Just like the White House and Pope are kicking butt and taking names in the interactive space, so is Coca-Cola. When such a large brand can think about social media in these four, simple and real ways, it makes me wonder, “Why can’t we all?”
At a Blogger Outreach presentation, Coke talked about four “truths”:
They don’t own their brands – people do
Every day is election day – woo the audience constantly
Fish where the fish are – be where you should be
Success revolves around genuine and compelling content
I had the pleasure of sitting in a “special” presentation today. It was one where the presenters had intimate knowledge of some key audience members and yet, structured their deck to go above every one’s head. They talked social and search. They threw in “scary” graphs with steep trends both up and down. And, they threw out names of people that no one in the room understood the connotations of. Except me. The wild card of the presentation. My favorite part was when their Executive VP of Social Strategy said, “I live and breathe Mashable.” Clearly, it was true. Everything he spewed out in the presentation was a direct thought or idea from Mashable.
The comments got me thinking… the easy way to tell if someone’s full of social BS? They mention Mashable in a bow-down-to-the-all-seeing-all-knowing-god. Yes, I read Mashable. But, I sure as hell don’t live and breath by the thoughts in that BLOG. In fact, I take most of the articles with a grain of salt.
Think about it.
Sadly, even today, an easy gauge on how much someone knows about interactive can be based on whether they use the term “hits” or “visits”. While the terms seem to mean the same thing, they are in fact drastically different.
I’ve long said I don’t trust anyone who uses the term “hits” in the wrong context. Today, I’ve added to that philosophy. Today, I still wouldn’t hire an interactive person who uses the term “hits” when really meaning “visitors”. But, I also have no intention of turning my social media strategy over to someone who “lives and breaths Mashable.”
It always irks me a bit when posts talk about social media not delivering on “promises”, that it “disappointingly” hasn’t grown up yet and it’s not an “enterprise” function of a business because it resides in marketing. All three statements point the blame to social media and some non-existent enterprise department. All three statements are baloney. Social media hasn’t delivered nor grown up because as marketers it’s YOUR fault. Social media hasn’t been seen as more than a marketing function because marketers don’t see it as more than that.
Let’s tackle the easy one first – social media not delivering on promises. Bullshit. Total and complete bullshit. It hasn’t delivered because (a) YOU (aka the marketer) didn’t set campaign objectives and (b) YOU didn’t come up with a measurement. If you launch a campaign with no goal and then tell your executives, “Well… it did great! We got lots of positive mentions.” Ummmm… I’d think social media failed too. But, in reality, YOU failed. You failed to set expectations and you failed to sell how successful the campaign was.
Now, onto the one that requires a little more thinking. Why does social media often sit with marketing? Well, not only do marketing departments market, but they also hold the keys to the brand and ultimately what an entire company embraces, or doesn’t. As the head of marketing, not only are you responsible for external marketing, but you’re also responsible for INTERNAL marketing. Think about it. What’s your company culture? Who came up with the tagline? Who designed the materials to internally promote that tagline? (Side note: Yes, I’m well aware that simply having a tagline does not equal company culture.) Aside from the President, which Executive is in charge of crafting that message? Oh yes, no company-wide initiative would work without the support of ALL Executives, but, who’s in charge of selling them on say, social media as a company-wide business plan? YOU. The Marketer. If ALL your employees aren’t on board – and I’m not saying they have to “get it” like “we” do – then YOU have failed, not social media.
It’s tough. Back in the day, marketers only had to market. Or, as agencies like to believe, marketers sat back and drank while the agency did the heavy lifting. But, not today. Today, the role of a marketing department has evolved into so much more. Today, it’s time for marketers to grow up. Today, it’s time for more marketers to start leading and stop “just” marketing. If marketers can’t do that, then social media is never going to “grow up”.
In the last few months, I’ve been amazed at some of the innovative ways companies are aggregating and using information from social networks. From Bravo’s use of Foursquare to We’re All Fans, wow. It seems like the economy has slowed the innovation of “new” and allowed marketers to really harness what’s out there. And, harness it quicker than ever before.
Surprisingly, tonight’s Grammy’s was the first event that twitter both spoiled and enhanced for me. Everything online, from the MSN homepage to twitter was reporting and commenting on the Grammy’s in real time. The comments made me excited and frustrated. I wanted to see the outfits and performances my “friends” were commenting on. But alas, being on the West Coast, I was three hours behind. For me, it was an interesting and new experience. And yes, it made me wish I was living on the East Coast that much more
One of the coolest parts of the Grammy’s was their use of social media. An institution that’s been around for 52 years continues to innovate and stay relevant. From an iPhone app to We’re All Fans, kudos to the marketers behind the show… We’re All Fans was one wicked cool and beautifully done aggregater of what fans we’re saying.
Looking back on my posts from last January, I stumbled on this one. I thought it might be fun to update the project with my tweets from 2009. So, here it is, with @replies removed again. Thanks to TweetScan and Wordle for the fun and insights!
Foursquare and how people are using it intrigues me to no end. From a personal standpoint, it’s creepy as hell.
Here’s some of the things that make me scratch my head:
People will “friend” anyone, including brands. Why? It’s amazing that people are okay with friending random people, but don’t want targeted ads. The idea of privacy has certainly come a long way.
Taking privacy a step further, most accounts are tied to a cell phone, email address or both. Really? You’re going to open up your personal cell to random people?
With twitter, you often hear, “Why should I join? I don’t care what you’re eating for lunch or the rest of your mindless dribble.” Yet, Foursquare is EXACTLY that. People (including myself) update when they’re at the grocery store, gym, Starbucks, work, etc. Maybe I don’t follow enough people, but rarely does someone give a “shout-out”, let alone a shout-out that includes a link to an interesting article or something funny. What do the shout-outs usually include? The mindless dribble people give as the reason for not liking twitter
Sure, many argue that with a tighter circle of friends (assuming you only friend people you know), your message is more impactful. But, when will the messages matter enough to be important?
From a business standpoint, I LOVE Foursquare. There are certainly some great opportunities, especially as more people join and the Foursquare team continues to make updates and open up their API. However, I don’t think we’ll see people abandon Twitter to solely use Foursquare any time soon. But, I do see both of them playing very nicely together.
Every once in awhile, I enjoy reminding myself it’s okay to not keep up. Yes, it’s important to stay up to date with some of the latest and greatest, but, you also have a valuable and existing toolkit just waiting to be tweaked. As Bill Marriott says, “Success is never final. We can always do better with what we already have.”
In his post, Stop Looking for the Next Twitter, David Armano, puts it succinctly – “‘yesterday’s Twitter’ needs some care and feeding before you start looking for the next Twitter.”
Trust me, spinning your wheels looking for what’s next isn’t going to generate as much ROI as tweaking your current path to conversion or being more strategic about your customer relationship management (CRM). Make fixing your current strategy a top priority, and put trying to figure out the next “big” thing on a back burner. Unless of course, your current strategy is already 110% perfect
I’m really enjoying the videos from Socialnomics. The first one was great and made quite an impact. It’s also been referenced so many times that it makes me puke This is part two and focuses on some ROI stats. Enjoy!
I feel a bit dirty jumping on the bandwagon and writing about Twitter Lists, but alas, they were shiny and intrigued me for a day. Now? Not so much. Well, at least not till Tweetie updates their app to include them
For most, Lists have become another way to feed the ego. It’s another thing to beg for and another thing to show how “cool” and “popular” you are. When will #FollowFriday turn into List recommendations? PS – the fact that that meme still continues shocks me. And yes, I have followers that still get upset when I don’t tout them in a #FollowFriday tweet… even though I haven’t participated in it for months!
Oddly, you can’t see @replies in lists, even if you follow the same people. To me, this is a downfall. I enjoy watching the back and forth conversations between the people I follow. Also, you’re missing the social piece of twitter.
Lists allow you to follow without following. I’m curious as to how this effects blocked users. In fact, I’m curious as to how this will play out altogether. Will you no longer hit the follow button and just add someone to a list? If you add someone to a private list, they’ll never know. Stalker much?
Like everyone else has hinted, Lists change your follower count. But, do they? Sure, people have created lists, but are they truly being utilized? Right now, lists are the new shiny object. But, they also require effort. You have to navigate to a new stream. You have to be on the twitter website (for now). Until Lists are integrated into the apps most commonly used or people change their twitter browsing behavior, I’ll take a follower over being on a list.
With lists, I think you’ll see a lot more replies and retweets that aren’t real time. Will lists change the real time dynamic of twitter?
Originally, I think Lists were meant to help filter and cut down the noise. But, when you’re twitter list consists of 100, did you really cut down the noise? Maybe. Maybe filtering everyone into the same category helps people digest information faster (I think that’s been proven somewhere). To me, it’s kind of boring. I like the randomness of twitter. I like my news interspersed with humor and my favorites? Well, too much a good thing, isn’t always a good thing
The interesting thing for brands? Lists puts brands in an grouping with their peers aka similar brands. Now, more than ever, brands will be measured and compared to what XYZ Brand is doing. It’s an interesting dynamic both for the marketers and the consumers.
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