Data: Knowing How Your Customers Use Media

I can't say this enough, so I will say it again:  It's all about Data.

Another illustration: today the Pew Research Center released the results of a recent survey, stating that less than 10 percent of people are using social media for up-to-date news.  So what does this mean?

I think we can gleam a few points:

1) This shows that your customers are probably using Facebook and Twitter for other types of information.  Social media is a losing proposition and a waste of resources if it isn't used properly.  Know where your customers are looking before releasing any type of news.

2) Press releases and other types of media announcements should not be on social media as a primary method of dissemination.  Social media should be a part of the whole information release strategy.  As with any properly constructed strategic marketing, a variety of communication methods should be used.  Social media may be cheaper to use, but it's going to cost you real dollars through lost sales if you're not getting information out via the proper channels.

3) Social media's value is in it's ability to give marketer's a more direct, personal connection with their customers.  Press releases and product information don't build customer equity.  Personal, meaningful connections with products and brands build customer equity.  Social media gives us one of the best avenues ever to build equity with our customers.

As always, armed with the right data, our jobs as marketers becomes much easier.  Don't waste your company's time or money.  Arm yourself with the right data so you can use the tools available in the most effective manner.

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It's about the content, not the algorithm

SEO. Search Engine Optimization.  For the past few years, no other term (other than Social Media) has owned the mindshare of marketers and business owners when it comes to the web.  It's almost a foregone assumption: if I build a website, I must perform SEO.  If I own a website, I must perform SEO.

The next big assumption is that performing SEO means either hiring an expensive "SEO Company", or getting a "SEO For Dummies" book and doing it yourself.  What exactly are you doing when you are "SEO'ing"?  Altering "alt" tags, meta data, headers, tagging images, keyword selection, link-backs...it's almost as mind-boggling as trying to guess how many letters there are in a can of alphabet soup.  Why are we putting ourselves through this insanity?  It's because we desparately want to be at the top of Google's listings.  We want to meet, beat, and even fool Google's algorithm at it's own game. 

It's time to stop the insanity.  Sure, having as much of your content indexable as possible is worthwhile.  Sure, you want to have good keyword selection and contextual page titles.  But lets get one thing clear.  No matter the algorithm, if you don't have relevant content, and others don't think you're content is relevant, Google isn't going to care either.

Google cares the most about relevant content.  If your content is actually about what you claim your website or webpage is addressing, then your content is relevant, or contextual.  If you title your page "Dogs", but you present information about cats, then it is not relevant.  Google and it's genius engineers have figured out how to "crawl" your website, examine your content, and rate it's relevancy.  It grades everything on your page that it can search, or "index.

Not only must your content be relevant, but it must be updated frequently.  Google will index your site on a set schedule once it "finds" you for the first time.  How often you update your content, or create new content, will determine how often Google "decides" to visit your site.  If you create a site, and never update it, then Google will eventually "decide" to visit your site more infrequently, and as a result, it will lower you in relevant search results.  But if you continually update your site, and continue to create relevant content, Google will raise you in it's search results.  Old and stale = forgotten and unimportant.  Fresh and exciting = relevant and important.

Even if you write relevant content, and keep it fresh, unless others also think it is relevant, then Google will not raise you up the search ranking results.  How do others make you relevant?  Link backs.  The more people, in contextual situations, link back to you, then your content is relevant.  What is a contextual situation?  Link farms are NOT contextual situations.  In fact, Google has clamped down on this practice; recently altering its algorithms to remove link farms from the equation.  So many people were "playing" the system with link farms and dummy websites that Google re-worked it's code to severely discount the influence of link farms and dummy websites.

What Google did was increase the relevancy of a website, with content relevant to yours, linking back to you.  For example, a blog post talking about dog sweaters, mentioning your comments about them, and linking back to your site, is relevant.  A series of forum posts on a public community forum site about dog sweaters, with links back to you in those posts, are relevant.  A series of social media posts on Facebook or Twitter, mentioning content about dog sweaters and linking back to your site, are relevant.

Google cares about content that others care about, and if they care about you, then Google cares about you.  So go ahead and optimize those page headers.  Make your site's content match your keywords.  Make as much of your website able to be indexed as possible.  But if your content isn't relevant, and if others don't care about your content, then Google won't either.

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Blogging Effectively

Sage Lewis at the SageRock Digital Marketing Blog wrote that people don't blog as much as they use other social media because, "I think it’s because they see blogging as a big thing." Translation: Blogging is hard.  Blogging is not "hard".  People don't blog, because they are unsure what to do with it.  They don't know how to use it effectively.

Like any use of media, blogging starts with a plan.  Planning helps you set goals, build discipline, and write with purpose.

Goals help you have a purpose.  Without goals, you're blog, or any other type of marketing, is ineffective.  Goals help you focus.  All of your posts should lead towards one common goal, one common claim or idea.  For example, what if you created the most comfortable seat cushion in the world?  What if your goal was to sell one million by the end of the year?  Then all of your posts should be focused on convincing someone of the virtues of properly padded buttocks...which can be achieved with your amazing seat cushion.  Your posts could feature customer stories, or the results of studies about padded versus un-padded seats.  Each post focuses on one reason that someone should buy your seat cushion, which helps you reach one million unit sales.

Regular blogging also helps you develop the discipline you need to reach your goals.  Without discipline, it's impossible to reach a long term goal. Jim Whittaker said, "You can never conquer the mountain.  You can only conquer yourself."  The mountain is the sales goal.  Climbing the mountain means defeating the army of doubt, laziness, and busyness.  Doubt tells you that you will never sell enough of your product, and that no one will read your blog.  Laziness prevents you from spending the time to plan what you are going to write, when you are going to write it, writing it, and editing it.  Busyness lets you make excuses, allowing life's events to constantly get in the way of your online marketing plan.  

Setting goals and practicing discipline with your blogging frees you up to write with a purpose.  If you're not writing with a purpose, your blog becomes a set of random, rambling posts. Start by creating a list of all of the things you want to say that relate to your main goal.  Next, create a short outline for each item on your list.  Spend time each week developing and writing about each item on your list.  Eventually it will become easy, and you will develop a weekly writing routine.  Another benefit to this weekly writing plan is that it will build up content on your blog over time.  That content can be indexed by search engines such as Google.  Eventually you will have a large mass of indexed, searchable content.  Google also grades your blog higher if you're posting relevant content more frequently.  A stale, rarely updated blog will almost never appear on Google search results.  If you're also participating in online forums and other online communities, make sure you are linking back to your blog in your signature.  This helps build a "web" of links going back to your blog, and over time it can improve your search rankings, since Google gives your site a higher ranking when others link to you.

Create a plan, set a goal, practice discipline, and write with a purpose.  You just might find that the skills you develop writing a blog will end up permeating other parts of your life as well.

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Facebook helps advertisers engage their customers

I'm taking a break from my review of basic marketing fundamentals to discuss something key from the recent Facebook F8 event.

On September 23rd, Michael Lazerow published an article on Adage commenting on Facebook's Ad product evolution.  In his post, Michael comments on three key items:

• Facebook now helps you build better connections
• Facebook can be used to let your customers tell your product's story
• Facebook can help you unlock the value of people

I want to comment more on these ideas.

First, the whole "point" for a business using Facebook is to connect with their customer.  Seems like a no-brainer, right?  Maybe ... but what many businesses assume is that once someone "Likes" their business, they are instantly connected, and their "Likes" will pay attention to whatever they post, even if they post nothing.  "Like" DOES NOT equate to "connecting".  Mr. Lazerow is correct when he says, "It's about what you offer them and it's clear that the company's (Facebook) focus has shifted from growth to engagement" (reference to Facebook added).

Facebook isn't about announcing another product.  It isn't about beating your chest.  It's about posting CONTENT that is relevant to your customer.  It's about GIVING them something that matters. If you sell cameras, post tutorials about photography techniques.  Give them tutorials focused on teaching them to use your product.  Post a 50% off coupon for Facebook members for camera accessories.  GIVE them something that is VALUABLE to them.  Remember when we were talking about Brand Equity in my last post?  Facebook is a great place to build brand awareness and brand equity.

Use your customers to build your brand equity.  Have them tell your product's story.  Have them show and tell others about how they have used your product.  Their voice (positive and negative) carries more clout and emotional credibility than yours ever will.  Continuing on the camera example, inviting users to post their photos from vacations with your camera allows them to share their emotional connection with your product.  Awarding prizes for the best photo taken with your camera helps to strengthen the customer's "bond" with your product and brand.  The "community" built, and the quality of photos submitted (hopefully) will build better brand equity than you could do yourself through traditional advertising via any medium.

Advertising doesn't always "reveal" the fact that your customers have value.  They don't just give you money.  They are a very real voice in the marketplace.  Make them a voice for you.  Facebook (and potentially Google+ in the future) allows you to connect and unlock their value in a way that we never had before social networking existed.  It's time for you to take advantage of it and truly engage with your customer to build your brand equity.

Credit: Adage

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Traditional...Non-Traditional...

Traditional...Non-Traditional.

Traditional...Non-Traditional.

Aren't these terms just labels meant to edify the decision a CMO or Director of Marketing has made where to make their media buys or marketing plans?  One goes the "proven" path, another goes down the "modern" road.

Last time I checked, we don't hire Chief Traditional Marketing Officers or Director of Non-Traditional Marketing-er's.... (pardon my poor grammar and spelling here).  At least we shouldn't.

A CMO or Director of Marketing is in charge of steering a company's MARKETING efforts.  The goal of this marketing is to find your customer, communicate your message, and convince them to give you their money.  Sometimes the most effective messaging medium is a 30 second spot on broadcast television networks.  Sometimes it's a 3 minute video on YouTube that is meant to go viral and attract consumers to a Facebook campaign.  Regardless of the medium, it's all marketing.  And it's only worth doing if it is reaching your customers and convincing them to buy.

Stop labeling your marketing ... and just market.

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"Post Frequenly" ... and OFTEN on Facebook

Recently, Hussein Fazal posted a piece on AdAge, presenting six, logical, fundamental steps to effective marketing through Facebook.  His third point, "Post Frequently", caught my attention.  The reason is a basic practice of effective advertising: frequency.

Let's review the basic concept behind frequency: effective frequency (note the word effective) is the number of times a person must be exposed to a message before a response (such as buying) is made and before exposure to the marketing has become wasteful economically.  There have been numerous studies on this.  Many of them have a different conclusion.  However, most seem to agree that 5-7 impressions is a bare minimum. (I'm sure some of you disagree, but work with me here)

For any medium to be used effectively, frequency must be practiced.  However, the problem is many businesses still don't give proper weight to online media in general.  They don't believe (until someone presents them with proper statistics and decent research) that marketing online CAN give you a good ROI.  The other problem is many individuals (even ad agencies and skilled consultants) tend to jump into blogging and social media with gusto, but never keep up the discipline (frequency) necessary to see an effective blogging or social media effort through.  

Here's my point:  it's easy for someone to post once a week, and then 3 times the next, and then 2 times the next...but to keep posting every week, with purpose, with a plan, takes effort.  Don't just post often, plan often.  Put together a long term plan that meets your specific goals.  This plan should cover at least a few months, if not an entire calendar year (or two if you know what your product development cycle will be).  It takes time to form a relationship with your customers, no matter what medium you are using to market to them.  Use that time to give them reasons to come back to you, buy from you, and tell others about you.  Change your content often.  Change your marketplace ads often.  Change your incentives often.

In other words...do what you are going to do, often.

Read more on the 6 Step Blueprint for Facebook

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