MackCollier.com

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How Much Should Your Company Pay For Social Media?

cost of social media

I am obsessed with the Real-Time feature that Google Analytics added a few months ago, and am constantly checking it throughout the day.  It shows you how many visitors are active on your site at any moment, as well as what page they are viewing, and how they arrived at your blog.

At almost any time during the day when I check who is currently on this blog, the odds are at least one person is here because they were sent here from Google after searching for something related to the cost of social media.  These three posts I wrote on How Much Social Media Costs Companies in 2010, 2011 and 2012 are by far the 3 most popular posts on this blog.

What’s been interesting to me is that I’ve received two main forms of feedback on these posts, and the prices quoted:

1 – Small business owners and those that are self-employed think the prices are way too high.

2 – People that work for large companies think the prices are way too low.

So this feedback, coupled with the fact that many people are searching for information on pricing, tells me that many companies and business owners are in the dark as to how much basic social media marketing services will cost them.  And as much as we would like to believe that most companies in 2012 ‘get’ the importance of Social Media, from what I’m seeing, there’s no shortage of companies that are just now starting to investigate if social media marketing is for them.

So if your company is trying to decide how much it will cost to begin using social media, here’s what to consider:

1 – Think about WHAT you want to accomplish with social media.  Here’s a post I wrote on Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Creating a Social Media Strategy (But Were Afraid to Ask!).  No, you don’t have to create an elaborate 50-page document on how your family-owned seafood restaurant should be using social media, but the point here is to have you put some thought into why you want to use social media.  The quickest way to waste money on social media is to invest in using tools that won’t help you accomplish your goals.  Otherwise, most companies could simply launch a blog, and start accounts on Twitter and Facebook and be done with it.

2 – Start small, grow as you better understand the tools.  Let’s be honest, doing social media effectively takes a serious time commitment.  The companies that we today laud as wonderful social media case studies are frequently large companies that have had a dedicated social media team in place for years.  So if your company’s social media team is comprised of YOU, and you are new to social media, suddenly diving in and trying to launch 5 different social media accounts for your business is probably the fastest way to go no where.

Instead, as you begin to flesh out why you want to start using social media, think about the goals you have, and then prioritize the tools that will help you reach those goals.  For example, if your tech company wants to build awareness and you believe that a blog, presence on Google Plus and Twitter will best help you, the prioritize those tools in order of importance.  So instead of launching all three presences at once, maybe it makes more sense to first start on creating and growing your blog.  Then after a few weeks, you can begin to spend more time with Google Plus, using it first as a tool to get better research, then as a way to promote your new posts.  You may start interacting with some customers there, and you can follow them to Twitter and do the same there.  Just remember this, it is far easier to build and audience and move it to a new location than it is to try to build two new audiences at the same time.

3 – Avoid the shiny, follow the value.  Invariably, the social media space creates a new ‘darling’ tool every 6-12 months.  This time last year, everyone was in love with Quora.  Earlier this year, everyone was on the Pinterest bandwagon, and even now that’s starting to die down.  For whatever reason, this space loves to overhype newish tools, and you’ll suddenly see all manner of posts and articles devoted to why every business MUST now be on Quora/Plus/Pinterest.

Don’t believe the hype.  You shouldn’t ignore these new tools, but you should research them to make a thoughtful decision on whether or not your business should adopt its usage.  Let value created determine if you jump on the Flavor of the Month, not hype.

4 – Don’t start using Social Media due to fear of being left behind.  This ties in with the above point, but you need to adopt social media based on sound business value, not on fear that ‘everyone’s doing it and we’ll be left behind if we don’t start’.  I had a company contact me once and say that they were ready to start using social media ‘the sooner, the better!’.  I started asking some questions, and it turns out that they hadn’t even considered using social media until an industry newsletter they were subscribed to came out with its latest issue proclaiming that every business owner in that space had to start using social media right now!

I’ll say again, from my experience and in my opinion, most businesses are NOT using social media, and most of the ones that are, aren’t doing so very effectively.  So the idea that all your competitors are using social media and doing exceptionally well with it, is most likely a myth.  Granted, you shouldn’t ignore social media, but you have plenty of time to do some research and decide if social media is right for you.  Again, let your decision to adopt social media be dictated by the value it can create for you, not the fear of being left behind.

 

Now, I raised these points because time is the most common currency companies will spend when it comes to social media.  These points were mentioned to help keep you from spending more time on your social media efforts than is necessary.

But let’s talk more specifically about costs.  Let’s start with an example of a mid-sized company that has one person in charge of social media, and one person that helps her on a part-time basis.  Both of these people are eager to learn, but have limited knowledge of social media.  This company has decided to launch a blog.  There’s three ways they can go about this:

1 – Do it themselves.  The advantage to this approach is that obviously, they won’t have to directly pay for the blog.  But since the two employees will be literally learning as they go, there will be a big time commitment involved, and when you consider their salaries, that’s a real expense.

2 – Hire an agency to ghost-write the blog for them.  This will be the most expensive option, but it also frees up the two employees to not worry about the content creation process.  Still, if the employees aren’t actively monitoring the blog and responding to issues raised by customers on (and off) the blog, it can cause more trouble than its worth.

3 – Do the blog themselves, but hire a consultant or agency to train/mentor them.  Unless I am extremely confident in the company’s ability to handle the blog themselves, I typically encourage them to go this route.  And yes, I offer Social Media and Blog Training.  A big reason why I like this option for the company is because you can customize the level of training you think you need or can afford.  For example, if you hire an agency to create and write your blog for you, you will incur setup fees as well as likely several thousand dollars a month in ongoing costs.  But by doing the blog yourself with ongoing training, you can spend less plus typically tier the training costs so they decrease as you become better at developing your blog.

 

So if you want to spend as little as possible on social media marketing, remember these tips:

1 – Do your research and build a plan.  Figure out exactly what you want to accomplish with social media.  This will save you a ton of time down the road.  And for smaller companies especially, time is money.

2 – Start small, then grow.  Unless you have a 10-person social media team and a 6-figure budget, it’s probably best to start with one or two social media tools, then build others out as you can.

3 – Comparison shop.  Get quotes from multiple consultants/agencies for the services you think you will need.

 

If your company is using social media, what pricing advice would you give other companies?  Did you do it yourself, or pay someone to help?

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5 Reasons Why You Need to Stop Marketing and Start Teaching

Another gem from Kathy Sierra, click image for post

I think many companies are completely misusing Social Media as a marketing channel. These content-creation tools are the perfect outlet for companies to create content that teaches their customers how to solve their own problems, how to be better at something they love, how to kick-ass.  Teaching and empowering your customers creates a level of loyalty that regular marketing could never hope for.  Here’s 5 reasons why your company should stop marketing to your customers, and start teaching them:

1 – Teaching gives you a competitive edge.  Let’s be honest, most of us in the business world are operating in a crowded marketplace.  There’s no shortage of competition, and many of your peers may have deeper marketing budgets than you do.  But the funny thing is, a lot of businesses don’t like to pull back the curtain and actually teach their customers about their products and how to properly use them.

Years ago I spent a Summer selling pesticides and lawn care products at Lowes throughout Northwest Alabama.  I had never sold before in a retail environment, and being an introvert, the idea of stopping people and selling to them as they walked up and down the isles at Lowes scared the hell out of me.  Luckily, I had a great mentor that was also a professional landscaper.  As such, he understood all the products we were selling as well as the competitors’.  So I learned about all the products so that I wasn’t selling the products, I was selling solutions to problems.

So when a customer walked up and started looking at the pesticides, I didn’t try to push them toward a particular product, I asked them what problems they were having.  Once they told me what problems they were having, I explained to them what was causing the problem, and how to fix it.  Then I showed them which products would work best for them.  And sometimes (and this is key) the product I was selling wasn’t the best option.  If that’s the case, I told the customer and pointed them toward the competitor.

The end result was that I made more on commissions from sales than I did on my actual salary as a vendor.  In fact the area I serviced led the nation in sales for multiple product lines.  I think a big reason why was because we were focused on trying to teach our customers how to solve their lawn-care problems versus trying to simply sell them our products.

2 – Teaching creates value.  If I’m in the market for a digital camera, what I’m really looking to buy is a way to take better pictures.  So if you are trying to get my business, don’t throw a lot of techno-babble at me that I won’t understand anyway, teach me how to take better pictures.  By teaching me how to take better pictures with a digital camera, you’ve already solved my core problem.  So by creating that value for me, I feel on some level like I ‘owe’ you my business when it comes time for me to buy a digital camera.  I want to reward you for the value you gave me, free of charge.  Now granted, the product still has to do the job, but creating value for me via teaching makes me feel much better about committing to the purchase.

3 – If you teach me, that helps earn my trust, and loyalty.  I am used to marketing.  I am used to companies trying to ‘trick’ me into buying their product.  I’m not used to companies teaching me how to be better at something.  That’s unexpected, and that gets my attention.  If your company can create value for me without asking for anything in return, that makes it far more likely that I will listen to your message, and share it with others.  Plus, it greatly increases the chance that I will trust you, and buy from you.

And don’t be afraid to spotlight the competition, if they have a better product.  Recall in the first step how I mentioned selling lawn-care products in Lowes.  Often, I would encourage a customer to buy a competitor’s product if I really thought it was the best solution for their particular problem.  You wouldn’t believe how many times I had a customer come back a week or two later and tell me that I was right about the competitor’s product working on their ant problem, now did I have a suggestion for getting rid of wasps?  I sure did and this time, my company’s product was better.  Since my first suggestion had worked for them, they trusted that this one would as well.

4 – Valuable content get shared.  During this week’s #Blogchat a few of us were discussing how Twitter has become our source for information.  We know that the people we are following will be sharing valuable information, so they send it our way, and then we pass it on.  Why?  Because we want to create value for others.  If someone sends me a really useful article, the first thing I want to do is RT it so others can get value from the article as well.  If your content teaches, that creates value, and greatly increases the chance that it will be shared.

5 – Sharing what you know means sharing your passion, and that inspires people.  Don’t we all love hearing someone talk that truly loves what they are doing?  Because they aren’t talking from a script, they are sharing what’s in their heart.  Teach what you know and share with us why you love what it is you do, and who knows, you may convince us to love it just as much.

 

So when you are trying to sell your products, again think about selling solutions to problems instead.  Think about how you can teach your customers to solve the problems they are encountering, or simply how to kick-ass at whatever it is they love doing.  Oh and BTW, blogs are excellent tools for this 😉

Besides, helping someone kick-ass at something is often the best marketing you can create for your products.  Here’s a bonus video from Jason Fried on the value of teaching as marketing: (HT @Copyblogger) –

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“It’s Not You, It’s Me.” – Five Reasons For Our Social Media Breakup

It’s Spring, so I’ve been doing some cleaning up of the people and blogs I have been following.  As I’ve admitted to in the past, I am a Social Media Packrat, so I decided to trim down the people and blogs I am following.  I trimmed down the blogs I am subscribed to, as well as the people I am following on Twitter and Plus.  Here’s some of the reasons why I initiated the ‘social media breakup’, maybe you can relate to some of these?

1 – Your blog has become an endless commercial for yourself.  I would never unsubscribe from a blog due to lack of posting.  Kathy hasn’t posted at Creating Passionate Users in 5 years and I am still subbed and check it regularly.  But I noticed with a few of the blogs I was subbed to, the blogger had begun to post very infrequently, and when they did post, it was usually just to update us on where they are speaking, the progress of their book, some list they made, etc.  I get not having time to blog anymore, but I subbed to your blog for your thoughts and ideas, not your self-promotions.

2 – You aren’t as important as you think you are on Twitter.  This was downright comical during SXSW.  Whether it was Klout Score 75 tweeting that she worried that she couldn’t find time for all the people that wanted to meet her today, or Klout Score 83 tweeting that he was at dinner with 3 other A-Listers (and they paid!), it seems more and more ‘power users’ aren’t talking to other people on Twitter anymore, they are talking AT them.  I guess I’m just an old social media fuddy-duddy that’s not narcissistic enough to appreciate this type of behavior.

3 – Your blog is twice as active, but you’re never there.  This instance I try to be understanding about.  Blogger writes good stuff.  Blogger’s blog starts to gain traction and get popular, so blogger starts trying to post more often.  Blogger gets approached about sponsorships cause blog is popular.  So blogger starts bringing on other bloggers to do guest posts.  When the smoke clears, the blogger who I subscribed to is never on their own blog.  Or when they do write a weekly post (versus 2-3 a week before), it’s to promote themselves, similar to #1.  The problem is that the ‘voice’ of the blog has completely changed.  I subbed to your blog for you, not for you and whatever 5 guest bloggers you’ll have there this week.

4 – You over-share.  I’m not talking about sharing too much personal information (although I hate that too), but I’m talking about putting out 100 Plus updates a day.  Photos, thoughts, links, videos, it never stops!  90% of the public updates are your stuff.  I appreciate your passion for sharing, but when you are drowning out everyone else, it’s time to go.

5 – You’re always complaining about something and someone is always doing it wrong.  Look, we all need to hear the contrarian viewpoint every once in a while, it helps keep our ideas centered.  But if every day you are complaining about how someone or company or organization is always wrong, it gets old.  And it gives me the impression that you aren’t just disagreeing, you’re being disagreeable.  There are more productive and far interesting ways to draw attention to yourself.

 

So as I streamline the people and blogs I am following, those are some of the reasons for our ‘breakup’ from my end.  When you unfollow someone or unsubscribe from a blog, what are some of the reasons why you walk away?

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Should Marketers Use Social Media Personally Before They Use it Professionally?

social media, companies, marketing, ceoI recently read an emarketer article on a study BRANDfog did into how employees viewed their CEO, if the CEO tweeted.

The study found that 51% of employees were more likely to trust a CEO that tweeted, while another 31% were much more likely to trust their CEO, if they tweeted.  The study also found that 82% of respondents said they trust a company more when its C-Suite is using social media.

Does this hold true for you?  Are you more likely to trust and view a brand favorably, if its CEO is active on Twitter?  I tend to agree with this, because it makes me feel that the CEO is at least familiar with the tool, and is likely encouraging their employees to be active in social media as well.

So to flip this around, instead of companies cutting off access to Facebook and other popular social media sites at work, should they instead be encouraging employees, and especially executives to use social media?

A big problem I see with how many companies use social media is that they view it as a marketing tool, instead of a communications tool. They learn about how popular Facebook and Twitter are, and think ‘Ohhh….shiny new marketing channel!’  When of course, we are using these tools to CONNECT with each other, not to market to each other!

What if a company was wanting to start using social media, and the CEO called her executive team in and told them to start a Facebook and Twitter personal account, and pick one other account.  It could be a blog, Plus, Pinterest, whatever.   Let’s say the CEO just told her team to use the tools for a month, and then everyone would report back with their thoughts on the tools, and their experiences.

If a company took this approach and FIRST used the tools personally, would that make their efforts in using the tools professionally more or less effective?  What do you think?

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The Value of Creating a Customer-Centric Social Media Strategy

I have good news and bad news for you when it comes to your Social Media Strategy:

The Bad News – Social Media, in general, doesn’t function very well as a marketing and sales channel.

The Good News – Social Media is a great way to make things happen indirectly.

The problem that many companies have with their Social Media efforts is that they are trying to turn these personal communication tools into marketing channels, instead of understanding and accepting how their customers actually use these tools.

The companies that typically understand how their customers use these tools and craft their Social Media strategy accordingly, tend to have better results.

Here’s a couple of examples:

Orabrush – The company wanted to leverage YouTube as a channel to raise awareness for its tongue-cleaner.  Now as anyone that’s spent 5 minutes on the video-sharing site knows, videos that are short and funny are wildly popular.  So that’s exactly the type of videos that the company created:

http://youtu.be/SVvFD5JFnP4

“To my knowledge, there have been few, if any, products to go from no sales, online or offline, to full nationwide distribution by using YouTube videos in just two years,” said Jeff Davis, CEO of Orabrush.

Orabrush’s YouTube videos have over 46 million combined views.  So the company’s strategy of creating the type of content that YouTube users want, has been wildly successful.

X-Box – The brand discovered that a lot of X-Box customers were taking to Twitter to complain about their problems with games and the console.  So Microsoft created a full team of X-Box people to provide customer support for their customers that have issues with the console.  The benefit to the company is it deflects calls from its call center, which is a cost-savings for the brand.  But it happened because Microsoft was smart enough to understand how X-Box customers were using Twitter, and work with that behavior, not against it.

So how does this affect your Social Media Strategy? 

Let’s go back to the Orabrush example.  Orabrush wanted to use social media and digital content to sell its tongue cleaner.  Here’s two ways they could have used YouTube to raise awareness of its products:

1 – Orabrush could have created short videos that demonstrate how to use the product.  Perhaps a 30-45 second video showing someone using the tongue cleaner, then a link to the company’s website to buy the product.

2 – Orabrush could have created short videos that use humor to sell the NEED for the product.

The second approach is in line with what YouTube’s users expect from the content there.  They aren’t going to YouTube to watch videos of a man scraping his tongue with a plastic utensil.  They are there to watch short videos that make them laugh.  Orabrush gave them that, and in the context of those videos ALSO explained what their product does, and the need for it.

A second example, what if you owned a business that sells lawncare products? 

Let’s say you are wanting to use a blog to sell your products directly, and to also raise awareness for your local store as it competes against national chains like Lowes and Home Depot.  One thing you could do is turn your blog into ‘brochureware’, basically making it an online circular.

Or, you could focus your blog on giving your customers content that helps them have a more beautiful lawn.  Here’s some post ideas:

10 Steps to Having a Healthier Lawn by Memorial Day

Here’s How You Can Get Rid of Weeds in Your Lawn Without Damaging Your Grass

5 Common Pests That Can Wreck Havoc on Your Lawn and How to Get Rid of Them

The great thing about posts like this is that they not only provide value for your customers, but they also help establish your business’ expertise in lawn care.  Which means these posts will not only do well in Google searches (because they solve specific problems customers are having), but they will also make it easier for customers to trust you, because you are teaching them how to take better care of your lawn.

So when you are crafting your Social Media and Content Strategy, think about how you can make your efforts customer-centric.  Don’t try to force direct sales, but instead think about how you can create valuable content for your customers that will LEAD to sales.

 

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Here’s What I Believe…

…that companies need to stop focusing on the tools, and start focusing on the connections that the tools help facilitate.  It’s not about understanding Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, it’s about understanding customer behavior.  Anyone that tries to tell you differently is selling something.

…that companies will get the biggest benefit from emerging digital technologies if they work within the framework of the customer’s existing behavior.  Figure out why you customers are spending their time with these channels and tools, then you can figure out how to connect with them in a way that creates value for them.

…that participating in a conversation changes that conversation.  Don’t like the conversation happening around your brand?  Then start participating in that conversation, and change it.

…that buzzwords are a hurdle to understanding.  Speak in as simple terms as possible to explain your ideas.  If you use too many buzzwords and jargon you risk limiting understanding of your message.  Or worse, you may convince me that YOU don’t understand the concepts you are discussing.

…that customers don’t want to be mouthpieces for brands.  Stop viewing Social Media as a ‘new and exciting way to let customers tell our story!’  Your customers have their own stories to tell via Social Media, and they are far more interesting than yours.

…that Twitter isn’t a Social Media Strategy, it’s a Social Media tactic.  Tactics are what you use to accomplish a strategy.

…that Steve Knox was right, victory in marketing doesn’t happen when you sell something, but when you cultivate advocates for your brand.

…that customers deserve more than companies are giving them.  They deserve brands that understand them and embrace them and give them a reason to fall madly in love with them.

…that Marketing is ultimately a tax that brands pay for not speaking in the voice of their customers.  Understand your customers, speak in their voice, and you’ll win their loyalty and money.

…that we need fewer conversations.  Brands have two distinct conversations happening around them, the internal conversation they have about themselves, and the external one their customers are having.  The further apart these conversations are, the more trouble the brand is in.  The more aligned the conversations are, the stronger the brand.  Hugh was right.

…that the customer’s ability to smell bullshit is greater than your ability to sell it.  So please stop.

…that companies need to stop selling the product, and start selling the benefit.  Make your communications customer-centric.  Think about WHY I would buy your product and how I would use it, and you just might convince me that I need it.

…that companies need to stop worry about ‘acquiring’ new customers, and focus on delighting their existing ones.  New customers cost 6-7 times more to acquire versus retaining an existing customer, while fans spend more than the average customer, and refer business equal to almost half what they spend.  Yet marketers everywhere want ‘new’ customers, even at the expense of their existing ones.  This is madness.

…that Rockstars have figured out that they’ll get new customers tomorrow from delighting their existing fans, today.  And they won’t pay a penny in ‘acquisition’ fees.  I’m amazed that more brands aren’t learning from this approach.

…that if you believe in your customers, they will believe in you.  Stop treating them like anonymous numbers, they are real people living real lives every day.  Just like you.

…that brands need to stop putting the spotlight on themselves.  Put the spotlight on the people that make your brand amazing; Your customers and employees.

…that customers are more connected and empowered than ever before.  So are the brands that embrace them.

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Subscribe to My Social Media Marketing Newsletter!

Social Media Marketing Newsletter

Starting next Wednesday, I’ll be running a weekly newsletter in addition to (almost) daily posts here.  The content focus will be slightly different, however.

Here, I cover Social Media primarily, but a blend of content that can benefit the individual, as well as those that are using Social Media for their company.  But this newsletter will be aimed solely at marketers and anyone using Social Media within their company or organization.  Each week the newsletter will feature original content that’s designed to do 3 things:

1 – Help you solve an existing Social Media Marketing issue you are having.  One week we might talk about building a better blogger outreach program, the next look at getting a better handle on our blog’s analytics to increase leads.  A case study here and there will be examined.

2 – Give you tips and advice for improving your day-to-day tasks and routines as well as managing your workflow.

3 – Keep you up-to-date on where I will be speaking/appearing, and giving you information on how we can work together.

I cannot stress this enough, the content in this newsletter will be original content.  Some of it may eventually make its way here to the blog, but it won’t be that often.

So if you’re working for a company or organization that wants to learn more about how to better use Social Media to connect with your customers and/or activate your brand advocates, please do subscribe to my newletter by filling out the quick form below.  You’ll input your email address then be sent an email to confirm your subscription.

Thank you so much, see you next Wednesday!


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We Need to Stop Marketing ‘Social Business’ If We Want to Start Selling It

social business, blueprint

You ever get the feeling you need to just drop a topic?  I am completely there when it comes to  ‘Social Business’.  Even to the point that I’m pretty sure I’ve started pissing off friends and people I respect in this space.

To set the record straight, I like what I think is the generally accepted definition of a ‘Social Business’.  Most all definitions seem to be build around the need for an increased flow of information.  External information from the customer being utilized and distributed internally so smarter business decisions can be made, and more communication from the company back to the customer.  I am a HUGE believer in the benefits that businesses will gain as a result, and I’ve been blogging about these concepts here for a while now.

But the majority of the discussion around the concept of a ‘Social Business’ has frustrated me for a while now, and I couldn’t quite place my finger on why exactly.  Then it hit me: This doesn’t feel like a discussion, it feels like marketing.  Almost every time I read a post/article about Social Business, I feel like I am reading a brochure at a car dealership.

A far more interesting discussion in my mind is to talk about exactly how a business would transition to becoming a ‘social business’.  Let’s talk about the specifics:

What happens internally?  Do we need to hire new people for newly-created positions?  If so, which ones, and what would their roles be?  How will we better connect with our customers?  Do we need to create a new infrastructure to better facilitate the flow of information internally about our customers?  And what information do we need to distribute and which departments need to get what?  Then how do we create a way to get information back to our customers?  Do we create an internal and external committee to facilitate that information flow in both directions?  How many people do we need to staff for that?

Those are the type of discussions I want to see, because I think we need more blueprints and fewer brochures if we want to speed business adoption of this process.  And granted, there’s obviously no ‘one size fits all’ solution, but we should at least have plenty of scenarios in place where we can determine more definite numbers based on a given business reality.

I think at this point the discussion is still a bit vague around Social Business because we are ‘selling’ a concept that’s not often seen ‘in the wild’.  But I think if we want to speed adoption of the concept, we need to move the discussion away from wordy definitions and more toward actual business realities.  Even if it means we need to at some point add ‘I think’ to our explanations cause we don’t have real-world examples of what our ideas being executed would look like.

And to be fair, we are seeing bits and pieces of what the larger picture could look like.  A community ideation site here, an internal socnet for employees there, a brand ambassador program in the corner, but we really don’t seem to have a view of what the whole picture could look like for an organization.

We need that.  Or at the very least we need a discussion around what it looks like.  And if we aren’t sure what it looks like, then we definitely need to have that discussion.

One of the things I loved about the blogosphere when I first joined it in 2005 was that many of us adopted a habit of asking ‘what if?’ when it came to our discussions about how companies could utilize and benefit from social media.  We threw stuff against the wall, some of it stuck, some of it didn’t.  But we all learned in the process.  We helped each other flesh out the concepts of how businesses could utilize social media, and even some of the concepts that have now been rolled into the idea of what a ‘Social Business’ is.

But I think we skipped the ‘what if?’ stage with Social Business.  It’s like we adopted our own definitions for what the concept is, then immediately started trying to sell it to companies.  Literally.

If we want to speed up understanding and adoption of the concept of a Social Business, I think we need to back up a bit and stop selling the concept, and start debating it more.  We need to stop saying ‘here’s what it is’, and instead say ‘here’s what I *think* it could look like’.

And to clear the air:  I keep railing about this topic because I believe in the concept of a ‘Social Business’.  Granted, I’m not crazy about the label, but I like the thinking.  If I didn’t, if I thought this was all bullshit soaked in snake oil, I wouldn’t waste my time.

I think we need to elevate the conversation and dialogue around the concept.  And I think in this case, we can start by offering fewer definitions for what a Social Business is, and instead more discussion of how we recognize one when we see one.  Fewer buzzwords, and more questions.

Understanding speeds adoption, and understanding comes from asking questions you don’t know the answers to.  I don’t know what the exact framework for a Social Business is.  I know what the definitions say it is at 30,000 feet, but I want to know what it looks like on the ground, in practice.  So do the companies that are being sold the concept.

What do you think a Social Business would look like?  If your company was going to start today on the road to becoming a Social Business, what changes would need to happen?

 

UPDATE: As long-time readers know, I am pretty obsessive about my blog’s stats.  ‘Social Business’ isn’t a topic I write about often, in fact this is only the 2nd post I’ve ever written about it, the 1st coming a month ago.  In the last month, search engines have sent 6,617 visitors to this blog, and 3 of them have looking for information on ‘Social Business’.

Pic via Flickr User Will Scullin

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Social Media Gives Companies a New and Exciting Way to Make the Same Boring Marketing Mistakes

There’s a scene in the movie Liar Liar where the movie’s main character (a lawyer played by Jim Carrey who’s been ‘cursed’ with an inability to tell a lie) is given the phone by his secretary and told that one of his clients has “knocked over another ATM, this time at knife-point.  He needs your legal advice.”

Carrey’s character grabs the phone and offers this advice: Stop breaking the law, ASSHOLE!

Recently I saw this quote from an emarketer article: “Marketers are abuzz over “Big Data” for its promise to deliver a more complete understanding of each customer, who can then be targeted with advertising tailored exactly to the individual.”

And this quote from P&G’s Head of Global Marketing on finding the ROI of Social Media: “What will revolutionize the industry, what we’re working on an industry basis, is to define EGRPs [electronic gross rating point, a measure of audience reach]. You can look at what an impression from Google, or Facebook or Twitter is actually worth.”

This is the exact problem with how 99% of companies are using and viewing Social Media: As a new channel to more effectively market to its customers.

Are you serious?

Let’s take a step back and remember what Social Media is: Tools that allow us to create and exchange digital content.  The vast majority of us use Social Media as personal communication tools.

Companies, do you not realize the significance of this?  For decades, you’ve been struggling with how to better understand your customers.  The problem has always been, how do you really know what customers think about you, your products, and who they are?  What they want, etc.  The only options available to you were highly inefficient.  Surveys, focus-groups, and other forms of feedback.  At best it can give you a small sampling of your customer base, but connecting with individual customers just doesn’t scale.

Yet with Social Media, suddenly you DO have a way to better understand your customers.  Because all the interactions they were having before in an offline setting (where you had almost no access to them) have moved online.  Now you can see what your customers are saying to each other, and about you and your products!  What’s better, you now have a way to directly connect with them and they with you!

And your key takeaway from this fundamental change in how we humans connect with each other is that you see this as a great opportunity to turn your customers into digital marketing channels?!?

Companies if you want to be successful at utilizing Social Media, here’s the most important lesson I can give you: Learn how your customers are using Social Media and for what reasons, and then work within that framework.

Recall Sunday’s post on X-Box’s Twitter account hitting 1,000,000 tweets.  X-Box was smart enough to realize that its customers are on Twitter, and complaining about the problems they are having with the console.  So instead of trying to leverage Twitter as a channel to shoot them marketing messages, the brand instead leverages Twitter as a channel to provide individualized customer service.  The customer benefits from getting personalized attention and help with their problems.  The brand benefits by deflecting calls away from its CS call centers.

This is what we call in the real-world a ‘win-win’.  But it happened because X-Box saw how their customers were using Twitter, then worked with that behavior, not against it.

Would it be awesome if your customers put aside how they want to use Social Media and instead agreed to let you use them to broadcast your marketing messages via their Social Media accounts?  Of course it would.  Right after you teach your pet unicorn how to pee rainbows, you can get to work on that.

For now, we live in a world where we ALL act in our own best interests.  That’s just as true for your customers as it is for you the company.  If you can use Social Media as a way to provide value to your customers, then you will be acting in THEIR best interests.

And you’ll get their business.  Try it and see.  Oh and if you need some social media training to get started, call me.

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CMOs Say Social Media Spending Will Surge 46% in the Next Year

Catching up on feed-reading and I found a couple of articles I wanted to share.  The first was this one from Duke University that found that CMOs predict a healthy surge in Social Media spending over the next year, by 46%.  These same CMOs said that integrating social media into its existing marketing efforts is still a challenge.  More on this in a minute.

The second article came from the Wall-Street Journal, who interviewed Proctor and Gamble’s Chief of Global Marketing, Marc Pritchard.  Mr. Pritchard said that P&G is dangerously close to determining the true ROI of its social media efforts and that it involves defining “EGRPs [electronic gross rating point, a measure of audience reach]. You can look at what an impression from Google, or Facebook or Twitter is actually worth. Once we get that, we will start to get a common platform measurement…that the [Association of National Advertisers] is working on.”

There’s a reason why companies continue to struggle with finding the ROI of their Social Media efforts and in integrating them into existing Marketing efforts.  It’s because they are wanting to turn these personal communication channels into marketing channels.  They are attempting to measure their Social Media efforts through the lens of their existing marketing efforts and using the same metrics.

Social Media TODAY gives companies plenty of value that can be measured and extracted, but for most companies, it’s not the value they want.  Most companies want to turn their customers into marketers, and see Social Media as the channel in which to do this.

They are struggling with how to do this because, shockingly, most customers don’t want to be marketing mouthpieces for brands.

And yet, there are enormous opportunities for brands to leverage how their customers are using social media that many aren’t pursuing.  In the rush to figure out how to generate sales via Social Media by turning its customers into marketers, most brands are totally overlooking how their customers use Social Media can offer great potential for brands to save money.

For example, in 2008 Pitney Bowes created a User Forum for its customers so that they could help them with their customer service issues, and in turn, they could help each other.  By February of 2010, the company determined that at least $300,000 worth of calls to CS centers had been averted thanks to the user forum.

That’s a very basic example and it works cause Pitney Bowes in this case accepted how its customers were creating online content, instead of trying to force their customers’ actions with Social Media into a preconceived marketing funnel.

Social Media ROI, Customer service, Customer research

The issue isn’t that most companies don’t understand Social Media, it’s that they don’t understand their customers.