From time to time here on the blog I like to revisit Transparent Marketing: How to earn the trust of a skeptical consumer, which I believe to be an excellent blueprint for the modern marketer. Of course, I may be biased because it was written by my boss, the Director of MECLABS Group, Flint McGlaughlin.

But I consider it to be one of the best things Flint has ever written (second only to his name in the lower-right-hand corner of my paycheck), because it was so incredibly prescient. It was written in 2003. And while it was certainly relevant at the time, it has become an even better guide to modern marketing thanks to the rise of social media.

Rage against the machine meets unbridled access to information plus megaphone

The recent meteoric rise of social media, coupled with Google’s impressively fast and accurate algorithim, means that now every 13-year-old with an iPhone is an instant fact-checker. Teen angst can be channeled at “the man” (sorry, that’s now you) with the tweet of a button. Or even worse…mom angst.

Bill Maher sums it up best, “…we just had the fifth anniversary of YouTube and the twelfth of Google, and between them, they’re killing off a great institution: lying. You just can’t lie anymore – facts are too easy to check, everything is on video…our Internet conversations are forever.”

Of course, where’s the line, right? Unless your email marketing is trying to help a Nigerian prince get his oil wealth safely to the shores of America, you’re probably not outright lying in any of your marketing. So I’m going to present a few examples and we’ll play “You Make the Call.” Share your opinions via the comments section, Twitter, however you want.

And when you read the below examples, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute Dan. You are a supersleuth private eye type who has an uncanny knack for getting to the bottom of things.” Really, I only have two assets. A free, unlimited, lifetime plan for Google searches. And the ability to read. Yes, it’s that easy for your customers to dig stuff up.

Like a rock? Or like a brick?

If you’ve taken any MarketingExperiments training, you know that we often recommend using third-party credibility indicators to reduce anxiety. And a central tenet of Transparent Marketing is “Let someone else do your bragging.”

However, it doesn’t say “Let anyone else do your bragging.” You can’t pick just anyone. You must choose wisely. Chevy’s homepage proudly boasts, “No one has more Consumers Digest ‘Best Buys’ for the 2010 model year than Chevrolet.” And it’s not just the homepage. TV ads, magazines ads, banners ads…the entire campaign is built around Consumers Digest.

The first thing that comes to my mind is, “What the heck is Consumers Digest?” To the Google…

Let’s first talk about what Consumers Digest isn’t – Consumer Reports. (bait and switch?) According to Wikipedia, “The publication has no connection to the Consumer Reports magazine published by Consumers Union (which, unlike Consumers Digest, is an independent non-profit organization).

Consumers Digest is a for-profit magazine. And how does it make a profit? Not through subscriptions, it has zero subscribers. “Many car makers have financial ties to the publication,” according to The Wall Street Journal (although, in fairness, it does sell some issues on the newsstand. How many? Nobody seems to know).

Consumers Digest website (I’m not giving them the link juice, use Google or common sense to find it) is poorly designed, to put it kindly. After a thorough (five-second) analysis, Senior Manager of Research Partnerships Andy Mott remarked, “It looks like it was built by a third-grader.” And I’m not trying to be harsh, no website is perfect, but they don’t even look like they’re trying. The site is essentially PotemkinVillage.com:

• There are several bullet points in both columns purportedly stating what they review (baby gear, cameras, etc) that are not links, you can’t click on them and find out more
• In fact, there are essentially only three pages to the whole site – homepage, latest issue (table of contents has no links to content), and automotive best buys (in fairness, you can click-through for a paragraph-long “review” of each car)
• Best line on the site… “If you are interested in receiving information on how you can subscribe to our Web site, please write to: Postmaster, Consumers Digest Communications, 520 Lake Cook Road, Suite 500, Deerfield, IL 60015 or send an e-mail to: postmaster@consumersdigest.com”

And then there are the Automotive “Best Buys” themselves. While different independent ratings organizations may disagree, you would think that there would be some overlap. Consumer Reports’ Best Car Overall for 2010 is the Lexus LS 460L, which “scored an outstanding 99 out of 100 in our road test, making it our highest-rated vehicle.” While Consumers Digest has 44 “Best Buys” for 2010, the LS 460L is not one of them.

In fact, of Consumer Reports’ top cars in ten categories, only two made it onto the Consumers Digest list. You guessed it, both were Chevrolets.

Before I ask you to make the call for this campaign, let me set the tone. First of all, Chevy is in a segment – automobiles – that is usually heavily researched by customers. Cars tend not to be a point-of-purchase decision, like cereal or gum. So if a customer was interested in a Chevy, how hard would it to be to Google “Consumers Digest” to learn more about these awards the carmaker has been boasting about?

Secondly, Chevy isn’t just any car company. In fact, the only reason it is in business is because just last year taxpayers bailed the company out, at which time then General Motors President and CEO Fritz Henderson said, “We are deeply appreciative for the support we have received during this historic transformation, and we will work hard to repay this trust by building a successful new General Motors.”So while third-party awards could certainly help Chevy regain that trust, does Consumers Digest fit that bill? In other words, I won Who’s Who Among American High School Students but I didn’t brag about it and put in on my resume.

Social media factor: So far, with the notable exception of The Wall Street Journal, the mainstream press hasn’t reported on this campaign as far as I can tell. But the first hit in Google for “Consumers Digest fake” is a blog. And I found tons of blog posts claiming that Consumers Digest is fake, from the well-known (Clark Howard) and the unknown. So, for even the mildly curious, it is quite easy to learn more.

Now marketer, I turn it over to you, if you worked in the Chevy marketing department, would you have green-lighted this campaign?

You Make the Call


So real, it’s fake

OK, not to bias you, but that first one it a bit of a gimme. So let’s ratchet it up a notch. This next call comes courtesy of my wife.

For my last transparent marketing blog post, I told you how impressed I was with Domino’s “The Pizza Turnaround” campaign by Crispin, Porter & Bogusky.

As a follow up, they came up with their new “Pizza Holdouts” campaign. If you’re not familiar with it, they basically stalk people who haven’t tried the pizza yet with a personal ad campaign. Billboards that say, “Bill Johnson, our sauce is now herbier” along with signs, trucks, planes, radio announcements, etc.

Eventually the person takes the hint and, surprise, loves it! My wife is convinced that these are fake. And ever since I wrote about Domino’s Pizza the first time, she’s wanted me to do a follow up to expose how they turned their backs on transparent marketing this time. To the Google!

Well, it turns out, as best as I can figure, this is for real. Again, my research is not extensive. For the Chevy info above, I simply typed “Consumers Digest” into Google, found an interesting Wikipedia entry, and then tried “Consumers Digest fake.” “Pizza Holdout fake” didn’t provide me with the same flood of bad publicity, but it did show a very wise use of social media by Domino’s – they listened. And responded.

The first search result was a YouTube video of the campaign. Right below the video are negative comments, most notably skepticism over the reality of the video. Domino’s responded to those negative comments with more info about the campaign. And since “Uploader Comments” show first in YouTube, you quickly see these replies. While they didn’t address every negative comment on the page (there will always be naysayers), they did prominently speak to a few key issues.

And that was about the extent of my research. After all, who researches the purchase of a pizza that much?

Of course, just using common sense, there are a few obvious things to be skeptical of. After Domino’s made a personal ad campaign for you in your town that your friends and family were in on, and then shoved a camera in your face when you tried the pizza, could you really bring yourself to say, “Tastes like cardboard warmed over. Honey, call the local pizza joint.”? (And what town has only one Bill Johnson?)

Social media factor: Social media played a positive role in this case, thanks to Domino’s proactively responding to skeptical customers. Also as part of my lazy research, I went to Domino’s microsites where they promote use of Facebook and Twitter. Since they’re encouraging social media and giving people positive things to tweet about (such as a contest to capture so-called pizza holdouts), not surprisingly, there seems to be mostly positive stuff out there.

So the campaign is real yet it looks so real some people think it’s fake. If you were asked to green-light this campaign, what would you do?

You Make the Call


Trust but verify

You didn’t think I could write a post about transparent marketing without shining that harsh light of analysis in the mirror, did you? You did? Really? Then just skip the next part and move right along.

Here at MarketingExperiments, our job is to serve you, our audience, and help you do your job better. To that end, we freely publish our experiments.

However, in publishing those experiments we have a debate raging internally, because we anonymize our experiments. We don’t share the name or our Research Partners and we obscure identifying information as well. And just in case a competitor could figure out which company we’re talking about, we also don’t share data like “number of conversions.”

On the one hand, we feel that this does a disservice to you, our audience. We want to be transparent and share as many juicy details as possible.

However, we do work with real-world Research Partners on their actual marketing campaigns. We believe this provides far greater value than running hypothetical experiments with brands that don’t exist. But because our Research Partners are actual companies competing every day for business, they view the experimentation we do as sensitive information. They consider “number of conversions” and other data we use in experimentation to be sensitive business intelligence that could give competitors a leg up.

Social media factor: Zero. I’ve never seen anyone tweet, blog, or even Foursquare about this, and I listen to the conversation every day. In fact, other than this blog post, no one probably even noticed.

So what would you do if you were in our shoes (well, mostly sandals, our office is by the beach)?

You Make the Call


True perfection

If you follow the news at all, you probably know where I’m headed with this “You Make the Call” theme – the imperfect game. Long story short, Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game when umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. Galarraga didn’t throw a temper tantrum. And after the game, once Joyce saw the replay on TV, he apologized for getting it wrong.

That’s transparency. No one is right all the time. And your produce isn’t right for everyone.

So how can you apply these lessons to your own transparent marketing?

• Don’t be everything to everyone – Focus on what you do best and hammer it home.
• C’mon, keep it clean – That line isn’t always totally clear, as I’ve referenced above, but some practices are egregious. Quick hint: If you’ve hired a consultant or agency with the words “Black Hat” in its name, you’ve crossed the line. Stay on the sunny side of marketing.
• Listen – Social media makes it very easy to listen to your customers. Don’t just use “powerful auto-tweet technology” to build followers and blast promotions. Hear what they have to say. Then go the extra mile. Ditch the auto-tweet technology and actually have a conversation. You may be tipped off to (and mitigate) a mistake before it becomes a full-blown crisis.
• Test – Good marketers with good intentions can disagree on how transparent your brand should be and what will work best. While one of you might be wrong, the customer never is. So test. See what works.
• Hear it straight from the source – Heck, just read Transparent Marketing: How to earn the trust of a skeptical consumer. It’s all in there. And it’s a free download.
• Of mice, men, and marketers – In the end, even with the best intention of transparent marketing, you will go awry. While writing this very blog post I got a note calling a promotional email I wrote a scam. Ouch! But, as with anything, if your aim is true, you’re more likely to hit the target.

Related Resources

Transparent Marketing: A slice of honesty from Domino’s Pizza

Holistic Marketing Optimization: What’s more likely to show up on Twitter?

Resources on Transparent Marketing

But I consider it to be one of the best things Flint has ever written (second only to his name in the lower-right-hand corner of my paycheck), because it was so incredibly prescient. It was written in 2003. And while it was certainly relevant at the time, it has become an even better guide to modern marketing thanks to the rise of social media.

Rage against the machine meets unbridled access to information plus megaphone

The recent meteoric rise of social media, coupled with Google’s impressively fast and accurate algorithim, means that now every 13-year-old with an iPhone is an instant fact-checker. Teen angst can be channeled at “the man” (sorry, that’s now you) with the tweet of a button. Or even worse…mom angst.

Bill Maher sums it up best, “…we just had the fifth anniversary of YouTube and the twelfth of Google, and between them, they’re killing off a great institution: lying. You just can’t lie anymore – facts are too easy to check, everything is on video…our Internet conversations are forever.”

Of course, where’s the line, right? Unless your email marketing is trying to help a Nigerian prince get his oil wealth safely to the shores of America, you’re probably not outright lying in any of your marketing. So I’m going to present a few examples and we’ll play “You Make the Call.” Share your opinions via the comments section, Twitter, however you want.

And when you read the below examples, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute Dan. You are a supersleuth private eye type who has an uncanny knack for getting to the bottom of things.” Really, I only have two assets. A free, unlimited, lifetime plan for Google searches. And the ability to read. Yes, it’s that easy for your customers to dig stuff up.

Like a rock? Or like a brick?

If you’ve taken any MarketingExperiments training, you know that we often recommend using third-party credibility indicators to reduce anxiety. And a central tenet of Transparent Marketing is “Let someone else do your bragging.”

However, it doesn’t say “Let anyone else do your bragging.” You can’t pick just anyone. You must choose wisely. Chevy’s homepage proudly boasts, “No one has more Consumers Digest ‘Best Buys’ for the 2010 model year than Chevrolet.” And it’s not just the homepage. TV ads, magazines ads, banners ads…the entire campaign is built around Consumers Digest.

The first thing that comes to my mind is, “What the heck is Consumers Digest?” To the Google…

Let’s first talk about what Consumers Digest isn’t – Consumer Reports. (bait and switch?) According to Wikipedia, “The publication has no connection to the Consumer Reports magazine published by Consumers Union (which, unlike Consumers Digest, is an independent non-profit organization).

Consumers Digest is a for-profit magazine. And how does it make a profit? Not through subscriptions, it has zero subscribers. “Many car makers have financial ties to the publication,” according to The Wall Street Journal (although, in fairness, it does sell some issues on the newsstand. How many? Nobody seems to know).

Consumers Digest website (I’m not giving them the link juice, use Google or common sense to find it) is poorly designed, to put it kindly. After a thorough (five-second) analysis, Senior Manager of Research Partnerships Andy Mott remarked, “It looks like it was built by a third-grader.” And I’m not trying to be harsh, no website is perfect, but they don’t even look like they’re trying. The site is essentially PotemkinVillage.com:

• There are several bullet points in both columns purportedly stating what they review (baby gear, cameras, etc) that are not links, you can’t click on them and find out more
• In fact, there are essentially only three pages to the whole site – homepage, latest issue (table of contents has no links to content), and automotive best buys (in fairness, you can click-through for a paragraph-long “review” of each car)
• Best line on the site… “If you are interested in receiving information on how you can subscribe to our Web site, please write to: Postmaster, Consumers Digest Communications, 520 Lake Cook Road, Suite 500, Deerfield, IL 60015 or send an e-mail to: postmaster@consumersdigest.com”

And then there are the Automotive “Best Buys” themselves. While different independent ratings organizations may disagree, you would think that there would be some overlap. Consumer Reports’ Best Car Overall for 2010 is the Lexus LS 460L, which “scored an outstanding 99 out of 100 in our road test, making it our highest-rated vehicle.” While Consumers Digest has 44 “Best Buys” for 2010, the LS 460L is not one of them.

In fact, of Consumer Reports’ top cars in ten categories, only two made it onto the Consumers Digest list. You guessed it, both were Chevrolets.

Before I ask you to make the call for this campaign, let me set the tone. First of all, Chevy is in a segment – automobiles – that is usually heavily researched by customers. Cars tend not to be a point-of-purchase decision, like cereal or gum. So if a customer was interested in a Chevy, how hard would it to be to Google “Consumers Digest” to learn more about these awards the carmaker has been boasting about?

Secondly, Chevy isn’t just any car company. In fact, the only reason it is in business is because just last year taxpayers bailed the company out, at which time then General Motors President and CEO Fritz Henderson said, “We are deeply appreciative for the support we have received during this historic transformation, and we will work hard to repay this trust by building a successful new General Motors.”So while third-party awards could certainly help Chevy regain that trust, does Consumers Digest fit that bill? In other words, I won Who’s Who Among American High School Students but I didn’t brag about it and put in on my resume.

Social media factor: So far, with the notable exception of The Wall Street Journal, the mainstream press hasn’t reported on this campaign as far as I can tell. But the first hit in Google for “Consumers Digest fake” is a blog. And I found tons of blog posts claiming that Consumers Digest is fake, from the well-known (Clark Howard) and the unknown. So, for even the mildly curious, it is quite easy to learn more.

Now marketer, I turn it over to you, if you worked in the Chevy marketing department, would you have green-lighted this campaign?

You Make the Call

So real, it’s fake

OK, not to bias you, but that first one it a bit of a gimme. So let’s ratchet it up a notch. This next call comes courtesy of my wife.

For my last transparent marketing blog post, I told you how impressed I was with Domino’s “The Pizza Turnaround” campaign by Crispin, Porter & Bogusky.

As a follow up, they came up with their new “Pizza Holdouts” campaign. If you’re not familiar with it, they basically stalk people who haven’t tried the pizza yet with a personal ad campaign. Billboards that say, “Bill Johnson, our sauce is now herbier” along with signs, trucks, planes, radio announcements, etc.

Eventually the person takes the hint and, surprise, loves it! My wife is convinced that these are fake. And ever since I wrote about Domino’s Pizza the first time, she’s wanted me to do a follow up to expose how they turned their backs on transparent marketing this time. To the Google!

Well, it turns out, as best as I can figure, this is for real. Again, my research is not extensive. For the Chevy info above, I simply typed “Consumers Digest” into Google, found an interesting Wikipedia entry, and then tried “Consumers Digest fake.” “Pizza Holdout fake” didn’t provide me with the same flood of bad publicity, but it did show a very wise use of social media by Domino’s – they listened. And responded.

The first search result was a YouTube video of the campaign. Right below the video are negative comments, most notably skepticism over the reality of the video. Domino’s responded to those negative comments with more info about the campaign. And since “Uploader Comments” show first in YouTube, you quickly see these replies. While they didn’t address every negative comment on the page (there will always be naysayers), they did prominently speak to a few key issues.

And that was about the extent of my research. After all, who researches the purchase of a pizza that much?

Of course, just using common sense, there are a few obvious things to be skeptical of. After Domino’s made a personal ad campaign for you in your town that your friends and family were in on, and then shoved a camera in your face when you tried the pizza, could you really bring yourself to say, “Tastes like cardboard warmed over. Honey, call the local pizza joint.”? (And what town has only one Bill Johnson?)

Social media factor: Social media played a positive role in this case, thanks to Domino’s proactively responding to skeptical customers. Also as part of my lazy research, I went to Domino’s microsites where they promote use of Facebook and Twitter. Since they’re encouraging social media and giving people positive things to tweet about (such as a contest to capture so-called pizza holdouts), not surprisingly, there seems to be mostly positive stuff out there.

So the campaign is real yet it looks so real some people think it’s fake. If you were asked to green-light this campaign, what would you do?

You Make the Call

Trust but verify

You didn’t think I could write a post about transparent marketing without shining that harsh light of analysis in the mirror, did you? You did? Really? Then just skip the next part and move right along.

Here at MarketingExperiments, our job is to serve you, our audience, and help you do your job better. To that end, we freely publish our experiments.

However, in publishing those experiments we have a debate raging internally, because we anonymize our experiments. We don’t share the name or our Research Partners and we obscure identifying information as well. And just in case a competitor could figure out which company we’re talking about, we also don’t share data like “number of conversions.”

On the one hand, we feel that this does a disservice to you, our audience. We want to be transparent and share as many juicy details as possible.

However, we do work with real-world Research Partners on their actual marketing campaigns. We believe this provides far greater value than running hypothetical experiments with brands that don’t exist. But because our Research Partners are actual companies competing every day for business, they view the experimentation we do as sensitive information. They consider “number of conversions” and other data we use in experimentation to be sensitive business intelligence that could give competitors a leg up.

Social media factor: Zero. I’ve never seen anyone tweet, blog, or even Foursquare about this, and I listen to the conversation every day. In fact, other than this blog post, no one probably even noticed.

So what would you do if you were in our shoes (well, mostly sandals, our office is by the beach)?

You Make the Call

True perfection

If you follow the news at all, you probably know where I’m headed with this “You Make the Call” theme – the imperfect game. Long story short, Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game when umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. Galarraga didn’t throw a temper tantrum. And after the game, once Joyce saw the replay on TV, he apologized for getting it wrong.

That’s transparency. No one is right all the time. And your produce isn’t right for everyone.

So how can you apply these lessons to your own transparent marketing?

• Don’t be everything to everyone – Focus on what you do best and hammer it home.
• C’mon, keep it clean – That line isn’t always totally clear, as I’ve referenced above, but some practices are egregious. Quick hint: If you’ve hired a consultant or agency with the words “Black Hat” in its name, you’ve crossed the line. Stay on the sunny side of marketing.
• Listen – Social media makes it very easy to listen to your customers. Don’t just use “powerful auto-tweet technology” to build followers and blast promotions. Hear what they have to say. Then go the extra mile. Ditch the auto-tweet technology and actually have a conversation. You may be tipped off to (and mitigate) a mistake before it becomes a full-blown crisis.
• Test – Good marketers with good intentions can disagree on how transparent your brand should be and what will work best. While one of you might be wrong, the customer never is. So test. See what works.
• Hear it straight from the source – Heck, just read Transparent Marketing: How to earn the trust of a skeptical consumer. It’s all in there. And it’s a free download.
• Of mice, men, and marketers – In the end, even with the best intention of transparent marketing, you will go awry. While writing this very blog post I got a note calling a promotional email I wrote a scam. Ouch! But, as with anything, if your aim is true, you’re more likely to hit the target.

Related Resources

Transparent Marketing: A slice of honesty from Domino’s Pizza

Holistic Marketing Optimization: What’s more likely to show up on Twitter?

Resources on Transparent Marketing

In the meantime, here is our latest community-written blog post to help you understand how your peers deal with optimizing their entire conversion funnel during the customer/client acquisition period…

There’s no simple answer

In a former life I worked in computerized irrigation – a lot of plants, a lot of pipes and a lot of leaks.

The only way to find the leaks was to manually walk up and down each row looking for pooled water on the ground.

The same applies to leaks in the funnel. The only way is to use something like Urchin or Analytics and find the “black-hole pages” – pages traffic goes into never to be seen again. Concentrate on the pages with good volumes of traffic and plug those leaks!

– Dave Collins, Founder & Managing Director of SoftwarePromotions

If your oil funnel had a leak, you’d be sure to replace it

The sales cycle certainly calls for a consistent, quality funnel which has just the right amount of viscosity and throughput.

I believe that it really goes back to the age old question of “How do we integrate marketing and sales?”.

When this question comes up within a company, red flags fly through the roof. It’s a shame because we’re not territorial animals. We’re civilized human beings who should solely be focused on what’s best for our company – because this attitude will ultimately help you achieve more.

Sales and Marketing should align their policies so that quality information is passed from the point of initial contact – inbound or outbound – through the sales cycle. Nurturing is the key fluid in keeping the motor up and running. Having the tools to manage the data is great but it’s human intelligence that ultimately drives nurturing and sales.

People buy from people, not from software or companies. Optimizing the quality of your staff and providing them with tools to better manage and view their data is what companies need to improve lead generation and sales.

For example, landing pages should have some form of unique ID or should be interconnected to CRM so that when related information is recognized, it’s automatically tracked as a touch point. Capture forms should be simple and brief for initial contacts and get more detailed as prospects choose to dig deeper.

– Jason Croyle, Lead Generation Specialist and Social Media Evangelist at InTouch

Connect PPC ads to landing pages to capture forms to lead generation and sales

I deal mainly with Google Analytics, Website Optimizer and AdWords, so my example will be within that frame.

1. First, connect Google Analytics and AdWords (To track ROI on a variety of ads and keywords.)
2. All buttons on landing page are tracked using the _trackEvent method. (This will help you determine what buttons/ call-to-actions on your landing pages are receiving the most awareness.)
   1. Buttons on landing page are also tracked using Google Website Optimizer so that we can provide multiple variations of buttons, content, and call-to-actions on landing page.
3. Combining steps 1 and 2 will allow us to determine what steps, content, ads and call-to-actions work best not only on a micro level, but on a “holistic” level – all together.

– Omar Ead, Director at Digitus Marketing

One at a time

Short answer: fix one phase/step at a time. You truly will not know where your fallout point is until you’ve fixed the phases above it. It’s quite easy and inexpensive to test various elements; see what works best to set a baseline. Then move on to the next step in the process and repeat.

I tend to spend a good amount of time building the optimization roadmap before I start tweaking and testing.

– Nick Rice, Regional Manager of Field Marketing at McCann Erickson

Related Resources

Compounding ROI of Sequential Conversion Rate Increases: How one company took a small gain and multiplied it tenfold

Holistic Marketing Optimization: What’s more likely to show up on Twitter?

The Compounding Effect of Micro-Gains: How small performance increases in PPC, landing page conversions, completed sales, and more combine to deliver big improvements in revenue.

Brenna Holmes, a senior online account executive and strategist at Adams Hussey & Associates (AH&A), was the digital brand strategic advisor on this campaign for her client, the California State Parks Foundation (CSPF). I asked her many questions from our audience along with a few of my own…

Let’s start with your role in this campaign. Social media operations is a huge challenge in itself. We’ll get to what you did in a moment. But first, how did you get it done?

Brenna Holmes: In the case of this urgent campaign, not only did I serve as an advisor, I also helped with implementation for all things social – optimizing their existing Facebook fan page with the custom welcome tab and many personalized Facebook Markup Language (FBML) widgets. Later in the campaign, I started and managed their Twitter account.

CSPF is a very small and tightly knit organization. Their Director of Membership, Greg Zelder, and Director of Communications, Jerry Emory, are my daily contacts and it was (and is) in collaboration with them that we got a full-scale multichannel campaign up and running within one week of learning of the Governor’s proposed budget cuts.

The first thing that catches my eye about this case study is the quick, large Facebook fan page growth that led to positive media stories. But when you explore this success a little deeper, it’s not just a case for social media marketing, but integrated marketing as well. Can you give us more details on how you used multichannel marketing?

BH: At AH&A, we LOVE multichannel integration. As a direct mail fundraising shop that has expanded to include pretty much in-house everything (online, telemarketing, creative, production, and analytics), practically every campaign we plan has multichannel components.

And this case was no different. CSPF had been a direct mail and telemarketing client of ours for many years, but 2009 was the first year that my department began working with them.

Actually…the budget cuts issue made us start our contract a month early! Within 48 hours the organizational website was redesigned to accommodate an Action Center, daily homepage updates, graphic social media sharing links, and embedded YouTube videos made by both the organization and passionate supporters.

The Facebook “Friend Get a Friend Campaign” was launched the Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend, May 26, (which is when the Governor’s proposal was released) via an update to CSPF’s original 517 fans.

The update explained the imminent threat parks were facing and put a deadline – Friday, May 29 – and a goal – 5,000 fans. “This year’s cuts are ten times as bad, so we need ten times the fans on Facebook.”

Once supporters became fans, they were presented with an action item asking them to visit CSPF’s site to sign an email petition to the California legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger. We also set up and managed CSPF’s paid online advertising on both Facebook and Google to drive supporters to become fans and/or sign the petition. All this Web outreach was supported by an aggressive email petition and donation campaign to the house list and partner organizations in California.

The online campaign was mirrored in direct mail with three “urgent grams” that were in people’s mail boxes by the end of the week – one to high-dollar donors ($1,000+), one to all other members, and one to prospects. All three pieces netted funds and raised more than $200,000 in just over a month. Telemarketing was also excellently leveraged – existing campaigns were halted and new scripts were implemented, raising more than $88,000 in the first two weeks of the campaign.

That whole week in May, Foundation staff members were being interviewed and the story was picked up by SF Gate, Huffington Post, LA Daily News, Frommers, etc. They even made it onto Digg! By early June the Facebook growth was being referenced in mainstream news articles and on other environmental and California-based nonprofit Facebook pages.

Were these other channels used to primarily promote Facebook over the CSPF website?

BH: Facebook was never promoted over the website. Facebook promotion was always either in conjunction with site promotion (general “Find Us on Facebook” links) or as a secondary ask (“Thanks for taking action! If you are on Facebook, click through to join the conversation”).

Other than the specific “Friend Get a Friend” outreach on Facebook and some of the Facebook ads, we were primarily driving supporters to the online Action Center to sign the petition, make donations, and later on, print Save Our State Parks signs and upload their photos from the SOS weekends of action.

When people visit the CSPF Facebook fan page for the first time, they see a pseudo landing page that encourages them to become a fan or go to the CSPF website. I love the landing page, it’s a very clear way to communicate with your audience about the actions you’d like them to take (instead of just showing your wall to new visitors). Why did you decide to send users to a pseudo landing page instead of the wall?

BH: I’m a big fan of introductions, and maximizing the personalization of user experiences online. It’s a pet peeve of mine when sites (Facebook or other) don’t recognize that I’m new to the site.

So much of the online experience can be controlled from the backend to give a more customized experience. In my opinion, it would be silly to not take advantage of that with something as simple as a welcome tab.

We are trying to put the most efficient but comprehensive view of CSPF out there so people can absorb it in the seven seconds we have before they decide to click elsewhere. A cluttered (or worse barren) wall just doesn’t give the right first impression in my opinion.

And the Facebook landing page doesn’t solely encourage them to become a fan, it gives them other options as well.

There are three asks. This allows supporters to choose how they want to interact with the Foundation. The easiest is, of course, to “Like” the page. Then if they want to do more they can take action or join. The vast majority simply “Like” the page and move onto the “Wall,” but we have seen some petitions and new memberships coming in from these source-coded links.

This campaign helped raised several hundred thousand dollars for CSPF. (Congratulations!) How much came through Facebook, and how much came because of the other channels you used?

BH: Unfortunately we weren’t as proactive in source coding all the links on Facebook as we should have been from the very beginning, so the majority of donations do not show as coming from Facebook during that first burst of activity. However, we do know that 60% of our page connections are self-professed annual members.

In late July/August, we launched a social-media-only campaign promoting the Frequent Visitor membership level ($125 to get an annual parks parking pass) on Facebook and Twitter. Social media allowed us to quickly take advantage of the Parks Department halting annual pass sales for almost two weeks. In that campaign, CSPF gained over 700 new members from social media at the $125 level.

I can also tell you that while the entire integrated campaign earned $950,000, almost $300,000 was raised online and 46% of that came from supporters new to the e-file (either joining as annual members or by giving non-membership issue-based gifts). The e-file also tripled in size as the fan page grew and paid membership grew by 10% in the first two months.

We are much more meticulous about this now and see a steady stream of new memberships, renewals, and issue-based gifts coming in from both Facebook page promotions and the Facebook ads. (Stay tuned for this November’s  Yes For State Parks ballot issue get-out-the-vote work on Facebook.)

What was the budget and team size? Social media seems very labor intensive, very manual.

BH: The online team size was only four of us – me, my vice president for strategic brainstorming, along with Greg Zelder and Jerry Emory at CSPF.

CSPF is on a monthly retainer with us, which includes all work except creative development. We have a larger offline staff that works closely with CSPF to get all the other pieces rolling and now CSPF has added another Web person internally to help out, but during last year’s campaign it was all hands for Greg and me in getting the online pieces up and running and properly maintained.

Social media is labor intensive, but if you have an urgent issue like this one, you drop everything to get it done and done as well as possible the first time around.

What is your follow-up plan for all these new Facebook fans that you have engaged?

BH: I’ve been managing the fan page for over a year now and it continues to grow. CSPF has, on average, a 15.5% month-over-month fan “connection” growth.

CSPF’s Communications Director is very hands on with the content generation and they post at a minimum of twice a week – a “feel good park story” every Tuesday and every Thursday there is a post for the new World’s Best Bike Commute blog that chronicles Jerry’s bike commute across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Greg and Jerry are also very good at posting from their mobiles to keep the page updated with pictures and information from the many live events CSPF holds throughout the year. Ideally I’d like to see a daily update to Facebook, but current staffing constraints at CSPF won’t allow for it. We are currently also working on some fun new content that will only be viewable after supporters “Like” the page.

How much are Facebook fans really worth? Are they very valuable? Or do they just “Like” something because they saw that their friends did?

BH: We find CSPF’s fans VERY valuable, whether they are the active donors or not, many are very outspoken evangelists for the cause. We are actually undertaking a much more robust tracking regime to identify the most engaged Facebook connections so we can do some additional personalized outreach.

Lately, the words Facebook and privacy seem to go hand in hand…

BH: We haven’t had any issues regarding privacy so far. Everything we do is on an opt-in basis and we are very proactive in answering fan questions – even going so far as to help a fan organize her newsfeed content so as to not be “overwhelmed” by our updates.

There are now a plethora of invites to social causes on Facebook. How does one cause really stand out from another?

BH: This is no different on Facebook than in other direct marketing media. Donors and activists have more choices of where to spend their time and money now than ever before. You stand out by staying engaged and listening to your base. Encourage them to be part of the process and they will extend your voice a thousand times over.

Can for-profit marketers use the same tactics you describe?

BH: I think that many of the tactics are the same whether the organization is non- or for-profit, and we “steal” concepts from commercial organizations ideas all the time. Typically the defining issue is cost, since corporations tend to have larger marketing budgets than nonprofits they could conceivably get even more value from social media like Facebook.

For the budding social media marketers out there… what applications have you found to be most valuable in engaging Facebook users?

BH: Custom FBML wall widgets and tabs are a must – like the welcome tab and our Get Involved menu of options. If you have a blog, sync it up with the Notes RSS. Sync your YouTube uploads and add as many of the newly released social plug-ins to your website as feasible. You want to engage supporters where they already live online.

I originally found this case study in the brand new Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook. If you’re looking to improve your social media marketing, you might benefit from the Handbook’s case studies (in addition to the one I covered above, there are ten more in the Handbook).

Related Resources

The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal, Q1 2010 (Social Media Marketing begins on page 51)

Social Media Marketing in Four Steps

Develop Your Social Marketing ROAD Map Strategy

Yet, one social media topic manages to slip through the cracks. And it’s often the first obstacle companies encounter when they decide “social media” is the answer to all of their problems:

Who’s going to carry out all of these social media initiatives?

It’s the Human Factor – who is going to create the content for that blog? Who is going to reply to all those tweets? Who is going to make sure your Facebook page doesn’t turn into a hate fest? In fact, who decides if you should have a Facebook page at all?

If you’re like many companies, you might think outsourcing social marketing is your best bet.

But more than ever companies are working to keep social media in-house because it requires such an intimate knowledge of the brand and because of the personal nature of social media interactions in general. Customers want to talk to you, not an “outsourced” spammy twitter account. And when you leave them with no choice, they happily take their discussion to your nearest competitor.

Based on the MarketingSherpa Social Media Marketing Benchmark Survey of more than 2,300 respondents in November of 2009, social marketing responsibilities are outsourced less often than traditional marketing responsibilities– meaning you’re more than likely going to need to look internally to find your resources for a social marketing team.

And here’s where I believe many companies get it wrong. Instead of hiring or tasking the best person for the job, whether that’s managing the Twitter account or actively engaging in forum discussions, many companies put their least experienced, least qualified people on an overwhelming number of social media initiatives. Usually this person is in marketing and may be tasked to cover topics or areas of social media they have little or no experience in. But this isn’t the most efficient and certainly not the most effective method for achieving social media success.

But how do you go about identifying who in your organization is best suited to carry out social media objectives? The answer is surprisingly simple. You pick the right person for the job.

For example, don’t send your marketing team to engage users in a developer forum. They’ll stand out like a script kiddie at a Def Con Conference. Instead, encourage your developers to actively engage users in forums related to their industry. Task these same developers to contribute technical content to the company blog. It’s surprising the level of involvement you’ll get from your team when you place a little responsibility in their hands.

Customer service can provide you with your Twitter recruits. In many ways they are trained for the role, just in a different medium. And your Sales department is a great place to find outgoing personalities to run the company Facebook page or handle group discussions on LinkedIn.

The point is that your social media team should be composed of individuals from various departments who can each provide a certain level of expertise by contributing just a few hours a week to social marketing initiatives each week.

To learn more about how you can keep your employees accountable for social media initiatives, check out the new MarketingSherpa Social Marketing Handbook.

Related Resources

Social Media for the COO: How to become the Michael Phelps of implementing social media in your organization

The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal

MarketingSherpa Social Marketing Training

Photo Credit: Intersection Consulting

The above paragraph probably makes you feel better about your own challenges, but think for a second…given the above situation…and very little resources…what would you do?

Social media marketing for a social cause

At the end of May 2009, the California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) found itself in this very position after learning about massive cuts in state funding that threatened to close 220 California state parks.

In response, this nonprofit organization quickly launched a multichannel effort with its agency, Adams Hussey & Associates, that included direct mail, telemarketing, email, and social networking. I want to focus on that last part for this blog post. Because what amazed (and impressed) me the most was that CSPF used Facebook to shape the larger conversation about this topic.

Before I get to that, let’s look at how CSPF used Facebook. They optimized their existing Facebook fan page to promote awareness, discussion, and (hopefully) attract new activists and members. “Find us on Facebook” language and graphics were featured in every email and all over the site.

The “Friend Get a Friend” campaign launched on Tuesday, May 26, on Facebook via an update to 517 fans – “This year’s cuts are ten times as bad, so we need ten times the fans on Facebook.”  The update explained to recipients the imminent threat parks were facing and set a deadline and a goal – 5,000 fans by Friday (May 29).

The second Facebook update was sent on Monday, June 1 at 12:12 p.m. PST, stressing a 24-hour deadline and asking for fans and petition signatures. The California budget committee was scheduled to meet on June 2, so media coverage was at its height.

The Facebook factor shapes the conversation

“The California State Parks Foundation, the lead public organization advocating keeping the parks open, had its fan base on Facebook increase from 500 to 33,000 in the past two weeks, reports Jerry Emory of the Foundation.”

– Tom Stienstra, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, June 21, 2009

Now this next part is truly impressive. With just two updates on Facebook (and in all fairness very smart cross-promotion through other channels), CSPF created a proof point for keeping the parks open, helping them meet their “promote awareness” goal.

That’s right, the Facebook campaign itself actually entered the public debate. The massive growth of this fan page caught the media’s attention and was mentioned on several TV news spots and in national news articles. They took advantage of a timely and newsworthy story (the California budget cuts were all over the news on- and offline) and created a talking point to meet their communications goals (several news oulets mentioned the Facebook growth as evidence of a grassroots swell).

As mentioned in the beginning of this post, raising awareness wasn’t their only goal. So let’s take a look at some of the other success metrics. Those two simple Facebook updates (aided by the cross-channel campaign) have helped raise several hundred thousand dollars in nonmember, one-time gifts.

In addition, CSPF more than tripled the size of its email list and acquired many new activists that are being converted to donors online and via the telephone.

CSPF is routinely using social media now. A subsequent Facebook and Twitter promotion gained 285 new members in four days, and their Facebook page has now grown to 54,000 fans.

Other success metrics were a little harder to meet. While California’s budget that was passed at the end of July 2009 did not close the originally proposed 220 parks, budget cuts forced nearly 150 to partially close or reduce services.

What you can learn from this case study

Nonprofit organizations are a natural fit for social media campaigns. People (who believe in your cause) want to help, often don’t want to expend much time or money, and want to look good to their friends, family, and social network. A social media campaign lies at the nexus of these three motivations. And, most importantly, it gives your fans an easy way to act.

Of course, the benefit isn’t limited to non-profit corporations. To wit, the Pepsi Refresh Project uses social media to leverage those same motivations. And this isn’t just a side project for Pepsi. They made a strategic decision to use a social media activism campaign as their main 2010 marketing push…instead of the Super Bowl. This is the first time in 23 years that Pepsi has not advertising during the Super Bowl.

So what can you learn from CSPF? When creating a social media campaign, keep a few important principles in mind:

• A tight deadline always spurs action online.
• When supporters can get instant feedback on the effects of their efforts (seeing fan numbers grow) it makes them even more motivated.
• The best campaigns cross pollinate. CSPF didn’t just use Facebook. It also used direct mail, telemarketing, and email in a tightly integrated fashion, including a custom URL for the Facebook fan page. Even better, add other social networking platforms to the mix, such as Twitter.
• Be clear. While social media has grown explosively, not everyone you reach will be clear on every convention of every social media platform (which are constantly subject to change). As opposed to showing first-time Facebook fan page visitors the default “Wall” tab (which has no clear call to action), CSPF created a pseudo “New Fan” landing page that included three simple buttons:
  • “Click ‘Become a Fan’ above to join the conversation!” (Please note, as of last month, Facebook replaced its “Become a fan” terminology with the “Like” button)
  • “Join CSPF”
  • “Take Action”

  

• Institute back-end tracking on clicks and conversions to determine where supporters are coming from (this is one thing CSPF would do differently next time).

Mapping an effective media strategy

I found this case study while perusing an early draft of an upcoming book from MarketingSherpa. To read the entire case study, along with ten other case studies from leading companies and 27 real-world examples of what works, order your copy of the soon-to-be released Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook: A method for mapping an effective social media strategy. If you do so by May 28th, you’ll save $100 and get a free bonus gift.

I want to thank Lead Author Sergio Balegno for letting me take an early look at his research, even though he was still editing it as I poked around. And full disclosure: While Sergio and I are not related, MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa are sister companies.

Related Resources

The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal, Q1 2010 (Social Media Marketing begins on page 51)

Social Media Marketing in Four Steps

Facebook and Omniture: A welcome step in social media measurement

Please Be My Friend: Taking the first step beyond just being on Facebook

Develop Your Social Marketing ROAD Map Strategy

The above paragraph probably makes you feel better about your own challenges, but think for a second…given the above situation…and very little resources…what would you do?

Social media marketing for a social cause

At the end of May 2009, the California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) found itself in this very position after learning about massive cuts in state funding that threatened to close 220 California state parks.

In response, this nonprofit organization quickly launched a multichannel effort with its agency, Adams Hussey & Associates, that included direct mail, telemarketing, email, and social networking. I want to focus on that last part for this blog post. Because what amazed (and impressed) me the most was that CSPF used Facebook to shape the larger conversation about this topic.

Before I get to that, let’s look at how CSPF used Facebook. They optimized their existing Facebook fan page to promote awareness, discussion, and (hopefully) attract new activists and members. “Find us on Facebook” language and graphics were featured in every email and all over the site.

The “Friend Get a Friend” campaign launched on Tuesday, May 26, on Facebook via an update to 517 fans – “This year’s cuts are ten times as bad, so we need ten times the fans on Facebook.”  The update explained to recipients the imminent threat parks were facing and set a deadline and a goal – 5,000 fans by Friday (May 29).

The second Facebook update was sent on Monday, June 1 at 12:12 p.m. PST, stressing a 24-hour deadline and asking for fans and petition signatures. The California budget committee was scheduled to meet on June 2, so media coverage was at its height.

The Facebook factor shapes the conversation

“The California State Parks Foundation, the lead public organization advocating keeping the parks open, had its fan base on Facebook increase from 500 to 33,000 in the past two weeks, reports Jerry Emory of the Foundation.”

– Tom Stienstra, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, June 21, 2009

Now this next part is truly impressive. With just two updates on Facebook (and in all fairness very smart cross-promotion through other channels), CSPF created a proof point for keeping the parks open, helping them meet their “promote awareness” goal.

That’s right, the Facebook campaign itself actually entered the public debate. The massive growth of this fan page caught the media’s attention and was mentioned on several TV news spots and in national news articles. They took advantage of a timely and newsworthy story (the California budget cuts were all over the news on- and offline) and created a talking point to meet their communications goals (several news oulets mentioned the Facebook growth as evidence of a grassroots swell).

As mentioned in the beginning of this post, raising awareness wasn’t their only goal. So let’s take a look at some of the other success metrics. Those two simple Facebook updates (aided by the cross-channel campaign) have helped raise several hundred thousand dollars in nonmember, one-time gifts.

In addition, CSPF more than tripled the size of its email list and acquired many new activists that are being converted to donors online and via the telephone.

CSPF is routinely using social media now. A subsequent Facebook and Twitter promotion gained 285 new members in four days, and their Facebook page has now grown to 54,000 fans.

Other success metrics were a little harder to meet. While California’s budget that was passed at the end of July 2009 did not close the originally proposed 220 parks, budget cuts forced nearly 150 to partially close or reduce services.

What you can learn from this case study

Nonprofit organizations are a natural fit for social media campaigns. People (who believe in your cause) want to help, often don’t want to expend much time or money, and want to look good to their friends, family, and social network. A social media campaign lies at the nexus of these three motivations. And, most importantly, it gives your fans an easy way to act.

Of course, the benefit isn’t limited to for-profit corporations. To wit, the Pepsi Refresh Project uses social media to leverage those same motivations. And this isn’t just a side project for Pepsi. They made a strategic decision to use a social media activism campaign as their main 2010 marketing push…instead of the Super Bowl. This is the first time in 23 years that Pepsi has not advertising during the Super Bowl.

So what can you learn from CSPF? When creating a social media campaign, keep a few important principles in mind:

• A tight deadline always spurs action online.
• When supporters can get instant feedback on the effects of their efforts (seeing fan numbers grow) it makes them even more motivated.
• The best campaigns cross pollinate. CSPF didn’t just use Facebook. It also used direct mail, telemarketing, and email in a tightly integrated fashion, including a custom URL for the Facebook fan page. Even better, add other social networking platforms to the mix, such as Twitter.
• Be clear. While social media has grown explosively, not everyone you reach will be clear on every convention of every social media platform (which are constantly subject to change). As opposed to showing first-time Facebook fan page visitors the default “Wall” tab (which has no clear call to action), CSPF created a pseudo “New Fan” landing page that included three simple buttons:
  • “Click ‘Become a Fan’ above to join the conversion!” (Please note, as of last month, Facebook replaced its “Become a fan” terminology with the “Like” button)
  • “Join CSPF”
  • “Take Action”

  

• Institute back-end tracking on clicks and conversions to determine where supporters are coming from (this is one thing CSPF would do differently next time).

Mapping an effective media strategy

I found this case study while perusing an early draft of an upcoming book from MarketingSherpa. To read the entire case study, along with ten other case studies from leading companies and 27 real-world examples of what works, order your copy of the soon-to-be released Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook: A method for mapping an effective social media strategy. If you do so by May 28th, you’ll save $100 and get a free bonus gift.

I want to thank Lead Author Sergio Balegno for letting me take an early look at his research, even though he was still editing it as I poked around. And full disclosure: While Sergio and I are not related, MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa are sister companies.

Related Resources

The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal, Q1 2010 (Social Media Marketing begins on page 51)

Social Media Marketing in Four Steps

Facebook and Omniture: A welcome step in social media measurement

Please Be My Friend: Taking the first step beyond just being on Facebook

Develop Your Social Marketing ROAD Map Strategy

Is your Twitter name so overweight that it can’t fit into retweets? Do you even have difficulty squeezing the name into a tweet. Does your handle make people cringe to type it?

Face it, Twitter is for dieters. Bit.ly, Tinyurl.com, qwkurl.com have all figured it out. Those 140lbs, um, I mean characters, are a maximum. The scale knows you’re lying to yourself. Those who snack privately can’t hid it openly.

At some point, you really need to put your twitter name on a diet. 40% of all twitter handles can be considered obese. Let’s be honest. You might want to fit into a size 3 characters, but those damn Twitter dieters got to the good names first.

Jiminy Cricket once said, “You buttered your bread. Now sleep in it!”. No truer words were ever spoken by a Disney character with a crunchy exoskeleton.

Then again, in some countries, he’d be just another lunch snack.

So, think about what you really want to do and say on Twitter. Is that extra weight really causing you problems, or do your friends like you for the size 29 characters you really are.

Toff Ward
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Follow us: @OpenSourceMarketerIsTheBestest

Accelerate your business online using social media.

Is your Twitter name so overweight that it can’t fit into retweets? Do you even have difficulty squeezing the name into a tweet. Does your handle make people cringe to type it?

Face it, Twitter is for dieters. Bit.ly, Tinyurl.com, qwkurl.com have all figured it out. Those 140lbs, um, I mean characters, are a maximum. The scale knows you’re lying to yourself. Those who snack privately can’t hid it openly.

At some point, you really need to put your twitter name on a diet. 40% of all twitter handles can be considered obese. Let’s be honest. You might want to fit into a size 3 characters, but those damn Twitter dieters got to the good names first.

Jiminy Cricket once said, “You buttered your bread. Now sleep in it!”. No truer words were ever spoken by a Disney character with a crunchy exoskeleton.

Then again, in some countries, he’d be just another lunch snack.

So, think about what you really want to do and say on Twitter. Is that extra weight really causing you problems, or do your friends like you for the size 29 characters you really are.

Toff Ward
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Follow us: @OpenSourceMarketerIsTheBestest

Accelerate your business online using Facebook.

And then there are the cannonballers. They throw caution (and brand equity) to the wind and jump on in, full force, watch out below.

Olympic dreams

As an operations guy, I focus on repeatable, disciplined process-oriented workflows, and the same operational structure that will bring you success in any other business (or sports) endeavor must be applied to social media.

In this post I’ll cover two often-overlooked aspects of social media, elements that George Colony refers to as listening and soliciting feedback, and how you can codify them into a consistent operating process.

Two-way communication

While many are now versed in, or at least comfortable with, the concept of using social media as a marketing tool, I am not sure how many are really using it as a two-way communication mechanism.  The idea of this medium being “social” implies that it is about a way in which people or groups of people interact and behave.

In this way, social media involves more than just your marketing team, but should include anyone who interacts with your customer base…and even their friends. In order to manage this, you must have a process in place to truly leverage the two-way communication benefit.

A process shall lead them

The process, as I see it, resembles an hourglass figure with a fountain effect…information flows in from the top and feeds to the appropriate areas within the organization. From these areas in an organization, information is then fed back into the social media pool.

As the drawing indicates, I envision a central place, or filter, for information to flow through from the top and be dispersed to the appropriate parties to engage with the public or individual customer as appropriate.

This person, group or department (depending on the size and reach of your customer base’s and detractor’s voices) must have the authority and ability to do the following:

• Effectively monitor all social media channels for relevant information
• Determine what needs to be responded to
• Know the most appropriate person, group or department to engage in responding
• Make certain that responses are timely and connected to the audience, as well as conforming to your brand

Proactive reaction

Additionally, each department needs a dedicated individual or group as well that is accountable for addressing corporate interactions that take place on a social media platform.  These individuals should be a primary contact point for the Social Media Manager to forward feedback to and expect an immediate response from.

For example, if a woman tweets, “Just left Kingdom Hotel in Jacksonville. Horrible Service!”  The Social Media Manager in the corporate office, who is monitoring the search phrase “Kingdom Hotel” sees this tweet.

She would first respond to the tweet that she will be contacting the hotel manager to address her concerns and request contact information. She would then forward it to the hotel manager in Jacksonville.

He would subsequently reach out to the woman with the intention of soliciting her feedback to improve their service and to more specifically address and resolve her complaint.

Social media isn’t free

Obviously, as this type of activity could consume resources from other areas within your organization and possibly hurt either or both your top and bottom lines, the Social Media Manager must be adept at determining the impact of a particular social media message and the size of the audience that was exposed to it in order to determine how much of a priority should be placed on responding to the message.

Additionally, the manger should initially respond to the message in the same forum where it was originally placed to allow the audience to know that company is addressing it. After an issue is successfully resolved, where appropriate, it would make sense to post the resolution in the original forum, and ideal if you could get the customer to do it.

Here at MarketingExperiments, we have three primary individuals that are regularly monitoring traffic about us. Also, as part of our corporate culture, if anyone in the organization discovers something on the Internet that references us it is brought to the attention of the individuals monitoring social media or their immediate manager or director.

When it comes to responding, those monitoring the traffic regularly solicit feedback from various parts of our company, even going so far as to solicit a response from one our analysts fluent in Spanish to respond to someone in Spain.

So while I encourage you to listen (not just market), we are listening to you as well. In fact, I hope to hear your feedback about this post (or any others) in comments, tweets and heck, even a YouTube video.

Related resources

Social Media Marketing in Four Steps
Harnessing Social Media
Social Media Measurement
Twitter and Social Media
Antisocial Media