FRANKthoughts

Melbourne’s freak storm on Saturday ended up as the most talked about topic on twitter and hundreds of videos were submitted to youtube:

This is mass media. This is main stream. This is where brands need to go next.

Here are three things to do BEFORE launching a facebook page:

1. Invest in social business strategy – don’t just start a twitter. Make sure you’ve got a plan first. This will be the best $20,000 you invest.

2. Find a community manager – earned media is not another task for your marketing manager. This will be the best $40,000 you invest.

3. Align social media with internal/external objectives – If you have the strategy and the management resource this should grow organically.

Anyone else with some more pointers?

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?

In the last few weeks we’ve noticed many brands having interns manage, investigate and pursue their social media presence. This might be because interns are usually young people who “get” the space or the organisation state of mind where “this new thing” is something that sits outside of the normal/traditional media/marketing dept. Although it’s good to start somewhere I don’t believe leaving social media to the interns is the best use of resources for the following reasons:

1. Yes, Interns know how to use facebook but do they know how brands should act on facebook? do they have the experience needed to comply with legal requirements, customer service or negative buzz? Knowing how to do something doesn’t mean you’re good at it and brands should realise it’s not a tech thing, it’s a marketing thing.

2. Interns usually leave quickly. They’ve done their part and left you with an excel spreadsheet with some sketchy strategy. There is no implementation, no buy-in from management and in most cases no one to pick up the project where the intern left it.

3. Interns cant see the big picture. They will usually be working on the “social media stuff” focusing on one platform (probably facebook) without considering other aspects of the business. Social media should be part of your communication strategy and if your intern isn’t part of that team in your business your social media strategy will be lacking.

What are your thoughts? Is an intern better than nothing? thanks to Drew for getting me to write this post.

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.

Yesterday i made it to Marketing Now @ the Sofitel in Melbourne. The flavour of the event was “How to use Social Media and Online Marketing to reach customers directly, and keep them.” Here’s Dave and myself courtesy of David Armano, as are all these shots gratefully borrowed from his twitpic

Some spectacularly credible speakers sharing their wisdom yesterday were Gavin servant of chaos Heaton, Laurel silkcharm Papworth and Darren problogger Rowse.

As someone who is hungry for social business learnings i found Laurel and Darren (unfortunately i missed Gavin) both generous and inspiring. I came away enriched and wondered why every seat wasn’t filled. The entry price was a $100 donation, $50 of which went towards thankyou water so it was all very affordable and worthy. One of the concepts Laurel touched on was COI, the Cost of Inaction…worth bearing in mind.

I would say that the majority of marketing directors out there are tussling with the concept of infusing social media into their businesses and brands. With a few exceptions the results so far are indifferent and yet if they’d broken away from the slavery of emails and meetings their understanding could have been mightily accelerated. I wonder if in 12 months the same speakers are assembled there will be a queque to attend?

Moving on…i took the opportunity to promote Nuffnang by stickering the venue at strategic points as in the photo…nicely spotted by Mr A.

For those who missed the event here’s Darren talking about how to promote a blog. This is from his blog not yesterday’s session, but similar content. Laurel’s presentation is available here. Many of her slides are minimalist and need Laurel to do them justice but my favourite slides are 18-24 inc. Judging by the comments flying in on twitter David Armano’s session is along these lines.

The social business challenge as we see it here at FRANkVizeum is to take social to market pitched at a level that integrates a brand’s current investment in paid for media activity and does not leave marketers thinking “What are you talking about?” and “How is this possibly relevant to my brand(s)?”  We have our social media infusion process, some case histories and we run our free FRANkademy session each month to introduce social thinking within a traditional media context. It’s working for us and our clients and i would encourage any brand with just their toes in the water to dive in and splash about.

Anybody who went to MarketingNow (or didn’t) want to add their thoughts?

It’s nearly that time of the year where facial hair plans its return across the country as the mo’nth formerly known as November, Movember, is soon to roll around again for a mo’mentous 2009. Things have kicked off very well this week with the new look 2009 Movember website.

Last year enthusiastic Mo Bros & Sista’s raised more than $20 million in Australia for Movember, supporting the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Beyondblue – The national depression initiative.

There has been great media support again this year which will include TV, radio, outdoor, street posters, cinema, online support and much more.  We look forward to seeing the campaign progression from the official kickoff on October 12th. Stay tuned…

In the most recent October Issue of Harpers Bazaar you will notice a certain change to the style and tone of magazine. Reason for this is Edwina McCann, who is a former fashion editor of The Australian and moved into the new role of editor, replacing Jamie Huckbody after 15months at the magazine.

Edwina saw the original tone as “very cold”.  She has since brought more colour, photos, people and conversation throughout the magazine and has included more first person stories.

However it’s not an easy category….magazines saw a *22% decrease in agency ad spend from jan-jun 08->09, and in the latest circulation audit, Harper’s BAZAAR saw an 8% drop in average monthly sales (jan-june09) = 51,567 copies.  They are however focusing on their dedicated audience and keeping it real for the readers. Don’t expect to see anything in the magazine that isn’t available to buy in Australia. I look forward to seeing the progression over the next few months…

*Source: The Australian, Monday Sept 7th

A big shout out to everyone who attended our fourth FRANkademy on Friday, for what was another very successful social media session.  Thanks to MCN, Hardie Grant Publishing, Yaffa Publishing (AdNews), Carat, iProspect, Keep Left PR, Propeller PR and Austereo for their input and participation.

A special thankyou also goes out to our friends at Nuffnang, for making the big trip from overseas!

The session covered off a broad range of topics, including:

An introduction to the size of the opportunity social media presents
The importance of having an integrated social media strategy and not ‘grabbing at the tools’
What is Twitter?  Who is using it well?
Blogging, Blog Networks and Nuffnang Australia case studies
FRANkVizeum’s approach to bought/owned/earned media – a working case study

For anyone who missed Friday’s session and would like to attend our September event, please RSVP here and we’ll look forward to seeing you!

Australian fashion label Saba has turned to Scott Schuman (better known as fashion blogger The Sartorialist) to help promote their new denim collection.  The New York based fashion commentator holds massive sway in fashion circles, with up to 3 million site visitors per month.

Saba sought 17 trend-setters to feature in the upcoming campaign, who The Sartorialist would shoot in the laneways and natural street settings of Melbourne.  Following an invitiation via his blog, over 500 people turned up to a pre-launch party at Cutler & Co restaurant for their chance to appear in the shoot, alongside recognised identities like gallery owner Murray White, AFL footballer Brad Miller and the first editor of Vogue Australia Sheila Scotter.

The campaign really demonstrates the alignment of bought/owned/earned media elements, and an innovative approach to campaign planning.  The bought media campaign (fashion magazines, newspapers and websites) will work with Saba’s owned assets (instore displays, David Jones concessions, Saba’s own website, launch events), and a pop-up gallery in Melbourne’s Duckboard Place which will exhibit the campaign images between 27 July-August 10.

The earned media will include a special blog Saba has set up for the campaign (which goes live on 27 July),  and possibly other social media tools.  Behind the scenes footage from the photoshoot has already landed on Saba’s YouTube channel.

The Sartorialist’s overall popularity and Saba’s decision to execute this campaign demonstrates the rise of social media and the establishment of bloggers as sizeable, credible channels for businesses in their brand strategy.  Hopefully more brands get on board and add depth and interactivity to launch campaigns.