Move over influencers; advocates are more valuable to brands. It's a fact. And I won't try to make the case with research on how consumers want to engage with brands on the social web because we all know that's the case already. I don't have a problem with influencers at all; and have been vocal in the past about some of my own influencers. All I am saying is that customer advocacy bring more life and longer term value for a brand. Here's why:
Influencers can be bought; but may not always deliver
Well, not really. What I am trying to say is that influencers don't really care about your brand. They may have a crush on you or find your product useful; but they are too busy being influencers – tweeting, blogging, and recording webinars to really care. Of course they love getting free trials and new products before they hit [...]
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Is one that is collaborative, internally
Has an open, honest and transparent culture
Thrives with teamwork and constant communication
Looks beyond internal organizations and business titles
Equips and encourages employees to engage with customers
Is hungry for new technology that makes communication with each other and customers more efficient
Has a simple social media policy that protects the organization and empowers its people
Blends traditional CRM tools w/external social technologies to make for a more relevant consumer brand experience
Thinks beyond Twitter and Facebook
Will invite competitors to their communities
Fails with egos
Fails with organizational silos
Cannot have effective external conversations until having effective internal conversations first
It's very easy for me to say what an effective or ideal social organization should look like. It's much more difficult to make it happen. It requires a firm commitment from senior level management across all business units (marketing, PR, Operations, Engineering, IT, Human Resources, Privacy) and a cultural transformation that empowers employees of all [...]
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Geez, it's been a while and I have been working on this post for months. I was originally gong to title this "the Facebook Fan Fallacy" but the wizards over in Palo Alto changed it up on me so this will have to do. And, since my schedule has been crazy busy these days, I have decided to make my posts a lot shorter and more direct. Hopefully you will still find value.
My point with this post is to blatantly say that buying fans/followers is not a very effective strategy. I have been bought before by a few brands but a quick glance at the list reminds me that I have NEVER gone back to any of these pages, ever!
I do understand the need to spend money in Facebook or wherever to drive people to a particular domain. How else will the masses even know you exist? The problem arises [...]
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You follow 100K people and they all follow you back.
You follow 100K people and 200K follow you back (this person has more influence than the previous).
You have a low (follower/followee) ratio because you un-follow the majority of the people who you previously followed.
You go to the local grocery store and a random person shouts "Hey, I know you! I follow you on Twitter and RT everything you share".
You have a personal Facebook Fan Page (it doesn’t matter how many people like you either. The mere fact that you have one is all that matters).
Your twitter CTR is 38% on all the links you share about YOU.
Others randomly RT YOUR Klout score (keyword – RT)
You get invited to speak at every social media conference (even if you have to pay for your own travel, you still have influence).
You check in to a random location on Foursquare and it turns into a [...]
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So this past 4th of July weekend, I decided to take my wife and daughters to Santa Monica for a short vacation. We stayed at the Sheraton Delfina for four nights and it was very pleasant. The hotel staff was nice, the room was phenomenal and we had a great view.
And of course, being the great social media practitioner that I am, I checked in on Foursquare the day I arrived.
Just today, I noticed that the hotel started following me on Twitter. I reciprocated and then got this message a few hours later.
I normally don't click on links when they solicit a "like" but I did today. I clicked through, liked the page and even left a wall post thanking them for a great stay. They responded a few hours later.
So, I guess you can say that I am now loyal to the Sheraton Delfina. They didn’t have to give [...]
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I am on a quest to understand Social CRM. Not so I can be an early pundit shouting "to dos" at companies or pointing out their mistakes; but so I can really understand the value proposition it can bring to an organization, their constituents and ultimately my clients. I even joined the Social CRM Pioneers Google group to start marinating in what influencers are talking about and it's been good, real good.
I have read several excellent definitions of social CRM but I am yet to be satisfied. I often try and put myself in my client's shoes and evaluate whether a given definition (program or strategy) makes sense for the business. So far, a lot of what I have read is either fluff or so high level that it's not actionable. And from my experience working in the enterprise, [...]
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A few months ago, I wrote about Vitrue's study on the value of a Facebook fan being worth $3.60; and last week, Syncapse released a similar study and assigning a $1.36 value to a fan. The 18 page comprehensive study can be downloaded here but here are some key findings:
Product Spending: Facebook Fans spend, on average, $71.84 more than non-fans over a two-year period
Brand Loyalty: Facebook fans are 28 per cent more likely to continue using a brand than consumers who are not fans on Facebook
Willingness to Recommend: 68 per cent of fans are ‘very likely’ to recommend a product to family and friends (as opposed to 28 per cent of non-fans)
Brand Affinity: 81 per cent of fans feel a connection to the brand (versus only 39 per cent of non-fans)
Earned Media Value: Incorporating all of the above factors, the average value of a Facebook fan is $136.38 to an [...]
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I have been working at Edelman Digital for 7 months now and still think it's been the best career move I have ever made in my life. I am amazed at the people I work with day to day and learn so much from them. The collaboration, sharing, support and encouragement inspires me every day to give 110 percent. With that said, I wanted to share some job openings, specifically here on the West Coast. For a full list of job openings, you can go directly to the web site. I currently work out of the San Mateo office but have colleagues in each of the others and the leadership in each is top notch!
Seattle Job Openings
Account Executive, Corporate & Public Affairs
Senior Account Executive, Corporate & Public Affairs
Vice President, Digital
Vice President, Health
San Francisco Job Openings
Receptionist
Account Executive
Senior Account Executive, Consumer
Senior Account Supervisor, Health [...]
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Love to see non-profit organizations like Earthjustice embracing social technologies. Each time someone “checks in” at an Earthjustice poster in the San Francisco BART stations, one of Earthjustice’s donors will give $10 to support their cause. The ads, featuring images of Lake Tahoe, oil rig platforms, and the little furry endangered pika, can be found throughout the BART stations coming this summer.
Though Foursquare does not yet have the wide market penetration that Facebook and Twitter enjoy, the hope is that through its embrace of location-based services, Earthjustice can connect a younger audience to its work, whether it's curbing oil and gas exploration in the Arctic or protecting endangered species like the pikas of the Sierra Nevada.
At the same time, Foursquare users on BART will get their shot at becoming the "mayor" of Earthjustice ads and help protect the environment, all while doing their daily commute. Aside from the donation aspect, [...]
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Thank you Amita Paul, CEO of Objective Marketer for providing this fantastic analysis of SxSW and the conversational activity around the event.
The report provided influencer and demographic data and provides insights as to how information is shared during events. Some of the key findings include:
Higher followership did not guarantee higher retweets but higher rewteets did require a higher number of followers
Most active users were with tweets in the range of 1,000 to 100,000. Activity level of the users with fewer tweets was high. So, It is not necessary that people who are heavy twitter users will be the most active
Embedding multi-media content may not be as effective a strategy on Twitter as it is on Facebook. The retweets for messages without images (31.6%) was almost double than the retweets received for messages with images (16.8%)
The number of Retweets is significantly more when the follower /friend ratio [...]
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