Theory of Social Marketing Relativity

The Energy yielded from your social marketing is a function of three factors. Each of these is critical to your social marketing success. Doing any two well, at the expense of the third, assures sub-optimal results.

These three factors are very simple – and simple to remember, thanks to this play on Einstein's famous formula:

E=RC2

where 'R' is the relevance of your messages; the first 'C' is content, and the second 'C' is consistency.

Relevance – The beginning & end of social media is people – you, your customers, your friends and their friends. All of these are increasingly using social media to connect and to share pertinent information with those they care about. This is where word-of-mouth referrals happen for their trusted service providers – a.k.a. “you”.

If they're recommending you, then guess what - they like you! And they welcome you to connect with them appropriately and genuinely. Thanks to social media you can easily join this conversation.

Some tips on being relevant: be real – let your personality show. Whether this means you're always on topic or else you clown around a bit; whether you're stricly corporate or you let your personal side show – this is up to you. Just be you and they will find it easy to connect with your social media personna.

Content – The gist of your social media messages will be what grabs people. There is no simple formula to follow. Not every post will “wow” people – but your body of posts will establish a reputation for substance and will expand the number of people who listen.

Your content should revolve around your personality and your expertise. Share your insights, advice, tips, ideas and inspirations.

The all-important content rules are
avoid controversial topics (politics, sex and religion). These cause otherwise interested folks to stop paying attention – quickly. Also,
negative or sarcastic comments tend to drive away readers.

Consistency - You might be brilliant and relevant, but if you do not connect consistently you will not establish many new, real relationships via social media that help grow your business. And you'll be frustrated.

In your frustration you will lose precious time as your competitors build their profitable social media networks.

So, to save time and aggravation it is strongly recommended that you do not begin social marketing unless you commit to a consistent effort. Seriously – I am not kidding.

Still reading? Good! If you still want to 'give it a go', there are some guidelines to follow:

• regular time daily
• check for messages directed to you. If they are not “automated” messages, then they are probably from people who are interested in you or your company. Reply to these.
• Give 'props' – quote friends and associates on Facebook; Re-Tweet on Twitter. This tells them you appreciate their thoughts. It also helps theie message get seen by more of your friends. And it encourages them to return the favor to you.
• Save time - “re-purpose”. If you have an interesting story or news item on your Web site, blog or Facebook page, then pass it along. Others will probably enjoy it – and you get extra mileage from the effort you spent.

Dan Zarrella's 2010 Perspective

Excerpted from:
My Predictions for Social Media Marketing in 2010
Posted on Dec 23rd, 2009


IRL
One of the most powerful potentials of social media is for it to not only connect people online, but facilitate connections offline as well. 2010 will see an increase in location aware apps and games that blur the line between the web and the real world with technologies like Four Square and augmented reality. Driving this will be continued interest in and improvement of mobile web technologies like smart phones and net books. The real world be important again.

Micro-Targeting and Personalization
Every one actively engaging in social networking is sharing a ton of data about themselves and in 2010 companies will leverage this information in increasingly sophisticated ways. Micro-targeting and personalization will take advantage of information on individual people to deliver highly customized messaging and content to small and smaller segments. Opinion mining technologies will begin to mature, allowing researchers to utilize the entire social web as a global focus group for any brand, product, service or idea.

Small Business Social Media Marketing
In 2010 small businesses will continue to realize the high bang-to-buck ratio of social media marketing and will get into it like never before. Social media is a great equalizer in that it allows small companies to compete more effectively with large ones. They’ll take a strong do-it-yourself stance and will demand accountability and effective analytics.

My Take
These are logical forward steps for small businesses to connect online to offline conversations, relationships and transactions. The infrastructure is in place - as more consumers begin to power "real" word-of-mouth with online tools SMB stand to benefit from exponential yields in qualified referrals and new business.

Seth Godin's 3:1 and 1:5 Principles

Excerpted from Seth Godin's Blog "Gotcha" (7/15/2009)

"There are lots of things you can do to make the sale. They often are precisely the opposite of what you should do to generate word of mouth. I know, you can't have word of mouth unless you have a sale, but a sale that leads to pain is hardly worth it.

"My rule of thumb is this: every person you turn away because your product or service isn't right for them turns into three great customers down the road. Every bad sale costs you five."

My Take

Acquiring the right customers is the key to your profitability.

Success breeds success. Happy customers result in more happy customers.

So stop spending your time hunting for bad customers via expensive, traditional advertising. Use your network of satisfied customers and friends as a "Connection Engine"(tm) to find - and be found by a better clientele that provides a recurring source of qualified referrals.

Fueling Your Connection Engine

The "Golden Fuel"^TM Rule

In business, "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a way to maximize customer satisfaction and generate word-of-mouth referrals - the best type of advertising.

Applying the Pareto Principle, if 80% of revenue comes from 20% of clients, then each referring client is worth 16 times more in lifetime value than the clients who do not refer.

Let that sink in - your referring customers are worth sixteen times more to you than your one-hit clients. And this does not even consider that your paid advertising had no effect on bringing you these clients who account for 80% of your sales.

So most of your advertising has zero effect on most of your new sales? Wow - that's enough to make you scratch your head.

These top referring clients are a business's "Golden Fuel" for revenue growth. And by following "The Golden Fuel Rule" they can contribute more and more to your bottom line each year. The Rule is "Do unto your top referring clients 16 times more than your other clientele."

How does a smart businesses implement their "Golden Fuel" strategy? Here are the elements:
- Find these Golden Fuel customers - identify which clients are regular referrers of business
- Communicate with them - stay close with them through regular mail or e-mail communiques. Use your Web site for this.
- Give them more reasons - as well as a means - to refer their friends. Your goal should be to create a new 16X client with each new customer
- Reward them - use your imagination to give incentives or meaningful, if inexpensive gifts to your top referrers. These go a long way to show your appreciation and keep you on the front of their minds.
- Keep them satisfied - your top level service is how you established your reputation in the first place.

Disclaimer: I am the founder of a local/social media site that provides a means of rapidly deploying a "Golden Fuel" strategy for free. YouGottaCall, in our central Connecticut test market, has hundreds of local members and businesses. We're developing integration with leading social sites as well as advanced reporting features prior to release to other markets.

Until we're available in your locale, there are practical ways to implement your "Golden Fuel" strategy. Help is on the way!

- - Tim

Changing Consumers, Changing Advertising

Consumers Have Changed, So Should Advertisers

Excerpted from June 4, 2009 ClickZ article by Augustine Fou

Are you still broadcasting your ads to the "haystack" and praying that the "needle" saw your ad? Advertising has always been like sending a message to a haystack and hoping there were enough "needles" in the haystack (i.e. target customers) who would see the ad, recall it, and then go make purchases. That used to work, but these days the needles are getting harder to find, they tend to block out all advertising, and they have built up new expectations and irreversible habits. These expectations and habits have a dramatic impact on how they receive, react to, and act upon advertising.

Consumers Seek Trusted Sources for Information

When modern consumers go online to look for information, there's sometimes too much information and it is hard to tell what's official or even true.

Savvy consumers look for clues from others. The information that they rely on tends to be from peers, or at least others like them (i.e. total strangers who wrote reviews on an item they are considering buying), instead of the information in ads put out by advertisers. They trust claims made in ads less and less. They trust the reviews, comments, and recommendations from other users more and more.

Consumers Prefer Collaboration Over Isolation

Finally, today's consumers expect to get help from friends or others like them. They will ask which restaurant, digital camera, or even wedding dress their friends recommend and why. They will look for clues about what other users find useful. Usually if readers are engaged and vocal in their commenting, others get a sense of the quality and value of the post. This way, they have immediate feedback on whether they need to even spend any time reading the post.

Consumers also expect to share information. Their friends know them best and they also know what they are looking for or are in the market for. Consumers will share items and recommendations with friends because they know their friend will appreciate help and insights and they expect the same in return. And this is real advice from real people, not an ad from someone trying to sell you something.

My Take

My take is focused on two points that Dr. Fou makes regarding consumer trust and collaboration. Please see the entire article to read his recommendations.

The tools available for getting and sharing information are always changing. Yet people are still people - they always have and always will find a way to get the most value and to do business with the most trustworthy business.

Consumers and businesses who stay current with new tools will enjoy a marginal advantage. However, for business owners, social media is no substitute for quality. In fact just the opposite is true - through social media poor quality will be exposed and broadcast.

Paying attention to new media is important - but providing great service is paramount. It is the best advertising.