This post is part of a series entitled The Four Pillars of Social Media. For this post we will be focusing on the third pillar: Engagement. Our other engagement topics, as part of this series, included:  

• Letting Go Of Your Ego
• Using Content To Extend Your Reach Through Social Media
• You Don’t Always Have the Best Ideas

Integrating Social Media Engagement Across the Marketing Mix 

Often when you hear about social media, it’s from a marketing communications perspective. That’s where most strategies start… “Are you listening, engaging, sharing” and all of the other buzz words that are floating around these days. We can and should also talk about social media (the concept and the tools) from an overall business perspective. Meaning, how is social media not only affecting our communications with customers, prospects, employees, stakeholders, shareholders, etc., but how is it affecting or impacting our business operations. 

The notion of “if we build it, they will come” is fraught with idealism that unfortunately causes a lot of businesses to fail in their efforts, especially when it comes to product/service development. No amount of listening, engaging or sharing will have people banging down your doors to buy if there isn’t a want or need for your product/service. 

I know what you’re thinking… Apple does this all the time, just look at the iPod, iPhone or iPad! Nope. Apple is just innovating and capitalizing on technologies and wants/needs people already had. But, starting from scratch to create a new want/need is very difficult. And its product/service development that usually starts the cogs of the marketing mix. 

Social media has given customers the means to provide feedback on products/services they’d like, where they want to buy them, how much they are willing to pay and how they want to hear from you or where they’d like to talk about you.

Let’s check out some examples of how social media engagement  is changing the marketing mix and business operations. 

Product:
Have you ever heard of Fiskars? They make things that cut other things. Doesn’t sound like you could do much socially with things like scissors, right? Wrong. Fiskars reached out to their loyal customers to help create a community called “Fiskateers.” I won’t get into all of the details here, because you can read that story here, here and here. What’s most interesting is that Fiskars is now tapping into the Fiskateers for product development. Yes, you heard that correctly… The Fiskateers have a hand in creating new products! Apparently, engineers who doubted the community renamed themselves “Fiskaneers.” If you are a “social” company or considering social media, how would you handle product development insights? Would you be open and flexible to suggestions or would you hang out a “this is our turf” sign?

If you think that this type of social media engagement only works in the B2C space, I urge you to check out IBM’s product development story. It’s another great example of customers wanting to be involved and creating a service that they want to buy!

Price:
Most business professionals and MBAs know how to determine price in their sleep. The problem is the methods learned are inside-out focused. In today’s world we need to think about price from the perspective of the customer or prospect—how much are they willing to pay for your product or service (you might even want to know this before product/service development!). That mindset causes issues, doesn’t it? What if the price people are willing to pay is below your costs, etc. One example of social media providing insights on pricing that lead to a new service is Charles Schwab. Charles Schwab took the approach to listen to a community of Gen X non-customers and based on the feedback, they lowered their account minimums to $1,000 (among other changes), resulting in a 32% growth of Gen X customers.

Place (Distribution) & Promotion:
It’s no secret that the beer industry has always been social and that’s especially true for the microbrewing industry. Microbrews have always relied on word of mouth for their success and social media just enhances that WOM. An example of how social media has changed one brewery’s distribution and promotional efforts is Victory Brewing Company. Of course, Victory has a Twitter account, Facebook Fan Page, and YouTube channel, but their marketing efforts also have to do with all of the ‘social information’ they collect—that’s what makes the real difference. In short, all of this data helps them to determine the next markets for their distribution efforts. Where should they be selling Victory based on social demand. 

And social media isn’t just helping with distribution efforts, but also promotional efforts too. According to Dave Speers, Victory’s marketing guru, Foursquare is one tool that has “unlocked” (pardon the pun), insights into their customers. Victory has teamed up with the Foursquare developers to launch the very first ‘Mayor promo’ via Foursquare. What does this mean for Victory customers? Well, if they grab the mayor badge for Victory upon check in at the Victory Brew Pub in Downingtown, they are treated with a special Mayor Hat, sash and two beer tickets per visit to give away to anyone at the pub. These efforts to reward customers came as a direct response to patterns and trends recognized in social media.

(A special thanks to Dave Speers for sharing some insights into Victory’s marketing mix efforts!)

So, there you have it…three examples of how social media engagement is changing business operations as we know them (and are comfortable with!) today.

How has social media engagement changed your marketing mix?

[Image Sources: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4]

This post is part of a series entitled The Four Pillars of Social Media. For this post we will be focusing on the second pillar: Strategy. Our other strategy topics, as part of this series, included:  

• Is Your Social Media Strategy Flexible?
• Setting Goals for Your Overall Social Media Strategy 

Shiny Object Syndrome or Strong Strategy?  

strat·e·gy: noun. A:  A careful plan or method; B: The art of devising or employing plans toward a goal. 

As social media becomes more mainstream from a business perspective it is really important to understand that it is not another tactic or channel for marketers or businesses to add to their ‘to do’ list. That mindset can lead to “shiny object syndrome” where social media tools are selected and used just because they are perceived as the hip thing to do, they are everywhere, or competition is using them. Shiny object syndrome is the worst beacon of light to lead an organization as they consider social media engagement. That glimmer won’t be a guide, but a detrimental side effect leading to temporary blindness which will leave an organization in the dark.    

Social media isn’t solely about tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogging, forums, etc. Social media tools provide a conduit for people to connect. And it’s those connections—not the tools— that lead to business success.   

So what’s the key to social media strategy success? Purpose and Planning. 

Success comes from connecting with people in a purposeful manner. And it’s that purpose that should drive your plan and strategies so that they ultimately achieve your business goals. Otherwise, you are at risk to waste precious resources (time and money being two of the largest).  However, and it’s a BIG however, it’s important that an organization understand that purpose is a two-way street. It’s not only what you you’re purpose for engagement is, but more importantly, why people want to connect with YOU. 

As Nan Dawkins, Serengeti Communications’ CEO, often says “Tactics without strategy is like doing nothing at all.” It’s safe to add that “A strategy without goals and measurable objectives is also like doing nothing at all.” From these perspectives, it’s really important for all of the parts of a plan for social media engagement to work together like a set of well-oiled cogs. If one cog is weak, it affects the entire operation. 

Determining Purpose

What is the purpose for engaging in social media? Is there a business requirement? Are customers and prospects (or target publics/audience) using social media to try to communicate or search for product/service information? Are people using social channels as a way to try and communicate with the organization? 

Whatever the reason, it’s important to benchmark where an organization is within the ‘social realm’ prior to planning. One way to determine and set a benchmark is to perform audience research.  Audience research can shed a light on things like: 

• Where people are talking
• What they are talking about
• Who they are talking to
• What the competition is doing
• What needs/wants are met or unmet
• What are the rules of engagement 

 Steps to Writing a Successful Plan

There is no doubt about it…writing a solid plan is hard work that takes time, effort and often sweat and stress. But without one you will be aimless in your purpose and intentions. Your planning efforts will be time and effort well spent, promise! As well, all of the team players will know exactly, without a doubt, the goal they are aiming for.

1. Goal
Every plan should have a goal for what is trying to be achieved with social media (or even marketing, communications, business in general). For example, “to increase communication” or “to increase sales” or “to decrease customer service expenditures.” Whatever the case, there should only be one goal per plan. If you find yourself saying ‘and’ in your goal, that’s an indication that you’ll need two plans because all objectives, strategies and tactics need to focus on achieving one goal at a time.

2. Objectives
This is the part of the plan where an organization determines the specific aspects of the situation and how to address them in a manner that supports the goal. To be measurable, objectives must have four (4) key parts:

•  A specific desire communication or behavioral effect;
• A designated public/target audience among whom the effect is to be achieved;
• The expected level of attainment (percentage of change, increase, decrease, etc.) or accomplishment; and
• The timeframe in which those attainments are to occur

For example: To use social media channels to communicate new positions and engage with prospects in a manner that helps recruit 15 new engineers by September 30, 2010.

This example is totally measurable!

Objectives come in three flavors: Output, Outtake or Outcome.

• Output objectives address the items to be produced. If your objective is to set up a social media community on Ning by a certain date, targeting a specific group of people and getting 100 people to join, the community setup is the “output.”
• Outtake objectives address the messages, perceptions and understandings the audience will take away from your efforts. For example, did the target audience understand and comprehend your message or did your plan change their perceptions to positive? (Outtakes are based on the outputs).
• Outcome objectives show the quantifiable changes in attitudes, opinions or behaviors. A great example is to gauge a change in sentiment from negative to neutral or neutral to positive. Or, based on our objective example above… 100 new people were hired. Outcomes can be one of the most important objectives.

NOTE: A plan can have multiple objectives to help meet a goal.

3. Strategy
Strategy is the heart of the plan. Strategies are the overall guide or road map for meeting measurable objectives and ultimately the goal. Strategies should include each tool needed to achieve the objectives.

For example (based on our objective): Establish social media channels for the HR department. Train five key HR employees on how to use social media channels for communication. Share all new job postings on social media channels weekly. Engage in daily conversation with potential candidates. Report weekly on key performance indicators.

NOTE: Each objective can have more than one strategy.

4. Tactics
Selecting tactics that help achieve the strategy (or strategies) is exactly how an organization avoids shiny object syndrome! The key to on-going measurement is to make sure that your tactics are measurable too.

For example (based on our strategy):

• Setup Twitter accounts for Key HR Personnel (@Jane_XYZ Company)
• Setup a Facebook Fan Page Dedicated to Careers
• Work with Marketing to include Blog Posts from HR on Corporate Blog
• Etc.

Here’s what a plan outline would look like:

• Goal
  • Objective 1
    • Strategy 1
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
    • Strategy 2
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
  • Objective 2
    • Strategy 1
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
    • Strategy 2
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2  

Wash, Rinse and Repeat 

Just know that a smart strategy isn’t a “set it and forget it” (thank you Ron Popeil!) thing. A plan needs to be fluid and flexible and if it isn’t work, STOP and re-plan. The notion that a planned strategy will expose weaknesses within an organization shouldn’t be perceived as a negative, but as a positive. Because at the end of the day, you’re customers don’t care about internal silos, politics or weaknesses. They only care about working with an organization that is willing to be a partner in solving their challenges with great products and services. A plan—or ten (yes, it’s normal to have more than one plan at a time!)—should reflect that.

[Image Sources: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4]

This post is part of a series entitled The Four Pillars of Social Media. For this post we will be focusing on the first pillar: Research. Our other research topics, as part of this series, included:  

• Human Analysis in Social Media Monitoring: 5 Simple Steps to Navigate a Sea of Records
• Buzz Monitoring Tools Can’t Tell You Everything

How Audience Research Can Help You with Your Traditional Marketing Efforts

As traditional marketers, we have years of experience understanding our markets, what products and services they need/want, how to communicate best with them, and how they regard our brands, right? 

Well, maybe not… 

We have often relied on marketing research (primary or secondary), sales team feedback, customer satisfaction surveys, etc. to provide insights into those areas. The issue with most of those forms of feedback is that they tend to provide the answers we want to hear or find necessary to meet our internal business goals (either as an organization or a professional). 

Audience research, on the other hand, uncovers specifically how markets use products and services, speak about them, form communities, etc. It’s like watching a pride of lions in their natural habitat. Regardless if it’s a B2B or B2C market, when we take the time to watch people in their natural – or comfortable – habitat, we will see their true behavior and opinions surface. If you haven’t done audience research, it can be quite eye-opening. But more importantly, it can’t be fabricated. As an organization it’s your choice to ignore it (at your peril, potentially) or to embrace what’s really going on in the market. 

So how can audience research help traditional marketing efforts? 

Products/Services: If we build it, they will come… Not always. And more often “not” is the outcome (unless, of course, you are Apple). Many times startup companies fail or new products or services fail because they are built from the internal premise that people actually want to buy your product or service. And throwing your marketing communications budget at it isn’t going to help move the buying needle. Why not start with your customers and prospects and identify what their needs/wants actually are? If you aren’t a ‘social’ company, audience research is one way to tap into what’s being said online while standing on the sidelines. If you are a social company, why not just simply ask and then collect the data that the audience shares? 

Communication: There is large misperception in marketing that people respond specifically to tactics (i.e.  ads, direct mail, messaging, emails, etc.). That is not the case. People respond only when they have a brand relationship (see below). When there is a brand relationship, people are open and receptive to receiving your message. Your task is to make sure you send the right message, at the right time, in the right format. Audience research can help you to determine receptivity levels. 

Branding: While organizations do control their brand identity and messaging, what they don’t control are the relationships that people form with brands. Are you aware of how people (customers, prospects, clients, employees, stakeholders, shareholders, etc.) see and talk about your brand? Do you know what the sentiment (positive, neutral, negative) levels are for your brand? You might just be surprised! The  goal of using audience research is to understand how people perceive your brand(s), to take that feedback internally and to adjust your branding efforts accordingly.

What would you add to the list? How have you used audience research in your marketing efforts?

[Image: BG-Hotel International]

Market segmentation as you know it has become more complicated today than ever before. Capturing data in CRM systems, doing primary research, etc. all help, but the ways of segmenting we’ve learned don’t allow you to see your customers in their natural space. Sure, sales, marketing and customer service teams capture a lot of information, but is it insightful? Is it useful in understanding the segment? Or is it just what ‘they heard’ and made a note of? 

There is a lot of hype around social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., but the fact remains that social media (as a concept) is the first time that organizations have ever been able to see, listen to and get to know their customers in public spaces. Social interactions tend to be natural and not forced, which often leads to deeper insights.

Let’s look at all of the “-graphics” to get a better understanding of segmentation and how segmentation has changed. 

Demographics & Firmographics

Ah, demographics and firmographics…the marketers tried and true methods of slicing and dicing their markets. We know them well, don’t we?! They were drilled into our heads as marketing majors and have stuck with us through the years as the best practice for market segmentation.

But the days of mass marketing have come to an end and it doesn’t make sense to segment markets only to treat them as if they all live, think and buy the same way.

As you know, demographics allow B2C marketers divvy up their markets by size, age, income, education, ethnicity, etc. and firmographics allow B2B marketers to manage their markets based on employee size, revenue size, industry, number of locations, etc.

Does looking at someone’s income really provide an indication of how, where, when or why they part with their paycheck? Does knowing a business buyer’s revenue size tell you exactly how they manage their budgets or what types but products/services are purchased? No and no. Demographics and firmographics truly leave marketers empty handed when trying to get a deep understanding of markets.

So what’s a marketer to do in order to get deeper insights into their market in order to segment them properly? If demographics and firmographics are all you are using, consider adding psychographics, sociographics and ethnographics to the mix.

Psychographics

Want to know what your customers’ values, attitudes and lifestyles (VALs) are? Then psychographics should be a part of your segmentation mix. While psychographics have been around for quite some time, they often aren’t used to their full potential. While the VALs segmentation seems strongly linked to B2C marketing, it’s important for B2B marketers need to understand is that just because someone is buying in a business situation it doesn’t mean that they don’t have certain attitudes or values when it comes to products and services (i.e. “I want the best bang for my budget!”). It is smart and safe to assume that many consumers carry their VALs with them into the office. But, is psychographics even enough to really know your customers?

Sociographics

If you are looking for the ability to connect with your customers at a level much deeper than demographics, firmographics or psychographics, consider sociographics. Sociographics allow marketers to relate to customers as individuals. Remember one-to-one marketing of yesteryear? It was a great concept and made CRM systems very popular. But today, social media plays an important concept in marketing. By social media, I don’t mean using tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums, communities, etc. but the two-way conversations these tools allow for. As you get to know customers online, you’ll be able to determine their individual values, attitudes, friends, hobbies, passions, who influences them and more. Essentially, sociographics allow you to discover what makes your customers really tick.

[Image: Stefano Maggi]

Ethnographics

What is ethnography? Basically, it’s about understanding your market’s everyday life where they live it and from an insider’s point of view. Meaning, you understand the market because you view them in their natural settings. Take for example, Graco’s marketing and social media team A lot of them are moms and as such they can relate and market to moms because they understand the needs/wants moms have. Social media, again, is one way to understand the common values, lifestyles, hobbies, values, needs, etc. that drive people to join communities and forums of like interests. Typically these types of online groups have their own culture, speak in terms that are unique to the group, and they often help or influence each other to make purchasing decisions. Relating to your market in this manner allows you to seamlessly blend in with it. 

[Image: Gina Zacharias]

What’s The Answer?

Marketers have more tools than ever at their disposal these days. Between CRM systems and social media monitoring tools, marketers can gain a lot of insights into their markets. With social media being still so new for many organizations, it will take time to truly understand the shift from demographics and firmographics to sociographics and ethnographics. The key here is to understand that it will take a lot of time, roll-up-the-sleeves hard work, patience, strategic savvy and management. You can’t buy a list that tells you this data and you surely should just jump off the plank. Your starting point should be audience research analysis and training on how to properly engage customers in their surroundings. Once you have that down, the next steps will be finding tools and determining a strategy to pull it all together in a manner that provides a valid return.

Your thoughts? How has social media affected how you do market segmentation for your B2C or B2B customers?

When I started researching this post it was a little guy… errrr… pigeon against the big, nasty telecom company. I wanted to tell a story about how this poor little call center firm turned a liability into a strength. But after researching it, I’m not sure I can tell that story anymore.

Here’s what happened:

Employees at The Unlimited, a call center firm in South Africa, regularly transfer large amounts of data from satellite locations to their home office for backup. These backups often take a rather long time, prompting one employee to quip that a carrier pigeon could do it faster. Pigeon Race 2009 was born, complete with a small social media campaign (a twitter account, a blog, a contest for naming the pigeon, a few videos and a second contest for predicting the winner and time).

Here are the rules of the race as set at pigeonrace2009.co.za

1. No Cats allowed
2. The same amount of data will be sent on the landline and via the pigeon, on a SD card ( 4 gigabytes)
3. The race is from Howick to Hillcrest
4. The Pigeon flys from Howick to Gillits, and then will be transported via car to the finish site ( where the landline data will arrive)
5. The day will be announced closer to the time
6. Birdseed must not have any performance enhancing seeds within.
7. Data is not to be compressed.

They held the race on 09/09/09. Winston completed his journey in a little over an hour. It then took another hour to upload the data to the destination computer. By that time they had completed 4% of the upload from their satellite office. Here’s the BBC’s coverage.

That’s mind boggling. How could a pigeon beat their ADSL that badly? Sure we have far better speeds here in the US but 4%? That works out to approximately 176Kbps. Which isn’t audaciously horrible, but not quite the up to 512Kbps their connection touts.

What interests me too is that it took an hour to upload 4 GB to their own system. That’s about 9.1Mbps. That’s a snail’s pace for uploads from a memory card to your local computer. That’s slower than USB 1.1′s 12Mbps rate and a far cry from USB 2.0′s 320Mbps effective rate. I have no idea what their technical setup is, but if it takes an hour to transfer the data locally, I can at least better understand why it would only hit 4% in a little over two hours from off site.

But what was Telkom’s response? In short: it wasn’t our fault. Now at first, I sneered at this reply. “Yeah sure it wasn’t,” I thought, “it’s not your fault that a pigeon can beat your data rates?” but then I read their full response, and read through some of the discussion board on mybroadband.co.za (It’s pretty much Telkom hating until you get to about post #10). And I’m not so sure that Telkom is completely to blame. It feels in some ways like The Unlimited stacked the deck against them. Yet at the same time 4% of 4 Gigs in 2 hours is far from ideal.

So in the end I’m not sure what to think.

Telkom definitely earns points though for their Winston Edition Broadband Service.

Could The Unlimited have set up a more fair and scientific race? Absolutely. Could Telkom work on providing better and cheaper services
to their customers? If the number of Telkom haters that I’ve found on the web can be believed, then yes.

Both companies, however, did do something right. They both tried to take a liability and turn it into a strength.

I leave the “winner” and the company in the “right” up to you. What do you think? Is there clearly a company in the “right” and one in the “wrong”?

Recently my husband and I joined a boating club. I can’t tell you how great it has been.  If you are thinking of buying a boat, I recommend re-thinking that idea and looking into Freedom Boat Club.  You show up, the boat is ready for you, clean and full of gas.  You take it out for a few hours and just return it.  No hassle of towing the boat back home or cleaning the boat, etc.  You get the picture.

For the past few weekends we’ve gone out on the boat.  Being a nice guy, my husband has been ‘captain’ each time, allowing me to hang out on the bow (front) of the boat, enjoy a few cocktails and get some sun, while he responsibly drank bottled water and drove the boat.

I knew at some point I have to actually learn to drive the boat.  Although I passed the online boating course, I had not ever driven a boat.  Not being the best (car) driver, I was not so excited to learn how to drive the boat.  This was largely because many vacationers who rent a pontoon boat or jet ski don’t have to know anything about the boating rules and regulations.  So driving a boat is a much more proactive, defensive experience than driving a car.

But to be fair I had to learn.  Suffice to say this past weekend was not my favorite boating experience or my finest moment.  Paying attention to the other boaters, trying to prepare for and then react to their actions is a LOT of work.

Take one example, the wake.  In my previous, front of the boat experience wake made the ride fun.  My only concern was to make sure the cocktail was in the cup-holder so my drink didn’t spill.   My ‘at the helm’ example was completely different – slow down if I was going too fast so I wouldn’t flip the boat (probably wouldn’t have happened, but in my mind it was a possibility), steer into the wake (what?) and then speed up to get through it as the boat shook and bounced from side to side.  To me that feeling was completely out of control.  The ‘going fast as the boat shakes from side to side’ was fun while lounging comfortably on the front of the boat.  The experience at the wheel, terrifying!

But I will, in time, get better and more comfortable with driving the boat.  And even become able to take the boat out myself with friends.  It definitely will be worth it.

Now how does that long story relate to analytics?  Many companies are still in front of the boat mode with their analytics.  Each month the marketers present a powerpoint with their web reports – visits, unique visits, year over year or quarter over quarter, and maybe some revenue (revenue that if you compared to actual sales data was not even close).  Everyone left the meeting happy since the lines on the charts were slightly larger and the trends were moving in positive direction, even if ever so slightly, or if there was a bad month, everyone understood, the economy is bad.

But effective marketers drive the boat.  It is scary.  It takes time and work.  But the results are worth it.  These data-driven companies excel at using information from their web analytics, teaming it with actual sales and maybe even competitive information and creating a plan that is fluid.  They analyze what is working and what is not.  If they can’t fix the ‘what is not’ they stop spending on those campaigns and move their budget to what is working.

Their presentations go beyond simple metrics.  They explain their results in business terms that executives can understand and appreciate.  They get bigger budgets (and even raises…even in this bad economy).

So what is it going to take to get you off the bow and behind the wheel?

So I’m sure you’ve seen those ads for losing weight if you “Obey 1 simple rule”

I’m honestly not sure how anyone believes that these two women are the same person.  In any case if you didn’t realize they were a scam, Please read all about them on CNN and also take a look at what Oprah and Rachel Ray had to say about their supposed affiliation.

What interests me however is how the ads have changed. They take the original ads and “stamp” them with an “Acai Berry Diet exposed” graphic (see below right). Then lead them to a “consumer Report” site like news15tv.com of “WSVT-TV New York” that’s curiously “not affiliated with any news publication.” “Jill Rivers,” an “investigative reporter” is doing a series called “Diet Trends: A look at America’s Top Diets” where they “examine consumer tips for dieting during a recession.” She found out the “truth” about Acai diets. Most of them are scams, but, Jill reports, this other Acai Berry diet is totally reputable and totally worked for me. Don’t trust these scam sites. Trust Jill Rivers the investigative, non-partial reporter.

To attempt to add to its authenticity the site grabs a weather widget from Accuweather.com, displays embedded YouTube videos of several actual news sites talking at least briefly about Acai Berry diets, and waves a whole bunch of logos at you. And of course adds heartfelt comments from people who were skeptical, but have now seen the light.  Unfortunately the comments “have been closed due to spam.”  My favorites are the one from “Marco” who’s concerned about fitting into his wedding dress, and from Thomas who says, “Hey Jill, i just signed up and added you to my Twitter, cant wait to share my progress. thanks again, Amy xoxoxo”  Thomas seems to be very affectionate when Amy takes over.

I think it “legally” meets the criteria of showing itself as an advertisement, because it has the word “advertisement” in the header, but so small that no one will notice it (I know I missed it at first). And the page ends with a whole bunch of legalese saying that they’re not actually affiliated with and their actions aren’t condoned by any of the news organizations whose logos appear on their site.

Despite the horrors of deception and wanton abuse of all human decency, I think there’s a lot to learn here.

I’m obviously not advocating you set up a fake site (newsy or otherwise) that tricks people into believing you’re more reputable than you are.

What peaks my interest is how these Scamming spammers (Scpammers?) have listened to the prevailing winds of the community and not only changed their tactics, but flipped it on its head. How do you gain credibility when everyone thinks you’re a liar? Well if you’re a liar you lie some more by creating a fake news site and duping the unsuspecting public into believing that your product is reputable while all the others are scams.

If you’re not a liar, you listen to what the community says and take a long hard look at your product and your company and work your butt off to try to regain the community’s respect. There are two things that should be in common between these Scpammers and your company.

1. That you listen to your customers and potential customers. If you flick them off or ignore them, no one wins. They lose a great product/service and you lose a group of customers that have already shown themselves to be rather vocal and influential.
2. That you turn bad PR/comments/reviews into a win for yourself. This usually means hard choices and hearing things you’d rather not, but everyone, you and your customer, will be better for it.

So obey one simple rule: Listen to your customers (and that’s no scpam).

UPDATE: Acai Berry Diet Exposed image changed to a version with the same women as the first image.

UPDATE2: Oprah has filed a lawsuit against some of these marketers

One of the biggest misnomers in social media, and attempting to market to communities in social media, is that it’s entirely free. This notion comes from the “free” price tag that goes along with signing up for accounts on sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. It doesn’t cost you one cent from your bank account to open a basic account on these sites.

There are costs involved when you are considering entering into the social media space; the kind of costs that you don’t immediately pull out of your wallet to pay for. Since these costs are not immediate, the illusion that marketing efforts in social media cost less becomes even greater for companies looking for cheaper solutions to reaching their audiences.

Your Employees’ Time is Valuable

What a lot of companies neglect to figure into the larger picture is how much it costs them in time and resources of employees, tools and equipment. While it may be free to sign up for the account, the real cost comes with your employees maintaining those accounts and keeping them active in the social communities. Just creating the profiles and leaving them there doesn’t mean you are automatically going to gain a foothold in a social media community.

It takes time and serious effort to engage and truly interact with a community, and in order to do that  you first have to figure out which communities you need to be active in. That takes a lot of resources to start with, doing the due diligence of intense research. From there you formulate your strategy, again another tax on your employees’ time. Then its figuring out just how much of their time needs to be spent engaging and interacting with the community.

While Tools Can Be Free, They Could End Up Costing You In The End

From a tools perspective you need to both monitor and measure. While some tools might be free, such as Google Analytics and Google Alerts, there still is a cost of your employees’ time. Also, the free tools do have a limit of scope and you might find out later that its costing you much more by not having invested in the more expensive tools.

Monitoring tools like Radian6, Meltwater and TrackUR can give you better insight into monitoring your brand and related terms, but at a cost. Measuring tools like ClearSaleing and CoreMetrics can help you gauge how your efforts are affecting your bottom line in finer detail than most free tools.

So when you are hearing all the hype about Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and how these wonderful “Free” tools are helping companies reach new people every day, stop and take a step back away from the hype. Ask yourself, “How many man hours did it take that team to attain that success with the social media site?”  and  “How much time went into research and planning?”. Ask yourself, “How are they measuring success?”. Then ask yourself the final question, “Is it really free?”.

MediaWeek says mobile advertising is delivering some surprising results. According to a recent survey of 1800 mobile users, 53% click ads, 24% make purchases directly from their smartphones and 35% request more information or a coupon.

Why the sudden shift? Iphones have made the mobile experience satisfying, which means users are accessing the mobile internet more and downloading apps. The rest of the industry is mimicking the Iphone, trying to catch up, which is leading to more competitive products and services and creating more demand.

The Kelsey Group predicts that by 2013, local mobile ad revenue will reach more than 3.`1 billion, up from $160 million in 2008. Mobile search gets the biggest peice of that pie, at 2.3 billion.

Marketers should expect increasingly sophisticated mobile opportunities over the coming months. Yahoo for example plans to allow advertisers to tailor their ads to the location of mobile phone users, enabling local business to advertise only to people within their area.

I’m in Beijing at the moment and just saw an advertisement recruiting journalists who are native English speakers. CCTV, the English-language 24-hour news channel of China Central Television is actively seeking journalists who are native English speakers. Interested journalists should email their resumes to jobscctvinternational@gmail.com.

I find it odd that in the land of Baidu, the largest national TV network has a gmail account. On the other hand, it was CCTV who first reported that Baidu used fraudulent pay-per-click ads as its search results, for which Baidu apologized (“We put too much effort in competing technically with Google, and in doing so overlooked our advertising system and its management.”)

By the way, the origin of Baidu’s name is pretty cool. It comes from a poem comparing “the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one’s dream while confronted by life’s many obstacles…’hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood’.”