Hi Doug,
You can stop crying for your industry. I saw Kevin Nalts’ wonderful Ten Lessons for Marketers Using Viral Videos. Comes as a sweet relief after Dan Ackerman Greenburg’s horrible The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos. The White Hat rides again!
Cheers,
Dave
When I talk to my social media clients about generating social media traffic, the question inevitably comes up: How can we get on the front page of Digg? And I answer: Are you sure you want to be on the front page of Digg?
Digg’s advantage is the ability to deliver raw traffic to one particular post or article. If the article is written in a Digg-friendly format known as ‘linkbait’ (lists, breaking news, etc.) and you can mobilize your friends and fans to Digg the post, you can drive a significant amount of traffic to the article.
However, this traffic generally does not convert well. They are one-time visitors which generally do not convert well: they don’t click on ads, they don’t visit other pages on the site and they rarely turn into regular visitors or community members. There’s always the argument that with a volume of traffic you will inevitably get some people who convert, but how much effort are you putting into getting a 0.1% conversion rate? That’s 100 conversions per 100000 visitors. And you have to repeat that tomorrow. And the day after that.
The quality of visitors is also questionable. The etiquette within a community usually prevents the more immature commenting and name calling; the lack of a community can garner lots of stupid, non-constructive commenting. Simply opening up commenting to the world doesn’t ensure valuable participation; the majority of comments on YouTube videos are mostly ego-builders for the commenter (although it’s nice to have a pat on the back for a cute video, would you invite a commenter to dinner?).
It boils down to this: Do you want lots of raw traffic for one day, or a steady group of committed fans who visit regularly and contribute to the conversation? This will affect what you write, how you write it, and the other techniques you will use to meet your social media marketing goals.
I am currently working with a client where raw traffic seems important. This business relies on volume, and getting as many people as possible to convert - conversion measured in this case as simply moving over to the main site. However, getting people from the blog to the main site is a huge challenge, and there are big questions around the effort of blogging relative to the conversions.
On the other side, the community is strong. The Facebook group and Page is a success; there is a lot of action and involvement. These are people who are committed to the company and the community, and these people are the company moneymakers - people who directly contribute to the bottom line.
The raw traffic option looks great in the web stats, but you need to ask yourself: does the traffic convert relative to the effort? Should you be chasing traffic or should you focus on building community? Think about how you use Digg yourself. Are you looking for breaking news or something to run the clock out on Friday afternoon? Digg is great. Are you looking for content - things that closely relate to your personal and professional interests? StumbleUpon is a far better tool. And of the two, which kind of site will you become more involved with?
So far, I’ve seen two instances of friends becoming fans of companies with a Facebook Page, and both times I’ve checked out the page because I know the friend is into really interesting things. And I discovered a really neat blog - PSFK - Ideas, Trends and Inspiration.
I know I’ve questioned the value of Facebook’s new ad program, but I’m seeing a couple of things: first, the note in my news feed is not overwhelming - it looks like any other piece of news from a friend, and this is well done. Facebook has notorious ad-blindness, but the news feeds get read. Second, the companies I’ve seen so far are small companies, not the big multinationals. And who doesn’t like to support the underdog?
We’ll see how this works out; I’m spending the next couple of weeks developing pages for three or four companies, and I’ll be talking about the process and seeing how it comes together.
Vandelay Design has just published a collection of over 50 articles on social media, including articles StumbleUpon, Facebook, Second Life and a lot more. Check out the collection - there’s a lot of insight here. And many thanks to Vandelay for publishing three of my own articles.
Found an interesting quote in an article in The Times Online (UK):
Social networkers go to MySpace and Facebook to chat with friends, not to champion brands. But, they do chat about the things they are most passionate about, and often that means brands, cool brands.
There is a very subtle but extremely important difference: we talk about brands in the course of a conversation but we don’t have a conversation about brands.
Products and brands come up in the flow of conversation - this is normal. But when was the last time you sat with a buddy to talk about the latest iPod? People are passionate about products - technology, music, cars, makeup, etc., and people talk about these things with their friends. However, if a “friend” (Facebook superficial acquaintance?) of mine kept pushing his product - that was the conversation - he would not be a friend much longer.
Marketers need to figure this out, and Facebook’s new system isn’t helping.
Over the last 16 hours or so, there has been much hue and cry over Facebook’s new ad platform. Many commentators cry “I won’t shill for Coke” or “Don’t tell me what me Facebook so-called-friends are reading”. Fine. I won’t tell you about this excellent band I just found. Do you care if I don’t tell you?
Like it or not, our real friends are our second biggest influencers, and I would not have heard about many excellent books if it wasn’t for my close friends. I appreciate these recommendations, and try to return the favour, which I also know is appreciated. If a friend fills out a widget on Blockbuster.com recommending a movie, I will pay attention.
What Facebook misses is the idea of what a friend is. Facebook gives equal weight to our close family, our closest friends (our “inner circle of advisors”), our work acquaintances and the guy with whom we were college roommates for three months. Even among our wider net of associates, certain people have different weights of authority in different areas. If I had Rob Hyndman among my friends (I don’t know him, but I like his commentary on the tech world), I would take his recommendations on books, but probably not air conditioners. And, with apologies, I really don’t care what you drink.
Facebook, I need to categorize my friends. Inner circle, friends, superficial acquaintances (you don’t need to use this terminology). If you would also give me tools so that I can specify the types of recommendations I get from my friends, I would greatly appreciate that. For example, I will take book and music recommendations from Tad, but not from my cousin. If Steve (the snappy dresser) reviews a shirt, I’m listening. Mike: tell me about the skis you are buying this year, but I don’t care for your taste in beverages.
If Facebook wants to make this “a strong trusted referral for your brand”, then I want recommendations from people I trust in certain areas, not my “Facebook friends”.
Facebook made a range of announcements today, but the one that struck me is “Beacon”. Zuckerberg explains, quoted from TechCrunch:
Social distribution, now here is where it gets interesting. When somebody engages with your (the advertiser’s) page, that is spread virally through the network. When someone says they are a fan of your brand, that becomes a trusted referral. It goes right to their Mini feed. A strong trusted referral for your brand.
One of the issues with “Facebook friends” is that the majority are not really friends from whom a referral means anything, but a group of superficial acquaintances from whom a referral means almost as much as random review on epinions.com. I’m lucky - the vast majority of my friends (at a paltry 47) are people I trust and from whom I would probably consider a recommendation or opinion. I wonder about those with 1000 friends. Does a recommendation mean anything? Especially if 1000 people are recommending 200 different items in the same category. Who do I believe? Why would I care to sift through all this information and try to make an informed decision?
I’m thinking that this will end up like the groups: a way to align yourself with a brand, but the identification with the company (as it is with many groups) is more to brand yourself than to engage with like-minded people.
Hmmm… creating not corporate pages, but promotion pages. That would be interesting. If I saw that “Dave Walker entered the iCoke.com Untimate Nintendo Wii Contest”, that might get me interested.
I can’t wait to see how this will work, and how companies will use this, good and bad.
Of all the things that Facebook will be announcing today, I’m most interested in the social retailing feature. David Wilson at the Social Media Optimization blog summarizes:
Facebook’s social retailing plans will allow data about Facebooker users to share their online transactions and product reviews/opinions to be shared within their social network. Marketers will also be able to plug in to the program, enabling consumer interactions such as purchases to become part of the social network.
The people looking for recommendations, and the influence of those recommendations, is huge (click here to see Deloitte’s numbers), and the ability to bring the company/marketer into these conversations is exciting, but a little dangerous. I hope this doesn’t turn into a spamfest.
The elephant has entered the room. Can’t wait to see how this one plays out.
SearchEngineWatch.com and ClickZ.com have been running articles recently about search engine marketing and social media. The odd thing, in my mind, is the focus on the social bookmarking sites.
“These days, it seems that social media marketing is on the minds of every search engine marketer. With the importance of links in the algorithms of all the major search engines, along with the benefits of putting your pages in front of a broad, targeted audience, getting your articles popular on major social media sites like del.icio.us and StumbleUpon is an important part of any search marketing strategy. ” - Eric Enge
For the last 5 years, SEM has been a large part of my web duties, so I can understand the SEM focus on StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Digg, et al. SEM and SEO is about traffic, pure and simple. However, search engine marketers are marketing technicians, not social marketers (duck! here comes the storm!) in that SEM is about the technical aspects of web sites, algorithms, etc. while SMM is about talking to people. If SEM is focusing on the social bookmarking sites, they are missing the picture of social marketing.
Admittedly, SEM talks big about optimizing text and content for the web site users (well, for Google search bots, really), and they talk about the art and science of search engine optimization. They also talk about user-centric experiences (because that’s what the search engines like), but rarely - if ever - have I heard SEM talk about talking to people. Enge goes on in his article to talk about the advantages of making friends on StumbleUpon and del.icio.us, but again, this is one small part of the big picture of SMM.
An analogy: SEM is like taking tons of video footage of people in a store and arranging the products on the shelves, the position of the cash registers and the signage on the building to get people coming into the store and optimizing the buying flow. SMM is about talking to those people and finding out what they like to buy. And, for success, one needs the other.
The general impression I am getting (except from those who read blogs like Webwalker) is that the majority of (traditional) marketers, PR people, advertising people and SEM people are looking at SMM like the proverbial elephant (and SMM is large and somewhat ill-defined). Everyone is feeling a different part of the elephant and defining that as SMM. (I’m not innocent - I also have a perception of SMM that probably doesn’t match yours).
Instead of trying to claim the SM space for themselves, the different specialties need to join forces and combine their knowledge. Smart companies who want to make an impact will do this (and some are doing this quite successfully). The rest of us will be left holding onto the tail of the elephant.
After a sh**storm yesterday (did I hit a nerve? I saw a 5x traffic spike) and a looong night with a teething toddler, here’s a whole lot of not much.
I just launched a web site for a new Vietnamese restaurant in northwest Calgary, the Green Papaya. No wonder I’ve been craving Vietnamese food for the last few weeks. Can’t wait for it to open. Web site notes: the Vietnamese characters were the toughest part of the site. Just sourcing the HTML entity codes was difficult, but I found a great site for it, and I’m glad I know my eth from a dyet.
I have created the first draft of my Squidoo Lens, Social Media Marketing Action Plan. Comments? Please be kind, I’m still battered and bruised (but pugnacious - watch out). It’s aimed at smaller business who want a way to get started interacting with their customers online in a non-”marketing” way.
Things I’m reading:
Interesting article on raising a brand-free kid. Something I’m struggling with, having a toddler of my own.
Primate Diaries. Monkeys, evolution, athieism, Intelligent Design and religion. Put your thinking cap on.
And I will never pass up a chance to promote The Comics Curmudgeon.
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