Strategically speaking

I found this B L Ochman post very educational for anyone considering social media as part of their overall marketing strategy.

Excellent questions to stimulate serious thought and sound planning prior to jumping in the pool. Even more welcomed than her straight-forward tone, it showcases how social media (when done right) is no different than any marketing campaign. Sure, there are a wealth of free to relatively inexpensive resources online to convey your story - as opposed to the often uneconomical path of traditional media buying or print advertising - but companies need to recognize a shotgun approach won't see results. And though the technology may not be costly, there still needs to be effort and resources put behind a campaign so it's not merely an after-thought. It's a marathon not a sprint.

The CMO/agency conversation struck me, as well.

Placing it on the personal level - how many of us want to be friends with someone who withholds information, or scrubs their language so as to never truly feel genuine? As though s/he is interested only in what we are sharing, not vice versa? How many long-lasting, valued relationships happen within weeks or even months of first meeting?

Social media isn't a quick fix; it's simply another way of communicating to consumers and prospective new consumers.

Building relationships takes time.

Digital Hack Night

Over the course of 4 hours last night in Ohio, 2 things occurred:

- $100,000 was raised for the charity Feeding America.
- P&G executives learned - hands-on - the influence of social media.

The price-tag? $4,000.

Surely Digital Hack Night's charitable focus helped bolster the engagement and contributions of the marketing professionals' networks and those executives from other companies. But what impressed me most was how a basic training exercise was transformed into a major online event.

In essence, P&G spent $4,000 to help their marketing teams and executives become immersed in social media, while at the same time creating an excellent PR opportunity for the corporation, as well as Google, Facebook, and MySpace. Rather than simply hold internal training sessions on what 'social media' is, they got their hands dirty and let cross-functional teams compete in a widely tracked, online contest. No didactic presentations or PowerPoint slides. Competition and creative thinking. An experience vs. a class.

All of this resulting in a nice chunk of change for Feeding America.

Nice.

The Facebook Facelift

My morning routine typically includes Headline News - or "HLN" as they've recently rebranded themselves. Their Morning Express with Robin Meade perfectly compliments my first cup of coffee so it's sort of stuck. I get a little Robin with my caffeine to ease me into the day.

What surprised me this morning was a feature about Facebook's upcoming redesign. Not that it isn't news, don't get me wrong. But that it was shown alongside HLN's regular stream of political pieces, who's who in bail out packages, and sports headlines. I wouldn't call Morning Express cutting edge when it comes to their technology coverage. Facebook's representation in the lineup clearly indicates its impact.

Facebook smartly released a preview of the new layout explaining 'streams' and the ability for enhanced filtering. In the past they've launched changes with little to no notice and dealt with the consequences from a very vocal community of users. Nice to see them evolving their approach towards their consumers.

Marketing via the Social Web

This week, eWeek posted an article discussing a study done on social technologies and marketing by Forrester Research. Something struck me as a bit off. Consider this excerpt:

But when it comes to being swayed to spend their dollars on business technology, 84 of the surveyed decision makers were more likely to rely on word of mouth from peers and colleagues, while 45 percent said they were swayed by forums, online communities and social networks.

I get that buyers are most motivated by word-of-mouth and people they trust. But isn't that the exact point of social technologies. The social web is a mechanism of communication – not a source of information. The buyers' peers and colleagues are still the source.

Maybe what they're saying is that they don't trust social web sites to paint a true picture of the people they're communicating with? Maybe they think it's a conspiracy amongst software vendors? I don't like the way that the data was presented here. Peers and Social Media are not alternative sources of information.