Chris Catania shares some of the challenges he faces as Walgreens’ Corporate Online Community Manager, and what his team is doing to solve them.
it was a copy of ‘Real Time – Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer’ by Regis McKenna.
‘a provocative book on doing business in a real time world, one in which time and distance vanish, action and response are simultaneous, and customers demand instant gratification…or else. Technology is continually transforming our existence in profound ways; and the pace of change is speeding up, not slowing down: we get cash in seconds at ATMs, we watch wars unfold instantaneously on live television.’
Almost all technology today compresses to zero the time needed to acquire and use information, to make decisions and initiate actions, to deploy resources and innovate. What does all this mean to the creators and managers who want to lead their organizations successfully in the real time world? Above all, says McKenna;
That was ’97 – it’s been fascinating to watch how the market and technology have responded to the need of engaging customers in real time.
Today you need to manage your activities across email, mobile, social channels and your web properties, capture real time analytics and integrate with your CRM database.
More than two-thirds (70 per cent) of Australian businesses are using a social media platform to deliver customer service, according to a study by consultancy and research firm, Fifth Quadrant. The highest user of social media for customer service is Generation Y, which accounted for 46 per cent of all social media customer service queries within the last three months. Following close was Generation X, at 39 per cent; Baby Boomers, at 24 per cent; and the Silent Generation (those born between 1925 and 1942) at 16 per cent.
It’s not just Customer Service, with advanced social intelligence, organisations can accurately personify customers and map their journey. Leading corporations are adopting this methodology to drive their product innovation, packaging, messaging, promotions, positioning, placement and ultimately their bottom line by delivering what the consumer wants based on their own requests, interests, activities and attitudes.
Marketing Automation systems replace all the separate systems you have for email, web visitor tracking, lead scoring, nurture campaigns, campaign management, reporting and other core components with one solution that aims to drive revenue, generate higher quality leads, increase marketing efficiency, align sales and marketing and quantify marketing’s performance.
The best marketing automation systems provide information across all phases of the marketing process which then trigger actual automated marketing events, such as drip feed emails within an email marketing campaign.
Real Time Analytics
Analytics can be used in real time to test, segment audiences and review campaign performance.
Google launched real time in 2011 and has recently updated to see your conversions in real time.
If you are active in the social media space you need tools to respond in real time as well as to run integrated campaigns across your social channels and your websites.
Data is the foundation of it all and the need to collect from multiple sources, integrate it into your CRM and segment critical attributes and behaviours in real time is imperative.
And whatever we do it needs to be accessible anywhere,anytime and on any device…
there’s been an explosion of technologies and vendors that enable us to connect with customers in real time.
Real time marketing technologies don’t necessarily translate to satisfied customers – it’s still depends on how we engage with our customers and nurture those relationships to build trust.
pic: Gatorade’s Social Media Command Center
Why? Well Kleiner – Perkins- Caulfield- Byers are usually ‘on the money’ and considered one of the most successful technology investors and behind a host of brands including Groupon, Klout, Flipboard, Zynga, Jive and Path to name a few, as well as group of leading Greentech companies.
Whilst I don’t find any ‘earth moving’ findings here, there is certainly an affirmation of the trends that can’t be ignored..online growth, mobile usage and opportunities and the impact of social and rich content.
And it’s always interesting to watch the battle of the platforms, with Facebook under siege from Google via Google+ and YouTube.
‘
There are now 2.4 billion Internet users around the world, and the total continues to grow apace. Mobile usage is expanding rapidly, while the mobile advertising opportunity remains largely untapped.
The report reviews the shifting online landscape, which has become more social and content rich, with expanded use of photos, video and audio.
Looking ahead, the report finds early signs of growth for wearable computing devices, like glasses, connected wrist bands and watches – and the emergence of connected cars, drones and other new platforms.’
Black Hat SEO practitioners have always annoyed me and I still remember those potential customers who just didn’t get it..anyway..simply put…Google’s strategy has been to sort out those who seek manipulate search so that Google delivers better quality search results to users. We should all welcome this… unless you’ve been trying to game the system of course.
“The previous iteration of Penguin would essentially only look at the home page of a site. The newer generation of Penguin goes much deeper…”
Google are very clear about their mission – here’s a Google vid on ‘Webspam Content Violations,” which are at the core of the Penguin update.
Here’s a recent post of mine on Google Search Strategy which talks about the phenomenal reach of Google search in our market and how to legitimately rank higher in search.
And if you are a SEO geek this post from SEOmoz should get your algorithm’s going….
So says Forrester in their recently released ’2013 Mobile Trends for Marketers.’
‘Mobile platforms will act as a catalyst for the next generation of connected experiences. In particular, smart apps connected to products and CRM systems will emerge. In 2013, leading marketers will anticipate the longer-term mobile disruption and shift from tactical efforts to more transformative mobile strategies.’
There’s more than 1 million apps available, more than 150 million tablets sold and nearly everyone has a phone in his or her pocket… 80 percent of the world’s population has a mobile phone.
We (consumers) expect a consistent message across mobile, social as well as the traditional channels.
I’ve posted before on SoMoLO & ‘showrooming’ and the impact of mobile on retail which just one example of how consumers and brands are interacting.
People are responding to mobile social media promotions.
Positive and negative experiences are shared in real time on mobiles.
We now routinely seek advice and research purchases.
If brands want to remain relevant they need to engage with their audience across social channels and platforms.
This recent study is from Google and Nielsen analysed over 6000 mobile searches and the actions that resulted, ‘drawing precise and measurable connections between mobile searches and the online and offline conversions that they drive.’
Remember that Google accounts for over 93% of Australian search…
There’s a lot that can be gleaned from this report and it drives home the obvious .. a mobile strategy is essential.
Thanks to the crew at Simply Business for this handy reference. It’s also a great example of content marketing ..multiple links all wrapped up in an attractive infographic.. relevant, useful and highly shareable….nice..click on the infographic.
Click image to open interactive version (via Simply Business).
Yes content marketing buzzwords abound and every second blog or newsletter tells you how it important it is. What I wanted to share was the need to develop your promotional strategy through various social channels and networks.
In any given network, brands can invest in digital assets that span five media landscapes:
1. Paid: Digital advertising, banners, adwords, overlays
2. Owned: Created assets, custom content
3. Earned: favourable publicity ,Brand-related conversations and user-generated content
4: Promoted: in-stream or social paid promotions vehicles (e.g. Twitter’s Promoted products and Facebook’s Sponsored Stories)
5. Shared: Open platforms or communities where customers co-create and collaborate with brands.
I’ve always been a fan of Jeremiah Owyang and keenly followed every piece of research that the Altimeter team publish. This keynote presentation to 2000 marketers in SF on how marketers must adopt Converged Media (Paid+Owned+Earned) is timely.
The fabulously relevant content that you are producing for your audience needs a strategy to be seen across the different media landscapes yet this report shows that that 47 percent of companies have yet to launch a converged media campaign. I would bet that figure would be much higher in our APAC marketplace.
Here’s the workflow a company needs to create converged media:
Perform research into what customers have already said, the content that has generated the most interest and even what competitors do.
Develop a communications plan but be sure to include components of what your customers say.
Example – An ad (paid media) for Windows 7 featured pieces of earned media. It showed that 92 percent of students would recommend Windows 7 and had an option to view customer reviews.
Integrate your content. For example, find the best performing social media content and include aspects of that into your other marketing efforts.
Use various parts of your staff—such as experts, product teams and executives—to interact with customers and prospects and turn them into advocates and influencers to spread the word.
Example – The Original Runner Company asked its 2,000 Twitter followers for feedback before launching a new color aisle runner. Ten percent of the five-person company’s followers engaged and selected a hot pink runner.
Take the owned and earned media and make it more visible by using it in paid media. For example, gather quotes from customers and use that in your advertisement.
Example – Sharpie recently let its fans do the copywriting and converged earned and paid media. They retweeted and promoted some of the best writing-related tweets. The campaign helped Sharpie increase its new daily followers sixfold.
Converged media is a cycle that can last an hour or a month depending on your brand. Repeat the process over and over to keep producing new pieces of converged media.
(Note: During each phase of the workflow, brands should monitor and record how well things are working. Repeat what works best and adjust weak areas.)
Click image to open interactive version (via Simply Business).
The weather in Sydney last Saturday was atrocious so I chose to bunker down and work. I was immediately drawn to the unfolding drama in Boston as the second suspect was being tracked down.
I started following @Boston_Police and the hashtag #manhunt along with my normal Twitter stream, where many American tweeps were also following the story.
It wasn’t long before people who lived in the area located the boat in the backyard via the web and published pictures via Twitter. I followed Jeremiah Owyang’s tweet to a web link where you could listen to the real-time conversation via the police scanner. It was surreal… listening to the police talk about the fact that they were being listened to and discussing the need to go off air to another channel.
Given all that could go wrong….would the suspect be taken alive ? are there more explosive devices? ..the tension was palpable…it was an amazing experience to be watching and listening in real time.
Every other news story that day was an anticlimax..it was over and the people of Boston celebrated with a collective sigh of relief.
And it’s not just Twitter, the web is the major news platform. Think about the live streaming from the police scanner.
‘Ustream was created six years ago to help bridge the gap between the physical and virtual live experience, and we take pride in our ability to connect people to the things they value most. We highly value Internet freedom, and we’ve seen impactful citizen journalists utilize our platform throughout the years. Yesterday’s events were quite the validation of how things have quickly evolved — consumers crave instant gratification and social media has given them access and insight unlike ever before.’
For some time the wrong people were being named as Boston terror suspects, complete with photographs and bios.
When the right suspects were eventually identified they were incorrectly linked to a mosque that had nothing to do with them.
The need to wait for official confirmation is paramount. Trial by the media ..be it social or any other kind, should never be an option.
The possible scenarios resulting from mistaken identity and false accusations are too scary to contemplate.
‘ The fact is that surveillance cameras helped the FBI solve this complicated crime and allowed the city of Boston to live in peace’
As the drama was unfolding on Twitter it became painfully obvious just who had automated their tweets and wasn’t paying attention. Don’t get me wrong I start most mornings with a review of my ‘information stream’ and I’ll schedule tweets for the day via Hootsuite…difference is that I remain tuned to what’s happening throughout the day.
If a crisis is breaking, especially in your own country, you should guess that it will dominate the conversation and so be sure adjust your social media management accordingly.
Don’t try and sell anyone, anything, in the middle of a crisis…seems obvious.
Yet again I’m gobsmacked by the American attitude towards gun ownership. What are 26 and 19 year old students doing with an ‘arsenal’ of automatic weapons? This comes right on the back of the recent Senate decision …what will it take ?
‘The US Senate blocked bipartisan legislation aimed at tightening restrictions on the sale of firearms, a huge defeat for President Barack Obama and a rejection of personal pleas by families of the victims of last winter’s mass elementary school shooting in Connecticut.’
Obama accused the powerful gun lobby in the United States of “willfully”lying in order to doom the measure.’
To add some satire to this otherwise bleak story, if you haven’t already done so.. watch Daily Show contributor John Oliver’s trip Down Under.
…. IMHO the best thing John Howard ever did! (vid link)
Well it’s always nice when a report comes out that aligns with the advice that you’ve been giving to clients.
‘Although Twitter is currently the number one B2B social platform, respondents expect to see Google+ treble its relevance, from only nine per cent to 29 per cent within 12 months, placing the site just behind Facebook.
B2B marketers also expect to see a shift away from the popular social platforms, towards more content focused networks, over the next 12 months.
The report revealed that while the usefulness of leading platforms, including Twitter and LinkedIn, are set to decline, Google+ and content focused platforms such as Pinterest and SlideShare is set to grow.’
Yes, Pinterest is growing though it has an 80% female skew and whilst Twitter and LinkedIn might decline they will remain powerful platforms. My own guess is that Facebook will be impacted the most …for all the reasons I’ve outlined before…privacy concerns, constant and confusing change and data ownership. Where is your audience active?
Remember..engaging your community in the space that you control has never been more important.
1. It’s the website that you own.
2. It’s your domain name.
3. It’s your content that you’ve developed for your audience.
4. It’s the relationships you build in the discussion forum that you moderate on your site
5. It’s the data you collect about your community that you treat with respect
For an overview of the full report download the B2B Marketing Social Media Benchmarking Report 2013 key findings document.
Steve MacAlpine - delivering brand, digital & social media strategies to achieve your business objectives. A constant learner, always sharing things that I find interesting about the brand and digital space. Established since 1993.
