May 9, 2011
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Social Media Integration

Many companies are concerned with their social media presence on the different platforms (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) and aren’t concerned enough about how to integrate these platforms into their Website and their entire marketing campaign.

Gone is the day when the marketing goal was to drive people to a Website. In today’s world, you want to reach out and interact with people where they already are. A recent statistic I came across indicated that 76% of people want to see a company they do business with involved in Facebook, that doesn’t mean they just want to become a fan of your page and leave. They want to interact with you there.

That means that as a business, you should look at Facebook as more than a place to post status updates that just parrot your press releases. It should be a place to integrate customer service, special deals, community forums, or perhaps even make a purchase directly from the Facebook platform, instead of eliciting another click to your site to close the deal.

But let’s say you have a customer on your actual Website, you should still be thinking of social media integration. Can a fan “like” your page, letting their friends and family know? Can they “like” each individual product or service you offer? Can they share it? Interact with it?

How about the sign-on process? Can a user simply use their Facebook credentials to sign into your site, or do they have to go through three tedious screens to create yet another username and password to access your site?

Is there a blog integrated into your site to provide information to customers, or a forum to allow customers to provide information to customers? Is there great content that actually helps a site visitor make a decision (while bettering your SEO results at the same time?)

Integration is the social media nirvana – let’s all strive for it!

April 21, 2011
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What American Idol can teach us about social media

Aside from the fact that a bunch of celebrities Tweeted their outrage at the recent booting of Pia off the American Idol stage (folks, that’s how it works, someone’s got to go each week) watching American Idol can teach us a lot about good marketing practices in social media. Specifically, how to promote something without sticking a lot of self-serving ads in your Facebook or Twitter stream.

Have you ever noticed how heavily American Idol promotes other Fox shows? No? Well maybe that’s because they’re doing it in a smart way. For example, when cameras scanned the audience a few weeks ago, I shouted from my couch – “There’s Christian Slater!” Mr. Slater was in the audience with his daughter, who was holding up a sign of support for Lauren and Pia, and he was standing and clapping as enthusiastically as she was. It made you think, “wonder what he’s up to now?” As it turns out, he has a new show on Fox called “Breaking In” (which is HILARIOUS) if you haven’t seen it yet.

Another example is when Russell Brand – who is not even a musician – gave the Idol contestants some “advice.” He was pretty entertaining, but then you found out that he had a new movie out.

And the Ford music video is marketing genius, and I hope whoever thought of that at Ford is now retired on a big sum of money in the Caribbean somewhere.

This is a good method to follow when promoting something on social media channels. Take something that is relevant to what you’re promoting, and post about it, blog about it, theorize on it and engage your audience. Make them wonder “what is that company up to now?” For example, if weddings are your business, post the Royal wedding video spoof, post an interview with the royal cake designer, post the images of the Royal wedding redone in Legos, etc. And then, after you’ve piqued the interest of your audience, and they think you’re super cool, and always providing them with interesting information, mention that fun weddings are right up your alley.

It’s the same thing that Idol does. And look how successful they are!

April 18, 2011
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Reading is Fundamental in Social Media

I have been on a social media book bender the last few weeks. My trusty iPad makes it easier for me to read books because I don’t have to pay hardcover prices.

I’ve read two books in two weeks, and I’m going to give you my insights here. I’ll start with my favorite.

I heard Scott Stratten speak on a Vocus seminar a few weeks back, and his off-beat humor (“a kitten dies every time you do social media wrong – don’t kill kittens!”), immense understanding of the space and his clear passion for what he does was infectious. So I did something I don’t normally do – read a book for “work.”

His book showcased the same knowledge and smart-ass-ness (a good thing for me, a fellow smart-ass) and it was brimming with useful case studies and real-world examples. I have found myself quoting his work frequently (giving him credit of course) while speaking with clients, and it has made me a hit with several of them. (Scott, I think I need to get a cut, I’ve sold so many of these books for you!)

My only complaint with the Kindle version is that Scott peppers his writing with footnotes – which are very funny and provide even further insight into his way of thinking. I read the first few chapters in a bookstore before I bought the book, just to be sure, and the footnotes were engaging. In the Kindle format, however, you have to jump back and forth between your page and the link for the footnote, so I didn’t get to read a lot of the snarkies. Minor inconvenience, when the book is entertaining on its own.

Of specific note for me was how both the Tassimo and Rockport brands used Twitter to connect with Scott himself, and provided great UnMarketing to propel their brands into his heart – and he is now an ambassador for those brands. You’ll have to read the book to see how they did it – I’m not giving it away!

So if social media is your game, you’re going to want this playbook. I give it a solid 4. 5 out of 5. 0, which gets a double “woot woot!”

April 11, 2011
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What IS social media ROI? Part 2

In my previous post about social media ROI, I argued that we should not, in fact be reporting ROI to the business big-wigs. Hey, if you post a social media link and you track that to show that you’ve made $2 million for the company (Dell) then all power to you! Woot! to you.

For many businesses, however, it’s not that cut and dry.

Measure Key Performance Indicators

Previously, on The Social Media Butterfly, I presented the idea that perhaps social media is a part of a larger marketing initiative that doesn’t necessarily have a dollar sign appointed to it. Sometimes, eyeballs on a brand – or brand awareness – is the larger goal. I’m sure you’ve all heard of a sales funnel – and social media is one step down that funnel. So at the end, there are sales, but they may or may not be directly traceable to a Twitter post, or a YouTube video, for example.

So, I think we should be reporting on KPI – key performance indicators. Sure, we all want to show the execs that the projects we’re working on are valuable – otherwise, our jobs won’t be so secure. However, I think determining an ROI on every social media campaign – heck, every MARKETING campaign, isn’t a fair assessment.

If we look at KPIs, we can better measure the performance of a social media endeavor. How many ReTweets did you get on Twitter? How many Facebook “likes”? How many times did someone comment on a post, or in a forum? How many times was a person with a problem helped in a responsive and timely way? Did that person walk away feeling like they’d just built a relationship? Or will that person now go and bad-mouth your crappy customer service to their friends? (Sentiment.)

KPIs aren’t so cut and dry either. I’ve mentioned this before (What’s the value of a fan?) but if you measure yourself against how many Facebook “likes” you have, that’s a measurement that’s easily skewed to your advantage. Give something away for free, anything, and your “likes” sky rocket. But THEN WHAT? Is that relationship of value to you? Does the person care about your product, or just about the freebie?

So then, what’s the value of a fan/friend/share/like/tweet? If you give me a million dollars, then I’ll tell you. Just kidding! If it was that easy, you wouldn’t HAVE to give me any money.

It depends on the business goals. But I do think, if you set those business goals, you can perform to them. It’s the same as having a performance review at work. If your goal from last year is to “increase sales” – and you’re up by 1 this year, well, you met the goal, right? But is it a good review?

If your goal is “great customer service” – you can measure that by response time to complaints, overall speed to solution, customer sentiment, etc.

What I’m saying here is that just because social media is the latest marketing buzz phrase, and businesses are scared you-know-what-less to jump in, doesn’t mean that we should hold the medium to some kind of ridiculous standard that we don’t hold to other marketing forms.

You’ve got to determine what performance means to your company, to your line of business. If it’s “sales” – does that mean on-the-spot sales or 3-months-from-now sales. Measure against your priorities, and you’ll see that social media can be measured, and can be a successful part of an overall strategy.

April 4, 2011
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What IS social media ROI? Part 1

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about social media metrics. All the talk from marketing managers is like Cuba Gooding Jr. in “Jerry Macquire.” ~ “Show me the money!” Except, when they ask about social media, the request usually goes “Show me the ROI!”

This is a challenging proposition for me – which is good, it makes me think. However, what I think is that these people are asking us to show them the wrong thing.

ROI stands for return on investment. Let’s take a look at this for a moment. Marketers are asking social media pros to show them that posting on a social platform has made them money. Is that a fair question? Well, yes and no.

Ask, say, Bud Light, to tell you the ROI of one of their Super Bowl commercials. Dear Bud Light, how much did you spend on that 30 second spot? $3 Million? For the sake of argument, let’s say the answer is yes. Dear Bud Light, what was your ROI? In other words, how much business did you drive from that ad? Bud Light’s answer would likely be – well, we don’t know. The reason is that many people see that ad, but they also see in-store displays, get beer recommendations from their buddies, etc. Unless Bud Light says to it’s customers – when you buy Bud Light at the store, make sure to tell the cashier that you’re buying it because you saw the ad – there’s no way to really calculate the ROI on that ad. Plus, when you buy a product, are you buying it solely due to an ad? It’s more likely that you are combining multiple touch-points – Web, ads, word-of-mouth when you make a buying decision.

Let’s look at another example. Let’s say you’re in the “new media” world like me, and you buy an iPhone for your business use. What is the ROI on that purchase? What? You say you can’t be expected to calculate an ROI on your phone? Why not? It’s a business purchase, right? The end goal of a business is to make money, right? How many sales did that iPhone get you? What do you mean “I don’t know?” Can’t you tie that iPhone directly to a sale?

Okay, let’s look at an example that is easier to measure, an email campaign. Businesses spend money developing the email, writing the content, designing the graphic, managing their email platform, keeping the email addresses up to date, etc. You can calculate how all this effort paid off by determining how many people opened the email. Let’s say that you have an open rate of 20%. Sounds like a good ROI – right? Well, that’s just how many people LOOKED at the email. How many people actually bought something from the email? An email marketer might say, well, it was worth it, because off the amount of people that looked – that’s eyeballs on your product.

So now, we’re saying ROI means brand awareness. Then why is social media marketing held to a different standard? All of a sudden, social media pros have to prove that an engaging Facebook page is going to make the company X amount of dollars. But isn’t that just another touch point in an overall marketing campaign, just like the Super Bowl ad, or the email campaign?

Perhaps you might argue the the very expensive Super Bowl ad made the company cool, made people talk, and made them associate the brand with the product. Therefore, the ad was worthwhile.

Exactly. And that’s what social media does so well. So why are we all fired up about ROI? The return on social media is that people talk about/with you. It positions a brand so the customers have a relationship with it. The ROI on social media is that you won’t lose market share to the competitor who is using social media and using it well. It means your business will be around for the long haul. Sounds like a good return to me, no?

But, the bean counters still want a measurement. Okay, we can measure social media, but I believe we should be measuring those key performance indicators – KPI. And that’s the next blog post, folks. Stay tuned.

March 23, 2011
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Facebook Likes and Unlikes

Do you “like” it?

As a regular, everyday person on Facebook, what makes you “like” or “unlike” a brand? Too many posts/day? Not relevant content? “Noise” in your wall?

How about D) all of the above?

Companies posting on Facebook want as many people to “like” their page as possible, and there are lots of tricks to get those fans. Contests, begging, etc.

But if you get a “like” – then what? Ideally, you want the people that liked your page to now take action. Now, you want them to “like” a post, or comment on a post, or join an email list, or post pictures, or buy a product.

How can you get them to do that?

1. Post quality – People don’t like blatant marketing pushes. “Buy this widget!” is probably not going to get you anywhere. You want to post good CONTENT. Maybe it’s relating something in the news to your business, maybe it’s positioning your company as the authority on an interesting subject. (Ie: If you’re a detergent company, posting tips on how to get out stains, keep laundry from wrinkling, etc.)

2. Post style – When I was a journalist, I learned how to write good headlines. Some of the best headlines were positioned as questions. Why? Because a question is a lead in – it makes someone want to read to find out the answer. Social media is no different – a questions leads in to comments with answers. Or new questions. Back to the detergent company, perhaps they should post “What’s YOUR best stain-removal tip?” People love to sound authoritative on their own! Or, maybe consider a fill-in-the blank model: “The worst stain to remove is ______!”

3. Post quantity – The gold standard for acceptable number of posts per day is around 2-3. There are exceptions to every rule, and I recommend some trial and error to see what works. But think about your own Facebook wall. No one wants to see 10 posts within 30 minutes of each other about nothing! That prompts me to hover over the post and click the “hide” button.

If you spend all that energy to get Facebook “likes” you don’t want to get HIDDEN from showing on people’s wall. Why? If you post to 1 person, and the average person has 130 Facebook fans, then that post could be seen by 130 people. Clicking “Hide posts” means a user no longer shares your content with their 130 fans.

That’s probably worse than getting UNLIKED on Facebook. Because unliking a page is a clear action, and not a passive one.

What have you found that makes you LIKE, HIDE, or UNLIKE a page? Share your comments!

March 17, 2011
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Social Media Interns VS Professionals

I am increasingly distressed by the number of businesses that trust their social media presence to an intern. Companies spend millions and millions building their brand, and then trust that investment to someone they’re not even paying, or that they’re paying diddly.

I’m not going to argue that the younger generation is probably more social savvy than an established marketing guru. And no doubt, an intern is going to work for WAY less than that marketing guru. But just because you know how to set up and post to Twitter and Facebook on a personal level, it doesn’t make you a business social media marketing expert.

I’ve posted before about how Social Media Is Not Free – and neither should a company expect that they can pay less and get more.

In addition to the intern fiasco, companies are also posting for freelancers to get them 1000K fans, or 10000K fans for $1 an hour. Seems like a bargain, right? And there are plenty of people out there willing to work for next to nothing. But even at $1, you’re wasting money. What good is 10,000K fans that are brought to your page by bots, or black-hat methods, if not one of those 10,000 people care a hoot about your business.

Which takes us back to interns. Without any experience in the business world, without any experience in building a brand, without any experience in crisis management, without being seasoned in crafting a marketing message – much less a social media message that represents YOUR COMPANY – your “free” labor becomes a liability. If that person doesn’t know and adhere to company policies, brand voice, or just how to interact with people that have issues, it can hurt your brand tremendously. Remember, once it’s “out there” in the social media ethos, it’s out there.

I attended a seminar this week called “Social Media, So What” presented by Vocus. I had already drafted this post, but one of the presenters had a quote in his slide show that I thought was particularly relevant. (Props to @NealSchaefer, Windmills Networking.) An intern thought it would be a great idea to include trending hashtags in posts that had nothing to do with the trending hashtag in order to have their posts show to a larger audience, which is essentially spam.

“The hashtags were uploaded without Habitat’s authorization by an over enthusiastic intern who did not fully understand the ramifications of his actions.”

It seems like an investment in a professional might not be so much of a cost anymore.

March 14, 2011
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How to Deal with Negative Social Media Comments

Social media means listening!

No one likes to hear bad things about themselves – or their companies. Many companies don’t want to get into social media because they think they’ll have complaints and they don’t want to tarnish their brand. Or, companies jump into social media without a plan for such an occurrence, and just completely ignore the complainers.

That’s like sticking your fingers in your ears and singing “la la la” when you just don’t want to hear something.

Social media is here, folks, and it’s changing the landscape for businesses. Let me just tell you that regardless of whether you want the conversation to happen, or whether you want to participate in the conversation, it’s already happening.

You know the old saying “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?” That’s the attitude you’ll need to adopt with the social media conversation that’s happening about your business.

So let’s say you’ve accepted this new philosophy, and you’re out there posting away in a blog, Facebook page, message board, Twitter – whatever. You get a negative comment. What do you do?
1. Have a response plan – this is key for companies big and small. The person doing the posting probably doesn’t have ALL the answers, so who in the company can answer what?
2. Answer as quickly as possible. Social media is a 24/7 medium. Depending on your business model, it’s feasible to maintain a presence only during business hours, but it’s a risk.
3. Even if the answer is “I don’t know” – ANSWER! Tell the customer that you will look into the matter, set a time frame for getting back to them, etc. But don’t ignore!
4. Don’t argue – there’s another saying, “the customer is always right.” As the social face of the company, you have to be the bigger person, and not engage in arguments online. If something escalates beyond this, remember to have a plan, and in that plan, perhaps you have an email for offline discussion.
5. Don’t engage the “trolls” – there are people that will never be happy. Ever. Never be mean to them, never dismiss them, try to help them, but sometimes, you’ll need to find a tactful way to deal with them. Each one is different, so there’s no tried-and-true solution. But be sure to account for that in your response plan.

Does anyone have any other tips to add? Comments are always welcomed!