I attest that Mitch Joel's new book, Six Pixels of Separation, is the first (and best) post-web 2.0 marketing book.
Strong statement? Damn right. Here's why I believe it and why you can't miss his book.
In A Nutshell...
For my money, Joel's is the first new media marketing book that assumes knowledge of the basic moving parts and launches right into how to use them for business. This book really is about how to market in a new age.
Most web 2.0 marketing books explain the basics (what is a blog/delicious/Twitter, etc), give examples (i.e. Zappos, ComcastCares, Amazon, etc.), and suggest you connect the theory and those examples in your own business.
And that's OK. There is plenty of room for books like that. (I recommend Scott Fox's e-Riches 2.0 or Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's Trust Agents).
These books help a lot of people and that's great. But there hasn't been a serious web 2.0 marketing book that went far beyond it.
Until now.
Why Is This Book So Great?
So why should you spend your hard-earned money on this book? Here are a few reasons.
First, Joel gives you the tough medicine you need to hear. It's not always easy or expected, but you're in the advanced class now, buddy.
I love the against-the-grain statements you get with Joel that throw the new conventional wisdom on its head. Gems include:
"The general drum-beating is that the consumer is in control, not the company. But it's not true." (page 94)
"The assumption here is that whatever it takes to get your message through all of the clutter is fine, as long as you disclose and are transparent about your intent. But that simply is not the case." (page 172)
"Until now, you may be thinking that everything we've talked about is about getting you and your business online. It's not. Getting online is easy." (page 187)
"[B]eing wrong suddenly becomes a powerful entrepreneurial force." (page 209)
"Let people steal your ideas." (page 213)
If those quotes don't pique your interest, you can stop reading now. Close this window and come back when I've got something better for you.
But I think it's more likely that thinking like this is interesting to most of you. It's not the normal stuff about community and the blogosphere and kumbaya crap. It's tough minded and it's about your business.
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What do you do when the ability to measure your return on investment (ROI) is mutually exclusive to the effectiveness of a particular campaign?
In other words, how do you sell a tactic up the chain of command that you know will work but can't provide definite numbers? Or conversely, how do you dissuade a course of action that has proven ineffective, but which your executives embrace because they understand the number of impressions or "hits" or lives interrupted by the campaign?
It's a difficult predicament, to be sure. And it appears that's the situation most marketers are facing.
Known Badness vs. Unknown Goodness
Traditional PR and marketing has never had much measurability, but it is a known entity. What was the return on investment for your PR firm to make unsolicited calls on your behalf? How many sales resulted from your Times Square advertisement? Traditional marketing has always had terrible measurability.
But, it's what your boss knows. Now, we have new technologies that can show an amazing array of ROI statistics, but they're new. They're "untested." They might fail. (Because *that* never happens with old media!)
Yes, I Can Back That Up
Don't believe me? Take a look at the report.
The executive summary (http://www.marketingsherpa.com/exs/SocialMM09excerpt.pdf?9780) shows that most marketers think the ability to measure ROI (also reported the second most significant barrier to social media adoption) has "nothing to do with the effectiveness of the tactic" (page 6).
In fact, MarketingSherpa goes on to say that:
<blockquote>"Marketers obsessed with only tracking social media results quantitatively are missing the point and may find themselves employing much less effective social media tactics for the sake of measurability."</blockquote>
How about you? Would you rather fail than tell your boss she's wrong?
Budgets Going...Up?
So, are marketers telling their bosses about social media? Quite possibly, yes. But marketers might not be <em>educating</em> their bosses as much as they need to.
MarketingSherpa reports that "social media and email are the only to tactics on which more companies are planning to increase spending than are planning to decrease spending" (page 4). This matches Forrester's recent report entitled "Social Media Playtime Is Over" (http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,47665,00.html). They report even higher numbers, saying that over 50% of marketers will increase their spending on social media in the coming year.
If you're a social media marketer and think this sounds great, think again. Just because marketers expect the amount they spend on social media to increase, that does not mean it'll be a lot. In fact, B.L. Ochman says that Forrester reports three-fourths of marketers expect to spend less than $100K on social media marketing tools.
Read the conversation B.L. includes at the end of B.L. Ochman on new Forrester report about social media a recent post (http://www.whatsnextblog.com/archives/2009/03/forrester_report_social_me...). I think she correctly portrays a set-up for failure, where marketers are expected to spin social media gold from corporate hay, stymied by every other department in their company.
So What Do I Do?
As a social media marketer, you have the proverbial wind at your back. You must seize this opportunity, but don't forget to lobby for the resources and permission you will need later.
Personally, I recommend buying MarketingSherpa's Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Guide (http://www.sherpastore.com/socialmediabmg09.html?9780). Their research is among the best, their arguments are persuasive, and, to be honest, it's expensive enough for your boss to trust it. Or buy Forrester's report. Or another one like it. But, do something.
We have fought for so long to be taken seriously. Remember being scoffed at five years ago when you claimed Facebook would be huge and a decent marketing tool? Remember when Twitter was just a fad? You get it. You see further down the road than most people. (Strategy is part of your job, after all.)
Well, part of your job is also being an educational resource for your boss and her bosses, too. Buy them a report. Send them information from sources they trust. Hell, reserve time on their schedule and read the damn stuff to them. But make them listen.
Otherwise, you will be one of the poor marketers tasked with doing "something viral." If you hear "we need a Facebook page" and don't hear mention a strategy or goals, you are about to get screwed.
But this is your chance! We finally have the green light to participate in social media marketing in a responsible way! But leverage the resources you need (don't forget staff time!) and the backing to make it all possible.
(Note: I am a MarketingSherpa affiliate which means that I make a little beer money if you buy the report. But I'd tout their work even if I wasn't. It's great stuff, period.)
Listen, it’s been great hanging out these past few months. Twitter feels like it’s hitting the mainstream and things are really heating up. And that’s the problem.
When I first started using the service, it was like I was listening in to the superstars of marketing, writing, and social media. I’d been reading their blogs for year, but now I was offered a glimpse into their real lives (OMG, Guy Kawasaki likes spam musibi!).
And this Twitter thing had a positive business application as well. By watching the superstars, I was able to stay current with up-to-the-minute news. I read the articles they recommended, decreasing the time I spent searching for good content and increasing the time I spent reading it. I was even able to engage them myself and network a little.
The most important aspect of all was that I could follow discussions occurring between them. If Brian from Copyblogger and Liz Strauss get into an argument, I want to know about it! These conversations taught me to be a better marketer, expanded my thinking, and consoled me that the best minds were wrestling with the very same issues I was.
When Things Went Wrong
This break-up: it’s not me, it’s you. It’s the fact that you’re too good for me.
As I found more and more smart marketers to follow, I expanded my customized news feed and my learning capability. Don’t get me wrong, I was very selective. But I wanted too much.
Everything that made Twitter useful to me was being overshadowed in the torrent of content, ideas, and conversation. I was following people who were too good, too interesting, too smart - and it was just too much.
Roundtablers, Cacophonists, Spammers, and Me
I’ve noticed four (very) general variations when it comes to a particular person’s follower/following volume and ratio.
Social media has already changed business profoundly. If yours hasn’t, you are already behind the curve. If you have customers, their expectations regarding how they interact with businesses has likely already shifted dramatically.
So how will you deal with these changes in your business? They will surely impact marketing and legal, perhaps even I.T. But what else is on the horizon?
This is my list of five employees you might hire in the next five years (and whose positions didn’t exist five years ago). Part of this equation depends on how big you are and how ingrained social media becomes in your business. Another aspect is your company’s size - smaller companies may likely combine aspects of these jobs.
That said, it’s likely that someone will need to fill the following positions in some way. How are you preparing?
International Community Compliance Chief: Facebook and MySpace may be dominant in the U.S., but how much attention are you paying to social networks in other countries? Do you have a presence on Korea’s Cyworld, Orkut (huge in Brazil), Mixi in Japan, Bebo in the UK, or Grono in Poland? Someone in your company needs to claim the company name on all of these sites, oversee even moderate design, set up unique referral links, and ensure that all of these efforts match your company’s over-arching strategy. (Thanks to Paul Gillin’s Secrets of Social Media Marketing for these examples, roughly on pages 101-106.)
Community Manager: People are talking about your brand. If they do it within the auspices of the company, in a sanctioned forum, message board, or internal blog, you will need a community manager. This employee needs to both ensure (through personal interaction) that the community is a valuable assets without spammers or flamers (definition #1) and they need to set up the internal documentation with which you regulate employee interaction. These people are the face of your brand to the outside world and the customer ambassador to internal staff.
Most membership organizations use the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to raise money for the coming year. Many use email to ask their members to donate to the cause. And many organizations do this very, very badly.
I have written an e-book about writing holiday donation emails. These are the emails where organizations, especially non-profits, solicit money from their members. It is often the life’s blood of a membership organization.
In the e-book, I outline best practices and ideas on design, content, and strategy. If you follow the principle outlined therein, I strongly believe your total donations will increase substantially and that you will lay the foundations of trust and engagement that ensure future donation drives will be all the more successful.
There is no cost for the e-book and no strings attached. I have purposefully left it without a firewall, free to anyone.
If the e-book is useful to you, however, please consider subscribing to this blog. You can subscribe using email or RSS and you will never receive spam from me. Subscribing is the only way you can be sure never to miss a post from OnlineMarketerBlog.
I hope you enjoy the e-book, Writing Holiday Donation Emails. It will be helpful to all web writers, but it is a must-read if you work in marketing or development, especially with a non-profit or other membership organization.
Feel free to leave your success stories in the comments section below. Or leave your own holiday donation email suggestions for the rest of the community to share.
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I thought I had a marketing death-match for you. I had it all plotted out: Mitch Joel versus Hobson & Holtz. Battle of the marketing giants!
But, like so much that starts out grandiose in the mind, the premise quickly whimpered and died. Here's what happened...
Mitch Joel of Twist Image recently wrote about the small number of customers who complain online - 7%, in fact. He cited a Harris Interactive poll which also was in line with an earlier Bazaarvoice study. Most customers just don't seem to complain online. When they do comment on service, most times it is an incredibly positive reaction.
I howled after I read this because Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz of the For Immediate Release podcast had recently detailed the crippling damages that occurred within minutes of a well-deserved Twitter rant against uHaul (tune in around minute 14).
I had them now! Which was it: Do customers complain online or don't they? What's the effect? I thought I had my two spiders in a glass jar and was preparing to shake the bottle for my own amusement.
Reality Sets In
However, after another (more) careful reading, I realized that they were likely more in agreement than disagreement, though they do bring different aspects to the table.
Mitch is correct not many people complain via online social networks. Though the ones that do are quite damaging because the legacy of that complaint theoretically lasts forever.
But Neville and Shel are also correct in that squeaky wheels can be...pretty damn squeaky. Their examples of David Alston's tweet about uHaul was spot on - this one guy (and the many, many subsequent tweets from other outraged uHaul customers) likely costs them thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes.
Online Complainers
So how can online complaints effect your business? Here are some key ideas to keep in mind when forming an online complaints strategy (you do have one of those, right?):
I read a lot for this blog and I try to pass along the books that I especially recommend. Some are simply must-reads if you're on the cutting edge of marketing and social media.
But it's rare that I quote a book more than a handful of times. If you read about a particular book on this blog more than a couple times, it means that it's a true resource for me - something I go back to again and again for guidance and ideas.
Sometimes these books are heavy on research and statistics (like Groundswell). Sometimes they provide a philosophical direction that keeps me on the correct path (like Join the Conversation).
It is rare, however, that a book is so chock-full of information that I know it will be a resource before I've even completed it. I'm only half-way through Paul Gillin's Secrets of Social Media Marketing and I already know you must buy it.
90% And 10%
Gillin begins the book by introducing the intended audience:
"This book isn't intended for the 10 percent of marketers who are on the leading edge of this phenomenon. It's for the 90 percent who are still trying to figure out how to start."
Since I consider this blog aimed at that audience as well, I commend Gillin's efforts. However, I also respectfully disagree. As a member of that 10 percent, I know that it's useful to other 10 percenters, not just the 90 percent trying to figure it out.
For instance, his outline of search engine capabilities was largely new to me (page 44) and I haven't heard of many of the examples he mentions, including the Twitter Baja 1000-Jim Beam promotion (page 116).
Even the most prominent blogger, marketers, and social media enthusiasts will gain something by reading this book.
That said, it's also great for the 90 percent who are trying to figure it all out. They will benefit from other's successes and missteps. Gillin does a great job of walking the reader through a social media marketing campaign from idea to strategy to execution to measurement.
Examples And Research
In my opinion, the two most useful aspects of this book are the examples and the research. Gillin isn't simply spouting off his theories - he is backing them up with real-world intelligence.
Like Made To Stick, this book supports it's premises and ideas with concrete examples and research. The section on CEO blogs featured several business leaders with positives and negatives about their experience. Likewise, his section on customer conversations was supported by influential authors and the facts and figures that inspire trust in his work.
The Gist
I highly recommend that you buy Secrets of Social Media Marketing. (It ships on November 1, but you can pre-order it on Amazon with that link at a third off the cover price.) I think it is a great resource for marketers, small business owners, or anyone who touches social media - and that's most of us.
Regular readers know I will rip into a book I think stinks. But I've been really impressed with Gillin's work and this book, in particular. Please let me know what you think in the comments section below.
P.S.: Gillin did something smart by creating a website well before the book is released: http://SSMMbook.com/. Check it out if you want to know more about his work, read other reviews, and get all of the footnotes in one convenient place.
It is against our nature to respond receptively to complaints. At their base, complaints are alerts that we (or our business) are unsatisfactory and often are requests to change our behavior.
People usually don't like being told how bad they suck.
But in business you have a responsibility to please your customers. In this effort, you may do market research, put out surveys, or request exit interviews. But what if you could hear all of feedback without paying for it?
Complaining is the customer's way of giving feedback. It's often difficult to hear about areas that need improving, but complaints can easily change your business for the better.
In this post, I will prove that customer complaints usually emanate from an altruistic place, that their feedback is immensely important to your business, and offer ways that complaints can be turned into a wonderful gift.
It's like lotto: you have to be in it to win it
The first step to turning a complaint into a gift is the ability to listen. Listening to your customers is really online reputation management. The good thing is that your customers are already talking about your business. From Bob Thompson, CEO of CustomerThink:
"You also might find that customers are already telling you what they want on forums or blogs, web site feedback forms or call center agent logs - if you'll take the time to read them. Text mining is becoming a more commonplace way to learn what customers are saying when the volume becomes too high to handle manually."
Power to the people
We also know from Groundswell (my must-read book of 2008) that a full quarter of U.S. adults leave reviews online. And why are customers giving this feedback? Believe it or not, but it's usually because they want to help.
A recent Bavaarvoice survey shows that 73% of respondents say they write online reviews of products because they want to help companies improve the products they build and carry (per MarketingVox). Your customers who review your products online (one feedback/complaint mechanism) are mostly motivated by altruism.
Another reason not to ignore this feedback is because it's likely true. ComScore reports that "[n]inety-seven percent of those surveyed who said they made a purchase based on an online review said they found the review to have been accurate." ComScore also reports that customers trust each other more than you, the professional.
Social media - everything from Facebook to Digg to Twitter to Flickr - has been quickly snagging the attention of small business owners and employees of big companies across the world. The business applications for these tools are being explored and many are finding success.
But is this all hype? Are businesses really adopting these tools and, if so, why do they succeed (or fail)?
In this post, I will give you proof that the use of social media in business is expanding rapidly, illustrate what social media offers your customers, and give you some questions so you can determine whether it's the right strategy for your company.
Social Media: What's The Big Deal?
Some businesspeople scoff that social media is a passing fad. Thanks to a recent study from The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, we have proof that it's not. Social media is becoming more familiar - and more applicable to business - to a much wider audience. From the social media in the Inc. 500 study:
"Just over one quarter of the Inc. 500 reported social media was very important to their business/marketing strategy in 2007. That number has increased to 44% just one year later."
So why the sudden and dramatic increase? I contend that businesses figured out where their customers were congregating online and are learning a new way to communicate with current and potential customers.
Go Where Your Fans Are
In David Meerman Scott's e-book, The New Rules of Viral Marketing, he tells a story about a business finding its customers online and communicating directly with them (which also turns out to be cheaper and more efficient).
Cindy Gordan, VP of New Media and Marketing Partnerships with Universal Orlando, was tasked with promoting a new Harry Potter theme park. She told only seven people, but those seven people reached 350 million potential customers through social media.
What I find interesting is Gordan's insistence that she was compelled to use the social media channels and websites where those Harry Potter fans gathered and shared news.
"'If we hadn't gone to the fans first, there could have been a backlash,' Gordan says. She imagined the disappointment dedicated Harry Potter fans might feel if they learned about Universal Orlando's plans in, say, The New York Times rather than an insider fan site."
Customers expect you to meet them where they are. In overwhelming and still increasing numbers, they are online and frequently reading blogs, checking in with friends on MySpace or Facebook, and sharing what they find online with their friends.
Sure, customers are online, but must businesses join them?
In this post, I will outline a mindset that hurts that industry, what the current business model is and why it doesn't work, a suggestion to ensure profitability, and the business model that can make an online video site profitable.
In their new September issue, Fast Company magazine features a fascinating story about the comedy web video business and how it's almost impossible to make these websites profitable. They lay out many of the current business models, but I think an addendum is useful.
First, The Mindset
We tend to think about web videos as a "thing." It is a product. It is content.
Forget this mindset. If you're a video producer, web video might be a tangible thing that comes from tangible people sitting around your tangible office. But it's not.
For your audience, web video is an experience. There's no actual product for the viewer - the video elevates the spirits or gives us hope or connects us to others. It has more in common with a trip to Disneyland than it does with buying razor blades.
So stop thinking of a video as a commodity and start thinking of it as an experience you provide for your viewer.
Second, The Model
As the Fast Company article points out, the prevailing business model is advertiser-based. This has been the case for most things in the U.S. for more than half a century.
However, the advertiser business model cannot support web video. Consider it: the marketplace is fragmented, niche sites have the most loyal visitors, online is still new to many advertisers, audience has a decreased appetite for ads, and the content (at least on the comedy sites) is oftentimes...edgy, to put it diplomatically.
Even off-shoots of the advertiser model don't work, such as product placement and sponsored shows. The huge conglomerates that have the money to invest in these small comedy sites only know these sorts of models - give the product away in exchange for some advertiser time.
No matter how many times you throw money at the problem, this business model still doesn't work.
But that doesn't mean web videos will never be profitable. (Misters Murdoch and Branson, please have your assistants print out the following explanation.)
