Branching out: There's more to social media than Facebook and Twitter!

For this blog, I've decided to step out of my comfort zone and write about those things that are completely unknown to me. I know the common adage is "write about what you know", but the world of social media is constantly moving and morphing, so it seems reasonable that I will need to explore some new territory.

My initial step was to find out what's out there. One of the first things I came across was UserVoice. This little tool helps companies and organizations set up a forum where, as their website reports, they can "turn customer feedback into action". They do this by enabling users to share ideas, vote up the best, and give business owners the opportunity to respond. Basically, it helps you track and manage feedback from your customers. And the voting option is cool because you get an idea of what the most popular ideas are. No what business couldn't use that kind of intelligence? And Sun Microsystems, Nokia and Random House apparently us it.

The next one I looked into was BaseCamp. It's website calls it the "leading web-based project management collaboration tool". With it you can share files, meet deadlines, assign tasks, centralize feedback, and "make clients smile" (their words, not mine). Mashable says it's a great and cost-effective tool, and I like the fact that you can sign up for a 30-day free trial to check it out before you put your money down. BaseCamp's clients are listed as National Geographic, Warner Bros., Adidas and a bunch of other well known brands.

Finally, I looked at MailChimp. And yes, I admit it, it was the cute name that first drew me in. This is a free email marketing tool. Lots of the big guys use it - Intel, Staples and Canon included. So it must be pretty good. With it, you can build and manage email lists, design HTML email campaigns, and track and analyze email marketing. And, I think I mentioned this already - it's FREE!

So here are three very cool on-line social marketing tools that I suggest you check out. But don't take my word for it - after all, I don't claim to be an expert. Check out Mashable's reviews. Mashable has rated all of them in their 10 of the Best Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs.

What is the Top Social Media Platform for Businesses?

Through my research I've been trying to answer the question - What is the top social media platform for businesses? In other words, if a firm was going to choose one social media application to connect with their customers, what would it be?

I wasn't sure that I was actually going to find an answer. After all, businesses are very diverse - focusing on a variety of products and services, for a multitude of different consumer segments. They come in big and small sizes, have varying company cultures and are at different stages in their use of technology in marketing.

In preliminary searches I found that LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs and Facebook were the front runners. 88% of marketers in a recent social media study done by Micheal Stelzner say they are now using some form of social media to market their business. Atlhough 72% of these folks have only been using it for a few months or less.

Through further searches I found a number of articles touting Twitter as the most used and best social media platform for businesses big and small. The Stelzner article noted that Twitter is used by 94% of marketers who have been using social media for years. On searchengineguide.com I found an article highlighting Five Reasons Twitter is an Essential Social Marketing Tool. As well, an article on Mashable notes that Twitter is the top social media platform for Fortune 100 companies - 54% of these companies have a Twitter presence.

Some (maybe many) may disagree with this conclusion, but the facts are that Twitter is free, easy to use, and the concept is simple. It can be a quick and easy way to get information out there, and to monitor what is going on. So my vote goes to Twitter as the Top Social Media Platform for businesses.

And if you'd like to find out some really quirky uses for Twitter, check out this article - 13 Odd Ways to Use Twitter.

Using Social Media as a Hiring Strategy

It seems that HR professionals are now starting to recognize that social media can help them as well as the marketers. While marketers have been exploring social media strategies for quite some time to help them connect with and better understand their customers, the folks in human resources are just getting their feet wet in this arena.

Not only are they using it to help get the word out about positions they are trying to fill, they are also using social media sites like LinkedIn to verify claims made by applicants. I've personally heard from friends who are recruiters a number of anecdotal stories where experiences shared in interviews that seemed just too good to be true were in fact that. Quick searches on the internet make it easy to verify (or disprove) assertions made by eager applicants.

However, the task remains for HR professionals to figure out the best way to leverage social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook most effectively as a recruiting tool.

An article in entrepreneur.com by Chris Pentilla notes that most HR folks are not yet seeing the value of Social Media to their work. She also says however, that there are entrepreneurial firms that are reaping the benefits. Firms have LinkedIn profiles, company Facebook pages and post jobs to Twitter, and they find that these are great for networking and broadcasting.

We often think of the benefits of social media for getting us closer to consumers, but we must think more broadly about other possible stakeholder groups that can be reached through social media - such as future employees!

Facebook - a tool for retailers?

This is something I've been thinking about for a while now, but I just don't get it. I've been reading some articles online that say Facebook is the social media site of choice for many US online retailers (32% as of August 2008). Another study cited on eMarketer.com showed that 59% of the top 100 online retailers in the US had a fanpage on Facebook. (Social Media Optimization, November 5, 2008)

While I completely understand the power and value that social media can add to retailers marketing efforts - the choice of Facebook confuses me. I can easily say that I have never thought of adding my favourite book stores, or clothing chains or sporting goods outlets as a 'friend', or even looking them up to see if they have a fanpage. To me Facebook is very personal. I use it to keep in touch with friends and family who I don't see on a regular basis - to see how much fun they had on their trip to Hawaii last spring, or to let them know what I've been up to lately. But would I ever check up on my 'friend' Best Buy through Facebook. No.

Then I thought, well maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the one who's out of touch? So I did a casual poll of some friends, acquaintances and colleagues and found that no, I'm not alone. They all agreed with me that they prefer to go to a retailers website if they are looking for information related to a specific retailer, and have very little interest (if any) in searching for them on Facebook. So the question is - who is the target market for online retailers setting up fanpages on Facebook?

BMW Concept X1 has 2,605 fans

Gap Born to Fit has almost 500,000 fans

Coca-cola has over 3.5 million fans!

And what do these fans do on the site? They post things like "I have a Baby Gap addiction" and "I love Coke 4-ever".

I still don't get it. If someone can explain it to me, please do.

Book Review - Marketing in the Groundswell by Li and Bernoff

In 2008, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff released the bestseller Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. The following year, they released a new book - Marketing in the Groundswell. This second book includes three core chapters from the original book that focus specifically on market research, marketing and spreading word-of-mouth among your best customers. I speculate that Li and Bernoff published this new book because they felt that due to the major downward shift in the economy and the fact that marketers have a new love of social technologies, the ideas in their original book were worth reinforcing.

Li and Bernoff define groundswell as a "social trend where people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations". The first chapter of the book focuses on listening to the groundswell. Through real life examples the authors hit home the point that people are talking about your brand and that they may not think it is what you think it is. Your brand is what people say about it, not necessarily what you want it to be. They talk about how important it is to listen to your customers so that you can hear what they are saying, and provides strategies for listening. Li and Bernoff end the chapter with a brief discussion on how listening will change your organization, but also highlight the need to be part of the conversation.

Talking with the groundswell is the topic of the second part of the book. In this chapter the authors give a concise explanation of how talking with the groundswell is very different from marketing. It's not about speaking 'to' your customers but about speaking 'with' them. In addition, they provide four techniques to help you talk to the groundswell: post a viral video; engage in social networks and user-generated content sites; join the blogosphere; and create a community. Again, they use case studies to demonstrate the power of these techniques.

The final chapter is on energizing the groundswell. By energizing, they mean getting supporters riled up and spreading the word. This is important because energized customers can be potent viral marketers for you. Word of mouth is successful, according to Li and Bernoff, because it's believable, self-reinforcing and self-spreading. Again the authors offer up some useful techniques and cases to show the value of energizing the groundswell.

Marketing in the Groundswell is a handy little book and a reasonably quick read. For someone like me who is fairly new to marketing in general and social media in particular, it's a useful tool to kick-start my thinking. Its size makes it convenient to carry around with you and the index makes it easy to quickly find topics and specific references.

On the whole, the book contains a thoughtful analysis of strategies for tapping into the groundswell. The techniques and accompanying detailed case studies clearly show how the ideas recommended have been implemented in the real world. And the examples come from a variety of industries showing that Li and Bernoff's ideas can be broadly applied. It is a great framework for starting or re-starting discussions between corporations and their customers using social media. In addition, there are some good tips for measuring the ROI of different strategies, with specific examples to demonstrate the measures.

I would recommend this book to anyone in a web marketing role, as well as those who are in more general marketing positions because social media is gaining strength and importance. It became clear to me, after reading this book, that it is an imperative for marketers to explore and harness the power of social media in their marketing efforts. And to listen to, talk to, and energize the groundswell.

A quick web search returns few reviews of this book -I imagine because of it's relatively recent entrance into the market. However, there are a plethora of reviews for the original Groundswell book that are overwhelmingly positive.

While the orginial book was touted as a must read by many marketing gurus and academics such as Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki, the smaller condensed version likely adds less value. If Groundswell is considered a primer, Marketing in the Groundswell might be considered the Coles Notes version - it has the basics, but probably misses much of the richness. However, if you don't have much time or inclination to get into too much detail, this book will do a decent job of bringing you up to speed. And it has wetted my appetite for more. I plan on reading the original book to get the 'full story' soon.

The true value of social media as an advertising medium still under review

I read a really interesting article the other day on canada.com entitled "The Tweet Spot: Marketers embrace social media". It talked about the ongoing debate on what the true value of social media is to a company. Because it is relatively new, no good measures have been developed and agreed upon. And determining the relative importance of social media vs. traditional advertising is proving very difficult.

But many of the big guys are using it, and have been doing so for quite a while. Molson Coors Canada is one of them. They recognize social media as "an essential part of overall brand communications" for their company. In particular, they used social media very heavily in the recent launch of their new Molson 67 brand - including Twitter, a Facebook fan page and a partnership with the Food Network's website.

Although they have trouble quantifying the benefits of social media, Molson definitely sees a huge amount of value in listening to their customers, which they feel builds brand goodwill and loyalty. They also see the risk of not listening to customers and of appearing uncaring or disinterested in them.

The article also mentions a negative online review that resulted in a rash of cancellations for a westcoast hotel. The hotel proprietors didn't find out about the review until the damage was already done. Maybe if they had been paying closer attention to what was being said about them online they could have taken action to counter the bad review.

Everything I read these days about the 'new' marketing is saying that social media is the way to go. Forget the old days of trying to push out messaging - companies risk being completely ignored. People will talk about their brand, and companies have the choice to be part of the conversation or just sit back and ignore it.

Even if an accurate ROI of social media isn't found, it is clear that it can have a big impact on consumer opinion. And organizations big and small need to start paying attention to it or they will be left out of the conversation altogether.

My very first blog post

I’m new to all this. Hence the word ‘neophyte’ in the blog name.

But I’ve already had my very first valuable learning. It’s about being extremely careful in how you ‘brand’ your blog through the choosing of a name. My intention is to write from the perspective of a beginner (which I am) on learning about the power, opportunities and intricacies of social media. So I chose the name “Social Media Neophyte”. I was then faced with picking a URL. It made sense - in my mind at least - to shorten it to “smneophyte”. In hindsight, I should have spent a little more time mulling this over.

For those of you reading who are a little confused and aren’t following my train of thought, this blog is NOT “s&m neophyte”. Just wanted to get that all cleared up.

Hope you enjoy my thoughts, learnings and ah-ha moments on social media that are to come!

PS. My profile picture illustrates the way I sometimes feel when I’m trying to wade through all the social media options that are out there. I feel like I’m looking at the real world through 3D glasses. If you’ve ever done it (and I’m not talking about watching a 3D movie), you know that it’s a bit confusing, your perspective is totally off and the edges are all fuzzy. I’ll update the photo when I feel I have some clarity.