Fizz from ConsumerPop

Smart Marketers: Shut Up and Listen

From "Socialized Media" by Tim Manners at Fast Company.  Manners gives excellent examples of what's not working and what might.  I think two key points he makes are valuable to any marketer - 1. listen and 2. add value.  You cannot go wrong by doing those two things.  I encourage you to read the whole article.

As one respondent put it: "If you sell (unless you are a very cool web app), you lose. Don't sell. As a marketer: network. Help people. Advise. Create value and add to the conversation."

Nobody has really figured out how to do that yet. But it's worth considering the possibility that smart marketers won't even attempt to be part of the conversation, much less interrupt it. It could be that the real marketing potential of online social networks is listening, not talking.

The point is, if we're not helping people live better lives, we are not helping ourselves. If all we are doing is interrupting people who don't have time for interruptions, we can't expect their attention. If all we are doing is annoying people who have zero tolerance for annoyance, we can't earn their trust.

If all we are doing is pelting people with endlessly irrelevant messages, we can't claim their loyalty. And if we can't claim their loyalty, we don't have a prayer of a positive return-on-investment.

We can run whatever media-mix model we like, but all we're likely to achieve is a marginal improvement on what is otherwise an unmistakable downward spiral of failure.

CPG at BlogHer

I was very happy to see that there were several CPG companies at BlogHer.  Given my past in the sector it is gratifying to witness the growing understanding of and use of social media to communicate with consumers.

I noticed Kraft (Singles), Con Agra (Butterball Turkey) and Del Monte in the exhibition hall.  I had a chance to chat with some of the brand team members from Del Monte's new Fruit Chillers frozen fruit sorbet and was further impressed that the brand team was there learning and not PR reps or hired booth hands.

Dove with one of their newest products, Ultimate Clear, was a major sponsor presence and got it mostly right with their activities and promotions.  Other than a couple of missteps with t-shirt sizing (note to PR peeps from big cities who work in fashion and beauty - although I'm sure you are all lovely tiny wispy girl sized things - most of us women are not and most certainly your consumers are not running around in Marc Jacobs and Choos - offer sizes accordingly and stop making this mistake year after year) they did a great job of building buzz around their product and I'm sure they'll get some strong blog buzz as a result.

How Big Brands are using Social Media

While using social media as a marketing tool seems to be all the rage currently, most companies are still just starting to explore how to effectively incorporate social media tools into their marketing mix.  While many companies are watching and learning from others scaling the learning curve, several well known brands are making the plunge.

There has certainly been a flurry of Consumer Generated Media (CGM) television advertising recently ... Dove Cream Oil Body Wash aired theirs at the Oscars® and Doritos chips and Chevy cars shared theirs during the Super Bowl. 

However, we are seeing more integrated campaigns which incorporate CGM into broader social media sites.  MasterCard has a site called "priceless.com" where consumers can add their own visions of priceless moments in the vein of the MasterCard commercials.  Although I've not seen much promotion for this site and I still wonder how effective branding MasterCard or Visa is given the similarity between what is offered - the differences coming down to features that vary from issuer to issuer.  At any rate, it certainly is effective in reinforcing the image of MasterCard being the brand that enables life's priceless moments by allowing consumers to share their vision of those moments.

Hilton Hotels has a site called "behospitable.com" which I learned of in a print ad in Newsweek and it appears from the site that there is a television campaign as well.  Be hospitable is both a tag line and a philosophy of which consumers are invited to share stories.  Stories are linked to dots on a map of the United States which is a bit awkward to navigate.  However, they've hired Brooke Channon from HGTV to host a show on the site which highlights some of the submitted stories.  This feature makes finding and appreciating the stories much more immediate and accessible.  I think the value of this is effort is to reinforce the quality of hospitality with the Hilton brands.  It doesn't take the place though of the basics of figuring out how to build the individual brands (e.g. Waldorf Astoria, DoubleTree) while still associating them with the parent Hilton brand and of ensuring that the most important features of the hotels are present every time - for example, the bed must be comfortable!  Associating the Hilton brand with hospitality and acts of kindness will ultimately mean nothing if the experience of staying in a Hilton brand hotel isn't enjoyable and doesn't meet the traveler's needs.

Country Crock® is requesting "stories of sharing" from consumers.  I learned of this site from a television ad.  In exchange for every story, Country Crock offers to make a donation to America's Second Harvest. This twist is smart in that it provides an incentive to consumers to share their story at Country Crock's site.  Also, it reinforces the long-running advertising campaign that features the hands of a family sharing among them the spread and other Country Crock foods such as their side dishes.

None of these efforts is perfect from an outsider's perspective.  They may however be doing exactly what they are meant to in helping each brand achieve its business and marketing goals which is the most important measure of their success.  They do offer lessons and guidance to other brands seeking to incorporate social media tools into their marketing mix.

Lessons Learned from BlogHer Business

Two clear themes emerged from from the BlogHer Business Conference:  First, figuring out if and how to implement social media is confusing for many companies.  Second, the fundamentals still apply.

I was struck by the number of representatives of financial services companies who approached Staci Schiller from Wells Fargo in the lab after the presentation of her case study hoping to learn more about Wells Fargo's pioneering approach to incorporating social media into their marketing mix.  I'm sure each of the other lab sessions had a similar experience with representatives of other types and sizes of businesses seeking the same thing.

With blogging alone, if your company has decided to pursue a blog, who do you have write it?  The CEO?  Company employees?  Freelance bloggers?  We heard examples of each of the above at the conference.  Not to mention figuring out if you should set up shop in Second Life, set up a Twitter feed or how to create a social media press release.

Before trying to figure out the implementation, it is imperative to figure out the goal, strategy and plan.  What is the business goal your company is trying to achieve (increasing household penetration, increasing purchase occasions among existing households, etc...)?  What is your strategy for achieving your goal(s) (a mix of TV, print, PR events, hosting online forums, blogging, ...)?  Once you've determined the elements of your strategy, what is your plan to implement it (find bloggers in house, determining how blogging fits in to job responsibilities, hiring outside bloggers, how to find them, off the shelf technology solutions or custom built, in-house technology expertise or outside consultants)?  That's the point when the question of who will blog comes in.  Figuring out whether or not there's someone in-house to blog should not drive your decision to blog.

Lena West has a great post-conference guest post at Yvonne DiVita's blog, Lipsticking, where she points out that there's always a lot of interest in the "return" of ROI and less in the "investment."  Again, the fundamentals apply.  Social media isn't a magical new marketing bullet, rather there are just new tools.

To that point, Susan Getgood points out that the tools are not the story, the benefits of the tools are not the story (the return Lena speaks of) but rather the content of the story is still king.  A tricked out social media press release doesn't create any magic if all it does is create some links and SEO to a story that's not worth telling.

So for companies looking for the "how" to implement social media, first look at the "why" and then proceed to the "how" and then you'll reap the "return" on your "investment" in planning.  And if it's confusing to figure out if and how social media fits into your strategy and plan and whether or not social media tools will help you accomplish your goals (probably yes if you are willing to make the investment in using them wisely and well) then there are lots of smart folks out there than can help guide you.  Christopher Carfi of Cerado, for example, offers a set of slides to get you started that outlines the elements of a business blog.

My BlogHer Business Conference Experience

Last week's inaugural BlogHer Business Conference was a blast!  It was an awesome opportunity to both see friends and colleagues, meet more smart, cool people and to learn some things and come away from a business conference feeling like I was smarter after than I was going in.

Kudos, as always, to Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins for organizing an excellent event. And applause as well to BlogHer event planning goddess Kristy Sammis for her smashing great work.

I had the great honor to work on the programming advisory committee for the conference with several talented women from the social media world each of whom deserve recognition for the valuable contributions made to helping shape the conference programming... Toby Bloomberg, Elana Centor, Susan Getgood, Marianne Richmond and Lena West.

I participated in two panels at the conference.  Day one, I had the opportunity to interview the fabulous Staci Schiller from Wells Fargo.  Day two, I moderated a panel with three powerhouses: Nicki Dugan from Yahoo!, Lynne d Johnson from Fast Company and Karen Walrond from Weblogs, Inc.

Among the highlights for me from the panels I attended was the other business case study interviews, including Lena West's interview of Carmen VanKerckhove of New Demographic.  Carmen was a panelist on the Identity and Obligation panel I moderated at last summers BlogHer conference (on which Karen Walrond also participated) so I already knew what a wise and funny woman Carmen is but it was terrific to hear her speak from a business perspective and to learn so much from her.  Carmen had the tip of the conference with her use of  del.icio.us to create link posts.  I also particularly enjoyed the panel called "The Press Release Must Die."  As someone who is not a PR person but who looks at how to incorporate PR into overall marketing strategies and plans, it was a useful learning experience and I came away with tips and tools that I can immediately implement.  This is what you dream of finding at a business conference and rarely do.

I met the founders of a service called sk*rt which is sort of like a "Digg" for women.  I met Stacy Schnider from a new question based search engine called hakia.  Women are doing cool things in the web 2.0 world.  Women are using social media to support their creative businesses like Eileen O'Keeffe Clancy from Simply Juicy Travel, Megan Garnhum from a girl must shop and Lori Magno who gifted me with a lovely set of beads after I admired her necklace which she created.

I met Nelly Yusupova from Webgrrls.  I talked politics with Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen.  I had a chance to spend a bit more time with Mir than at the summer conference.  I had a chance to break bread with Chris, Liz Gumbinner, and Jen Lemen.  I met one of my awesome BlogHer CE colleagues, Morra Aarons.  I met Rachel Clarke of JWT for the first time in person after she found me for the Kleenex Let It Out Blog.  I met Ewan Spence, wearing a kilt and representing for Scotland and The Podcast Network.  Had a chance to chat a bit with Chris Carfi from Cerado.  I saw my dear friend and extraordinary graphic/web designer Kimley Maretzo.

There are many whom I'm forgetting - please accept my apologies - and many whom I am sorry I missed a chance to speak with.   And thanks to everyone who gave Zoe (thanks Lynne!) a kind word or gentle pat.  She much preferred the conference to her kennel.  I also greatly enjoyed the Yahootini's, Mangoritas and shoulder massages from the Spa Chicks at the Day One reception, otherwise known as the best reception/networking event/schmooze-fest ever.

If you are in any way considering or already using social media in a business setting I encourage you to read the live blogs or listen to the audio casts when they are available and keep your calendar open to attend the next BlogHer Business conference.  Also, if you need help figuring out how to tackle the social media beast or how to best optimize your use of social media as a business tool check out the women I've linked to or check out the speakers from the conference and you'll find an amazing collection of bright, talented women ready to help you succeed in a social media world.

Also, on the travel side - I had the opportunity to try out United's p.s. service and used miles to upgrade to business class which was phenomenal - better than first class service on most flights I've ever experienced.  I highly recommend this flight if you're going to or from either Los Angeles or San Francisco and JFK in New York.  Now if only it hadn't been so spacious that I stashed my travel meds bag in the arm of the seat and forgot it!  The Affinia Manhattan hotel where the conference was held was also great, plus they named their restaurant after me!  They are pet friendly and human friendly as well.  It's not the fanciest hotel I've ever stayed at but it was clean, comfortable and quite useful since all rooms are suites with full kitchens.  It's a great value by NYC standards and the staff were all incredibly friendly, helpful and accommodating.

Updated: The Future of Media at Fast Forward '07

I had the opportunity last week to participate in the Future of Media session at the Fast Forward '07 conference.  I attended several of the morning sessions on Friday and, although search technology isn't my area of professional expertise, it was quite interesting to learn of the many areas of business and social media that intersect with and rely on search technology. 

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail, gave an interesting keynote with some nicely quantified and visualized examples of results and benefits from pushing demand down the long tail. 

The Future of Media workshop was terrific.  Organized by Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells of Social Media Club, the workshop was organized in a nice "un-conference" format developed by Chris and Kristie.

*UPDATE* Chris Heuer commented to note that the format was actually a: "World Cafe (http://www.theworldcafe.org) session, which was 'developed' by Juanita Brown, David Isaacs and many other gifted contributors since."

The excellent line up of panelists kicked off the workshop with short presentations designed to provide food for thought to the workshop participants.  Then, we were provided with a few questions to discuss around each of the small tables (4-5 people at each) at which we were seated.   After about 1/2 hour of discussion each table shared their conversation.  Chris captured the results in mind mapping software projected to the room.  We then sat down at new tables and answered new questions and again shared our discussions. 

The result was a stimulating conversation about interesting ideas and questions with a bunch of really smart people and I thoroughly enjoyed the session.  I hope this kind of session also takes hold at other business conferences.  Narrower technical discussions have their place but more expansive, less structured sessions that push people to think and move towards the future create enhanced value for attending industry conferences beyond just the networking opportunities that most people show up for.

Speaking of high value, non traditional conferences, readers of Fizz can receive a $100 discount on the full conference registration fee of $699 for BlogHer Business '07.  Enter code BHBAC-DSC where requested on the registration page.  And, be sure to let me know you'll be attending so we can connect.

Listening to Consumers pays off for Petco

Marketing Sherpa reports on a test recently run by Petco to see if incorporating consumer ratings and feedback into emails would boost the effectiveness and results of the emails.  Sure enough it did and the results - a 200% increase in click throughs, for example - were dramatic.  What I love about this story is what VP Ecommerce John Lazarchic said:

Why did the test work so well? “Pet owners, like a lot of consumers, tend to trust each other a lot more than anything your company can say about the products,” Lazarchic explains. “So, it’s great to be able to take their posts and put them in email and leverage them. I think using positive consumer feedback makes sense for almost every channel.”

Soliciting, listening to and trusting the wisdom of consumers is always a smart strategy.  Glad to see it paying off so nicely for both Petco and its consumers.

And, check out Marketing Sherpa which is a terrific resource for articles and reports with quantified results and actionable examples.

HP Snapshot Diaries at Sundance

Susan Getgood from Marketing Roadmaps is working again this year with HP and helping them with a fun contest as part of their activities at the Sundance Film Festival.

You can read the Backstage at Sundance blog for inspiration.  The Snapshot Diaries contest offers winners the chance to have their snapshots turned into a mini movie along with a trip to the 2008 festival.

Even if you don't enter it's worth a look at HP's continuing social media efforts.  If you do enter, have fun and let me know if you win!