0

Activation is the Last Mile of Social Media Marketing

March 9, 2010

in Marketing, Social Media

lastmile.gif

In the world of telecommunications, the “last mile” refers to that last bit of connectivity – be it fibre, wire, wireless – that connects customers to the network.

The concept has acquired its own moniker because it represents a major and ongoing challenge for service providers: you can build the fastest, largest, and most robust network in the world, but if you can’t lay wire down the street to your individual businesses and customers it doesn’t do anyone much good.

The last mile concept also applies to business, and is a great way to evaluate how practical and effective social media marketing plans may become. In this case, activation – that final step that actually kicks off a campaign or concept within the intended community – is the last mile for social media marketing.

You can brainstorm out the most creative, engaging, and exciting social tactics and campaigns, but if nobody knows about them you’re not going to get very far. Sure, your campaign may rely on the social aspect of the idea – that those who discover it will kick off their own word of mouth storm. That’s great, but how are they going to discover it in the first place?

Activation, in this context, can be a blog outreach strategy to influential members of the community you’re seeking to engage. It can be a set of content and links that get distributed through updates to your brand’s popular Twitter accounts or Facebook pages. It can be some strategically tagged videos on popular video networks. It can even be more traditional media activities, such as an online media buy, Facebook engagement ads, or very often radio, print, and TV spots.

The point of calling activation the “last mile” is so you don’t forget about it in your quest to build out amazing social media programs. Social media and word of mouth marketing campaigns may rely on users sharing with others to gain steam and spread, but they still need to get noticed in the first place. Make sure all your campaigns and tactics include a concrete activation plan in order to make that happen.

*photo via Flickr and CC, by zachbass

Remember to subscribe to the RSS feed or follow me on Twitter.

0

Techmeme’s new button goes the Open Share route

March 8, 2010

in Social Media

Four years on, and Techmeme remains one of the first sites I hit each morning to get a sense for what’s happening in the tech world. Aside from having an uncanny knack (or, I suppose, a rather effective algorithm) for surfacing the hot conversations of the moment, and highlighting the posts or articles at the epicenter of them, Gabe Rivera’s invention also nicely aggregates the related online discussion, commentary, and criticism.

Techmeme-1.gif

Even better, you could permalink directly to that entire conversation, which was especially useful given the speed at which the headlines and conversations changed. What it lacked what that seemingly ubiquitous “share this” functionality, to instantly tweet or Facebook share the conversation with your friends, coworkers, or general Twitter followers. It’s nice to see that has changed at long last.

But what I really learned today was the difference between the “Share This” button you see everywhere and the “Open Share” button Gabe implemented on Techmeme.

share-compare.png

I always knew the standard green “share this” button was tied to a specific company, but given its ubiquity – kind of like the Kleenex for Web sharing – the thought that it was copyrighted and restricted never really sunk in. So it’s nice to learn about the Open Share icon, and it’s even better to see Techmeme using it.

0

Four great examples of brand ambassador programs

March 3, 2010

in Influencers

(Written by me, but originally posted to my agency’s blog. Excerpt reposted here.)

“Brand ambassador” is one of those fungible terms in marketing – it could mean fans who are just really passionate about a brand or product and share their love on their own accord, or it could mean a branded, deliberate program by a company to find, embrace, and engage their biggest fans.

If your brand already has the former, then take a moment to consider rolling out the latter. Tap into all that enthusiasm and help serious fans of your brand to spread the word. How can you get started? One quick way to is learn from one of these great examples of successful, established brand ambassador programs. Each of them takes a different tact, ranging from cultivating technical expertise to rewarding passion to just spreading around some fun. Some are more complex (and expensive) than others, but all can teach valuable lessons.

Read the rest over at the Ignite Social Media blog.

1

Beware the lone (social media) gunman

March 1, 2010

in Agencies, Social Media

Inspired yet again by something Joe Jaffe said (ain’t podcasts fun?), here’s my thought for the day on social media and agencies:

Watch out for ad, PR, and marketing agencies who grab one senior guy with some practical social media experience, declare him their expert, and never bother to build the bench depth behind him.

In theory it’s nice and easy. Grab a “rock star” who has a kick ass blog and a few tens of thousands of Twitter followers, give him a fancy title, and trot him out as a proof point in front of clients to show “hey look! we get it!” The flaw in that concept is twofold, one tactical and one more strategic.

On the tactical side, that one senior guy can’t know everything about social media, and even if maybe he knows a metric ton-load, someone has still got to do the work. If there’s no depth of social media-savvy talent on the bench behind him, then what? Who’s going to drive the engagements, dig deep into Facebook, and show some love to the crazy-yet-awesome fans of your brand? It’s not him, so make sure you understand how strong the bench is first.

On the strategic side, the “lone gunman” approach should be flashing big red warning signs to any client committed to social media. First, it indicates that the agency isn’t all the serious about social and will likely apply it only skin deep to your campaigns and strategy, bolted on at the end like some third-rate aftermarket fender.

Second, it signals that your agency is willing to play “check off the capabilities” box with you, without truly developing the practice and skills needed to make your campaigns shine in social media. If they’re willing to trot out this old tactic, what else are they skimping on?

So be suitably wary when you see that “Chief Social Officer” tagging along on the next campaign pitch. You may just be looking at the entire social media team.

0

Yet again, social media is not about any tool or platform

March 1, 2010

in Agencies, Social Media

It’s an argument that never seems to die, and only gains strength when the next hot platform or tool becomes the darling of the social media world. So let’s shoot it down again:

Social media is not about Twitter. It’s bigger than Facebook. There’s more to it than blogging, YouTube, LinkedIn, or [insert platform du jour here].

Mitch Joel and Joe Jaffe brought this one up during the most recent Jaffe Juice podcast, in response to the “do you tweet?” challenge to traditional ad agencies from the CMO of JetBlue, Marty St. George:

tweet_jetblue.jpg

The tweet itself isn’t really the issue – it was rather innocuous and kind of funny, when you get down to it. Especially when you look imagine the key biz dev guys at some of the big shops scrambling their team to “follow him! follow him! For the love of God, at least throw the man an @!”

But Joe and Mitch used the tweet to bring up a larger, and valid point: whether an agency is on, and monitoring, Twitter isn’t really a valid litmus test for their digital savvy. Yes, in this day and age it’s probably dumb of them not to, but it shouldn’t be a make or break test. Why?

Because as I said above, social media isn’t about one platform or tool. It’s about developing a certain mindset and understanding about how the way brands interact with their customers (and critics) has fundamentally changed. How people want to be part of a brand, to define, to make it their own, and not just be talked at. like in the golden years of the traditional agency.

Twitter is only four years old, about the same length of time that Facebook has been open to the world beyond college students. YouTube is all of five years old. Five. They may die any day now for all we know. Twitter could pull a Friendfeed, get bought up, cashed out, and ignored into oblivion despite the howling protests of its passionate users. A year from now something currently seeking seed funding could be doing to Facebook what it did to MySpace (and Friendster).

The tools will change, the platforms will evolve. No “are you using this tool or that one” litmus test should hold any real weight when determining the social media intelligence of your agencies. It’s about the mindset and the fundamental understanding of the new ways of doing business – that’s what you should look for in your agencies, those attributes that will survive the inevitable platform transitions that will make us all look back fondly at our cute Twitter addictions.

← Previous Entries