Archive for the ‘brands’ Category

April9

Maybe 1% is all you need

By: Spike Jones

Earlier this year, a report came out from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute that I’ve seen popping up again and again with people talking about how only one percent of people who click the “Like” button on Facebook actually engage with the brand. (BTW, if you don’t know who Andrew Ehrenberg is, you need to find out.)

There are SO many directions we can go with this report, like going down that deep and dusty path trying to define what “engagement” really means. Or talking about the value of a like or a fan. Or what brands should really be using Facebook for.

But I don’t want to go down any of those no-win rabbit holes. Instead, I want to talk about that 1% (and no, not in the Occupy Wall Street kind of way). I don’t see why so many people are surprised at this number…because this has always been the case. The social media kids are saying that 1% is a terribly low number and then they’ll show you 10 tips on how to raise that number. But I have to tell you that even waaayyyy back in 2006, the Creating Customer Evangelists kids, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, talked about the 1% rule by citing data from Wikipedia and Yahoo that found that 1% of the users overwhelmingly create most of the content.

Breaking it down even more, there’s the 89:10:1 rule, which says that 89% of people who come to your site will lurk, 10% will contribute and 1% will create content.

My point? Don’t freak out about only 1% of people engaging with your brand. Especially on common sites like Facebook. Now, if you create a brand ambassador program and you only get a 1% participate rate, you’re doing something wrong. In fact, the average participation in brand community sites is less than 10%. That’s not so great. And I can tell you from experience that if you build it the right way, you can get a 30%+ engagement rate, which opens all sorts of doors.

So before you go wringing your hands about only having a 1% engagement rate on Facebook, think about it differently. Like what you can do with that 1%. Ohhhh, the possibilities. These are hand-raisers. These are evangelists. These are the people that already spread word of mouth about you (hopefully in a good way). Create offline experiences with them. Ask if they want to engage deeper on other platforms. Or learn about the inner-workings of your company and products. So yes, in this case we’re talking about quality rather than quantity. Because, as we are quickly learning, on Facebook and Twitter, numbers – unless they’re sales numbers – don’t mean a whole lot.

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth1 comments

March21

Sometimes, the Best Content is Given Away

By: Spike Jones

Content is king. Or maybe it’s queen. It might even be the court jester. Nevertheless, “content” is on the lips and minds of a lot of marketers these days. Especially when the topic turns to engaging people on social media channels and hoping that they’ll stick around. There are A LOT of opinions and theories about what good content is and what it isn’t. How much is too much and how much is not enough. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Look, content is important. And while I could argue my own opinion (which has mostly to do with context, not content), there’s something that I’ve learned and has proven to be effective about content: It works best when you give it away.

Late last year I led a team that launched a program for an automotive client (disclosure: I’m not with that firm any more and that company is not a client of WCG). It was the beginnings of an ambassador program and extremely grassroots in nature. There was the usual blocking and tackling that went into building the program, but we also tried some new things. One of which was giving content away.

It went down like this: we found an individual that had many passions than just the automotive brand we represented, like graphic design. He wasn’t an influencer. He didn’t have a huge social media footprint. But his passions ran deep. So we connected with him and asked if we could come out with a camera and talk to him about his passions on a Saturday.

So we went. And filmed him talking about and showing us his passions – not just the car. And then we did something that might be counter-intuitive to a lot of marketers. We produced a beautiful three minute video, packaged it back up, gave it to him…and then walked away. We didn’t post it on the brands highly-visible social sites, we didn’t ask him to post it anywhere and we sure as Hell didn’t tell him what he could and couldn’t do with it. We just said “thanks” and gave it to him.

Now he had all the power. And that’s all he needed.

He posted it on his favorite forum. All his buddies asked how the whole thing came to be and our first ambassador told them the message and purpose of the program in his own words. Industry blogs picked it up and interviewed him. He changed his social profiles to reflect his membership in the program. And it grew and grew and grew. He even became the most influential person on Twitter about that car model (according to Klout, so take it with a grain of salt).

(There were several other components to the program, but for the sake of this post, we’re concentrating on this one piece of content.)

With all of social media’s great abilities to connect with people, we are still inundated with brands pushing their messages down our throats. And that goes triple for automotive brands. So when it comes to content, doing something thoughtfully and deliberately that’s not all about you goes a long way. As we’ve talked about before, as a brand you have a huge spotlight that you can shine on anything you want. So why not turn it around sometimes and instead of shining it on yourself, you let your customer bask in the glow for a while? And then watch word of mouth in action.

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth1 comments

January26

Protect Your Ambassadors

By: Spike Jones

Ambassadors. They go by many different names these days. Some call them advocates, some just call them community members. But no matter what they’re called, they are a huge, HUGE asset to your company.

And what do you do with assets? Everything within your power to protect them.

It is so fascinating to see how those inside and outside of a company view the role of ambassadors. Remember, at the very core, an ambassador is someone who spreads goodwill. And in the context of brand ambassadors, they are spreading goodwill on behalf of your company. That’s it. That’s all. Case closed.

But we see, time and time again, folks with tunnel-vision that want to use ambassadors for other things. First of all, we don’t “use” ambassadors. That word – use – carries with it many definitions. The worst of them pointing towards exploitation. So much time and effort goes into building word of mouth ambassador programs from the ground up. Elevating advocates. Tapping into a passion conversation. Creating a brand identity and sense of ownership. These are things that we do to GIVE to the ambassadors. To raise them up. To empower them. And when it’s done right, our ambassadors feel like we’re ambassadors for them. (See how that works?)

As ambassador programs grow, other departments in the company start to take notice. And when this happens, then those responsible for the program take on a new responsibility – to serve as a shield for the ambassadors. Yes, I hate to say it, but we have to pay attention to the times where we need to protect our ambassadors so they can be what they were meant to be. Ambassadors are not there to get you more views to your YouTube video or more reviews for your product on Amazon. Ambassadors are not there to bump up sales of that old product or retweet your promotion. That’s not their purpose. That’s what the marketing and advertising departments are for. Sure, sometimes as a halo effect those things will naturally happen. But if you go to the ambassador well asking them to do something for you that they don’t really care about, how much are they going to feel appreciated? Did they raise their hand and pick up the banner of your brand so they could pimp out their friends and followers? Or because they believe in something bigger than themselves?

So don’t forget that one of your most important jobs is protecting your ambassadors. After all, they’re out there protecting you – both online and off. And they want you to have their back just like they have yours. That’s how successful relationships work.

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth1 comments

October12

Get Real With Spike Episode 6: Brands Aren’t People

By: Spike Jones

Two subjects covered in less than two minutes:

1. Do you REALLY want a relationship with a brand?

And

2. Do you REALLY want to “humanize” your brand?

I’m thinking “no.”

Get Real with Spike 6 from Social Fresh on Vimeo.

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, marketing, rants2 comments

October10

They’re not influencers, they’re broadcasters

By: Spike Jones

Influence, influence, influence. We’re all talking about it – even if it’s only to complain about everyone talking about it (guilty). We’re trying to measure it. Quantify it. Identify it. Use it. Abuse it. Claim it. And the list goes on and on…

Of course, I’ve weighed in with my fair share of thoughts about how we’re making steps towards some sort of standard, but from the looks of things right now, we’re a long way off.

But I digress.

The point of this post is that I really don’t think that we should label those social media kids that brands try to get in front of as influencers. We should call them what they are: broadcasters.

If you haven’t read this gem of a post written by Zack Bussey that goes inside the mind of a typical “social media influencer” entitled “Social Media Influencers Suck,” you need to.

We feel we deserve it because of what we do after receiving it – we blog, tweet and share it on Facebook. Our blog readers read it, our thousands of followers on Twitter see it and our close friends on Facebook listen to what we say. Simply stated, we give you access to the people we know, and we’re giving it to you rather cheaply.

Read the whole thing. Seriously.

But when you read all the articles about what influence is and isn’t, when you dig into Klout and Kred and all the things written about them, when you get right down to it: these people are broadcasters. And that means that we’re back in a typical media placement cycle. Okay, maybe not typical, but you get the idea. There is an audience. There is a brand who wants access to the audience. A transaction takes place – sometimes paid, sometimes an experience, sometimes “gifted.” And then the brand is placed in front of audience for a limited amount of time.

Being on the PR/Branding/Marketing Communications side of the fence, I watch in awe at how a handful of these bloggers/influencers behave. And I’m fascinate at how these people – who claim to be marketing professionals – react and attack brands. Even at times holding them hostage. And they would never advise a client to act that way online. Yes, there are times when being outraged is warranted (like when they’re deliberately deceived) but other times, come on. They’re even attacking the very companies that have helped them get where they are. And on a side note, do they think that more brands will want to hire them because of this behavior? Do you think that more brands will even approach them in the future? Not likely.

I believe that they days of the social media influencer – as we know them – are numbered. A time is quickly approaching when brands will realize that there are other – more effective – ways to reach their audience and that in fact social media influencers are gatekeepers with no gates at all. They will be obsolete. And the playing field will be level.

Posted in: brands, Featured, lessons learned, rants10 comments

© Copyright askspike.com. All Rights Reserved.