A Manifesto for Integrating Social Media Into Marketing
While preparing a presentation for "Starting the Conversation," a workshop hosted by the SocialMediaClub, I wound up drafting the first version of what would eventually become known as the Social Media Manifesto - a guide for helping marketers adapt to the rapidly evolving realm of social media.
There has been a fundamental shift in our culture, and it has created a new landscape of influencers and an entirely new ecosystem for supporting the socialization of information, thus facilitating new conversations that can start locally but have a global impact.
Monologue has given way to dialogue. Social media has created a new layer of influencers. These individuals play an active role in the process of not only reading and disseminating information but also sharing and creating content for others to consume. Only if you understand this segment of your audience will you truly grasp the future of communications.
The socialization of information and the tools that enable it are the undercurrent of social media and, ultimately, the social economy. What we're talking about here is how companies will best manage an integrated communications strategy in the not-too-distant future. It's about putting the relationships back in public relations. It's realizing that focusing on important markets and influencers will have a far greater impact than trying to reach the masses with any one message or tool.
The key point here is that social media has yet to reveal its true impact. While many are busy predicting its future, the majority of people around the world have yet to embrace it and participate. This means that it's only going to become more pervasive and, as such, will be a critical factor in the success or failure of any business.
The evolution of social media is also forcing an incredible transformation - the most dramatic to date - in PR and corporate communications, even more significant than the introduction of radio, television and motion pictures.
With the injection of social tools into the mix, people now have the ability to impact and influence the decisions of their peers as well as other newsmakers. Social media is not a game played from the sidelines. Those who participate will succeed - everyone else will either catch up or miss the game altogether.
What Does the Future of Communications Look Like?
First, understand that social media is more about sociology and less about technology. It's a mashup of new and traditional media that spans advertising, PR, customer service, marcom, sales and community relations. The key to success now and in the future will be bridging the gap between early adopters and everyone else.
For the time being, however, it's about conversations, and the best communicators start as the best listeners. This is where the future of communications takes shape.
It all starts with respect. Listening is marketing. Participation is marketing. Media is marketing. Conversations are marketing. Comments are marketing.
These are pretty powerful statements, and they are the essence of the future of marketing. They combine traditional marketing, conversational marketing, participatory marketing and, more importantly, the ability to be successful in dynamic relationships with multiple markets.
Let's start by figuring out who's in charge of the conversation. Is it advertising, PR, marketing communications or customer service? The answer: all of the above.
How do you integrate this into the marketing fold without getting laughed at or, even worse, fired? Perhaps CEOs, directors and investors will read this and force the change to travel from the top down, but in most cases, change will be driven from the bottom up and from the middle.
The best companies will stop trying to push their marketing messages on people and, instead, will engage them on their own terms. Social media allows these discussions to occur almost anywhere at any given time, so it's a tremendous task to keep up with all of them. It's critical for companies to empower employees and spokespeople to participate so that at the end of the day, public relations becomes everyone's shared responsibility. Don't get me wrong - traditional marketing can still run as it has, but now it also needs to play a complementary role with all of these new media activities. There also needs to be a more careful, in-depth process for understanding the people who comprise the markets you're trying to reach.
We Need Leaders. We Need Champions.
What the chief marketing officer was to Web 1.0, the community manager is to the world of Web 2.0 and social media. This is the individual who keeps an ear to the ground to determine where relevant conversations are taking place and where the company should participate. The community manager is on the front lines of listening and engaging in conversations across the Web on behalf of the brand.
The next step is to realize that marketing messages are not conversations. This is where most companies fall down in executing their traditional marketing campaigns. People just don't speak or hear things that way. As The Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Doc Searls once said, "There is no market for messages."
Social media acts like a hub between the company and its customers. It's the new customer service function, fusing marcom, PR and customer relations into one department. Everything integrated into the marketing mix in this environment is aimed at sparking and cultivating not only conversations, but relationships. Its aim is to humanize companies and their products and services so that they matter to people.
Integrated Marketing - The Tools
The future of marketing integrates traditional and social media elements. This new mix combines familiar methods, such as message development, traditional PR and advertising, direct marketing, events and customer support, with emerging tools (which require direct participation) for success in social media and new customer relations.
Examples of the latter include blogs; social networks; wikis; lifestreams, Ã la Twitter and Jaiku; online video; livecasts, such as Veodia and ustream.tv; news aggregators, such as Digg and Reddit; social media "press" releases; and podcasts. We'll examine each of these later in the paper.
Keep in mind that sociology is the key driver of future communications. The technology is just that: technology. The tools will change; the networks will evolve; and media for distributing content will grow. What must stay constant and consistent is transparency in whatever you do. Your focus will be less about your company and more about how your customers can succeed in their business or how people can improve their personal lives. They learn, and you learn. It's sociology that will inform your strategy for building a community around them. The rest are just tools to facilitate that conversation. Everything you do in social media requires ongoing participation - which can't be automated by technology - to build bridges that connect people to the company.
Blogs
We're all pretty familiar with blogs by this point, but not everyone has figured out that blogs are not effective when used as a corporate platform for marketing messages. Nor are blogs a soapbox for company executives (or their ghostwriters). The best corporate blogs are sincerely designed to help people. And you can't just post something and leave the room either. Some of the best conversations take place in the comments section of blogs, as people react to what you've written and interact with peers who are sharing their own opinions.
As you post content, also make sure to send trackbacks to any outside blog posts that inspired you. By engaging with the larger blogospheres, you'll enable new readers to discover what your company has to say.
Social Media Release
Originally introduced by Todd Defren, a principal at SHIFT Communications, the social media release (SMR) is a new way of facilitating conversations while also packaging content in a more concise format, rich with media and other social tools.
The SMR is not a miracle pill to cure the ills of poorly written press releases. It is a tool that is most effective when combined with a strategic arsenal of relevant company blog posts, traditional releases, established relationships and an emerging category of SEO press releases that tell a story (written by and for people using SEO). SEO releases are rich with keywords that are search-engine optimized and can appear, for example, on Google News or Yahoo Business, two sites that have demonstrated their ability to reach customers directly.
SMRs are designed to get the conversation going by providing readers and influencers with the ability to disseminate information and multimedia; bookmark and share the content; and in turn, spark discussion threads. News releases can tell the same story in different ways - appealing to specific markets and the users that define them.
VNR 2.0
Video is the new frontier - again. Video news releases (VNRs) are an obvious way to leverage the power of the Internet to humanize companies and explain the value of their products or services.
Videos that tell stories can have a viral effect shared in online communities and posted on a corporate website. The trick is not to come off as too slick and professionally produced. Instead, concentrate less on production values and more on authenticity and genuineness. The more "real" your videos, the more likely they'll be to attract attention and generate buzz.
These videos can be short demos, "screencasts" (a demonstration or walkthrough on screen), entertaining snippets or collages from event footage, "TV episodes," etc. Create a channel on YouTube, tag each video with popular and relevant keywords, and watch the number of viewings skyrocket. A simple screencast I uploaded generated 55,000 views in one week (and up to 165,000 views at the time of this writing).
Social Media Newsroom
Todd Defren also created the concept of the social media newsroom (see Figure 1), a centralized online location where journalists, analysts, bloggers, conference organizers and customers can discover, subscribe to and share corporate news, bios, images, video, RSS feeds, del.icio.us links, blogs, tags and IM accounts - everything anyone would want or need to know about your company, industry and products.
Social Networks
A dedicated social network, which could be considered a more sophisticated and easier-to-use discussion board, is another effective vehicle for building relationships and enhancing customer service. And it's not as hard as you might think. Vendors such as Ning offer services that enable you to build and launch a network quickly and easily.
But just because you build it, that doesn't mean they will come. You have to do some recruiting. Go find your customers and bring them to you. At the same time, make sure you maintain a presence in other social networks - where relevant - so your customers can also find you.
This applies to anything you do with social media, quite honestly. It all requires promotion and research.
Podcasts and Video Blogs
Podcasts and video blogs are easy to produce and can provide a world of value to customers. They can showcase company milestones, executive interviews, customer success stories, how-to's and anything else that helps you engage with customers on a one-to-one basis. Not only can these vehicles be hosted on the company's website, they can be placed in a variety of content distribution networks, such as iTunes, for even greater impact and exposure.
Wikis
Wikis are an important tool for facilitating collaboration in a more friendly, socially focused content management system. Lots of companies use wikis to foster teamwork and streamline document management, but wikis can also provide a forum for inviting content and suggestions from customers.
Microblogs and Flow Applications
Twitter, Jaiku and tumblr aren't just for geeks. They represent a new channel for listening to customers and getting information in front of them. Often referred to as microblogs, these tools allow you to blast short content snippets to your audience, keeping them updated on company activities or alerting them to fresh website content.
Livecasting and Videocasting
Previously, only elite, Fortune 500 companies had access to video production and broadcast capabilities. Today companies of all shapes and sizes can build networks and leverage tools for broadcasting live and taped video on the Internet and mobile devices. Video clips allow companies and customers to engage in a whole new way. All it takes is a notebook, a fixed broadband connection (or even EVDO for mobile casts) and either a webcam or camcorder. Vendors such as Veodia and Ustream enable livecasting anywhere, anytime, while providers like kyte, Mogulus and BlogTV facilitate episodic broadcasting. These tools are also ideal for webcasts of training sessions, HR and executive announcements, product reviews, marketing events, lectures, conferences, speeches, panels and more.
Media Syndication
All company media should be placed in social communities where customers will find and use it. Flickr, Zooomr and Photobucket are among the vendors offering easy tools for sharing photos and video with customers and partners while maintaining ownership and control of the media. Collage tools, such as Splash- Cast, allow you to integrate all forms of media into one portable and captivating video by creating streaming media "channels" that combine video, music, photos, narration, text and RSS feeds. These casts can be placed on blogs and in social networks too.
Crowd-Sourced News, aka News Aggregators
You can raise your company's visibility and draw traffic to your website with tools such as Reddit, Digg and Fark, which enable users to "vote" for news stories, blog postings, YouTube videos, etc., that they think other people should see. Making the front page or garnering the most votes on these sites is an art - and takes a lot of missionary marketing. You'll establish credibility if you start out by submitting, promoting and voting for stories not related to your company.
Virtual Worlds
Many companies are extending their presence into virtual worlds. Second Life is the best known of the bunch, but it's certainly not the only world in which you can participate. But before you dive in, you should participate as a "resident" and get to know a virtual world's unique culture firsthand.
As with all forms of social media, companies often make the mistake of marketing in a virtual world with the same rules they follow with traditional media. For example, when Intel launched its island with a virtual press conference in Second Life, the rest of us got a lesson in what not to do. Many reporters, analysts and bloggers felt like they didn't get a chance to interact - one of the chief selling points of virtual worlds - and, instead, were supposed to listen while the company did the talking. In fact, one of Intel's reps even told the audience to keep quiet and show respect for the speakers. If you're going to engage in social media, be prepared for the conversation to move in both directions. Indeed, you should actively encourage it.
Defining the Future of Integrated Communications
What does the future of integrated marketing and communications look like? It's a mashup of new media and traditional media working toward the common goal of engaging people and influencers on their terms. The difference is that by listening, reading and participating, corporate marketers will be smarter and more approachable than ever before. This is how we humanize brands, create loyalty and earn the customer's business.
In the world of social media, where companies are measured by their actions and not their intents, brands will earn the community of customers they deserve.
