Readers may desire to view The Art of Profitability
Discussion: This is a summary of key points from the book "How to Make Money with Social Media" as applied to professional networking. The authors take readers through a journey discussing the social media landscape, setting up for success, platforms, integration, and measuring a social media campaign. The book hops back and forth between concepts making following the notions difficult at times. I have consolidated where possible, summarized then added commentary along the way.
Commentary: According to the “Cluetrain Manifesto” published in 1999 the marketplace is a conversation which cannot be controlled by any one or group of participants. Everyone in the conversation is equal. Sometimes the conversation ends with a period signifying the end. At other times the conversation ends with a question mark and continues at a later time. The ideal conversation ends with an exclamation point closing a deal, making a sale, or achieving a goal. Moreover, the conversation will persist with or without one’s own involvement. Without involvement, the conversation usually is not in the favor of those absent. Thus, it is to the benefit to be in the conversation regardless of the tenor.
Quick Social Media Vocabulary: Social media has a vocabulary of its own. Understanding the terms will go a long way towards grasping how to use social media.
Brand essence: The clear and concise articulation of your brand’s meaning
Channel - A specific and delineated connection between one and the audience Multiple instruments may be used in a single channel.
Circular Momentum: A branding phenomenon in which the reputation perpetuates or builds upon itself.
Instrument: A software application or technology used within a social medium. Ie WordPress, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc...
Lead: A specific contact or connection that demonstrates potential.
Reverse Positioning: Finding a niche where the competition is not and filling it.
Social Magnetism: An attraction so powerful that people go out of their way to be affiliated because of some quality fulfills a desire or need within their psyche.
Social medium: A collection of social media instruments used in a social media campaign.
The Book Summary
Understanding what social media is not is important. Social media is not traditional or contemporary marketing. Traditional marketing was focused on what people think and contemporary marketing focused on the engagement. Social media is not just young people or an online video. Social media is not a monologue. In fact, social media is a conversation. In the media channels, the emerging situation is that everyone has a say in the brand's position and has 100% control of the brand equally.
In order to effectively utilize social media there has to be social media magnetism. You can tell if your brand has magnetism by how others carry your brand. What kind of chatter or buzz is there about the brand? Without social media magnetism traditional methods such as print, radio, and TV can drive awareness but this is costly. The principle point of this book is to present a tried and true road map that promotes a combination of three objectives:
• Acquire new connections
• Get existing connections to perform again
• Generate referrals from both new and existing connections
The prime objective is to nurture the relationship creating advocates who do the selling for you.
Social Media Instruments
Key social media instruments include Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, Twitter, and You Tube. Other social media instruments include blogs, bookmarks and tags, email newsletters, widgets, content aggregation sites, wikis, voting, crowd sourcing, discussion boards and forums, backchannel sites, tweet ups, photo sharing sites, pod castings, presentation sharing sites, virtual worlds, and ratings and reviews.
Portable and personal device assistants or PDAs are becoming increasingly common. On these devices people click to call, locate, order, enter, receive, buy, download, forward, play, and/or vote for products and services. Companies are using several methods to communicate with the marketplace; short message services (SMS), mobile websites and ads, applications, QR codes, Bluetooth marketing, and the widget. The widget is an interactive downloadable application used by marketers that provides an accessory, application, or information creating value to the end user. It often allows the marketer to gather information and communicate directly with the company.
In the use of social media depth relates to the intensity in which a social media instrument is employed. Breadth relates to the number of instruments employed. Other considerations include the frequency of updates and the degree of formality. Social media categories include those that assist in networking, promoting, and sharing.
Fortune 500 companies incorporate branding, eCommerce, lead generation, customer retention programs, and research into their social media campaigns.
Social Media Processes and Models
The social media process involves customers driven to connect through channels using different types of instruments in order to build long term relationships. Social media can help generate leads then convert them into a customer or a connection. Techniques vary but the authors encourage driving customers to a landing page also known as an information station for the purpose of generating a lead using a 60 second marketer approach then developing the sale. To convert the customers once captured requires good ole hard work. You got to talk to people in order to convince them.
People purchase for only four reasons; price, service, quality, or exclusivity. In general, consumers follow a consistent process in their decision making. A long standing behavioral model for customer buying is Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action or AIDA. The company should engage the customer where they are in the decision process with the correct communications in the media channel. Trust is a key quality in the decision making.
Commentary: Gender based marketing indicates an additional complexity in the decision cycle. Males make linear decisions once about 80% of the questions are answered where as women seek a nearly perfect decision in a more non-linear decision making manner.
There are numerous social media campaign models and one size does not fit all. The I3 model (Information, Insight, and Impact) is designed to generate action oriented results by gathering information, gaining insight,and seeking a deliberate impact campaign. The most common model is designed in a manner for measurement and determination of a return on investment, ROI. ROI is important because there are hard and soft costs to implementing a campaign. The model’s phases are; customer prospects, social media channel, landing web page, conversion, and remarketing.
Computing ROI and Measuring Success
Commentary: I am going to skip over the company accounting aspect for ROI and focus on computing ROI for a job seeker in a future posting.
The Conversation
There is no management of the conversation. Instead, there is participation in the conversation as an equal honestly responding to negative concerns. If you do not then the outcome becomes disastrous. The number one rule is to always participate in the conversation, all the time.
Sometimes the voice in the conversation has to be loud and clear. I3 can overcome an errant or derogatory conversation event by flooding media channels with accurate information and overwhelming the wayward conversation.
Circular Momentum is a key concept in building brand based upon transparency and honesty. A successful campaign builds circular momentum across multiple platforms.
Integrated marketing communications, IMC, involves ensuring all communications across all channels are consistent, coordinated, and synergistic. As marketing channels are integrated over the Internet a push-pull framework allows for information to be pushed out while a lesson in the decision cycle can pull the requisite Information based on their place in the decision cycle.
In developing the marketing strategy identify key drivers for success, specific campaign objectives, and know exactly which outcomes you are seeking to achieve. Social media objectives either drive immediate sales or position for future sales. Be certain to tie business objectives to the campaign and overall strategy.
Commentary: Information warfare uses many of the same methods that marketers use. However, unlike transparent, honest and open conversations, information warfare seeks to dominate the conversation and leverage information in favor of objectives that deny, diminish, deflect, deter, and/or defeat the opposition’s message. Tactics, Techniques, and Practices or TTPs such as deceit, innuendo, and ambiguity are common in information warfare. These TTPs should never be used in ordinary social media efforts.
Social Media as a Recruiting Tool.
Companies realize that everyone is within six degrees of separation and use social media for numerous purposes to include marketing, customer services, and employee recruiting. Companies use social media to develop and recruit future employees. They find social media as an efficient tool to offload demand from human resources.
Commentary: You can leverage this advantage by participating in the target company conversations which may be lead by human resources or others in the organization getting your name in front of decision makers and influencers early. Post often and regularly. Be conscientious in your commentary.
Getting Started with Quick Start Guides
Social Media:
• Define goals.
• Get inside the mind of your targets
• Focus early efforts on high usage instruments
• Drive traffic to the social media channels
• Keep the site fresh
• Keep early channels open while other channels are explore
• Repeat Steps 1 to 5 for each channel explored
Promotion:
• Optimize existing instruments for search engines
• Launch Blog and update regularly
• Create a newsletter
• Upload content to other instruments that of lower productivity
• Produce a short video for Streamlining video channels
• Promote
Sharing:
• Add booking marking capabilities to online instruments such as blogs and websites.
• Upload content to content sharing sites
• Implement or resource social media dashboards
• Continuously add content to online instruments
Conduct Assessments
Competition is not simply a direct competitor. Alternative competitors exist in concentric competitive frames. Direct competitors are at the center. Categorical competitors are one ring out. Emerging competitors occur in the second ring from the center. Macro competitors are those who divert or compete for disposable income. You will need to plot the frequency of use against the number of social media instruments used by competitors. Then you will need to compare this to your own use. The strategy may not be to compete directly but instead to find a niche where there is little competition and still reach a market segment or base. This is known as reverse positioning.
Internal situational assessment or analysis seeks to leverage strengths and down play weaknesses. During this assessment one’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) are determined. The number one weakness is the lack of knowledge. The number two weakness is an inability to measure ROI. Resistance and budgeting follow close behind.
Aligning Strategy with Brand
Brand essence can be expressed in a few summarizing words. Articulating the essence of your brand through social media is principle to successful marketing. To discern your brand essence you should:
• Conduct external focus groups and/or surveys to reveal impressions from those unassociated
• Conduct internal focus groups and/or surveys to reveal impressions from those associated
• Compare and contrast findings to gain insights into gaps and surprises.
The relationship between brand and the target audience is stronger, deeper, and longer lasting through social media channels than any other media channel. Because social media is more powerful than other channels poorly worded messages and/or negative language equates to a loss of as many as 30 potentials. When reusing information do not copy it exactly instead repurpose the information in order to avoid search engines from detecting and considering the data as spam.
Commentary: Applying the Social Media To Your Job Search
Your job search is like a company using social media to sell a product or service. When an employer hires you, you bring labor, knowledge, and talents to the table. You need to communicate this to your market through social media. You brand yourself and utilize a method like Orville Pierson’s method to develop connections to potential prospects or leads. Then you seek to develop those leads into prospects who will buy your services.
Understanding the models used in Social Media such as AIDA, I3, IMC, and the use of landing pages to build circular momentum through social media channels is important. The IMC model is particularly useful in aligning all your messages for a consistent brand. Planning and developing a 60 second marketing message in order to draw leads in to a landing page is critical to drawing in a prospect.
The new reality is that the employment landscaped is changing in dramatic ways. Social media is here to stay although the medium, methods, and instruments may vary. The real challenge is to determine the best practices and most effective utilization given your strategy. In reflection, you may feel overwhelmed and there may seem to be a lot of efforts. I suggest involving your family or your significant other in your job search. While you make all decisions and respond to queries, a division of labor can lighten the load and develop skills in others. Have your teenagers’ script blog postings for your review as well as review all the media channels summarizing the findings in a report to you. Have your spouse or significant other assist in scripting cover letters and preparing resumes and researching opportunities. You will also need someone to research companies and build your link diagrams. In building a cooperative effort everyone is learning and contributing to a common goal - your successful employment.
Reference:
Locke, C., Levine, R., Searles, D., Weinberger, D. (1999). The cluetrain manifesto: the end of business as usual. Simon and Schuster Audio.
Turner, J., Shah, R. (2011). How to make money with social media: an insiders guide on using new and emerging media to grow your business. New Jersey: FT Publishing.
No comments:
Post a Comment