AniBlurbs (Column)

“There’s demand in the marketplace for creating a new type of agency,” said Sean Corcoran, an analyst with Forrester Research. “The question is whether that’s viable long term.”

Because it can touch everything from Communications to Marketing to Customer Service to Product Development, Social Media has created a muddied playing field that some see as ripe for creating agency opportunities …

Now the question for social media firms is whether they’ll translate the short-term demand for Facebook pages, Twitter campaigns and audits of social chatter about a brand into a long-term strategic business … Otherwise what they’re offering clients will quickly become the domain of established agencies in Public Relations, Advertising and Digital.

Source: AdWeek – The New Social Gurus: Social media agencies are popping up to address new strategic demands — but will they last?

The jury is still out on this one

First of all let me state clearly that there is no silver bullet with regards to whether a Digital Agency or a PR outfit should be leading the charge when it comes to Social Media.

Furthermore, one size certainly doesn’t fit all when it comes to whether your company or organization should be utilizing Social Media or not, and if so with whom.

Mitch Joel (@MitchJoel), from Twist Image (Canada), also weighed in on this subject:

Going back to that quirky quote from AdWeek, it’s like saying, “we can help you build a Facebook fan page or a Twitter profile, but if you need a microsite or some banners to promote it, you’re best off calling a Digital Marketing agency.”

Newsflash: Social Media is Digital Marketing.

Sorry to break this news to the Social Media Gurus and social media agencies of the world. You can dance around this statement all you want … let’s face it: all Social Media strategy and first-contact happens in the online channels.

The results of that strategy and activity may filter through how an organization communicates, markets, handles after-care or customer service, but Social Media starts and lives in the Digital Marketing channel….

And, if it does live in the Digital Channel, but as a social media agency you can’t help your client also build both the platforms and presence online, what does that say about your skill level?

Let’s not make it bigger than it is.

Like a strong direct marketing strategy, advertising campaign or affiliate program, Social Media is one spoke in the marketing wheel (it just looks more shiny than the other spokes because platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are new and exciting).

In fact, Social Media is much more like a spoke in the Digital Marketing wheel. This doesn’t mean it should be diminished, but to think that a strong Digital Marketing shop doesn’t have the abilities or capabilities to lead Social Media is downright silly and unfounded.

A great Digital Marketing agency that truly meets the clients’ needs is one that can develop the digital strategy and then execute on it (the design, content, technology, marketing and communications).

It’s going to be interesting to see what unique offerings these social media agencies bring to the brand table that the Digital Marketing agencies were missing.”

Read the whole post and the comments over at Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel at Twist Image: Social Media Gurus – That Old Chestnut (Who Owns Social Media?)

Challenges for Businesses with regards to Social Media

A few days back  Liz Pullen(@nwjerseyliz)  tweeted the following on twitter (see screen grab below):

I tweeted in reply that Social Media on a personal level doesn’t scale:

It´s a scientifically proven fact that there’s only so much meaningful interaction, friends, interconnectivity, sharing, status updates and ReTweets one can take at any given moment in time.

And this isn’t even taking time management or life hacking into account; strictly speaking there’s (Dunbar’s number) a bio/psychologically maximum amount of social interaction and stimulus our brains can handle – be sure to keep an eye on the latest Oxford findings regarding this.

What this also means today is that people in general -becoming ever more acquainted with Social Media and most of its apparent benefits & setbacks- are increasingly critical about whom they connect, or “friend”, with online (quality/potential Vs. quantity). And, as a result, how much time they spend with them on any given social network.

The analogy goes that you could compare it to standing in a café socialising with friends and familiars; you wouldn’t appreciate someone breaking in the conversation or party (with a commercial message) without introducing properly first.

These developments have spin-off effects for your brand in this space as well.

Think about this for a minute.

Now, let’s take a look at the slight nugget called Legal, as Clorox has done:

That could help explain why the marketer has taken the unusual step of advertising for a full-time in-house legal counsel to focus on social media — a rather surprising sign of how entrenched social-media marketing is becoming even for relatively established household products.

Currently, having such expertise in-house and full-time at a marketer is rare, said Jack Greiner, an attorney with Cincinnati’s Graydon Head & Ritchey, one of the few attorneys on LinkedIn to list social-media as a specialty. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he said.

“Social-media channels are a growing focus for consumer communication and stakeholder engagement for our brands and company,” a Clorox spokesman said in an e-mail.

“As a newer communication channel, the application of existing laws to this medium is evolving. For those reasons and the rapid pace of communication in the Web 2.0 world, we’re seeking an attorney to focus on social media as well as talent rights.”

The primary duties, he said, are to clear and procure intellectual property rights regarding production and distribution of advertising, including Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Recording Artists issues, consumer privacy and video licensing.

              

Comment addendum by Antone Johnson:
Regarding social media policies, I think it’s helpful to divide the universe of communications into two distinct buckets.

The first category is the everyday online chatter by thousands of individual employees, which may or may not touch on the company’s business or products.

This kind of communication can and should be regulated by a well-thought-out social media policy, enforced by HR and/or IT in the same way they enforce other employment-related and IT usage policies. (A little training during employee orientation goes a long way.)

The second category is messaging from authorized corporate communicators:

Senior executives, PR, MarCom, Customer Care, Community Managers on online forums, etc. A social media policy alone isn’t enough; these folks need individualized, timely, thoughtful legal guidance.

Their statements can and will be taken as the corporation’s official view of things. Social media make it easier than ever to make misstatements that can be used against the marketer as “Exhibit A” in litigation.

This is particularly true for large corporations, which are perceived as having deep pockets and become targets for class action plaintiffs’ lawyers and government regulators.

Source: AdAge – Clorox Seeking Attorney to Oversee Social-Media Programs: Marketer’s Move Seen as Testament to Importance of Twitter and Facebook

As the quotes above underline, social media expertise should occupy two seats: one inside the advertiser itself (I’ll get back to this in more detail later on) and one inside dedicated Digital Agencies, since, inherent to their DNA, they’re better suited at this than pure traditional Agencies are right now.

Dedicated social agencies can’t create effective Social Strategies

Though I’m all for entrepreneurship and an avid fan of innovation, I’m quite sceptical about yet another specialist niche branch forming, (viral seeding agencies anyone?) be it inside or independent of traditional or Digital Agencies: yes, I’m looking at you, social media agency.

Especially since in this specific case the subject matter ties so close –too close- with the core business of any organization: i.e., taking for your customers / prospects / leads.

Why exactly is your company contracting a newly formed “social agency” to do the crucial interaction with these people in such a delicate environment (sometimes volatile even)? A few more questions:

• Can this freshly formed organization handle the scale 6, 12, or 18 months from now (community management, moderating in real-time 24/7, mob behaviour even)?
• What about legal liability (see the quote above from Jack Greiner) when it comes to international operating brands on Facebook?
• What about accountability (towards customers/end-users, partners and B2B clients), lead follow-ups, customer retention and so on?
• What about integration with the online display, SEA campaigns and the mini site?
• And what about the connection with the core brand values “as seen on TV”?
• Do they understand the finer intricacies of your business goals on the one hand vs. customer service & needs on the other hand?

Make no mistake about this, many industry thought leaders are (the dotcom bubble freshly in the back of their mind no doubt) rightfully questioning this trend of social agencies and self-proclaimed guru’s:

Do they even know your competitors, the field your operating in, the challenges you face, regulations, et cetera? You know; the stuff any Marketing Agency worth their salt actually takes into account before helping you set a long term strategy? If so, then why set up a separate one-trick-pony-entity instead of integrating it in the (digital) media mix? It just doesn’t add up.

Social Media is Anthropology, meets PR, meets Customer Service, meets Sales, meets DM, meets Sociology, meets Business Intelligence, meets Legal, meets… what-have-you, all for the greater good of meeting Business Objectives at the end of the day.

So. Exactly what are the business credentials of the people employed in this social agency, apart from having set up a Facebook fan page for their local small-town barbershop?

[Note: I’m not talking about credentials in a “certified social media company” kind of way, nowadays most of us are aware that in IT -for the most part- certificates (Google AdWords and the like notwithstanding) don’t prevent disasters, nor do they guarantee a pleasurable partnership or outcome. How many big IT projects had multiple Black Belts overseeing certified .NET implementing professionals and failed big time?]

Getting and staying involved in Social Media isn’t the same as setting up a one-way Interruption Marketed Advertising campaign for six weeks and it isn’t action based Sales Promotion with a short term focus either.

Nor is it about hiring a Web Care Team after the damage has been done in order to clean up the online response on a subpar product coupled with bad customer service.

UPC (Cable giant) has felt this here in The Netherlands as recently they’ve been indexed as the company with the worst customer service in a research conducted by the Customer Insights Center from the University of Groningen, intelligence agency MIcompany and Dutch research firm MetrixLab.

This despite being an innovator online by being the first Dutch company to deploy a Web Care Team with varying success. Sweet Irony to some, Social Media in full effect to others (as sharing bad customer experiences has become ubiquitous).

Social Media is a mindset ideally to be adopted throughout the whole organization, just like company values. Larger organizations will have to act on this in the coming decade.

Joseph Jaffe: In my opinion, this isn’t about tactics or platforms….it’s about a mindset shift. Commitments versus Campaigns. Retention versus Acquisition. Conversation versus Communication. And in the former cases, we’re dealing with decidedly post-marketing platforms that are – for the most part – decidedly brand unfriendly.

It’s an ongoing process, not to be automated.

Au contraire; it’s actually about interacting with human beings(!) in a passionate and authentic way, all whilst keeping the mutual interests of the organization, as well as the customer in mind. Though balance to strike.

Earned Media vs. Paid Media (Dealing with The Shift)

Who knows? Maybe over time they’ll embrace your efforts and your brand.

Then again, maybe they won’t because a few days back your Call Centre Manager was focussed more on her maximum allowed Average Conversation Duration Per Service Employee instead of solving the problem of a frustrated customer. So, said customer has started a flame blog, which TechCrunch has picked up, turning it into a trending topic on twitter overnight, which in turn has been indexed by Google in less than an hour, effectively making your SERP turn off potential customers and would-be B2B partners, despite that carefully planned and crafted Super Bowl Ad…

As you can see, Social Media is much as it has always been in real life actually, with the critical difference that these interactions between your brand and “them” are online, out in the open, for all to see, to monitor, to be spread in real-time and archived. Forever (or until Singularity at the very least).

This, combined with the fact that your organization has to structurally change internally for any meaningful long-term results, make this quite a complicated and challenging era, as you cannot afford not to be at least somewhat social, yet it can backfire significantly when implemented in the wrong way. Or with short-term focused expectations from shareholders, the board or senior management for that mather. Oh, and I’ve left the whole Social Media ROI debate out of the equation.

Still convinced that fancy social agency is well equipped and worth the check/PO?

Possible solutions: Internalizing the knowledge

The point I’m trying to make is that these new upstarts are either interested in making a quick buck over the back of you and your customers, or they’re focusing on the “What?” (“Which social tools should we deploy? YouTube or twitter?” -in other words: operational tactics), instead of focusing on the “Why?” and on what Social Media could mean for you and your customers.

Take heed of the former, and as for the latter, well, benevolent though their intentions may be, know that the way to hell is paved with good intentions…

Notable exception / leading example in this discussion are the Social Media Monitoring companies like Radian6 as they have a very tasty asset, or two actually: hard data and experience.

They’ve been busily beavering away for the past years, before Social Media became de rigour and have actual added value in the partner chain around your project/organization. They have the data, the knowledge and experience to translate social media output into actionable insights.

To my eye the solution is as follows:
Your organization must internalize Social Media as soon as possible -not tomorrow or next week necessarily, but do start as soon as you can (word has it your competitors are already a few laps ahead -sensing the urgency yet?).

Then, drilling further down, you should have one or more internal champions, digital marketers along with their traditional kin, who can sit down at the round table with IT partners, Social Media Monitoring Companies, Digital Agencies & Traditional Agencies alike, and get down to business.

You don’t outsource Sales, you hopefully are not outsourcing your Customer Service* and you definitely should refrain from outsourcing direct contact with your target audience and customers. If you’re not convinced yet, then feel free to take a look at an interesting development over at one of the biggest brands on the planet: Coca Cola are internalizing Social Media as they go .

Ford Motor Company is, arguably, one of the leading big brands in the world when it comes to having garnered considerable achievements in/with Social Media; admittedly having Social Media rock star Scott Monty (@ScottMonty) aboard as an internal accelerator or catalyst as well as a CEO backing him helps a lot. Ford’s Scott Monty has the following take on this topic:

“If you have a dedicated social media agency they need to be well integrated with the rest of your team because none of this stuff stands alone,” said Scott Monty, digital and multimedia communications manager at Ford.

Rather than have a single social media shop, Ford works with several for different needs. It leans on the social skills of OgilvyPR, while also working with Social Media Group and Undercurrent. “This is the year that will separate the pretenders from the practitioners.”

Source: AdWeek – The New Social Gurus: Social media agencies are popping up to address new strategic demands — but will they last?

[* In twenty years time we’ll have a jolly great laugh looking back on the days when you actually didn’t help the customer yourself because... err, business books and MBA’s thought us it was the right way, we never questioned its merits out loud towards senior baby boom management and the internet, social media et al didn’t exist to expose this mindset, but I digress...]

Off course, your mileage may vary, depending on whether your organization is strategically focussed on either Cost Leadership, Innovation or Customer Intimacy.

And it could be both Mitch, Scott and many others in our field, are proven wrong over time as, like I said above, the jury is still out on this one.

Speaking of Mitch Joel, he posted the following piece regarding ROI and Social Media:

Richard Binhammer (from Dell‘s Social Media team) gave a presentation and when one of the audience members asked about how Dell measures the ROI of their Social Media strategy, Binhammer responded that ROI was nothing more than an accounting term and probably has little to no place when it comes to measuring the success of any Social Media marketing initiative.

How would that make your clients, team members and supervisors feel?

Binhammer … concluded by saying that he doesn’t think about ROI, rather he looks at the overall business objectives and if Social Media can help him meet those objectives, then that is what is ultimately the most important thing.

Let’s repeat: forget the ROI and look at the business objectives.

In looking at business through this prism, Dell has changed the way they do business and – in doing so – they have made lots of money by being engaged and using everything Social Media that is under the sun.

In a more primal way, they’re focused on using Social Media to meet practical business objectives and not looking at the overall ROI…

              

Comment addendum:
My argument is not against metrics and measurement as it relates to social media and business. My point is that we sometimes get lost in the forest for the trees….and one step further, some of the traditional metrics and insights need revision when we think about social media and business….but fundamentally we do measure measure and measure more.

Source: Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel at Twist Image: Killing ROI

Conclusion: Due Diligence/Beware the Snake Oil

All in all, the debate regarding ROI in social media and the added value of social media agencies still has yet to give birth to a definite, industry wide accepted outcome, and maybe won’t  for some time.

To my eye, all facts point to one conclusion which I’ve summed up in the title of this very column.

Bold statement?

Dunno, like viral agencies we’ve yet to see a yearbook worth of big brand cases produced by dedicated social media agencies that showcase their worth, yet they tend to position themselves with the swagger as though they have seeded viral or social media campaigns with an 80 to 99% success rate…

Should anyone care? Aren’t we “all in it for the money”?

Well, yours truly is not and I’d like to believe most of us are “in it” out of a passion, which happens to provide us with the means of getting food on the table, paying the rent/mortgage, etc.. Make no mistake, I’m an entrepreneur at heart and a positive minded one at that, but with great power comes… (well, you know the drill)

Remember the dotcom bubble bursting less than 10 years ago? We’ve seen what self-proclaimed consultants in green field markets/industries are capable of if left unchecked: wrecking havoc amongst clients eventually seriously damaging everyone in this space.

Sounds farfetched? The Credit Crunch demonstrated to us what happens when an influential industry is left unchecked and nobody calls out the cowboys.

Granted, social media is new, standards are yet to be fully understood, found and implemented. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take pride in our work, our profession, our science, our art. It is a professional responsibility to call out the snake oil sales men.

Perhaps more than anything Social Media is also about the “echo chamber”; about memes being spread. By adding my voice to the ever increasing echo of industry specialists, agencies and bloggers, I hope to amplify the growing consensus that social does not an agency make. That you should be mindful of letting your company in with any self-proclaimed guru or social agency. Due diligence.

This column turned out somewhat longer than expected, so thanks for bearing with me. I will be keeping a close eye on this topic as it continues to evolve.

In the mean time I’m really curious if there’s an angle I might have missed, so feel free to drop a comment below.

“…many advertisers in the past gave most of the credit for a sale or conversion — which in the web world could include anything from visiting a website to printing an online coupon — to the last ad clicked on or seen by a consumer. But that means brand-focused sites such as NYTimes.com and MarthaStewart.com and even social-media sites such as Facebook and MySpace lose credit because they are often not where a consumer will see that last ad. And when they lose credit, they lose advertisers, and when they lose ad revenue, well, you’ve read that story.

“Publishers have a lot to gain,” said Steve Kerho, VP-analytics, media and marketing optimization at Organic. Mr. Kerho has been doing lots of analysis on how online-display ads affect search and conversions and found that in some cases, a display ad can increase a search ad’s click-through rate 25% to 30%. If he had simply measured the clicks from search, he would have missed the display ads’ influence.”

Source: Adage

So… If we’d translate the above model to, say, a real world situation; that’d mean that the sales guy in the local electronics store should get a piece of the provision pie, and maybe you’re neighbourhood whiz kid should be offered a small fee too, since they were the ones that influenced you before you decided to shell out on a new bleeding-edge desktop and order it directly by mail-order, no?

Of course, the conclusion presented above is preposterous to say the least. Not giving full credit to the last click shows a lack of common sense and of everyday reality:

If we’d were to apply this model to the offline advertising industry we’d might as well start charging less for TV ads during the Super Bowl or advertisements in general, since it has never been empirically proven that said ads actually sell significantly more cars, to name but an example.

(Actually I hereby challenge thee naysayers to tell me why the fledgling automotive industry in the US can’t be saved by throwing more money against Interruption Campaigns now that the going is though… Odds are it’s because it just doesn’t work that way nowadays…)

Publishers would of course love to use such a model, since suddenly those abysmally low Click Through Rates on social networks ´d become a license to print money, yet that’s not where the problem lies: it’s about engaging with the visitors of the Facebook’s of this world if and when they feel like it, adding value to the community, giving them something to talk about or a good reason to get rid of their friends. The engagement model is a far more viable one since it makes it very clear for all stakeholders what the true value of those brand interactions are for everyone.

Conjuring op schemes to charge more for a product -display banner- that, on it’s own, has failed to truly deliver on its promise up until this very moment, is not the way forward out of this recession. The research budget would be well better spent on innovation, adding value to the visitors, strategic alliances -you name it, just do not waste it on taking undercover pot-shots at “Go -Emperor CPC- Gle” et all.

There is one thing that does ring true about the statement that a conversion shouldn’t be attributed to just the Last Click alone; and that’s the reoccurring coincidence that carefully crafted, creative Crossmedia campaigns drive word-of-mouth & website traffic, allowing for a tighter control on conversion, ánd they also have the uncanny ability to tip the Attitude scale in your Brands’ favour. A little…

It’s common sense and it’s what marketing should be all about: influencing as many factors as you can to get the prospect to turn into a consumer, making her loyal, spurring her on to buy more and in the end becoming a brand-ambassador.

The communication mix as well as the quality of your product combined with the customer centricity level of your organization all contribute to that end.

As well as a million other tiny factors (does the sun shine, did THAT girl on the train give you a smile, do you have enough money to spare, etc., etc..)

Yet, if we’d follow the philosophy of Mr. Kerho to it’s conclusion, it’d mean we’d have to split the Cost-per-Click revenue and spread the wealth over all communication channels and creatives -and not just the display banner- in order to get a somewhat “fairer” representation of value/conversion for money.

[The Adage article starts with this quote: "The great paradox of the web is that it's an interactive medium and everything can be measured. And that's wonderful -- unless you're measuring the wrong thing."

I'd think what they should be stating is: The single greatest asset of the web is that it's an interactive medium, perpetuously capable of reinventing itself. And that's wonderful -- Unless you don't keep your feet firmly on the ground and try to look at opportunities with a positive mindset!]

Alain Thys at Marketing & Strategy Innovation weblog on your TRUE core-business:

“no matter what books or gurus may say, customer-focus is a top-down game. from childhood we have learned to follow the example of those that lead us, and that means that customer-centricity should be mindset of all c-level executives. not in words, but in actions…”

“…of course, no self-respecting CEO will reorganise a business around the customer without a solid business case… …the CMO’s second step on the customer-centricity ladder is therefore to demonstrate the financial benefits of “happy customers” to the organisation…”

“to really focus on the customer, companies will need to… …tear up the detailed customer interaction and scripts. show staff and vendors how to listen and care. not only in the front lines, but at every level of the organisation. every department eventually affects the customer experience…”

He goes on to mention five steps to make your organization truly customer- (and prospect!)-centric:

• Step 1: start at the top
• Step 2. show them the money
• Step 3: start with the people
• Step 4: help them do the right thing
• Step 5: make it clear you mean business

Now, the real problem addressed here by Alan, of course, is “isle-thinking” or Department Silo Mentality Syndrome^TM -a state of mind inherent to the way we humans are hardwired by evolution/mother nature, as any anthropologist worth his salt could tell you.

When bands of humans grow past the dunbar number, things (read: the consumer) tend to slip out of eye-sight or get dehumanized quickly; this is bad thing for your brand advocacy hopes, so this challenge requires a thorough rethinking of your Service Strategy and maybe even a restructuring of your organization chart…

The above is probably going to require some serious change management (skills) -see point 5 mainly-, effort and lots of lots of passion, training, coaching & patience. Lots. Of. Patience…

Read the whole post over at FUTURELAB: Future Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog.

The slide -embedded below- is a comprehensive-yet-easy-digestible presentation, sensibly touching upon The Cloud, the hype and misconceptions surrounding it, and the biggest issue the Tech industry will face in 2009: Privacy.

“The Biggest Issue the Tech Industry will face in Two-Oh-Nine is Privacy.”

Nat Torkington from O’Reilly Radar has rounded up a whopping 191 slides on the Future of the Cloud and how this ties together with our online privacy; food for thought as we approach enter The Year of Change…

[Note: Expand the presentation to full-screen so you can read the accompanying notes]

As Social Media reached its Tipping Point in 2008 (judging by the Web 2.0 supercharged, grass-roots powered, landslide victory of Obama in the US Presidential Elections, and the explosive growth of Facebook) claiming that Twitter and RSS feeds will break into the Non-Digerati mainstream in 2009 doesn’t seem to be a farfetched forecast for the New Year -at first sight.

Some other predictions: 2009 will be remembered as The Year Of Privacy, Authenticity, Relevancy (in Marketing), Personal Branding & Change Management. Invoking Trust and investing in Innovation will also be two key cornerstones and challenges on which businesses will have to focus in the coming twelve months. WIRED has an interesting post, zooming in on Six Tech Trends.

Yet, as Seth Godin rightfully points out in one of many brilliant posts this month, backed by the outbreak of the Subprime- & Credit Crunch and the Financial Crisis between August 2007 & September 2008 and the ensuing events; long-term predictions tend to fall flat on their face. Often. And in a very ugly matter actually.

[If you've always wondered how any non-gamer/marketer could have fallen eyes wide shut in the Farce that Second Life inevitably turned out to be (even though it was fairly obvious to gamers that it had "FAIL" written all over its face), see the video directly below.
It perfectly communicates what definitely won't be happening in 2009 or what has obviously already come to pass in the past years, all presented by a "Trend Watcher" preaching otherwise.]

Trends FADS In 2009

Now if there’s one thing -the outcome of- the Obama ’08 Campaign strategy should have proven to Old School Marketers and Agencies, it’s that releasing control over your brand is actually a good thing and even if this casus doesn’t convince them, the word on the streets is that The Crowds seized this “control” ages ago.

Another fact that should have become crystal clear to even the most obstinate of naysayers, is that in 2009, traditional advertising agencies -and newspapers- will have to either sink or swim in order to survive the Interactive Marketing Tidal Wave: The days of the Mass-Media-Interruption-Marketing-Only approach for immeasurable branding purposes are over, as are the days of unaccountability and vaunted effectiveness of artistic-award-winning-yet-incomprehensible advertisements.

In its place we’ll welcome Neo Marketing [jpeg, 69.75 KB (71428 bytes)]

Neo Marketing = Permission Based Marketing, meaning that we’ll only approach people, humans, individuals -and not “target audiences”- with relevant conversations if and when they see fit; taking in their feedback directly, treating it with respect and giving it some order of priority, all the while keeping a sharp eye on Conversion Rates or Task Completion Rates by Primary Purpose, when speaking of the web specifically. Very transparent, results-driven and opt-in actually ;)

Utilizing Neo Marketing is the most effective, consumer-centric way of building and retaining your business/brand in this day and age. A sound investment by any measure.

“Sending one-size-fits-all messages using mass media, as 20^th century marketing bibles and preachers would encourage and even declare as The Truth, has now definitely and officially become an unaffordable waste of precious resources, time, effort and money. Time to move on.”

Note: Branding won’t become obsolete any time soon, it’ll actually become a much stronger focus in your communication plan with one key-value to communicate: Trust.

So, the corporation has taken a step down from its pedestal, in order for the consumer to be seated on her rightful throne: Thus the internal process (the rules behind which mediocre employees tend to try to hide behind when running from responsibility) or technical system setbacks -“IT department doesn’t allow me to help you out with this problem, even though you’re not the first client facing it and it’s pretty obvious that we’re the cause”- shall no longer be the driving- or leading force behind the way we operate our company or engage with our customers.

Instead servicing the end-consu -serving people shall become the core mindset around which the constellation of your organization shall revolve, as it always should have been the main focus of your Service Strategy.

Some more knowledgeable professionals say some of the developments sketched above will be powered and spurred on by the rise of Enterprise 2.0 (Yup, I’m aware of the “Yet Another Two-Point-Oh Suffix”), and the global economic downturn shall see to it that such (r)evolutionary innovations will come to fruition in the coming year, requiring some serious change-management skills (but also a change of culture and heart for our friends from the “Behind-The-Company-Firewall-Within-The-Current-Software-Platform” IT department, putting the employees needs first in its stead).

[Side note to all skeptics- ("But you lack data backing this thesis") and pessimistic- or conservative detractors out there questioning the coming fall of the current Corporate/Advertising Status Quo:

Please do bear in mind that the Financial Armageddon of 2008 was impossible to foresee by even the savviest and clued up of Economical Analysts anywhere in the world.
Also try to remember that the concepts of Democracy, Freedom and Individualism as we know them today, didn't exist once/not too long ago either, yet they've become more widespread than any medieval Feudalist could have ever feared, the 44^th President of The Free World being the crown jewel supporting this thesis reality. And so on, and so on...]

Furthermore, results-driven Contextual Marketing (powered by the Semantic Web) and data backed analyses shall give us unprecedented REAL and actionable insights into customer behavior (only with their consent!) & their TRUE wants, allowing for even better segmentation and targeting.
Social Networks will further position and consolidate themselves as the new market place where we can meet up, connect with, and empower our customers and prospects, hopefully turning them into brand ambassadors. But only when THEY see fit; it’s their territory after all, see.

This year, the challenge for your organization lies in trying to be available for your consumers and prospects whenever and wherever they feel like reaching out to you, or:

“In 2009 Brands need to become truly ubiquitous in their interactions with consumers”

Brands need to become truly ubiquitous: If prospects or clients wish to ask you a customer support question via Twitter or show their brand loyalty by joining your Facebook Group; then please, by all means, let them have it :)
And if there’s a heated debate on a forum about your product, service or your brand in general; don’t hesitate to join in (Think Vodafone‘s WebCare Team). Social Media Tracking tools like Trackur can help you, giving you a dashboard on what the latest talk in e-town is concerning your brand.

To be able to do so, you’ll have to learn to actively participate and interact in those spaces first.

[UPDATE: The Air Force has updated their Social Media Diagram]

Just as “doing a Brand Activation” through TV and Radio in conjunction with print has become the holy trinity for Fortune 500 advertisers in the second half of the 20^th century, the post-modern marketer should let go of The Fear of losing control or actually becoming -God forbid- Accountable and add the online platform and all of its interactive channels in the mix as well.

Conclusion: The internet shouldn’t be treated as just another pillar in the marketing mix; it’s a whole New World of communication opportunities next to the Offline world.

The Break Up

We must try harder to convince our peers, decision makers and conservative marketers that the only other option is to face losing out to the competition; remember this crisis is a catalyst for a long overdue change in not only marketing but business acumen as well.

All in all it won’t be an easy ride though: In the end, if your product or service doesn’t manage to live up to your story, then your organization and all of its stakeholders -CEO, shareholders and employees alike- will have to deal with the harsh consequences, now more than ever.

In the coming months, (enterprise sized) brands will have to show their human face to invoke trust and through this process the Personal Brand will have its mainstream breakthrough.

Employers will have to find a way to somehow incorporate this into their Marketing Strategy fast, as their Corporate Brand, as well as their Employer Brand, will benefit from this -if handled in an authentic way: Forrester Sr. Analyst Jeremiah Owyang has a post touching on Personal Branding vs. Corporate Policies, as always carefully and thoroughly approaching it from different perspectives.

And all the above somehow, mostly ties in to that omnipresent “Privacy Issue” that we’ve got to take into account as well, bringing us full-circle to this excellent presentation by Nathan.

Happy New Year  :)

[Update 13-01-09: link to NYTimes.com & US Air Force Blog Diagram v2]

Two things I’d like to discuss after seeing this and reading the article by Jeremiah from Forrester as I believe that in his enthusiasm about this initiative he’s forgotten to take a few important factors into account.

Number One:

This is an outstanding example of using Social Media to co-create a buzz and empower the community that you’d like to connect with to spread a message. The mind boggles:

Can you imagine using this example of Social Media and applying it to, say Employer Branding, to engage the ever elusive, out-of-reach prospects and candidates?  You could challenge them to go out and create an advertisement, mini-site, whatever, that shows their values and thus their desired dream job. This would give you very useful insights into what candidates really are looking for when moving on to a new job and gives your organization not only a shot at starting a meaningful conversation with them, but at free publicity as well.

Number Two:

Though this may seem at first as a big step forward in the way advertisers see, treat and engage with their target audience, there’s one Big Question people tend to overlook: It’s an intermediately great PR stunt, especially for Dell, but will it draw in more customers or change the attitudes of the target audience towards Dell in particular?

Personally I don’t believe so and here’s why: If I’m going to buy a € 1.200 + desktop or spend around the same amount of dosh on say a notebook, what are the key selling points for me? What are the conscience and subconscious decision making processes that I walk through before pulling my wallet? These are in random order and depending on whether like me you’re a power user or not;

• 1. Functionality -does it meet your user requirements (family PC? Design workstation Powerhouse? Gaming Dark Horse?);
• 2. Absolute Quality -what do the tests in the specialist press say, does it run Vista as it should? Etc..
• 3. Perceived Quality -how does the specialist press, the fora and/or the influencers in your direct vicinity talk about and review the product;
• 4. Brand Thrust/Reputation- some people are real fanboys when it comes to their gadgets, clothes or means of transportation;

The Total Cost of Ownership and the budget are of course other factors that weigh in when making such a decision.

Now when we take a look at the list above we must conclude that there’s no way that getting a few fanboys/artists/creative professionals or students to participate in such an endeavor  is going to noticeably up your sales now or in the near future. At any rate it’s not measurable.

So then we must make an educated guess that for Dell “hard sales” probably isn’t the main KPI for this campaign. So, the main goal of their campaign must be… branding. If that is the case than whatever way you’d look at it they’ve achieved at least the following:

• Free PR;
• Innovative and creative profile in the creative community, the media industry and in their own Tech sector, early adopters and influencers;
• Creative, friendly, innovative and non-corporate image towards the participants and their direct social hemisphere.

Now these are all great things to achieve, especially for Dell, I for one have personally never really been a fan of them as a customer so I must admit that I was positively surprised by this move and that it could reflect a change in the way they operate. But does  it change their helpdesk or their customer service, does it make the quality of their products and services any better?

No it does not and that’s wherein the threat lies: This -for Dell- high profile action could backfire on them in a big and ugly way, unless they manage to keep their story authentic and consequent along the whole chain, from product quality up to customer service. In other words: Live up to your promise Dell.

If they don’t succeed in doing so than all of this was nothing more than a nice exercise of what could be and a reminder of why online / social media strategy shouldn’t be an afterthought but part of your total business plan to begin with.

On the other hand it’s heartening to see that molochs such as Dell are willing to take these kind of innovative steps and are showing that they’ve at least got the intention to be willing to reach out and really get in touch with the consumer. These are exciting times indeed.

“Zeven op de tien managers en professionals zoeken via internet naar informatie over leveranciers. De helft gebruikt internet voor het opvragen van offertes, het plaatsen van orders en het vergelijken van leveranciers.”

Bron: Ernst & Young ICT Barometer (PDF)

70% van de beslissers in B2B: Rendeert jouw website?

Repeat after me: In connecting with the consumer there are no shortcuts. PR Week reports on Web ‘fakery’ law change.

In a nutshell it finally puts an end to sock-puppeting and astro-turfing, in the UK. Now the following is wishful thinking on my part, but wouldn’t it be nice if this law could be instated as a standard all across the world?

The only negative point I can raise regarding this new regulation, is the very fact that’s it’s a law and thus that the industry failed to be self-regulatory: Aside from the moral stance we can take in this as honest, progressive thinking digerati AND as a consumer -e.g. that it’s wrong for a company or organization to lie and deceive or manipulate the very people that they’d want to sustainably connect with- I find it actually almost unbelievable that there are still marketers/strategists and indeed organizations out there today who are willing to use such methods! Forgotten how for example Sony’s attempt to do so with a PSP-Blog backfired immensely on them a few years back?

Question: Do you enjoy it when you find out that someone you trust has cheated or lied to you and that they did this just because they thought they could and to selfishly further their own good? Thought so. As a human being you don’t like being cheated, nobody does, and since you’re trying -on behalf of your organization- to connect with other human beings, act concordantly. You’re the professional who knows what he or she is talking about when it comes to connecting with the consumers, so convince PR, Branding, Strategy, The Board, the CEO… Whoever gave out the order, why this is akin to shooting yourself in the foot with a bazooka and then show them the alternatives that do work.

“Oh so now it’s about 2.0 and connecting, and we’re a bit low on budget, so I have this great idea: Weblogs and forums are considered 2.0 and those flashy sites are about communicating, but people are posting all kinds of negative comments about our customer service and all, so why don’t we start a conversation there? The catch is; we’re the only participants and by “we” I actually mean “me”: I’ll post a topic and then I’ll post all the comments! This way we’re on the cutting edge of communication in the middle of our target audience AND we’re still in control of our brand.”
Sorry pal, but you’re not in control of your brand. You never have been actually, only now with the advent of the internet and social media this wisdom has become more apparent, a commodity.

“I’m talking zero investment here: Only a few man-hours to write the script and post it and maybe a little monitoring afterwards, the remaining budget can go to banner placements in context with the posts; surefire traffic I’m telling ya!”</Insert Sly Wink here>
Dude this is going to cost you and your brand more than just the low budget, especially in the mid- and long-term, you’re going to look at a negative ROI.

“Huh? B-but… We’re connecting right? We’re not just “sending” anymore and -and hey we’re broadcasting on the Social Media! …Err Right?”

Newsflash: It’s about communicating and connecting with your target audience in an authentic way and hopefully conquering their minds and hearts leading to the possibility that they may become, over time, your ambassador, so you can then empower them to do so in ways that they deem most fit. In all honesty and openness.

But of course to do that, you’d need at least two crucial things: First; an open minded, progressive thinking marketer/strategist and second; a product or service that doesn’t suck. And though you may not see the effects or end results immediately, if either of these two key components is missing, than your organization is in deep serious trouble. Thing is, the trouble doesn’t always come as a bang, but could just as well creep up as a whisper and no cheap postings on user-forum and blogs is going to silence or stop either of them…

As always a sense of urgency always comes when it’s either too late or unnecessary damage has already been done. A real shame, more so because thinking about authentic ways to enthuse the consumer is actually a lot of fun and, if it works, worth a whole lot more to brag about at birthday parties afterwards ;)

Please read this post on Seth’s blog first: The statesman, the lawyer and the marketer, or: how Seth Godin is hitting the nail on the head yet again and probably much to the chagrin of most conservative CEO’s, marketers and organizations.

His latest article represents, I believe, the fundamental challenge that awaits marketers and organizations here and across the Big Pond in the coming time. The problem here is, as Seth noticed in concluding his article, how to get your organization, CEO and shareholders behind this way of thinking, because in all honesty though it’s not a radical new philosophy on how to run a business and sell your product, it’s still not common practice.

The proof is in the pudding as they say, so my bet is as follows; should one or two leading companies or upcoming start-ups prove to successfully harness this mindset on how to run a business and manage marketing as a whole, others will have no choice but to start taking notice in order to be able to compete.

Unless of course we’re both wrong and marketers would rather be (or stay) lawyers…