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Ben Franklin: Social Media Enthusiast?

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Drew Neisser

The great patriot and social media enthusiast Benjamin Franklin would surely enjoy the communications revolution that has swept our fair industry and would have plenty of good advice for modern day practitioners. Advice well earned. At 15, he adopted the pseudonym Mrs. Silence Dogood just to get his articles published in his brother’s newspaper. This ruse pissed off his brother to no end and ultimately forced young Ben to flee to Philly where at the age of 21 he formed an early social network called Junto, a group of “like minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community.”

Once in Philadelphia, Franklin quickly distinguished himself as an agent of change, a man Malcolm Gladwell might be forced to describe as connector, maven AND salesman. At 22, he established The Pennsylvania Gazette, essentially a printed blog of his essays and observations, a vehicle that earned him tremendous social currency. Shortly thereafter, he set up the city’s first library, the Wikipedia of its day, complete with America’s first librarian. A noted scientist, perhaps his least known invention is the concept of paying it forward, freely sharing his ideas, inventions and on occasion his cash all with the hope that “it may thus go thro’ many hands.” Clearly, without Franklin there are no open source API’s on Facebook and certainly no #good tweets on Twitter.

Having established his bona fides as social media pioneer let me now call upon the ever-humble B. Franklin to offer us instruction on how modern day marketing patriots can declare their independence from social media silliness. And while this piece is no Poor Richard’s Almanac, it will approach the topic at hand with a similar clarity of purpose and simplicity in language. It will also do so knowing Franklin would have supported this author, “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” Finally, it will encourage marketers to take AIM, a simply acronym that befits a Franklinian approach to social media.

1. A is for Audit

All too often, marketers take the “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach to social media. The numerous social media pundits who prescribe dabbling over diligence encourage this philosophy. Back in 1748, Franklin would have warned you of the risks of this approach, noting, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” Instead, Franklin would have encouraged a rigorous social media audit, offering, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

Hardly revolutionary, a social media audit lays the groundwork for a successful campaign, fulfilling Franklin’s prognostication that, “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” These audits can be done in-house but as Franklin warned, “Those that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.” Kinaxis, a supply chain management company, sought the help of Forrester before it went on to triple its leads and double its site traffic via a rigorously planned social media program (see detailed case history http://bit.ly/cNOgPz .)

2. I is for Implementation

A great communicator himself, Franklin would have been undaunted by all the new options, evaluating each carefully in order to “Never confuse motion with action.” When it comes to content creation, Franklin’s remarkably timeless advice to, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing,” is as true for Twitter and YouTube in 2010 as it was for patriotic pamphlets back in 1775. Anticipating the transparency that enlightened marketers now seek, his proverb “honesty is the best policy,” is truer today than ever before.

Franklin inherently understood social media implementation, and the critical roles of likability, entertainment and patience. For brands that want to build fans on Facebook and the like, Franklin offered, “If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.” For brands afraid of having a little fun with their audience, Franklin encouraged, “Games lubricate the body and the mind.” And for brands in an unrealistic hurry to gain traction in social media, Franklin noted, “He that can have patience can have what he will.”

3. M is for Monitoring

As Postmaster General in 1768, Franklin monitored the routes of British mail ships to discover why it took them two weeks longer to reach US ports than private merchant ships. Conducting his own focus groups with merchant captains and whalers, Franklin ultimately charted and named the Gulf Stream, which was acting like a firewall, slowing the movement of data from East to West across the Atlantic. Not new to the idea of monitoring, Franklin approached even minute details with earnest, noting, “A small leak will sink a great ship.”

So too must social media marketers monitor their activities with rigor and respond accordingly. While lots of free tools are available to monitor everything from conversations to web traffic, organic search performance to lead generation, Franklin reminded us that, “Lost time is never found again,” thus the anticipating the use of time-saving paid services like Radian6. With such a disciplined approach to social media, marketers can, in Franklin’s words, “Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”

Even 220 years after his death, Benjamin Franklin remains a beloved character bestowing a treasure trove of wisdom for good citizens and good brands. In fact, among the 12 virtues that he drafted when only 20 years old, you will find the single best guidance for any brand I’ve ever read, “Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.” (This article originally appeared on MediaPost.com)

8 Smart Steps for B2B Social Media Marketing

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Drew Neisser

While most B2B marketers are scratching the surface, Kirsten Watson and her team at Kinaxis, a Supply Chain Management solutions provider based in Ottawa, are digging deep into the rich veins of social media and finding gold. And while my metaphor may be tired, the 2009 versus 2008 results are anything but:

2.7 times increase in website traffic
3.2 times increase in conversion
5.3 times increase in blog traffic
6.0 times increase in registration of community members

How Kinaxis did all this and more is both instructive and inspiring especially given the extraordinary humility with which Watson shared her story. After I reassured her that Kinaxis was way ahead of the pack, Watson noted, “When you’re in the trenches, head down at the desk, you always feel like you’re playing catch up.” From my perspective, the only catching up to do here is for my readers, who I hope will see this as the definitive case for B2B social media marketing.

1. Innovation Rolls Down Hill

Perhaps the theme I hear most often is the importance of the CEO in inspiring marketing innovation. Well guess what? It’s true for our Canadian neighbors too. “It started in late 2007, when our CEO Doug Colbeth came to us,” noted Watson, adding, “He is the visionary type and was noticing all the social media stuff on the rise and wanted to know if there was an opportunity there for us.” Thinking that social media was mainly Facebook and not seeing a fit, Watson and her team started reading all they could including Groundswell, the seminal book that according to Watson, “Sets the stage for what all the social media stuff really means.”

2. Experts are Worth the Investment

Knowing what you don’t know is tough and knowing when to pay for outside expertise is even tougher. Noted Watson on the decision to spend $70,000 with Forrester on research, “Our company isn’t big enough, so we needed outside help and engaged Forrester to help us understand our audience.” Added Watson, “if we don’t understand the audience we’re trying to reach, how in the world could we build an infrastructure to engage them?” Forrester’s recommendation to build a community was unexpected but the data was quite strong. Offered Watson, “So we executed on all of their recommendations, the biggest being the community.”

3. Patience is Rewarded Especially When it Comes to Blogging

“Our blog is a huge part of our social media strategy but that’s been going on since 2005,” noted Watson, who added “We were banging our heads against the wall, questioning if it was worth the investment of time.” That is no longer the case, noted Watson, “Our blog today is one of the industry’s leading blogs; we get a lot of leadership points off our blog because we’re quite careful about the quality of the content.” This sensitivity to their readers provided a strong foundation for their newer social media activities, added Watson, “We’re never trying to be over-promotional and we’re always talking about real issues.”

4. SEO is More than a Side Benefit of Social Media

“The biggest thing for us has been about finding ‘religion’ in SEO,” noted Watson when explaining her top lessons learned. “Start with really understanding the keywords that are important to your marketplace and then build your campaign in as integrated way as possible,” she added. Kinaxis has an editorial calendar based on key industry topics, writes a monthly whitepaper and then extends that content to Slideshare (PowerPoint presentations), YouTube (videos of the author), blogs, LinkedIn groups and newsletters. Offered Watson, “We understand things like keyword density, interlinking, back-linking,” thus helping to turn social media content into gold.

5. Building Community Means Letting the People Speak

In July 2009, Kinaxis launched a community for supply chain management enthusiasts with a hope and a prayer. The hope was that they would get a few hundred members and a prayer that it would attract new customers as well as their current. One year later, the community now has over 2760 members, 75% of whom are not current Kinaxis customers. Watson advised avoiding any kind of corporate messaging in the community, “When you understand the social media revolution; it’s owned by the people and not us. “ She added, “You have to be open, be honest, encompass all ideas and let people communicate how they like.”

6. Holy Hockey Player Batman; Even Supply Chain Experts are People Too

All too often, B2B marketing efforts are restrained by a deadly seriousness that simply ignores the humanity of the target. Not so for Kinaxis. Comedy content has been a long-standing component of their web efforts and it became an important part of the community when it launched. “Comedy has been a great draw, since at the end of the day, it gets back to the whole notion that people are people,” she chuckled. “Our business world and personal world do intersect,” noted Watson. “I don’t think there’s anything but good things that come from a company showing its personality and that it has a sense of humor,” concluded Watson.

7. Keep it Fresh by Taking Calculated Risks

In early 2010, Kinaxis opened its blog up to outside bloggers, a calculated risk that has already paid off. 5 leading industry experts are now posting content along with 18 Kinaxis employees, helping to drive site traffic and improve organic search performance. “These bloggers can even go on and post a contrary view to the way we see things which adds more credibility to the blog,” noted Watson, who also added, “None of our posts are preapproved—it’s all or nothing.” Understanding the need for experimentation, Watson acknowledged, “We don’t expect to get it right every time and there’s still so much learning to do,” revealing the refreshing humility I mentioned upfront.

8. Track Everything and Revel in the Love of Your Sales Force

Though measurement is still considered a work in progress, how Kinaxis monitors its social media progress is first rate. Noted Watson, “We’re tracking all of the traditional stuff like keyword searches, website hits and conversions but its hard to track what created what.” Taking things a step further, Kinaxis uses a scoring system to monitor qualified leads against a number of criteria including industry, revenue range and title. She added that leads, “Hit a threshold value of points that then tells us this is a market qualified lead; they’re all tracked by SalesForce, so we can look back and see where our best qualified leads came from,” thus generating the on-going love and appreciation of the Kinaxis sales force.

Final note: While Kinaxis is far from a household name, if you are in the Supply Chain Management business there is a pretty good chance you’ve heard of them, laughed with them or even given them a piece of your mind. And if you haven’t, they just added a “community manager” to increase the odds that you will soon and that this fast-growing privately-held Canadian company will continue to lead the way in social media marketing.

Cisco’s Social Media Marketing Puts Game on Leaderboard

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Drew Neisser

Just after the Marketing VP set the bar at 20,000 downloads in the first six months, Petra Neiger and the myPlanNet game team at Cisco wondered, “How the heck are we going to do that?” The marketing budget was well under $50,000, her team was tiny and each of them had other marketing responsibilities. Nonetheless, when I met Petra this May, the program was already a stunning success and being honored with BtoB’s Social Media Marketing Award for Best Integrated Campaign.

In fact, myPlanNet, a simulation game that “puts you in the shoes of a service provider CEO,” exceeded expectations at every turn. Launched in October 2009, the game surpassed the download goal by 3,200 the end of January and has gained at least 20,000 more players since then. The game has attracted over 60,000 fans on Facebook with players from at least 2500 different companies and over 130 different countries. With 5,000 new fans joining between mid May and mid June, myPlanNet is a case worth studying, revealing six game-changing steps to social media innovation.

1. Get Management Blessing

It’s a fundamental truth that innovation requires support in the highest offices of any company. Not surprisingly, the myPlanNet game concept was “formed out of an internal innovation contest,” noted Ms.Neiger. “The idea was to find an untraditional way to engage our customer and teach them about Cisco,” she added. “Cisco is very big on innovation, wanting to show the human network in action,” offered Petra. That said, management did not write a blank check and instead put a cap on financial resources, limiting the development budget to $200,000 thus requiring the team to make the most of every dollar. This hedging approach to innovation is not unusual and can inspire further creativity as it did with this program.

2. Channel Internal Energy

Often companies overlook the importance of encouraging widespread employee involvement in their innovative initiatives, particularly in social media. This was not the case with myPlanNet. First, noted Ms. Neiger, “we had an internal group that tested the game every step of the way.” This helped keep the program on budget. Then, added Ms. Neiger, “We launched the game internally 2-3 weeks before external launch because it’s a very robust game so we didn’t know how it would work once a lot of people started playing.” This had the added benefits of enhancing morale and as Petra noted, “started a trend inside the company where other groups are starting to play the game and are inspired to try more innovative approaches.”

3. Create Something Innovative

Admittedly, this sub-head may seem a little obvious, but the key word here is “Create” and you’d be amazed how often marketers seek social media success without actually creating something of genuine value for their target. In Cisco’s case, they created a simulation game that according to Petra, was “easy to play but difficult to master; you can play five minutes or you can play for an hour.” One sure sign of success that you’ve created something innovative is unplanned press attention. “We had no PR outreach whatsoever,” added Ms.Neiger, yet the Washington Post, The SF Chronicle, numerous magazines and blogs all reported on the game, which in turn fueled social media engagement.

4. Seed Your Efforts

Bestselling author Doug Ruskoff recently suggested that all a company needed to do was to create a superior product and, in the new world of social media communications, consumers would find out about it and beat a virtual trail to their door. This idealistic viewpoint may ultimately prove to be true but few marketers can or should take this chance right now. At a minimum, marketers need to jump-start the conversation, as was the case with myPlanNet. The game demoed at a big tradeshow in Geneva last October where, noted Ms. Neiger, “We had a camera to record people’s experiences and put these videos and images on our Game Support and Facebook fan pages.” Judiciously allocating their $30k launch budget to demos, welcome ads and content syndication, Cisco also spent $100 per day on Facebook to bring people to their fan page all of which helped spark interest in the game.

5. Keep on Experimenting

Given the dynamic nature of social media, it is essential that once you get started you keep adapting to consumer feedback and experiment as the opportunities present themselves. Noted Ms. Neiger, “six weeks after launch we started doing social media even more and experimenting a lot.” When they started seeing comments in foreign languages, they responded with a monthly report of fans by country. “People have national pride and are very into it so they passed along the link,” offered Petra who noted enthusiastically that users could be traced back to 130 different countries, thus fulfilling an important objective for this unique marketing initiative. Later on they added a holiday challenge, mini-online games and even a multiple choice quiz about the game, all of which increased fan engagement.

6. Think Small

Unfortunately, a lot of innovative programs, especially ambitious ones in the social media arena never see the light of day because their initial funding requirements are deemed to be too large by management. myPlanNet, the game, was built in 13 months with the help of external experts at a budget cap of $200,000. Though previous gaming efforts by Cisco had achieved some success, management still asked, “Why would this be different from what we’ve done before and how do we get the word out?” Petra and her team were quick with answers, having baked in a more “inclusive gaming experience” and social media-friendly elements like in-game testimonials and a dynamic leader board that allows players to see top scores by week, month and all-time. At the same time, Petra noted that “We would have loved to do more personalization within the game and to include a multiplayer aspect,” but that would have required more time and money, changes that might have prevented this winning game from launching in the first place.

Final note: Petra was quick to remind me that myPlanNet, “started as a side project.” Since then, she added, “The company realizes that the game is really good and really successful,” but she “still has a day job” as does the rest of her team–so much for award-winning marketing being all fun and games!

Spirits that Twitter

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Drew Neisser

In the spirit of my last two posts, here is a quick overview of the liquor brands that use Twitter. For the most part, the well established brands are sitting on the sidelines while the younger upstarts figure out how to gain traction via this nascent channel.

@BaconVodka: Living up to its porcine name, Bakon Vodka provides tasty drink recipes while keeping their 2,055 followers informed on where and when they can buy this product.
@MR1X supports a relatively new line extension from Belvedere Vodka that is imbued with the lifestyle of Parisian graffiti artist Andre. With over 880 followers, the tweets track Andre’s world travels and endless nightlife. MR1X aggressive use of Twitter, Flickr and YouTube may make it the first generation of truly social media-driven spirits.
@Belvedere_Vodka keeps their 539 followers buzzed with a steady stream of summer drink recipes and other self-promotions.
@DonCenobio: This tequila brand has about 500 followers and focuses on brand-related event activity.
@Blackbottle: This whisky brand enthusiastically covered their appearance at the Taste of London for its 353 followers which may be just enough for them.
@CieloTequila: This Mexican based tequila has 300+followers and claims to be “the smoothest tequila on the market” but with no events listed it would be hard for anyone to know since it hasn’t updated its page in over a month.
@NudeVodka09: This scantily veiled brand keeps its 300+ followers updated on events and new concoctions. They seemed to be more engaged than most as many of their posts are fan offered thank you’s.
@RepublicTequila: By Texans for Texans, this brand seem to focus solely on The Lone Star state reporting on local promotions for its 230+ long horned followers.
@SoloranzoTkila: …..Tkila…..get it? The text-friendly name is about all this tequila twitter page has to offer its 178 followers unless they’re into historical facts about tequila, such as one of its most recent posts “For many years it was known as “mezcal wine” or “mezcal tequila,” since mezcal or mexcal is another Nahuatl term for agave.”
@PinkyVodka: Despite this vodka’s small following (only 91), their enthusiastic self-promotion of the “world’s most beautiful vodka” and constant reminders of Pinky-drink ideas lets one know how to get and what to do with this product.
@Mragave: After reading this site’s post you will know how strong this tequila is- but not much else. With a mere 37 followers, this brand claims to be more popular in “Agave Friendliest States” like CA, TX,NY, IL,FL,AZ, and CO.

Noticeably absent from this list are any Diageo mega-brands like Smirnoff, J&B, Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker. Since there is no way currently to “age gate” your Twitter followers, perhaps they are simply electing to “keep on walking” rather than risk the potential wrath of watchdog groups. Given the relatively small size of the followings of other spirit brands, at the moment being “ready to Tangueray” need not include tweets.

Drinking in Social Media

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Drew Neisser

This article first appeared in Chief Marketer on January 12, 2009:

The word “liaise” is about as common in the U.S. as are reports of successful marketing efforts on Facebook and MySpace. To succeed in social media, brands would be wise to LIAISE, a word first coined by our genteel and cultivated cousins across the pond in the 1920’s. By definition, liaise means “to communicate and maintain contact with,” the fundamental goal of marketing on social networks. Modern synonyms like “link up” and “hook up” bring the word even closer to home. To tighten the connection, LIAISE becomes an acronym for a six-step process to connect with consumers via social media: Listen, Identify, Activate, Integrate, Socialize, Evaluate.

1. Listen

Listening to your customers is a marketing “no brainer” that seems to fall on deaf ears when it comes to social networks. Heavy-handed product messages are simply ignored on Facebook to the point that IDC labeled social advertising “stillborn” and Seth Goldstein of SocialMedia Networks wrote that banner ads are “universally disregarded.”

Bacardi found success on Facebook after customer research revealed its Mojito campaign had become wildly popular. Extending this campaign effectively meant engaging Facebookers via the Bacardi Mojito Party widget. This useful and entertaining application included a Mojito Cocktail Calculator and a game that allowed users to become bartenders. According to its creators, Buddy Media, over 100,000 adult Facebook members installed the “app-vertisment” in the first week.

2. Identify
Most of us come to realize at an early age that not everyone wants to be our friend. Painful as this may sound for mass brands, the same is true for marketers on social networks. Rather than fight this reality, savvy marketers will look at social networks as a unique opportunity to connect with well-defined micro-targets.

Absolut focused on aspiring bartenders with an application that connected Facebookers to a reality TV show called “On The Rocks: The Search for America’s Top Bartender.” To support the search, Absolute created a “Top Bartender” application that first served as a casting /bartender registration tool, and then enabled users to become an absolute bartender ‘fan,’ vote for their favorite bartender featured in the series, share photos, videos and post on the bartender wall.

3. Activate
A whole lot of marketers have fallen down and not gotten up again when they dropped into social networks ads first. Disappointed, they walk away not knowing in this case “A” is for Activate and not Advertise. To effectively leverage social platforms, marketers need to activate community by creating something of value that is either highly entertaining or extremely useful.

Bud Light found success by going the entertainment route. Their “Decode Your Dudeness” application on Facebook was a hilarious progression of silly photos requiring one to make a choice each time. At the end of the quiz, Bud Light fans scored a customized ”Dudeness” rating that was equally humorous and highly viral. Bud Light found a way to activate that was true to their brand and worthy of sharing with a friend (hmm, just like a nice cold beer.)

4. Integrate
One of the quickest ways to be anti-social is to think of your social media effort as a stand-alone program. This is the equivalent of planning a big party down to the last detail and then neglecting to send out invitations. Having an integrated effort that extends the engagement both within and beyond your social media partners is a sure fire way to get the party started.

Beck’s relatively fresh “Different By Choice” campaign includes a strong social media component that is surrounded by traditional advertising. “The Daily Different” blog features comedian Darius Davies as the content curator, and so far, the content is indeed different and entertaining. And the Beck’s wiki invites consumers to add and develop the brand’s story in a unique fashion. It remains to be seen whether the promised arrival of Darius on Facebook and YouTube will attract a crowd, but the consistently integrated approach of the overall campaign certainly gives it a fighting chance.

5. Socialize
Social media campaigns should not be confused with “pop-up stores” that come and go in a New York minute. Like good friendships they need to be cultivated over time. And like a great hostess, marketers need to truly socialize, working the room, offering a range of entertainment options to ensure that all of their “friends” continue to have a great time.

For Absolut, the InAnAbsolutWorld.com website, acted as a platform for social interaction, inviting consumers to share, request, vote for, and blog about their vision for a ‘perfect world.’ Tools for engagement were provided for users to create and upload images, films, words and sounds that depict their visions of an ABSOLUT world – you can even download desktop wallpaper for your favorite vision. The website also housed videos of celebs and artists’ visions [Kanye West] of an Absolut world.

6. Evaluate
It is generally ill advised to request a conjugal relationship from someone you’ve never even talked to. Nonetheless, marketer’s eager to close the sale are consistently disappointed that they couldn’t do so via social media. When evaluating the effects of your social media campaign, it is important to have realistic expectations and measure everything from “friends” gained to application downloads to time with brand to website traffic and yes, even sales if the romance period was sufficient.

Bud Light’s “Decode Your Dude” quiz was the most downloaded application on Facebook during the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The original ‘Dude’ spot has been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube alone, and the four ads have been viewed more than 13.5 million times from sites like YouTube, MSN.com, break.com and MySpace.

To sum up, while many brands are keen to make “friends” via social networks, few are willing to take the time to learn this new channel and treat it with the requisite finesse. These brands are like drunken sailors who charge into a bar shouting, “who wants to dance?” When no one responds they get testy and proclaim, “This place is useless.” By adding LIAISE to their repertoire, marketers can drink in the potential of social media.