Integrating Social Media into Your
Existing Marketing Plan
Joel Warady
Principal
Joel Warady Group
March 12, 2009

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It’s Tough Out There!

It’s Tough Out There!
New Marketing & Communicating
Demands
More Than New Ideas

It’s Tough Out There!
New Marketing & Communicating
Demands
More Than New Ideas
It Demands a Reinvention of
the Entire Organization

“Human Beings are
Powered by Emotion, Not
♥
by Reason”

“Human Beings are
Powered by Emotion, Not
♥
by Reason”
How does this change
the way you market
your brand, your
product, your service?

“Trademarks are owned by
companies who create
them.”

“Trademarks are owned by
companies who create
them.”
“Lovemarks are owned by the
people who love them.”
—Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, Kevin Roberts

“The essential difference between
emotion and reason is that
emotion leads to action, while
reason leads to conclusions.”—
Donald Calne, neurologist

What is Social Networking?
People Talking to People...
Who Talk to More People....
Who Talk to Other People...
Who Meet People through the other People with whom They Talk

What Social Networks are out there?

Why do People Join
Networking Sites?
• 78% to meet people
• 47% to be entertained
• 38% to learn something
• 23% to influence others
• Consumer brand owners use the following:
– Branded microsites
– Customer reviews
– Peer to Peer trading
– Community created products

Meet-Ups and Tweet-Ups Have Been
Happening Since the Beginning of Time
Only the Technology Has Changed!

Create A Social Strategy
• Blogging
• Facebook
– Business Fan Page
– Facebook Ads
• YouTube
– Company Channel
• Twitter
• Linked In

Blog Strategy
• Company Centric Blog
– Provides new content on a regular basis to your customers &
prospects
– Creates an interactive, live personality to the company, not just a
static corporate feel
– Enables the content to be picked up by blog feeds and consumers;
it heightens awareness of the company
– Easily incorporated into other platforms
– Effective company centric blogs need to provide transparency
to the company, insider info, and involve consumers in the
decision-making process
• Employee Blogging
– Provide employees the opportunity to blog about the company
– Allows for a dialogue between the “company” and the “public”.
– Creates a personality for the company that is not CEO driven

Blog Strategy
• Blogger Outreach
– Identify key influencers in the blogosphere
– Create a tryvertising program resulting in unbiased reviews
– Systematically reach out to these bloggers and measure the
conversations and online chatter
– Continue the dialogue
• Promote the blog in as many places as you can
– All printed material
– All packaging (if you sell a packaged product)
– Trade Shows
– All correspondence

Mary’s Gone Crackers

Mary’s Gone Crackers

Blogs and Your Brand
• 81% of online searchers read blogs
– 53% read them weekly
– 70% of the 53% pass the information on to others
• Should you write your own Blog
– Okay if you are transparent
– Absolutely not acceptable if through subterfuge
– Wal-Marting Across America

Facebook Strategy
• Why Facebook?
– 175 million people have a profile
– The new utility platform
• Connect with your customers and contacts
where they live
• Engage the Influencers
• Live Feed

Facebook Strategy
• An individual profile must be created first
• Business Page will connect to the individual page
• Both profiles should represent what you want
customers and clients to view
• Build community through discussion and
exclusive offers
• Facebook should be a highly dynamic and “fun”
part of the company’s strategy

YouTube Strategy
• YouTube has become the gold standard for
spreading online videos
• Create a branded company channel which will house
all content created by the managing account
• Keep them short... :30-3:00 minutes
• Video must be compelling or will not be passed
along
• Use videos on all other social networks to give an
actual personality to a company

YouTube Strategy
• Bigelow Tea CEO
– Walks the streets of New York
– Talking to people who drink tea
• Upload to YouTube
– Picked up by bloggers
– Picked up by trade publications
• Encourages people to try Bigelow
• Allows customer feedback

22

The Technology Exists

Consumer Generated Media
• CGM
– Diet Coke / Mentos
– 7.4 million views on
You-Tube
– Sales of Mentos up
14.5% in 2006
• Coke’s reaction
– Cease & Desist

Consumer Generated Media
• Who’s Involved?
– Frito-Lay
– MasterCard
– Nissan
– American Express
• Get People Engaged
– Create videos
– Upload for approval
– Post online to enable viral marketing

Twitter Strategy
• Create Twitter profiles for the spokespeople
from your company
• You must be real!
– Tweets most effective if both professional and
personal....no selling!
– Comment on others twitter feeds
• Follow and allow following from anyone
interested in what you have to say
• Another way to be transparent to your
consumers

Linked-In Strategy
• Linked-In is the premier social network for
professionals
• Company usages:
– Find qualified employees
– Link with influencers in the industry, such as
reporters, speakers, investors
– Find qualified and well-suited vendors through
endorsements

28

29

Do You Squidoo?

Why Squidoo

Why Squidoo
32

Ning
• Target Audience:
– Age 15-45 for both males and females
• History
– Launched in October 2005
– Offered several simple based websites
• It’s unique feature
– Anyone can make a full copy of the types of social networks that are
popular today and customize them for a particular topic or need, catering
to specific audiences.
• What is it?
– Tool to create a fully functional and customized social network in minutes
without being a developer.
– Themes and templates can be changed without using any kind of coding,
only clicking and dragging.

How Does NING Work?
34

Viral Brand Awareness
• You Don’t Own Your Brand
– They own your brand
• Who are they???
– Customers
– Users
– Lovers
– Haters
– Competitors
– The People of Earth

Viral Brand Awareness
• WOM Agents have their most successful
interaction when in store or in meetings
– In Store
– Work
– Social Gatherings
– Restaurants / Bars
– School
– Travel
(Keller Fay Group - Boston Sept. 2006)
• When approaching strangers, agents should
identify their affiliation

The Way We Connect is Changing

The Way We Connect is Changing

Allow Customers to See Inside
39

Brand Journalism
• Create a transparent company
– Your customers and your critics are going to talk about
you whether you want them to or not.
– You can’t control the message!
• But you can enable the dialogue…
• IBM has over 125 Blogs
• Ford Motor Company
– www.fordboldmoves.com
– 856,000 unique visitors in 1 month
– Average visitor stay is 8 minutes
• HUGE Opportunity for Branding!!!

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How will this Benefit Your
Company?
• You can appear to be transparent to your customers:
– Allowing your customer to be involved with your
company (e.g. immediate customer input) will build
brand loyalty and a sense of “they are listening to
me”
– Interactivity and constant updating will keep
customers coming back to find out what’s new and
what the company is offering

Why Use Social Networking?
• It is ALREADY happening
• Many companies are currently benefitting and profiting from
utilizing some or all of the social networking resources
available
• Social networking sites gets you directly involved with the
customer’s life and lifestyle
• By using social networking sites people who have never heard
about your company are getting an inside look about what
your company has to offer and what other people think about it
too
• Connect with your customers where they live....

Thank you!
Questions:
joel@joelwarady.com
You can also find me also on Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter and Flickr