As Social Media Takes Off, Most Marketers Get it Wrong
January 2, 2008 | 3 Comments
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Most progressive marketers seem to understand the importance of social media by now. If they don’t, a new report by eMarketer suggests that they need to, and fast. According to the report by Strategy Analytics, more than one billion broadband users will be on social media applications by 2012, which is only 5 years from now. That’s quite an increase from 2007’s paltry 373 million.
The report goes on to say that U.S. users of social networks in particular (as opposed to global users of all social media applications) are also growing quickly.
Currently, 38% of all U.S. Internet users (over age 3) will use social networking in the last month. That’s 78 million folks. In this country. Wow.
But as head of a social media agency, I’m left to puzzle over how so many marketers are getting it wrong when it comes to engaging in the social media landscape.
The eMarketer report talks all about advertising on social media properties. That’s very important to the long term viability of Facebook, et al, but it’s missing the forest for the trees. We’ve written before about whether Facebook will ever be viable to the point of justifying their huge valuations. (And I’m personally pretty skeptical.)
If we had 78 million potential customers sitting in our lobby each month, would our answer be to hang an ad in the lobby? If we had 1 billion potential customers walking around outside our offices, many of whom wanted to talk about what we do, would we drop press releases out the window? (I suspect some CMOs would, actually, as Pavlovian conditioning is very strong…)
Social media’s future is bright. These statistics are pretty compelling. What marketers have to figure out is how to engage with this opportunity, in addition to advertise to it. It’s affordable. It’s just really strange at first. Hopefully these 50%-plus annual growth rates will convince more folks to try…
Ok, off the soapbox (for now).
Did Target Steal Our Social Media Marketing Playbook?
October 11, 2007 | 3 Comments
Back in August, we wrote a post about how Wal-mart’s latest social media marketing campaign was inherently flawed. We predicted that it would, once again, blow up in the retail giant’s face. (Note to the folks in Bentonville: Let Edelman focus on the traditional PR. Give us a call on the social media marketing stuff, k?)
Here’s what we said then, in a nutshell: This campaign won’t work because Wal-mart is talking “style” when they are known for “practical.” The campaign should focus on the utility of trying to move to a dorm. Alas, it was too late for them to listen.
But Target, on the other hand, did listen. (Note: Check with legal, Do they owe us royalties?)
As it happens, while Wal-mart was prattling on about something they don’t understand, Target was listening! (See Listening is Social Media Step One on how important that is.) They began to understand the flow of the conversation among incoming freshman. They began to understand the Facebook platform and how conversations occur there. They wisely noted:
“We aren’t there so much to tell a story, but to put on a party, giving the students a platform for social interaction.” Any content provided by a marketer in such a setting “needs to work as social currency. … Whatever story there is, it’s mostly told by the users, not by the brand.”
Their Facebook page was about dorm room survival. They had practical tips, they had photos, they (gasp) let users upload their own photos in place of the ones they carefully designed first.
They made the marketing very subtle and were rewarded by posts from people saying how much they love Target (See that: brand evangelists doing the marketing work for you, if you (a) deserve it and (b) give them the platform on which to do it.)
Wal-mart, on the other hand, had vicious wall posts slamming their corporate practices, for example.
“Wal-Mart is toxic to communities and livelihoods.”
There’s so much right with what Target did and so much wrong with what Wal-mart did, I could go on for days (maybe I have already), but here’s 5 points to take away from this (different than our earlier 5 Steps to Rolling Out a Social Media Campaign):
- Listen first. Social media marketing is cocktail party dialogue. When you enter a new group, you listen politely first.
- Talk on your prospects’ terms. Back to the cocktail party analogy. Incoming freshman were talking about their fear of being properly prepared for dorm life. Wal-mart said, “Let’s talk style!” Target said, “Let’s talk survival.”
- Understand the value you bring. There are a lot of people who hate Wal-mart. This doesn’t preclude Wal-mart from participating in social media, but they ignore this truth repeatedly and get slammed for it. They don’t understand the value they bring. Target, on the other hand, doesn’t have that baggage, and played their “we’re the place you can get cool, functional stuff pretty cheap” card beautifully.
- Social media campaigns can cost a fair amount. Target budgeted $500,000 for their campaign. Facebook’s media kit talks about minimum investments of $50,000 per month. People think of social media as “free” and it can be. But you’ve still got to budget for time, at a minimum, and if you want to buy you’re way onto a media platform like Facebook or MySpace, you still need a budget of some kind.
- ROI measurements are different, and not very evolved. Target had 7,176 members of their group by September 31. That’s great, right. If you calculate a CPM (cost per thousand) relative to members, the CPM is over $69,000. Of course, CPM is more traditionally applied to “impressions” which were no doubt higher. But the point is, the value of over 7,000 people engaging with your brand in a positive way is much, much higher than 7,000 people being exposed to an ad. The ROI calculations, however, are still being fleshed out.
Kudos to Target for getting it. That will pay dividends now and in the future.
Oh, and their campaign started July. I guess they don’t owe us royalties… Dang…
MySpace vs. Facebook "Battle": No Clear Winner Yet
September 25, 2007 | 2 Comments
“MySpace is dead.” “MySpace is dying.” “Facebook is crushing MySpace.”
Well, maybe creaking, but certainly not dead. Consider some hot statistics from Comscore Media Metrix as reported by Fortune. 
- MySpace served up 45 billion page views in July alone. And that’s only in the U.S.
- In 2005, MySpace made $23 million in revenues. In 2007, they will sell $525 million in ad space, 58% of the ads sold on social networking site. Facebook, in contrast will take in $125 million, or less than 25 cents for every MySpace dollar.
- In one day this summer, MySpace served up 7.3 billion ads to its users. In one day.
- 12% of all of America’s Internet time is spent on MySpace. With a zillion websites out there, that any site gets 12% is mind-boggling.
Sure, MySpace is ugly. They haven’t opened their API like Facebook did. Facebook is growing faster. But MySpace is still the leader, and our media team tells me they’d much rather work with MySpace than Facebook, as there are many more options in terms of advertising placement.
Of course, whether or not MySpace and Facebook even compete is another debate. MySpace president Tom Anderson says they do. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says they don’t. On the utility issue, they don’t compete–I’m with Zuckerberg. Totally different sites. For the ad dollar, they certainly do compete, and so far Anderson is winning that game, even as Facebook’s valuation rises to $10 billion.
Technorati Tags: MySpace , Facebook , social networking , social media , social media marketing , social media advertising
5 Steps to Rolling Out a Social Media Campaign
September 7, 2007 | 5 Comments
One of the questions I get asked the most–and it’s the right question–is “How do you get companies ready to
roll out a social media campaign?” This question seems to come from people who have seen corporations either tarred by or scared of how social media has been “used against” them.
I was talking to someone just yesterday about this sort of thing, and he’d worked for two companies where bloggers in particular have beaten up on them hard. I thought his comment that, “Our PR firm had no clue what to do about it either” was telling on a lot of levels. (And another reason why you shouldn’t charge a PR firm with your social media planning, but that’s my bias…)
Here are a couple thoughts about how you get a company to roll out a social media campaign.
- Expect resistance. For our upcoming book on social media marketing, we interviewed a company that is doing great stuff with customer collaboration, mostly through wikis. It’s shaved 65% of the time off their product development cycle! The guy in charge noted that getting permission for this new collaborative workflow was hard enough, but he was really surprised how often he had to resell the transparency idea. “Are we really going to say that?” people would ask. “Yes, we are,” he’d have to answer, over and over. Whether you go 100% transparent or not, social media marketing is often disruptive technology and, as such, it scares people. Prepare for it.
- Analyze your climate. How much is your company ready for in terms of social media? If you read Naked Conversations (and you should) or Cluetrain Manifesto (and you should), they talk a lot about transparency and authenticity. And that’s absolutely the goal. But some corporations are so far from that ideal that it’s not realistic to expect them to suddenly have an epiphany and start taking down the walls. Perhaps getting them in the game is a good first start. I suspect that’s what’s happening at Delta with their blog. At this point, it’s not a great blog. But they’ve got their toe in the water. I would bet that getting them that far along wasn’t easy internally. (Right, Jacob?) If the folks working on this at Delta can navigate along for a couple months with no major turbulence (airplane metaphor!), perhaps they’ll be able to start saying interesting things. Sometimes getting started is a big win. Get started.
- Consider the toolbox. One of the biggest mistakes I see is when people think that “social media marketing” means they’ve got to start a blog and start sharing all their foibles in public. You can do that. It can be a powerful and great thing. But social media is a much, much deeper toolbox. What can you do with customer support? What can you do in product development? What conversations are already taking place that you can simply go participate in? What branded applications can you introduce for download? This is why social media marketing is so different. It’s not advertising, it’s not PR, it’s not SEO. It’s a different skillset, and you have to look it at that way.
- Be honest about your brand. The best social media marketing leverages your brand. It does not change your brand. In an earlier post, we talked about how Wal-Mart screwed up again with their Facebook app for back to school. Wal-Mart’s mistake was trying to use a Facebook app to convince people they should associate Wal-Mart with “style.” But Target owns “style.” Wal-Mart owns “price.” I suspect their ad agency or PR firm tried to use this new tool to drive a branding objective. That’s a mistake. The best social media campaigns further cement your brand position. They don’t create new brand positions for you. Use other tools to try to do that. (And good luck with it, by the way…)
- Talk on your customers’ terms. In traditional marketing and advertising and PR, we are trained to think about what we want to say and the best, most creative way to say it. We then find the place to put that message and hope people accept it. Social media is different. Figure out what conversations are already occurring and where. Figure out what’s being said and what your organization can add to that conversation. If you sell shoes, maybe you can add value to a running conversation. If you sell ham, maybe you can add conversation to a “what’s for dinner” conversation. Either way, you’ll have the most success if you start with what the customer group you covet cares about and then add real value, not marketing fluff.
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These are the first five steps I advise clients to consider as they look at a social media marketing campaign. There are others, but I start with these to make it clear that we’re not talking about an ad campaign or a PR campaign or an SEO campaign. We’re talking about something fundamentally different.
I then balance that scary “this is different” concept with two points:
- There are a lot of ways to get started in this space and in getting started, you will learn something and move your company forward.
- Choosing not to participate in social media won’t stop social media from engaging about your brand. If you know people are talking about you, wouldn’t you want to be part of the conversation?
In that vain, what steps would you add? Perhaps we can make this a dynamic list with your input. Leave your comments…
Why Second Life Marketing Is Doomed to Fail
August 30, 2007 | 4 Comments
In a post in July, I talked about how Second Life marketing and strategic marketing were not yet aligning. I originally thought that the early adopters hadn’t gotten it right yet and between more users and more savvy marketing techniques, perhaps it could improve.
The more I think about it now, however, the more firmly I believe that marketing in Second Life will never take off. Others are saying it more and more. Here’s why:
- Second Life isn’t built to hold a mass audience in one place. (Only 75 people or so can fit in one place.)
- Second Life doesn’t efficiently allow you to have a one-to-many conversation like most other social media tools, including social networking sites, blogs, wikis and podcasts, do.
- Second Life users don’t like or welcome the marketing efforts going on so far.
- The barriers to using Second Life (downloading the application, setting up an avatar, spending hours figuring out how to use it) will keep it from “tipping” into something the general public (as opposed to a core group of early adopters) will actually do. In other words, SL will not jump the huge chasm between early adopters and mainstream use in the technology adoption learning curve.
- Second Life users “would like to be able to interact more with the brands represented,” but Second Life doesn’t offer very many opportunities to do this.
- Most real products in Second Life are horribly dull as compared to a) fictional products created in SL, b) interacting with them in the real world and c) other fun things to do in SL.
Check out this Scion in Second Life video to see what I mean by that last point:
Most importantly, most of the brands setting up in Second Life are not engaging their customers. This is caused in part by the limitations of Second Life itself and in part by the false hope created by Second Life to marketers. What I mean is that the similarities to our real world made marketers think they could do similar things they were comfortable with, like billboards and product demos. See Coke, the NBA, Wired, CNET, Adidas, Coldwell Banker, Sears…
Social media marketing, however, is (or will be as it matures) about stepping off the pedestal and engaging with people on an even footing. Those trying to justify SL marketing, like Joseph Jaffe, say the right things: “This is not about reach anymore. This is about connecting. It’s about establishing meaningful, impactful conversations.” He’s right, that’s what social media marketing is all about.
Problem is, Second Life is not efficient at “establishing meaningful, impactful conversations” and never will be. I pity how lonely this poor sap helping out the Edwards campaign is going to be. Until a significant overhaul in usability, marketing in Second Life will never generate ROI to justify the expense.
There are lots of companies out there (Link1, Link2) who make money helping companies do this marketing. Heck, we’ll help you if you want to do it anyway. Just know what you’re getting into: an experiment unlikely to generate results that you’ll be proud to share.
YouTube: A Virtual Walk-Through for Real Estate
August 27, 2007 | 4 Comments
Just moving into a new townhome, I just went through the pains of visiting and searching place after place before finally finding one that matched my taste.
During the process, I had a daily routine of watching Craigslist for the latest posting and the struggle of determining from a few words and pictures whether it was worth a visit. I set up appointments, visited, and realized quickly that most places were a waste of time by the time I rolled up. For the most part- it was hit or miss.
However, in an article I crossed, this same frustration has inspired real estate agents to respond - offering YouTube as a solution.
Quick social media marketing technique
August 23, 2007 | 1 Comment
If you haven’t tried Twitter, it will probably confuse you at first. Using 140 characters or less, you update on what you’re doing at that moment. You’ll immediately wonder why anyone would care, but it’s surprisingly addictive. People choose to follow you on Twitter, and they get your updates and many others.
So how is this a marketing opportunity? I saw a neat idea last night on a blog (can’t remember where, but it wasn’t my idea) that restaurants should Twitter about their daily specials. Fans of that restaurant could follow those “tweets” as their called.
Total cost to the restaurant = $0.00. Total time to update daily: 1-2 minutes.
Part of what you need for social media marketing is a mindset change, from “This is dumb, what’s wrong with 16-year-olds,” to “Lots of people are using this stuff, much of it is free, how can Iuse it?”
There’s one idea…
Second Life: Where Marketing Strategy Goes to Die?
July 26, 2007 | 3 Comments
Like a lot of folks, I’ve been intrigued by the marketing possibilities present in Second Life. I’ve been fascinated by all the people making over $5,000 a month in real money (132 at last count) and by the companies holding press conferences within it. Like 4,000,000 other people, I downloaded the software, created my avatar and spent hours figuring out how to walk around, talk to others, teleport, etc. And it is kinda, sorta fun.
On the flip side, there was the time I went to a heavily advertised in-world club. And danced. Alone. It was creepy, bizarre and virtually lonely.
That hasn’t stopped Coke, the NBA, Wired, CNET, Adidas, Coldwell Banker, Sears and others to open up shop, often investing as much as $500,000 per year to do so. Wired now has an excellent article outlining how much of that money may be wasted.
Some amazing facts from that article that explain why I was so lonely in that dance club:
- While SecondLife talks about 8 million users, the actual number of Americans actually using the site on a given week is only about 100,000.
- 85 percent of the avatars created have been abandoned.
- On a random day in June, “Sexy Beach” had 133,000 visitors. IBM’s huge innovation island, on the other hand, got 281 visitors. Coke’s highly praised Thirst Pavilion got 27 visitors.
It turns out that Linden Labs servers can only handle about 70 visitors to a given place at a time. 70. Which explains why the don’t do some obvious things they could otherwise do to encourage density.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against experimenting in social media. It’s what this company is all about, and too few companies are doing that right now, not too many. And $500,000 out of Coke’s ad budget isn’t going to cripple anyone.
But other social media advocates, including Joseph Jaffe (who I don’t know but who I respect), are pushing Second Life in the article with quotes like, “So when people ask, ‘Why Second Life?’ I ask, ‘Why not?’”
Why not? Because social media for business and brand building is not about setting up shop on some poorly traveled virtual world with a ridiculously high CPM. It’s about conversations. It’s about having conversations with your target audience. It’s about participating in your target’s conversations. It’s about listening in a way that helps you understand your audiences better.
The big ad agencies still don’t get it. Banner ads on Facebook are still just banner ads. They’re not social media, any more than a 30-second spot during a break on Survivor is reality TV.
Why not spend $500,000 on a Second Life presence, to answer Jaffe’s question? Because no company can do it all, and for most companies, 1/10th of that investment in a sound social media marketing plan, followed with the development of a sound multi-pronged social media strategy will pay far bigger dividends and have far better ROI. That planning may lead you to a Second Life experiment, but it may also lead you to some more interesting, more productive places.
Because when we get too excited about technology and start investing millions without considering the return, well, it makes me think of 2001. I’m sure smart people work on all of those brands I mentioned, just like smart people invested millions in the dot com bubble.
Smart marketers experiment, sure. But smart marketers set a strategy first, and put their toes in the water (or dive in) in ways most likely to generate returns. They also analyze returns. Reading those SecondLife stats this month makes me wonder, “Has Second Life Peaked?” Cost per acre is down from the prior month. The number of people making over $5,000 a month is down for the last two months… Smart marketers are watching those numbers, too.
When we saw how most ad agencies, PR firms and SEO firms were thinking about and reacting to social media… Well, that led us to form Ignite in the first place. Social media, new media, virtual worlds. If you’re in the marketing business, it’s still about business–at least, it is in this life…
~Jim Tobin
Ignite Social Media
(Notice how there are fewer than 70 people listening to this artist play live? How much did Coke pay to reach those people? Too much, I’m sure, even if you count the 1,200 others who have watched this video…)
“Faux Social Media” not a good “choice”
July 19, 2007 | 1 Comment
AT&T is rolling out their U-verse product in select markets. The product allows people to get television over the Internet (along with high speed service). Now the potential for that is interesting, although as cable companies such as Time Warner Cable and Comcast have improved their service offerings and their service over the years, the argument for change is not a clear one.
To promote U-verse in Norwalk, CT, AT&T has a campaign under which they supposedly award free U-verse for a year to go named, conveniently enough, Bobby Choice. Get it, you have a choice. Uh yeah… They’ve put a bunch of videos on YouTube. Here’s one.
Social networking sites serve very different needs, audiences
July 6, 2007 | 1 Comment
For a lot of chief marketing officers and vice presidents of marketing, figure out social media and social networking sites is challenging enough. But for those willing to put a toe in the water, knowing where to put that toe based on good data is challenging, too.
Business Week is reporting now on data from comScore, which shows a tremendous amount of important statistics on two of the big social networking sites, including:
- Traffic counts put MySpace way in the lead
- 68 million users on MySpace last month
- 26 million users on Facebook last month
- MySpace has an older demographic
- 50% of MySpace users are over age 35, while only 17% are 18-24
- 40% of Facebook users are over age 35, while 29% are college students
- Facebook attracts a significantly wealthier demographic
- They are not mutually exclusive audiences. In fact, there’s a 64% overlap between the two sites.
This sort of data are becoming increasingly important as advertisers start to shift more media dollars to social media sites. Google alone paid $900 million to advertise on MySpace.
More to come…