4 p's Price Product Position Place (distribution) The new P People
When I joined Ice, their social media activities we’re being led by this guy… so needless to say, I had my work cut out for me You all probably know Pinny, and while he was surely one of the early innovator’s in social commerce and social media for ecommerce… he’s also a Rabbi, father, community activist…. And he’s a serious conference whore. He is a VERY busy man, and he recognizes this, so in 2009 he graciously passed the torch to me for a fresh perspective and new approach to social media at Ice.
When I started at Ice, My new co-workers we’re excited about our renewed commitment to social media and asked repeatedly, “ What are we going to do on Facebook?” “ What are we going to tweet about?” “ What should we be blogging about?” This reminded me of something had learned in my previous life working on the agency side, I worked at a digital marketing agency called Twist Image, and I learned from my previous boss, Mitch Joel, who always emphasized the importance of defining a solid strategy before considering what tactics to employ. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stinajonsson/3932774410/sizes/z/in/photostream/
In his book, Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch writes: Ask “Why?” not “What?”. Asking “What?” simply defines what tools to use Asking “Why” will force you to develop a real strategy. “ Why should we be using Twitter?” Because it’s a great place to engage with customers, Because it’s a good channel for delivering customer service, and it’s a very efficient and effective platform. communication “ Why should we have a Facebook Page?” So that we can connect with customers where they want to hear from us So that we can create brand awareness among consumers that have never even heard of us. So that we can join in conversations about jewelry and online shopping that are already taking place and drive traffic to our website “ Why should we bother writing a blog?” Because publishing fun , relevant and valuable content will keep our customers engaged, Because blogging serve as a great tool to support our SEO initiatives So I really like Mitch’s “Why not What” approach, but I put a twist on it , and I ask Where?
You know, like Windows… Where do you want to go today? The key to success for me has always been setting defined, measurable and realistic goals as the foundation for building a strategy to achieve those goals. As marketers, without clearly stated objectives, we end up wandering around like this guy, not sure if we’re in the right place. We know that we’ve walked for a long time, but we’re not really sure where we were trying to get to in the first place. At Ice, we defined 4 simple goals that serve as the daily compass for everything we do in social media.
The goals we established at Ice are pretty typical, and are probably similar to the goals many of you use to guide your day to day activities. Create brand awareness through online word of mouth Acquire new customers via the social media channel Foster loyalty and retention among existing customers Improve customer service level So now that we’ve answered th e question of Where? And defined our objectives, the question becomes HOW? How do we achieves these goals?How do we get there?
This is where we work out the strategy piece. For instance, let’s take our first goal of creating brand awareness. when it comes to generating brand awareness, the most effective and efficient way to create reach and visibility is word of mouth… it’s free. So at Ice, our strategy for this goal focuses on : <SLIDE> Providing engaging and shareable content that provokes discussion, commentary and contribution Leveraging social sharing tools to promote pass along Whenever possible, implementing the viral loop. How can an experience or piece of content innately imply a multi-person dynamic? These strategic cu es ensure that whenever we develop an initiative or campaign, we have a checklist of criteria by which our tactics are designed This gives us the best chance at getting to our destination in the quickest and most cost-effective way possible.
Tis is where we work out the strategy piece. For instance, let’s take our first goal of creating brand awareness. when it comes to generating brand awareness, the most effective and efficient way to create reach and visibility is word of mouth… it’s free. So at Ice, our strategy for this goal focuses on : <SLIDE> Providing engaging and shareable content that provokes discussion, commentary and contribution Leveraging social sharing tools to promote pass along Whenever possible, implementing the viral loop. How can an experience or piece of content innately imply a multi-person dynamic? These strategic cu es ensure that whenever we develop an initiative or campaign, we have a checklist of criteria by which our tactics are designed This gives us the best chance at getting to our destination in the quickest and most cost-effective way possible.
Once our strategies are defined, we can back to the first question that all my colleagues were asking … “What?”, but rephrase them with a sense of goals and strategies in mind What’s the best way to create engaging, shareable content? What’s the best platform on which to publish this content? Now we can look to the toolbox. Our toolbox at Ice keeps getting bigger and bigger…. We started with the typical core elements: A blog A Facebook Page A Twitter Profile Product Ratings & Reviews And established a basic social media ecosystem
This diagram is actually representative of the ecosystem in 2010…. It has evolved a bit since then, but the same core elements remain, and become increasingly integrated with our main website. INSERT SLIDES FOR LIKE BUTTONS, REVIEWS, SHARING, COMMENT BOX, BLOG POST, TWITTER FEED, ETC. So how do we use these tools? Back to the question of WHAT… What type of content do we create? What type of experiences do we create? What do we talk about? All good questions….and truth is, it’s hard to know… so we use our best instincts and we try things out. The title of this presentation is the Secret to my Success (and Failure)…. And believe me, I’ve failed… but that’s OK.
So how do we use these tools? Back to the question of WHAT… What type of content do we create? What type of experiences do we create? What do we talk about? All good questions….and truth is, it’s hard to know… so we use our best instincts and we try things out. The title of this presentation is the Secret to my Success (and Failure)…. And believe me, I’ve failed… but that’s OK.
“ Test fast, fail fast , adjust fast.”– Tom Peters At Ice, we accept failure because we understand that you can’t succeed unless you risk failing…. We follow a baseball philosophy… So we have a tolerance for a .300 batting average….And everyone once in a while… we hit one out of the park…and that makes up for the 7 times out of ten that we struck out. As long as we are always learning something replicable every time we step up to the plate, we have gained something. So we test a lot of different tactics… some are obvious… some are totally out of left field. … and as I said, the results a aren’t always pretty.
“ However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. ” - Winston Churchill … and sometimes the results surprise us. This is actually a picture of our CMO after a post-campaign report back in Q32010 Just kidding – he’s older and has less hair. But as I said, we’re constantly testing with an eye on pre-defined KPIs and an understanding of precisely what we are trying to learn… So how do we measure success and failure?
Social Media Monitoring (Lithium, Google Alerts, TweetDeck) Web Analytics (Omniture SiteCatalyst, Google Analytics) Customer Feedback (BizRate, Bazaarvoice, Better Business Bureau) Social Analytics (Facebook Insights, HootSuite, Klout) Brand mentions & Sentiment, Share of Voice Traffic & ecommerce metrics Customer feedback ratings (BizRate, BazaarVoice, BBB) Engagement (Likes, Comments, Replies, Retweets) Follower & Fan count Influence So I’ve given you an overview of our goals, approach to defining our social media strategy, and how that translates into the tools we use and how we test and measure them….. But the presentation is titled the secrets to my success, and failure… so I’m going to run down some of our keys to being successful in social media. And as I’ve said… many of these we learned the hard way, by getting it wrong. The first secret is…
