Social Media: Contributor Yet Concern

Social media, the big umbrella of online connection networks where almost everyone can be found. People are connected to other people and brands are connected to customers. The latter is of most interest, for its benefits and ROI are often a hot topic. Is it beneficial? How should it be used to maximize marketing results? Does it maximize results? Are we measuring those results effectively? What effect are current measurement methods having? Let’s explore.

There are many reasons that prove it’s a good idea to have an online presence. According to Shea Bennett’s infographic, 2 billion people are online and 85% of customers expect businesses to have a social media presence
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. Another notable infographic point is that 55% more web visitors and 67% more leads are seen by companies that blog. All points that make it clear that having an online presence is important, but how about how you use it?

PRSA’s Nicole Castro points out the benefits that brands are seeing from social media tools
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. Twitter is expanding the reach of its brand pages and offering more customization of profile page headers. LinkedIn is offering up a ‘follow company’ button that can be displayed on a company’s website. Those who click on the button will receive updates from that company on their LinkedIn stream. Facebook’s Timeline for brand pages expands the concept of storytelling in public relations into a digital form of storytelling. Brands, or their PR reps, can establish a brand’s history and heritage, showcase company expansion, share awards and build a fan community. Facebook is also looking to add a wider variety of gestures, aptly called Facebook Gestures, in with its ‘like’ button that tell more about how a customer engages. However, all of these reactions and buttons don’t tell the whole story. Unless people have to perform an action like logging in to access a feature, then how can current statistics verify what its impact was? How people engaged? Or for how long? They can’t. Well, at least not fully. There are still puzzle pieces missing if we are to gain a full picture. The fact is, humans are motivated by many things and have many reasons for doing or not doing things.

Nick Sorvillo, global research head at Kraft Foods, said it best: “Of the more than 100 touch points that can influence the purchase of Kraft brands, I don’t know which five to buy. And how the five I buy will affect the ones that I don’t or can’t?” It’s hard to develop something that accurately measures such a broad concept”  There’s no doubt that social media is the place to connect with consumers, but if we’re going to use social media effectively we need to know more about how it works and why.

Bob Barocci cites a leading thinker in media research, who states “The dilemma of the digital age is that so much is either not measured or measured inadequately, and yet the perception is quite the opposite. The constant stream of data points that are available today create the illusion of precision, and it is generally accepted as such”
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. There are a wide range of variables in social media results, and it’s time to learn how to understand and affect them. Barocci mentions two groups that are working to get us closer to these answers. Google’s Advertising Format Impact project, which evaluates the impact of multiple video formats across multiple platforms, and Arrowhead Project, which measures the role of social media in the purchase process. It may be nice to find that trying lots of things produces results, but it’s even better to figure out what works and why. Only when we truly know and understand social media can we know where it is headed and how to direct it to produce the most benefits. Only then can social media’s full contribution be recognized.

Expand Cause Marketing with Humor

Traditionally there has been a target market and a designated route for cause marketing. MediaPost’s Perry Allison sums it up well with the phrase Charitable Commerce Consumers
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. A survey shows these are consumers with a median household income of $125,000 a year and median net worth of $375,000. 90% of Charitable Commerce Consumers say they are likely or very likely to shop with a business aligned with a charitable cause. 75% of them have served an active role in a local school, community or national charity and 12% have served on corporate boards. For Charitable Commerce Consumers, supporting businesses that take a serious approach to charities is the norm. Yet, while these consumers have a lot of disposable income and word-of-mouth influence, they don’t represent all of the people out there who donate or would donate to a worthy cause. There are more people to reach and different ways to reach out to them. It’s time for cause marketing to expand its scope and lighten up a little with a dose of humor. David Hessekiel cites Kenneth Cole, Ben & Jerry’s and Chipotle Mexican Grill as examples of companies who raise profits for causes through their humorous and playful takes
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.

Kenneth Cole is known for his tongue-in-cheek ads that use clever wording to get the word out about issues like AIDS, homelessness, gun safety and women’s rights. For example, a 1997 ad addressing abortion is accompanied by the tagline “It is a woman’s right to choose. After all, she’s the one carrying it.” Above this text is a picture of two handbags. Ben and Jerry’s has used its ice cream to generate awareness, coming up with unique flavors and donating profits from their sales to various causes. Phish Food is one notable flavor, a chocolate and marshmallow one named after the band Phish, and its profits go towards environmental efforts in the Lake Champlain, N.Y./Vt. area. In 2002 One Sweet Whirled, named after a Dave Matthews Band song, emerged and partnered with SaveOurEnvironment.org to fight global warming and get people to reduce their CO2 emissions. Hubby Hubby, a 2009 flavor renaming of their popular Chubby Hubby, celebrated the legalization of gay and lesbian marriage in the brand’s home state of Vermont and raised awareness of this issue across the country. In addition to brand partnerships there are event partnerships. 

Chipotle Mexican Grill, for the last two years, has hosted a Boorito event, encouraging people to show up on Halloween dressed as one of the worst kinds of junk food imaginable. Participants received the opportunity to purchase $2 Booritos with profits going to healthy and sustainable food operations. This year’s Comic-Con International features a “Course of the Force” five-day event leading up to Comic-Con
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. An Olympic-style torch relay from Santa Monica to San Diego is the focus of this event, allowing participants to celebrate their love of Star Wars and support Make-A-Wish Foundation at the same time. Each quarter-mile will raise $500 for Make-A-Wish Foundation.

These are only some of the ways in which a brand or event can use humorous and playful promotions to raise money for charitable causes. Approaching cause marketing in this way draws in another demographic all together, one that is not seen through other efforts. Bringing this demographic into the fold means more supporters, more interest and more money for the cause. All of which are essential to keeping charitable causes financially healthy and meeting their goals. Basically, you stagnate probable growth when you only focus on a narrow area of cause marketing. Similar to musicians like Madonna, who constantly reinvent themselves, cause marketing has many different approaches and outlets. Why not utilize them all? The results may surprise you.

Where Are You Going?

Where are you going? The phrase itself takes on many meanings. It happens to be the title of a Dave Matthews Band song, it’s a question that sparks exploration of goals for an individual or company, and it’s a question people typically ask around this time of year. That’s right, spring break is coming. What better time to get people from all over to come visit your corner of the world? There’s a captive audience out there and I’m going to tell you how to grab some of that captive audience for yourself.  Here are three new trends and approaches that every travel site and travel destination site should use to promote themselves.

1) Drive Facebook Traffic to Your Website: According to Mark Walsh’s analysis of the Compete study, this seems to be easier said than done as travel sites so far have seen mixed results
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. Oddly enough, “Compete argues that the number of Likes a brand collects via Facebook is a common but potentially misleading measure because it’s cumulative rather than current.” Unique visitors are deemed a better measure of current engagement. When the ratio of the number of Facebook visitors to likes is examined by this web measurement firm, some true leaders emerge. Notably, Priceline with 98,631 likes and 10,334 unique monthly visitors took the lead. Orbitz was next, followed by Travelocity and Expedia. Compete also looked at the overlap between a travel site’s visitors and its Facebook visitors. Priceline again led the pack. The moral here? It’s not enough to simply have a brand page on Facebook. Your site is where trips are booked and repeat customers are gained and Facebook is a means to an end for this result.

2) Take it Global: MediaPost’s Karl Greenberg cites Hotels.com’s recent global approach and it’s definitely worth noting when planning your strategy
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. Hotels.com’s global effort focuses first on a new character spokesperson. Out with the animated “educated consumer” character and in with a smart concierge character full of new ideas on where to go and how to enjoy the stay. The moral here? Consumers like to be guided through the process. You have to paint the picture and spark their interest by giving them new things to think about that they may not have thought of on their own. Their new logo chosen by a Facebook poll is “Finding you the perfect place is all we do.” This is further built upon by a logo that represents the amount of choices they have to offer, a multi-hued 3-D ‘H’ where each layer represents a different spectrum of choices. The best part about this approach? It’s not country or region specific, and appeals to people all over the world. The perfect platform for getting any traveler’s attention.

3) Pin It!: Pinterest is a website that has emerged as the new frontrunner on the social scene. Here you can pin pictures of things that interest you on virtual pinboards, divided by category, and provide commentary on why certain pictures are of interest. Other Pinterest users can then follow you and comment on your pinned pictures. Jeffrey K. Rohrs is right on target with his analysis of the Pin It! button being a crucial part of every travel site or travel destination site’s offerings
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. He recommends getting an account and exploring, for only by knowing how to use it and use it to your advantage can you reap the benefits. Additionally, he recommends the Pinterest button be added to website pages and blogs, that you reassess your site’s visual content often, that local staff build pinboards of local attractions, that you are following and commenting on posts by travel-minded Pinterest users, and that you brainstorm Pinterest-centered contests and promotions. All of these things not only lead to Pinterest success, obviously, but to long-term success for you as a favorite destination spot.

Now that you know the three most important tactics for gaining new and repeat visitors I suggest you get moving. Your customers are on the move and you should be too. It’s more important than ever to be where your customers are and connect with them. Following these steps means knowing the answer to the question “Where are you going?” will most likely lead to you.

Facebook Faces Roadblocks to Commerce

Facebook commerce is nothing new, with 1-800-FLOWERS launching their Facebook store in 2009. There is no question that Facebook is ripe with promise when it comes to Facebook shopping. It makes sense that users would choose to shop where they socialize. eMarketer’s Krista Garcia states that more and more people are using sites as a one-stop shop for reading news, watching videos, listening to music, discovering products and shopping
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. It’s not like social media retail is a bad market either, with Booz & Company estimating $14 billion in goods will be sold through social media by 2015. So why not Facebook? Today, the concept struggles with the roadblocks put in its path.

1) Trustworthiness: It’s no secret that moms account for most of the household purchase decisions. While social media plays a role in their purchase decisions, it does not bridge the gap to the checkout. In a survey, 32% of moms surveyed rated a brand’s website as a trustworthy source of information while only 10% rated a Facebook site as trustworthy
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. What can Facebook do to change this perception? Facebook needs to put together a marketing effort that builds trust in their web site and the information they provide. Whether that’s a commercial or a social media campaign, it needs to target moms so it can sway the rest of the tide. Moms are credible figures that are looked up to and trusted, and if they don’t trust something others aren’t likely to either.

2) Charity Image: Facebook has become the place for charity and philanthropy efforts. Common calls to action include likes that translate into donations, etc. 70% of moms in the same survey said they had liked a brand on Facebook to support its cause during the last year. It’s not just moms, people in general seem more willing to get behind causes on Facebook. As our news feeds are saturated with those kinds of efforts, hearing about any Facebook shopping experiences are rare and mainly nonexistent. The issue here is transferring this charity support into ongoing brand support with purchases. Perhaps starting with a tie-in to purchase something on a company’s Facebook charity site to support donations, instead of just liking the page, could be the answer. Either that or, like the concept of trustworthiness, it should be part of a Facebook image rebranding.

3) Currency: In the age of identity theft it’s not hard to see why this one’s an issue. MediaPost’s Mark Walsh cites a Harris Interactive survey commissioned by Digitas that finds 55% of social media users aren’t comfortable giving credit card information
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. Even more notable, 74% indicate that they wouldn’t use social currency to make purchases on social media sites either. Perhaps some kind of gift card is in order. I personally don’t like using my credit card to make iTunes purchases, and feel more comfortable using a gift card that doesn’t have any trace of personal information attached to it. Definitely something to think about if retailers are going to get social media users to ‘cough up the dough’ to buy products on social media sites.

Whatever the answers to solving these roadblocks may be, it’s clear that Facebook faces roadblocks and needs to address them in order to see its commerce take off. Any attitude adjustment towards social media shopping is going to be the result of thoughtful, targeted efforts to help consumers see Facebook, and these issues, in a different light. Could social media shopping be the ‘wave of the future’? Perhaps, but in order for something to become a trend and grow it needs to earn acceptance. Facebook is king of connecting people, now it needs to put that to work and build solid connections with its users.