Tag Archives: Chris Brogan

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The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 7 – Real Time Marketing and Gaining Consumer Permissions

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Crystal Ball 

Part 7 of The Business Value Behind Social Media focuses on future opportunities in social media marketing and public relations (e.g., what's the next big thing).  Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator) discuss future trends such as:

* Opporutunity #1: Responding to Customers and Influencing Business in Real-Time

* Opportunity #2: Giving and Gaining Our Permissions to Use Social Data

* Opportunity #3: Exploring Email Marketing and Online Communities

* Conclusion: The Implications of Gaining Permissions to Our Social Data is Why Google Fears Facebook


The panel's discussion takes place from 58:24 to 1:01:45 of the embedded video:

 



 
Opportunity #1: Responding to Customers and Influencing Business in Real-Time

The Real-Time Transformation of Traditional Marketing and PR (58:24 – 59:07).  Real-time applications in marketing and PR fascinate David.  He notes how social media is transforming the traditional, long-term planning / campaign process by contracting time.  Long term campaigns are not going away.  However, the future opportunity will be in engaging customers instantly.

Opportunity #2: Giving and Gaining Our Permissions to Use Social Data

Privacy Is Not the Main Issue Because Our Social Norms on Privacy Continue Changing (59:09 – 1:00:09).  Our social media activities generate significant amounts of data.  What advertisers and marketers can potentially do with this data is what fascinates Charlene.  Gaining consumer permissions for what our data will be used for is the hidden opportunitity.

Charlene's Caller ID Analogy and Its Application to Our Social Data.  When phone companies first introduced Caller ID, consumers complained the service invaded personal privacy.  Now, consumers will only answer the phone if they know who's making the call.  Charlene emphasizes our norms for what is private and how our data will be used changes daily.  A prime example: Facebook frequently changing its privacy policies.  

What Will Be The Accepted Norms for Granting Permissions.  The opportunity is working out the accepted norms for granting permissions to our privacy data in social media (analogous to what credit card companies do with our purchasing data).  If marketers and advertisers gain our permissions to use our social data, consumers will demand a transparent understanding of how this data will be used. 

Opportunity #3: Exploring Email Marketing and Online Communities

Two Technologies Which Can Offer Much More (1:00:11 – 1:00:21).  Chris is working on applications of email marketing with online communities.  These are two, early 1990's online technologies that haven't gained a lot of traction.  Therefore, he thinks these technologies have a significant upside.

Conclusion — Gaining Consumer Permissions to Social Data is Why Google Fears Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg's Power to Grant Advertisers The Permissions to Facebook's Social Data Scares Google.  In my opinion, this is why advertisers are clamoring to gain permissions for Facebook's social data.  I also contend this underlying phenomenon is what's driving Facebook's current $50+ billion valuation.

Why Advertisers Covet Facebook's Social Data.  The data or "friend updates" we disclose in Facebook is information we opt-in to share with Select Consumers: Our Friends and Family.  Our relationships and influence with these select consumers may be the more efficient and effective way for advertisers to influence consumer behaviors.    

Therefore, Facebook's social data is extremely attractive to advertisers.  And, this social data may be more valuable to advertisers than the search behavior data that's the foundation of the Google AdWords Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Model.

Google AdWords drives roughly 90%+ of Google's revenues.  As a result, Facebook legitimately threatens Google's core business. 

Here are resources I've researched and studied to support and understand why Google fears Facebook:

* CNN Technology: How Facebook Eclipsed Google in 2010

* Google's Facebook-Killer Slowed by Political Infighting

* Great Wall of Facebook:  The Social Network's Plan to Dominate the Internet — And Keep Google Out

* Singel-Minded: How Facebook Could Beat Google to Win The Net

* Ken Auletta's Googled Interview with Charlie Rose (links to Charlie Rose's Website) 

* Fast Company Article: "Underdog Bing Talks Facebook Partnership, Google Rivalry

* My Blog Post Detailing the Ken Auletta-Charlie Rose Interview

Facebook is Gaining Traction as the Doorway to Consumer Intent (not a Google Search).  Facebook Connect allows consumers to login to almost any social networking related application.  For the past decade, a consumer's stated online intent almost exclusively began with a search engine (e.g., a Google Search). 

Now, Facebook is gaining prominence as the preferred front door for stating consumer online intent (not Google). The fact that Facebook eclipsed Google for the first time as the most-visited U.S. website in 2010 is evidence of this trend.  

According to page 5, paragraph 2 of Ken Auletta's book, Googled: The End of The World as We Know It, Google's corporate mission statement proclaims an aim "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

In my opinion, Facebook's strategic approach is the same but noticeably different: "To organize our personal information and make it selectively accessible and useful."  At least for now …    

The past 48 hours describing the power shake-up at Google provides the read-between-the-lines-evidence why gaining consumer permissions to social data impacts Google: 

* The New Yorker Article by Ken Auletta: Why is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google?

* Wall Street Journal: Chief Seeks More Agile Google

* Wall Street Journal: Power Shifts Atop Google

* New York Times: Google Shake-Up is Effort to Revive Start-Up Spark 

* Mashable Op-Ed: Why Google Needs Its Own Steve Jobs


The future of consumer permissions will be a driving force in online marketing's near and distant future.  Larry Page's (Google's new CEO) ability to contend with this driving force and the accompanying Facebook competitive challenge is the type of adversity Ken Auletta said that Google's founders had yet to confront.

Stay tuned.  Now, it's getting interesting.

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.     

 

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The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 6 – Disaster Recovery & Crisis Communications

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Police Car Flashing Lights 

Part 6 of The Business Value Behind Social Media focuses on the use of social media in disaster recovery and crisis communications.  Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator) discuss how organizations should:

* Respond quickly and use the same online channel in which the event occurs

* Learn from the Motrin Moms and how Johnson & Johnson responded

* Learn from Chris Brogan's personal experience with negative backlash

* Understand United Airlines' poor response to the United Breaks Guitars YouTube Video

The panel's discussion on this topic takes place from 51:04 to 55:32 of the embedded video.  Where appropriate, I've also supplemented this post with entries from Open Leadership by Charlene Li and Real Time Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott.

 

 

Respond Quickly in the Same Medium Where the Crisis Takes Place

Online Crisis Management Requires Speed (51:25 – 51:47).  David emphasizes responding as quickly as possible is crucial.  Running your responses through various departments (aka Legal, HR, CFO, etc.) slows things down.  The longer you take to respond, the more your organization looks guilty or non-human.  Non-responsiveness is quickly interpreted as the typical, corporate "no comment" response.

Respond in the Same Social Media Channel (51:48 – 52:35).  If the event occurs in YouTube, publish a YouTube video response to your detractor(s).  Issuing a press release as the response is a mistake.  If someone writes a blog post criticizing your organization, go directly to that blog and post a comment.  Don't make the mistake of conducting a radio interview to tell your side of the story.  The response medium counts just as much as your response time. 

Important Note: Regarding real-time crisis management, David provides more detailed and how-to / actionable advice in Chapters 7, 8, and 9 of his latest book, Real-Time Marketing & PR.  Here are the chapters:

  • Chapter 7: Crisis Communications and the Media 
  • Chapter 8: What are People Saying About You This Instant
  • Chapter 9: Tap the Crowd for Quick Action


Learn from the Motrin Moms and How Johnson & Johnson Reponded 

Upsetting a Vocal Population Segment (52:36 – 53:12).  Chris explains that whether or not the circumstances were right/wrong is not the point.  Johnson & Johnson took action because the advertisement garnered a lot of negative attention within the "mommy blogger" community. 

Background on Motrin Moms Situation (from pages 231 to 233 of Open Leadership by Charlene Li).  In the fall of 2008 McNeil Consumer Healthcare posted a commercial on its motrin.com web site.  Charlene points out the advertisement appeared on the site for six weeks with hardly a comment.  However, one consumer took offence. 

And, that's when all hell broke loose …

How Johnson & Johnson Responded.  On pages 232 and 233 of Open Leadership, Charlene writes how Johnson & Johnson admitted its mistake and immediately took the advertisement from its website.  It also responded in two social media channels during the event:


Channel #1: The JNJ Corporate Blog.Key marketing executives posted apologies and updates on The JNJBTW blog.  Here are links to these posts:


Channel #2: Twitter.One of the marketing VPs reached out to key mommy bloggers on Twitter.


"Real-Time Means Moving in Matters of Minutes Rather Than Hours."  This is a paraphrased quote from Marc Monseau, Director of Social Media for Johnson & Johnsonon page 233 of Open Leadership.  It underscores the importance of response time and online monitoring.  The following quote from Monseau also on page 233 of Open Leadership speaks volumes:

"There are more and more businesses taking a hard look at what they need to structure, to create a program, and at least beginning to listen to the conversation.  The Motrin Moms situation really reinforced the importance of starting to really listen and to observe more carefully." 

Learn From Chris Brogan's Personal Experience

 
Background on the Online Situation (53:14 – 53:43).  On pages 230 to 232 of his book Trust Agents, Chris describes a social media campaign he participated in with Kmart.  This campaign helped Kmart achieve some of its best results in years.  However, Chris received significant criticism from the blogger community. 

The Source of Criticism:  A Sponsored Post Chris Wrote on Kmart's Behalf.  On page 231, Julien Smith (Trust Agents co-author), writes: "All sponsored posts had always been disclosed before, but the dollar amounts involved had never been public.  In readers' eyes, this somehow crossed the line between social and marketing norms."  On page 232, Julien points out the key learning: "In this case, we discovered that there are agreements, often implicit, between people and that these social contracts need to be clear and understood at all times."      

Understand United Airlines' Poor Response to "United Breaks Guitars"

In case you haven't seen the United Breaks Guitars Video, here it is:


 

 

A Non-Response Makes Your Organization Look Less than Human (53:44 – 54:17).  David points out how a lack of responsiveness is perceived as the typical, corporate response of "No Comment."  Approximately 10 million views (and counting) of this video occurred.  What's worse is United's lack of responsiveness only reinforced the negative portrayal of treating its passengers and their belongings poorly.

United Had No Previous History of Posting Videos on YouTube (54:18 – 55:10).  According to Charlene, this is the reason why United decided not to post its own video response.  No previous relationship existed on this social media channel so United felt like "it couldn't just show up."  However, David disagrees.  In his opinion, United should have at least responsed by a blog post or some other social media channel.  

Conclusion

When a negative, online event involves your organization, remember three (3) things:

  1. Respond quickly
  2. Publish the response in the SAME online medium where the event took place
  3. At a minimum, execute #1 in at least one relevant social media channel  

Is it fair, what happened to United Airlines?  Not entirely. But, they executed none of the above.  Fair or unfair, the court of public opinion has little sympathy for large corporations when they fail to respond:  


COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION
Lack of Response + Viral, Social Media Evidence = Guilty 


ROI Irony: How much did this negative PR cost United Airlines?   According to this article by Chris Ayres of The Times Online, the negative publicity caused by this video cost United Airlines $180 million in shareholder value losses (e.g., a 10% decrease in stock price).  It's a leap of faith to declare the video as the sole cause in the stock's decrease.  To validate that hypothesis, you would have to run a multi-regression statistical analysis. 

Still, the negative PR impact of this event is inescapable. I can think of approximately 10 million reasons / YouTube views why.

 

What Do You Think?  Thank you for reading this far (if you didn't fall asleep).  Please tell me what you think.  I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   

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Step Away From the TV to Increase Social Media Productivity

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TV

 

According to eMarketer's Clark Fredricksen, US consumers spent 264 minutes per day watching TV in 2010.  Therefore, the average US adult spends roughly four-and-a-half hours per day or approximately 30 hours per week watching television. 

How much time is 30 hours per week in a year?

  • (30 hours per week) x (52 weeks per year) = 1,560 hours
  • (1,560 hours) x (1 day / 24 hours) = 65 days!

    •   

EMarketer TV stats 2


We Flush Away Two (2) Month Per Year in Social Media Productivity

Instead of watching two month's worth of tv, here's what I'd like to accomplish in 2011:

1) Publish sixteen (16) additional blog posts.  That estimate is based on my historical production from November 2010 to December 2010.  For Mitch Joel or Chris Brogan, an extra month translates to 30 - 84 additional posts.  Note: Mitch Joel publishes six (6) times per week, and Chris Brogan gives advice on how to publish three (3) times per day (see below).

2) Write a cool, promotional eBook.  Here's a link to David Meerman Scott's free, no-strings-attached, no required contact information, cool, eBooks.  And yes, I've got some ideas for two (2) eBooks I'm planning to publish in 2011.

3) Learn how to shoot / edit professional-looking videos.  Here's a great book by Steve Garfield — Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business.  I enjoy poking around different sections of the book, and video will be an important part of my 2011 content strategy.

4) Read two (2) extra books on social media and digital marketing.  Here's a link to my recent post on 19 fabulous social media and digital marketing books.  Please keep in mind, this is based on my personal reading / studying speed.  For many, I'm sure this translates into reading  four (4) or more extra books per month (and I envy your reading speed and comprehension).

5) Learn how to create, edit, and publish podcasts.  This is something I've toyed around with as a new idea for 2011, but my priority is currently on getting trusted advice to undertake 1) through 3). 


Chris Brogan, Adam Singer, and David Meerman Scott Don't Watch TV … 


These A-Listers productively publish content and generously share advice on writing and improving blog content.  Here's some of their best advice on maximizing personal productivity: 

Chris Brogan

Adam Singer

David Meerman Scott

  • The Lesson: Cut out tv, go to bed early, wake up early, and exercise regularly.

… or Watch Lots of It.  Just Don't Spend All Your Free Time Doing It.


Mitch Joel

Important Note / Correction: When I originally published this post this morning, I mistakenly said Mitch Joel doesn't watch any TV at all.  He absolutely does.  It was sloppy of me to make that leap after reading his post. 

Please see Mitch's comment below.  I modified the post to reflect his input.  Thanks Mitch!

 

Conclusion

November 2010 and December 2010 was my most productive month since I started blogging almost a year ago.  I attribute the productivity increase to following the previously mentioned advice.  More experience with the blogging process, increased discipline in recording blog ideas, and waking up earlier also contributed to more posts. 

I still watch at least one hour of tv per week.  For my wife and I, The Good Wife is a DVR'd guilty pleasure.  And, I personally consider Super Bowl Sunday a national holiday.

Yet, I don't miss tv.  Researching material, coming up with blog ideas, and publishing this blog are more fun and mentally fulfilling.  Blogging is a genuine labor of love (and I wish I'd discovered it sooner). 


So, how would you invest an extra month of time in social media marketing? 

Please share your fun and creative ideas for 2011.  I'd love to hear them!


P.S. Super Bowl Sunday is February 6, 2011.

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The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 5 – How and What To Measure

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Scale 

This blog series covers insights shared by Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator) on The Business Value Behind Social Media (part of The Premier Business Leadership Series presented by SAS).  Part 4 covers the panel's discussion and suggestions on how to get started in social media (particularly for organizations late to the game). 

Part 5 highlights the panel's insights on measuring social media's business impact by:

* Defining what metrics are valuable (and which are not)

* Understanding how your company performs in search engine results (i.e., SERPs)

* Showing how social media activity "bridges or links" to an organization's bottom line

* Acknowledging the real reasons driving an organization's desire for measuring social media initiatives

This post highlights the panel's discussion from 36:57 to 43:18 of the embedded video.


 

Track and Measure Meaningful Metrics

Number of Followers, Fans, or Page Views Is Not a Valuable Performance Metric (37:07 – 39:18).  According to Chris, reliance on metrics quantifying potential reach or number of people "who possibly saw" your message is a mistake.  The traditional pubic relations imprint methodology for quantifying success is not what you want. Why then do people cite these figures?  Because people want to bring large performance numbers to the C-Suite executives supporting the social media initiatives. 

Customer conversion numbersare the more refined and accurate number marketers should cite (i.e., "how many people clicked on the link you wanted them to click on").  Chris elaborates that earning 1.5 million You Tube views isn't enough.  If none of these viewers takes action on the link that leads to your cash register (e.g., convert to paying customers or take a specific action), then you're missing business opportunities.

Track Metrics Articulating a Specific Business Outcome(s) (38:10 – 38:32).  Chris encourages his clients to track the following metrics when evaluating social media initiatives:

  • Revenue Increases
  • Lead Acquisition (particularly decreases in cost of lead acquisition)
  • Number of Subscribers to Company Newsletters
  • Impact on Open Rates to Existing Company Media
  • Percentage of Conversation / Percentage of Mind – Sentiment Metrics

Percentage of Conversation / Percentage of Mind ( 38:33 – 39:17).  Chris believes sentiment metrics are valuable because they provide an understanding of what and how often customers are talking about your company's products or services (especially relative to your competitors).  He suggests companies locate the most active online forums where their products / services are being discussed and track this metric:

  • How much percentage of mind is positive (+)
  • How much percentage of mind is negative (-)

The key is to remember how your choice of tracking metrics will always depend on the business goal sought.  Therefore, always tie your social media tracking metrics to specific business outcomes.

Understand and Improve Your Search Engine Results

The Importance of Search Engine Results Pages – SERPs (39:19 – 39:47).  David explains it's important to know two (2) things about search engine results:

(1) What are the important keywords and phrases relevant to your industry

(2) Where do your firm's products / services appear in the search results for these keywords and phrases.  Take careful note of how your results fare relative to your competitors in these searches.

Search engine results matter because a buyer's intent starts with online search.  If a company's products / services are currently landing on the fifth (5th) page of Google searches, social media can improve those results so the company earns first page placement.  

Side Note:  I wrote a blog post on the value of page one Google results in organic search.  According to the research documented in that post, ~95% of consumers stop looking at their search results beyond the second page (regardless of the search engine used).  This is why search engine rankings matter. 

Bridge / Link Social Media Activity to Specific Business Outcomes

Duration of Sales Cycle Close and Linking Other Business Activities to Social Media (40:18 – 41:08).  Chris notes how tracking the time to close sales is important.  If you can accelerate / shorten the sales cycle duration, you are demonstrating how social media contributes to revenue generation.  Other valuable metrics:

(1) Number of Customer Interactions / Touches:  Research says you need to touch / interact with the customer approximately nine (9) times before making a sale.  With social media, an organization can increase the number of customer interactions and beyond industry benchmarks.

(2) Competitive Intelligence Data:  LinkedIn Company Profiles allows you to see which companies are researching your firm on LinkedIn.  Also, you can find additional information about competitors on the Company Profiles Pages.

(3) Link to Existing Sales Funnel Metrics – Car Dealerships and Test Drives:  Chris points out that number of page views on specific car model's home page is good, but that doesn't tell you a lot about overall impact on sales.  Therefore, car dealerships are linking and tracking social media activity's influence on number of test drives. By linking social media activity to number of test drives, the car dealership links to an existing and trusted sales funnel metric. 

To Chris, the type of linking described in the car dealership example is "the gold of social media."  Why?  The car dealership example shows how social media can improve customer conversion.

What's Really Driving the Social Media Measurement Obsession?

Is It Fear?  (41:25 – 42:47)  When David hears senior executives questioning the financial validity of social media, he thinks it's really a veiled response for "I don't want to be bothered with social media."  Therefore he addresses that objection by posing the following question:

"As soon as you can tell me the ROI of giving each salesperson a Blackberry, I'll tell you the ROI of participating in social media."

We Do Certain Things in Business Because It's the Right Thing to Do.  Here are additional examples of existing corporate activities that David cites as having no quantifiable ROI, but we do them because these are the right things to do:

  • Painting the walls
  • Maintaining a nice-looking corporate campus
  • Providing salespeople with Blackberry smartphones for client management (and as a company expense)

It's Not Always About Putting in $X and Always Getting $X Back .  David concluded his point-of-view with an important point.  Yes, measuring social media is important, BUT make sure you're divorcing your indvidual fears/ignorance/bias before justifying the need to measure something.

We Tend to Overvalue the Things We Can Measure and Undervalue the Things We Cannot (42:49 – 43:48).  Charlene cited this quote from John Hayes, Chief Marketing Officer of American Express, when describing the social media measurement obsession. 

She elaborates it's not a matter of "is social media worth it" because we already know there's value in it.  In the big picture perspective, she points out:

  • Is it really possible to value a relationship?
  • If so, how much value do you place on that relationship? 

Conclusion

How Much Do We Value Relationships?  This should be the governing question for all organizations when evaluating and measuring social media business impact.  Why? The resounding theme expressed by Brogan, Li, and Meerman Scott throughout the video always comes back to:

It's All About Relationships

Companies who've founded their reputations on this moral value are the ones genuinely investing the time, resources, and money to become relevant social media citizens.  Companies like Starbucks, IBM, Best Buy, Intel, H&R Block, Boeing, HubSpot, Amazon, Dell, fall into this mix. 

Cold, Hard Fact: Social Media is Reinventing the Power of Customer Influence.  The power of one individual (or a collective group) to influence a company's online reputation is significant — and that power is here to stay.  In fact, that word-of-mouth power (WOM) is escalating.   

This brings me to a simple question:

Is Social Media ROI really just Corporate Code for CYA? 

I would argue Yes.  Please understand, I strongly believe in measuring social media's business impact and linking its activities to targeted, business outcomes.  Doing so allows an evaluation and understanding of the social media activities making a positive business impact (and even more importantly, those that are not).  Making that determination is critical because successful social media initiatives require the significant investments mentioned earlier.  As a result, measurement drives informed decisions on resource prioritization.  

Therefore, let's not go down the paralysis analysis road to financially justify every aspect of social media participation.  Let's keep an eye on the ball and the big picture.  While you kindly invested time to read this post, someone is online.  And he/she is positively or negatively influencing your company's financial success RIGHT NOW. 

In closing, if our customer and client relationships are strictly based on the bottom-line (e.g., transactional), then we're making a momentous mistake.  Here's a direct quote from MG Siegler's December 17th Tech Crunch article describing Yahoo's current financial and strategic challenges:

"Yahoo is all about the shareholders now.  It's all about the bottom-line.  That's all that matters.  It's not about the users.  It's not about building or maintataining great products.  It's about finding the ones that make the money and slicing the rest." 

Remember, at the end of the day, it's not about you or me.  It's about clients, customers, and helping them make informed decisions about the business challenges they confront.  It's about something bigger than ourselves. 

It's All About Relationships.

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thank you for spending your valuable time in reading this installment of The Business Value Behind Social Media.  Please tune in for Part 6 – Social Media and Crisis Recovery.

I'm targeting January 15, 2011 for publishing Part 6.  I want to get it right, and I'll also be catching up in my "regular job" after returning from vacation over the holidays. 

Many Thanks and Have a Safe and Happy New Year's Day! 


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The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 4 – How to Get Started

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Lego Pieces in Box 


This blog series covers insights shared by Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator) on The Business Value Behind Social Media (part of The Premier Business Leadership Series presented by SAS).  Part 3 covers the panel's discussion on Walmart's initial social media strategy mistakes.

Part 4 discusses how companies late to social media marketing can get started.  Key starting points suggested by the panel include:

* The Importance of Linking Social Media Strategy to Corporate Strategy

* Before You Create Content, Listen and Participate 

* Figure Out Where Relevant Customer Conversations are Taking Place 

* Define the Business Goals or Results to Achieve with Social Media

This post focuses on the panel's key take-aways and discussion from 29:00 – 36:56 of the embedded video.

 


  


Link the Social Media Strategy to the Overall Corporate Strategy


Apply and Coordinate Individual Social Media Channels to Strategic Execution (32:57 – 33:18).  Charlene explains that corporate strategy isn't just about what the company does operationally.  It's about how the company coordinates the overall strategy with all the different functional strategies.

Link the Social media Strategy to the Overall Corporate Strategy (33:19 – 33:49).  Having a Facebook strategy or social media channel strategy in itself is missing the point.  The key is having a corporate strategy that the organization applies Facebook participation or social media channel tactics to.

Before You Create Content, Listen and Participate


We Can Learn a Lot by Listening (33:51 – 34:12).  David Meerman Scott mentions two (2) things companies can do as they begin their social media participation:

* Watch what's already going on online and and understand who's doing what

* Learn who's talking about your brand, your company, your products, and your industry

Take Baby Steps and Use Other People's Real Estate (34:13 – 34:18).  Deploy your social media initiatives gradually.  There's nothing wrong with commenting on people's blogs and participating in forums first before creating your own channel-specific content.   

A Common Mistake – Undefined Purpose (34:19 – 34:39).  A common mistake David observes among companies – jumping into social media and establishing a Twitter account, or a YouTube Channel, or a couple of blogs without defining each social media channel's purpose.  This just ends up being an uncoordinated mess.  That's why it's important to take your time to understand what your customers are doing online before undertaking larger the online initiatives (i.e., writing and managing a blog).

Where Are Your Customer Conversations Taking Place

Go Where Your Customers Are (28:23 – 29:29).  Understanding where your customers converse in social media channels is key.  Why?  Charlene says this knowledge can help define a specific channel's overall purpose. 

As an example, many B2B companies say they don't use Facebook in social media strategy because Facebook is a B2C medium.  But, what if the company decided to use Facebook specifically for hiring.   

On page 204 of Open Leadership, Charlene talks about how Sodexo, a food and facilities management company with 350,000 employees used Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs to triple traffic to the Sodexo Career Website.  Sodexo increased the number of applicants by 25% and also increased by 50% the number of diverse (female and minority) candidates.  

Determine the Social Media Echo Chambers by Country (29:30 – 30:42).  The panel notes that each geographic region has its own predominant social media channels:

  • United States: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube
  • Japan: Mixi.jp
  • Netherlands: Hyves.nl 

David references the phenomenon that when it comes to a specific social media platform there's usually one dominant player.  Therefore, invest your time building a presence on the dominant platforms:

  • Video = YouTube
  • Microblogging = Twitter
  • Social Networking (especially B2C) = Facebook

Define the Business Goal(s) You Want to Achieve With Social Media

Start with Specific Goals Targeted to Your Current Customers / Fans (34:54 – 35:20).  Chris suggests defining goals focusing on either customer retention or new customer acquisition.  As an example, Chris noted how the choice and purpose of using Facebook as a social media channel completely depends on the stated goal.  If your objective is customer retention of current customers, maybe your purpose on this channel is massaging people.  That tone of interaction is far different than the mood you'd be setting if the objective was new customer retention. 

This is why it's so important to understand where your existing customers or new customers are conversing online.  It makes no sense to invest time and resources in building a new channel / community if the target audience is already talking to each other in an established place. 

Particpate in the Online Conversation Because the Phone's Ringing (35:20 – 35:39).  The analogy Chris makes with social media is to think of each individual channel or community as a "ringing telephone."  If you're still sitting on the sidelines by not participating in social media, you're essentially leaving the phone unanswered (and your its your existing customers or new potential customers who are on the other end of the phone line).

 

Sustainable, Long Term Success Requires a B-H-A-G 


B-H-A-G Means Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal (35:40 – 36:49).  Charlene says this is the long term planning or vision part of your social media strategy.  Without an understanding of the vision, your team may be setting up its social media initiatives incorrectly. 

* Think thoughtfully about what this all could really be?

* What / How could social media transform my organization?

* What will our customer relationships look like?

* What's the overall impact on our business?

In other words, your company's individual B-H-A-G could be what inspires or provides the strategic foundation for the desired outcome.

If Corporate Fear Sets In, Always Envision What Could Happen If You Succeed.  Charlene points to how the Best Buy TwelpForce initiative is transformational game changer.  Many organizations would say an initiative like that is incredibly scary.  BUT, the outcome is delivering an outstanding customer service experience that other retail competitors are not providing.  This success did not occur overnight.  It took Best Buy four (4) years to get where they are now. 

The potential business outcome could be a powerful and inspirational rallying point which aligns all team members around what you want to achieve with social media. 

Conclusion

Goal-setting and objectives are a common emphasized theme throughout The Business Value Behind Social Media series.  Defining the business outcomes and results your company wants to achieve with social media should be determined and then prioritized. 

Once you know what you want to achieve as a business outcome, it becomes clearer how to:

* Link the social media strategy to the overall corporate strategy

* Understand what you should be listening for in online customer conversations

* And once you know what to listen for in customer conversations, it can help you figure out where the online conversations are taking place. 

For example, if you're a B2C company, you're probably being talked about in Facebook.  If you're a B2b company, there's an increased likelihood conversations are taking place in LinkedIn Forums or LinkedIn Discussion Groups.

You Can't Just Throw Stuff Together in Social Media and Hope It Comes Together Naturally.  If you want to escalate your social media initiatives especially on a global scale, you have to take a structured approach that accounts for all of the aforementioned suggestions.  Having a process to define business goals, link social strategy to corporate strategy, listen carefully, and then go where the customer conversations are taking place is the approach Intel is executing with its 2011 social media efforts. 

You may experience and achieve online visibility initially by just "jumping into social media.  "But, if you want to be a relevant, long-term, online player, you better start figuring out your company's B-H-A-G to inspire the troops.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you will stop by next Saturday for Part 5: How to Measure Social Media's Impact on Your Business.

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   


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The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 3 – How Walmart Learned From Initial Social Media Failures

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Milk Spill 

This blog post series covers insights shared by Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator) on The Business Value Behind Social Media (part of The Premier Business Leadership Series presented by SAS).  Part 2 provided the panel's insights on successfully implementing social media guidelines, processes, and goals focused on customer engagement.

Part 3 covers the panel's discussion on Walmart's initial social media strategy mistakes. 

I've supplemented the panel's discussion with examples described in pages 229 to 230 of Open Leadership, Charlene Li's latest book.  In these examples, Charlene writes how Walmart learned and recovered from these initial mistakes by continuing to experiment with different social media initiatives and refocus on its core audience.

The panel's discussion on Walmart's takes place from 19:00 to 20:50 of the embedded video.


 

Wal-Mart's Initial Struggles in Social Media

Many Retailers Made the Same Mistakes in Social Media (19:00 – 20:02).  Chris makes the point how many retailers (not just Walmart) and manufacturers made the mistake of initially viewing social media as just another "push channel" or "another way to push stuff down a different pipe."   

Walmart's Initially Looked Like It May Never Understand Social Media (20:03 – 20:50).  Charlene noted several missteps by the retailer that seemed to proceed one disaster after another.  I've added additional details from Open Leadership to provide additional context:

* 2006 – The Hub Social Network Lasts Only Ten (10) Weeks.  The Hub was Walmart's attempt to compete with then-leader MySpace.  Actors and models populated content and pushed visitors to buy Walmart's products.

* September 2006 – Media Coverage Reveals a Fake Blog.  A blog portraying a couple's cross-country travels in an RV and staying in Walmart parking lots was revealed as a Walmart supported venture.  Broken customer trust followed due to the significant negative news coverage this story received.

* Fall 2007 – A Facebook Group Misaligned with the Intended Target Audience.  A Facebook group focused on back-to-school shopping for college audiences was well-executed, but the group focused on fashion.  The problem is the intended target audience associated Walmart with low price — a complete disconnect.  Further compounding problems were Facebook members who started protesting Walmart's labor practices via comments and turned this site against the company.  


Walmart Learned From Each Social Media Failure 

A Return to the Corporate Mission: Helping Families Save Money.  In pages 229 to to 230 of Open Leadership, Charlene explains how Walmart's determination and persistence sustained the company through some early struggles.  Eventually, the company achieved online victories by focusing on social media initiatives focused on helping families save money. 

* CheckOutBlog.com.  A site which shares the perspective of Walmart's employee buyers' and how they go about selecting merchandise for their stores.

* Bazaarvoice.  A service that provides user ratings and reviews on Walmart's sites.

* Elevenmoms.com Blog.  A collection of mommy bloggers who share tips on how to save money.

The Resolve to Succeed and Courage to Experiment.  Despite all the previous setbacks and struggles, Walmart was determined "to figure social media out," and it tested different ideas along the way.

The Results – A Legion of Facebook Fans and Customer Engagement on Twitter.  These additional anecdotes from Open Leadership are inspiring.  Walmart achieved these online results because it didn't give up:

* Facebook Membership of 500,000+

* Dozens of Employees Engaging on Twitter with Customers

Conclusion

The Walmart example shows how maintaining your resolve to succeed in social media marketing is a big part of the game.  Even though it failed on a very public stage, Walmart kept at it and learned from these initial mistakes.  Now, they're succeeding in directly communicating with their core audience through selected social media channels.

This case study highlights the importance of "failing well."  If you're going to particpate in online conversations (like writing a blog), you're going to fail and commit mistakes.  I know I have.  Hopefully, I will continue learning from those mistakes (just like Walmart). 

Most importantly, participation in social media channels means there's always a chance, you'll fail publicly (in a small or large scale depending on your online visibility). 

But, if you're persistent and resilient, you will:

(1) Prevail in the long run and

(2) Learn a ton about what works or doesn't work for you as an online publisher

That opportunity to continuously learn and experiment is what I love about participating in social media. 

Just ask these self-made entrepreneurs profiled in this recent Business Week – Bloomberg article: Ivy League and Privilege Not Required to Make Billions.  In each case, these individuals cited the value of learning from their mistakes and how those lessons helped them become wealthy in the process.

 


Since next Saturday is Christmas Day, the plan is to publish the next installment of this series on Sunday, December 26th.  I hope you'll tune in to The Business Value Behind Social Media Part 4 – How to Get Started in Social Media.

 

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   

 

Photo Credit: by russelljsmith Via Flickr 

 

 

 

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The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 2 – Open Leadership, Guidelines, Process Discipline, and Goals

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Open Sign 

This post represents Part 2 of a series covering the insights shared by Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator) on The Business Value Behind Social Media (part of The Premier Business Leadership Series presented by SAS).  Part 1 provided an Executive Summary of the hour-long panel discussion.

The panel discusses the characteristics of model organizations currently succeeding in social media implementation and management.  Common success factors describing these companies included:

* Social Media Guidelines and Employee Rules of Engagement

* Process Discipline

* Open Leadership (the rules for playing in the social media sandbox as explained by Charlene Li)

* Goals (e.g., defining the business outcome the individual organization wants to achieve with social media)

The summary of key takeaways pertains to 3:33 to 15:38 of the embedded video.


 

Companies Succeeding in Social Media Established Employee Guidelines and Processes for Customer Engagement

The US Air Force and Guidelines (3:33 – 5:08).  All 30,000 members are allowed to participate in social media.  The establishment of guidelines and a structure for interaction were key success factors.  David references a favorite quote from from a high ranking officer about giving Air Force Team Members the opportunity to engage in social media: "If we trust them with a $300 million airplane, why can't we trust them on Facebook?

CitiBank and Defining a Process First (5:11 – 6:45). Charlene describes how the key learning from here is the importance of establishing and putting a process in place first.  This process should define the employee interaction with customers via social media.  Defining the process provides senior management (especially the legal department) with a level of reassurance.  Establishing this process is especially important if the company is engaging in social media for the first time. 

Dell Corporation's Uses Twitter as a $6 Million Revenue Generator (6:46 – 7:30).  Chris liked how Dell started using the Web initially as a means of deploying customer service.  This initiative eventually morphed into IdeaStorm which is their collaboration forum to share ideas on new products and services that customers would like Dell to develop.  He also noted how Dell generated $6 million in revenues for bargain hardware via Twitter.

The Confidence to Let Employees Engage Customers

Open Leadership – The Sandbox Covenant (7:57 – 8:45).  Charlene says "open leadership" is your company's definition of how "open you will be."  It's important for companies to define what are the filters for communication because no company can be completely open – that's unrealistic.  But, the companies using social media effectively have defined their social media strategy and set up the rules of customer engagement within that strategy.  If you don't provide the discipline and structure, you're leaving open the possibility of anything happening online.

The Use of 1st-Person Singular in Online Communications (8:48 – 9:37).  Something David has seen work effectively is implementing a guideline asking employees to express their views in the manner of "I believe" or "I think" to show the employee isn't speaking directly on behalf of the company.  The fear of companies is they now have 1000 company spokespeople.  Far from it.  What they now have is 1000 employees directly communicating with customers.

Preventing Chaos – Deploy Social Media Gradually and Define Goals

Starbucks and Its Gradual Release of Social Media (10:02 – 10:57).  Charlene says Starbucks is one of her favorite examples because its small team successfully and gradually deployed the company's social media strategy.  According to her book, Open Leadership, the Starbucks' social media team consists of six (6) people: two (2) community managers who directly interact with people and four (4) programmers and support people. 

The book also describes how Starbucks chose a more centralized approach at the corporate level for selected channels (i.e., Facebook, Twitter).  According to Alexandra Wheeler, Starbucks' Director of Digital Strategy, the goal is to eventually give their thousands of baristas freedom to operate in social media "but not until the right structures and training are in place to ensure a consistent customer experience." 

IBM and Goal Definition (10:58 – 11:54).  Chris spoke about how IBM started out as "1000 flowers blooming," but it eventually found a way to purposefully harness their social media activity.  They did it by asking what's the goal: 

* Enhance customer service?
* Generate more revenue?
* Be more promotional?
* Build more awareness to our sales funnel via lead generation?
* Is our purpose related to B2C or B2B? 


The Zappos Model Isn't Right for Everyone

Determine the Appropriate Level of Openness for Your Individual Company (12:18 – 12:58).  Chris points out that the Zappos Way isn't for everybody because that model exposes an organization to be in "situations filled with opinions."  And for a lot of companies, these are situation they don't feel comfortable operating in.

Ask Who and How Should Employees be Engaging (13:00 – 13:56).  David says companies engaging in social media shouldn't assume that every employee wants to participate.  Employees shouldn't feel forced or obligated to communicate this way.  In his opinion, he talked about how there's probably a specific personality profile for people who enjoy engaging in social media.  Therefore, if you have these folks in your organization, encourage them to be part of the online conversation. 

How Best Buy's Twelpforce Personally Engaged Charlene Li (13:57 – 15:11).  Twelpforce enables around 2,400 Best Buy employees to share their electronics expertise directly with customers.  These employees use Twitter to converse directly with customers by answering questions usually asked everyday on the store floor. 

Charlene personally tried out this service to better understand what's the best phone with parental controls that she could purchase for her 11-year old son.  A Twelpforce team member replied back with an Android phone recommendation and asked her to stop by the store that Saturday so they could evaluate phones together.  Essentially, someone on the store floor reached out to her and said: "I'd like to build a customer relationship with you."  This type of innovative initiative gives Best Buy a competitive advantage especially over Wal-Mart, Target, or any of the phone carriers.

Conclusion

The biggest fear of large organizations when it comes to social media is their loss of control.  Their customers now have low-cost tools (e.g. social media channels) that can influence the outcome and perception of the most elaborate and sophisticated advertising campaign. 

However, the organizations described by Charlene, Chris, and David are prime examples of companies who have successfully implemented guidelines, procedures, processes, and goals so their employees can directly engage these customers.  And, it's that customer engagement that enables their employees to positively influence customers who not only purchase their company's products and services but are also Blogging, Tweeting, Liking, Sharing, and Digging about these offerings as well.

Please stay tuned for next Saturday's Edition of The Business Behind Social Media, Part 3: Lessons From Wal-Mart and The Importance of Failing Well.

Bonus Section: Additional Links 

The US Airforce and Guidelines from Web Ink Now

* The US Air Force Armed With Social Media
* The US Air Force and Social Media: A Discussion With Colonel Michael Caldwell
* Launching Ideas at The US Air Force
* Free Social Media eBook and Video: New Media & The Air Force

IBM's Participation in Social Media Covered in Web Ink Now

* IBM Blogging Guidelines and the Company's 3,000 Bloggers
* Ben Edwards on the IBM Transition from Outbound Marketing to Inbound Marketing

Altimeter Group and Wet Paint Report on Starbucks and Other Social Media Case Studies

* July 2009 Report: The World's Most Valuable Brands: Who's Most Engaged

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   


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The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 1 – Social Media Strategy from A to Z

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ABC alphabet 

David Meerman Scott shared an informative YouTube video in his November 16th blog post, The Business Value Behind Social Media.  The video took place during The SAS Premier Business Leadership Series and included a panel discussion on The Business Value of Social Media with the following participants:

* Martin Giles, The Economist, US Technology Correspondent.  Martin moderated the October 2010 panel discussion.  In David 's aforementioned blog post, he notes how Martin Giles is the best moderator he has ever worked with.  After viewing and studying this video, I understand why. 

* Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs, popular blogger and co-author of Trust Agents and author of Social Media 101.

* Charlene Li, Founder and CEO of Altimeter Group, popular blogger, and co-author of two (2) books, Groundswell and Open Leadership.

* David Meerman Scott, popular blogger and best-selling author of the two (2) books The New Rules of Marketing & PR and Real-Time Marketing & PR. 

 


 

The discussion topics covered the following issues relevant to social media strategy, emerging trends, and several case study examples of its successful execution (or in some cases, unsuccessful):

* How should organizations build a social media presence?

* Who within the organization should own the social media function?

* How can organizations measure and analyze the value of social media?

* Who are the model organizations of modern social media management and strategy execution? 

Part 1 represents the first piece of a multiple-post blog series describing the insights shared in this video.  My goal is to publish the posts from every Saturday morning until completion (but please bear with me if I slip on a date).  Part 1 will be the A to Z Executive Summary provided by Martin Giles at the end of the panel discussion.  In the future posts, I will publish the deep dives generated from the panel's discussion.  And trust me, there's a lot of substance in this panel discussion because I recorded 20+ pages of notes.

Martin's A to Z Executive Summary starts at 1:01:57 of the video.  His Executive Summary recapped Chris', Charlene's, and David's insights from different parts of their hour-long conversation.  Where appropriate, I sprinkled in my point-of-view (I hope you don't mind).

Executive Summary: Social Media Strategy from A to Z

* A = Analytics.  Understanding the value and ROI your social media initiatives produces requires analyzing the data with analytics tools. 

* B = Brogan and Boeing.   Chris did a great job as a contributing member.  Boeing showed it was listening to the conference's live Twitter Feed by acknowledging David Meerman Scott's positive comments citing Boeing as a model organization in social media strategy and execution.  Here' the tweet, Boeing sent to David: @dmscott thanks for citing us during #pbls10. Here's the air show effort DMS mentioned. http://bit.ly/dkQEqC 

* C = Control.  Control in social media means you have to give it up.  Learn to lose control.

* D = Disaster Recovery.  Mistakes will happen in your business. Have a disaster recovery plan in place to address these mistakes through the right social media channels.  For example, if an irate customer makes a highly publicized complaint via their blog, respond quickly by commenting on that customer's blog.  Responding via a press release is a mistake. 

* E = Earpiece and Earning Credibility.  Martin made light of having to constantly readjust his earpiece during the panel discussion.  He also pointed out how much of the discussion focused on "earning credibility" through your social media efforts versus the traditional advertising mentality of "buying credibility."

* F = Facebook and The Future of The Web (two highly debated topics among the panel members). 

* G = Grab Audience Attention. On the World Wide Web, you have to creatively think of ways to grab audience attention.  Martin also said G stands for Go Giants because he lives in San Francisco.

* H = Human.  Be human and don't be afraid to put real human beings on The Web to support and implement your social media efforts. 

* I = Innovate and Influencers.  Identify the online influencers in your impacting your organization's online reputation and think of innovative ways to reach them.

* J = Journalists.  Martin noted The Internet's impact on traditional publishing and how he may be searching for a job soon (so please hire him).  Also, David suggests organizations bring journalists into their social media operations because of their storytelling abilities and gift for creating share-worthy content. 

* K = KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).  Carefully think about and select your KPIs and how they can inform your decision-making.

* L = Charlene Li and Listening. Charlene Li contributes great insights to the panel and cites many different examples particularly in the Fortune 500.  Martin thanks the live in-person and online audiences for listening.  Most of all, he cites how organizations need leverage social media in listening to their respective online audiences.

* M = David Meerman Scott, Modeling (a humorous reference to David's former career as a male model in Japan), and Measurement.  An ongoing and important future trend in social media is understanding how to best measure its impact.

* N = Need to Respond Quickly.  Martin notes how he and his fellow journalists are online 24/7.  Learn to respond in real-time because if you're not, there's a problem. 

* O = Open Leadership and Ownership.  This is the title of Charlene's recently released book (I purchased my copy this past week).  Her book describes the required organizational and leadership attributes required to effectively compete and successfully engage audiences in today's World Wide Web.  In addition, her new book discusses how to determine, manage, and execute the right open leadership strategy for your organization.  Ownership is for who's going to own and execute your social media strategy (and what's the best way to do that).

* P = People and Paris Hilton.  As Martin says, I'll stop right there …

* Q = Questions.  Pose better questions to your audience because we've discussed numerous examples of how really smart companies benefit from seeking audience feedback.

* R = ROI and Real-Time.  The panel shared examples where companies have achieved ROI and how they measure it.  Furthermore, companies who learn or take the initiative to respond and act in real-time will have future competitive advantages in areas ranging from product development, interacting with the media, and capitalizing on real-time events impacting your industry.

* S = Sharing.  Social media is about sharing great content so be willing and generous in sharing it.

* T = Twitter and Trusted Advisor.  The panel provided a number of examples of using Twitter to generate revenues, enhance customer service, and promote content.  Consistency, commitment, responsiveness, and a genuine attitude to help customers make better, informed decisions described organizations developing Trusted Advisor reputations online. 

* U = Understand Customer Insights.  A lot of these insights come from "L" Listening and "A" Analytics.

* V = Virality.  Whatever you're publishing on the World Wide Web, learn to accept that your content will flash across at the speed of light.

* W = Word-of-Mouth.  That's the real goal here.  If you get existing customers and potential customers to talk about you to one another, you've created a fabulous success story.

* X = X  Marks the Spot.  Martin joked this is what he figured what the audience was wondering for what he would write for "X."

* Y = You.  Martin also joked "you" (as in the audience) must be wondering "when I'm going to shut up."

* Z = Zero.  Zero because Martin had zero time left.  

Conclusion

Watching and studying this video was a labor of love.  How many times do you get the opportunity to learn from thought leaders like Brogan, Li, and Meerman Scott interacting on the same stage.  I personally want to thank SAS for publishing and sharing the videos from The Premier Business Leadership Series.  By allowing thought leaders like David Meerman Scott to share this content, everyone in the social media community benefits.

Thank you for reading and if you watched the video, please let me know in the comments.  What did you enjoy and learn?   I would love to hear from you.

Please stay tuned for next Saturday's installment – The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 2 – Open Leadership, Guidelines, Process Discipline, and Goals. 
   

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   


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Successful Social Media Marketing Is Neither Free Nor Easy

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 Gasoline for FreeThis article, "Entrepreneurs Question Value of Social Media," from the Wall Street Journal caught my eye (and I'm sure several other readers' eyes) with it's clever headline and additionally provocative phrases:

* "Marketing Via Facebook, Twitter Yields Results for Some, Others Say It's Overrated" and "Hype Right Now Exceeds the Reality"

The WSJ article quotes findings from 2,000 small business owners surveyed by the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business and Network Solutions LLC.  Among the survey's findings included:

* Most users of social media – 58% – find the medium "just met expectations for success.  For the remainder, twice as many feel the medium fell short of expectations (26%) than exceeded expectations (12%) for success.

* 50% of small business users of social media have found that it has taken up more time than they expected.

So does this mean social media really doesn't work?  Is all that blogging, tweeting, friending, videoing, and updating of statuses to engage a specific target audience or buyer persona a complete waste of time?

  

Of course not.  But, I think these findings should "recalibrate" our expectations about how quickly social media and inbound marketing can impact overall business success.  Here are some thoughts in putting the achievement of business success via social media into perspective:

 

1. Social Media Success Stories Like Chris Brogan and HubSpot Didn't Happen Overnight


In my opinion, two of the most successful social media success stories demonstrating the time, dedication, and commitment required are Chris Brogan and HubSpot.  Both have invested years and countless hours to build their brands and business success via social media and inbound marketing. 

And their level of commitment continues …

Chris Brogan.  Brogan has been an online practitioner and social media evangelist for more than a decade, and in the last few years he's finally receiving more mainstream recognition and credit.  His book, Trust Agents, about how organizations can use social media to personally engage consumers, is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. 

But, this success and recognition did not occur overnight.  In fact, Brogan says it took him eight years (8) to acquire 100 subscribers when he started his blog.  Check out his video series called "Overnight Success" so you can see first-hand how social media success is hard-earned.

HubSpot. This organization literally created and proliferated the phrase "inbound marketing." They've published a best-selling book called Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs describing the online strategies and tactics driving their current business success (along with the success of other small to medium-sized businesses).   

And yes, they've also been diligently implementing and practicing those social media and inbound marketing strategies from their book for years.  As a point of reference, I looked at two data points regarding their popular Internet Marketing Blog.  These numbers illustrate the significant time and dedication required (and blogging is just one important channel of their multi-channel social media strategy):

(A) Years Invested in Blogging: ~3.5 years; Their first blog post was written in August 2006.  During a HubSpot webinar I attended this week, Brian Halligan (one of HubSpot's co-founders) said they initially started blogging once per week.  Now, they publish almost 3 blog posts daily.

(B) Number of Blog Posts Published by HubSpot: ~1000+ as of March 31, 2010.  This is my "back-of-the-envelope" analysis based on the number of posts I found on the HubSpot Website.

 

 

2. Long Term Commitment, Patience, and Flexibility: Social Media and Inbound Marketing are No Exception


This post by John McTigue of Kuno Creative, "Disappointed By Your Inbound Marketing Results," provides realistic and practical advice when managing expectations about social media and inbound marketing.  He emphasizes four (4) points (which I've paraphrased here).  Read John's entire post because it's great: 

(A) You shouldn't expect instant success.  Time and effort are required to reach people and convert them to customers.

(B) You must build relationships, not numbers.  Create interesting content, engage people directly, and reach them with great offers and service.

(C) You must be a chameleon.  Remain flexible and tweak your strategy daily by monitoring your metrics to keep improving.

(D) Be patient.  Invest at least a year before deciding to end the program.

From personal experience, I've only been blogging for 6 months and I can speak to the time and effort required to publish this blog.  For me, John's advice is readily applicable and timely. 

 

Conclusion

Patience, Perseverance, Effort.  Last time I checked, those traits applied to "traditional marketing success" also.  I fail to see why accomplishing social media and inbound marketing success would be any different …

 

Photo Credit: From Flickr by Tony the Misfit 

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Blogging 101: The Importance of Keyword Phrases, an Idea Collection Process, and Writing Schedule

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Typewriter Six (6) months have quickly gone by since I started this blog.  Without a doubt, it's been one of the most educational, rewarding, and fulfilling experiences I've ever had.  For this post, I hope you won't mind me sharing some key lessons.

1. Keyword Phrases / Keywords are Vitally Important in Titles and URLs
Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools helped me identify the keywords and keyword phrases currently driving my blog traffic from Google searches.  For my posts landing on the first pages of Google searches, it's due to specific keywords or phrases in either the title or post URL.  Here are some examples:

* Example A — "state of inbound marketing"
* Example B — "best invitation on LinkedIn"
* Example C — "inbound marketing by brian halligan and dharmesh shah"
* Example D — "charlie rose ken auletta"

Search engine optimization (SEO) plays an important role in blogging.  Since I'm not a famous blogger with hundreds of other bloggers linking to my blog, I have to pay close attention to optimizing my titles and URLs for Google searches.  In each blog post title, I purposely use a keyword phrase or keyword that I think will have relevance or authority in Google.  Each of these blog posts earned a first-page Google search result because of the keyword phrasings I highlighted above:

* Example A — 5 Insights from HubSpot's The State of Marketing 2010 Webinar
* Example B — 3 Reasons Why I Rejected Your LinkedIn Invitation
* Example C — Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah Levels The Marketing Playing Field
* Example D — Charlie Rose's Conversation With Ken Auletta: Innovation, Efficiency, and Future Challenges at Google 

This article by Danny Sullivan, Some SEO Advices for Bill Gates, clearly explains the SEO basics and why bloggers need to incorporate SEO into their publishing. 

2. An Idea Collection Process and Writing Schedule Will Increase Your Blogging Frequency
Google rewards websites that frequently update their content.  This is why blogs perform well in search rankings.  Plus, every newly published blog post means another opportunity to index a new page in Google's search engine (which increases your chances of being found in organic searches).  That's why you want to publish posts as frequently as possible. 

When I first started, I struggled to publish a post once per week.  As part of my 2010 New Year's resolution, my weekly goal is two per week.  By focusing on this goal, I've seen an 80% increase in my blog traffic in the past four weeks.  What's been the biggest difference?

A. I started an idea collection process.  I now capture blog ideas in Google Docs, Delicious Bookmarks, or a personal email folder.  I revisit these collection areas on a periodic basis to remind myself of my original intentions or thoughts for future posts.  In the Google Docs file, I usually type out a few bullet points for future reference so I don't forget the idea.  I find this tactic especially helpful if it's an idea I that may be one of my next four (4) posts.

B. I follow a writing and publication schedule.  To hit the twice per week target, I start writing initial drafts on specific evenings or mornings.  When published, the post might not necessarily be perfect and I've learned to revise later.  And, that's a huge luxury blogs provide over other publishing mediums. 

Here's some of the best advice I've read for improving writing habits and increasing blog post frequency:

* Chris Brogan on How To Blog Almost Every Day
* Chris Brogan on 27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community
* Darren Rowse on Your First Week of Blogging — Plan Your Future Blog Posts 

What works for you so your blogs are found in Google searches?  What do you do to post more frequently? 

Please let me know.  I would love to learn from your experiences!