Forrester Research Vice President Josh Bernoff says objectives, not technologies, should drive your Groundswell strategy.
Don’t say “Let’s be on Facebook or Google+.” That won’t provide business value. Instead, POST IT.
The Need for Integrated Marketing: It’s Not Just Social Media
“If only we went viral” and “If only we had a Facebook page and an Internet guru who knew how to make our RSS feed than we could get on the front page of TechCrunch” is something that is commonly heard.
The promise of social media was, to some, the magic promise of viral marketing.
It’s a false promise.
The fundamentals still matter.
Marketing is not about viral or social media – rather it’s about developing the proper strategy to meet your business goals.
What are you trying to get and what is the pathway to get there?
- Brand Awareness?
- Revenue Growth?
- New Sales?
- Thought Leadership?
- Repeat Business?
- Saved Customers and Recovery of Customers?
- Introduce A New Program?
- Donations?
Each goal has a different tactic to meet that goal.
Social media is not the answer, it’s a channel. One of my favorite strategic frameworks, Forrester’s POST Analysis, explicitly states that you pick the People (Audience), Objectives, and Strategy before choosing what technology to implement this with.
Before determining the tactic, you need to develop the strategy that maps the strategy and tactics to your goal. This, of course, requires knowledge of integrated marketing: branding/positioning, public relations, marketing, web development, SEO, and more. Yes, with the growing importance of digital platforms, technological literacy is a must for any marketing strategist, but it is not the goal – rather the tool to get it.
Jono Bacon, the Community Manager of Ubuntu, a popular Linux distribution, has a good framework for how to map strategy with tactics in his book The Art of Community:
OBJECTIVE:
GOAL:
SUCCESS CRITERIA:
- Item
- Item
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN:
- Item
- Item
OWNER:
GOAL:
SUCCESS CRITERIA:
- Item
- Item
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN:
- Item
- Item
OWNER:
The problem with ‘social’ media
I hate the word social media. I hate the concept ‘social’ media. I’ve consistently refused to incorporate the word ‘social’ in my job titles.
I’m not a social media strategist. I’m a strategist. On this, I disagree with analysts like Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang.
I also don’t say that I do social media marketing. I don’t. I do marketing and today, media is social. (Today? When I was 15, half my lifetime ago, I started a nonprofit as a website, which I handcoded in HTML, and an email listserv).
OK, maybe I do social media.
… And telephone media.
… And print media.
… And radio media.
… And mobile media
… And spoken media.
… And email. And tradeshows.
Ok. I’ll be honest. I’ve never (yet) created a trade show booth (but I’ve reached mass audiences and niche audiences without it). I’ve also never worked with a printer to create direct mail (which is probably good since printed snail mail volume is declining (no wonder, since it’s called ‘snail’ mail)). Is it that I’m really an online marketing strategist?
How does marketing to a trade group in LinkedIn or Meetup differ from doing it over the telephone or via the postal service and in person?
How is social media different from online media, in general?
The platform isn’t the most important thing. First choose your goal and objective, and then choose the platform.
The only ones talking about social are the ones not being social. If you’re singularly focused on the magical, wondrous world of ‘social media’ I promise it’s going to disappoint you. On the other hand, if you can use the appropriate tool for the appropriate time (both online and offline), I promise things will be much better.
My point is, with over 2 billion people online, including most of the developed world, marketers just need to be where their target audience is. Much of the time, it doesn’t matter (at least to digital natives like me that learned to use a computer at the same time that we learned how to use a telephone or write a letter). Do you care that I’m writing this post on my cellphone and not on paper? I didn’t think so.
The point is: for digital natives (the oldest of whom are now managers in their 30s… Don’t remind me) – equally comfortable online as off – differentiating media as social makes no sense.
So please, don’t say social media to me.
POST It: How to Develop a Social Marketing Strategy
As our president Josh Cline wrote, strategy is the most important component of any marketing endeavor. This is truer in the digital marketing arena. Inbound marketing and social media marketing are strategic marketing tools. In order to succeed in your marketing efforts, marketing strategy is necessary.
In online marketing endeavors, because of its newness and freshness, there has been a tendency by some to rush into social media, talk about Twitter and Facebook, but have no real goals and objectives, understanding of its audience, or ways to measure success. This is not social media marketing, or any kind of marketing. This is putting the cart before the horse. As digital marketing is still a relatively new field (only 15 years old!), many of those who are most conversant with technology are least conversant with marketing strategy and many of the traditional strategists are not familiar enough with technology to understand and develop a comprehensive plan.
At the beginning of the social media era, it may have been acceptable to wade in the pool and experiment, even without a strategy, as the potential of social was still unknown and only early-adopters were engaged. Today, however, as social media has matured, social media marketing strategy is a necessity and not an option.
In order to be truly successful in any digital marketing endeavor – whether it is social media, mobile, e-mail, or any other – the first thing that needs to be done – prior to talking about tools or tactics – is to talk about strategy.
Luckily, Forrester Research has developed a useful framework to develop a social strategy.
Forrester Research developed a strategic methodology called the POST method.
P is People. Don’t start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you’re targeting college students, use social networks. If you are reaching out to business travelers, consider ratings and reviews. Just do not start social without first thinking about it.
O is objectives. Pick one. 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? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.
S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you are done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you will know where to begin.
T is Technology. A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.
Lacking in strategy leads to companies abandoning their social media efforts too soon. Promised “to go viral” (which is not a strategy!) companies go about this process backwards picking the technology first, saying “We need a blog” and “We need to go on Twitter” and then give up after a few months. As Scott Opplinger wrote, “They might not get the results they want because they had no idea what results they were trying to accomplish in the first place and in most cases had no clearly defined method for measuring those results had they defined clear goals.”
10 Reasons why your intern shouldn’t be doing your social media marketing
YouTube is five years old. Facebook is six years old. The under-30 crowd grew up with technology and are “Digital Natives.” I 
first had a computer when I was six years old and those just out of college probably had a computer in their house from the day they were born and were on Facebook in high school. The natural facility with today’s technology is one of the great advantages that Generation Y and the Millenials bring to the workplace.
Far too often, though, because of that generation gap and technological divide, the older management-level (including older marketing teams) are inclined to ignore what is – to them – new and difficult technology and leave their social media and online marketing activities to an intern or recent college graduate. This is a common but serious mistake that companies are beginning to make.
10. Social Media is the New Communication Channel. Facebook has over 400 million active users worldwide. We do research on Wikipedia and post our photos to Flickr. YouTube is the new MTV and CNN is one of the most popular accounts on Twitter. We read the news online, through RSS and blogs and not on paper. This is not going away. First there were smoke signals, then the newspaper, radio, and television and the Web. Today is the digital age with social networks, mobile, iPads, etc.
9. The Internet is here to stay. Don’t listen to Prince, who recently said that “The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else.” iTunes and its successors will be here. Prince won’t be if he chooses to ignore it.
8. Not Just Working 9-5. Dolly Parton may have just worked 9-5 but your social media efforts shouldn’t. Social Media isn’t a temporary, 20 hr. a week type of deal. It’s a 24-7/365 job. I will frequently log into clients’ social media accounts on Saturday night and throughout the weekend to see if there’s a conversation that needs immediate response or update with the latest news. In a breaking news cycle, you might need to be talking to the public online in the middle of the night. Recently, during a breaking news event, I was responding to the news for a client until midnight. An intern wouldn’t do that.
7. Who are your cheerleaders – Who are your brand’s biggest fans? Odds are it’s not a summer intern who is just working for you for a few months, doesn’t truly know your company inside and out, and has no plans to stay on. Your cheerleader might be the 45-year-old working for your firm for the past decade who goes to every company picnic. It might also be the 29-year-old, with a few years of experience and both a technical facility and research knowledge. They identify with your brand. Not your intern who is looking for the next best thing.
6. Accountability – Your intern is gone after August. You can’t really fire your intern – who won’t be around anyway. Things do happen. People do say inappropriate things online. While this can be prevented with a social media policy, your staff are accountable – they want to keep their job. Your intern? Not so much.
5. Crossing Silos – Social media integrates many different functions. Marketing, customer service, public relations, Human Resources, and more. Can your intern handle these multiple functions or will they be taken seriously by more senior staff members in another department? Depending on your organization, you need someone handling your social media channels that can work with other departments and cross-teams.
4. Long-term momentum – It takes time to build a brand online. You can’t just start and stop. HubSpot has reported that it takes at least 50 blog posts before you start seeing leads from your blog. It takes time to build a community. But come September and your intern’s outta there! You have to build relationships, slowly but effectively and 3 months just isn’t enough! If you are going to take it seriously – which you must – you need to invest in it long-term!
3. It’s more than just status updating – A huge misconception about social media marketing and community management is that all you do is update your status on Facebook and send out a few tweets. If you think that, well, better start getting trained in social media marketing management now. Social media marketing is a part of a holistic approach to strategic marketing. Do you really want them interacting with top-tier journalists? Just because you know how to change your status update or create a Facebook page doesn’t make you a marketer any more than being able to read a newspaper makes you a journalist or kick a ball makes you a football player.
2. Business and Communications – Social media marketing is a part of a holistic approach to strategic marketing. Does your intern know your marketing plan. Do you want them writing it for you? Social media is a marketing function. To do it right, you should know business and marketing. Does that mean you necessarily need a business degree or MBA? Not anymore than anyone else in your firm, but a couple of years of experience in your industry and business knowledge will help place your digital marketing efforts in the appropriate business functions.
1. This is your brand – Are you going to leave your brand management, its public presentation, and how people look at you to someone whose name you don’t even know? If that’s how you think of your brand than expect others to view it the same way. If you don’t value your brand, no one else will.
So what can your intern do? Perhaps they can analyze a bit of what you are doing. They can write and assist and research and help. You might be able to learn from them – but don’t leave your core asset – your brand – and your future growth areas just to an inexperienced intern.
Interns picture licensed under Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/yodelanecdotal/662775832/
Social media silo picture CC 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7855449@N02/4712815871/