Month: November 2010

Social Media and the Cult of Personality

Participation in social media is about the community, not the cult of personality, the narcissism, the “look at me! I’m so great.” I think we all understand that, at least in our talk, if not in our actions. Yet, lately, I find myself bothered by the absolutely rampant self-promoters. I follow people on Twitter who tweet about almost nothing but themselves, their products, their accomplishments, their hotness.

Sure, you might argue, I could just unfollow them, unfriend them, block them, whatever. And I could. But I don’t, because I think they are really good people with a lot to offer who are just caught up in the shiny illusion that social media can create that everyone’s a celebrity. I have actually had people refer to me as a “local social media celebrity” and it makes me laugh and throw up a little in my mouth. I’ve seen friends, so caught up in the moment of their “celebrity” status, completely disregard other friends, because they are not in “the group”. Welcome to social media high school. I’d like to graduate and move on now, please.

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The Truth About Social Media ROI (and why Facebook isn’t enough to deliver)

I recently found myself in a heated debate on Twitter about the ROI of social media. In one corner sat those promoting ‘there is no return on social media…yet’ and in the other sat myself insisting ‘it’s not only possible, it’s happening.’

The skeptical side of me wondered if those who are promoting the ‘no ROI from social’ stance are those who are truly generating ‘no ROI from social’ and are perhaps looking to substantiate that result. But then again, maybe I was wrong. After all, there were some pretty smart people in that opposite corner publishing blogs on Huffington Post and ClickZ – all reaffirming the belief that Social ROI does not exist.

But after further consideration and more research, I’m sticking to my guns. Social media ROI is not only attainable, it should be expected. The harsh reality is that most business executives measure value in terms of financial metrics – not fans. While it’s true that the long-term benefits from real engagement through social media will likely be far greater than any of us realize today, it’s also true that many companies are positioned to start delivering financial returns now, particularly strong CPG brands.

The game will change in 2011
For most CPG companies today, ‘we need a social media presence’ means Facebook and Twitter. Although deeply simplified, this strategy plays out a lot like this:

  • How many fans do we have? Hooray!
  • How many are following us? Hooray!
  • How many times is our brand mentioned on the social web? Hooray!

By all accounts, the results exceed expectations. But while you’re patting yourself on the back for attracting a social following, understand there’s someone within the company scratching their head and asking: So what? How is this investment bringing me any value?

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Determining and Delivering the Ultimate ROI of Social Media

There is one thing that makes social media special — not to mention social — and, from a business perspective at least, it’s the one reason SM is worth investing in.

It comes in the form of the conversations that used to occur at the water-cooler or over the backyard fence, or in the good-old-fashioned (un-choreographed) town hall meetings. It is about give-and-take, and real-time feedback.

While one of the primary ways we evaluate marketing tools is in terms of how effectively a message is delivered, social calls for a new way of thinking about media. (Or, more accurately, it can actually help refocus our perspective on what constitutes successful communication. But that’s another discussion.) This is a new brand of media, made up of the fabric of relationship. This tool is far from one-way, one-sided or one-dimensional. It is about participation, collaboration and interaction.

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The Content Marketing Fail, aka “the Twinkie Effect”

Creating fresh, valuable content for your company’s website not only improves your search rankings and gives your brand a voice, it also shows your customers, your prospects and your industry that you have something to say. And, more importantly, it shows you’re listening.

Content is king, long live the king. Digital content lives forever.

There is, however, a downside. I call it the “Twinkie Effect.”

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#MarketerMonday is Coming and so is @ChrisBrogan !


In no time at all it will be #MMchat time again and this week our SPECIAL guest will be none other than @ChrisBrogan on Monday November 22nd at 8:00pm eastern!!


The topic for our chat is one that continues to grow in both importance and impact and that is The Role of Major Influencers in Cause Marketing. We look forward to Chris’s insights and examples in this regard based on his previous experiences with cause marketing programs.

Hope you’re all as excited as I am to have @ChrisBrogan join us and that you will all make the time to be with us on November 22nd, for it truly is all of you who make #MarketerMonday Chat matter!

Remember #MMchat makes Mondays MARVELOUS!!

Cheers

Jeff Ashcroft

@TheSocialCMO

The Personal ROI of Social Media

My job is to care about the business case for social media. That’s what I do for a living. Put social media in the perspective of a brand or company and do my best to illustrate how it can build a business.

But if I never manage to definitively prove some fancy formula for “social media ROI” in a business context, I’ll still be here. Why? Because there are personal rewards to participation here that go above and beyond awareness, or sales, or anything of the sort.

I have met friends through whom I’ve rediscovered the meanings of trust, faith, and loyalty.

I’ve found a home for some of the personal battles I’ve fought, and solidarity through hearing the stories of others.

I have seen people raise money and awareness for causes that deserve more than we can ever collectively give them, but that might not otherwise stood a chance of getting seen.

I’ve seen the weak find strength in the voices and actions of others.

I’ve laughed more richly and more genuinely than I have in a long, long time.

I’ve walked into rooms and hugged people as if I’ve known them for decades, thanks to the late night chats on Twitter or a string of discussion on a blog. And I’ve shared drinks or dinner with many of those people and forged bonds of forever friendship that started on these “silly” social networks. We may have found one another on the web, but that’s just the spark that lit the fire.

I’ve reconnected with friends who I’ve always regretted losing track of, and I’ve been able to apologize for that in person. I’ve seen people closest to me rediscover the love of their lives many years later and forge a future together because of a serendipitous click.

We used to be bound by geography and circumstance in order to encounter people. Now, our potential for connection – and our ability to do so regardless of where we are or where we go – is amplified many times over, and more fluid and unencumbered than it’s ever been.

There are skeptics and naysayers all over. There are the “yeah, but”s of the world masquerading as pragmatists or realists when they’ve really got a perspective or attitude problem of their own. There is always the other side of the coin. But I choose to focus my energy elsewhere, because I’ve personally experienced how these relationships have enriched my life, my work, and my perspective on the world around me.

I will and do support the idea that quantifying social media’s impact is important to justify continued investment as a business. But I can’t believe nor understand how many companies can’t also accept the fact that deeper and broader personal connections can net stronger business ties, too, whether or not you can capture the data proof points that bear that out. It’s been that way since the dawn of time. We prosper in business through better connections, stronger relationships, deeper trust. We’ve always known that. We’ve rarely demanded to see the evidence until we got all up in arms about the fact that we were talking on this internet thing instead of over the golf course or a drink.

But I’ve found all of these things in spades through Twitter, my blog, the blogs of others, Facebook. I’ve found them in you, friends and readers and those that have provided so much information and insight for me to learn from. I’ve made business deals, yes. Numbers of them. But I’ve also exponentially enriched my life through the people I’ve met, the ideas I’ve discovered, the learning I’ve done.

I’ve found personal gold here on these crazy places on the web, simply because they give me potential. They give me personal inertia. They’ve brought me the gifts of people and friendships that will last long beyond the wires that first connected us.

That’s my personal social media ROI. What’s yours?

Amber Naslund

Social Media ROI : Sink or Swim

Altimeter Group recently revealed that, for an overwhelming proportion, corporate social media strategists report to Marketing and Corporate communications departments. In the same report, it was confirmed that the main concern of the corporate social strategist for 2011 is to create ROI measurements.

It was already Marketers’ main preoccupation last year , as it was detailed in the eMarketer Online Brand Measurement Report, 2009

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Why Chris Brogan is Invincible

I am fascinated with uber-blogger Chris Brogan as a cultural icon of the social media revolution. Whether it’s trying new business models or pioneering sponsored posts, he is our canary in the coal mine, exploring the leading edges of our field.

But a post this week established a new milestone even for Chris. For your edification and entertainment, I am re-printing the entire post. Under a hand-drawn picture of a stick figure at a podium, he wrote:

“Okay, don’t do this. If you’re going to speak to people, speak TO (or even better WITH) them. Don’t look at your slides, read your slides, and tell me what’s on your slides. I know how to read. Stop it. Okay?”

… That’s it — 41 words.

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How to do Twitter in 15 minutes a day

“Twitter users are the most influential consumers online,” concludes Exact Target in the research report Subscribers, Fans, and Followers. When I was with Twitter’s COO, Dick Costolo, recently in Indianapolis, he told me there were over 160 million registered Twitter accounts. It’s safe to say, Twitter is growing in importance as a part of one’s marketing mix. The challenge is, how to find the time to “do” Twitter. Here’s how you can do Twitter in 15 minutes a day or less.

Growing your network

  • Use search.twitter.com or Google to find 5 leaders in your industry and follow them on Twitter
  • Follow back every real person who follows you
  • Follow 5 people who participated in a tweet chat discussing your topic. Here’s a mega list of Twitter tweet chats.

Growing your relationships

  • Scan your @mentions and reply to every human who addresses a tweet to you
  • Scan your direct messages and reply to any that don’t look like auto-generated messages. Nearly 99% of all my incoming direct messages are auto-generated. Many people call them “junk mail,” and nearly everyone calls them spam. No doubt you’ll come up with your own vocabulary to describe them.

Growing your influence

  • Scan your “home” stream of tweets posted by people you follow to find relevant content for your followers and retweet it.
  • Share 4-5 links to other relevant content around the web (blog posts, news articles, research, polls, surveys, etc.). You can use your RSS aggregator (I’m using Google Reader at the moment) to “harvest” relevant content to share via Twitter.
  • If you write a blog, share a link to a recent post. Twitter readers may give you grief if all you do is share your own content, but if they know you’re also sharing other valuable, relevant content with them, they’ll be glad to see your content, too.

While’s there’s much, much more to leveraging the power of Twitter, if you’ll follow the outline above, you can get started in Twitter right away without it consuming too much time. Over the next few days, I’ll share more ideas to help you use Twitter to expand your online presence, and yes, to add Twitter as a meaningful part of your sales system.

Trey Pennington

Of letter bombs and skull tweets

Sticks and stones can break our bones, but words will never hurt us? Bah. Every playground-dwelling kid in the world has shown that phrase the lie. In fact, it amazes me that we aren’t more wary of the idiomatic anthrax that wages alchemical warfare inside us every day.

As any self-help guru worth his weight in jacuzzis will tell you, the words we think and speak determine our moods, our perceptions and ultimately our lives. Tony Robbins – he of the iconic nineties whoop-yeah Bible ‘Awaken the Giant Within’ – may be relentlessly American, embarrassingly self-promoting and an outrageous coiner of Copyrighted Jargonese™, but he’s pretty damn good on what he calls Transformational Vocabulary (™, natch).

The idea is that we’re all infested with thousands of tiny linguistic burrs which lodge in our psychological schemas and profoundly colour our view of the world – often in shades of sludgy, depressive grey. The habitual words and metaphors we use to describe our selves, experiences and emotions inevitably limit and ultimately shape those selves, experiences and emotions. If you’re feeling ‘over-burdened’ as you ‘plough away’ at work before you ‘get slaughtered’ at weekends, no wonder that your day has a submissively miserable farmyard pall.

It was Rory Kinnear who reminded me of transformational language this week. No, sadly not over a chummy brandy and ginger backstage at the National; I simply saw his Hamlet, which is a masterclass in performative vocabulary. Every word is obsessively, precisely coined: immaculately chosen, bitterly revelled in, each speech visibly poisoning his skittish, scatting body syllable by syllable.

Will according to Wordle: Hamlet demonstrates the art of the mindfuck soliloquy

For Hamlet is the master of self-torture through articulacy, the prince of destructive NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). He talks himself into tragedy. The sheer inventiveness and sensual impact of his rhetoric makes his nightmare state of Denmark so real that it transubstantiates from word to matter. His metaphors of death, decay and danger are so relentless that they actually materialise.

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