In a world of likes, what is the value of engagement?
Facebook made “like” easy. Just a click. No comments, no attachment, no real interaction. Just a click.
So why do we constantly value our campaigns and social activities by this low effort measurement?
It might be that we don’t have enough tools to really understand the value and quality of our social web marketing activities.
But it might be because it is easier to count likes and fans than get to the bottom of these new tools and platforms.
And maybe it’s because we are working too hard to be cool and “social” and “new” that we forget that social marketing is at the end of the day a part of digital marketing – which in turn suppose to provide clear business value.
Engagement doesn’t matter if it doesn’t grow the business. Likes are useless if they don’t help the company to grow by either lowering costs, increasing revenues, or increasing customer satisfaction.
Digital marketers have a huge responsibility – we are ahead of the curve for most of our clients. We should always remember that at the end of the day we need to justify our retainer and project fees, with proper increase in revenues – or achievement of a clear business goal.

So, what’s the business value of Like?

A Friend

A lot of exciting things happened recently, and can’t wait to tell you all about it. However they affected our blog updates, and we are now getting back to speed with that too…
The incentives of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an important tool in online marketer toolbox. Companies big and small use this method to reach new audiences effectively. The principle is simple – Company A provides incentives to everyone online to promote their product. Usually a cut of the deal is paid to the affiliate. Companies such as Amazon provide dedicated links and widgets for these partners who in turn distribute them to their audience.
Besides Amazon and other well known brands, many found affiliate marketing a profitable business in other business line such as diet and nutrition and investment tools . In many cases a small operation of two to three smart people, with strong knowledge in SEO and PPC can make a lot of money in these activities.
Affiliate marketing is in many cases more a science than art. Where everything can be measured, smart affiliate marketers optimize their efforts again and again to reach the best conversion rate possible. The ability to instantly measure every activity as well as reassign resources makes it a very dynamic business.
Some in this business are using tactics that are ethically questionable such as fake blogs and spam.
Brands are interested in creating meaningful relationships with their audience, in order to make their brand affect buying decisions.
In short, while affiliate marketing is all about one night stands with customers, branding is more like a long term relationship.
Efficiency of Social Media
Social channels are all about creating meaningful connection with current and potential customers. Unlike other channels, here the brand is acting within the personal space of the customer. That’s because people go to Facebook and Twitter to talk with friends and family, and not necessarily in order to consume content. The content they do consume is usually recommended by friends, or sent to them based on their permission (such as joining a Facebook page of a product or a brand). In social channels it is all about trust – brands can increase the trust of their target audience while engaging with them and giving them value. These channels offer many for affiliate marketers as well. Do a little test: twit several times about forex and diet and see how hoards of great looking, well endowed women follow you and offer you to get rich and fit in less than 10 days. Many find it rude.
This is the risk for brands. Let’s say that Joann, 19 yo, beautiful brunette just offered me a unique diet that will make me the hottest guy around, and when I click the link I am getting to a reputable brand’s page – how would it make me feel re this brand? Would I continue to trust it? And let say that I am looking for info about a company and see that the only mentions on twitter are by Joann and her friends – would I trust that company? And if all the raving reviews about this company are from blogs that look like fake ones – how would that affect my perception of the brand?
Brands, Short Term Relationships and Incentives
Everyone wants to make money. This is not a shocker. But there are different ways to make money. Some companies are focusing on short term gain, and some are focusing on building and maintaining a brand. The brand strategy takes time and effort. Not only that but association with spam and other ethically questionable tactics can harm brands more than the value of increased exposure gained by using these tools.
While affiliate marketers aim is to increase conversion, brands are interested in creating brand equity – meaning, making their brand count. This is a basic difference in incentives.
So while our imaginary Joann could provide great conversion rate for the affiliate marketer, the brand she is referring to might suffer from that activity even if in the short run they will sell more of their products. And while it was always true, the trust based system of social media increases the potential damage for brands.
So What Can You Do?
It all boils down to strategy. If your company doesn’t care about branding – affiliate is the way to go. If branding is crucial, but so is affiliate marketing, consider separating brands, or find ways to impose at least some guidelines on your affiliates. It’s tricky but feasible. As long as you know what you lose and what you gain in each strategy, you will be able to find the best way to grow your business.

Facebook is slowly removing many of the elements that made it a marketer’s wet dream.

Facebook announced several major changes that affect marketers using the platform to promote their services:
1. Splitting feeds to news feed and live feed – users see, as defualt, a feed with only content and comments from their friends. Information about groups etc was moved to a separate feed.
2. Removal of app notification - Facebook apps will not be able to send notifications to users.
These changes reduce the virality of the platform in a major way.
For example, if in the past one could invite friends to become fans of a page, and his friends would have seen that he joined, now they wouldn’t see it unless they look for it. This effect was crucial for virality of fan pages and applications. The same goes for notifications.
While many users rejoice, as they see more relevant and focused information on their feed and notification tab, marketers should rethink the way they interact in Facebook.

The two most important consequences for marketers are:

1.  Advertising becomes more important in creating traffic to Facebook applications and fan pages - without virality, paid advertisement within the platform, or in other channels, is an important part of any Facebook marketing activity

2. Fan pages and apps should provide more value to users, as it will be more difficult to attract repeat visitors.

In the next part we will discuss additional changes in the platform and what are the opportunities for marketers in this area.

Enjoy the rest of the day.

In my previous post we’ve discussed the challenges that brands are facing when required to interact with their consumers directly. The main point of the post is that consumers are not satisfied anymore with presenters or low level employees, and are looking for authoritative figure to represent the company.

This post generated some very interesting comments, especially in face to face meetings I recently had with CEOs of brand and service companies.
The main point raised was that relying a company value on one person is extremely dangerous, especially for the shareholders. Many mentioned the fluctuations in Apple’s share price in response to Jobs’ health as a showcase of these dangers.

Yes, star CEOs pose a challenge to  shareholders. Larry Ellisson, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and others are the real life incarnation of their companies. Without them, they will never be the same. But the fact is that the general direction of the relationship between consumers and brands is leading to an era that is  fundamentally different than what we were used to. Companies are already having hard time hiding behind PR pros and shiny logos. Customers want to talk, be heard, and in a sense have a meaningful relationship with companies they finance.  It is getting harder and harder to differentiate in products and technology. It is the feeling that matters. And if in the past the slogans and logos did all the work – now, the  social web is changing the expectation of consumers.

Brands are already part of the game – with their Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, and such.

There is no escape from the demise of faceless brands. You might as well wake up and smell the coffee.

Social media, sophisticated customers, and lack of control of the conversation are all pointing to the same direction – brands can’t afford to be faceless. But now they also need a soul, a spirit and a person that people can relate to.

If in the past, brands could use anonymous models, with shiny teeth and great curves, to lure eyeballs, If in the past brands could use celebrity presenters as a pillar of emotional attachment, now things are different.

You see, when brands are involved in social media tools, they are exposing themselves. They can’t afford not to be there, but their involvement make them more accessible. Their involvement in Twitter and such has one more effect – as people using Twitter in order to communicate with friends, when a brand is getting into their personal space they expect the brands to be, well, real.

But what’s real?

People are real. Individuals in the companies that are representing the values and position of the organization. But they can’t be just a front.

AT&T’s Blogger ads, explaining why iPhone customers are facing network issues, could have been great several years ago. The ad shows an AT&T blogger who explains why there are network issues. But then people realized two important things:

1. This blogger doesn’t have any authority to solve those problems. Meaning, he is nothing more that a glorified spokesperson with touch of social glare.

2. He isn’t  even employed by AT&T

I am certain it would have worked better if C level AT&T guy had taken the stage.

Think – who is the true face of Apple? Is it the dude from “I’m a Mac” ads, or is it Steve Jobs?

Being real is tough. Really.

But brands can no longer hide behind fancy ads and shiny logos. They need a soul.

If they want to talk – they have to keep it real.

Another great post on this topic can be found here.

Why … do I take the time to use social media like Twitter and Facebook? …. Because there is no better way to engage the various audiences that are important in my professional and personal life.

…Your involvement in social media will grow your brand, strengthen the connection between you and your company’s key audiences, and keep you aware of what’s really happening with your business. It’s well worth the time investment….

No, these are not the quotes of a social media consultant. Refreshingly, these are the words of a CMO of a well known company.

When I came across the interview of Jeffery Hayzlett, Kodak‘s CMO I was excited to see a top executive who is actually using social web for his work on a daily basis, without the usual huha around it. When asked about the root of his involvement in social media he said:

I first started using social media to keep in touch with family. I soon realized the benefits of updating my fellow employees, our customers, even the media and anyone else who wants to keep updated on what’s happening with Kodak marketing.

When asked about authenticity of his online persona:

it’s important that people hear from the real me. I’ve had people ask me if I do my own posts (I do — you can’t fake it with social media). I’m just a guy from South Dakota with a really cool job, so I can’t help getting excited at some of the great things we do.

Many of my customers are asking about ROI. His answer:

We have seen very tangible returns from our participation in social media, including traditional media coverage, sales leads, increased customer consideration and direct product purchase.

And when talking about integration of social tools in their marketing operation:

Of course, social media is a part of Kodak’s integrated-marketing approach and much of it is managed by employees like me with other full-time jobs

Not everyone were happy as I am when they read it. One commenter wrote:

Mr. Hayzlett might be better off spending less time twittering and blogging and working on comprehensive marketing plans aimed at addressing the critical failures of the past few years. Twitter is a tool, Jeff.

Though I agree with Jeffery in almost everything he wrote, his closing argument is a bit tricky:

Your involvement in social media will grow your brand, strengthen the connection between you and your company’s key audiences, and keep you aware of what’s really happening with your business. It’s well worth the time investment.

I completely agree – but it works only if done right, as an integral part of overall marketing and company activities, by enthusiastic employees who love the social web and use it in their private life as well.

You can read the full article here.

Follow Jeffery Hayzlett and me on Twitter

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• Measuring Social Media Behavior – How? (redvwbus.com)

Positive Example – Kimpton Hotel

I was very unhappy with the first night at Kimpton’s:

After this incident, I asked for the hotel’s manager address, and emailed him a complaint. Still angry, I looked for executives in Kimpton chain, and found Niki Leondakis, the hotel’s COO. The only way I could reach out to her was through a form in their site.

I hate these forms. They are not personal, and make me feel like I am in a test or something.

Quick twitter search revealed her twitter user name. So I sent a message addressed to her (@), stating that I was very unhappy with their service. Less than an hour later she replied me, followed me and sent me her contact details using direct message. From that point onward things went smoothly with the hotel staff and we reached a resolution for the weekend incident. Only later the hotel’s twitter team (yes, they have something like that) reached out.

The fact that an executive from the company was involved in resolving the situation, and that I had direct connection to her, improved my overall views on this hotel.

Another place you can’t leave

Negative Example – Roger Smith Hotel

Yes, I praised them in the past, but recently they turned bad. In the last trip I tried reaching out for them several times on Twitter without success.

Conclusions

1. Twitter can save your public image and increase customer satisfaction if used right – Niki’s Twitter responses turned me from an unsatisfied customer to a one writing this post.

2. Once your are in, you can’t go out – Roger Smith’s past twitter activity make their customer expect them to be responsive on this platform. When they stopped being responsive, they caused disappointment more than anything else, bigger than if they weren’t active at all on twitter.

What are your customer related Twitter experiences?

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• Boston Globe Covers Twitter with a He Said She Said Article (offonatangent.blogspot.com)

What are the 4 key steps for a successful corporate blogging project?

1. Management support- corporate blogging, unlike search engine marketing, doesn’t lead instantly to direct purchase of services. It also requires time and effort from the key people in the organization – usually the brightest are the ones who are interesting to read. Therefore, top management should support the corporate blogging initiative, or it will lose steam and fail.

2. An evangelist – in every company there is a person who s passionate about writing, blogging or social media in general. This is the person that will push the effort internally – and it is very important to give him/her incentives and support. Did I mention Management support?

3. Commitment – social media activities, including blogging, take time to take off and provide tangible results. They are also increase their value over time, as more people are exposed to the blog, write comments and become part of the interaction with the company.

4. Integration with traditional marketing efforts – in case your corporate blog is for marketing purposes – integrate it with your overall marketing program. This way you increase the overall value of both your blog and your traditional marketing activities.

Social media marketing requires something crucial that not everyone, or every brand is willing to do – commit! Commit to an open discussion, commit to a long term marketing effort, commit to talk with, and at your audience.

Why?

Cause it takes time to gain followers and active community members.

Cause people can call your bluff much faster than in traditional marketing channels. Just like it is easier to leave a message than to have a real conversation with someone. So you have to be honest and transparent.

Cause the minute you are bluffing you lose all your credibility – and harm your brand more than helping it

Cause it is not different then your relationship with spouse and business partner – it takes time to gain trust, but just a second to ruin it:

Wouldn’t you like to hear people saying the same things about your brand?

So don’t look at Social Media Marketing as some kind of silver bullet. It is a lot of work, commitment, trust building and long term thinking.

It is not, by any mean or form, a one night stand.