THINKing

Social Media: Nothing New To See Here

Social Fresh, a conference on this thing we call social media, was held in Charlotte August 24.  The presentations were top-notch and the networking opportunities were excellent, but at the end of the day I can report there is nothing new about social media.

If you are in PR and have been practicing it correctly, you can handle social media. PR is about dialogue. So is social media.

If you are in marketing and have followed best practices, you can handle social media. Marketing is about crafting a relevant message and delivering it to the right person at the right time. So is social media.

The big questions about social media are the ones we have wrestled with in marketing for years: how do we integrate social media into the fabric of the organization, and how do we show hard-nosed business executives that social media does have an impact upon the bottom line.

Is social media new and different, or is it the same-old, same-old? We’ll be talking more about this in the days ahead, and would love to have your thoughts on the topic.

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More Creativity Tools

I’ve found a few more creativity tools and articles for you. Here they are:

- 100 Excellent Online Tools To Feed Your Creativity

- Visual Thesaurus

- 50 Tools To Help Your Writing

-  Top 10 Story Starters For Blocked Bloggers

-  To Be Creative, Be Brief

-  Stuck? Brainstorm! 

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Monologue Marketing

Monologue marketers - thankfully - are dying off, but there still are too many. What’s a monologue marketer? Here’s an analogy:

Someone comes up to you at a business event and says, “Hi, I’m Bob.”

You say, “Hi, Bob. I’m Harry. I’m 57 years old, married - have been for 28 years. I have two children, three grandsons, love hiking, canoeing, fishing, anything outdoors, really. I love music. I am a huge blues fans - Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy, Tommy Castro, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, BB Chun King and the Buddaheads.   I’m into wine. Reds are my favorites…Bob, where are you going?”

Do you get the picture? This is the  way too many organizations approach their marketing. Actually, this is a sales mentality, not a marketing mentality. This approach - dear friend - is not conducive to marketing or to sales.

Let me use an example of one of my clients to show how it should be done.

“Hi, I’m Bob. ”

“Hi, Bob. I’m Camstar. Are you in manufacturing, too?”

“Yes, I am. I work for a large manufacturer in North Carolina.”

“Really? We’re headquartered in North Carolina, too.  Does your organization use a manufacturing execution system?”

“Not right now. But we have been looking into manufacturing software.”

“Well, that is what we do. We have an enterprise platform that includes modules for manufacturing, quality, intelligence and interoperabilty. Are you involved in any of those areas, Bob?”

“No. I’m actually in sales.”

“Well, Bob it was nice talking with you. Let me know if there is anything I can help you with. Here’s our card if someone from your IT department would like white papers on the manufacturing software.”

Friendly, professional dialogue and no selling. Camstar got out of the conversation when it was clear that Bob wasn’t in the target audience. Are you a monologue or a dialogue marketer? Have anecdotes about either? Comments are welcomed.

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Top 5 Tips For Media Selection

Marketers have a wide variety of media at their disposal. Even in this digital age, many think first of the advertising troika of newspapers, magazines and TV. But there are a number of other options depending upon what you are trying to accomplish.

1. Create a sense of urgency. Direct marketing offers that contain a deadline for consumer action can create that sense of urgency that motivates your customer to buy now.

2. Fill in the blanks. Brochures are a great vehicle for providing the detailed information about your product’s many benefits.

3. Be impulsive. Signage speaks to people when they are in buying mode at the point of sale. Besides spurring impulse buying, signs also act as a reminder, connecting the dots to your other marketing efforts.

4. Get interactive. Your web-related marketing efforts can capture a consumer’s attention, direct the prospect to additional information to help educate and answer questions, ask for the business and make the sale.

5. Establish intimacy. Radio is a one-to-one medium that allows the marketer to build a close connection with the prospect.

So, before you select your media, think about what customer action you want to spur.

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A Fresh Wind Is Blowing

The business winds are changing direction, but there are some organizations that don’t get it and never will. The news media and big ad agencies are two industries doomed to be swept overboard if they don’t keep a weather eye out. Today, it’s about transparency and a new focus on customer service, doing what’s right for the customer. I’ve found if you do what’s right for the customer, you, too, will ride under full sail.

Let’s review a recent example of what I’m talking about in the marketing arena.  We have a client leaving another agency to come to us for a number of services, including SEO, email marketing and Google Adwords.

Old school companies try to lock clients down by tying them to agency accounts for Google Analytics, Adwords, or email marketing, or  by hooking them into proprietary content management systems and the like.  An agency which manages all of its Adwords or Analytics in a master account is not going to want to give another agency administrative access. Guess what? You can’t transfer Google Analytics accounts and you lose all the historical data. Adwords account can be transferred, but it takes an act of Congress.

When we set up client accounts - although it is less convenient for us - we set them up in the client’s name. That way, if the client ever decides to move on, we can hand over the accounts and wish them well. That’s the new, transparent, customer-oriented way to do business.

Are you old school, or are you harnessing the fresh wind?

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