A few weeks ago I posted a blog about Social Media for Business. The idea being that if you are a company, Social Media can help you tremendously in 4 key areas: Marketing, PR, Market Research, and Customer Service. I mentioned that I was writing a bigger article about that and today it was published in iMedia Connection. In the coming weeks I'm going to publish this into a Point of View (POV) document so I will share that with you as well.
Basically this is my mantra right now. I'm trying to get people to see that Social Media isn't just a passing fad or a PR tactic. It's an open line of communication between companies and their customers that can both help them drive sales and save money as well.
I welcome your feedback so please email me at LarryW@Fanscape.com if you have any comments or thoughts on this.
If you are just dabbling in social media, you may still not be sure what exactly it will do for you or where it fits in to your company structure. You've probably created a Twitter account, built a simple Facebook page, and maybe even added a company blog to your website. Good. That's a great start. Now step back for a minute and think about what this is all for.
There are four reasons to use social media for your business. In no particular order, they are:
* Marketing
* PR
* Market research
* Customer service
All four of these are geared to do the same thing -- connect with your customers and interact with them. But don't hide behind trendy words like "engagement;" ultimately you want to do one thing: sell more products or services. Let's take a look at how each of these four components of your social media strategy can help you sell more.
Marketing
From a marketing perspective, consider social media as an enhanced, more touchy-feely version of CRM. Hopefully you are already running an effective email marketing campaign and properly communicating with your database of customers. These days you need to run several mailings lists. Your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., all have fans, followers, and subscribers. Just like with your email list, your social media-based customers and potential customers need to be communicated with on a regular basis. They need to be entertained, supported, and rewarded.
Don't get sucked into the numbers game. How many participants you have on your social media properties is far less important than how you interact with them. Instead of concentrating on how many Twitter followers you have, try instead to gauge success on how responsive and participatory they are.
Utilize the methods provided by each social media outlet to engage with your customer. One recent example of a company using the functionality of a social network to drive sales is Best Buy's Facebook page. Here, users can browse all the products that Best Buy has to offer and then ask the opinion of their personal network of Facebook friends whether they agree with the products they want to buy. This enables a customer to simultaneously browse for products while interacting with their friends via the Facebook platform. Best Buy not only benefits from an innovative social sales strategy but also has valuable research data that may help them determine which products to stock in the future.
PR
Publicity and public relations are no longer just about getting an article in BusinessWeek or The New York Times. Now there are thousands of influential blogs and online outlets that can create a positive effect on your business.
With numerous major print publications struggling to survive, most publicists have added digital media and the extended social media to their hit list. Going back to the point stressed earlier, quantity should not be the goal. How many people you reach is far less important than the quality of people you reach. With the proliferation of social media you can, and should, target your PR campaign to the web publishers that can position you with the people you want to reach. If your product is a piece of technology then you can find countless websites and blogs that focus on just that. Their readers and followers trust their reviews and advice. While these publications may not reach as many as The Wall Street Journal, oftentimes you will sell much more with an influential blog that has a fraction of the readers.
You can also create your own press exposure by dedicating time and resources to your own blog and social networks. Poignant and helpful essays, white papers, and research should be featured on your company's website, blog, and social networks. You will notice agencies like Razorfish who do this exceptionally well and generate a tremendous amount of positive PR by utilizing this strategy.
Market research
Thanks to social media you have incredible access to your customers. You have hundreds or thousands of "fans" coming to your social media properties looking for information and a dialogue. They want to know more. They also want to tell you what they think. So encourage them to speak freely. Ask them what they like about your product. Ask them what they don't like. Treat them like family and they will give you the tools to better your business.
If you are like many businesses, you have probably spent thousands of dollars hiring market research companies over the years. Those firms would locate ideal target customers and ask them for input on your product. No need for that now -- the people whose opinions you want most are opting in to your social networks. Take the money that you had previously spent on market research and give it to your social media team to conduct market research directly with your audience. And don't forget your employees. They have a lot to say too.
The best example of this is being done by Starbucks with their My Starbucks Idea concept, where they ask their customers and employees to suggest things they'd like to see at Starbucks. The suggestions reside on a dedicated website and then the community votes them up or down based on popularity. It's a simple yet brilliant idea.
Want to sell more? Who better to up-sell to than your current customers? Ask them what they want and then give it to them.
Customer Service
Ok, this is the tough one because it potentially requires serious resources. But you can't avoid it; people are quickly learning that they can get your attention a lot faster by speaking to you via Twitter or Facebook than they can on the phone. So embrace it.
A tremendous advantage here is that if you help someone publicly via social media then others will see this. If you solve someone's problem on the phone no one knows except that person; but if you solve it online, in public view, others will notice and you may solve several people's problems at the same time. You have greater potential to be regarded as a customer friendly company, which will set you apart from your competition.
Companies like Comcast, Dell, and Ford have all excelled in this over the past two years. These are three companies that have all struggled with their customer service reputations but have had a positive impact with their public perception, as well as sales, as a result of their customer service efforts on social media.
Delegation
Understanding that social media touches these four very distinct areas and that most companies have departments set up for each of them, it can often be confusing as to who handles oversight of social media. Here's a radical thought: create a new division for social media with a direct connection to each of the corresponding departments.
Depending on the size of your company and the resources available, dedicate a member of the social media team to each focus that has one foot in social media and one foot in the corresponding department. That way everyone works together and it becomes less about being territorial and more about uniting to sell more products.
It is great to be the company that embraces social media, and 2010 is the year it becomes a bigger focus for the vast majority of businesses. You should be transparent, helpful, honest, and thankful. Put real focus and attention on the four areas described and establish measurable sales-oriented goals and expectations. It will work. Wouldn't you prefer to buy from a company that follows this plan?
Do I want an iPad? Yes. Do I need an iPad? No. Would I use an iPad if I had one? Probably for about a day.
Here's why I love my iPhone. Because I can carry one device on an airplane. When you travel as much as I do, you learn to pack as light as possible. The iPhone made it so I didn't need to carry a phone, an organizer, an iPod, and as many books & magazines as I used to. I'm all about downsizing. Less stuff.
The Kindle was intriguing. But it's heavy. A lot heavier than you think it's going to be when you look at it online or when you see someone holding it in their hands. I have to take my laptop on most trips so if I add a Kindle, it's too much. But I love the concept. I love the idea that all of my books and magazines can fit on one device and I don't have to carry the weight associated with all the individual literature. So, give me a laptop with 10 hours of life that can hold my books and magazines. Make it super light. Make it affordable. Under $1,000.
Thus the iPad doesn't quite win me over yet. That said, I'd probably prefer one over a Kindle (though I'll admit I'm not 100% up to speed on the offerings of one vs. the other) because it's an Apple product and the oohs and ahhs that I'd get by being one of the first on my block to own it are appealing. But it doesn't replace anything vital. It doesn't replace my phone and it doesn't replace my laptop.
But I'm not down on this device. I love it conceptually, it's just not quite right for what I need right now. My guess is that within 2 years we'll have something closer to what I want. This is just the start. Once again, Apple takes something that already exists (MP3 player, laptop computer, cell phone)and makes it sexier. Makes us want one. There's not a single company in the world that can do that.
That is inspirational. I want to be the Apple of my industry.
I'm supposed to be writing about Conversational Marketing with Crowdsouring websites, but I'm just not feeling it today. That's the tough thing about writing a non-fiction / how-to kinda book. If this were fiction I would just continue meandering down my crazy mental rabbit hole (yes, I've seen the trailer for Alice in Wonderland and it looks pretty twisted!).
So, today, I'll just post some interesting stats that were just sent to me. I'd tell you that I'll put these stats in my book, but odds are that by the time I finish my book all of these stats will be outdated. To give you an example of this, check out this Social Media Tips document that Kodak released last year. It's an interesting read, but notice many of their stats have long been eclipsed like where they say Facebook only has 250 million users. I mean really, that was 100 million people ago.
Also, check out my friend Scott's new MktgIdeas.com blog about social media marketing. He's the one who told me about the Kodak doc. He's also got some great insight into how people are innovating in social media.
Anyway, here are some interesting stats that Bithika in my office shared with me today...
Cool Stats (that will be very outdated by the time my book comes out)
“Max Connectors” (those with more than 500 social connections) are more likely to track a brand or company on social media to learn about new products/ features/ services and to understand the company culture and its policies. (Marketing Sherpa, Dec 2009)
Total minutes devoted to social properties and blogs in the U.S. surged 210% over the last year, and average time per person increased 143%. (Nielsen Online, 2010)
As per a recent report by Nielsen Online (2010),
Internet users worldwide spent an average of 5 and a half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December, an 82% increase from a year ago. New data also shows that the global audience for social networks has increased 50% in the last three years, from 211 million to 307 million. (Nielsen Online, 2010)
When it comes to time spent on social networks, Australia led the world with an average of nearly 7 hours (6:52), trumping the U.S.(6:09), the U.K. (6:08) and Italy (6:00). But the U.S. had by far the largest audiences for social sites and blogs, with 142 million, followed by Japan (46.5 million) and Brazil (31.3 million).
Worldwide, Facebook was the top social hub in December, with 207 million unique visitors. Time on the site has increased per month to nearly 6 hours worldwide and 6:24 in the U.S.
HubSpot (2010) recently released its findings based on 5 million twitter accounts and 6 million tweets. Some interesting stats are:
The average twitter user has an average of 300 followers. 82% of Twitter users have less than 100 followers.
In January 2010, the average user had made 420 Twitter updates, compared with 120 in July 2009.
The number of users who have taken the time to write bios, specify their location and add a URL to their account has doubled since the last time they reported on Twitter. This again tells us that Twitter users are becoming more mature in their use of the service and they're making sure they're leveraging it properly.
The highest usage days for Twitter are Thursday and Friday. There's a sharp drop-off over the weekend and a slow ramp up that begins building again on Monday.
Most Twitter users are night owls, actively tweeting in the evening between 10 and 11pm while wrapping up work or watching TV at home.
The highest click thru rate on tweeted links occurs between 2 and 3pm. (Followed by the 8-9pm time slot and the 5-6pm time slot.)
Thursday, Saturday and Sunday experience the highest click thru levels, consistently beating the average.
Tweets that include links are far more likely to be retweeted than tweets without links.
The more links you tweet, the less likely people are to click those links.
The highest percentage of retweets occurs on Fridays at 4pm. (Monday afternoons also have high retweet rates.)
Less than 51% of Twitter users were from the US in December 2009, down from 62.1% in June 2009. However, US users accounted for nearly 57% of tweets. (Sysomos, Dec 2009)
Broken down by city, London had the most Twitter users, followed by Los Angeles, Sysomos found. But New Yorkers were the most active tweeters, accounting for some 2.4% of all posts. (Sysomos, Dec 2009)
The other day Bob Lefsetz had a posting called, "The OK Go Fracas." I said to myself, "what is the Ok Go fracas?" I knew OK Go had a new album out because I listened to it last week on Rhapsody. And I'll be honest, on first listen, I didn't love it. But OK Go has always been more than just songs, they've been a very visual band. I'm assuming most everyone who reads this blog knows who these guys are and remembers the video where they were on treadmills.
The fracas that Bob speaks about is the fact that OK Go's record label Capitol / EMI prevents YouTube from allowing videos from bands on their label group to be embeddable. The band's Damian Kulash wrote a letter on their website to the fans explaining the situation.
This week we released a new album, and it’s our best yet. We also released a new video – the second for this record – for a song called This Too Shall Pass, and you can watch it here. We hope you'll like it and comment on it and pass the link along to your friends and do that wonderful thing that that you do when you’re fond of something, share it. We want you to stick it on your web page, post it on your wall, and embed it everywhere you can think of.
Unfortunately, as of now you can’t embed diddlycrap. And depending on where you are in the world, you might not even be able to watch it.
We’ve been flooded with complaints recently because our YouTube videos can't be embedded on websites, and in certain countries can't be seen at all. And we want you to know: we hear you, and we’re sorry. We wish there was something we could do. Believe us, we want you to pass our videos around more than you do, but, crazy as it may seem, it’s now far harder for bands to make videos accessible online than it was four years ago.
It's a very well written letter and something all aspiring musicians should see. Not a week goes by where I don't get at least one letter from a musician asking for my help to get them signed to a record label. I always ask them why they want to get signed and why they don't do it themselves. And they always explain to me that they need the marketing machine that a record label provides. Well, if you are one of those aspiring musicians that still believes that, read Damian's letter. I don't know that it will discourage you, but at least it will give you some added insight into the inner workings of the record business.
For everyone else, I highly recommend you watch the band's new video for "This Too Shall Pass." It is a fantastic video. In fact, since I saw it on Tuesday, I've told a dozen people to watch it. And it also made me fire back up the Rhapsody to listen to the new album again. And I like it a lot more. Somehow that great visual made the music better. Something that very few bands or musicians have ever been able to do, but these guys do it consistently.
Last week I wrote about spotting conversations going on about your brand. This week I'll discuss how to identify brand evangelists and how to communicate with them.
Identify By doing simple searches you can find conversations going on about your brand. It's a little more challenging to determine who the influencers and evangelists are. Challenging only in the respect that you need to follow conversations back to their source and then read through multiple blogs, posts, and tweets to see if the contributors are actually fans of the brand or just making a statement about a particular incident.
If your brand revolves around entertainment, toys, candy, or something "sexy" then it is a lot easier to spot the evangelists. Someone with the user name @StarbucksLover is giving you a good signal as to their coffee allegiance. But if your brand revolves around something like dish soap as I mentioned last week, then they'll be tougher to spot. In that case, think less about your brand specifically. When your brand pops up in a search, trace it back to a conversation, see what else this person talks about. You may discover that they write a blog about cleaning products or about coupon collecting. Again, not specifically about your product, but their content is relevant and more importantly, notice who responds. Look at each blog post. How many responses are there? What kind of responses are they? Do you see a lot of "I agree!" type comments? Do you see a lot of questions asked back to the blogger that imply that the blogger is respected and influential? If the person communicates via Twitter, how many followers do they have? How many responses to each tweet do they get?
What I'm describing isn't complicated. It's just time consuming.
And, again, big numbers aren't the key metric here. Look, if only a couple of people are responding, then odds are this particular person isn't terribly influential. But once the responses get into the teens and higher, then you should start taking them seriously. If you've got the time, take a look at the people replying to the blogger and see if you can trace them back to see if perhaps they are bloggers too. Bloggers often hang around other bloggers and comment on each others blogs. Same is true with Twitter, Facebook, and most other social networks and communities. Then you can see that this person may actually be heard by an audience beyond their own because of re-posted blogs and re-tweets.
There are tools to help with some of this process as well. In fact, there are a lot of tools. The only downside is they cost money. One of the most accepted and least expensive tools is Radian6. Pop a few key search terms into a tool like Radian6 and it will show you not only where the conversations are taking place but also prioritize those conversations based on influential rank and how many people read and participate in those conversations.
Communicate
Communicating with these now identified evangelists and influencers is a process I've previously described in other posts. Keep in mind that if someone has a big voice, or even a moderately influential voice, odds are that others like you are trying to contact them on a regular basis. Remember to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself this question: "why would I care?" If you were the one being reached out to, what would make you respond?
So craft your message carefully. From subject line to content. Make sure you identify exactly who you are, what you hope to accomplish, and more specifically, what is in it for the person you are contacting. Try to bond with the influencer. If they already like your brand, it shouldn't be too hard. You should be armed with knowledge of that person's blogs, tweets, etc. so that you already know that they are predisposed to like what you have to say. Maybe they would love some exclusive information to share with their audience. Maybe product for giveaways and contests. Each influencer is different. Do your homework and try to identify what makes them tick.
Know that your success rate will fluctuate. In some cases you'll get great response and feedback. In others you'll get nothing. Don't get frustrated, just learn each time you correspond what works and what doesn't. Don't pester someone who doesn't respond. That can actually hurt you. Just try your best and never forget to think about what its like to be on the other side.
Everything I've described is relatively easy to do. The tools exist to help you find influencers and evangelists. It just requires time and patience. So take your time, follow the conversations, and if you do it correctly, the impact should be overwhelmingly positive.
A few months back I was asked some questions by Piet Levy at the American Marketing Association about Social Media and Digital Word of Mouth marketing, where it has been and where it is going. Here is what I told him:
10 MINUTES WITH...LARRY WEINTRAUB; CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, FANSCAPE INC.
BY PIET LEVY, STAFF WRITER
IN 2009, SOCIAL media was the word, and for many marketers, it was good. Facebook's audience increased by 170% from September 2008 to September 2009 compared with the previous year, according to Nielsen Co. data. Twitter's audience increased by 1,009% in that time frame, also according to Nielsen.
At Fanscape Inc., a Los Angeles-based digital word-of-mouth marketing agency serving MasterCard, Sports Illustrated, GameStop and other brands, business grew by more than 30% in 2009, according to the company.
Fanscape CEO and co-founder Larry Weintraub talked with Marketing News about what a big year it was for online word-of-mouth marketing and what he expects in 2010.
Q: How, from your perspective, did word-of-mouth marketing change in 2009?
A: The brands in the corporate world finally are starting to understand social media and digital word of mouth. In the history of Fanscape, and we've been doing this for 11 years, there was this huge education process trying to get the companies we work with to understand that this is the way marketing is going to be done. It's going to be very social and very interactive with your customers, allowing them to have a voice and to comment on what you're going to do. It was a lot of dabbling and a lot of education, a lot of 'I don't know if we're comfortable with that.' What [companies] did in 2009 is they said: 'We have to cut back overall, so let's take some money out of print and television and radio, some of these more traditional areas, and put it into this whole online and social media world because it's more cost-effective. We can see results, it's interactive, we're engaging with our customers.'
The No. 1 reason people buy something or try something is because someone they trust told them to. And that's been a hard thing to kind of figure out, historically, because how do we know that your friend told you? And what's happened in the social media space is you can see it happening. You can see tangibly word of mouth taking off.
Q: Discuss online word-of-mouth marketing milestones this year, both positive and negative.
A: If you actually concentrate on one social media area, Twitter is obviously the big explosion. Twitter became the new customer service outlet. People all of a sudden found that rather than making a phone call and sitting on hold for an hour with their cable company or sending an e-mail and not getting a response for a couple of days, they could send a Tweet, 'My picture sucks on my Comcast cable,' and get a response within minutes. All of a sudden now, you've just opened up the gate for millions of people potentially to solve their problems. You've given people this platform to ask questions and expect a fairly quick response.
There are things that are considered bumbles that I don't believe were bumbles. An example would be Skittles. Skittles' Web site [starting this year] was all done through Twitter and Facebook and YouTube. If you went to Skittles.com, there was a Twitter page, and everybody was just going crazy [with obscenities] on that. To me, I think it was one of the greatest experiments. In this digital word of mouth and social media space, they tried something, and you have to try something. It put Skittles back into the conversation. Who was talking about Skittles before that?
Q: What are some key takeaways and lessons from word-of-mouth marketing this year?
A: The big mantra in digital word of mouth and social media marketing is 'listen first.' Listen to what your customers say. Historically, a big brand has said: 'This is our product. We're going to push it out. We're going to advertise. This is a one-way street.' The new thing is it's a two-way street. You purchase something [on Amazon] because it's highly rated. That's real word of mouth. If you're a company, listen to what people are saying about your products in reviews, in Twitter, in Facebook, in blogs. Find what people are saying and then adjust accordingly.
Q: What predictions and advice do you have for word of mouth in 2010 and beyond?
A: I think you're going to see more real-time search in the coming years and I think that's going to be a great thing for brands. They're going to be able to see who's talking about them immediately.
Something that's happening already but only a handful of companies are doing is almost every company is going to have to create their own social media policies. ... Two years ago you had companies saying, 'Nobody's [allowed] on Facebook, we can't have people doing that,' for fear, obviously, that they're wasting time and also that they could say the wrong thing. Now companies can't do that. So companies have to come up with a policy: 'If you're going to be on Facebook, here it is in writing. You cannot talk about this, you cannot talk about that.'
Right now, [companies] are trying to track and evaluate ROI based on the merging of old-world numbers and new-world numbers, and everybody measures differently. I think in 2010 we'll see more concise, standardized measuring. That will help companies because big brands are trying to figure out how to spend against things and they just don't know how to measure it. They want to put more money toward [online WOM]; they just have to understand what they're getting for their money. I think we're qui
Over the past few weeks some of the articles I've either been interviewed for or written have been appearing. Yesterday I shared the one I wrote for the Specialty Coffee Association, today I'm going to share one I did for ZDnet at the end of last year. I have a few others to share which I'll do in the coming days.
This one is a particular favorite of mine because it traces social media over the past 10 years. Plus it really traces the areas that I've been working in such as music and brands and helps connect the dots from the original basic fan to brand/band communication to what we now call social media. Enjoy!
The beginning of the new Millennium brought about many tech and Internet changes, but one of the biggest online disruptors of the decade was and continues to be, Social Media; also known as Social Networking, Digital Word of Mouth and quite a few other names. No matter what you call it, it’s all about utilizing the Internet to foster direct communication between a brand and a customer. As the future of Social Media materializes in front of our eyes, it’s interesting to note that its humble beginnings happened only a few short years ago.
Music was arguably the first area to actively utilize the social media medium. Because the music format of choice, the CD, was a digitally-based product, it was easily uploaded to a computer and could be conveniently shared with others; e.g. Napster. Sure, it was illegal, and the effects were catastrophic to an entire industry, but the basic concept of people sharing content was born.
Along with the sharing of content came the sharing of passion. Fans created fansites, homemade websites built on basic web platforms like Angelfire and Geocities. Here fans paid homage to their favorite musicians and created homes for others who shared their adulation. Midway through the decade a new outlet was born, MySpace. On MySpace not only could an individual create a fan page dedicated to their favorite band, but web-savvy musicians (or their labels/management) had a new place to build awareness and harness the power of social networking to connect on a whole new level. Now someone in a small town in Ohio could find people with similar interests anywhere in the world.
As bandwidth and high-speed internet connections increased, virtual reality entered the equation. Sites like Second Life allowed people and companies to create virtual versions of themselves and their organizations; communities were built and real money exchanged via virtual hands. The concept in-an-of-itself was pretty imaginative and seen as a potential revenue stream for businesses across the board. But, like many web destinations with big buzz it was ahead of its time and soon replaced by the next big thing.
Soon we grew from collecting MySpace friends and surfing virtual worlds to becoming television stars - Internet television anyway - via YouTube. This is the point in time where advertisers as well as movie and television studios realized social media was here to stay. In short order the Internet was now a place to show trailers, commercials and promotions on a low-to-no-cost distribution platform and, in real-time, gauge the public’s interest via number of views and comments.
Since then social media has evolved at a breakneck pace, keeping us more connected and actively engaged in the world around us. MySpace fostered Facebook; clearing some clutter and improving the basic social networking premise. Websites became blogs and blogs sprouted Twitter, boiling down news, articles and general communication to 140 characters or less. Going one step further, the addition of Smartphone technology and the creativity of developers, we now have the ability to remain social without being tethered to our computers.
In 2009 social media got its current name. All the monikers that came before were forgotten and big companies started to dabble. Giant brands like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Best Buy dedicated staff, dollars and media to showing that they knew how to properly use it. And it worked.
Media became social this decade, no question about it. No more putting out a song, a movie or opening a restaurant and waiting to see if people like it. Consumers now share their thoughts instantly and openly.
What’s next? Hard to tell. But one thing is for sure, 2010 will be the year when everyone jumps in to the deep end. No more wait-and-see, it’s jump on the train or get left behind. It will also be the year when we get closer to measuring the success of social media; when we find a common metric or collection of metrics to judge success. Something different than how television commercials and pay-per-clicks are judged; something that makes everyone comfortable and say, why didn’t we think of this sooner.
All that in one decade. Can you imagine what the next decade will bring?
A few weeks back I wrote an article for the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) about social media and how it relates to them. I like doing these kinds of articles because I get to talk about social media but I get to make it specific to a particular sector. The SCAA is the trade organization for all those coffee retailers we frequent on a daily basis (Starbucks, Peets, Coffee Bean, etc.). They put out six issues a year and this most recent issue was centered around social media. It's not available online and you have to be a member of the SCAA to get it, but I've reprinted my article below. For those of you who read my stuff on a regular basis, you'll notice some of my recurring themes. Grab yourself a Venti Mocha and have a look:
Launch a Social Media Strategy for Your Coffee Business by Listening, Planning and Responding Today (attached and pasted below)
By Larry Weintraub
The coffee industry is an incredibly competitive space. So, the first question you probably ask yourself on a regular basis is, “How do I distinguish myself from the competition?” Right? Wrong. The first thing you need to ask is, “What is my customer saying about me?”
The great thing about social media is that you can find out the answer to that question…immediately.
Social media is the term used to describe the way people are conversing, openly on the Internet. It includes well known places like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and hundreds of others. It also includes the countless blogs and Web sites where people openly discuss topics that interest them. Millions of people are having conversations on the Internet through these social media outlets, and the best thing about it is that you can actually see what people are saying.
What you will discover once you dive in is that there are numerous conversations already being had about your brand. Meanwhile, trying to be everywhere and participate in all of those conversations is impossible. Knowing where to start can be daunting, but don’t be frightened; here are some steps to make it a little less scary and much more manageable.
LISTEN
The first thing you want to do is listen. Just take some time to read conversational threads and, with an open mind, listen to your customer. Start with the free tools. No need to spend money yet. Just do a Twitter search (www.search.twitter.com) and see what comes up. For example, pop “Peet’s Coffee” into the Twitter search and you’ll see a stream of conversations.
Some will be good: “lalitd: Enjoying Peets Coffee at CVG again. The line at Starbucks is missing out. #fb”
Some will be bad: “mel_1981: 1 manager looking around 2 ppl at register & 1 person making coffee for 7 ppl...oh Peets get a clue!!”
Some will just be mundane:"superbetch09: At Peets Coffee on Broadway. Cute Barista!”
But within a matter of minutes you’ll have an idea about what people are saying about your product, right now!
You can apply this to blog searches as well and discover what larger conversations are being had. Use free tools like Ice Rocket (www.icerocket.com) and Blog Pulse (www.blogpulse.com) that will list and link to all
the conversations on blogs taking place that invoke your brand’s name.
And go a step further than even many of the social media savvy do and pop your brand’s name into the search bar of Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. See what people are doing with your name. Either they’ve dedicated a group to you or just tagged you in their descriptions of what they were doing or thinking when they uploaded their photos and videos.
If you are willing to shell out a few bucks, you can enlist the support of some paid tools such as Radian6. These give you greater depth and insight into the people who are talking about you and can sometimes help
you find your die-hard brand evangelists. As you will see if you follow these steps, finding out what people are saying about you is quite simple and quite eye-opening as well.
PLAN
Now, hold yourself back from the immediate tendency to send an e-mail telling your detractors why they are wrong. Do that and you’ll quickly find yourself the butt of many jokes in the Twittersphere. Your customer is just letting you know how they feel. They are entitled to their opinion. Rather than being angry at them, you should reward them. Thank them for their patronage and encourage them to tell you other improvements they would like to see.
You don’t have to over think this and don’t feel a need to come up with the ultimate social media strategy. Just think about what you would like to accomplish.
Here are three recommended areas of concentration for your coffee company’s social media strategy:
1. Customer Satisfaction – Ultimately you want your customers to be happy and to return regularly. There are great social media tools to help you with this. Create polls and surveys that ask your customers for valuable feedback using free or low-cost applications such as the ones you’ll find at Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) and Soda Head (www.sodahead.com). There are numerous companies that provide these services and many will even give you the capability of popping the poll on to your Facebook page or company Web site.
2. Customer Loyalty – Without diving into an entire loyalty tracking program, simply reward the people that populate your social networks. Ask yourself the question, “Why would I follow me on Twitter?” The number
one reason is because of the rewards: the coupons. So reward them. You’ll see the effects immediately, which will help you decide what rewards work best.
3. Positive Word of Mouth – This is the holy grail. This is what you want more than anything. You want happy customers that tell others how great you are. This comes from making the customer feel heard, thanking them for their opinion, rewarding them for speaking up, and incentivizing them to tell others about you. This can all be accomplished by devising a pro-active social media strategy that makes your customers feel special.
RESPOND
Now that you have the road map for how to interact with your customer through social media, you need a voice. The voice needs to be human, not someone from the corporation, someone like them. Make sure it is someone who has the time to commit and the knowledge and access to get things done. Do not go into this social media plan passively, it needs to be considered as important to you as your advertising, market research, public relations and customer service. It is all those rolled up into one. Put someone in charge who can make people feel special. Someone who really cares. If done right, that person will emerge as a focal point of the company and people will look to this employee as someone they can trust.
And trust is what makes people return. Trust in your service, trust in the quality of your product, and trust in the value they will receive by purchasing your product.
GET STARTED TODAY
Social media is one of the greatest innovations for all industries and the specialty coffee industry is no exception. It is incredibly cost-efficient and the results will most likely trump many of the marketing tactics you’ve used to date. By utilizing even the most modest of social media tools, you can hear what your customer is saying, which will enable you to improve your product dramatically. If you create a simple plan to utilize the free and easy to use social media platforms, you will see results quickly, foster loyalty and ultimately create positive word of mouth about your brand. Finally, if you do this, and you should, do it with the same passion that you put in to running your everyday business. Don’t dabble in this, really make an effort.
Social media isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it is growing and getting better every day. Jump on board now while it’s still early and your competitors are looking the other way.
Larry Weintraub is the chief executive officer of Fanscape, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based marketing agency focused on reaching and activating the newest generation of Web and mobile savvy consumers through
online and wireless media. He can be reached via www.fanscape.com.
Last week I went out of order and riffed on social media as it relates to business. I am writing a longer article based on that topic and I'll share it here once I get it done. In the meantime, let me get back to my thoughts on tactical approaches to conversational marketing. This week I'll talk about influencers and evangelists.
Conversational Marketing: Brand Evangelists I have a theory and that is that someone is always talking about something. Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous. But what I mean is that whatever product you are promoting, odds are someone is talking about it.
Do a simple search and you will find those conversations. Do some digging and you'll be able to navigate your way to the big voices. And keep in mind, being a big voice is all relative. You don't have to have 100,000 readers of your blog to have a big voice. There have been examples recently of people with a couple thousand Twitter followers who have single-handedly stopped an ad campaign in it's tracks. (Yes, I'm talking about Motrin)
The point is that there are people out there in social media universe that when they speak, many listen. They can effect sales and reputation both positively and negatively.
Here are some steps to properly locate, identify, and converse with evangelists and influencers:
Locate - AKA Listen
Pop your product's name into a search engine and see who's talking about it. If your product is brand new and literally hasn't hit the market yet, then type in your product category. For example, if you are selling dish soap, type in "dish soap." Also type in the names of competitive products such as "method dish soap" or "ivory dish soap." You have to dig. The first things that will usually come up will be the actual product websites and maybe some retailers. But sift through the listings and you will find people raving and discussing. Search, by the way, is more than just Google. You have to consider all conversations taking place in a multitude of venues including blogs, micro-blogs, social networks, message board forums, and even user-generated content sites.
I recently wrote an article for the specialty coffee association about a similar topic. With respect to locating evangelists and searching for conversations I wrote:
The first thing you want to do is listen. Just take some time to read conversational threads and, with an open mind, listen to your customer. Start with the free tools. No need to spend money yet. Just do a Twitter search (www.search.twitter.com) and see what comes up. For example, pop “Peet’s Coffee” into the Twitter search and you’ll see a stream of conversations.
Some will be good: “lalitd: Enjoying Peets Coffee at CVG again. The line at Starbucks is missing out. #fb”
Some will be bad: “mel_1981: 1 manager looking around 2 ppl at register & 1 person making coffee for 7 ppl...oh Peets get a clue!!”
Some will just be mundane: "superbetch09: At Peets Coffee on Broadway. Cute Barista!”
But within a matter of minutes you’ll have an idea about what people are saying about your product, right now!
You can apply this to blog searches as well and discover what larger conversations are being had. Use free tools like Ice Rocket (www.icerocket.com) and Blog Pulse (www.blogpulse.com) that will list and link to all the conversations on blogs taking place that invoke your brand’s name.
And go a step further than even many of the social media savvy do and pop your brand’s name into the search bar of Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. See what people are doing with your name. Either they’ve dedicated a group to you or just tagged you in their descriptions of what they were doing or thinking when they uploaded their photos and videos.
You get the point. Conversations are taking place. Spend a few hours just visually listening to what people are saying.
Next week I'll give some tips on how to identify the big voices and I'll follow that up with some tips on how to communicate once you've found those influencers and evangelists.
So everyone wants to know what's next. Last year it was Twitter, the year before was Facebook, before that YouTube, MySpace, Google, and on and on. The next big thing is Foursquare.
But wait. Foursquare is not going to be as big as Twitter or Facebook or any of those others. The Foursquare technology is not what I'm going to rave about here. Sure it's fun, it's cool, it's one of those things where you say, "of course - why didn't I think of that?" or "of course, what took so long?"
The innovation that Foursquare is bringing is the platform for restaurant, club, and bar owners to finally track their best customers.
If you are reading this, you probably fall into two categories. The first is my friends and family. The second is people that are interested in what I have to say about marketing, social media, etc. As I have found out recently, because I'm talking about Foursquare constantly, most of my friends and family members have not heard of Foursquare. The people in social media on the other hand are probably saying, "Foursquare - that's old news."
Either way, you'll get where I'm going with this once I explain.
There is a revolution going on right now for the hospitality industry. For decades you only had a few ways to promote your venue. Yellow pages, direct mail, television commercials, print ads, and the big daddy - reviews in newspapers and magazines. Predominantly one way communication. Other than that, you just hoped for good word of mouth.
But that's changing at a breakneck pace. There is Foursquare. Foursquare is an app you download for your iPhone or Android phone. Every time you go to a restaurant or bar or even a gas station, you check in on your phone. If you go there more than anyone else, you get crowned "the mayor" of that particular location. It's fun for the whole family. (Or as one of my friends says, "who cares - I'm bored already!") There are several Fanscape employees who are battling for the mayorship of the sandwich shop across the street, and it's fun to see their names every time I walk into that place. But it's not about them. It's about that sandwich shop. The owner of that shop now has the ability to know who his most loyal customers are.
Now, one of my people actually told the owner of that shop about Foursquare and he said, "that's great. I don't understand that Internet stuff. I make sandwiches."
Two years ago I heard the same story when one of my other employees told the proprietor of a local bbq restaurant that he should pay attention to what people were saying on Yelp. That guy said, "Yelp? What's that?"
Which is why I am so excited.
There's a new business here.
All of you recently unemployed people, listen up. There is a business here for the taking. Be the person that goes to all the local joints and says, "hey, I can help you increase your sales."
There is a battle going on right now. Yelp, CitySearch, and Google are all vying to be the default place that people go to read reviews and determine where they want to eat. Meanwhile OpenTable, Zagat, Chowhound, Gayot, Urban Spoon, and a dozen others are all trying to grab a piece of that pie (excuse the pun) as well.
Add the App battle between FourSquare and Gowalla (and there are more coming) and this becomes clear.
There are a ton of ways to help stores (using that term generically to represent every place that sells something including food, products, gas, clothing, etc.) gain notoriety and ultimately customers.
Thanks to all of the social media outlets that I'm referencing here, word of mouth is now open for the world to see. If you own a store, you can see what people are saying. If they say the service sucks, you can fix it. If they say the food sucks, specifically your burgers pale in comparison to your competitor down the road, you can fix them. If people say they love your place, you can reward them.
Take all the money you are spending on old world advertising and put it into hiring someone to manage your social media presence.
But you, store owners, don't know how to do this. You know one thing, how to make that sandwich really well. And that is where you are going to concentrate. So you need an expert.
Cut to the hard working entrepreneur who will soon knock on your door and tell you that they can do this for you. Because it's going to happen. There is going to be a new industry that will be created out of this need. Trust me on this. It kills me that I can't do this myself. But my business has grown beyond this service. I can't work for $500 a month and a piece of the revenue that I drive into your store. But there are people sitting out there that can.
So quickly to both you the store owner and you the person wondering how to make a living doing something new and innovative - here is what I see...
List - Make a spreadsheet with a list of all the Internet / Mobile places you are going to use (Yelp, Foursquare, etc.) there are probably 10 core ones and 20 overall
Listen - Spend a few weeks reading everything being said about you
Plan - Make a plan on how you want to address:
Negative Reviews
Positive Reviews
Rewarding fans and frequent customers
Rewarding people that bring others to your establishment
Fixing recurring problems that you identify from reviewers
Pro-active promotion of your establishment (i.e. encouraging people to talk about you via social media)
Budget - Determine both a reasonable amount of money you the store owner can afford to spend and you the marketer can afford to charge. Also figure out a a rev-share model where the marketer is incentive to drive more sales.
Then give it a shot.
This is a work in progress. There is no formula yet. There is no price or rev-share model identified either. You just need to try this.
But you the store owner who tries this now will have the edge. Because your competition has no idea how to do this. But they will figure it out. Everyone will. So get the head start. First mover advantage is vital.
And you the guy or gal trying to figure out what to do next with your life. Go get this. If you build it, the business is limitless.
And think about what this is. It's all about making people happy. It's about listening to people who want to talk about the places they love. It's the opportunity to make people feel appreciated.
In my line of work the word "Transparency" is probably the most over used word there is. That's not a bad thing. Transparency is great for social media. It's one of the cornerstones of digital word of mouth marketing. Which is why when I heard Adam Carolla's first podcast of 2010 I was so excited.
I've written numerous times about my love of Adam's podcast. I've listened to every single one since he went live last year. I've heard him go from a simple conversation in his house with poor quality audio to a proper studio in the garage that houses all of his automobiles. Yes I love his commentary, his guests, his style. He's human. He's one of us. He's not for everyone, but for half a million people a day he's pure joy.
He's also incredibly transparent. He admits that he can barely read. He admits that his knowledge of the computer is pretty much relegated to viewing porn. He admits that he doesn't understand Twitter and that even though there is an Adam Carolla Twitter account it's not coming from him. But meanwhile he's become the most downloaded comedy podcast on iTunes.
But with success comes problems. Financial ones. According to Adam it costs him about $10,000 a month to put up his free podcast. Bandwidth is costing him a fortune and he has people helping him that he pays out of his own pocket.
But he's on to something. And he knows it.
So for the first podcast of the new year, Adam and his engineer/sidekick/producer/best friend Donny sat down for 20 minutes and told their audience what the plan was for 2010. There will be commercials he said. Not many, in fact, as few as possible. They'll all be read by him and they will all be products that are right for his audience. There won't be 5 or 7 minutes of commercials every 15 minutes like when he had his radio show, there will be 2 or 3 at most that will be maybe a minute or two over all. He explained that this is because he needs to cover his costs. And yes, he'd like to make some money. But he admitted that this still won't be enough. So he's going to look into other avenues. He's going to take the show on the road and do more live broadcasts where he can charge a ticket price at the door to come see the show live. (And he's asking his audience to tell him where to go. He knows he has a large fanbase in Seattle so he'll probably go there. But why go to Tennessee if no one is there. He realizes that the Internet gives him the ability to know where his audience actually lives.)
He's going to have an occasional podcast that costs money. Maybe for a charity like the one he did last year for his friend Bryan who had a brain tumor.
And he's starting a network. Under the Adam Carolla podcast network there will be shows about sports, shows about cars, shows featuring other comedians.
I'm not telling you all of this to convince you to listen to Adam. I'm telling you this because this guy literally spelled all this out for his audience. He wanted you to know that there will be some changes but that he cares about his audience and he wants everyone to be happy with his decisions. He admits that some things may not work and if they don't, he'll change directions.
All he asks is that you tell a friend. That's all he's ever asked for.
You are probably reading this and saying, "of course." This is all common sense, right? Isn't this what everyone does?
NO.
Not at all. I could go on a whole diatribe right here about the music business. I could tell you that EVERY SINGLE artist should take this approach. But I will not digress into that right now. [It just coincides with a dozen conversations I've had over the past month with and about artists that are trying to find and manage an audience.]
I don't know if Adam is even really thinking about what he's doing. I personally don't believe he sat down and said, "I'm going to tell the world what I'm doing because transparency is the golden rule in social media. If I'm honest with my audience they will love me more and tell their friends." I think he thought, "I'm very lucky. I have a great audience. Great fans. If I were a fan of me, I'd want to know what's going on. I'd want to make sure Adam didn't change directions with success." I believe he just did what he would want to see done himself.
The music business was turned upside down by a college kid who decided CDs were too expensive and contained maybe one good song so he invented Napster to trade songs with other disillusioned music fans.
The technology business was changed by two guys who said everything should be free and easy and we'll make money based on behavioral targeting not proprietary operating systems.
And the radio business will be changed by people like Adam who hate the restrictions of short interviews and long commercial breaks.
All are outsiders. People who don't know or care about the rules.
Make that a mantra for 2010. Don't be restricted by what already exists. We're living in a world where nothing is static. If you don't change what you don't like, someone else will. Be a part of the change. Be transparent and tell people what you are doing and why. Do it for the right reasons and not for financial upside. The money will come.
Feels good to be back and ready to dive right in. Funny how that is. I was here working in my office just a few days ago but somehow I feel like the whole business is starting over again. Like everything is brand new.
So, with this new outlook and a renewed joie de vivre, here are my thoughts on what Social Media is and how it should be used by businesses this year. Consider this as maybe a "Forward" in my book, not sure yet where it fits in exactly, but figure it will be somewhere up front.
Social Media for Business
If you are just dabbling in Social Media then you may still not be sure what exactly it will do for you or where it fits in to your company structure. You've probably created a Twitter account, built a simple Facebook page and maybe even added a company blog to your website. Good. That's a great start. Now, let's step back for a minute and think about what this is all for.
There are four reasons to use Social Media for your business. They are:
Marketing
PR
Market Research
Customer Service
And not necessarily in any particular order. Overall you are trying to connect with your customers and engage them. But lets not mince words, ultimately you want to sell more products.
Marketing
From a marketing perspective, consider Social Media as an enhanced version of CRM. Hopefully you are already running an effective email marketing campaign and properly utilizing your database of customers. Well, now you need to run several mailing lists. Your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. all have fans, followers, and subscribers. They need to be communicated with on a regular basis. They need to be entertained, supported, and rewarded. This is where smart marketing comes in. Utilize the methods provided by each Social Media outlet to engage with your customer. Connect with them and give them a reason to learn more about your products. If you do your job well, people will buy your products and then talk about them through Social Media.
PR
Publicity and Public Relations are no longer just about getting an article in BusinessWeek or the New York Times. Now there are thousands of influential blogs and outlets that can create a positive effect on your business. In fact, your own blog and properly using the editorial features on you social media properties can provide you with as much publicity as an article in a major print publication. It's all about the niche. Think small but concentrated.
Market Research
Thanks to Social Media you have incredible access to your customers. You have hundreds or thousands of "fans" coming to your Social Media properties and asking you for information. They want to know more. They also want to tell you what they think. So encourage them to speak freely. Ask them what they like about your product. Ask them what they don't like. Treat them like family and they will give you the tools to better your business. You've probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Market Research over the years. No need for that now. Take that money and put it into your Social Media team to conduct Market Research directly with your audience. And don't forget your employees. They have a lot to say too. (Note: the best example of this is being done by Starbucks with their My Starbucks Idea concept where they ask their customers and employees to suggest things they'd like to see at Starbucks. Then the community votes them up. Brilliant!)
Customer Service
Ok, this is the tough one because it potentially requires serious resources. But you can't avoid it, people are quickly learning that they can get your attention a lot faster by speaking to you via Twitter or Facebook than they can on the phone. So embrace it. If you help some one publicly via Social Media then others will see this. You'll be regarded as a customer friendly company. Which will set you apart from your competition. (Note: Companies like Comcast, Dell, and Ford have all excelled in this over the past two years. These are three companies that have all struggled with their customer service reputations but have had serious positive impact with their public perception as a result of their customer service efforts on Social Media).
Now understanding that Social Media touches these four very distinct areas and that most companies have departments set up for each of them, it can often be confusing as to who handles oversight of Social Media. If I were running your company, I'd create a new division set up for Social Media with a direct connection to each of the corresponding departments. Depending on the size of your company and the resources available, I might have a member of the Social Media team dedicated to each focus that has one foot in Social Media and one foot in the corresponding department. That way everyone works together and it becomes less about being territorial and more about unified. (Yes, I know I'm living in a dream world here, but I'm stating what I believe should happen.)
Happy New Year and welcome to 2010. This is the year Social Media becomes a major focus of nearly every company. In 2009 there was a lot of dabbling and a handful of stand outs. Get started immediately this year. Get the edge over your competition and most importantly, engage with your customers. They'll love you for it.
I see much in life as a possible business. It is exciting, but also torturous. I just don’t have enough time. A new idea often sends me into hours of thought, research, and ultimately deviation from what I really need to do in a day. I believe that the Internet has made it easy for anyone to create a business. I believe that the Internet has made nearly everything in life easier. I believe that trying to impact the masses is a tough notion, but finding a group of people similar to you, is at your fingertips. I believe that music is free, and that is not a good thing. I believe that life is a collection of experiences and that every day I learn something new and forget something slightly new.
I have learned that the toughest part of running a business is inspiring your own employees. I have grown to understand that you have to show your family at least as much respect as your customers.
I went to college at the University of California, San Diego and majored in Economics and minored in Literature/Writing. I wish I had majored in Literature and only taken the one Economics class that taught me about Supply and Demand.
Larry Weintraub is the CEO at Digital Word of Mouth marketing agency Fanscape. All blogs posts are Larry’s personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Fanscape clients.
4 ways social media can save you time and money
I see much in life as a possible business. It is exciting, but also torturous. I just don’t have enough time. A new idea often sends me into hours of thought, research, and ultimately deviation from what I really need to do in a day. I believe that the Internet has made it easy for anyone to create a business. I believe that the Internet has made nearly everything in life easier. I believe that trying to impact the masses is a tough notion, but finding a group of people similar to you, is at your fingertips. I believe that music is free, and that is not a good thing. I believe that life is a collection of experiences and that every day I learn something new and forget something slightly new.
