The way ahead in marketing is to eradicate the truths we’ve lived by.
As Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston say in their new book (released this week), Marketing in the Round, “the only way to succeed in the future – to best serve your customers, to become an investment in the company’s growth – is to market in the round.”
The marketing/communications world is quite often siloed. Marketing, public relations, advertising, social media, web development, direct marketing, search all do their own thing, sometimes unaware of what the others are working on.
But like the Knights of the Round Table, these job functions need to join together to create something bigger and more powerful. (Come to think of it, this sounds like the plot for Voltron!)
Dietrich and Livingston help readers navigate obstacles – from getting leadership buy-in to identifying which tactics to deploy and when.
The book provides easy-to-understand charts – and also includes worksheets and exercises to complete. This is more than a book, it’s the first shots fired in a common-sense (yet sorely-needed) revolution.
I love that this book was written as a collaboration, because that’s what it’s all about: by working together, we can accomplish so much more.
When I heard that Gini and Geoff were teaming up to write a book, I had high expectations. They are two of the people in the PR/social industry I respect most.
Both were featured prominently in the Master’s in public communication course I taught this spring at American University. Spin Sucks, the blog for Gini’s agency Arment Dietrich, was required reading. Geoff’s tireless efforts in using social media for charitable causes was the basis of a research project for two of my students.
I don’t give ratings or anything like that, but I’ll say this about Marketing in the Round: I’m giving my advance copy to one of my students…and going to buy one for myself.
One of the major benefits of social media is that we can react to current events together.
There turnaround time is virtually nil.
When Beasite Boy co-founder Adam Yauch died last week, it didn’t take long for Coldplay to pay tribute to him at a live show. And that tribute was filmed by the band and placed on YouTube.
Coldplay performed a stirring version of “Fight For Your Right (To Party),” one of the Beastie’s mega-hits.
There are so many companies and brands that prop up a Facbeook page or a Twitter feed just to have one.
These accounts have little to no strategic purpose behind them.
And…I’l go out on a limb here…have a small following and minimal interaction.
And continuing the thread, they probably aren’t too popular among leadership, who see no return.
Thankfully, the path to success starts with one, simple step.
A Social Media Value Proposition.
Say what?
Social Media is clutter. Pages, feeds, columns, lists, circles, friends, photos, videos, texts, tweets, posts, statuses, shares, likes, comments, blogs, reblogs, filters, privacy settings, feeds, apps, tools, pins, bookmarks, check-ins, recommendations, tips, reviews, stars, ranks, hearts, thumbs, hashtags, mentions and, if you can believe it, more.
When you are asking people to spend even a few seconds (invest) in and around your social profiles, you HAVE to give them a reason to do so.
There are a few brands people will follow because they are online. But, spoiler alert, those brands already have millions of followers. You have to earn it.
And you do so by starting with a value proposition. Or, in plainer terms, what your audience will get out of it.
Decide internally what your purpose is for being online and what value you will provide for your followers/fans and you’re off to a great start.
Don’t underestimate the number of ways you can provide value to the world. Here are just a handful of excellent value statements:
- We want to educate people about the charitable work we do.
- We want to provide exclusive discounts for our most loyal customers.
- We want to become THE resource for information on a specific cause.
- We want to create a platform for our network of like-minded people.
Figure out the value you bring to the table and your social media presence will become stronger, focused and powerful.
We all know that social media is a wonderful thing. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have changed the way we view the world, bringing everything a little bit closer to home. Today we can know what all of our friends are doing, where they checked into, and how they view things in real-time. I have noticed that these days I care a lot more about what people think of things and places then I use to, and think that it is a direct result of using social media networks.
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the power of posting a negative review in an open forum.
For example, I love Trip Advisor and Yelp; in fact I use them all the time. If I am looking at a vacation spot, or trying a new restaurant I will read all the reviews I can find. You can be 100% honest and uncensored in a forum like Yelp because you are almost anonymous.
I mean come on, why would you lie? If you didn’t like the food somewhere, had a bad experience with a doctor, it is almost your social media civic duty to share your negative experiences with the world. Your opinion can help someone else avoid making the same mistake and have a similar bad experience.
I have never written a negative review of something, but I am thinking about it.
I am getting married in three weeks to my wonderful fiancé Adam. Adam and I are both working professionals living in Washington DC, and between balancing full time jobs and graduate school, we decided that the easiest way to get married was to have a destination wedding. That way we could have the wedding of our dreams, and enjoy a built in vacation with family and friends. After months of research we decided on a five diamond resort outside of Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.
Sure, it sounded like a great idea at the time, but planning our wedding has been less than a positive experience.
We spent months planning our wedding with the resort’s wedding planner only for her to leave and forget to relay all of our details to the new planner. While scrambling to re-plan all of details we were forced to change our selected venues, our guests were given incorrect rates, and on top of everything the resort staff has been extremely difficult to get a hold of. It has been hard to continue to put down deposits when people you are paying won’t even return your calls or emails.
I know that everything is going to be okay and Adam and I will ultimately be happy with the way everything turned out, but the whole experience has been frustrating and disappointing. But what can you do? We signed a contract, so our options are limited. But you don’t have to just sit back idly and take it.
When all is said and done I am definitely planning on blasting to our poor customer service story to the world and every wedding site I can find.
But I guess at the end of the day does it matter? Yes, it does. Social media site empower the user and allow them to voice their opinion to the world. The consumer now plays more of an active role in how successful a business will be. Negative reviews make patrons think twice.
Hopefully it will help other couples avoid similar bad experience.
Technology and social media enables us to be more connected than ever before in our human history. It’s pretty amazing how we can communicate with multiple people at once through a multitude tools. On the iPhone alone one can talk, text, Tweet, and Facebook virtually all at the same time (and hopefully not while driving). I worry, with the abundance in technology and online social interaction, that we are losing our vital ability to connect human to human.
Empathy is our capability to share our and understand other people’s emotions and feelings. “Put yourself in their shoes” or “use your words” are phrases children often hear from parents who are teaching them empathy. It’s very difficult to have a relationship with another person if we (or they) are unable to express emotions or understand what the other person is feeling. We’ve all known people who can’t express themselves very well, if at all, and how challenging it is to get along with them.
Much of what I see going on in the world today leads me to believe we are becoming less empathetic as a society. Children who kill their parents or classmates. Workplace violence. Road rage and aggressive driving. Bullying. Discrimination. The inability of our government leaders to work together on behalf of the American people. The personal attacks in negative political campaigns. Legislation that limits the rights and personal freedoms of another human being. The disrespectful and violent language used by media. And the list goes on.
Technology and social media may not be primarily to blame for violence or partisanship, but they are contributing factors. I wonder how this world would be different if all of us could use our words to express our feelings or if we put ourselves in other people’s shoes more often. Maybe a child wouldn’t bring a gun to school to express their anger. Maybe our government leaders would be more open to compromise to do what is best for all citizens.
We learn and practice empathy by interacting with other human beings in person. All of the five senses are engaged when doing so. Instead, we are spending more time interacting with a screen. A January 2012 report from market research firm comScore found that the average American spends 36 hours on the internet per week. Nielsen.com reports “Americans spend more than 33 hours per week watching video across the screens,” according to their latest Nielsen Cross-Platform Report. Undocumented sources on the web say we Americans spend an average of 13 hours per week playing video games. That’s a lot of screen time.
With us consuming so much screen time, there is a strong desire to learn empathy in our society. An internet search will result in a multitude of school lesson plans, books, blogs and videos on the topic. Oprah demonstrates and conveys empathy through her multimedia empire. However, we need more examples and role models of empathy in our everyday lives.
The long-term effects of our technology and social media consumption, both good and bad, remain to be seen. Both are probably best practiced, as with everything else in life, in moderation.
