Drew's Articles Archives - Page 35 of 55

Social Presbyopia is Curable

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Drew Neisser

According to the National Library of Medicine, Presbyopia is a condition in which the lens of the eye loses its ability to focus, making it difficult to see objects up close. I’m afraid that many in my generation are also at risk for social presbyopia: the inability to acknowledge the seismic shifts in behavior driven by social media and, worse yet, the reluctance to personally embrace these changes themselves.

Sure, baby boomers are catching on to Facebook, but I still find tremendous resistance to the notion that social media is more than another dotcom fad. To quote one such reader of my recent MediaPost article on the future of social shopping: “Sheesh. There is nothing–NOTHING–solid out there, yet, to suggest that social media (SOCIAL MEDIA!!!!) is going to have much of an impact on, well, anything.”

Clearly, this particular gentleman is fed up with all the social media hype, or perhaps he’s simply overwhelmed by the seemingly endless drivel he sees on Twitter and Facebook. But regardless, he does have an acute case of social presbyopia, one that is undoubtedly aggravated by his inability to focus on what’s happening below the surface. You, however, can avoid this problem with the following prescriptive steps.

When in doubt, scan the search results
On the surface, Google+ is a classic example of over-hype. Its rapid enrollment of 100 million users seems mythical; its purpose is not easily differentiated from Facebook; and its role in the marketing mix is still unclear. But stopping here would miss the point. If search results matter to you, as they do to 99.9% of brands, then consider who owns and operates this social network. Google is already indexing Google+ posts, quite favorably it seems, so frankly, it’s be there or be missed.

Peek beyond the pictures
After attracting over 12 million unique visitors last month, Pinterest has become the poster child of the next new thing. Given the simplicity of this online “pinboard,” which simply aggregates pictures people find “pinteresting” into virtual scrapbooks, it would be easy to dismiss it as the domain of young women with too much time on their hands. In truth, many enlightened brands like Oreck, Chobani, Mashable and GE have discovered that Pinterest is a traffic-driving dream come true. (Shareaholic reported that Pinterest ranked 4th in referral traffic in January — just behind Google!)

It’s time to start seeing double
Social TV is one of those emerging ideas that gives traditional couch potatoes’ fits while the CE industry and start-ups from the Valley to the Alley try to figure out how to integrate social media with TV viewing. Considering that over 12 million comments were shared socially during the Super Bowl, including a vision-blurring 10,000 tweets a second in the final three minutes, it is apparent that having a second screen open while watching TV is a new behavior worth monitoring. Clearly, waiting for the water cooler to share reviews is simply passé, and also it’s time to take a closer look at social TV apps like GetGlue and Miso.

Keep your eyes on mobile
MoSoLo is not a new neighborhood in Manhattan but rather an acronym for the dynamic combination of mobile, social and location-based applications. Unfortunately, with FourSquare’s growth out of the headlines, this trend also could be dismissed as a fad and marketers might be tempted to throw the mobile social baby out with the location-based bathwater. Bad idea. Over 50% of shoppers consulted their mobile devices while at retail this past December; therefore, having a multi-tiered mobile strategy is essential for just about any brand. If your website isn’t mobile friendly, fix that. Next, think about apps that deliver genuine value, integrate social and capitalize on mobile functionality like barcode scanning, GPS and voice.

Don’t get trapped in the current fog about blogs
Blogging, one of the early wonders of the web, has been losing steam lately, particularly among B2B marketers. Some are undoubtedly distracted by newer social channels, while others find the commitment to generating quality content on an on-going basis a bit overwhelming. Big mistake. Blogs are still among the best ways to improve natural search results, as well as provide genuinely useful information to ultimately appreciative prospects and customers.

Final Note: Optical presbyopia is far from fatal and typically corrected with glasses, contact lenses and even laser surgery. Similarly, social presbyopia is hardly terminal and can be fixed with a steady diet of social experimentation and the vision to see past the naysayers.

If this article looks familiar, it’s only because you read it on MediaPost.com. By the way, if you liked this post, feel free to show your love by subscribing to my blog.

Effectively Using Your Marketing Metrics

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Drew Neisser

One of the reason’s I love marketing is that no two challenges look alike and there is always something new to learn. I had the pleasure of talking with Janet Roberts, CMO of Syniverse, a rapidly growing private company that provides roaming and networking services to mobile operators all of the world. Janet has been on a world-wind journey to raise the bar on the marketing metrics her team gathers from around the world and across multiple communication channels. Since I only used one quote in the related FastCompany.com article, here’s a lot more of what I learned in our conversation.

DN: Can you give me a quick overview of Syniverse…
Syniverse is a quiet brand because we work behind the scenes in the mobile ecosystem. The company began as a very small department within GTE 25 years ago, and bridging the space between mobile operators is in our DNA. We’ve transitioned from serving mainly North American operators with mobile roaming capabilities to providing sophisticated interoperability and intelligence solutions to mobile service providers around the globe.

DN: So how is business?
In the past five years, we’ve grown our customer base from 330 mobile operators to more than 900 mobile service providers including operators, cable providers, ISPs and enterprises. During the same period, we’ve more than doubled our revenues.

DN: Tell me about your customers…
A significant portion of our customer base continues to be mobile operators in all regions of the world. However, the mobile ecosystem is an interesting place that is constantly changing and expanding. Cable operators, internet service providers, enterprises and big brands are part of the mix now, and we serve each of these segments.

DN: Right, so it’s all B2B, and I imagine it’s a long sales cycle.
It is B2B. As for the sales cycle, it’s a very high-touch interaction where we employ a consultative selling approach, so the average sale takes a few months. It’s not the type of sale made by a customer placing an order directly on a website.

DN: So how does this consultative selling work?
We work very closely in partnership with our customers and prospects to understand their business issues and proactively offer solutions to help them grow revenue, protect their brands and manage their businesses efficiently.

DN: Can you give me an overview of your marketing activities and associated metrics?
Let’s start with our website. In 2011, we completed a major refresh where we improved the navigation and added functionality to better serve additional segments. We also added much more video to illustrate use cases and our consultative approach.

Regarding metrics, we look at overall impressions, time spent on various Web pages and the pattern by which visitors navigate the website. One of our team members is dedicated to analyzing Web activity and search engine optimization programs to measure marketing effectiveness.

DN: So what other kind of data are you gathering?
We gather data to help us measure the effectiveness of our events, PR and media outreach, customer publications, and internal communications. We employ surveys to gather quantitative and qualitative feedback, measuring progress year over year or quarter over quarter. We conduct customer satisfaction surveys, which are a bit broader and help us see how we’re trending with respect to corporate performance metrics.

DN: Some say that if you can’t measure it, you should not do it. What do you think?
We try to find a way to assess all of our programs, so we can prioritize for the highest impact. Personally, I think you can always find ways to measure effectiveness, even if they are not obvious at first.

DN: Do you also have metrics to internal communications?
We conduct an employee satisfaction survey annually and include questions that specifically address our communication effectiveness. We’re always introducing new internal outreach programs and regularly survey our internal audience to assess usefulness and gather ideas to further add value.

DN: What are the metrics that matter to you the most?
Because our website is the centerpiece of our communications, it is very important that we understand our trending online. Web usage data tells us a lot – not only the sheer numbers of visitors but also their usage patterns. We can then identify what is resonating with our audiences and determine where we should add content.

DN: What about harder to measure things like PR exposure?
That’s a good question. Of course we look at impressions, media mentions, numbers of speaking engagements and more. Some results can’t be quantified in the usual way but are important to our business. For example, I recently learned from two product group colleagues that visibility of the company’s capabilities gained from an interview I did for a business publication directly led to a partnership opportunity for that group.

DN: Where are you in on what a fellow CMO calls the metrics journey?
Though we have a lot of tools and measures in place, we are still in the boarding process of this journey. We would like to get a look at our trending in near real-time so that we can increase effectiveness and better serve our customers with the information they need.

DN: Do you have a metrics dashboard?
We’re in the process, as we speak, of evaluating how we’re going to report our marketing effectiveness dashboard on a consolidated basis. We have a lot of good data that we consider on a micro dashboard level, and we recognize the need to roll it up into a blended dashboard to be indicative of where we are.

DN: So is this a dynamic challenge or what?
Yes. Since we need to address existing customers plus an expanding market that includes emerging members of the mobile ecosystem on a global basis, we need to figure out what makes the most sense to reach all our audiences. There are a myriad of channels – traditional and emerging as well – so it is important to understand and measure effectiveness. Between new segments and new marketing channels, it makes for a job that is always interesting, especially when you couple that with being in an industry like mobile, which is changing all the time. Even with very good success, you can’t ever sit back and rely on a formula. You never know when the next game changer will be introduced, so you must be one step ahead.

How This Major Brand Incorporates Social Media

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Drew Neisser

Turns out a number of folks tuning into The Grammys last night didn’t know who Paul McCartney is. Really. See Buzzfeed. That’s just one of the challenges the folks at The Grammys face when marketing Music’s big night to multiple generations of music fans. For the record, this particular boomer blogger thought the show rocked and the associated marketing was worth singing about too. As such, I am working on a case study/article that should run next month.

In the meantime, I thought it would be timely to share part of my interview late last year with Evan Greene, the CMO of the Recording Academy, the folks behind The Grammys. Greene offers savvy insights into how his team developed their new campaign, how they measure success and how they integrate social media into their campaign from the get go. (And by the way, if you are an app fan and a music fan, you’ll probably enjoy the We are Music iPhone app.)

DN: So, what are you doing new this year?
What we’ve really tried to do is continue to find innovation both from a macro and a micro standpoint, and as you and I have talked about, it really is about feeding the conversation, finding new and exciting and engaging ways to feed the conversation all throughout the year. As we prepare for the Grammys again this year, we will again create a campaign that gets noticed, that gets talked about across the digital and social space and becomes more and more deeply into society and pop culture. We’re going far beyond the idea of just promoting a television show or entertainment event. We want to make sure that our message starts from a social standpoint and we emanate from there.

So, our campaign will be something that is easily translatable across all media, both traditional and digital media. It will be accompanied by a significant mobile presence, will be a micro site accompanying it, will be an app accompanying it. We wanna make sure that we are part of the conversation in as many relevant and organic places as possible. And it terms of sharing specifics, were about to launch the campaign and I can tell you that in terms of what I can share, I can tell you that in the past, you know we’ve really focused on music’s inspiration and its ability to connect us to a shared community.

DN: So this year’s idea is…
Its called, “We are Music,” and it’s about creating a visual interpretation of music, because if you look at the way music shows are traditionally promoted or marketed, its very simple, its “Hey, watch “x” show and see stars. And the challenge is that its very one-dimensional and it doesn’t really say anything about the brand itself, and a lot of these award shows share talent anyway, if you watch one show versus another, you see the same artist in two or three or four of them. So, rather than just say the same thing as everybody else, how do we differentiate ourselves? We have to differentiate ourselves by becoming part of the story of people’s lives.

DN: Tell me more.
Were focusing on the idea that when we listen to music, we surround ourselves in it, it becomes who we are, part of our DNA, an extension of our personality, inexplicably linked with our identity, and our campaign, like music itself, is a driving pulse and is infused with energy and music. So we think that just with that kind of simple concept that is executed very dynamically, that we’ve got something that will really excite people.

DN: You said something really interesting in your intro; you said you wanted to make sure that the campaign starts in social. Why and what do you mean by that?
I think a lot of brands take the position that they’ll come up with an idea and then create a bolt-on digital solution or a bolt-on digital extension and what we’ve really endeavored to do and we’ve kind of indoctrinated this into our DNA here at the Academy, that everything starts from a digital place, everything starts as part of the digital conversation. Because, candidly, that’s how people are really communicating these days in a more aggressive and dynamic way, and so rather than create an idea that we think makes sense for a traditional “above the line” media approach, we started from the standpoint of “let’s create something that’s meaningful and organic socially” that can then and if we can achieve that, we think that the next natural extension is to be able to extend and engage across the board.

Because it’s hard to retrofit your idea into a digital realm and have it really make perfect sense. So if you look at what we’ve done over the last several years, not only during the Grammys, but throughout the year, we’ve really been looking for ways to continue to feed the digital conversation around us. And that’s really all that our campaign is, it’s another way to feed the conversation, its not the end all be all, the conversation’s going on, we’re all having the conversation all throughout the year, and the digital music conversation is certainly something that we’re part of for the other 364. So really all were doing is finding ways to, more innovative ways to engage and get people interested in the conversation.

DN: I’ve seen the stat that showed that your ratings were up 35 % in 2010 due in part to the success of your “We’re All Fans” campaign. How did it go in 2011?
I’ll tell you, after 2010’s monster numbers, we were hoping that our campaign and our 2011 efforts would be good enough to remain flat but what we found was that our ratings were up over 3% in the aggregate, which is an extraordinary number for us. And the thing that’s really been gratifying and reassuring is that while we’re up 3% in the aggregate, we were up 4% in teens and young adults.

DN: Do you have an agency that helps you stay on the cutting edge?
We’re now on our 5^th year of our AOR relationship with Chiat/Day, and many of these things that were talking about specifically related to our telecasted campaigns would not have been possible without Chiat. We give them a brief of what we need to achieve and they do really some incredibly creative and dynamic things, so I couldn’t ask for a better creative partner than Chiat.

Socializing the Retail Experience

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Drew Neisser

Climbing way up the tallest building in the world (Dubai’s Burj Khalifa,) one of Tom Cruise’s electronic gloves loses its grip and the hero of the latest “Mission: Impossible” thriller is forced to improvise. At this moment, the viewer is also reminded that technology can only get you so far, at which point it is time for some lifesaving human ingenuity.

Looking ahead to a panel discussion at MediaPost’s Social Media Insider Summit next Wednesday in Key Largo, I’ve decided to go out on a somewhat futuristic ledge here and imagine how social media could dramatically alter the retail experience. Since most of this technology already exists, add in a touch of creativity and this becomes my very own “Mission: Possible.”

Knowing: “So Nice to See You Again, Ms. Shopalot”
Since many of the ideas below are dependent upon you, the shopper, sharing your social graph with retailers, let’s get the basic enabling technology out of the way. Near Field Communications (NFC) already allow for the instantaneous transfer of credit/debit card data from consumer to retailer, so sharing your social info via NFC shouldn’t be too far away. Now the fun can begin.

Personalizing: “Is that Beyoncé Wearing a Maternity Gown in Your Size?”
Now that the retailer knows who you are, opportunities for personalization abound. Electronic signage reacting to your social preferences could display your favorite celeb wearing an outfit that was on your posted shopping list or simply point to the floor or dressing room where you can find a product selection in the colors you like.

Bargaining: “Would You Like Some Friends With That?”
In the brave new social world, it won’t be the size of your closets that determines access to volume discounts. Instead, it will be the size and collective bargaining ability of your social graph. For example, a “social” wine store could provide their 10% case discount on single purchases because your social network completed the case requirement together that week.

Hearing: “OMG, Best Song Ever”
Sorry Muzak, but the days of one-size-fits-all audio at retail are soon to be over. Social retailers could tune into the preferences of individual shoppers, piping out personalized streams of music built from shared Spotify or Ping playlists. A shopper hearing their favorite jam will be pumped up and in the perfect mood for a heaping dose of retail therapy.

Surprising: “That’s the Coolest Thing I’ve Ever Seen”
Projected touch screen displays (see demo of PicoMagic at CES 2012) combined with social data could completely transform the retail shopping experience. Entire walls could become interactive, allowing shoppers to sort through vast amounts of virtual inventory that is preselected based on social preferences. Sharing and comparing also would become a snap.

Out-smarting: “Dude, Where’s My Bar?”
Social integration into products might just save us from ourselves if we’re so inclined. For example, if you check in at a bar, your car instantly will know to only start the engine after you pass the Breathalyzer on your smart phone. If you don’t pass the test, your phone will track down your nearest and most sober friends.

Rating: “That’s the Way (Uh-Huh Uh-Huh) I Like It… On Facebook”
Reviews of products and services are ubiquitous online, and it is only a matter of time until these move in-store. Now imagine that the products themselves can display reviews in real-time and highlight those from your social graph. Suddenly that banana-flavored craft beer your friends liked is just what the doctor ordered.

Klouting: “Tell You What I’m Gonna Do Just For You…”
Rewarding influential customers with superior service or free/discounted goods is nothing new, but social integration could take those perks to new heights. For example, once a retailer recognizes a customer with a high Klout score (or equivalent), discounts commensurate with their potential influence could be offered with a promise of more after the social sharing occurs.

Gaming: “Shopping is a Game, Isn’t It?”
Once a retailer can respond to your social graph, the opportunities to introduce game mechanics multiply faster than you can say “Batman: Arkham City.” Based on your in-store behavior, instant coupons could be earned or, perhaps more interestingly, virtual points could be aggregated for redemption in Farmville or another Facebook favorite.

Traveling: See You in Key Largo?
Clearly, this little imaginary excursion just scratches the surface when it comes to the true potential of integrating social media into real-world products, which is why I hope you’ll join me down in Key Largo next week along with fellow panelists like John Yi of Facebook and Lars Djuvik of Specific Media/MySpace. It should be a lot more fun than hanging from a window with a broken electronic glove…

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Teaching Social Business at San Jose State (with IBM)

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Drew Neisser

Ben Franklin’s line, “well done is better than well said,” gets at the very heart of Marketing as Service. If you want to truly engage your target to the point that they have a genuine desire to do business with you then you have to do something–it can’t be just talk. A great example of doing something is IBM’s recently announced collaboration with San Jose State University with a program they call The Great Mind Challenge. This program brings together students, teachers, IBM’ers (as mentors) and local companies that seems to be a win/win/win/win for all involved.

As part of my background research for a story on this program (see FastCompany.com), I interviewed Larry Gee, the SJSU instructor working with IBM to teach “social business” to a select group of undergrads. I think you’ll find what Gee has to say about this business/academic collaboration quite interesting.

DN: Can you give me a little background on this program from SJSU’s perspective?
SJSU, College of Business, has always brought innovation to the classroom so students can learn, apply, and differentiate themselves in the business world. SJSU and IBM has a long relationship over the years. It is only natural that ideas are bounced back and forth between us; how we can make a difference when preparing the next generation of leaders. Bringing social business into the classroom was one of those ideas that fit the innovation framework.

DN: Why did SJSU decide to collaborate with IBM on this project?
SJSU, College of Business, decided to collaborate with IBM on this project because Social Business is a critical skill that students need to have to be competitive in the market place. Social Business is a transferable skill across multiple disciplines ie business, bio-sciences, engineering, humanity & arts, etc. Students worked on a real business problem, real time, to learn and apply social business tools and processes.

DN: Do you have collaborations with other large corporations?
Yes, we have collaborated with other large corporations such as Cisco, Google, Microsoft to name a few.

DN: If you were talking to another educator at a different university who was considering a similar collaboration, what advice would you give them?
My advice: 1) Identify key social business partner asap. This is critical because a real life component is needed to reinforce key concept and process. 2) Plan quickly with a clear course work and administration buy-in roadmap for execution in 60 days. 3) Execute plan and have class up and running by next term.

DN: How are you evaluating the success of this program?
Students must be able to understand and apply social business tools/process to a real life problem. The program success is measured on how well students learn, grasp, apply, and demonstrate how social business can be used in a business environment to increase competitive advantage or improve business process cycle time.

DN: How have students responded?
Students response has been great because they have already been exposed and used social media, Facebook, blogs, bookmarks, wiki, to name a few, basic components of social business, at a very young age. What is new then? They are able to build a social business environment using various social media tools they already know and use, but this time, in a business setting.

DN: Can you speak to the advantages of having IBM experts mentor your students?
Certainly. Having a subject matter experts available to talk, demonstrate, and relate to actual projects are key. One can read articles and talk about them in class. But when you are given access to the latest materials and platform to create a social business environment then this is collaboration at its highest. Mentor is only a few clicks away to kick around ideas and bring those ideas to reality. This is where academia and business intersect.

DN: Is there a risk with a program like this that it will be perceived more as a marketing ploy for IBM than a more company-neutral business course?
I don’t believe the program is a major marketing ploy but rather a business neutral course because majority of tools and contents used were not IBM but rather current tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Bookmark, wiki, etc. GBS, IBM Business Partner, provided the real life problem for students to do a deep dive into their social business space.

What Great Apps Can Teach Brands

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Drew Neisser

Created with ColorSplash app

Just in case you missed this on MediaPost, here’s an overview of some interesting apps and what brands can learn from them.

I flat out love apps. Every time I discover a new one that enhances my life in some small way, I feel a burst of joy that demands sharing. Obviously, I’m not alone in my enthusiasm. Last week, Google announced the 10 billionth download of Droid apps, and Apple said they hit 18 billion downloads back in October. That’s a lot of apps to love.

Needless to say, not all of these apps are getting used. Like most, I download many more than I end up trying, let alone using regularly. No, it takes something truly special for an app to gain traction. Those that do find purchase, however, can teach numerous lessons to brands operating outside the app-happy universe.

Do One Thing Really Well
Despite Jim Collins’ advice for companies to have a “hedgehog” concept, very few brands have the discipline to stand for one thing and stick with it. Colorsplash, a beautifully restrained app, is a basic editing tool that dramatizes your photos by removing all the color and then filling in specific objects with your chosen hue.

Don’t Hang Out All By Yourself
Though the evidence is clear that tapping into social network APIs like Facebook and Twitter can build awareness and even drive sales, too few brands are doing it. Successful apps like Instagram, another photo modifying app, make ease of sharing across social networks a fundamental usage component.

There Are Still Unmet Needs to Be Found
Brands must continually strive to improve their offerings by identifying unmet needs. One trailblazing app is ZocDoc. The ingenious app allows you not only to locate nearby doctors that accept your insurance plan (in 13 US markets now) but also book an appointment at a specified time. Think OpenTable for doctors.

A Little Hand Holding Goes A Long Way
Some products are complex by nature and finding the added support you need to understand them can be challenging. Ringtones, a fun app that allows you to convert any song in your iTunes library into a ringtone, is a bit complicated at first, but knowing this, the creators also offer a great demo video that makes learning the 3 requisite steps a snap.

Extend the Utility You Already Offer to Mobile
Lots of brands offer great resources on the web that aren’t yet mobile-friendly. This is a big oversight. OpenTable.com, my favorite online restaurant reservation service, has a brilliantly functional iPhone app. Integrating nicely with iPhone GPS, this tasty app helps you find a restaurant with open tables and secure a reservation in less than a New York minute.

Form is as Important as Function
Today, having a product that works is not enough – aesthetics matter, too. To understand this notion, just look at the new Flipboard app for iPhone. The design experience is the brand. Never before has information consumption on a phone felt so joyously elegant, so positively delectable that mere words don’t do it justice.

Turn Your Customer Into the Star
For years brands have been saying the “customer is king” while spending the bulk of their marketing budget on self-congratulatory ads. Songify, a beyond-genius app that turns spoken words into a melodic song, is silly but addictive because it plays into my desire to be an acceptable, if not talented, singer rather than a tone-deaf writer.

Tap Into Your Customer’s Emotional Needs
All too often, brands focus on the practical needs of their audience, overlooking the irrationality that frequently guides behavior. One new app that appeals to our softer, whimsical side is Qwips. Built around personal voice recordings, Qwips allows you to manipulate your audio with effects and pictures sure to touch the heartstrings.

Deliver a Little Bit of Magic
Admittedly, not every brand can be Disney or Apple and find the magic in all they do. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. An app called Drinks and Cocktails delivers my kind of magic by helping me figure out what special cocktail I can make based on what’s in my liquor cabinet. The Sidecar I made Friday night was indeed heaven-sent!

Another marvel of ColorSplash.

Final Note
The average iPhone user has over 100 apps on their phone and spends over an hour a day using them. As apps become indispensible, consumer phone usage increases, as do their expectations for all mobile experiences. If your brand doesn’t have a mobile-friendly site, then you better make one fast. Beyond that, dare I suggest: ‘Appy New Year!