Going West . . . Socialarc

Many of you already know this – but I have left 
NM Incite (in the wake of the shutdown of the underlying Buzzmetrics business) and headed West to join Socialarc – a great small firm delivering social media consulting, execution & analytics to brand marketers.

We have a great team out here with deep experience across social and digital marketing.  We are in the process of scaling the company for rapid growth across sales, marketing, product & services.

More to come soon.

TO’B

 

Salesforce + Radian6: What does it mean for you?

This is a guest post from David Rabjohns – CEO of MotiveQuest LLC.

In case you haven’t heard, Salesforce.com (the leading B2B Customer Relationship Management software company) bought Radian6, the leading Social Media Monitoring platform this week for $326m.   Forbes Article.

We think the deal marks an interesting inflection point in the social media age. Here is a software company that helps businesses manage their one-on-one relationships, jumping the divide to buy a company that lets brands manage one-on-one relationships. For us it is a glimpse into the possibility of the post mass media, one-on-one, world.

As Forbes imagines:

“Say a consumer tweets that she hates her cell phone service provider (I name no names). This is what a Radian6-Chatter-Salesforce.com combo could do, Kingstone says:

First the company would actually know that the tweet was sent. It would then decide whether to reach out to the customer or wait to hear from her or dismiss her entirely. The response will be dependent upon whether or not she is an “influencer” and, hopefully, has a legitimate gripe.
If it does decide to respond, it will then use the platform to decide what is the right response to make her happy.

Only bits and pieces of this is possible today and usually after a massive investment or internal realignment. Getting to this point won’t necessarily be easy, Kingstone also says. “It will take an integration of Radian6′s listening platform, with Chatter and with Salesforce.com’s 360 degree view of the customer. But it is feasible.”"
Nobody really knows what this purchase will mean for the future. But if you are in the social business it is worth keeping in the corner of your eye.

Cheers,

David
@rabjohns

Dilbert on Social Media

Yes, this is everywhere – but need it here for the archive.

And Part 2

Enjoy – TO’B

How to ruin social media

Did you see the FTC’s announcement today that it settled charges with a pay-per-post agency?

Public Relations Firm to Settle FTC Charges that It Advertised Clients’ Gaming Apps Through Misleading Online Endorsements

In this case the agency was hiring people to pose as consumers on the web and post positive reviews about its client’s products.

Glad to see that the FTC is on it – but I think this is a much more widespread problem that just this one agency.

This kind of behavior really bugs me because it has the long-term potential of poisoning the Social Media well. How much of this kind of astroturfing can go on before consumers stop trusting what they are reading? Do we (marketers) really want SM to become the next “email” or “telemarketing” where a bunch of spammers ruin the channel for everyone? I don’t think so.

Social Media (as a channel) is a great place for companies to engage with consumers – but it is not a great place for direct advertising and promotion. If you want to be effective here you have to behave in helpful, human and humble ways. It is not just about selling the next thing.

TO’B

How Communities Work Part II

Another interesting post from Francois Gossieaux over at Emergence Marketing – Active lurkers – the hidden asset in online communities

I’d like to add a couple of point based on our work here at MotiveQuest.

1. The degree of lurking (read to post ratio is one easy way to look at it) has a very wide range depending on the community type. It can range from 100:1 (automotive communities) all the way up to 1,000:1 (financial services) depending on the type of community.

2. We have done segmentation of data by community participation roles (Mavens, Participants, Advocates, & Newbies). Each of these roles has very different participation motivations, issues, motivations, drivers and questions. Understanding the details of each segment is critical if you want to engage with the community in a positive way.

3. Many (or even most) vibrant communities are not company or brand owned, but rather owned by their own mavens. See http://howardforums.com/ for cellphones or http://priuschat.com/ for cars. Brands can support and participate in these communities, but they are well advised to understand the community motivations first.

In general the results of the MIT study are interesting and useful, but I would want to understand the particulars of a given community before engaging, because individual community dynamics, motivations and characteristics vary widely.

TO’B

The Problem in Social Media Marketing

Have you seen the 2010 edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer? I have – and frankly, it has me worried. Specifically the precipitous drop in trust among friends/peers is a concern. I think this drop in trust has three root causes.

In the AdAge article about this, Richard Edelman attributes this drop in trust to a “sign of the times” and I agree that’s a contributing factor, but there is much more to this plunge. I think it’s a direct result of social media marketing. Yes, the mere fact of abusing SM channels (which are p to p conversational channels) with marketing messages causes everyone participating to trust less. Finally, the definition of what a “friend” is has been bastardized by Twitter, FB, etc.

I am a hardliner on “pay-per-post” and “crowds-for-hire” to go out and review things – I just think it is wrong. The term “Sponsored Conversation” is an oxymoron.

I think commercial endorsements (especially outside of their specific field of expertise) are bad for big bloggers, even if it does get them paid. It makes me (and everyone else) think less of them. I don’t think much of “influencer marketing” schemes.

Our business (MotiveQuest) depends on people having real, organic, honest conversations with each other on the web. We collect and analyze these conversations to understand why people do what they do. Our clients pay for these ideas, insights and recommendations to help grow their business. This only works if we don’t WRECK social media by using it to try to sell stuff to people.

Tom O’Brien
@tomob

Why We Loved 10 Things SM Can’t Do

Yesterday BL Ochman published a blog post titled: 10 Things Social Media Can’t Do. This post went viral among a certain community on Twitter – you know who you are. BL was surprised that this post got something like 4,000 ReTweets which is remarkable.

Why the huge response? I think it is because one of the primary themes around SM is the (negative) myth of the SM Guru/Expert. This post lays bare that myth, and exposes all the hard work it takes to make SM into something meaningful that drives ROI and contributes to an organization’s success.

Most of us working in this business aren’t walking around pretending to be experts, but we are working hard on behalf of our clients and companies to do a better job connecting with customers to drive sales and profitability. BL’s post is an acknowledgement of the hard work hundreds of people (consultants, agencies, companies) are doing all over the country to drive organizational success using SM as one of many tools.

Let’s re-imagine BL’s list as requirements for SM success, because that is what they are:

1. Coordination with marketing strategy.

2. Top management buy-in.

3. Long-term commitment.

4. ROI model reflecting long-term commitment.

5. Requires a professional team of agencies & experts.

6. Must be coordinated with PR and products efforts. SM can’t substitute for either.

7. SM Requires multi-year budget commitment.

8. Don’t expect to guarantee sales or influence.

9. Must be led and staffed by senior internal people who understand the over-arching strategy.

10. SM should always be coordinated with PR, Marketing and Product.

My $0.02

TO’B

9 Things About Social Media

Two weeks ago I was on a panel for the AC Nielsen Center for Marketing Research at UW talking about social media and market research to executives from Wal-Mart, General Mills, Kraft, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson and 50 or so others. I was asked to share some lessons learned about SM – from the perspective of a brand marketer.

Here are my lessons learned personally and professionally over the last 10 years working in this space.

1. What people say to each other is more important than what we say to them.
2. People no longer rely on brands for information.
3. Advocates are more important than influencers.
4. Brand mentions are just the tip of the iceberg – somewhere between 5% and 30% of the relevant category conversation. You should listen to the whole conversation.
5. If you want to participate be helpful, human and humble.
6. When you participate, put the community’s interests & motivations first.
7. Connect to existing passion, don’t just make stuff up.
8. If you want new ideas, look beyond your category.
9. Brand advocacy is the most important metric today – are people recommending your brand to others.

I could elaborate – for a long time on each of these, but  you get the gist.

TO’B

How the h*ck do we do social media

We are getting lots of questions from our clients about how to scale social media.  At first, the discussions are “tools and tactics” focused.  Then it quickly becomes apparent that “doing social media” is a major commitment that will take real people and real funding over time.  No freebie here.

The other day Scott Monty the SM guy for Ford blogged “A Year @ Ford – Part 1″ and I knew this was one to share.  (A year ago Scott quit his agency gig and moved his family to Detroit and joined Ford to head up digital communications – and what a year it was.  Can you think of a more turbulent year for the automotive Industry?)

Here are my takeaways – but if you (or your clients) are trying to figure out how to do SM – then read the whole thing:

1. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork: Scott didn’t set out doing, he set out meeting everyone he could across the organization and learning what they needed.
   
2. Inventory: All big companies are doing something in SM.  Find out what it is and leverage it.
   
3. Sr. Management Support: Without this you are doomed to failure.
   
4. Stakeholders: Marketing, PR, Product, Customer Service, Legal all have a stake in SM initiatives.  Figure out what it is and how to incorporate it.
   
5. Strategy: Before tools comes strategy.  What is the organization trying to accomplish.
   
6. Horses for Courses: Different SM channels for different Ford constituencies.  Mustang fans don’t care about the same thing as Fusion Hybrid fans.
   
7. Help: Once the strategy was in place, Scott brought in some really expert agencies (advertising, PR and SM) and people to help execute.  That means budget.
   

While this is a long term initiative, the early returns are quite good with very positive press coverage for Ford, and significantly improved perceptions of the brand. 

As an outsider, I’d say that Ford has stopped relying solely on mass media & big advertising and they are taking the Ford Story direct to the people.

What will your clients do?

Google and P&G

I’m sure most of you saw the front page WSJ article last week about Google and P&G. This is of great interest to me because it gets to the heart of one of my underlying hypotheses about why digital advertising will continue to grow at the expense of other media.

Right now brand marketers are way under-invested in digital marketing. All you have to do is see the chart below.  TV has less than 20% of the time but 44% of the spending.     Marketers are over invested in traditional media as compared to time spent there.

Sources: TNS Media Intelligence & Forrester Research

This has to change. The challenge, as I have learned from several of our client CMO’s is that it is really hard to spend money on digital, while it is relatively easy to shovel it out the door on 30 sec. TV spots.

We (agencies, researchers, etc.) need to work a lot harder to bring ideas to our clients on how to spend money and leverage programs via digital channels. As John Bell famously asks, if I spend another $100k on social media, what do I get?

TO’B