{"id":42249,"date":"2014-05-31T15:21:10","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T14:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=42249"},"modified":"2014-05-31T15:25:09","modified_gmt":"2014-05-31T14:25:09","slug":"traders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/traders\/","title":{"rendered":"The Traders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social Media Marketing Works when the Consumer Comes First
\n\"Untitled-1\"<\/a>\u201cTrouble with you is you don’t enjoy the game for its own rewards: stimulation, relaxation, pleasant association, and interesting conversation.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Paul Regret, \u201cThe Commancheros,\u201d<\/em> 20th Century Fox, 1961<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest thing that\u2019s wrong with social media marketing is consumers. They simply don\u2019t understand that marketing is a fairly one-sided effort.<\/p>\n

– You decide what the company, product, brand message is.
\n– You decide which avenues you\u2019re going to use in contacting them; they\u2019re supposed to repeat that message (without change) to friends, family.
\n– They\u2019re supposed to buy the product or service in the store or online.
\n– They\u2019re supposed to extol the features, benefits of the product\/service to all of their \u201cfriends.\u201d
\n– The cycle is supposed to repeat.<\/p>\n

Who knew consumers would suddenly want\/expect to interact– not with the company but with real people just as they do with others in the social media arena.<\/p>\n

Only a few forward -looking, tuned-in marketing people recognized that businesses were going to be led down a path they couldn\u2019t retreat from.<\/p>\n

As Capt. Jake Cutter observed, \u201cI’ll bet he was a man to stand aside from when he was young and limber.\u201d<\/em>
\nBut the consumer liked the idea and pressed forward, spending more and more time on social media:<\/p>\n

– They pressed to connect and share personal and contextual information.
\n– They became their own media channels publishing thoughts, ideas, images, videos and more.
\n– They created and deposited volumes of information and data about themselves.
\n– They posted \u2013 in text, photos, video \u2013 what they needed, wanted from companies, products, services.<\/p>\n

They expected companies and marketing people to listen to them and have conversations like real people.
\nBut being personable\/personal and making a true connection with the consumer isn\u2019t what the automated marketing\/sales team wants.<\/p>\n

People, Not Stats<\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, they\u2019ll:<\/p>\n

– Make a graph of their Twitter followers
\n– Itemize their Facebook likes
\n– Develop pie-charts on their customer service response speed
\n– Produce spreadsheets on how often their messages were shared, liked, retweeted
\n– Highlight all the favorable customer feedback they received<\/p>\n

\"Untitled-2\"<\/a>More than Grades<\/strong> \u2013 Customer contacts and relationships go beyond pass\/fail grades during these early stages because analytical tools are only beginning to address the \u201csoft\u201d information beyond Like and Tweet\/ReTweet. Evaluating and ranking relationships is always difficult.<\/em><\/p>\n

If the organization doesn\u2019t live, breath, promote\/practice their social media marketing internally, it\u2019s just another one of your corporate, product marketing\/communications tools.<\/p>\n

And since it may be one that gets in the way of \u201creal work,\u201d you may even outsource it to someone who specializes in community management.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about spitting out stuff to get responses, likes. There\u2019s no follow-up, no next step, no business intent; it\u2019s talking at people and filling out the report card that there was a great interaction.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a connection \u2026 that\u2019s regular one-way communication with a really neat name!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that companies and product\/brand managers don\u2019t care, they\u2019re pretty sure a close connection\/interaction with customers is important now and even more important in the future.
\n\"Untitled-3\"<\/a>Rapid Growth<\/strong> \u2013 Companies are increasingly using social media for marketing activities; and are continuing to refine them beyond push marketing to two-way communications. Ultimately, the consumer will take the lead in the activity as organizations understand the importance of listening, compared to talking\/pitching.<\/em><\/p>\n

Even as companies commit to major social media budgets, the objectives, measurements and results are often difficult to clarify and determine.<\/p>\n

Social Investment<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to a recent Optus Future of Business report, businesses intend to expand and refine their social media activities over the next three to five years because it will improve their relationships.<\/p>\n

\"Untitled-4\"<\/a>Important Goals<\/strong> \u2013 While progress in achieving the objectives is often difficult to measure, companies understand the importance of engaging and maintaining the customer relationship in social media marketing. But many of the measures such as quality and quantity of leads\/website visits can be very precisely measured to fine tune programs to meet the target market\u2019s wants\/needs.<\/em><\/p>\n

The big hurdle for companies and their brands\/products is that consumers view social media as a private\/personal communications vehicle between friends, family and peers, not businesses.<\/p>\n

As Paul Regret said, \u201cI wonder if they know how much trouble they’re in.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Way too many companies see social media as an inexpensive marketing tool and consumers are only slowly warming to the idea of company engagement on \u201ctheir\u201d turf.<\/p>\n

As a result, social media marketing has to be part of a highly integrated program that includes interactive campaigns such as those carried out by Coke, Zappos, Cisco and Dell. Because their programs are outward looking in, these firms are being followed and recommended among people in their communities, circles.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, most organizations waste their time, money and effort by using conventional push social media communications.<\/p>\n

\"Untitled-5\"<\/a>Trust Factor<\/strong> \u2013 In Forrester\u2019s ongoing social media research, they\u2019ve found that consumers place greater value and credibility in the content and information they can select online, rather than the material\/information that is pushed at them.<\/em><\/p>\n

In its digital marketing report, Forrester found that while U.S. and Europeans reacted differently to various online messages, typical push marketing\/communications efforts had almost no credibility.<\/p>\n

The report validates that repurposed marketing\/communications activities won\u2019t gain the social media following\/relationship that everyone says they are working to achieve.<\/p>\n

One-on-One<\/strong><\/p>\n

The importance of developing strong one-on-one relationships becomes apparent when you see that recommendations from friends and family provide the most effective social media marketing.<\/p>\n

Professional and consumer reviews are also at the top of the most credible social media communications list.<\/p>\n

\"Untitled-6\"<\/a>Renewed Interest, Investment<\/strong> \u2013 Companies have taken renewed interest in one of their oldest communications tools (the website) to beef it up and enhance it so it compares very favorably with the look and feel of many social media sites. Early flat website design is being replaced by inviting landing pages and continuously updated entertaining\/informative video and animated company, product, brand information that draws customers back and keeps them involved\/interested.<\/em><\/p>\n

Gartner\u2019s recent marketing investment report found firms were surprisingly investing more in their corporate web site, indicating that corporate managers are \u201coptimistic but uncertain\u201d about aggressive social media marketing .<\/p>\n

Website\u2019s Value<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gartner\u2019s study pointed out that company web sites should be given the same attention, look and feel in their landing pages and should provide compelling content and brand\/product representation to keep pace with Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other social media sites.<\/p>\n

Gartner feels that even as organizations understand that they must develop and nurture true consumer communications, the website will continue to be the underpinning of the organization\u2019s social media efforts \u2013 internal and external.<\/p>\n

The important thing to remember is that social media is based on communications and it is effective only as long as the consumer allows it to be.<\/p>\n

The consumer owns an organization\u2019s ability to market to them through the social media channels.<\/p>\n

Social media is a quid pro quo communications opportunity.<\/p>\n

When company social media experts quit listening and silo the activity, rather than spreading it throughout the organization, consumers will quit talking, quit caring, quit buying.<\/p>\n

As consumers ride off, you can almost hear Ranger Capt. Jake Cutter say, \u201cIt’s time we both quit, Crow. You don’t like losing to me, and I don’t like winning from you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social Media Marketing Works when the Consumer Comes First \u201cTrouble with you is you don’t enjoy the game for its own rewards: stimulation, relaxation, pleasant association, and interesting conversation.\u201d \u2013 Paul Regret, \u201cThe Commancheros,\u201d...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2055,"featured_media":42256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2533,7],"tags":[7575,7576,3860,4898],"class_list":["post-42249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abt-news","category-technology","tag-consumer","tag-social-investment","tag-social-media-marketing","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}