If you haven’t started following Tom Fishburne, please start today! His latest post really got me thinking… How useless social media is if you don’t have strong fundamentals. Social media is just another latest new trick in a marketer’s bag. But, it’s not the only trick. And just because it’s new and shiny still doesn’t mean it’s the best trick.

His post all started with Mark Ritson’s column. In which, he asserts that “Most brands don’t have the newsworthiness, broad appeal or dynamism to have any chance of making Twitter work for them.” So, get the fundamentals right. Don’t expect your consumers to “fan” you because you have a facebook page. They will “fan” you if they have been a fan. They become a fan when you get every other piece of the marketing mix right (you know, those dang Ps, like having the right product, at the right price, at the right place, backed by the right promotion).

Photo credit: Intersection Consulting

Related articles online

• Social media isn’t a magic wand (chelpixie.com)

Marketers like to talk about social media as a marketing platform. How can we get the message out? How can we control the message? How can we leverage this? Well, here’s the thing. The thing about social media is that it is in fact a media venue. (I heard about the health care reform on social media channels before I caught it on traditional news channels.)

Recently, I learned an equation from Michael Levine’s book, A Branded World: Adventures in Public Relations and the Creation of Superbrands. Branding = marketing + advertising + public relations.

Branding is the all encompassing effort of building a brand. It starts with marketing. Marketing defines the strategy. Marketing defines the 4Ps. Marketing defines the positioning.

Marketing’s plan gets translated into words and visuals through advertising.

Public relations builds on the advertising campaign and turns marketing’s plan into actions. Such actions include gathering media attention.

In that case, social media really falls into the realm of public relations. You build a relationship with bloggers the same way you build a relationship with traditional journalists. You “control” the message the same way – truthfully, honestly, and organically. It’s the same idea as controlling the press. Today, in addition to asking the question “What would the press say?”, we need to also ask “What would the world say?”

The world may be changing, but the basics still hold.

Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

As a young marketer, I have learned so much from so many on the internet. Recently, I participated in a discussion about the difference between a brand and a commodity. In this discussion, I came across an experienced marketer that gave me so much to think about. It also inspired my contribution this week on CPG Branding and Marketing Forum. Check it out here!

In so many ways, the internet has been a wonderful tool. Yet, as a marketer, the internet has brought many headaches.

As the digital world grows more and more robust, brand managers are struggling to keep up. There are many whispers about control. Have marketers lost control? Have the newly empowered masses took control? How would marketers regain control? Should marketers try to go backward or just go forward? Are marketers even equipped to do our jobs in this changing world? Or does this new world of marketing require a different set of skills? A different way of thinking?

There are many questions, yet there are few answers.

We may not have the answers. We may not be ready. But the world is changing. I know that as a marketer. I also know this as a consumer. Last week, I was trying to attend a virtual event. I had problems logging in. My first thought was to twitter for help. My second action was to comment on the facebook wall of the organizer. I did not do so for the sake of whining and complaining. I did so expecting help. In fact, I expected immediate help!

The old rules of marketing are becoming null and void. Yet, new rules have not been thoroughly defined. The internet has the power to influence everything. But how? We thought that the internet killed the TV. Yet, the recent Olympic Games show that there is a water cooler effect of sort that’s happening online, thus boosting TV viewership! So, the internet is killing and reviving TV at the same time. It’s a very confusing time, where the rules of game are constantly revolving.

And it’s not even just about the internet. So much is changing so fast. But, each of that deserves their own posts. Watch out for them!

It’s a challenging time to be a marketer, but an exciting time.

More reading:
Water-Cooler Effect: Internet Can Be TV’s Friend
WSJ.com – Establish Brand Image in Online Media

Photo Credit: takuhitosotome

This week I learned that the more money you have, the less time you have to spend on any particular tasks. You could hire someone to do it for you.

However, if you don’t have the money, you’d have to spend more time.

This is the equation that any marketer must understand. You don’t need to have a lot of money to have a successful campaign. However, the smaller your budget, the harder each dollar must work, the more creative you’d have to be, the more work you’d have to do yourself. The larger the budget, the more crazy stuffs you could try, the more you could have someone else do the work for you.

However, a small budget shouldn’t limit the success of your marketing campaign.

What’s sad is that this formula, that’s so obvious with small businesses, is sometimes forgotten by big companies.

This is the new economy. This is the new reality. This is a new year. This is the new budget. Everyone of us needs to learn to do more with less.

Photo Credit: funny money, originally uploaded by Material Boy.

Related articles online

• Marketing outside the box (thestar.com)

Why hasn’t more companies adopted social media? Because social media is not social at all.

According to a recent study, only 20% of tweets are meant to share information. 80% of tweets are private thoughts that just happened to be shared with the world. However, that’s still a private transaction. That social media network is a small group of friends, and that tweet is the electronic version of a private conversation.

Consider my version of the real-life equivalent: An email conversation is completely private. That’s like a group of people in a closed door room having a conversation. A tweet, for these 80% of people, is a conversation that happens in a public place. Since it’s a public place, sometimes people overhear and chime in. “Sorry, I hear you’re talking about that new restaurant. I was thinking about going, you say it sucks?”

So, yes, private conversations can be extended to strangers. However, these are still strangers. At the end of the conversation, each party goes back to their separate ways.

Now, if this stranger happens to be Oprah, you may all of a sudden call Oprah a “friend”. “Oh yeah, Oprah and I the other day was talking about restaurants. She suggested that I should go try the one on ABC Street.” Now, of course, this doesn’t have to be Oprah. This could be a local celebrity, or a celebrity within a specific circle. Or, just someone, someplace, something that’s well known and well regarded within a specific audience.

Or, if you happen to run into this particular stranger everywhere, you may begin to be interested in getting to know this stranger. Obviously, you have like interests. (For example, I have made it a point to get to know someone after seeing that particular person at various art shows around town.)

My hypothesis is that social media works the same way.

If you are strangers, you will remain strangers. There are a few ways to overcome this. One of which is to form an offline relationship. Be the Oprah that they want to get to know better. The other way is to engage your audience in their natural habitat and keep “running into them”. That’s why musicians were successful with myspace. Recruiters are successful with LinkedIn.

This may also explain why Twitter is particularly challenging for marketers. There are no specific purposes for Twitter. Twitter is a public plaza. Many different conversations happening, but it’s virtually impossible for a marketer to form an engaging relationship with any one of them. It’s very similar to a marketer holding a product demonstration in a public plaza. People may just ignore them, or they stop, watch, and move on because they’re there to meet someone. They don’t have time for marketers.

That doesn’t mean that Twitter doesn’t have value to marketers. What’s a better way to disseminate news about a crisis than to use a speaker over a public plaza? No one putting up a flyer would ignore the public plaza, because at the end of the day, it’s a numbers game and there are a lot of eyeballs in a public plaza. Twitter works the same way.

In conclusion, social media has its value, but as always, it’s only a part of your marketing mix. Perhaps even only a small part.

Link: STUDY: 80% of Twitter Users Are All About Me

Photo credit: New York Public Library Outdoor Plaza, originally uploaded by celikins.

I was shopping the other day and noticed a product on-shelf that had the coolest packaging. Then, I read Brandweek, and noticed that an article in there was featuring this packaging, and the strategy behind it. I was just about to tweet that article… but I stopped myself.

As I was finishing up the article, I realized that the article went on and mentioned several products that my company was in direct competition with. This was where I stopped with tweeting process. I found myself asking the question: if I tweeted this, would I be somehow endorsing my competitor?

I was not asking this question because I would think that my company would somehow get involved. I was asking this question because I am loyal to the entity that pays my paycheck. Why would I want to promote my competitor, even if it’s only in the most indirect way… I wouldn’t want to do it offline or online.

Now, this made me reconsider who controls the information on the social networks?

First, let’s consider that much of the information on the social networks first get circulated by a few social media celebrities. These celebrities have large circle of influence on the various social networks. Their friends / fans / followers on these social networks redistributes the information. So, on and so forth, and the information spreads.

Many of these social media celebrities are self-employed consultants. However, many of them also have ties with big corporations. They could have projects with them. They could be employed by them during the day. They could be formerly employed by them. They could just have lots of friends in these big corporations. They could just love the products these corporations make. So, are the information they provide completely neutral and without bias?

I think we know that these individuals have enough influences in their own rights that they are quite free to speak their mind. However, to say that their real-life connections with these corporations have no bearing on their message seem just naive. Their messages are always influenced by their real-life experiences with the companies.

Social networks online are always ever-so-intricately intertwined with real-life experiences offline.

What does this mean?

I’ve heard too many comments that go along the lines of “how should my company leverage social networks?”

For many companies, the right question to ask should be “how should my company leverage my real-life networks online?”

Companies have long talked about their fear of participating on social networks, because they’d lose control. The truth is the only thing they ever controlled was how people would interacted with their brands. If they have 100% control of this, they have control of social media.

If you know that every interactions people have with your brand is positive, messages about your brand on social media would only be positive. Nothing has actually changed.

Photo credit: most talked about brands – 2008, originally uploaded by Will Lion.

I’ve been reading a lot of Al Ries recently, and I have learned a lot from his books. If I have to pick one lesson to highlight, it’d be focus, focus on being the best you.

Today, Facebook bought FriendFeed.

Big news for the social web.

The objective for Facebook purchase is assumed to gain FriendFeed’s search capabilities to better compete with Twitter. *This is simply a speculation. Maybe Facebook would not utilize this acquisition to make itself more like Twitter, via new search functions. But then, why buy FriendFeed?

However, why can’t Facebook define a separate but distinct niche from Twitter altogether? Why can’t the two be complimentary to each other and in fact grow the usage of social web in general? It is the whole growing the pie versus growing your own slide of the pie story.

(Hmm… pie…)

In fact, Facebook and Twitter probably already occupy different spaces in users’ minds. This article on Mashable highlights a great discussion on this topic. Facebook is for people to connect with friends. Twitter is for people to follow complete strangers. So, what purpose does it serve to make them look more alike? Shouldn’t they instead play to their differences and to their respective brand equities?

So, Facebook, instead of striving to be the best Facebook, it is trying to be the best Twitter. Hmm…

Why are branding basics so counterintuitive to us marketers / business owners, in our constant quest for the more, more, more?

Photo Credit: Pie chart, originally uploaded by net_efekt.

Story: Today, I got called by my Financial Advisor’s office. She was following up on if I received a form that needed me to sign. I rather quickly said no. Then I scrambled to my “to-do” pile to see if I forgot it in that pile. Nope. So, I hung up with the agreement that they will mail me a new form. Then, I walked over to my console table, and remember that I have the “still-need-to-go through” pile. Then, there it was: An unopened envelope from my financial advisor’s office. I opened it immediately, and called the office back. I found the form.

Insights: From that story, I had two insights.

1. I get way too much mail, and it takes me a long time to go through all my mail. Between junk mail, free magazines, paid magazines, newsletters, the useful and important mail often get lost in the piles.

2. In the world of emails, texts, etc., phone calls, a rather old fashion way of involving your customer, still works.

Conclusion: In today’s world, consumers are overwhelmed by information. High touch methods of consumer engagement remain to be the best way to break through the clutter, and differentiate you from your competition. Is that difficult to execute? Is that costly to execute? Yes and yes. But, consider this alternative: You choose the easy and cheap route, and your competitor choose the hard and expensive route. Who do you think would win in the end?

Photo credit: Why Didn’t You Call Me?, originally uploaded by bitzcelt.

I watch a lot of TV. Inevitably, I watch a lot of TV commercials.

And perhaps I’m growing old and have already started reminiscing about the good old times… when TV commercials actually featured company websites.

Within one show, I have seen multiple commercials that had a call-to-action to a social media site, such as facebook and youtube.

I posted about a month ago asking Whose Commercial Is It? when commercials place more attention to an iPhone app than having a good service / product.

At that time, I commented that Coldwell Banker’s execution was an interesting approach. They integrated the technology message with their superior service message. Technology, including apps, would just be another way for them to service you better. Today, they employed the same approach with www.youtube.com/coldwellbanker. It was just another way for them to deliver valuable information. However, I questioned if this was necessary. Couldn’t the video live on their own branded website? Well, at least youtube gave you the ability to brand a “channel” completely and entirely. So, I guess if you had to pick a social media site, youtube would be a good choice.

On the other hand, www.facebook.com/hgtv was, in my opinion, less successful. The commercial did not point you to HGTV.com for more design tips, etc. There wasn’t even a “be a friend with the designers” type message. The website was just there. What’s the point? Why? In addition, in case you didn’t know, there was no way to brand a facebook page.

So, yes, I ask, what has social media done to branding?

Though, Coca-Cola demonstrated that there is a way to be both social media savvy (is that a phrase?) and be mindful of your brand equity at the same time. They launched their own version of short URL with cokeurl.com, fully branded. This allowed them to be friendly with social media, while making sure that their brand got all the attention it deserved.

So, my conclusion is: Being savvy about social media is great. But being involved with social media is at the end of the day a tactic. Social media marketing is just part of the marketing mix of a given marketing campaign. But any good marketing campaign has to be good at the basic. And the brand will always be the foundation of any marketing campaign. You have worked hard to build your brand, and your brand, hopefully, will last forever. Marketing campaigns, and the associated marketing mix, will change. Never compromise your forever for the sake of now.

Photo credit: Wordle Cloud of the Internet Marketing Blog – 08/15/08, originally uploaded by DavidErickson.

When is it fair to judge? I don’t know… but I know that I do it anyway, fair or not.

I have long subscribed to various marketing emails, etc. But, as you may know from my previous post, I only recently discovered the wonderfulness that is Twitter. Now, everywhere I go, I see Twitter’s impact, potential, usefulness, etc.

As you may also know, I started with Twitter is because as a marketer in this day and age, I must be at least be familiar with these social media applications.

So, I ask the question: If you don’t tweet, are you a true marketer?

I know, that’s a pretty broad question. And of course, I know that the answer is “it depends” for those of you who speak the “it depends” speak. Others may quietly say “of course” because you’ve been in marketing for, well, forever. Still others would yell “No way!”

Well, I must say that I empathize with all of the above.

HOWEVER!

I subscribe to a newsletter that specializes in direct-to-consumer marketing. As I look for people I want to follow on Twitter, I thought I’d look up the editors of this newsletter. Curiously, I couldn’t find the first one, the second one, or any one of them. Not even the one who was supposed to be covering “all aspects of e-commerce and online marketing.”

Now, I understand plainly that this newsletter is supposed to cover more of the tested and true DTC tactics. But, if the guy who was supposed to be the guru on the online aspect isn’t jumping on the social media bandwagon at all, I question how in touch they are with the current marketing environment. Even if the newsletter doesn’t specifically cover social media marketing as an area of interest, the people behind it should be all over social networking… shouldn’t they? Or am I judging them unfairly just because they don’t have a Twitter account?

Another question that may be worth asking… am I really the only one who may judge them so?

twitter – What are you doing?, originally uploaded by keiyac.