A strategy to keep up with marketing change

It’s hard to believe but Tom Webster and I have been making beautiful podcast music together for two years and in this anniversary extravaganza we have a long list of celebrity appearances. None of them could actually make it to the show, but we did have a long list.

Thanks to Marketing Companion Super FanRev Ciancio for this awesome graphic!

Actually we do have moderately interesting guest stars on the show including the robot from Lost In Space. His price was right and he did not eat much.

We also use this opportunity to explore the idea of the incredible rate of change and strategies we employ to keep up. We discuss things like:

• The surprising roles of conferences in knowledge transfer (not much impact)
• Appointing a personal board of directors
• Does grad school matter?
• Our top choices for reading material that keeps us ahead (check out a list of resources below)
• Can’t miss resources to move your brain in new ways

BTW, if you are a regular listener of The Marketing Companion it would be great if you would consider leaving a review on iTunes and express your fandom.

Ready to pick up some great new ideas? Here we go!!

If you can’t access the podcast above, click on this link to listen to Episode 50

• Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe in iTunes
• Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide
• Click here for the show’s RSS feed – for Android listeners.
• Find the podcast on Stitcher

Resources mentioned in this podcast

Fortune article on best graduate degrees

Flowing Data

Freakanomics

McKinsey Quarterly

Economist Daniel Kahneman

Brain Pickings by Maria Popova

Pew Center for Research on the Internet and American Life

Scott Monty’s This Week in Digital News Round-up

Christopher Penn’s blog Awaken Your Superhero

Post on Gray Social Media

Social Media Marketing World

Rand Fishkin of MOZ

Marketing Profs B2B Forum

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Has Social Media Replaced Traditional Forms Of Marketing?

Ask anyone and the answer will always be the same. Ask a traditional marketing person that what are the channels that you should be employing as part of your promotional push and their answer, rehearsed over a thousand times, will include words like print, TV, radio, direct mail, commercials, and PR.

But then again, these folks must have heard of social media and the awesome power it has over influencing decisions of people to make a direct purchase. Social media is the new frontier to do direct-to-consumer conversions. People are glued to their computers, tablets and smartphones these days and that makes social media marketing the perfect foil that replaces traditional marketing methods.

As someone who practices their craft on social media, here are some preconceptions that people need to challenge regarding social media marketing.

1. The Internet. It really has changed the whole marketing landscape.

If you are not leveraging the power of the internet, you are doing it wrong. If your customer base seems low, and you want to change it for the better, an online presence is necessary, crucial even to your business bottom line. The internet has brought with itself a paradigm shift and no one is immune to its effects. Not you, not your customers and certainly not your business. Get on the online bandwagon people. It waits for no one.

2. Do people even buy magazines off newsstands or watch TV anymore?

Yes and no. The definite answer to this is mixed at best.

For brand managers and other marketing folks, it is crucial to know if people are tuning in to that sports event of the century. Or are they watching the news on TV or Twitter? Are people spending more time consuming content online rather than those of the printing press variety.

Commercials are still relevant. Look at the Superbowl results. They speak for themselves with their million+ viewership. In fact, this is just the tip of the iceberg if you consider how viral the ads aired during the Super bowl go once unleashed on social media.

The truth is, for now traditional media co-exists side by side with social media, so social media managers should do well to keep their brand promotion options open.

3. Social media conversations are the new case studies.

Once upon a time, a brand used to come out with case studies, detailing how their products/services have a phenomenal effect on someone’s life.

They were, for lack of a better term, one-sided. It was not rocket science to deduce that white papers were dripping with corporatism at best. How were customers to know how credible and trust worthy these stories were?

Enter social media, and the need to join the conversation of the day. Brands could now directly interact with customers, taking care of their needs, requirements and produce a master class display in maintaining good PR. After all, with all eyes on you and how you deal with consumers, which tend to have a magnanimous effect on public perceptions.

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Chat Apps and Social Media: What All the Fuss Is About

You've probably seen several articles about chat apps recently. You’ve likely also seen predictions, some compelling and some dire: Chat apps are the new social media! Chat apps will replace social media in 2015! You may have seen those same sentiments in the form of questions. In this article I’m going to break it down for you. I’ll review how people use chat apps, and the impact they are having on social media. I'll tell you why marketers and brands are so interested in them, and how I think chat apps will integrate into the social media mix. More importantly I’ll tell you what you should be thinking about regarding how to marketing on chat apps, and tell you how brands are engaging customers on chat apps today.

What are chat apps?

Chat apps are apps like WhatsApp, Snapchat, WeChat, Viber, and Line. You use them to send text messages and in some cases make calls. They typically make it easier to chat through text from mobile devices, and provide additional easy to use features for sending images, videos, and creating groups to chat with. As I said, some chat apps take it further and include VOIP calling. Many chat apps try to be more private. They are inherently more private because you have to invite people to chat with you (for the most part). Some chat apps, like Snapchat, take privacy further by deleting content after a specified amount of time. Some chat apps support ads, others don’t. Some have separate channels for publishing content. Snapchat has a new Channel, Snapchat Discover, where media partners like CNN can publish news related content. Snapchat even has its own original series, Snapper Hero coming out. 

What’s all the fuss about?

People. To marketers, people are reach. Reaching people provides the opportunity to raise brand awareness and make your pitch to current or new customers. Chat apps have experienced huge growth in the number of people using them over the last two years, so everyone is interested.  How much have chat apps been growing? WhatsApp added over 100 million users in the last 4 months of 2014 alone. Martin Beck’s recent article listed 4 of the top 6 social networks (based on active users) as chat apps.

In addition to all of this, many marketers tend to feel that chat apps are effective channels for marketing. That intuitively makes sense, since chat apps tend to have more intimate conversations between parties that know each other. After all, if you hear an opinion from someone you know and trust, it tends to resonate. On top of that, the droves of users moving to chat apps have gotten the attention of social media experts. As I said in the opening paragraph, there have been a lot of articles, predictions, and discussions. The headlines of some of these articles has amplified the fuss. I'm a social media consultant, and I’m partly to blame. We teach people to write attention grabbing headlines with power words like SECRET and AWESOME, and power phrases like “CHANGING LANDSCAPE” and “DISRUPTIVE TRENDS.“ This is one secretly awesome disruptive trend where you need to read the content rather than focus on the headlines.

Are chat apps changing the social interaction landscape?

Yes. People who spend more time chatting in chat apps, may spend less time on other social platforms. Moreover, since a large number of people can potentially be reached on chat  networks, those networks and apps are places that brands and marketers need consider when looking to extend their reach, or to reach the audiences that populate those networks.

Is Social Media as we know it dead or dying?

In short, yes. But, before you freak out about how your brand just got its Instagram account where it should be, social media as we know it dies every day. A better way to say it might be that social media changes every day. Social media is not a static landscape. It’s a constantly changing mix of technologies, use cases, personas, user types, and issues. People like to put things in boxes, because things in boxes are easier to understand. The most common social media box regarding business and marketing is, “you have to be on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.” You’ve probably heard that. It’s been good advice for several years. It’s good advice today, and it’s going to be good advice next year as well. Social media changes with every new social app, every new type of social network, and every new issue that comes into focus. Most of the time the changes in the social media landscape are numerous and small, requiring periodic adjustments. Sometimes changes are impactful and large, and generate more immediate responses. If you want to keep up, you need to stay plugged in, and wear a good pair of running shoes.

A look back at past disruptive changes

I use this analogy when talking about chat apps and other disruptive technologies because it seems provide perspective. The original social media app was the Internet's original killer app – email. That was followed be the world wide web and websites for people and brands. Then ecommerce sites. Then came SEO awareness, the secret to make sure your website could be found in a world of websites Then SEO became a moving target, enter search advertising and pay-per click. Then came social media. Users flocked. Brands built pages and touted organic reach. Then organic reach became a moving target and social media ads matured. Get the point?

So let me ask you:

• Do you still put thought and effort into building a great website for your brand?  Yes you do. You have to have a place for your customers to go, to sell your products, and to get your message out.
• Do you still optimize it for SEO? Yes you do. People still use search engines to find things, and it’s always better to be found sooner rather than later.
• Does search advertising still work and do brands still use it? Yes. Digital advertising is growing at an enormous rate. Social media advertising makes up 30% of that, while search advertising is 40%.  Those numbers will change, but search advertising is important and will continue to be important for some time. In fact, the bigger disruption in digital advertising currently is mobile vs desktop. The Woodside Capital Partners report on Digital Ad Tech: Growth, Disruption, and Consolidation has lots of stats of interest to marketers.

Don’t forget, the biggest marketing event of the year is on boring old TV – the Superbowl. Also don’t forget that Facebook is now bigger than any country in the world when you compare users to populations. Those aren't just static numbers, almost 900 million people visit Facebook daily. Facebook isn't diminishing in importance.  

How might chat apps change things?

Chat apps tend to have the following usage similarities (these are very general):

• They are used by younger audiences (from tweens to young adults). This audience tends to use the heck out of these apps. If this is the demographic you want to reach, you need to add this to your marketing plan.
• They are used for private conversations. A lot of opinions and recommendations will be exchanged in these chats. Again, if you want to influence them, you will need to find a way to be part of them, have a presence near them, or generate buzz that gets your brand talked about in them. 

I can see lots of social media scenarios where chat apps are part of the mix. Chat apps are likely to be the place for private conversations between smaller groups with more active participation. As private conversations and active participation move to chat networks, “traditional” social media may be used for wider reaching conversations with more passive or sporadic interaction. One example that comes to mind is a media or sporting event. People might monitor traditional social media to capture the broad excitement, crowd level enthusiasm, and sporadically share and comments – color commentary. At the same time, friends may connected and constantly chatting back and forth with each other through chat apps – play-by-play. That's just one potential scenario. There are many marketing scenarios that brands, marketers, consultants will have to sort out. 

What you should do

As with most new technologies and trends, a thoughtful approach is often best. The following process will give you insights about whether you need to change your marketing approach, and how: 

• Listen: Listen to your audience. Find out where they are hanging out, and what their interests are, and what’s compelling about your brand, and products, and how you stack up against your competitors.
• Investigate: Get onto a few chat apps. Use them with your team, your friends, and co-workers. Research use cases to see how other people and competitors are using them.
• Measure: Always measure your own efforts and web traffic. See what’s generating results for you and your brand on Social Media. This will give you insights on what's working and what could improve. Analysis can help you determine if chat apps need to be part of your marketing approach.
• Act. If appropriate for your brand. If chat networks have users you want or need, act to get onto those platforms and interact with those users. How? Brands are doing it in many ways. You might advertise on one of the media outlets partnering to be on Snapchat Discover. You might use tools built into that platform (such as WeChat) to engage customers, or use other methods to engage. Sprout Social’s Jennifer Beese wrote an article detailing three ways brands are engaging on Snapchat.

What’s the future hold?

There are other disruptive technologies coming. Desktop computer interactions are moving to TVs. Content providers are building integrations to online and social apps. You will soon be able to watch the game on one part of your TV screen, have a Twitter chat up displayed on-screen next to the game, and a WhatsApp chat directly under the Twiitter chat.  And none of us know what next big thing is coming.  We might, however, have some insights where users be in the future. Here’s a one forecast from Bob Hutchings on where social media users might go in 2016.  

If you have thoughts or experiences integrating chat apps into your marketing efforts, please leave a comment. 

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What Will Replace Facebook? Six Considerations

A question I often receive in my classes and talks is “What will replace Facebook?”

It’s a natural question. We look to history to see the progression of upstarts replacing established companies — didn’t Facebook replace MySpace? — and of course assume there is a new idea out there somewhere waiting to unseat Facebook as the leading social network.

But that is not necessarily the case. What will replace Facebook? Here are six factors that will determine the answer to that question … and the company’s future.

1. The cool factor

Facebook’s biggest vulnerability is that it would fall out of favor with its core audience. If it ever becomes “uncool,” its marketshare will slip away quickly. This is one reason why Google+ struggled to be mainstream. It was Tom Hanks when it needs to be JayZ.

So what is hot today? Instagram. WhatsApp. Guess who owns these? Facebook. To remain relevant, Facebook will certainly build a war chest to continue to buy platforms that are siphoning off customers and ad dollars. A smart strategy.

I think it is possible to remain relevant generation to generation. Look at Coca-Cola. Without changing the product, it has remained vital across the generations for 120 years! Can Facebook stay cool? That needs to be their number one priority.

2. The switching costs

It is far easier to change houses than to change social networks. Facebook has become a convenient hub for photos, videos, games, family, and friends. It is literally a timeline of our lives. It would be hard to give that up.

To move to another network, you would have to move all of that or start over. Not easy.

Research shows that even Millennials are diversifying their social media use but not leaving Facebook entirely. The switching cost is a huge advantage for Facebook.

3. The investment

Facebook has spent billions of dollars on software development and the extraordinarily complex processes that make it work. It has billions invested in mega-datacenters.

Facebook works really well on a massive scale. Even if you don’t like HOW it is designed, you have to admit it functionally works. Duplicating that technology and infrastructure would be an immense challenge. They have such a head start … and the gap widens day by day, patent by patent.

4. The psychology of choice

In most other places in our life we enjoy having a choice. We like lots of brands in the grocery store or may shop around town to choose between different car companies.

But when it comes to social networks, we seem to only have the bandwidth for one.  We don’t need another Twitter. The one we have works fine.

We don’t need another LinkedIn. That niche has been filled.

And we don’t need another massive social network.

5. The leadership

Here are characteristics of Mark Zuckerberg that will solidify Facebook’s long-term success:

1. He knows what he doesn’t know. He is an urgent learner and can see his own weaknesses and vulnerabilities as a leader.
2. Zuckerberg has surrounded himself with outstanding business leaders, not just friends and sycophants
3. He has committed to long-term strategies and investments, even when the decisions are not popular with Wall Street
4. He is obsessed with a vision and has a unique financial arrangement to assure he will be the leader of his company long enough to see it through.

Facebook is a well-run company and it is being built to last.

6. The future

Facebook made an investment in 2014 which I predict will prove to be one of the most impactful technology alliances in history. It bought the immersive augmented reality company Oculus (not Oculus Rift which is the company’s headset).

This is a topic for an entirely different post, but let’s just say that Oculus has patents that can potentially transform the way we connect, become informed, and entertain ourselves … just as Facebook did in the last five years.

Facebook is preparing to re-invent itself in amazing new ways.

Perhaps “what will replace Facebook” is the wrong question. A more interesting question is “How is Facebook replacing itself?”  Perhaps the Era of Facebook just beginning?

What do you think?

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Five things great brands will do differently on social media in 2015

Social media marketing is coming of age, but we need a common sense shake up for the medium to truly deliver for brands next year.


As social media marketing matures, how can brands make the most of its potential? Photograph: Ognen Teofilovski/REUTERS

Social media marketing came of age in 2014 with Facebook named advertising medium of the year and big brands doubling down on their paid media investment. Marketers have begun realising that these channels have huge potential to drive results when done right. It’s a good time to take stock and think about what brands could be doing even better going forward and here are five suggestions I think should shake up the industry a little in 2015.

1) Deprioritise some Of that data
You’ll hear a lot about big data, but while statistics can be revelatory they’re more commonly the scourge of social media marketing. Just because you can follow every like, comment and retweet doesn’t mean you should – in fact the kinds of activities which pander to driving these digital actions tend to be the worst kind of digital marketing. So-called engagement metrics are at best measuring the tip of an iceberg and give only the slightest indications of whether your content is truly driving actual business results, offering surprisingly little correlation with actual return on investments (ROIs). The data that matters shows if you’ve truly affected the hearts and minds of your consumers, or ultimately driven them to purchase, and today any businesses can use simple online survey tools to monitor their ongoing brand metrics.

2) Realise that less is more
If engagement data has driven marketers to cats, babies and competitions then the seeming pressure to post something every day has driven them to stock photography and possible insanity. Consumers have no expectations of hearing from brands every day and actually probably a strong feeling that they’d rather not. Creating less content means brands can realistically put paid media behind every single post and ensure a meaningful number of people are reached with their message (something which correlates far better with ROI and sales). The answer to how many posts should I create is often pretty simple – how many can you afford to put paid media behind?

3) Tell true brand stories
Getting off the treadmill of daily creative executions means brands can put more effort into what they do post and they can stop jumping on every event and meme just to find something to say. Great social media content isn’t about tricking someone into clicking like, it’s about being remembered by that person days later. That means telling powerful stories, while staying true to your brand’s essence, and increasingly it will mean higher production values and more video. Remember that more people can now see a heavily-promoted Facebook post in a day than would see an advert you ran during the X Factor final.

4) Get more personal
If reaching millions of people with great content sounds too much like traditional broadcast media thenpersonalisation at scale is where unique digital creativity comes in. In 2015, there’s no reason to be reaching all your potential consumers with the same piece of creative when you can use simple targeting and basic adaptations (even just tweaking video thumbnails or lines of copy) to make it personally interesting to them all. Don’t take it too far though, as people aren’t ready to be stalked by adverts that address them by name.

5) Throw a laptop at a creative
Not just out of frustration that they’re pitching a complicated digital activity no one will ever do, but because they’re showing it to you on a laptop in the first place. In 2015 as much as three quarters of social media marketing will be seen by consumers on their mobiles so if you’re not considering how your campaign looks on a 5-inch screen then you’re out of touch. If some interactivity isn’t mobile compatible then why are you doing it at all?

Ok, violence in the workplace is never acceptable, but if 2015 is going to be the year that social media marketing truly starts delivering for brands then the industry does still need a bit of a common sense shake-up. Detailed consumer interaction and customer service are vital in some sectors, but anyone not seeing the chance to go large on social media is missing out on the biggest innovation of them all.

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