While social media dominates the conversation among marketing executives, most companies are very slow to adopt it. The unrestrained nature of the medium makes a lot of executives nervous. The fact is that social media is a global phenomenon because it has penetrated our daily lives faster than any other mechanism in history. Four out of five US online adults now participate in social media (Forrester). Social networking penetration climbed from 58% of Internet users in 2008 to 86% in 2009 and 80% of female Internet users said they had become a fan of a product or brand on a social network (SheSpeaks).

Given these surprising adoption statistics, I’m perplexed about the lack of investment, trials and cases proving social media ROI. It’s time we brought social media more credibility. Like every other media, there needs to discipline around the strategy, technology, process and measurement of social media. Of course there are companies that are testing social media strategies, but it seems like everyone is throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. People are tweeting from conferences and events, ads are populating Facebook and YouTube and spam is sloshing around forums and chat rooms like beer at a tweet-up.

Anyone with a Twitter handle gets instant credibility. It’s time we increased the discipline and strategic planning around social media and give it the same respect we do every other marketing channel.

Companies should utilize traditional strategic mapping and channel mix analysis with their social media programs in the same way they apply these discipline to other channels. Discipline forces consideration of return-on-investment and leads to better integration with the other channels. This “Social Media Mapping” will result in better results, which will fuel further investment in this underserved medium.

Here are six points to help you map a more effective social media marketing experience:

1. Always start with your legal team to review your corporate non-compete and IP policies. They can help with trademark and domain questions that often arise. You want this team involved early to help inspire marketing programs that follow FTC guidelines and your own policies.

2. Focus on your primary marketing objective, including strategy, tactics and measurement for any social program. Apply these disciplines and I guarantee it will shape your program with intelligent rigor.

3. Lay a positive foundation by providing social media guidelines for your employees. In the absence of leadership, your employees will make up their own rules. Get in front of it and guide their participation (especially if you plan on launching a social media marketing program)

4. Monitor other social media sites that are relevant to your business. There are great tools to follow company names and keywords to help you stay in front of opportunities.

5. Develop a crisis strategy in advance and anticipate eventualities and how you will respond. Time is of the essence in social media and your response time will determine your ability to successfully participate in the conversation.

6. Build measurement tools into links so you capture the data that will determine success or failure. There are powerful link strategies that allow you to gather data beyond “follows” and “friends”.

By applying these traditional marketing disciplines to social media, we’ll bring more credibility, accountability and innovation to marketing.

So in deciding if @1KrazyKorean is a Twitterite whose tweets I wish to follow, I use this checklist:

1. Are tweets relevant to my objectives? For example, do they give me info related to my professional and/or personal interests? Do they make me laugh? Introduce me to new bands?

2. Could the follower be a prospective client or referral source at some point? Or heck, a friend?

3. How frequently does he/she tweet?

4. What’s the balance of tweets, vis a vis first tweets or replies?

Unfortunately, @1KrazyKorean didn’t fit my objectives, so I took a pass. It’s important to note, that if you decide not to follow, that follower might ultimately decide to stop following you. There are Twitter apps that make it easy to do so. But if a follower just doesn’t fit into your objectives, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

That said, if you are a consumer goods company planning a major new roll-out you would have a different objective, one that would be likely be focused on getting as large an audience as possible. If that’s the case, then follow ‘em all (oh, and email me).

Out for now.
Josh

Anyone on Twitter gets a steady stream of new followers. The question is: do you reciprocate and follow them all? Or do you look at the profile, activity levels and types of posts?

For example, I was just notified I’m being followed by @1KrazyKorean whose philosophy of life is “Lifes Short: So Poop Alot =)”.

Typos aside (he is krazy after all) should I follow back?

First, you need to determine your objective(s) in following tweets. My objective in following is two-fold:

1. Professionally, I want to build relationships and interactions with current and prospective clients, while constantly seeking out new information that makes me better at my job.

2. Personally, I love to share and learn about photography, humor, politics and alternative country music.

As it relates to my profession, I want to follow all things related to SEO, social networks, PR, advertising and video seeding. For many of my clients, I also want to stay on top of developments and trends in the financial and commodity markets, futures, options and technology.

That’s part I, part II to follow.

Dazzled by our prose? Email us.
Josh

The real estate bubble popped in 2008/2009. The bubble that’s replacing it is the Who Has the Scariest View of Our Future Bubble. Let’s hope it pops soon, as well.

There are no doubt ugly days ahead, but it seems as though commentators are competing to see who can provide the most negative of viewpoints. Perhaps some are overcompensating for missing the signals that led to our current situation. Perhaps going negative is perceived as risk-free. If you’re wrong, that means everybody’s doing better; if you’re right, well, you were right (oh, and everbody’s doing bad).
What does this say about the risks involved when great marketing campaigns create our own little bubbles? Is there a way to prevent this?

We will follow future developments on this site and its success in this different channel.

My friend and I were watching a soccer game at our favorite local watering hole the other day and witnessed first hand some horrible reputation management. We were perched at the bar drinking Bud Light bottles (we’ve learned from experience that ordering drafts at this place is a lot like gambling). When we ordered our second round, the bartender looked to the other end of the bar and informed a heavy-set middle-aged gentleman that they were running out of Bud Light.

“Should I get more sent over?” she inquired. “No, lets get rid of all the bad stock,” says the middle-aged heavy-set dude.

At this point I have realized a couple things. One. This guy owns the place. Two. He feels that the beverages he just witnessed me purchase from his establishment were of poor quality. Three. This guy is a public relations nightmare for his own business.

Being the slick, witty young super-star that I am, I immediately turned my head and my bottle of Bud Light towards the man (so that the label was pointed his direction) and said “Hopefully the stock isn’t too bad, chief.”

Presented with a perfect opportunity to do some damage control and smooth over relations with his customer the owner actually has the audacity to say, “Don’t worry, I’ve drank six and I’m not dead yet.”

Really? So you’re in charge here and you’ve had six beers already (it was 6:30pm) and the only thing you can say in defense of your overpriced, low-quality product is that it’s not lethal in moderately high doses?

Later in the evening, the bartender did some crisis management. She apologized for her boss’s remarks and gave us a round on the house.

While this anecdote was about an interaction with a very small business occurring offline, we see these types of situations in all sort of settings both on and offline and often don’t even realize it.

If you update your Facebook status to say “you’re really hating your job right now.” What does that say about your company? What if the Marlboro Man smoked Camel Lights? What would that say about cowboy killers?

What I’m saying here is that publicity, marketing, branding and corporate image aren’t just fancy buzzwords that need to be addressed tactically between 9-5.

YOU are an extension of your brand. In a day and age when technology and social media give us the ability to have our voices heard on a massive scale, being a good spokesman for your company can be a very powerful marketing tool.

Whenever you are interacting in a public setting, whether its a bar, a café, a blog or an internet chat-room; always make sure to say positive things when talking about the products and services your company offers its clients. If you don’t, I may blog about you.

DC

Anyway, we went to The Container Store primarily because of how cool their marketing was. They had a special Sunday night 3-hour sale for college-bound students and their parents (the ones with the credit cards). We got there 30 minutes after the sale started and there was already a line outside of people waiting to get in. Once we got through the doors we were handed name badges, bottled water, a bag of Charlie’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (the best part) and a checklist labeled, “Everything A College Freshman Needs” (and of course it was all available at the store).

It was PACKED – kids grabbing cool laundry bags, plastic bins and over-priced (even on sale) laundry racks and the parents were wondering if this was going to cost more than the first year’s tuition. When our shopping cart was nearly spilling over, we headed towards the checkout line (which wrapped around the entire perimeter of the inside of the store).

So as we waited to pay, I decided to do a little informal marketing survey. Much to my daughter’s dismay, I started to ask the parents and the kids how they found out about this sale. Every parent said they got a coupon in the mail and every student said, “Facebook”! Yes, Facebook. To my surprise most of them had gone online and signed up to connect with The Container Store Facebook Page and were notified many times of the upcoming sale.

Then I asked the parents what motivated them to come tonight – every single one said, “Because my kid asked to go.”

“So, it wasn’t the coupon you got in the mail that motivated you?” I asked.

“No – it was my kid.”

So here we are – the battle of the old and new style of direct marketing – old style is the coupon – new style is Facebook. And my unscientific survey proved how powerful Facebook marketing is.

As we left with my mile-long credit card receipt, I wondered if I could write off this cost as a business expense because of my marketing survey – probably not.

Companies who don’t figure this out and harness it are going to end up burned, and badly. Those who do – like Marquette – will be there to embrace your customers, who have not only stopped doing business with your company, but will spread the fire of their negative experience online. It’s viral.  I’m already “over” my rant with my bank, because I’m so excited to see that social media is being leveraged successfully by other groups. So applaud my new friends @MarquetteBank because whether or not I end up doing business with them, they created instant goodwill and got themselves a CHANCE to do business with me.