The latest missive from Gawker Media’s Nick Denton has brought all kinds of potential blog post topics to the front of my mind, which I’ll attempt to cover in one post. In his long piece about the hows and whys of the changes coming to the company’s online properties in 2011, he touches on the following topics: scoops still matter, the role of modern media as an aggregator, the importance of being well-rounded, the rise of video, constraints and benefits of editorial calendars, and real estate lessons that online properties are adopting from their older brother, television.
It’s a fascinating read and speaks not only to Gawker’s response to the ever-shifting realities of media production and consumption, but also to some larger issues that should be compelling to B2B marketers as they search for ways to create and leave an impression in today’s fast-paced media marketplace.
Scoops matter
This is true in the publishing world, in terms of being the first to broadcast a breaking story, and also for marketers looking to edge out the competition in being first to market with a new product. One of our clients, Touch Bionics, was first to market a fully articulating bionic hand with its i-LIMB Hand in 2007, conscious of the fact that its competition was also planning a launch and that being number two was not a viable option. So successful was the i-LIMB Hand media launch that Touch Bionics’ competitor cancelled its plans.
The role of modern media as an aggregator
There was a brilliantly funny Tweet a few months ago (from whom I sadly cannot recall or I would reference them here) that said Huffington Post planned on starting a print edition that would consist of clippings from other newspapers taped together. While cheeky, this does raise a point about the media outlet as content aggregator, a model that many publishers are increasingly adopting based on the mercurial success of Huffington Post, deemed to have the 38th highest traffic volume of all US-based sites. Marketers can tap into this shift by building out effective social media programs and also by offering well-rounded content to the media.
The importance of being well-rounded
In a world where social media is wildly popular, the news cycle is infinitely shorter than it was even a year ago. That’s where the media’s role as an aggregator comes into play most effectively; rather than spending time crafting their own take on every story they want to cover, savvy outlets have an editorial mix that contains both brief, perhaps rebroadcast, news from disparate sources alongside more in-depth, exclusive content generated by the outlet itself.
If marketers want to tap into the myriad media opportunities that exist with target outlets, they need to provide the media with the proper materials in order to cover them. This means not only effective background materials, but also photos, videos, links to your owned online media properties, your social media coordinates, and a steady stream of content – bylined articles, customer case studies, surveys, and other outbound news that ranges in size and scope – so that the media can cover you when and where appropriate.
The rise of video
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a moving picture in today’s multimedia media climate is surely worth much more.
Here are some great examples of how our clients Xsilva and Touch Bionics are using video assets to their great advantage:
LightSpeed Mobile – Meet Your Customer
ProDigits: the world’s first bionic finger
Constraints and benefits of editorial calendars
Forward planning was essential and easy to stick to with print-only properties in years gone by. With online media, it’s less important and more difficult to stick to a planned coverage agenda. One of the primary advantages that modern media has over its predecessors is its ability to react immediately, to publish news instantly without having to wait for ink to dry on paper. This immediacy has made the news cycle almost non-existent, but intelligent outlets recognize the need to develop a brand for themselves defined by the scope and depth of their coverage, the topics that they cover, the journalistic integrity of the editorial team, and other choices that outlets make.
Advertisers can rely on these plans to ensure that their paid space is complemented by editorial that’s covering the same topic areas. Media relations consultants can pitch editors on coverage that fits within the target outlet’s editorial plans. Because you have many arrows in your marketing quiver, the effective practitioner can provide the right materials in the right format at the right time, regardless of if it’s paid or earned.
Real estate lessons
There is almost infinite real estate online, which subsequently lowers the value of the space. As Denton said on the matter, “There is no future in low-end web advertising, at least not for a media company with any aspirations.”
Marketers need to carve out effective real estate on the marketing channels of their choosing. This may mean owned channels, product placement, sponsorship programs, or other marketing vehicles that are new to your marketing mix. Are these activities impacting your bottom line? There’s only one way to tell: measure them.
Now more than ever, it’s integral that marketing programs are reaching the right eyeballs. With endless analytics mechanisms for online media, marketers can effectively measure and evaluate the elements of their programs. Benchmark before you begin, and evaluate regularly to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your marketing investment.
If there’s one sure way to turn prospects off, it’s to oversell. This is true in sales and in marketing. If you overhype something, you’re sure to disappoint. Case in point, last week’s iTunes announcement from Apple.
When Apple told the market that November 16 would be “a day you’ll never forget,” hopes were high. Would Apple announce that it had finally convinced the major record labels to play nice with one another and introduce a subscription-based approach to music downloads along the lines of what Netflix offers for movies? What could it be that would warrant such a bombastic statement? Surely, the announcement would have to change the face of music downloading forever in order to live up to the hype?
As everyone who is not living under a rock now knows, the announcement was the addition of the full Beatles catalogue to iTunes. As the surviving band members and their Apple Records label had resisted digital downloads for a long time, with a lawsuit or two along the way, this was big news for Apple. But “a day you’ll never forget”? Hardly. Actually, scratch that – it is a day I’ll never forget because I was heartily disappointed when the news didn’t live up to the hyperbole Apple had used to preview this announcement and a perfect example of the old adage “don’t believe the hype.”
While Apple is crowing about the 2 million songs downloaded in the first week, this seemingly impressive figure is modest when compared with the still-held U.S. sales record set by N’Sync in 2000 for albums sold, which was 2.42 million. In modern terms, country phenomenon Taylor Swift sold 279,000 digital copies of her full length album in the first week.
Not only was the addition of the Beatles catalogue to iTunes not a day that will enter the history books, but it hasn’t even performed that well. Sure it was a personal triumph for Steve Jobs, a huge Beatles fan who fought long and hard to get rights to offer the catalog, but it was the latest in a series of PR missteps for the company.
What can we as B2B tech marketers learn from Apple’s folly?
This is in fact a topic we’ve visited before. Way back in 2008, Leo called out Rogers for its hyperbolic ways and at the dawn of this blog, I wrote about how inmedia gets the best results for its clients when it presents information to the media in a definitive, easily understood way that doesn’t include spin or hyperbole. The same holds true today. Traditional media won’t tolerate it and social media definitely is suspicious of it, so you’ll be doing yourself and your clients a disservice by employing it.
B2B tech is famous for using egregious hyperbole in its marketing efforts. A recent howler from CIO documented the 10 most exaggerated tech terms, a list that included “leading vendor,” which is a battle we’ve fought more than once with clients. Leading how? If your news is indeed first, or better, or leading the market in some way, define your terms.
Ask any journalist and they’ll tell you that their garbage cans, virtual and otherwise, are filled with hyperbolic marketing material, which they didn’t read past the headline that overhyped the subject matter that followed unread. Don’t let your materials end up on the trash heap because you needlessly overdid it.
My colleague Linda turned me onto an excellent PR blog called the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog where I now spend a considerable amount of time reading up on news, tips and opinions about our industry. Yesterday, while scrolling through the feed, I stumbled upon some astonishing news that LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner shared with the publication about his networking company. According to Weiner, LinkedIn “now has 85 million users – and the latest one million signed up within the last nine days.”
Holy Shnikes Batman! LinkedIn is growing…and fast!
Every second, LinkedIn adds a new user with about half of all new accounts being created outside North America. If you haven’t yet created a company profile for your business on LinkedIn, you’d better do it right now, or your competitors will beat you to the potential customers in your marketplace.
Setting up a company profile is relatively simple, and your business will reap multiple rewards ranging from improved customer relations to better SEO ranking and heightened brand awareness. The trick is putting in the time to do it right. The best way to promote your company on LinkedIn is by using all the tools available and regularly participating in active discussion forums on the platform.
Here at inmedia, we’ve now helped a few clients get properly set up on LinkedIn. Here’s a quick summary of our best-practices approach to doing so.
1. Be professional
Because LinkedIn is excellent for SEO, it is likely that your company profile will receive noticeably increased web traffic within the forum, through search engines and through your company website, if you chose to link to your company profile through a LinkedIn widget. For these reasons, it is imperative that your profile looks professional. We counsel our clients to keep the following factors in mind:
Company overview: Spend time brainstorming and writing your company overview to appeal to your intended LinkedIn audience. Your “about us” section from your website can be used as a good starting point but because LinkedIn is a social site, you should also consider using this space to explain your company from a different vantage point, namely the customer’s. While consistency and basic facts are important, you should hone in on why the person reading your profile should care about your products and services. Be personal and inviting as well as professional in your language use. Also note that there is a 200 minimum and 2,000 maximum character limit.
Company logo: Include one next to your company overview to help people recognize and remember your business. I’ve personally seen a number logos on company profiles that appear stretched and off-colour. You should use a picture-editing program to refine your logo before publishing it on your profile.
2. Research competitive specialties
Many LinkedIn users search for information by keyword. To improve your business’s results, your company profile should include well-researched and competitive specialties that reflect your business’s offerings. For example, if your business is in the manufacturing sector, include specialties that are specific to the type of manufacturing your business does, instead of simply listing “manufacturing,” a generic term that will put your business up against every other manufacturing business on LinkedIn. You should also note that although LinkedIn offers 20 spaces for specialties, there is a 256-character limit for the total number of specialties listed. Researching and developing such a list is a time-consuming undertaking that our clients have been happy to have us do for them.
3. Use LinkedIn aggregated data
LinkedIn can pull data about your business from all around the site, including key statistics, job listings and links to the profiles of all current and former employees, new hires and recent promotions. LinkedIn also analyzes businesses and the connections employees have on the network. For example, it will automatically calculate your business’s median age, top schools that most of your business’s employees attended, and other businesses to which it is well connected.
It is a good idea to include all aggregated information provided by LinkedIn on your company profile to encourage people to connect with you to ask about job opportunities, your business and industry information, among other inquiries. As your reputation grows on LinkedIn, more individuals will be inclined to engage with your business in Groups and Answers, discussed later in this post.
4. Make use of the new Products & Services feature
Earlier this month, LinkedIn unveiled the new Products & Services feature for company profiles to give members “rich, credible insights into how any given product (or service) is perceived by their fellow professionals.” Through this feature, professionals can make recommendations about your business’s products and services, which are showcased on your company profile. Each time a LinkedIn member endorses your products or services, their recommendation becomes visible to all of their connections and could spread virally. These recommendations can help promote your business and build its credibility.
6. Include the “Mentioned in the News” section
Mentions of your business in the news should be shared on the company profile to keep people informed of advancements and achievements. Sharing these stories of success will promote your business’s reputation as an industry leader and encourage people to connect with you for discussion and business opportunities. It is best to keep these headlines current and from third-party sources and ensure that there are no repeats.
7. Follow other companies
There is ample opportunity for your business to follow and be followed by partners, suppliers and customers on LinkedIn. Connecting with companies through following and being followed is beneficial to your business because it helps build rapport between industry members and shows others that you value community building.
8. Participate in Groups and Answers
Answers are active conversations on the platform about a particular issue. A question is posed and then users can respond and participate in the discussion. Asking and answering questions are good ways for you to attract professionals to your company profile, establish a thought-leadership position for your business and also keep a finger on the pulse of the industry.
Groups are also active conversations on the platform about particular issues. Professionals can ask questions, make statements or post content to drive discussions. Starting and participating in discussions are great ways to attract professionals to your company profile, engage with your marketplace and build an active network on the platform.
There are multiple reasons why getting your business on LinkedIn is important, now more than ever. What are your best practices for B2B companies interesting in getting onto LinkedIn?
“If you are going to have an online presence in 2010, you just have to be on Facebook,” a royal official on the staff of Queen Elizabeth II told the media recently.
Really. Why? When embarking on any kind of social media strategy, the rationalization for engaging with the online community must be a little more substantial than “because.”
For the Queen’s staff, however, this appears to be reason enough. The Royal Family already has accounts on Flickr, Twitter and YouTube to feed the appetites of monarchists and anglophiles everywhere, so why not Facebook too? Earlier this month, the Royal Family joined the legions of Facebook users with an account called The British Monarchy.
But let’s take step back for a moment and consider this brave and not so new world of social media. What is the essence of social media? What purpose is it intended to serve?
Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “social media” as “forms of electronic communication (as web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos).”
The key word in that definition is “share.” This is nothing new, or innovative, or engaging about yet another website that is a one-way flow of communication. We’ve been there and have done that for almost 20 years. The Royal Family itself has had a website to serve this purpose since 1997.
So you could be forgiven for assuming that a monarchy often characterized as staid and dusty before the arrival of the next generation of royals has taken a leap forward in terms of finding a creative new way to engage with its fan base with Facebook. You would, however, be wrong.
Us common folk on Facebook cannot “friend” the Queen, poke her or send her messages. The British Monarchy, is, in truth, a glorified newsletter and calendar of royal events that completely contradicts the intention of Facebook and social media in general.
However, even a newsletter typically offers some kind of channel for reader feedback, but not The British Monarchy Facebook page.
It should not come as any surprise that within hours of this Facebook launch, anti-monarchist types got busy. Dozens of them clicked the “like” button to join discussions and then posted abusive messages about the Royal Family or called for the monarchy to be abolished.
How did the Queen’s staff react? Rather than initiate a dialogue on the relevance and value of the monarchy, as suggested by communications consultant and author Jeff Ansell in the Globe and Mail, they hit the delete button.
“When a company or organization tries to shut out social media, it speaks volumes. It dismisses comments and concerns raised by people with opinions and tells them loudly and clearly that it won’t put up with criticism,” Ansell said in the Globe. “For the Queen and her foray into Facebook, she might have been better off not even going there.”
Which strikes to the very heart of the issue. As we at inmedia counsel, pursuing a social media strategy, and deciding on which social media tools to put in the toolbox, begins with the same simple questions that apply to any kind of marketing activity:
What does our organization want to achieve?
Will this particular social media tool reach the people I want to reach?
What is expected of us as an organization and a brand if we use a particular social media tool? How must we present ourselves?
The last point leads to the question to which the Queen’s handlers failed to give sufficient consideration:
Can I effectively and consistently engage with my target audience in the manner they will expect with this social media tool? If not, then perhaps this is not for us.
Facebook, like any other social media channel, has its own codes of conduct, and while these may be more guidelines than actual rules, the point remains that Facebook is intended to be forum and catalyst for community conversation and sharing. For a major brand, and that is exactly what the Queen and the Royal Family are, it can be an excellent means to be part of the public discourse, proactively respond to criticism and steer things in a positive direction.
If the Queen’s handlers thought to achieve these goals with the public at large and convey the relevance and value of the monarchy, they have failed miserably. And if this was not their intention, then they simply do not understand what social media is all about. They’re still living in 1997.
It takes humans many years to learn the intricacies of how to be social. We are not born knowing that it’s inappropriate to put our elbows on the table at dinnertime, talk back to our elders or utter the word “neato” in any party setting, lest we set ourselves up for mocking. It takes a wealth of life experiences -some crushing, others passionate and a few victorious – as well as years of education to teach us about who we are and how we should interact with others in order to navigate our way through life.
Social media rose to prominence in just a few years. Yet, despite its rapid arrival, it has become a rich forum of experiences, thoughts, ideas, opinions and advice as many people learned very quickly how to transfer their life skills over to these online forums in order to develop genuine relationships with others.
Businesses as well as individuals are trying to establish a presence in social media. However, many of them are having a tough time building authentic relationships with their online audiences. Part of the reason could be that they’re not attributing an authentic voice to their avatars. It may also be because they’re only interested in getting fans, friends and followers in the most trivial sense. Or, perhaps it’s because people don’t respond well to brand promotion in their social spaces. To be successful in social media, you need to express the human side of your business and learn about the online communities within your marketplace.
The following best practices present you with an opportunity to make your business stand out from other businesses participating in social media.
Determine your goals
Being successful in life requires you to develop clear goals on what you aspire to achieve. The same idea can be applied to your business’s social media strategy. In order to know if you are achieving your goals, you need to decide exactly how you plan to measure success. What do you hope to get out of social media? Are your goals lead generation, brand awareness or customer service? How much time and money do you plan to invest in social media? All of these questions need to have definite answers before you begin your business’s social media activities. Agencies such as inmedia can help you ask and answer the right questions.
Develop your brand’s personality
It is important to decide how your business’s voice will sound online in order to ensure that your audience develops a positive relationship with your brand. This voice needs to be consistent, authentic and confident. Just as in life, being kind and polite are not requirements, but they certainly encourage good people to want to socialize with you. To maintain consistency in your voice, it’s a good idea to appoint one or just a few people either internal or external to your company to be this voice. inmedia has a community manager that can be this constant voice for your business.
Learn about your community by listening to them
Just as in any real life social situation, people are attracted to those who share a conversation. No one likes the guy who beats his chest, and only talks about himself. At the outset of your social media activity, you should actually do more listening than talking. You need to first determine your point of view and what you plan to contribute to the conversation. Then you can begin to learn about your audience. Determine the social media channels that you should use and design your sites according the audience you want to reach. You need to spend a lot of time listening to the communities in your marketplace within these forums to figure out exactly what they need and want. Once you figure out your point of view and the wants and needs of your online communities, you will be able to provide for them, and they will listen.
How about you? Do you make friends with robots, or do you prefer real people?
