Don Roy, Ph.D.

Biz Eye View: Building a Brand that Looks Different, Stays Agile

Editorial Note: This post is the first installment of a new feature, Biz Eye View. Innovative business professionals will be featured periodically, sharing their expertise to help you grow.

In marketing, we place a premium on differentiation. The opposite of differentiation is commoditization, the specter of which terrifies many marketers. It is easy to understand the importance of differentiation; the challenge resides in figuring out how to execute. This challenge is not limited to product brands. Differentiation is essential for building your personal brand and advancing your professional career, but moving from concept to action snags many people.

How to Survive and Thrive in the Jungle

For professionals looking for guidance on how to break out from commoditization, I recommend reading Zebras and Cheetahs: Look Different and Stay Agile to Survive the Business Jungle by Michael Burt and Colby Jubenville (Wiley, 2013). They acknowledge that there are no quick fixes or “Easy” buttons for developing your brand, but they tackle this problem through systematic questioning of assumptions and background to position ourselves for growth.

One of the creators of the Zebra/Cheetah model is Colby Jubenville, PhD. He is a professor, consultant, and strategist based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Colby shared his perspective on zebras, cheetahs, and differentiation.

DR: What inspired the Zebras and Cheetahs model?

CJ: The model was developed with Coach Micheal Burt while sitting at Demos’ restaurant in Murfreesboro. A company challenged Micheal to dive monster growth over an 18-month cycle. We asked ourselves how we could make growing a company simple, easy and fun. The model is simple to understand because it is centered on a dominant focus that everyone can see and connect to. Once people understand the dominant focus of the organization, it’s easy for them to carry out the work that must be done that is related to the dominant focus.

DR: In your view, what are some obstacles that businesses and professionals face in the quest to “look different and stay agile?”

CJ: Many experts tell others that they must differentiate. But, don’t follow that up with how one does that. To me it’s about answering one simple question: What is the unique value I deliver to others in the market? Unique value is broken into three areas:

Unique Perspective (How you see what you do)
Unique Education (How you know what you do)
Unique Experience (How you deliver what you do).

Understanding perspective, education and experience is critical to looking different.

Running Faster is about mindset and buying into this idea that we all need coaches in our lives. If you look back on your life, I would bet that a mentor/coach had conversations you didn’t want to have, made you do things you didn’t think you could do which led you to become something you didn’t think you could become. Coaches, in essence, teach us how to see and seize opportunity.

DR: How do you keep your personal brand focused on continuous development and growth?

CJ: I think that starts with having a clear understanding of the unique value I deliver to the world. I focus on helping organizations and people do three things: become better known, better understood, and better understand the unique value they deliver. Every decision about my brand and how I position myself goes through that filter.

Ask Questions to Understand Your Brand

One of the strengths of the Zebra/Cheetah model is the use of questions to gain perspective. Specifically, Burt and Jubenville encourage us to ask six questions for introspection to connect our past, present, and future:

How is my perspective different from any other in the jungle?
Through my education, what do I know that will give me and the tribe an added advantage?
What are the top three experiences that have shaped who I am and who I want the tribe to become?
What past struggles have helped me think better, make better decisions, and communicate in a way that the tribe understands?
Where is the most opportunity for growth for me and my tribe?
How can I make all of this simple and easy for others to understand?

Working harder isn’t the answer; trying your best isn’t the answer; completing checklists isn’t the answer; technology isn’t the answer. Developing a new perspective that will elevate our performance to a higher level is the answer. The Zebra/Cheetah model can help you navigate the concrete jungle and enable you to look different and stay agile while adding value to those with whom you serve.

If Content is Published Online and No One Accesses It…

You have heard the question asked before- If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound? When I was a young boy, I always paused whenever I heard this question to give it some thought. As an adult, I understand the difference between sound being produced and the act of listening (i.e., processing sound stimuli and interpreting meaning). As a marketer, I know that a variation of this question plays out daily. Businesses desiring to communicate with their target markets utilize various tools to inform, persuade, and remind. Unfortunately, many of these efforts are like a tree falling in a forest with no one around except that there are people around- they just choose not to listen.

Content Marketing’s Attention Deficit

Marketers understand that some communication tactics will not only fall short of achieving desired audience response, but in many cases they will be flat out ignored. Just how prevalent is the latter outcome in content marketing? According to Brian Hansford of Heinz Marketing, it is estimated that 60-70% of all B2B marketing content goes unused, like trees falling in a vacant forest. Given that content marketing has been hailed by many observers as not only the next big thing in marketing but the future of marketing (particularly in the B2B space), the high rate of ignored content is sobering.

Content: Make it Relevant and Make it Often

Before you abandon plans to establish or enhance your content marketing presence, Hansford offers two pieces of advice that if followed can help maintain content marketing’s contribution as a source of utility to customers, leads, and prospects:

Think Strategically – Hansford implores content marketers to have a clearly defined target audience in mind for content. That audience can be more granular than the descriptive characteristics that comprise your target market . Also, think strategically about the outcomes to achieve in terms of audience impact- what should they do as a result of being exposed to your content? Remember that creating and disseminating content is a means, not an end.
Be a Content Factory – This point may seem contradictory to the previous statement about content not being and end-game activity. Hansford’s point is that creating content is not a one-off project. Marketers must adopt a content creator’s mindset. We are now creators and publishers as much as we are sellers. Making content creation a priority means that you are less likely to treat content marketing as a “flavor of the month” tactic and will be challenged to think systematically about creating content that helps your audience while advancing business interests.

Be Different but be Relevant

Let’s face it- every piece of content we create will not become an Internet sensation. That is OK, because that is not usually the goal a business has for engaging in content marketing. However, we want to do everything possible to not become part of the statistic of unused content. Of course, being different can help you stand out, but being different by itself does not assure success. Ultimately, content must be relevant to the audience for which it is intended- it educates, informs, or even entertains- but it is relevant in some way. The remedy for minimizing the likelihood of creating ignored content is to put yourself in customers’ shoes- Who are they? What are their problems or concerns? What do they need to know to make a decision? Relevant content is less likely to be ignored content.

No Free Lunch… or Free Advertising

The adage “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” certainly holds in business. In fact, another adage suggests quite the opposite- “you’ve got to spend money to make money.” The rise of social media as a communication channel held promise to turn these notions upside down. Yes, you could enjoy a free lunch, or should I say free advertising, by joining Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other relevant social networking sites. I confess that I bought into it; in the earlier days of social media marketing I touted “free” as a strength of social media to my students. And, perhaps I was technically correct. However, today’s landscape in which brand building occurs on social networking sites reflects that free lunch is no longer being served, if it was ever being served at all.

What Has Changed

So, what happened to the free advertising lunch on social networking sites? The main development has been the evolution of social nets’ advertising models. Facebook is a prime example. Remember those annyoing display ads that would appear beside your feed? Recipients were asked to indicate if the ads were relevant or even if they were offensive. Today, ads you see in your news feed are native to the environment, serving you contextually relevant messages based on your characteristics and interests. This push toward relevant messaging comes at a price for message senders (advertisers). If you want your message to cut through the clutter on Facebook or other social nets, your best option may be to pay for prominent placement.

Another reason has emerged for giving up on the notion of social media being the equivalent of free advertising. On Facebook, non-paid messages from businesses are more likely to not have a reach equivalent to a brand’s total audience. Facebook’s latest tweak of its algorithm favors messages that offer compelling content, quality over quantity, if you will. And of course, Facebook will favor placement of sponsored posts (i.e., ads). Blogger Derek Muller shared observations he made in how impressions of posts to his Veritasium Facebook page dropped dramatically following Facebook’s algorithm change late last year. Some posts reached as few as 8% of Vertiasium’s Facebook audience. Likes are no longer enough to get into news feeds; engagement with posts are now more important in achieving relevant placement in an audience’s news feeds.

Exposure versus Impact

The decline in reach some brands have experienced since the latest changes to the Facebook algorithm should serve as notice that “free advertising” via social media has become a distant memory as the business models of social nets have evolved. There are two considerations on this issue:

Exposure is free – The claimed free advertising advantage of social media holds in that establishing a presence can be done without paying for space or time as required in traditional media. Embarking on social media marketing can be pulled off with as little as a keyboard and Internet connection. Given that there are very low barriers to entry, businesses should be suing social media to build exposure for their brands.
Impact is not free – Stories of deeply diminished reach on Facebook brand pages bring out the new reality that if you want to maximize impact on social nets like Facebook and Twitter you should expect to pay to do so. There are compelling reasons to commit to invest in native advertising on social nets- audiences can be narrowly targeted and promoted messages can help you rise above the clutter and receive prominent placement.

Value Comes at a Price

So there is no free lunch when it comes to social media marketing- why should we be surprised or upset? Facebook and Twitter possess something of great value to brands: Access to coveted audiences. It does not make business sense to give away something of commercial value. With that said, it must be priced fairly, and buyers must get good value for their investments. And, if social nets do not deliver value through their advertising platforms, brands will speak by finding other channels to communicate.

For CVS Caremark, It’s Positioning over Profits

Would you walk away from $2 billion a year in revenue that your business has already acquired? The question is unusual- most of the time marketers expend their energy in a quest to amass revenue. If you are going to forego significant revenue, you had better have good reason… right?

A Clear Decision

One company confronted this very question and concluded that the best interests of its business was served by answering “yes” and exiting a product category worth $2 billion in annual sales. The company is CVS Caremark, and it recently announced that it would discontinue sales of tobacco products in its 7,600 CVS stores by October of this year. The decision translates into $2 billion in revenue, or about 3% of the company’s total sales. Despite the magnitude of revenue CVS Caremark stands to lose, discontinuing tobacco sales was a clear decision to make. Why? Company management knew that in order to be true to the brand promises CVS Caremark makes as an advocate for wellness and a healthy lifestyle, its merchandise strategy has to be congruent with the overarching mission of the business.

Two Questions to Ask

Brand positioning is one of the most important marketing decisions you will make. Why? It draws a line in the sand as to how a brand is unique, different, or superior to competition. Without a clearly defined brand position, you are doomed to mediocrity, if not failure. It sounds like a dire prediction but think about it- when a brand lacks clarity in its meaning and does not articulate a point of difference, it can be perceived as a commodity that is easily interchangeable with other products. A brand is vulnerable to being rendered irrelevant when it lacks a clear point of difference that conveys its value proposition to the market.

The decision to position is easy; the approach taken to position a brand is not so clear cut. The good news about brand positioning is that a marketer has many options from which to choose to create a positioning basis. The bad news is… well, the bad news is the same as the good news- the number of possibilities for positioning a brand can be overwhelming. How do you decide what differentiation point is most viable as a positioning basis? You need to ask two questions when evaluating a potential brand position:

Is the point of difference real? A brand position has to be a legitimate proof point that exists- not a puffery claim or slogan. For CVS Caremark, positioning as a brand associated with a healthy lifestyle would be harder to achieve if it continued to sell tobacco products in its stores.
Is the point of difference relevant? Possessing a point of difference is one thing; possessing one that matters to your customers is something quite different. Judging from feedback posted on CVS’s Facebook page about the decision to end tobacco sales, many customers and non-customers alike believe it was the right thing for the company to do. It elevates the credibility of CVS Caremark as a lifestyle brand.

Be True, not Popular

While many consumers and health professionals have lauded CVS Caremark for its decision to discontinue tobacco sales, the decision was not embraced universally. Many CVS customers that buy tobacco now say they will take their business elsewhere. Other people have chided CVS Caremark for not removing other products with questionable effects on health such as beer, wine, soda, and snacks (such complaints do not appear to be an apples-to-apples comparison with cigarettes, but I will leave that debate for other people in other forums). These examples of negative feedback is a reminder that you will always have detractors- “haters gonna hate.”

In the end, it is more important to be true to your brand values than making decisions you believe will be popular. CVS Caremark has taken a bold stand to be consistent with its brand promises. While some people might see it as an expensive stand to take, it is one that CVS Caremark believed it could not afford not to take.

The One Word You Need to Know to be Awesome on Social Media

Tips and advice on using social media are abundant. The quantity of information is plentiful because the number of people describing themselves as social media experts is also plentiful. In case you need a social media expert, you can find more than 7,700 of them (OK- us) on LinkedIn alone. A sampling of articles and posts related to social media reflects the depth of knowledge being offered up:

“How to become a social media guru in 20 steps” via @arnoldtijernia

“14 tools to create engaging infographics & images for your social media posts” via @bellebcooper

“21 steps to create an awesome LinkedIn profile” via @JeffBullas

So much wisdom is available that the challenge becomes how to filter it so that we process the most relevant advice and not be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content. To be awesome on social media, you need not master 14 tools, 21 steps, or any other lengthy list. No, you only need to do one thing effectively: Listen.

Give in Order to Get

One obstacle many people have to using social media effectively is that they have a sort of writer’s block- they don’t know what to say. A friend of mine once remarked “social media is easy when you have something to say.” But, it’s that something to say that keeps many people and brands from building an audience. We lose perspective sometimes that social media is at its core a communication channel, a connector of people. Fundamental communication principles can be applied to social media interactions. One of the most useful concepts is a principle espoused by Dale Carnegie. His classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People, first published in 1936, places a premium on listening, understanding, and valuing the other person in a communication interaction. When it comes to social media communication, follow Carnegie’s advice and strive to make others the focus of your conversations.

One way to follow through on putting others first is to be mindful of your “giving to getting” ratio. Experts differ in the exact proportions of messages that talk about others versus talking about yourself, but what if you set a goal that four out of every five messages you post or share on a social networking site was about something or someone else? How close is that ratio to your current practices? When talking about “giving” messages, content could consist of giving attention, praise, or assistance to customers, communities, or friends.In contrast, “getting” messages would be focused inward on ourselves (brand, company, products, or individual employees). Just as Dale Carnegie suggests we become more interesting when we treat others as interesting, social media communication can be more engaging when perceived as conveying interest about the world around us rather than just interest about ourselves.

Live in the Moment

Poor listening skills inhibit effective communication. Why? We must first listen before being able to contribute meaningfully to conversations. One way to become a better listener is to allow yourself to live in the moment. Experience the world around you- What is happening? What are others talking about? What do people find interesting? A recent example that garnered much publicity in the business press was a tweet from Arby’s during the Grammy awards show on January 26. A distinctive hat worn by Pharrell Williams had remarkable similarity to the silhouette of the hat appearing in the Arby’s logo, prompting the following tweet from Arby’s:

This lone tweet has been retweeted more than 83,000 times and favorited over 49,000 times. What is most striking about this tweet is that it was completely spontaneous. Arby’s did not have a social media war room set up during the Grammys waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Instead, this tweet came about because Arby’s social media manager, Josh Martin, was living in the moment. He was not the only person tweeting about the Grammys or Pharrell’s hat. He merely joined in the conversation surrounding an event that attracted the interest of millions that evening. The other noteworthy point about Arby’s hat tweet was that the unscripted nature of the tweet meant it did not run through a legal team for approval. Employees must be trusted to balance living in the moment with protecting brand interests.

Listen Up

I am with the majority- my listening skills need work. Becoming a better listener will make you (and me) a more effective communicator regardless of the channel or context. And, I need to more consistently embrace the joys of living in the moment. Thank you, Dale Carnegie- perhaps the world’s only social media expert who never had the opportunity to participate.

Dealing with the 3 “No” Objections to Social Media Marketing

One of my favorite authors of business and motivational books is the late Zig Ziglar. Frankly, I would not be where I am today in my professional life without the influence of Ziglar’s books and tapes. He was a master motivator, encouraging us to realize “you can have everything in life you want if you will help enough other people get what they want.” Before he was a world renowned motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar excelled as a salesperson. Ziglar’s work in the area of motivation is so valuable that his teachings on selling can be overlooked.

Overcoming Objections

One sales topic that Zig Ziglar addressed in his teaching can be applied to social media marketing: Overcoming objections. The difference is that Ziglar’s teaching on overcoming objections pertained to external buyers while objections that businesses grapple with in social media marketing are internal. The three objections to social media marketing can be described as:

No time – Social media is not a replacement marketing tactic in most cases. It is an additive task that can be particularly challenging when the social media manager is also marketing manager, sales manager, operations manager, HR manager… you get the picture. However, saying “I have no time to do social media” is in effect saying “I have no time to market my brand or business.” Doing social media well takes a time commitment for sure; to suggest otherwise would be disingenuous. However, social media represents an interactive communication channel that can connect your business with customers and others interested in what you sell. Do you still have no time?
No money – This objection may be the easiest to overcome. Social media offers an attractive low-cost alternative to media advertising buys. Social media is not a free alternative as some suggest. Related to the no time objection, it may be necessary to hire a part-time employee to manage your business’s social media presence. And, you may incur modest expense to produce content to share on your sites. But again, we can turn the no money objection around- Are you saying you cannot afford to market your business? If no, there are bigger issues that need to be addressed to fight for survival.
No understanding – This objection is the one that is most acceptable… provided you are willing to deal with it. Entrepreneurs and small business owners are usually good at what they do- the product or service they create- but may not be adept at implementing marketing practices. It is not an indictment against them; it is just that knowing how to use social media for business purposes falls outside their expertise area. This limitation can be overcome by hiring talent that possesses the desired skills, either as a company employee or outsourcing to a marketing firm.

Don’t Let Objections become Excuses

Is developing a social media strategy challenging for many businesses? Absolutely. The social media landscape continues to evolve rapidly in terms of new social networking sites and new features on existing networks. The three objections to implementing a social media strategy identified here- no time, no money, and no understanding- are threats to your business. Why? Accepting these objections as excuses for not being engaged in social media channels can keep your brand from being more prominent and relevant among the very audience you want to influence.

3 Reasons Social Media is a Question of How, not If for B2B Marketers

The enormous penetration of social networking sites makes it a no brainer for business-to-consumer companies to establish a presence one or more social nets. Marketing efforts require that we meet audiences where they are, and increasingly they are on social media. Unlike their B2C counterparts, many business-to-business marketers question the efficacy of investing resources in developing a social media presence. An assumption held among too many B2B marketers is that buyers would have little or no interest in connecting with them in the same way they connect with brands in their “off time” as consumers. If you operate in the B2B space and hold this sentiment, 2014 is the year to adopt a new perspective on social media.

B2B Gets Social

In a post on the MediaPost Marketing Daily blog, Elizabeth Chambers of Metis Communications identified eight trends to watch in B2B social media usage in 2014. Among her observations for B2B social media were:

Businesses will invest more in social media marketing in terms of personnel and content creation
Visually-based networks like Pinterest and SlideShare will gain importance as channels of choice as images continue to trump text-only posts for clicks and sharing
LinkedIn and Google+ are poised to be key destinations for B2B marketers and audiences
Knowledge and expertise will be communicated more via interactive channels such as a webinar as opposed to one-way communication in the form of white papers and case studies.

The points made by Chambers in her article present a compelling case for B2B firms to not dismiss social media as a fad and embrace it as an element of marketing strategy.

Why Social Matters for B2B

If you are a B2B marketer, here are three reasons why social media should be included in your brand building toolkit:

The distinction between buyer as individual and buyer as organization has been blurred– When contrasting consumer and business buying behavior, it is often brought out that business buyers are not acting in their own interests but those of their employers. While this is true, business buyers are accessible through the same channels as consumers. And unlike consumption of traditional media like TV or magazines that may be motivated by desire for entertainment, social media serves a dual purpose of entertaining and informing.
B2B buyers are people, not robots– One reason that the distinction between B2C and B2B buying behavior has been blurred is that decisions are made by people. Yes, they are hired to make choices that are in the best interests of their company, but they are not programmed to do so like a computer. B2B buyers think independently and experience emotions, which ultimately influence their behavior. Social media can reach them to influence thoughts and attitudes toward your products and company.
Mobile access removes the physical distinction between work and play– For better or worse, smartphones and tablets keep us connected constantly to our work. In pre-social media times, advertising in an industry magazine or directory delivered to a buyer’s office may have been one of the best ways to reach him or her. Today, they are tethered to the web and apps to connect to their social networking sites of choice.

Social media has significantly changed how marketers can connect with audiences. Traditional communication channels will not disappear anytime soon; social media channels offer complementary means of interacting with customers and prospects. Social B2B is not a replacement for the sales force, but it brings a new dimension of communication that can be beneficial throughout the organization. Instead of waiting for the social media craze to flame out, resolve to figure out what role social networking sites can play in creating impact at each stage of the sales funnel.

Use Content to Show How, not Show Off

Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of developing a content marketing strategy is answering a straightforward question: What should be the content in our content marketing? Many brands seem to struggle with coming up with a correct answer to this question. Why? They adopt an old school, mass media mindset in which the means to the end goal (customer acquisition or retention) is pursued with brand centric messaging. The goal is essential for business survival and success, but the means to get to the goal can be easily dismissed by the very people targeted to persuade.

Content Marketing as Source of Utility

One of favorite activities during the break between fall and spring semesters is to catch up on reading. My reading list during the last few weeks of a semester becomes students’ case reports, strategic plan projects, and course participation reflection. The number one book on my list to read during the recent break was Youtility by Jay Baer. This book is a must read for any marketer using content marketing or a less experienced marketer trying to figure out what content marketing is and its usefulness in building customer-brand relationships.

For me, the most salient point made by Baer is that for a brand to succeed it can pursue being amazing or being useful. If we look around the marketing landscape today, there are a few amazing brands (Amazon, Apple, Harley Davidson, Nike, and Starbucks immediately come to mind), but most brands fail to wow us consistently. That leaves being useful as the approach most brands have the best chance of leveraging to successfully differentiate from competition.

Utility = Show How

The difference between being useful and being amazing can be viewed as a distinction between “showing how” and “showing off.” Showing how is outwardly focused, communicating to customers and others how a brand can solve problems, offer benefits, or otherwise be a resource. Showing off is just that- a brand-centered position of the business and its virtues. If we are smart, we will jump on the bandwagon and be a customer! This contrast makes it clear that showing how offers much more utility (benefit) for the individuals or groups targeted.

A show how focus is a three-pronged mindset for adding utility:

Show how much you are interested in others- Content marketing (and social media, for that matter) should be about others- customers, community, or employees… not so much about your company or product. Listen, share, and celebrate what is going on around you to establish brand credibility.
Show how well you understand customers’ needs– Content should focus on customer needs and problems and how to provide solutions or remedies. The latter could include your product… or it could not be about your product. Think about content (e.g., a YouTube video) that is useful to you. A need that I have occasionally is tips on how to pack business clothing in a suitcase without having massive wrinkles when I arrive at my destination. That is a customer need- a show-how mindset delivers answers to that need. But, it does not necessarily entail selling something. Well actually it does- you are selling your value as a problem solver.
Show how your organization can be a resource to others– Many companies have amazing untold stories that exist in the background. Employees with outstanding talents or gifts, inspiring stories of courage or determination, or selfless service to others in their community. These stories could provide utility by energizing or motivating people who are exposed to these messages.

It’s Your Choice

The approach to take for pursuing business success is simple: Strive to be amazing or be useful. Some of you will build amazing brands and businesses. We need you and admire your accomplishments. The rest of us (I am including myself) will strive to make our mark by being useful to others. We need amazing and useful brands; figure out which stance you can take and execute.

Ask Three Questions to Determine Scope of Social Media Presence

If you are involved with marketing a brand, whether it is your company or personal brand, you have likely wrestled with the question of the scope of your involvement with social media. A recent article asked the question that may have crossed your mind: “Are there too many social networks?” At the very least, the number of social networking sites can leave your head spinning. Which networks should I use? How will I use the social nets we join? How the heck am I going to keep up with posting and reading on our accounts? These are three valid questions for any marketer to ask. Let’s answer them by asking three additional questions.

1. Who Do You Want to Engage?

The first question to ask when evaluating a social network is who are the people you desire to connect with online. They are most likely customers and leads that comprise your target market. Strive to identify social networks whose user demographic characteristics match up well with your target market. Below is an overview of user characteristics of five of the largest social networking sites:

Network	% of All Internet Users	Distinguishing User Characteristics
Facebook	71%	High usage across subgroups, but higher proportions of women, young people (18-29), income of less than $50K, and some college or less
Twitter	18%	Balance men and women users; higher proportions of African Americans, young people, college educated, and incomes over $75K
Instagram	17%	Higher proportions of women, African Americans, Hispanics, young people, some college, and income of less than $50K
Pinterest	21%	Predominantly women, broader age range (18-49), college graduate, suburban dweller, and higher incomes (over $50K)
LinkedIn	22%	Higher proportions of men, African Americans, early-mid career (ages 30-49), high education and income levels

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

Your time and resources are limited; focus on the social networks that will deliver the right audience to you. That is, have a presence on sites that are used most by your target market.

2. What Do You Want to Accomplish?

Once you have established which social networking sites can best connect you to the people you seek to engage, consider what you want to get out of your social media efforts. Different sites possess distinct benefits for users. A few examples include:

Build brand awareness or shape brand image– Facebook is by far the largest social network. Posting photos or stories about your company, employees, or customers that people want to share with their friends is one way that social media involvement can influence how people think about your brand.
Inform about product features and benefits – If your product is more complex and would benefit from more extensive explanation or demonstration, channels conducive to long-form content like YouTube or a blog would enable you to tell your story in more detail.
Strengthen customer relationships- While all social media channels are useful for gathering feedback from customers and others, the real-time flow of communication on a site like Twitter can be used to monitor customer sentiment, deliver timely responses to questions, or resolve customer problems. Retail businesses in particular should utilize social media to empower customers to reach out. Let them talk to you, not about you! Check out this example from Best Buy:

This customer’s tweet received a reply in less than an hour with a recommended next action step.

3. What Are Your Communication Needs?

The third question to guide your social media marketing channel strategy his highly correlated with the first two questions: Given the target audience and marketing objectives, what are your communication needs in terms of content and messaging? Returning to the objectives discussed in Question #2, if you desire to make your company more personable by featuring employees, video interviews posted to your YouTube channel and Facebook page or adding employees to your “Twitter Team” are ways to bring employees to the forefront. If you want to capture unique or interesting uses or users of your products, posting photos to Instagram or Pinterest (depending on audience characteristics, of course) are two ways to use social content to reinforce the brand image you aspire for the brand.

Not a Yes or No Question

The question you should be asking is not whether you should use social media- your customers and future customers are on social networks- so why would you not be there? This issue reminds me of what marketers faced circa 2000 with the World Wide Web. “We need a website” became a common position among businesses. But, many of the same people uttering this statement would have to honestly add to it by saying “but we have no idea what it should contain or what it should accomplish for our business.”

Many brands have struggled with this same issue in establishing a social media presence. Ask the three questions about audience, objectives, and communication needs. And, a quality over quantity mindset is needed. Setting up accounts on four different social nets can be detrimental to the brand if they are not kept up with fresh content and monitored to respond to visitors’ comments or questions. It is better to become proficient at using one social network then adding to your social media mix than starting with multiple sites on which your brand presence is mediocre.

SMH! SMS as a Marketing Channel

In the quest to establish a presence in social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest as well as build up an email marketing database, a connector that is potentially more effective than all of these may be in the palm of your hand… or actually in the palm of your audience’s hand. Yes, mobile holds great promise as a means of reaching people regardless of where they are. But, one aspect of mobile marketing is often overlooked: short message service (SMS), better known as texting.

Advantages of SMS

No marketing channel is perfect- each one offers a trade off of strengths and limitations. SMS is no different; among the advantages of incorporating SMS into your digital strategy are:

High reach– 81% of mobile phone users text (Source: Pew Research Center)
Permission based– People sign up for your text messages because they want to hear from you
Immediate processing– 97% read rate within 15 minutes of delivery (Source: Pure360)
High click-through rates- URL click-throughs for SMS more than four times higher than for email (Source: Hubspot)
Cost effective– Pricing on SMS marketing software and services vary, but it is possible to communicate with an opt-in audience for a few cents per contact.

The permission-based nature of SMS marketing sets the stage for immediate processing and higher click-throughs on URLs in messages. Unless you are a spammer (and if you are you shame on you!), people receive text messages from your business because they opt-in to receive them. Brands build trust in the marketplace, and one way in which that trust is rewarded is when you are granted permission to communicate with people via SMS.

Pick Your Spots

It would be a stretch to say SMS could have a marketing role in every business. So what are conditions or situations that are most conducive to incorporating texting as a communication channel?

Use as a multi-channel strategy- Texts can be used to drive subscriber engagement with other channels (e.g., social media and email)
Conduct market research- Can be used to quickly gather feedback on customer experience by inviting recipients to complete a survey
Communicate information in real-time- If you have time-sensitive information or “breaking news” to share, SMS puts in front of your audience quickly
Encourage action– Text messages can promote sales or other promotions to drive traffic to your store or website.

Using SMS to reach customers and others who opt in to hear from you has obvious applications for B2C businesses, but if you are a B2B marketer do not dismiss SMS as irrelevant. Why? Business buyers and decision makers are people, and most people have mobile phones with SMS capabilities.

The Elusive Consumer

Today’s consumer can be described as easier to reach and harder to engage than ever before. The paradox is that we are easier to reach- mobile devices are indicative of our “always on” behavior- yet harder to engage as we are overwhelmed with messages that beg for our attention. A defensive posture is to ignore or tune out most of those messages, thus the “harder to engage” assertion. SMS plays into the easier to reach aspect by delivering messages to our fingertips. At the same time, SMS responds to the challenge to engage audiences by communicating only with those people who want to receive text messages. Making SMS work is no different than successfully utilizing social media, email, or traditional media advertising. Communication must be relevant to the audience and respectful of the their time and attention.