Tag Archives: Critical Success Factors
Socialism is the New World Order – How Will Marketers Survive?
The New World Order is Socialism: I mean the digital world! Successful brands of tomorrow will be the ones that are comfortable letting go of so called “control” and work with the customers in creating the brand image.
According to Dunkin’ Donuts Brand Marketing Officer Frances Allen: “Customers will decide what our brand is about. And there is nothing we can do about it. And that is a very liberating thing. In the end, you can’t control it. And that’s the beauty of social media. And that means marketers have to let go – a little”
Listening to some of the panelists at the recently concluded OMMA Global, I realized that some of the brands get it. Companies like Ford, NY Times and Dunkin’ Donuts have leveraged the power of Social Media to build brand awareness, customer loyalty and increase sales.
Martin Nisenholtz, SVP Digital Operations at the New York Times Company says the Times loves Twitter. Twitter has become extremely important distribution feeder for the NY Times. Times has over 200 Twitter feeds and adding 15,000 followers a week. And talking about ROI, Twitter now drives 10% of NYT digital distribution, up from 0 a year ago.
From Facebook pages, to blogging and Twitter accounts, Ford has gone crazy for social networking. And there are no limits, according to Scott Monty (Twitter @ScottMonty), Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager at Ford Motor Company. Ford is presently in its eighth month of its Fiesta Movement social-media program to promote the eponymous car from Europe by letting 100 young social-media-savvy Americans drive the vehicles for several months. Each month, Ford has been assigning tasks to the “Agents” involving lots of driving and just as much blogging, Twittering, YouTubing and Flickring. “People are finding out about the Fiesta from people like them,” said Scott.
So what do companies and marketers do to adapt to a world where
- there are plenty more choices available to the consumer
- media is fragmented
- attention span has reduced dramatically
- audience is not listening anymore
What do they need to do different in order to survive and grow?
Marketers have to move away from the ‘broadcast” mode where they would just create information and then do a mass publish to the consumers. Marketers need to establish trust and authenticity. Marketers need to LIE in order to be successful.
L: LISTEN: Trust is built by understanding and acting upon the needs of the customer. To understand the needs, you need to listen in. Grow Bigger Ears. You need to make yourself accessible via Twitter, email, phone, whatever tool you use to answer a question, provide information. People trust people like themselves. Again, to cite @ScottMonty at Ford: “Your brand is not my friend. I don’t want a cup of coffee or car or piece of clothing to “friend” me on Facebook. I want the brand manager, designer or engineer. I want someone who can talk to me/listen to me.”
I: INFLUENCE: After Listening and Learning about the customer needs, you need to act on it in an authentic manner. Transparency and Authenticity are key in creating a degree of influence. Deborah Schultz, Partner Innovation Practice, Altimeter Group cautions: “Always be truthful on social media…Google is the long tail of lies.”
E: ENGAGE: If you constantly listen and learn from the customer AND influence her by acting in a transparent and authentic manner, you will enter the engagement phase with the customer. Engagement is where the customer becomes a brand ambassador/advocate. Customers in this phase are the most profitable. They provide you feedback and suggestions for improvement. They bring in other customers. They are willing to pay a higher price for your product compared to that being charged by the competition.
It will be interesting to see how companies adapt to the new Socialist order and how many are willing to partner with the customers to develop what the brand should stand for. What do you think will be some of the challenges?
7 things to think about before jumping in
In the last post, we discussed how social media is gaining traction and becoming a tool in every marketer’s armor. Here are a few things you should consider before jumping in
- NEED: Social Media must be integrated with your overall marketing strategy. Think about a) Why do you think you need to implement social media? b) How do you see social media helping you to achieve your marketing or business objectives?
- BUY IN: Social Media is not a campaign, it is a long term strategy. The only way to succeed is to engage in the conversation in an ongoing manner. With that, it is critical to have the buy in from the CMO and CFO to keep up with the investments in resources, time and money till you start seeing positive ROI.
- BANDWIDTH & RESOURCES: The strength of Social Media is in the LIE model, i.e. the ability to listen, influence and engage. Do you have the time and people to LIE?
- CULTURE: What is your corporate culture? Is your company bold enough to support social engagements and willing to talk transparently, authentically & honestly to people online?
- COST: The good news is that there are tools available for the LISTEN part of LIE. Marketers can make use of tools like TweetDeck, Radian6, Techrigy, Visible Technologies, BuzzGain, and Crimson Hexagon to name a few to listen to the conversations about their brand, employees, competition and industry. But you need to consider the ROI on the cost of these tools and your resources.
- TOOLS: Once you have established the above 5 factors, you need to see what Social Media tools to use to align with your goals and objectives.
- METRICS: If you cannot measure something, you cannot improve it. Given the increasing importance of Social Media, it is important that marketers agree on a set of metrics aligned with their goals and objectives. Amber Naslund of Radian6 offers some great ideas on the type of metrics we can use for Social Media:
- Exuberance: the monthly count of positive posts, comments and testimonials
- Bucket Volume: comparison of monthly count of complaints and referrals
- Activation: the monthly total of new sources that have shared your positive content
- Conversation: the total monthly share of conversations vs. competition
- Engagement: the amount of repeat commenting and lengths of those comments
- Repetition: average number of times a particular source/user retweeets or comments on your content
- Bonding: the percentage of your followers who comment or retweet your content
What factors are you thinking of when implementing a social media strategy? Please chime in