Social Marketing

Over at econsultancy.com is a post that sorta set a fire up under my butt. Here’s the title :

What’s it take to be a social media expert? Not much, apparently

You’ll find nice things like this there:

According to a survey conducted by MarketingSherpa, it doesn’t take much to be an expert, at least if you’re a marketer working at an organization that isn’t using social media

Well, duh. Sure doesn’t take alot to not do something. How about this one:

Yes, there are plenty of interesting social media marketing case studies but there are few tried and true techniques that can be applied consistently by practitioners. Everybody is still trying to figure this stuff out.

Or this one:

When it comes to putting together viable marketing strategies, executing them successfully, integrating them with multi-channel efforts and tracking ROI, the skills of a professional marketer are must-haves. Without these skills, otherwise creative and potentially successful campaigns will most often fail because marketing is as much about implementation and execution as it is about passion and creativity.

Hey! I agree with that last one. The emphasis you see there is in the original. And I DO agree with Exactly what it says.

Social vs Marketing

But marketing campaigns are not the same as Social Marketing. And realizing this goes a long way toward understanding why ‘there are few tried and true techniques that can be applied consistently’. (That statement about everybody trying to figure this stuff out is just bunk, in my opinion.)

Social Marketing is simple, as I’ll explain below. But an essential nature of Social Marketing is that it is eternally dynamic. One man’s trash, another man’s treasure and all that. It’s not that there are no rules, no methods, no ‘tried and true’ knowledge.

There are rules, but most of them change depending on the current circumstances. Plus, what works today may not tomorrow, even with the same customers. (That’s why I just don’t get these automated ’social’ tools. Where is the social in that?)

Back to rules. If you can’t get the 1st one right, then go back to your campaigns:

Do all you can to foster a friendship with the customer.

How do you measure that? Where is your metric and your chart and your Powerpoint presentation for that? Are you really comfortable setting goals that can only be measured over timespans of decades?

So how do you know if you’re being successful? Easy. Ask yourself this simple question with each interaction – Did I help this person?

See, this is where ‘old’ business and ‘new’ business marketers diverge. Strange thing is, the ‘new’ is actually the ‘really old but we forgot it’.

Once upon a time, a long time ago businesses survived because they nurtured relationships with their customers. Nearly all marketing was social. Then came radio, with its slick sound bites, and later television, adding visual impact to the message. Marketing took on a new face, and it had a mouth that was telling its customers what they wanted.

Then came the internet, and just like that, the mystique of The Corporation was gone. Suddenly, the customers demanded to be heard, and leveraging the power of instant communication they are achieving their goals. Generations of marketing techniques which worked just a few short years ago now fail. Social media allowed the rebirth of social marketing.

Parry and Twist (yeah, the dance)

The following excerpt is from a comment that seemed pretty representative of the comments there.

A good marketer is holistic and recognizes that before you can come up with an idea for a campaign or commit a significant amount of resource to a particular path (eg. social media), you have to understand what the brands needs, what its goals are, how their achievement will be measured, which stakeholders need to be involved, … etc. etc. etc.

I chose to respond to it…

Don’t most of you get that Social is about relationships with the customer? Where is the customer mentioned in that rant above? To ‘marketers’ it’s all about what the company gets out of a campaign. That’s why you guys are being replaced by folks who, whether you like it or not, are redefining your field. By the very ones you are sneering at with your noses held high.

Social Media is a tool. Social Marketing is about relating (really) with your customer, finding out what that customer wants, and then doing whatever you can to provide the solution.This stuff isn’t rocket science, most of it’s just common sense.

How many of you have heard this: ‘The only reason any company ever exists is because of repeat business.’ That extraordinarily old saying is an expression of the results of social marketing. If you buy used cars, will you buy again from some shallow guy with a good pitch and the right price, or from the guy who takes the time to get to know you, finds out what you want and why, and gives you a reasonable price? That guy won’t be selling used cars for very long…

OK OK so I’m not a social media expert, I don’t have millions of followers (he said, looking back over his shoulder), and hell, I’m barely alive!(see upper right of this page)

But I can still rant. And even ranting can be social, sometimes.

What do you guys think about this? Is Social Marketing a different animal than Marketing? Same? Or do we need them both?

Just want to add a couple of links here for folks who are really interested. Seems several posts appeared on this subject this morning.

Shup The Hell Up You Self-Promoting Turd

If You Want to be Successful, Be Worth Sharing

The problem with paid media isn’t the “paid”

How to Talk with Customers Differently

Radiohead gets my vote.

They are consistently creative – from their 21st century business model (they gave away their last album) to making rock videos without cameras… they’re doing what common sense says cannot be done.

Garrick Schmitt

Radiohead is working to turn data visualization into an art form with its music video, “House of Cards.” Using neither cameras nor lights, the band employed two technologies called Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR to capture 3D data and transform it into a series of stunning images. Radiohead recently opened up the data to the world, in partnership with Google, to remix.

From Radiohead, without the use of cameras or lights, ‘House of Cards’…

If you want to mess around with their data and come up with your own video, go HERE to get the data. After you’re done, you can upload your video HERE, at the HouseofCards group.

If I were bizarro Jon would I be noJ…?

Image via Wikipedia

Signs

Another sign that the singularity is approaching is this little bit of (intentionally) overlooked info from this past weekend. From Nick Carr over at Rough Type:

You Can’t Erase The Web

Who would have thought that these guys would want to keep themselves a secret? Even stranger, why would anyone, especially these guys, think that they could hide anything in the current age of insta-blog information retrieval? Case in point: here is the ‘erased’ blog entry mentioned by Nick Carr above, which I found at MindBroker:

How Many Words Is A Picture Worth Now?

And here is a picture of the folks who were there:

Sigh…

I am Jon, and I ain’t skeered…

The G1, With Google Android

Androids

The G1 from T-Mobile is the first available phone that uses Google’s Android operating system. Think of it as the iPhone for the rest of us. The phone itself is made by HTC, a leading maker of smartphones. It is currently only available through T-Mobile, following the Apple model of locking in with a services provider.

Hopefully that will change soon.

Within days of being available for pre-sale, T-Mobile had to triple their original order for the phones, selling more than 1.5 million units. Add in another 1 million pre-orders from T-Mobile retail outlets and the demand grows to more than two and a half million phones already sold.

With some analysts predicting that iPhone sales would top 16 million units in 2008, the 2.5 million pre-orders for the G1 may not sound impressive. But when you consider that the phone is not even being shipped yet, that’s a sign of pretty strong demand for the alternative product.

With the biggest retail shopping days of the year still ahead of us, it’s possible that the G1 could double that number to 5 million units. That would give an estimated yearly sales rate of more than 20 million phones, dwarfing the groundbreaking iPhone.

I am Jon, and yeah, I’ll probably own one of these. I’ll be an Android.

Image via Wikipedia

There will be new jobs. And if I don’t miss, my guess is there will be lots of them. And I think the folks who get those jobs are lucky people, because I think those jobs will be fun.

The universe seems to constantly carry on a sublime balancing act. But since what it’s balancing is life, a force that never sits still, it has to constantly shift its center, its fulcrum, to correct for the movements life creates.

This constant movement of the center makes things seem very unstable sometimes, but it’s good to remember that it’s a natural thing.

Think of a pendulum. It will swing exactly as far to one side as the other if no other force is acting on it.

Using The Force

This mess will all balance out. Soon we will all be talking about the next global crisis, which is the real one… the climate crisis.

Everyone knows that the best way to fight the climate crisis is to eliminate our production of greenhouse gases. It will be exactly that which will propel the next financial boom around the world.

Green technology investment has not slowed during this financial crisis and in fact is expected to grow 20% next year. It will emerge as one of the leading industries of our future.

Even China, the nation everybody points to as the biggest problem (after US), seems to be re-thinking its stance on coal as an energy source. As reported by ClimateProgress and ChinaDaily China has halted all but two of its Coal-to-Liquids projects.

All those people and all of us as well are still going to need that energy. And we will get it. We just won’t be getting it from the places we have been for the past couple of centuries.

The New Normal

It’s obvious that things are going to change a bit. But things will also stay the same. We’ll have some really rough times for awhile, and then things will get slightly better – you’ll feel normal again. And then a bit better yet until pretty soon, you’re bored on your drive to work.

But even that will be a little different. Here’s what Ian Kennedy(everwas.com), who leaves Yahoo this week for a new job at Nokia, says about the future of your ride to work.

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I am Jon, and I think that’s something to look forward to.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Spock’s Eyebrow

The human race seems rather fascinated by the LHC today. This morning, the 1st beams focused around the 27km facility were called an unqualified success. Over the next several weeks preparations will be made to produce the 1st collisions, scheduled for October.

Researching for future pieces about the individual experiments planned for the LHC, I’ve come across some interesting, even fascinating details about the whole LHC program. Much of this stuff won’t fit easily into those future articles, so I’m just posting a huge blockquote here as background info. You can read more interesting stuff over at the CERN website. As you’re reading through these, don’t be surprised if you raise your eyebrow and mutter to yourself, “Fascinating…”

There’s lots more fascinating stuff to be found over at the CERN website. Some of it I’ll be writing about here @ Wordout over the next month or so, but like it says at the top of this page, it’s best when viewed with your own two eyes.

So use that link up there and head on over to CERN. Their site is great for everyone, regardless of your education, age or location. I’ve been bounding around in there for days now, and I am still finding great little jewels of knowledge and fun.

I am, and ever will be, just Jon.

Want more about the LHC? Check out LHC Live – 1st Beam A Success or CERN LHC Goes Live

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The first beam has successfully been focused around the LHC. The test occured this morning at around 3:30 am Eastern(US) time. Following is the press release from the CERN site:

The earlier piece, published yesterday, about the LHC going live is already proving to be the most popular page ever @ Wordout, exceeding all but one previous post in the 1st 4 hours of the day. Evidently there are many folks out there who, like me, are curious about particle physics…

I am Jon, thinking about riding a wave that never collapses.

Image via Wikipedia

On Wednesday, the European Organization for Nuclear Research will inject high energy beams of particles into the Large Hadron Collider(LHC). Located underground on the French-Swiss border, the CERN facility is the most advanced particle research laboratory on the planet.

Physicists hope their experiments using the LHC will help them fill in missing pieces of the Standard Model, which currently requires the assumption of certain as-yet unobserved particles and processes. In particular, the long sought-after Higgs Bosun should become apparent (artist’s conception pictured at right). Finding proof for its existence is crucial to the current understanding of our universe. The Standard Model just doesn’t work without it.

Simply put, the Higgs Bosun is required if anything in the universe is to have mass. Without it, nothing would have mass. Without mass, no galaxies, no stars, no planets, no us. It’s easy to see why it’s been called the ‘God Particle’. Without it, or something that takes its place, nothing that does exist could exist. At least, according to our current understanding of the universe.

Should You Worry?

If you google LHC or CERN right now you should have no problem finding numerous blogs and articles predicting end-of-the-world scenarios as the result of the planned experiments. It seems everybody who took a physics class in high school has an opinion on the matter. Many of their fears revolve around the idea that a black hole will be created, which will swallow the earth. Looking around the CERN website, I came across these two quotes. You can click them to read them in their original context:

Whatever the LHC will do, Nature has already done many times over during the lifetime of the Earth and other astronomical bodies. The LSAG report has been reviewed and endorsed by CERN’s Scientific Policy Committee, a group of external scientists that advises CERN’s governing body, its Council.

The LHC safety review has shown that the LHC is perfectly safe,” said Jos Engelen, CERN’s Chief Scientific Officer, “it points out that Nature has already conducted the equivalent of about a hundred thousand LHC experimental programmes on Earth – and the planet still exists.

Though black holes seem to capture most folks’ attention, there are some other side-effects that have been addressed. For instance, the creation of things like cosmic rays, magnetic monopoles, strangelets and vacuum bubbles could prove to be interesting, if they occur. They sure make for some interesting reading, in any case. But the likelihood that any of these things could be a danger to the earth or any regular guy or girl on the street is practically zero.

Watch It Live Online

As can be expected of the most advanced physics lab on the planet, they’re making much use of the internet. Part of that includes the CERN Webcast Service, with 4 channels of video. Check it out for the schedule of live events. I watched a bit of it – it reminded me of NASA TV, which is pretty cool, when you think about it.

NASA deals with the infinite universe around us, and CERN deals with the infinitely small universe that makes us. NASA has opened us up to wonders we never expected but secretly dreamed of. Like the ice on Mars, the volcanos on Io, the galaxies of the earliest universe. CERN’s LHC project may introduce us to fantastic breakthroughs of the same magnitude.

Imagine finding extra dimensions of space, particles of dark matter, or just watching a recreation of the conditions in the universe, less than a second after it was created. These are some of the things more than 1000 scientists are hoping for.

But it most likely won’t happen Wednesday. All these things, the hopeful and the fearful, depend on collisions of the particles. The first collisions are scheduled to occur in October. Wednesday claims its fame by being the first day they will direct a beam around the circumference of the collider. (So even if the world is going to end because of this thing, it won’t happen Wednesday.)

The Experiments

There are six main experiments the LHC is designed to perform. Each of them are international collaborations, bringing together scientists from institutes all over the world. Each experiment focuses on answers to questions about the Higgs bosun, looking for extra dimensions, or why only about 4% of the universe is made of matter, to name a few. (which makes the rest… what?)

Over the next several weeks I’ll publish some pieces getting into more detail with each of these experiments. We’ll see why the collider had to be built mostly underground, why it had to be so large, and why what these guys are doing is so important. So, until then…

I am Jon, and I’m just a little bit hyped.

UPDATE 10 SEP 2008: The LHC Goes Live – 1st Beam A Success. Click the link to read the press release.

Brian, over at Bricycles has an idea I really like. Well, he actually has 2 ideas I really like. Each of them are ways to combat both global warming and our dependence on oil for energy.

His first idea is simple: Don’t wait for the government or the corporations to come up with a solution. At this point, it looks like there’s no help coming from those two areas. The best ideas may be the ones we come up with ourselves.

His second idea is almost as simple on the surface: Build a one-person transport that can handle most everyday needs, which produces zero emissions, using materials readily available to almost anyone. Now, nobody is suggesting (at this point) that we drive these things across the country, but for around-town driving and short trips, they’re perfect.

There’s one more thing he’s doing that just gets the SciFi kid in me rocking, though. I don’t know if he planned this part, but to me, his design looks like one of the lightbikes from the movie, Tron.
I might be (carbon)dating myself, but Tron gets my vote every time.

I am Jon, and I just gotta tell you, I like these kinds of ideas.

From now on, you can use your OpenID when registering or commenting here at Wordout. This is something I’ve thought about for a few months, ever since writing the article on what I thought was wrong with OpenID back in January. I was so focused on passwords and the fact there is simply no known way to protect the login process as it is.

I’m still unsure about passwords as a sole security mechanism, but there’s a thought in that old article that just stuck with me:

With OpenID you could generate one really great password and use it everywhere. Up front, it seems like a great idea to reduce the load on your memory while still improving your security.

That concept is valid. If all I have to do is keep up with one password in one location, then I might go through the small effort it takes to create a really strong password. I might actually use upper case and lower case letters, mixed in with numbers and symbols and even different font sets if I could. Having only one thing to manage, I might choose to manage it well.

I headed over to JanRain to find out all I could about OpenID from the source. What I found over there convinced me that not only was OpenID here to stay, it was fast becoming the de facto standard for identity management used on the web. Hover over that yellow SnapShot icon to see the chart of adoption rates. That huge increase is mostly just the last 12 months.

Identity Management Is Becoming Critical

Adoption rates aren’t usually enough to make me jump on board. Hell, I didn’t buy a cd player until after 2000. What was it that made me choose OpenID? Because identity management is becoming critical on the web. OpenID is making progress in that direction and after 3 years still appears to avoid the “password” type problems I worry about so much. I haven’t heard of any serious security breaches with OpenID at the center. I gave it alot of thought, and decided the benefits outweigh the possibility of a breach. So from now on, when you go to the login or registration pages, you’ll have the option of using your OpenID! You can use your OpenID on comments as well.

Don’t have one? I wouldn’t be so sure. If you have a Yahoo, Flickr, AOL, SmugMug, Blogger, Wordpress or LiveJournal account, you already have an OpenID provided by them. There’s more of them if you click that link. That doesn’t mean you have to use them. If you’d rather make one from scratch, or if you don’t have an OpenID yet, you can look at the top of the page here and use the Register With myOpenID to create an account, or just click the image below. After looking around, that’s who I chose, mainly because of their connection to JanRain.

I am Jon, but you already knew that, didn’t you?

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I want to thank ReadWriteWeb for continuing to produce articles like this.

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