By Neicole Crepeau, Contributing {grow} Columnist

Traditionally, marketers have researched their customers’ demographics to have a clear idea of their age, gender, income, location, and other traits.

Marketers added psychographics to the mix, allowing them to take into account customer’s interests, values, and attitudes. A step up from the very general information that demographics provide, psychographics enable marketers to speak to customers in a way that resonates with them. Now, in the age of social media and behavioral ad targeting, we have to add another type of data to our arsenal: socialgraphics.

Socialgraphics capture the attitudes, characteristics, behavior, and, most important, motivations of customers online. Understanding an audience’s socialgraphics allows marketers to design internet marketing strategies that attract and retain customers in different online venues.

Socialgraphics helps move your message

The new world of digital marketing requires the kind of research that user experience teams routinely do, but marketers have not always accessed.  Yet, it’s critical information for companies looking to deeply engage consumers and really motivate them to take the online actions crucial to the brand.

Demographics and pyschographics may have been enough when marketers were focused simply on online advertising — finding the right keywords to target an audience was enough.

But in the complex digital world of social media, content marketing, email, reviews, etc., marketers need to find ways to get online users to take specific actions, what I call social actions, such as sharing the organization’s content, recommending it to others, opening emails, writing reviews, etc. To motivate users to take action, you first have to understand what motivates them. That requires a much deeper level of knowledge about user’s psyches.

Levels of socialgraphics

To be most effective, marketers need to understand the socialgraphics of their audience at a minimum of two levels:

Audience segmentation.  If your demographic segment is “college-educated working mothers of elementary-aged children,” you need to understand the general socialgraphics of this segment, too.

Platform segmentation.  An audience segment may behave differently or have varying motivations in different online communities. For example, working mothers may look for emotional support and practical suggestions for balancing work and life in one forum, but be focused on career growth and networking with other professional mothers in another forum. It’s important to understand the user’s motivations within different communities in order to share the right content and engagement opportunities in each community.

The hunt for socialgraphic data

It is possible to find available data to leverage, but chances are, you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and dig deep and make your own observations through focus groups or simply immersing yourself in different groups and platforms to understand what is going on there.  Some of the socialgraphic data to focus on are:

• Internet use data—Where do these users congregate online? What sites do they use? What online media do they consume? What times do they use different websites and media? How internet savvy are they?
• Mobile use data—Similarly, what are this segment’s mobile usage traits? Smartphone or not? What activities do they do on their phones? What times are they active?
• Goals and motivations—For different venues, what is the audience segment’s interest or goal in participating? What need does the community fill for this user? What does the user hope to gain?
• Behavior—How does this audience behave online, particularly in different venues? Do they create content or just consume it? Are they frequent sharers or posters? How do their patterns of creating, commenting, or sharing differ and what triggers the differences?
• Emotional and pyschological needs–What emotional needs does a given community fill? What emotional needs is the user filling by participating online? How does the user want to be perceived online or in different communities?

Socialgraphics as competitive advantage

At this point, it appears that few companies do the kind of research necessary to understand user’s socialgraphics. In fact, in a November 2011 McKinsey report surveying marketers, 38% of respondents said that their company had basic demographic data on each customer. But only 18% reported having psychographic data, such as interests or attitudes. It’s probably safe to conclude that even less had socialgraphic data.

In a noisy online world increasingly cluttered with content, understanding your customers this deeply may be the only way to create a point of differentiation for your brand in the long-term.

Does this make sense to you?  Are you starting to think about customer online behaviors in your strategies?

Neicole Crepeau a blogger at Coherent Social Media and the creator of CurateXpress, a content curation tool. She works at Coherent Interactive on social media, website design, mobile apps, & marketing. Connect with Neicole on Twitter at @neicolec

The dismal outlook at Lake Tahoe

A guest post by {grow} community member Tiffany Brown

The Reno/Tahoe area is currently experiencing one of the driest winters on record — a mere 1.5 inches of snow thus far in the 2011-2012 skiing season. The typical November to April average is 170 inches of snow per month so this has been a crisis for the area’s 18 ski resorts. This presents the marketer’s nightmare scenario: Having no product to sell.

Skiing is central to the Reno-Tahoe economy. Last year, 7.6 million visitors enjoyed a near-record snowfall, contributing $700 million in direct visitor spending. This made me wonder … how have the ski resorts been handling this “marketing catastrophe?”

According to the Reno Gazette Journal, ski business over the holidays was down about 50 percent but resorts are remaining optimistic … despite the fact that competing ski resorts in other states are offering vulturous promotions like free skiing at their resorts with the purchase of a Tahoe area ski resort lift ticket.

Here is an examination of how the ski resorts are waging their battles in light of this marketing crisis.

Northstar Ski Resort, Truckee , CA and Heavenly Ski Resort, South Lake Tahoe, CA

On January 9, Bill Rock, COO of Northstar California and Pete Sonntag, the GM of Heavenly Mountain Resort, issued a joint statement to their season passholders entitled “The Power of Snowmaking” which was posted to their Facebook page.  They write: “It’s no secret that natural snow has been hard to come by this year and we know that has been a disappointment for many of you.” By beginning with a disarming and honest statement, they lure readers in to hear more about the details of their snowmaking efforts and finish with a cheerful “see you on the slopes.”

The two resorts also produced a video together entitled “Letter to the Guests of Tahoe:”

With just 30 percent of Heavenly open, the resort is relying on discounted lift tickets to draw crowds. They have a lively Facebook and Twitter presence emhpasizing “no other mountain compares to the inspiring scenic beauty, varied terrain and rockin’ nightlife.”

Their Facebook page is currently running a “Heavenly Angels” contest, which serves as a nice distraction from the weather scenario and promises a free trip to Heavenly. The resort also hosts a blog complete with up-to-date articles, videos, photos and more to keep visitors current on all the latest happenings at Heavenly.

Squaw Valley Ski Resort, Olympic Valley, CA and Alpine Meadows, Tahoe City, CA

Andy Wirth, President and CEO of Squaw Valley addressed season passholders in the form of a newsletter to dispel any rumors and/or myths about the resort closing down. Throughout the newsletter, Wirth gives his honest perspective on the situation, as well as a thorough overview of weather pattern history and forecasts. He ends on an optimistic note, stating: “We anticipate, based on current forecasts, the high pressure ridge to the west will break down in mid to late January, which in turn will open up the corridor for significant snowstorms coming into Lake Tahoe.”

Mount Rose Ski Resort, Reno, NV

In addition to pushing deals and information about ski conditions via their web site, through email blasts, and social media, Mt. Rose is focusing on word of mouth, testimonials, photos, and videos.  According to Kayla Anderson, PR/Web Manager at Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe, “All of the people who come here are impressed with our grooming, snowmaking, and general conditions, so we’re just really trying to get that word out.”

Similar to some of the other ski resort Facebook pages, Mt. Rose’s page is filled with information regarding current conditions, photos, videos, discount packages, and more. In lieu of snow, the resort is offering a few great deals include $10 lift tickets for teens and kids valid any day through January 20th. They post online daily specials here to entice people to come by and visit any day of the week.

The take-aways

When faced with a crisis, it’s important to remember the four Rs of “react, research, respond, and remorse.”

These resorts are standing tall in the face of a perilous situation. They are listening intently to what their customers are saying.  They are keeping the lines of communication and open and creating an honest dialogue. And they are pushing though this crisis while remaining optimistic and hopeful.

What would your marketing reaction be if your company was in crisis? What advice would you give our resorts?

Tiffany Brown is a marketing professional in the commercial real estate industry who has worked for global corporations such as CBRE, Trammell Crow Company, and Warner Bros. Studios. She is an active board member for the Reno-Tahoe American Marketing Association.  You can find her blog at http://tiffanyabrown.wordpress.com or on Twitter @tiffabrown

Can you guess the subject of this photo? This is a predawn picture of Australia’s Lake Eyre salt flat taken by the extraordinary photographer Murray Fredericks.

Every winter for eight years, Fredericks rode his bike into the heart of the most featureless place on earth and camped for five weeks — to take photographs.  I have become obsessed with his pictures of “nothing.”  He peers into nature to translate the beauty of extreme desolation.

I have played the same mind tricks with my own photography for years. I’ll sit in one place in a forest or on a pier and see how many different photos I can take within a three-square foot area. I am always surprised by the results when I block out the world and concentrate on pure creativity.  I have not done this exercise for a couple of years but was inspired by the “Salt” series.

While on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, MA, I found the most extraordinary beauty in the eroded clay sea cliffs.  The photos below are of dirt … but look deeply and I think you’ll agree the natural elements of our world can produce results as stunning as anything from the hand of our favorite modern artists …

But the fact is, the engine of marketing is research and data. To be sure, the best marketers need a flair of creative inspiration to look at a spreadsheet and find trends and truths, but the heart of marketing strategy — ALL marketing strategy — is fact-based analysis.

By Neicole Crepeau, Contributing {grow} Columnist

QR codes are failing.  Users are rejecting the Like button and unfollowing brands on Facebook. And now a product beloved to many in the blogosphere, Triberr, has had to nix its most popular feature. What do all of these events have in common? You, dear marketer, and your refusal to do your job.

In October, Sean X Cummings blogged about the failure of QR codes. In part, it’s a lack of user understanding.  But, as Sean argues, “Creative usage of a technical solution increases its viral potential and positive brand association.” The opposite is also true. When consumers repeatedly see a technical solution that offers little or no value, that wastes their time, they begin to have negative brand associations and avoid the solution.

Sean does a great job of laying out some of the ways QR codes can be used to add real value for consumers. That’s not how most marketers are using them, though. Instead, QR codes serve as a convoluted way to get to a website, when the faster way would be to just type the URL into your mobile browser.

As I wrote on {grow}, we are killing our customers with mediocre engagement. Now, even analysts like Brian Solis are predicting an “Impending Flood of Customer Unlikes and Unfollows.” Companies drank the Kool-Aid en masse, to the point where every company of any size seems to have a Facebook page and/or a Twitter account. They urge people to follow them. Then, once they have fans, they proceed to drive them away by posting largely useless or uninteresting content and making inept attempts at starting conversations.

Last month, I posted about Triberr and other tools that auto-tweet for users. In Twitter is dying—and it’s all your fault, I lamented the negative impact, the spam, that Triberr was putting into our streams. I even suggested that the best thing would be for Twitter to ban auto-tweeting.

I didn’t know that Triberr was in violation of Twitter’s Terms of Service, which apparently does ban mass auto-tweeting. It appears the Triberr founders  didn’t know that either. Am I sorry that Triberr was forced to get rid of that feature? No. I stand by what I said. It was having a negative impact on Twitter. But I am sorry that it got to the point where Twitter had to step in, because it didn’t have to get to that point.

Bloggers were so thrilled with the idea of a nearly effortless way to get more visitors to their website that they gave up any oversight or ownership of their tweets. They used Twitter as a broadcast platform to pump advertisements for posts to their followers, without ever bothering to actually read what they were promoting. If bloggers had been a little more circumspect, using manual mode most of the time or perhaps limiting their tribes to a very small number of people, maybe the spam problem wouldn’t have driven Twitter to step in.

In all of these cases, marketers—or bloggers doing their own marketing—took a technical solution and misused it. They grabbed onto the latest shiny tool and started thoughtlessly using it, in the most simplistic of fashions.

Similarly, marketers and agencies have taken the lowest common denominator of social media advice available: put up a Facebook page and start sharing content and conversing. Apparently happy that it really wasn’t all that complicated, the majority put no effort into coming up with creative ways to use Facebook pages to add real value to their customers’ online lives.

I remember talking with my dad about littering when I was a kid. I explicitly remember him pointing out that one person dropping a piece of paper or a soda can on the ground wasn’t a big problem. But you always have to remember, he said, that it’s not going to be just one person. Always think about what will happen if everyone or at least lots and lots of people drop that soda can. Is that the world you want to live in? If not, then it’s your responsibility not to add to the problem.

Your business, your blog, it doesn’t live in isolation. When you choose to take the easiest path and the cheapest solution, just remember that there are thousands and thousands of other bloggers, marketers, and businesses putting just as little thought into their actions. When everyone is taking the mediocre approach, we get a mediocre ecosystem:  a mediocre Twitter, a mediocre marketing tool, a mediocre social network. Consumers know mediocrity when they see it, and they reject it.

We reap what we sow.  If you want a better business environment and more opportunities to engage with readers or customers, put a little thought into your work. Give a little forethought to the impact of your decisions. Quit looking for the easy solution and do your job. We’ll all be better off.

Neicole Crepeau a blogger at Coherent Social Media and the creator of CurateXpress, a content curation tool. She works at Coherent Interactive on social media, website design, mobile apps, & marketing. Connect with Neicole on Twitter at @neicolec

By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist

I’m morbidly fascinated by failure.

As of late, I’ve been scouring the web looking for failed social media programs. Unfortunately, I can find plenty of victims in the corporate world.

When I see the telltale signs of a failed effort – inconsistent publishing, abandoned Twitter accounts, and Facebook ghost towns – I zero in and start picking over the dead program’s bones.

In every case, I am looking for something specific. I want to know why the social media program didn’t live up to its promise.

Like a diligent archaeologist, I scribble what I find in moleskins that litter my home office.

Over the last month, I’ve been going through these notebooks looking for a common thread, a Rosetta Stone that will help me decipher the steps that lead to social media failure.

It’s been an interesting journey.

First, I started with the “How” of social media.

The “How” of social media is all about techniques, strategies, and clever tricks to get from A to Z a bit faster than the rest.

“How” disciples quickly diagnose a social program’s failure by pointing to its lack of post frequency, failure to use power words in retweets, neglect of sure-fire Facebook apps, and other tactical oversights.

Since I am a “How” blogger, I can’t resist attributing failure to not manipulating the tools correctly.

The problem is that I see many blogs, Twitter users, and Facebook mavens do the right things but still fail to build a sustainable social program.

I moved on and began looking for the “What” of social media.

Investigating the “What” usually uncovers strategic errors.

A business, for example, that decided to do social media because it was the new thing to do. It saw its competitors doing it and didn’t want to be left behind.

Diagnostic questions are usually…

• Did the blogger pick the right niche?
• Did the business match the right social media platform with the right objective?
• Does the blogger use the right type of content to attract visitors and build reach?

Even though these “What” questions are extremely helpful, they aren’t critical.

In the end, I settled on something so obvious that it’s easy to overlook. It’s a simple question that great businesses AND great social media practitioners ask:

Why?

Every failed social media effort did not answer this question:

“Why are we communicating with our customers?”

One must-have ingredient in successful communication of any kind is authenticity. Authenticity is born out of a clear vision and purpose. Businesses with a clear reason “Why” ooze authenticity.

• Their customer service has a sense of purpose, with an unmistakable air of genuine concern.
• Their blogs tell compelling stories that turn strangers into believers.
• Twitter becomes a steady drumbeat of “proof” that they are focused on helping their customers.
• Facebook becomes the headquarters for a vibrant community of evangelists who support and spread the cause.

Social media for these businesses is an easy extension of what they already do.

Incredibly, businesses and individuals who know “Why” they are using social media grow even if they overlook the “What” and “How”.

How to Find Your “Why”

You might be shaking your head and saying “easier said then done.” I agree with you. However, you can take some simple steps to move your social media effort in the right direction.

Create a Manifesto

Successful social media players such as Ford, Best Buy, and Dell have created a clear manifesto for their social media programs. You get the sense that they know where they are headed from reading their social media policies, which are easily accessible on their websites.

Create your own manifesto and work to gain consensus around it in your organization. If you are a solo operator, spend the time to create a manifesto that captures the fundamental values of your business.

Focus on Specific Customer Interactions

Imagining a specific customer interaction makes it easier to understand why you are using social tools.

For example, list 5 aggravating customer service issues; now decide why you need to handle these issues. If your goal is to turn detractors into fans, then your social media effort will look much different than if your goal is to simply contact upset customers quickly.

Working through how you plan to use social tools to interact with customers will help focus your “Why” and give you a jumpstart on selecting the right strategies.

Make Sense?

Are you struggling with “Why” you are using social tools? What challenges have you faced in creating your manifesto?

Stanford Smith obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social, except when he’s chasing large mouth bass.

Guest post by Jeremy Floyd

Something magical happens when I set foot in a house that I want to buy.

I begin fantasizing about the opportunities to turn it from a house into my perfect home: “I’ll take out this wall … paint this wall blue … add a stainless range hood…” I’ll lay awake in bed, meticulously furnishing the home with our belongings and compilng a giant list of all the home can be.

But something odd happens after I take possession of the home. Seth Godin might call it the resistance.  I will just call it the excuses: “Well, I don’t really need to remove that wall. In fact, if we do tear that wall out we’ll stir up so much dust that it we will destroy our furniture.” Then eventually, just as curiously as the thoughts appeared in my mind, the thought of moving the wall completely disappears. Poof!

Now, obviously, I am no Holmes on Homes, and this post has to eventually talk about business right? Well, as a consultant, I find the same phenomena occurs nearly every day.

You meet with the client. During the discovery meeting, your mind races with all the outside observations with the company. You lay in bed awake at night with brilliant innovation, and the next day you return to tell the client all the wonderful changes they can make to “move the needle.” Then what happens?

“Well, we can’t exactly implement that CRM system because we tried it a few years ago and it didn’t work.”

“That’s a great idea, but we aren’t convinced that social media really has ROI.”

“That’s just too radical for our culture.”

The excuses flow like a mountain stream. Here is Floyd’s rule: For every brilliant idea there is an even greater and opposite excuse that is 10x more powerful.

It is built into most companies DNA: RESIST CHANGE.  Consultants are hired to improve results while changing as few things as possible. So, the challenge is to either (1) conform to the wishes of the client, (2) demand change — but accept mediocrity and get a fat check, or (3) demand change, do something extraordinary, and possibly get fired.

If you’re the kind of person who wants to stick to their guns and make things happen, here’s a check list of dynamics to walk you through the process …

1. Make the List - Create a list of no more than 10 changes that will make a significant improvement in the company. Do not let any known obstacles filter your list.  If you see a problem, write it down regardless of how difficult it is to fix.
2. Paint the Picture - What does the promised land look like? How will you know when you get there? What will the results be?
3. Build Trust - As a consultant, you are not going to walk in the door and lay the 10 item list on the CEO’s desk, send an invoice, and take a 2 week breather in Tahiti. You must establish that you have good judgment and your suggestions are trustworthy. You must demonstrate that the company will benefit from taking your suggestions. This is established in small bites, so keep the list in your pocket and sell the winnable successes.
4. Identify the Resistance - Believe it or not, employees within the client company generally don’t like consultants. They may clearly want you to fail or they may just not be batting for your success. The job of the consultant is part politician. You have to know the political landscape and devise a plan to persuade the detractors, but ultimately the key stakeholders must know the detractors and their arguments.
5. Strategery - Where and when do you have your best ideas? I find that some of my best ideas come to me while listening to an audiobook cutting the grass, so I arm myself with a pocket-sized notebook and a pen while I’m manicuring the lawn. (I’m so efficient, I know.) Usually, at some point while slaving away on the riding mower, the big idea occurs to me. You decide where that place is and go there with a pen and paper, keyboard and word processor, or stylus and tablet and answer the question: “How do we get from where we are currently to the place in step 2?” Confusing the “how” and the “what” of the plan plague even some of the most seasoned consultants – they usually dress them up with pretty words like “strategy” and “tactics,” but it’s really pretty simple. “How” is the one big idea that takes you from the present state to the “promised land” The “what” are the steps to get from here to there.
6. Lay out the Plan - After you know “how” to get from here to there, “what” are the steps to get from here to there?  The plan to the client must include the “strategy” and “tactics” to get from here to there.
7. Execute like your life depended on it. Here’s what separates the first from second place — the dirty little secret of consultancy — too many consultants develop the strategy but don’t execute. This is perhaps the step that separates the doers from the dreamers. Execution is what it’s all about. Execution is the delivery of the dream.  It’s the gold medal.
8. Review the List - Now, go back to that list of dreams.  Work on the next item.  That list is going to make you a super star. That list separates the good from the great.  Help clients implement the items they never thought they could. It’s natural that everyone forgets the minutiae of the “first visit.” The truly spectacular consultants go back to the “honeymoon phase” and remember the “wouldn’t it be great if…” promises that they proposed to their clients.

So, where are you? Are you a bronze finalist who brought the great ideas and walked away? Are you the silver medalist who brought good ideas and executed some of them? Or, are you the gold medalist who went back to the original list, and persisted?

Jeremy Floyd writes about leadership, business and marketing on his blog, Between Me and You. He is a partner at Bluegill, a marketing firm in Knoxville, TN, where he develops marketing strategies for businesses throughout the US.

If you need any reminder to never give up on you vision, do you remember this clip from the 2006 Olympics when the “gold medalist” felt secure in the win and gave away the victory?

Facebook is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.  And sometimes, it’s not even sweet.

While most social media advisers are bullish on Facebook as a marketing channel — and certainly there are some amazing success stories — in my classes I teach a more holistic view of the opportunities and the PERILS of what you might get into.

I use the screen shot above as a way to illustrate the dark side of exposing your brand on the social web. Let’s take a look at what’s going on here.

The first wall comment is from a guy who is using a cute little girl as his avatar. I’m guessing this is simply a proud papa, but without careful observation, or taken out of context, you might make the conclusion that this is a perversion or that this cherubic girl is thanking Budweiser for participating in an alcohol-related promotion in Kansas City.

Curiously, the next avatar is also from a Bieber-like child who is clearly below the drinking age. This little boy is thanking Budweiser for supporting LGBT issues. This stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transsexual. While Anheuser-Busch may very well support this demographic, it certainly is not reflected in its advertising or core brand promise. Bud is known as the King of Beers, not the Queen of Beers.

In any event, a casual observer would be thinking, why are these two little kids posting on Budweiser’s Facebook page?

Finally, Joe Doyle thinks this photo is so funny he posted it TWICE. Remember the Southwest airline attendant who got fed up with his job and abandoned his flight?  Yup that’s him. Joe goes on to suggest a Facebook site encouraging Bud to feature the wayward flight attendant in an advertisement.

From a traditional marketing standpoint, this is a mess.  Everything you do, and everything you don’t do, communicates about your brand.  What is being communicated by these community comments and how does this reflect on the most powerful beer brand in the world?

While social media represents a true opportunity for connection, listening and service, a wacky page like this seems to overwhelm those positive opportunities, doesn’t it? 

I had the privilege of working with Anheuser-Busch senior execs for four years and I know the extreme pressure on brand managers.  After viewing this page, if I were Bud’s marketing director, I might be thinking “WTF … Who talked me into being on Facebook?”

I’m not necessarily suggesting that they shouldn’t be on Facebook, but I’m making a point that in an era when many ”gurus” think every marketing problem can be solved with a Facebook page, you better be prepared for all possible consequences.

Marketing on Facebook is hard work … as we see by this example. Considering that a brand like Budweiser is probably going to consistently attract “diverse” and unusual comments like these, how do you weigh the benefit versus expense of a high-maintenance page like this? 

Is this a case where a brand has to be there or be conspicuously absent?  Is Facebook like your industry trade show – you just have to go or people will notice if you’re not?

Or, does Facebook represent an opportunity to legitimately inform, engage, and communicate in exciting new ways in a case like this, or is this a daily nightmare for an important brand?

Let’s get down to basics.  Is a Facebook page going to help Budweiser sell more beer?  How does it fit into an integrated strategy?  What do you think?

A Sales and Marketing Credo: “If you want to sell to me, solve my pain. And if you want to talk about my pain, do it in my language.” To market effectively, you need to talk to someone. But if you try to talk to everyone, you usually connect with no one.

To solve pain for customers you must choose some audiences…and not choose others. And stakes are too great to leave this to chance. This is one of the most important marekting decisions your company will make.

So what is the best way to pick target markets? We use five criteria. We call them “Market Success Factors” or MSFs … because every consulting firm needs a few juicy acronyms, right? 

You obviously need to start with candidate customers groups. How wide you cast your net depends on schedule, budget, and selling experience. For one enterprise storage vendor, we literally started with every NAICS code (the new name for SIC codes). For young companies, we might build a set of 12 with the management team.

Next, evaluate each market against the Market Success Factors. At Performance Works, we use a five-point rating scale. Use what you like, but to keep things simple, a high rating always means “attractive.”

1. How intense is prospect pain in the area you serve?
   If the pain from the problem you solve isn’t setting prospects’ hair on fire, if they don’t think about it almost every day, your sales cycle will be longer. Personally, I greatly prefer customers who use words like “pain” over “need,” but both trump “desire.” Sell aspirin, not vitamins.
2. How well do you solve that pain?
   This is where most companies are most comfortable, because it is the most inward-looking question: Do we solve the problem? For too many companies, a “yes” to this question implies “Ok, let’s hire the sales force and start advertising!” We humbly disagree. It’s one of five criteria and you’re not likely the only firm solving the problem.
3. How strong is competition?
   This criteria is pretty obvious, so I’ll only refer you back to the statement ” ’5′ always means ‘attractive.’” To make comparisons make sense when you add up totals, a hypercompetitive environment gets a rating of “1.”
4. Can you actually close deals?
   Many companies think about the problem they solve without worrying about whether they can actually reach a decision maker. Maybe she only buys integrated products. Maybe she only buys from F500 companies. Maybe she hasn’t changed vendors in 10 years because the cost to change is too high. Maybe the ideal market is fragmented and requires a sales channel too expensive for this stage your development. You have to convert someone who needs your product into someone who buys your product.
5. Long-term value of the market
   Market selection doesn’t mean you cut your growth aspirations. Far from it. It means you believe the fastest path to growth is by saying something compelling to someone specific. So our final criteria: What is market growth? Will success lead you to adjacent markets (Geoffrey Moore’s “bowling pin strategy“)? Does one market offer better-known references? Does your team have special background that makes success easier?

If you’re tempted to weight criteria or sub-topics under each criterion, I won’t discourage you, but after doing this for too many markets to count, I’ll tell you a secret: It probably won’t matter. If you apply this approach to 8-15 candidate markets, here’s what’s likely to happen: 3-5 markets will rise to the top with almost equal scores. And you can only focus on 2 or 3 (maybe 4 if you have significant resources and a segmented sales channel). So use management judgment as the final cut.

Finally, what data do you use to rate markets? Here’s one more secret: talk to decision makers. Yes, just talk to them. One-on-one at first, then maybe focus groups and later, for validation only, you can use surveys. (FYI, here’s our view of when to use surveys.) If you don’t try to sell them anything (so no, your reps cannot do this step), people will tell you what they need and even how to sell to them.

When we do market-selection for clients, we start decision-maker conversation with, “I don’t want to sell you anything or change your mind. I just want to know what matters to you.” Executives routinely spend an hour on the phone with us, tell us we can call them back, and say they are surprised how much the enjoyed the conversation. Why? Because they got to talk about their world and what matters to them.

Takeaways

• Commit to focus: solve the pain of a specific market and speak to decision makers in their language.
• Pick markets based on the Market Success Factors above. Get data by talking to potential customers in non-selling situations.
• Align all your functions (Marketing, Sales, financing terms, product or service design, etc.) with your target markets. Remember, this is not a strategy to stay small within a niche; it is usually the fastest path to scale.

Ken Rosen (@ken_rosen) is co-founder of Performance Works, bringing the voice of stakeholders (and a little magic) to executive decisions. He blogs at Performance Talks.

Are you overlooking some of the most powerful influencers on the social web?  Let’s find out.

Traditionally, there has been a 1-9-90 rule when it come to creating and consuming content:

There’s a new element in this equation, though: Content Curators — people who make a practice of finding content relevant to their friends and followers, and then sharing links to that content.  I am making a distinction between a curator and an aggregator who pulls content from around the web, usually related to a specific topic, to display on websites generally to enhance search engine optimization. 

Of course, we’re all curators to some extent, consuming content and, on occasion, sharing what we find interesting or entertaining. However, there is an elite subset of people who proactively seek out and share content. I know, because I’m one of them. I comb through blogs and articles on an almost daily basis, and share what I consider to be the best and most relevant mobile, social media, and online marketing news to my followers on Twitter.

ExactTarget calls these people “megaphones” and says:

“Megaphones want to connect, educate, and share resources and information online with others. These consumers clearly fall into the ‘influencer’ category—meaning they can impact a brand’s bottom line—but Megaphones represent an especially elite group that takes their online interactions very seriously.“

ExactTarget’s research shows that only 7% of online users are megaphones. It’s unclear where exactly these Curators are drawn from in the traditional triangle, but according to ExactTarget, 65% percent of them are creators. I expect the remainder span some part of the commenters.

Why are these folks important? Because they are influencers. There has been tremendous focus lately on defining, identifying, and connecting with social media “influencers.” It’s a natural pursuit for marketers trying to get their message out. I’ve yet to see a robust approach to this objective, but doesn’t it make sense that an elite group of people who loves to share great content would be natural and important influencers? 

Let’s look at the dynamics that make content curators so powerful.  Based on some of ExactTarget’s social profiles, a brand might connect with individual consumers through several paths:

It may be difficult to connect through all the possible user-types, but one user “channel” stands out – the Curator or megaphone. Look at ExactTarget’s chart showing social consumption and social contribution (creating, commenting, sharing, and posting):

Graphic from ExactTarget (http://www.exacttarget.com/uploadedfiles/resources/SFF_SocialProfile_singles.pdf). Red circle added.

The Curators are the greatest consumers of content AND the greatest contributors—including sharing. That makes Curators a hub and the easiest users for marketers to reach. Curators, like me, are actively looking for information to share with others, and actively spreading the word. Content Curators are the best online friend a marketer could have!

This means there are significant changes ahead in the social media information ecosystems. Before there was search, there was a world of information available on the web, and a world of people who were interested in it.

The problem was that people couldn’t easily find the websites they wanted. Enter Google, which connected people with the websites (and businesses) they wanted, via keywords. Happily for Google, they were able to use the same method to let advertisers reach consumers with ads, piggybacking on the keywords to target specific types of users.

Within social media, there is no well-established Search. That connection with websites is made through individuals, usually via shared content. What’s clear is that Content Curators are the equivalent of Google in the social world. Curators are the individuals doing the searching and sharing:

Of course, there are a lot of Curators, versus one Google. So, each Curator is the equivalent of a Google who is focused on specific keywords.

If the Curator is the new Google, we can expect businesses to optimize for the Curator just as they optimized for Search on the web. In this new world, Curators become a commodity and they have value that will be sought after. Marketers will seek curators in specific topic areas and with specific traits. Marketers will want to know:

• The topics this person curates. Curators specialize.
• The networks and communities he/she curates to. Curators who are plugged into niche communities and forums may be even more valuable.
• The number of connections on those networks. The volume or following always counts.
• The types of connections the curator has. What’s the quantity of different types of social users following this curator: gamers, social butterflies, shoppers, deal seekers?
• Reshare value. How many of this curator’s followers reshare the content, and how wide a net do they cast?
• The click-through-rate for this curator’s content. How often do people open the items this curator shares?
• The conversion rate resulting from this curator’s content. How often does a recommendation from this person generate sales? How often does a click through on a piece of content from this curator result in a sale?

That’s right. I said marketers will want to know CTRs and conversion rates for Curators, similar to the data they want on ads and publishers.

As this kind of information becomes more readily available through tools, the question is what happens when marketers seek and court Curators? Do Curators find a way to monetize their services, as Google did? Would that lessen thier impact? How do Curators change what they do as they become a valuable and sought-after resource? What kind of markets, businesses, and products revolve around the new commodity of Curators?

This is a new view of influence on the social web — what do you think? Make sense?

Neicole Crepeau is a partner in Coherent Interactive, which specializes in web, mobile, and social media design and implementation for small and mid-size businesses.  You can read more of her original material at her blog, Coherent Social Media or on Twitter where she is @neicolec.