But for social media efforts to attract attention and gain momentum, companies must stick with what they know about the original meaning of the lingo. Both retailers and B2B companies must avoid tossing around jargon and ensure their intentions are genuine reflections of the words that hold their places.

Take a look at how personal knowledge of these words informs social marketing campaigns and social promotions:

• Relationship
  What do you know about building relationships IRL? It takes time. You have to establish trust. You must earn credibility.

• Conversation
  It’s easy to attach this label to text inside a series of fields on a screen, but just as in face-to-face meetings, good conversation isn’t a bland exchange of information. Your social media conversation should be interesting and collaborative. If it is, more people will want to join in, and people will look forward to talking with you again at the very next opportunity.

• Engagement
  IRL people engage when their emotions and interests are invited to the interaction. Make people feel good about spending time with you. That’s where the connection is. That’s what makes people want to repeat the experience they had with you and share it with their friends.

First, let me take you back some twenty months when I first ventured into my personal Twitter account, Facebook and LinkedIn pages. I readily entered this new world with just enough activity to stay visible and gain practical, user experience: posting to walls, liking, uploading, commenting, joining brand communities and dabbling in a FB apps (“What should your parents have named you?” or “Who were you in a past life?”). I certainly made my foray in a way that I would now characterize as flirting with social media platforms, kind of toying with an online social life.

In fact, I have a distinct recollection of a conversation with my same-generation friend, Sally, “Yes, I’m on Facebook and Twitter….have to be as a marketer…”  Sally is a committed blogger with strong opinions and impressive writing skills. She sees no difference between online versus offline life. She has a high level of connectivity, tweeting and re-tweeting, re-publishing, point/counterpointing, and is constantly engaged. I, on the other hand, approach social media and my online life as an academic exercise, a giant science experiment, somewhat detached and cerebral.

It took an insightful blog post from Alexandra Samuel to shift my perspective. And, in the process, help make me a better modern marketer.

In essence, Ms. Samuel divides the world into two camps – those whose reality seamlessly encompasses offline/online life and those who live a dual existence of In Real Life (IRL) versus online. She observes that a segment of the population feels moved to apologize for their online lives, a statement that prompted my “aha” moment. Ms Samuel writes:

….it’s our decision — individually and collectively — to separate the Internet from the context, norms and experience that guide human behavior. It’s our decision to engage in online interaction as if it were fundamentally different from offline conversation. It’s our decision to label the Internet as something — anything! — other than real life.

The author articulates a set of guidelines designed to encourage us to “start living in the 21^st century reality….to acknowledge online life as real, and [then] the Internet’s transformative potential opens up.” I find her advice, excerpted below, worth remembering in the pursuit of not only personal authenticity but also authentic marketing:

• When you focus on creating real meaning with your time online, your online footprint makes a deeper impression.
• When you treat your online attention as a real resource, you invest your attention in the sites that reflect your values, helping those sites grow.
• When you spend your online time on what really matters to you, you experience your time online as an authentic reflection of your values.
• When you embrace online conversations as real, you imbue them with the power to change how you and others think and feel.
• When you talk honestly about the real joys and frustrations of the Internet, you can stop apologizing for your life online.

To take Samuel’s guidelines and extend them to a modern marketing mindset may require a shift in thinking. However social media is, after all, no different than traditional marketing in one fundamental way: great advertising and direct response is created by those who have a pre-requisite beyond professional skills, that is, a personal and emotional connection — as a consumer not a creator.

At Media Logic, as early believers, we’ve had a head-start on moving past the intellectualization stage to view online/offline interaction and marketing seamlessly and agnostically. This perspective has allowed us to work with clients from diverse sectors – Financial Services, B2B, Retail, Healthcare – wherever they fall on the continuum and consistently extend the boundaries of what our clients think is possible.

I’ll leave you with a final thought from Alexandra Samuel “all it takes is the decision to treat your online existence seriously, honestly, and attentively and you will find the internet is RLT (Real Life Too).”  Great advice for people and marketers too!

Media Logic recently tweeted about this blog post How Social Marketing Lifts Organic Conversions. The post describes the impact social media may have on search engine optimization and vice versa, stating that marketers who engage in SEO and social media may have 58.8% higher conversion rates in organic traffic because their social media work has increased trust in their brands and products.  The breakdown of data provided in the post shows that SEO is more effective at attracting attention and ultimately converting people, while social media is more likely to increase positive thinking around a product and brand. Clearly, a social marketing strategy that includes both SEO and social media would be the best and most effective approach.

But more often than not, we see companies significantly concentrating on either SEO or social marketing… So how can they effectively integrate both in a strategic approach without expending twice the time and resources?  To help provide some direction, I decided to reach out to Media Logic colleague, Danny Dover, an influential SEO expert at SEOmoz, to determine a few key factors in developing an approach that effectively integrates search engine optimization and social media on a small scale.

After putting our heads together, we’ve come up with 4 critical success factors for an integrated approach to search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing:

#1: Listen and learn before jumping in

The biggest mistake we see companies that are new to integrating SEO and social media is starting before they know what they are doing.  There is a LOT of misinformation about SEO and social media online, and it is easy to hurt your potential rankings without even knowing it.  Our recommendation is to spend a considerable amount of time listening and reading before formulating your strategy.  A great place to start is the beginners guide to SEO and blogs like Search Engine Land, Logical Juice and some of the published social media whitepapers at mlinc.com.

#2: Test, test and test some more

Google says they update their algorithm roughly 400 times a year (this means more than once a day).  So companies need to be continually testing – including title tags, meta descriptions, content and linking strategies. Your best bet is to write good content and measure the results.

#3: Create useful, relevant content

Content is the key to earning links online.  People link to what they find useful or interesting.  This is important because link-related factors make up 70% of search engine ranking factors.  For us, SEO and social media always eventually comes back to people.  Content works because content is what people are online to consume.

#4: Be authentic

The importance of authenticity cannot be overstated. People are very good at detecting “marketing speak.” The surest way to get ahead online is to be real with people and do everything you can to deliver value.  Forget what you learned in your Business classes.  This is the Internet; people want to talk to people not faceless corporations. Look to Yelp, Zappos, JetBlue and Google as examples of companies that have done well with this.

Even small SEO and social media efforts in some niches can make a huge difference to the bottom line.  Businesses are made up of people who need information.  Search engines like Google, and social media platforms like Twitter are the best tools out there for finding information, so it is only natural that business relationships can happen online.  Other than improved rankings, traffic and conversions, the biggest benefit for any business owner is establishing new relationships with like-minded business owners and employees.  The Internet is the world’s biggest meeting place… All it takes to succeed is the ability to be found by other people.

Crowdsourcing philanthropy

The exclusively Facebook execution of  ”Chase Community Giving” last year (what Kimberly refers to as crowdsourcing), also ties in well with one of our recent blog posts, Four Metrics for Determining the Value of a Facebook Fan, as it relates to avoiding the misleading measure for successful social media marketing by imposing a monetary value on Facebook fans (“To effectively use social media as a marketing tool, marketers must be able to demonstrate the value that a follower base delivers to their clients”).

I’d bet Kimberly Davis would argue that even the possibility of driving financial business in the future captured immeasurable value, not to mention the unquantifiable value of demonstrating thought leadership by diving right in – “Others have stepped into the crowdsource space,” said Davis, “but they’ve done it very gingerly. They’ve put one toe in the water. We put our whole foot and leg.”

A passion to change and engage

Davis stepped into the role of president of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation in 2006, ready to cultivate a “futurist view” of philanthropy. She’s shifted the foundation’s portfolio from broad causes to more focused contributions to education and community development, which she hopes will eventually feed the financial business. And Chase Community Giving has certainly generated plenty of brand awareness among all those Facebook voters.

It was thrilling to read about Davis’ core passion; according to Invisible Children cofounder, Laren Poole:

…She showed up at 6 a.m. and talked to every single volunteer about what they did at the organization. It was so clear that she’s the heartbeat behind the whole thing. She got it in a way that I didn’t expect. “It,” of course, is how to connect corporate philanthropy efforts with a young generation more passionate about grassroots activism…

And this passion has helped her foster a very adventurous view of the new world we find ourselves in (at age 50 to boot). It was downright inspirational to hear someone saying out loud that we should be taking risks – especially from the president where “as a firm we’re in the business of managing risk”. Davis says, “Philanthropy is where we should be taking risks, but there were a lot of questions about the level of transparency needed to run this in an authentic way. Raising the blinds on the entire crowdsourcing process made a few bankers nervous…”

Staying transparent and authentic

In these times of general unrest over financial trust and leadership, Kimberly’s position on transparency and authenticity are not only important for maintaining engagement, but potentially has the power to be a first step in exponentially changing public impression. For me, Kimberly’s understanding of the power of “crowdsourcing”, or engagement leading directly to brand loyalty, is what conversation-centric marketing is all about. To be able to encourage activism on the scale Community Giving did… priceless.

Related articles:

• Feeding the Moral Hunger: Strategic Social Marketing for the Greater Good? (logicaljuice.com)
• The 100 Most Creative People in Business 2010 (fastcompany.com)
• Chase Community Giving Kicks Off Summer 2010 Program (eon.businesswire.com)

Upon entering the store it was clear that the interior had been completely overhauled since my last visit. They did a really nice job. It was as if Firestone decided to tap the modern marketing ethos – facilitate conversation and establish authenticity – as their design inspiration.

Most notably, the counter has been removed. Instead of constructing a three-foot-tall barrier between customers and employees, the new design includes a handful of high tables or stations where interaction and dialogue is intended to take place. This improvement immediately changes the purchasing dynamic for me. I no longer expect the I place order/you tell me what to buy/I buy because I don’t know any better/I leave dynamic. By simply removing the counter and adding the “conversation stations,” the employees feel more like advisors or guides; like they are there to actually help consumers, not simply take their money.

There is a computer at each station but, instead of shielding me from the screen, the employee turns the screen my way so that we share in its viewing as we scroll through product options. It provides a sense of transparency. I don’t feel as though this guy is going to try and sell me the most expensive set of wiper blades, but the wiper blades that best suit my needs.

So in addition to picking up some new wiper blades, my jaunt to Firestone helped to reinforce – through a surprisingly pleasant retail experience – the principles of conversation-centric marketing:

• Offer the consumer more control
• Engage in a conversation
• Be authentic and transparent

FRED:

So Josh, I read an article recapping the 2010 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement. The gist: Consumers will continue to be frugal in 2010, but they are more likely to spend their money on relevant, functional items coming from brands that differentiate and show “meaning” and “authenticity.” Hmm, I wrote that sentence and I’m not sure what it means.

My read of this is that consumers are more and more aware of the “personality” of a brand and are more willing to engage with brands that they can relate to. Now, every marketer who’s done a “brand personality” exercise knows that we try and ascribe human traits to them by asking questions like “If Apple were at a party, what would he be doing?” And consumers are exposed to this as well, just look at the Mac/PC ads.

But what’s different now is that we can actually connect with the brands that we like and directly interact with them. Every time we go on Twitter or Facebook, the voice of a brand sits right next to posts from our friends. And we can talk to them, and they talk back to us. Of course, we know that a real person is writing the words of the brand, but that person represents (or should represent) the personality and voice of the brand. This study is telling us that it is more important than ever for companies to have an authentic presence that allows them to converse with their customers and prospects. Suddenly consumers want to connect with us, so we’d better be there.

JOSH:

I agree with your sentiment. I think customers are quickly demanding even more. Instead of a simple connection, customers want access to brands; and, more and more, they are beginning to demand access. In return, they are willing to promote their affiliation with, sometimes even advocate on behalf of, advertisers. However, customers are only willing to grant this exchange when the access they receive from advertisers rewards them with exclusive information, price points or recognition.

Yes, a brand’s personality is often the hook that allows companies to begin building this engagement. And social media platforms allow companies to demonstrate this personality like never before. But Facebook and Twitter are littered with companies who’ve focused too heavily on brand personality and too little on delivering value and providing customers with exclusivity. Take a look at Aflac on Twitter. Alfac was one of the first big brands to take the plunge and commit to Twitter. The problem, though, is that Aflac hasn’t been able to evolve their Twitter stream from a brand personality bullhorn to a demonstrable reason to buy. The duck might be a great hook, but brand personality is overrated if not coupled with meaningful value.

The key to an effective social media plan is to establish the importance of strategic content. It is the act of creating (or uncovering) and distributing this content that will help you achieve your strategic objectives.

Some of you may cringe at this suggestion, but it’s really about bringing the discipline of marketing and publishing to the seeming randomness of social media:

1. Staying on brand
2. Targeting content
3. Keeping content recent and frequent
4. Building an expectation of value
5. Providing a feedback loop

If you’re a victim of the “what are we going to post today?” syndrome, here are a few tips to get started with strategic content development:

1. Analyze your primary target audience. What value can you bring to them?
2. Audit your content assets. You’ll be surprised by what’s available in-house or from third parties.
3. Recruit contributors. Don’t be too narrow. Interest may come from some very unexpected places.
4. Develop an “editorial” calendar. Create a rollout plan that will provide your audience with relevant and timely content, but will also allow plenty of room for topical postings, following interesting threads or just reveling in the spontaneity of the social environment.

Now that the shine is off social media, isn’t it time to put it to work for your organization?

But here’s the twist… it worked.

Through supporting tweets, Facebook posts and rampant word-of-mouth on the web, this video has attracted well over a million views in just a few weeks. But even more than that, it’s gotten people talking about the brand in a positive way.

“That just? made my day”

“If only all coca cola vending machines were like this one. I love coca cola”

“I was actually clapping during this commercial. ? <3”

So why has Coke succeeded where others have failed? Why are people reacting so strongly in favor of the same type of manufactured event that has been met with disdain so many times before?

The difference is authenticity.

What makes the video generate such joy is seeing people interact with the “Happiness Machine.” Yes, the moment itself is manufactured, but the reactions of the people are genuine.

(Or at least I hope they are… for now, I’m going to let my normally skeptical brain just enjoy the moment.)

What’s also interesting about this particular endeavor is Coke’s ability (knowingly or not) to repurpose an “older” web convention for something new. Using the overplayed convention of a “viral” video, they’ve been able to create an army of brand evangelists and a wave of goodwill.

Not too bad for the price of a video camera, some flowers and an 8-foot sub…

Related articles

• 712,000 Views and Counting for New Coca-Cola Happiness Video (marketingvox.com)
• Viral Friday: Happiness Machine (viralblog.com)
• Coca Cola: Happiness Machine Viral Video? (viralblog.com)

“absolutely brilliant!!!“

“hopelessly dorky”

“creative, fun, and energetic”

“William F. Buckley is rolling in his grave.“

This new admissions video for Yale University is creating quite the buzz around the interwebs by taking a lighthearted musical approach to selling higher education.

And with nearly 300,000 views in two weeks on YouTube alone, it’s amassing quite an audience – and quite a bit of word of mouth.

But amidst the praising of their originality is an unfortunate undercurrent of condemnation. What many seem to be missing, is that this effort is a lot more “Glee” than “High School Musical.”

Produced almost exclusively by Yale students and recent Yale alum, this 17-minute magnum opus to the home of Handsome Dan is at once witty, kitschy, earnest, and entirely self-aware.

Yes, it’s goofy. It’s supposed to be.

A project like this could very easily have been a painful exercise in how NOT to be authentic. But instead of feeling like slick marketing, it’s become something entirely different – an organic extension of the school itself. From showcasing their technical proficiency and creative diversity to providing what at the end of the day is a great deal of information about the school itself, this mini-musical really gives prospective applicants something to sing about.

And, if after 17-minutes (and one dated but funny “Cats” reference), you still don’t get it, you’re probably not who they’re looking to attract in the first place.

We live in a world where everybody can create credible media – from a simple Twitter post to a mini-movie length musical. Further, it is a world where everybody can rebroadcast or promote the stuff they like. Professionals – marketers, writers, artists – have to stop being jealous and start taking advantage of this phenomenon. Now! Advocates, because they actually care, are simply better at making compelling media.

If you need further proof, just check out “Backwards Hall and Oates.”

Harness the power of social media. Register for your free presentation today and find out how you can use social media to build your brand and business.

Will this become standard practice, enlisting celebrities of all stripes to shill for products and companies? It certainly would make coveted celebrity endorsements more affordable, and immediate. And even B, C, D-list celebrities could get in on the action (hello, Kathy Griffin).

How will the FTC monitor and enforce this practice? Check out this bit from section 255.1 (d) of this handy-dandy, recently-published document: “Advertisers are subject to liability…for failing to disclose material connections between themselves and their endorsers. Endorsers also may be liable for statements made in the course of their endorsements.”

So, if the aforementioned Kim K. was specifically paid to tweet that she loves said salads and didn’t disclaim it, both she and Carl’s Jr. could be subject to punishment. But what if, as Kim contends, she was indeed previously paid to be in a Carl’s Jr. commercial… yet, in her Twitter stream, she was simply expressing her sincere love for their salads? Tricky. Complex. Impossible!

Which leads to this question: will commercialization ultimately sully the appeal of social media – regarded as one of the few havens of honesty and authenticity in a marketing-saturated world. I highly doubt it. Consumers are savvy. They can generally distinguish sincerity versus shilling. And honestly: if you’re the sort of person who will start eating Carl’s Jr. salads because Kim says you should, the FTC disclaimer will mean as much as an errant crouton.

And finally, perhaps most importantly, I think I need a name for this practice. When celebrities are willing to post opinions for money via social media, does that make them a Blogsperson… or a Prostitwit?

Big questions, for intriguing times.

Harness the power of social media. Register for your free presentation today and find out how you can use social media to build your brand and business.