Archives for posts with tag: social platforms

Social Media: All in or go home

June 7, 2012 //

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Let’s face it:

  • It’s hard to reach people on Twitter and Facebook.
  • It’s even harder to get a decent engagement; the platforms are not helping your quest.
  • It’s hard to scale social media and have a decent reach.

Still, there’s immense value for social platforms as simple customer service, community building and listening tools. If you have people that want to connect with your brand, why would you put up barriers to prevent that interaction. There’s a lot of value in talking to 0.98% of your customer base than talking to nobody, and it can make you a lot of money.

Don’t bother doing it part time.

You can’t log-in to Facebook once a day for a few moments and hope to get something out of it for your business. Don’t bother conversing on Twitter for 10 minutes a day and expect any ROI. You will never keep people interested in you or looking for you if you are never there. This means content and persistence. It means having a thick skin and showing a human face for your brand.

It takes a lot of energy and effort to build an online community for your business. We create and manage content for multiple clients. It’s hard work. It’s worth it. We helped brands to extend their reach and awareness dramatically to where now we can actual redirect some of my time to other areas of marketing to grow even bigger.

Social Media is worth it because you get a multitude of value back. Sales. Feedback. Engagement. Customer Loyalty. There’s one caveat:

You have to be all in or not at all.

The good news is there is help. You can learn. It is fun. The resources often are mostly time. But if done right the return on that time can be immense.

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Farewell Facebook

August 15, 2011 //

A short movie produced by the Dutch producers Joep van Osch and Casper Eskes asks good questions: What the hell are we actually doing on Facebook? Does it make any sense? Should we “friend” people we barely know? Are we creating a virtual character just to please your Facebook friends?

Rethink your personal Facebook Strategy

A Facebook strategy, really? I thought it’s about sharing  whatever you want to with your friends?

No, it’s not.

You’re developing a virtual brand. Don’t think you can be real on social networks. You shouldn’t be. You don’t want to air your last fight with your spouse on Facebook. Have a serious discussion about your relationship on Twitter.

You gotta be careful.

Never say anything about your clients. Ever.

Never say anything real about your relationship. Ever.

Never be real.

Be Facebook real.

Showcase your strength. Showcase what you want to stand for. So many people talk about authenticity. It’s all garbage. You don’t want to be real on Facebook. You want to be Facebook real.

Don’t share everything. Especially the negative parts.

Share enough. Especially the negative parts.

Don’t convey the Unicorn world.

You’re better than that. You’re real. Just be real in the limits Social Networks put you in. Don’t go all out.

The semi-reality of Facebook

Nobody is a real person on Facebook.

You push your all-time-best pictures in albums. Or on Instagram.

You showcase your best thinking, your best information you gather.

It’s not enough.

You have to refine your Facebook strategy even more.

Don’t define authenticity as a picture from a party.

Define it as new way of thinking, ideas you want to share with people.

Make your own Internet better than just a reunion-stirring-memories-hurting platform.

Make it a platform to define yourself. You can change any day and become some other person. (At least, we in Los Angeles can.)

Why not change your presence on social platforms. Try to be the person you want to be.

More helpful.

More value-adding.

Just a better person.

You don’t become a lesser person because of this.

You become a better person.

Because you are aware.

Because you are.

That’s enough.

What about brands?

The same applies to brands.

Authenticity and transparency doesn’t mean you have to share everything with everybody. People don’t really care about all the customer complaints you field each and every day. They don’t want to hear about the tiny details of your production process.

They want their problems solved.

And they want to find out if your brand matches up with their Facebook persona.

How does your brand fit into their Facebook being? How does it make them look better?

No wonder so many people click on or “like” charity/CSR initiatives. It makes them look better. (“I care. I’m not one of these mindless consumers. I’m a responsible customer.”)

Highlight things and initiatives that make the customer look better. That’s what Social Media marketing is all about.

Make the customer look better.

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The secret sauce of Digital Marketing

March 4, 2011 //

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This column appeared first on Jack Myers’ MediaBizBloggers site.

Are you tired of the “10 rules how to succeed in Digital Marketing”? Or the “Top 50 things to do on Social platforms”? Me too. The secret sauce of Digital Marketing is not complex and doesn’t require many ingredients.

There are only two rules you need to follow

Yup, two. Not 10. Not 545. Two.

When you follow these rules, your digital campaign will succeed. Your social media initiative will garner the desired results and your clients will be really happy.

Rule 1: Be valuable

Do something that makes my life easier. More entertaining. Makes me think. Makes me laugh. Smile. Cry. Connect with other people. Anything that adds value.

Rule 2: Be humble

Be a nice person. Don’t push out messages like a machine, don’t focus on your own needs and not on mine. Be polite. Be kind. Be attentive. See yourself as a servant, not as a general that targets people. And launches campaigns.

Put these two ingredients in your next campaign and you will be fine. (Between you and me: These two rules work for everything. Work. Life. Love. But, I’m, sure you know that.)

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If you're everywhere, you're nowhere

December 29, 2010 //

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One of the keys to being successful in the marketplace is to be findable. For many companies that translates into trying to be everywhere. It speaks to the old broadcasting mentality of filling every empty minute, space and sound wave with messages. And so companies have presences on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Foursquare and and and. Mostly coupled with a weak infrastructure to support all these platforms, presences and initiatives.

These unfocused efforts often lead to deserted fad islands and empty bandwagons.

It’s more valuable to each stakeholder to identify first where your audience is and will be in the future. Join them in the best way you can. Take a long, hard look at your real capacity to add value to a platform. If all you be is mediocre, stay away. Build your infrastructure first and then join your audience. Not the other way around.

Your marketing shouldn’t be run by Google and SEO lords whispering in your ear to build more and more places and links. Your marketing should be run by the desire to provide something special and valuable.

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The myth of creating communities

November 15, 2010 //

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Brands often consider creating communities on their site or social platforms. It sounds so appealing: You create a community and now you have an easily accessible group of people that you can engage and converse with.

The problem is: You can’t create communities

Think about your local community. It wasn’t created by plopping down a Starbucks, Target or a local snack shack and then hoping for people to show up. Communities are places where like-minded people can come together. That’s why you have art communities, food communities, religious communities – you name it. And that’s the reason why certain stores and brands don’t work in your community because they don’t understand the mindset of your local world.

In the digital space, brands often consider communities as a place to be worshipped by people. Instead, online communities are places where like-minded people hang out and, if you’re really lucky and doing a great job managing the community, where people can interact with brands and tell them how to do a better job delivering their product/service. At the minimum, brands need to help communities do what they want to do. Brands need to give people something concrete to gather around for. You have to kill your corporate hubris and believe that participants in your community can actually improve your product/service. Foster discourse and an open exchange of ideas.

Tap into the need of people to be heard: People have transformed from passive consumers to active collaborators and co-creators of the products and services they produce. These principles help you tap into the power of communities by developing a foundation of trust, motivating people to become more active participants and providing access to peer group knowledge and skills. It requires a lot of work and community management to tap into the power of communities. You don’t create communities, you merely help them get things done. On their terms. Based on their needs. Not yours.

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