By Leo Valiquette
“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.
By Alexandra Reid
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?
By Linda Forrest
Let’s face it: there’s a delicate balance between cool and commerce. New media arrived on the scene like an irreverent, insouciant prat, thumbing its nose at the “old” way of doing things, and this includes marketing. That new media would spell the end for traditional media has been a much ballyhooed topic these past few years. While the death of traditional media has been overstated, the adoption of so-called 2.0 communications modes certainly shook things up from a marketing perspective.
No longer are customers – whether B2B or B2C – content to have information solely pushed at them, rather they want to participate in the meaningful exchange of information and, in most instances, pull the relevant information to them. It’s up to marketers to make sure that the pertinent information is available on all channels that make sense, and to respond quickly to reputation-threatening information.
One thing that most definitely hasn’t changed is that businesses need to make money in order to survive. Twitter is no different.
Having survived for several years on no revenue, it was time for the company to fish or cut bait and so it took a page from its media predecessors and started to sell advertising. No longer was one’s Twitterstream the providence of the free-thinking and radical sticking it to the proverbial “man.” It became a marketing channel like any other, where companies, for the right price, could promote their Tweets to prospective customers.
While users might complain loudly about this interruption of their streams by corporate raiders, or roll their eyes at the suggestions for who to follow, Promoted Tweets represent a great opportunity for brands, and here’s why.
The recent noise level on Twitter reminds me of MP3.com in its heyday. It was a free-for-all where there was so much content and no way for content creators to effectively market their wares. As a result of the amplification of everything, it was very difficult for users to hear anything. With the adoption of a Promoted Tweets option, there’s a mechanism for brands to rise above the noise. The reputation management opportunities presented by Promoted Tweets are phenomenal.
Examine Twitter’s old way of doing things. Let’s say a brand experiences a potentially damaging incident that effects numerous consumers. The brand could issue a Tweet that suggests they’re working to rectify the problem, what reparations are underway, where users can seek more information, etc. Problem is, with no way to make those Tweets “stick” to the top of the Twitterstream, they can be quickly overtaken by user-generated Tweets with relevant keywords and hashtags that contain potentially negative and damaging information. With Promoted Tweets, brands willing to pay the associated price can control their messaging on the channel, at least to some degree.
In my personal opinion, the suggestions for who to follow, just anecdotally, don’t pass muster, at least yet. Safe to assume that I will never follow AT&T’s @shareatt. Ever. It really makes me wonder what I’ve ever Tweeted that got me put on that list…
Product placement, when done poorly, is hideous. Agreed. The same will be true on Twitter. Brands looking to use this advertising (and let’s not mince words; this is advertising) to its fullest potential, should, as with any other channel, use it wisely. Target relevant information to actual prospects and customers. Spamming will get you nowhere.
Many are quick to jump on this initiative as Twitter having “sold out” but it will be interesting to see if indeed this move will save or destroy Twitter in the long term. With consistent revenue coming in and with brands able to better use the channel as part of their marketing budgets, my money’s on save.
By Alexandra Reid
To everyone who stopped by on Tuesday to read part one of this series, welcome back. For those of you who are just jumping in, you can read part one here. In summary, I examined how social media could benefit the entire B2B revenue cycle by enabling businesses to attract and nurture anonymous prospects and maintain and develop customer loyalty.
Today, I’ll explain three other ways that social media can benefit the B2B revenue cycle, namely by facilitating social validation, inbound marketing and advertising.
Social validation
A huge number of prospects are directed to businesses through word-of-mouth recommendations. According to a Wall Street Journal study, 92 percent of respondents have more confidence in information found online than they do in anything from a salesclerk or other source. As social networks allow individuals to vote, rank and comment on products and services online, they play an integral role in influencing B2B purchasing decisions through social validation. Always bear in mind the important role that word-of-mouth recommendations throughout your social media activities can play in helping to increase the credibility of your brand and to dispel the uncertainties of your prospects during the buying process.
Engaging a community around your brand through social media is an excellent way to encourage individuals to speak well of your products and services and highly rank them within their networks. Note that the key word here is “engage,” not “broadcast.” Your community will be immediately turned off of your brand if you use social networks to broadcast only your own messages. Instead, spend time listening to the comments and conversations of prospects, customers and other individuals in your marketplace, reflect on helpful and relevant suggestions that could potentially solve their queries and respond in a timely and respectful manner.
It is also important to understand that even brands with big communities have their critics. Despite what many people believe, opening up your sites to receive criticism is a good idea. As I mentioned in a previous post, you should not be afraid of “bad” comments, because if they’re not saying it to you, they’re likely saying it to someone else. By engaging with these critics, you are better equipped to make things right. Furthermore, by allowing individuals to rate and review your products on your website and social media sites, you’re demonstrating that you value transparency and are open to criticism, which are great ways to show your prospects that you can be trusted as a vendor.
Inbound marketing
This practice focuses on getting found by prospects through channels such as social media, word-of-mouth recommendations and search engine optimization, or SEO. Inbound marketing is particularly valuable because prospects coming through these channels are usually already interested in the brands they are seeking. Businesses that actively engage in social media increase their chances of turning prospects into qualified opportunities on two fronts:
First, because search engines rank sites based on traffic volume, businesses that actively engage with online audiences through social media have higher SEO. The higher your page rank on search engines, the easier it is for prospects to find you.
Second, once these prospects have found your business, social media plays another role in addressing their perception of risk during the buying process. Providing prospects with information outside the traditional sales or marketing context can help dispel their uncertainties about your brand.
Advertising
Social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook offer tremendous opportunities to advertise your brand organically through status updates. Although some businesses have deemed social networks to be a big waste of time for employees, teaching your employees how to responsibly manage their social media presence among various sites can actually be good for business because you can access a wider audience through your employee’s connections.
Each time you have an important announcement to make about your business, or you publish new content on your corporate blog, get your employees to Tweet it, or mention it in an engaging way on their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. As these status updates are likely to be posted from personal accounts, it is a good idea to have someone oversee this process. A community manager can be useful in both educating your employees on social media best practices and overseeing social media activity. inmedia currently has a community manager for hire who can help you with your businesses’ social media endeavours.
In promoting your brand through social media, it is imperative that you be transparent in your intentions and only share content that engages your following and encourages interaction. For example, instead of simply broadcasting your business’s achievements, ask your followers a question related to the achievement to encourage their response. Make sure someone qualified is available to receive and offer comments to these responses to develop an intriguing conversation.
Now it’s your turn. Do you have any additional suggestions on how social media can benefit the B2B revenue cycle?
By Linda Forrest
Comedian/talk show host Jon Stewart recently established his Bartlett’s entry in his closing speech at the Rally to Restore Sanity when he said “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” We as B2B marketers can take good counsel in the core message of this quote, even if his intention was to calm the political diaspora in the increasingly bipartisan U.S., something quite removed from our day-to-day activities.
At its simplest, this quote, when assessed in a marketing context, signals the great importance of two things: 1. strategy and 2. messaging and positioning. The lessons that can be learned on both fronts can have significant impact on your bottom line.
On the strategy front, if you bombard the market on all channels with little concern for which modes of communication are most effective for which types of messages and in which formats, your marketing effort is less likely to be successful than if you target your efforts around specific activities that have been proven effective. It’s this last point that highlights the importance of measuring the efficacy of your marketing activities; if you don’t measure the impact of your actions, how do you know if they’re effective or not?
With the advent of new media, and its ongoing widespread adoption, B2B companies need to keep in mind the importance of strategy as they contemplate and deploy marketing messages using novel channels. Just because a channel like Facebook exists doesn’t mean that it’s right for your market insofar as being an effective marketing channel. There’s a lot of hooplah around social media; many people and organizations get swept up in the hype and engage on these channels without doing the proper analysis up front. We’ve written about the perils of leaping before you look with new media. New does not mean better. More does not mean better. If these marketing activities are not appropriate for your business, then select others that are. Evaluation of all of the channels available to you and then selection of the most effective – and those that will offer the most compelling ROI – is essential to marketing success.
As businesses build and maintain profile in their respective marketplaces, they need to be clear about what they’re bringing to the table. You cannot be all things to all people, or, in Stewart’s words, amplify everything. Rather, your messaging and your positioning in the market needs to be clear, the customer pain that you’re solving well communicated and your market-facing messages, whether on so-called new or traditional media channels, consistent.
As evidenced by how much people are talking about Stewart’s speech, words matter. Select them carefully and communicate clearly. Your business will benefit from your judicious choice of both the language you use to promote your company and the channels on which you communicate those messages.
