Can you control the message in social media?
Trevor Cook is someone I've been following for some time, because of his insights in media and PR. He wrote this (altogether good) article. There was just one quote that got me thinking:
Business needs to keep perspective on social media – Corporate Engagement
The Obama campaign is the current gold standard of this approach – they controlled message but they allowed people a great deal of lattitude in the way they helped promote that message
I've read it a few times now, and I'm not sure.
Did the Obama campaign control message? They certainly created it, but did they really "control" it allowing people "lattitude" in the way they helped promote it?
I don't think so. I think the reason it is the "gold standard" is because they created the kind of messages people wanted to share and promote, and then created highly targeted tools and activities to enable these messages to be spread.
In fact, had they made any attempt to control the message (apart from correcting people when they misrepresented the message), the whole thing would have failed.
What do you think? Did I miss something here?
Food for thought – differentiating in a commodity market
A quick story about fresh food and little Aussie battlers.
In Australia the groceries business is largely controlled by two players, Coles and Woolworths. There are many things wrong with that. For example, you can imagine the negotiating power these guys wield over their suppliers. Or their motivation to give you the best products possible.
As a consumer, I care mostly about the quality of what I buy and the price I pay for that quality. Woolworth and Coles are falling over themselves to tell me that they are fresh food people (just like me, the recently told me in an ad). But I don't see it.
Then we discovered (through word of mouth) that there is a crowd called Aussie Farmers Direct, who decided that there may just be an alternative to dancing to the tunes of the big boys. 
They believed that there was room in the market for an old fashioned milkman, who delivers not only milk but juice, bread and fresh vegetables. We've started using this service and now get a weekly delivery of all the stuff that you need to get fresh. The only proviso is that they select the fruit and veg that go into the box, but if you like variety, that's ok. At pretty much the same price as the supermarket, but at superior quality.
Who would have thought that while they are taking the last remaining bit of service out of the supermarkets (they now want you to scan your own stuff), there is a good business in home delivering high quality produce?
So what are the magic marketing ingredients?
Good model – cut out the middle man, direct to the consumer
Good positioning - "Helping the Australian farmer" - "The Milkman is back"
Differentiated offering – home delivery, no more lugging the heaviest part of your groceries
Quality – no more good-looking but crappy tasting fruit and veg..
Word of mouth promotion – as a result of all of the above
Who says you can't differentiate in a commodity market?
Age of Conversation 2 – The Rising Water Level of B2B Marketing
Where we had 100 people collaborating on the first book, "The Age of Conversation", the sequel, "The Age of Conversation - Why don't they get it?" involved 237 people from around the world. My contribution this time around is called: "The rising water level of B2B Marketing", looking at how B2B marketers will have to change to adept to a new environment.
The topics people have written on are broad ranging, so there is a nice mix.
- Manifestos
- Keeping Secrets in the Age of Conversation
- Moving from Conversation to Action?
- The Accidental Marketer
- A New Brand of Creative
- My Marketing Tragedy
- Business Model Evolution
- Life in the Conversation Lane
I've chosen Business Model Evolution; here is a short bit of the intro:
In B2B, there is more often than not a lot of careful evaluation before any purchase decision is made. After all, a bad decision could potentially harm your career, or cost you your job. You look for recommendations through personal networks and word of mouth. Now, through social media, there is a network at your fingertips that is easier to access, and more powerful than anything you’ve ever seen. Suddenly, as a buyer you have more knowledge, more choice, more power and higher expectations.
All the proceeds are going to the Children's charity, Variety. If that alone is not enough reason to buy a book, consider this:
The 237 people who have participated are all passionate about the changing face of marketing. Some of these people are now recognised by the wider business community as experts in the rapidly evolving field of digital marketing/pr, social media, whatever tag you like to use. Some are not, but maybe they should be.
So what do you get for your money?
For $US 12.50 you can buy the e-book here.
For US$ 19.95 you buy the soft cover here, or the pretty hardcover for US$29,95 here.
A great effort again by Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton for organising this. An enormous effort for charity.
Check out the list of contributors:
Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G. Kofi Annan, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw and James G. Lindberg, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem
How much do you focus on competitors?
It's an interesting question. After all, our customers see us both and make their decisions accordingly. But where do you stop? How much information is enough, and how much is too much? It's quite easy to get a bit obsessive about competitors. If a competitor has a feature, you need it too. If the competitor enters a new market, you need to be there too. If they re-brand, we need to re-brand. If they drop their price, so should we.
Of course it is important to understand your competitors. After all, customers see you in this context and make their choices accordingly. You can't position your brand or solution in a vacuum; you position your brand in relative terms to others.
On the other hand, there are some real risks in putting too much focus on it.
Time – you have only a limited amount of time which needs to be divvied up between a broad range of marketing/business activity. If you spend most of it analysing others, you won't get much done.
Focus – you could end up following your competitors instead of leading the market, becoming a me-too provider and loosing the reason why people chose you in the first place.
Confidence – your customers don't just buy features, facts and figures. They buy on trust and you are an advisor to them. If your head is full of reasons why your competitors could be better, you'll lack conviction and confidence and people will pick up on that.
So what's the right balance?
That depends on how competitive your market is, but the first rule is to track and review with a purpose. If your purpose is to ensure your product/service development is in tune with market developments, do a quarterly review of your competitors offering and vital business stats.
If your purpose is to sell more effectively, focus on the information that is most important to your customers. Stuff that is either important to position your brand, or make to the sale. For your main competitors, write down the key reasons why your customers choose you over them, so you have a clear picture how you are positioned against each one. Equally, write down three arguments they use against you, and have a solid response. Not having to think about it when a customer asks you is in itself a pretty powerful statement.
In the end, competitors will always have features you don't have, but how often is that feature making or breaking the sale?
And how many brands do you know (and use) with products and services that may not be the best or the most complete, but you choose them anyway?
Accident or marketing strategy?
Google's Chrome browser needs more polish - BizTech - Technology - theage.com.au
"The browser was released this week after Google accidentally sent a comic book explaining Chrome's features to a blogger a day early."
Really? accidentally? Some online marketing strategist would see "leaking" a release to a blogger as the most effective way to ensure that the rest of the blogosphere would jump on board. Instantly reaching a hard core of "amplifiers" who like nothing more than a scoop. I'm a little surprised that this journalist didn't consider this scenario to be honest.
By the way, how smart is it to use a comic to explain utterly boring and dry stuff like Multi Process Architecture? How is that for an alternative to a press release and a brochure?
How web 2.0/social media is offering opportunities to B2B marketers
I subscribe to few newsletters these days, instead preferring RSS feeds, but the "Modern B2B Marketing" newsletter from Marketo is one that I like. Probably due to the easy lay out and great content. So the e-newsletter is not dead yet.
The discussion about social media/web 2.0 (I wish there was better terminology for this) tends to centre around consumer marketing, so this headline about B2B marketing got my attention.
It features Laura Ramos, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research (interviewed by Jon Miller from Marketo) who provides an interesting insight into how changes in the media environment (i.e. the fragmentation of media and the fact that we are all getting overloaded with communications) is starting to make B2B marketers look at other avenues beyond the traditional outbound marketing activities.
Engaging customers and prospects who are activly looking around for solutions to their problems with information and interaction that is relevant and valuable, seems to be a no-brainer. But how many organisations invest in this "pull" activity? With web 2.0/social media still in its infancy (especially in B2B marketing) there is a real opportunity to differentiate for those who take the lead.
Laura also offers specific examples of B2B marketers successfully using Web 2.0 tactics like rich media, blogging, RSS, and social networks. I'm not a great podcast consumer (because I'm impatient and want to scan for the good bits), but this was time well invested. Have a listen to this short, (10 minute?) podcast.
Using Digital, Web 2.0 Tactics to Boost B2B Marketing Results (Podcast)
B2B + social media = natural fit
For business, words like "social media", blogging, or Youtube don't often inspire a great deal of confidence. Really, they are mostly associated with staff wasting time on "socialising".
At best, social media is seen as an interesting experiment for consumer brands, but hardly a useful strategy for business to business marketing. But if you have a closer look, you might find a very different opportunity.
Social media : "Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into content publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers" (source:Wikipedia)
What are the most defining features of B2B marketing? Deep, one-to-one relationships, often built through personal interaction between individuals. We build these through face-to-face meetings, telephone contact, mail and email. We network at events designed just for that purpose. We present our ideas and innovations at industry seminars, and we know the incredible value of word-of-mouth in B2B marketing, so PR is often at the top of our list in terms of promotion.
So what is the strength of "social media"? One-to-one conversations and deep relationships. Word of mouth. PR. networking. Sharing and presenting ideas. A significantly higher profile online through improved search results.
Debbie Weil, (subscribe to her blog; it's fantastic) author and speaker on the use of social media and blogs for corporate organisations, wrote a little manifesto that sums it up nicely:
The Inflection Point of Corporate Blogging
- Blogs and other social media tools are here to stay
- Blogs are just next-generation Web sites
- Social media tools (RSS, blogs, podcasts, video, wikis, etc.) can be used by any company, large or small, B2C or B2B
- They symbolize community, conversation, mutual respect between users and an ethos of sharing
- These tools are more powerful at informing/influencing/persuading than traditional forms of marketing, advertising and corporate communications
- They help you get found online
- If you can't be found, you don't exist
Conclusion: This isn't optional
You gotta start using blogs, podcasts, online video (social media) today!
The opportunity: Carving out your niche is easier when you've got fewer competitors. When it comes to using social media in B2B marketing, there is still plenty of opportunity for you to be take the jump on your competitors. So don't wait. Get in now.
Looking for more ideas? Check out these blogs: Web Ink Now, by David Meerman Scott, his guest post on "The New Rules of B2B Marketing and PR", and Publishing 2.0, by Scott Karp.
Update: Hat tip to Bruce Nussbaum for highlighting this Business Week article by Stephen Baker and Heather Green: "Social Media Will Change Your Business"
Does digital marketing work for professional services firms?
Professional services firms should in theory be one of the most prolific users of the internet and digital media. Their business is about knowledge, ideas and relationships; perfect.
From my observations, they lag behind as an industry online, instead of leading the pack. I asked David Maister, one of the leading international business strategist focused on professional services what he thinks the role of digital marketing is in this industry, and he wrote a blog post that received a great response.
In the post, he notes although the opportunity to demonstrate expertise is there, he wonders how much hard evidence there is that it works for prof services, firms: "I’m not sure how much hard evidence there really is about the benefits of the web in marketing professional services" and; "It’s still early days for blogging, podcasting and videocasting, but I’d have to guess that, for most professional service firms, these are not high return activities – again, because I’m not sure that the “high-level” buyers are listening and watching."
After reading the comments from people who are in the industry and who consult on this topic (like Michelle Golden and James Cherkoff), I had a few thought about this.
Top tier firms vs mid tier and small business
Firstly, I asked an incomplete question. A small business local accountant is a completely different beast from a top tier, multi-billion dollar turn over business and their objectives will be different. For example, where everyone knows the top tier brands, one of the key objectives of small brands is simply getting on the radar of potential clients.
David wonders if the "high level" buyers are listening and watching online. He's probably right, but I think the real opportunity is in that the traditional media increasingly sources their ideas and content online. What if Bill D. Green CEO of Accenture wrote a blog? Would Wall Street Journal editors keep an eye out? You bet. David Meerman Scott's book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR offers some wonderful ideas about how to drive PR using the web.
Budget vs time
David Maister wonders how much of their budget he would advise his customers to dedicate. I think it is more about time than money. For most firms this is a greater constraint than money. Although the cost of distribution of ideas is cheap online, capturing and developing the sort of content that clients want to read is time consuming.
Marketing for talent
For many services firms, the "war for talent" may be a greater incentive to market online than anything else. Now, this audience will go online to listen and look and I know of many companies who spend most of their marketing budget on getting talent, rather than clients.
Opportunities
One of the key issues with professional services brands is that what is offered is really not that differentiated. The differentiation needs to be about how they do things; how their people are more accessible, more interested, more capable. How do you break down the barriers?
A nice example is Clayton Utz, a local Australian law firm using video in a very simple but effective way; two partners having a discussion about a specific topic of expertise. Apart from meeting these guys in person, there is nothing that will get me closer at a human, emotional level than watching them on video. It is exactly at this human, emotional level that business is won and lost when all else is equal.
Although the point David Maister makes about "proof that it works" is valid, if implemented properly, there is probably more metrics around online activity than say, sponsoring a yacht for a few million a year. To some extent it is also a chicken and egg question; if you don't invest in digital marketing you're probably not tracking it's performance either.
Now, where are the prof services firms with the hard facts?
PS: KPMG outperformed everyone this year and turned over $US 19 Billion. Judging by their website, their digital effort wasn't the one that delivered that growth:)
With thanks to David Maister for starting this discussion.
The Brand Gap – must see slideshow
Sometimes other people tell the story so well, you just get out of the way.
Click through to this simple, powerful presentation.
“Director, Differentiation Strategy” is a title at Boeing
Randy Baseler, CEO of Boeing and noted CEO blogger writes: "My colleague Blake Emery, who has the unique title of Director, Differentiation Strategy..."
What a great idea. A person whose sole focus is to differentiate the brand, the products and the services from competitors. It's explicit, it's on the agenda. I understand that on the average payroll there may not be room for a "Director of Differentiation" but there is still something really valuable in the idea.
Maybe rather than having a Director of Differentiation, you could have a loose team of people consisting of customer service, sales, product, services, operations, finance and marketing.
Marketing might take the initiative, but you rotate the chair between the participants to ensure everyone is engaged and committed. The agenda is clear from the start: "what can we do, what do we need to do, to improve our differentiation."
Many marketing thinkers now believe that marketing success in the future will rely more on "baking in" the interest, i.e. doing things that are of interest to your customers. (see Mark Earls post here and my follow up here)
In my post I wondered aloud about how to get this type of new thinking implemented under the pressure of delivering day-to-day results. If you believe that this is the way of the future for marketing and branding, then maybe a Differentiation Task Force is a great first step.
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