Category Archives: digital media

July 11, 2016 · 10:34 am

The Supermarket Doesn’t Take Shares

I almost called this post “Counting What Counts” but I thought it best to keep it even simpler to understand. I got into another discussion with someone not long ago about how they were measuring success. They have a fairly active social community – Facebook and Instagram primarily – and they were quite happy with how things have been going. The problem is that they’re focused on things other than those that create tangible value. That, to me, means cash because one of my other mantras is Cash Is King. You can generate all the shares and likes you want but the supermarket – or your investors/employees/vendors – doesn’t take shares or likes.

It’s great to foster engagement but the aim of that engagement should be to convert it into sales. Sometimes that conversion comes indirectly, I know, but if you’re tracking things with an eye toward cash, you’ll have a sense of where the conversion began and not just where it ends up (first click vs. last click for you data nerds out there).  Please don’t take that to mean that we should ignore folks who aren’t in a buying sort of mood right now. Consistent, user-focused engagement is the best way to assure that we will be on their radar when buying time comes around. Just don’t take the fact that you’ve got that engagement to mean that you’re making great progress until you can demonstrate that it’s resulting in something that will buy you a quart of milk.

Make sense?

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July 6, 2016 · 9:22 am

Open Your Ears

First things first: I swear this post isn’t about golf.ClickZ

I recently joined a new golf club. What has impressed me so far has been the proactive customer service.  After almost every round I receive a quick (5 questions) survey about my experience at the club that day. Was the course in good shape? The food ok? Any staff issues? I also received a survey last week since it was the end of a half-year. That was a more in-depth questionnaire (but not burdensome). I know, by the way, that these are being read because I made a comment on one of them and the club GM sought me out to answer it in person after my next round. I’ll admit that this is an extreme and I can see where it might be annoying for many consumers to have a follow-up post-mortem after each interaction.

I’ll also admit that I’m baffled by the companies that ignore the basic customer feedback mechanisms they already have in place. Name a business without a Twitter account or a Facebook page or at least a website with a “contact us” button. Pretty hard to do. Yet studies show that 45% of consumers will abandon a purchase if they can’t get answers to their questions. They use social channels to get them and yet businesses keep ignoring them. At least a third of these interactions go unanswered.

So in the words of the Jerky Boys, open your ears, jackass. As you can see in the graphic from ClickZ, the differences in long-term results for a business are very tied to how that business services its customers. Negative experiences have ripples as dissatisfied folks tell their friends, post reviews, and go elsewhere. If they’re doing so via social channels, and most are, then isn’t it incumbent upon every business to listen and react? Especially to the customers who come to you for a response first?

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June 30, 2016 · 11:15 am

You Need To Own It

Since today is something called “Social Media Day” (when is it not?), I’d be remiss if I wrote about something other than a big topic in social media. Depending on your perspective, Facebook announced something yesterday that will either have you jumping for joy or throwing your hands up in frustration. As they put it in their announcement:

Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Fr...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We’ve heard from our community that people are still worried about missing important updates from the friends they care about. For people with many connections this is particularly important, as there are a lot of stories for them to see each day. So we are updating News Feed over the coming weeks so that the things posted by the friends you care about are higher up in your News Feed.

Can’t get enough of those pet pictures, I know.  But if you’re a publisher who has carefully cultivated a Facebook community over the last few years, this is really bad news. It decreases the likelihood that your audience will see your posts. When Facebook has become the source of a significant portion of your traffic (research says in the 40% range for many publishers), that’s not good. As an aside, there is more good information on this here.

Of course, the cynic in me wants to remind you that one can always purchase traffic from Facebook via ads and that despite Facebook’s statements that this is only to serve users who want to see those pet photos, it’s really a move to generate more ad activity. That’s fine. Facebook is there to serve its shareholders and it’s a business.

What this should also serve to do is to remind us that we need to own the audience and the platform. We can’t rely on third parties such as Facebook or Google to keep our communities (and content) front and center.  History tells us that the rules will change and that those platforms will come and go (Friendster, MySpace). Your community isn’t a bunch of bedouins who will decamp and follow you anywhere.

I’m always amused when a client asks if they should invest less on their own website and more on building a presence on third parties. You can guess my answer: own it! Do you?

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