The Quill

Our Social Media and Marketing Strategist, Liesel Olson, often writes about social media and marketing on her blog.  We liked this one and thought you would, too, so we’re sharing it!  Enjoy!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about attending the PR+SM Summit in Milwaukee. I’ve thought a lot about what I learned there, and one presentation sticks out to me: The Future of Social Media by Augie Ray (@augieray).  The future of social media, according to Augie (and I agree), can be determined by two things: looking at the past and looking at real world communication.

Looking at the past, we learn that the idea of social media is not new; it’s just communicated differently now.  As we look through history, we see that people regularly adopt new technologies as a way to share what’s going on (think of cave paintings, family bibles updated with marriages, births and deaths, or chain letters, for example). It’s our human nature to communicate our experiences with our fellow humans, so we will naturally create and adopt new methods of communication.  But not all methods survive; some die, some evolve. The ones that are successful don’t focus on the technological aspects of the platform, but rather what the users need.

The other thing we look at is how people communicate in the real world.  I tell my friends that I had an AMAZING time on vacation, that I had a GREAT workout at the gym, or that I LOVE my car.  But I don’t have that option on social media sites (Facebook, I’m talking to you) because I only have the option to ‘like’ something.  As Augie points out, ‘likes’ are for four year olds. I agree. Give me options!  I also dislike things!

As a marketer, this is really important to me.  I need to know the negative sentiment just as much as the positive sentiment – otherwise how am I going to know if there is something wrong with my product/service? I think people understand that social media sites, including Facebook, will continue to make changes and evolve (and let’s face it – they have to in order to survive). I’m hoping some of those changes will include more variety in my options to reply.

So What About the Future?

Augie suggests that the Sharing Economy will grow, that transparency will spread and increase in importance, and that the future is serendipitous, meaning that your devices will be able to predict what you want (creepy, but cool at the same time, no?). I can’t say I disagree with him, especially when it comes to transparency.

I’d also like to add the following (some of these are already happening, but I don’t think they are going away):

• smaller, more intimate networks will develop
• we’ll see more creativity in social media marketing (including more online/offline integrated campaigns)
• companies will realize that ‘likes’ aren’t everything and really focus on building relationships/customer service
• a push towards people meeting in real life instead of simply connecting online

Augie’s presentation really made me think.  Maybe it will do the same for you. You can see the entire presentation here – Enjoy!

If you want to read more about marketing and social media, you can find Liesel’s blog here.

This week Kara and I (Liesel) attended the PRSM Summit in Milwaukee - and loved it.  Being among our peers reviewing successful case studies and learning best practices for social media and marketing campaigns was incredible. One of the sessions we attended was called “Social Media Measurement and What ROI Really Means,” presented by Sara Meaney (@sarameaney).  Great presentation - here’s what it was all about.  

Everyone wants their social media campaigns to be successful, but most people don’t really define success before starting, which means they are doomed to fail!  When starting a social media campaign, there are some important steps to take in order to achieve success.

1. Use Baselines.  Start your campaign by seeing where you are now.  It doesn’t matter what metric you are using, but be sure to measure as much as possible.
2. Create Goals.  This is where you need to start being careful.  There is a difference between metrics and real ROI (more on this in a moment)
3. Promote. This isn’t the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie where you can “set it and forget it.” Once your campaign is launched, there is still work to do.  Keep spreading the word during (and even after) the campaign.
4. Review Results.  This is where your baselines come into importance.  Look at those same measurements post-campaign and see how you moved the meter.  Did your metrics change? Did you meet your goals?

Metrics vs. ROI

Contrary to popular belief, ROI is not number of likes on Facebook, the number of retweets you get, or the number of impressions on your YouTube channel.  Those are metrics.  While important to watch, they are different than ROI.

Since you will be measuring your campaign, here are 10 metrics that you may want to watch:

1. Leads generated
2. Website bounce rate
3. Website behavior
4. Growth of your engaged base
5. Brand mentions across social platforms
6. Website visitors and sources of traffic
7. Conversions to subscriptions
8. Time spent engagement
9. Engagement ratio (active network/total network)
10. Sharing

ROI, on the other hand, has much more weight and long-term importance.  According to Sara, ROI can be broken down into four categories: 

1. Brand Objectives (long term; indirectly financial): awareness, sentiment, WOM, loyalty, recruitment
2. Risk Management (long term; directly financial): decrease risk, increase response effectiveness and speed
3. Digital (short term; indirectly financial): increased searchability, enhanced owned/earned assets
4. Financial (short term; directly financial): increased sales

These are the real things to watch; these are the things that will determine your ROI. You still need to watch your metrics for trends, but be careful not to confuse them with real ROI measurements.

Not everyone will have the same goals or ROI measurements, so you have to determine what’s right for you. The important thing is to measure, because if you can measure it, you can move it! 

Yesterday, Ian McNamara, Creative Company’s Media Developer and I made the trek to Monona Terrace for the University of Wisconsin’s E-Business Consortium’s Business Best Practices & Emerging Technologies conference.  Yes, we know it’s a mouthful.

The event was sold out and rightfully so.  We were going to give you are 12 best of but you get 4 bonus ones just because we like you so much.  

1.  We are learning to communicate again and the implications are profound.  The changes in social media are affecting ALL of your customers.  Everyone is adapting and the rules and expectations for how you serve customers are now being set - BY THE CUSTOMERS.

2. We are all social snackers.  We move in and out of various social mediums in an effort to get our fix for the day.  These aren’t Oreo cookies though - they are real people influencing other people and you want to be part of the conversation.  Your brand had better have some personality or you won’t be invited in.

3.  The ultimate competitive edge is innovation.  6 out of 10 things you try will fail but 4 out of 10 will succeed. All companies say they are innovative but few really are.  Encourage your coworkers to trust each other, comment on each other’s work and take criticism in stride.  Information must be shared openly about successes and failures.

4.  Anticipate the future.  ”Hoping” that it won’t happen isn’t a strategy.  Mobile.  Digital.  The cloud.  Social.  They are here to stay.  Make sure you’re there.

5.  Give your customers the gift of time.  What is the thing we all thirst for?  More time.  If you can give them that, they will buy and buy and buy.

6.  Make sure your ecommerce, email marketing and web functionality works well on all platforms.  Tablet shoppers spend up to 20% more than PC shoppers and buy faster, for example.  

7.  Eliminate the roadblocks.  Stop asking questions you don’t need to ask in your website check out lanes or to subscribe to your e-newsletter or blog.  These are barriers to doing business.

8.  On your website, science has shown that people pay attention to the middle the most.  Make sure your visuals are captivating.  They are looking to exit when their eyes move to the left or the right so ask them to stay in those spaces.

9.  Your customers “buy buttons” are in their reptilian brains and this is primarily visual.  Make sure you have images in your check out lane.  You may be doing business but if they aren’t emotionally engaged, they’ll check out without buying.

10.  Your goal in any digital format is to get your customer to raise his hand.  That’s it and you get one ask.  Don’t mucky it up.  

11. Temperature bars are key on websites when you’re asking people to sign up, complete a survey or check out.  Always let them know where they are at or you’ll lose them.  

12.  Give them choices to order.  If they get frustrated during the ordering process, 92% of them will NEVER come back.

13.  People use the internet to collect evidence.  Give them a reason to choose you and your brand.

14.  When it comes to email marketing - and we knew this already at Creative Company because we do so much of it - your shelf life is 8 to 48 hours.  90% of your response will happen in the first 8 hours. 

15.  Trigger emails are the most effective.  As in, “You left the shopping cart, is there something we can help you with?”  The Abandon Cart emails as they are called are very effective.  Or, emails based on past purchases - Amazon does a great job of this.  Companies with sophisticated data will succeed and that email address is your golden ticket to the Chocolate Factory.

16.  And lastly, we are learning to communicate - again.  At any given moment, you have a variety of channels open to you.  1 to 1, 1 to Many and Many to Many.  How you use them matters.  

Our very own Liesel Olson attended the first ever Twitter Town Hall at the White House on July 6th, 2011.  As you can imagine, it was quite an experience.  Here, in her own words, is some of what she experienced*.

It all started with a tweet. Having followed the White House on Twitter for a while, I jumped when I saw their tweet inviting people to sign up for the first ever White House Tweetup.  In less than 24 hours I was accepted and made arrangements to go to Washington.

July 6th was a muggy day in Washington. I showed up at the White House for a tour at 10:30 in the morning, going through three rounds of security before entering.

Walking through the lower levels of the East Wing, I couldn’t help but think of who had walked those halls before me, who used the official china on display and how lucky I was to be there, because not everyone gets that chance.

The Secret Service guards were friendly and extremely knowledgeable about the White House history.  One told me about how friendly and real the President is – how he not only says good morning every day, but how they often chat about sports and scores from the night before.

After walking through the Blue Room (which has the most amazing view), the East Room and the State Dining Room, I left to go to lunch.  Upon my return, this time for the Tweetup, I went through the same security procedure and was led to the hall to wait until the East Room was ready.  There were 140 people as part of the event (140 because of the event’s link to Twitter), but only 30 were official Tweeters – me included.  When they led my group in, I ended up in the front row (score!).

As the room filled up, so did the anticipation.  It became silent.  Then Jack Dorsey (@jack), the founder of Twitter and our moderator for the event, came in and broke the silence by telling us a little about how the event was going to go.  At the end of his announcement, he said, “The President of the United States.”

At once, everyone stood and turned.  I readied my camera, only to realize he was coming down my side of the aisle and was in reach.  Forget the camera! I need to get my hand out there!

I swooped to the right of the guy sitting next to me and stuck out my hand.  I made eye contact with the President as we shook hands.  I remember him saying, “Hi, how are you?” with a welcoming, genuine smile, but I honestly don’t know what I said back.  I hope I said actual words…

It was unreal.  As he moved on to the next person, I started shaking.  Did I really just shake the President’s hand? Really?! 

As the Town Hall started, I stopped shaking, but was still amazed by the historic day I was experiencing.  I sat about 10 feet away from the President the entire time, watching him send his first tweet and answering questions from the American people (one of whom was sitting two chairs down from me).  All this excitement made it hard for me to do my job: tweeting.

It’s the kind of situation where you want to pay attention at every moment, capturing everything  and take it all in.  But I was supposed to be tweeting, so I tried for a mix of both.  I took breaks from tweeting to just enjoy the moment.  It was also nice to take those breaks because live tweeting isn’t as easy as it looks or sounds.  It’s like translating from a foreign language.  You have to listen, compute and restate instantly, and as your brain is doing the latter two functions, you need to start the process all over again with the new information that is constantly being presented.

It was an unbelievable experience and I relished every moment.  Also unbelievable was at one point I tweeted something and was actually retweeted by the White House:

I got about 100 new followers after that. Amazing.  Most of the people who replied to or commented on my tweet were nice and appreciated the significance of the event.  Some, however, were unnecessarily mean (maybe they were just jealous?). Nevertheless, it was exciting to see people so engaged.

After 20 answered questions and 70 minutes, the Town Hall ended and the President went about his other duties.  The Twitter group and I went over to the Eisenhower Executive Office building to talk to Jack Dorsey and some of the team members responsible for Twitter and the surrounding digital strategy for the White House.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay long because I had a flight to catch, but it was still a very cool experience.  Hearing from the people who manage such a high profile Twitter account (which they do an excellent job with) was an extraordinary professional experience, too.

It’s definitely an experience I will never forget.  Even now, when I see the White House on TV or watch what they are saying on Twitter, it has a much greater impact.  I can see their strategy and talent for handling social media and I can learn from it.  And it all started with a tweet. 

*Note: This post has been shortened from the original series of three posts on Liesel’s blog. If you would like to see the original, please click here.

On Tuesday, May 3rd,  2011, I spoke at 9am and 1pm at the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Business Expo.  Although we speak on the topic of social media frequently, I was still in awe at the level of interest.  It was standing room only at the 9 o’clock session.  One gentleman was so hungry for the information, he sat on the floor.  We had several live tweeters at the event too (thanks @GMCC_Delora, @kristinsjohnson, @MasterLink87 & @credibleconsult)!

Within minutes after finishing the session, a number of people connected with me on LinkedIn and began following us on Twitter.  This was an engaged audience.  If you were in the room, you already have a tremendous competitive advantage over your competition.  Just remember, it’s all about the story you’re living, telling and sharing.  Make it worth hearing and invite others to be part of it.  

Here are some more resources:

• You can see the full presentation here.
• You can see the Social Media Revolution Refresh video here.
• The books I spoke about were Socialnomics and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

• Creative Company Twitter
• Creative Company Facebook
• Laura Gallagher LinkedIn

Recently, an attorney friend of mine shared a story about a new attorney that came into their firm.  She had her slick brief case and smart clothes.  She wasn’t just an attorney, she was an ATTORNEY.  She waited to return phone calls and she did things on her own clock.  It wasn’t too long before someone at the firm invited her into their office and said firmly but gently, “If you think you are in anything other than a service industry, you are mistaken.  We are the same as a fast food worker.  We take care of people and their needs quickly and we care.” 

I love this story because it captures what we need to remember.  The consumer is not there to serve us.  We are there to serve them.  Yesterday, a group of business leaders gathered at Creative Company to become better at enchanting, serving and leading others.  If you were not able to join us, know that you were missed, because as much as what we share is solid and needed, the real value comes in the time we spend with each other learning about how real leaders are tackling these issues in their workplaces.

If you would like us to come to your workplace and present a “lunch and learn” on what consumers are thinking and how to enchant them, please contact Laura Gallagher at laura@thecreativecompany.com.  The fee depends upon the number of people in the session, but really, what business can afford not to enchant in this economy?  

To get a taste of what we covered, we’ve included the links from the day.  Thank you for reading our blog, being part of our community and being part of what makes being in a service business so great.   

The key take-aways for the day:

·        Enchantment is in short supply in Madison, Wisconsin, so that means there is a lot of opportunity for those businesses who enchant others.

·        Consumers are not loyal to anyone brand so you must make each experience special.

·        Have eyes that see.  Look at your business from your customer’s perspective because that’s the only that matters. 

If you want to share what you learned with others on your team, the links are here:

The Art of Innovation (8 min.)

·        Make Meaning

·        Make Mantra

·        Jump the curbs

·        Roll the Dice

·        Don’t worry – be crappy

·        Niche thyself

·        Let the flower’s bloom

·        Churn Baby Churn

·        10/20/30 Rule for Presentations

10 Points of Enchanting Others (11 min.)

1. Achieve likability
2. Achieve trustworthiness
3. Get ready - Deep.  Intelligent.  Complete.  Empowering.
4. Tell a story
5. Overcome resistance to your enchantment.
6. Endure
7. Don’t use money
8. Enchant up
9. Enchant employees - Mastery.  Autonomy.  Purpose.
10. Use technology.  Remove the speed bumps.

Consumer Research

Sister Corita Kent: This nun is a punk.