Apr 4, 2012 | Marketing, Social Media
I find myself continually attempting to argue the case for investment in Social Media at the expense of more traditional broadcast and print media. Almost everyone I interact with from my large clients to the local tennis club fail to instinctively understand the full potential power of SM.
There is plenty around on the net shouting the advantages of SM, much of it with the objective of selling something, so it was great to come Across this report from Bain & Co “putting Social media to work” courtesy of Steve Goldner on his blog.
Then this morning, Mike Stelzner’s Social Media Examiner blog, a wonderful source of links, ideas, and tips published their 4th Annual Social Media Marketing report, which offers insights into the way marketers are using social media.
It is pretty clear that Marketing has been democratised by the web, Social Media Marketing is now mainstream marketing. It consumes huge resources, delivering huge benefits to marketers and their markets, despite the hubris, misunderstanding and snake oil salesmen that inhabit the marketing ecosystems.
Mar 29, 2012 | Change, Communication, Innovation, Social Media
It is all a matter of perspective.
Digital marketing implies an application of the existing disciplines of marketing, just tweaked a bit to accommodate the presence in the environment of digital options, facebook, linkedin, Pin it, and the rest.
Marketing in a digital world implies a pivot, the old rules no longer apply, because the world has changed.
Comscore has released their latest research, summarised and commented on in Mike Stelzner’s great Social Media Examiner blog. The impact of on line shopping, our seeming addiction to social sites and the opportunities to find new ways to engage with consumers as they conduct their digital lives, is delivering a host of new businesses, business models, and service opportunities not on the radar just a couple of years ago. Just look at the sudden emergence of cloud computing, the question is not where in the organisation responsibility for operating the cloud interactions should reside, but how can we best leverage the opportunities thrown up by this piece of the digital revolution.
Digital is no longer an option if medium term commercial survival is an objective, weather it be marketing, managing manufacturing, customer relationships and inventory, or just doodling, it is the other side of the inflexion point.
Not every body is there yet, but it will not be long, so don’t be late.
Mar 15, 2012 | Category, Collaboration, Management, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Produce marketers are not all that different to most FMCG marketers, except that the power of the retailer in produce categories is magnified by the total lack of proprietary branding, effectively insulating the consumer from the producer, making brand building and innovation a greater challenge. This lack of branding power and engagement with the consumer puts them at the mercy of retailers.
In an effort to put some parameters round the problems, the Mildura Development Corporation funded a study that sought to articulate the challenges and choices faced by producers in the Sunraysia region, particularly by drawing the comparisons with the competitive environment in the UK.
The headline elements in the conclusions are:
- The power of the retailer
- Scale of producer operations
- The role of the business model employed
- The increasingly critical nature of data, its collection, analysis and leverage potential
- Marketing choices made.
These factors are all connected in cause and effect relationships with each other, and with the customers, and consumers of produce, but most forget, or get confused about the differences in the approach, which can be summarised as:
Sell to your customers
Market to your consumers.
Perhaps the report can add to your thinking, contact me for a copy, or discussion.
There is a downloadable copy of the report in the “Sharing” pages of this site, let me know what you think of it.
Mar 13, 2012 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
This is a pretty common call amongst the junior marketing staff of my clients, most of them are familiar with facebook, they use it in their personal lives to fill a whole range of functions.
When asked “Why must we be on Facebook”? there is usually an awkward silence, and the standard response is likely to be something like “just because!”
Facebook, Twitter, and all the others are just tools, they are able to deliver an outcome, but it is the outcome that matters, not the tool, used to get there.
You measure the performance of a car on a journey in many ways, petrol mileage, comfort, handling, and so on, but the reason you get in the car is to get somewhere. Social media is no different, measures of the media themselves are just measures of efficiency, not measures of the outcome.
To make it worthwhile, to create engagement, to build a relationship, there must be something for the traveler at the end of the journey.
Mar 11, 2012 | Social Media
The phenomena that has been the Kony video over the last week, garnering over 67 million views at the time of writing this, on Sunday morning in Australia, has rewritten the Social media and charity fund raising record books. If there remained any doubt about the power of social media in the minds of those who seek to form and leverage public opinion, this will remove that doubt forever.
In the process, the focus of political power, the meaning of the word “politics” in its original sense, that of collective decision making by the people, has moved back to the people. We the great unwashed have at our disposal a tool that can bring integrity back to the process of government and decision making.
I have no doubt that the Kony video will bring forth claims of misused funds, personal agendas and ego courtesy of a wikileaks type process. However, the point remains, the world is now aware of a gross abuse that it has been able to ignore for 20 years, and should in conscience, ignore no longer.
That awareness was built in a week via social media, and the world just moved again!
Mar 7, 2012 | Social Media
The social tools of the net do not create collaboration, that urge is hard-wired into us. The net simply removes the barriers, and changes the rules about the means.
Now we no longer have to be able to have personal “face time” be in the same geography, or even share anything beyond the single purpose of the collaboration to make collaboration work, but I am yet to see an example where the collaboration is optimised without that face to face element.
Humans are social animals, so there will never be an adequate 100% substitute for the face -to-face interaction that enables the emotional connection so important to collaboration.
SM tools offer a huge benefit to enterprises of all types, but they are not the end, just a far better means than we have had until now.
The latest offering is Pinterest, which has come from nowhere in a very short time, the early adopter crowd are figuring out how best to use it, but it is just another tool to add to the box. It has its uses, but remember the old adage that if you want to drive a nail, a screwdriver is not of much use.
