Have you heard about Greg Verdino’s new book, microMARKETING? The insights found inside are quite intriguing especially if you are:  1) trying to market your products and services in a cost-effective manner—and in today’s economy who isn’t? 2) enhancing your marketing, communications or customer service by implementing social media as part of your business culture; and 3) working to build one-on-one relationships with your customers and prospects. 

Given that these are things Serengeti helps our clients with, I was excited to get a peak into Greg’s thoughts on how harnessing social media and thinking and acting small is absolutely a proven and successful mindset.

While micromarketing is not a new concept (it’s been around since the late 80s), social media and social technology certainly enhance the “micro-ness” of how organizations can, and should, connect with their customers, clients, stakeholders, etc. today. With this mindset, Greg explores micromarketing for a new age through three key trends: 

• Microcultures;
• Microcontent; and
• Micromavens.

Think Small 

Repeat after me: microcultures, microcontent, micromavens. All are the very opposite of MASS. Marketers are taught, practice and hedge their marketing budgets on mass. You know exactly what I mean… How many people can we get into that lead pipeline? How many names can we buy for our direct mail or email marketing campaign? How many thousands of people surfed our website this month? The more, the better, the happier the sales and marketing management team will be! Right? 

Wrong. 

Unfortunately, there are situations where mass marketing just doesn’t work—and is quite expensive to boot! All of those names you cram into your lead generation machine, well they typically aren’t qualified and require a lot of nurturing (Read: coercion). What does this mean for your business? Flipping that lead funnel might just work better for you…less in, more out. 

Act Small

Wouldn’t it be much, much better to have people willingly lining up to knock on your door because they want to buy your product or service or donate to your cause? And how great would it be to have people out there evangelizing your brands to their entire network because they feel so strongly connected to them? After all, who doesn’t want BIG results?

So then, how can you start acting small?  You’re first priority is going to definitely include changing your marketing mindset. This can be a challenge, especially when marketers count on mass! Second, you’ll need to shift your thinking by asking “How can we… 

1. Resonate with masses of communicators;
2. Tap into pass-along power and peer-to-peer potential of the network effect;
3. Deliver mutual value through two-way interactions;
4. Make a commitment to engage people directly in real time;
5. Build meaningful relationships;
6. Earn attention; and
7. Have success through lots and lots of small things?”

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus… and he is bringing you customers and revenue!  

From large (Ford, Best Buy and Samsung) to small (author J.C. Hutchins and makeup artist Lauren Luke), Greg dives into how companies and professionals have used micromarketing to connect with their customers and grow their business by thinking and acting small. And Greg’s promise to help you become a micromarketer is as solid as the worksheet (40 Questions!) at the end of the book. 

What are you waiting for? It is a small world after all. 

[Disclosure: Greg Verdino is a friend, but I purchased this book and read it with only the scrutiny a traditional marketer turned micromarketer and Client Services Director could. Great job Greg!]

Image: Greg’s Website

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]

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Northern Virginia Tech Breakfast Club this morning on “Planning for Success in Social Media.”  The crowd was a terrific group of smart marketers who are on the ground every day driving leads for their sales teams.  We had a lengthy discussion about social media tactics, measurement, marketing integration, and the blurring of the lines between sales and marketing as social engagement tactics become more common.  I wish I had a transcript of the session.  I left the building with many new ideas to chew on!  Thanks to Mary Eggert of Techimage for organizing!

My tips on “Planning for Success” follow below.  

1.) Pick a “test and invest” goal.  As Jim Sterne points out in his new book (Social Media Metrics), there are only 3 real business goals.  Your “test and invest” goal for a pilot social media program should be a hard number that flows from one of these three:  Decrease costs; increase customer satisfaction; increase revenue. (Hint:  Increase engagement with our target audience is not a hard goal. Drive x number of conversions or leads is.)

2.) Choose tactics that shorten the sales cycle.  Use social to build direct relationships with prospects that are futher along the buy cycle.   This flips the sales funnel on its head by focusing on direct contact with a smaller base, but doing it this way doesn’t mean sales will end up with fewer qualified leads! 

Go back to what you know about thought leadership.  This has always been the holy grail of B to B marketers, but social makes it easier in so many ways:  social tools (simple twitter search for exampe) can help you pinpoint topics for your thought leadership content, publish that content more quickly, market it, and make it highly visible in search engines.  TL content that focuses on prospects who are further along in the sales funnel is powerful stuff!

3. Focus like a laser on the sweet spot. What sweet spot?  The one that lies between what your customers do and seek in social channels and what you can provide (content, tools, digital assets) that furthers your goal.  This is only possible if you are listening (hard) to what your customers are saying and watching what they are doing through social monitoring tools.  Yes, it takes some work, but the return on this activity is more than worth the investment.  The most common reason for failure is that companies create something that prospects don’t want or need, or ask them to do something they aren’t interested in doing.  Finding the sweet spot will save you from this fate.

4. Make peace with measurement. In fact, for pilot programs, work back from what you can measure (and there are plenty of things to measure in social media).  We all need to get comfortable with the fact that social media measurement isn’t perfect and there are no smoking guns (or very few).  This doesn’t matter.  We don’t have unarguable smoking guns for any other kind of marketing measurement.

5. Create the infrastructure for successful execution.  No seriously.  You have to do this.  Successful social media execution falls mostly to people on the inside — NOT to the agency!  These folks need the skills (training and coaching) to master things like the art of community building (in Facebook, on LinkedIn, in Twitter, etc.)  You will also need processes (for funneling leads, for measuring impact, etc.) and tools.  All of this must be considered well in advance of pulling the trigger.

In the exploding world of social media, every day seems to bring a flurry of new tools, tactics — and toys — that must be deciphered and evaluated for possible relevance/usage for the organization.  And yet, comparitively less attention seems to be paid to the people, processes and systems inside an organization that can make or break even the most brilliant social media initiatives.

What’s the big deal?  We’re simply talking about helping employees develop new skill sets, right?  Wrong.  We’re talking about restructuring the organization in order to manage new ways of interacting (often in real time or close to it) with distributed communities throughout the Web.  Re-anything-ing in an organization means CHANGE.  And change can mean trouble if it isn’t managed and planned for in advance. 

Here are 7 changes that even a small social media marketing program could potentially require:

1.) Changes in job descriptions

2.) Changes in bonus structure for employees

3.) Changes in reporting structure

4.) Changes in KPI’s for departments

5.) Changes in internal communications between departments (PR, marketing, customer service, sales, IT, etc.)

6.) Changes in employee policies

7.) Changes in supporting vendors

Re-read that list.  We’re talking about changes that affect employees’ daily activities, their personal wallets, their titles, their authority, their departmental budgets, their relationships with co-workers…

Yes, this could hurt.   

It doesn’t have to.  Planning for these changes effectively can — and should — be a key piece of  the strategy development work you will do (you are doing this, right?) prior to pulling the trigger on any social media program.  (In fact, internal social media tools can play an important role in managing any type of change, including change that is driven by the implementation of external social media programs.)  Taking time to methodically develop a strategy  for social media engagement will give you the opportunity to solicit input from stakeholders, create a shared (truly shared) vision and a sense of urgency, quell any fears, and set the stage for successful execution.

We’ll be writing more on this topic in future posts and in our upcoming white paper on change management.  If you have stories about how your organization managed the change (or failed to!) please share!

According to a recent study by R2Integrated, one half of all companies now say they have a social media strategy.  For those who don’t, the biggest single obstacle to implementing social media is a perception that social media ROI is difficult or impossible to prove (numerous other studies througout 2009 and 2010 found this to be the most often cited reason for not having a social media program). 

I don’t really understand this rationale.  Here’s why:

1.) We aren’t achieving perfect ROI measurement in other channels (we can’t even fully measure the ROI of search in every scenario).  Even where measurement is pretty good, marketers often don’t take advantage of the measurement capabilities available to them (what percentage of your Web Analytics program do you really use?  10%?).  In other words, marketers regularly invest in tactics that can’t be measured, or can’t be measured fully, or that they don’t measure even if they can.  

2.) When you really think about it, there is no shortage of social media metrics (see our social media measurement white paper for some examples) and countless ways to slice, dice and calculate derivatives of data points from various sources in order to uncover valuable insights (this is what Social Snap does).  True, tracking results and analyzing indicative data often falls short of perfect, smoking gun ROI measurement…but, see #1 above.

I’m not suggesting that measuring social isn’t complicated.  It is, and in many ways it is more difficult than other channels.  Especially if you consider measurement complexities like the multiplier effect.  The multiplier effect may be more exaggerated, or at the very least, work differently with social in the mix than combinations we are accustomed to seeing/measuring (i.e., a prospect hears an ad on the radio and then sees an ad in a magazine for the same product, or sees a brand in various places on the Internet and then has it served up  in a search result, etc.).

Consider the recent Nielsen study found that advertising effectiveness was increased substantially when ads were combined with a social element.   Facebook users who were exposed to both a homepage ad and brand mentions in their newsfeed were three times as likely to recall the ad and be aware of the brand then users who viewed the homepage ad only.  Purchase intent was four times as high among viewers who were exposed to both an ad and a social component.

But would we expect to see the multiplier effect work differently depending on the connectedness and trust of a particular community?  Purchase influence varies widely based on trust and loosely connected communities will not have the same trust level as a community where relationships are stronger.

At the end of the day, measuring social will never be easy and never get “solved”.  Its just changing too fast and in a sense, we are (as is often the case in an environment driven by disruptive technologies) using our old ideas and understanding of marketing to make sense of something that lives on a very different planet. 

In that scenario, how wise is it to remain on the sidelines?

At the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in New York I presented a session on the basics of Social Media, entitled Social Media 101. During the session I covered things like researching your audience, monitoring the conversations, building social media marketing strategies, goal setting and social media measurement.  After the session the video team at SES asked me a few questions.

The biggest piece of advice I can share from this video and elaborate on is that Buzz Monitoring tools are not the be all end all of finding conversations and relevant chatter for your strategy.  Buzz monitoring tools only give you a piece of the story.  They can point you in the right direction, help you uncover a lot of different and interesting conversations, but they can’t truly tell you the whole picture of why they are holding conversations, or many other facets that can be important to planning your strategy.  A lot of times that comes down to plain, old fashioned, human research.

Google can be a lot of help, and so can other tools, but at the end of the day computer programs, while aiding in speeding things up or making processes easier, can’t do everything for you especially Understawhen you are trying to understand a community.  Understanding the nuances that bind communities together takes another human to understand and relate back into planning an engagement strategy.

The opening keynote to kick of Search Engine Strategies New York was definitely well worth getting up early for and getting a front row seat.  I was rather excited to be attending this keynote since I had just finished up reading the speaker’s latest book, World Wide Rave.

David Meerman Scott is just as engaging in person as he is in his books and his presentation was chock full of great information for any audience to take back and implement into their own marketing strategies.

David started off his presentation just like his book starts off, by relating the story of Cindy Gordon from Universal Studios Parks and how she launched the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  She only told 7 people.

That may sound like a small number, but those 7 people were very influential in the Harry Potter world of fans.  From those fans over 350,000,000 now know about the new theme park that Universal Studios is launching. It’s all about how big is YOUR world.  Sure you likely don’t have a “Harry Potter” in your arsenal of marketing strategies, but that doesn’t mean creating a World Wide Rave is going to be impossible for you.

It’s about knowing your audience and creating triggers for them.  Triggers are valuable content that just naturally want to be shared with others. During this keyknote David explains the 5 rules he sets out in more depth in his book and had some really great examples to go with the rules.

1. Nobody Cares About Your Product
   The most overused word in press releases is “Innovate” the 3rd most overused word is “Unique”.  Who searches on that stuff really?  This tends to be insulting to your customers, just like those stock photos of models who you choose to represent your company.
   
   
2. No Coercion Required
   Here David speaks to an ad he saw that featured a Fly V style guitar.  It was an advertisement for parents against explicit lyrics.  He clicked through and was lead to a landing page for the Toyota Matrix.  This is REALLY stupid, why trick people?  If your content is valuable, you don’t need to trick them.
   
   
   David shares the story of Girls Fight Back and how at the beginning of every session Erin has the girls turn off their cell phones.  At the end of the session she has them turn them back on and use them to take photos or videos of them doing the moves they learned in the self defense session.  What happens is these girls share the photos and videos, without even being asked.
   
   
3. Lose Control
   This is about understanding you don’t really control the message, no matter how you craft it, or spin it, you just really can’t control how other people interact with it.  When you loose control it allows the world wide rave to happen.  David starts to explain about how the Grateful Dead used this to their advantage by allowing people to record their concerts and share it with their friends.  To this date the Grateful Dead is still the most successful touring band.
   
   
4. Put Down Roots
   Don’t just be a lurker in social media, get involved in the community and make it your home.  Create relationships that are meaningful.  Henry Poser from B&H Photo does this so well that people in the photography communities he’s involved with find him to be a valuable asset because he helps them with their problems, not pitching the products B&H sells.
   
   
5. Create Triggers that Encourage People to Share
   You need to think about what makes people want to share.  David relates his own story of being asked to ring the closing bell for NASDAQ as his book was being released.  They told him he could bring 50 friends.  He shared this on Twitter and 50 people signed up, it was the first Tweetup ever that happened at NASDAQ and it made the main stream news.
   
   

These five rules can really help you when you are entering into the world of online marketing, but there’s something that companies wrangle with even more.  Fear.

Fear of loosing control, fear that they can’t do this or that, fear of the negative.  You can’t be afraid if you are going to be successful in engaging your audience.  Right now over 25% of companies still limit the access that employees have to the internet because they are afraid of what they “might” do.  This hurts companies more than they know.

David points to the US Air  Force and their use of Twitter and social media.  His story was even picked up and reported on by Wired magazine and he brought one of the US Air Force’s commanding officers to South by Southwest with him to speak to them using these social media channels.  They want to have 330,000 employees in public affairs – all of their soldiers.  When asked about restrictions and worrying about “what could happen”, the officer had the perfect answer:

“If these generals are trusting a 23 year old with a 50 million dollar jet airplane, why can’t they trust them to be on the internet?”

Lots of food for thought if you are a company entering into the online marketing space.  If you haven’t already, make sure you pick up a copy of  “World Wide Rave”, where David goes into more stories about how companies are finding success online every day.

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?