2. Bad “Social” is like a Tattoo G###/w*** Just learned RSM McGladrey /H&R Block and McGladrey & Pullen are parting ways. Have no idea how this will affect me since I work for both.
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4. Cultural Shift in Search for Providers The purchase funnel has been usurped by far more complex and overlapping linkages among channels and marketing tactics. We have to maximize the connectivity .
7. Social Media Impact Blogs, online communities (LinkedIn, Face Book, etc.), wiki’s Equal to a referral These online communities, groups offer opportunity to gain business, credibility
10. What are Companies Doing? Main benefits of using social media marketing according to Marketing Executives Network Group (Oct. 2008 Study)
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16. Learn Fundamentals: Measure INVOLVEMENT INTERACTION INTIMACY INFLUENCE What To Track Site visits Contributed comments to blogs Sentiment tracking on third-party sites (blogs, reviews, forums, etc.) Net Promoter (NP) score Time spent Quantity/frequency of written reviews, blog comments, forum discussions, and UGC Sentiment tracking of internal customer contributions Product/service satisfaction ratings Pages viewed Opinions expressed in customer service calls Brand affinity Search keywords Content forwarded to friends Navigation paths Posts on high-profile blogs Site logins Downloads How To Track Web analytics eCommerce platforms Brand monitoring Brand monitoring Social media platforms Customer service calls Customer service calls Surveys Surveys
Bad social is like a bad tattoo, you have to live with it for a long time and it’s a pain to get rid of.
eMarketer reports on an The Aberdeen Group study that found 63% of companies planned to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2009. Twenty-one percent were set to boost their budgets by more than 25%. And worldwide social media advertising was expected to grow 17.3% this year to $2.35 billion. A study from the Association of National Advertisers revealed that 66% of marketers have used social media in some capacity this year, with Facebook being tapped by 74% of them, YouTube by 65%, and Twitter by 63%. Twitter is the social media channel of choice among Fortune 100 companies, according to a Burson-Marsteller study , which found 54% of these organizations active on Twitter, compared with 32% using blogs and 29% with active Facebook fan pages. There is a correlation between financial performance and engagement in social media among the world’s top brands, according to a study conducted by Altimeter Group and WetPaint . Simply stated, socially engaged companies are more financially successful. And most recently, a study from SNCR, Deloitte, and Beeline Labs released just the other day reports that 94% of respondents said that they plan to maintain or increase investment in their online communities. The investment pays off, they said, in word of mouth, customer loyalty, brand awareness, idea generation, and improved quality of customer support. The fact that businesses are seeing tangible benefits from social media explains why investment continues to rise among most companies, even when budget belts are being tightened. Driving these results is the that comes from real people connecting with each another in spaces where they share mutual interests. Companies are smart enough to know that (according to research) customers want the companies with which they do business should be present in these spaces.
The Internet and Social Media have affected how executives purchase. There is no linear purchase funnel, but all media leads executives to use the Internet. Executives see an ad, and go search for the company on line, or they get a direct mail piece or email which sends them online. Then they may jump back off line and discuss a vendor or need at a trade show booth. Which then leads them back on line. The Point of all of this is that the Internet and Social Media can no longer be thought of as a secondary media – it is the dominant media today and executives are using it.
There’s a clear trend on the Internet; social media is affecting how and what people find when they do searches. We already know that Executives are online doing their own research. According to a Forbes research study 64% of executives perform their own research and they do it 6 or more times daily. And when you look at the tools they use to beyond search, they are increasingly using social media tools such as blogs, RSS feeds and other tools.
It is expected that Social media will surpass Google as the dominant search tool. Already, YouTube is the second largest Search Engine in the U.S. More than 1.5 million business-oriented queries appear on YouTube every week.
Social media outlets such as LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media communities are becoming the place to engage with peers, prospects and clients. The same research study pointed to the fact that executives trust online referral sources from a community or blog much the same as they do a personal call. Just look at the well know executives that now Twitter – Mark Cuban, Steve Case, Guy Kawasaki. Just looked at the number of Financial Executive groups on Linked In – there’s 123! Everything from the CFO Network to FEI and FENG and more. These communities are organized, they are conversing and if you are engaged, in an “authentic” way – there to help the community, you become more credible and make connections. It offers networking 24-7!
The conversation is occurring without you and long before someone decides to invite someone in.
And you can network 24-7, find people and discover who might be linked to whom. In looking at my network, I have 174 people that I’ve accepted a link to. They in turn connect me to 54,000 and they in turn 4 million! My access to 4 million people in just 2 steps is greater than the circulation of USA Today and Wall Street Journal combined. Now my connections aren’t necessarily all c-suite executives, and I don’t know the quality beyond by first level; But the point is that, if you are careful about who you connect with directly, the people you connect with are likely the same way so you can reach a lot of people within a very short time frame if what you have to offer is relevant and of quality.
Companies are using social media for various efforts. According to a Marketing Executives Network Group and eMarketer.com study “engaging” clients/customers is a top tactic, and using the tool to keep in direct communication with customers. We’ve seen most of the B2C companies establish whole departments that seek out customer service online. They search for complaints and have monitoring systems that search for such terms as “Dell Sucks” and then go and try to deal with the complaint. B2B companies are moving in that same direction. It’s just easier to begin a conversation online. They don’t have time or just don’t want the pressure of a face to face conversation. Instead they look for answers and conversations online; and they don’t have to know the person either. 83% of online consumers surveyed by Forrester in 2007 trusted recommendations from friends and more than half trusted reviews from strangers.
Learn the Fundamentals Listen/Monitor the sites you might have an interest Register with Corporate Communications Provides focus and learning opportunities Drives coordinated action and integration Define what your goals are (learn more, engage, build awareness, improve credibility) Develop measures of success
Being authentic online is all about being true to your brand and being personal. After all, people communicate with people, not businesses. If you want to communicate authentically online, you need to be true to the community you’ve joined and their mission. Social Media is just like connecting with friends, so while your ultimate goal might be to get more business and increase brand credibility, your immediate goal should be to help community members. Once that happens, being authentic is really easy. For some, this may entail re-examining you’re your behavior and how you currently network and help both clients and non-clients or employees and future employees. An outsider can spot a lack of authenticity a mile away. If you haven't heard about the online shoe retailer Zappos, now is a good time to Google it and find out more. Zappos products aren't the cheapest, but its customer service is the best. In fact, at the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin this past spring, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh told about an out-of-town meeting with a vendor. It was late, and the vendor was in search of some pizza. Jokingly, Hsieh said, "Call someone at Zappos, they'll be able to find some for us." Sure enough, the vendor called and a customer service representative suggested three nearby places that were still open. Also consider the kind of message you are giving your customer are you providing factual information and insights or are you asking for opinions? One is not better than the other; you simply have to know what your audience wants. Weather sites give me a constant stream of information, while Starbucks continually asks how I'd improve its business (and bottom line). That’s transparency; making sure that the people you engage know who you are and who you are representing, that you have the experience you say you have. You have to know that you shouldn’t jump at every question or conversation but only the one’s that you can be helpful and relevant. It can include connecting them with someone else. Just like the first speech you ever gave, the message you first give online isn't going to be perfect. Consider your voice, add authenticity, embrace transparency and go. Unlike your first speech, your audience may very well be in their underwear. Be careful
When it comes to social media most people measure it against these 4 broad categories: Involvement, Interaction, Intimacy and influence. Involvement is how many people my be coming to a blog you set up or an online community, the time spent there, etc. Your typical website page measures. But for many of you, you would probably want to measure your success based on the other categories. How often do you contribute to a blog or community? Do you get others to engage in the conversation? Do they in turn begin to seek you out? Your influence might be measured on your ability to drive your audience or community to come to certain RSM McGladrey events, or get them to download an article. Does a link you provide get picked up and forwarded. For someone that is listening and acting as a handler, working with a blogger or someone engaged in a community; success for you might be the number of articles or ideas you forward to the person you are working with? Do you pick up on newspaper stories or hot topics and are able to translate those into topics of discussion that translate easily to the community and the firm. There are tools such as Social Mention that allow us to monitor the conversations and comments that are happening. Social mention will check 80+ sites including Facebook and other popular sites and provide us with the comments, blogs and news on a particular word or name. Our PR firm also monitors the Internet for brand name mentions. You can also use Google readers and feeds to set up alerts that are delivered via email or RSS. Ultimately, we can trace the links and click thru’s and where they are coming from. That’s the beauty of the Internet is we can have a view like never before
Ultimately, the Internet activity that ocurrs, ocurrs on our website and we have various tools that allow us to measure the success of different efforts, whether that be on SEM, SEO or Social media. Once there we can carry on a more direct path for engaging the prospect or client via offers and demand generation.
Imagine 100’s, maybe 1000’s making connections across the internet in a deliberate and organized way