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Chief Marketer Social Marketing 2012 Survey Results

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Chief Marketer is one of my faves for reading about topics oriented to B-to-B social media marketing (what I do) and tips and tricks of the trade. A survey of brand marketers was just released, and I was invited to share feedback about responses by B-t0-B marketers and B-to-C marketers…we should all be saying B-to-P by now, eh?

The Chief Marketer 2012 Social Marketing Survey showed a number of interesting findings, and I detail a few in this quickie video of Soulati Media On The Street (taken with the iPhone 4S, holding the camera flipped my way and standing in my bright yellow and red kitchen — that was all for Michelle Quillin of New England Multimedia who just went smartphone on us!).

What I don’t detail is the following:

56% of brand marketers surveyed said social media is “complex to measure.” 

Why is that? My question in response you’ll need to hear in the video, actually. (Heh.)

By a factor of 3, brand marketers said they would reduce engagement on Facebook next year (I sorta garbled that in the video, so I explain it better here).

This is fascinating, and I can leave it up to the Facebook marketers and trainers to determine a really smart answer, but here’s my deduction:

Facebook has made its own life complex and thus ours.

With 1 billion registered users (1/3 of the world’s population), the little U.S. company struggling on the stock market, is still trying to ace mobile. Along the way, it bought Instagram and then launched Camera (what’s the difference?), introduced Timelines and now Collections, has privacy issues and advertising data malarkey — no wonder the medium is complex for brand marketers still stuck measuring with likes and shares (that’s old).

LinkedIn remains a favorite for B-to-B marketers at 85% adoption while B-to-C marketers are only engaging there 39% (of respondents polled).

Google+ is a critical channel for local visibility and organic search, yet most of the marketers surveyed yawned at this medium. I encourage everyone to claim their brand identity!

If you want to see the really long version of my video (12 minutes), you can click here. Otherwise, take a peek with me right now:

 

Any thoughts, Friends?

This has been the 11th installment of Soulati Media On  The Street! Thanks for watching!

Contest Now Open: Win IT Help Migrating to Feedblitz

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By now everyone knows I’m on a Feedblitz migration kick. My post this week launched a barrage of migrations from Feedburner to Feedblitz, many blog posts about it and even more thinking about how and when and why to do it.

I’ve already been in touch with Phil Hollows, CEO of Feedblitz , to invite him to do a Q&A with me – heck, we may even do a video or podcast? Should I get that crazy with him? I’ll try to address the many troubles readers are concerned with; including me!

Put that aside…here’s the really exciting thing this morning!

Contest Open Now

I got an email from Rebecca Caroe of Creative Agency  Secrets. She works directly with Phil Hollows of Feedblitz. As is my duty to do the due diligence, I asked Phil for a vouch. He confirmed that Rebecca is legit, and here’s what’s so cool about that…

Three lucky members of the Soulati-‘TUDE! Community have a chance to win a free tech consulting project to help them migrate their blog(s) from Feedburner to Feedblitz. Rebecca wins because she can fine tune her service offering; you win because you don’t  need to experience the headache I did to migrate my blogs to Feedblitz (and still tweaking). So, just in case you don’t get it; Rebecca’s team is going to do your entire migration for you; you need do NOTHING (except the two little thingies below).

Two little caveats when you’re chosen to become the winner:

  • Feedblitz offers a free, 30-day trial; a credit card is required to register up front although it won’t be charged for 30 days.
  • Logins and passwords need to be shared for both Feedburner and Feedblitz with Rebecca’s team to get the migration complete.

How to Win

I’m going to make this real easy for us all.

  1. In comments below, add your “Count me in,” and you’ll officially be entered in the contest.
  2. By Friday 5 p.m. EDT, the contest closes; no more entries.
  3. I’ll write all the names in an email to my Mom and ask her to pick 3 names off the list. She’ll have no clue because she doesn’t read this blog.
  4. I’ll announce the winners in comments over the weekend.
  5. I’ll connect winners with Rebecca on Monday and step out of the way!

Easy Peezie, Lemon Squeezie…I always try to say that when the opportunity is ripe! Heh.

Let the games begin! Remember, contest closes at 5 p.m. EDT Friday this week!

 

 

Creative Thermostats, Called Nest, Apple Style

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Credit: Nest.com

This post originally appeared Nov. 30, 2011 and is being resurrected in honor of Apple becoming the largest U.S. company ever, surpassing Microsoft, according to this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

In my favorite ‘zine, Fast Company, in its “Next” series, and within that there’s a story about a cool, coming-soon new thermostat inspired by the iPod’s first developer Tony Fadell. Tony used to work at Apple; made 17 versions of the iPod, then departed and is now all creative with a thermostat.

This story is a great next segment in my creativity series–about how you take a product every single house has one or two of and turn it into something innovative, interesting, worthy of notice, and trendy.

Fadell’s Nest–Learning Thermostat costs $250, and it’s differentiator is that it learns your preferences as you dial your temperature up or down. After about 10 or 20 twists of the shiny, artsy dial, the thermostat regulates your home’s temperature on its own. No more adjustments or forgets; automatic temperature control.

>>Attraction #1: I’ve tried to program my thermostat for morning, day and night, but it was too complex and was never reliable. I resort to manual programming about three times daily.

In the article, these interesting tidbits corroborate what I just said:

>>10 million thermostats are sold annually; only 11% of users actively program them.

>>Thermostats are “treated like a light switch, with people manually adjusting them 1,500 times per year,” said Fadell.

Fadell has plans to add his thermostat to other devices networked throughout the home, but he learned at Apple to build slowly, let people learn about the device, get excited, and then introduce new concepts.

Attraction #2: If my thermostat could tell me the weather in the morning at school bus time, that would be incredible. If the potential is there at some point, that’s cool. With the knowledge we have about Apple products and devices speaking to each other wirelessly, it’s not too far fetched for a thermostat to be included in the mix. And, it’s not a device I ever expected to think about; at all.

Fadell designed his product with one function — a dial that turns the temperature up or down. He took this from the iPod which has a scrolling dial to allow music logs to move up and down the screen.

Attraction #3: Not too many dials, controls, instructions, or complexity. Keep it simple for the masses.

Here’s where creativity really comes into play — in the packaging. Fadell’s iPod was packaged neatly and really cool. (I still have the acrylic boxes mine all came in.) He put his thermostat within packaging that includes a custom-manufactured screwdriver and a level indicator at back so people know if it hangs level on the wall. While this isn’t cheap,  Fadell says the “unboxing experience” contributes to ease of installation.

Attraction #4: When I bought my house, I installed my own digital thermostat with help from dad. I read the complicated instructions and told dad what to do with the color-coded wires. It was an ordeal and made me nervous because I’d never done that before. In fact, how many of you have? If I know Nest is plug and play for real, then I a) want one and b) become an automatic grassroots champion. (Ooh, just read that Nest offers a professional concierge service for installation!!)

Lastly, design. Like most things Apple that are techy, modern and cool, the Nest is also one neat device to look at. Silver edge, black inner circle with ocean blue inner circle and bold white, large numerals; not overly large. Fadell says he wanted a “symbol of hipness intended to be shown off like a badge and a jewel on the wall.”

Attraction #5: Take a look at your thermostat; is it a design element or eye sore in your home? When I remodeled my living room, I wished I had a more contemporary thermostat instead of the beige box I have now.

How is all this creative?

Look at all the steps Fadell and his team needed to strategize how to sell something no one replaces that often (albeit 10 million are sold annually). They really thought, creatively, about how to take a mundane product and turn it into something trendy, hip, green, and eco.

Those are a few reasons why you gotta appreciate Apple and all its offshoots who continue to bring us innovation in really creative ways.

What Is Owned Media And Why Publish?

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Credit: Juicy Agency blog

Everywhere the terms owned media, earned media and paid media are popping up. If you’re not familiar with these as a b-to-b marketer, it’s time to understand why these types of media are a necessary part of your strategy.

Earned Media

As a public relations practitioner with media relations expertise, we get coverage or stories for businesses in media. This is called earned media. For business-to-business marketing, PR is a critical strategy for campaign results. If you’d like to learn why, please ask in comments.

Paid Media

This is the coverage and ink you buy, like advertising. Everyone knows the value this brings, especially when larger budgets are available.

Owned Media

When you create and publish your own content, you own it. It’s called owned media. Think of the blog you write for your company, client or yourself. The words are yours, and you publish them on a self-hosted website (hopefully). The ideation to create these inspiring words is yours, too.

Ownership of your words; it sounds so pizzazzy and smart.

In the chaotic world that is social business and social marketing today, there is one pathway tried and true – owned media. No one says it’s easy street to publish content, but it’s a surefire way to garner attention for your smart words.

And, with a consistent publishing schedule, you can develop a rich archive of owned media – stories you’ve written with your byline.

 For Small-to-Medium Business

Owned media for small business is a way to level the playing field. You have a chance to differentiate your products and services in a nimble and expedient way. You can take an industry issue and get out front with counsel to clients and peers. You can become a thought leader with refreshed content that can only boost your presence, brand and positioning.

Level of difficulty? For sure, you need to know what you’re doing before you launch. Blogging, publishing regular newsletters and becoming a thought leader is not for the faint of heart – being consistent with content marketing is critical to success.

Larger Business

There are a variety of social marketing channels to engage with customers; as a larger business, you’re likely aware and already engaging.

If you’re not already owning content and pushing it on a blog or news center on your site, then you’re missing an opportunity to be an authority. There are many, many blog posts written “proving” blogs are dead. Heck, everything dies and comes back to life with inspiration and creativity. Look at bell bottom jeans, for goodness sake!

Marketing departments are often hard pressed to publish consistently; yet, when it happens, brands benefit. This type of strategic approach to owned media and content marketing is exactly what the doctor orders.

Your business-to-business marketing strategy is incomplete without it. Ask me why.

 

Book Review: Marketing In The Round

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Back in the day, integrated marketing was a big trend. Everyone allegedly rushed to climb aboard to play nice in the sandbox. Soon it fizzled and silos crept back to the forefront of business models, and everyone stayed in their corners.

Then came social media (well, some umpteen years later), and marketing altered again. Companies had to tear down the silos and implement integrated marketing again; however, it’s not over. Business is only in the early stages of adoption of social marketing, and one way to be successful is “marketing in the round.”

Marketing In The Round, How to Develop an Integrated Marketing Campaign in the Digital Era by Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston, provides a in-depth look at multi-channel marketing without silos, without a champion, and with a balanced, cross-cultural team working in alignment toward attainment of business goals. Consider it akin to change management.

When you put marketing in the midst of all the communication disciplines, you get marketing in the round. No silos, no hierarchy, just an investment toward positive impact on the business.

At the helm of the marketing round is a leader with an understanding for as many disciplines as possible. This leader is also a strategist who can encourage the breakdown of barriers that exist between advertising and public relations, for example.

In a perfect marketing in the round scenario, there isn’t a chief marketing officer to report to; everyone communicates from one level and uses all communication methods to stay current.

Marketing rounds will succeed well with communication approaches from the top down, via a groundswell, and by two left and right flanks. I bet you money Geoff wrote that chapter (Chapter 4) about military tactics akin to a marketing round. Another tactic of engagement is direct marketing.

Throughout chapters five to eight, the authors detail each tactic in-depth and provide excellent examples of deployment of each of the aforementioned strategies of communication.

In the final chapters, the discussion surrounds integration and the incorporation of various of these tactics from the outside in, inside out, internal only, horizontally, vertically, and any other direction you can imagine.

The book wouldn’t be a Gini book without a chapter on measurement. When you read that chapter, the takeaway is that measurement doesn’t happen overnight. There are many trials to determine what to measure, especially in this era of big data and analytics reports numbering in the hundreds of pages. Along the way, you develop your benchmarks and the dashboard to plug in these figures.

When your marketing round is humming from all the inter-collusion, be prepared to get a flat tire and inflate it all up again. The marketing round has no stopping point, it’s a model to develop, test, fail, test, improve and enhance some more.  The “dramatically changing media landscape has moved faster with each new decade.”  What that means is companies need to adapt even faster.

When you pick up your copy of Marketing In The Round, you’ll find tips, charts, how-to graphs, examples of companies trying, and an approach that clearly comes from the experts. I encourage you to buy this book and reference it regularly. And, there’s a FREE webinar by Radian6 this week featuring our now-famous-er celebrity authors. Click here to register.

May I close with a hearty congratulations to my friends, Gini and Geoff, for their accomplishment. Gini and Geoff are coming to a theater near you; if you’d like to order bulk copies or invite them to autograph yours from a club setting or tweet up, please indicate such right below in comments. I’m sure either or both are paying attention today.