Allen Bonde is co-founder and CMO of Offerpop, a New York-based social media marketing software company, and Managing Director of Evoke CRM, his consultancy. His kids still know more about Facebook than he does, but he’s learning. Join his conversation on Twitter.
Social media is growing up. And it’s about time. But if 2011 is the Year of Integration as Jeremiah Owyang at Altimeter has put it, it’s time for social marketing to be viewed less as “something new” and more as another channel that has some unique characteristics, but also fits in with the rest of the marketing mix. And – even better – is managed and coordinated the same way we launch an email campaign or plan an ad buy.
In other words, we need to have a campaign mindset when it comes to social. This isn’t just a practical view, it’s also essential as marketers and strategists try to find the right role for social media in a maze of business priorities and a still challenging business climate. It’s not enough to be on Facebook. How are you driving engagement and capturing interest and converting that interest into new deals? And, specifically, who are you targeting?
More broadly, how are you leveraging your initial social media campaigns as a beachhead for more general social marketing programs that create real, sustainable business value?
Fortunately, we already have a lot of the pieces in place, and some useful resources to help guide the way, from oneforty.com in the Twitter sphere to new expert networks like Exploring Social Media that Jason Falls and company just launched. Plus we have consultancies like the Dachis Group who seem to be rolling up many of the pieces that are needed to create a new social business. (Reminds me of some of the roll ups we saw in the go-go days of the Web back in the late 90′s – we’ll see if that is a good sign.)
It all starts with great campaigns
Of course there are a lot of moving parts in creating a social business, so as a marketer there is comfort in going back to basics and framing new social media efforts (and the value proposition for stakeholders) in simple campaign terms. And then looking at how to test and tune and scale up individual campaigns into programs, which can be broadened into overall social business initiatives. Yes, this is a marketer’s view of the world. But if you believe as I do that the best way to show value and create demand is to get early wins, and to think globally, but act locally, there is a lot to like about this approach.
So, what goes into the mix if we want to think about social business through a campaign lens – and how do we engineer these campaigns for maximum participation and performance? It comes down to targeting, the offer, creative and of course how you plan to get users to participate (“respond” in traditional channels) and spread the word via word of mouth, something that social campaigns can do much more effectively compared to most other marketing channels – such as in this example.
More specifically, here are some of the questions you should consider as you frame up your campaign strategy and build a beachhead for social media (and business) success:
- Find your audience, and their passion – this is job one when targeting on social channels. I’ve written previously about the importance of tapping shared experiences and this is a key part of it. So is thinking about the demographic profile and “tone” of your target social channel. And considering how Facebook, and LinkedIn and Twitter, and even MySpace have pretty specific personas that can inform where you start and what campaign tool you need to manage your program on that property.
- Pick the offer that fits – want to grow fans or followers and generate word of mouth? Contests, interactive games and giveaways are great for that. On Facebook, photo sharing and commenting on posts are two of the most common activities, so photo or design contests that incorporate both activities can be extremely effective. Want to reward fans or followers? A private sale or other exclusive offers just for fans/followers may make sense. In fact, according to MarketingSherpa, 64% of social media users friend or follow a brand just for specials and sales.
- Build creative around themes and tie-ins – social media is great at amplifying campaigns run on other channels. Think of the social side of some of the big-ticket Super bowl ads for example. Themes that encourage regular participation or are oriented around an event, like ModCloth’s #FundayMonday promotion on Twitter can also boost word of mouth and keep users tuning in for the next installment.
- Drive participation by tapping common gestures – the best way to get users to respond to social campaigns is to lower the barriers to participation. On Twitter the most common gestures are following, retweeting and using hashtags. Among Facebook users, commenting, Liking something, sending messages and sharing photos are the most frequent activities. If you want to drive participation, your campaign (and your campaign tools) should align with these gestures and not force users to jump through extra hoops just to join in.
How does this fit with your social media mindset?
Other Social Times guest posts from Allen Bonde include Moving from Social Media to Social Commerce.
