Sealing The Deal: Chapter 12 - The New Community Rules

How far is your message traveling? You can determine this by the number of links your story has garnered, the number of people tweeting about your campaign, or the number of connections you’ve accumulated since you listed your Fan page on Facebook. Depending on the channel, you can measure this by seeing how many retweets a specific story or URL has gotten, or you can review a particular URL by using Yahoo! Site Explorer (shown in Figure 12.3, “Yahoo! Site Explorer counts and shows inbound links to a particular URL”) and noting how many “Inlinks” (Yahoo! terminology for inbound links) are now pointing to the URL in question.

Figure 12.3. Yahoo! Site Explorer counts and shows inbound links to a particular URL

How often are people visiting your site? To determine this, open up your analytics software and look at the number of impressions in a specific time period versus other periods. If you see a surge of traffic and you are doing no other marketing at the same time, it may very well be attributed to your social media marketing campaign. You may also want to review your web analytics to see how many visits your website receives on average and how frequently you received visitors after your campaign took off.

How deep are conversations related to your business? Are people actually discussing the subject, or are they looking, commenting (or not), and moving on? If there’s more depth and influence, there’s more potential for conversion and virality.

Are you actually seeing people click through to other parts of your site since you launched that viral piece to raise awareness about your business? Are they downloading the software you’ve asked them to try? Are you seeing additional transactions? Registrations? Purchases?

How long will users stick with you after your social media campaign gets plastered on their radars? Are they going to stick with you once they become aware of your existence, or are they going to go elsewhere? Will you have them for a short while until their involvement tapers off; will you see them only for the duration of the campaign; or are they true customers for life? Figure 12.4, “Web analytics: Traffic before and after a short-term viral campaign” shows what you can expect of a successful viral launch, though results may vary. Before the article shown took off, there was not much traffic generated on the site. After the article was passed along, the site saw more traffic.

Figure 12.4. Web analytics: Traffic before and after a short-term viral campaign

You can gauge the success of a social media marketing campaign by looking at these different metrics. However, your internal marketing team should review each individual metric and determine how to best measure the output, so there is no definitive suggestion about what to look for besides results. Plus, in alignment with your SMART goals (see Chapter 2, Goal Setting in a Social Environment), you may need to tweak metrics.

While some of these areas may seem a little broad, you can often assess the overall success of a campaign by reviewing the quality of the reach and influence. For example, influence is something you may not be able to measure directly, but what is the quality of conversation? Are people considering actually trying out the product after being alerted to its existence? Is the promotional message causing users to shy away from your product? The idea here is to start listening to the conversation, and then participating to create long-term relationships that will yield success in the future.

A one-time deal may work for that two-week promotion, and if that is your goal, you should stop right there. For most individuals and organizations, however, a long-term engagement will require a long-term commitment. Just like any type of promotional tactic, social media marketing is hard work. You can work on viral campaigns, but after that, you will also need to be entrenched in the community and involved in the discussion. You may not want to focus on viral campaigns at all, but if you’re considering social media, you’ll still need to be social. Thus, involvement in the community is important.

Listening to the conversation is something you will need to do on a regular basis. Staying silent is a good way to shun your followers and cause them to turn to another provider for the same (or similar) services. Don’t be one of those social media marketers who engage only when it’s critical to silence the naysayers; have a consistent dialogue.

Whether or not you want to participate, you should always be monitoring for mentions of your brand, CEO, public relations people, and industry, and you should use this information as a way to enter the conversation. You can build your brand simply by listening and subsequently participating. Add meaningful comments to blog posts. Involve yourself in the conversations on Twitter, reddit, Facebook, and FriendFeed, especially as they relate to your company. Pay attention to what people say in your industry and use this information to grow and better yourself and your offerings. On that note, what are your competitors doing? Are they listening? Are they not? If they are, can you do it better? If they’re not, can you be the first person to start the trend?

Consistently review and monitor mentions of your company. Watch the sentiment. Is it positive? Is it negative? Can you turn that sentiment around? Try to nurture the opinions of people around you.

All creators of social media sites had one thing in mind: they wanted to connect people with similar interests or to make it easier for friends, new and old, to communicate with one another. At their core, these social networks still exist for this purpose. You must take this into account at all times when considering marketing in these communities.

If you’ve worked in an advertising or public relations agency for several years, your mindset may be, “I’m looking to market my product, so let me get people’s email addresses and start sending them newsletters.” Well, that might be your strategy if you aren’t aware of how to embark on this different type of journey into a world where people who accept your friendship are not necessarily opting in to communications (plus, this is a violation of the terms of service on multiple social networks—read the fine print!) Ask a 20-year-old Facebook addict how you should market your product in her territory (remember, Facebook started off as a social network for college kids), and her answer may be much different than you expect. Overt marketing tactics will not be well received by the youth and active social media users of today. These old strategies may end up causing people to push you away. This, in turn, could also cost you your reputation, and in a world where reputation management failures can really break that business you’ve spent years and generations making, you don’t want to take that risk.

Never look at a social media site solely as a means to promote your product. If that is your goal in social media marketing, you may find that your campaign is a failure. Bring someone on board (that 20-year-old Facebook addict, perhaps) who cares about the community she is involved in. These enthusiasts and avid users are good resources to tap into; nobody already established in these communities would want to ruin their credibility by involving themselves in inauthentic interactions. Only those genuine relationships prevail, and these individuals already have the following and credibility to make your campaign a success. The bottom line is that selfish motives won’t find success in social media marketing, and the companies and individuals who only take and do not give back to the community will be weeded out.

Jay Izso, a 40-something in social media, shared a story with me about a time he was befriended by an individual on LinkedIn, and he immediately accepted. The next day, that person started promoting his business and services to Izso. Apparently, this new “friend” was only looking for people to market to. What did Izso think? Well, he shared that story with me—it obviously left a bitter taste in his mouth. If you’re going to join social networks primarily to evangelize your business, you’re going to prompt people like Izso to share your etiquette missteps with others. Be real first. Let people become curious about what you have to offer, and then you can start marketing to them.

The bottom line is that you can achieve success in social media marketing, even if you’re still focused on a traditional marketing mindset. You can learn by doing and by watching how others participate. Do what other successful community participants are doing. Rinse and repeat. Keep in mind that success takes time. You must be willing to devote that time to the task.

Consider your blog as your home base. This is where you can freely communicate your own objectives and take the community’s questions for future consideration and deliberation. You may receive feedback, so make yourself accessible by contact form or via comments.

Build your company’s presence on online properties beyond your blog. Start that YouTube video channel to upload videos. (If you’re not up to snuff on video production, at least grab a username for your company while you can. Check availability of usernames on social sites using a site like http://www.knowem.com; Figure 12.5, “Claim your name for social media services via KnowEm, even if you don’t plan to be active on all of them”). Create your free Flickr account to share your photographs, and when you find that it’s helping you and you’re getting lots of visitors and have more photos to share, consider upgrading to a pro account. Start registering your username on other social media sites. Don’t use your company name on a site like Digg or reddit, though, especially if you plan to submit stories on your company’s behalf there. If you do, it will smell like marketing and the community members won’t have it.

Figure 12.5. Claim your name for social media services via KnowEm, even if you don’t plan to be active on all of them

Putting all your eggs in one basket is never an ideal strategy. While it may be easier to become an expert in one site, you should try to spread yourself across multiple social media sites (but don’t spread yourself too thin). If you find social media an imperative strategy, allocate more than one individual to the task. Use someone who is well versed in photography and video production. Use someone else who is well versed in copywriting for social media, and use yet another person who is well versed in social media promotion across social bookmarking and social news sites. On the other hand, consolidating all of these roles among one or two people may be the only way you’ll see results, especially in small businesses where manpower isn’t abundant. Either way, bear in mind that it’s a time commitment that you must be willing to invest in at all times.

Start adopting a social media mindset throughout your organization. The CEO of your company should understand social media enough to involve himself if necessary, though heavier involvement would be well received by constituents across those services. Even maintaining a personal profile on LinkedIn and a Facebook profile page is a good way to start. Have him contribute to the blog, time permitting, and perhaps he can speak via video about the innovations the company is making for both employees (for your internal newsletter) or for the actual users of the service.

To promote your organizational goals, build genuine relationships with users of social media communities. Share your interests with them and let them get to know you. Be real and genuine, and long-term relationships that go well beyond social networks are likely to follow.

Read the preceding sentences. They’re broken up for easy reading. If I provide the same sort of information in paragraph form, you may not be able to actually absorb each individual segment. In fact, lists (Figure 12.9, “Lists succeed in social media because they’re heavily referenced”) often perform better than paragraph posts or articles.

Lists are viral by nature because they encourage heavy engagement, conversation, and communication, and they also often show that the writer has done some extensive research on a specific subject. With a list, you can comment on a single item listed; it’s a lot easier to isolate and nit-pick those facts you may not necessarily agree with (or, on the other hand, that you agree with a lot). By their nature, lists are:

Figure 12.9. Lists succeed in social media because they’re heavily referenced

The catch to lists is that they are a bit overused in social media channels, so don’t turn every single article or post into list format. Similarly, don’t break up your list into several pages if you can avoid it. On some online publications, the extra page views help boost advertising rates, but if you’re a blogger or writer who does not utilize such advertising, it’s best to steer clear of that kind of list implementation. Most readers may want to either print out the article or to reference the content easily, and adding additional page views that obstruct and complicate their access to the article can cause frustration.

Are you obligated to share only articles in social media? Not necessarily. There’s video, photography, and even short 140-character blurbs that take seconds to digest. Additionally, there’s the quiz or questionnaire. Give people a chance to participate by answering questions about themselves on a variety of topics, from “Are you a romantic?” to “Are you addicted to the Internet?” to “How bad are your spending habits?”, and you’ve got potential to share something about a specific subject that can ultimately go viral.

You can make up interesting questions that are related to your business. Then, give people the option to participate via true or false answers, by multiple choice, or by providing their own input (Figure 12.10, “The quiz: give people the opportunity to share, and score them based on their answers”).

Figure 12.10. The quiz: give people the opportunity to share, and score them based on their answers

Once the quiz or questionnaire is completed, give people the option to share their results with their peers. They could simply share the data with their friends by linking directly to the quiz. On the other hand, there’s a lot more potential for the quiz to be spread if you create a widget that quiz participants can place on their sites via HTML code once they’ve completed it, as shown in Figure 12.11, “Give your quiz participants the ability to share their results on their websites, social media profiles, or blogs”. You can also extend quizzes to social networks like Facebook; quizzes are often popular on that service. The best part about these HTML codes is that, by nature of their existence, they help build relevant links to your site, especially if the quiz is related to your business objectives.

Figure 12.11. Give your quiz participants the ability to share their results on their websites, social media profiles, or blogs

If you can get a graphic designer to create an interactive game or video that promotes your product, you should definitely pursue that opportunity (see Figure 12.12, “An interactive holiday card”). Let people personalize pages with your product to share with their friends.

Figure 12.12. An interactive holiday card

Interactive video that users can personalize may be the costliest option, but the return is substantial: users find that they can really engage with your brand while also being able to provide information about themselves. They are compelled to share these videos and games with their friends, and the result is extremely powerful word-of-mouth marketing that works by virtue of social interactions.

Some examples of successful participatory and interactive video include the Gillette ManQuarium (shown in Figure 12.13, “The Gillette ManQuarium interactive game”) and in the promotion of Bob Dylan’s album titled His Greatest Songs. In the former, participants search an online database for the “perfect body” for their “perfect-looking guy” and plaster their crush’s face onto the body. Once the guy is created, participants are asked questions about their crush and can then interact with their guy. The end result offers increased branding for Gillette as well as entertainment for the participant.

Figure 12.13. The Gillette ManQuarium interactive game

In an effort to promote Bob Dylan’s new album, one organization created an interactive game in which users could fill out 10 cards; a video would then launch depicting Dylan flipping through the customized cards to the tune of one of his songs. Figure 12.14, “Bob Dylan’s interactive messaging game” illustrates the game.

Figure 12.14. Bob Dylan’s interactive messaging game

Once the cards were filled out and the music video started playing, users could send the video to their friends, which meant that as more and more people received it, there was more and more potential for it to be passed around. This is word-of-mouth marketing at its finest.

As children, we grew up preferring illustrations in our printed books. As adults, we still have an emotional attachment to strong visuals and compelling imagery. In an online society where there’s an excess of information, mostly in the written word, some individuals prefer content that is dressed up with images, as an image can contribute to a story’s success. In a social marketing atmosphere, visuals and images tell powerful stories.

If, for example, you work for a data recovery firm, wouldn’t it be interesting if you shared photographs of the hard drives submitted by some of your customers? You’ve likely had customers who have had their computers burned in fires or smashed by exes, so why not share the customer’s story and use the image of the hard drive to show your readers exactly what became of their precious data? On the other hand, what if you work in a drug rehabilitation home? You may want to bring awareness of the dangers of drug dependency by chronicling the last days of a heroin addict’s life^[105] in a photo journal of very emotionally provocative images.

The example image essay in Figure 12.15, “A photographic journey of a mother’s last days with her son as he battles cancer and succumbs to it” shows the photographic journey of a mother celebrating the final days of her son’s life as he battled cancer. The story itself is gut-wrenching, and some of the related photographs may even make you cry. However, the mother’s affection toward her ailing son was clear, and the love of her little boy was shared among thousands. The essay won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for feature photography.^[106]

Figure 12.15. A photographic journey of a mother’s last days with her son as he battles cancer and succumbs to it

These examples are testaments to the power of using images to raise awareness of different subject matters, but providing commentary, too, can bring additional success to your viral marketing initiatives.

In a similar fashion, if your customers are interested in learning more about the process of manufacturing your products, you may want to give them a tour of your factory or office. Your followers and stakeholders would be most interested in visualizing the company dynamic, which becomes a great opportunity to share what goes on behind closed doors in a video or photo tour.

Does your industry suffer from a problem that you may be able to solve? Perhaps that need is not yet on the top of your mind, but chances are, there’s something you can do that will help make others’ lives (and even your own) easier. Building tools is one such example. In fact, tools are a terrific way to build high-quality relevant links to your site and to establish thought leadership. For example, do you specialize in computer infrastructure for enterprise management? Perhaps you want to provide a tool that will help webmasters monitor their servers, like the one from Dotcom-Monitor^[107] shown in Figure 12.16, “An online tool that monitors websites”.

Figure 12.16. An online tool that monitors websites

Think about the big online tools that already exist: you’ve probably seen a mortgage calculator or a calorie counter on a website or through a search. If your industry addresses either of these categories, can you use the same tool’s concept and make it even better? Can you think of another problem along those lines that your users may want to use the Net for to solve easily? These applications benefit just about everyone, even those not necessarily looking to buy a product, and they have the added benefit of being shareable and thus helping promote brand awareness.

The iPhone, Palm Pre, and other handhelds allow for the installation of third-party web applications, and these applications are more ubiquitous than ever. You may want to empower mobile-dependent users by giving them a solution that they can access at any time and from any place. Mobile utilities are becoming a lot more prevalent, as they can help users solve everyday problems. In addition, individuals can easily find mobile applications outside your industry’s website (such as through iTunes, for example), and you may accumulate new interested parties without overtly marketing to them. In essence, your new followers will be able to find you easily without even actively searching for you.

Do people look to you for advice? Teach your users how to do something. The best way to do so is to utilize video for the purpose of illustrating a process. For example, there are a number of great videos out there that teach people how to tie a tie,^[108] how to fold a shirt in less than 2 seconds^[109] (shown in Figure 12.17, “A video showing how to fold a t-shirt”), and how to shuffle poker chips like a professional.^[110]

Figure 12.17. A video showing how to fold a t-shirt

Videos can really work to promote thought leadership. Further, the most compelling of the videos may be referenced on how-to blogs and on other sites.

In Chapter 4, Participation Is Marketing: Getting into the Game, you learned about the social media methods utilized by the Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse. Its YouTube channel is filled with informational food videos teaching budding chefs how to prepare great meals. For example, it offers videos titled “How to Make Fire-Roasted Sweet Onions” and “How to Make Mate.”

There are infinite possibilities when teaching someone how to do something. You can illustrate the entire process through a series of photographs and explanatory captions, or you can use videos to speak directly to your readers (in a method similar to videoblogging) to teach them how they can do something well.