Tag Archives: Social media marketing

September 9, 2015 · 9:00 am

Hearing Aids

One thing that I find when speaking with clients and others on the topic of social media is there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what social is all about. Most of them seem to approach social as yet another megaphone. The reality is that social media is a hearing aid. Most of them want to be speaking when they really ought to be listening, and that fundamental difference has resulted in some pretty disturbing trends.  

First, data shows that companies are speaking a lot more in social than they are listening. Brands send four times as many posts as replies, according to data from the latest Sprout Social survey. My guess is that this has to do with a couple of factors. First, the management team is still fixed on the old way of thinking about marketing: we talk, you listen. Second, this results in a content strategy, not a service strategy. Third, it’s easy to hire a single social manager who can schedule your posts in advance and work across many social platforms. All of this is pretty wrong in my book.

I won’t spend any time on the changed (notice past tense) nature of marketing. The customer is in control of the brand to a large extent –  deal with it. If you’re listening to what those customers are saying you must, be nature, be servicing what you’re hearing unless you don’t mind missing golden opportunities. Sprout Social’s data says brands are, in fact, doing just that. Most brands ignore 88% of messages on social media. That’s 7 in 8 social messages to brands go unanswered within 72 hours. Sad…

Finally, brands are not set up to support constant service. I know resources are a challenge, but as I’ve said to clients, if you can’t support a platform properly you need to wait to deploy there. Social media is still in its infancy, and like any infant it requires constant monitoring and support. Ignoring customers almost 9 times out of 10 is insane.

We need to be responsive and engaged.  We need to use the hearing aids and drop the megaphones.  You agree?

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September 1, 2015 · 11:00 am

CMO – uh oh…

I find research interesting. Maybe it’s my basic, curious nature or maybe I’m just nosy, but I enjoy reading studies of how businesses and consumers behave. Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised. More often than not, I’m a little shocked. Today is one of those times. The folks at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business have been conducting a survey of top U.S. marketers since 2008. You can read the latest CMO Study here. They released this year’s data and I found one section – the one on marketing analytics – particularly interesting. Let’s see what you think.

There are the headlines, as summed up in this analysis:

Just 31% of projects use available or requested marketing analytics, well within the 29-37% range seen over the past 3-and-a-half years, according to US CMOs responding to the latest edition of The CMO Survey. B2C product companies appear to be leading the pack in usage of marketing analytics, however, at twice the rate of their B2B product counterparts (45.6% vs. 22.8%). B2B product companies also give the highest rating to marketing analytics’ contributions to their firms’ performance. Overall, marketing analytics are most apt to be used for customer acquisition, customer retention, social media and segmentation, per the report.

Frankly, I’m not surprised but I am a little disappointed.  Two-thirds of the marketing work is still seat of the pants, basically, and it’s even worse when you’re marketing to other businesses.  I can sort of understand this last point – it’s hard to tell when a website or social visitor is a business target or just a random consumer that’s wandered on to your digital presence.  You B2C marketers, however, have no excuse.

What it really means is that companies lack quantitative metrics to demonstrate the impact of marketing spending.  That is a recipe for budget suicide.  It’s not just that they’re generally not using analytics.  The survey also asked about what data is being used.  Only 15% of firms able to prove the impact of social media quantitatively and four metrics dominate how companies show social media impact:  likes, general traffic, click-through rates, and hits/visits/page views.  In other words, the really broad, pretty useless measures.  I spend quite a bit of time with clients trying to get beyond those measures into data than can translate into actionable business decisions.  These generally can’t.

Any of us engaged in marketing need to become comfortable with analytics of all sorts.  They’re what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Fail to eat them and you’ll starve.  Are you coming to the table?

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August 7, 2015 · 10:01 am

The Lord Helps Those That Yelp Themselves

Let’s end the week with a Foodie Friday post about reviews.  There are lots of studies that will tell you just how important “social proof” is as consumers are checking out a prospective buy.  People want to take comfort in knowing that they are making a choice that others have made and felt good about.  Over 70% of Americans say they look at product reviews before making a purchase, and I suspect the number is no different for restaurants.  Because of that, it’s incumbent on every business to check out their reviews.  For restaurants, that means Yelp.

We went out for dinner the other night and I decided to post a review of the place.  We’ve been to this place a number of times over the years and love it, so I thought a positive review would be a nice thing for me to give in addition to my patronage.  Most of the reviews of the place are quite positive.  There were, however, a few one-star reviews (roughly 10% of the total) and they are what bring up the business point today.

You can’t let bad reviews hang around like an old plate of food.  They must be dealt with or eventually the smell will overpower everything else.  Bad reviews are also a great source of research.  In this case, there were complaints about undercooked rice on a few nights.  Who was cooking that night?  A couple mention slow service – was someone absent?  Sometimes the reviews are unfair – complementing the food and service and giving the place one star because you think the neighborhood is “sketchy” isn’t accurate.

So what do you do?  Read every review carefully – you can learn from the good ones and learn more from the bad.  If it’s bad, maybe you want to figure out if this is a legitimate complaint or just a troll (check out the reviewer’s other posts).  You’re going to respond either way.  Apologize, lay out the facts as best you can gather them, and promise to do better if given another chance.  Remember that most of the people reading reviews have no opinion of you (or the reviewer).

A recent Washington Post article mentions that most restaurants don’t hear directly from customers while they are having an issue.  Instead, 80% go home and write something.  Your reputation is one of any business’ most valuable assets.  You need to monitor it and, to the extent possible, control it.  Fair or unfair, that’s reality!

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