Erik Qualman's Blog, page 654
August 22, 2012
August 21, 2012
Standing Out on the Social Web
After over one year of writing and editing, and with many bouts of writers’ block behind me, my book Stand Out Social Marketing will be released on November 9, 2012 (you can download a complimentary chapter, courtesy of Awareness, Inc. here). As you can imagine, writing this book was a project that took significant time to complete and was made especially stressful with a young son at home and a daughter who was born three months into the writing process. The single most common question I am asked when people learn that I wrote a book is ‘why?’ While it was a life goal, the answer goes a little deeper and as I thought more about it, I decided to put my thoughts down on paper.
My work as VP of Marketing & Sales at Awareness affords me the opportunity to work with some of the world’s largest brands in formulating their social marketing strategy. I have found they all share a similar dilemma. As brands get involved in social, they quickly realize they are not only competing with their direct competitors but with every brand and individual competing for the attention of the social audience. While they may state it differently, their biggest social marketing challenge can be summarized in one word: differentiation.
The basic human behavior of imitation is defining the playing field in social marketing: the innovators are being followed, liked, and copied. Like a team of young soccer players, brands tend to chase the ball around the field with little-to-no organization. As a result, these brands end up developing similar concepts, strategies, and ideas with subtle distinction, leaving the audience overwhelmed, confused, and tired.
Your audience is pleading with you to forge a distinctive path. Your fans crave innovation and distinctness. To be successful, brands need to move from increased similarity towards standing out with real differentiation. In short, being the same in social media is the riskiest thing you can do.
I set out to solve this challenge when I wrote Stand Out Social Marketing. I looked in detail at six key areas brands need to focus on to truly be different. I advocate that for brands to be truly different and stand out, they need a holistic approach to social marketing, (which, I have to admit, is a tough challenge for some brand managers who are still locked in traditional marketing thinking.) Let me explain what I mean by holistic.
In high school, basketball occupied 90% of my time. I played constantly and when I wasn’t playing I was thinking about it and visualizing the game. Ken Pondelli, a local youth coach, gave me fantastic advice that I have since applied to nearly aspect of my life. He explained that to take my game to the next level I needed to see it through the eyes of a coach. As a player, my experience was limited to playing my position; as a coach, I would see the game more holistically and fully begin to understand its nuances. Ken was telling me I needed to shift my vantage point. I needed to see the game from a higher level to really comprehend it enough to improve. That small change in my thinking led to an immediate improvement and success as a high school player. I argue, and I hope successfully, that for brands to succeed the process needs to be the same – they need a new vantage point that helps them see the full context, before they dive in and execute on specific social channels.
Standing up to ‘stand out’ will help brands see the difference between simple mimicry and true differentiation. Today, the social media system operates as an echo chamber where the ‘biggest ideas’ from the ‘most liked’ and the loudest personalities reverberate through its walls. When a well-liked and followed personality shares his or her opinion on the next big thing, brands follow like the Borg to implement it without thinking through the consequences. Brands are competing in a landscape where similar ideas are echoed and, in turn, adopted by the masses making it difficult to rise above the noise. As a part of this machine, it’s impossible – or at least really difficult – to identify areas for differentiation. Shifting your vantage point from social marketing to revenue generation is the key to differentiation.
Before the books hit the shelves, I would love your feedback on the concept. Do you think it’s possible to differentiate on the social web? What keys to differentiation have you implemented as part of your social strategy? Looking forward to your comments!
To get up-to-the-minute news on the book, like Stand Out Social Marketing on Facebook. For a preview, download Chapter 1 of Stand Out Social Marketing here (courtesy of Awareness, Inc.) Finally, if you are already sold on the concept, the book is available for pre-order on Amazon. Or, try your luck at winning a copy! Monitor #StandOut for your chance to win a free copy of the book on Friday, August 24th.
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August 16, 2012
Klout Score Formula Insights
Klout recently changed their Klout scoring algorithm. This was good for some people (my Klout score went from 60 to 81) while disappointing for others; Justin Bieber went from 100 to 92. For those that want to increase their Klout score you really need to understand these new changes. Barack Obama now has the highest Klout Score at 99. Below is a quick summary of the algorithm that produces your Klout Score:
How the Klout Score is Calculated
Klout’s vision is to enable everyone to discover and be recognized for how they influence the world. Klout measures influence based on your ability to drive action on social networks, and has begun to incorporate real-world influence. Klout makes the Web better by providing a standard measurement for content creators to help drive more engaging and relevant content for everyone.
The Klout Score is a number from 1-100 that represents the aggregation of multiple pieces of data about your social network activity.
I was fortunate to be positively impacted by the new Klout Score going from 60 to 81 - Erik Qulaman
Score Signals
The Klout Score currently incorporates more than 400 signals from seven different networks. We process this data on a daily basis to generate updates to your Score.
Here are some of the top signals Klout measures by network:
Facebook:
Mentions: A mention of your name in a post indicates an effort to engage with you directly.
Likes: The simplest action that shows engagement with the content you create.
Comments: As a reaction to content you share, comments also reflect direct engagement by your network.
Subscribers: Subscriber count is a more persistent measure of influence that grows over time.
Wall Posts: Posts to your wall indicate both influence and engagement.
Friends: Friend count measures the reach of your network but is less important than how your network engages with your content.
Retweets: Retweets increase your influence by exposing your content to extended follower networks.
Mentions: People seeking your attention by mentioning you is a strong signal of influence. Klout also takes into account the differences in types of mentions, including “via” and “cc”.
List Memberships: Being included on lists curated by other users demonstrates your areas of influence.
Followers: Follower count is one factor in your Score, but Klout heavily favors engagement over size of audience.
Replies: Replies show that you are consistently engaging your network with quality content.
Google+
Comments: As a reaction to content you share, comments also reflect direct engagement by your network.
+1′s: The simplest action that shows engagement with the content you create.
Reshares: Reshares increase your influence by exposing your content to extended networks on Google+.
Title: Your reported title on LinkedIn is a signal of your real-world influence and is persistent.
Connections: Your connection graph helps validate your real-world influence.
Recommenders: The recommenders in your network add additional signals to the contribution LinkedIn makes to your Score.
Comments: As a reaction to content you share, comments also reflect direct engagement by your network.
foursquare
Tips Done: The number of suggestions you’ve left that have been completed indicate your ability to influence others on foursquare.
Klout
+K received: Receiving +K increases your Klout Score by an amount that is capped in every 90-day measurement cycle to protect the integrity of the Score.
Wikipedia
Page Importance: Measured by applying a PageRank algorithm against the Wikipedia page graph.
Inlinks to Outlinks Ratio: Compares the number of inbound links to a page to the number of outbound links.
Number of Inlinks: Measures the total number of inbound links to a page.
The majority of the signals used to calculate the Klout Score are derived from combinations of attributes, such as the ratio of reactions you generate compared to the amount of content you share. For example, generating 100 retweets from 10 tweets will contribute more to your Score than generating 100 retweets from 1,000 tweets. We also consider factors such as how selective the people who interact with your content are. The more a person likes and retweets in a given day, the less each of those individual interactions contributes to another person’s score. Additionally, we value the engagement you drive from unique individuals. One-hundred retweets from 100 different people contribute more to your Score than do 100 retweets from a single person.
We know how important it is to maintain the integrity of the Klout Score, so we closely monitor activity across the signals we measure for inauthentic behaviors. The Score will continue to evolve and improve as we add more networks and more signals.
Measuring Real-World Influence
The Klout Score now includes sources that indicate real-world influence, with Wikipedia as a new primary data source. Wikipedia is curated and maintained by millions of people worldwide, enabling us to incorporate a democratic signal of influence. We calculate the importance of each Wikipedia page, and integrate these signals with the rest of a user’s signals to compute their Klout Score. We determine Wikipedia “page importance” by running a PageRank algorithm on the Wikipedia graph, as well as factoring the number of inbound links and outbound links to each page.
Core Concepts
Now that you know what information goes into Klout, here are the principles that guide the Klout Score.
Influence is the Ability to Drive Action
It’s great to have lots of connections, but what really matters is how people engage with the content you create. We believe it’s better to have a small and engaged audience than a large network that doesn’t act respond to your content.
Connecting Networks Can Only Help Your Score
We want to help you understand your influence wherever it may exist. We also understand, given the number of different networks out there, that it is nearly impossible for any person to be consistently effective across every network. Adding more networks helps us more accurately measure your influence and can only increase your Score.
Everyone has Klout
You are never penalized for connecting or engaging with someone with a low Klout Score. In fact, you are helping build their Klout Score. The more influential you are, the greater impact you have. All engagement positively contributes to your Score.
Influence is Built Over Time
In most instances, your influence should not radically change from one day to the next. The Klout Score is based on a rolling 90-day window, with recent activity being weighted more than older activity. Being inactive over the weekend or taking short break won’t have a major impact on your Score, but if you’re inactive for longer periods your Score will decrease gradually.
Being Active is Different than Being Influential
Retweets, Likes, comments and other interactions on the social Web are all signals of influence. However, just looking at the count of these actions does not tell the whole story of a person’s influence. It’s important to look at how much content a person creates compared to the amount of engagement they generate.
Klout is Constantly Evolving
The social Web is changing every day and the Klout Score will continue to evolve and improve. The best strategy for obtaining a high Klout Score is to simply create great content that your network wants to share and engage with.
A Closer Look at the Klout Score
Check how these users were impacted by the recent Score model update.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama has an active Twitter profile, and also has the most important Wikipedia page among all individuals. The addition of real world influence causes his score to rise from 94 to 99 in the updated Score model. See profile
Justin Bieber
Although Justin Bieber is one of the most influential celebrities on Twitter, his Wikipedia page has lower importance than those of people like Barack Obama. Previously, Justin had the distinction of being the only person with a perfect 100 Klout Score. With this update, his Score drops from 100 to 92.See profile
Jacob Barrett
Jacob’s Klout Score increased because we are measuring more signals, such as Facebook mentions, and we have included better scoring for networks like LinkedIn. Nearly 71 percent of his Score comes from Facebook, and around 3.5 percent from LinkedIn. See profile
Ashleigh Stephan
Ashleigh is primarily a Facebook user, with more than 97 percent of her Score coming from that network. Again, the addition of new signals on Facebook means that we now capture more of her influence, so her Score increases. See profile
Erica Stine
Erika is active on both Facebook and Twitter. She gets 70 percent of her Score from Facebook and 22 percent from Twitter. She also benefits from +K (7 percent). See profile
Shanna Bailes
Shanna is equally active on Facebook and Twitter, and thus benefits from new signals captured from both. See profile
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Social Marketing: It’s (Still) All About Your Content
Brands both big and small across the globe are looking for the key to social marketing success. The answer may surprise you: it’s STILL all about your content. In fact, it’s so important, we devoted an entire series of white papers to content marketing, delving specifically into four components of effective content marketing: content creation, event sponsorship, social media contests, and understanding Facebook EdgeRank.
After you’ve performed a social audit to find your customers and competitors on social channels, and developed your social goals, in accordance with your overall business goals, it’s time to think about developing content. When you think about the kind of content generation that will jumpstart audience growth on social channels, it’s important to focus on two distinct areas:
Proactive Content
Reactive Content
You will likely managing content across multiple channels at once. In order to avoid feeling overwhelmed with platform management and scalable content creation by channel, consider proactively scheduling a portion of your social content. It can provide a solid base of content, providing you ample cushion to focus your limited resources instead on monitoring and responding to timely and relevant developments as they occur – or ‘reactive’ content. We’ll share how Starbucks has successfully implemented this strategy to amass a Twitter following of over 2.76 million users.
Proactive Content – 70% of Your Content
Although proactively scheduling 100% of your content will certainly fill your social channels with content, this is not a recommended strategy. Scheduled content is not conducive to authentic, immediate audience engagement. While all brands share branded messages, like company updates and product offers, it’s not all your consumers are looking for. Promotional and evergreen content should be supplemented with engaging, real-time content to keep up with the ‘here and now’.
Best practices for scheduling proactive content show that 70% of content can be scheduled early in the week, which allows room for reactive content. In the example below, Starbucks spreads the word about their program ‘treat receipt’, in which a customer may bring a receipt verifying an AM purchase to a store in the afternoon for a discounted afternoon pick-me-up. This is a perfect example of a message that can be scheduled ahead of time.
Reactive Content – 30% of Your Content
The other 30% of content should, in turn, be reactive content focused on two areas: popular, timely topics and appropriate audience dialog. Staying abreast of trending topics allows you to leverage popular conversations to receive increased reach and engagement. Connecting trends to how they affect your audience will increase your opportunity for growth. The Nashville, Tennessee tourism board used the trending topic #tourismchat to prompt engaged chat users to plan a trip to Nashville.
Responding to users who have engaged directly with your brand through content moderation is another component of reactive content. Responding to your fans and followers in a timely manner increases your ability to maintain an engaged audience. The key is offering quick, positive, and helpful responses. Starbucks makes a personal connection with a store visitor, who shared an anecdote from his visit. Starbucks took the time to respond, providing Josh a closed-loop social experience.
Successful social marketing requires strategy and planning. By scheduling a portion of content proactively, marketers can spend their remaining time focused on creating authentic, immediate relationships with their audience, either by responding directly to users, or being active in broader digital discussions. For a closer look at specific components of a content marketing strategy, check out our newest resources on content creation, event sponsorship, social media contests, and understanding Facebook EdgeRank.
What is your balance of proactive and reactive content? Spill the beans on Twitter.
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August 14, 2012
4 Questions with Paul Marsden, Social Commerce Expert
Many enterprises struggle with the concept of direct sales through social channels. Paul Marsden’s upcoming book, The Social Commerce Handbook: 20 Secrets for Turning Social Media into Social Sales, takes on this challenge, providing techniques and best practices to build profitable strategies for turning interaction into transactions. In anticipation of our upcoming webinar Social Commerce: Secrets for Turning Social Media into Social Sales, we sat down with Paul for some Q & A.
Who inside a company will most benefit from the lessons taught in your book?
The target reader of this book is the CMO of a large retail chain such as Target. However, both The F-Commerce Handbook and The Social Commerce Handbook would appeal to any marketers, from those in corporate marketing to retail departments, in almost any sized company – SMB to enterprise organization. It even has appeal to advertising agencies and PR firms.
What are some common mistakes you see organizations make when it comes to social commerce? How can they avoid these pitfalls?
Certainly one of the biggest mistakes is to think of social commerce as just another iteration or extension of e-commerce. A few months ago several large retail brands shuttered their Facebook stores. In our opinion, they did so based on a widely held misconception – by simply creating a Facebook store, people would naturally want to do business there. (One retailer went so far as to implement its entire online catalog in a Facebook store.) Sales didn’t follow and the stores were closed.
A recent research report from Get Satisfaction and analyst Incyte Group revealed that only 13% of people log onto social networks like Facebook to interact with brands, and that “when customers want information to make purchase decisions, they are more than four times as likely to go to the company’s website (89%) as they are to use a social network (21%).” This points to a difference of intent. People go to e-commerce sites to shop and to social networks like Facebook to socialize. One is about “stuff,” and the other is about “socializing.” Until brands figure that out, they will most likely be misguided in their efforts to be successful in social commerce.
Brands can avoid these pitfalls by doing two things: first, “reimagine” shoppers and replace an outdated understanding of yesteryear’s shopper with a new “SoLoMo shopper”– shoppers who shop smart with social, location-aware and mobile technology. Second, brands need to offer what we refer to as “social utility” – using social technology as a service to help customers solve problems socially or solve social problems. These themes are examined and discussed in detail in the book.
Can you share some examples of companies doing social commerce right? How and what sets them apart from their peers?
Successful vendors have adopted a service mentality when it comes to social technology. Rather than asking, “how can I sell smarter with social technology,” they’ve turned the question on its head and asked “how can I help my customers shop smarter with social technology?”
If there is one “mega-” secret to unlocking sales with social media, it’s this – sell with social utility – and use social technology to offer a service that helps customers either solve problems socially or solve social problems. We believe that social utility is the central and sustainable value proposition of social commerce, and the true secret for turning social media into social sales.
Here are two examples:
Oscar de la Renta
Oscar de la Renta sold exclusive fan-editions of their new fragrance through a Facebook Pop-Up Fan Store.
The brand used exclusivity, one of our secrets, to sell a unique perfume ring containing a new fragrance, Esprit d’ Oscar, via a Facebook pop-up fan store. The company used a successful, emerging two-step formula: Facebook Fan-Sampling + Facebook Pop-Up Fan Store. That is, run a Facebook sampling campaign at launch, and then sell exclusive fan-editions via a pop-up fan-store. Step one activates fan advocacy, step two boosts and converts the advocacy. From the standpoint of social utility, this appeals to the need for social status, the idea of being able to have something others can’t and makes us feel special.
Proctor & Gamble
P&G used the heuristic of selling with scarcity to launch a new line of diapers, called “Cruisers,” via a Facebook flash sale on its Pampers Facebook Page. Only P&G wasn’t really selling diapers; it was selling perceived value. By offering only a limited quantity of a new range of diapers, P&G increased their perceived value. As a result, there was an impressive rate of sales, to the tune of 1,000 packs of diapers sold within an hour.
While buying diapers online is not newsworthy, getting your hands on a new range of diapers before anyone else may have conversational currency. By using scarcity to sell, P&G made the unremarkable remarkable and newsworthy. In doing this, they turned fans into super-fans, loyal enthusiasts, and active advocates. P&G also created social utility – enhanced social status, and doing so with bragging rights that come with getting something exclusive, early and that’s not available to others.
How should an organization approach social commerce? What are the steps to getting started using social as a sales channel?
We are in an era of experimentation. The only hard and fast rules are those outlined earlier:
- Have a service-oriented mindset and keep the needs and wants of the customer uppermost in mind;
- Recognize that a new type of customer – SoLoMo – has emerged;
- Sell with social utility.
Those are the philosophical underpinnings that brands must engrain into their sales and marketing DNA if they plan to be successful in using social commerce. Aside from that, think “shopping first, social second.” With that in mind, here are some recommendations:
- Incorporate the use of Facebook’s free social plugins and Pinterest “Pin it” buttons on your e-commerce site to add a social dimension to the online shopping experience;
- Integrate rating and review software so customers can see what others like;
- In-store: display a bestseller list or customer testimonials and reviews next to product displays;
- Online: use popularity lists to allow shoppers to view options by “most popular,” “most viewed,” and “most commented,” which provide social proof;
- Utilize group-buy tools to allow shoppers to band together to get the best deal.
In addition, mobile commerce is making huge headway into retail, so brands might consider allowing people to shop smarter by connecting with each other via mobile handsets. These range from group-buy apps such as Groupon and LivingSocial, to mobile apps that allow customer to get instant in-situ feedback from their friends on whether or what to buy.
In-store uses of mobile apps include “check-in” apps that reward people for sharing their whereabouts when they enter your store with their mobile handset. Foursquare and Shopkick are two examples of such apps.
Lastly, consider using web apps for social shopping that allow vendors to promote and sell their products on sites where shoppers congregate, share, exchange and buy. These range from “flash-sale” shopping communities such as Fab and Gilt that run regular retail events for vendors, to community-based marketplaces such as Etsy and Shoply that allow vendors to do true customer relationship management by cultivating one-to-one relationships with their customers. Web apps for social shopping also include platforms such as The Fancy, Svpply and, increasingly, Pinterest, that offer curated product selections.
We outline 20 steps in The Social Commerce Handbook designed to help brands on their journey social commerce success. The journey will be different for each business putting these principles into action. The point is not “where” to begin, or even “how.” The point is simply to begin.
For more insights from Paul Marsden, be sure to attend our upcoming joint webinar: Social Commerce: Secrets for Turning Social Media into Social Sales. You can also download chapter 10 of Paul Marsden’s previous work The F-Commerce Handbook: 10 Secrets for Unlocking the Sales Potential of Facebook.
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August 13, 2012
August 9, 2012
6 Mind-Blowing Statistics and What They Mean for Your Marketing Strategy
There are some staggering statistics about the popularity and adoption of social media. For instance, do you know that Twitter handles over 32 billion search queries a month, a volume that is higher than that of Bing and Yahoo! combined? We share this and more in our latest whitepaper, 6 Mind-Blowing Social Media Statistics and What The Mean for Your Marketing Strategy. While the stats themselves may leave you speechless, they can be leveraged to positively impact a brand’s marketing strategy. Check it out, and then download the full white paper for more marketing insights plus tactical tips and tricks.
Which stat was your favorite? Let us know on Twitter.
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August 7, 2012
Applying Mind-Blowing Social Media Stats to Marketing Strategy
Social marketing holds a special place in our hearts, both for the way it’s changed how organizations do business and for opening up the lines of communication among brands and consumers. The addition of multiple social media channels creates more avenues to engage with our customers. As these social channels have sprung up, so too have their astonishing rates of growth and usage. While the sheer statistics are often mind-boggling – for instance, it’s said that Facebook accounts for 20% of all page views on the web – there are significant marketing implications to be identified by examining the numbers.
In our most recent whitepaper, 6 Mind-Blowing Social Media Stats (And What They Mean for Marketers), we highlight 6 of the most jaw-dropping social media statistics and explore the marketing opportunities that these findings present. We’ll share one below, but for the full list, check out the full free paper.
Do you know the volume of search queries that pass through Twitter on a monthly basis? It’s estimated to be 32 billion searches, higher than the search volume of Bing (2.7 billion) and Yahoo (2.4 billion) combined.
For marketers, that means there are millions of potential consumers searching for information on Twitter. In today’s world, it’s nearly as important to be on social channels as it is to have a website. Consider that of the millions of searches occurring each month, many are your prospects, current customers or unhappy customers of your competitors.
What this means for your marketing strategy:
Analyze Trending Topics: Review trending topics to capitalize on what’s popular and participate in ongoing conversations. Don’t forget that these trending topics change fast – 20% of top searches on Twitter change every hour.
Practice Targeted Listening: Create monitoring streams for your strategic keywords. Look for sales signals like ‘want’, ‘need’, ‘love’ and strategically reach out when it’s appropriate.
Participate in Conversations that Align with your Brand: It doesn’t have to be all sales all the time. One Chicago-based company Foiled Cupcakes has developed 94% of her clientele through social media. Her strategy? Join conversations her target market is participating in, specifically around shoes and chocolates and then convert those prospects into sales.
For more statistics on leading social media platforms including Facebook and Pinterest and how they impact marketers, download a copy of our new white paper 6 Mind-Blowing Social Media Stats (And What They Mean for Marketers).
Do you have a favorite shocking social media stat? Share it with us on Twitter.
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August 6, 2012
Social Prospecting and Scoring: The Missing Link to Social Marketing ROI
How well do you know your social followers? Do you know how many of them are brand ambassadors, what they like about your brand, and what they say about it? Do you know who else is out there that may love your product? Sure, you have built your presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. You may even have a presence on Pinterest and Google+. You are out there on social networks because you know the potential is big. With over 30 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook each month, and Twitter handling 32 billion search queries per month, there isn’t a marketer out there who is not salivating at the potential for using social platforms to get their name out, engage prospects and customers and drum up more sales. Yet, most marketers have realized that social networks are essentially databases of users that remain largely untapped.
One reason why the promised potential of social remains untapped is marketers still do not scalable ways to identify, segment and prioritize their social followers. Sure, you may monitor who follows you, you may even capture what they say about your brand, but that leaves an entire social universe not traversed for most. Today’s social segmentation is largely rudimentary – (1) there’s your fans/ followers and then there’s (2) everyone else. Now what if there was a better way?
Enter social prospecting and social scoring. This isn’t your Klout score. Social prospecting allows you to mine the social web, identify new likely buyers, collect and store their social data (demographic and social activity), and then segment and prioritize those people according to criteria you define. For example, if you were Verizon, you could mine social posts for people expressing a negative sentiment about AT&T’s spotty coverage in the Boston area, and offer them a special incentive to switch – such as free calling for a month, or free iPhone 4S. The ability for marketers to assign higher score to social prospects is called social scoring. Think of it as treating the entire social web as your database, collecting and storing data on users regardless of whether they are following your branded channels, and segmenting those users according to criteria you define.
Social scoring is a new way for social marketers to uncover qualified leads and new revenue via social means. It starts by turning the concept of listening on its head. Instead of listening for topics or mentions, social scoring requires listening for people. Think of it this way: you shouldn’t be interested in how many times your competitors are mentioned, but instead in the people who mentioned them. When you find these people, you need to understand them – their demographics (explicit information they’ve submitted to the social networks) and what they are saying (their implicit activity). Marrying the demographic information with insights about activities is what social profiles are all about. So the next step is to capture the social profiles of your likely new social buyers.
Then you need to weigh those profiles using the explicit and implicit profile details relative to your specific business goals. In essence, what you will be doing is social scoring at its best – rank-ordering your social profiles to guide your future marketing actions. Social scoring can help marketers answer the following questions:
How many likely buyers of my product or solutions are out there and not part of our marketing database?
How many likely buyers do I have at each stage of the buying funnel?
What information should I be offering to these different buyer segments?
Are my customers researching new alternatives to what we offer? How likely are they to defect?
Who are my top brand ambassadors? Who are the top influencers on any given topic and how likely are they to influence others?
The essence of social scoring is finding the right people, ranking those people, and having a communication plan ready that support your business goals. On August 6, 2012, Awareness announced a new social scoring suite that will bring the power of this concept into the hands of marketers for the first time. To learn more about the potential of social prospecting and scoring and the new functionality from Awareness, join me for our free webinar: Social Scoring: The Missing Link to Social Marketing ROI, on August 14, 2012, at 2 pm, EST or connect with us on Twitter @awarenessinc.
@BostonMike
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August 3, 2012
The Olympics “on” Social Media
The Olympics or the #LondonGames or the #summergames or #London2012, are in full swing now in London. They are taking over fashion, the TV, and of course social media. However – the Olympics have not made it so simple to be talking and sharing everything that is awesome about the Olympics.
A couple things that are not so hot on social media for the Olympics…
Restrictions on audience includes that social posts must be in “a first-person, diary-type format,” and video from the event is not to be shared at all.
Olympians restrictions: Lets just say the olympians are not taking it well that their usual rights to social media have been restricted by the IOC. They can’t upload video, but can upload photos. They can’t talk about their sponsors, but can talk about basic items of the day. Twitter, an instrument that allows people a larger voice, has become an instrument against the IOC rather than in tune with it lately.
Unlike the restrictions on participants and the audience, the Olympic hub and many other social media outlets allow Olympics fans to keep up with all the happenings via their mobile and/or computer. Why do you need your TV when you have the Olympics at the palm of your hands? Especially with the recording delay on TV?
Can we say this is all a little contradictory to how social media strategy is normally implemented and works? Definitely. As Mashable stated, these social media guidelines for Olympians and the audience “are in stark contrast to the robust social and digital strategy the IOC rolled out to build its brand.” If you made it all the way to London for the Olympics, wouldn’t you want to tweet, share, videotape, and more? Definitely.
Further Reading:
http://www.vocus.com/blog/three-brand...
http://mashable.com/2012/07/25/follow...
http://hub.olympic.org/
http://www.bitrebels.com/social/olymp...
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