Transparency is required in today’s marketing, especially with social media.  The danger marketers and businesses experience with social and online portals is from the lack of control over the reputation of a business.  Consumers have more opportunities to review and provide strong opinions about a product or company.  The alert every business needs to show is how to develop a strong online reputation while keeping a positive image with social media platforms. 

The development of Web 2.0 and social media created an open invitation for everyone to participate, interact and respond to ideas.  Social media has developed a new way to deliver social information and news, businesses and the top stories and gossip.  More than ever, people have complete control over media and news as well as trends in information that are hitting the headlines, specifically because the platform remains open.  While companies can take advantage of this word of mouth advertising, there is also the need to develop different approaches to building a strong online reputation. 

The complexity for businesses occurs with consumer control and behaviors over social media, specifically with blatant statements related to a brand or product.  An example of this is with a business that had a strong reputation through brand identity.  However, a product was delivered that did not hold the quality.  The customer immediately responded by posting online, leading to responses and reviews from other consumers.  The business, while it held high quality services and products, quickly loses control through the interactions and social information, leading to a slight loss in brand identity.  This is a common problem faced with the use of social media and the information that filters through to potential customers.

Marketers and businesses are required to take this challenge and turn it into an opportunity with social media as a new form of advertising.  Developing specific responses from consumer behaviors that are positive is the secret to creating control over social media.  Businesses can utilize social media and gain a strong reputation over consumer behaviors by using some of the following:

-          Interact daily with customers

-          Optimize existing social media and websites with in – depth information about your products or services

-          Build promotions with customers who have positive experiences

-          Allow your customers to move from basic purchases to loyalty programs

-          Work with your own social media network to enhance the foundation of your business with information and personalization

The interaction of consumer behavior also means marketers need to have a strong and personal response to the behaviors.  As a business responds to and becomes a part of the social media conversation, a different impression is made.  More important, there is the need to have quality checks with the products and services while asking for positive reviews.  The level of interaction and personalization created with social media then develops into creating a strong and positive reputation. 

If you and your business want to develop your social media behaviors, then submit your brief to the Exchange!

Brooke Hart is one of our new blog contributors. The owner of On Target, a company which specializes in offering the Complete Package to clients. Hart began On Target over 6 years ago with an emphasis in writing content for the web. From this foundation, she grew into developing efficient ways to market and work with forming businesses online. Today, On Target works with entrepreneurs and businesses to develop websites, graphics, content and website design.

2012 has started. We’ve taken down the holiday decorations from our offices and realize that the plan we signed off last year is now live. So whatever your marketing mix, your marketing skills, your target audience, here’s three things that we should all resolve to do.

1. Understand your data. Big data is the big topic. Don’t be the marketer who’s scared of data: resolve to drive the data that’s going to change your business. Collect, collate and use the data that makes a difference to your marketing and sales efforts. Your CRM system, your customer databases, your prospect profiles: work out what it is you need to know and then how you’re going to use it and report on it. And don’t think that if you’re not a consumer marketer it doesn’t count: b2b profiling is going to change the way we market and sell.

2. Measure, measure, measure. You know we’re still hovering around a recession. So your marketing spend is going to be under constant threat. And what’s the way to avoid that. Be able to address every area of scrutiny. Focus on your acquisition costs. Focus on your return on investment. Understand the value of your social likes and fans. Every day Google Analytics, Adwords gets easier to use. All social channels now have straightforward reporting tools. If your media is more traditional then understand the journey from an outbound activity to an incoming customer. Be prepared to ditch non-performing channels and divert to areas you’re seeing returns. Resolve to not just be a marketing magician, but a marketing mathematician.

3. Love creativity. Going down the ruthlessly scientific, data-obsessed pathway is not at the expense of creativity. In fact creativity is going to count even more as you aim to stand out from the crowd in every channel that you’re using. Make your resolution to look for creative excellence. It doesn’t have to mean a huge spend on off-the-wall creative. It must mean original and effective. Your story has to be told in the most compelling way so that the first two resolutions can happen. Without creativity, you won’t get the results to measure or the data to analyze and own.

And a final resolution – make this the year you start using the Creative Services Exchange. That way you’ll keep the cost of your campaigns down, the creativity up and that return on investment figure will make even the grumpiest CFO happy. Brief now!

Today’s blog post is by Darren Cottom, experienced PR consultant and one of our Exchange members at blur Marketing.

Over the last few months we have seen a spate of news headlines indicating that more companies are blocking the use of social media in the workplace. Is this down to an Orwellian sense of paranoia surrounding new technologies or is there a business rationale behind these decisions?

In a new survey, 63% of more than 4,000 respondents in 12 countries said that social media in the workplace represents a serious security risk, yet only 29% report having the necessary security controls in place to mitigate it. This theory is backed up by a piece in the Wall Street Journal, where it is alleged that corporate spies are increasingly likely to use malware and social media to steal sensitive data and intellectual property.

So is the answer to block all use of social media channels in the hope that this will alleviate a new security risk? The answer is emphatically no. Companies that enforce such a policy will do so under the pretence that you’re here to work and keeping in touch with your friends and family is not what we pay you to do, and anyway you’re putting our data at risk, so it’s banned.

The philosophy of blocking doesn’t work on a number of levels. Firstly, the majority of those in their 20s in the workforce would have been educated online and social media is ingrained in their psyche, to prevent them from using it may be seen as a violation of their human rights. Well, probably not, but you get the gist. Secondly, social media is now a proven new business and customer engagement tool, to stop using it would be tantamount to throwing money down the drain. Thirdly, if you ban something, employees will just find a way around the policy and in doing so will probably put sensitive data more at risk.

Finally, it’s a communications channel, in a number of previous blogs I’ve banged the drum that social media is nothing more than this; it’s just another method of conveying thoughts and wisdoms to the outside world, if you put a gagging order in place the outcome can only be negative.

Business needs to move with the times, we do so much online now that organizations need to adapt and look to embrace new ways of working rather than pulling down the blinds and turning off all the lights.

If you’d like the sort of PR and social media expertise that Darren and similar creatives can provide, why not brief the Exchange now?

Luddite (noun) any opponent of industrial change or innovation.

This week’s Friday 5 comes ahead of a big event in the social media calendar: the Pivotcon conference in New York. We talk with friend of blur Group, a driver behind Pivotcon and the man described by Fastcompany as a ‘media powerhouse’, Bill Sobel.

You describe yourself as a Chief Connections Officer – apart from an amazing title what does that really mean?

It’s really a nice way of saying that I am a networker…but beyond networking I seem to have the ability to match people and projects. A small company wants to bring a project to market and not she exactly where to take it…chances are likely I can connect them with the right people. On the flip side, a large media company might be looking to launch a new controversial show or product and needs to figure out a way to get the product to market without involving some huge marketing company. I have the ability to put the team together to get the job done both cost effectively as well as on target.

In the world of making connections, how do you see the balance of social and in-real-life networking?
it is a total balance…you cannot have one without the other. I have lots of “friends” on the various social networks and we correspond often…however the “real” people in my life (aside from my close family and friends) are people who I know personally, give them a hug when I see them (doesn’t matter if they are male or female) and we know each other, we understand each others needs, strengths and weaknesses and support each other…while at the same time always making time for a cup of coffee.

And which is best for making and cementing business?

Again…I think it’s a mix. I think online connections is a great way to get the ball rolling…people check out your website, your fb page, your twitter feed, your LI connectctions and get an idea of who you are and what you do in order to see if you make sense for them…either now or in the future. Then I always recommend a face-to-face meeting…just to get to know each other…you cannot beat that one-on-one connection…I don’t care how good skype might be…the face-to-face is key.

If you had just one network to take with you to your desert island, which would it be?

Personal? probably Facebook

Business? probably Linked In

What’s the most exciting development that you’ve seen in the last ten years?
the rise of social media and the intersection of all the various platforms. It amazes me how much work I can get accomplished at home, on the train, in the park…or even walking down Broadway

Pivotcon, which you’re heavily involved in, takes place next week. Why is this event so different in a busy events calendar?
PivotCon and the whole Social Week is really trying to take the high road. There are lots of social media events going on around town…around the country and around the world. PivotCon and Social Week are special because we are catering to the high level executives (“C” level for example) who have decision power but still are not entirely sure about social media and their comfort factor. Brian Solis gets it, Jeff Hayzlett gets is, Doug Rushkoff gets it…and we have gathered all these people…and many others the really break down the world of social media so these guys can understand what it’s all about  and what it means to them and their companies.

and our usual bonus question (yes that makes seven questions in the Friday 5):
Print book, iPad or Kindle?  And what’s the last book you’ve read!
The Digital Diet by Daniel Sieberg on my Samsung Galaxy Tab.

If you’re attending Pivotcon, let us know how you find the event. And if you want the dream approach for your event, why not submit a marketing brief?

Here’s some immediate thoughts that spring to my mind from a first reading the amazingly comprehensive survey of CMOs in 2011 by IBM published today.

Scary data. It seems that twenty years after information overload became the issue on the C-Suite desk data volumes are taking over the marketing department. And the symptoms and solutions are the same. It’s great to have the volume of data, but how do you turn that into insight. Remember the old information to knowledge shift. It seems that for a marketing department to have any hope of success in the future we need to move into a hybrid maths/marketing discipline. Analytical skills are going to be vital in the marketing team of the future.

And the reason for the insight requirement:

Customers are individuals not ‘markets‘. As CMOs we still like to draw on large benchmarking type studies (well I guess this is what we’re doing here). But as the interactions with consumers increase, then so must our knowledge of them as individuals. It’s why social media is also in the ‘not really dealt with’ category. Social media not only creates the volumes of data that are causing the CMO concern, but it’s the direct representation of everything about that individual consumer. Here’s how I’d describe it. If the brand is the communication cable between the company and its customer, then social media has made that cable short, taut and like the best cables, made up of many strands. The consumer sees themselves as up close and personal, the CMO has to recognize just how close they are and start engaging on this basis. Because that cable is going to get shorter and thicker.

Tied in with all this is the ever-increasing need for technology. The perceived risk in the study is that without technology knowledge, implementing new systems is going to reduce ROI. But without them – whether it’s a way to safeguard customer data, a way to mine that data, analytics software, the function will not be a future-thinking one.

ROI. The other stand out feature and something we’ve blogged about on many an occasion. Marketing’s status as the ivory tower function is no more. PeopleThe business expects results. That analysis function goes further as the value of every aspect of marketing to the business needs to be calculated. That taut cable? What does it mean in terms of customer acquisition? What does each interaction mean in financial terms? Where do you get value for money? It’s not about number of hits, it’s about what each touchpoint means. I was taught on day one in marketing that there is no point in marketing for awareness only. Yet we’ve all been guilty of excusing a campaign with little return as saying that it’s upped our brand recognition. So what. That brand recognition now needs measuring too. And it needs measuring with a view to how recognition turns into revenues.

More outsourcing. The desire to become more engaged, the requirement to understand more about everything from lead measurement to new digital strategies means that businesses will outsource more to partners. That means agencies need to acquire new skills too. It seems from our perspective that the combination of improving ROI and needing to gain more skills by partnership is just what the Creative Services Exchange was built for. Easy access, fast turnaround could get the nervous CMO up to speed faster than they would have dreamt possible.

I’m sure more thoughts will arise as I re-read, but overall my reading of this is survey is that it’s part confession, part recognition but most of all an end to CMO standing for Complacent Marketing Officer. C is for Change, C is for Customer. Both are critical for future success.

Having understood a little bit more about the whys of marketing automation, you have to decide if your business and marketing team are ready for it. And if you decide to go for it, what are the tools to use? Here’s ten of the basic things you need to understand and act upon before you make the final decision.

1. Set clear stages for your customer journey. You make a first contact with someone who knows nothing about you. They may respond. If they do, they are potentially of more value than the person who doesn’t. But what happens next. What is the profile of the interested contact who then goes all the way through to the customer. Do they download every document? Do they send emails to your info address? Or do the ones that convert actually have a very streamlined process to close. Don’t try to automate if you haven’t modelled. If you can’t explain the lifecycle with pen and paper, you’re not ready.

2. Develop appropriate offerings for each stage. You might send out an intro email with basic links for step one. If someone is interested, you might want to make sure they have a white paper (b2b) or the latest catalog (b2c). Your follow up to the first contact should include this offer. You might want to direct them to your FB page.

If they’re not interested,  you have to work out whether to just repeat the basic offering until it matches their needs. Or develop some alternatives. Invite them to meet you at an exhibition. Send them out your newsletters, not just your prospect mailings. Change the sender so that it seems more personalized. Monitor how they respond. Map the stage to the content and alternatives.

3. Email isn’t enough. Because most of the automation tools include email it’s easy to think that automation and lead management are all about email. They’re not. An interested prospect will want some sort of direct contact – phone or visit. This is part of the journey.

4. Understand why some buy and some don’t. Nothing new here, but you do need to work out at what stage a potential buyer drops out, or why the go all the way. Do they get put off at a point of purchase on an ecommerce platform. Do they fall out due to a competitive sale? By understanding the profile of the successful buyer, you will start to recognize them at the beginning of the journey. This is when lead scoring counts: someone who has all the characteristics of a previous buyer should score more highly, even if some of their behaviors aren’t yet evident.

5. Start simply. Regardless of the system you are implementing, you won’t be able to work everything out and make it happen on day 1. Take the broadest approach first that maps out the basics. Don’t put data collection forms in at every point. Those sites where you want to download three white papers and you have to register for each paper – they’re annoying?  They may mean that the company wants to label you (and score you) in the system as a once-downloader, twice-downloader etc. But it’s not great for your experience. So consider how those interactions feel from the other side.

6. Segmentation is your new friend. For most marketers segmentation starts at the market planning stage; you develop your approach according to your audience and off you go.  Monitor their interaction and then re-segment based on responses. The different segments will score differently. A broad segment is narrowed for its next communication; it’s handled differently.

7. Give up sometimes. If you have a database of prospects who have already shown an interest in your product at some level – eg expressed that they want to buy pet insurance, then at some point they will buy. Not necessarily from you, but they will buy. These are the ones you want to nurture. Ignored because they didn’t fill out one form, they’ll probably go elsewhere. But there are some who will never move past being a name on a database. And at some point you are simply skewing success measurements. Make a break point. Decide when to stop communicating based on a number of failed touch points.

8. Don’t forget customers. Just because someone has come to the end of the funnel/tunnel/production line/shopping checkout doesn’t mean that they should now fall out of the mix. Start scoring customers as well. Then you can feed this right back to the beginning so that not only can you score prospect behavior but score based on what sort of purchaser they become.

9. Make sure any tools you use integrate with your existing systems. For most people implementing marketing automation they will already have components like CRM systems in place. The information here is already valuable. So it makes no sense to restart from scratch. The major players in the market, like Eloqua, Marketo, genius.com, Pardeto integrate with the major SFA/CRM systems like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.

10. Be sure it’s right for you. While CRM undoubtedly works for even the smallest company, marketing automation requires considerable investment in terms of time and budget, with most solutions aimed at mid-sized businesses and upwards. The figures for improvements in conversions and cost to convert are hugely impressive, but be sure that you will see that return on your investment. Lead nurturing and scoring is still seen as more successful in the b2b arena, so if you’re a consumer marketer, perhaps your existing techniques will pay more dividends.

Let’s start at the very beginning. Possibly before some of the readers of this blog were born, let alone making decisions in their business. In the simple, old world, a salesperson had contacts. Sometimes these came from activities in marketing. The marketing team called them leads and passed them on to sales to, er, sell to.

The sales contacts normally manifested themselves as a pile of business cards. If the salesperson were exceptionally organised, they’d split up their contacts into those whom they thought might become customers and those who were worth keeping in touch with but weren’t hot, or even warm, prospects. Rubber bands often helped with this organisation.

They’d quite often hand the ‘keeping in touch’ ones back to marketing. Send out the brochure when it becomes available. Remind them of our special offers.

This was the basics of lead nurturing. Now many steps later this part of the sales and marketing relationship has become automated. Businesses have to decide whether to formalize this and provide the supporting technology.

Let’s not go there just yet. Let’s see how and why this is now closing the loop on the various systems that have become part of our day to day marketing habits.

It wasn’t too long before someone suggested putting the business cards into a system. The simple contact management systems which mean that we had everything in one place. So that if the proverbial bus did come along there was a record.

With the advent of online, these contact management systems became more useful and more sophisticated.It became possible to update your contacts from anywhere, keeping everything in sync and making the information sharable and transparent.

It became easier to update these contacts with additional leads from marketing campaigns. So the history of the contact on its journey from prospect to sale started to be documented and contact systems evolved into CRM systems.

For most businesses the CRM system was the destination for marketing-generated leads. As more marketing became digital, the CRM system extended to documenting all aspects of the sales pipeline so the boundaries became blurred between CRM and Sales Force Automation.

And marketing stepped back in. Good marketers like to create, but they also like to measure. Seeing a pipeline of opportunities but without a tie-back to a campaign that generated the lead in the first place rankled. Without the connection, how could you measure the proverbial bang for the buck. So a campaign front end to the system started to help understand the ROI, with a little more science and a little less hearsay.

As campaigns moved to the digital space, there was increased opportunity for integration. The clickthroughs from a mailshot, or an ad,  indicating a warmer contact (business cards, rubber bands, pile 2) needing to be pushed through the funnel. Others needed more nurturing to take them from cold prospect to warm lead.

So smart technology providers closed the loop and brought together the online marketing campaigns for lead generation with the subsequent ranking, scoring of the leads into the sales and CRM systems. Marketing automation was born.

Now marketing automation is a growing force: it’s thought that 50% of businesses will have some aspect of marketing automation by 2015 (although this does include the whole gamut from CRM outwards). This adoption is accompanied with the classic technology issue that it’s used, but perhaps not to its full potential. Many seem to see it as a way of integrating from email blast to pipeline but the extra and potentially most valuable capability of lead nurturing not developed.

We’ll be taking a look at some of these technologies in a future blog, but if you’re contemplating adding this to your marketing process be very sure what that process is. The best technology implementations are when the well-worked existing process is better run by the technology, not when the tech determines the process. This is why even if marketing wants expert input from the IT team, they should always be the specifiers. But to specify your process from cold contact through to customer needs to be very clear. How you handle different interactions and behaviors through the funnel will be key to your marketing automation success.

So think back to that rubber band and how it started a different journey. What’s the story with your leads? What do you need to deliver at each contact point? Content is king is a very appropriate adage in the life of a lead as you determine what is relevant at each stage. Then you can think about how to automate that process.

If you want advice on any aspect of your marketing strategy why not submit a brief?

Sadly, another True Blood season is coming to an end.  Let’s take a look at some of the lessons that PRs can learn from this vampire TV series.  As it turns out, there are a lot of tips that digital-age PRs need to keep in mind both for their campaigns and day-to-day interactions.

1. Someone knows who and where you are at all times
Just as Sookie Stackhouse found out, there is always someone who knows where you are.  Make a wrong move, and a vampire will come running.  PRs are in the same situation.  With so many social media channels, they are now having to maintain different types of contacts.  If you have a Twitter channel and you say something negative about a brand, that may come back to bite you.

2.  Wolves and vampires need to learn how to get along
Just like how wolves and vampires can’t seem to get along, PRs and journalists sometimes can’t seem to be polar opposites.  In reality, both PRs and journalists need to communicate using mutually beneficial means.  PRs need to create more targeted messaging and journalists need to be more receptive to new ideas and business models.

3.  Dividing your attention between one vampire or another
Unfortunately, not all of are Sookie, and we aren’t given the choice of an Eric Northman or Bill Compton, but sometimes you need to pick one.  If you’re launching a PR campaign, you can’t focus on all of your contacts – only the most relevant ones.  Sometimes you have to split your attention to a few select people, picking an Eric or a Bill to give all you attention.  It’s a hard choice.

4.  Be careful what you say, someone is listening
Sookie can hear everyone’s thoughts – a useful skill, but it has its drawbacks.  Social media is similar.  As a PR pro, your social channels are no longer your own, they belong to your brand, and someone is always watching.

5.  Fairies, vampires, panthers and shape shifters in social media
Like True Blood characters seem to constantly surprise you – it seems that every episode there is a need breed of people – previously under the radar people may be the exact relationships that you should be building.  At first glance, a seemingly obscure blogger may have thousands of followers on Twitter and may write guest posts for major publications.  PRs should do their research on their contacts before they label them as a blogger instead of a tech columnist, for example.

Need help with your next PR campaign? Submit a brief and get started today!

Consumers have adapted to mobile and social technologies rapidly over the past year. Smartphones have become the customers’ best friend, a personal shopping and knowledgeable attendant living in his or her pocket, purse or hand. When in need of location guidance, advice on brands, informative details on specific products, consumers have what they need in real time via their smartphones. Having valued, exclusive information 24/7 is what makes mobile and social correlate on a high-scale for consumers today.

Real time information better enhances any experience for the consumer whether in-store or at home. But, what about on the brands’ side? When consumers walk into a store are retailers providing the same amount of wealthy knowledge their counterparts (aka smartphones) are dishing out? The role of brand ambassador has always started in the store. All of the moving parts behind a brand know its core and goals inside and out. As technology trends scale up at a rapid pace, store managers must scale along side by side in order to stay well equipped with what their most loyal consumers are in need of.

As consumers enter a store, store managers must be armed and hands on with mobile. Knowing the brands store promotions, daily deals or coupons sent out viamobile and social campaigns are crucial to staying engaged with customers. The use of iPads and smartphones in-store helps store managers interact with consumerson a one-on-one personal basis. Scanning barcodes and QR codes in-store, helping consumers see product comparisons, educational videos, ratings and reviews, and offering tips on future mobile and social campaigns to receive exclusive deals in-store or online, helps store managers provide consumers with purchase-related decisions in the moment.  Better management with the use of technology at their fingertips, educates store managers with rich, useful data on consumer behaviour, buying patterns, and sales on a daily basis.

Knowing what consumers know as they enter a store is crucial in the role of the store manager today. Consumers will be one step ahead of the game, knowing what they are looking to buy ahead of time, what the cost is, and what to expect from the product and store. Supplying store managers with targeted messaging and increased technology in-store will help to assist consumers in highly accommodating ways they will truly value and want to return as loyal brand advocates for life. The role of the brand ambassador can be shared between the consumer and retailer if both are well equipped with the knowledge and understanding mobile and social are brining to the palm of everyone’s’ hands.

- Holly Krenek is the author of this post.  Holly is a Digital Native with a deep focus on social strategy and brand engagement offering more than 7 years of experience consisting of social media, events and promotional management, interactive marketing, market research, brand development, social listening, mobile marketing, SEO/SEM, strategic partnerships, web analytics and cross-functional team management.

Holly’s professional success is fueled by personal passion. As a resident of the in-crowd: a buyer, trendsetter, and word-of-mouth facilitator – she is both brand and consumer, and has become a passionate advocate for cross-channel marketing campaigns that cultivate dialogue and enhance the consumer-brand relationship. Some of her work can be found at DigiNatives, and you can follow her on Twitter at @holsk