Posts Tagged ‘social media’

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Will social media increase users’ influence over product development?

Friday, February 12th, 2010

I was just reading Mashable’s post on Google Buzz.  What struck me most is the potential  social media has for empowering users to affect product development.

Google Buzz users “organize” to advocate for new features within days of product launch

Google announced Google Buzz earlier this week.  Today, Mashable reported that it had received “just shy of 500 responses” within several hours of  asking followers: “What features would you like to see in Google Buzz?”.

Just think about it.  This is an incredibly inexpensive way to capture market reaction and present supporting evidence to a vendor you’re trying to influence.  Let’s look at two alternatives.

Alternatives for capturing market response to a new product

Before social media, users desiring to influence product development may have chosen to conduct a survey by mail, email, or phone.  To  do so, they’d need to know who had experience with the product and how to reach them.  Of these alternatives, only email has the potential to promise rapid turnaround time.  Nevertheless,  it would be difficult to obtain a large enough list to get this high a response rate.  It also would have taken considerable time and effort to assemble the list and use it to get the message out.

Another alternative would have been to use some sort of broadcast media to get the message out.  This would have obviated the need to get names, but broadcast media–such as print, radio and TV advertising– is generally expensive for that very reason.  Even placements in highly targeted publications are rarely free.

Will blogs that can speak for many succeed in influencing product development?

Using a blog to find out what others want–and letting the world know seems an awfully effective way to influence product developers.  I know that developing a blog capable of attracting 500 responses isn’t free either.  It takes a lot of work to build a following large enough to draw that many responses.   Moreover, only a small percentage of readers of any post tend to actively contribute; and not every follower reads every post.

Still, using a blog to rally support for new features is a lot quicker and cheaper way to influence product developers than the alternatives–and pretty cool.

How do you think Google Buzz will respond?

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Social media: Insights from an in-house specialist

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Most B2B companies are just beginning to dip their toe in the social media marketing waters.  Consequently, I was delighted when Alan Belniak, the newly appointed Director of Social Media Marketing at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) agreed to an interview about how his company is approaching social media and why.

My questions appear in bold followed by his answers.  Here’s what he had to say:

Why did PTC create your position?

Twelve to eighteen months ago, the company’s senior marketing executives realized that conversations happen online whether or not PTC participates–and determined the company needed to take a more active role.  They considered various approaches but ultimately decided they needed a full-time resource.  For one thing, PTC is a large organization with almost $1 billion in revenues. For another, it was clear that social media was here to stay.

What does PTC hope you’ll achieve?

Better engagement with customers.  People that participate online tend to be more engaged than those that don’t.

Engagement is the name of the game.  Engagement equals a valuable brand.  Valuable brands attract more customers.

My job is helping PTC marketers determine where to spend time and how to spend it.  The key is figuring out how to create and promote good content.  If you pump out seven blogs in a week, you run the risk of overwhelming your audience.

How does your company view social media complementing other initiatives?

There are several ways.  For one, social media will augment other marketing activities.

Because of the nature of social media, perhaps it will reduce spend.  I use the word “perhaps” intentionally as it will only reduce costs if we can get more data for less money.

Social media can also help you get better qualified leads.  At a recent Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council meeting, Amy Black from Kadient said something along the lines of “A discussion through social media beats a cold call every day.”  If you do something that causes someone to take action–and let you know they’re interested–that’s better than pursuing them.

Today, the focus is on marketing.  In the future, my personal hope is that the entire corporation will incorporate social media into their operations.

What are your primary responsibilities as Director of Social Media Marketing?

My primary responsibility is to help the company leverage social media in its marketing efforts.  I consult with marketers about how they can integrate social media into campaigns they are planning, and how they can put more power behind existing programs.

I also monitor social communications, “separating the signal from the noise”, to identify opportunities for PTC to take a more active role.  For example, I look for mentions of PTC, our products, and keywords, such as “PLM software” (product lifecycle management) that relate to our business.

Because we’re a global company, I also determine what tools to use in other countries by reviewing third-party research, interviewing local marketing experts, and traveling to other countries to learn more about what people are using there. Different cultures consume information in different ways.  For example, some countries, such as Germany, place a different value on face-to-face conversations than others.  If online activity doesn’t influence the conversation, then it doesn’t make sense to invest heavily in social media in those places.

What listening tools are you using?

I’m glad you asked that, because listening is so important.  We use a number of free tools such as Twitter’s advanced search, BackTweets (which effectively reverses “the shorten URL process” to find terms that were in the original URL but are no longer visible), Social Mention, and OMGILI (an aggregator that displays results visually).  We also use BoardTracker to search discussion boards.

In addition, it’s important to search on sites that are specific to your industry–and look through the sites themselves.  For example, I bookmark PLM–and CAD-related websites and then enter my keywords in their search bars.

We listen to traffic on three large networks:  Facebook, Linked In and Twitter; because that’s where audiences have conversations about business–or blur the line between business and personal.  When it comes to Twitter, my main interest is the links that people share.

You need to use a suite of tools.  You can’t rely on a single tool, because none of them do everything. You also need to accept that, initially, you will get overwhelmed–but you need to get over it.  You can refine your process over time–and use aggregators like Social Mention.

You want to get a rough sense of where things are happening.  If you record all the mentions of your search terms, you’ll go batty.

You just want to understand where the conversation is happening, what people are saying about you:  the questions they have, the tips they offer others, how they feel about you) and the media they use (audio, visual, file exchanges), etc.  If we can answer those questions, then we know where to focus our time, what content we are seeking, and how to deliver it.

I also should add that not all the information we get is free.  Our PR agency uses a third-party tool to produce a thick report of all the times that our company gets mentioned and nice-looking graphs.

We pay for this service to leverage our time.  They search many sites (both relevant and less relevant); and we use this data to understand trends, such as where certain types of conversations are happening, and the general content of those conversations (such as the media they use, as mentioned previously).

Where are you focusing your initial efforts and why?

We are listening to hear where the conversations happen so we know where and how to engage: what channels to use, what content to create, who to follow, what media to use.  I’m also teaching the corporation how to engage with social media.

How will PTC know if you’re successful?

The first indication will be 1.0 metrics such as page views over time and unique visitors. Moving forward, though, you need to change what you measure, and measure what you change.

To bridge the gap to 2.0 metrics, we’ll look at better forms of engagement (such as the ratio of comments to posts to measure how deep the conversation is and average unique comment per post that tells you how many people you’ve engaged).

Then, there are intermediary measures.  For example, Facebook now allows users who won’t comment to just click to indicate that they “like” a particular post.

Initially, you’ll want to look at the aggregate, rather than the specific.  There are no widely agreed-upon metrics that I’ve found — but since everything is online, it’s still easier to measure the ROI of social media than the ROI of a billboard.

What’s been the biggest surprise in your new role?

Although there is a general awareness of social media, inside our company, it is very new to most people and initially, they weren’t clear as to how to apply it in their day-to-day marketing efforts. As I’ve dug into this role, I’ve learned that this is not uncommon amongst B2B companies.  Social media is so new that there is a lot of education needed inside a company to aid adoption.

Why do you think that is?

The adoption of online social networking was very rapid, likely attributable to Facebook (and others).  Since Facebook is primarily seen as a casual or truly social site (as in, non-professional), I think people associated it with kids and socializing.  They likely extended this thinking into other forms of online social networking.  However, Facebook is just one form of online social networking.

Other forms of social networking (online and offline) exist, too – for example, moving into a new neighborhood and asking for a good plumber – that’s an example of and ‘old fashioned’ offline social network.  But the social mores and rules are the same.

In addition, some people may have tried something small in one or two social arenas (for example, purchasing ads or trying a reach-out campaign), and may not have gotten the results they were seeking.  In doing so, they may ascribe their less-than-desirable results in one social arena to all social arenas.  For example, I thought that a recent article in the New York Times about how people often base their impressions on a single data point was a great take on this phenomenon.

What’s your largest unanswered question about social media at PTC?

How long until it “pays off”?  By that I mean, “When will I be able to make a stronger correlation between our marketing efforts to stimulate engagement, and its ultimate effect on sales, revenue, and profit?”.

Altimeter produced a report that shows that the more engaged a brand is with customers, the greater their annual revenues are.  Companies that do participate online are more engaged with their customers.

Customer engagement equals a valuable brand.  A valuable brand leads to increased sales.  It also goes without saying that this leads to happier customers.

We’ve covered a lot of ground about your perspectives on social media.  What else should we cover?

I’m glad that you asked about listening platforms earlier.  That’s where it starts.

One of the greatest challenges is getting people to listen before acting.  I wrote a fairly comprehensive strategy from scratch.  You need to figure out what you want to accomplish first. Else, the first time you fail, someone will ask, “Why did you do that?  It doesn’t make sense.”

My own research shows that people who want a social media strategy often want to jump into interaction.  If you don’t know what’s important to your customers, prospects, or users, or where the conversations are happening, how can you have an impact?

I liken this to a cocktail party…You don’t show up at someone’s house and say, “buy my stuff”.  You show up, survey the landscape, and maybe find someone you know.  You listen in on a few conversations before you add a comment or two.  As the evening progresses, in addition to adding comments into conversations, you strike up your own conversation.  Before the night is over, people are joining your conversations and looking to you for what you have to say.

Online social networking and the use of social media is similar.  Starting by listening and offering comments is a better bet than jumping into a sales pitch or a “go look at our stuff” mentality with respect to a web presence.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I love my job.  I appreciate that PTC gave me this opportunity and admire the company for being so forward thinking.

Also, I’d be remiss to talk about social media and not provide people additional ways to find me online.  My Twitter ID is abelniak (@abelniak ; http://www.twitter.com/abelniak), and my blog address is http://www.SubjectivelySpeaking.net

Hear more from Alan this Thursday morning when he’ll be speaking on Social Media: What’s In It For You? in Cambridge, MA at a NEDMA event.

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What are your marketing priorities for 2010?

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

A quick search on Google indicates that surveys about business-to-business (B2B) marketing priorities tend to concentrate on tactics–rather than strategy. They also tend to focus on investments in various types of promotional activities, rather than the greater marketing picture. As for strategy, at least one survey seems to indicate that in a tight economy, B2B companies rank demand generation first and then raising awareness.

What happened to the focus on the customer?

The irony is that gaining deeper insights into customer, or prospect needs, rarely shows up as a priority, let alone a high priority. Why not?

Is it because investments in gaining customer knowledge are not of interest to those doing the surveys? Or, do researchers assume that everyone knows all they need to know about customers?

Or, is the assumption that some form of marketing research, win/loss analysis, or customer data mining is an integral part of any marketing campaign–and therefore does not need singling out? Or, do researchers know from past experience, that while everyone realizes gaining customer insights is important, it’s not a primary focus or one in which companies invest heavily?

I don’t know the answer. I do know that while many companies do invest in learning more about their customers, others feel that they know enough–and/or cannot afford to learn more. The question is can any of us afford not to delve deeper into what matters most to those we depend on for revenues?

Isn’t customer knowledge power?

The devil is often in the details–and nuances in capabilities and/or messaging can make a tremendous difference. That’s why it’s not uncommon for consumer goods marketers, the messaging masters, to invest 10% of the anticipated cost of any marketing campaign in upfront marketing research.

Moreover, we all know of “first movers” that lost the race because they didn’t move down the learning curve. Instead, competitors pulled ahead by making slight, but significant modifications to the core offering or message.

Is everyone focused solely on lead gen?

From reading the marketing trade press, one gets the impression that a lot of companies do believe that deep customer insights drive sales.  These companies are investing in:

  • Data mining tools that will help them pinpoint their most promising prospects and understand exactly what helped win their business
  • Social communities that help assess the desirability of products and marketing messages before committing to their delivery
  • Usability testing to find and remove product design elements that get in customers’ way
  • Social media listening tools that enable marketers to determine where audiences turn for information–and what communications resonate most with them–before jumping in the fray
  • Marketing campaign software that includes the ability to monitor conversions and determine what worked–and what didn’t
  • Sales enablement solutions that make it easy to create and test responses to alternative lists, messages, and offers

Gaining deep customer insights doesn’t need to be expensive

Investments in increasing customer intimacy are not limited to large companies.  While many smaller companies may not have the financial or human resources to invest in the automated listening tools listed above, they have other options at their disposal.

Many of our clients gain deep insights by easy-to-administer programs such as:

  • Using free social media listening tools to monitor market trends, conversations about the need for the solutions their companies offer, and any mention of their name and/or their competition’s
  • Interviewing customers and prospects to learn about the steps these individuals took before making a recent purchase decision–and what triggered these actions
  • Developing case studies about the benefits that satisfied customers derived from their solutions
  • Following customers, and those who influence decisions about their products and services, on Twitter

The question, however, isn’t what others are doing, but what you’re doing. Will this be the year of the customer for your business?

Ready to start today? Test your customer IQ now!

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Posted in Buying process model, Internet marketing, Marketing communications programs, Marketing strategy, social media | 2 Comments »

Use of Social Media for Marketing Medical Devices

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Last summer, Robert DeSimone of MediComm Consultants, Inc., a colleague from the Medical Development Group, mentioned that several of his clients had inquired about social media. Recognizing that medical device companies face special marketing challenges because they are regulated by the FDA, we decided to go right to the source. Here’s what we learned:

Is social media part of the medical device marketing mix?

Our primary objective was to learn whether and how medical device companies are using social media to communicate with prospects and customers, and the effect that FDA regulation or the lack thereof, is having on these activities.

Our methodology

We developed an online survey to learn more about what types of medical device companies are using social media, how they’re using it, what they hope to accomplish, and how they will measure success. We partnered with medical device trade associations and on-line social communities to distribute the survey and solicit participation.

Then, we conducted qualitative interviews with a subset of respondents to learn more about how their companies were using social media. This subset encompassed individuals working for an FDA-regulated concern that are using social media as a company.

The respondents

The sample was self-selected in that members of the groups that participated in the survey could opt whether or not to participate. The trade associations we partnered with are in California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota. We focused on these three areas due to the heavy representation of medical device companies within these geographies.

Most of the social communities were sponsored by LinkedIn and focus on the medical device industry. A couple of the groups are associated with the partner trade associations. We specifically excluded pharmaceutical concerns, as this segment, unlike the medical device industry, has traditionally been more aggressive in directly pursuing consumers.

251 people participated in the survey. Fifty-seven percent of the total respondents work for regulated medical device companies; and, of the regulated group, 67% work for companies with greater than 51 employees.

The individual participants work in a number of functions. Our report, however, focused on those whose jobs include communications with customers or prospects. Of these, only 11% work for companies that include social media in the marketing mix.

We conducted follow-up interviews with five survey respondents, all of whom work for FDA-regulated companies and use social media to communicate with customers and prospects.

How medical device professionals and medical device companies are using social media

Our analysis focused on respondents who work for FDA-regulated companies. Of these, 63% use social media for job-related activities, and only a subset, (16%), use social media to communicate with customers and prospects.

Of the FDA-regulated companies that use social media to communicate with customers and prospects, most have been using social media for less than six months. They are still in the early stages and are testing multiple social media venues.

In most of these companies, the Marketing Department initiated these communications. Only one company, among the 18 that use social media to communicate with customers or prospects, indicated that they have been able to quantify success. Nevertheless, all plan to continue funding at current levels or increase the funding for their social media programs.

Individual medical device marketers’ perspectives on social media

The responses to the follow-up qualitative interviews were relatively consistent with the quantitative findings. Everyone we interviewed had started using social media relatively recently and most were careful to limit posts to content previously approved for press releases, website, and/or print communications. All the respondents we interviewed said that Marketing had initiated the company’s foray into social media.

In one case, the marketing executive learned that their customers were active social media users from her customer advisory council. She decided to pursue social media marketing because she felt it was important that the company participate in the conversation.

In another case, the company’s agency recommended that they begin participating in social media. In the remaining cases, the companies began experimenting with social media because their competition was already actively involved. Most engaged the services of an agency to jump start the process.

Most of the respondents researched the market and the competition before jumping into social media. At least, one company also established social media guidelines. A couple reported the differences in participation levels they are seeing between consumers and clinicians; and even more interesting, that there are participation differences among clinicians in different roles and medical specialties.

The respondents told us they were listening as well as posting. The listening tools they use run the gamut from Google Alerts to one company’s decision to pay an agency to listen in their stead.

It was our sense, however, that the listening and the posting were somewhat independent, and not necessarily social conversations per se. That is, companies listened to learn what was important to their prospects and to determine where to post. Nevertheless, because they limited their posts to pre-approved content, outgoing communications were not necessarily in direct response to what others were saying.

As for measurement, most expressed the desire to do so, but didn’t believe they had a definitive approach. One pointed to retweets and the opportunity to discover, and congratulate a customer about a recent award as early indications of success. Perhaps due to their short social media tenure, and the restrictions they face as a regulated industry, most had relatively few followers.

Perhaps surprising, except in the case of one respondent, FDA restrictions were not the major concern about launching social media programs. It was our impression that these marketers had accepted the fact that medical devices are a regulated industry with a given set of constraints.

Instead, the respondents appeared more concerned about resource limitations. None had a dedicated social media resource, although several commented that their competitors did. One didn’t even have time to do much listening on a consistent basis.

Medical device companies believe they must participate in social media to remain competitive

The medical device companies that we interviewed are in the early stages of social media participation. Most are optimistic that social media will accelerate their marketing efforts, but few have enough data to measure success. Nevertheless, they feel they must participate to learn or risk being left behind. That said, medical device companies are likely to lag the competition, at least until the FDA clarifies the regulations governing the use of social media.

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Social Media Marketing for Job Search

Monday, November 9th, 2009

More often than not, when I’m invited to speak it’s about marketing strategies that businesses can use to attract and capture businesses from other businesses. Typical topics include “Getting into Your Buyers’ Mind”, “Developing Compelling Value Propositions”, “Systematically Creating Referrals”, “Online Marketing”, and lately “Social Media Marketing”.

This month, however, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tufts alumni on how to use social media marketing techniques to land their next position. I don’t know which was more exciting doing the actual presentation–or preparing for it.

Looking for a job is just another form of marketing

Now, I’ve spoken on searching for a job before, because it’s really just another form of marketing–only the job seeker is the “product”. The new wrinkle was figuring out when, where, and how to use social media to supplement conventional job search techniques.

I started by making a list of all the normal activities that one would do when looking for a job. Examples include researching the industry, conducting informational interviews to narrow the focus of the search, getting the word out that you’re looking, networking to identify promising companies and opportunities, and figuring out how to stand out from the competition.

Social media marketing accelerates the process

While making this list, I realized that getting a job is a very social activity–and that social media is ideally suited to accelerate the process. Where social media really excels is in quickly finding out what’s hot, showcasing your expertise to colleagues and strangers alike, and staying top of mind with those who may hear about job opportunities.

To help job seekers find out what’s hot, I recommended automated ongoing Twitter searches via Tweetdeck. For showcasing their expertise, I suggested using the status updates in Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter to raise awareness of their accomplishments and direct their network to information these individuals would find valuable.

I particularly recommended Twitter since it is searchable by everyone. Therefore, those that found their content helpful might choose to follow them and join the network of individuals that opt for direct communications.

First impressions count: but marketers say it takes 7 to make an impact

Marketers say that it takes 7 impressions to make an impact. When it comes to staying top of mind, nothing beats social media. That’s because it offers the opportunity to communicate regularly without being a pest.

Most people use social media to keep their finger on the pulse. Unlike email which they tend to use for mission-critical communications, people check social media when they want to know what’s going on in the work, in their industry, with their colleagues, and/or their friends. So, they expect to receive news that’s interesting but not necessarily essential. Of course, it’s incumbent on senders to deliver interesting content if they don’t want to risk being “unfollowed”, blocked, or worse yet, “unfriended”.

Using social media to research the presentation: The medium is the message

The topics I’ve covered thus far are the topics I anticipated discussing when I agreed to do the presentation. What made the preparation so interesting was some of the other things I learned on the way.

About a week before I set out to write the presentation, I created a Tweetdeck search on “job search”. Through that, I discovered that there was a hash tag for job search–so I altered my search.

Shortly thereafter, I stumbled upon some information sources that I never knew existed. Perhaps the most interesting was Glassdoor.com. This site provides the information everyone cares about most– what it will be like to actually work at the company with whom you’re interviewing. Visit it to view anonymous reviews about the pros and cons of working for various employers.

Finally, it came time to give the presentation. To my surprise, most of the people who came were fully-employed. Perhaps some were looking for their next opportunity, but most said they came to learn more about social media marketing. To see a copy of the presentation, please visit my LinkedIn profile and scroll down to the slideshow. Then, please let me know what you would add to improve upon this presentation.

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Social Media Breakfast (SMB15) serves up great insights and recommendations

Friday, August 7th, 2009

One of my clients, a membership organization, is facing a challenging problem. The Board would like to recruit younger members to ensure that the organization continues.

One of the issues our team has been trying to address is, “How do you attract and retain new community members—when these prospective members start out with little in common with current members?”

Luckily for me, I attended a social media breakfast in Boston(#15) this morning. There, Communispace CEO, Diane Hessan, was the last speaker at an event entitled “SMB15: The Power and Peril of Online Communities.

If anyone has deep insights into the power and perils of online communities, it’s Diane Hessan. Her team at Communispace has been building online communities for ten years.

Today, Communispace hosts vibrant communities for some of the biggest brands in the US—companies like GlaxoSmithKline, HP, and Hallmark. This morning, however, Diane told us that her company didn’t achieve success overnight.

As Diane began to speak about lessons learned, I quickly realized that my client could learn a lot from her experience. Yes, my client’s community is a conventional offline community. Yet, I believe many of the same principles that the SMB15 speakers presented will apply.

Online communities are like cocktail parties

One of the speakers likened an online community to a cocktail party. As with a cocktail party, the success of a community depends on a lot of effort on someone’s part.

This effort includes welcoming guests when they arrive, encouraging them to stay by introducing them to others, including them in the conversation, and giving them a great experience so that they come back again.

In short, as the first speaker, Bryan Person, Social Media Evangelist at LiveWorld pointed out, it takes a great host to throw a great party. He then remarked that in an online community, the host is the community manager.

Community managers play an important role in on-line communities

Up next, Rachel Happe, Principal at Community Roundtable, spoke about the important role the community manager plays in building a strong community. Both Rachel and Diane suggested hiring an event manager for this role.

Just as at a party, this person needs to set the tone. Online or offline, it’s important that this individual engage with other members of the community directly.

People are attracted by other people. Diane said that just as you’re asking community members to share their thoughts, ideas and/or experiences, it is important for community managers to also reveal a little bit about themselves.

Social glue binds on-line communities

Another related concept is “social glue”. Social glue is what holds communities together, and keeps participants coming back. Diane noted that the more involved people are in the community, the stronger the social glue.

The key to involvement over time, therefore, cannot fall to the community manager alone. Instead, community managers need to stimulate conversations between members.

For some communities, these conversations come about quite naturally. As an example, Diane referenced one airline’s frequent fliers. These road warriors spend all their time on planes–so the airline and the passengers’ travel experiences are top of mind.

It’s much harder to build a social community around brands that are central to peoples’ lives. Diane described the challenges a toothpaste company faced when trying to build the strong ties among their members.

Since most people spend relatively little time thinking about brushing their teeth, it was unlikely that they would bond over their brushing experiences. Hence, the community manager encouraged conversations by reaching out to a subgroup of young mothers.

The community manager then engaged these women in conversations about their family lives. As Diane explained, dividing a large disparate community into subgroups makes it easier to nurture the “social glue” it takes to hold a community together.

Building on-line communities takes patience and sustained efforts

One of the cautions that Rachel offered, and Diane reinforced, is that communities take a long time—and sustained effort–to build. In Rachel’s experience, it’s not uncommon to see relatively low flat participation for a long time.

Sometimes, there are spikes when a community manager initiates an effective campaign. Yet, the overall trend is still flat–until the community reaches a critical point. Then, if everything goes right, growth will accelerate.

Would be community builders, such as my client, therefore should prepare to make a sustained effort for a long period of time before things take off. My sense was that that time period can be a year or longer.

Listening is an underrated marketing strategy

The need to sustain one’s efforts throughout brings me to the next point. Diane quipped that “listening is an underrated marketing strategy”.

Communities are a great way to learn about what matters most to members. On the other hand, once you set the expectation that you care about what others think, it’s important to follow through. If you don’t sustain your efforts, and respond to their recommendations, you’ll just alienate your community.

When you do listen, however, it pays dividends. Diane told us about the first time one of Communispace’s early clients experienced a spike in traffic. The SWAT team–that Diane assigned to figure out what created such a high level of engagement—identified critical success factors and what Communispace and its client could do to achieve even better outcomes in the future.

Case Example: Millenials and Gen Xers

Toward the end of her presentation, Diane provided some specific case examples. My ears perked up when she began discussing the experiences that Charles Schwab had when it first tried to attract younger investors.

I began to listen very hard, when as an aside, she mentioned the difficulties that financial service companies, and for that matter health care providers, face in getting social media communications approved.

This was of particular interest to me because this is something my health care clients worry about a lot. It is also one of the questions that my colleague, Robert DeSimone, of Medicomm Inc., and I are currently querying medical device companies about in our survey about medical device companies’ use of social media–but I digress.

Diane quickly reviewed what Charles Schwab and Communispace learned when they set out to attract millenials and Gen Xers. For one thing, terms such as “retirement” and “no load funds”–which are part of the vernacular for baby boomers–mean little to the next generations. Retirement is far away. Since, as it turned out, most young people use checking accounts as their primary investment vehicle, “no load” was not a term with which they were familiar.

Different communities require different marketing tactics

Communispace and Schwab also learned that communicating with young people is fundamentally different. This population is “always on” from the very moment they awake in the morning. Moreover, the technology of choice is likely to be a mobile phone.

Once again, “listening” paid dividends. Schwab introduced a high-interest checking account that was a great success.

What does this all mean for would be community builders?

What does all of this mean for my client? It appears that if they want to attract individuals from a younger generation, they may have to do things differently—and it may take a lot of time.

On the other hand, if they are patient, invest in applying some of the best practices the SMB#15 speakers recommended, and sustain their efforts, they have the potential to attract and retain the prospective members they most want.

Social Media Breakfast: Go directly to the source

Thanks so much to Bob Collins, who hosts Social Media Breakfasts in the Boston area, event sponsors LiveWorld and Communispace, and the speakers that made this a fantastic event. This is just a taste of what they served at breakfast. You may want to check out hashtag #SMB15 on Twitter to get all the details

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Social Media Overload–How to make sense of it all

Friday, June 19th, 2009


By Barbara Bix -
Blogs and Linked In and Twitter, oh my! So much information, so little time… It’s all a bit overwhelming.

Imagine my relief when Peter Buechler, publisher of the Marketing Guy 2.0, told me that help was on the way. Full of hope and expectations I set off to attend this morning’s breakfast meeting: Social Media Overload—How to Make Sense of It All.

Kudos to the organizers

It was a fabulous morning with fantastic presentations packed with worthwhile information. That said I realized that I misinterpreted the title. Rather than addressing the problem of information overload, the conference offered ideas for reducing the time and effort it takes to process data. Thanks to Bob Collins and Diane Hession of Communispace for hosting a useful and informative event!

Start with aggregation

First up was Joe Cascio from People Browsr. When he asked, “How many social networks can you go to?” I knew I had met a kindred soul.

Joe then showed us a product he’s developed that will enable you to filter and view posts from multiple social media feeds (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) on a single dashboard. His perspective: “You shouldn’t have to go to multiple sites every time you want to communicate. After all, I don’t have 50 telephones”.

The “overload” is real

Before the audience became too complacent, Michael Durwin of Gathr Me upset the applecart with his company’s pitch video. This video presented statistic after statistic showing how many people add content to the Internet every day. For example, “Did you know that 184 million people publish a blog?”.

Tuning out is not an option

Tongue in cheek, Marta Kagan offered another solution for managing information overload—just stop listening. I have to admit that I’ve executed on that strategy more than once—because I didn’t have time to process all the information I so diligently gather.

She then warned the audience that shutting down is not an option. Instead, companies need to be diligent about “listening” to what’s being said about them—and more important to who is pretending to be them and speaking for them–or they’d end up like Exxon

Know what matters and don’t lose focus

Actually neither Michael nor Marta left the audience hanging. Michael advised defining clear objectives and Marta reminded the audience to concentrate their attention on the areas that mattered most to them.

To do so, they recommended basic tools such as RSS Feeds, Google and other readers, content aggregators, Google alerts and Twitter searches. One of Michael’s suggestions, that made me uncomfortable from a privacy perspective, was that we aggregate all our information using a single tool such as Gmail.

Extracting meaning is the holy grail

The last speaker, Michael Troiano sits on the board of Crimson Hexagon. Michael offered another great quote: “Data is abundant. Information is free. Meaning is what matters most.”

Crimson Hexagon has software that mathematically analyzes social conversations with the goal of extracting meaning. Michael told us about a recent project where the goal was to find out about how people feel about men’s grooming products.

The analysis showed that people care about effectiveness and price and that more people care about effectiveness than price—conclusions that the company’s marketers anticipated. The big surprise, however, was that men also want the product to feel good when they’re using it.

Michael then pointed out that this is just the beginning. When paired with a tools that tracks which content was produced by the most authoritative sources, marketers can also determine what or who drives interest in a particular product characteristic (such as effectiveness, price, or scent).

As someone who does a lot of marketing research, I was impressed with the potential power of this tool to help segment markets, develop buyer personas, and reduce research costs. As a marketing strategist, however, the real value will come from really pinpointing where companies should invest to wield the most influence over purchasers in each market segment they address.

Back to metrics

During the question and answer period, a number of people discussed metrics including Dell’s recent claim that Twitter had generated more than $3 million in revenue in 2008. The speakers were united in insisting that the only metric that matters is sales.

One distinguished between three activities: monitoring, engagement and activity. He said that social media can help with engagement but engagement does not translate directly to sales.

What engagement does do is build social equity. It brings people to the table and they may refer others to the table. But there are no sales until someone executes an activity. In the case of Dell, a message and an offer delivered via Twitter caused people to execute the activity of going to a landing page and making a purchase.

In short, the sales were produced by conventional direct marketing. Or, as one speaker noted, the strategies remain the same, social media only changes the tactics.

How do you manage the torrent of information?

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably a consumer of social information. Are you overwhelmed by the sheer amount of fascinating information out there? If so, what’s your strategy for staying on top of it—given there are still only 24 hours in a day?

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Social Media: So What?

Thursday, June 4th, 2009


By Barbara Bix -

One way or another, that’s what a lot of people that I know are asking. Here are snippets from five conversations I’ve had in the last week—followed by my own observations.

So what’s the big deal?

Tuesday morning, I gave a presentation on Social Media 101 to the Boston Chapter of the Wharton Alumni club. There was a lot of interest and a lot of questions about how members could use social media to increase their revenues.

Nevertheless, at least one person wondered whether it was just a fad—and a tremendous waste of time. His experience was that most posters’ communications seemed to focus on the details of the publisher’s life—things that would probably be of little use or interest to anyone outside the poster’s closest associates.

So what am I missing?

Wednesday afternoon, a prospective client called to discuss the first draft of her social media marketing plan. She had clearly outlined her business objectives and developed a detailed tactical plan. Specifics included target social media platforms, desired frequency of communications, examples of tools/content needed to foster (internal and external) participant engagement, and resource requirements. Her question was: “So what am I missing?”

So what’s the best use of our time?

Last Friday, I met with the Marketing Director of a sizable division of a large firm. His greatest concern was the amount of time it takes to produce—and even keep abreast—of relevant social media. And, I thought that was mostly a problem for smaller companies.

His greatest need: metrics on the ROI of various social media marketing strategies and tactics. As he said, without that information, it’s difficult to decide where to invest constrained staff time—and impossible to justify decisions to company executives.

So what is working?

While there aren’t as many metrics on the ROI of social media – yet – as there are for more conventional marketing strategies, there are some. Yesterday morning, I attended a meeting of the Business Lawyers’ Network organized by Roger Glovsky where Erik J. Heels spoke about one of his successes. Upon realizing that the ROI he was getting from direct mail – which in the past had returned in excess of 400%–was approaching zero, Erik ramped up his social media marketing efforts.

About six months ago, building on what he had learned from his direct marketing experience, Erik launched a Twitter campaign with a compelling offer–free trademarks for start ups. Since then, other social media publishers have spread the word by retweeting it and commenting on it in their blogs (just as I’ve done here).

The result? Erik broke even in 30 days and has added one new client per week since launching the campaign six months ago. Each client, on average, files four trademarks, so he counts on the follow-on business to pay for the first free filing. The offer keeps on giving since his Twitter bio features the website link: http://FreeTrademarksForStartups.com.

So what can we learn?

Social media marketing, when backed by strong strategic thinking, is very powerful. Witness Erik’s success. That said, having a social media marketing strategy is key. Else, as the Wharton alum noted social media marketing can be a tremendous waste of time—both for creators and for consumers.

For that reason, my advice to the prospect, who yesterday asked me what she’s missing from her plan, was to suggest that she approach social media marketing as she does conventional marketing. That is start by identifying who she needs to reach—and what events need to occur—before she can achieve her business objectives.

Then, it’s a matter of figuring out how to engage these individuals by finding out:

  • where do they turn for information,
  • what sources do they trust most, and
  • what format works best for them.

Only then, will she know whether to invest in testing social media platforms and tactics, which ones to choose, and how to make the most of her company’s time and money…

Finally, I advised her to review her metrics. Her plan had been to generate a large number of visitors, page views, and followers. But, the plan didn’t indicate how she knew that any of these metrics would actually translate to

  • greater performance of the actions she hoped to motivate,
  • faster performance of the desired actions,
    • or achievement of her ultimate objectives.

    I suggested, therefore, that she test these assumptions before making major investments. One way to do so would be to collect initial data and then look backwards.

    Was there any correlation between execution of the desired actions and passive or active use of social media tools? And, if so, where was the correlation greatest—and did it differ by type of target audience? In short, I recommended that she gather exactly the information that the Marketing Director was seeking to determine where, and if, to invest in social media.

    In conclusion

    The questions that I heard this past week are pretty similar to the questions I hear every week about social media marketing. Different people are using social media for different things—and some have more experience than others—so it’s not surprising to hear a broad range of questions and/or conclusions.

    I believe it’s foolish to dismiss social media just because a lot of people aren’t using it effectively. What matters most is not how others are using it—but what’s in it for you both as a content consumer and a content creator. Much like other marketing initiatives, it’s all about data-driven choices.

    So what is on your mind about social media marketing?

    Are you thinking about it at all? If not, why not? What’s worked for you and what hasn’t? If so, what questions do you have?

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Social media adoption: How will marketing spending patterns change?

Monday, May 11th, 2009

Although social media adoption rates are still relatively low—more and more companies are jumping in. And, as they do, we may see a dramatic shift in marketing spending patterns.

Today, most B2B companies are just dipping their toes in the social media waters. Some have launched blogs. Others are experimenting with Twitter. Still others are adopting a wait and see attitude.

Yet, if the conversation at a recent event hosted by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council is any indication, most B2B marketers are ready to move forward. Right now, their biggest challenge is figuring out how to justify social media investments to skeptical management teams.

As I wrote in a recent article on using social media to accelerate sales, I believe the search for ROI is just a temporary hurdle. Early adopters are already beginning to address these questions. Moreover, many conventional marketing investments are difficult to measure—and there’s no reason to believe that it will be harder to measure their social media counterparts.

Social media represents a thin slice of marketing budgets

So far, social media has had relatively little impact on marketing spending patterns. In fact, everything I’ve read reports that companies are still spending most of their money on conventional marketing programs. Moreover, most of the money marketers are spending online is going to email newsletters, search engine marketing, or fulfillment of these and other direct marketing campaigns. Those B2B marketers that are launching social media campaigns are still experimenting–and most of the early adopters are just running pilot projects.

That’s changing very quickly though and the question in my mind is, “How will marketing spending patterns change as companies’ use of social media increases?” Here are some predictions.

Spending on content production will increase

Spending on content production will increase as word of mouth marketing moves online. Traditionally, word of mouth spread from person to person—usually one at a time. Most people only had conversations with those they knew and trusted—or those that these individuals introduced to them. Moreover, these conversations didn’t start until after the buyer identified a need.

Today, conversations start earlier. Rather than just contacting their colleagues for information, prospects turn to blogs to explore their options. That means that marketers who want to guide the conversation need to join the conversation earlier—either as a blogger or as a commenter on others’ blogs. Either way, they need to produce engaging content if they want to capture attention and shape prospects’ buying criteria. And, since there’s no barrier to publishing blogs, marketers often need to produce a lot of content to cover all their bases.

Once they identify a need, buyers usually turn to others for help with selection and to validate their impressions. In the past, these influencers included others at buyers’ companies, trusted advisors, and perhaps reference accounts proffered by Sales.

In the future, prospects may tap their social networks for customer reviews or to identify others who have had direct experience with the vendors they are considering. This means that marketers will need to maintain a presence in all the places where those that influence the buying decision congregate. They’ll need to create content to keep fans engaged—and address detractors’ concerns.

This spending will span all media

Today, most marketing communications are delivered in print. Now that it is no longer expensive or difficult to produce and deliver content in other media, more companies will deliver audiovisual communications online and audio communications via podcast.

Companies will bring content producers in-house

Due to the sheer volume of communications, companies will require full-time personnel to prepare engaging content for humans, optimize it for search engines, and measure its success. Rather than outsourcing creative and analytic functions to agencies, marketing departments will bring writers, graphic designers, and videographers in house.

Companies will allocate funds for social media platforms

Rather than re-inventing the wheel, companies will invest in browser-based solutions that will help them easily and cost-effectively develop, launch, test, and adjust social media campaigns. They will “rent” SaaS solutions rather than “buy” off packaged software to ensure they always have the latest technology.

Companies may reduce spending on public relations

Reporters are already trolling the web in search of news—rather than waiting for company press releases. If this trend continues, companies may reduce the money they spend on PR professionals to raise aware of their companies and solutions.

Small companies may increase spending on business intelligence

Today, few small companies invest in business intelligence on an ongoing basis—mostly because this information is not readily available. While they couldn’t afford in-depth marketing research, travel to customer sites, or even analyst reports, small companies may be able to justify lurking and listening to conversations among bloggers and within social networks.

What are your predictions?

If these predictions prove true, tomorrow’s marketing staffs will look very different–even though their goals and objectives will remain the same. Online marketing has already changed marketing spending patterns. Social media will also have an impact. Where do you think we’ll see these changes next—and how do you think they’ll impact the overall marketing budget—and the way companies structure their marketing organizations?

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Who reads blogs anyway?

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

Google the title of this article and you’ll find lots of statistics on who reads blogs. That said you may not know anyone who reads blogs. I believe that blogs are worth writing—even if no one reads them right away.

The reason? When readers are ready, the blogs will still be there. And that’s the power of on-line content.

Blog statistics track traffic and level of interest

I know this from direct experience. According to the statistics my blog collects, a lot of visitors find my blog posts weeks or even months after I originally publish. Most of these latecomers find my site when searching for information on a particular subject. Many stick around long enough to read several other posts. A smaller, but significant, number subscribe so they can receive future posts.

Social media is word of mouth on steroids

Rich content attracts visitors. Visitors that like the content recommend it to others by clicking on social media widgets such as Digg, Delicious, Technorati, and StumbleUpon.

The social media widgets in turn link back to the posts that the readers found valuable. As the links accumulate, search engine rankings rise. Higher search engine rankings then attract even more readers and more links and so it goes.

New media distribution channels drive new business model for Public TV

The value of rich content was reinforced by Jonathan Abbott, WGBH CEO and President when he spoke at the Boston Club earlier this month. In response to a question about how new content distribution models were affecting public television’s business model, he shared the following observations.

According to Abbott, now that multiple channels are available, users prefer to receive content when and how it’s most convenient for them. Rather than viewing a TV show live, many will prefer to access it from a computer the following month—or even several years later. Others will prefer to download it to their IPOD so they can watch it anywhere, any time.

Abbott believes therefore that content is not only more valuable to viewers; it’s also more valuable to sponsors. When he visits sponsors, he reminds them that their messages will reach far greater audiences now that the station offers multiple formats—especially since these other formats will persist for years rather than just a few minutes.

Social media ROI

It is this quality that causes social media fans to argue that blogs, and other online content, promise a far greater return on investment than ephemeral marketing campaigns such as print advertising, direct postal mail, or even email newsletters that readers discard soon after they receive them. Conversely, the return on investment of rich online content accelerates over time as more and more viewers recommend it to others.

Marketing strategy still trumps tactics

Nevertheless, with as with all marketing, the strategy is more important than the tactics. Your blog can help you gain visibility and raise frequent visitors’ awareness of all you have to offer. But, if they’re not the right people—all your efforts may be for naught. On the other hand, your sales will soar–along with your search engine rankings—if you know who you need to reach and what they value most.

So, as with all marketing campaigns, start there.

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