Mythology - The Meaning Behind the Marketing

Whopper Sacrifice: Monetizing Facebook and Other Social Networks

Facebook is one of the most powerful marketing tools developed to date on the Internet. The willingness of people to post their personal and career-related interests and activities and share them with both their network of friends and the Facebook advertising engine is quite amazing.

The ability to target not just on demographics but on psychographics is impressive. However, like many new marketing tools that arise quickly on the scene, the platform is ripe for misuse and disappointment.

Although plastering a well-targeted banner ad next to a targeted user's profile is certainly better than plastering one on an untargeted page, it's still not exactly enough to generate significant ROI. For example, whereas a pay-per-click link on Google's search engine is "double qualified" because the person is actively searching for your keyword, Facebook's targeting does not capture those "in market" users who are actively looking for your type of product or services.

Facebook users are there to socialize. What is more annoying than trying to be sold something while you're socializing?

That's why the most effective Facebook marketers know that in order to effectively market on Facebook and other social media sites, you must understand and commit to the concept of "community." What is community? While scientists and Wikipedia posters debate the exact definition, one thing is for sure about online communities: it's a group that has voluntarily come together around a common interest or affinity.

Sometimes that interest is buying stuff, but rarely. More commonly, a marketer must understand what common interests are worthing tapping into, and then decide how to add value to that community vs. distracting it with a pitch. You can add value through information, enabling people with common interests to find each other (a major benefit of any community) or humor, among others.

Unless you are a brand with inherent community-building appeal, or have established a cult-like following already, you may not want to start with a "fan page". Instead, think of a cause or topic related to your brand that you could build a community around. For example, if you're a hybrid car manufacturer, sponsor a "green motoring" group. You'll attract far more people while gaining credit in the community for building on this topic.

Another way to generate interest, buzz and action is to address the social network in terms that are relevant and contextual to the situation. Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice campaign is a good example in which they challenged users to delete ten of their friends in order to get a free Whopper. It was humorous as well as effective. In fact, perhaps it was too effective from Facebook's point of view, but Burger King is craftily keeping the buzz going by offering to help you send an angry-gram if you were de-friended over a hamburger.

Here is my steam-release angry gram to "Brandie."

Connecting Offline and Online Social Network Efforts

With the flurry of growth around social media, it's easy to forget a critical strategic rule of marketing: make all of your marketing channels work together to build a bigger impact.

Integrating media campaigns took quite a while back in the late 90's and early 00's as companies and agencies set up separate Internet advertising teams outside of their mainstream advertising/marketing groups. As social media campaigns ramp up, I hope we've learned to think about integration from the start.

We humans are social creatures, a trait that Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others are successfully exploiting. However, there is still a difference between a virtual connection and an in-person meeting. The more senses engaged, the more memorable and meaningful it is to our minds and emotions.

Here in Charleston, WV, where I reside, we have an active group of Tweeters who meet each other in Tweet Ups at the local coffee shop. The in-person meetings have really solidified who I'm interested in following and how closely and influence my ongoing conversations. It's always a blast to compare a person's "live" personality and vibe vs. what you derived from their Tweets.

We advise clients to consider the customer purchase funnel: What aspects of online social media can fill the top stages of the funnel, and how can offline social efforts (sports marketing, entertainment, conferences, seminars, etc.) activate the relationship towards the next step towards purchase?

What are the Marketing Implications for Microsoft's Tag Mini-App?

Good to see my old company Microsoft generating some buzz with their second iPhone app called Tag. It's also good to see my old company building code for competitive platforms.

Tag "transforms traditional offline media into live links to online information and entertainment" by rendering an image that can trigger an action, such as launching a web site, when it's read by the iPhone app. Check out a little video here for the concept.

The integration of offline with online has been the holy grail of advertising and marketing circles since the Internet took hold in the Nineties. Tag brings together mobile, the web and print in a unique way.

For a quick example of how it can be used, download the Tag app for your phone and snap our first Mythology tag:

 

At Mythology we're planning on piloting some viral marketing efforts using this technology. Give us a shout at [email protected] if you're interested in brainstorming some ideas for your organization.

Ignore the Purpose, Abuse the Medium

I guess it shouldn't be a surprise, but Forrester (registration required) recently reported that only 1 in 6 people trust corporate blogs. But aren't blogs supposed to be how companies put on their human face and show the "real" brand?

Hearken back to the rise of email and database-driven marketing in the Nineties. Remember the big push for customers to sign up for company "newsletters"? It was supposed to be about producing "news" that built a long-term relationship. Instead, most newsletters turned out to be glorified spam with companies training their consumers to ignore a barage of special offers. No news, no real value. Email open rates and click-through rates plummeted over time as consumers learned this medium wasn't that new after all in terms of the value companies sent them.

It's happening again with blogs, at least among the over-managed, stylized corporate blogs that are little more than a thin veneer of "authenticity." By the time the corporate PR and legal team approve the CEO's post, it says next to nothing that a promotional email wouldn't have said.

Why does this happen?

For one reason, marketers focus on the medium as opposed to the purpose and nature of the communication. During the email marketing frenzy, hundreds of database analysis firms were there to help you determine how many emails you need to send in order to achieve a certain return. But who was focused on actually putting value in the email itself so that consumers were trained to look forward to the content?

Why do marketers focus more on spinning up a cool new medium, such as a blog, as opposed to focusing on what matters, which is what consumers need and want in order to build a long-term value-driven relationship with a company? Because it's easier.

Let's be honest. Everyone is busy. Few marketers truly understand their customers or their market as deeply as they should. Few spend enough time listening to customers' needs or desires enough to know what would be considered valuable. Therefore, it's easier to crank out a vanilla blog than it is to produce a meaningful, value-building conversation.

Just How Much do Online Reviews Influence?

I've always been a Malcolm Gladwell fan. Partially because his books make you think, but not too hard because he simplifies, summarizes and references scientific research and case studies in a brilliant way. But partially because I've met him a few times and he's a genuinely kind, generous human being who happens to be pretty darn smart.

So I've been looking forward to his latest book, Outliers, about the nature of success and the factors that make becoming an "outlier" success possible and even likely.

I usually check out the reviews on Amazon.com. Sure, some of them might be plants from a publicist. But many are thoughtful and well-written, and they normally give me an idea of a book's strengths and weaknesses.

In the case of Outliers, I noticed the vast majority of ratings in the 4 and 5 range - so far, so good. But then I read the first review by a poster named "Nathan." Nathan had some big problems with Outliers, and he laid them out in devastating detail. I have to admit, Nathan's comments put a damper on my pent-up Gladwell purchase.

Why did Nathan influence me more than the majority who gave Outliers a 4 or 5 rating? Is his post, combined with a few other anti-Gladwell posts, the beginning of an anti-tipping point for Gladwell and a Blink backlash?

And how do online product or service reviews influence most of us?

It's been demonstrated frequently that online reviews have big influence on offline purchase. According to Comscore in a 2007 study, nearly one out of every four Internet users (24%) reported using online reviews prior to paying for a service delivered offline.

But what about reviews influence us? Certainly the percentage of positive-to-negative posts and ratings can build a case for or against a product. But sometimes its more than that. It can be the credibility of the poster demonstrated in the form of thoughtful writing and in-depth analysis. It can also be the placement of the review; which one did you read first? Not all reviews are created equal.

In today's marketplace, there are no secrets. But there are influentials who guide others on new ways of thinking, both positive and negative. It's even more critical to cultivate influentials who may be able to sway opinion and take the conversation in a different direction when something negative gets posted about your company or product.

Marketers of the Year - What? You're Not on the List?

Ad Age has announced their candidates for "marketers of the year," which, as you can expect as long as the title of their magazine is Ad Age, has several big names who advertise a lot. But there are surprising political and viral marketing leaders as well.

The nominees are:

Apple

Coors

McCain Campaign

Nike

Obama Campaign

Zappos

Take a look at these Ad Age videos. Learning from the masters is a low-cost, effective way to strengthen your own advertising and marketing. In terms of next generation, conversational marketing, pay particular attention to Zappos and Obama. Zappos generates up to 75% of their revenue on repeat business and has focused almost exclusively on delivering a "wow" customer experience vs. investing in traditional advertising. Obama has taken grass roots, viral, word-of-mouth marketing to new levels in the political realm.

Mass Media vs. Viral Campaigns - Projecting ROI

One reason many have not seriously invested in online marketing, particularly viral campaigns or social media, is that they think they understand what they're getting from mass media and aren't so sure about the viral/social stuff.

In most cases, it takes some testing before you truly understand the different ROI models in your industry or scenario. However, many marketers don't even know how to measure ROI in a traditional media sense, but still...it feels safer.

Here is one way to compare a mass media campaign vs. a social/viral campaign. Here are the assumptions:

• The mass media campaign will drive more overall impressions, but only a small % of those will be qualified, or targeted.
• The viral, pass-along campaign will reach far fewer individuals, but those that get it are much more likely to be qualified and much more likely to pay attention to the campaign because it was sent to them by a friend or colleague.

Here is a quick and dirty view of how it might break down:

Obviously the key variables would be actual qualified reach and conversion from that qualified reach. But it's not a stretch to understand how a smaller investment in a successful viral campaign could generate bigger results than a mass media effort.

Of course, in many cases a combination of a viral and mass media approach is needed. But more and more, good marketers are getting smarter about incorporating targeted, viral approaches to reaching the right customers.

Here are some fun examples of successful viral marketing campaigns:

• Pepsi Max (UK) - a little naughty, but a great use of the "pass along" incentive to tweak your friends
• The Art of the H3ist(Audi) - an online case study of the campaign
• Mentos Geyser Contest - A classic use of YouTube
• Monk-eMail - I wasted several hours of my time back when this came out

How's Your Business Social Life?

Almost every organization large and small is experimenting with social network initiatives of some sort. Some are taking logical, well-planned and thought out approaches. Others are doing it because everyone else is and they feel left out.

To help shift more of us into the prior category, we thought it would be a good idea to explore how to measure social networking return on investment (ROI). After all, if you don't have a reasonable expectation of ROI, you are most likely just reacting to a trend than making a good decision.

ROI at its most basic is a very simple formula: realized benefits - expenses = ROI. The trick is realistically identifying which benefits to measure and how to measure them, and to ensure that all expenses - including hidden ones - are factored in. Here are some thoughts on each category:

Objectives - What Type of Benefits Are You Chasing?

Most organizations struggle with measuring their marketing efforts regardless of medium. But taking a few moments to chart out what you expect to gain from a marketing investment can help build a foundation for success.

One way to think about benefits is to assess your benefits along the customer purchase funnel. You may see different versions of this funnel, but they almost always demonstrate the steps a typical customer takes from awareness-interest-action-purchase-repeat purchase-loyalty-advocacy. Setting specific goals across each of these funnel milestones can help you develop an ROI model.

This ClickZ article outlines a good way to think about how your web site and social networking content can influence the consumer at each step.

Ultimately, you want to make sure that you measure your social networking efforts (and all marketing efforts) against the bottom line. How much are you influencing revenue, both net new and repeat/retained?

Tracking Expenses

Next, what will it cost your organization to launch and manage your social networking campaign? There may be expenses in the following categories:

• Technical - Blog hosting, site development, database development, graphics development
• Content - How much content will it require? Who will deliver it? How much will that cost per content unit?
• Editorial - Who will decide what should go on the site? Who will edit and approve?
• Interaction - Who will monitor the social network conversations? How much time will that take? What is the cost/hour?
• Training - Do you need to invest in training those involved with the project?
• Tracking - How will you measure engagement? ROI? How much will that cost?

Remember that many costs are hidden. For example, if you pull a marketing manager off of one project to spend time on the social networking project, how much will you lose on the old projects that aren't getting done anymore? Lost opportunity costs are highly under-measured.

One of the most complete social networking ROI calculatorsI've seen on the web is provided by Frogloop. It's in the context of a non-profit scenario, but it provides a very in-depth example of how your own calculations might look.

How Do You Scale Social Media Efforts?

Many companies, hopefully yours, have begun to migrate away from the one-way megaphone approach to marketing and towards the two-way conversational marketing approach (let's call that the telephone approach). Where you are on the megaphone-telephone spectrum can be a factor of many things:

• Your industry type - Conservative, stodgy industries can be laggards in adopting new approaches to marketing
• Your company culture - We run into many firms whose CEO's are aghast at the thought of customers actually being able to talk back to them, or to each other ("They might say something negative!").
• Your marketing team's age - Let's be honest, younger marketers see the potential and explosion of social media, and are hungrier to enter into the conversation.
• Your resources - Many firms don't feel they have the person-power to manage two-way conversations.

But can social media efforts really scale to the point of replacing the megaphone? After all, marketers are in the business of selling as much as they can. The more qualified prospects they can get in front of, with the right value proposition, at the right time, with the right offer, the higher the return on marketing investment. Right?

Here are a few things to consider when deciding how to balance your megaphone (one-way)-to-telephone (two-way) communication migration path:

• Start with the influencers- Do you need to be the one talking to the entire base of customers, or do you really need to start with influential customers who will then represent you to the wider community? More often than not, you need to start the conversation with a smaller core group of advocates and influencers, and they can scale the conversation for you.

• Set expectations accurately- Sprint recently got into some trouble with customers when they invited them to email their CEO with their feedback. In return, they received an automated thank you email. Seems realistic, after all, a large corporate CEO can't personally reply to thousands of individual emails. But the campaign that initiated the emails made it seem like he would, and instead of a positive, the campaign created hard feelings. It's critical to let customers know what level of human response they will receive if you invite them to share.

• Automate - There are hundreds of useful Web 2.0-tools available in the form of widgets for your web site that can build in interactive, two-way conversational elements. Take surveys or polls, for example. People love to rate things or provide feedback, and then see instantly how their feedback stacks up to others. Technology can create the two-way response for you (again, make sure expectations are set properly).

• Outsource to volunteers or vendors- Companies are finding that motivated, advocate-oriented customers are willing to invest a lot of time volunteering in support of their favorite brands. Partly it's an ego thing; people love to be an "expert" and find fulfillment in helping others. At other times, you may need to hire a third-party firm who is an expert on customer response and who can serve this role less expensively than hiring more full-time employees.

It will be a while longer before completely personalized, interactive, social networking can replace the megaphone entirely. Until that time, be smart and use the tactics above to build a culture of conversation in your company and begin to influence the influencers to carry on conversations on your behalf.

The Role of Social Network Marketing

Custom Communications has delivered their list of most-viewed brand and commercial videos on YouTube. Take a look and see if you notice anything:

Top 10 YouTube Brands

1. Nike - "Ronaldinho: Touch of Gold" - Viewed 22.6 million times

2. Pepsi - "PEPSI (Britney Spears, Beyonce, Pink - We Will Rock You)" - Viewed 14 million times

3. McDonald's - "Fast Food Freestyle" - Viewed 11.8 million times

4. Coca-Cola - "Diet Coke+Mentos=Human experiment: EXTREME GRAPHIC CONTENT" - Viewed 8.5 million times

5. Unilever - "Dove Evolution" - Viewed 6.7 million times

6. Disney - "Internet is for Porn" - Viewed 3.3 million times

7. Budweiser - "Banned Super Bowl 2007 Bud commercial" - Viewed 2.1 million times

8. Microsoft - "Microsoft Surface Parody" - Viewed 2 million times

9. Ikea - "Banned Commercial - Swedish Midsummer" - Viewed 1.5 million times

10. Toyota - "Top Gear: Killing a Toyota Part 1" - Viewed 1.1 million times

Source: Custom Communications

The first thing that struck us was how few people actually viewed the videos relative to the number of consumers these brands are trying to reach. For a big brand like Toyota, 1.1 million views for a major commercial barely registers on the impressions radar.

So with so few views of these "viral" videos (many of which aren't really very viral, they are just normal commercials placed on YouTube...with the possible exception of the Nike and Ikea spots), what role should YouTube and social networks like MySpace and Facebook play for a typical marketer?

• As a way to reach "influencers" - Research shows that active participants in social networks are in fact more influential, at least in some product categories, than non-participants. So a major presence on these sites will help influence the influencers, creating buzz and tastes among the larger audience.
• As a way to reach the youth market - While older demographic groups are saturated in their web usage (with the exception of senior citizens, but even there you'd be surprised), it is the teen - 20something set who are power users of social networking. And to some extent, reaching the "young" executive market (30's-40's) is attractive on social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook.
• As a way to build PR and buzz - The media is still enamored with any company who builds a presence on these sites, so even if no one watches your video, make sure the media knows you posted it and you'll probably get a mention.
• As a way to extend the reach and life of a comprehensive campaign - Most of the big brands above used the social network platform as an extension of a larger campaign.
• As a way to position yourself as a credible underground brand - Many small companies begin with social networks as a way to carve out an anti-establishment niche vs. a dominant competitor. Bigger brands that need "street cred" will put edgier commercials out on YouTube that they wouldn't show on broadcast TV.
• As a way to gain presence with very little expense - YouTube has made Sammy from Flea Market Montgomery a minor celebrity...it could do the same for you if you're willing to put yourself out there in a creative, unexpected or self-effacing way. Note how many "mash ups" of Sammy's commercials exist and how they've extended his reach!

What about you? How are you using social networks and viral video? What other benefits have you realized?