Tweet limit impacts Social CRM effectiveness - just ask O2

February 1st, 2012

The development of Social CRM has been well documented over the last few years, and we have written a number of posts on the subject, sharing Liberate Media’s experiences of Social CRM campaigns.

However, a very real issue in the development of Social CRM, at least in terms of Twitter usage, was highlighted last week by O2 who exceeded their daily limit while attempting to respond to a breaking communications crisis. O2 asked Twitter for an extension on the amount of tweets it could send, (Twitter’s daily limit is 250 direct messages a day, and 1,000 tweets) but this was refused.

O2′s PR and social media campaigns manager, James Paterson, confirmed the issue at last week’s 1-2-1 Digital Strategy Summit, run by Marketing Week. In fact, he confirmed that O2 actually accrued the same amount of ‘mentions’ in one day as it does in a normal week.

If you are not familiar with the issue, O2 was attempting to respond to the news that user’s mobile phone numbers were being leaked to websites that they visited.

In the Marketing Week piece, Paterson said it was important that O2 did “not stay quietly in [its] shell” as news circulated about the data leaks and that the company employed a strategy immediately to respond to user questions and communicate that it was investigating the issue.

The mobile operator did utilise other tactics as part of its Social CRM response, i.e. preparing a “Q&A” blog post to explain the technical reasons behind the data leak and to apologise for the concern caused.

Paterson said: “We wanted to respond to as many people as possible with fair answers. In the past we may have just given a Q&A to the well-known media outlets, but our people understand that if you answer queries and communicate to people on social media straight away, problems tend to be resolved more quickly.”

However, although O2 followed a clear strategy for its response, it was hindered by Twitter’s account limit.

Twitter has commented on the limit issue: “Limits alleviate some of the strain on the behind-the-scenes part of Twitter, and reduce downtime and error pages. For the sake of reliability, we’ve placed some limits on account actions like following, API requests, direct messages, and updates.”

“The daily update limit is further broken down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals. Retweets are counted as updates.”

These rules obviously reduce the effectiveness of Social CRM response mechanisms for large brands, although in fairness Twitter was not designed as a CRM channel, therefore it has no responsibility to look out for such problems.

However, as Twitter continually looks towards brands to bolster its revenue strategy, it’s likely that it will not only expand this function, but also charge for it, a charge that i’m sure the majority of brands would be willing to pay.

In this instance O2 responded to a breaking issue well, and tried to be open by answering as many of its customer tweets as possible, but this was quickly curtailed when Twitter would not allow any further tweets that day.

This issue, and the others that are sure to follow, further highlight a real flaw in many social CRM strategies, while also drawing attention to a revenue opportunity for Twitter. If Twitter is not already working on a paid response they are likely to be jumping on it rapidly in the near future.

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When social media bites back

January 25th, 2012

It’s been an interesting week for a couple of major brands that have found themselves in a rather sticky social media situation.

Late last week, McDonalds felt the full force of a misfiring campaign when its idea to use a promoted tweet campaign, supported by hashtags, to highlight real life stories from farmers that grow its food backfired in a big way. Oddly the process started well, when McDonalds used the hashtag #MeetThe Farmers, which was a great choice as it focused on the issue rather than promoting the brand.

Unfortunately, or perhaps as a result of an overzealous brand marketer, the hashtag was changed to #McDStories and within an hour it had been hijacked to talk about unpleasant stories from McDonald’s customers, and instead of charming stories from hard working farmers, McDonalds received a stream of less than desirable comments.

You can see some of the tweets in this story from the Daily Mail.

Then, this week, after a rather moving letter in the ‘consumer champions‘ section of the Guardian (which you can see in full below),  LA Fitness was forced to back down on a contract dispute with a customer. But it didn’t make it easy on itself.

In a nutshell, the story goes like this: LA Fitness had previous refused to allow a pregnant woman and her husband out of a 24 month contract after he recently lost his job, and they had moved away from the gym. She writes a letter to the Guardian’s consumer champions section, they contact LA Fitness with no favourable outcome, the story goes online, and The Twitter nation does the rest.

We all know that customer contract rules can be ridiculous, but a little bit of common sense from LA Fitness would have gone a long way to averting the communications disaster that it now finds itself in. It’s not as though it didn’t have a warning or two, and even if the customer’s tale of difficulty didn’t stir a social conscience, the contact from a broadsheet newspaper certainly should have rung alarm bells. However it was a relentless torrent of Twitter abuse that dealt the killer blow, and although LA Fitness has now refunded the couple’s money, the damage is done, and the story is accessible online for all to see.

You can read the full overview on the Wall Blog, and the original letter to the Guardian below.

Although the McDonald’s case didn’t relate to a customer issue, both cases show a real lack of understanding of how social communications work, and what it means to be a brand online. In McDonalds’ case if they had stuck to the heart of the matter, and focused on sharing stories of farmers the campaign would have probably worked. In LA Fitness’ case, if we look beyond their lack of human empathy, the knowledge that this CRM failing had gone to a national paper should have resulted in an immediate crisis communications response, without letting it go that far.

That letter as featured in the Guardian ‘consumer champions‘ section:

“My husband and I have been loyal customers of gym chain LA Fitness for six years. I am seven months pregnant, we are moving 12 miles away from the gym and don’t drive. My husband has lost his job and we are now on benefits. We can barely feed our children right now and can’t afford the two-year contract.

“Despite us sending LA Fitness a letter proving my husband has been let go from his job, his employer didn’t use the word “redundant” in the letter, so LA Fitness will not accept it as a valid reason to terminate the contract. I have been told that being pregnant entitles me only to temporarily freeze my membership. Moving away does not apply, as we need to be 20 miles from the nearest gym to cancel. We just cannot pay.“

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Google changes the rules and upsets Twitter, among others

January 12th, 2012

Earlier this week Google announced a number of changes, which apply to the U.S. only at this stage, and are designed to accelerate personal search, and move towards social search.

The three changes fall under the following categories:

First: Personal results, aimed at helping you to find more relevant to…well…you.
Second: Profiles in search, meaning you can more easily identify people you’re close to or want to follow.
Third: People and pages, which focuses on helping you to find profiles and Google+ pages related to memes or topics of interest.

The additions offer more meaningful ways to connect with people around you, straight from the search results.

This all sounds well and good, and personalising and or customising results to be more relevant can only be more positive, can’t it?

Many commentators such as the Guardian and BBC have picked up on the other side effect of these changes which is to make Google+ much more relevant. For example, when you search for information, particularly about individuals, results from the social network will be prominently displayed on the first page of results, assuming you are a member.

That makes Google+ a much more attractive social network, as users will see fewer results from outside it when they search for information.

As you might expect, Twitter has offered its opinion on the issue, as it has perhaps the most to lose. Twitter’s lead lawyer, Alex Macgillivray, called it a “bad day for the internet“, and suggested - as a former Google employee - that there would have been dissent internally “at search being warped this way“.

Twitter later made a formal statement: “For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results any time they wanted to find something on the internet.

“As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter, as a result, Twitter accounts and tweets are often the most relevant results. We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organisations and Twitter users.”

Others have also criticised the change, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land commented: “Search engines are supposed to send you away to the best information, even if they don’t have their own in stock. Google has previously been excellent at providing links to the most suitable information.

“Today’s change is one of the few times where I’m thinking ‘What the hell are you doing, Google?’”

Getting to the heart of the matter, Google was always going to find a way to move its social network, which is so far behind the game, to the front. Its best strategy to achieve this is to link its social network more closely to its search engine, which is after all the most popular in the U.S and Europe. But is that fair?

Google’s decision to favour Google+ posts which would not rank highly by its normal criteria (defined by the number of “authoritative” pages on the web linking to it) could suggest that it is favouring its own product in order to grow it more quickly. That in turn could breach antitrust (or competition) laws.

Twitter and Facebook content does not generally appear in Google search results because neither site provides Google with unlimited access to their content.

Twitter formerly had an agreement in which Google paid for access to index its database directly, but Twitter chose not to renew the agreement, according to a statement placed on Google+ by an official Google account, which said it was “a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments” because “they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer“.

Although these changes are likely to head to Europe eventually, the Guardian piece suggests Google may have to think twice about introducing the changes over here because it has a greater share of search in European countries, meaning a ruling on it affecting the market is more likely, and also if the changes extend to results on Android phones, then it may face more urgent calls for an antitrust investigation.

This wouldn’t be the first time that there has been a call for Google to be investigated on such grounds, but if these changes do come to Europe as expected, we could be on the verge of a few interesting legal actions.

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YouGov 2012 consumer technology predictions

December 20th, 2011

YouGov has announced its 2012 predictions for UK consumers’ consumption and behaviour around Smart TV, smartphones, Facebook, digital newspapers and digital radio. The findings originate from a multi-country study, carried out in November 2011 with almost 13,000 respondents.

The headline statistics include:
o 15% of UK consumers say they will own a Smart TV within the next 12 months
o 86% of smartphone users ignore advertising on mobiles
o 60% of UK online population now use Facebook more than once a day
o 24% of tablet users access the web whilst in bed
o Just over one in five (22%) of 18-24 year olds have listened to the Radio via a portable radio set (including DAB)

As you can see, surprisingly only 15% of UK consumers said that they expect to purchase a connected, or ‘Smart’, TV within the next 12 months. However, that figure may not tell the whole story as people are already connecting their TV to the web via external devices, including games consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3, along with ‘plug in’ boxes such as Boxee.

The biggest driver for adoption of Smart TV is the availability of content, as YouGov reports 36% of UK respondents aged 18-24 said that they would make a connected TV purchase if they could watch their favourite TV content on-demand.

Dan Brilot, media consulting director at YouGov, said: “Smart content producers must continue to develop their services to make it increasingly easier for people to watch what they want, when they want, wherever they want.”

Moving onto smartphones, 40% of people own smartphones in the UK, increasing to 68% within the next upgrade cycle. However, YouGov say 86% of smartphone users ignore advertising on mobiles, meaning engagement via mobile must be useful and relevant - not broadcasted, or in other words: advertising.

In terms of digital newspapers and tablets, Russell Feldman, associate director of technology at YouGov says: “The decline of print media sales will only accelerate during 2012. Tablets and apps will increase the digital cannibalisation of paper copies as they erode more of those previously inaccessible locations to digital devices; for example, nearly one quarter (24%) of tablet users access the internet whilst in bed.”

Tablet usage is still small (currently only 4% of the UK population own one) but that number is growing and, as the market develops and new entrants such as the Kindle Fire gain traction, newspaper and magazine publishers will focus more effort on specific tablet versions of their publications.

Finally, DAB take-up hasn’t quite lived up to the initial hype. To make this happen, Dan Brilot, media consulting director at YouGov says: “The radio industry needs to educate and support consumers as they become accustomed to new ways of listening and to ensure that reach and frequency opportunities are truly maximised - not lost - in the digital age.”

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CMI B2B Content marketing report review

December 6th, 2011

The B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Budgets, Benchmarks and Trends report, was published yesterday by the Content Marketing Institute in the U.S., led by its founder Joe Pulizzi.

We usually try to focus on UK/Euro stats on this blog, but I found the data in this piece to be particularly interesting. You can see the full findings here, and the sample of 1,092 marketers was taken in August 2011, and focused on how well B2B marketers are achieving their goals when it comes to content marketing, and how much has changed in the past year.

The 2011 study follows the 2010 piece of the same name and therefore allows for comparison between this year and last year.

In brief, the report shows:

Usage and effectiveness
• 9 out of 10 organisations market with content marketing
• On average, B2B marketers employ eight different content marketing tactics to achieve their goals. The most popular tactics are: (see graph below for full breakdown)
- Article posting (79%)
- Social media (excluding blogs) (74%)
- Blogs (65%)
- eNewsletters (63%)
- case studies (58%)
- in-person events (56%)

• Marketers are using content marketing to support multiple business goals, led by:
- brand awareness (69%)
- customer acquisition (68%)
- lead generation (67%)
- customer retention/loyalty (62%)

The least widely employed goal for content marketing is lead management/nurturing.

Measurement
• Web traffic is the most widely used success metric (58%). However, this year, sales lead
quality (49%) is the second-highest used metric (versus direct sales in the previous study).

Budget
• Marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing
• 60% report that they plan to increase their spend on content marketing over the next 12 months.

Challenges
The greatest reported challenge is “producing the kind of content that engages prospects
and customers” (41% of respondents). And nearly the same percentage of respondents in 2011 as in 2010 reported that “producing enough content” (20%) and “budget to produce content” (18%) are their greatest challenges in content marketing.

While in-person events and webinars are still seen as the most effective tactics, on average, the following ranked notably higher in perceived effectiveness compared to the 2010 report:
• Blogs: 45% increase
• Case studies: 32% increase
• Videos: 36% increase
• Webinars/webcasts: 25% increase

The challenges section will resonate with many marketers, identifying points that will continue to test brands of all types, specifically: producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers, producing enough content, and budgeting to produce content, which is difficult enough without considering those organisations that have little or no experience of the resource required to produce high quality and engaging content in a consistent way.

Of the tactics, it was a bit of a shock to see blogs coming out highest in terms of perceived effectiveness compared to 2010. The general trend has been away from blogs, but perhaps this is a reflection of quality beginning to tell over quantity, as those that have actually put the effort into B2B blogs are now seeing the return over the ‘me too’ blogs that see very little in either response or effort.

Measurement is always a prickly subject, and it was no surprise to see web traffic ranking as the most popular, although sales lead quality is beginning to show a little more relevance for those B2B businesses putting the time in to identify metrics and better understand opportunities and outcomes.

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Why take the Google+ page plunge?

November 18th, 2011

Google+ launched Google+ pages last week, in direct competition with Facebook, and the evidence shows that many brands have set up a page over the first week of activity, at least according to research by SEO firm BrightEdge, who confirmed ‘61 percent of world’s top 100 brands have already created Google+ pages‘, which is pretty impressive considering the time frame.

The question that keeps coming up is: ‘Why do I need a Facebook page and a Google+ page?’ Many of those brands that have taken the plunge already will have grabbed their Google+ page, simply to secure it, which is reason enough at least in the short term. Some may be surprised to hear though that it’s easy to set up fake pages so look for the verified badge when you visit the site.

So why does a brand need a Google+ page? Well, there are many reasons, 18.5 of which are defined in Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s piece on the Drum last week, and as he suggested, the integration of Analytics, YouTube, Adwords, Picassa offers an advantage over Facebook, and perhaps an insight into the longer term strategy.

Obviously Facebook is the prime motivation for the Google+ launch, and many feel Google+ is too far behind to mount an effective challenge, but the issue here is not so much about the stand alone effectiveness of Google+ vs Facebook, but the sheer scale of Google products that Google + already integrates, and will undoubtedly increase in the future. Let’s also not forget Google’s strength, its search engine, which has led to its Google+ pages already out ranking Facebook brand pages, which is reason enough for some brands to get involved.

The BrightEdge analysis showed Google+ pages on average appeared in the top 12 Google search results for the corresponding brand, while the brand’s Facebook pages on average appeared in the top 13 or 14 listed results.

The flexibility in connectedness, and search, gives Google the long term edge in terms of synching with its full range of services. Of course many services also synch with Facebook, but Google’s vision seems to take this to another level. We’re not talking about beating Facebook, Google is simply building around it and making it less relevant.

The reality is we’re a long way away from that today as 94 percent of the Top 100 brands analysed by BrightEdge have a presence on Facebook, and in terms of the big brands, like Coke, McDonalds and Verizon each only has dozens of fans on Google+, but millions of Facebook fans. The review of Facebook and Google+ properties for the top 100 brands showed a collective total of almost 300 million Facebook fans, compared to approximately 148,000 Google+ followers for these same brands.

Looking at the figures today, the task ahead of Google+ seems insurmountable, but i suspect the gulf between Facebook and Google+ will fall as the connected battle gets into second gear, and Google has already announced a pilot program that will allow businesses and brands to manage their Google+ Pages using a number of third-party applications, including Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, HootSuite, Involver, and Vitrue.

The issue is not so much about Google+ catching Facebook, but about offering a viable and useful reason to have a Google+ page as well. We may see different verticals opting for different networks based on reach and audience in the future, but with these options brands have ever more increasing routes to listening and engaging with their communities.

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Marketwire sues PR Newswire for $25 million

November 3rd, 2011

As you may have seen last week, war has broken out between two of the best known news wire services, as Marketwire filed a $25 million lawsuit accusing rival PR Newswire of causing irreparable harm by hiring away its workers and inducing them to divulge confidential information and trade secrets, violating confidentiality and non-compete agreements.

That’s quite a statement and I imagine pretty hard to prove. The action probably says more about Marketwire’s frustration at the issue rather than its chances of actually winning.

The main thrust of Marketwire’s legal action is based around an accusation that PR Newswire hired Marketwire’s former Chief Technology Officer, Shoeb Ansari, as part of what it alleges is a continuing campaign to steal its technology and gain access to customer data.

The complaint confirms that there has been a steady flow of staff from Marketwire to PR newswire since Ansari’s appointment as Chief Information Officer.

Newswire has responded with the following statement, which lays out its defence nicely:
“PR Newswire has every legal right to hire these employees and it has no interest in any trade secrets Marketwire may have. Marketwire is turning to the courts in an attempt to prevent fair competition between the companies. We are confident that the court will agree this case has no merit.”

The lawsuit seeks at least $25 million in damages and a permanent ban on any use or disclosure of confidential business information and trade secrets.

This is probably a case of two closely matched competitors paying a little too much attention to each other in an otherwise poorly differentiated market, however it certainly spices up the sector a little.

It’s fair to say i’m not a big fan of newswire services. Not because i don’t think they serve a valuable purpose for organisations that need to distribute news widely for earnings or corporate governance, but that fundamentally the services have evolved very little in my 14 years in the sector, and if you are not bound by relevant financial and stock market regulations, the services offer little value.

I should make it clear that I am part of the team at Pressitt and social media news release platform that takes the opposite approach to traditional news wires by promoting useful content via search engines, bookmarking and content sites to reach influencers directly rather than going through the traditional wires approach, so of course i am biased. However, this social approach was borne not only out of the changing way we consume media, but also fundamentally because existing news wires have neither evolved nor offer a useful return for what can be a very expensive service.

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RIM stays quiet as Blackberry crisis reaches breaking point

October 12th, 2011

If you are a Blackberry user, you are no doubt very familiar with this week’s service issues, and if you’re not a Blackberry user, you can’t have escaped the continual discussion of the problem via various social networks and in the mainstream media.

The whole situation has been amplified by Blackberry’s lack of communication around the issue, as Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology correspondent at The BBC explains in his article.

To put it mildly, RIM, and more specifically the Blackberry brand, is having a difficult week. Without wishing to be overly dramatic, this could in fact be Blackberry’s worst week yet.

Why? Well, let’s consider the background to any story around Blackberry at the minute. Blackberry’s loss of market share in the US is well documented (see Guardian article for more details) and recently there have been rumours that Blackberry is up for sale, talk that RIM it is a break-up target and concerns about its poor share price performance and lack of innovation. That’s not to mention the iPhone’s continuing dominance of the market, the recent launch of the iPhone 4S and iMessage, Apple’s answer to the hugely successful BBM (Blackberry Messenger). Add to this the issues around the London Riots, and it seems there has been a relentless battering of Blackberry’s brand.

So what has been Blackberry’s response to this growing crisis to date? Well, it’s perhaps best summed up in Gordon Macmillan’s piece on the Wall, titled ‘How to fail in a crises Blackberry Style‘ but here is the latest and greatest response from RIM, which came last night at 10pm BST, days after the issue stated:

“The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure. Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed.”

No timelines were attached to the resolution, no timelines attached to the next update, and nothing has been mentioned since, you could also say that the apology was not appropriate, of course there has been inconvenience, and recognition of this would have been better.

The actions of Blackberry over the last few days suggest that the lack of communication to its customer base and wider community is a considered tactic. If this is the case it’s quite scary, as the case studies of brands turning a problem into a crisis by poor communications are many and varied, and it appears Blackberry will now become the latest and perhaps most confusing.

Why confusing? Well consider the current issues, consider the scale and damage of the technology problem and if the best response is silence, or minimal communication, then I for one am very confused, and it seems I’m not alone.

Not only is this a trending topic on Twitter, with literally every other tweet focused on Blackberry in my feed earlier today, with talk of this being the ‘final straw’ and ‘Apple should make an offer to existing Blackberry users’, but the real reason is yet to be revealed it seems. I only say that because the scale of the technology issue and the response to date do not seem equal is anyway, so is there more to this?

Lord Sugar (quoted in a Telegraph article) perhaps summed up the issue best from the technology point of view: “In all my years in IT biz, I have never seen such a outage as experienced by Blackberry. I can’t understand why it’s taking so long to fix.

“All my companies use [BlackBerries], every one so reliant on getting email on the move, people don’t know if they are coming or going.”

Ian Fogg, a mobile industry analyst at Forrester published the following on his blog, which was also quoted in the Telegraph: “RIM is in danger of becoming its own worst enemy if it is unable to reliably operate the communication services that have differentiated it. BBM is the reason many young consumers stay with BlackBerry. If it doesn’t work, they will leave RIM.”

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I was a loyal Blackberry user from launch to earlier this year. The reason i changed was simply because the iPhone offered so much more, and i found myself continually justifying the reason for keeping my Blackberry because of its superior email service, when i was losing out in almost every other area. Considering the situation over the last few days, even this and the BBM argument is falling apart.

So where does that leave RIM and Blackberry? At time of writing it leaves the organisation and brand with a mounting crisis, poor communications, extremely annoyed customers and a lack of understanding in terms of why the problem exists and when it will be resolved.

It’s never too late to open up communications, but one could certainly argue a great deal of damage has already been done, and it will take a significant effort from RIM to rebuild faith in the Blackberry brand.

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PR remains a top career choice for Graduates

August 19th, 2011

It seems the desire for a job in PR is as strong as ever amongst graduates. For example, according to a survey carried out by Give a Grad a Go (a graduate recruiter) 29% of Graduates want to work in PR.

In terms of pay, the survey confirmed that the average graduate salary has risen to £25,500, but this is not the case in PR, where remuneration for entry-level roles sits at around £18,000.

To be honest, I’ve always been surprised by the popularity of PR as a career choice. That’s not to say I don’t think it’s a good career, I’ve been in the sector for many years and the range of opportunities, skills and experiences it has given me are far too numerous to list in this post. However, I’m still struggling to see the enduring appeal and consistently high level of interest, especially when considering the lower pay at entry level.

In reality, The work of a PR is tough and so very far away from the stereo-typical view of the glamorous PR swanning in and out of meetings and parties while sipping Champagne.

The job is highly pressured, demanding in terms of time and skills and leaves many by the wayside. It doesn’t always reward the best, due to internal politics, although they do generally rise to the top eventually.

It’s certainly not a forgiving environment at entry level. At least it wasn’t when I started, perhaps it has changed, but the number of agencies that still recruit unpaid ‘interns’ suggest it hasn’t changed that much.

Of course there are good schemes for Graduates, Taylor Bennett Foundation being one featured in PR Week  recently, but the difference between the imagined life of a PR and the reality seem to be very different.

As part of my role at Liberate, i’m often approached by students and Graduates looking for advice to get into PR, or information for their dissertations. In fact I did an interview on the subject just the other day.

I try to be as honest as possible, as I want them to be fully armed for the reality of the industry if they decide to pursue it. However, my fears are usually exacerbated when speaking to them as I find their understanding of the basics to be pretty poor. Or to be precise, pretty outdated. Some speak a different language, consisting of acronyms I’ve never heard of, or resonate from a dim-dark past, and certainly aren’t common place in the sector.

I’ve spoken before on this blog about the disparity between the academic teachings of PR and the reality, and this only seems to be getting worse with the continuing development of digital, social and integrated marketing techniques that we in the industry take for granted, or at least should.

So, does academia have its role to play in this myth of the PR industry, or am I just lucky to have been brought up in a career that is apparently so in demand and I simply can’t see beyond my own internal blinkers?

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Is marketing evolving through social media?

August 11th, 2011

Two opposing pieces focused on social media understanding within the marketing sector caught my attention earlier this month.

Allow me to set the scene, the following piece was published on the Telegraph’s site on August 1st: ‘Businesses still don’t ‘get’ social media - and it’s 40-year-old marketing directors that are to blame.‘ By Alexis Dormandy, of LoveThis.com

Here’s a snippet to whet your appetite:

“Our 40-year-old marketing director probably spent four years at an agency, before going to work on the client side. They spent the 1990s pulling together billboard campaigns, debating what they could say with the Advertising Standards Authority, agreeing joint promotions with other big businesses, and sponsoring celebrity sportsman. Life was still a lot of fun.

“They turned 30, the dot-com bubble came, and a small number of the more enterprising ones became entrepreneurs. Most kept rising up their businesses, learning to take eighteen months to launch a consumer product, and working with retailers to plan their Christmas sales nine months in advance. The really good ones rose to the top and had teams to look after all this stuff for them.”

Although obviously designed to be controversial, the article sparked some good debate, well in the main (see the comments on the Telegraph piece, some of which were not really about debate). However, one of the best reaction pieces was by Gordon MacMillan at Brand Republic: Are Generation X’s class of marketing directors to blame for businesses failing to get social media?

In his piece, Gordon opened up the requirements for a marketing director, confirming: “While he (Alexis) makes some interesting points, I’m sure he’s wrong. Marketing isn’t about analytics, maths and measurement. It is about ideas. Sure you have to understand all of the above, but being brilliant at understanding analytics is not going to help produce great marketing.”

I tend to agree with Gordon here, Alexis’ piece makes some strong points, and to be fair his piece starts off by focusing on social commerce, and in that case, analytics is crucial to deliver sales. However, marketing, or social media for that matter, is not just about, or mainly about, maths. Nor is it focused purely on data and analytical dissection of your audience.

Yes, I completely agree measurement and analytics is a hugely important part of the mix, and researching and understanding the brand’s community is the foundation for any campaign, combined with constant monitoring, measurement and evolution based on the numbers. However, although the importance of analytics and audience research has increased, it’s certainly not a new tactic, which is where I think the argument fails, are we really saying marketing campaigns did not employ market research and analytical measurement strategies 20 years ago?

I’m the first to agree the marketing landscape has changed, but the main point for me is not that we’ve just changed from long term campaigns to listening and engaging immediately, although that is true. It’s not that we just need great ideas, although again that’s part of it, and it’s not about the maths. The main issue is that we can’t live in our previously disparate and comfortable marketing specialisms, because the barriers have been blurring for so long that they are practically non-existent.

In-house marketers need to have a good understanding of the full range of marketing strategies, and to some degree, the possible tactics as well. As Gordon says, yes you can hire agencies to help with specific knowledge, and of course I support that, but the agencies are having to be more generalist as well.

The simple economic reason for this is: why would a client pay for three or four agencies to cover a range of specialisms (e.g. search, social, PR and web dev) when one can do them all - and do them better and more coherently without the painful time management required to bring agencies together?

That’s without even getting into the complementary nature of these services.

At Liberate Media, we experience a full range of enquires in terms of their understanding of social and how it should be utilised as part of any campaign. We have social-savvy clients that are fully immersed personally, through to RFPs from those that just want ‘some social media‘ because their boss or competitor mentioned it. This situation has improved dramatically over the last five years and today we are getting smarter briefs and better questions, and I expect that to continue developing.

I agree that the world of marketing has changed, and I think it’s a great change, and honestly believe marketing of the past was really advertising in disguise, as we were telling people what they need, not asking them what they want. Today we are truly grasping the meaning of marketing and evolving that role. Today we are able to call in specific and useful tools to assist in practically every element of our jobs, but the understanding across the board, the knowledge of what our customers want and how we can help them by being useful is the key for me. The maths, ideas and other elements are pieces of that puzzle, and to be successful we must solve it all.

I do however agree with the Telegraph piece that the social media managers of today will inherit the earth, or at least have the understanding, cross-discipline skills and versatility to have a bright future!

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