Social Marketing Lunch-inar, Agency Boot Camp, San Francisco, Oct. 2008.
Panel was reps from: Bebo, CafeMom, Izea, MySpace, RockYou.
The marketing part of social media isn't my main area of of interest. I am a video creator, and not really sales-driven. I am interested in learning about new ideas for distribution and hearing about new online tools. I tell my interns that you can't just pay attention to your editing work, you also need to be aware of the marketplace. Plus, the cheese ravioli at LuLu's are excellent. You buy me lunch, I blog you.
NOTES:
What is social media? User-generated content, tools for people to connect and share. Sharing and expressing is part of people's psychological need. The social networks provide a place and the social meida provides the tools.
Tool: Izea. They work with bloggers to do marketing. They write (both good and bad) about products. Yes, the bloggers do disclose their relationships.
Why should brands do social media? The audience has left online portals and has gone to social networks. The audience has left the station. You better go with them. Good news- the social networks are flexible and will work with you to create an ad campaign. The social networks will customize to create opportunities for you to communicate. The entry cost is cheap cheap cheap, and often free to begin a presence.
MySpace: clients have had success with contests. Many contests. Also, being a sponsor of a special event, like a concert- having your brand name built into the player template can reach a few hundred thousand people for an hour continuously.
Example: BEBO. They worked with BBC Top Gear to send the show out onto social networks and not try to drive people onto a Top Gear portal. The goal is for people to watch the show, not to come to your website and then watch the show. That's OK, of course, and you need to maintain a web presence, but herding people is more effort than simply going to where the people are. The overhead is high, so you may as well go fish where the fish are.
Why advertising on social networks is exciting? 1. Because the audience can be hyper-targeted ahead of time. Each person has told you everything about themselves and you can send your message to the people most likely to respond. 2. The analytics after the fact. Extremely detailed info about how many people clicked, watched, responded to your effort.
Community Moderation: extremely important and taken seriously. Allow the good, the bad, but delete the ugly. MySpace has 40 people who patrol commercial interests, looking for hate and porn on client's properties. Moderators must be participants and be part of the conversation, not just butting in and interrupting people who are having a good time to say "buy my stuff." Not appreciated. Be contextual and be relevant.
Think long-term: the pages will live on, don't let them go dead. Goose the content periodically, the way you call an old friend to check in.
About The Bad: allowing bad reviews proves your site is honest and not a vanity museum. The community will generally vote down inappropriate content for you. The best is when you address or correct your bad reviews, by personally fixing the product's problem or the person's experience. The word of mouth from a converted believer is higher than from your original congregation of fans. reference: Geek Squad owner fixing a problem that was Tweeted and then getting much good bloggage from the correction.
Risks of Social Media? the risk is not doing it and letting people talk about you instead of with you.
Word of Mouth: the old word of mouth advertising is done times ten by personal networks. Videos sent by a friend have higher view rate. 50% of recipients watch it, then 50% of them send it to more friends. Allowing "tell a friend" important feature, allowing embedding even more important.
The Real World: don't forget the real world. Online should make people buy your stuff, come to your store or come meet you in person. Conversely, your real-world print should drive people to website for the engagement, and again the website should be driving people back to your stores.
...so there you go, kids. What I usually take away from these panels is an awareness of where my videos can be used. My main energy is always on the creation and producing of the video, but clients tend to ask me what to do next. Having a few suggestions on distribution helps them and helps me.
