soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

Thoughts After Social Slam 2012

By

You missed the IRL event of the year in Knoxville last Friday. We got to see so many social media mavens and not so mavens, about 600, gathered in Knoxville for the second annual affair. Congratulations to the Knoxville Social Media Club and Mark W. Schaefer, founder of the event, for another amazing gig.

Thanks, too, for the swag bag although take a look in the photo above and see if you can spot the typo? How could that happen? LOL. Loved lunch, sponsored by Bush’s Baked Beans and cashed in already for my two free cans of veggie baked beans. Awesome swag.

The most incredible thing for we who paid more to sit in front of the stanchion and call ourselves VIP to hob knob with the A-lister faculty, breath, was the opportunity to press the flesh of the names we’ve only seen on streams. And we were closer to Mitch Joel’s cross-the-line innuendos prior to those in the back of the room.

I checked in on Facebook and tagged 25 others also present from my community alone! W00T!  After Stephanie Wonderlin presented for 10 minutes with 10 tips about video, I got the most awesome idea to use my iPhone 4S to do some spontaneous interviewing. And, thus, Soulati Media “On The Street” was born (although that branding is just announced and not yet on film!). I’ll be sharing eight video snippets from the movers and shakers who contributed to Social Slam 2012 in upcoming blog posts. Curious ahead of time? Hit my YouTube channel (link right over there) and sneak peek!

Some Thoughts

These are my nuts and bolts about the day, and I hope you add a few I may have missed:

  • Data. Analytics. I’d like to write a #ThatIsAll here, but feel the need to explain a bit further. We heard a fabulous presentation by Tom Webster with Edison Research who writes over at Brand Savant. His skills as a presenter are honed with humor, extremely relevant content and information that makes you cringe because your campaigns are not created with his company’s customized research to get the customized data and the customized analytics. Did I say customized?

I sat in a workshop about Social Search (I may be writing more on that soon as it’s a topic that warrants more explanation) that did nothing but upset me. The expertise flowing from Sean McGinnis, Sam Fiorella and their colleague was fast, high-level, confusing, and lacked a roadmap for me to follow. That is why I walked away from there unhappy; there is so much to learn and understand about social data that people in the room needed those basics. When your presenters are so above board with their expertise (like an airplane to a car) and the audience is still trying to buy a car, there’s a disconnect. Nothing against these gents who were wowsome; it’s just me who isn’t.

  • Integrated Campaigns. Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston wrote a book, Marketing In The Round, that just came out the day of  Social Slam. I was waiting for Gini to promote the book and let 600 people know how to buy it, but apparently, Social Slam planners allegedly didn’t allow its promotion? (Check the link over there to buy it now.) Why? Terribly remiss. Gini is one of the A-listers (she’ll deny it every time) in my circles; she is a leader in my community, and every person in the entire VIP section knows her. She was also the morning keynote presenter.  Buy her book; this is social media, people; let authors promote books with content social media professionals need to read.

Integrated marketing is still the answer. We can have data, we can have teams, but the silos need to come down and the campaigns need to be cohesive so we can share the success stories. Gini has something important to say; her content is relevant and required.

  • Presentation skills. You know how 3 p.m. is death time for any conference? I can vouch for that. There I was, absolutely doing the head bob, and I was saved and became a true believer — thank you Marcus Sheridan! This lion that roared rocked the house; he put the energy into the room that was so low people were sleeping. He walked the room, he boomed his voice, he threw the mic at people, “Love it, embrace it…what’s your name?” And he engaged IRL, in people’s faces with names on the spot and ad libs the likes of any LaLaLand actor. What Marcus said, for the life of me, I can’t remember; just speaking the truth; but, what I’ll remember was the most amazing presentation skills of anyone at the entire event. Way to go, Marcus! High marks.
  • Content Marketing. And, then came Mark W. Schaefer who was doomed after Marcus, but really not. Mark wrote his second book, Return On Influence, which he gave away to the conference — is this a pattern, Mark?  Mark’s presentation style was engaging and his content was loaded with storytelling about others and proof points about why he thinks brands need to pay closer attention to social influencers and how to find and use them.

Conclusion

I traveled with Deb Dobson of Vorys, a Columbus law firm. It was our first meeting, and turns out we trek the same circles on the Interwebz, thus our plan to drive 11 hours round trip. This gave us a lot of time to converse about so much; she’s a talker, you know…I’m sure I didn’t get a word in edgewise…! Heh, hi, Deb!

Deb, in her infinite wisdom as a business development, social marketing, IT and analytics geek, encapsulated the entire day for me as I was lamenting my lack of knowledge in a few areas of social. See if you feel better, too.

There are three types of social marketing experts:

1. The Data Driver — the numbers nerd who lives and breathes this stuff (guys like Tom and Sean and Sam and Deb, as above) and looks at blog traffic as boring as hell because there are so many more ways to skin the cat.

2. The Apps Man — the first leader, the early adopter and the one who jumps from new app to new app to be the first to test, like/hate and write about it. Can you say Mashable?

3. Content Marketer — here’s where I fall, and I’m so glad Deb helped me find my way home as I had gone astray after Social Slam. We in this category have an expertise that is so critical to the other two. Without messaging and creative content that brings number 1 and number 2 to life, there would be NO social anything. I execute content marketing strategy.

What were your takeaways from Social Slam 2012 or anything else I just tossed at you on a bright Monday?  Good to be home.

Should You Delete Social Media Profiles?

By

A man I respect as a peer and pal is a social media leader and A(mazing) lister who will deny that last descriptor as a slight, but he carries enough clout that he has deleted his and also his Google+ profile.

His hit my in box over the weekend, and I was fascinated with his announcement that he had deleted his and was lamenting that Google required him to re-up his profile IF he wanted to use .

So, I got to thinking about social media leaders who take proactive steps to change it up. Remember the leaders who deleted all their Twitter followers ? That was all the rage for awhile with everyone talking about what that meant, why they did it and what influence it had.

That said, I got to thinking about what it means to be in social media marketing.  Each of us engages with the next new channel. I kicked and screamed all the way to Pinterest to fall in love and then have that love wane to zero after the legal problems came to light. But, I didn’t delete my profile…yet.

is someone I fully consider a leader in this space. I feel as if I know him extremely well, yet we’ve never met IRL or via Skype. I need to change that up.  I remember when I started and I was in awe of his efforts with 12for12K.com.

And, we’ve f together, too. That makes us kindred . So, when I read yet again that Danny was justifying why he had deleted a profile after playing ball (he had met with some interesting obstacles and Wil E. Coyote shenanigans) I thought:

If you’re in social media, shouldn’t you have a Google+ profile? Then, I thought, Danny is now working for ; not driving his own company. Is that the reason he’s not as concerned with personal branding as before?

So as not to sideswipe Danny or speak on his behalf, I sent this post to him for his heads up in the hopes he would be able to shed some light on my curiosity. Let’s define what that curiosity means — it’s not gossip by any stretch; it’s learning.

Do I need to keep my Pinterest profile if I’m not going to be current or active? Do social media leaders have to engage on all the channels to show they know what’s hot? I seriously want to know the answers to these questions, and I’m hoping the king himself will help provide us with some insight…Danny?

(Thanks, Mr. Brown!) Danny Brown says:

“The way I look at it is this – does this platform really need to take up my time, and is it doing things at least in some right ways? When Klout first arrived on the scene, I was curious as I’m really interested in how messages are filtered through the channels, and what influence could mean for brands and business. Then I found out about their crappy privacy, their shady profile setting up and their inclusion of minors, and I deleted. It was simply a popularity tool as opposed to a true influence measure.

Now Google, with their Google+ platform, seems to want to follow the same path – force account creations, count “active users” as people who might click on G+ alerts in Gmail but never go through to the site, allow non-users to be emailed by their connections online to encourage sign-ups, etc. Its invasive marketing and so out of touch with Google’s lauded “don’t be evil” mantra. It may be a bit easier to take if the platform was good, but it’s such a stale experience compared to Twitter and Facebook (and, yes, you can say it’s down to the people you follow, but I followed some of the smartest folks around while their content was great, the user experience was still bland).

My time is very limited, due to professional and family commitments, so unless a platform stands out as being hugely effective, I won’t waste time on there. I’ve never felt the need to “build a personal brand,” as that always sounds forced and contrived. So not being on the “big platforms” doesn’t bother me too much. If I miss out, so be it – I’ll still prefer to be active on the platforms that matter to me, and for now that’s , Twitter and Facebook. Everything else is either a luxury I don’t need or a time suck that’s being hyped by those looking to push their own books, webinars and agendas.

My advice? Look at the platforms, evaluate your interaction and returns, and if they don’t seem to make sense, then spend your time where you’re more effective, both as a producer and a listener. That’s how you’ll get the results that matter.”

 

Marketers Are Confused About ROI, Are You?

By

Turns out the commenters over at Spin Sucks who didn’t know how to define ROI as based solely on dollars are not far off from many a marketer, according to a study by the Columbia Business School Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association.

By way of background, my friend Jenn Whinnem who is a contributor here and member of this community wrote a guest piece for Spin Sucks about the Connecticut Health Foundation and which metrics they tally that contribute to campaign success.

A major side conversation in her post’s comments ensued about whether metrics not attributable directly to dollars should be referenced as ROI at all. About 85 percent of commenters favored ROI as strictly dollar oriented while a portion of those who spoke up wanted to honestly know why ROI couldn’t be oriented to other types of measurement, as well.

In the March 12, 2012 Advertising Age, the cover story, Marketers Don’t Practice ROI They Preach, informs about results of a study that suggests marketers aren’t as buttoned up about ROI as the commenters in the Spin Sucks community would have you feel.

The major outcome of the study taken directly from the Ad Age article is this:

“For all marketing’s obsession with ROI, it’s not used to set budgets.”

and

 “The state of the art remains surprisingly primitive.”

Interesting, eh? The discussion at Spin Sucks was heated yet collegial. Had I had this article tapped, I could’ve pulled it in to the conversation in comments (or, because ROI wasn’t on my radar until now, I wouldn’t have!).  Let me share a few more bits of data from the survey as detailed in the magazine:

  • 22% of respondents use the most basic measure — brand awareness — to gauge marketing ROI without necessarily determining even whether the awareness is positive.
  •  50% of respondents didn’t include any financial outcome when defining marketing ROI.

Brighter Light Bulb

Don Sexton, marketing professor at Columbia Business School, stated in the article that “a lot of people…don’t have a clear idea of what marketing ROI is. A lot of them use metrics that don’t measure finance at all.”

These other metrics used to measure ROI by more than 1/5 of marketers surveyed (243), according to the Ad Age article are:

  • Brand awareness
  • Boss’s satisfaction
  • Reach and frequency (regardless of whether it affected sales)

(Social media data (in spite of mass quantities) isn’t being used to measure financial metrics said the survey.)

Conclusion

The pulse of the Spin Sucks community on the definition of ROI seems to represent what this article and the survey results speak to.

  • There is absolute confusion about how to implement marketing ROI and align it back to dollars.
  • There is absolute confusion about the definition of return on investment.
  • Somewhere along the way, use of the term, “ROI,” loosened to include metrics not associated with dollars.

ROI of a Webinar

Let’s take a look at a mini-campaign — a webinar to generate sales. In between the start and the end point are customer touches that influence sales and hopefully generate a purchase at some point in the sales cycle.

  • Webinar invitation list to prospects and current customers
  • Follow-up post event with a survey
  • E-mail marketing push with the on-demand webinar
  • Content to further interest the prospect in a product
  • Sales team queries to webinar attendees
  • Product demonstrations completed
  • Customer buys the product (at some point)

There are many opportunities in this scenario to track metrics that help influence sales:

  • Number registered for webinar
  • Number that attended
  • Number of completed post-event surveys
  • Percentage of positive survey responses
  • Number of product demos scheduled

But, the only true assessment of ROI for this webinar is whether a customer bought a product — that is pure and true ROI. The total number of dollars exchanged to make a purchase is what defines ROI. The other numbers, as suggested above, are metrics that contribute to the success of the campaign and help measure its effectiveness or influence on sales.

 

What is your opinion about ROI and how it’s used or defined in your organization?

 

 

Customer Service Survey Fatigue

By

I’ve been threatening to write about this topic but the envelope push was this week with my lawn service, TruGreen. I’m not picking on them at all; they are just the straw in a huge haystack that has been growing for a year or more.

Customers are extremely tired of surveys, companies. Let me repeat – we are sick and tired of being asked to fill out your stinkin’ surveys. We get phone calls, duplicate ones at that, asking for our ratings for a water heater that was installed 30 days ago. We are asked by every teller and retail clerk to “go to this website and you can win a shopping spree, an iPad, new diapers for your baby” if you fill out the survey and tell my company I rock.

The TruGreen guy rang my door bell, disappeared awhile in back and came around to shake my hand and make eye contact. I went back to work and so did he. On the door knob were two pieces of paper – the one about the application he applied to my lawn that day (with a handwritten “please take my survey”) and a piece of white paper with no branding asking me to complete a survey with my customer number and, and, and.

My friend at Allstate is an auto claims adjuster. He travels in the field to speak with policy holders and informs them how much Allstate is going to pay for vehicle damage. He lives and breathes by the customer satisfaction surveys he gets after that frontline experience. In fact, Allstate is chasing people out the door if adjusters’ numbers are lower than 90/100. That’s some serious pressure right there.

Companies need to stop.  People need to be empowered to do their jobs basically, satisfactorily and then over and above. Customers will notice the over and above, and guess what, companies? We will make the effort to call in out of the blue and tell someone we had awesome customer service. (Have you ever tried doing that? It’s next to impossible to nail down someone or a recording to report excellent customer service…I know as I’ve tried.)

Instead of customer service surveys at every interaction with frontline employees, consider these options:

1. Beef up your social media engagement with a Facebook page and let customers speak with you there. Add a Yelp profile where we can really give you a rating with stars and write about our experience. What are you afraid of? Does your customer service suck that bad that you’re fearful of negative backlash? Whose problem is that – the customer or the company?

2. Rate your employees randomly; work with them in the field and you can see their performance and how customers regard them and their service. Give them a rating that day and about 10 other times in the year – is that enough? You can’t tell me someone working with their boss is going to be that much different to customers; people do what comes naturally – customer service should come naturally.

3. Ask for the un-survey. Tell customers “this is not a survey. We’re not asking you for a rating of this employee today, we’re asking you to rate this employee only if you have something to share, something good or bad. We know you’re tired of all these surveys, and so are we. If you have thoughts on what we should do differently, please let us know by filling out this un-survey.”

4. Trust in your training programs! Give those people you’ve hired an opportunity to experience good, bad, indifferent customers and they will know what to do in that situation. Know that the people you hire are who they need to be on the frontline.

5. Give employees a survey goal – we want you to earn 10 surveys a month; pick your customer or your engagement and get your scores. That means they don’t need to ask for a survey every cotton-picking time.

I’m not sure when this survey business started, but it’s become a joke. No one takes the survey seriously any more. And if you’re a company like Allstate demanding high marks for all customer service engagement, it puts undue pressure on policyholders and frontline employees at the same time.

What do you think, dear Readers?

About Negative Blog Comments

By

A boatload of bloggers has been following Mitch Joel’s lead and talking about how they blog. There have been some wonderful posts that look inside many bloggers’ strategy from Mark Schaefer, Gini Dietrich, Jason Konopinski, and others. From what Ken Mueller discovered over at Inkling Media when he posed that question to some of us, people seem to get out the keyboard and just write already.

Me, too. No notes, just thought processes in ideation all the time taking up valuable brain space. Since blogging began for me two years ago, everything is a story, everything has an angle, everything is blog fodder.  It’s maddening, and I read science fiction at night to shut down.

About Negative Comments

So, rather than follow Mitch Joel’s challenge to share how I blog (oh, maybe I already did that), I want to look at a very intrinsic part of blogging that makes the world go round. It’s comments, but it’s not the type of comment you might think.

Detractors and bot spammers and people with some real negativity are showing up in comments. This has happened to me when I post on a national level, and it’s no fun. It also happened last week over at a client site, JD Match,  where someone named Bob asked me if I didn’t have anything better to do than to blog about something that detracted from making the world a better place.

Over at Spin Sucks yesterday, my friend Jenn Whinnem wrote a post about her employer, Connecticut Health Foundation and how it measures success. A headline adjustment caused the headline to imply they were measuring ROI; her article didn’t really address that. The comments came out of the gate fast and aggressive. For a guest blogger who rarely blogs to feel that angst on the receiving end, it’s not fun when you’re on the firing line.

There is a range of emotions I experience when I read a negative comment the first time. Let me try to share what they are and see if you have experienced any of the same:

1. Immediate lack of confidence. Did I write something wrong? What did I say that didn’t sit well? Should I go find it and switch the language?

2. Angst. Darn it, I hit publish too quickly; I was in a squirrely mood and it showed in the flip tone. I needed to let that post sit over night.

3. Anger. The urge to launch back with a slew of discourteous words is so tempting I fire off a retort then come to my senses and delete and rewrite something as smooth as silk pie.

4. Relief. After I reread the negative comment, I realize while it’s directed at me, it’s not about me. It’s about the commenter who likes to bring discomfort to bloggers in their own community.

Managing negativity in a blogging community is one thing. When you write at a national level, it’s expected. If you’re a guest in someone else’s community with a guest post, there ought to be respect. Well, heck, there ought to be respect anywhere, but that’s a bit lacking at times, isn’t it?

At Michelle Quillin’s house today over at New England Multimedia, I’ve written a guest post, 10 Tips To Handle Negative Blog Comments. I’m certain her community will be nice to me as a guest, and I’m hopeful, too, the 10 tips will prepare someone for how to manage a bit of angst in comments.

Now, it’s your turn…how do you manage detractors and dissenting comments?  Please share so we can all learn.