Social media-ites say that companies have to get into the conversation and that this is the "it" trend. Yet according to Charlene Li's Groundswell/Forrester blog, from a 2007 Forrester survey, most people in the overall US fall under the "Spectators" (people who read online content) or "Inactives" (Do not use online media at all) category.
It could be that we are in social media bubble. Some companies will rise and fall--thus is the name of the game, as competition is the main motive behind business.
The reaction that I have to the Forrester tool is that if they are using random samples of people across the US and other nations, and most people fall under the "Spectators" category (around 48% of the sampled US population), how do you increase participation? Marketers are often challenged with creating brand loyalty and only few companies, like Apple do it well.
Here are a few ideas:
1) Blogs are an easy way to transition from traditional PR to social media PR.
It's highly involved, however and so some way of building analytics into your blog is important as well. Most people read online content and the lines between traditional media and online media are becoming blurred.
2) Your Brand Followers will respond to some ideas more than others. Listen to what they have to say and continue on those avenues but don't be shy about introducing other relevant content.
3) Relevance is important. Sports fans won't be interested in a conversation about cooking, although you can have sports fans that are avid cooks--it's just a smaller group of people, and ideally you want to reach out to a larger group. I try to keep random topics to the weekends, and industry talk and peripheral marketing stuff seems to be OK because my objective is to offer my point of view.
4) Think Viral Marketing and how to employ those same kinds of strategies to proliferate talk about your company, but be ready to listen to negative comments as well as positive.
5) Since there are different levels of participation, think about ways to reach out to people on those different levels. While some might enjoy creating content, the majority of people are happy just reading a few things and then moving on.
Feel free to add to this list!
Updated Monday, March 24, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Social Media Marketing - Observations
Friday, March 21, 2008
Blog like a Winner
There is an article on NY Times today that appeals to my blogger ego. How do you get people to read what you write? There is so much "noise" out there that is near impossible to get eyes on the page, although there are some great tools out there, like Feedburner and Facebook that have worked well for me to publicize and analyze my traffic.
Some great tips on the New York Times article that I thought were really interesting:
1) Don't blog for money...it takes tons of readers to make those pennies and nickels become a fat check.
2) Write about what you are passionate about (but I think this means you can't forget that you do have an audience)
3) Fit blogging into holes in your schedule--who would have thought, it's not something you add to your to do list, but when you have a gap between your to-dos?
It would be cool to get some comments from other bloggers on what has worked for them. This is one of those weird conversations that people have a lot because the internet is still so complex. A guy I met the other day said the Internet is the "modern unconsciousness."
Friday, March 14, 2008
Angry Journalist Gripes About Social Media
Whenever a journalist writes a blogpost with an angry rant against public relations practitioners, the word spreads like wildfire. Agencies cross their fingers and close their eyes before reading the forward that gets past around.
I didn't really believe it before but journalists apparently do get angry about being under appreciated for their talents. Good writers are getting quickly trumped by technology and the paper boy isn't worth much to me either. As far as I am concerned, I don't want a wad of paper delivered to my home every day, especially when my News Central is right at my desktop after I check my e-mail.
I visited The Angry Journalist and the most recent gripe by Angry Journalist #2201 is a fairly amusing gripe about Social Media:
"Does journalism even exist anymore? A five-line blurb on the Web? Whoop de doo. Get a real job."
It's not really clear what his gripe is about exactly, it could be the idea that newspapers don't publish new news and blogs are ubiquitous at this point. But yeah, I get that. Journalists are struggling to keep up, but just like everybody else, journalists have to innovate themselves. After a few months at a local daily paper, entirely paid by local advertisers, I knew I had to get out. The newspaper's publisher at the time refused to even archive their paper on the web.
As a girl who met her first Apple computer at age 9, I thought this was just ridiculous.
Angry Journalist #2201, I get where you are coming from. News quality is decreasing and the level of information on the web is just crazy. But maybe, just maybe, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Who said journalism has to be owned by a select few? The first newspaper was probably started by a guy who was experimenting with a printing press and just went around talking to people. No joke.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Social Media for Everyone
Well, I can't say it's not true. There are still very few people who use the wide range of social media tools that are out there and most people think it is about YouTube and Facebook or MySpace.
Mack Collier on Marketing Profs is talking about social media tools like Twitter, Seesmic, and Viddler.
I don't know what it is about these social media tools but the average person doesn't just integrate social media tools into their life, probably because they aren't quick software gadget adopters. Sure, if you go to the South by Southwest conference, you have a microcosm of bloggers and social media chatters. Unfortunately, this won't catch on with everybody.
It would be cool to see Twitter grow big but Facebook status messages seem to work nicely for most people. This is a dilemma for those who want to add more social media tools to the webosphere.
By the way, here's a video posted by Guy Kawasaki on his blog about how he and Steve Ballmer had a witty tete-a-tete. To me, this is like web 1.0 vs. web 2.0
Thursday, January 24, 2008
This is just a random observation but I daresay in my group of friends, those who are reaching their 30s are less likely to use Facebook and then you have the oddball professor or teacher or parent who is trying to stay hip and connect with their teenagers. Are these non-Facebook users laggards or simply not interested?
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Social Media for B2B
I'm still debating whether social media applies to the B2B market. For example, if government niche marketers most likely won't be using social media because of the bureaucracy that remains in the market, but surely governments talk to each other and complain and have some way of communicating.
Social media right now is dominated by all kinds of people who have caught the internet bug and are blogging, posting reviews on everything from restaurants on Yelp!to software on CNet and all this influence through non-marketer authorities in a peer group is really changing the way people buy things. Products these days have to be sold by "organic" product evangelists, not by marketers. So the marketing role is changing because marketers now have to mobilize product evangelists rather than educate the market on what they should or should not buy.
Hark back to the 1990s and you will remember commercials that tell you why Pepsi is better than Coke and vice versa. I don't think products are sold that way anymore--it's more about who buys the product and if they are in the same peer group.
Do we see this kind of behavior happening in the B2B side? In a way, yes, because if we didn't, then companies would not post case studies on their websites. Companies are highly risk adverse where costs are concerned and they often don't want to purchase something if their partners or competitors are not buying the same product.
Therein lies an answer: corporations may be more slow moving in comparison to individual consumers and as the overall population gets more educated with social media, then perhaps we will see a different dynamic in the B2B market. However, this sort of thing is still emerging and there are different issues such as security, IT management and brand management that will come into play.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Murdoch Shackles Media
On Mashable.com today, blogger Paul Glazowski discusses Murdoch's business strategy and how Murdoch attempts to revamp the Wall Street Journal in the coming months.
I say pony up, Murdoch. Quit stalling. Just give us the stories, and stop asking for our credit card info when registering accounts. Yes, we know, you like making the most money you can. But as we all know, news on the Net is now news without fees. Give in, dude. Now. Or at least soon. There’s simply no point in holding out any longer.
Well, the internet is definitely taking over the media and a lot of paper-based models, like the Wall Street Journal, are going to have to ways to cope. Certainly, a lot of odd-ball pricing models are going to make their way out especially if media companies want to try to avoid the advertising revenue stream as their main pricing strategy.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Why we are online
Things that could have proliferated the internet in web 2.0 in no particular order:
What else?
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Communication, a Media Invasion
I was talking with some of my colleagues from the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association (SVAMA) yesterday and we were speculating on social media and how this arena is changing traditional media. Michael was saying that it's actually not true that current media replaces old media--it just gets re-innovated. Radios didn't get replaced by Walkmans, and even though we don't use the old tapes format anymore, we don't listen to music any differently than we did after Walkman. And books haven't gotten replaced by things like the Kindle or Sony e-Reader and so far, it doesn't seem like they will. It's almost impossible to have a true "paperless office" even with cool tools made by Google Apps and Zoho but one thing that remains true is that innovation is constant and changing.
I'm no expert, but some good conclusions came out of our group conversation, but I keep noticing some of the same themes. The group I was speaking with were fairly knowledagable about social media. But in general, a lot of marketers aren't sure how social media works and there a lot of fear surrounding blogs, social networks and such to use them as a marketing tool. I think we just need to get back to basics and remember some marketing 101: who is your target market and will the tools you want to use serve your business/marketing objectives?
Of course, it's easier said than done, so feel free to post your thoughts on social media approaches and/or the latest trends in technology innovation that you see.
