Author: Avi

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Reputation Management & The Digital Age

Negative reputation management and crisis communications has always been important components of strategic communications. With the recent rise of user-generated content, however, the tactics to deal with these important communication challenges have changed.

A recent eMarketer post asks the question “how can you use social media to fix campaigns that don’t click with your targets?” How can you react to negative comments about your brand?

As the graph demonstrates, while direct engagement is still the most popular option (although this could be over the phone, e-mail, SMS, social networking sites, or other channels), other important methods to control your reputation online are also popular.

33% of respondents chose to take this negative feedback by improving their product or service. This is one of the tremendous underreported benefits of social media and online marketing. Social media channels provide a cheap way to engage in consumer research and brand monitoring, helping product creators understand usability and what customers want.

24% encourage others to speak more positively. This ties in with the 12% that create content to try to push content down on the search engines. The best response to a negative comment on Amazon.com, Yelp, TripAdvisor, or other user-generated review site is often a real, honest positive review.

17% issued and distributed press releases or comments to address issues. This also can tie in with the 12% that create content to push negative results down search engines as online press release services can be very useful SEO tools.

14% attempted to get the negative comment removed by the publisher or blogger. Unless the content was blatantly false, this is probably the least effective manner as most publishers would not be likely to remove their content. But there are occasions in which it is appropriate.

12% engaged in SEO – Search Engine Optimization – as part of their reputation management plan – and tried to push the offending content down in the search engines. People today search for information via search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Thus, if you can push negative information down, via search engine optimization strategies, than this can be an effective way to control how your brand is viewed. This is one of the newer options in the crisis communication and reputation management toolkit.

What do you do? How do you handle negative online comments about your brand? What do you think of these responses?

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Digital Nation

Frontline is a popular PBS documentary that deals with issues of current events, the economy, and foreign affairs. In early February, their show was about Digital Nation — children and young adults growing up connected online, whether with their laptop, mobile phone, or iPod.

These digital natives (usually defined as those born after the late 1970s) are those who grew up with digital technologies. On a personal level, I am on the older end of the digital native spectrum – having gotten my first computer at 6 and first online (via the defunct Prodigy service and BBSes) at 10. I started my first non-profit at 15, as a website hosted on GeoCities, and built around the web and e-mail listservs. While the older spectrum of Digital Natives are approaching 30, they still represent a small – but growing – portion of the workforce. Depending on your products or services, they probably represent a significant portion of your target demographics. They are usually contrasted with digital immigrants – those who were not raised connected to computers and electronics, but were able to adapt and use these technologies with ease.

Understanding your target market is an essential component of marketing. If you’re not a Digital Native and want to understand how the world has changed in the last 20 years, this Frontline special is a must watch.

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Socionomics takes on Social Media ROI

I’ve already written about social media ROI before, but this socionomics video further shows the economics of social media. As a recent HubSpot report showed, inbound marketing has a 60% lower cost per lead than traditional, outbound marketing. Companies that have a higher level of social media have higher sales. Gary Vaynerchuk was able to use the Internet and the power of video blogging to turn his father’s Shoppers Discount Liquors to the powerhouse that Wine Library is today.

Just a few stats from the video about how the Internet and digital marketing helps businesses save costs:

  • Lenovo had a 20% reduction in call center activity as customers go to their community website
  • Burger King spent less than $50,000 on their Facebook application — leading to over $400,000 in press and media value.
  • Blendtec tripled sales with its “Will It Blend” YouTube videos
  • 37% of Generation Y were aware of the launch of the Ford Fiesta via social media before it’s US launch. (Great car, I want one!)
  • 25% of Ford’s Marketing is spent on Digital/Social Media – They are the only US automaker that didn’t take a government bailout
  • Software company Genius.com reports that 24% of social media leads convert to sales opportunities
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Who uses what?

As I mentioned on an earlier post about the demographics of social media use, baby boomers are the fastest growing group on social networks.

But, what does that mean for marketers? Does it mean that they just need to set up a Twitter or Facebook page and they’ve done their job? Alternatively, will a LinkedIn page do?

The answer: it depends.

As in any sort of marketing, demographics and the purpose of communication matter. Twitter is not Facebook. LinkedIn is not MySpace. It’s not even ASmallWorld (and no, I don’t mean the Disney song).

As eMarketer points out, different age groups use different social media networks. Younger people – not yet in the professional world or just entering their first career – tend not to be power users of LinkedIn. The 40-year old middle manager? You bet (hopefully!) that they are doing business networking and lead generation via LinkedIn.High school students don’t need Twitter to connect with their peers. But Gen Y and X do.

There’s no one size fits all strategy in life. Certainly not in social media marketing either.

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The REAL Social Media ROI – Quantifiable and Measurable (Sometimes)

After writing my last post about the ROI – the return on inaction –  of social media, one of the commentators challenged me to actually quantify the social media return on investment. This give and take is one of the challenges and benefits of social media. Companies can’t just stand behind pronouncements – they are challenged and forced to strengthen their claims.

The interesting thing about the question of “What is the ROI of Social Media” is that we can track this in ways that weren’t trackable with traditional marketing. Despite the fact that many people have difficulty giving real numbers to the ROI of social media, it’s actually far EASIER to track than traditional media.

If someone watches an ad on a TV screen or in a newspaper and then goes visits my store, how do you know that they came because of your ad? Maybe a comment card if they choose to respond. Maybe they’ll tell you. Maybe they won’t.

But, if you’ve set up your site correctly, and someone comes to your website (today’s equivalent of the corner store) because they read your blog, saw your tweet, or even clicked on the link that accompanied the online version of your news article on Time.com or the Wall Street Journal online, you can look in your web analytics and tell. If 100 people came to your site because of a link from Robert Scoble on Twitter, or a news article, or because they were looking up “really cool widgets in Florida” and you sell cool widgets in Florida, your web analytics will show this search. You “just” have to know how to monitor it. But your ROI was that 100 visitors who now know about your brand. And might buy your products or hire you. Or tell their friends about you or let a stranger know on Twitter.

For example, my wine blog analytics are below. Here, I can discover that I had a spike in readership because influencer Gary Vaynerchuk linked to me on ONE Twitter post. The ROI of one link on Twitter from an influencer is this traffic spike and the building of my personal brand. Just like companies claim that such and such magazine did an article on them, I now can say that Vaynerchuk linked to me and I can see that it drove traffic (even if only temporarily). If I had an online portal and earned revenue through page views, my income would have increased because of one link on Twitter. By the way, I have to be honest. The post Gary V linked to? That’s what I was hoping for when I wrote it.

In this case I blog as a hobby – very few people make money on ad revenue from their blog –  but because of it, I’m known of as an expert in Israeli wine and was quoted in a magazine for the restaurant trade and have been invited to trade shows. And occasionally — and this is why established brands still need to be paying attention – the established brand that’s not online doesn’t get mentioned. Or the established brand that’s not online’s credibility depends on the younger upstart’s view – even if they’ve been building their own brand for longer than the Millenial’s been alive. And a thousand (or more) more people a month know about Israeli wine and have made purchasing decisions based on what I’ve written. Yet there are plenty of people who know more about the subject than me. But they aren’t blogging.

If you sell something online then you can track if they found you from a  Facebook page. If you are a major B2B brand with no online commerce option, you can tell who found out about your company/brand because of web analytics. As an example, in the past few days, we had several visitors who came to The Cline Group – after just launching the site this month – because they went to Google and searched “the cline group” and others came because they looked for “inbound principles.”

But that leads back to the question of ROI.

Why does The Cline Group have a blog? Well, one of the reasons is because we are a business and, yes, we want to get paid to provide our communications and marketing services. If we get one new client a day, month, or year because of something that we wrote on our blog, well, that’s our business ROI. If we get one client at $3,000 a month or $100 an hour because they loved what we have been writing – over time, that’s our quantifiable ROI. More importantly, though, if we are seen as reputable in our community because (for example) 1,000 people read what we have to say every week, than that’s valuable for our business.

If someone comes to your hotel because they Googled “four star virginia hotel” and stayed for 4 nights at $120 a night and found your website, than the ROI of that one Google search (and the SEO and web design investment that you spent) is $480. If you got just 10 customers a month because of this, than your ROI is $4800 a month.

It’s worth noting another use case. What if you can find that 30 people found your site, saw it hadn’t been updated since 2006, couldn’t find your room rates and weren’t able to book elsewhere so they went to the hotel down the street – even though your hotel was better but your web site didn’t reflect that? That’s also lost ROI. Even there, by the way, Analytics can help track how many people went to your website and were immediately turned off and bounced away.

If you have an event, and you sell tickets to that event for $50/ticket, and you get 500 buyers because of your active Facebook presence, 300 because you reached out to people interested in the subject of your event on Twitter, and you got 10 corporate sponsors at $500 than your ROI for this one event is $45,000. Not bad for free tools and a whole lotta marketing knowledge.  So, in this case the ROI of social media is $45,000?

Not exactly. Because, let’s say that because of your last event, 500 of the 800 people signed up for your e-mail newsletter, found out about your next event, and 100 bought $75 tickets (because they enjoyed themselves so much last time). And, let’s say 1 of your previous sponsors really enjoyed themselves that this time they pledge $1,000. Then your ROI for the second event – because of work you did on your last event, as well as keeping up the relationships with the previous attendees – is $8500. And what if the other attendees couldn’t attend this time, but shared your post about it on Facebook and Twitter with their friends and their friends bought tickets because of a Twitter link – and positive experience from someone they trusted.

What do you think?

Hmm… so who said there’s no ROI in social media?

ROI photo licensed under Creative Commons –http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/ / CC BY 2.0
Hotel photo licensed under Creative Commons – http://www.flickr.com/photos/wili/ / CC BY 2.0
Audience photo licensed under Creative Commons – http://www.flickr.com/photos/megapolis/ / CC BY 2.0
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Baby Boomers & Matures: Fastest Growing Group on the Social Web

Social media is not the answer for everyone. More than that, the latest fad of Twitter is not the place every customer should be.

That is a controversial statement, but it shouldn’t be. The basic of marketing demographics applies to social media as well. If you are the AARP or selling nursing homes for baby boomer’s parents (aged 50+), creating your social network presence was not the first thing you should have included in your marketing plan. However, the fastest growing group on social media networks is not the Millennials – who were early adopters and on Facebook since it was a closed network in 2004 and on Twitter since 2007 or 2008 (or, as they say, #herebeforeoprah). Rather, the fastest growing group is the Baby Boomers and Mature set. Therefore, while you may not have needed to market to them online  a few years ago, today you’re being left out if you don’t include a digital strategy in your marketing plans. However, as will be discussed on the next post, there is no one size fits all approach and online marketing to matures differs than marketing to millenials.

According to recent eMarketer data, only 44% of Baby Boomers (aged 44-62) maintain a social networking profile and only 36% of matures (63-75 do). Nevertheless, that’s up from 30% of Boomers in 2007 and 10% of Matures the same year.

As eMarketer notes:

Baby boomers have always been good communicators, as evidenced by their presence at sit-ins, protests, demonstrations and “happenings” in the 1960s. So it was inevitable that boomers would check out social media sites.

“Creating and renewing personal connections online is the biggest draw for these boomers,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Boomers and Social Media.” “About 47% of online boomers maintain a profile on at least one social network, according to several sources. Their contacts include family, friends and co-workers of all ages.”

“Boomers expect that technology will help them live longer and better lives and keep them connected to family, friends, co-workers and, eventually, healthcare providers,” said Ms. Phillips. “To fulfill these expectations, boomers are turning to social media, where they keep up their offline social connections and make new ones. Online marketing messages that help them build on their connections—and foster other online relationships—will get their interest.”

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What is social media?

Following up on my previous post about the ROI of social media, perhaps it’s worth explaining what social media is.

Social media is not so new. Even the technology is new and major social networks have been on for close to a decade. Facebook only started in 2004. Twitter in 2006. Blogger in 1999 and bought by Google in 2003, and WordPress also was first released in 2003. College seniors that opened up a Facebook profile in 2004 are now your 27- year old workers. Moreover, humans have been social since the first caveman shared pictures on the cave walls.

However, many so-called social media gurus like to focus on the new technology, instead of human’s nature to be social and communicate, in order to confuse you (probably to charge you more). Watch the video below, if you want to understand what social media is without being confused by Tweet this, Twibe that, RSS, ping, or other buzzwords. This explains social media – not for technology, but for ice cream.

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The ROI of Social Media

Many people ask: “What is the ROI – return on investment – of social media?” Usually, they get two answers:

  1. Some people – usually those who ended up engaged in social media because they are young, use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or whatever other channel in their personal life, but don’t work in marketing or strategic communications – respond that there is no ROI in social media. Those people – far too common in the fast growing field of social media – do businesses a disservice. Besides being wrong, this keeps busineses from hiring a firm that understands marketing. After all, why should a business invest in something without ROI?
  2. Others promise millions of customers and viral outreach. But this, too misleads.

Of course, there is an ROI of social media marketing, just as there is in any other marketing, advertising, public relations. Social media is a channel, a tool. It is a channel with unique rules, that requires specific marketing strategy, and that crosses disciplines – marketing, public relations, and even customer service, for example.

Instead of asking “What is the Return on Investment of Social Media?” perhaps companies need to be asking “What is the Return on Inaction?” or “What’s the Risk of Inaction?”

According to Forrester Research, “Consumers will rely on their peers as they make online decisions, whether or not brands choose to participate.” So, if you’re inactive, your customers are still talking about you … with someone else.

Radian6 asks this question to many marketing gurus . See what the top marketers have to say.

Gary Vaynerchuk (my own favorite guru, since I’m also a big oenophile) says that he doesn’t care if companies are on social media – because those that don’t are dumb and should fail.

While I wouldn’t call you dumb, are you spending your time too worried about the ROI of social media to actually be engaging in social media marketing? To actually hire a professional marketing consultancy, with a background both in strategic marketing and web-savvy, social media marketing? Or are you letting the kid down the block who has a Facebook profile and may be on Twitter handling the future of your business?

Because, really, as Gary V would say, don’t be dumb.

Social media is changing business. It’s transforming and evolving processes, customer service, and communication as we know it. Exploring investment return for social media is valid and necessary within a business framework. But equally important is carefully assessing the price for not being involved.

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Social Media for Social Good

Social Media doesn’t just sell technology (although Dell claims that they’ve made over $1 million in sales due to their Twitter presence), or shoes (although Zappos has also been raking in the big bucks), but it also saves lives and does good.

Whether it’s a religious organization, charity fundraising campaign, or trade group, or promoting democracy, social media does good.

If you’ve been paying attention, social media has been recently saving lives in Haiti and promoting democracy in China and Iran. Ben Parr of Mashable has a new story posted on CNN about the social web.

According to Parr, “In all three cases — China, Haiti and Iran — social media has had an impact, especially as the course of events evolved. Real-time communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook have spread the word about what’s happening within these nations, long before the mainstream media prints the story. These tools have also created a level awareness we’ve never seen before.”

As of this writing, over $11 million has been raised – just via text messaging – for earthquake relief in Haiti. Google is highlighting ways to help – texting, online payment, or even Google Voice.

Twitter and Facebook are also being used to help raise funds for disaster relief.

Twitter is helping to promote individual country’s roles in the Haitian relief effort. The Israeli Defence Forces spokespersons office created a Twitter account at @IDFatHaiti to showcase that country’s role in helping Haiti..

How are you using social media for social good?

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Shift Happens

Print is not the only platform today. Platforms have changed. Newspapers and journals are now online. That mean that your marketing and public relations efforts have to change. What worked in 2001 didn’t work in 2004. What worked in 2001 doesn’t work in 2010.

Here are some interesting statistics showing how the world has changed in the past few years:

• Newspaper circulation is down 7 million in the past 25 years, but in the last five years,unique readers of online newspapers are up 30 million.
• Traditional advertising is in steep decline, while digital advertising is growing rapidly.
• More video has been uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC, CBS, and NBC had been airing new content 24/7/365 since 1948 (when ABC started broadcasting)
• The average American teen sends 2,272 text messages a month. What are they saying about you?
• Dell earned over $3 million from Twitter since 2007.
• Barack Obama raised $55 million from online social networks in one month during the presidential campaign. How are you using social networking sites?
• The mobile device will be the world’s primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020
• The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper, and a thousand times more powerful, and about a hundred times smaller than the one computer at MIT in 1965