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By now most companies have established a social media presence. However, they often don’t know whose attention they’re getting, and if it’s the kind of attention they want. There is a lot of chatter right now about how NOT to use social marketing, (see 10 Ways to Screw Up Your SEO by David McAnally, and Top 6 Social Media Mistakes and How to Fix Them, by Kristi Hines). However most analysts have skipped over the most important element: the social element, the customers you hope to attract by engaging in social media in the first place! Who are they, where are they, and how do you reach them?

After reading several different top-ten or top -six lists, it seems to us like there are three key and all-too-common pitfalls in social media that need to be fixed to make sure that the social media element of your company’s marketing is getting to the audience you want:

1. Your social media is disconnected from your company’s message. Many companies simply start a Facebook page or Twitter account and assume that will be enough to keep the conversation alive between them and their customers. Well, SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) has been blindly sending out radio signals for 50 years, and we’ve seen the results: so far, no one’s responded.

But more importantly, what are you saying on those social networks? Are you promoting your new product, or are you tweeting about that new gizmo (worse, someone else’s product!) that you just have to have! Not connecting your message online with the rest of your marketing sends a mixed signal to your audience and makes them less likely to engage in your brand.Having a social media strategy is key to make sure that what you are saying in the social media sphere is coherent with what you’re saying in the rest of your marketing message. See the article on 7 Steps for a Successful Social Media Strategy (More Top-Ten style lists!), or read our own take on it in a blog post from April.

2. Not connecting with the right audiences. Who is your audience? Who do you want them to be?  It is important to make sure that your content is reaching the correct people. The audience that you want to connect with via search engine is usually the same people you want to connect with using social media. Both these can be accomplished with good SEO (search engine optimization). Using Activity Streams or tracking the user data from RSS Feeds can give you a better idea of who’s already engaging in your brand. In an article for Association Media & Publishing, Jacqui Cook suggests deciding who you want to impress. Then go to Google, use keywords you think they might use, and see what comes up. And don’t confuse terminology and keywords with industry jargon.

3. No value-add for social media users. Good customer service is good marketing. Think of social media as a customer service. How does your social media serve your customers?

As Harris Diamond wrote in a column for Forbes Magazine, “Brands today are actively harnessing social media platforms to create content and communities to find their brand loyalists or advocates… The new model of targeting brand ambassadors is about two-way, open, social engagement and not just top-down and inside-out pushing of products.”

What’s in it for your customers to engage in social media with your company? What do they get out of it? By offering insider information, early releases, and other perks, customers will engage and remain loyal to your brand. Company CEOs (or their assistants) often tweet previews of a speech right before a conference or event. Diamond points out “Once identified and engaged with, brand advocates do the marketing campaigns for them.” It can’t get much easier than that!

So there you have it, three pitfalls that many companies make when trying to find their social media audience, and how your company can avoid them.

In this day and age the majority of companies and brands have some form of social media presence. With the abundance of social media channels and the amount of chatter going on public forums, a growing concern for companies is the impact of complaints and negative comments being made through these channels. This concern can be a huge deterrent to brands taking the plunge and fully embracing the world of social and the benefits it can offer.

Even though your company may not be engaged in social media channels, it doesn’t mean people aren’t talking about your brand.  It’s inevitable that not all the conversations are positive either. There will always be critics and negative comments online and offline. It is how a company chooses to react and engage these critics that is most important and can help change a negative into a positive. So what is the most effective approach to dealing with these critics?

Jason Hill discusses his approach to dealing with complainers and combatants and why you don’t have to be as worried as you think in his Social Media Explorer article, “Six Steps for Dealing with Detractors.” Hill’s six step approach:  

1. Acknowledge their right to complain
2. Apologize for their situation, or your mistake (if warranted)
3. Assert clarity in your policy or reasons (if warranted)
4. Asses what will help them feel better
5. Act accordingly
6. Abdicate

Hill offers some great advice, but I think it is key to first examine the particular customer, as well as the context and channel the complaint is being made through. This should effect how and where you choose to engage the customer or “detractor.” Since every channel is different it is important to consider how your response will be viewed by other consumers; will it be more beneficial to respond privately or publically?

These are all good points to consider when identifying your approach to dealing with a disgruntled customer, but I agree with Hill that only through your own experience can you develop a tested process that works best for you. JetBlue is a recent example of a company that was able to do this is by reaching out to a customer who felt they had been unjustly charged a baggage fee for their fold-up bicycle. Within days JetBlue contacted the customer, reversed the charge, and subsequently changed their baggage fee policy. The positive outcome was picked up by the bike blogosphere and Consumerist changing this potential negative situation into a positive.

Every brand is going to have its share of critics and with the growing number social channels their voices are becoming more powerful. By developing a strategy to engage these critics your company will be more prepared to react to future incidents. You may never be able to please everyone, but as long as you try to respond accordingly and respectfully you have a better chance of turning a potentially negative situation into a positive one.

As social media continues to be become an integral marketing tool companies are looking for new and creative ways to utilize these channels to interact with their customers. For those companies yet to take the plunge into the world of social the abundance of social media channels can be overwhelming. So where do you get started? How do you “jump-in?”

Andy Sernovitz takes a look at case study by Joyce Munoz on how her company got their social media program off the ground in his SmartBlog article, “Andy’s Answers: How Avery Dennison got started in social media.”  Sernovitz touched on 3 “big ideas” from Joyce’s presentation that helped their campaign garner early success despite being new to the game and not being a traditionally “sexy” company:

• Find internal social media evangelists
• Just launch
• Keep it simple

Although I think Munoz makes some excellent points, companies need to be careful about “just launching.” Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you should dive in head first. It is important for companies to develop a social media strategy before jumping-in:

1. first examine who your audience is,
2. what their intentions are
3. and where they are consuming content.

Too often brands jump into the social media realm blindly, which leads to a poorly executed campaign that can actually degrade the brand. At some point you will need to “just launch”, but make sure you are informed before you do.  

Even after you have indentified the right approach to take to start a successful social media campaign it can still be difficult to get the decision makers at your company to buy off on it. Rob Birgfeld discusses a list of tips to sell the executives on social media and develop a companywide social media-plan in his SmartBlog article, “5 Steps to Building a Companywide Social-Media Plan”, which include:

• Start small and test
• Record victories
• Communicate
• Assemble an interdepartmental team
• Produce

It is important to measure the effectiveness and keep a record of the social media channels you utilize to show decision-makers what works and what doesn’t.  This will help them  feel more comfortable that you have gathered the knowledge to help the company succeed in the world of social. In the end you still need to “produce”; if the campaigns aren’t successful the plug will be pulled and the executives will be very hesitant of social media in the future.

Your customers are already in the digital realm: on the Web, connecting via social networks, and using their smart phones, so it is important you are there also. Just remember with so many different channels it is important you understand where your audience is, so you can engage them through the most effective channels. Are you where your customers are?

Heading into the new decade we took a moment to examine what digital trends would have a significant impact throughout 2010. As we pass the first quarter of this year we have been able to watch the continued emergence of some of the digital and web trend predictions discussed including:   

• Social gaming and virtual currencies: This can be seen with the continued popularity of games such as Farmville, which now has over 80 million users. Women ages 35-55 continue to be the largest demographic for social gaming, so expect to see more social network games geared toward this group’s interests.
• Mobile and GPS based advertising and services: As discussed in a recent article, MillerCoors has crossed the threshold to mobile advertising and will be utilizing SnapTag technology to promote their latest craft beer.  GPS based services such as Foursquare continue to grow along with mobile and GPS dating services. Expect to see a continued growth in geotargeting as marketers continue to find better ways to deliver relevant real time content to consumers.
• Improved social-media monitoring and analytics: This can be seen with the increase and improvement of the analytics tools available as marketers and brands seek to justify social media campaigns.  

Now that we are well into 2010 it is time to start looking forward at the next wave of digital trends, to try to stay ahead of the curve. Freddie Laker discusses his predictions for the social media landscape in 2012 in his AdAge article, “What Social Media Will Look Like in 2012”, which include:  

• Decentralization of social networks: We are already seeing the early-stages of this with the emergence of Facebook Connect and the functionality of the new Windows Mobile 7 Series.
• Growth of content aggregators: This is increasingly important as the amount of content available continues to grow and is scattered across multiple channels. Brands will need to find ways to manage content, filtering it through the appropriate channels and delivering in the right context.
• Interaction with search engines and influencer marketing: New platforms like Google’s Social Search will change the way people interact with search engines by permeating search results with content that is relevant to their personal networks. This will increase the significance of influencer marketing and will give brands the opportunity to reach their potential consumer base in more focused and effective ways.

Laker believes that in order for brands to stay relevant in the future, they will need to be on board with the idea that share of voice, point of view and community influence will be more important than brand ownership. It will be interesting to see if all digital experiences will become socially-enhanced, rendering the term “social media” obsolete as everything becomes digital media as Laker predicts. Regardless of how the digital world evolves as we move forward it will be imperative for brands to stay ahead of the curve and adapt to the changes if they want to stay relevant in a constantly changing marketplace.

MillerCoors, the second largest brewing company in the US, who is most well known for their American-style lagers Miller Lite and Coors Light are taking a new approach to reach their consumers in Colorado. This week under their A.C. Golden Brewing Co. unit, MillerCoors plans to launch their new craft-style beer, Colorado Native Lager. According to Jeremy Mullman’s AdAge article, “Miller Lets New Craft Brew Speak for Itself”, the new lager, which is brewed from “99.9%” Colorado grown ingredients and distributed only in Colorado, will be marketed exclusively through digital and word-of-mouth channels.

This in itself is not an entirely new concept for the Chicago based company. The Colorado Native Lager is following in the footsteps of Blue Moon, another MillerCoors’ craft-style beer whose popularity was built through word-of-mouth advertising. According Mullman’s article, A.C. Golden will be putting the entirety of the Colorado Native budget into mobile and social media channels hoping to encourage consumers to become the brands advocate and introduce the beer to friends.

Where the new approach differs and becomes more engaging is with the addition of SpyderLinks’ SnapTag technology, which will enable MillerCoors to utilize their logo on each bottle as a portal to mobile interactivity. According to Mullman:

“Every Colorado Native label is affixed with a “SnapTag,” which, if photographed on a mobile device and e-mailed to a specified phone number, allows the brand to begin a conversation with its drinkers. After e-mailing in a picture of the logo, a drinker will first get a reply asking for their birthday. If they say they’re older than 21, they’ll be queried with Colorado-centric trivia about their hobbies and interests, and the database will remember the answers and use them to craft future communications and offers to each individual drinker.”

Through utilizing the SnapTag technology MillerCoors will be able to communicate with their consumers rather than just talking at them with the goal of organically growing the brand around what the Colorado consumers want. This will allow A.C. Golden to provide consumers with content and information that is relevant to their lives with the hope of building the number of advocates for their brand. According to A.C. Golden’s president, Glenn Knippenberg:

“This brand is all about our consumers and their Colorado lifestyle. And this technology is going to allow the brand to evolve based on what they tell us about their lifestyle.”

As a craft beer fan myself I wonder if this approach will resonate within a community that tends to be skeptical of any beer brewed by a national powerhouse. It would also be interesting to see how many people will be willing to install the tag app and go through the motions of sending their personally identifiable information to MillerCoors. Will the incentives be enough to entice their customers to jump through the barriers to entry? Using digital and mobile advertising to build brand advocates will definitely be a huge step for brewers who have typically shied away from social media outlets in the past because of the struggle with age verification. Finding that “killer implementation” could be the answer for Colorado Native Lager success in a market that is already over-saturated with locally craft brewed beer.

Content has long been considered king but with the growing amount of content scattered across multiple channels, distribution channels and context are increasingly more important.

In the AdAge article, “Is Content King? Then Distribution Is Crown Prince”, Keith Richman discusses the importance of distribution and how having great content does not guarantee it will be reach its audience. According to Richman:

“The good news is that the internet provides amazing opportunities to distribute content and reach an audience. The bad news is that you are competing with millions of other content creators for the attention of that audience and their barrier to entry into the online medium is almost non-existent. In this environment more than any, distribution matters significantly.”

While “Overemphasis on Brand Building Leads to Mistrust” by Brent Leary in Inc. Technology examines the 2010 Trust Barometer report which shows that increased content through social media has swung the pendulum away from individuals in favor of industry experts/academics who are now as the most trusted source for company information.

“All the information being created and distributed is overloading most of us, which may be why there is a return to trusting authority sites, and recognized experts.  So, as the trust study is indicating, it’s becoming increasingly important to be viewed as an expert — more than ever before.”

This pendulum swing reinforces the idea that there is opportunity for brands to create content to tell their brand stories.   Adidas Penalty Shoot-Out, which was released in 5 European countries through Windows Live Messenger, was able to garner over 13 million game plays in just a two-month period.  This clearly shows that a combination of great content, strong brand tie-in, appropriate context, careful understanding of audience and engaging user experience can get you some amazing results.

With the continued growth of social media and digital marketing, and the abundance of channels for marketers to communicate with consumers, are we beginning to forget the fundamental truths of successful advertising? I recently read an interesting article by Pete Blackshaw, VP of Nielson Online Digital Strategic Services, who discusses the need for advertisers to get back to basics.

In his AdAge article, “Marketers Get Back to Boring”, Blackshaw offers up some great building blocks for advertisers to focus on trust, customer relationship management, emotion, feedback, listening, patience, and leadership. According to Blackshaw:

“Social media and digital marketing will only succeed – and only sell through the organizational layers – if we ground it in deeper, more established marketing truths, not ephemeral campaigns, one-trick pony moments, or hypocritical oaths or proclamations.”

The new, innovative marketing concepts we are embracing today all have roots with these rudimentary building blocks. Companies like Proctor & Gamble were seeking to engage and listen to consumers years before social media and digital marketing were around. The difference now is that by utilizing the new technology, brands have a greater ability to engage customers and have a conversation with them rather than talk at them.

Blackshaw ends his article on an excellent point,

“At the end of the day, what truly matters is less about social smarts than good, old-fashioned leadership. Leaders inspire and drive change — irrespective of platform, cause or brand. Most important, great leaders always follow the consumer.”

On Wednesday of last week Facebook announced their partnership with Omniture, a leading provider of online business optimization software, which will help the world’s largest social network provide solutions to optimize Facebook as an online marketing channel. Although the Adobe owned company has been active on Facebook for the past year until now there has been no official partnership between the two.

According to the MediaPost article, “Omniture and Facebook Ink Deal to Bring Analytics and Buying Tools to Social Marketing”, the alliance will initially focus on automating Facebook media buying and giving brands access to analytics that measure customer engagement. The partnership will build upon the analytic features the two companies announced last year helping brands easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel in order to better communicate with the sites more than 400 million users. This is big news for US marketers as Facebook recently surpassed Yahoo for the number two site in the US behind Google with 133 million viewers.

The toolset developed by Omniture will allow companies to better optimize the impact and ROI of their Facebook investments, while marketers will be able to incorporate Facebook initiatives as part of their overall multi-channel marketing strategy. This will become increasingly important as companies try to move beyond interrupting the online consumer experience and find ways to converse and have more relevant interactions with their customers.

 Omniture clients have already been utilizing both services to build their brands and increase customer loyalty, so this partnership looks to be a natural progression, which will help marketers engage interested customers on Facebook and increase revenue. Both Omniture and Facebook say they plan to expand the partnership going forward as opportunities become available. And even though the partnership was announced this week don’t expect to see the analytic and marketing toolset from Omniture until later this year.

The number of users and the amount of content they consume through the Xbox Live and Sony’s PS3 Home/Store platforms is growing at an alarming rate. According Dario Raciti’s Imedia Connection article, “How Brands are Winning with Xbox and Playstation”, Xbox Live is now considered the leading provider of on-demand, high-definition content in the U.S., providing twice the number of hours as the leading cable operators. The group consuming the largest amount of this content is men 18-34 who are playing more console games then watching any TV network.

With Xbox Live garnering the majority of the attention with 17 million users worldwide consuming over 550 million downloads of digital content Sony is making a push with its PS3 system to expand its services beyond that of Xbox. With its 3D virtual world, Home, Sony is pushing past the menu-style interface from Xbox Live and creating a greater variety of ways to interact with PS3 owners. The 3D world offers a variety of unique environments including a mall and movie theatre where users can meet and interact with other gamers. This has led to over 380 million pieces of digital content having been downloaded from the PS3 Home Store.     

The growing number of ways for consumers to interact and receive content through these entertainment platforms is leading to more unique advertising and branding opportunities. CBS recently partnered with Xbox Live exposing over a million new users to its Last.fm service, while Netflix adopted nearly 10 percent of it user base through Xbox Live. Though advertising opportunities are not as wide spread on the PS3 system a few brands have already begun to experiment by opening store fronts in Home where users can purchase products for their avatars.

Vicky Tamaru talked about the affirmation of Xbox as a platform that offers a new world of opportunity for content creators and advertisers in her February 2009 AllBusiness article, “Xbox: Advertising Game-Changer?”

According to Raciti, Nielson has found that consoles alone are as big as the fifth largest network and the numbers are growing everyday. And while in-game advertising can still be difficult the numbers are there to support the advertising opportunities. Advertisers should expect to see more solutions and increased opportunities to brand their products on gaming consoles, which hopefully leads to more effective and innovative advertising campaigns.

As marketing professionals it is our job to utilize our experience and the tools available to us to understand consumers and help brands develop solutions to communicate effectively with them. I would love to say we understand what people are thinking and why they are thinking it, but unfortunately even with all the tools and research available, people will always be unpredictable. So though these tools arm us with a better understanding of consumer behavior we are still only making our best guess on how consumers will react. Marketing is not a definitive science.

How can we avoid common mistakes and increase the chances that our “guesses” or marketing initiatives will be innovative and successful? In the IMEDIA Connection article, “Top Marketing Innovation Killers”, Sean X Cummings discusses four key barriers to successful marketing innovation and solutions to overcome them.

In his article Cummings discusses how the “big idea”, relying on historical reflection, the knowledge gap between agency and client, and ideation by committee are all killing marketing innovation. Too often agencies use the “big idea” as bright and shiny window dressing to excite the client, but don’t have the technology or strategy to back it up. This leads to unsuccessful campaigns that scare brands off from future innovative programs. Vicky Tamaru discusses the concept of the “big idea” and why Microsoft had to pull the plug on an agencies “innovative” campaign in her AllBusiness article, “What’s the Big Idea?”.

Cummings makes a good point that agencies need to design smaller ideas that are more nimble and adjustable and launch off the same basic platform. But it is key to remember that each of these smaller ideas need to build on top of one another, reinforcing the end goal of the overall comprehensive marketing strategy. It also important to make sure that each of the initiatives addresses the brand and its overall goals.

Marketers will not succeed by relying on a “one-size fits-all” approach. It is great to learn from past campaigns, but just because a campaign was successful for one brand does not mean it will be successful for another. Look at Subway’s Jared Campaign versus the new Taco Bell weight loss campaign. Though the Taco Bell campaign is still young it is hard to imagine it will garner the same success that Jared did for Subway. Have you met Christine? Every brand has a unique audience and unique goals, so it is important their marketing programs are unique to them. Work closely with clients to educate them as well as learn from them to bridge the knowledge gap, so you can find the most appropriate solution to achieve their goals.    

Though Cummings makes many good points I disagree on his argument that “ideation through committee” stifles innovation. Brain-storming sessions can be very effective and can limit problems with execution if they include the proper people—designers, developers, writers, and even producers. As I mentioned earlier, it is also very important to collaborate. This approach will help you find the most effective, innovative, long-term solution to meet each client’s specific goals.

With digital marketing still in its infancy and many clients not having a full understanding of the power and pitfalls, it is important for marketers to educate clients on the benefits. Rather than throwing out the “big idea” in bright, shiny packaging that can distract potential clients, marketers need to engage the client to learn their goals before suggesting solutions. Marketing approaches must continue to evolve to be more user-focused than brand-focused to be effective in this highly fragmented, over-saturated age.  But we also must remember that relying on focus-studies doesn’t always result in the best ideas, we must continue to innovate and ideate based on the perceived needs of the consumer.