The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius

Dear Diary,
Yesterday’s #unfiltered Lunch & Learn at Radius was the best yet! We tackled some of the thorniest questions around the topic of social marketing (my new fav way to describe the Thing Formerly Known as Social Media) over incredible food and a near-perfect bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The Genius was pleased!

In fact, the questions raised and discussions shared were so juicy, that I thought I’d share a few tidbits here. In no particular order…

1. What advice do you have for brands just starting out on Facebook?

Tip #1: Know the platform.
Seriously. The best brands on Facebook are the ones that genuinely know and “get” the platform.

If you haven’t already done so, set up a profile. Invite some friends. Check out some of the popular applications. Snoop. Yes, snoop.

Take a close look at some of the brands that have a large, engaged following; notice their approach to growing and cultivating community within this channel.

Start with these great examples: Red Bull, Victoria’s Secret, Ford Models, BestBuy

It’s also helpful to understand who’s using Facebook and how. Here are a few key stats to get you started:

• Facebook has more than 300 million active users worldwide
• 50% of those active users log on daily
• In the US, Facebook reaches nearly 50% of the population
• Over the past 30 days, the average US user has visited the site 28x, at an average of 20 minutes/visit
• 60% of Facebook users (worldwide) are over the age of 35; this is the fastest-growing demographic on the site
• 57% of users are female
• The average user has 130 Facebook friends

sources for the above data: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics and http://www.briansolis.com/2009/10/revealing-the-people-defining-social-networks/

Tip #2: Social marketing is social > marketing.
Facebook is first and foremost a social medium. Marketers who venture onto the site (and considering the statistics outlined above, why wouldn’t you?) should focus more on communicating with, entertaining, and engaging their audience than “advertising” to them.

That said, Facebook offers plenty of opportunity to advertise, including standard display ads, Facebook Flyers, Newsfeed ads, and sponsored groups. But paid advertising on Facebook is still paid advertising. CPMs are low for display ads and Flyers—and so are click-through rates.

Which brings me back to my initial thought: social > marketing. Growing your fan base on Facebook—and keeping them there—requires you to think more like a host/hostess than a marketer. Forget the desire to sell stuff (for just a moment) and focus instead on creating an environment that draws your audience in and invites them to stick around (and maybe even bring a few friends).

Think: “How could we make the experience even better when shared with friends?” This is the mindset from which the very best Facebook marketing efforts are born.

Of course you’re in business to sell stuff, so you’re going to need to sprinkle in ties to transactional opportunities. I’m just saying that if you lead with that objective, you’re toast.

2. What should our brand “voice” be on social channels? Who should be tweeting/posting/updating on behalf of the brand?

We had a pretty lively discussion on this one with quite the variety of perspectives. Yet we did all agree on one thing: these are social channels. What’s the one crucial ingredient to being “social”? People.

Which means your brand has to find some way to bring humanity, authenticity, and intimacy to the act of engaging in social channels. Otherwise, why bother?

A classic example of this: the Boston Celtics have been actively working to grow their Twitter following, and with over 1000 tweets under their belts, have accumulated a modest 20,000 fans.

Celtics star Paul Pierce, meanwhile, has tweeted a mere 48 times and has 1.2 Million fans.

To be fair, I will note that neither account is actively engaged in “dialogue” at the moment—so there’s still plenty of opportunity for growth. There’s not an “@” or a “RT” in sight. But clearly, it’s easier for people to relate to and “follow” a real person than a real brand.

Which is why my two cents on the subject is simple: make it personal. Regardless of whom you choose to be the voice of your brand on social channels, please encourage them to be as human as possible.

K thx.

3. How much is “too much” (or too little) social marketing? How do you know if you’re doing enough on social channels?

I’d answer this question in terms of the target audience: Are they engaging with you (actively and genuinely) on the social channels in which you’ve chosen to participate?

Where else is your audience spending their time online?

The beauty of social marketing is that it enables your loyal fans to market on your behalf and your critics to be converted to fans before a live audience. You don’t need to be everywhere to make that happen. But wherever you are… really be there!

Another classic example: Blendtec, the folks that make those pricey commercial-grade blenders, have done a phenomenal job of utilizing YouTube to increase brand awareness and boost sales (by 300%!). They’ve got a few dozen “Will It Blend” videos with over a million views; in fact their foray into social marketing has been so successful that their YouTube channel is now a profit center for the company.

But take a look at what Blendtec has done on Twitter or Facebook and you’ll find they’re virtually nonexistent.

My advice? Pick the channels that make the most sense for your target audience (ie where are they already spending their time online?). Get really cozy with that/those channels. Set clear, distinct, measurable objectives. Take great care to build a strategy that emphasizes marketing with your audience, not to or at them. Constantly monitor, measure, evaluate, and refine. Oh—and keep in mind that everything that holds true today is likely to change dramatically over the next 12 months. ☺

4. How do you quantify the value of your fans/followers? We’re struggling to justify our social marketing budget, but haven’t cracked the nut on projecting or proving ROI from our social programs.

Ah, yes! The million dollar “social marketing ROI” question! [insert dramatic music here]

First, let me say this: anyone (agency, consultant, guru, or otherwise) who tells you that it’s not possible to measure or quantify the impact of social marketing programs is either lying, ignorant, or stupid. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s also true, and frankly, I’ve had it with this discussion.

Digital is inherently measurable. Period.

That doesn’t mean that proving ROI is a snap, but it’s certainly not impossible.

If your agency/consultant/social media “guru” tells you otherwise, RUN! Run fast in the other direction!

Ok, now to answer the question.

There is no “set” value for a fan or follower. That value will depend on your business, and more specifically, on your business’ transactional data, ie $ per transaction, # transactions per month, # new customers per month, etc.

To get to the “per fan value,” you’ll need to overlay that transactional data with the social data you’re collecting (ie. net new followers per month, # of friends/fans per follower, # of links shared/follower, # of comments/posts, Net Promoter Score, etc. *Note, the specific social data that you’re tracking may vary, depending on the specific objectives you’ve set forth at the start of your program).

Then you’ll need to layer in web analytics, and ideally, any loyalty or relevant behavioral data that you have available.

All of these data points should be superimposed over the same span of time, say January to June, so that even if you’re not able to track a unique sale back to a unique Facebook fan (for example), you will be able to identify trends, spikes, and deltas over time.

Ideally, you dive into this analysis with some solid benchmarks or at the very least, a clear understanding of your baseline and your [distinct, measurable] objectives.

For a big-picture thinker like myself, the above process is about as painful as a root canal (possibly more—at least the root canal comes with novacaine), but trust me, it’s worth it. When you can walk into your CMOs or CEOs office with some hard numbers that prove your social programs are not just effective in “building buzz” but actually drive sales and are insanely cost-effective, you’ll thank me.

Oh yes—one more thing. Let’s be very, very clear about the definition of ROI.

ROI is not a ‘subjective’ term. It’s not “whatever you want it to be” like some social media marketing experts will have you believe. It stands for Return on Investment, and it refers specifically and unequivocally to dollars and cents, calculated like so:

ROI = (gain from investment – cost of investment)/cost of investment

Usually, this is expressed as a percentage, but ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS it refers to dollars.

It would be more fun to measure the ROI of social marketing efforts in hugs or smiles or “good karma,” but that wont cut it at your next board meeting. Sorry.

5. What’s the next Twitter/Facebook?

Great question! Personally, I’m less inclined to introduce you to the Next Killer App and more inclined to urge you to bone up on today’s essential social tools (and yes, I’d put Twitter and Facebook at the top of that list).

But since you asked… my newest/latest fascination is with Foursquare and technologies like Wifitti that tie social networking together with mobile technology in some awfully interesting ways. Feels like we’re finally approach that notion of “convergence” that was the big buzz word of the late 90’s.

Man, I’m getting old.

So what do you think about these topics? Agree? Disagree? Let’s hear your two cents! (Please)

Thanks again to the fine folks who joined me at yesterday’s Lunch & Learn and helped kick off this conversation. If you’d like to join me for a future Lunch & Learn, add your comment to this post.