Archive for the ‘social networking’ Category
Saturday Morning Reads: Do Marketers Need to Become Social Psychologists?
As marketers, how much psychology do we need to understand to make sense of what our customers are doing socially?
Are they trying to tell us what they want or need by engaging? Or, is it simply that they are utilizing social networking to become influential among their peers?
What happens when a customer becomes popular within his or her chosen social network? What are the chances that a brand can piggyback on this newfound influence (i.e. brand evangelism or word of mouth)? On the other hand, could popularity and potential narcissism cause a customer to leap to a more desirable brand that is as equally popular as them?
We know that people join social networks because they want to be part of a group. Should marketers be required to have a deep understanding of group dynamics in order to analyze group interactions and how they may or may not impact business efforts?
Will the more socially advanced organizations expect that their marketers will understand how social networks and psychology affect market dynamics in order to project future revenues?
Keep Reading…
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Saturday Morning Reads: South by Southwest (SXSW) Cares — Japan Tsunami & Earthquake Relief
I would be completely remiss if I didn’t put a spotlight on SXSW Cares this weekend.
If you aren’t familiar with South by Southwest (SXSW), it’s one of the largest conferences and festivals in the world that brings music, film and interactive together every year in Austin, Texas. On the eve of this year’s Interactive portion, an unthinkable act of nature hit Japan and devastated a country and its people.
I wasn’t able to attend SXSW this year and while I missed seeing my friends and connecting with new ones, I’ll be honest—I didn’t miss the often narcissistic ‘see and be seen’ party atmosphere. That said, the beauty of SXSW is that it is what YOU make of it.
That is why I was so proud when I started hearing the news about SXSW Cares, which was started by my friends Leigh Durst and Deb Ng (along with Rob Wu of CauseVox, Jess Lin and The American Red Cross). It would have been so easy to get swept up in panels, book signings, parties, socializing and photo ops, but this team was heads down in trying to make a difference and trying to help those who needed it most.
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Tags: #sxswcares, American Red Cross, CauseVox, Deb Ng, Japan, Japan Tsunami & Earthquake Relief, Leigh Durst, Rob Wu, SXSW, SXSW Cares | 
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Get to Know Your Customers—It’s as Simple as a Digital Handshake
It’s 2011, do you know where your social media strategy is?
As a marketer who has been in the social media game for a while now, I understand why companies struggle with social media. There is much misunderstanding between the concept and the tools—and the benefits of either. There is confusion as to why social media tools can’t be used just like e-mail, direct mail and advertising. There are also power struggles internally for who should own social media and who has control over what is for public consumption.
What’s a Marketer To Do?
That’s the question author and social media expert Paul Chaney discusses in his latest book, “The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media.” (Paul’s first book is “Realty Blogging: Build Your Brand and Out-Smart Your Competition.”)
The answer? Start a conversation. However, the smart thing to do before diving into any conversation is to understand the new rules of communication, why they matter, and the five trends turning the business world upside down.
- Consumer Skepticism
- Fragmented Media
- Loss of Control
- Niche Marketing
- Customers are in Control
Trust me. Your customers will thank you for taking the time to understand these tectonic shifts.
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Dear Bloggers: You Are Making it Too Difficult to Share Your Content
This is something that has been bothering me for over a year and I am not sure why it took me so long to write about it, because it’s really three simple things that stop me from sharing content.
I really want to put a spotlight on the smart thinking I come across that I think deserves attention, but sometimes it’s just too time consuming to do so. Perhaps others are feeling this way too? After all, we are all busy and strapped for time.
This isn’t an all-inclusive list (I am sure you could add more), it’s just my list of what stops me from sharing blog posts—even from some of the most popular and experienced bloggers. I don’t have all of the answers on how to fix this (technologically from WordPress to TypePad to Blogger), but thought I’d kick off the conversation.
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Brand vs. Brand Relationship: Let’s Not Confuse Them
Last night on our weekly PR 2.0 chat on Twitter (anyone can join this weekly chat Wednesdays at 8pm EST. Search on hashtag #pr20cat and join in!), we discussed branding and PR 2.0 and why PR folks (and marketers, that’s a topic on integration for another day!) need to understand branding and how it affects their interactions with constituents (or publics).
If you’ve hung out in social media circles long enough, I am sure you’ve heard “you don’t own your brand, your customers do.” Nothing can be further from the truth and why we need to be very careful with how we phrase this as marketers, consultants, agencies, etc.
FACT: You do own your brand and brand messaging
FACT: You don’t own relationships customers have with your brand
I kicked off by asking people’s definitions of branding and a lot of people responded with a brand relationship definition, which is great but I think it also leads us to, as marketers implementing social media, to want to easily hand over the keys to the castle a little too easily.
For some people it’s a chicken and egg situation. Do you love the logo or the company that produces the product/service first? Vanessa French asked me (paraphrased) “what if your mom gave you Pepsi as a kid, you’d have a relationship with Pepsi (based on emotion).” My response was “what if your mom served you Pepsi in a plastic cup and you never saw the bottle?”
People tend to identify with a brand (i.e. logo, message, etc.) first and then they relate to it. I think it explains why there are so many fake bags (Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Kate Spade, Hermes, etc.) not to mention other products on the market. It’s not that people relate to the company that owns the brand it’s that the brand (in this case a logo) gives them a perception of inclusion without the sting of the price tag. If they truly had a relationship with the brand they would never by fakes. Unfortunately, the perception of others is what spurs on the fakes market.
From “Driving Brand Value” by Tom Duncan & Sandra Moriarty (what I shared during the PR 2.0 chat):
Brand relationship is driven by:
- Trust
- Consistency
- Accessibility
- Responsiveness
- Commitment
- Affinity
- Liking
(Sounds a lot like what we talk about with social media, huh?)
Five Levels of Bonding:
- Awareness
- Identity
- Relationship
- Community
- Advocacy
I think we also tend to mixed up brand perception with branding and brand relationship. My perception of a brand comes after my relationship with the brand. For example:
I bought a Jaguar and it was a piece of junk that could never be fixed. The Jaguar dealer and Jaguar wouldn’t do anything about it. I bought based on the brand (awareness/identity), my relationship was affected by lack of trust, consistency, accessibility, etc. My perception is that Jaguars are bad cars. I am sharing my story (WOM) on my blog (social media).
So, if you are Jaguar’s PR folks and I had consistent blog about this and chatted on forums, you might want to pay attention. I would hope.
The tenets of branding are still viable, but just like everything else with social media they are more visible today and brand relationships and perceptions are out in the open.
But we DO have control over our brand and messaging! You might want to reconsider using “trust” in your brand (logo) or messaging if the case is that the brand relationships and perceptions indicate that you are not an organization to be trusted.
By the way, Driving Brand Value was written in 1997, and yet offers lessons that we still have not learned. It’s available on Amazon starting at $0.38 USD. I suggest you snap up a copy.
Also, grab Integrated Branding by LePla and Parker while you’re at it…
What do you think?
[Image: David Armano]
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The Harte of Marketing by Beth Harte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.theharteofmarketing.com. [If you have a question about what you can use from this blog, click on the above Creative Commons link to learn more.]
