Tag Archives: social media

July 10, 2012 · 9:56 am

Marketing From A New Perspective

IBMconducts a survey of marketing professionals each year and the results are put out in a document called “The State Of Marketing.”

Image representing IBM as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

If you want to see a presentation about it, you can click through here to read 28 very interesting slides.  Generally, the document talks about how the role of marketing has expanded to let marketing take a lead role in the entirety of the customer experience but the part that I found most interesting was this:

More must be done to link insight to action for online visitor data…high performing companies leverage their online data in other channels.

Yet we still see the silos in place that are limiting the effectiveness of what activity is out there:

  • Only 22% currently run social tactics as part of integrated campaigns
  • 79% run social marketing in silos discretely and on an ad hoc basis
  • 51% marketers don’t use social media data to inform decision about marketing offers and messages.

The document goes on to talk about the need to integrate systems, budgets, and alignment.  Hard to argue with any of that and as companies change their marketing tactics from push to pull, they’re going to encounter another barrier:  time.  Whether we call it content marketing, inbound marketing, or something else, the purchase cycle is different for these types of messages and this kind of media.  The expansion of platforms from one main screen (the TV) to multiple screens (computers, mobile devices) is a huge contributor to the complexity of not just the message but also form factor.  As eMarketer stated in their summary of the report:

The continued fracturing of the media landscape has made it increasingly difficult for marketers to reach customers in large numbers. The poll found that the largest percentage of respondents, 41%, named the growth of marketing channels and devices as the top challenge to their company over the next few years.

It’s hard to change perspective, particularly when what we’re trying to hit is a changing and moving target.  This report is proof of that.  The thing we can all try to do as marketers is to keep an open mind, focus on the customer and not our own internal power bases, and look on this as a huge opportunity, not as a massive pain in the rear.  It’s a new perspective – I think those are always exciting.  You?

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June 21, 2012 · 8:32 am

The Social Hot Potato

An interesting read this morning from the folks at Genesys (with a hat tip to Media Post).

1 and a half russet potato with sprouts. Slice...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Genesys conducted a study that surveyed more than 798 senior executives worldwide about customer communication and found that the social and mobile channels are not yet aligned with customer service.  Shocking, I know.  Some key points:

  • Fifty eight percent of C-suite Execs see the CEO as responsible for the social media and mobile channels, but only 28 percent of middle managers agree. The disconnect between top-level and mid-ranking executives might be explained by the novelty factor of social media.
  • When it comes to driving the customer conversation, the marketing department, not customer service or the C-suite, is driving the response to new channels with 44 percent of executives saying the marketing department has dominated the dialogue between company and customer.
  • The report also found that 43 percent of companies only began using social media in the last year and only 11 percent of businesses have been using social media to communicate with customers for three years or more.
  • Customer Service has not been a priority with new communications channels. Only 42 percent of organizations use call centers to communicate with customers and just 6 percent see customer support/service as the main purpose of new communication channels.

A few thoughts.  In larger, more mature companies, the CEO is generally someone my age – well over 50.  One might wonder how familiar your stereotypical CEO is with social channels and what sort of daily (much less hourly) use they make of them.  No wonder the middle managers are a little skeptical.  The implied turf war between marketing, PR, and customer service over who is in charge is no surprise.  Nor is it a shock that companies that appoint a single person, instead of a team, to manage all communications were more successful. Thirty-three percent of executives within companies that have appointed a team to manage social media/mobile channels felt that there was a disconnect between teams that touch these channels. In organizations that had appointed a single individual to manage new channels, just 9 percent perceived the same disconnect.

Social media as a communications channel is a huge disruptor.  Those sorts of hot potatoes aren’t welcomed into most corporate environments.  As the study show, the social round peg isn’t fitting into any of the existing square holes.  The companies that are doing well are the ones that have drilled a round place.

Thoughts?

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June 19, 2012 · 8:50 am

Fear Of Flying

I used to travel by airplane a lot. 100,000 miles in a year was not unusual for a while there.

English: The view from a window of an airplane...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In general I got used to flying but like a lot of people I always had the panic button go off when we’d hit a rough patch or when landing in so-so conditions.

I bring this up today because a number of pieces I’ve been reading in corporate uses of social media remind me of the primary driver behind that occasional fear of flying: the sense of not being in control can be terrifying.

Media, and marketing media in particular, have always been subject to enormous control.  After all, what’s more important than the company message and how it’s presented?  Using social media is like raising a child.  You do the best you can before you send it out into the world, but once it’s out there anything can happen.

I’m struck by how many companies are investing in social media (according to one study, as many as 23 team members supporting social in big companies) and yet they might be doing so incredibly inefficiently.  I’ve found that social media teams tend to be decentralized and they often are a mix of in-house staff (who may or may not have much training), consultants and even community members. As a result there’s often confusion and off-message posts.  And that’s before the social sphere starts responding.  Marketers are doing a better job of monitoring relevant social activity but are often terrorized by what comes back (ask McDonald’s, LG, and other’s who’ve had hashtags hijacked).

We still need to get from point A to point B quickly so we get on the airplanes.  It’s the same with social media: we need to engage our customers and potential customers and social is becoming a major part of the marketing plan.  We make airplanes safer – we can do the same with social by doing a better job of monitoring and measuring results (and stop thinking that “likes” and “followers” are good metrics!).  We’re never going to get full control of either the plane or the social sphere, but we can get on board knowing we’ve done everything we can to assure a safe trip.

You on board?

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