MackCollier.com

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Good Content is the Best Commercial For Your Business

5836007929_2b20e323e2_oRecently I was talking to a friend about a situation that plays itself out in so many companies every single day.  A ‘social media guy/girl’ pushes for their company to start using social media, in this case we’ll say it’s a blog.  The company finally agrees, but never pays attention to the blog until one day the company realizes that the blog is driving traffic to the website and generating leads for the business.

Then suddenly The Monetization Police step in and start looking for ways to leverage the blog as a promotional channel for the company.  The irony here is that good content is just about the best commercial possible for your business.  When you take good content and try to change it to sell more stuff, it usually becomes bad content.

Instead of looking for ways to change good content into crappy content by adding a sales pitch, look for ways to leverage good content to extend interactions with your customers.  Here’s some ideas:

1 – Ask for email newsletter signups.  When you create valuable content, your customers will appreciate you letting them know that they can get MORE valuable content by signing up for your newsletter.

2 – Ask for the share.  We all love to share great content, so ask your readers to tell their friends about your great content, to tweet it, post a review, whatever is applicable.

3 – Ask for the sale.  Instead of changing your content into a commercial, try simple adding a relevant call-to-action at the end. For example, write an article telling customers how to build their own birdhouse, then add a code for 10% off the supplies when they place their next order.

 

The common thread here is that if you create valuable content for your readers, you have done them a favor.  As such, you have earned the right to ask for something in return.  Now the key is to make sure you never ask for more than you give, but understand that your customers appreciate good content, so they will be willing to help you in return.

Social media never has and never will work well as a direct-selling channel.  It works far better as a channel to build relationships with customers.  Once that relationship is built, then an environment exists where sales are possible.  Create the valuable content first, then ask for the sale.

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Learn About Creating a Content Strategy For Your Blog Tonight With @JoePulizzi at #Blogchat!

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If you missed tonight’s #Blogchat here is the transcript.

Our all-star lineup of special guest-hosts for the 2nd half of 2014 begins tonight as Joe Pulizzi co-hosts #Blogchat!  Joe is known as ‘The Godfather of Content Marketing’ and runs the wildly-successful Content Marketing World events.  The next CMW is in September in Cleveland.  I spoke at the first one in 2011 and it’s a wonderful event.  And if you’re thinking of attending, register and use code BLOGCHAT to get a $100 discount!

Here’s what we’ll be discussing tonight(all times Central):

8:00-8:20 PM – How do we get started creating a content strategy for our blog?

8:20-8:40 PM – How does a blog fit into our larger content strategy?

8:40-9:00 PM – What’s next in content marketing?  What should we be focusing on?

Thrilled as can be to finally have Joe co-hosting as everyone in #Blogchat will lean a ton about improving their blogging efforts by creating a solid content strategy.  See y’all at 8pm Central on Twitter and check out the other all-star co-hosts joining us in the coming months!

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How Figures Toy Company is Masterfully Using Social Media to Build Product Demand, and Giving Me Back My Childhood At the Same Time

If you grew up in the 1970s as I did, the odds are you owned a toy created by the Mego Corporation.  The company made its hay with dolls (today called Action Figures) and its most popular line was The World’s Greatest Super-Heroes, giving children everywhere their first exposure to characters like Batman, Spiderman and Superman.  The figures were incredibly well made and detailed for the time, including cloth costumes that could be removed (and then lost).  One of my earliest childhood memories is as a 6 year-old taking my $6 and going to TG&Y and happily spending six week’s worth of allowance on a Robin doll.  Those were the days.

And a company called Figures Toy Company is now helping me relive those days.  Last year the company announced that it had acquired the DC Comics license and would be recreating these magical Mego figures of my childhood in near perfect replicas of the originals.

I’m not sure exactly how you ‘squee’, but I think I did it back in January when I first discovered this news.  I immediately started checking out FTC’s website and social media presences  for more information on the figures, and that’s when I realized that FTC is doing a wonderful job of leveraging social media to build demand for these figures.

First, let’s consider the market for these figures.  At $25 and up, these figures aren’t for priced to sell to children, they are primarily for adult collectors, and more specifically adult collectors that are fans of Mego figures.

One of the points I make in Think Like a Rock Star is that fans want special access.  They want to go behind the scenes and get a backstage pass.  FTC has been releasing these figures in ‘Waves’ of 4 characters at a time.  In most cases, they announce the upcoming wave 6-8 months before the product officially goes on sale.

So how do you keep fans excited for 6-8 months?  By giving them special access and a look behind the scenes.  Here’s what FTC has been doing:

1 – After the initial figure wave announcement, they then show pictures of the sculpt of the figure’s head.  This gets fans excited and gives them a better idea of what the final figure could look like.

2 – Next, they’ll reveal the prototype for the completed figure, giving fans a much better idea of what to expect.

3 – The first two steps take place over several weeks, so by now it’s about a month or two prior to the expected on-sale date of the figures.  Next, FTC will post pictures on its Facebook page that show the figures being assembled in its factory:

FTCPhoto

 

4 – Finally, the figures go on sale!  Then when they arrive, delighted customers take pictures of them and send them to FTC, who then turns around and posts the pictures from its fans on its Facebook page:

FTCFans

And along the way FTC is using its Facebook page to answer any and all questions from customers, often giving them nuggets about future releases.

From a marketing standpoint, this level of transparency is exactly what fans of these figures are clamoring for.  There’s been no shortage of geeking out on blogs and forums about these figures, and fans across the board are thrilled with FTC for being so open about the process.  Giving fans better information about how the figures are made and detailing the process helps build demand for the figures.

And it’s leading to big sales for FTC.  The first wave of 4 figures were released in November of last year, and barely six months later the entire wave has sold out and the products have been retired.  The lesson here is if you have passionate fans for the products you make, give them MORE information and behind the scenes information about the products they love.  It could have a BIG impact on your business’ bottom line, as it is for FTC.

PS: Yes FTC is getting my money as well!

FTCBAts

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In the Future Your Customers Will Completely Control Your Marketing

I recently saw a study into the content consumption habits of millenials that claimed that individuals ages 18 to 36 spend an average of 17.8 hours a day with different types of media.

Some forms of media are more important to millennials than others. Social media is a top priority, as 71 percent say that they engage in social media daily. User-generated content — which encompasses social-media posts, photos, blogs, email, texting and talking to others about media — occupies about 5.4 hours of the average millennial’s day. That’s 30 percent of their total daily media consumption.

The only rival to user-generated media is the old standby of traditional media — print, radio and television – which accounts for 33 percent of millennials’ media consumption.

Think about that for a minute.  Better yet, those of you that are over the age of 36, recall when you were children, in a pre-internet age.  How much time did you spend each day consuming media and what percentage of it was from traditional sources?  Contrast that with the 18 hours a day total and 6 hours of traditional media that millenials consume today and it’s clear to see how media consumption habits are changing.  More media is being consumed every day and increasingly it is coming from a source that is not paid for by brands.

This trend will only accelerate.  A couple of weeks ago when I went to get my haircut, the women that cuts my hair brought her 2 year-old nephew with her to the office.  How did she keep him entertained?  By giving him an iPad.  Here’s a child that cannot form coherent sentences yet, but he can use a computer.  By the time he’s 18, almost all of the media he consumes will come from people just like him, and little if any of it will come from your brand.

In the future your marketing messages will be spread via your customers.  They already are to a great degree, but your ability as a brand to create messages and send them directly to customers is increasingly being diminished.  Last week I keynoted at Strategy 2014 in Huntsville, and at the end of the day I participated on an ‘Ask the Experts’ panel (I call these ‘Stump the Chump’) with a few other speakers.  An attendee asked us which social media tool would be the next ‘hot’ thing.  What would be the next Twitter or Facebook.

It’s a question many brands want to know the answer to, and it’s completely the wrong question to ask.  Your focus shouldn’t be on understanding how to use social media tools, your focus should be on understanding why your customers are using social media tools.

That understanding only comes from increased interactions.  You need to focus today on increasing the number of direct interactions you have with your customers.  This will lead to you better understanding your customers, and they better understanding your brand.  Here’s why this is important:

Interactions

If you start interacting with your customers today, that will lead to understanding. So when we reach a not-so distant future where your customers completely control your marketing message, they will understand your brand, they will trust your brand and they will be able and willing to spread your marketing messages for you.

Your focus shouldn’t be on understanding social media tools, your focus should be on better understanding your customers so that you can create a more valuable experience for them today, so that you can earn their trust tomorrow.

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Five Proven Ways to Build More Engagement On Your Brand’s Blog

One of the biggest struggles that blogging brands face is creating engagement with their customers.  It’s tough to sell your boss on how effective your blog is if none of your customers are reading your content.  Here’s five proven ways to not only build readership, but convert passive readers into active participants on your blog:

1 – Create customer-centric content.  I’ve written in the past about how much I love the content strategy of Red Bull and Patagonia.  Both brands do an amazing job of creating content that resonates with its audience.  For example, on its blog The Cleanest Line, Patagonia rarely blogs about its products, instead Patagonia creates content about the activities that its customers engage in, and the causes they support.  Patagonia understands its customers well enough to know that if they create content that actually interests them, that it will not only give those customers a reason to engage with the brand on its blog, it will give them a reason to buy from Patagonia as well.

Patagonia

For your blog, think about how you can create content that relates to your brand, but that isn’t about your brand.  If you want the science behind why this works, Facebook actually did a study a couple of years ago of their most popular brand pages, and the type of content being created by these brands.  Facebook found that, across the board, the type of brand-created content that did the best job of driving customer engagement was content related to the brand but not about the brand.  In other words, write about the activities that customers love that are related to your brand.  For example, if your brand is in the hospitality industry, create content that helps your customers be better travelers.  If your brand is an automaker, write more about driving than your cars.  Write about the topics that matter to your customers, and then your blog will matter to your customers.

2 – Post regularly and on the same core topics.  This is very easy to do and few brand blogs follow this strategy.  The idea with posting regularly is to ‘train’ your readers to know when new content is going to be up on your blog.  So if you only write one new post a week for your blog, write it the same day every week.  That way I know that every Wednesday there’s a new post on your blog.

And as for topics, the best approach is to pick 2-3 core topic buckets that you write about.  I wrote before about the process for using topic buckets for a business blog, but the process is so find 2-3 sub-topics of your blog’s larger topic that you can blog about.  For example with Patagonia’s blog above, some of its topic buckets are outdoor activities, protecting the environment and sustainability.  These are three of the topic buckets that Patagonia creates content around.  Notice that each topic bucket is also focused on a topic that’s relevant to its customers (again tying back to the first point).  By simply creating a few topic buckets for your blog, it makes the content creation process much easier.  For example, if you want to write one new blog post a week, and you have 3 topic buckets for your blog, you can easily map out your posting schedule for the month by writing one post from each topic bucket!  That gets you three week’s worth of posts, and then for the fourth week you can write an additional post for one of those topic buckets.

3 – Write better headlines.  The cold, hard reality is that most customers won’t read your blog, the best case scenario is that they will see a link to your blog with the title of your post pass by them on Facebook or Twitter.  Which means your post title has to be compelling enough to, in 2 seconds or so, convince the passive reader (who is literally scanning their social feed) to become active and click your link.  So in some respects, writing headlines is the most important skill you can possess as a blogger.

HeadlineI’ve written about how to write better headlines in the past, but I’ll share a couple of tips here.  In short, the biggest mistake that I see brand bloggers making in respect to headlines is writing a headline that summarizes the topic of the post, instead of focusing on it.  For example, a headline that summarizes this post could have been ‘Getting engagement on your blog’.  While that headline is somewhat specific, it’s also a bit boring.  You have to remember that the headline you write is going to be competing against headlines written by sites specifically trying to steal attention.  Your headline is going to be in the middle of a stream of links (and linkbait headlines) like this:

“This Man-Eating Tiger Stood Ready to Devour This Child, But What Happened Next Was Totally Unexpected And Will Break Your Heart”

” Free Download: How Twitter Can Solve 3 Major Challenges for Sales”

“Getting engagement on your blog”

“That Record-Breaking Selfie That Ellen Took at the Oscars? Here’s What Samsung Doesn’t Want You to Know About It”

See what I mean?  You have to learn to write amazing headlines to even have a chance of getting clicked in a stream such as this.  But the good news is that most bloggers are woefully bad at writing headlines.  So if you can learn how to write good headlines, it gives you a huge advantage versus the competition.  When you write your headline, review it with ‘The 2-Second Rule’.  Take two seconds to read your headline and then consider that’s at best what someone on Twitter or Facebook would give your headline.  So if your headline can’t grab your reader’s attention in 2 seconds and compel them to click the link, then it’s not a good headline.

Focus on making your headline as specific as possible, so the reader knows exactly what they are getting if they click.  Note the headline to this post, it’s very specific, and promises to give you five proven tips for building engagement.  So if you write for a brand’s blog and building engagement is a problem you are trying to solve, the headline of this post will probably (hopefully) compel you to click the link.

Remember, your headline has 2 seconds to work its magic.  Make it count.

4 – Use amazing visuals.  This goes along with writing a great headline, but consider that every time your post is shared on Facebook, it pulls up the lead image and attaches it to the link.  So if you write an amazing headline and have a visually-grabbing photo to go with it, you’re already halfway home to getting that person to click the link and read your post.  You have to constantly be aware that most people aren’t going to read your blog post by coming to you blog, they are going to read it from seeing someone else share a link to your blog.  So writing great headlines and adding amazing pictures works wonders.  

My favorite source for finding amazing photos for your blog is still Flickr, in particular the photos that have the Attrition License via Creative Commons.  You can use these photos, you can even adapt or build on them (like in a Powerpoint presentation), the only requirement is that you attribute (link) to the source.  Now recently, Getty Images has made waves by making a lot of its images free for the first time, and embeddable.  I was really excited about this at first, but unfortunately there are two big caveats to this move:

  1. Most of Getty Images photos of celebs, sporting and entertainment events are still off limits.  IOW many of its most desirable images.
  2. The images that are free to use cannot be used for commercial purposes.  And while I’m no legal expert on social media like Kerry Gorgone, I think that pretty much means your brand can’t use them.  I certainly won’t be using them and I’d advise you to check with your legal team before you do.

5 – Respond and be grateful for the engagement you do get.  The two most powerful words in social media (and probably life as well) are ‘Thank You‘.  Simply responding to and thanking readers for existing comments and engagement is a great way to get more of the same.  You want to reward the type of behavior that you want to encourage.  So if you want your readers to comment more on your blog or signup for your brand’s newsletter, or download that white-paper, you need to reward them when they engage in these activities.  When it comes to commenting, simply replying and engaging them back signals to them that you value their input, and appreciate it.

And we tend to stick around when we feel appreciated!

So there you have it, five proven ways to build engagement on your brand’s blog.  If you apply all these methods you *will* see readership and engagement on your brand’s blog increase.  And remember that now more than ever, your blog is your most important piece of social media real estate because you own it.

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Tonight’s #Blogchat Topic is ‘Content Shock’ With Special Co-Host @TheSalesLion!

Marcus

Here’s the transcript from tonight’s #Blogchat!

Tonight (Feb. 9th, 2014), Marcus Sheridan, AKA @TheSalesLion will join us to discuss the idea of ‘Content Shock’ and whether or not it’s too late to start blogging.  You can read Marcus’ thoughts on ‘Content Shock‘ here.  One of the reasons why I wanted Marcus to co-host on this topic is because his views on supporting new bloggers and new voices dovetails with mine.  We both believe the entire online community is richer and more valuable for all when more people feel empowered to share their thoughts and ideas with the world.

Tonight’s #Blogchat will cover two areas:

From 8:00-8:30 Central we will discuss if it is too late to start blogging.  And if you start a blog today, what do you need to know?

From 8:30-9:00 Central we will discuss the idea of ‘Content Shock’, and how you can make your content stand out from the rest!

 

Please follow @TheSalesLion on Twitter, and check out Marcus’ blog tonight in prep for #Blogchat!

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Your Brand Is the Sum of the Stories We Tell About You

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Facebook has just launched an elegant mobile reader/app called Paper.  Facebook is trying to position the app as less of a reader and more of a way for users to share and create ‘stories’.  Jay has a great write-up on the direction Facebook may be heading with the app.

Over the last few years, our ability to create content and weave multiple medias has increased dramatically.  Our smartphones are becoming computers that are far more powerful that the klunky desktops from just a few years ago.  The ability to create pictures, high-definition video and text has all been fused into a small item no bigger than our hand.

While our ability to tell stories via digital content has greatly increased, many brands are still missing what an opportunity they have in letting customers speak on their behalf.  It’s scary for many brands, I get it.  You spend millions in carefully orchestrated marketing messages designed to communicate specific points to a mass market.

What you miss is that we don’t care about that.  Well we do, but not to the degree you think.  Every customer has their own connection to your brand.  Many customers have complete indifference to your brand.  Some have slight levels of affinity and loyalty, and a select few are raving fans.

We are all telling stories about your brand.  And if you don’t connect with us, we will tell the stories on our own.

But if you do connect with us, two important things begin to happen:

1 – We begin to understand you, and the story you want us to tell

2 – You begin to understand us, and the stories we want to hear

The thing to remember is this:  While most of us have the ability to tell stories about your brand, most of us don’t have any desire to.  Unless we either love you, or hate you.

And again, either way it pays to connect with us.  If you connect with your fans, the customers that love you, those fans will work with you to make sure they tell the story about your brand that you want other customers to hear.  Read that again until you understand just how important that is.

On the other hand, when you connect with your fans, they will come to your defense against customers that are telling negative stories about your brand.  Truly a win-win situation.

Keep in mind that when you empower your customers to tell stories on your brand’s behalf, your customers tell your brand’s story in their own voice.  This is incredibly powerful because customers respond more to a message that’s delivered in a voice they recognize and trust.

Their own.

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How to Mobilize Your Brand Advocates Through Storytelling

With the decline of traditional media and it’s effectiveness, brands have been turning to brand advocates to get their message across to potential customers.

Brand advocates are existing customers of a brand who are the biggest fans of that brand and who are passionate about the brand and its products. They don’t need an incentive to spread their love and ignite a word of mouth (both online and offline), because they are emotionally invested in brand’s mission and its story.

Neilsen’s 2012 survey of global trust in advertising found that 92 percent of respondents trust recommendations from people they know, and 70 percent trust consumers’ opinions posted online. And this isn’t the only data point that speaks to the power of advocates. At BRANDERATI we have put together a deck of the 26 stats marketers should know about advocacy that you might find interesting.

EkaterinaPic

The most powerful thing about organic advocacy is the story behind customer’s experience. And because the endorsement is not paid for by the brand, and the story is something others can truly connect with, it becomes a great motivator in getting others to act on the endorsement. Advocacy, done right, becomes true influence. And influence is what impacts behaviors. Because the ultimate goal of marketing is to not just to tell a great story, but tell a story that would make people want to get to know a brand and buy the product. And that’s what advocacy is all about.

Many brands have been turning to customers, asking them to tell their own stories and putting their own fans center-stage. By giving their most vocal advocates a platform to share their own experiences the brands are effectively turning their brand love into authentic influence. Brands are able to spark engagement around real stories from real customers in real-time, thus massively increasing the reach of their message and driving impact to company’s bottom line.

Let’s take a look at several examples.

Buick

Buick wanted to change perception of its brand, and they thought the best way to do this was to ask their own advocates why they love their Buicks and to share their stories. In only a few weeks, Buick advocates had written over 1,600 love letters and 16% of advocates had shared them on Facebook. The individual stories were magnified, thanks to the brand power of Buick – individuals were given a corporate platform and their stories reached further than they would have on their own.

 EkaterinaPicBuick.jpg

Google

One marketing problem that faces a brand like Google is that, although it is a truly massive, global brand, it is very hard to represent their services in a visual way. To give their marketing a human quality, Google asked customers to tell their own stories of the ways in which Google had changed their lives, their organizations or their businesses.

The results were commercials that were inspiring, touching and emotional – quite a feat from a software company. This one from Mark Kempton, whose survival of the Queenland flooding depended on his rescuers using Google Maps, has been viewed over 5.5 million times on YouTube, and brings an individual story to a global audience.

Weight Watchers

EkaterinaPicWWFor Weight Watchers, sharing customers’ stories is about inspiring others and giving credibility to their diet plan. They use celebrities for many of their campaigns, but they also give a platform to their ‘ordinary’ fans who have used their plan to shed the pounds. Their website, magazine and marketing all feature many stories of real people who have lost weight through Weight Watchers – so you can find someone just like you to use as a role model. The company is always on the look-out for success stories so that they can provide a constant stream of positive messages to inspire their customers through their online and off-line channels.

 

 

Conclusion

To tell customers stories effectively you need to connect with fans and ask them to tell you about the difference your product or service has made to their lives. Sharing their story widely can help their individual tales reach a much larger audience than they would ordinarily. Your brand platform combined with your customers’ inspirational stories can lead to a winning combination of advocacy and influence. But to do so effectively and in a sustainable way, you have to build authentic relationships with your advocates and fans long-term. Without that you will just create another short-term marketing campaign, whereas what you are really looking for is inspiring a movement around your brand, your mission, your story.

 

033Ekaterina Walter led strategic and marketing innovation for brands such as Intel and Accenture, and is currently a co-founder and CMO of Branderati. She is an international speaker and author of the WSJ bestseller “Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg” and co-author of “The Power of Visual Storytelling: How to Use Visuals, Videos, and Social Media to Market Your Brand.” You can find her on Twitter: @Ekaterina or her blog: http://www.ekaterinawalter.com/.

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Stop Selling Ice to Eskimos, Get a Better Content Strategy in 2014

Last year I made a big mistake on my blog, and it’s a mistake I am constantly reminding y’all not to make.

Here’s a list of the Top 10 most popular blog posts here last year:

BlogStatsNote the #2 and #3 blog posts are about book publishing.  I wrote these last year while I was launching my book.  I wanted to share what I had learned so that the information could benefit other consultants, marketers or really anyone that wanted to be a writer or was considering writing a book.  And the top search term that people used to find this blog last year was ‘I want to write a book’.  By a 10 to 1 margin over the #2 search term.

There’s just one (big) problem.  Current or potential writers that want to make money off writing a book is not my target audience.  Not even close.  So while these two posts were very popular, they helped connect me with an audience that I had no services for.  But I forgot this because I was focused on how these posts could be valuable to readers.  I just lost sight of the fact that they wouldn’t really create value for a big portion of my target audience.

This is one of the lessons I am always preaching here, to keep in mind the audience you are writing for.  I want to create helpful content for my desired audience.  The two posts on book publishing were very helpful, just not for the people I am trying to connect with.

Here’s a simple way to keep your content focused in 2014:

Create three content areas or buckets.  These will be the three areas of your business that you want to focus on with your content.

For example, if your blog is for your lawn care business, your three buckets could be:

1 – Killing insects in your lawn

2 – Growing healthier flowers for your yard

3 – Proper maintenance of your lawn

So for every post you write, you need to make sure it fits into one of these three buckets.  If it does not, you need to justify why you should publish the post.  This is a great way to keep your content on track and to make sure that you are only creating content that’s focused on your business.  An added benefit of this is that as you are creating content around the relevant areas of your business, you will be helping Google identify your blog with certain relevant keywords.  For example, I would rather people find my blog via a search term like ‘building a brand ambassador program for my company’ versus ‘i want to write a book’.

Additionally, you need to always consider who you are writing for.  For example, this blog is a business development tool for me.  Which means if I am creating content, I need to create content that is useful to the people that can give me business.  In evaluating my content here from last year, I noticed that too often I was creating content that was useful to solo bloggers.  I love helping solo bloggers (a big reason why I launched #Blogchat) but solo bloggers aren’t the audience I want to be getting business from.  So that’s why the majority of my content this year will be focused on how brands can market more efficiently, because brands and companies are the audience that I want to do business with.

It pays to go back every month or maybe every quarter and self-evaluate your content and your content strategy for your blog.  Look at what type of progress you are making on reaching your goals, and then make sure that you are still creating the type of content that you need to in order to reach those goals.

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The Simple Change Facebook Made That’s Screwing Up Brand Pages Everywhere

RedBullFB

A couple of weeks ago, Facebook altered the algorithm that determines what content you see in your News Feed (and no, you’re not seeing everything from your friends or the pages you Like).  Previously, content from friends/Pages that you had Liked or interacted with previously were more likely to show up in your News Feed in the future.

But earlier this month, Facebook again tweaked what content is shown in your News Feed.  When it did, the company said that ‘high quality articles’ would be given credence moving forward, and ‘the latest meme’ would get buried.

Instead, it appears that content from many company Brand Pages took a big hit.  Ignite Social Media, a social media marketing agency, analyzed almost 700 posts on 21 brand pages and had some pretty interesting/disturbing findings.  The biggest takeaway was that both organic reach and organic reach percentage fell by an average of 44% since the first week in December.  Five of the brands studied saw a decrease of over 60% and only one brand page in the study actually increased reach and reach percentage.  Since these results were revealed last week brand page managers everywhere have been lamenting similar findings on the pages they manage.

So what should your brand do now?

There are two things that I have consistently advised brands to do when it comes to social media:

1 – Plant seeds in the garden you own

2 – Focus on the people using the tools, not the tools themselves

Plant Seeds in the Garden You Own

The allure of Facebook for brands is obvious, there’s over a billion reasons why brands want to set up shop on Facebook.  Set up a brand page and suddenly you’ve got a free advertising tool on the biggest social networking site on the planet!  Why would anyone NOT want to do this?

Facebook knows that too.  Facebook is also now a publicly-traded company, and as such, revenue streams are of primary importance.  Which means if you want to keep having access to those users, increasingly Facebook will make it so you have to pay for that access.  Google does the same thing with its search engine, yes it says it is constantly tweaking its search ranking algorithm to give you better and more relevant results, but part of that is because Google wants you to pay for exposure.  It wants you to buy ads versus organically having your content rank highly.

Setting up shop on sites like Facebook and Twitter comes at a price for brands.  Yes, you have potential access to millions of potential customers, but ultimately, the sites control how and even if you get that access.  Facebook in particular is constantly changing the rules for how brands can use the site and distribute content.  Now that Twitter is  publicly-traded company, don’t be surprised if they don’t look for similar ways to monetize the efforts of brands.

This is why its better to put your eggs in baskets that you own.  Whereas you are at the whims of Facebook and Twitter when it comes to your content and engagement strategies, you have far more control over channels you own, such as your website, blog or email list.  Channels that your brand does not own can be used to compliment your social media efforts, but it should never be at the heart of what you do.  You want the heart of your social media strategy to be centered on channels you own, not ones that Mark Zuckerberg does.

Tools

Forget the Tools, Focus on the People

Who moved my ROI?  As Business Insider noted, this change could have a devastating impact for ‘social media marketers’ that are focused on helping brands get exposure for their content on Facebook.  Which is exactly the problem.  Too many brands and the agencies that service them are focused on gaming the system/tool versus trying to actually understand their customers.

What’s more important:

1 – Understanding how EdgeRank works to show your brand’s content higher in the News Feed of people that Liked your page

2 – Understanding why your audience is on Facebook

Understanding the people will always trump understanding the tools.  Your goal isn’t to understand how to game EdgeRank so that the picture you just posted will show up high on Sarah’s News Feed, your goal is to understand why Sarah is on Facebook.  What activities is she engaging in, and why?  What experience does she expect on Facebook, and why does she spend 3 hours a day on Facebook and has spent a grand total of 3 hours on Twitter this year?

Facebook is going to keep changing the rules.  You can either keep chasing the changes and wondering why you’re not seeing the social media riches your agency promised you, or you can stop chasing unicorns peeing rainbows and get to work creating something of value for your customers.

You cannot create that value for your customers until you understand them.  If you understand your customers and create value for them, then you win.  And nothing Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest does will change that.