Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much!
Yes, social media can generate business dollars — very real and measurable dollars. As I said in a recent Tweet,
“Awareness=Revenues.
Differentiators=Margins.
Authenticity=Loyalty.
ALL measurable.”
The concepts are similar to traditional media marketing, but they each have a different twist when you add in the social factor.
Bloggers are amazing people who add a great deal of value to my life and work – and in my social media saturated work/life, that means a great deal!
Every day I am thrilled to be part of the awesome blogger community, and here’s why you (and your brand) need to love bloggers too:
Marketers used to be able to get away with intrusive advertising, placing online ads as pop-ups, highly distractive Flash animations, and a variety of other methods designed specifically to grab shoppers’ attention. However, consumers have changed and are no longer enticed by ads (or other marketing tactics) that interrupt them… it’s as though they now have a built-in attention spam filter that automatically blocks the ads from their awareness.
As shoppers are bombarded with information, they have become resistant to intrusive advertising. Advertising that is poorly-timed, irrelevant, and/or interrupts a current task quickly becomes an annoyance rather than an incentive to pay attention.
Successful social media marketing is all about relationships, with the highest ROR (Return on Relationship) coming from relationships with your Brand Advocates — those people who are so delighted by your product/service/brand that they can’t wait to tell their friends and their whole social networks about their experience. Here are 12 ways to build your Brand Advocates to increase your ROR:
1. Focus on the relationship first.
Consumers don’t fall in love with your brand and become Brand Advocates by being pushed into sales; they fall in love with your high quality product, excellent customer service, and a consistently enjoyable experience – all natural byproducts of strong relationships.
The more social media use becomes a way of business and a way of life, the more we are seeing – and will continue to see – issues around data collection and user privacy. It of course makes sense for marketers to leverage this data, but in my opinion, we’re going about it in the wrong way.
Brands MUST begin to view data as a relationship-building and consumer-engagement opportunity, rather than simply a targeting tool. The targeting mentality is all about “catching” the customer, zeroing in on the customer like prey — totally counter to the emerging culture of social/relationship-based marketing!
Brands that embrace this targeting mentality are missing the boat and letting a huge relationship-building opportunity pass them by. Let’s turn the table on the data collection/privacy issue and instead make it valuable to the consumer in the form of getting to know them and serving them better.
Until recently, “social media fatigue” has been the most dangerous “condition” that we social media marketers have had to combat. Now, however, with the recent trend toward frequent deep discounts and coupon offers, we are risking an even more serious condition of “offer fatigue.”
Social media fatigue is of course of concern to social media marketers, but I think it will continue to be seen most often as simply an unfortunate side effect to the incredible advances that social media has brought to human connections and access to information. Offer fatigue, on the other hand, has serious consequences for our brands.
Moments of Truth are well-known concepts in the marketing world, from research (Zero Moment of Truth)… to shopping (First Moment of Truth) … to owning/using a product (Second Moment of Truth).
Now, in a recent blog post, David Berkowitz introduces one more: the Infinite Moment of Truth (IMOT), which is all about sharing the experience of any (or all) of the other Moments of Truth. Berkowitz suggests the IMOT is infinite in three ways:
Each of the Moments of Truth provide their own marketing opportunities, but the Infinite Moment of Truth is the one that can harness the full power of social media and start the “moment of truth cycle” again by influencing the choice a consumer makes at the Zero moment of truth.
The consumer purchases a product, uses it, loves it, and shares this experience with their networks… and someone in their network gets to the Zero Moment of Truth and says “I will purchase.”
Google+ is here — what do you need to change about your brand message to leverage this new tool?
Nothing!
Now more than ever, your brand message needs to remain strong and consistent, and your focus needs to stay on building relationships. Don’t let new tools (like Google+) distract you from your brand message! As I continue to say, successful social media marketing is all about relationships, and the tools simply facilitate those relationships. Without the people and connections, the tools are meaningless.
Since social media makes it so simple (quick and easy) to post your message (content) in numerous social networks, it can be tempting to spray your message around the cybersphere as far and wide as possible. However, that method keeps you at a surface level of connection… which gets you little more than a glance. To go deeper and have ongoing consumer relationships that result in sales, you need to be relevant and stay relevant to your audience.
This might sound like Marketing 101, but with the introduction of social media and the exponentially increased capacity for one-too-many messaging, it bears repeating: no matter how perfectly or brilliantly worded your message is, it will not make an impact if the content itself doesn’t matter to (isn’t relevant to) your audience.
There are no true experts or gurus in this social media space – we are ALL still trying to figure this out. When I said that at the 140 Character’s Conference: New York City (#140conf) the audience applauded… because we all assume that someone else has all the answers to social media marketing success.
The truth is that social media is still too new as a serious business tool for any one of us to know all the best social media marketing tactics or even understand best how to leverage every platform.
So why am I (@TedRubin) the #1 followed CMO on Twitter (and been so for close to two years) with over 54,000 followers? Because I don’t assume I know everything about social media marketing, so I focus my time on building relationships. Because I pay attention, respond to, and interact with my followers… and I am not afraid to experiment publicly to see what topics are most relevant to my network(s), and what content is most useful to them.