Corporate Social Media

Having gone to the panel, Stories from the Frontline - Building a Social Media Business, more than a couple weeks ago, and only recently having taken a read through the notes from my friend, Tan Lam who manages Social Media at Specialized Bikes, this is a post probably a bit late in the making.  But there are a lot of relevant ideas that I think are worth sharing.  The panel consisted of Benn Parr, Co-Editor, Mashable; Blake Cahill, Senior VP of Marketing, Visible Technologies; Louis Gray, Managing Director, New Media, Paladin Advisors Group; Emely Melton, Partner, Mayfield Fund;Augie Ray, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research; and Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp, Inc.

While it’s no surprise that the main topics touched upon hovered around localization, the focus of the panel centered on how companies can leverage social media to actually make money.  One of the major points, which I have made a number of times in this blog, is that there is going to be an ever increasing need for companies to take advantage of tools to parse the conversations happening out there.  Monitoring effectively and then taking action on those conversations that will have an impact on the bottom line is going to get harder and more important over time.

Social media is not a one size fits all.  It requires creativity and attention (in real-time), and for many local businesses, this is a pretty hard thing to do… or least get a handle on.  But for those smaller businesses who have been able to do it well, there are monetary rewards.  They are more nimble to react to what their customers want, and they are able to leverage the personality and culture of the company to make the conversation around their business more interesting.  Whether it’s the Koji BBQ truck in LA or even a Seattle based bag manufacturer like Tom Bihn, these are really the companies that are seeing results from engaging on social media.

In addition, shopping for a good number of people is a very social activity.  Mobile makes things local, and local makes things more personal.  It makes sense that social media can play a significant role in e-commerce especially when merged with technologies that are blurring the line between the virtual world and the physical world.  Whether it is the Monocle feature of the Yelp iPhone app or a check-in through Foursquare, we are beginning to see how companies can take advantage of social media to drive sales. 

I think there are two important points here. 

• If you’re a local business, you need to start experimenting with these new technologies today.  Especially if you want to stay ahead of the curve. 
• If you’re an entrepreneur, there are a lot of opportunities to make money by facilitating the transaction that can happen in social e-commerce.

But the final thought should always be that social media is a tool.  It is not the end goal, so think first about how you wish you could engage with your customers, and then see how these tools can help you achieve those goals more effectively and efficiently.

With the recent (and somewhat flat) IPO of QuinStreet, it got me thinking about how our clients can start to use the concepts of vertical marketing and social media in conjunction with each other.  It’s a way to strategically think about how organizations can increase social media exposure, and in turn justify the expenditure through a measurable ROI channel.

To take a quick step back, what do I mean by vertical marketing?  Vertical marketing, in the way that QuinStreet does it, essentially means setting up websites  that don’t necessarily have your brand on it, and then providing a lot of information around that vertical(mortgages, loans, online learning, etc.).  When you fill out a form that says that you want to hear more, QuinStreet essentially sends the lead over to a single or multiple companies who pay for those warm/hot leads.  And it’s not just companies like QuinStreet and ValueClick who are doing this.  Companies are doing this on their own, and it drives SEM as well as sales.

So how is this similar to social media?  For those of you who may not be familiar, there is a story from the book Groundswell (video below) that talks about how P&G created a website called BeingGirl.com to engage with young girls about their feminine problems.  It was an unbranded website that had a forum where these girls could ask  Iris, a psychologist hired by P&G questions that they might not feel comfortable asking their parents.  Each of Iris’ answers was followed by the simple line: “Good luck from BeingGirl.com.  Brought to you by Always Pads and Pantyliners and Tampax Tampons.”  According to P&G, this was 4 times more effective per dollar spent than traditional advertising. 

So with these two examples in mind, I think that there is a huge opportunity for organizations to use their engagment strategies to drive strong lead generation.

If you are not already running vertical sites to drive traffic, start monitoring social media channels to find out what your consumers are looking for.  A lot of the marketing execs who I talk to are trying to understand the topic areas that are already occurring across the overall conversation (related to their brand) in social media.  Figure this out, and then start building a site that is aligned with your company’s overall goals.  Obviously, easier said than done.

Once you have a site up, add social components to it so that your consumers can talk to each other as well as to your company.  This is not really something that either QuinStreet or ValueClick has done, but I think companies who build their own vertical sites can make this a priority.  Of course, be transparent in who you are while trying to provide a non-biased forum for consumers to get and share information.  And then provide unobtrusive links to drive traffic back to the sales funnel.  I think this type of strategy to lead generation can really help companies begin to justify the costs of social media and see revenue generating results.  Which is what we all really want in the end anyway.

It’s now pretty standard for most consumer brands to have an official Twitter and Facebook account up and running.  At the very least, every company should have an account on the two platforms as strategy is slowly put into place.  But I think, on some level, these accounts are gathering dust or not working to their full potential when they could be out having and sparking conversations across the web today.

Why is that?  I think that fundamentally, it’s still not understood what social media can do from a business development  or sales perspective.  And so, people tend to put less weight into social media channels as a real marketing conduit.

Here’s a quick example of how I think Social Media needs to be framed for consumer companies:

Imagine that you are a marketing director for a large fashion retail brand, let’s say Express.  Then imagine that you have just stumbled on a group of girls in the mall who are talking about the new styles at Express and the other stores where they typically find the coolest and newest clothes.  Would you want to start a conversation with those girls?  Would you want to find out what they liked and didn’t like?  And most importantly, wouldn’t you offer them an incentive to come into Express and buy a couple items?

This is exactly what Social Media can help you do.  From a business development perspective, you can find consumers talking about your brand, and offer them incentives to check out your online store or get discounts on new purchases.  You can keep the conversation going by allowing them to become fans of your pages, and you can continue to incentivize them through additional discounts.  It’s more immediate and gratifying than mailers, and it allows you to really understand your customer.

Now you can approach that group of girls or guys in the mall and hundreds of groups just like theirs to drive traffic into your stores, both online and off.

Some of the more interesting conversations that I have had over the last couple weeks include talking to companies in the multi-level marketing (MLM) space with regards to social media.  On some level, MLM as a business model is the best example of how connected individuals and word of mouth marketing can be successful.  What has really been interesting is discovering that most of these organizations have not spent a great deal of attention trying to understand how they can utilize social media to build and bolster their businesses.

It’s an old business that has been run in a very conservative manner for as long as most people there can remember.  And the reason for it is simple.  They’re making a lot of money doing it the traditional way.

But as social media continues to grow in the mainstream, there is an increasing need to monitor, engage and strategically use those channels to think about brand and new business.  Here are a couple ways that MLMs can do this:

1. Managing corporate brand image – Until now, it has been very difficult to understand what it is that the field salesforce is doing outside of the overall corporate standards and perception.  Sure you can rent out huge convention halls and hold bi-annual meetings to ensure that culture and sales operations are in check, but how can you be sure that the brand is not being distorted.  MLM already has a lot of PR work on its hands, but with more and more people talking about it on the web, there needs to be a way to control the overall brand.  Using a monitoring tool to gauge sentiment and PR can help a MLM make sense of all of the information floating around.  As with any company in the new social media environment, the old PR system no longer applies, and it can make a huge difference to be on the cutting edge of what is effecting brand.
2. Product image and innovation – Besides the overall corporate image, it is also pretty important to understand what people think of their product and what they’d like to see.  At the end of the day, your salesforce can be great, but without a product that people like, there isn’t much point in having the salesforce.  Social media can be huge treasure trove of information detailing what people think about your products, the products of direct competitors and directions that they would like to see you go.  With products reaching consumers in so many non-traditional ways, this is great way to get insight about what they are actually want and think.
3. Growing the salesforce – This is an interesting area, but since a good deal of a company’s salesforce comes from other MLMs, there can be the added benefit here of looking for people in the business already.  Whether they are active on microblogs, message boards or blogs, salepeople are on the lookout for great opportunities.  If you could find great people in this way, there is a high likelihood that they will be easier to acquire and more successful in the overall business.

Traditionally, MLMs have focused on social networks to ensure consumers that their goods are the best out in the market.  As these networks shift to the web and social media, it will be necessary to think of the added benefits that this new medium can bring to an organization.  This will effect so many areas within a MLM organization that it will be imperative to start becoming a part of the social media framework today when companies can still experiment and discover what works best.

I talked last week with the Marketing Director of chain of restaurants here on the West Coast in relation to the role of social media and how it can contribute to the bottom line.  The restaurants are not all branded the same, and I think that’s what makes this more applicable in the case of banquet halls, conferences, etc.

He told me that he had been able to increase the year’s sales by 32% simply by monitoring and engaging with social media.  For me, that’s pretty impressive.

He would simply look online for people looking to host weddings or bandquets in the general vicinity, and see if they wanted to come and take a look.  It almost seems like a no-brainer, and yet he was able to capture the market.  Consider how much a single additional sale can bring in, and it becomes evident that a bit of engagement for high revenue activities is completely justifiable.

Imagine knowing that there is a room full of people.  Your business is offering a great venue to hold a conference, have a wedding or through a banquet.  If you knew that there were a few people asking for a good place to hold their event, would you stay quiet?  We all know that the answer is “no”.  What if that room was full of event planners?  Then the answer would be a resounding “no”.  So why do people think it’s okay not to listen and engage with the conversations that are taking place online?

It’s not enough to say that there is no value in listening to the conversation.  Money is being left on the table, so put your ear to the ground and start listening today.

I had a great conversation today with the Director of Marketing at a major US attraction, and I stumbled on an idea to determine ROI across social media.

Traditionally, fliers and brochures are handed out throughout major cities to entice tourists and families to get a small percentage off their ticket purchase when they mention the ad that they have just seen.  Oftentimes, these attractions may also include those coupon codes on their fliers which the attractions will use to track ROI.

Using similar coupon codes for social media is a great way to not only increase sales, but to effectively monitor how well social media contributes to the bottom line.  There are hundreds of blogs and web pages that talk about the “Top 10 things to do in City X”, “The attractions you must see while you’re in City X”, etc.  Given the fact that the place where most families to research a trip before they fly is online, it makes a lot of sense to get exposure on all of these channels.

A simple, “Coming to New York City?  Make sure you visit our attraction which is one of the other great things to see and spend time. Be sure to book your tickets online or mention the following coupon code SOCIAL15 for 15% off“, is a great way to get exposure and increase sales.  The conversation of where to go in New York City for example is already happening.  Join the conversation, and see the results come through.

How do you find these blogs, forums and message boards?  Use a social media monitoring tool and learn the most impactable and influential places where you should start your focus.  Once you have the top blogs, slowly move yourself into the “magic middle” (blogs with at least 20 to 1000 active incoming links), and you will be set.  Does it take some time?  Initially, yes.  But once you have identified where you have the most impact, you can really start driving traffic.  It’s cheap and simple, and everyone should be doing it.