Archive for May, 2010

Location Based Services & their Value to Corporate Marketers

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Ask any social media or mobile prognosticator and they will tell you that Location Based Services (LBS) were/are one of the hottest trends to watch in 2010.  I’m sure there are some already “going out on a limb” and saying it will be a trend to watch in 2011 as well.  Even though they were all right, LBS still has not lived up to it’s billing yet and its almost half way through the year.  Chances are it will though and we want to explore some of the applications that will take LBS from cute app store add-on to app store “must have”.

Let’s start first by defining what LBS is for those who still are not quite sure.  One way to do this is using the entry from Wikipedia:

 ”A location-based service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device”, Wikipedia

The other way is to just say it in plain english:

“Location Based Service allows a device (mobile, iPad, Kindle, car, etc) to identify your where abouts and offer new opportunities to better service, market, track or sell things where your location makes a difference”, Jason Breed

We are just starting to figure out how best to apply LBS in a way that consumers will use it and in a way that will move the results needle for corporate marketers.  Right now, LBS is mostly being applied to local search, navigation and some social media tools.  Most of what you hear about is consumer oriented and look like (taken directly from Wikipedia entry):

  1. Requesting the nearest business or service, such as an ATM or restaurant
  2. Turn by turn navigation to any address
  3. Locating people on a map displayed on the mobile phone
  4. Receiving alerts, such as notification of a sale on gas or warning of a traffic jam
  5. Location-based mobile advertising

From a consumer’s perspective, this is interesting and something I’ll keep in mind next time I get a craving for a taco.  This kind of thinking is why LBS has not yet become really useful or a “must have”.  This is a very consumer centric approach to providing capability.  Think about it from a corporate perspective for a minute though.  What if:

TAXIs:  you are in New York, it’s raining and your taxi company is the only one who can allow consumers to see where an open taxi is or even “bid” on a trip by seeing what others on the same street corner will pay to get a cab.  When you are running late to an important meeting, there’s a real need to win a taxi by guaranteeing a tip.

Retail Outlets: Imagine knowing who your visitors are and having employees rate their purchasing value.  Next time they come you may treat “high rollers” differentlythan “time wasters”.  Think about that loyalty program for a minute.

Services: add LBS to local search and know when an area has a a lot of people sick, send a mobile flu-shot van.  Identify needs then meet those needs with services on the go.

There are lots of ways to use LBS that will create new opportunities for the most innovative companies early on.  Whether tracking shipments, products, employees, customers, equipment or potential demand with LBS, there are many ways that are just being explored.  Our host this week, Jason Keath, will help us explore the relevance of Location Based Services for businesses.  Jason has his finger on the pulse of “trends to watch” and their application to marketers through his Social Fresh Conferences.  Jason has a knack for creating hot topics and bring the best minds together to help businesses distill where they need to focus their limited resources and time.

 Topic:  Location Based Services & their Value to Corporate Marketers

  1. Will location based services (LBS) lead to real revenue gains for large brands?
  2. Will the future user base of location based services (LBS) look more like Twitter or Facebook?
  3. What is the most significant challenge that locations based servcies (LBS) face?

Join us in this very relevant topic on Tuesday June 1 at noon eastern.  Follow along on Twitter with #sm62 or through our live page at www.hashtagsocialmedia.com/live.

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Posted in Mobile | 1 Comment »

Quick & Legal: How to Make Social Media Less Scary for the Legal Dept

Monday, May 24th, 2010

There’s a saying in software development that customers want to get their projects done:

Cheap, Fast and Good.

The typical IT joke is that you can have 2 but not all 3.  I have a feeling that’s where the legal department’s position is with the other departments who are deploying social and have a need to engage with their customers.  Where the CEO ideally wants the response to happen Quickly & Legally.  The joke here is that Legal departments say “Quick” OR ”Legal” but not both.  There have been a couple of big brands on the wrong end of that joke lately and therein lies the importance of incorporating the legal department as a founding partner of your social efforts in the beginning rather than trying to “bolt” them on afterwards.

To be fair, there are a lot of reasons that the Legal department should be a significant partner in your efforts.  This deck from Daliah Saper does a solid job identifying all the reasons that mitigating risk in social is important.  Here are just a few:

  • Privacy Laws – Like HIPPA in medical
  • Negligence – in assuming a duty and not following  through on it
  • Trademark – confusing a consumer about your Brand and it’s use
  • Copyright – using/sharing something that’s not yours
  • Discrimination – especially when used in the hiring process & checking up on current employees

The marketing reality though is that Brands simply don’t control their messaging the same way in which they used to.  Responses to outcries from promoters and detractors alike that are measured in days or worse yet weeks is simply unacceptable today.  Speed is of the essence and customers just want to hear the truth.  That puts legal departments, who are in place today to mitigate risk, in a precarious position.  Where their primary job is reviewing the actions of employees it typically takes longer to get tasks completed.  Much of the time now executives who take the time to run through legal are actually opening themselves and their companies up to increased risk of being perceived as non-responsive and contrived (or not authentic).  The damage from being too slow can sometimes be more than acting quickly and genuinely.

What are companies to do?  Our moderator this week, Lucretia Pruitt, has been working on answering this question as well.  A veteran of the digital space, she has had her share of run-ins with the legal debate and has agreed to help all of us work through this.  Following in our tradition of 3 questions spaced 20 mins apart, Lucretia will lead the chat starting at noon eastern with the following questions:

Topic: Quick & Legal: How to Make Social Media Less Scary for the Legal Dept

Q1: How can big companies advocate for less regulation to reflect realities of social media engagement?

Q2: Should you train legal in SM and what does it look like?

Q3: How do you create SM policies/strategies that legal will accept?

We invite you to join in the conversation to share or learn or both!  Follow along by using #sm61 on your favorite Twitter client or simply follow along on our LIVE page.

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Posted in corporate, Privacy, social media | 1 Comment »

Facebook Blowback: What's the Upshot for Social Media?

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

A hot topic this week that will be the beginning of a series of events around data privacy and social media.  To start it off, it’s helpful to understand the consumer point-of -view and how privacy is perceived and how the major social sites are addressing privacy and data security.

Facebook appears to be the poster child right now for their approach and response to privacy concerns from the industry and from their members.

“Your information can’t be made safe on Facebook, but you can make it safer.” says Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, ITworld

While I could provide my opinion on Facebook, Google’s data privacy mis-hap, etc I think there are enough viewpoints around it to simply pull the best thoughts together as a resource.

Sephoria, from Blogher did a great post on this topic and had this to say:

“….What pisses me off the most are the numbers of people who feel trapped. Not because they don’t have another choice. (Technically, they do.) But because they feel like they don’t. They have invested time, energy and resources into building Facebook what it is. They don’t trust the service, are concerned about it, and are just hoping the problems will go away. It pains me how many people are living like ostriches. If we don’t look, it doesn’t exist, right?? This isn’t good for society. Forcing people into being exposed isn’t good for society. Outing people isn’t good for society, turning people into mini-celebrities isn’t good for society….”

and Jeff Jarvis from his blog, Buzz Machine has this to say:

“They confused sharing with publishing. They conflate the public sphere with the making of a public. That is, when I blog something, I am publishing it to the world for anyone and everyone to see: the more the better, is the assumption. But when I put something on Facebook my assumption had been that I was sharing it just with the public I created and control there. That public is private. Therein lies the confusion.”

Our moderator JD Lasica points out that now the activist organization MoveOn.org is lashing out at Facebook attracting support from its over 5 million members to promote the following:

“Facebook recently made a number of changes to its privacy policy that make your profile information public – even if you thought it wasn’t. Many people aren’t even aware of these changes. So we put together a chart to show you what these changes mean for protecting your information.

If enough people understand what these changes are and how they affect them, we can convince Facebook that this is not how we expect our personal information to be treated. Click the buttons below to share this chart with your friends via email, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.”

To make sense of all this, JD Lasica will be moderating today’s chat on the topic of privacy specifically on Facebook.  We are pleased to have JD as he is one of the founding fathers of social strategy it seems and has been at this well before it was ever referred to as social media.  The topic and questions are below:

TOPIC:  Facebook Blowback: What’s the upshot for social media?

Q1) Has Facebook gone too far with “Open Graph,” infringing on our notions of “private” information?

Q2) What’s the disconnect between the elites and the 425 million users who could care less?

Q3) Marketers are salivating over the troves of FB members’ personal information that has become public. Is this a land mine waiting to go off?

The chat will take place Tuesday 5/18 at noon eastern and you can follow along from any Twitter client by using #sm60 this week or by simply following along at our LIVE page which provides a unique chat experience.

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Posted in Privacy | 1 Comment »

Is Retention the New Acquisition in Social Media?

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Take a look inside your company.  How much is your marketing budget?  Now, how much do you spend on customer service in relation to new customer marketing.  For most companies, the amount spent on new customer acquisition far outweighs the amount spent on retaining exisitng customers. 

Think about your last visit to the mall.  Go into any Sears, Macys, JCPenney, Circuit City or any other large anchor store and who’s the first ones you run into?  The sales associates hit you up at the door and never leave your side, even though you’re just walking through to get to your car.

Companies spend weeks training new employees, teaching them sales skills (and like Glengarry Glen Ross) then send them out to ABC (Always Be Closing).  No one ever asks if you have shopped there before or if you already know what you need.  They just offer ancillary products to upsell. 

Now take a look at the companies mentioned above. One is out of business, two are teetering on bankruptcy, one is doing OK…not great, but OK.  Then look at Best Buy who was able to flip the funnel over.  They have emerged from one of the roughest economic times in history stronger than ever.  When all the competitors are struggling to stay alive, Best Buy is doing very well by industry standards.  Why is this?

One needs to look no further than the doorway to get a sense.  The first thing you see when you enter a Best Buy is the very large, well-marked customer service center just to your left.  Try finding the customer service center in a Sears.  You have to walk around a good bit and ask a couple of people on your trip. 

Think about the context.  Companies spend so much on acquiring new customers and so little on keeping these precious customers once they get them.  Today there are more ways to stay in contact with your customer base, that you have to start making excuses on why not to do it.  Social Media in the great enabler that can help connect those customers who were always mobile, did not run the household but still influenced a significant amount of purchase power. 

To help us better understand the potential of connecting with our existing customers is a well respected and long admired practitioner in the social media space and accomplished author.  Joseph Jaffe will lead the discussion to help us understand the need and benefit of keeping our existing customers unequivically happy.  Joe is a recognized, global authority on the value of a customer and a legend in traditional and digital marketing industries.  The topic and questions this week are:

Topic: Is Retention the New Acquisition in Social Media?

Q1: What might “retention is the new acquisition” refer to in social media?

Q2: What are some of the ways to get customers to purchase again and become ambassadors?

Q3: How can you use existing customers to gain new ones?

Q4: What role do employees play in the promise of flipping the funnel?

This week we will change it up just a little and run with 4 questions instead of 3.  This means we will start right at 12 noon Eastern with Q1 and transition to the next question every 15 minutes.  Please join us Tuesday 5/11 and follow #sm59 or simply use our LIVE Page.

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Posted in Customer Service | Comments Off

Connecting With Consumers Through Social Media

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

"Take a look from the outside looking in"

The title of this post pretty much sums it up.  So often we get caught up in frameworks and checklists and strategies and everyone is running around looking busy.  Meanwhile, back at ranch where the real work happens, consumers are still being marketed at even online.  How could this be?

It is helpful sometimes to take a step back and take a look at what you are doing from the outside looking in.  Consider how your consumers view you online and where they view you.  You might begin to understand why your social programs are performing the way they are.  So many strategies stop at the tools so you end up with a blog or a Facebook page and the strategist goes home.  Inevitably the same marketer or communications person does what they know and starts blasting messages.    As a result, the consumers that you were trying to get closer to actually end up further away.  To translate this back into social media jargon, you end up with an audience of lurkers (assuming they stay that long) when you are attempting to get those consumers engaged.

Jake McKee 90-9-1.com

Jake Mckee’s infamous 90-9-1 pyramid comes to mind.  If you do not make it easy, fast and safe for consumers to engage you will end up with more than 90 percent lurkers trolling your content.  On the other hand, if you take the time to create baby steps of engagement like a simple “thumbs up/down”, share this, or even a one question “quick poll” your audience will begin to engage more.  This helps to establish trust as well.  With trust comes responsibility though.  If you allow members to digitally attack each other via comment threads, etc then you will end up with the same 4 people running your site like street dogs marking their territory on trees.  Curating community content to keep it safe will go a long ways for members to want to contribute and connect with greater frequency.

Once they are connecting with higher frequency, what’s your plan then?  What messages do you want those consumers sharing?  Your consumers have 2 experiences with every interaction they have with you.  Those 2 experiences are perception and reality.   If you ask for suggestions, get them and never respond or even acknowledge them, the consumer’s perception is that you really don’t care.  All of these experiences get crafted into a story that is told and re-told online, at dinner parties, at the gym and anywhere else someone brings up your store, brand or product.

If consumers are your storytellers, then shouldn’t you have a plan to help shape that story every chance you get?  Two main themes are emerging: 1) enable consumers to connect with you more frequently and 2) have a plan in place to help mold their story about you once you do connect.  Sound straightforward?  If it does then you have never had to a) manage a community first hand, b) never been responsible for results or c) all of the above.

By design, our moderator has a lot of experience doing both.  Kyle Lacy is the head of Brandswag and a highly sought after social media practioner for businesses.  Kyle will lead a discussion around how to better connect with consumers by converting more passive consumers into active consumers of your brand and what to do once they become active.  This discussion will follow our weekly Tuesday event schedule taking place 5/4 at noon Eastern.    The topic and questions will be:

Topic: Connecting With Consumers Through Social Media

Q1) What are ways to move customers up the interactive chain from lurker to influencer?

Q2) What’s the value of storytelling vs. messaging?

Q3) How can you get customers to take action on your behalf and tell the story for you?

The event will begin with Q1 at noon eastern followed every 20 minutes with the next questions.  To follow along and add your POV simply track #sm58 via any Twitter client or follow along via our LIVE page.

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Posted in Content, social media | Comments Off