Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

An Open Discussion On Social Media Monitoring and Ethical Data Mining

As a marketer, I’m excited when I see advances in social media monitoring technology and the way we can use tools like text analytics, ontology and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to really understand our audience and their behaviours.

This level of data mining allows businesses to go way beyond the existing information they have not only on their existing customers, but potential ones, and really laser in on the kind of promotions, products and services that consumer is looking for.

However…

As a consumer, I’m increasingly concerned at that same level of data, and how technology can be used (often without our strict permissions) to define us as a person and make us a “target” (even though it’s for products and services we’re interested in).

Consider these points:

Does Google really need us to answer so many personal questions when activating an Android phone?
Does Facebook really need to allow apps to delve into our accounts and those of our friends (without their knowledge)?
Do social media monitoring technologies really have our best interests at heart, or simply those of the businesses they sell to?

As a marketer, I know the benefits targeted marketing and advertising can offer. But I also see the data some people may not want to have public.

For example, should a gambler or alcoholic be targeted by keywords and natural search, even if it’s by an Alcoholics Anonymous group or responsible gambling organization? What if their details were accidentally made public?

Should teens be targeted to see what their brand preferences are, to tailor the next generation of advertising for these soon-to-be-consumers? Or should we just let them be teens and loop back in a few years time?

Or do we benefit by the level of data that’s available? After all, it’s the open research web now, so this is just a by-product of that and results in us being served better and more relevant ads.

I’m really curious to hear your thoughts on this – where do the lines blur between useful data and invasive data?

Let’s start the conversation.

image: Sri Harsha Meghadri

The Three Metrics Your Business Needs to Answer on Social Media

If you Google the question, ?Where do I start on social media?? you?ll be greeted with approximately 1.4 billion results.?1.4 billion.

While many of these results will be duplicate versions, it?s clear that getting started on social media is a question many people are looking for an answer to. Add the word ?business,? and run a similar search, and you?ll find around 1.2 billion results.

Blog posts, news articles, corporate videos and more?again, everyone is looking to find out the right way to do social media.

The secret, if it can be called that, is simple: You need to start out right and, much like everything else you do in business, have a plan with measurable milestones and results.

Step One: ?Why Do We Want to Be Here??

From monitoring conversations online to discussing with clients, the overarching theme that prevents successful business use of social media is a lack of understanding of why they want to be on social media.

Typical responses include, ?Our competitors are on there,? ?Because everyone?s doing it,? and ?We don?t want to be left behind.? The problem with these answers is they don?t dig deep enough into the bigger questions that you need to answer:

What are your competitors doing on social media, and are they doing it well?

Are you able to identify your competitor?s brand impact?share of voice, awareness, leads, etc.?from their participation on social media?

Does your core demographic match the core demographic of those social media users your competitor?s are trying to connect with?

These are the three basic questions that need to be asked if you?re using the competitor comparison as a reason to be on social media. Having the answers to those questions will allow you to move to the next stage.

Step Two: ?Where Do We Need to Be??

Once you?ve analyzed and answered the ?why? behind the decision to be on social media, the next stage is the one that will more often than not determine how successful you are?where you need to be.

There are literally hundreds of social networks online, and these are the platforms that are actually recognized as bonafide social networks, along the lines of power hitters Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. Add in forums, niche networks, community blog networks and more, and it’s no wonder so many businesses have trouble finding the right path.

This is where smart passive use of social media is needed.

Prior to becoming actively involved in social media, use a passive approach with tools, keywords and data mining.

Use simple searches with the likes of?Social Searcher,?Social Mention?or?Trackur?to find out if your target audience is actually using social media and, if they are, on what platforms they’re on.

Compare the amount of chatter and, more importantly, the level of opportunity for your brand to be active on each channel.

Identify two or three channels that have active participation, with a good level of questions your brand can answer, and use them as your starting point for actual social media participation.

By starting out slowly, based on analytical evidence on why you should be on your chosen platforms, you set yourself up for a far better chance of success than jumping in blindly. This allows you to create the third stage.

Step Three: Map Out Goals and Success Metrics

Of course, this entire preliminary work means nothing if you?re not going to set goals and success metrics to measure your social media use. Every brand has different needs and requirements. Here are a few to consider:

Brand awareness;
Share of voice;
Market perception;
Customer experience;
Lead generation and customer acquisition;
Loyalty and advocacy.

Social media is a fantastic resource for truly connecting your brand to your customers, both existing and potential. But it also takes a lot of time, experimentation and investment to pay off?so you need to make sure you have certain metrics in place to measure how you?re doing.

Set up a calendar and break it down into your usual results pattern?monthly, quarterly, biannually, annually, etc.

Highlight goals for each milestone?percentage shift in brand awareness, impact on competitors, website traffic, social network growth, inquiries to your sales team, customer satisfaction, etc.

Determine acceptable growth vs. ideal growth, and compare how the former is trending to the latter.

Analyze the cost of implementation (manpower, hours, technical resources) to the investment return (market share, brand perception, increased customer loyalty, word of mouth marketing, sales and reduced churn).

The ability to measure how you?re doing is crucial when it comes to buy-in across the company. Having a clearly structured plan to measure success will help pave the way for further investment.

To compare milestones, technologies like?Pulse Analytics?can help you identify your successes, your weaker areas, and which customers/advocates are driving the most interaction and profit.

As you can see, it?s not a quick or simple jump to make, contrary to popular advice. But by being smart when it comes to why you should be on social media and, more importantly, how you measure your effectiveness, you?re setting yourself up for success rather than failure.

image: Steve Garfield

5 Ways Business Owners Can Optimize Their Ads for Mobile

Seventy-two percent of small-business owners planned to increase or maintain their?mobile ad spend, with 65 percent of these increasing their spending by up to 30 percent, according to a study by Borrell Associates of 1,300 small-business owners.

Add to that the fact that?Google and Facebook are shifting more of their revenues to mobile, and it?s clear that mobile marketing, advertising and purchasing is more than just a trend?it?s a key factor in how consumers prefer to do business in today?s marketplace.

So how can your business maintain relevance and competitiveness within this new paradigm?

1. Create A Native Mobile Ad

One of the newest buzzwords currently doing the rounds in social media is ?native advertising.” This form of advertising complements the website it’s running on, or the content it?s displayed beside, by being relevant to both the topic and audience.

Instead of the usual Google Ads that may or may not be related to the content on a page, a native ad by a phone accessory retailer, for example, will appear on a blog that has mobile phone reviews, which? encourages a warmer lead and better click-through opportunities.

A recent report highlights the?increased engagement enjoyed by mobile native ads:

By finding and partnering with relevant blogs and news sites in your niche, you can create relatively low-cost ads and target a more receptive audience.

2. Use A Mobile Display Advertising Partner

If native mobile advertising doesn?t appeal to you, the immediate alternative is to partner with a mobile display advertising partner.?(These include solutions like?Jumptap,?mMedia?and?Mojiva.)?The benefit of these partnerships is that you can create an inventory of products for a fairly low cost; the hosting is taken care of by the partner.

These types of advertising partners can help ensure your ad reaches a wider audience than traditional forms of digital advertising by placing your ad across their communities.?Additionally, features like contextual ads work much like native advertising and ensure only the audience that would benefit from your product or service sees your ad, offering a higher chance of click-through and activity.

3. Build A Foursquare Ad

Geolocation mobile app Foursquare allows users to ?check in? at a physical location. This could be a restaurant, bar, gym or car dealership. By checking into the business, a customer has the option to share their location and buying preferences with their online connections on Twitter and Facebook.

This type of additional revenue from potential customers has resulted in many businesses joining Foursquare yet using it ineffectively. Companies reward ?Mayors??people who have checked in the most?as opposed to rewarding the wider customer base, and increasing loyalty in return.

A solution to this is?Foursquare Ads. Instead of relying on your customers’ check-ins,Foursquare Ads are more akin to review sites like Yelp, and helps personalize local searches for consumers looking for the types of products and services your business provides.

Similar to Google?s PPC (Pay Per Click) model, Foursquare Ads only charge you when a potential customer takes an action. The difference is that it only counts when that person visits your store, thereby driving more foot traffic to your storefront.

Additionally the ads will appear for nearby users who have either visited a similar location to yours, or are searching for related services (pizza restaurants for fast-food diners, for example).

4. Take Advantage Of QR Codes

One of the most misunderstood and maligned forms of mobile advertising is the?QR (Quick Response) code. Similar to the barcode on a grocery item that?s scanned at a supermarket checkout,?QR codes are simple and effective ways to drive mobile advertising?if used correctly.

The biggest fault many businesses make with QR codes is not optimizing the experience when you scan the code with your phone, either by a built-in feature of third-party app.

Instead of optimizing for the mobile user, businesses are directing people to standard websites or poorly designed landing pages, where it?s almost impossible to take the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for offers.

To truly take advantage of QR codes, consider the following tactics:

Use real-time marketing with your ad.?When customers scan the code, offer an immediate discount or, if in a restaurant, a free drink or appetizer when they present the code.

Drive the clicks to a simple yet optimized microsite.?Have your offer of the week coupled with a simple ?Text me when new offers go live? call-to-action to encourage sign up and use of the QR code.

Complement the experience.?Recommend your favorite apps to enhance the user experience (a spa business could recommend the Spa Week app, for example). Provide a coupon or bonus discount for that week only.

There are several ways to take advantage of all the real-time and loyalty-building solutions QR codes offer. You just need to keep the mobile experience in mind at all times.

5. Think Local With Your Keywords

Perhaps one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to benefit from mobile advertising is to ?not advertise? at all and?use local mobile searches as your form of organic advertising instead.

As smartphone users increasingly use GPS and apps like Google Maps, along with search terms to find local services and businesses, being optimized for these types of searches can benefit your physical foot traffic exponentially.

To give you an idea of how important local mobile search is to your business, consider these statistics:

Mobile searches for restaurants?led to a 90 percent conversion rate, with 64 percent visiting within an hour of the search.

74 percent of?mobile users used their phones to get “real-time location-based information” directions, up from 55 percent the previous year, according to the Pew Research Center.

Mobile search will generate 27.8 billion more queries?than desktop search by 2015.

With these kinds of numbers, it?s clear that simple SEO isn?t enough for your business?now you need to optimize for local mobile search, too.?To take advantage of this shift in research patterns, your business needs to ensure your main website is optimized for these potential customers.

If your site is not already mobile-friendly, consider revamping its design now. Ideally switch to a?responsive design?that automatically resizes the screen and provides the optimal user experience for your visitor.

If you have an e-commerce section, adjust keywords and alt-tags on images to target local searches (?buy the best seafood in New Albany, New Jersey? versus ?New Albany seafood,? for example.) Also, ensure that smartphone users can make purchases easily.

Optimize your images by resizing them?and using them as lead first impressions for mobile visitors, with relevant alt-tags, to ensure your mobile site loads quickly, avoiding possible penalties by Google for slow-loading sites.

These are just some of the ways you can currently make use of mobile advertising for your business.

Budget, resources and implementation will determine which ones work best for your company?but even adopting just one is better than no mobile ad strategy at all.

Social Media Intelligence Isn?t Exclusive to Interaction and Participation

For many businesses and organizations, the advice surrounding social media is often loud and clear ? ?you need to engage or die?. The thinking behind this type of advice is that companies not already on social media are living on borrowed time and are already falling behind their competitors.

The problem with this advice is that it approaches organizations from a one-size-fits-all mindset.

It implies that, no matter what your goals are and how finite your resources may be, you need to be on social media now and interacting, engaging, responding, etc. While that?s true to a certain degree, it?s not necessarily the right approach for you.

In fact, the smartest approach for any organization today is to take a three-pronged approach to their social media involvement and make strategic decisions based on that.

Step One: The Research Stage

It doesn?t matter what business you?re in, and how niche or mainstream your product or service is, you?re putting up your own barriers if you don?t implement a strong research program first.

Despite what everyone may be telling you, you don?t need to be on social media ? your clients or customers determine that for you.

One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to social media is the ?we need be everywhere? mindset that?s encouraged by consultants and social media gurus that should know better.

Being on social media is like any other business decision you make ? you research and validate, and then strategize on what the implementation will look like. Some ways to research your own presence there include:

Ask your email list. If you have a strong email database of your clients or customers, ask them if they?re online and how they use social media. Base your own strategies around their responses.

Learn from Point-of-Contact. Following on from your email list, you can learn from your existing contacts if they?re on social media. A Social CRM platform like Nimble, for example, will look at the email addresses of your database and find their social profiles elsewhere. This gives you an instant idea on whether social media would be a worthwhile investment for you.

Step Two: The Intelligence Through Listening Stage

If there?s one area of social media that is sorely underutilized by the majority of businesses and organizations, it?s gathering intelligence through social listening.

While it?s true social media allows for a fantastic forum for interaction and customer-to-brand dialogue, it?s the part before that ? listening ? that offers the biggest opportunity, especially when listening with goal-driven intelligence.

– For organizations, intelligent listening is perfect for sales, lead generation, competitor contract renewals, new hire opportunities and more. Social CRM platforms like the afore-mentioned Nimble can be integrated into your existing CRM or pipeline funnel, along with social listening tools like Hootsuite, Salesforce and Pulse Analytics?to offer a holistic view of opportunities for different arms of your organization.

– The culture of the organization can be improved, as you identify first-hand not only what your customers or leads are saying about you, but also your company overall, as well as your competitors. From an HR angle, for example, intelligent listening can highlight public perception of how you treat your employees, and you can address that internally to attract the top talent externally.

– Brand reputation can be repaired before it even takes a hit. One of the biggest fears many organizations have when it comes to social media is that of brand reputation and how to cope when a crisis erupts. Using tools like TrendSpottr and Lymbix, you can identify those conversations? – positive or neutral, as well as the actual emotion around them ? that have the potential to become viral and an issue for your brand. You can then use this data to identify the external friendly voices that could partner with your organization to defuse a situation before it even becomes one.

Step Three: The Influence Stage

With the data and insights the combined Research and Intelligent Listening stages provide, the final piece of the intelligence-driven approach to social media can be initiated ? utilizing the strengths of influence, in all its multi-faceted opportunities.

For many businesses, influence can offer the traction and trust that would take a brand new to social media months and years to grow.

However, for many brands, influence is seen as a promotional tool, that can help drive brand awareness, product launches, etc.

The intelligent business sees the bigger picture, and where influence can come into play:

Competitive analysis. How does your marketing or ad campaign(s) impact your competitor? How does a product review from an influential media source or blogger impact their shares? How do news stories impact your competitors, and how can you use influencers to benefit your business?

Customer retention. It doesn?t matter what industry you?re in, or what size your organization is ? without customers, you won?t survive. Influencer outreach can be used to identify who your customers are and who influences their decisions at any given moment in the purchase life cycle. From a retention angle, influencers can be crucial at smoothing the after-purchase emotional cycle ? ?did I make the right decision?, ?this isn?t living up to its promise?, ?should I have compared more?, etc. Meeting and answering the customer?s after-sales needs is just as important, if not more so, than providing them with pre-sales answers.

Crisis communications. One of the most underused areas of influence today is that of brand reputation and managing a crisis. When your brand comes under attack on social media, often the first line of defense is PR-driven output. Yet this often comes across as company spin. Instead, working with influencers that are respected in their field, which also happens to be your industry, is a far stronger solution. Allow access to the issue, be transparent about the cause, and share what you?re doing to correct and improve, and use their audience to drive that improvement. It?s crisis comms taken to a whole new, and much more authentic, level.

Influence can also be used from a consumer level to impact B2B organizations and their purchase decisions. In the Influence Marketing book, we share the story of MV-1 Canada and how we used influencer outreach to impact the RFP process of a provincial government and their allocation of contracts around mobility vehicles.

By targeting the very people that mobility issues impacted ? the ?sufferer?, their caregivers, their doctors, their families, their physiotherapists, etc. – we were able to measurably impact provincial finance decisions based on popular as well as care-led emotions and logical decisions.

The Path Forward

As you can see, there are many ways to be active on social media, without being ?truly active?. Your own implementation will be defined by your goals, resources and ? ultimately ? buy-in.

By placing the customer at the heart of all you?re doing, you?re building a massively important and effective persona-led database that will drive all your campaigns, that will help you move from the short-term mindset that campaigns are known for, and building a longer-term advocacy model that benefits everyone.

However, even if you?re fully active or not, one thing cannot be ignored ? social media and all that comes with it, including influence, is truly one of the most important toolsets in any organization?s strategic armory today.

Implementing a solid listening campaign, and knowing what to do with the intelligence gathered, will set you apart immediately from your competitors who are still in the consideration phase.

What you do next is up to you ? but the fact you?re doing something is what will set you apart and improve your organization internally as well as externally. That alone makes the next step an easy one to make.

image: Kristina Alexanderson