Let’s move beyond the tools in Social Media

Courtesy of Flickr - Zoom Zoom

I read a lot of blogs and microblogs every day. A lot. One thing that I see that I’m very disappointed in is the amount of people still talking about the “tools” in social media. Now, I’m not saying it’s not important to know how to use these new tools, but I think we’re missing the bigger picture here.

Social media has created a conversational structure that allows us to cut down the silos in our companies and our own lives. Yet, we still discuss this fascinating trend in the silo-centric mindset. We talk of Twitter or Facebook or MySpace and how to create good pages and build mounds of followers. But we fail to discuss the holistic approach of the actual conversations and the engagement that we should be experiencing with our closest customers and fans.

When we move past this silo-centric mindset, we will be able to dream of new conversational avenues and have the ability to adapt when the playing field changes again. I don’t want you to find yourself focusing and putting all your effort on a platform like Twitter, only to see that platform fail and leave you hanging.

Here’s my challenge…Let’s move beyond the tools.

Don’t Reinvent Your Brand for Social Media, Enhance it.

Courtesy of Flickr - dcmaster

We, as marketers, have become experts in building our brand. We have spent years on defining what our brand is and how we communicate it through colors, images, wording, emotions, etc. We have built some strong emotional and relational contacts with our customers that have created some of the strongest loyalty we have ever seen.

All this was created through understanding our customer base and communicating our brand message effectively and efficiently. Isn’t this what social media is? Effectively and efficiently communicating?

The influx and hype of social media has knocked many of us on our ass and made us start questioning our brand. We have all run back to the drawing boards, trying to reinvent our brands for the social world. This is the opposite of what we should do. We have a powerful brand; we have spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars creating it. Don’t go running back to the drawing board. Instead of thinking what is our new “social brand” think about how would our brand communicate in the social sphere.

Don’t reinvent…Enhance.

#bikebrand in All Its Glory

what is #bikebrand?

#bikebrand is a running conversation about the relationships between the different bike brands at the different levels (OEM, IBD, Component, etc) and how they should be communicated in the marketplace to maximize the effectiveness of brand awareness, loyalty, and advocacy with the end cyclist.

the brand relationships.

The following presentation is an overview of how the different level brands are defined in the marketplace today.

the conversation.

The following .pdf is a transcript of the entire initial #bikebrand conversation that took place on Twitter on Thursday, May 21, 2009. Special thanks to The Archivist for the documentation.

continued conversation.

Now that you have the background of the #bikebrand conversation, you can now carry the torch forward. What are your thoughts of the issue at hand? Who is in charge of the brand the IBD or OEM? How do you want to be communicated to as a cyclist?

thank you.

This issue is one of great importance in the cycling industry as we move forward with the two-way communicated marketplace that technologies like social media are creating. The cyclists now have an equal voice and want to be communicated with. Brands need to engage in conversations correctly or may confuse or irritate the customer. Thank you in advance for your participation in this conversation.

Are we putting too much on Twitter?

Courtesy of Flickr - davipt

This last weekend, I took a trip to Rochester, NY for a friend’s wedding. It all started off with a great feeling and an exciting time. Of course I followed the Airport rules and showed up for my 3:30 pm flight from Kansas City an hour and a half early. Then the rain hit… 8 hours later, we our flight finally left the ground. The connection in DC was completely missed and had to sleep in the concourse of our Nation’s Capital airport. Nothing like “sleeping” on a cold marble floor. Needless to say, I was in the airport awhile this last weekend.

So, why am I talking about my disastrously exciting trip? I had a lot of time to watch the TVs in the various airports that I called home for the weekend; CNN being the prominent channel across all airports. I’ve really never watched much CNN, but thought I’d be open to it to keep my sanity and noticed something exciting, but scary.

tweet-n-n

After every news story, the anchor person showed the conversation that was happening on Twitter about the story. I saw the excitement of the anchor person showing that they could have a conversation with their viewers about the news they were reporting. I enjoyed the excitement and enjoyed the discussion that was happening, but caught myself thinking, what would happen if Twitter didn’t make it? I mean, without a monetization model, Twitter could wither away before we know it.

Our expectations for our news viewing experience is rising by the minute and we are enjoying being able to interact with, not only the news reporters, but also each other about certain stories and topics. What would happen if that interaction went away? Where would our expectations fall after the dismissal of these interactions?

question.

This leads me to my real question…Are we putting too much on Twitter?

Part 4 – How to Build a Brand: Engagement

Welcome back…The past few days we’ve been going step by step to build a brand in today’s business environment. Part 1 discussed segmenting the population to highly targeted, highly defined individuals. In Part 2 we described how to create “segment stories” with the core brand message being communicated effectively to each niche segment. Yesterday, in Part 3 we began building awareness using a strategic combination of traditional and non-traditional tactics. So, basically we left off with our segment individuals raising their hand to engage with our new brand. Now what? Conversation.

This is the really scary part for most marketers today. In the past we have been “pushing” messages until the consumer purchased. Easy. Now, the goal of marketing is to create and maintain customers by building a brand that is malleable and will fit into the lifestyle of the consumer based on their personal wants and needs of our products/services. The only way to create this type of brand is to have an open, two way conversation with each consumer who raises their hand. Conversing with a consumer is a scary beast. What if we mess up? What if we say the wrong thing?

Marketing a Brand is like Building a Personal Relationship

We all have personal relationships. That’s the reason we are engaged so much in the social media realm; to maintain old and create new personal relationships. So why would we be afraid to do this for our brand? The basis of any relationship is communication. Think about how you met your best friend, your spouse, your business partner…It didn’t just happen. It was a series of communications that lead to self disclosure, identifying commonalities, and living experiences together. That’s how marketing should be handled today. Like a new relationship of a best friend, spouse, or business partner.

It’s not brain surgery on how to figure this out. Listen and give. Listen and give. Grow on what has happened in the past. Laugh, joke, cry, experience things together… That’s how you create a malleable brand that will become part of an individual consumer’s lifestyle. Think about your life without your best friend, spouse or business partner…scary, huh? Imagine having our customers feeling that way about our brand… What a great feeling that would be!

Use Technology

With the technologies that we are currently using as marketing silos (database or CRM marketing, social media, email, texting, personalized direct mail, personalized urls, etc), we are fully capable of creating a system that would be able to build these types of relationships. Once the consumer raises his/her hand to begin a conversation, we append it in a database. Then each and every conversation or communication point with that individual needs to be appended to the same database. With this information, we can listen to their wants and needs from our brand and give it to them. We can customize marketing communications, converse in the public social sphere; suggest customized product offerings, etc… Basically we would be able to create a brand that would fit perfectly into their individual, personal lifestyle. We grow with the consumer.

Conclusion

Don’t stop the conversation when the consumer actually raises their hand to learn more about your brand. Dive in and converse back. Learn about them and disclose information about you and your brand. Participate in consumer relationship building like our own personal relationship building. Engage. Relationships like this take time, consistency, dedication, and action. Don’t be afraid of your customers… Engage with them.

Your thoughts

What are your thoughts? Is it possible to create a relationship system utilizing technology? Leave a comment and let me know. Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of the series…Part 5.