FRANKthoughts

Well we are finally pleased to reveal how much fun we’ve had going through our online strategy process and community manager’s course with carsales.com.au. After immersing ourselves in the business we developed an internal and external social media plan. A big part of that plan was to introduce “community managers” within the organisation. Running for 4 weeks we covered topics such as earned media, social tools like twitter, facebook, youtube and flickr (with hands on exercises on the brand social profiles), community management roles, responsibilities and challenges (by our own GPO community manager Sarah) and advanced blogging techniques and social SEO by our Web ace Arnold. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with most attendees wanting the course to continue for longer. Understanding that earned media is a process not an event we’re still working closely with carsales.com.au on an ongoing basis. Hey, why not check out carsales.com.au’s twitter and facebook and say hi?

One the most common topics of debate we receive from clients is setting our goal for social media tools.   The easiest and familiar metric for marketers is to grow followers and fans for Twitter and Facebook respectively.  It’s a solid online metric that is similar to growing traffic visits and email databases.

Whilst that is important, it does not paint the broader picture of what social media is all about.  Conversations.  Conversations that help build advocacy, spreading the word (WOM), relationships and ultimately trust or loyalty.

At FRANkVizeum, we have illustrated this via our Conversation Venn Diagram.  By infusing the thoughts of Communities with traditionally 1 to 1 relationships between brands and consumers, we can clearly start seeing where brands sit.

Brands that communicate privately with consumers sit in “Closed Conversation.”   They could be feedback forms, newsletters, or surveys.  Whilst this is effective, it does not make use of the scalability of social media.  The metric here could be site traffic, email database, etc.

For brands that do not participate in any conversation but have consumers enjoying sharing experiences, stories, and news within the community, they sit in “Open Conversation”.  A great example is Nintendo Australia.  They do not participate in Twitter but there are a multitude of conversations, posts, RT, news, etc about the brand.  The metric here is volume of posts, tweets, RT from consumers.  The challenge is how do involve and mobilise the legions of fans?

Brands that use Twitter feeds as a way to broadcast news with little/no followers or active conversations sit squarely in “One Way Broadcasting.”  This is the traditional model in the social space with the focus on building traffic or news feed.  An example is TheAge twitter feed.  The metric here is growing Followers and/or volume of external tweets/post.

Ultimately, it comes down to the a brand’s objective.  Through these objectives we implement a strategy using the right tools and right metrics based on the above Venn Diagram. Eg. Traffic? News? Advocacy? WOM? Monitoring?

Our belief is Brands should find the right balance and should sit in the middle of all 3.  Not only broadcasting feed but to also build relationships to generate RTs and spreading the word to the community.

To support our thinking, there is recent research shared on Fast Company that looked at what is the most effective way to spread news on Twitter (a common client objective).  It shows “the most influential spreaders of news aren’t neccessarily those with the greatest number of online friends or followers.”

Source: Fast Company

We have known this for a while now (we even demonstrated this for GPO in our FRANkademy sessions), but this is the first piece of research that validates our strategy.  The trick is to find the right people strategically placed as the gate holder to people with larger followers that spreads the news.  These guys are hard to find as they aren’t immediately obvious (eg. through their number of followers).

By implementing the strategy that address the 3 points of the Venn Diagram, we can only find these “influencers” by a) increasing followers b) be active c) increase RT and conversations.  They will not only help spread the word, but build lasting relationships, loyalty, WOM, sales and traffic.

We had some FAIL, we had some NAIL but the most important thing is that brands are starting to understand more about earned media. I believe next year will see a growth in this area especially in social business strategy and brand community managers. You can check out some other opinions: Mumbrella’s FAIL list for 2009, Ben Shepherd and Julian Cole’s 2010 predictions (On Ben Shepherd’s blog with a great comment from Mo from NOVA) and this video by Laurel Papworth:

What are your thoughts about earned media towards 2010?

Here’s another (very funny) video via Mo and Henry Feagins:

Internet Archaeologists Find Ruins Of ‘Friendster’ Civilization

Is it the PR agency? the advertising agency? the marketing department? Whoever it is they need to practice what they preach. They need to be familiar with the tools, to know the language and have guidelines to follow. They need to have something to measure with both short and long term goals. They need to provide value for your customers and business. Can anyone do it?

Here’s something from Seth Godin in his post “Watch the money“: If you’re in the music business but you never buy tickets or downloads, can you really empathize with the people you’re selling to?… if you work for a non-profit and you don’t give money to charity, what exactly are you doing in this job?… Money is more than a transfer of value. It’s a statement of belief. An ad agency that won’t buy ads, a consultant who won’t buy consulting, and a waiter who doesn’t tip big—it’s a sign, and not a good one”.

If there is one rule when it comes to building your brand and business social assets it is to buy it from the people who invest in it themselves. They have probably faced the same problem you’re facing and have the hands on experience to build a sustainable social business solution. Do you think brands should have a community/social officer?

When the world is changing so quickly some organisations will survive and some not. The difference will be in how well you prepare and how good is your solution. Here are three examples of three different industries going through changes. These are my observations and I will love to hear your thoughts:

1.MUSIC: Artists are doing it for themselves – Superstar artists are now using social media to launch their new video/show/single using Ustream.tv and facebook: That’s right both Shakira and Chamillionaire did this in the last week against their record label’s advice and I expect to see many more artists doing this “social media” thing in the near future. So if you’re a record label or a music related business this act represent both threat and opportunity. When your artists know better than you how to reach their audience, there is a problem.  It’s up to you to keep up.

2.NEWSPAPERS: What will be the new model? Rupert Murdoch continues his war against google and wants to charge for online content. That’s great. Now he’s saying that without eTablets, “Newspapers Will Go Out Of Business.” Do you actually know anyone who owns an e-tablet? Any way you look at it, the newspaper model is broken (now they might charge you for a day pass?) . People are getting their news from other sources for free. Will people pay to get the same content on an e-paper? I don’t believe quality journalism is broken but I feel the delivery mechanism is. In a world where everything is shared by niches what’s the role social media and crowds can play within a publication? I’m sure Murdoch is working on it but if I was working for a newspaper or a magazine I’ll be thinking about it too.

3.ADVERTISING: The rise of the consumer-ambassador – When Coca-cola is doing it you know it’s real but they are not the only ones. More and more brands are using reality type “social” campaigns featuring real people to earn brand recognition, more fans/followers and the holy grail: organic google juice. Think about how many mentions your brand can get when people are constantly adding content, twittering and blogging about it, sharing the content with their friends and their friends friends. When the consumer journey starts with a google search, your first page is the most valued property you have. In this kind of world you need to be sure of what happens when someone is googling you.

Back in June we first spoke about Guvera . Well  it’s finally launching in a few weeks…15 December we’re told. The Guvera model is based on engagement in favour of the classic advertising-interruption model. From their eDM “Instead of advertising being perceived as disruptive or annoying, Guvera allows the advertiser to align their brand with their customers passions, allowing the brand to become the hero that provides new ways to find and get music, for free.”

If you think about your own experiences in meeting people you’re more likely to end up talking with someone who is approachable and listens rather than someone who just wants to talk about themselves.

 The Guvera approach allows brands to be able to fast-track engagement via an understanding of consumer preferences across a range of crieteria. Registering with Guvera is like speed dating for brands. To register you’ll be asked about your prefences on holidays, sport, music, gadgets & things, web activities, countries, books, films, food and charities. Just the kind of topics any one might ask in getting to know you.

I’m currently reading Mike Walsh’s excellent book, Futuretainment. In this he says “The challenge/opportunity for brands to benefit from an engagement-approach is to shift their brand strategy focus and to start behaving like media companies. Great brands engage consumers through telling stories. By learning more about the stories that surround a brand we can form our own impressions of their products/services and what they mean to our own lives and experiences. As audiences fragment one of the few ways for brands to achieve mass awareness is for their message to be compelling enough for consumers to do the distribution for you.”

It’ll be interesting to see how brands manage this opportunity with Guvera. In this emerging era of brand engagement it is clear that some brands (just like some people) are socially inept and there are likely to be degrees of sensitivity between the one-night stand approach and building longer term relationships.

As Mike says “the future of entertainment is not advertising- the future of advertising is entertainment.”

This post is not about “social media”. It’s about media that is social. What’s the difference?

“Social Media” (Or earned media) is the collective term used for everything involving twitter/facebook/blog/youtube/flickr etc. It’s usually about listening, engaging and growing a community.

Media that is social is the sort of media that supports an idea by providing a community participatory solution. Here’s an example: Pavegen is the first commercial pavement that creates energy from people’s footsteps. The electricity produced is used to power signs, lights and information kiosks. The pavegens can be branded and will actually work nicely with a promotion leading people (literally) to a specific store.

It seems everyone is a winner: The brand gains publicity for the unique approach and saves on electricity bills. The consumer gets a better “experience” and the environment gets some help.

Here’s another example showing how The city of Denver is using parking meters to help raise money for homeless people in Denver.

It’s simple, Every time you put money in the meter you support food, shelter and care for the homeless people in your area. How many people will avoid paying for the meters now? How many people will feel better paying for their parking space? How good will the council look? Here’s from the Mayor: “This grassroots campaign is projected to raise roughly $100,000 per year giving the general public a constructive way to help Denver’s homeless. “The donation meter demonstrates yet another innovative way in which this community is responding to Denver’s Road Home and our commitment to ending homelessness” – Mayor Hickenlooper.

The real social media isn’t about twitter or youtube. It’s about people doing something together, a bigger idea and making things better.

Would love to hear about more examples of real social media. Got some?

Client of FRANkVizeum ‘Sumitomo Tyres’ has today launched its new Australian website. We recognised from the brand strategy process that Australian roads are some of the most challenging in the world and that’s why drivers and families need the best protection. From this, the Sumitomo ‘Ninja’ was born, a specialised Ninja for every type of protection.
Tyrecorp has been associated with Sumitomo for over a year, previously distributed through South Pacific Tyres. Sumitomo specialises in both passenger and truck, with their hero product the HTRZIII – the asymmetric tread pattern is categorised as a maximum performance tyre.
We look forward to expanding on Sumitomo’s Social Media Strategy in the coming months.

After experimenting with brochure blog: “Now we are talking” Telstra is finally taking the time to do something they rarely do well: Listen. After following their tweet above, I’ve reached a social survey page and was asked to answer these questions:

1. Which of the following best describes your relationship to Telstra?
2. How did you find out about this survey?
3. Have you ever interacted with Telstra through the following social media sites?
4. How likely are you to prefer the Telstra brand as a result of interacting with Telstra through the above mentioned social media sites?
5. On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend Telstra services to a friend or colleague?
6. How often do you engage in social media?
7. What are your favorite websites, blogs or community forums for reading or commenting on the following topics?
8. Please rate your level of interest on the following topics (1= very interested, 5= not interested at all)
9. If you could ask any one question to Telstra’s senior leadership team, what would it be?
10. Thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey. We greatly appreciate it!
If you would like to receive a small token of our appreciation for completing the survey, please provide your email below. ( I will let you know about this mystery small token when I’ll get it)

This is the first thing I like from Telstra in a long time. I like the survey, the questions, the tone of Scott on twitter. Lets hope they get it right this time.

I was blogging about taking this kind of approach to social media, treating it as a business strategy not a marketing add-on. This is the process we take with our clients who are interested in a social media solution.

To find out more about social media you’re invited to RSVP to our final free social media session + drinks FRANkademy on the 30th October.

We asked “In the face of dynamic pull-social media platforms is there a long term future for data bases and pushing information via data bases?”

I’ve been wrestling with this issue for the last few weeks and i’m not sure i’ve resolved my head. The shift in emphasis for me is feeding value-information to an opt-in data base versus having a dialogue. The theory of opt-in data bases is fine but rarely do they deliver on the promise. I don’t know what the norm and i accept that opening rates will vary but an opening rate of 10% or less for most eDM’s might not be far off….even a bit generous. By comparison a healthy dialogue with a brand takes us to a multi-segmented, bespoke relationship.

My view, and i’d love someone to challenge me, is that databases will be dead in 3-5 years as social media chatter eclipses their relevance. Here’s some other opinions.

Tim Pethick, entrepreneur at large, brand guru and founder of Nudie, said

“I don’t believe so. We all find our way onto databases at specific moments of time in relation to a particularly relevant context in that moment of time. Change the context and the time frame and a push to the database just becomes more spam. Consumers want to be in charge and that will mitigate in favour of ‘pull’ based solutions.”

Ben Freund, CEO of goswitch, said

“I believe that data base marketing will always have a place as it gives consumers a chance to register for offers that of interest, and it gives marketers the ability to target their offers for specific market segments.”

Josephine Evans, Marketing Director of Tireworld, said

“When considering our specific industry, we do believe there is a long term future for databases and pushing information via databases.  For most part, the products and services we provide are a need and not a want and as such, databases enable us to cost effectively communicate with our customers with timely and unobtrusive messages.   The ongoing challenge for us is to better educate our employees on the importance of capturing the “right” data so that what we communicate is always meaningful and relevant to our customers.”

Adam Garone, co-founder of Movember, said

“It’s depends how the data base is sourced. If you are purchasing a database from a third party and sending them an e-mail or direct mail then, in my view there has never been any value or long term future in that.  If however your data base has been sourced through building your own community, then there is absolutely a future in continuing to provide valuable and timely information to the data base. The key being valuable and timely information.”

 ”The dynamic pull of social media has added a new dimension to how brands can communicate which presents a huge opportunity.  In this environment the tone of the communication needs to change as you are participating in a two way conversation.  That demands that you are transparent, real, don’t attempt to control the conversation and provide value to the conversation and the community.”

So opinion is fairly evenly split…i still think that databases will die a slow death. Thoughts anyone?