6 Ways Social Media is Scary to Marketers

To most marketers, social media is still new.  We are still trying to make sense of this new way of communicating with stakeholders.  Today I would explore a few ways in which social media is different than traditional mass media.  Today I explore ways that social media is scary to marketers.

1. Two-way communications
Social media is a conversation.  Mass media is a monologue.

The simple fact that the audience can talk back in many social media venues is both thrilling and frightening to many marketers.  We all hope that the result will be a productive conversation but fear it will be the media equivalent of a heckler at a comedy club.

2. Volume
The really attractive thing about traditional media is that you can reach a lot of people with a single ad.  When you can get your message to millions of people with a single media purchase, that makes things much simpler and much easier.  This works really well if you are Proctor & Gamble or Ford Motor Company.  It works less well if you are Billy's Bait and Tackle Shop.

For Billy's Bait and Tackle Shop to take advantage of the more democratic virtues of social media, they need to have someone who has some tech savvy and the time to keep their message in the social media.  For P&G and Ford, they have the people, but they have to develop the ability to talk to people at an appropriate volume.  Marketers who grew up talking at mass media volume sometimes have trouble switching to their inside voices.

3. Social Media is Free...sorta
Facebook and Twitter don't charge companies to set up accounts.  Companies can set up all the Pinterest boards they want without forking over a fee.  However, to participate in these "free" social media opportunities effectively requires ongoing input and updating.  For most organizations, this inputting and updating is not done for free.

Furthermore, more and more organizations are recognizing the value of having professional input into the set-up and execution of these marketing tools (not that the son of the guy in payroll wasn't doing a good job...when he wasn't in school.). As someone pointed out to me recently, if we understood social media and what we have to do, we could figure out what it costs.  Since we don't understand it, it has the potential to be a big money pit.

4. Measurement is easier with social media
One of the "truisms" that I grew up believing about advertising is the John Wanamaker quote about knowing that half of your advertising dollars are wasted.  The trouble was there was no way of knowing which half.  Social media provides a lot more data about who is seeing your message, where they are coming from and what they do after they receive your message.

The thing about data is that it is only numbers until you do something with it.  To marketers who have spent their careers channeling Wanamaker, suddenly having detailed data available about our marketing decisions feels a little like being called to the Principal's office.  It could be that you are going to be praised for doing the right things, but the odds are against it.

5. Social Media Allows You to Target Your Audience
The common analogy used is that mass media is a shotgun shot and social media is a rifle shot.  Social media allows you to target your audience more precisely.  That means that marketers need to know who they are trying to reach and what message each audience segment should get.  That is hard.  That requires a marketer to know details about his target audience and detailed message that he didn't really need to know before.

If you are marketing in Chicago, you could buy ads in the Chicago Tribune and on WGN and pretty much figure you are reaching your target market.  Sure, you are also reaching 80 to 90% of the audience who AREN'T your target audience, but when mass marketing was your primary option, what could you do?  When you can slice and dice the audience a million different ways, your opportunities are endless, but so are your opportunities to miss your audience.

6. Social Media Keeps Changing
If you were buying advertising nationally 25 years ago, you were most likely buying advertising in the same media as the guy (and it probably was a guy) who was buying advertising 50 or 60 years ago.  That is not true for social media.  10 years ago, most social media marketing options didn't even exist.  Facebook isn't 10 years old yet.  My Space, a marketing "has-been" by most accounts, will celebrate it's 10th birthday in August.

New social media channels and options are opening up all of the time.  Reading the business and marketing literature can be intimidating, as they are frequently citing the next big thing in social media.  Add to that the challenge of identifying which options best meet the needs of your organization and your target audiences and determining which options best support your marketing strategy.

Keeping up with the Zuckerbergs can be exhausting!



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Training the Future

Ford assembly line, 1913.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The lack of United States-based manufacturing and construction jobs in today's economy is well documented and well lamented.  For some time there has been an exodus of manufacturing to other countries.  For five years, there has been woefully little construction going on in most parts of the country.

This has had serious economic and employment implications.  A whole class of middle-class workers have had to rethink their futures, and the futures of their children.  Following in Dad's footsteps at the neighborhood factory no longer seems as feasible as it once did.  Or as secure.  Even in those increasingly rare situations in which the neighborhood factory is still there.

The good news is there seem to be some glimmerings of positive change in both the construction and manufacturing industries. No one is going to party like it's 2007, but bit by bit, there seems to be a changing of the tides.  Some of these important jobs are creeping back into our economy.

But now there is a new problem.  Just as manufacturers are emerging from a shortage of jobs, they are facing another shortage; workers with the skills and abilities to succeed.  Manufacturing has changed.  There is a greater reliance on automation and a greater need for workers who are problem solvers and high tech operators versus cogs on the assembly line.  The skills and talents needed to succeed are greater than ever, requiring more practice and apprenticeship than ever.

Since there hasn't been much of a manufacturing industry for 5 to 10 years, there hasn't been much of an apprenticeship program.  Young people haven't had the opportunity to work along side experienced workers to learn their trade.  Add that to the fact that more and more manufacturing jobs rely less and less on physical labor and more on the worker's good judgement and ability to operate complicated, computerized equipment and you have jobs that take significant time and practice to master.  And few people practicing at the moment.

Companies are getting more help in training those qualified people they can find.  Community colleges, high schools and chambers of commerce are starting to cobble together training programs to meet the needs of 21st century companies.  Sometimes, the programs are tailored to the specific needs of a local industry or company.

The paradigm shift is dramatic and significant.  It's going to take some training to get past it.

Smoke-Filled Rooms

This weekend there were a couple of more stories about politicians who were forced to step down because of inappropriate comments, rants or crazy statements made in emails.  We have all read similar stories about business leaders who seemingly forget that email and Twitter messages can, and most likely will, be shared.

Let's assume, for arguments sake, that these pols and business leaders are of at least average intelligence.  Let's further assume that they have an average level of engagement with the world.  We already know they have email and Twitter accounts after all.  So we will assume that they aren't Luddites who are just discovering electronic things for the first time.  Finally, let's assume that these political and business leaders are not purposely engaging in self destructive behavior; that they want to keep their jobs and reputations.

So what gives?

Why are so many of these presumably smart and capable people saying really, really stupid things in emails and on Twitter?

A friend of mine claims that they have always said these really, really stupid things.  We just now get to read and hear about them.  I suspect there is truth to that, but I suspect there is something more to it.

I think that today's leaders are missing the smoke-filled rooms of days gone by.  You know, those back rooms of lore where they could hang with their cronies and say whatever they wanted without fear of ridicule or retribution.  Where everyone laughed at their jokes and acted on their suggestions.  Where a little off-color joke or comment was one of the trappings of privilege.

The smoke-filled boardrooms, filled with syncopatic yes-men and women, who raised the CEO up like some sort of demi-god, was where major corporate decisions were made.  The smoke-filled rooms populated with politicians and their allies is more than just a Hollywood construction.  They exist(ed) and that is where political parties decided who would be the next mayor, senator or governor.

With a greater emphasis on transparency, not to mention smoke-free buildings, smoke-filled back rooms and board rooms have all but disappeared.  While this is positive for accountability, and lung health, and makes for stronger business and political decisions, it does create a void for business and political leaders who need some place to blow off steam.  They need a safe place to let down their hair, tell a ribald joke or social zinger without anyone calling them racist or sexist or any other kind of -ist.

With recording devices on virtually every cell phone and plenty of places to upload whatever is recorded, how is a politician expected to feel comfortable that she is with sympathizers who agree with some of her more extreme views?  How is a CEO expected to relax when she knows that every clerk and janitor who has their nose out of joint because of work conditions or pay disparity could record a random comment, taken out of context, that makes them seem greedy, or devious, or stupid?

It seems, like so many others, they have turned to Facebook and Twitter.


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Digital Snake Oil Salesmen

I have noticed lately that just about any problem you have can be solved by way of some sort of electronic communications.  You can get rich via webinar, loose weight from a blog, and repair your love life with an online conference with a the company's registered Lothario.  You can do even better if you also purchase the e-book.

Or so they say.

It has been the history of each new media that the earliest adapters are the purveyors of porn and magical remedies for all that ails you.  The snake oil salesmen.  The internet and social media are no different.

What is different is the democratic nature of the internet.  An ad for Rolls Royce gets largely the same treatment as the con man selling magic pills.  In print media, there are expensive, high status publications in which the cost of entry is enough to keep out at least the most questionable of advertisers.  The same thing for television and radio.  Not so much with the internet.

The same open qualities of the internet that allow a young musician to post her new songs on You Tube and find an audience and an entrepreneur to find a disperse but loyal customer base, make it ripe territory for other, less desirable uses.  I don't think we can, or should, try to prevent these uses.  I do think that we need to learn to be smart consumers.

Also, I think it is important for reputable businesses to embrace the possibilities of internet media options.   As has happened time and time again, when reputable companies step up and establish a strong presence in a media, the snake oil salesmen tend to get pushed to the side.  Which is a better place for them!

I've Got Rhythm...

Most businesses have a rhythm to them.  Department stores are typically busier in December than they are in February.  Tax accountants get more calls in March and April than they do in July and August.

To survive, a business has to be aware of the rhythms or cycles of their industry.  To thrive, a business must figure out a way to circumvent those cycles and grow in the lean times.  

Car dealers have done this with their service departments.  When people hang onto their cars and don't buy new ones, they need to get the older cars repaired more often.  Many dealers now make more money in the service department than in the sales department.

Starbucks is testing beer and wine sales in some stores in an attempt to attract the crowds in the evening that they attract in the morning.  Years ago, fast food restaurants started serving breakfast for a similar reason.

In another way, this has always been one of the challenges of commercial transportation.  It is relatively  easy to have a full load, whether its produce, widgets or commuters, going one way.  The challenge is to have cargo to help pay for the return trip.

Rhythms or cycles are as much a natural part of the business world as they are the business part of the natural world.  Nature uses the dormant winter cycle to rejuvenate, hibernate, and replenish. In the days of the neighborhood five and dime store, dormant cycles were the time when the proprietor could do inventory, make building repairs or go fishing.  Most businesses don't have that luxury anymore.

In a world of quarterly earnings reports, 24-hour a day business news, and information flowing everywhere, there really is no time for a dormant cycle.

The challenge for businesses is to figure out ways to circumvent the natural cycles or rhythms of their industry.  The opportunity for marketers is to find new reasons for customers to try your product or service, even when the traditionally wouldn't.  This can be done by adding to your services, as Starbucks and McDonald's are doing.  This can also be done by creating new demand for those products or services you are already offering.

The internet can help businesses do this.  Retailers are no longer restrained to the geographic realities of their bricks and mortar location.  Service providers can find people who are in need of their particular specialty with greater efficiency and at a lower cost.  And if you are able to serve multiple markets, you may be able to complement the natural cycles of your current market, approaching year round demand.



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Make 'em Laugh, Make 'em Cry...

"I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."  Maya Angelou

Marketing is a business of feelings and emotions because people are driven by emotions and feelings.

To be successful, a marketer must connect with the customer on an emotional level.  Actually, to be successful, a business must connect with the customer on an emotional level; it is, however,  typically the job of the marketers to establish that connection.

All of our decisions are driven by emotions.  You buy the same soap as you have for years because it is a safe decision and no one at home will complain about it.  You covet a sports car because it will make you look successful, or sexy, or at least not quite so middle-aged.  You hire an assistant because you like him, he reminds us of yourself when you were his age, or he will bring skills to the team that will cover your backside.

Emotions can swing both ways.  I won't go into a certain store because the person behind the counter was rude to me.  I don't stop at Dairy Queen because my wife will chide me for not sticking to my diet.  I found a different mechanic because the technicians were not honest with me the last time I asked questions about my car repair.  I won't hire that accountant because I heard my neighbor got ripped off by him.

This is one of the reasons it is so important to address bad customer experiences as quickly and completely as possible.  When people have a bad experience, and it isn't addressed quickly and sincerely, the tell people.  When people hear bad things about a product or service, they tend to take it seriously.  Fearing a bad experience themselves, they stay away or at least think twice before making a purchase.

The bottom line is that when you connect with a customer's emotions, you connect with them.  Good or bad.  Make them laugh.  Make them cry.  Make them feel something.  But do it deliberately and with a strategy.

Otherwise, you may be the one crying.

When No One is Looking

Customer service happens when no one is looking.  When an employee interacts with a customer while they are being watched by a supervisor, it isn't customer service, its obedience.  Customer service requires initiative.

Initiative happens when you let staff know they are trusted.  Trusted to address customer needs and concerns.  Trusted to make mistakes.  Especially if those mistakes are made because they are trying: to help a customer; meet a goal; or address an organizational challenge.

Employees know they are trusted by the way their leaders treat them and react to them, especially when they make mistakes.  If failure is treated as a punishable offense versus a step toward success, then staff will not feel trusted and will learn not to take initiative.  If mistakes are met with anger and loud voices versus analysis and education, that signals a lot to the person who made the mistake.  And everyone they talk to and work with.

On the surface, customer service is a simple thing.  It is about being polite, pleasant and professional with customers and working to address their needs.

Excellent customer service goes deeper, however.  It is about anticipating the needs of the customer and addressing them before they ask.  It is about quickly and efficiently resolving customer problems when needs aren't met to the satisfaction of the customer.  To achieve this, it takes a staff member who is actively engaged in the success of the organization.  A person who takes the initiative to understand customers and has the creativity and personality to positively engage customers.  Excellent customer service cannot be done simply by following a checklist.

Ultimately, excellent customer service on the front lines, something every organization should strive for, starts with the way things are handled in the back room.

Social Entrepreneurship

The term social entrepreneurship is relatively new, but the concept of people with big ideas working for the common good goes back to the start of history.

The last 150 years have given us famous examples of social entrepreneurs such as Susan B. Anthony, John Muir, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King Jr.  For everyone of these famous names, there are countless others that worked tirelessly for their big idea with little or no public accolades.  My guess is they weren't in it for the public accolades.

Social entrepreneurship is, according to some, one of the ways to efficiently address some of the significant issues facing our planet using entrepreneurial approaches.  The current wave of social entrepreneurship started 25 years ago when the concept of micro-finance was born.

The environmental and social problems that the world faces are like none we have faced in recent history.  The good thing is that the tools we have are like none we have faced in recent history.  I believe that it is the responsibility of businesses, as well as citizens, to devote time and resources to address the societal issues in the communities they serve and operate in.  Call that social entrepreneurship, triple bottom line or whatever you want, it is important for our future.

The Skoll World Forum seems to agree.  The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, according to its website, is the premier, international platform for accelerating entrepreneurial approaches and innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing social issues.

The video below is the video they used to open this years forum.  I find it to be a wonderfully optimistic and encouraging video.  I find that it nicely highlights one of the most spectacular and magical elements of the internet, the fact that so many of us are so interconnected for so little.

It has encouraged me to write this blog on social entrepreneurship.  It is a topic I intend to return to frequently.  If you know of social entrepreneurs who inspire you, let me know about them so I can feature them in future blogs.  If you learn of a company (perhaps YOUR company) that does amazing and impactful things, share with us.

It won't change the world, but if it can inspire one person, then it is well worth it.

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A Photo Finish at the Sun Times?

Chicago Sun Times (Photo credit: stu_spivack)

The Chicago Sun Times recently and suddenly laid off all 28 people in its full-time photography staff.  This included photographers and editors for its flagship paper and all of its suburban papers.

My first reaction was how could that only be 28 people?  To cover all of Chicagoland?  Including the suburbs?

My second reaction was this must be the beginning of the end for a once venerable major market newspaper.  How long can the Chicago Sun Times last without photographers and photo editors?  After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, reporters are going to have to write a lot more to make up for missing photos.  Right?

Not so, says the leadership at the Sun Times.  Freelancers and reporters will provide plenty of photos, they say.  Plus, the move was precipitated by a shift to more video content for its online presence.

So, in reality, this move is the start of a new beginning for the newspaper that started in Chicago almost 170 years ago.  This move should be seen as a bold move into the brave, sorta new world of online journalism.  This is a move forward; a positive future-affirming strategic step.  So says the leadership of the Sun Times Media Group, the Sun Times parent organization.

As a subscriber of two daily and two weekly newspapers (not the Sun Times though because they stopped delivering where I live many years ago), I hope they are right.  

As a believer in the importance of having multiple journalistic voices in a community, I hope they are right.

As a lover of photography, including photojournalism, I suspect that they are wrong.  I am afraid that the Sun Times leadership will soon find the power that amazing photography has to draw readers and attention to their publication.  And that the lack of it will make it easier to ignore their publication.  I suspect they will learn that there are some stories that need to be told pictorially to really have an impact.  I worry that other newspapers will follow suit and will count on writers, presumably with their cellphones, to snap pictures while they are trying to get a story, forcing them to do neither as well as they could.

I hope that this is just a strategic move and that the Sun Times continues their long and fruitful contribution to Chicago journalism.  I worry that this is another sign of the slow, creeping demise of print journalism.

I can just picture it.

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The Challenges of DeFriending

I have too many friends.  I am too linked in.  I need to simplify.

At least that was my intention when I wrote a post on quality vs. quantity when it comes to social media contacts several years ago.  Read that blog here.

All was fine and good until I started realizing that I was missing messages from contacts that I really cared about.  A colleague told me about an opportunity, but I missed it among the sea of posts I get daily.  I have to search to find pictures of my 1 year-old niece on Facebook because I get lots of other messages that aren't nearly as important, nor as cute.

So when I wrote, two years ago, about my intention to go for quality over quantity on my social media contacts, my intentions were good.  But liking someone is a lot easier than "unliking" them.  I have not made much progress on winnowing down my contacts list.  One of my many issues with Facebook is that they have all sorts of groups and games and features that encourage you to connect with lots of people, but they make it difficult (at least to this Luddite) to sort and organize your contacts.  I have "friends" that I connected with several years ago over a common interest in an issue or an event.  The problem is I don't remember what that issue or event is any longer.

Also, you friend someone by pushing one little button.  Once they accept the invitation, you are Facebook friends.  To defriend someone, once you know that want to, involves several steps.

Ultimately though, the problem for me is in the difference between the two actions.  Friending is a generally positive and inclusive action.  It opens up possibilities of connections made and opportunities revealed.  Removing friends, or links, or contacts is the opposite.  It shrinks your online world.

Or does it.  As I wrote two years ago, sometimes it is about numbers, but sometimes its about making sure you see those cute toddler pictures!

Graduations

Celebrations often leave a lot to be desired.

I was thinking of this as I attended my son's recent college graduation recently.  The ceremony was great.  I mostly enjoyed the speeches and presentations.  I was thrilled to watch him cross the stage in this celebration of the completion of the last vestiges of his childhood.

Graduations serve their purpose as a celebration of accomplishment and as a marker of time.  It is important for all involved (students, instructors, parents) to have a capstone celebration for something that is as intense and involved as many years of college, or high school, or graduate school, or military academy, or trade school, or...

Yet, I couldn't help but think that even the most tightly run, most carefully choreographed celebration that involves a whole group, or class, of people, is bound to have some time in which large portions of the audience aren't interested.

One of my son's friends said he thought it would be better if the college had an all night party, everyone watched the sunrise together and the president of the college handed out diplomas at breakfast.  He is probably right if the ceremony was only for the graduates.  Most parents would be happy if the college played Pomp and Circumstance, read only their child's name, and then invited the parents up on stage to take photos.  Most professors would probably prefer to leave things on the departmental level.

My point is that while big accomplishments deserve to have a big deal made of them, organizations should pay attention to the purpose of the celebration and the perspective of the participants and the targeted stakeholders.

While its not necessary to compete with the sunrise when hosting a celebration, understand that for some in your audience, that is an alternative.

Something More

In a world where choices are seemingly limitless, it seems that providing something more is a good strategy.

I choose to use Bing as a search engine because it has beautiful, evocative photos on its landing page.  I don't need those photos but they make me smile, it doesn't seem to slow operations any and occasionally I click on the links and learn a random fact or two.  That is a little something more that I frequently enjoy.  That is a little something more that appeals to me and gets me to use Bing.

Something more can be as simple as having your phones answered by a live person, a freebie in the package shipped to your house or an offer to help you take your parcels to your car.  Often it is just encountering someone with a wonderful attitude that changes your whole experience.

Is there a product or service that you use because they offer a little more?  Share with us in the comments below companies or services that you've enjoyed because they offer something more.  I will feature some of the companies in future blogs.

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