Social Media Blog: Conversational MarketingA blog that disects conversational marketing via social media.

I have asked this question before but in a different way. It was a post I wrote about two months ago, The Holy Grail of Social Media: Conversions or Conversations? My summarizing hypothesis was that social media as a communication channel might not be the best strategy for customer acquisition and/or direct marketing as would search or display advertising.

Just yesterday, Reem asked a similar question on her blog – What’s more important: a million impressions or 5 relationships? — which was originally asked by Joe Marchese, President of SocialVibe, during a panel at the OMMA Social conference in New York. According to Reem, he was specifically asking this question about those who actively participate in social media. It was a great question that many marketers struggle with today; and if we are talking about social media users only, I echo this sentiment loudly. That is, real relationships matter more in social media, much more than millions of impressions.

If the question was directed at all web users in general (not just social media); that brings up a whole new set of variables. One variable being, the complexity for organizations that use multiple communication channels; yet want to maintain one voice with one high level strategy and multiple measurements of success. This is an issue that many corporate marketers have to deal with and it’s not as easy as one would think.

I just started reading Groundswell and I love it so far. I recommend it to everyone who is involved in social media/blogging/community building. The cool thing is that I was fortunate enough to sit through Jeremiah Owyang’s presentation of the POST method twice; one at Intel and the other at the Cluetrain at 10 event.

Groundswell is a comprehensive approach that helps marketers define their social media marketing strategy and has several key components like the Social Technographics Ladder of Participation, the POST method and social objectives to name a few.

Sound familiar? This is the 53rd thesis from the Cluetrain Manifesto. During the Cluetrain at 10 event, we were asked to break up into small groups of about 10. We were then given a sheet of paper with a small subset of the 95 thesis statements and asked to choose one. We chose number 53. Our assignment was to discuss what this statement meant to us; and outline tactical steps we can take to make the thesis come to life in our respective organizations. Here is what our group came up with after about ten minutes of discussion (doing my best to remember exactly what I presented):

The challenge for organizations is to identify the relevant conversations that are happening in the market; and have those same conversations internally. This requires an apparent culture shift within the organization which will be difficult in some organizations and easier in others. By aligning these conversations, organization can then equip their teams to begin participating in these conversations. Tactically, we can summarize these conversations and email them to senior management and/or add various quotes from these conversations in our email signatures.

I did a search for “twitter manifesto” and I am sad to say that I was not the first to coin this phrase. Darn, there goes my legacy.

For the last couple of months, my participation on Twitter has grown significantly and yes, I have become somewhat addicted. I tend to follow certain peeps who I think I can learn from as well as personal friends and colleagues. Recently I had an ego “reality check” when I realized that a few of those peeps don’t follow me back, even though I attempted to interact with them on several occasions. I then asked myself, “do I provide value to those who follow me?, can people learn from me?, am I not liked?” I always thought I was a pretty likable guy.

Okay, it’s not really what you think; like a newsletter or magazine. POST (aka: the POST Method) is really the most effective acronym ever invented; ever since the four P’s of marketing. It’s a four-step approach that helps marketers define a social media marketing strategy for their business and/or clients. It’s been talked about for quite sometime, but I think it should continue to be drilled in the hearts and minds of marketers who either work in the social media space or are just thinking about it.

P equals people, “assess your customers’ social activities” – difficult in some organizations, easier in others. This really goes back to mapping your customer segmentation to Forrester’s “Social Technographics” which are behaviors displayed on a ladder with six levels of participation within social media.

It’s a year old but still very relevant and applicable today and I am sure it will live a long time. The graph helps you determine the social media usage models that you can map your customers (or target audience) to. Here is another resource to help you figure all that out since this is probably the most important step of them all.

O equals objectives, “decide what you want to accomplish” – this is really simple I guess. I assume that most medium sized to big companies define objectives before launching something. As Forrester explains, “Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them?” The key takeaway from this step is to take your time and first figure out your objectives. I have worked for companies in the past that determine objectives after launch … probably not a smart move.

… at least on Cafemom it is.  Those were the words from Andrew Shue, Founder of Cafemom at Agency Bootcamp in Chicago. It was his response to my question to the panel:

There is a lot of talk in the industry about the concept of community.  What is your opinion of “community” and is it just a fad?

He went on to say that it’s natural human behavior to form, build and live within a community; and that this behavior dated back centuries when cavemen lived within some form of communal standards.  He also said that “online communities” will increasingly grow and that these communities will HAVE to be even more relevant if they want to succeed. I couldn’t agree more with him and I think Cafemom is doing a great job at being relevant! I was also quite impressed with Andrew’s knowledge in this space. Perhaps playing an Ad Exec in Melrose back in the day helped him out a bit.

I have been invited to moderate a panel on social media next week in Chicago. The panelists include marketing and sales professionals from IZEA, Myspace, Bebo, Facebook and CafeMom. I am super excited to attend the event and meet some of the panelists, especially since Andew Shue (co-founder of CafeMom) will be sitting on the panel. In case you don’t know, Andrew is a pretty awesome actor and was “Billy” on Melrose Place. He is also the brother of Elizabeth Shue, an actress who gained her popularity playing Daniel’s girlfriend in the Karate Kid (and yes, like most boys my age … I did have a crush on her).

The other day, I was involved in a rather heated, yet enlightening discussion with a dude who really hates marketing; and I don’t blame him. Here is an excerpt of one of his comments:

Yes, consumers want to be heard. They also want the option to NOT be annoyed by marketing. They want the option of not having to put up with marketers exploiting a medium meant for communication and turning it into one more TV commercial. Consumers should not have to spend time and effort to block marketers. Consumers do want a choice - given their druthers, most would choose to have no marketing at all.

He was responding to a comment I made about consumers demanding to be heard online; and even as a marketer, I unequivocally agree with his assessment. In later comments, he said that he was tired of marketers like me just “talking about having conversations with consumers” and that there is way too much “talking about talking” and very little two-way communication. I agree.

I came across this excellent resource (thanks Beth) this morning on several methodologies to measure social media.

Rachel Happe, who blogs over at the Social Organization put together this quite awesome list of metrics used to measure social media in the enterprise. This list goes beyond the common metrics used to measure the effectiveness (or not) of marketing activities. One metric that is not on the list – and I think we all struggle with this - is the ability to measure conversations. I mean, really, how do you attach a metric to a two-way dialogue? There are some really cool tools available that monitor conversations and brand mentions online though. Some even use algorithms that rate these conversations based on where they are taking place. Expensive but might be worth the investment.

Tags: measuring social media, social media metrics

Well, personally I think that conversations are the core of social media, but don’t take my word for it. I just launched a new blog authored by several internal marketers from industry leading companies like Intel, HP, Cisco, Yahoo, Yum Brands and Cadence who think the same. The blog, titled “Conversations Matter: Bridging the Social Media Gap” is focused on providing a unique perspective of social media; one that I believe is not well represented on the internet today. Unlike the Blog Council, everything we share on the blog is open to just about anyone who is interested in learning, listening and even contributing. We do not require membership or registration to have access to this information. We also take it one step further and discuss a holistic view of social media strategy; with corporate blogs being one element of that strategy.  If you would like to contribute to the blog, please give me a holler and we can discuss the next steps.