Understanding Social Media and what tools to use to make it easier to manage your brand in the world of Social.

Social Media is a networking tool that allows for rich conversations by including all sorts of media types (video, images, text, web pages, sms etc.) into an interoperable platform. Or, in Plain English you can access your Social Media anywhere anytime and pretty much from any web enabled device like an iPhone/PC or laptop for instance.

Networking or the term networking is not new, it was popularised in the1990’s but has really come into its own with the advent of Web 2.0 and the maturing Internet. We all have heard of sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and all sorts of new real-time services starting up like Twitter and Foursquare.

These services are really important now due to the fact that with these networks large groups of consumers, organisations and movements are building large and vocal groups. These social networks and groups within the networks are turning the power of communications around from what has been the traditional owner of the message (corporate/marketing communications) to the Social Media Networks users. These users can either love or hate your brand and services. Social Media users and groups are not afraid to spread the positive or negative critique of brands through these communities, on mass, as quick as you can type the message in fact and hit “send”.

So how do you monitor what is being ‘said’ and ‘sent’, how should your business engage in Social Media and what tools are available?

Before you jump in and start signing up and broadcasting on social networks you need to have a plan as to what your objectives are. We believe that social media is a great way for ‘real organisations with real people people’ to have real interactions and to humanise the conversation between companies and customers.

In effect, the opportunity is to create a open and interactive channel for people to be ‘real’ whilst still representing their organisation in an open and trusted manner.

We also believe that social media is a great way to manage the customer and to understand what is important to different customers who interact with your brand.

So how do I start to manage what is being said?

We will look at Twitter first because there are a lot of FREE tools available for Twitter now and it is also one of the best examples of real time customer management opportunities.

Twitter has grown at an exceptional rate and does allow for 1-to-1 discussions as well as 1-to-Many with tweets to people who follow you, or lists that users make about topics and then here is the whole of Twitter messages via the tweet stream 1-to-All!

So, how do you find people talking about your brand and service on Twitter, there are many tools out there but we use one which allows for multiple users in your business and can actively create reports and insight about your brand. We use a service called Co-Tweet.

Co-Tweet enables you to search the ‘tweet stream’ of what is being said about your brand and for you to ‘listen in’ to the conversation and consider a meaningful response.  Then implement a response from one of your team members back to the user(s) tweeting about a your brand and service. The great thing is that you can set up multiple users on a single account for your company and append initials so you know who said what and when it looks like this:

“Integratidirect said: We use co-tweet to manage all our Twitter conversations IM”

This is very helpful as there may be several people working in the business and in the rush to respond a team member may not be aware that a response had been made or if one had who had sent the tweet. Co-Tweet removes this issue. The last two characters at the end of the message stand for Integrati Marketing, but these can of course be a team member’s initials or Department.

What is even better is that you can assign ‘tweets’ to team members to follow up, as it may be a Sales question instead of a Technical Question. This way the tweet goes to the right department so that the customer gets the right information the first time.

Also, you can schedule ‘tweets’ for future dates (think of promotions and breaking news only for Twitter!), review tweets from people who your business is following, save searches and all in a single easy to use dashboard.

So what this is the beginnings of is really a Social CRM space for customer relationship management and real time engagement.

This is important for Small Medium business as it means your team will have access to the same tools which large corporate like Ford (a Co-Tweet customer) have access to and use now.

To review Co-Tweet check it out here. It is a great opportunity to manage your brand online and currently it is FREE to register.

Another service which allows for really simple network syndication of your updates from Twitter to Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin etc and Twitter itself is Ping.FM.

Ping.FM is a dashboard of all your Social Networks tools that you can enable via secure Application Programming Interface or API. What an API does is allow a secure connection between Ping.FM and the chosen Social Network using your Social Network log-in and the API string which is a secure code or public key that is encrypted. Your API is unique to you so no one else should be allowed or be able to access your public API key.

What you will need to so is spend about 15-20mins on each service you want to include in Ping.FM. But this is time well spent, when in a single ‘Tweet’ you can send up-dates to all your social network sites through Ping.FM in one ‘send’. Great stuff! But you have to use the Ping.FM Portal to do so.

So, as a wrap up,

Social Media is a great opportunity to engage with your customers by listening to what they have to say about your business, and then you can choose to respond to their conversation and engage with them.

Even better, through the engagement you have an opportunity to build your brand, save and retain customers and win on other potential customers who are listening in.

Also, the all through this discussion I have not mentioned one important factor, time. There is no way around it but it will take time to both build your Social Network and also participate. Like all good online tools and services you need to choose how much time your business can invest in managing your brand and when to engage. But at the very least you should be listening to what people are saying about your brand so you are aware and can then choose to engage or not.

I am positive we will see an immense growth in online solutions offering Social CRM applications and value to Small Medium business in the next couple of years. We will keep you up-to-date with the best tools available and will also be looking into some solutions for our clients that can help them manage this new space where word of mouth and reputation management is King.

Why the USA Movie Business knows it has to change their Marketing now!

Insights kindly shared by Stradella Road and with their research Moviegoers 2010

Recently I was totally enamoured with a latest release from our friends across the Pacific puddle in the USA. It was for the movie Avatar. Right now I think it would be highly unlikely that there are many people in Australia that have not seen or heard about Avatar.

Well, what I really found interesting about this movie was how much of it I became aware of, read and learned online. Which pretty much made me want to go and see Avatar six months before it was released. On the day of release my we went at our local beautifully air conditioned IMAX and saw Avatar in all its 3D glory. Also, we very gladly escaped the summer heat.

The whole experience was outstanding. But what was really interesting was the buzz building online in blogs, Twitter and email after email from friends and colleagues talking about the movie months before it was even out. Now I know that Avatar is not a standard Hollywood film – it is of course in the tradition of a great action love story that the Yank’s do so well!

But it also showed a shift in movie marketing strategy and a far more integrated piece of marketing work than I had ever seen before – it was brilliantly crafted.

Well, I also recently was able to receive some research from Stradella Road in the USA which was a piece of research that demonstrates the importance of integrated marketing and the effective use of Social Networks to build great positive word of mouth.

Why, well because the USA movie industry have known for some time that the movie going audience has changed as technology has but they had unanswered questions.

Stradella Road, namely Gordon Paddison and Linda S. Middleton, had some research questions which they really did a deep dive into and broke the mould of what to research about North Americans movie watching ‘buyers journey’ or movie going audience viewing patterns.

Such as;

Where do moviegoers really spend their time?
What are the social dynamics of the decision-making process?
How do we synthesize the sea changes taking place with digital technologies in order to reach the right audience with the right message at the right time in the right place?

Simple sounding questions but questions which I think Stradella Road have come back with some very insightful and relevant answers for any business regardless of size, shape or age and to a point country.

To give you some old media background, I knew that the TV show MASH was popular in the 1980′s, but I did not know that in 1983, 106 million people tuned in and watched the last show, a staggering 60% of USA households. Audience sizes like this I would imagine are very rare indeed in the USA today and the same would pretty much apply here in Australia as well. We have so many other options and things we can do all because of the Internet.

What was very interesting was also the honesty that the team at Stradella Road and their partners with the research including the USA movie industry. They knew they had ‘lost touch’ with their customers.

Effectively, the movie business has not changed as fast as the new technologies and consumer behaviour – their customer. We hear this all the time… but really not as honest as this! The North American movie industry still pretty much run Mass Market marketing campaign model and “dabble in a bit of Internet marketing”. And they pretty much have the old movie marketing planning system nailed, why change? Particularly when the Studios have marketing plans and strategies that from one movie to the next changes very little! It still works right?

Well like a lot of change, it actually happens over time and the marketing of movies in this case becomes less and less relevant and effective.

So, the fact that they have not changed their planning process means that a lot of the marketing plans and advertising created is not taking into account what their customers want or where they can be found.

This is the oldest and most important rule in marketing, if you do not talk too, listen to and move with your customers, you will lose them bit by bit and a lot over time.

Hence they asked questions like this;

Where do moviegoers really spend their time?

What are the social dynamics of the decision-making process?

How do we synthesize the sea changes taking place with digital technologies in order to reach the right audience with the right message at the right time in the right place?

* So what did they find out about North Americans when they asked them? Let’s have a look.
* Digital media is mainstream (watch movies on an iPod, Media Player etc.)
* Mobile phone penetration in the USA has reached 90% with over 32% no longer having a home phone/landline
* 52% of moviegoers have Digital Video Records (DVR) 71% regularly skip the TV ads altogether!
* This is the killer stat – only 17% regularly watch Free to Air TV. But they still watch TV… less and less though!
* 90% of Moviegoers are online in the USA
* Importantly, virtually all interviewed are heavy Internet users

*All data and statistics from Stradella Research in the USA, Moviegoers 2010.

So we can start to see that from the shifts in technology and with the change in availability being pretty much on-demand I can watch when and where I please that the change is here now. I am sure this is pretty close to the Australian situation as well.

This also affects how other businesses need to look at their own marketing and customer interaction programmes in Australia today. Australians follow the American trends more closely than ever before; we even have now have bigger new house per square meter now than they do! There houses used to be bigger but no we sport suburbs of Mc Mansions!

We have Tivo, DVR’s and high rates of broadband and Internet users along with falling landline connections. All this means where businesses in the USA are choosing to engage (advertise, communicate, relate) with their customers in the future will be highly relevant as to where we are here today in Australia.

So, where do your customers spend their time?

Has your business asked this question, do you know?

In Marketing and Sales there is a pretty well known phrase the “Sales Funnel” effectively what you try to do is fill the funnel with lots of people that you ‘suspect’ are going to be ‘prospects’ for your product or service. The funny thing about this funnel is that it is either leaky or overflows – but basically the analogy is that not all prospects get to the bottom of the funnel – some effectively choose not to buy! But the ones who do are your customers at the end of the sales funnel.

So, importantly the guy’s and gal’s from Stradella Road asked this question “What are the social dynamics of the decision-making process?” in other words how do I, turn people who like to go to the movies, come to see my movie and then at the bottom of the ‘funnel’, buy a ticket.

Answer: you need to know in a mass market where the eyeballs are.

So where are the people?

Well here is where the shift from earlier starts to demonstrate the change. Old media like Newspapers and Billboards are declining in relevance the USA for Moviegoers.

Whilst the Internet is at (44%) and Word of Mouth at (46%) this is where most USA moviegoers hear about a movie for the 1st time. And of course over 83% of the moviegoers interviewed had seen the trailer at a theatre before going to the movie, but interestingly 45% viewed it online as well! I wonder how many own an Apple TV with the trailer watching feature.

And once you hear about something and you like it, you go and find out more. Today people find out more by going online and in a big way. They research the plot, the characters, the actors and the stars, scenes – “is it child friendly” for instance. All of this can be done in a few clicks and at high speed via dedicated review sites, fan sites, blogs, and newspapers… but newspapers more for the 50+ audience. The demographic for print has shifted.

So over 52% of moviegoers now learn about movies they are interested in online. In marketing terms these people have moved down the ‘funnel’ from prospects to active in-market potential buyers as they have researched the movie of interest. In other words the more information they find the greater the potential for these ‘active searchers’ to go on and see/buy the ticket to the movie.

So, we know they are searching online to find out more, linking in to online communities and even I guess tapping into what was once only local niche’s but are now ‘global mass niches’ of people with similar interests that they can share information about the movie of interest. So for marketers the game is shifting. We used to be able to send a mass communication (TV ads) and get pretty good attention, even if it was an interruption to your evening if front of TV.

So, does your business interrupt your prospective customers today about your businesses products and services?

Answer: You don’t have to today, you should but you may not be.  But little by little if you do not, and have not by 2020 will your business still viable?

Why, because of a well named term called “Group Think” online communities get together and create user-generated media– they write, film, edit, mash-up stuff from things online (music, art, films, Meme) which they then share. It is highly creative and very very fast.

The production of ‘stuff’ on the web now is huge and it is growing exponentially see here. This is important as it means sites which are positive/negative can appear overnight about your product/service or in this case a movie.

The terms of engagement with our approach to customers have radically changed – there is no longer the clean ‘send and receive’ model of old media communications. It is now about peer distribution, through cliques and tribes, who re-synthesise what they like.

Ok, in other words, they choose when they read it, what they read it on and what it will look like if they choose to re-seed it back to the web.

Effectively, traditional Mass Media is no longer a tradition. It is over.

Marketing has to adopt a more transparent approach which allows for the message to be changed – even if we do not it still will! So the more honest and the more open the better.

Lastly, how do we get to the right people at the right time?

Well, it is not simple, the old rules of segmentation and classifying customers still applies – but they expect you to know them and to communicate to them accordingly. It is expected you will be on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube etc.

At the end of the day regardless of your business, you have to take a new view of how you market and retain customers.

All businesses need to become like the old corner store, where we know you by name and know that you always buy full fat milk and a bottle of diet coke on the way home

Importantly, the future is all about the knower.

Knowing your customers will match you with the competition soon, what will differentiate you is what you do with the information compared to your competition.

So, can you reach the right audience with the right message at the right time in the right place?

I think from what I have seen with the campaign for Avatar, the movie business get it!

I have a copy of the research here for those of you that have made it this far (pleasee fell free to download). I think it is a great piece of work and of course you should check out the Stradella Road site here. Thank you to Gordon for letting Integrati Marketing publish the Moviegoers 2010 on the Integrati Marketing Blog.

I hope this has post has given you some insight and some thoughts about how you work with your customers today.

Until next time, happy Marketing from the Integrati team.

*All data and statistics from Stradella Research in the USA, Moviegoers 2010. Please note content is the property fo the respective copyright holders.

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Web 2.0 and the Network Effect.

The network effect is the value an exchange medium has (such as, Facebook) by supplying usage (your time) and your information to the service. You must of course, as a ‘user’ receive value from the usage of the service in return. Effectively, the more people who use the service such as; Facebook the more benefit the users will receive from the network. This can be with virtual groups, associations, friends and family. The difference here is again the WWW as you can now connect anywhere in the world with friends or virtual friends.

And wherever there are large numbers of users, business and marketers look to use the medium to engage and interact with the ‘users’ to sell their products and services.

With Facebook it was the simple and effective design of the site and features which colleague students in America started to use. So, with word of mouth and referral, “are you on Facebook?” a process began which was the Network Effect. This is an example of a Positive Network Effect, whereby the users found they had a way to keep in touch and share information with trusted groups or on campus more like trusted tribes!

Just as there are Positive Network Effects there are also Negative Network Effects, I will be a little cheeky here and suggest that the public transport in Melbourne (Trams and Trains) suffers from a serious Negative Network Effect when it rains as it cannot cope with the increased volume and long lines of grumpy wet passengers are the negative result. Not enough capacity = Negative Network Effect.

The classic Positive Network Effect which you will most probably have in your home or on you is the home phone or mobile. The more people connected (phone network) the more efficient and useful the telecommunications network became, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Well, that was true until we had unsolicited telemarketing calls.

So, how do you harness these new forms of The Network Service for your business?

Well there are a couple of really important things you have to have first, and these are;

1. Permission to interact with your customers, preferably by email (for online marketing)

2. The correct strategy to leverage and build a community with these new Network Service Providers such as; Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace without naming all the other web 2.0 possibilities.

3. Customer data (no data – much harder to connect)

4. A strategy to use the networks with a consistent and relevant message for your business.

5. Fun, you have to want to use these to engage with your customers so they enjoy being connected to your business with the benefit that comes with the connection.

So there we go, a few lines on what is the Positive Network Effect. I hope this helps to further understand some of why Sean Parkers presentation from the post “Connect or Die: The Network Service and the future of your business!” is so important for all businesses.

It is in effect digital Word of Mouth or as Advertisers and Marketers like to abbreviate everything WoM! I will talk about Word of Mouth marketing and digital Word of Mouth Marketing in my next post.

Till next time, The Integrati team.