Reputation to Revenue

Social media reality check: Predictions for 2009

Amid the inevitable and generally useless flood of predictions for 2009, Peter Kim published a useful e-book today on Social Media Predictions 2009 (pdf). Based on the contributions of 14 other experts, the document covers a wide range of issues, from metrics and mobile to budget and B2B.

What I found most interesting, however, was the relatively sober tone of many of the contributors after the last several years of incredible social media hype. 

Partly this is just economic reality. Even as the advocates expect a greater push toward social media as potentially cheaper than other marketing programs, several also expect a shakeout of Web 2.0 firms as the reality of questionable (or no) business models finally catches up to them. As Chris Brogan noted, "Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn't come the way people thought it would." 

And from the marketing side, as Jeremiah Owyang states,"The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies--marketing must prove its worth to actually changing the bottom line."

More important, from the large company perspective, is the growing recognition that social media is hard! The contributors themselves are all social media stars, of course, (and mostly consultants ready and able to help), but their success doesn't translate so easily at the enterprise level.

As David Armano explains:

In 2008 we saw many organizations taking Web 2.0 very seriously moving from 'why' to 'how' they should implement these new strategies and tactics. In 2009, reality will set in--big time...

Organizations will come to terms with the reality that although it is now 'cheaper' to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology--it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful. This will not be easy for many businesses/brands as it brings up a host of issues ranging from empowering employees & agencies to have direct contact with customers, to staffing up projects differently.

Meanwhile, as both Pete Blackshaw and Charlene Li argue, the rush to quantity (more, more, more connections on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) may shift the other way. For Blackshaw:

Many of us are going to wake up in 2009 wondering 'what did we eat?' -- everything from hastily assembled friends list to Twitter followers to groups, apps, and widgets that we 'impulse adopted' (usually while shadowing others) yet rarely revisited. Some of us will join the Social Media equivalent of Weight Watchers, eager to trim the excess and rediscover a modicum of 'don't follow everything' discipline.

More people backing away from "following everything" means we marketers will have to work that much harder to get them to follow us.

Todd Defren thinks that many more B2B companies will join the party in 2009. I certainly hope so, but if they do, they'll probably need to follow two other trends:

• Companies Increasingly Crafting Content. For Ann Handley, the important news is that "organizations are increasingly focusing on producing kick-ass content to attract and retain customers, rather than randomly grabbing folks off the street." Moreover, Handley notes, the sad news of a new wave of unemployed journalists and editors might have a silver lining if companies look in their direction for help in creating more compelling content.  
• Velvet Rope Social Networks. For Chris Brogan, "the real interest will be in making targeted networks that aren't 'come one, come all.' Companies instead will focus on narrower networks for specific industry verticals and interest groups. 

All in all, I remain bullish on social media marketing for B2B next year, but it's certainly helpful to have a more realistic attitude about the challenges of doing it well. Huge kudos to Peter Kim for pulling together such a useful guide.

Media "vs" social media: Forrester's corporate blogging debate

I've been following a great debate this week on Twitter and in the blogosphere about new Forrester data which suggest corporate blogs are one of the least trusted media channels. According to Forrester, only 16 percent of people trust corporate blogs, far fewer than trust traditional media sources like newspapers, radio, and TV. 

Forrester's lead author, Josh Bernoff, blogged about the findings on Tuesday; his colleague Jeremiah Owyang posted on it several times Tuesday and yesterday; folks started hashing it out on Twitter; and a great discussion ensued. Check out the comments on Josh's and Jeremiah's postings for a flavor of the discussion; see also Max Kalehoff's strong critique (and subsequent comments).

The folks from Forrester made no suggestion that companies should forget about blogs as a result of their data. Instead, they provided a number of useful recommendations about how to make sure your corporate blog is well produced, interesting, not overly promotional, and, ultimately, trustworthy and useful to customers.

It's an important question for B2B marketers, and the discussion over the last few days has been both enlightening and a great example of the power of blogs and social media generally. A respected researcher puts out a provocative post, people jump all over it, it flies around the Net almost immediately, and everyone wins.

Personally, I don't believe the data are too significant. Even leaving aside research methodology questions that some commenters raised, It's not surprising that third party media channels would rank higher than those created by companies themselves. "Email from people you know" actually ranked highest, which again seems obvious. If corporate blogs ranked a bit lower than other corporate marketing channels, I guess that might be a little interesting, but I'd chalk it up to the still relative newness of the form and lots of bad press -- along with the reality that lots of corporate blogs are poorly written and overly promotional, and provide little reason for trust.  

Meanwhile, I was struck again by the potential power of blogs and social media when I saw a MediaPost article this morning on the Forrester findings. The article provides a perfectly nice summary of Bernoff's original post, but the rest of the story with all the richness of the follow-on debate is missing! It's a great example of the struggle that traditional media continue to have in an increasingly social environment. 

Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of MediaPost. I get several of their newsletters every day and almost always read at least few of their stories, which is more than I can say for most of the stuff in my in-box or reader. It's an important source for me on media and marketing issues, and they do a great job covering an incredibly diverse and fast-moving industry. And they want people to comment on their stories and get into debates, as most media organizations do at this point. But the dialogue and debate coming from social media seem far more substantial. By the time MediaPost covered the Forrester story, I had already read the equivalent of a dozen other articles, discovered a number of great new blogs, and added a batch more people to my Following list on Twitter.

For many marketers, it's a bit of a paradox. We need credible reach, which still comes from more traditional media. But the real connections and conversation are coming from social media. Integrating the two is obviously the way forward, but that's still easier said than done. Debates like the one Forrester sparked this week are a good step forward.

Sweating the small stuff

Back when I worked at ITSMA, I was constantly amazed doing market research projects for our corporate members at the poor quality of their customer lists. I mean, these were the top tech companies in the world, and some of them were even selling CRM solutions! We'd constantly struggle to get even half-decent lists of customers to interview or survey. There were always reasons, of course, often having to do with the inevitable divide between marketing and sales. But the problem reflected a critical shortcoming in basic marketing hygiene.

I was reminded of this yesterday reading "The Contact Washing Machine" on a new blog just launched by Steven Woods, co-founder and CTO of Eloqua. Steven's point is a simple but critical one: the best thing people working on demand generation can do is set up a simple system to standardize and normalize contact data as it comes in from the multitude of "unwashed" sources we're all swimming in: email, Web forms, meetings, events, internal lists, etc. He doesn't mention the new tide of data from blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks, but they only add to the challenge.

It doesn't have to be an elaborate system, but it should focus on the major data fields we all use for lead tracking and management, such as titles, physical address, sales territory, and so on. As Steven notes, "Putting this in place, and having all incoming data flow through it, is a great way to avoid the cycle of data continually degrading over time until a major undertaking (at great cost) is done to cleanse it, whereupon it immediately begins degrading again."

It's a pain to set up and maintain, and we can always think of things we'd rather be doing, but having clean contact data is one of those basic marketing (and business) essentials that makes everything else go more smoothly. 

Marketing as service

Drew Neisser, CEO of the interactive agency Renegade, has a useful post today on "marketing as service". The basic idea, a variant on my constant focus that marketing needs to provide legitimate value to all stakeholders, is when marketing "no longer talks at you but actually does something for you, then it becomes a service." 

As an example, Drew cites Samsung placing mobile charging stations at airports to help travelers recharge on the road: "Samsung gets meaningful exposure, airports get happier travelers and consumers come to recognize Samsung as a helpful & reliable 'mobile' resource. The exchange of value is crystal clear."

He then goes on to critique a superficially similar effort from Kraft, which highlights heating up bus shelters and providing samples of Stove Top Stuffing to "warm up" cold commuters this month in Chicago. Sounds okay at first, but Drew's point is that Kraft is doing this in just 10 bus shelters in Chicago, while putting more energy into traditional bus stop shelter advertising all over that city and 49 other cities as well. 

A more substantial commitment to marketing as service, he suggests, would be scrapping the advertising and providing the actual service more extensively in cold weather cities nationwide. "Commuters would be thanking Kraft by the bus load and telling all their friends how the kind folks from Glenview warmed them up on a frigid morning. Cities would be competing to get the Kraft bus shelter program as a way of encouraging and rewarding the use of public transportation."

Marketing as service is far from an alien concept in the B2B world. Business software companies provide free demos and trial versions; many companies have user groups and customer councils; and most provide thought leadership content in an effort to help business leaders make more informed decisions. 

But how much of this activity is really just a come-on to paid versions or a thinly veiled sales pitch rather than authentic provision of value -- or, as in the Kraft example, just a token effort amid a much more extensive promotional campaign? To what extent are you really trying to serve?

(Thanks to Paul Dunay for linking Drew's post on Twitter. Follow Paul yourself for a steady stream of great links.)

Widget time for B2B?

Bob Garfield has a great long piece in AdAge today asking why more marketers aren't using widgets. Since Garfield is one of the more thoughtful commentators on the state of advertising today, I usually wade through his long pieces, and this one is well worth it. (Meanwhile, if you haven't read them, Garfield also penned seminal pieces back in 2005 on the "Chaos Scenario" facing the marketing industry, and the rise of "Listenomics.") 

Widgets are mini-software applications that sit on your computer, smart phone, home page, or social networking site and provide a simple news feed, video player, interactive game, or simulation. They are typically designed to bring the user back to a full website and often designed to go viral. Apple, among others, helped bring them to life with the Dashboard on OSX and the wildly popular apps and App Store on the iPhone. Facebook and MySpace have also done a great job popularizing the approach, and a number of agencies now specialize in developing widgets for advertising campaigns.

The basic idea is to give people a bit of your brand in the form of digital information or entertainment, and they've begun to catch on big time in the B2C world. For example, Southwest Airlines' "Ding" widget alerts users to special fares, Backcountry.com's Steep and Cheap highlights great new deals, and InStyle's Hollywood Hair Makeover lets users put celebrity do's on their own photos for fun and to help with copycat styling. Garfield, in a memorable turn of phrase, suggests that "branded widgets are the refrigerator magnets of the Brave New World."

But what about B2B? Can widgets work in the more sober world of high-value solutions? I'd say absolutely yes, and Garfield himself suggests a few possible directions. UPS already has a widget to help users schedule and track shipments. Nike has a widget to help users keep up with their running and connect more easily to Nike Plus. Why not borrow the same concept for business users by providing simple, ongoing access to technical support, professional advice, or industry news?

Widgets are just another tool, of course, in a marketing environment overloaded with new tools. Viewed in a B2B context, though, they offer a number of potential advantages as marketers adapt their strategies to the demands of time-starved, buyer-driven markets:

• Enables you to go where the users already spend time, rather than relying on them to come to your site
• Emphasis on providing value to the user, otherwise they'll pay no attention
• Simple and inexpensive to produce and track -- and thus to experiment with
• Potential for ongoing engagement with the user  
• Natural tie-in with other value-providing tactics, including live and online events and publications  

Content, as always, is king in B2B marketing, so any widget promotion should come only as support for a clear and compelling content strategy. That said, however, why not give it a try?