Web-based social marketing (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,
Google+, etc.) has been called the wave of the future in marketing, yet
most companies are struggling to make it work for them. In my opinion,
the primary reason this happens isn't the fault of the social marketing
platform. Social marketing, as a whole, is far too powerful.
Imagine launching a business in the '80s. Your marketing choices
were direct mail, newspaper advertising, magazines, billboards,
television, radio, trailers before movies and videos, city buses and
skywriting among others. No business would be marketed effectively
using all of these, and as the CEO you would bring in dozens of experts
with different perspectives, and you would write lots of checks.
Today the Internet has crippled direct mail, newspaper and
magazine advertising. Television and radio are on the hot seat. Videos
and DVDs are dying businesses. It's just a matter of time before
billboards and even city buses are interactive. So skywriting is the only
form of marketing that won't be effected by the Internet, for the
foreseeable future. Unless the bulk of your marketing money has been
spent in skywriting, I strongly recommend strengthening your Web
presence.
Mistake #1: Expecting Too Much, Investing Too Little
As we've seen this network of wires has become incredibly powerful
and dynamic. Time and time again I've heard "But, we're on the
Internet and it doesn't work for us."
The Internet is not a medium, it's a highway for transporting
media. Develop your marketing plan, then develop each individual message.
Talk to experts (true experts, not those who claim expertise) and produce
the content. Finally, track your results and make adjustments. This
powerful set of tools gives you the capability to go to market rapidly at
reduced cost, but it's not a magic wand.
Mistake #2: Cheating for Followers and Fans
Everybody knows that having a 100,000 twitter followers and 10,000
Facebook fans means that you are awesome in marketing, right?
Unfortunately, that's wrong. Quantity doesn't equal quality. Let me share
a very specific example.
I own another business, a small gourmet tea company. I started
this business with two clear-cut goals. First, I wanted to test my
knowledge of online marketing. I've grown a nice little business in the
past 18 months using exclusively web-based marketing. Second, I want to
sell the business and be financially able to retire in five years. That
means rapid growth and creating a company that can operate independent of
me.
I'm growing a company slow, specifically because I want to be able
to test every marketing concept we develop with extreme accuracy. So
here's how I turned 400 twitter followers and 300 Facebook fans into 1800
new customers in 24 hours.
We scheduled a 48-hour promotion and spent 30 days identifying
individuals on twitter and Facebook that would help us promote the event.
We found food bloggers, freebie and giveaway promoters, coupon sharers,
niche celebrities, and a few friends and family. We told them of the
upcoming promotion, and where appropriate, gave some boxes of tea and
created a tiny amount of excitement.
Precisely at noon on a Thursday we sent out a Tweet simultaneously
on Twitter and Facebook.
In the first hour, we got 30 orders for our promotion averaging
only two dollars each.
Momentum gradually picked up. In the first 23 hours we sold to
roughly 600 people, and the average order was now around nine dollars. We
were getting approximately one order per minute. We were well on our way
to achieving 1000 sales in 48 hours, our original goal.
Then... Critical Mass! By this time, hundreds of people had
re-tweeted the special offer, including a well known professional
athlete, who is sitting in her Paris apartment drinking afternoon tea and
reading condolences from her fans after being eliminated early from the
French Open tennis tournament.
Between 11 AM and 12:20 PM we received 1200 orders before we
turned off the promotion early. Unfortunately, while we were expecting a
big bump, we couldn't let the promotion run its course. In a single hour
we generated over $10,000 in business and sold our entire inventory.
At the end of the day we only had 430 twitter followers and 390
Facebook fans, less than a 10% increase on twitter, and less than 33% on
Facebook. However, we had captured 1800 new customers (and their e-mail
addresses and physical addresses). This event became the cornerstone of
our e-mail marketing for the next 12 months.
By the way, our little website was viewed by over 20,000 unique
visitors during that hour.
Focus your efforts on finding fans and followers who influence
people that can buy your product.
Mistake #3: Being Unprofessional
This is an easy one, and the mistake that thankfully few of you
are making. We've all heard the stories of the elementary school teachers
who put drunk party pictures on the web, the law school candidate who
brags about his marijuana use, and my personal favorite the mid-level
tech company executive complaining about her boss and accidentally
exposing trade secrets.
Whenever you put content on the web, expect that everyone in the
world can see it and its permanent. If you use this as your rule of
thumb, you'll always be safe. I pushed the envelope once with my
writings, my faith, and my politics however I'm not ashamed of anything
published on any of the websites where I participate.
Mistake #4: Being Too Professional
The name "Social Media" is social by definition. The
reason why it possesses extreme power and possibility is that social
aspect. We've always known that word-of-mouth marketing is the most
powerful. All of our most effective marketing efforts in the past depend on
generating word-of-mouth awareness.
When you spend $2 million per 30 seconds on the Super Bowl, you do
so not because of the viewers, but because you'll be part of
conversations the next day.
An effective campaign brings a personal touch to your company. Use
your social media experiences to build relationships, one-on-one, not
business-to-business, and your promotions will be far more effective.
Mistake #5: Pretending Your Company Is a Person
This mistake is probably the most common I've seen in our industry.
Lots of you have developed personal profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn
under the names of your company.
This is wrong. If someone told you to do this, they are wrong!
Facebook profiles are for people, Facebook pages are for
businesses. Learn the idiosyncrasies of the two and you will be far more
successful. Even if you have been successful using a personal profile for
business, you're putting yourself at risk. It's always been part of the
terms of service that Facebook profiles are exclusively for real people.
Recently they've been enforcing the policy. If you are doing business
using a personal profile with your company name it's a matter of time
before the profile is turned off permanently.
Develop a Facebook page that accepts fans for your company. Have
everyone that works for your company develop a Facebook profile. Using a
wide variety of people in your company to attract people to your Facebook
page is a powerful technique that works... and it doesn't violate rules
or etiquette.
There are "marketing gurus" and well-meaning, but
uninformed, franchise development people that are encouraging the use of
Facebook profiles but this practice will ultimately put your company
at risk.
The Future of Marketing
Social media is truly the future of marketing. You can build
relationships faster, more effectively, and more efficiently than ever
before. You owe it to yourself to develop solid marketing plans,
effective campaigns, and a collection of resources and experts that can
help you implement.
Either that, or buy
yourself an old Piper Cub and learn skywriting.
Mourning the Loss of a Friend
