Social Media “Playtime” Over Says Forrester Report. We Ask “Why?”

March 19th, 2009 § 6

You know the fun’s over for any media channel when analysts start issuing reports about it, which is why Forrester’s new report – titled “Social media Playtime Is Over” – offers a distressingly adult perspective on social media (You can buy one for $750, refundable if you’re “not completely satisfied”).

Social media promises much, but lest we forget, the channels themselves are proving hard to monetize, and while some businesses are generating traffic and connecting with customers, the real ROI is harder to judge.

Some advocate a full-blown dive into social media, including Advertising Age columnist B.L. Ochman. She suggests corporations won’t make any headway in social media until they start investing in it – moving beyond experimentation into the realm of serious marketing:

Three-quarters of those surveyed who knew their budgets said they allowed for $100,000 or less for social media tools over a 12-month period, according to the report, written by Forrester analyst Jeremiah K. Owyang. And they are not integrating social media into their overall marketing strategy. Instead, they are “experimenting” with isolated tactics and hoping that they will take the place of long-term strategy.

Furthermore, Owyang notes, social media is more of an after-thought than a marketing line item. “45-percent of marketers say their social budgets are determined as needed and 23-percent say they scrape together funds from wherever they can find them.”

I’m not going to deny the utility nor the promise of social networks, but corporations are experimenting for a variety of reasons, one of which is this: all social media isn’t the same, and the verdict isn’t wholly in on which will perform best – especially if you’re not a Web 2.0 company selling a Web 2.0 product.

And some in the marketing department may not have forgotten Second Life – a prior “must-invest-in-heavily” social media virtual reality that ate online marketing budgets for lunch.

I’m hardly a social media Luddite: I’m advising a couple clients to dive into selected social media, though not at the expense of other media channels with proven ROI (like email, integrated blogs, etc). In that sense, it’s possible I could be accused of only “experimenting” with social media, but then, what’s wrong with that?

Did fully formed email programs spring from the earth in the first months after email became widely available?

Every media channel – regardless of buzz or the market cap of the technology provider – should undergo the same scrutiny:

  • How does this further our business goals?
  • How do we measure the results?
  • Does our target audience (or existing customer base) use this channel?
  • Do our customers want us to communicate this way?
  • Do we have the internal capacity to fill this channel with content?
  • What will we have to cut to make budget for this new channel?

These are not always easy questions to answer, especially for smaller businesses.

It’s clear that social media are here to stay, and that they provide powerful engagement opportunities for the right businesses. But should companies commit hundreds of thousands without some hope of a result?

The use of social media channels is being
accelerated by the recession, and those companies that “experimented” with the
media will have their answers in time for the recovery.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

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Bravo CEO Quantifies Value of Engagement (Hint: It’s High)

March 16th, 2009 § 0

Engagement marketers sometimes struggle to quantify the value of an engaged customer; it’s not as simple as toting up the day’s receipts.

Yet Bravo Media (whose many blogs were were profiled on the Engagement Principles) says its viewers are broadcasting’s most engaged, and provides a brief glimpse at engagement’s economic rewards in a New York Times Magazine interview (a profile of Bravo head Lauren Zalaznick):

“We know for a fact Bravo is the most engaged network — the most people who see a commercial on Bravo, of any other network, remember that ad and think more highly of a product! So think about that statistic! That statistic is true!” Sixty-three percent of Bravo’s viewers recall the name of the brands they’ve seen advertised on Bravo, and 26 percent say that after seeing a product placement on Bravo, they have an improved opinion of the product.

“That’s nuts, right?” Zalaznick says. “But what’s my job? My job is to entertain people and deliver a bottom line at a company. Now I’ve done both, and I can punch the clock, punch out and go home. I’m done. That was my shift.”

Are Bravo’s readers engaged simply because of the programming? Or is it because Bravo’s site is loaded with blogs and interactive media – and its reality “stars” are more accessible to fans?

Whichever is true, what’s clear is that engagement pays, even when the economy is in the grips of a downturn:

Like everyone else, Zalaznick has been trying to figure out what the new economic reality means for what she sells, and to whom she’s selling it. “For two years, we’ve been thinking to ourselves and saying out loud in strategy meetings and in elevator rides, hey, ours is the most affluent, most educated cable entertainment audience … what happens if they’re less affluent? What do we do?” Zalaznick said from her office late last month.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

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Snickers Flexes Legal Muscles, Turns “Snacklish” Into “Snacklash”

March 14th, 2009 § 0

Snickers candy bars headed for a nastly Snacklash? Possibly. In fact, the candy giant took sweetness and turned it kinda sour, and they do so like this:

  • Snickers launches a new online effort based on the “Talk Some Snacklish” theme
  • A Snickers bar spoof site appeared on the Internet (snckrz.com) that allowed visitors to place their own text into an online version of the Snickers Bar candy wrapper
  • Apparently unamused, the manufacturers of Snickers (Mars) – the former Official Candy Bar of Engagement Principles – threatened to sue
  • The “Snacklash” begins
The image of online disappointment: a shuttered snckrz.com

The image of online disappointment: a shuttered snckrz.com

Sadly, we’ve gotta say that Engagement Principles fave candy bar Snickers missed a golden opportunity to engage with users around their ages-old (and yes, tasty) candy bar. It’s a good example of large companies trying engage on the Intertubes yet failing to recognize this one little truth:

Brand control online is something of an illusion.

The Creativity site suggested a “Snacklash” was headed Snicker’s way, and Mediabistro had this to say:

It’s the same old story – brand shirk the love of consumers in favor of control. Okay. Well, Snickers… if you wanted control, why not just co-opt Snckrz! and make it part of what Nick Parish from Creativity called the “pretty-but-obtuse” legitimate site?

A quick search of Twitter will turn up numerous tweets from people who loved Snckrz! Snickers better hope there isn’t some backlash in this decision to get the lawyers involved. Oh! I spoke too soon. Already, Twitters are having a reaction with responses like the image below or the newly created Snickers fail tag (#Snickersfail). Seriously. Snickers, I thought you were smarter than this?

After a couple decades working with corporate clients, I realize it’s hard to hand control over their hard-won brands to the Internet’s capricious masses. After all, nobody’s ever been pantsed by their boss in a crowded conference room for whipping the customer base back into line.

Still, Snickers should have recognized the downsides were minimal, yet the upside was fun – and yes, a handful more engaged buyers. No doubt Snckrz.com creators Poke media (a New York digital agency) are enjoying eating Snicker’s lunch, though the upper left-hand corner of their snckrz.com site includes a swipe that said “Terminated by these guys” and links to the Snickers site, a puzzling move which would drive traffic to the Snickers site – hardly punishment for the brand.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

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(Ding!) The Engagement Principles is Now Free to Move About the Internet

March 8th, 2009 § 0

I write several blogs, and not necessarily from a viewpoint of “enhancing my online brand” or generating leads for my business.

That’s why I felt it necessary to shutter The Engagement Principles for a short time; my professional life didn’t allow the room to write the articles I find interesting, though it wouldn’t have been hard to continue posting “keyword rich” but intellectually pointless posts.

That’s not adding anything to the online conversation; it’s simply gaming Google.

What Teaching Teaches Us

I can’t say the space to write has magically reappeared, but after teaching an online marketing boot camp – to a bunch of micro-entrepreneurs who grasped the logic of engagement marketing very, very quickly – I realized it was time to beat the drum once again.

Engagement is a term much bandied about these days, though many now view it as simply a measure of how engaged someone is around a particular site or campaign.

By contrast, my definition of “Engagment Marketing” remains focused on brand equity, long-term connection, and the lifetime value of engaged customers.

As I explained it to my class of eager entrepreneurs, I’m an experienced direct response copywriter, so I’m perfectly capable of selling their customers a widget, for which they’d make a widget’s profit.

Yet, if I can successfully engage customers – bind them to the brand around shared passions, values and interests – then I just potentially made them a lifetime of widget profits.

They understand that logic just fine.

Engagement is Personal

Most of the entrepreneurs in my class are not in the content-generation business, and reject the idea their primary goal in starting their business was to sit in front a PC and lard the Internet with SEO content or manage huge keyword lists.

Most of these entrenpreneurs are enamored with simple, proven channels like email/e-newsletter lists – which are rapidly merging with newer media channels like blogs and social media.

Show them the flowchart on the whiteboard, and they instantly see the beauty of leveraging content across multiple media channels, and providing return channels of communication for those customers and prospects in the process of engaging with their brand.

In simple terms, I showed them The Engagement Principles in (crude) graphic form (my drawing skills beggar belief), and they showed me it made perfect sense.

I plan to fire up a couple posts every month on the Engagement Principles; a grievously low article count in the age of “publish daily or die” content generators, but a reasonable schedule for reasonable articles from a working professional.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

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Taking a Break: The Hazards of Engagement Marketing Success

November 4th, 2008 § 0

Writing about engagement marketing has been almost as edifying as making it happen, but one of the hazards of success is that it’s time consuming.

And fortunately, my focus on engagement marketing has been successful; I’m developing and writing a pair of engagement marketing projects for clients (both under non-disclosure) and pursuing a couple of personal projects.

Time is short, and staring at a dusty blog is a terrible thing, so I’m officially taking a hiatus from The Engagement Principles blog.

I plan to finish up a couple of personal projects, stockpile a few longer, more thoughtful pieces on engagement marketing, and look at new ways to advance what I believe is marketing’s most interesting new technique.

So give me a couple months, though I might fire up a post here and there.

The Future of Engagement Marketing

I find engagement marketing interesting because it’s effective; I find it enchanting because it rests firmly on the pillars of authenticity, two-way conversation, quality content and a commonality of shared passions and values.

For a marketer with better than two decades experience in the field, it’s a godsend.

To customers growing increasingly jaded by ever-louder attempts to “grab” their attention, it’s a breath of fresh air.

To organizations possessed of the wit to realize the power of engagement, it speaks to a a better future.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

Why Does Bravo TV Engage Viewers? Senior VP Tells Us

August 27th, 2008 § 0

When I posted about Bravo TV’s engagement-rich Web site, my request for an interview went unanswered, so a few questions went unanswered.

Fortunately, some of my questions were answered in a DM News interview with Bravo’s Lisa Hsia – Senior VP of new media, Bravo.

It was a short interview (and worth a couple minutes of your time). Two key questions revolved around emerging technology and the value Bravo TV places on engagement:

Q: What strategy does Bravo take with emerging technology?

A: The way I look at it, we’re not only an entertainment company, we’re in the engagement business. We’re increasingly having success monetizing engagement. For the Project Runway mobile fan club, we had 92% participation while normal engagement is 1%–2%. We also did vot­ing with cable remotes [for Top Chef] with Time Warner and Dish Network. With Time Warner, we had 26% participation. In the beginning it was just an experi­ment. Now, sponsors come on board because they want the engagement our users have.

Q: How does this engagement add value for advertisers?

A: With Bravo’s Info Frame [an interactive panel allowing viewers to participate in polls, games and chats during programming], the consumer is interacting during the program as well as during the commercials themselves. The advertisers can also interact and, presumably, if they’re engaging during the program, they’re going to engage during advertisements.

The numbers repeated in the first answer would make any marketing exec (or ad salesman) sit up a little straighter.

Yet the second answer (How does this engagement add value for advertisers?) is conspicuous mostly for its lack of numbers.

At this point, engagement is hard to quantify, which is why so many organizations are standing on the sidelines.

While I had criticisms of Bravo TV’s site (it’s confusing and hard to navigate), you have to applaud them for taking risks – and enjoying the payoffs.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler

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In the Era of eMail Overload, Is More Testing Really the Answer?

August 25th, 2008 § 4

In a Chief Marketer Column, Grant Johnson examines the state of email marketing in light of today’s increasingly overstuffed inbox.

He cites the battles marketers face in their attempts to achieve and sustain high email opening rates (online marketers keep hoping RSS syndication and other media channels will solve this problem), and offers one solution in this passage:

The obvious take-away is that the subject line is probably the most important part of your e-mail and deserves quite a bit of attention.

The not so obvious take-away is that increasing trust is central to increasing open and conversion rates. That means your copy is the key to gaining and keeping a high level of confidence from your recipients. What length works best?

Johnson writes with a great deal of knowledge, though his “obvious” take-away isn’t so much obvious as it is traditional. Yes, headline length is critical, but fudging with copy length – while important – also has the taste of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

eMail volume is not about to start slacking off, and frankly, a lot of the low-hanging testing fruit has already been plucked.

Instead of mucking about with headlines for marginal increases in open rates, why not engage readers to the point where they’re eagerly anticipating your next email?

In other words, maybe it’s time marketers worried a little less about the immediate results of their efforts, focusing instead on the long-term benefits of tactics like engagement marketing.

This has the added benefit of offering customers a retained image (previous high quality content) beyond the email subject line; if customers and prospects were engaged with high-quality content on previous communications, then the “from” line on the email promises more to the reader than almost any headline could.

We all receive emails from entities which are opened immediately – almost regardless of headline. We’re highly engaged readers, and email marketers looking to dramatically boost open rates should look for ways to tap into that level of customer response.

Engagement Marketing for Email

Admittedly, engaging with customers and prospects via shared passions and values is a hard sell to metrics-crazy online marketers.

Fuzzy, harder-to-define engagement metrics are still in their infancy, and aggressive online marketers have grown fond of driving a stake through the heart of any program not generating immediate results.

Still, the long-term perspective shouldn’t be ignored – especially once the lifetime value of customers becomes a part of the conversation.

Let me be clear; I’m not advocating an end to testing. It’s valuable information, and often acquired at very reasonable cost. And engagement marketing simply doesn’t apply to some markets or products.

Still, it’s time marketers looked beyond adding or subtracting 12 characters from their email headlines in an attempt to boost open rates.

Instead, engaging with customers (whenever possible) promises to deliver open rate increases far beyond the fractional – and often transient – increases offered by simple testing methods.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

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“Mad Men” Using Twitter to Connect On-Screen Characters With Real People

August 22nd, 2008 § 0

This little gem from American Copywriter caught my eye; it relates how a hit TV show is using tweets – ostensibly sent by the show’s characters – to engage the viewing audience:

In addition, each profile links to the official AMC site, and there does seem to be some highly subtle show promotion. For instance, last Sunday morning, well before the episode aired, @don_draper tweeted: “Wishing I didn’t have to spend most of my Sunday at the office.” It was later revealed in the show, of course, that Draper had to head into the city to work on the American Airlines pitch. Nice.

I often say engagement marketing is about connecting with the shared values and passions of an audience. Nowhere is it written those doing the connecting have to be real, and this is a shining example.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

Dell Fires Up Engagment Site Aimed Squarely at “Digital Nomads”

August 13th, 2008 § 0

Prior to the launch of its new “Digital Nomads” site, Dell Computers had only dipped their toe in the engagement marketing waters with the Dell blog.

Apparently, they liked what they saw, because Digital Nomads is a veritable showcase of social network channels, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, an online community, and even a crowd-sourced whitepaper defining “digital nomad.”

Launched alongside the release of several new Dell laptops, Digital Nomads is a deliberate attempt to update Dell’s sometimes-stodgy image among younger, digitally enabled users.

This from the initial post on the site’s blog:

We’re all becoming digital nomads. And nomads want to know how to use
their technology in the most productive way every day. So, we decided
to create a site dedicated to Digital Nomads — a community where you
can network with others, learn and share ideas, and hear from some of
the best who are doing exactly what you do.

While I don’t have budget figures for the site, an interesting aspect of social media-driven sites like DigitalNomads is that most of the channels used to engage with customers are free, and the expenses accrue in the “seed content” expense column (an expense not listed in most marketing organizaton’s budget)

I’ll make a point of monitoring Dell’s interesting new Digital Nomads site.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

Tracking Your Brand Online? You Need Twing

August 1st, 2008 § 3

I tell my clients they should participate in online conversations about their brand, yet how do you participate in an online conversation when you don’t know it even exists?

Google Alerts, Technorati and other services track blog/news/Web mentions of your brand, but what about message boards and forums?

Forums and message boards can be volatile, unpredictable places – and they’re very time consuming to
track.


twing is a search engine for forums and message boards – an invaluable tool for businesses

How do you track your brand across the message board universe without investing truly epic amounts of time?

Try Twing. It’s Free. It’s Effective. It’s Our Friend.

Twing – a free search service aimed squarely at forums and message boards – offers you the ability to search forums and message boards for mentions of your brand – a significant time saver for those tracking brands online.

While not specifically designed for business usesrs, twing does allow you to run simple searches (similar to Google), and even save complex searches.

You can also search by posts, topic or forum, and add key forums to your “favorites” list.

I entered the name of my fly fishing blog, and found several discussions on forums I didn’t know existed. All the mentions were positive, but the question remains: Who’s saying what about your business?

Try twing, and maybe you’ll find out.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

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