Does everybody need a social media strategy?
Jan 15th
As the hype of social media begins to die down and companies re-evaluate their efforts with a steely-eyed look at the cost versus benefits, I think it is time to re-visit this important question: Does every company really need a social media marketing plan?
This is a very complex question. So to help answer it, I looked at a few companies with brands that might not be natural fits for a social media presence. Adult diapers. Coal. Hazardous waste clean-up. Playing cards.
Let’s explore this important question by taking a romp through some unusual case studies that stretch the boundaries of social media marketing thinking.
Depend Adult Diapers
Do you need a social media strategy? It depends! Get it? Oh, never mind.
Depend, a Kimberly Clark brand, has no apparent social media offerings. With its typically geriatric customer base, the product website offers a fitting guide and coupons but no social media way to connect. A company not affiliated with the brand has set up a rogue Facebook site called “Depend’s adult diapers.” So Kimberly Clark probably should protect itself by nailing down as many name alternatives as they can on the most popular social media platforms.
Should they have a social media component? It’s not a conversational brand, is it? I really don’t want to participate in any diaper polls.
However, they should consider at least a modest Facebook outpost because their future customers will certainly be there. Also, more and more people are using Facebook to search for brand information. At least one competitor, Poise, does have a Facebook page.
Should they continue to poo-poo social media?
Coal
A big argument I hear against getting involved with social media is when a company sells a commodity product. And, there is perhaps no product less differentiated than coal. In a tough business like that, you simply try to excel where you can by managing the supply chain properly.
I know commenters might argue that there are ways to differentiate any business, but the reality is, usually a contract in this market is won or lost by cutting a few cents per ton. That’s life in a commodity business. Why be on social media?
Peabody Energy is the largest publicly-traded coal company in the world. It has an excellent, informative website, but virtually no social presence (a token Twitter account and a weak Facebook page).
Perhaps Peabody’s strategy is to do whatever they can to avoid social media connection. Let’s face it, any company that scrapes away pristine countrysides to mine a product that is a major contributor to air and water pollution is not necessarily part of a conversation that is shareholder-friendly. Coal is important to the world economy, but it’s a dirty, dangerous business that sparks a lot of emotion in people. Should we support coal energy? It is an argument that will never be settled, and one they can never win. If they had a significant social media presence, the debates and hater harpoons would be endless.
Instead, Peabody can provide financial support to trade organizations like American Coalition for Clean Coal, which has a significant social media footprint — more than 1 million YouTube views, a blog, and a meaningful presence on Twitter and Facebook.
Should a company avoid the cost of social media conversation and move it to a trade association? A viable strategy?
Playing cards
I play this little marketing mind game with myself. I pick a product and then imagine what their social media presence might be. Like playing cards. What can you really say about those for heaven’s sake? They haven’t changed for centuries.
Turns out, quite a lot.
I opened a new pack of Bicycle playing cards and was delighted to see an extra card promoting their social media properties: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. These sites are filled with excellent content for people who love card games, card tricks, and even card-related arts and crafts. There are tons of fan conversations going on for this ancient gaming product.
Bicycle has also launched a premium content site called Club 808 that requires a paid subscription. Are there enough card fanatics out there to support something like that? I guess they’ll find out. But it just goes to show that there are content marketing opportunities for even the most common household products.
Bicycle is not a highly conversational brand but this notably non-digital product is finding interesting ways to create new conversations, and renewed relevance, with a digital audience.
Radioactive Waste Removal
You have to love a company with a tagline of “Providing radioactive waste services since 1952.” Straight to the point. And so is US Ecology, a company specializing in one of the most demanding B2B services on earth.
The company has no social media presence with the exception of a short LinkedIn page. Let’s think about their business model. Somebody has a radioactive mess on their hands. There is a well-known and short list of qualified and trained people to clean it up. The customer inquires to see who is available and asks them to get there fast. There probably isn’t much of a negotiation.
Or perhaps US Ecology has some long-term contracts with companies who generate radioactive waste. You probably don’t want to pinch pennies in that case, either.
If it doesn’t need Facebook to generate demand or customer connection, does US Ecology need a social media presence to attract and retain employees? Apparently not. I actually met some of their workers a few months ago and they were happy to have the job. They are paid well and the hours are good. There is little employee turnover in their area of expertise.
If you were the marketing director for US Ecology would you spend money on a social media marketing program?
The world’s oldest company
Fonderia Pontificia Marinelli has been casting beautiful bronze bells continuously in the quiet Apennine Hills of Italy since the year 1000. It is one of the five oldest companies in the world and, in fact, they have been making their bells the same way throughout the centuries.
The bells of Fonderia Pontificia Marinelli toll in the important buildings of New York, Beijing, Jerusalem, South America and Korea. The family business currently employs 20 people, five of them named Marinelli. The company also has a small museum and hosts special events.
They have a basic website circa 2000 and no social media presence. That doesn’t mean that their content is not being shared by social media savvy visitors from throughout the world, but the old ways seem to suit this family business best.
Fonderia Pontificia Marinelli has made it through wars, natural disasters, and economic calamities without fail. Can it keep going without a social media strategy? If you are looking for an epic bronze bell, would you buy from this company, even if they didn’t have a Facebook page?
Somehow, I think they will outlast us all.
So what do you think? Does every company need a social media strategy? Any of these case studies ring your bell?
A cautionary tale: Putting your business in the hands of Facebook
Dec 5th
As I enjoyed a mega-popular Kebab restaurant on my street, I wondered about the “secret” of their success.
Certainly one factor is the kebab itself — a delicious jungle of salad, meat, and fresh herb sauce that melted like Angel cream on your tongue. Mmmmmm.
The other aspect of their success, and frankly the more interesting part for us, is their Facebook presence.
The young owner has built an impressive online audience. The fan page attracted thousands of fans from around the country who post pictures and stories about their Kebab experience. Wowzee.
The owners fuel their presence through the share of fun restaurant pictures (guests posing, entertaining quotes, food pics), unique YouTube videos, and sophisticated social media give-and-take.
For a physical food biz to rock the Internet like that, I was truly impressed and as I heard his story, I almost let the Kebab slip through my fingers because of the sheer astonishment.
But when I asked them about their business website, they just shrugged their shoulders and laughed. “Why waste time and money on building a website when you can do everything for free on Facebook ?”
I frowned.
“Because you don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket … and a basket that you don’t own.”
But the conversation was already over, because the business had placed its entire faith on Facebook’s free fan page which they’ve labored over for almost two years. Argh.
A few weeks later, Facebook introduced the “promote your posts” feature.
Bang.
Needless to say, interactivity and visibility of the restaurant’s fanpage dropped drastically. Now they are finally building their business website.
Lesson learned.
Now this is not a slap against Facebook, but it’s a mistake that happens all the time …
Every big online company wants to lock you into their platform…
…offering you free space and an incredible existing audience.
- Amazon wants authors to mainly use their author’s page and discourages outside linking challenging
- DeviantArt wants to display your entire portfolio on their site
- Facebook “encourages” you to focus on building your fan page followers and marketing
And while their offers are all legitimate, they hide one important fact :
They make you totally dependable on them – and you’ll always be at their mercy.
Seriously, I cringe every time someone focuses heavily on building their online presence on a platform they don’t own.
Instead of worrying about getting email subscribers and customers, they obsess about getting likes and followers on Facebook and Twitter.
It may be accessible, free and powerful in the beginning, but what do you do if their platform rules change, which they eventually will?
- What if the company changes from free sharing to paid promotion ? (*cough* Facebook *cough)
- What if a big player platform loses out and becomes irrelevant ? (Myspace is no space now)
- What if a successful online brand creates a hyped platform that attracts more digital dust that visitors? (sorry Google)
No matter how much you luv a brand (and I like Google a lot), always be suspicious of their offers to rely on them for your business infrastructure and marketing presence. It’s their game, and we all know you’ll never win by rules that have been set by someone else.
You can actually WASTE years of building your brand on someone else’s platform and then lose out when the tide changes. Nothing, nothing and I mean NO-THING is more important than channeling your audience attraction to your self-hosted platform. That’s why I focus the majority of my time getting people on MY site, instead of getting likes and followers somehwere else.
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr … and sometimes even Google+ … all help me extend my reach, but each of them could vanish in an instant and I’d still have my audience and profits.
The web is in constant flux. The big platforms of today could become the no man’s lands of tomorrow.
Placing your bet on an outlet you don’t own is the riskiest and dumbest thing you can do. Treat them for what they really are – marketing tools that attract visitors to your own online real estate where you’ll turn them into subscribers or even paying clients.
Don’t be a leaf in the wind – a brand whose long-term success you want to control is dependable on a platform you own. Agree or disagree?
Mars Dorian describes himself as a creative marketeer with a moon-melting passion for human potential and technology. You can follow his adventures at www.marsdorian.com/
Original illustrations by the author.
Social Media Good Samaritan donates tweets to save businesses
Oct 16th
By {grow} Community Member Pavel Konoplenko
The story begins like any sweet story should — with delicious ice cream.
I first visited Ray’s Candy Store, an old-fashioned, hole-in-the-wall family business, when I was strolling around New York’s East Village. The walls of the store were covered with vintage photos of desserts — like Instagram except in real life! There were also articles and reviews covering the history of this beloved 40-year business.
One article in particular caught my eye. The headline read, “Social media saves beloved East Village candy store.” How could social media, this recent tool of our information age, possibly be used to save the decades-old candy shop? After reading the article on the wall and having a brief chat with the man working the counter, I discovered a wonderful story…. the story of Matt Rosen, the social media Good Samaritan who crafted a social media strategy just because he wanted to save this little store.
Ray Alvarez
The store’s owner 79-year-old Ray Alvarez, immigrated to America in 1964 and took odd jobs until he worked his way up to become the owner of the store. ”It’s my heaven,” Alvarez said in an interview in NYU’s Daily Student Newspaper. “I enjoy every minute of it. I came here from Turkey with no papers in 1964. I worked as a dishwasher, then waiter, then saved enough to buy the store.”
But after 36 years in the same location, increasing rent and taxes threatened to shut the little store down. Word began to spread that Ray was shuttering his business and loyal customers came out in full support of their beloved neighborhood store. Ray said, “They would buy anything and hand me a $20,” Ray said, “and then insist that I keep the change! They kept giving me money.”
But even this benevolence was not enough to keep Ray in business for long.
Matt Rosen
Matt Rosen, a long-time Ray’s customer and Internet-startup consultant, stepped in to help. It was clear that Ray needed something with massive reach at a low cost, and the social web seemed to be the perfect solution. So Matt volunteered to manage the pages on Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, and Foursquare that became the hub of an initiative to connect with the thousands of Ray’s customers throughout New York City and beyond.
Through PayPal donations, sales from Ray’s merchandise, and even a benefit concert, Ray was able to raise enough money to keep the store open. In fact, since his foray into social media, Ray has had his best year of business.
Matt was humble when describing his success. “It starts with the business,” he said, “and Ray himself. Without Ray, nothing we did on Facebook or Twitter would have mattered. The call-to-action was really doing something so we wouldn’t lose Ray.”
The goal of the social media effort, Matt said, wasn’t to get a million followers — that wouldn’t pay the bills. It was to keep Ray’s name out there on a regular basis and get somebody who buys one milkshake a month from Ray to buy two or three. Think of the impact on Ray’s bottom line if 200 customers do that.
“This is a simple, relatively painless way to keep Ray’s name out there.” Rosen said. “If my responding to a tweet or thanking someone who checked in on Foursquare brings them back in to the store, then that’s more business for Ray. We know this stuff is working. I can see the metrics.”
Speaking to a local newspaper, Mr. Rosen said he volunteers roughly 15 minutes a day to managing the assorted online accounts for two star clients. At the end of a typical day he searches for mentions on Twitter of Ray’s and responds to them.
In the first month of setting up Foursqure, 130 people had checked in to Ray’s Candy Store through Foursquare. “That’s tremendous,” said Mr. Rosen. “That’s two days-worth of revenue from Foursquare, and it took me just 15 minutes to set up.”
Social media buzz was a huge economic benefit for Ray, but it also brought his dilemma to the attention of a law student who helped him register his papers with Social Security and Medicare. Ray also recently got naturalized recently and is now an American citizen!
And what does Ray, who first saw his first computer a year ago, think about Matt’s efforts?
“Lots of young people are coming now with their iPhones,” he said. “They say, ‘If I do this, I get $1 off, right?’ I say, ‘OK.’” Ray continued, “[Matt] does advertising for me — it’s really high-tech. I still don’t have a television — I don’t know what Twitter is. This is a free country and you can do what you want,” Alvarez said. “How long am I going to keep working here? Until the end!”
Oh yes, follow Ray on Twitter won’t you?
Pavel Konoplenko, one of the most active commenters on {grow}, is passionate about social media and technology and their effect on today’s world. Connect with him on Twitter (https://twitter.com/pavelnovel)
Photo of Ray Alvarez Courtesy of The Villager
Why The Most Important Part of Your Brand is Invisible
Oct 11th
By Mars Dorian, Contributing {grow} Columinst
We talk all the time about writing cornerstone content, building effective web design, and connecting with your community in the social media world. Yessss, it’s all essential, that’s why it’s getting poured again and again into our membranes.
But what about the invisible world behind engagement creation? That special “X Factor” that every great (personal) brand emanates, that elusive awesomesauce that connects them stronger to their raving audience than gorilla glued Lego pieces ?
Danielle LaPorte has it. Chris Brogan has it. Mari Smith also has it. Mark Schaefer? YOU decide 
It’s often the invisible part of your online presence that turns visitors into raving fans.
And before I go all paranormal on you, the “invisible” I mean doesn’t include ectoplasma and proton blasters. It’s simply the “byproduct” (ugh, such an ugly world, forgive me) of your intent and THE WAY you create content and products.
It’s the elusive part that people cannot FULLY explain, but that tremendously affects the way they see your brand and interact with it.
For the sake of this post, let’s try to make the invisible visible … and demonstrate how YOU can leverage it to build a more compelling online presence.
Let’s start with…
The reason “why”
A friend of mine tries to buy as many Fairtrade branded products as her wallet allows. Their slogan “guaranteeing better deals for Third World producers” sets her heart on fire like a flame thrower.
Let’s put aside whether they actually do what they promise … it’s fascinating how it attracts a specific crowd that wants to believe in this promise.
And that converging intent binds people closer to the brand than any well-made product could ever hope to achieve on its own.
Heck, my Fairtrade fan-obsessed friend even lights up eating chocolate (and she doesn’t like chocolate) just because it’s under the Fairtrade label. THAT’s the power of the reason “why you do what you do” – a shared worldview that ignites intense passion.
So, the mission and belief you infuse into your brand will directly determine who your customers will be. If you want to attract a kind of customer who rides your wave length, you must put out a message that YOU are 100% passionate about.
Summonin’ some subtext
This looks like it belongs to a self-help book for screen and novel writers, but noooo, it’s relevant to ANY content producer. The invisible lines between your text are just as important as the visible. If you create content that can be enjoyed on many levels (think entertaining / inspiring / informational ), then you influence a reader’s heart in powerful ways:
Not explaining everything in excruciating details, pointing out hints and thoughts, writing ambiguous questions …
This can slam many more dimensions on your content creation and impact your reader even more heavily.
Sure, the average passerby, looking for fast food content to gulp down, will miss it. But the loyal reader, the one who’s deeply into what you offer, will appreciate you for doing this.
Because she will be one of the chosen few who “gets it” what you really want to say. And that will bond her even closer to your brand.
Putting the “you” in your work
Competing corporations battle it out in endless court room wars, because no matter how innovative or fast you can ship a new product, the “rival” is already on your heels, ready to copy your idea if it proves to be successful.
They sue each other because it’s fairly easy to replicate a lifeless product. But it’s super challenging, if not impossible, to copy the “You” in your work.
Material can copied, but how do you copy style and attitude?
When you buy incredible custom (art)work from individuals, or a loved one creates a delicious meal for you, there’s a heavy dose of the creator in there. “Made with love” is not just a truism, it’s something that directly enhances your experience of the work.
It’s hard to tell what exactly it is, because it’s impossible to measure. Put the “You” in your work and make your brand uncopyable.
The state of your creation process
Do you know Anthony Robbins? He’s a self-help guru with a track record that would put Donald Trump and Steve Jobs to shame (well, maybe). Yeah, he did those sleazy informercials in the 90s, but that was BEFORE the Internet, you guys.
What he proclaimed back then (now common sense), is that your emotional state drastically affects the work and choices you make. Wouldn’t that also hold true for your content and product creation? The emotional state you and your team are in will flavor the output of your work.
If you just do the work because you have to do it, people will notice. They’ll even sniff it out on the Internet. Your audience feels, at least on a subconscious level, that your work isn’t as compelling as it could be.
What to do? Exercise, dance like a monkey on fire, sing your lungs out, do whatever it takes to get you in an elevated state before you create your content. The change of energy can directly jump onto your audience and alter the way they choose to interact with you.
Conclusion
All the things I just listed are hard to prove. It’s like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it. But if you’re genuine about your intent, you put yourself into your work and create something that’s enjoyable on multiple levels, you can create a connection with your audience that doesn’t seem to come from this world.
Make any sense to you? What’s the source of YOUR X Factor, your invisible power?
Mars Dorian describes himself as a creative marketeer with a moon-melting passion for human potential and technology. You can follow his adventures at www.marsdorian.com/
Original illustrations by the author.
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You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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