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The Marketing Edge, one of the longest running marketing and public relations podcasts.
Host Albert Maruggi weaves his 25 years of marketing and PR experience across business, technology and national public affairs in interviews with newsmakers, authors and business leaders.
Maruggi is a frequent speaker and conducts workshop sessions on new media. For more information or to discuss your business challenges and goals, e-mail him.
Plenty of attention is given to participating in blogs, join the conversation, be open, be authentic, yada yada yada. The early adopters have tested the social media space with ample case studies for dozens of new books and information for panel discussions.
The hidden winners in the blogosphere who get a fraction of the fanfare are market researchers. This podcast is dedicated to the corporate executives who are skeptics of joining the conversation, but as you’ll hear here, have considerable reason to at least listen to it, it being first the podcast and then the thousands of conversations taking place on the web daily.
Look at just one segment of commentary and social media, www.tripadvisor.com, they have more than 10 million reviews of hotels. Forrester research shows that 36 percent of travelers look at reviews and of them, 73 percent report the reviews affect their choices. More from an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer - It’s just the tip of the iceberg known as the blogosphere, but in reality is a bunch of people talking just like they do at parties, conference rooms, or ball games. The only difference is online, you can listen in on them.
This podcast is the second and concluding episode of a conversation with Umbria founder Howard Kaushansky. Umbria, at www.umbrialistens.com is one of a handful of companies that provide detailed insights into what people are taking about in blogs, and reviewers’ comments on the web and to a great extent who is saying it.
The bottom line is this
1) There are millions of comments being made on the web about nearly every industry or profession.
2) Even if your company has no intention of starting a blog, the comments that exist can provide significant insight into your company, your competitors, and your market.
3) Blogs and social media is not just a playground of the younger generation, middle age baby boomers use social media, blogs, and travel sites just as much as the 18 -24 year old set.
On another note, Marketing Edge listener Alison Coffey is the winner of the Join the Conversation book drawing. Our next book is Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers. To throw your name in the drawing send me an email at marketingedge@providentpartners.net with the words New Influencers in the subject line.
Jeremiah Owyang, senior analyst for Forrester and author of the well-read Web Strategist blog, is our guest on the Marketing Edge. You know, as of this posting, he is at the top of the Tweeterboard, a ranking of influencers using the microblogging platform Twitter.
In this podcast, we touch upon his big three trends to look for in 2008 and the following items:
-Social media is like jazz: don’t ask, just listen. He explains it better than I can write about it.
-The corporate structure needs to become more flexible if social media is to gain greater status. Owyang believes 2008 will see a rise in the job function of community manager in large companies.
With more than 3,000 followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook, do you wonder how he juggles his day? First rule: Get up early.
We also get into one of my key themes about social media: It’s making companies incorporate some of the best practices of political and grassroots organizations. Listen, be responsive, be sensitive, seek consensus, build your base — those are just a few. Platforms like Twitter help facilitate the movement of people and opinions that give life to ideas. This is the essence of the political democratic process.
As corporations seek a greater understanding of social media, the social graph will play an important role. This is another Owyang prediction for 2008.
Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to invite all your friends to join you on some other social network? Owyang predicts the expansion of widget networks and with it the expansion of the use of social media in 2008.
Lastly, I promised Jeremiah I’d post a link to one of my favorite places in San Francisco, the Buena Vista, home of the Irish Coffee.
Share your comments on this post. For each comment posted, Provident Partners gives a food item to a St. Paul food shelter.
Last call for the drawing of the book “Join the Conversation” by Joseph Jaffe. Send an e-mail to marketingedge@providentpartners.net and we will include you in the drawing. The winner gets a copy of the book with my comments in the margins; it’s our way of continuing the conversation. Get your e-mail in by midnight on Dec. 19.
Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester, Seth Godin author of Meatball Sundae, and Steve Mann head of social media for SAP doing a webcast at noon central today. http://tinyurl.com/yutq4b I’ll live blog it here. Just the highlights please, OK
Owyang outline to consider and approach social media POST = People, Objective, Strategy, and Technology. Bottom line point - think it through for the long term. Jeremiah’s blog is http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/
Mann - excellent point about the correllation between those who engage in the community or your discussion early will be more likely to convert as the sales cycle moves forward.
Godin - Classic Godin line, you can’t be like that brother-in-law life insurance salesman at parties who only goes to hit you up for insurance. Remember that this holiday season.
Owyang refers to Lego community to embrace customers to help build new products http://mindstorms.lego.com/eng/community/default.asp - He is very clear that this is not about giving away product ideas, no it’s about getting product ideas. And the pay off for them is to be a part of an inside group that then become advocates. Passion is the result of asking for opinions (that last one is my line, so if you don’t like it don’t blame Jeremiah)
Mann makes excellent point again - not every conversation is going to be positive or rosey. However, there can be positive that comes from that, whether its improvement to the product or customer service. It is so refreshing to here someone like Steve who answers to a corporate structure speak like this. It is both a reflection on him as a leader and on the management of SAP.
Godin - Social media is not for every company. I have said this for awhile (listen to Great Blog Debate November 2006) The issue for me is that some companies need to evolve into social media as opposed to “Using Social Media to Grow Your Business” which is the title of this webcast.
You gotta love this one from Owyang - An eye opener ready?
So it used to be that sales managers would take a win/loss report and marketers would pull out the wins to put in their communications. Enter social media, and buyers are taking about the every same things that are in your win/loss reports in the open. Agh! imagine that. Now what?
Lastly the panel was asked in a couple of words what advice would you give to companies about considering social media (I paraphrasing here on the question) And they said
Owyang - Let Go
Mann - Evolution not revolution
Godin - Be remarkable
Anyone commenting on this post we’ll have a drawing for Seth’s new book Meatball Sundae, Those of you who don’t feel lucky can get it here http://www.squidoo.com/meatballsundae
Mackay has been on the New York Times best-seller list multiple times, and these two books are on the top 15 inspirational business books of all time, according to the New York Times.
Mackay built a failing envelope company into a $100 million business employing 600 people. He did it with relationships — caring relationships based on truly getting to know the other person. And so, as social media continues to take shape, I thought it important to seek the advice of those who understand a few things about relationships.
An example is the Mackay 66 , a guide to learning about each other, whether it’s as simple as making connections to the same college or favorite sports team or learning about whether the person is focused on the present or the future. Those who use Facebook, LinkedIn or any other social network can gain value from Mackay’s wealth of experience and advice on nurturing relationships.
Ten million copies of his books have sold and his column is syndicated in 52 newspapers across the country. Here are some of my favorite of Mackay’s words:
“What every salesperson — and not enough entrepreneurs — know: The sweetest sound in the world to you, and to your customer, is the sound of your own name on someone else’s lips.”
“Little things don’t mean a lot. They mean everything. In a business, there are 1,001 ways to screw up every day, and almost all of them can be avoided with a little more attention to detail or common courtesy.”
“Challenge yourself to learn something new every chance you get.”
“Business is a collaborative art, not an individual one.”
The first stop for marketers who are attempting to determine how to approach social media is to listen to the conversations taking place on the web. Most executives are going to ask, what are people saying about our company or our industry? Who are they and does it matter to us?
While the numbers for social networking are mind boggling, an estimated 60 million users on Facebook alone, the perplexing issue for marketers that have must justify their spending is what is the impact to the company, will it grow sales, brand, influence? Or conversely, will not being there hurt us in some way?
In this podcast we highlight one company that can help answer those questions. Umbria, who can be found at www.umbrialistens.com. There tools search blogs, product review comments, and other social media sites looking for company mentions and more importantly context. For example, it is not good enough to learn that Starbucks was mentioned, but that a woman having a bad day found a moment of peace over an egg nog latte at Starbucks. Now that is listening. Umbria industry reports include healthcare, consumer electronics, and other industries
For those into the viral marketing concept, whether Umbria or a strategy that includes alerts and watches from Google, Technorati, Digg and others, the key is having a process that puts your ear to the ground – sorry had to use a cliché somewhere in this piece. Other tools include Sentiment Metrics and Cymfony, there are plenty of choices. Ths issue is with growing numbers of participants in social media, this tactic should be on your 2008 coporate marketing budget.
Do you have a strategy for listening to social media? What tactics do you find helpful?
Join the Conversation Giveaway
Joseph Jaffe’s book Join the Conversation is a good one. Well worth the read. We are giving away a copy with my comments included in the margins. It’s my way of joining the conversation - email me at marketingedge@providentpartners.net with Conversation in the subject line. We’ll have a drawing for the winner on December 19.
Giving Back
Every comment and email we get Provident Partners donates a food item to a St. Paul food shelter. Last month 24 items were donated. Thanks for sharing.
The old maxim “you don’t argue with the guy who buys ink by the barrel” isn’t as accurate as it once was. The combination of blogs, new online publishers like TechCrunch and the Huffington Post, and social media sites are creating new opportunities for professional and unpaid journalism.
The key to social media’s success is voices. The dilemma for social media is finding and determining the valuable content of those voices for you. Helium.com is a Web site designed for long-form written content and has an interesting way of sorting out what’s valuable. The site attracts those who have a desire to write, and its 90,000 members rate the articles on the site, giving all readers some guidance on the quality of the content.
This community grading apparatus rewards objective, accurate articles and banishes self-promoters to the valley of propaganda. (There really is no such place on Helium.com. That was my editorial license to say that garbage articles are ranked at the bottom.)
It’s a combination social media community, wiki (kind of ), blog and content provider. There is also a way for other publishers of Web sites and print publications to post requests for articles. Writers then submit articles for that particular topic for the publisher to potentially purchase. It is like a job board that matches buyers of articles to providers of content. Hey, it might not be enough money to quit your day job, but it is a way to fulfill a passion, share knowledge, and build your expertise and writing portfolio.
Helium.com also allows for contributions to non-profit groups, including Teachers Without Borders and Collegiate Society of America, as articles are purchased. It’s the concept of giving back to the community for writers as well as tapping into those non-profits as sources of quality articles.
Communicators should review this site as another step in determining the social media strategy. These are the interesting attributes of Helium.com:
Source for industry trends across tens of thousands of topics
Venue for your ideas and passion
Potential revenue if articles are purchased
Establish greater credibility as a writer
Give exposure to issues that are not being covered in the mainstream media
Plant the seeds of debate that others nurture -– that, after all, is the essence of social media
2. Join the Conversation book giveaway contest: Joseph Jaffe’s latest book is the talk of the Amazon charts, and we will give a copy away on Dec. 19, with an added bonus. In the spirit of joining the conversation, I have included written commentary in many of the chapters. It’s the ultimate form of keeping the conversation going. Send me an e-mail with “Conversation” in the subject line and you’ll be included in the random drawing.
3. Movie trivia in this podcast episode: Listen toward the end of the podcast for a sound clip from a movie. Tell me what movie you think it came from and we’ll give one person who provides the correct answer a $10 Subway gift card. Hint: It’s a classic! Either send me an e-mail or submit your answer in the comment section.
NOTE: Provident Partners donates a food item for every comment (on the blog or by e-mail) we get. Our monthly budget for this community program is $100/month.
Chris Heuer points out how an enterprise wiki building company, Social Text, has in its product plan that their product will be produced in conjunction with its customers. This is a change from business plans of old. Heuer is eye-opening in this presentation. Why? Because the net result of such a product development paradigm over the long term, is happier clients, a more innovative future, and products that are driven by demand.
I realize in the busy days of a corporate marketing exec, having been one, that you want a turn-key solution. But in this social media landscape, there is no template formula. There are tools that make the job of working within the social media space efficient, but there is no quick fix for engaging in conversation. That takes time.
Marshall Kirkpatrick talked about podcasting as being a medium that will continue to grow. “My dog loves podcasts,” he exclaims. No he doesn’t have smarter dogs that listen to them (or do you Marshall?). He just listens to podcasts while walking the dog.
Audio is the medium that gives you time to think and the convenience of being passive. It’s a beautiful thing for communicating in a variety of circumstances.
Paul Dunay, on the panel about how to integrate social media into your marketing mix, focused on wikis and has some keys to look for. I’m paraphrasing here; Paul, clarify in comments if you need to.
It should be two-way dialogue
Shared opinions are good things
Wikis can help engage early adopters and encourage thought leadership
Starting internally with a wiki can build a foundation for your external-facing social media tactics
Bring in IT at the beginning of the project discussion to get their buy in and expertise
Maggie Fox, on the same panel as Dunay, highlighted Mozilla’s launch of Firefox. Mozilla leveraged its users, which exponentially expanded the marketing department by essentially creating a suggestion box that generated both good ideas and advocates for the product — a winning combination for Firefox. It went from 0 percent market share in 2004 to more than 35 percent market share in September 2007.
The panel also included Tom Gerace, CEO of Gather.com, and Andy Beal, contributor to the Marketing Pilgrim blog.
As I listened to this excellent panel, it struck me that there are several parallels between being a corporate marketer and the job of communications strategy for a political candidate or public policy initiative.
Social media, by definition, requires:
Listening to constituents (or customers or prospects)
Responding (or not) to critics
Communicating and building supporters
Taking into consideration the larger environment in which the company and its communications initiatives exist
I remember when I was in Washington, D.C., as press secretary for the Republican National Committee. The radar was always listening for critics, and the supply lines were always full of talking points to funnel the grassroots support network.
Today’s social media campaign should go through a similar process of thoughtful messaging and coalition (community) building, with an abundant portion of patience to listen, and sensitivity to provide timely and responsible responses.
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