I had the opportunity to engage a conversation with some marketers around breakfast the other day (see marketingbreakfast.be for those in Belgium who are interested about the next ones).
As a first breakfast, we wanted to axe a few myths and plagues on social marketing, which is, after all, a very recent type of marketing.
First, what is social marketing ? In essence, all activities brands conduct on the Web with a social dimension: sharing, conversations, through existing social networks or own channel.
What’s so attractive? Well, you heard about ‘joining the conversation’…Social marketing will help you grow your business through more engaged consumers, more active ambassadors .
To kick start the discussion, we thought it would make sense to explore the 4 myths and the 3 plagues of the arena.
The 4 myths:
4 myths are being spread out in the marketing community – we wanted to kill them one by one:
- Myth 1: we have too many customers to do this kind of things. As some of you may have heard, we sometimes refer to a study made by Catalina Marketing in the US, tracking the real shopping behavior of 54 millions americans. The results ? On average, 80% of the volume of a typical brand is made by 2.5% of shoppers. In Belgium, this would mean 100 000 shoppers. The concept of a ‘mass product’ is dead for FMCG
-Myth 2: Consumers do not care about online conversations. Our study with ANT Research in October 2009 showed that, while a minority indeed will conduct conversations, other are very interested to see it. If they see the brand listens and respond, they declare that it would strongly enhance their perception of the brand
- Myth 3: If consumers start talking to us, we would be overwhelmed. While a silent majority is looking for brands to react, only a minority, typically between 5 to 20% (for most engaged brands) will actually want to interact. Net, we found that in Belgium, over a couple of months, a brand could expect between 500 and 2000 interactions. No need to hire an army.
- Myth 4: There is no ROI. The US has furiously embraced social media over the last years. There is ample evidence that a customer self-support forum is providing large impact in terms of cost savings (large Q&A base, support by other consumers), and conversational marketing has been largely used to boost sales and take advantage of the viral and amplifying effect of Twitter and Facebook. Last, we found a high correlation between early adopters and influencers through our studies. Chances are high that people who do care interacting with your brands are as well very active on social networks and in ‘live’ events about your brand. Chances are high that they will be the first to adopt your new products, the early adopters that are so critical to turn a new product into a success. Don’t miss them.
Convinced ? Hold on a bit more. With those that made the jump, we found as well unfortunate habits already, what we call the “3 plagues” of social media:
3 plagues
- Plague 1: Too simple: Use social media as another ‘push’ channel. Many brands just copy/paste their newsfeed to Facebook, Netlog, Twitter…Wrong. Each channel has its specificities, and most should be used to engage consumers in a dialogue. For instance, Jetblue, the US airlines, is using Twitter mostly to respond to enquiries from customers, and tailor its messages. Razwar, an ecommerce challenger in Belgium proposing shaving solutions at a fair price, is filtering messages about ’shaving’ on Twitter and sending funny replies to followers, sending them to its web sites.
- Plague 2: Too aggressive: Campaign-based thinking. Social marketing does not fit really well into ‘campaign-based thinking’, which is the usual rythm of companies and agencies. You are not at war, but wanting to engage with consumers, one by one. Because it takes time to plan, prepare for it, and gain results. Those can be substantial, but will take some time. You need to build the right audience for you step by step, and invest a little, every day.
-Plague 3. Too passive: ROI vs ROI. There is a lot of talk about ‘Return on Investment’. What is often forgotten is the importance of ‘Risk of Inertia’. Your competitors will put their acts together. Consumers will get upset not to find you or your inertia – their sophistication and expectations have skyrocketed over the last years. As Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft put it in a speech made in Belgium: ‘for the first time in history, marketers are trailing the consumers’. Don’t let them trail you further and put a sense of urgency into it.
So, this was a selection of the most burning ones we felt – any other you have encountered ? Feel free to react.
The rest of the conversation was around enriching examples of how the best brands engage consumers around the web. That will be a focus of the next blog.
alexvdm
