Uncategorized – Page 2 – Post-apocalyptic

Online Crisis Communication & The Impact of Social Media

Posted on January 27, 2011October 7, 2011 by bradmays

With the continued growth of online mediums, from social media to blogs to forums and search engines, any crisis communications plan that doesn’t address the connected conversations and information online is at a disadvantage. The degree to which you engage in those channels varies from brand to brand, industry to industry and depends on how interested your customers are in getting information there. But, at a minimum, online channels should be accounted for. And, for most brands, specific tactics should be included that address the proliferation of these online mediums among media and consumers.

The following outlines an approach to addressing the needs of a modern organization in managing the interaction that is enabled through and perpetuated by new communications channels and technologies.

Crisis Communication Readiness & Social Media

As a brand, you are a target online. You can own it, or it will own you. Gone are the days when a message traveled in a single direction. The change that social mediums have brought is the ability of the channel to talk back. For those with a deliberate approach to social media, this is an advantage. As in traditional communications, a company’s message can’t be heard and important information can’t be shared without a channel to put the message through. The same rule applies in social mediums. The opportunity that social media brings is an unfiltered, immediate and direct channel to the public. A deliberate, dedicated and integrated approach to social media increases a brand’s ability to communicate, manage and mitigate the impact of a crisis on a brand.

A viable brand presence in times of crisis includes:

A dedicated presence in social and online media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, company blog)
A pre-crisis presence that includes regular content posts and discussions with those who follow, post and engage there
An understanding of the most influential channels and individuals relevant to the brand and a way to instantly interact with them about the business of the brand (requiring relationships and understanding before a crisis hits)
A listening and monitoring program used to understand the volume, tone and level of engagement in social channels before, during and after a crisis
A fully staffed presence that includes a cross section of the organization to speed the information flow
An integration plan to address the speed at which information travels online – outlining the roles and responsibilities of each area of the business responsible for addressing a crisis
An executive-level understanding of the impact of social channels on the brand and a commitment to integrating social and online media into the brand’s response during a crisis

Taking it to the Next Level

For companies with an existing presence in social media, here are a few things to consider in crisis planning:

Consistency: The existence of a social presence also creates the expectation that the company will use social channels during a crisis. The company has an opportunity and obligationto use these channels for the entire discussion about the brand, including during a crisis.

Staffing: During times of crisis, the brand should have resources to staff the discussion in these channels, providing regular updates and responses based on approved messaging. Delay in getting a message in the channel should be a result of anything other than the ability to get the message out.

Integration: Social media channels should enhance and support dissemination of information that is also happening through traditional channels.

Coordination: Close coordination between all channels will make engagement in social media an effective strategy to manage crisis situations. Other areas of the business should understand and be prepared to support the continuous, real-time needs of communicating in social media.

As consumers grow to expect more from the brands they do business with, a deliberate approach to managing the entire brand conversation online is fundamental to a healthy social presence.

Social Media: It’s Not Just for Marketing, PR or Advertising Anymore

Posted on January 19, 2011January 20, 2011 by bradmays

There’s no doubt that social media is one of the more confounding things for marketers in recent memory. Even the Internet itself wasn’t as disruptive for marketers as the open, connected consumer-controlled conversations of the social Web. It’s a challenge that most companies will consider and reconsider for the foreseeable future.

One area that is challenging a company’s effectiveness in social media is answering the question, “who owns social media?” It’s understandable that ownership is causing so much trouble. On the surface, social media just is another channel. Traditionally, channels of information flow in one direction – from the brand to people. How, when and why a message gets out has an established set of rules. And, creating a message and paying for its dissemination is applied to someone’s budget. If you own the budget, you own the decision about what happens with that budget, the message, the channel and so on along long-established corporate assumptions and expectations.

It’s comfortable to put social media into this structure, and it’s easier to assign it to a specific department to “figure out” or to “handle.” But, some of those companies that have put social media into a silo are beginning to reconsider that approach.

The truth is, when determining who “owns” social media, you have to ask who “owns” the customer, or the public, or the stakeholder – because social media isn’t a mass medium. It involves interacting with individuals in aggregate. And, chances are, this type of interaction involves more than just marketing, PR, advertising, IT or yes, even legal.

When you take another step back, you can also view ownership through the lens of the conversation. Who owns the exchange of an idea, the image, or the feedback loop? These are all part of the social conversation. So, in the end, asking who owns the conversation gets more to the point than asking who owns the channel.

Unlike traditional channels, these channels are intended to be two-way mediums. Programs that aren’t set up to expect, encourage, entice and promote that two-way interaction treat social media like any other traditional channel. Unlike television, a print ad or even a press release, the content in these channels are intended to be consumed, shared, deconstructed, mashed up and responded to.

These are the inherent characteristics of social mediums that make them unlike other channels. And, it’s why the outcome of using social media is unlike the outcome of using the traditional channels marketers have used for years.

The dynamic nature of the medium calls for all hands on deck to be able to cultivate and manage the one-to-one, two-way conversation that happens directly with individuals in full view of everyone. The people who just saw the billboard you bought can now talk back – not through the billboard, but through social media, and you’ve missed an opportunity if you’re not able to respond. Your new customer who just spent two hours on the phone with your call center but still can’t install their software is Tweeting at you, and your lack of a response is apparent to all of the others watching the social discourse. Or, you’re experiencing an outage across the western portion of your service area and your customers are lining up on Facebook demanding updates.

These are all real issues. And, each of them requires coordination across different parts of the business. The same parts of the business that may have had trouble working together in the timeframes of traditional mediums driven by newspaper deadlines and insertion dates. Now, with the real real-time pressures of social channels, it’s more important than ever for everyone to understand their role and know that their job now includes helping the company address and meet the expectations of a connected world with connected customers and connected issues.

(From “Unfollowed: Pentagon Deletes Social Media Office” | Danger Room | Wired.com)

There is a path to integration. It’s not straight, it’s not easy, and it’s different for every brand. But, it will become increasingly important to brands who want to engage in these channels beyond what they’ve been able to so far. If you’re still running your social media presence in silos, it’s likely getting harder to:

1) See and show increasing degrees of measurable results

2) Grow your social communities – breadth, depth and reach

3) Manage the entire conversation about the brand – the good, the bad and the unimaginable

4) Create enough new, compelling content to keep the community engaged and interested enough to share with their friends

I’m going to tackle each of these points in another series of posts that will highlight what an increasing number of companies will experience this year, if they haven’t already – that social media isn’t the realm of one particular group or business area, but takes the entire organization to carry on a fruitful and sustainable conversation.

PART 3 – Mine! Mine! Mine! – Who “Owns” Social Media?

Posted on January 5, 2011 by bradmays

Who “Owns” social media? This is a question that keeps people up at night, because the question has a direct impact on who “owns” the conversation, the experience and (in the end) the budget. Ask instead, “Who owns the customer?” and the issue begins to expand and involve more functions along the customer continuum. This same continuum exists in social media. While customer service departments may be responsible for the direct interaction with the customer, can they also make a repair, schedule a product upgrade or install a new phone line? The speed at which information travels in social media puts additional pressure on internal processes. How quickly can the company respond, and in effect, “turn a complaint around?” How many steps are there along the resolution channel within the company? Can steps be removed?

The answer to each of these issues likely cannot be resolved by a single group; rather it is the responsibility of the entire company to ensure the customer’s experience is a good one. In an attempt to break out who does what, below is a look at some of the general responsibilities for a social CRM program with a view of both the reactive and proactive functions in the social CRM continuum.

*These roles and responsibilities are generalities used to draw some distinction between functions. Lines can, and do, blur.

Lean-back & Lean-forward

Business Group	Reactive Activity	Proactive Activity
Customer Care (community-facing)	Monitoring and addressing messages sent directly to the brand through social media	Proactively searching and addressing messages about the brand in social media; identifying systemic issues
PR/Community Manager (community-facing)	Monitoring and addressing direct messages from influencers	Delivering information specific to broad company initiatives, messages specific to issues, and official company views; identifying systemic issues
Marketing	Responding to the needs of customer care and the community manager team’s request for content	Proactively engaging community managers to bring better, more frequent content to the channel; assessing systemic issues and operationalizing change
Advertising	Bringing compelling paid opportunities in support and defense of the brand, including paid search, sponsored Tweets/trends, etc.	Coordinating with the community managers & marketing to dial in advertising and search efforts to lead to the brand’s social channels when appropriate
IT	Giving teams access to the tools necessary to monitor and engage in social media	Becoming part of the process by advising on best-in-class tools for monitoring, tracking and engagement
Leadership	Assessing the bottom-line imperative of social CRM; empowering teams to explore community needs	Supporting the overall social CRM effort; approving operational changes; ensuring cross-business integration and cooperation

PART 2: SocialCRM Foundations – An Operational View

Posted on January 5, 2011 by bradmays

In the previous post, I mentioned that, of the changes impacting brands on the Web, few will have greater impact than the ability for customers to share their opinions online about the companies they do business with — from discussion forums to Twitter to Facebook, and the new breadth of conversations opening up through searchable Facebook discussions. And that’s not to mention the emergence of geo-location check-ins through cell phones. With all of these tools, the capacity for customers to talk about your brand is significant. And, if you need more fuel for the hype of socialCRM (sCRM), just do a search on the term or look here. The good news is that those channels consumers choose to talk to companies through are the same ones companies can use to talk back.

Brand, Reputation, Marketing & Influence – The Basics

Identifying and engaging with customers in social media must be the foundation of any long-term strategy. Thepoint of social media is enabling that closer connection with individuals. And, an important extension of that connection is addressing the totality of the discussion.

If a company is unable to address customers’ needs online, then its activities there run the risk of being undermined. Companies with a social media program in place already, however, are likely seeing the challenge presented by customers raising issues.

Addressing that challenge starts with a strategy. As the space heats up, and as technologies begin to flood the market, it’s important to understand the role of technology and the role of strategy. Because of the broad implications delivering customer service in social channels has on a company, these programs must be rooted in strategy. This is true not only because social software is still early in development, but also because of how responding in near real-time to these public exchanges between the customer and the brand fundamentally changes the approach and business processes necessary to function effectively in social media.

Planting the Seed

Interacting with customers through social channels requires a few foundational pieces:

Philosophical Foundations

An inherent interest in improving relationships with customers
An understanding of social context and how discussions evolve in social channels
The willingness to take criticism seriously and act on it
A business-wide, agreed-upon social framework (or at least someone willing to stick their neck out far enough to identify and document the need and develop a plan to address the social conversation)

Operational Foundations

An official presence on the social Web (Twitter for a start, but also Facebook, and others as the social discussion continues to expand to other platforms)
Cross-team collaboration and coordination
Flexibility of internal processes to help facilitate and not impede issue resolution
Executive buy-in and support (this can grow over time)

Taking the First Step
The first step is rarely the easiest. Confronting the unknown can be daunting if you don’t have perspective on what the universe of possibilities and options is. Like many things in this space, for socialCRM, it’s better to take things slow, gain an understanding of what people are saying about your company, and really dive into the cause and effect relationship between a customer’s experience and their expression of that experience. This first step is more commonly known as, “Listening,” — and while it does involve finding what people are saying about the brand online, it also involves more than just passively gathering intelligence. Companies must develop the ability to both listen and take action based on the ongoing conversations. Since listening alone can become an exercise of increased paranoia that doesn’t lead anywhere, successful companies build listening into an overall process that eventually leads to action and resolution.

Activating a Social Engagement Program

1) Quantify the level of discussion about your brand online by individuals – a Twitter search can give you a baseline of the discussion, but search other platforms as well to get a broader view

2) Measure the overall sentiment about your brand or product online (there are a number of tools for this)

3) Identify the top three to five issues people have with your brand each day; keep track of the specific words that are used to express those issues – they’ll come in handy in your SEM work

4) Take a handful of the issues, making up a representative sample by issue type, from the entire group of issues

5) Analyze each of the issues and the profile of the person who raised the issue initially

6) Map an engagement and resolution plan for each issue – don’t engage yet, but map the ideal or probable resolution path

7) Once you’ve accounted for a clear resolution path within the company to quickly get the issue addressed and resolved, then you can begin to activate a proactive program for addressing these issues on a broader scale

This exercise imparts initial and valuable insight into the realities of the social media sphere – both within the company, regarding its ability to resolve an issue through traditional channels, and outside the company, as it gauges the overall volume and tone of the discussions. With this understanding, companies can begin to map a path forward for the social CRM program.

In the next post, I’ll map the structure of a social media program that’s built to address customer issues in real-time, some of the challenges and how the social customer is the responsibility of the entire organization and should be the basis of any sustainable program.

(Originally posted Sept 2010 on FleishmanDNA blog.)

SocialCRM: Redefining Influence & Building Trust

Posted on January 5, 2011January 5, 2011 by bradmays

Few things can undermine a brand’s reputation faster over the next few years than the rolling wave of customer discontent expressed in social channels. We’re seeing it with routine product launches as well as major corporate missteps — but just as damaging are the unattended, ‘percolating’ individual complaints about a brand, some of which are related, and some of which are only similar complaints about separate incidents. Regardless of the context, one thing is clear – over time they will erode consumer trust in the brands they do business with.

Influential Shifts – Redefining “Friend”

Reports of peer recommendations and online reviews influencing consumer purchases grow each year. Something that’s also expanding is the definition of a “friend.” What used to be considered someone you grew up with, know personally or have at least met in person is now shifting to someone whose updates you get regularly letting you know where they are, what they’re doing or what they’re thinking. While the definition and channel for connecting has shifted, the value we put in these relationships hasn’t. Friends in the virtual sense have just as much, and sometimes more, influence as our friends in the traditional sense. And, the channels of communication (social media enabled by cell phones and free wifi connections) and speed at which those conversations happen has increased exponentially. Brands that hold on to traditional definitions of friends and influences will continue to find themselves at a disadvantage. Truly listening to and addressing these customer conversations in social media must become a greater focus of successful companies’ marketing efforts. Through this three-part series, I’ll outline some of the basic tenants of what’s being called social CRM and our approach to addressing the increased volume we’re seeing about brands in social media.

Making the Case for Social CRM

The challenge of social media is the high degree of visibility and the volume of consumer opinions. The fleeting advantage brands have today is that many of these conversations aren’t organized, and their searchability is limited to a few datasets – namely Twitter and blogs. But, even in this limited set, these conversations are having an impact. The growing disadvantage is that many more of these conversations are becoming searchable, and the growing use of review sites like Yelp and location-based applications will continue to elevate many of these conversations, taking them farther into the social web, and directly into the collective consumer consciousness and perception about brands.

A common argument I hear is that it’s human nature to complain and that most people will see these complaints as one-sided rants that most people will see through. The truth is that many customers who are drawn in to the negative comment strings are also finding real, relevant information to inform their opinions and purchasing decisions. For social media-aware brands, these discussions provide an opportunity to become part of the conversation, taking complaints head-on, working to address them and building a closer connection with consumers. And, if done right, these conversations are also a valuable source of feedback and insight to make tangible operational changes and shifts.

Addressing the Good and the Bad

To take full advantage of this open dialogue, a company must first be willing to address both the negative and the positive. They must be able to resolve warranty complaints from one set of customers before trying to sell a new washing machine to another.

Can the proactive happen before the reactive? Yes, and some brands have the right set of assets to start the conversation at the point of sale. But, for most brands, whether they have a strong base of brand advocates or are struggling to regain a positive brand image, their best approach is to understand the conversation, recognize what customers want from them and begin a plan to address the entirety of the conversation happening about them in social media. What brands will find is that in order to grow their brand in social media and gain the advantages those channels offer, having their house in order and being able to assist customers with legitimate issues is necessary before they can actively engage in promotion or commerce.

In the next installment of this series, I’ll outline our approach to addressing the increased volume we’re seeing about brands in social media.

(Originally posted Aug 2010 on FleishmanDNA blog)

Twitter Catching Facebook in Total Actively Engaged Audience, and Other Observations

Posted on December 20, 2010December 20, 2010 by bradmays

The nice people at DigitalSurgeons.com put out an infographic back in October showing a comparison of Twitter and Facebook use (and it was just called to my attention). With the holidays upon us and the number of people helping their friends and cousins sign up for Facebook, I wanted to focus on some of these numbers as they stand today, or as they were at the beginning of this quarter. The graphic shows some interesting things about use of these platforms.

The fact is, while these two platforms are the dominant players when we look at social media, they are still relatively new, and the way people use them, how they use them, why they use them and where they use them continues to evolve. Here are a few of my take-aways:

1) I swear I saw a stat over the past year or so that said 80 percent of people update their Twitter accounts via mobile. So, generally, the mobile numbers, while still significant, seem a little low to me. And, with the continued climb in smart phone adoption, we’re likely to see these numbers climb.

2)  In the “Brand followers will purchase that specific brand” category. I wonder if there isn’t an element of “have purchased that specific brand” and what are the motivations for following that brand on Facebook. It would be interesting to see a break-out on the percentages. I wonder if part of that category (although small) is a result of people turning to social media for customer service questions. As more companies integrate customer service into these channels, those numbers will likely climb.

3) And, most interesting to me, when you look at the “Update their status every day” category, while Facebook has more users, there are almost as many people who are active on Twitter everyday as there are on Facebook. (55 MM for Twitter, 60 MM for Facebook) This is balanced, however with the “Login everyday” category where Facebook as 205 MM daily logins vs Twitter’s 29 MM. The argument to all of this is that people use the platforms differently. But, do the numbers mean that Twitter is a more active channel and Facebook is a more passive one? If so, does that impact your marketing approach?

Now that we’re all gathering for the holidays, we’ll start to see these numbers climb again. Anything else pop out at you in the numbers? Anything I missed?

Disclaimer: I’m not a statistician. And, I wasn’t a math major, so feel free to check my numbers.

What we’ve got here is … failure to communicate

Posted on November 2, 2010November 8, 2010 by bradmays

I recently spoke at the Location-based Marketing Summit. If there’s one area where everyone is polishing their crystal balls, it’s in the future of location. And, inevitably, the discussion turned to monetization. As you can imagine, the first source for monetization that began to echo through the conference was advertising. As I pointed out when I spoke, I like a paycheck as much as the next guy, but I wish there was a little more delay before we start to see an advertising discussion start around new platforms. A little more time to let the concept breathe, and more thought put into how to use the platform for true, rather than artificial engagement. What I’m seeing, whether it’s at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, or at the Location-based Marketing Summit is a conversation that is starting to be dominated with an advertising voice – whether that’s from ad networks, technology providers or agencies and brands themselves. It’s becoming predictable that, before the conversation begins about how people will actually use the new medium, how the platform will grow a community and what role the technology means in the greater context, someone in the back of the room stands up and asks about the ad creative dimensions. I was reminded of this by the news/rumor that Twitter will begin to push ads into a users Twitter stream. Twitter has a couple of years on the location platforms, but it’s still at a critical point in its evolution. Is it that pushing ads into the experience is the only way to help get to its monetization goals, or is it a lack of creativity – on Twitter’s part or the part of the brand and their agencies – that other alternatives haven’t been explored? Like anything, if you try to force it into the experience, the community will react negatively. But, the last two offerings I’ve seen from Twitter that point to a monetization effort have been (paid) promoted Tweets and now potentially ads in the Twitter stream. I think there needs to be more innovation on the part of the platform to find new and interesting ways to build an experience, rather than defaulting to advertising as a go-to strategy. Admittedly, it’s difficult for me to give Twitter too much of a hard time for this. I’m not the one sitting across the table having to justify my existence with investors, and they now face a similar challenge as Facebook with a platform that’s interwoven into the fabric of the social media experience. I just hope that more opportunities for innovation and experimentation can lead the conversation and be given as much credence as monetization through advertising.

(There are any number of holes in this, so if you feel like weighing in, make sure to let me have it in the comments.)

UPDATE: In the spirit of fairness, here is an account from AdAge of Twitter in-stream ads as told by a user who has them.

The State of Location-based Services and Marketing

Posted on November 2, 2010November 3, 2010 by bradmays

Location-based services (LBS), or geolocation applications, or “the creepy tech that lets everyone know where you are” is so new that there’s still little fighting over acronyms or adjectives to describe the category.

In reality, a fraction of people who have technologies that enable LBS even know they have it, and an even smaller fraction of those actually use it, and an even smaller fraction of that set use it actively. So, for the three of you who are actively using these technologies (and I know where you are), you don’t have to read any further. You get it. You understand, or like the rest of us trying to understand, the implications that LBS will have on the social dynamic. With this post, I’ll try to put a stake in the ground and mark where we are in the adoption, proliferation and understanding of LBS and its potential. Because, it’s early. Really early. But, it’s one that will continue to grow and change many of the tenants of social interaction and online/offline integration.

Location: A Brief History & Technology
Here’s my best attempt at a brief history of location and its technology that you’ll have to fact-check me on …. Location became relevant approximately 10 billion years ago when the earth was created and there became a locale to attach location. Fast forward about 9.999 billion years (give or take a 9) and people are roaming the earth in search other people and places. Discovering new continents, finding lost cities, creating beer trips in college towns. The point is that location has always been relevant – whether you’re searching for the new world, or the closest World Market, location is important. And, the technologies used to map and define location have become and continue to become more accurate and integrated into the other technologies we use every day. Just as the use of these technologies will continue to evolve, so will the applications that sit on top of it. Until recently, the technologies that power location weren’t refined, and the networks that they ran over weren’t dialed in enough to make the experience a good one. So, to understand the proliferation of LBS, and anything that’s built on technology, you have to understand where we are in the evolution of the underlying technology. While there are still pieces to fall into place (WiFi, other broadband technologies, etc.), the technology foundation LBS rides across and gives the consumer a good experience is now in place, and improving – which will facilitate broader adoption.

Availability Doesn’t Mean Adoption
With a strong technology foundation and a good user experience, LBS is ready to take off. Wrong. Just because the technologies are available, doesn’t mean people will begin to use them. With this category, I’d say there’s almost an inverse correlation between availability and adoption. LBS hit at the core of many of the fears people have about the Internet, generally, and cell phones specifically. There will exist for a while a creep factor when it comes to letting people know where you are at any given time. The fact that our phones can share that information is cause for concern for many. But, the one thing that LBS has going for it is the great equalizer, Facebook. Or, as I call it “the gateway drug to social media.” With the addition of Facebook Places, that platform alone will accelerate the adoption of location-based features. The more your friends share their location with you, the more you’re aware of and likely to share your location with them. Pretty soon (in about 18 – 24 mos) we’ll see not only a proliferation of brands using even more location-based applications, but more consumers sharing their location. And, it’s all going according to plan. Technology — Availability — Propagation Across Social Set — Adoption

Location: It’s the Journey, Not the Destination
Or at least, location is only part of it. It’s what location enables, and to paraphrase Gowalla’s Josh Williams, “It’s what happens AFTER people check in that’s going to be interesting.” As we’ve seen with Twitter and now Facebook, location is quickly becoming a commodity. For all the talk of “checking in,” it’s equal parts location and experience. This is where the real value of location becomes apparent. Whether checking in is a trigger for your friends to find you, or it’s an opportunity for the restaurant to enhance your experience, what happens because you’ve identified your location is the future of these technologies and where marketers have an opportunity.

Enter: Marketer – Stage Right
I’ve often said that location is the third dimension of social media, and that it’s one of the few platforms that get better when marketers are involved. When done right, brands and marketers can bring greater relevance to not only LBS, but also to the locations themselves. Part of the draw of these platforms is the element of surprise that’s possible through them. Getting a benefit for being a loyal customer just got a lot more real. At least, the opportunity for it to become more real and personal just got easier. The challenge for marketers is to use these platforms in a way that’s not intrusive and to bring a real value to them. I have a hard time when I see some brands trying to offer the same benefit they push through the Sunday circular in their location-based programs. Ten percent off a car wash after your third check in doesn’t hit the mark for me. Initially people may be intrigued by the function of checking in and seeing something, anything, from the business, but as we’ve see with other social channels, expectations advance faster than marketers can adapt to those expectations. It’s best to try to stay ahead of that dilemma by starting from a place of value. And follow the hallmarks of successful location-based programs – compelling, convenient, easy.

Exit: Marketer – Stage Left
As important as it is to be part of the location-based discussion about your location, it’s equally important to understand that these channels are best directed by the consumers who use them, not the brand. As with any new technology that gets a brand closer to its consumers, there’s a delicate balance between helpful and relevant and forced and annoying. The non-benefit I mentioned earlier is one example. If you’re not able to offer something of value through your location-based program, look for other ways to be present. Actively manage your location, engage with the people who frequent the location (engage, not harass with offers), find ways to show that you’re in tune with, value and understand these new channels. In addition, find ways to incorporate other platforms and emerging technologies together to create a unique experience. But, above all, be a human and bring value to the relationship. If you’re not delivering value, wait until you can, but don’t wait too long.

Where we Are; Where We’re Going
We’ve established the relevance of location and that it’s inherent to our lives as human beings. We’ve set the expectation that there’s a technology foundation from which to build, and building we are. We’ve established that, while location is important, it’s only part of the puzzle. And, as location becomes a commodity, it’s the experience that’s enabled through location that matters. We’ve also unraveled the adoption mystery and how that plays into our long-term strategy. And, finally, we have a better understanding of the role of the brand in these channels and how to add value. So, what’s next. Since I’ve taken far too much room to lay this all out, I’ll save that for the next post, where I’ll draw insight from the Location-based Marketing Summit and the discussions I’ll have at that event. I’ll meet with some of the platform providers themselves as well as some of the brands and marketers who are exploring and using these new tools. I’ll package all of that up and offer a view of where the group thinks LBS is going. I’ll finish with this.

I’m speaking at the Location-based Marketing Summit about a category of technologies that haven’t even hatched yet and with the experience of about a year actually developing these types of programs. But, I view LBS like I did Twitter and similar platforms early in their development and adoption. And, I encourage clients in the same way – experiment now to find the relevance for you as a consumer and for your brand’s consumers. Because these tools are so new, as a brand, there’s no reason why you should have already explored the options that LBS holds for you and the connections they’ll enable with your consumers. You have time to justify it and make good decisions based on how consumers engage with your brand. But, as an individual, there’s no reason why you can’t create a trip on Gowalla, download SVNGR and complete some tasks or begin to attach location to your Tweets to understand how the technologies work, what’s possible and what’s worth exploring more. Discover, learn and activate. Now is the time.

(Previously published on Mobilisms.com on 9/28/10)

Social Media Content – a Practical Approach

Posted on July 7, 2010July 7, 2010 by bradmays

In social media, community isn’t just created it forms around your brand’s good content. And, what constitutes “good” content is defined by the community, rather than the brand. But, how can a brand know what the community will respond well to, what does a good response look like, and what content will the community find good enough to share? The answers to these questions means the difference between effective communities and wasted resources and frustration.

The truth is, most companies are still living by a definition of what good content is that it set years ago. This is the same content that fits standard approval processes. It’s the content that conforms to budgetary guidelines. And, unfortunately, it’s often content that falls flat, or worse, online. To account for the public, short attention span, short format of social media, it’s important to begin to look at content through the lens of the consumer and adjust production accordingly.

Two themes can help guide new content production:

1) Awareness – How well-connected is the brand to its discussion online? Specifically, how dialed into the conversation is the brand on its Facebook page, on Twittter and in blogs. There’s no better barometer for what content will be most effective in your social channels than a consistent, dedicated presence there.

2) Understanding – How well does the brand understand key social media indicators. That is, can it measure the number of views of a videos, the number of clicks to a blog link, etc. These are the quantitative measures that will inform and substantiate the qualitative insight gained by being an active part of the community.

Defining Content

The definition of what content is has changed for marketers and communicators. Content doesn’t (rarely) mean a company’s news release. It also rarely exceeds a five-minute video. Some of the new forms of content that brands are having success with include:

Exclusive Content: communities like to feel apart of something that’s not available to everyone. If they give you their time and attention, they like to get something in return. Offering the community something they can’t get elsewhere, or that everyone else can’t get is a good way to fulfill this community need. Exclusive ringtones, limited edition posters, community chats with celebrities or other influentials or anything additional negotiated as part of a sponsorship can bring new content to social channels. Here is an example of what Chevrolet did at SXSW to bring exclusive content to its Facebook community.

Free Offers/Discounts: everyone likes something free. And, everyone likes a deal. Similar to exclusive content, free offers and discounts can be an effective way to build affinity for your social community. It’s direct proof that the brand isn’t just after something from the community without bringing something to the table. But, it’s not just as easy as offering something for nothing. It needs to be in context and have a purpose. Online communities can root out things that aren’t what they seem. And, they’ll have definite views on what’s appropriate and what’s not. So, make sure your deals or freebies have a purpose, and that any strings are fully disclosed and apparent to the community.

Breaking News: there’s an overall thirst for news or inside information that isn’t available anywhere else. Social channels give companies a platform to break this information – from the inside out. There’s a balancing act that some brands are finding between staying true to traditional channels for breaking news and using this exclusive information to cultivate and sustain a relationship with its social communities. But, more often, companies are finding this balance with the type and timing of releasing news. For companies with a strong consumer following, letting their Facebook fans know about a new product launch minutes before media know about it is giving them the ability to appease both audiences.

Infographics: data and other information conveyed through a single image. Infographics, in addition to conforming to the bite-size packets best consumed through social media, they’re also created in formats that are easily posted and shared online. And, they’re a great way to extend the reach of your content.

Community Engagement: sometimes content isn’t pre-produced or packaged at all. The most important content you can contribute to you community is the daily dialogue your community manager(s) has with the people on your Facebook wall, in your Twitter stream or on your YouTube channel. Having an active, engaged presence with the community is the best way to build rapport, dialogue and trust. In addition to active engagement through wall posts on Facebook, there are other ways to engage the community and gain insight, like using polls.

Distributing Content

Distributing content in social media is three parts brand and one part community. It’s the brand’s job to put it in places where it can be found, tag it appropriately to be easily searched and in the format that allows the community to do its part and share it.

Putting content in the formats and locations where it can be easily shared is essential for expanding the reach of your message and for bringing new people into your community. One member of your community might see an infographic on your Facebook wall and decide to share it with her Twitter followers. Three of those followers might choose to follow that content back to your Facebook page or Twitter stream, and you’ve instantly picked up a few new followers based on not only the value of the content you’ve produced but also based on the third-party recognition of the value of your content expressed by someone sharing that content with others.

Silver Bullets

There are no silver bullets in social media, and social media itself isn’t a silver bullet for marketing success. Success in social media, just as in traditional marketing, relies on many variables – some within your control, some outside of your control. Content is just one of those variables. But, understanding what’s good, relevant and compelling content relies on just a few truths. Having a consistent, engaged presence among the people you’re looking to engage in social media and delivering to them content that’s sharable and compelling is a good start.

Disclosure: Both GM and AT&T are clients.