November 17th, 2010 by Justin —
When the US recession was in full swing, the government conducted a stress test of the banks to see how much trouble those banks could handle before they’d collapse. Understanding potential worst case scenarios should, in theory, help an organization avoid them.
Have you conducted a stress test of your marketing or PR team, to see how much trouble they can sustain before your reputation — or your business — would fall apart? (Good news: it’s probably more than you think.)
On the other hand, how much positive feedback can you process before even the nicest compliments start sounding like white noise to your overtaxed brain? (Do you even know what you should be listening for?)
As exciting as the immediate connectivity of social media can be, that immediacy comes with a price. Bad news can travel fast, while good news can become a tsunami that overwhelms our ability to make use of it. The key is to understand your limits at both ends, and to plan for both the best and the worst-case scenarios. Ask yourself questions like…
- In an emergency, how many people would we need to operate our social media channels?
- Are there well-known protocols to help everyone stay on the same page?
- How bad does a situation need to get before we need to make a public statement?
Or, while thinking happy thoughts…
- How are we separating “good” feedback from “great” feedback?
- How much of our feedback is actionable, and how much doesn’t require a response?
- Can we identify potential partnerships and opportunities by studying our metrics?
The better prepared you are for both the highs and lows of real-time engagement with customers, competitors and the general public, the easier it is to capitalize on your upsides and mitigate your losses.
Want to hear more? Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!
November 15th, 2010 by Justin —
Want to get your brand in front of more people? Try an online contest!
Online contests are a fast, easy and low-stress way to earn a high-volume return for a relatively small investment of time and energy. Whether participants can win a $200 Threadless gift certificate or have Toyota throw a party in their hometown, the concept is the same:
Cool prize + easy entry = great word of mouth
For example, our client Bigelow Tea has been doing some great contests, with prizes that range from free tea to free tickets for Wayne Gretzky’s annual hockey camp. The cost of entry? Simply liking Bigelow Tea on Facebook. Who wouldn’t trade the few seconds it takes to click a button in exchange for a chance to meet The Great One? (For all you non-hockey fans, that’s Gretzky.)
When Bigelow recently gave away the herb plus tea gift set on Facebook, the one-week contest earned them more than 400 new Facebook fans. That’s a 7% increase in their total number of fans, which rose from 5720 to 6162. If they did that every week for a year, they’d nearly double their fanbase in 12 months.
And what’s their investment in this venture?
- A prize (obviously, the more interesting the prize, the better)
- Time (planning, designing & promoting the contest)
- Shipping the prize to the winner
What would your company be willing to invest in a year-long doubling of their marketing reach?
Because you can rest assured that your customers are willing to invest the time to click.
Want to learn more? Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!
November 3rd, 2010 by Justin —
As Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy this past September, Fast Company ran an excellent summary of Blockbuster’s woes by author Adrian Ott.
Her take?
Blockbuster misunderstood why people were choosing Netflix and Redbox in the first place, and they could never recover from their own clouded perception.
In their case, they underestimated the time their customers would be willing to spend in (or in transit to and from) their stores, when similar (and sometimes better) options were available online, or in less time-intensive settings.
You may not be running a video rental empire, but your business is almost definitely competing against external threats. You may think you understand those threats, and how to combat them.
But you may also be wrong.
How can you tell whether or not your company is misdiagnosing its operational problems?
Ask your customers.
Social media makes it so easy to track and respond to customer complaints — or to solicit customer feedback on everything from their in-store experiences to their wish lists to their discussions about your company’s culture — that you no longer have an excuse for not knowing what your customers really think of you… and of your competition.
Here’s a test:
What do you think your value proposition is?
Do your customers agree?
(Do you know?)
Ask random customers for five reasons they’d suggest your products or services to a friend. If their answers are wildly divergent from your own, you may have a problem of perception.
And no matter how far they are from what you think the mark is, when it comes to the public’s perception of your business, the customer is always right.
Just ask Blockbuster.
Need a perception boost? Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!
September 22nd, 2010 by Justin —
According to research in US markets, companies who say they use social media primarily to strengthen customer loyalty spend almost twice as much on social media as companies who use these same tools primarily to increase brand awareness.
These findings reinforce the “conversational” nature of social media, in which long-term connectivity is more valuable than short-term awareness. Individual campaigns might grab a person’s attention, but the cumulative effect of multiple campaigns, consistent customer service and day-to-day engagement adds up to a stronger relationship between a brand and its customers.
Are You Giving Your Customers a Reason to Stick Around?
If longevity of customer relationships is a relevant way to measure the impact of your company’s social media efforts, what are you doing online to remind your customers that they’re welcome and valued? Some examples might include…
- Twitter or Facebook-only sales promotions
- Special live events for your social media followers
- Announcing new products and opportunities online first
- Providing online forums where your customers can congregate
- Publicly thanking your top customers
- Granting them permission to re-use and mash-up some of your branding
- Soliciting and sharing tips & suggestions from your audience
- Highlighting the great things your customers are doing, apart from your official sales relationship
What other social media tips can you think of to make your customers feel like they’re more than just a number?
Out of ideas? We always have more. Find us on Twitter or Facebook!
September 8th, 2010 by Justin —
“Social media scientist” Dan Zarrella recently investigated the path a story travels when going viral in social media. His findings? Rarely does a piece of information succeed socially because of one person, or by following one straight line from “new” to “known.”
For example…
In Zarrella’s samples, the circles represent the individual mentions of a piece of content by a single Twitter account. The larger the circle, the more followers that account has. As you can see, although several popular accounts were instrumental in circulating this particular story, no single account was directly responsible for the story’s ultimate social success. you could remove any mention of the story (except for its initial creation) and it would still be considered popular.
Zarrella includes several similar visual examples in his summary, including many intriguing variations, but none of them relies exclusively upon one central popularity push.
So, what does this mean for your marketing strategy?
Buckshot and the Kitchen Sink
40 years ago, we only had three TV stations. In those days, getting on TV was an automatic win because ABC, NBC and CBS owned the audience’s attention. Odds were, 33% of the TV-owning country (give or take) was bound to see your story.
Today, we have hundreds of TV channels competing simultaneously with radio, print and Internet media, often via the same devices (TVs, computers, phones). Getting your story on TV today guarantees you absolutely nothing in terms of audience awareness or recognition. And while some media outlets are certainly more popular (and powerful) than others, there’s no more automatic win.
In the past, you could aim for a specific target. Today, you need buckshot to increase your chances of a direct hit.
In the past, you could craft a single, elegant method of winning over your audience. Today, you need to throw everything at the audience including the kitchen sink, in the hope that something connects.
In the past, you knew who the influencers were. Today, every mention counts.
Where will your next popularity push come from?
Want more mentions for your brand? Follow us on Twitter or Facebook!
September 1st, 2010 by Justin —
Image by Diego Lorenzo F. Jose on Flickr, who includes this description:
Who says an old dog can’t learn new tricks?
My dad just turned 60 and is newly retired. I got him an Ipod Touch to play with 
Diego’s father isn’t alone in his newfound tech habits.
A new study from The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that older Americans (age 50+) are adopting social media in growing numbers. Among the report’s findings:
- Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled—from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.
- One in five (20%) online adults ages 50-64 say they use social networking sites on a typical day, up from 10% one year ago.
- One in ten internet users aged 50+ now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves or see updates about others.
Increased social media use among a wider demographic is obviously a good thing. But it also creates additional questions for any company that uses these tools to communicate with its customers.
For example:
- Are you actively engaging customers of all ages on your social networks?
- Does your messaging change depending on your intended demographic?
- Is your website — or your Facebook fan page — intuitive for all ages?
- Does your social media strategy include a mature perspective?
And while these may seem like new challenges, this isn’t a new conversation.
Ten years ago, the exact same spike in general web adoption among seniors and baby boomers had marketers scrambling to connect with this “new, non-traditional” audience. And sites like ThirdAge have been providing baby boomers with topical insights for over a decade.
Thus far, social media has been considered a youth movement. With this growing number of mature voices and viewpoints, the gender gap is being closed — and this is a welcome opportunity for brands to reconnect with an audience they may not have expected to be paying such close attention.
Want to hear more? Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!
August 25th, 2010 by Justin —
On Mad Men, the ad execs of the 1960s rely on focus groups and psychologists to understand their clients’ customers. Today, we have Twitter, Facebook and blogs.
Instead of employing tricks and misdirection to learn what people really think about a product or a brand, we’re now empowered to share our opinions with anyone who’ll listen, 24 hours a day. But this generational shift from privacy to oversharing has created a whole new problem: we now offer too much input, rather than too little.
Thankfully, the web is loaded with tools to help you understand what your customers (and your competition, and complete strangers) are talking about.
As you can see, there’s no shortage of ways to listen to your customers. And now you can analyze what they say vs. what they really mean, all from the comfort of your laptop.
Of course, what you actually do with all that information is another story entirely — but at least you’ll never be in the dark again about what your customers really think.
Overwhelmed? We can help! Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!
August 4th, 2010 by Justin —
Let’s say you’re at a party. It’s casual. It’s social.
Everybody there is talking to somebody else — some in groups, some in pairs.
All except one guy.
A guy in a suit.
A guy who’s moving from group to group and arbitrarily shouting unwanted information at people, and then moving on.
He doesn’t care if you have questions.
He doesn’t even care if you respond.
He just wants to make sure that you heard what he had to say, because the only thing he’s capable of talking about is himself.
Does That Sound Like Your Brand’s Social Media Strategy?
According to marketing firm 360i‘s recent report on Twitter usage, odds are, it probably is.
From the MediaPost summary of the report:
The six-month study from 360i reveals that 43% of consumer tweets are conversational — replies to other people tweeting. Yet only 12% of marketers’ tweets demonstrate active dialogue with consumers.
This means that while “normal people” spend almost half their time actively conversing with their fellow Twitter users, companies are only conversing in 1 out of every 10 tweets they send.
Which, obviously, begs the question…
What Is Your Company Talking About?
Do you use Twitter as a megaphone to broadcast company-wide news?
Do you use Twitter for sales, showering your followers with coupon codes?
Do you use Twitter for lead generation, littering your tweetstream with linkbait in the hopes that unsuspecting readers will click through to your sales page and be mysteriously compelled to give you money?
If so, you’re at the wrong party.
Remember to Put the “Social” in Social Media
If you only had one minute to chat with a complete stranger, would you rather tell her something about yourself or learn something about her instead?
Why can’t it be both?
On Twitter, people value (short) conversations. The nature of the service lends itself to bite-sized interactions and splintered attention, which actually increases the need for meaningful connections in shorter amounts of time.
Yes, people like to listen. But they also like to talk.
The key is to make time for both.
Is your social media strategy a two-way street?
We drive on a few two-way streets: Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!
July 19th, 2010 by Justin —
If you’re just beginning to use social media, Twitter and Facebook may seem very similar.
And while it’s true that both services…
- Are built around publicly shared “status updates”
- Enable users to “follow” or “friend” each other
- Can be simultaneously updated through third party services like HootSuite
… you’ll soon realize that the audience for each service has very different goals and expectations.
Broadly speaking, Twitter is good for…
- Connecting with peers and industry professionals
- “Water cooler” discussions of breaking news & pop culture
- Real-time information-sharing, research, Q&As, etc.
- Technology-focused and business-driven discussions
- One-way broadcasts, with occasional commentary
… while Facebook is good for…
- Connecting with people you already know “in real life”
- Threaded discusssions (where all comments are collected)
- Personal opinions
- Photo albums
- Videos
Twitter, while offering less robust features than Facebook, is also (paradoxically) considered to be the more professional and business-oriented platform. Meanwhile, Facebook (like MySpace before it) is the more visually-driven sharing platform among friends, family and acquaintances.
This means that the users of each service have different expectations for their experience on each platform. And if you’re piloting a brand across both channels, you need to be aware of those differences. (Dan Zarella writes frequently, and well, about how to do this.)
For example, in December of 2009, we at Creative Concepts were helping The Children’s Aid Society promote their annual Miracle on Madison fundraiser. Most of the news about that particular event — celebrity sightings, fashion updates and high-end sales — differed from the vast majority of The Children’s Aid Society’s traditional topics (children’s health, education, foster care and family services).
We quickly learned that the charity’s followers on Twitter remained open to the Miracle on Madison messaging, but their fans on Facebook chilled to the idea. While they may be interested in the actual work being done by The Children’s Aid Society, that must seem at odds with more “commercial” updates about a high society Manhattan fundraising event.
So they made their voices heard – some abandoned The Children’s Aid Society Facebook page.
When we noticed a drop in Facebook numbers that coincided with an increase in Miracle messaging, we followed our instincts and dialed down the Miracle mentions on Facebook. And when their fans’ behavior subsequently returned to normal, we chalked that up as a lesson learned — and one we believe is worth sharing:
Facebook is not Twitter is not MySpace is not a blog. You may have one message, but you have multiple audiences.
Listen, and then adjust your pitch.
Want to hear our various voices? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
July 14th, 2010 by Justin —
While social media has created more channels for your messages to pass through, the same basic rule of marketing still applies:
No matter how great your content is, if nobody knows about it, it’s useless.
Fortunately, the folks at MicroArts have compiled some best practices for sharing links on Facebook and Twitter, including some analysis on optimal dates and times to share from social media scientist Dan Zarrella.
But while these insights are helpful, they’re also fairly broad. A “one size fits all” approach may help your messages get seen by large numbers of people, but if you want to ensure maximum connectivity, you need to drill even deeper into what your audience’s habits are telling you.
Optimizing Your Outreach Strategy
Once you’ve developed a reliable social media strategy, it’s time to start analyzing the results. For example:
- On which days are your messages most often read & shared by others?
- At what time of day are your links most often clicked on?
- By whom are your messages most often read & shared?
- Do those results differ among Twitter, Facebook, blog readers, etc.?
- Do those results differ among topics or talking points?
- Do your results improve by messaging more often? Or less often?
- Do certain members of your team craft more effective messages than others?
How do different calls to action (i.e., “watch this”, “learn more”, “find out”) play out on different channels, at different times of day, etc.?
Do you regularly reach out to bloggers, podcasters and other journalists? If so, do you keep track of who actually shares the information you provide to them, and which leads are dead ends (whom you may actually be annoying)?
While you don’t want to become paralyzed by strategy, you do want results. And the more you know about how your messages are being processed, and by whom, the better you’ll be able to craft messages that work.
Want more great tips? You should follow us on Twitter!
