The ROI of competitive intelligence

Posted on July 20, 2009 by marc meyer

Rachel Happe is hosting this weeks #socialmedia session. I bring her up for a reason, which you’ll soon see. For those of you that are unaware of what #socialmedia is, I will quickly explain and then get to my point. Every Tuesday at Noon EST, Jason Breed of Neighborhood America and myself host a one hour Twitter session around the business of social media. Every week we have a different host to moderate a session wrapped around some of the hottest social media issues revolving around business. They’re job? To challenge and question and probe participants to reach higher in their assumptions about what social media is. The list of people that have hosted over the past few months is like a who’s who of social media practitioners. They include Jason Falls, Geoff Livingston, Toby Bloomberg, Lee Odden, Mack Collier, Danny Brown, David Alston and Beth Harte, to name a few.

Now more to my point. In one of Rachel’s recent posts on her new project blogsite The Community Roundtable, which I highly suggest you check out, she does a snap shot view of how community managers use Twitter. She highlites Connie Bensen, Dirk Shaw, Guy Martin, and herself. In each case, we see how each person manages to monitor the twit streams in their space. In every case, they all manage to monitor the sandbox or boxes in which they play. Why? Because it gives them more information, knowledge and data. And the best part, it’s free and for the most part passive.

Call it competitive intelligence or call it consumer intelligence, call it whatever intelligence you want; but don’t dismiss the value of this information. On the surface it may not deliver the troika that I constantly talk about when talking about hard ROI in social media- make money, save money, or increase equity but if I were going to place a value on competitive intelligence I would say, to use a few sports analogies- It’s the 6th man in basketball, the utility club in golf, the setter in volleyball, the pitcher with the rubber arm in baseball, or the slotback in football. Simply put, don’t underestimate or discount the value of competitive intelligence.

To not take advantage of competitive intelligence that is freely available is more like giving the competition a constant headstart. Or better yet, if you are a hitter in baseball, you’re starting with a strike before you even step in the batters box.

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My seminal moment for Twitter

Posted on July 17, 2009 by marc meyer

As I sat with a client yesterday explaining Twitter, something significant happened. I was broadsided by my complete and utter sense of hypocrisy-I told the client, who is the largest manufacturer of a certain niche based consumer product, to use Twitter strictly as a broadcast based one way communication tool. Huh?

On the surface, for some of you, that might not seem like such a big deal. However, for the better part of the last 12+ months, I have been waxing philosophically here, and telling people and clients and whoever would listen, that “Twitter is a two way communications tool to create, share, and nurture ideas, conversations and resources.”

You see, for this client, it makes more sense to just Tweet deals and sales for those that are, or might be, looking for the keywords that surround their products, instead of trying to engage in conversations. The reality is that for them, conversations on a day to day basis, both internally and externally revolve around…sales. They have products that don’t require a whole lot of pitch. Short to zero sales cycle. You either want it or you don’t. Why do they need to get to know a customer that knows what they are looking for? For these people, Twitter would be more of a sales tool, a recommendation engine and a conduit to a product that once they find, they buy. So why not just tweet deals and sales?

That’s what I thought.

Simply put, it dawned on me that the usage of Twitter for certain clients will not necessarily adhere to a standard set of rules for engagement. The only thing that is etched in stone is the ambiguity on how to use Twitter. And maybe, just maybe, that is the beauty of Twitter.

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The Twitter lifecycle

Posted on July 14, 2009 by marc meyer

I was recently talking with Chris Abraham about the types of people that use Twitter; and yes I know that there have been lots of blog posts on the subject. But I’m a simple person who likes things to not be too complicated so I decided to take our conversation and dumb it down into three distinct types of users. There could be more but that’s for you to decide.

I look at Twitter Leaders to be those that: Engage others, that ask questions, that announce and alert others about upcoming events. They forward information that can help people. They Retweet info and tweets that are worth sharing. They share links and otherwise do the best they can about engaging worthwhile tweets, but they also have conversations, they bring value. In other words they are leaders.

Repeaters are just going to be forwarding and Retweeting machines. They are not so much into conversing as they are into giving off the semblance of having conversations. They will just read something and supply a link, read and retweet. They may give credit as to the source, they may not. They are using Twitter but they don’t know why. or they think they are using it properly but in actuality, they are not. They might be earnest, but they just don’t get it. They need to understand how to utilize it’s true potential.

The Feeders, might be better associated with bottom feeders. They are just taking whatever they “think” they can get from Twitter. They could care less about conversations. A sample bio from this type might be a cute name, or a company name associated with about 5 or 6 titles, one of which might be the word expert or ninja, and the Follower/Following/Tweets ratio will look something like this 200/5000/53. When looking at the tweets, you’ll see nothing of value and lots of messages that resemble some type of Google Adwords campaign. Zero value, zero relevance and ultiimately zero return on their time and effort.

What others could we add to this list?

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United Airlines PR nightmare

Posted on July 9, 2009 by marc meyer

The airlines industry is an easy subject to pick on, to bash and to trash. Of course they don’t help the situation when they have to deal with PR nightmares. Check out the video that currently has, 388,659 views, and then read the whole story at the jump.

Dave Carroll is a musician who makes a living with his guitar.

Check out the comment from a spokesperson with United Airlines after the video went viral:

“This struck a chord with us,” said Robin Urbanski, spokeswoman for Chicago-based United. “We are in conversation with one another to make what happened right.”

It struck a chord? Ya think?

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10 quick ways for brands to change their monologue on Twitter

Posted on July 6, 2009 by marc meyer

As more and more companies continue to swarm to Twitter, all trying to see what the buzz is about, there are plenty that are using it now that are just not utilizing it correctly. So here’s a quick primer. These are 10 sure-fire ways to change the monologue to dialogue real quick.

Instead of telling us how great your company is, Respond/Reply to someone else’s tweet to keep the conversation going.

Rather than push your standard one-way message, Retweet something that could have value for others.

Retell some information that perhaps someone missed that can save them time or possibly money-they’ll appreciate it!

If someone shared some information for your benefit, maybe others could benefit from it too. Why no Reshare it?

You see a person asking a question, you know the answer, Reach out to them and answer it!

Don’t always take, try being a Resource to your network or your existing customers sometime.

You get more out of Twitter if you realize that it’s as much about Reciprocity as it is anything else.

You could stay behind your walled garden but why not Rebuild the relationship with your customers?

Revitalize and Reinvigorate brand perception by being accessible and approachable.

But most of all…Be Real

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5 Ways To Reduce the Risk of Engaging in Social Media

Posted on June 30, 2009 by marc meyer

Last week I was invited to talk with my good friend Paul Chaney from Bizzuka on his very popular show User Friendly Thinking on Blog Talk Radio. Paul and I got to talk about the risk of engaging in social media on a corporate level and from that conversation bubbled up this post.

In the age of the social web, companies can no longer afford to delay their response to the conversation taking place. They need guidance, structure and security when embarking down the road of social media and how to use it. Companies need a “risk aversion process” for learning social media. So here are 5 ways that a company can reduce that risk.

1) First, approach it like a product launch in other words, you need to assign one or more resources and make them accountable. It’s amazing what happens when more people or departments have ownership, or “skin in the game”, of a project or task. So for instance typically IT initiates or has ownership of most web 2.0 projects, and thus a lot of the heat falls on them, right?

But what if marketing, PR and IT all had ownership of the success of a social media initiative? And what if the word came down from the top first? Typically when employees know that their president or CEO is supporting it, they’re more apt to embrace it. The point is, if you engage the right internal resources that will need to be involved (legal, marketing, corporate communications., executive leadership, IT, and product management)…and do it early on, AND let them have input and belief that they have influence, and ownership as well?… You have a much better chance to succeed in the long run.

2) Second, you can reduce the risk by reviewing the corporate goals / objectives in three month increments and APPLY or review the social media strategies that are complimenting the overall corporate strategies. Make sure the strategies mesh-the same way your marketing materials and their messaging is consistent.

Obviously you need to know the social media objectives first before you can apply the strategies, but the key is to weave them into the rest of the mix. This way they are as relevant, and as high priority and as funded(hopefully) as everything else on the table. And keep the social media goals reachable.

I like to use the analogy of the team that is getting ready to start their season: a) Lets have a winning season b) Lets win x amount of games c) Lets make the playoffs d) Lets win the division etc etc.. I think a lot of people or companies think that social media is this cure-all elixir that happens over night and it’s just not so.

By periodically reviewing the goals, this allows you to see progress and to tweak where appropriate.

3) Next you need to map the results back to either making money, building equity or reducing costs. This is your mantra!

This ensures longevity and value to the company. CEO’s and business owners can wrap their arms around that. We all know that a lot of people and organizations are currently hung up on the ROI of social media and rightly so; because that really does track back nicely to the risk argument and the reasons NOT to do social media… but that’s why we like to look at the results from the 3 goals mentioned above. Those are tangible and measurable. I’ll say it again…You need to make money, save money or build equity.

4) Let’s make sure there are guardrails. Companies will not move forward if they feel there is no control. As well, companies do not like to operate without nets.. (For example a bad product goes out, or gets released. There is a process there to Recall, Refund, and service those affected customers- there’s a process. There has to be some semblance of a crisis management plan where it’s… If this happens, then we will do this….If this happens, so and so will handle this etc etc..

5) Lastly, let’s have a road map with intervals where you can Test, Measure and Adapt-TMA. In social media, one of the great things about the space, is that you have the ability to test and measure certain things and adapt fairly quickly because the results are so real time, and so immediate. So yes, Analytics are key and I love them, but let’s make sure we’re measuring the right things in social media. Because it’s easy to think you are being social, if you’re measuring the wrong thing.

Lastly I was asked about instituting corporate social media policies and if I had any resources to suggest and at the time, I did not have my resources readily available, So here are 2 great links to some sources for (1) Corp. Social Media Policies. and (2) Social Media Policies

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20 reasons why social media is such a popular subject…

Posted on June 26, 2009 by marc meyer

Below is my tongue in cheek look at why social media is such a popular subject to talk and write about. Feel free to add yours to the bottom of the list.

Because it seemed like a good way to make new friends
Because bloggers see the traffic that comes to their sites every time they write about it, so it must be good.
Seems like a good way to drum up more business for the agency
The content is always fresh because no one has a clue as to what they are talking about
You can be vague and no one knows it, including yourself and your clients
It’s a good way to become an authority on something in less than a month and then let lots of people know it.
You have a more open forum to complain about things that are free
No one has a clue to what you’re talking about, so you can bullshit your way through lots of client meetings!
You can become an expert in a little over a week
You get to use your i-phone
You can let more people know that you are also a “life coach”
You can waste weeks doing it and still bill the client for the Facebook fan page you built that has 12 fans
You can wax poetic about it on Twitter and get lots and lots of followers
The conferences look like fun
Because though it’s not dead yet, it still has a pulse
Bloggers and spammers smell the link juice in the water
Because there are still a lot of people out there that ask, “Is it like Myspace?”
Because you can measure ROI so clearly
Oh.. and it because it’s easy.
* Seriously * Because collectively we made it that way.

Brands: You can’t hide and then expect to participate in social media

Posted on June 25, 2009 by marc meyer

So I’m late. There’s a killer pick up game of basketball going on down at the park. I know they play every Monday , Wednesday and Friday at 5pm. For weeks I sit and watch them. This time I’m gonna play. There’s 11 guys including me. They pick up teams and I don’t get picked. WTF? I know I can play with these guys, their games are weak. Yet, I still don’t get picked. Why is that?

Because they don’t know me. Even though I’ve been watching them for weeks, they don’t know me. I could have easily played dozens of times over that span of time and yet I chose not to. Now when I want to, they don’t want to let me, because they don’t know me or anything about me. I’m not even a familiar stranger to them.

All I had to do was take that first step and become part of their little community. I don’t even rise up when they needed a 10th guy so they could run. Benny, Joe, Arnold, Rambis, Chris D, BV, California, Stick, Coach, and Jackie, could have used me but I stayed passive and quiet. Just watching. All it would have required was an occasional appearance in one of their games, and I could have played any time I wanted. Minimal effort on my part to get the ball rolling.

You’re a brand, thinking about social media. Thinking about community, about your customers, about growing your reach and your depth. Thinking about getting in. What should you do? How would you do it?