Getting It Right

Social Media Marketing: Getting It Right Ryan Turner Associate Director of User Experience Social Media Lead

Or, The Mad Science of Social Media Marketing

Or, Social Media Is Going to Change Everything

Or, Why Most Social Media Marketing Fails

Or, Social Media: Don’t Believe the Hype

Me: Ryan Associate Director of User Experience. Social Media Lead. ZAAZ. Seattle. 9 years. Online community, social media, information architecture, usability, knowledge management, social learning, leadership development. Degrees in poetry writing and literature. Telemark skiing, fly fishing, mountain biking, jazz, hip hop, modern art. Bloomington, Oakland, Santa Clara, Volvo, Orcas, Tempe, Missoula, Seattle. 2 kids. 3 chickens. I came to my interest in social media by accident.

Me: I work at ZAAZ

You: Demographics 51% are currently using social media in their business 38% are Baby Boomers 37% are Generation X 13% are Generation Y 53% are from businesses 28% are non-profits 19% work in higher education

Stand up if You use Pownce. If you write a blog. If you use Skype. Basecamp. Stand up if you upload photos from your cell phone to the web. If you use more than one IM service. If you have an iPhone. If you upload photos or videos from your computer to an online service like Flickr or YouTube. If you frequently send text messages. If you have a profile on Facebook. Twitter. Raise your hand if you use both. MySpace . LinkedIn . (Nerds!) Del.icio.us.

Sit down if You are under 30. You are under 40. You have teenage kids. You are a consultant.

interactive transactive

user-generated editorial

Identity as place Place as identity

When we talk about social media, what we really mean is participation.

Photo of old-school telephone.

So if we define social media this broadly, aren’t all media social?

It comes down to participation. Participatory is not broadcast. And when you hear power has shifted to the consumer, that’s serious business.

Some Context: Ryan’s Ten-Cent History of the Web Community-Focused Broadcast Participatory User-Generated Bottom-Up HTML High Threshold of Entry Low Bandwidth Text-Based Corporation-Driven Top-Down Data-Driven No entry Flash intros! Text and Images User-Generated Bottom-Up Standards-Driven Low Threshold of Entry High Bandwidth Multimedia 1980’s-1994 1994-2004 2006-Now

Most people get this, and yet, most social media marketing efforts fail. Why?

Failure to think strategically.

Failure to understand users.

Failure to align with brand.

Failure to create value.

Web 2.0 and social media are social phenomena above all.

Blogs Discussion Boards

Forums Chat IM Vlogs

Moblogs SMS Podcasts

Microblogs Photo Blogs

Prediction Markets RSS

Collaboration Collective

Intelligence Communities

Wikis Recommender Systems

Mashups User-Generated

Content

Social media is made up of people, relationships among people, and things people create and share

VS

“ Just because we understand tax code doesn’t mean we can’t bust mad flow.” --Intuit

The Hub.

There’s a lot more to say about how to address each of those pitfalls, but first, let’s talk for a moment about some marketing basics.

Failure to think strategically.

Failure to understand users.

Failure to align with brand / business goals.

Failure to create value.

Funnel

But understanding how to use social media tools appropriately isn’t enough.

People don’t want to connect with each other online.

But that’s not the whole story. People do want value.

You can even do viral videos well.

Funnel

But you’re better off trying to create value.

We’ve already done a lot of great work.

How do you understand your customers? How do you reconcile competing priorities? How do you recognize the opportunities to create value?

Goals Definition: The Affinity Process

One Agenda

Conceptual site map

Every site we build should include elements of social media.

What Is Social Media

And by the way, don’t forget about mobile.

Your customers want opinions they can trust, and they want to share their stories.

According to Jupiter Research, 77 percent of online shoppers use reviews and ratings when purchasing.

In a study of 2,000 shoppers, 92 percent deemed customer reviews as "extremely" or “very” helpful, finds eTailing Group.

BizRate found 59 percent of users considered customer reviews to be more valuable than expert reviews.

In a CompUSA-iPerceptions study, 63 percent of consumers indicated they're more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews.

86.9 percent of respondents said they'd trust a friend's recommendation over a critic's review, while 83.8 percent said they'd trust user reviews over a critic, according to MarketingSherpa.

Across all Bazaarvoice clients, 80 percent of products rate 4 or 5 stars out of 5.

Hat-tip to Bryan Eisenberg, who compiled this data in a ClickZ article.

Funnel

And the opinions they trust the most are those of their peers.

You can do more to engage existing customers. Much more.

Funnel

We’ve already done a lot of great work.

A blog is a great way to engage customers, but you need to think critically about your goals and have realistic expectations. You need to be committed to an ongoing effort.

From Salon.com. http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/categories/blogsBlogging/2005/01/04.html

Blogs are a bad tool for awareness.

So blogs, while they’re bad for awareness, are excellent for consideration, preference, and loyalty.

Funnel

So how do you blog successfully? Start by reading blogs.

Find the relevant blogs.

Subscribe.

Contribute.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Funnel

Video is powerful. Audio podcasting, not so much.

Portable content.

Plan for ongoing effort.

www.websocialarchitecture.com

Ryan via Electricity Blog: http://www.websocialarchitecture.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/wryanturner Pownce: http://www.pownce.com/wryanturner Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/ryanturner Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/wryanturner Blip.tv: http://blip.tv/wryanturner Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/wryanturner Email: ryant@zaaz.com MSN: wryanturner@hotmail.com Y!: wryanturner AIM: wryanturner63 G-Talk: wryanturner Skype: wryanturner Company: http://www.zaaz.com

Slideshare: “SMNW08”

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