This morning while doing a demo of Twitter I asked the question, “How has social media helped you in an unexpected way?” Industry knowledge? Building relationships? Free hat? Catching an unreal bacon recipe? Thanks much to a responsive group of followers, I received many responses – some deep, some funny, some insightful, all valuable to once again show the immediate response and community value of Twitter. Thanks to everyone who replied – as promised, here are their insights and Twitter IDs. (I’m at @adamcohen).
@mattceni @adamcohen – user validated data has helped me cut through the noise to find whats relevant and good.
@aapjerockdt @adamcohen boost downloads of an open source app we made to 1000 downloads in 48 hours: [url removed – love the twitter feedback but not trying to promote biz]
@Patrick_Grady @adamcohen Wow. Lots of ways. 1 – exposure to info I wouldn’t have seen. 2 – met peeps with great synergy and things to share / learn. @Patrick_Grady @adamcohen tech support… idea bouncing… more.
@StarrGazr @adamcohen How has SocNets Helped? It’s all about the people you meet which is even better to meet F2F. I can’t even begin to list the ways. @StarrGazr @adamcohen How about the loan of a camera when mine died days before covering Obama’s camp NH Primary night from someone who … @StarrGazr @adamcohen …I had never met before in person. @StarrGazr @adamcohen Of the offer of a power generator from another person during the ice storm and an offer to help pick it up from CT? @StarrGazr @adamcohen Or perhaps being published all over the world through exposure in SocNets? @StarrGazr @adamcohen Or perhaps just being able to have an amazing year covering the primaries and being able to attend the inauguration. @StarrGazr @adamcohen Or being a guest in a church and the home of a minister in the United Kingdom while traveling out there.
@4Spoken@adamcohen It has allowed me to take a fairly small niche, and connect with people I would have never been able to connect with otherwise
@jordansalvit @adamcohen SM has taught me a lot about businesses and fields I am not involved in. It also keeps me better connected with those that I am.
@tippyz @adamcohen Social media/net has increased my knowledge of people I already knew, well beyond what I expected –> stronger relationships. [Great one Dan]
@rsomers @adamcohen for me benefit is creation of new & expansion of existing offline relationships. Twitter esp b/c time cost of interaction is low
@BarbaraKB @adamcohen Social sites forcing OpenID transparency thus easier to make & trust online friends. W/this trust, grow business. 🙂
@boggles @adamcohen the biggest surprise for me was how Facebook has grown into a free version of long-lost friend-finder. High school memories!
@Marc_Meyer @adamcohen I now have an instant knowledge base that I can tap via SM which opens up sometimes a better way to do what I do- [I agree – much to learn from these folks]
@Stuartcfoster @adamcohen I got a sweet hook up on a hat at the TD Banknorth garden courtesy of the tag team of @mbrinkerhoff and @michele_moore 🙂
@HereItComes @adamcohen How about the loan of a camera when mine died days before covering Obama’s camp NH Primary night from… [URL removed]
@barndance @adamcohen My own involvement helped me help Lindblad Expeditions jump-start on Twitter. And that’s great for eco-minded tweeps & them!
@nhscooch @adamcohen All I can say is that is where I found the Bacon Explosion – TY twitter and @adamcohen [just don’t come after me for cholesterol medication]
@ChadNorthrup @adamcohen I love having an extended network to banter with during sporting events. It made last year’s Sox playoff games even more fun. [Couldn’t agree more, especially with Red Sox games.]
@Shonali @adamcohen Making unanticipated connections that have helped me personally and professionally. And give me courage.
@beverlycornell @adamcohen got to meet you. Actually, I have a few interesting stories. 😉
For me, much of my surprise in social media is the general willingness of people to help – this demo is no exception. How has social media helped you in an unexpected way?
This post is co-authored with Gargi Patel, Rosetta‘s new Director of Social Media. Gargi has spent several years as a community manager for large consumer brands and we’re fortunate to have her join the Rosetta team.
Everywhere in social media it’s clear: Listening is important. It’s probably the most important thing you can do to make the most out of social media, whether it’s for your business or for personal interest. It’s easy to start – Chris Brogan‘s posts on starting with listeningchannels make up an all-time great reference kit and should be Chapter 1 in the Great Social Media Reference Book. If every spammer read those posts first, they’d realize they have the wrong idea, but that’s another blog post topic. If “start listening” is Chapter 1, Chapter 2 should be all about motivation. Is the motivation for listening different for every brand? You bet.
Listening, qualifying and quantifying to channels in social media is going to yield different information for every company. A key to sifting through this is understanding the company’s brand perception and position in the market. Here are some factors that may influence how to move to the next step before turning listening into action.
1. Brand Development Lifecycle
Does the brand need to build a fan base or just largely maintain its reputation? For brands with a large public presence or existing polarity in the marketplace, robust analytics and tools with real time alerts are probably necessary. For very young brands or small businesses, free DIY tools on the web may suffice. The lifecycle of the development of the brand will influence the reasons for listening. For example, Budweiser is going to have different motivation for listening and perhaps require different tools than Magic Hat, a lesser known (and personal favorite) microbrewery based in Burlington, VT. Don’t forget that all of these tools can be used to listen to non-branded terms and competitors in the same way – the lifecycle of the brand will influence those too.
2. The Customer’s Level of Risk
How much risk does the customer need to take on to buy your product? Is it expensive, does it carry social risk (bad outfit) or have potentially big consequences (insurance)? The extent to which recommendations from an online social source are impactful depends on the degree of involvement in the purchase. Cars, insurance policies, and electronics are examples of categories which are highly researched prior to purchase. Online reviews and chatter in forums can be extremely beneficial or extremely dangerous for these types of items. Many lesser known items such as books or CDs can also be highly dependent on social reviews. On the other hand, a low ticket or lesser known consumer brand will have very different needs from its social media monitoring, and customers may be less concerned with doing research. Building brand awareness may be more important to these brands and subsequently influence what companies are listening for.
3. Brand Differentiation
Are purchase decisions based more on objective product or service features or based on emotional brand affinity? To a large extent, products/brands fall somewhere in the middle of this continuum, but many will lean heavily one way or the other. For example, most people choose a particular airline based on objective service, price and benefits. Some people buy computers based on an objective evaluation of features to price, but then there are brands that have built an emotional connection (Apple). Chocolate milk is a commodity, but a brand name can draw a premium based on brand affinity (Nesquik). Listening to why people differentiate brands will be key in developing an approach to engage those folks down the road.
How we listen, why we listen, and ultimately, how we use this information to engage with consumers will be different depending on the brand proposition. Does your company listen? What is your motivation? What else did we miss?
Charlene Li, one of the authors of Groundswell, pulled together a very thoughtful presentation on the future of social networks. She continues to be a visionary in the social networking space. I’ve been using LinkedIn for nearly 5 years, and Facebook for 2 – envisioning these applications and predictions coming true are not as far fetched as they may seem. What do you think?
Thanks to Dave Knox, a brand manager at P&G, for spotting this video. This is a simple and clear example of how marketing of old is no longer effective, and how “atomized and parallel media consumption” have impacted how brands market today. Dave mentions this is a good way for a brand manager to illustrate the need for change to management. I’d add that it’s a way to also explain why the personalized connections through social media are so important. Worth the three minutes.
Alternate payment methods (APM), in eCommerce terms, are ways to complete a transaction without using the normal credit card authorization process. For the past couple of years Rosetta has completed a quick study of a hundred leading online retailers using the big players in this space. Paypal, BillMeLater, and Google Checkout are the ones we have measured mostly due to marketshare in the large online retailer category. New services and startups continue to crop up, as evidenced by the buzz related to Chris Brogan’s sponsored post around the new service eBillMe.
The major play for each of these payment methods is the additional uptick in conversion – the premise that providing alternate ways to pay will reduce people from abandoning their shopping carts and more broadly appeal to those worried about giving their credit card to a website. Our study shows that both Paypal and BillMeLater have gained retailer adoption in the last 18 months. Google Checkout appears to have maintained ground at the same relative group.
The list of retailers surveyed is the same list from our recent study on Facebook. While not scientific, it shows us some trends in the marketplace. The major points of the APM study this round are that the growth rate is continuing among retailers, and Google Checkout is stagnating. Two major questions have come up:
Why is Google Checkout not keeping pace?
Why are other big name retailers still sitting on the sidelines?
Google Checkout recently dropped their incentive program for AdWords customers, but retailers aren’t typically quick to respond. BillMeLater was recently acquired by eBay from Amazon, who also owns Paypal. I wonder if the ROI is really there, despite low cost to implement these programs.
What I am more interested in is hearing from you. Do any of the online sites you shop at regularly offer these methods? Do you use them, or would they influence your buying decision? Why or why not? Our study was picked by DM News and Storefrontbacktalk.com (thanks!) but I’d love to hear what people use and why.
Every once in awhile I stumble across a great example of interactive marketing to share. Today a friend shot me a link to a microsite from the consumer product brand Healthy Choice, that has a lot of the right ingredients for a successful campaign. The campaign looks like it was launched last fall but I think it will have a long shelf life. Here are some reasons why I like the campaign.
Comedy is good. The central theme around the microsite is a daily comedy improv show. The actors are funny, regular people loosely resembling the successful TV show the Office. They depict characters debating various agenda topics during a lunch meeting. Quality comedic content can make a site more engaging, more viral and keeping people searching the site for more. The site’s show had daily updates for several weeks when it was launched, for a “season.” It appears Season 2 ended in November. With agenda topics such as, “What Not to Do at Work,” “Dealing with Flatulence,”and “Reuse Staples.” This “best of” show from November 25th is a great example.
Consumers engage and direct the content. You can submit meeting agenda topics, vote on future meeting topics, and send a “care package” to a friend who has been in too many meetings. You can subscribe to reminders about the next meeting, browse through many archived shows and read through dozens of humorous articles.
Product endorsement is pervasive but not overbearing. Healthy Choice could just have easily made a microsite about nutrition and product information. Instead they chose a humorous platform and work the product placement in without diluting the quality comedy content. When you “send a care package” you can share episodes with friends via email but there also is an option to send a Healthy Choice product coupon.
I’m curious what the cost was to produce the show, site and content, and what the overall ROI would be for a site like this versus an ad campaign in a magazine. No question I spent more time on this site than reading an ad and that Healthy Choice will have ample metrics to measure consumption of the content. Well done, Healthy Choice. Do you think this type of microsite works? What are some examples of others you have seen and liked?
Marketers have a lot of data. Online, they know where you live, what you clicked on, and what page layout (among other things) is more likely is going to drive you to make a purchase. They know what you searched for, what ads you saw and how long you spent on their sites. Signs are pointing to an elevated sophistication of using that data – get ready, because with the ability to combine your activities in social media with your online behavior, targeted, personalized approaches to marketing to you could be what’s next.
Exhibit A: CMO’s want to read the tea leaves
Mark Taylor, colleague at Rosetta, recently mentioned a study from the CMO Council that highlighted some key insight as to how CMOs feel they are deficient at understanding and leveraging customer data. Some key findings:
Marketers were asked about their top three areas of focus. Among the responses cited:
* 47% want to leverage existing resources to enhance customer communications.
* 41% would like to explore new customized communications technologies.
* 39% want to move marketing investments to Internet and mobile channels.
* 33% wish to improve behavioral targeting of advertising and online marketing campaigns.
* 32% want to adopt and use CRM and sales automation applications.
Exhibit B: Online activities reveal customer emotions and behaviors
I had a conversation earlier in the week with Evan Schuman, former retail technology editor for eWEEK.com and PCMagazine and author of the retail industry blog StoreFrontBackTalk.com. Evan recently posted a provacative article about how semantic information about a user’s activities could lead to more targeted marketing activities, and I’ve had it on my mind since.
Extensive analysis of a consumer’s Web interactions has been used for years to try and target pitches more effectively. But new research suggests that…every digital comment made by consumers anywhere—in a product comment, an IM, on a social network site, in E-mail and via, exchanges with a live chat tech support person, coupled with Web traffic analysis—can be mined for hints as to emotions and other thoughts.
What it could mean
Imagine what organizations who are savvy enough to tie their CRM data to semantic, social media content left as breadcrumbs out there. Evan rightly suggests that every consumer responds differently to emotion. When you’re sad, so you seek out comfort food or buy some new music? When you’re happy do you surprise your spouse at home with a gift? Could your social media activity be somehow tied, through emotion, prior history, or simply by subject, to your purchasing or brand buying behavior?
Some examples
Consider some possibilities. I’m sure we could come up with better ones together but here’s a stab at some.
In Twitter your posts could be mined for relevant information. Say, you have a cold and are under the weather, and you like to post about it as you are down in the dumps. Imagine a coupon for Advil Cold & Sinus showing up in your email shortly after you have a conversation about cold remedies, and a targeted ad on a news site gives you 20% off on a home humidifer.
In Friendfeed, you show a pattern of mentions about football in blog posts and comments, and favorited Youtube videos – and your favorite team wins the next playoff game. Knowing that when you are on an emotional high you tend to make an online purchase, retailers start showing specific discounted offers pop up on eBay and Amazon related to your team. Beyond the fact that the team won, taking it to the next level targeted people whose buying behavior changes at these peaks.
Imagine if in a Myspace posting you share the loss of a beloved pet. You start seeing ads and receiving offers for “comfort” items.
Evan responds,
What consumers receive is nothing bizarre: A pitch from Amazon or Borders or Walmart for a particular kind of product. But what they won’t likely know is that the pitch was prompted by … a MySpace posting the software thought “sounded sad.”
Technologically? This is quite do-able. Psychologically sound? If the software is done properly, yes, these predictive packages can be frighteningly accurate. But here are the big two questions: What about privacy and morality?
Sure there are many concerns about privacy, morality, and transparency. Is it going above and beyond using this type of data to target customers, or just the next logical evolution? It sure makes me think a little more about what I share on searchable outlets, but I am not so sure connecting me with the right products at the right time would be a bad thing. What do you think?
@mattceni @adamcohen – user validated data has helped me cut through the noise to find whats relevant and good.
@aapjerockdt @adamcohen boost downloads of an open source app we made to 1000 downloads in 48 hours: [url removed – love the twitter feedback but not trying to promote biz]
@Patrick_Grady @adamcohen Wow. Lots of ways. 1 – exposure to info I wouldn’t have seen. 2 – met peeps with great synergy and things to share / learn.
@StarrGazr @adamcohen How has SocNets Helped? It’s all about the people you meet which is even better to meet F2F. I can’t even begin to list the ways.
@4Spoken@adamcohen It has allowed me to take a fairly small niche, and connect with people I would have never been able to connect with otherwise
@jordansalvit @adamcohen SM has taught me a lot about businesses and fields I am not involved in. It also keeps me better connected with those that I am.
@tippyz @adamcohen Social media/net has increased my knowledge of people I already knew, well beyond what I expected –> stronger relationships. [Great one Dan]
@rsomers @adamcohen for me benefit is creation of new & expansion of existing offline relationships. Twitter esp b/c time cost of interaction is low
@BarbaraKB @adamcohen Social sites forcing OpenID transparency thus easier to make & trust online friends. W/this trust, grow business. 🙂
@boggles @adamcohen the biggest surprise for me was how Facebook has grown into a free version of long-lost friend-finder. High school memories!
@Marc_Meyer @adamcohen I now have an instant knowledge base that I can tap via SM which opens up sometimes a better way to do what I do- [I agree – much to learn from these folks]
@Stuartcfoster @adamcohen I got a sweet hook up on a hat at the TD Banknorth garden courtesy of the tag team of @mbrinkerhoff and @michele_moore 🙂
@HereItComes @adamcohen How about the loan of a camera when mine died days before covering Obama’s camp NH Primary night from… [URL removed]
@barndance @adamcohen My own involvement helped me help Lindblad Expeditions jump-start on Twitter. And that’s great for eco-minded tweeps & them!
@nhscooch @adamcohen All I can say is that is where I found the Bacon Explosion – TY twitter and @adamcohen [just don’t come after me for cholesterol medication]
@ChadNorthrup @adamcohen I love having an extended network to banter with during sporting events. It made last year’s Sox playoff games even more fun. [Couldn’t agree more, especially with Red Sox games.]
@Shonali @adamcohen Making unanticipated connections that have helped me personally and professionally. And give me courage.
@beverlycornell @adamcohen got to meet you. Actually, I have a few interesting stories. 😉
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This post is co-authored with 
Alternate payment methods (APM), in eCommerce terms, are ways to complete a transaction without using the normal credit card authorization process. For the past couple of years Rosetta has completed a quick study of a hundred leading online retailers using the big players in this space. 
Marketers have a lot of data. Online, they know where you live, what you clicked on, and what page layout (among other things) is more likely is going to drive you to make a purchase. They know what you searched for, what ads you saw and how long you spent on their sites. Signs are pointing to an elevated sophistication of using that data – get ready, because with the ability to combine your activities in social media with your online behavior, targeted, personalized approaches to marketing to you could be what’s next.