes, making the donation process far more personalized and exciting for those participating. This is a fantastic example of creating a social initiative that is rewarding, engaging and can carry with consumers through the holiday season. Another innovative initiative that JC Penny has taken is in their usage of Foursquare. Each time a user checks in to the store on Black Friday through Foursquare, a $25 donation is made.
These simple, effective and creative social strategies should prove to be successful in encouraging users to interact with JC Penny in the social realm, while doing a good thing during the holiday season. Have you guys heard of any other awesome social Black Friday initiatives?
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I want my Facebook! College graduates say freedom to use social media at work is more important than a large salary
It’s no doubt that the workplace is changing as a result of social media. Between jobs being created for managing branded social accounts, using social channels to get hired and even more people engaging with their social networks during work hours, the times they are a-changing. But one of the biggest cultural shifts is what college students have begun to deem important while searching for their dream jobs. A new study has revealed that many college students are putting social network policies above salary, when deciding what job to take.
The study focused on 2,800 college students and young adults between the ages of 21-29 and the results may surprise you. One in three college students claimed that a flexible social media policy was more important to them than financial compensation. Excuse me? Are these kids really saying they’d rather have the opportunity to play on Facebook during the workday than get paid more? In this market?! This is a huge reflection on how social media has changed us as a society. Read More
Over the course of last year, I have worked on two different CPG brands and one durable goods brand in social media, and one thing that I have learned right off the bat was that a “Like” on Facebook does NOT equal a purchase conversion. It just doesn’t. No matter how we as marketers apply value to a “Like” or a follow in social media, we must remain vigilant and not sell in the idea that they do. Product conversion or purchase in social is an arduous task. So, how does a brand sell or convert social followers?
Before diving marketing products on social, I want to make one point clear: social networks were created to link people together; not brands and certainly not products. From that, social networks evolved from linking people together to linking experiences and people together – still, no products. It wasn’t until a short time ago that we marketers entered the fray to market brands as people and products as experiences to consumers in a network that wasn’t created for that purpose. This idea, in my opinion, is the fundamental problem we’re dealing with. Social networks were not created to sell products, but we act as though they were.
Creating Product Awareness?
Targeting users on social platforms begins with the ever-present and at times, most overused term, awareness. However, what I have noticed while creating social strategies and being in the trenches of community moderation, is that creating awareness on social channels, whether it be brand or product awareness is near impossible without some sort of paid support. Digital marketers can add to or assist in generating awareness, but not create it purely from nothing.
Parents help kids lie to get on Facebook, study finds
Many people feel that rules are meant to be broken. That being said, oftentimes they are created for safety and protection. For example, Facebook has a very well advertised rule that children under the age of 13 may not join the site. But recently, there has been a swarm of children under the age of 13 active in the Facebook community. Many of these children are likely sneaking onto the site without their parent’s knowledge, but a new study has found that many parents of children under 13 are helping them get their very own Facebook accounts.
According to the study, “[t[he vast majority (95%) of the parents of 10-year-olds on Facebook were aware when their child signed up for the site, and 78% of those parents helped create the child’s account, according to the study. For 11- and 12-year-olds, the percentages of parental knowledge and involvement were slightly lower.” With the prevalence of cyber bullying and online predators, why is it that these parents are helping their children break the rules?
