myth #2: ENGAGEMENT MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY EXPOSURE
it’s funny that as much time as i’ve spent explaining the differences between the effects of engagement vs. exposure, it seems i spend just as much time explaining the value of combining engagement AND exposure. it’s as if battle lines were drawn somewhere between the two and everyone decided it was imperative to pick a side about which one is more important. like you’re either a cat person or a dog person. carpets or hardwood. mac or pc. advertising or community.
each one’s got their defenses and excuses, right? advertising is all like, we’ve been doing it this way forever, and we’ll listen to what community’s got to say, but we’ll still play it by our rules. and community’s all like, obviously advertising’s just a dinosaur; they just don’t get it. and so it goes, with advertising trying to spray over its bald spot with engagement concessions while community tries to beef up its resume with ROI success metrics.
but maybe… couldn’t it make sense to consider that dog and cat people are both pet people? and even if you’re down with the wall-to-wall you’ve still got tile in your kitchen, and the folks with the parquet have rugs and bathmats for strategic purposes. and as for mac vs. pc… that might hint at the root of the fissure issue.
for 10 years i used a pc. and then 2 years ago, when my old toshiba fell and couldn’t get up, i decided to buy a mac. i can chalk it up to some practical and financial reasons if you ask me to, but the truth is those reasons weren’t really so much deciding factors as justifications for the decision that had pretty much already been made. the truth is that if you’re young and hip and need a new computer, buying a mac is just the thing you’re supposed to do. (hey man, identity marketing wouldn’t be so effective if it didn’t work on EVERYONE.) and that’s kind of the same way that the division between advertising and community seems to go down.
you know, while i’m here, i may as well point out that when i say advertising i’m including PR too. i’m including ANY kind of marketing technique focused on exposure vs. on engagement. the team you go to bat for is determined by which side represents YOUR identity.
yeah, YOU.
your years of experience, your industry awards, or your tech savviness, your youth and hipness. and, sure, whichever side of the tracks you come from has a whole lot of other folks there who fit that identity profile, and your approach translates for them, but… what good does YOUR professional identity expression actually do, you know, like, the campaign? or…the USER? or the consumer….
whoever.
my point is that an engagement strategy is not an upgraded substitute for a promotional campaign. and the measurement of the value of engagement if evaluated independent of the influence of exposure strategies is ridiculous. there’s a reason why the phrase “to work in concert” exists. imagine an orchestra insisting on making the violins compete with the percussion section to demonstrate which one is more worthy. marketing is a strategy symphony, and not the kind of strategy that’s about figuring out how to kick all the other instruments off the island, yo.
so how do we move beyond simply defending our particular tribal affiliations? how do we shift the focus from the segregation between exposure and engagement, to methods for integrating the two processes and, ideally, to creating ways for each to be enhanced by the other?
starting this blog seems kinda like merging onto a freeway. one doesn’t just take a sharp left turn and blurt out some sort of doctoral thesis, rather it’s a continuous, gradual process of edging closer and closer to the main flow of traffic, with ideas expanding on ideas, expanding on ideas.
i’ve been tinkering with this draft for a while now, about what i’ve got to say on the way i see the value of social engagement marketing being discussed, which is, like, oh man, just a big monster of a topic that only seems to make the post more and more unwieldy the further i delve into it.
so, i think, rather than waiting until i’ve got the whole thing complete enough to just barrel at a 90-degree angle against oncoming traffic, i’m going to tackle a bit of the onramp–as i see it–at a time.
** curves ahead: **
please be forewarned — i am NOT an online media expert. i do NOT have any kind of technology background, and quite honestly i couldn’t do math to save my life. my perspective comes from almost a decade of producing events and experiences that bring hundreds and now thousdands of people together, and create a platform for interaction on some incredibly visceral levels. large-scale live event creation is sort of like a “control” running parallel to the online experience creation experiment, and there are a myriad ways in which each informs the other.
my perspective also comes from studying PEOPLE and SOCIAL BEHAVIOR, (there’s a reason this blog is called “social creature,” after all). if i was doing what i do in a rural village in africa, it would be called anthropology. in l.a., however, we call it marketing.
so…. with an understanding of THAT basic caveat in mind, here’s an initial attempt at getting on that bull that’s the discussion about “the value of social engagement marketing,” and seeing how long i can stay on and ride it.
myth #1:
THE INTERNET INVENTED SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT MARKETING
nope.
guess again.
before it was about pressing Enter, it was about pressing the flesh. before web 2.0 there were tupperware parties, door to door salesmen, and patent medicine shows. all of these involved the same exact elements as what’s currently referred to in such clinical terms as “social engagement marketing,” and its potency as a selling method was never in question. before advertising, in fact, this was the only method there WAS.
but though the internet didn’t invent it, it DID upgrade it. as the tools for generating and enhancing social interaction got way fancier (and also more removed from immediately physical interaction) they seem to have also made us confused. we now look at this whole process as if it’s some alien anomaly we’ve never encountered before, when the truth is that this process has been in existence for AGES. for, in fact, as long as human beings have known how to communicate.
Strong, E.K. (1925). “Theories of Selling”. Journal of Applied Psychology9: 75-86.
A lot of models are known in order to sell, e.g. the BOSCH-Formula, developed by Peter Hubert for the international sales training for consumer goods.
Offer solutions – talk about the endresult benefits for the customer
Stimulate the senses – let the customer test your product
Cross your sales – think of all the necessary accessories
Hit the closing point – sell when the customer is ready to buy
….ask open questions and offer solutions, stimulate the senses and think of all the necessary accessories. sounds a lot like “social engagement,” wouldn’t you say?
and all of this happening before the invention of media as we know it, let alone the application of social media.
before we go any further in this conversation (and i do hope to make this a conversation) about evaluating the “ROI of social engagement,” we must first take the follwing into account:
the internet does not exist in an easy vaccum.
the online measurement of the effectiveness of social engagement marketing is a PARTIAL measurement of the full social picture.
to measure the remainder of the social picture you will need a shitload of radio transmitters and a good number of soviet psychics. don’t worry, they’re on order, and will probably be a service package offered soon by these guys : http://www.mworks-inc.com/about.html
i believe that because the internet did not spawn either the concept or the application of “social engagement marketing” (only the terminology), nor did it eliminate all its prior forms, but rather ENHANCED them, it’s vital to recognize that any measurement of online social engagement will NOT be a measurement of its TOTAL effectiveness.
– – –
thanks to the following folks for their insight, info, and sounding boards for this in one fashion or another:
there’s more to come on this, for sure, but if you’ve got any thoughts on this particular part of the onramp, feel free to use your turn signal in the comments.
While traditional media budgets have kept shrinking in the wake of the recession, according to recent Forrester Research, “53% of marketers are determined to increase their social media budget, and 42% will keep it the same, a total of 95% of marketers are bullish on social media marketing.” Just two years ago, “Social Media” was still something that most marketers felt needed to be justified. The absence of a simple answer to the complex question of “how to measure the ROI of Social Media,” was consistently invoked as a means to dismiss it. (As if the effectiveness of traditional media was oh so much more trackable in contrast.) But times are definitely changing. Speaking at Ad Age’s Digital Conference last month, Unilever CMO, Simon Clift admitted, “I’m convinced fat media budgets help make people lazy,” adding that he encourages thinking about what could be done without a media budget altogether to inspire alternative, social media ideas.
While some companies are clearly on the right track, lately I’ve been seeing how that dismissive attitude of two years ago is being replaced by a new frenetic trendiness. With everyone rushing to get this latest campaign accessory, it seems “Social Media” has become the new “Viral“–a term that gets thrown about much more frequently than what it actually means is understood. Everyone just knows they need to score some “Social Media”…. Whatever it is.
The problem, of course, is that “social media” is not just a new flavor of media, it’s not even really MEDIA, in the way we think of the word, as just another channel to push messaging through, at all. When you’re saying “Social Media” what you are actually referring to are:
SOCIAL NETWORKS / SOCIAL NETWORK SITES / SOCIAL PLATFORMS
Think: Online destinations where people connect, communicate, and share with their friends.
Example: Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
BLOGS / BLOGGERS / THE BLOGOSPHERE
Think: Just like “The Press.” I.e. Writers, video-makers, podcasters, and other content creators, as well as the websites where they post their output.
Example: You’re at one right now.
SOCIAL TOOLS / SOCIAL APPLICATIONS:
Think: Digital tools that facilitate the sharing of content and help drive adoption.
Example: Embeddable video players, embeddable music players, embeddable widgets….pretty much ANYTHING embeddable, really. See also, the “Forward to a friend” button.
COMMUNITY WEBSITES:
Think: Any website that helps support a specific community by enabling connection, communication, and sharing between its members. Community websites function in many ways like social networks but are usually centered around a specific community focus.
Example: Nikeplus.com, Mystarbucksidea.com, TheShadowbox.net, Ted.com,
COMMUNITY FEATURES Think: Interactive features that support online communication, sharing, and community connection.
Example: Comments, forums, profiles, video sharing, photo sharing, content rating, Facebook Connect, etc.
Thus, when you’re saying something like “We’ll do Social Media outreach,” what you actually should be saying is “We’ll do blogger outreach.” (Which, by the way, is called PR.) When you’re saying something like “We’ll promote it on Social Media,” what you actually should be saying is “We’ll promote it on social networks.” And when you’re saying something like “We’ll just add some Social Media,” what’s actually important to realize is that Social Media is not just a budget line item, it is now an integral component of strategy.
Joe Rospars, the man behind Barack Obama’s election campaign’s new new-media effort, explained in an Ad Age interview that the campaign succeed not because it used the latest technology, but rather because of its “holistic approach that integrated digital tools into the overall strategy.” That Ad Age entitled this approach of mixing the old media with the new, “The Secret” to the campaign’s success, is telling of where the industry’s understanding of what Social Media is and how it works is at. The most effective social media strategies do more than just utilize newfangled networks, features, tools and whatnot, they absolutely incorporate the digital resources into the complete, overall strategy.
So, forget the word “media.” Think of Social Media like messaging tone or demographic research–a critical element in the way a campaing is planned and in defining the direction it will take. Approaching it as something that can just be added on at the end is like building a house without electrical wiring. And tacking on a generator at the end is as pretty lousy substitute. Social Media isn’t just the wiring for one house, it is the whole electric gird, and you need to be putting a plan in place for how your campaign will plug into it from the very beginning. That’s what you’re actually saying whenever you say you want to use “Social Media.”
last week i was on the marketing 101 panel at the startupLA conference. it was
actually a lot of fun, and there were some great questions afterwards. here’s some of my favorites, and my answers:
Q. what’s the fastest way for a new company to get exposure?
A. look for existing communities that are comprised of your target demographic and approach them. if there’s already a connected group of folks that you feel will be interested in what you’ve got it’s a lot faster to generate authentic exposure through that network than trying to aggregate a community from scratch. from a completely different perspective, cliff allen of suretomeet.com who was on the panel with me, said the fastest way for a new company to get exposure is spam. so there you go. choose your own adventure.
Q. is social media, like facebook, going to be the future of advertising?
A. its impact on the process is hugely important. i think it’s certainly something that now needs to be factored into any kind of advertising plan. but i also think it’s completely foolish to altogether write off exposure media (which is what advertising has been primarily dependent on up until like yesterday). it’s not a battle between whether engagement or exposure media is better adapted to the natural selection of marketing, it’s about pursuing a symbiotic relationship between the two, and developing integrated strategies that are overall more effective. that’s the future…. or at least it ought to be.
Q. what’s one piece of marketing advice that is most important for a new company?
A. know your audience. really really understand who you’re talking to. or who you should be talking to. the danger in making a message that isn’t relevant or that isn’t approaching your audience on their own terms is not just that we, as consumers, “tune it out,” it’s that unconsciously we translate messages we don’t relate to as being “not for us.” that’s the #1 thing to avoid.
(and my #1 favorite…) Q. if you had $10,000 to spend on advertising and you couldn’t use any of it on the internet, what would you do?
A. throw an event. and if you’re targeting people over 50, buy some print.
“THEORY ENDS HERE”
– sign on the door to the production office at Boston University’s film department
working with so many music festivals i’ve come to see the pattern in their ticket sales to be a kind of concentrated tour through all the major factors involved in driving adoption.
like the type of excursion that shuttles travellers to all the major european cities in the course of 6 days, from the moment a pre-sale begins till the gates close a music festival’s on-sale period exposes a landscape of distinct adopter personas within the kind of condensed time-frame that could double for an academic experiment on diffusion dynamics. while the details vary from one type of music event to another, in general certain things hold true. a huge amount of tickets–often-times the vast majority–are sold late. yet most people attending a major music festival have known about it, and have actually been considering going for some time before finally making their decision. this despite the fact that a ticket at the end of the on-sale period is considerably more expensive than it is at the beginning, since tickets scale in price as lower-priced tiers sell out.
inevitably this raises the question: WHY are the vast majority of folks waiting till the ticket is at its most expensive to commit to making a purchase?
the answer to this is not only about the dynamics of adoption for music festivals, but sheds light on the factors that drive adoption in a much broader sense. a couple of months ago i wrote a post comparing various music festival websites and mentioned that:
essentially there are three things that a festival is selling:
1. the event lineup
2. the event brand
3. the event community
like toilet paper, tissues, and paper towels, they’re all made up of the same stuff, and to a certain degree serve an interchangeable function, but at the end of the day, you do buy each for different reasons.
to broaden the application of what i’m talking about, lets consider that every time i mention “the lineup” what i am essentially referring to is the “product.” features, design elements, utility, whatever. think of “the lineup” as the thing with the actual bar-code on it–unless you too happen to be in the business of selling tickets.
what that ticket is actually SELLING–the cumulative representation of lineup, brand, and community–is differentat different stages throughout the course of an event’s on-sale period. the point at which someone buys a ticket (aka where on the adoption chart they fit in) tends to be a result of the relevance that that particular combination of lineup, brand, and community has for them. these three elements are distinct adoption-drivers whose impact and interplay it is essential to understand in order to develop an effective marketing strategy–whether for a music festival or anything else really.
1. EARLY ADOPTERS BUY ON BRAND
unlike selling tangible goods, where the product and brand are generally simultaneous and thus difficult to separate and examine independently, selling an “experience” makes it much easier. when we initially launched the pre-sale for the Do LaB’s Lightning in a Bottle music festival we did not announce a lineup.
with the “product” an unknown, and the community still solely theoretical (sure, you may know who’s LIKELY to go, but the first week of a pre-sale you’re not likely to know too many people that actually ARE going) the most overt selling point was inevitably the brand.
the do lab had been creating events for seven years at that point, establishing a reputation for consistently spectacular, jaw-dropping creations, and the people who bought tickets that first week before either the lineup or community of LIB was a viable element, bought on the basis of the identification they had with the brand.
that bold stuff is the common denominator that i believe drives early adopters in general. whether you’re nike coming out with a new type of shoe, or lexus with a new model of car, or mac with a new sort of i-something, the people at the very front of the line buy on the basis of the identification they feel with the brand.
the first tier of lowest-priced tickets was sold out before we announced the lineup, having gone to the do’s most ardent early supporters. i imagine to a lot of people reading this (due to the nature of this medium’s demo) the logic in that kind of arrangement is self-evident, however, because i have seen this group be treated with the most extreme disregard, i’m going to go off on a little tangent here.
the folks who would buy a ticket without even knowing who’s playing, in a more traditional marketing model have generally been regarded as the most easily conned. the cheapest date who evidently requires the least amount of wooing. in the do lab world however, and in a world of brands that actually care about their consumers, a world that is being more and more empowered by social media, that kind of take-the-money-and-run mentality is going to fly less and less.
early adopters buy on brand, and yours better be the kind of brand that understands the necessity of rewarding them for this devotion as opposed to taking advantage of them for it, otherwise you’re going to LOSE them.
2. EARLY MAJORITY BUYS ON BRAND + PRODUCT & DRIVES COMMUNITY
the conventional assumption has been that it is the early adopters who steer a product to eventual popularity, but as the prior article on late adopter strategy pointed out, that is not necessarily the case. i’m of the opinion that it is actually the early majority that is responsible for pushing adoption against gravity, up the slope of the s-curve. in the case of LIB, an easy way to define the early majority is everyone who bought a ticket from the point when the lineup was announced, up until two and a half months later when the online sales officially ended the night before doors opened.
in the marketing bible malcolm gladwell splits the burden of causing cultural epidemics to “tip” between three types of culprits: connectors, mavens, and salesmen. gladwell gives an example of one such a maven: a man who after getting taken to a new japanese restaurant by his daughter and liking the food, comes home and sends an email to all his acquaintances who live near the restaurant recommending that they check it out. mavens, i would say, are the folks that comprise the early majority in general, and they make or break “critical mass” for adoption by generating what is technically referred to as, uh…. buzz. if you understand the impact of this, you’ll do everything you can to give them the tools and the content they’re looking for to help them do just that.
3. LATE MAJORITY – BUYS ON COMMUNITY
the late majority of a music festival is likewise easy to identify: it’s all the people who bought tickets at the door. in the case of LIB07 this turned out to be approximately 2/3 of the total purchasers. since this was a weekend-long camping event, it’s not exactly the kind of thing that had a spur-of-the-moment appeal. pretty much all of the late majority had known about this festival for a while. they knew the lineup, they knew the brand, but did not make their purchase until the last minute. why?
they were waiting on the community aspect to build. for the late majority, it is the community–a factor that is nonexistent when the tickets are inexpensive–that makes the higher price of the ticket worth it. when the buzz gets loud enough is when the late majority starts to realize that they don’t want to miss out on getting to share an experience with all their friends. in the same way that brand functions as the major motivator for the early adopters, community fills that role for the late majority.
in the conversation that is going on right now about how to measure the success of social engagement, an interesting factor to throw into the equation is that the “late majority” gets the thing once all their friends have it and won’t shut up about it–and this applies to whether we’re talking about a ticket to a festival, a pair of sneakers, an mp3-player, whatever. the better a brand’s social engagement strategy (and this transcends simply online social engagement, by the way), the easier it is for the early majority to build that buzz. the “effectiveness” of social engagement can thus be seen as directly correlated to the size of a product’s “late majority” purchasers. (tho it sure don’t hurt the other categories none either).
in the end, it comes down to developing a strategy that addresses what is relevant to the different personas on the adoption curve (in the broadest sense: brand, product, and community), and likewise is then able to proactively anticipate and deliver on these elements in ways which will help expand the adoption to the next phase.
