Marketing mix-up: Why everyone is all the sudden talking about social media?

Social Media: a Marketing Mix must?

 

Social Media seems to have become one of the inevitable elements of marketing mix. Have you noticed that in quite a lot of companies today there is a great demand for online marketing, primarily through social media marketing and SEO? What was wrong with our marketing strategy until now? Can we survive without social media?

Swept away by social media

 

Observing the communication reality online one can easily find out that there is a lot of pressure about implementing comprehensive social media marketing, SEO (sometimes interesting enough, called SEO optimization, which honestly does not make any sense!), online advertising, traffic control, etc. There are also numerous articles like this one found in Forbes stating that social media marketing is going to become the absolute must in 2014 and there ia a list of media seeing growth and decline.

As a business manager one gets completely swept off their feet by social media marketing promisses forgetting the uniqueness of their business and old and tried out maxima as “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Managers are convinced that optimizing their online policy is what is going to save their business. But is that true?

Is social media appropriate?

 

First and foremost, it is essential to understand that not every business is carved to be social. A simple example can be James Nicholls’ scientific research publication, “Everyday, Everywhere: Alcohol Marketing and Social Media—Current Trends” (Alcohol and Alcoholism Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 486–493, 2012). The article discusses social media tactics used by alcohol brands in the UK and their consequences including creation of lasting habits. One can easily predict that many more articles like that discussing fast food companies, candy producers, soda producers, tobacco companies, possibly even companies staying behind environmentally bad products.

 

The danger of being social

Social media is social not only because it gathers consumers and gives companies the possibility to communicate directly and more effectively with target groups. It provides consumers with the power to communicate and discuss with each other and spread news. If there is just one opinion leader out there who finds out something discrediting about your company or the way you do business it is going to spread like wild fire. Because scandal sells even more that sex. Social media means transparency and exposure at levels which you have never experienced before. Many businesses are just not ready for that.

On top of that social media means that you need to provide valuable regular updates. You might want to be funny, or clever, or innovative, or whatever you want. But you need to be able to keep it up. Nobody will follow dull updates and they will not be of any value to you. When did we all get so productive and innovative and funny that we can keep it up daily for the foreseeable future? When did we deceive ourselves into believing that we are the only ones trying to follow such a strategy? Too much funny, too much innovation, too much cleverness is at the end simply too much.

Stuffing social media with corporate messages is going at the end to have the same effect as commercials on TV. Companies need to understand that they are not wanted on social media. Users of social media are people who want to come in contact with their friends, family or like-minded. This is also the reason why apps like Facebook AdBlock are appearing all the time.

Not only that every company’s arrival on Social media is going to avert consumers who in most cases see advertising on social media as too intrusive and violating their privacy, it is going to become significantly less effective in the future. Keeping in mind Facebook’s targeting methods it basically means that both you and all your competitors will have a shot at your target group. How is that better than advertising on TV?

Having a page on social media is more acceptable but as noted above it is not for all as many businesses will be accused in manipulating consumers or creating unhealthy habits or committing another sin. Using your page as an open communication channel is all alright but it is not going to be your miracle cure. Consumers are always more likely to socialize with a brand they are familiar with. For that reason new or not popular brands need to employ heavy marketing before a social strategy can be possible. Beware also of overexposing yourself. More presence will possibly make you visible in the eyes of consumers. Depending on your strategy, that can bring around more damage than good.

Looking back at the very core of social media we encounter another one of its downsides. The almost unlimited freedom of information dissemination makes it impossible for companies to control their image without manipulating posts and comments. However, even doing that will not save them from angry consumers. Regular users are gods in the social media space. The examples of stars’ death hoax are becoming ever more. If someone writes for example that their sister was poisoned by your product and everybody needs to share it to support the grief, they will. No matter if the story was true, the shadow of doubt will fall on your product and you will face losses. Are you ready to face the hoax?

Even if you have all your polices straight and you are 100 % sure that nothing can hit you unprepared you still need to be careful when voting for social media marketing. Analyzing consumer data is still pretty much in the shadows and social media users are not aware of how and how much information is gathered and used for marketing purposes. This is dangerous and might damage your image if information on shadowy data collection is connected to your company’s name. Nowadays there are pieces of data “uncovered” everyday and consumers are getting angry. Even though you were probably just a user of a service the CSR standards demand that you research and keep your supply chain clean. Thus, you are guilty.

Much more can be said about why not to go social. But this as all decisions concerning corporate communication should be made based on your strategy. If you are certain that engaging in social media marketing will be good for you, do it. It does work for many. What you really need to do prior such a decision though, is to make sure that you have double covered all scenarios and have your crisis communication policy close to you at all times. Just in case.

Last but not least, remember to not forget to employ traditional marketing and its basic principles. They still work.

 

DIDI

Professional Communication: project an image, don't be creepy

How to create an image? How to communicate professionalism? Are there standards which can help us enhance the communication strategy?

Study Case

The answers to those questions are correlated and almost impossible to find separately. However, there are quite a lot of companies out there trying to cut down the communication costs while making efforts to score high on image rankings. I have in mind a recent experience from a big international corporation operating in the office space renting business. The experience included both online company research and visiting the local office. The research phase showed non-existing CSR policy, non-existing employee benefits, accusations of careless behavior in connection to the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center a few years back, and company-produced marketing videos. The visit at the local office revealed a high rate of employee turnover, very unusual hiring policy (hiring only for lowest hierarchy positions with no requirements for education and experience, on minimal wage), and deceiving job descriptions.

When walking through the door you are greeted way too eagerly by the staff which makes you almost uncomfortable. What they pride themselves for is great flexibility in services and high level of professional customer service. The only customer feedback is available through the corporate marketing videos though.

Communicational no go

What was observed at that company is an absolute communicational no go. The non existing CSR policy and the lack of personnel benefits in a country as Denmark where CSR is becoming more than a standard and employees are treated with special care as assets is a sign of unprofessional management. The smile of the receptionist is not enough to make up for corporate mismanagement or irresponsible behavior. It also needs to be in line with services, surroundings, corporate culture and needs to be rooted in a thorough policy. Otherwise it comes across as insincere and creepy. Smiling while doing your job needs to be just as professionally distanced as your work style. Are you flirting with the customer or servicing them? Make it clear.

Image: communication standards and guidelines

Image management, even though there is such a discipline, sounds very wrong as image management is nothing but the tip of the iceberg. Hiring a professional to work on your image does not make a lot of sense if you have not clarified what the company stays for and how it wants to be regarded by your stakeholders. Stakeholders are all individuals and groups that are or can be affected by the operating of your business and/or have an interest in your business.

You need therefore to start from identifying your business’ core characteristics and analyzing the strategic stars for your brand. After clarifying what is desired and what is possible you need to get very practical and analyze in what ways your vision and mission can be embedded in your culture and business operations.

While you make considerations about communication practices, image building and communicating your values outside of and inside the company you need to get acquainted with the professional communication standards which will be your guarantee that your communication strategy is not going to backfire by earning you critics or even lawsuits in connection to unethical behavior.

 

After you manage to create a thorough and working communication strategy completely aligned with your business operations you might want to go one step further and consider CSR. There are countless studies showing that a CSR policy is considered a plus and sometimes a definitive criterion for choosing your company as a partner, provider or employer. For the policy to work though, you once again need to be consequent. Just as you need to make sure that you have implemented a communication policy that fits your business profile you also need to do the same when engaging in CSR. If you are not careful about this you might end up being accused of using CSR as a promotional tool instead of as a sincere expression of your concern for your stakeholders and the environment. You might for example decide to fund poor children in Africa but you have to explain why it is the poor children in Africa getting your support and not the local caner organization, for example.

After completing your communication strategy you need to make sure that it covers as a minimum mission, vision, development strategy, internal communication and employee management, HR policy and benefits, corporate culture, online and traditional marketing activities, branding, crisis communication, media relations, external stakeholder management, customer relations specifically, community care and involvement, and CSR.

When you are ready you will find yourself under a stack of thick guidebooks addressing the separate topics. You will have to always make sure that they are aligned with strategy and updated regularly. Among those guidebooks you will find the one describing how you need to treat customers in order to communicate the desired corporate image.

Do you now understand why smiling a lot is not professional but creepy?

 

DIDI

Online Marketing and Website optimization. Corporate Communication in practice.

Online Marketing and website optimization seem to be the future of communication. Therefore finding the answers of the following marketing questions is essential: When setting up a website how do we do it? How do we communicate with consumers? How do we make sure that our website reflects who we are? How can we be found by consumers? What about SEO?

Setting up a website as a communication tool

We are used to think that setting up a website is a programmer’s job. They know how to do it and we trust them. However, a website is not simply a bundle of code made to look good. A website is a business’ face towards millions of consumers online. As such it needs to comply with business strategy reflecting image, vision and mission. Even more importantly, it needs to represent the business in a way communicating branch, niche, products, services and all subthemes relevant to consumer searches on the web.

There is no doubt that a website needs to be set up by a programmer. To ensure high quality though a close collaboration between the programming team and the company’s marketing or communication department is necessary. Naming, tagging, titles, highlights, products, etc. need to be done in a way facilitating both the company’s best interest and consumer searches. This is done by reviewing business strategy and pointing out what you want consumers to find about you the easiest. After setting your communication goals for your website you have different options in terms of how you are going to implement your communication strategy. You can do it either through careful coding and content management or through helping search engines understand your content (if your website has already been set up and recoding/content optimization it is not an option). Ideally, you could use both strategies.

What does our website communicate?

Monitoring your website performance in terms of visitors, time spent, visitor behavior, returning visitors, keywords can help you understand the way your website functions and is used by consumers. That is done by your Webmaster using tools as Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools. Analyzing those parameters can give you an overview of how good a work you have done setting up a website. If for example you only have new visitors you might want to rethink website structure or content. It might be a sign that your consumers do not like either your website or your business. Which is the case, you might more or less determine by evaluating time users spent on your website. A quick look to your website’s top keywords will give you a good opportunity to find out whether you have made coding/content mistakes.

It is also very important to control how your website appears in searches and on which position it appears. As search engines (mostly) try to provide the most relevant and highly rated results to their users a low position in a search result might signal problems with either popularity or keywords settings and website structure. Keep in mind that the quality of the website in terms of speed is also taken into account when showing search results. Last but not least, be aware that a lot of the content which is not in plain text form might lower your website’s relevance evaluation as it is often skipped by search engines. Therefore you need to provide your key information in a text form.

Consumer searches and SEO

We are made to believe that SEO is the key to success online. However, Google warns that the SEO business has become a bit shadowy and thus not always a good idea. If you though decide that you want someone specializing in the field to optimize your website, you might need to take a look at Google’s warnings and guidelines. The truth is that in most cases you do not need a SEO specialist. What you need is to keep track of your website’s data and optimize content and structure in such a way that you make it easy for both search engines and consumers find what they need.

Still one of the best ways to make consumers aware of you is advertising and marketing yourself both online and offline. In addition to advertising you have the option of establishing links towards your website from different relevant web places. Some of those links you would need to pay for but others like the links on your Facebook or Google + pages will be free.

 

Basically, one of the most prominent rules in Business is to create something of value. Only after you are sure that your product is sellable it makes sense to start marketing it. Therefore think of your business and the process of communicating it as a process of discovery. You have discovered something which you want to share with others. Who are the others and how you get their interest should be what should guide you, not SEO concerns.

A small tip: when starting a business you often lack resources. But you already have a large public thanks to Social media. Use it. Use your friends as your marketers. Asking them to like your Facebook page or share it (once, do not abuse your friends) will instantly give you access to a larger target group than you have imagined.

Transparency and consensus on policy

On many occasions leaders have to make difficult or unpopular decisions to keep the business up and running and they are often enticed to not share the truth with their employees or partners or divert their attention in order to act undisturbed. Often the thought is to share the results of their actions in the right moment while avoiding the unpleasant debate about what should be done. Sometimes things go as far as the leader believing that they are the only qualified person, thus discussion is a sheer waste of time and nerves.

No matter what the case though, my advice is to not fall into that trap. Years ago I had the opportunity to observe exactly what happens when a leader decides to act independently and the truth is that it cost him everything.

Reasons in that particular case were lack of trust, many definitive stakeholders (Agle, Mitchell, Wood, 1997), variety of policy issues and political challenges, insufficient financing, internal fights and conflicts of interests. Many of those were caused by tough policy, lack of transparency and consensus, no discussion or stakeholder involvement. It is arguable whether many of those issues were not just inherited but there is no doubt that the policy of independent control and silence only deepened them.

The result was that a leader who did fight a good cause and tried to make a difference ended up voted out from the organization by the majority of those who he had worked with side by side in the previous 8 years.

I have to point out that I do not claim he never did anything wrong policy-wise. However, considering the context of the social and business environment, he did not do anything outrageous. He did create enemies by following dedicatedly his strategy but in doing so he achieved a lot in terms of organizational goals.

Then why did his allies vote him so rigorously out of the organization?

 First reason: No consensus on policy.

Even though the organization was meant to be lead by a management council most decisions were made by the leader alone. Many of the interests of those from the council were never taken into account which resulted in much expected outrage.

Second reason: Conflict of interests.

The social, business and political environment presented the leader with many challenges. First, it was the challenge of defending the interests of the organization and in doing so creating enemies both in the government and within the ranks of the organization itself when he would fail in negotiations. Second, unfortunately, influence meant privileges and high earnings, thus virtually everyone was trying to become a leader, regardless of the consequences for the organization and those dependent on it. As a result many managerial decisions were ruled out just in an effort to sabotage the leader.

Third reason: no regard to rules and regulations.

In order to achieve his goals the leader disregarded rules in connection to elections and power distribution. This resulted in outrage.

Fourth reason: no transparency.

Transparency is important as clarity about what is happening and why is a potent support drive. Not understanding or not knowing the reasons/goals/methods resulted in confusion, doubt and lack of support. In a more traditional organizational environment it would also lead to lack of motivation in employees.

Reflecting on this example a few things become obvious. A leader should accept that they cannot achieve their goals alone. They need support from employees, partners, allies, government and other key stakeholders. In this sense, an organizational understanding will mean understanding the need to engage key stakeholders in a productive dialogue. By that I mean that you must:

1. Understand the structure of the organization and the power distribution.

2. Understand the need to follow rules or propose changes when inefficiency is found.

3. Identify opinion leaders and make them your allies.

4. Understand the environment you do business in – institutions, regulations, competitors, partners, communities, identify important stakeholders.

5. Understand processes of decision making and analyze results from past experience. Consider process enhancement.

6. Understand the need of stakeholder management as a complete strategy.

Along this process you should realize that transparency is directly connected to stakeholder support and corporate image. You cannot upkeep a good image without reporting your activities and you cannot successfully manage an organization without achieving consensus on strategy. Therefore two more must-dos should be added to the list above and special attention should be paid to them:

7. Optimize internal and external communication channels enabling discussion, feedback and reaction to reported issues.

8. Maximize transparency.

Business today cannot really have secrets as there are too many ways for the truth to reach the public. Therefore it is advised to provide informational access to your activities. As a matter of fact transparency is becoming a currency in terms of both image building and image protection. Being honest with your stakeholders builds trust and support which result in sticking with the company even when a crisis hits (see for example the Johnson and Johnson Tylenol case). 

What concerns internal stakeholders, it is very important to keep them informed and to involve them in decision making. Transparency and consensus are probably even more important internally as the support or lack of support by your employees and partners means the success or the failure of the organization. A frustrated employee can do incredibly a lot of damage by not doing their job, affecting the motivation of their colleagues, going public or spreading the company’s secrets.

In two words, there are good reasons to work transparently, maybe consider different forms of reporting and stakeholder involvement, and to work on achieving consensus within the organization on organizational goals and policy, all the while keeping in mind stakeholder interests.

DIDI

Communication Strategist: Fight bad marketing decision making

Sometimes being a communication consultant is an easy job which only implies responsibility about the company’s direction, action and stakeholder management. However, every now and then we stumble upon management that either underestimates the importance of communication or has a strong desire to control the whole process, no matter how much they actually know about communication.

I have been in such situation where the top management disregarded my advice concerning a comprehensive marketing strategy and implemented something which they called a marketing strategy even though it was not even close to such.

The strategy plunged towards a disaster already with its launch. Management thought it was a good idea to set corporate goal disregarding resources, market analysis and without any corporate vision or mission. The result was simply something dysfunctional, a waste of time and resources.

As I was still a relatively new employee my advice was not taken seriously from the beginning. However, I did not give up. I continuously pointed out that there is need for change of strategy. Interestingly enough, my boss seemed to agree with me but did not change anything in the line of what he called marketing.

The complete crash that followed convinced him though that another approach is necessary.

Unfortunately as communication consultants we cannot allow ourselves to fail that way. Therefore a more strategic internal communication strategy is crucial. The first step we take should be locating the decision makers. We should not forget that sometimes power lies not where we expect it to. Than communication channels must be established to ensure that the decision makers can easily be reached. Of course, as next step follows the need to develop trusting relationships with those decision makers. Here an additional remark should be that sometimes decision makers are hard to reach as they are eager to follow the established communication channels and hierarchy in the company, no matter how functional they are. In such cases it is necessary to start your work as a communicator with evaluating existing internal communication channels and suggesting changes in a report supported by hard evidence.

The point here is that sometimes it is necessary to skip hierarchy levels or stubborn managers in order to avoid crashes. There is also almost always an additional challenge for new or young professionals as their opinion is often disregarded and they are perceived as inexperienced, thus not trustworthy. In such cases especially but in all other cases just the same it is a good idea to support your strategy suggestions with data. Research a lot, read a lot and create a flawless presentation of your ideas.

If that does not work pull back for a while and closely observe the communication process as ordered by management. React already with the first sign of failure or dysfunction. Prepare and present a comprehensive analysis of what is happening, why and how the company should react.

If that doesn’t work, turn to other decision makers and point out the problems. If even then nothing changes, well, better look for another job as there is obviously no place for reason where you currently work.

DIDI

What advertising is not

Advertising has always been an important part of any communication strategy. But what does that mean in practice when deciding on marketing strategy?
I was recently asked to look through some university notes meant to help students prepare for their state exam. As I read I realized that there was a serious problem. It seems that many consider commercials to be the center of any marketing activities. And this is what they are not.

Stakeholder Management: behind the commercial

 

A commercial is designed not just according to the desire to sell certain product to certain target group. A commercial is designed as a visible end of a long marketing process. That is because even before designing a product or a service one should make sure that there is market for such product or service. That includes a comprehensive analysis of consumer needs and desires, of competition, of resources, of market tendencies. A successful product is usually designed in collaboration with target groups. Communication specialists always advise that consumers and other stakeholders are empowered when it comes to decision making. And this is a reasonable advice as practice shows that empowered stakeholders are more involved and thus less likely to switch to another company/brand. This implies that potential consumers along with all other stakeholders will be involved in the design and production of a product. Therefore they will not need to be informed about the new product through commercials.

A very good example of empowered consumers are brand communities as the Apple community. There we talk about much more than a product or a consumer need. What drives sales is the brand community’s culture. It is a question of pride to own an Apple product and it is always desired to have the latest model. The same we observe with the Harry Potter community. What can make a 10-year-old spend a night in front of a book store in order to get the new book as the first? It is not advertising. It is much more. Behind Harry Potter we can find a whole industry bringing the characters to life making them important part of the children’s lives through producing dolls, posters, creating stories, online communities, myths, etc. Thus it is superficial to regard advertising as a central marketing activity.

Kotler says that marketing is as an iceberg – what you see on the surface is just the tip of the iceberg. And this is where some less experienced companies stumble. Not understanding the importance or scope of marketing is fatal.
 

Advertising and types of commercials

Advertising offers good possibilities for reaching out to wider consumer segments, for establishing status or class, for promotion, for additional information, for keeping up interest, for comebacks. And used as such it will serve its purposes. Especially if designed accordingly and distributed through the right channels.

There are three general types of commercials – rational, based on promoting quality, stability, and price; emotional, designed to prompt an emotional response; and class-establishing, promoting luxury and exquisite lifestyle. There are furthermore commercials meant to accompany a product’s launch, to stabilize market positions and reach new consumer segments, to remind of the existence or characteristics of a product and finally to announce a comeback.

Media Strategy 

The media we choose for a commercial depends on the marketing strategy just as much as the commercial itself. Everything starts with analysis, mapping publics, budget, status, goals, and strategy. Nowadays typically used media as TV, radio and newspapers are no longer as effective as they have once been. This is mainly because of the enormous impact internet has on our lives today. Most people use it to get informed about products, read reviews, contact consumer communities. That is why it is almost useless promoting quality or other characteristics. People have the power to find the very truth about a product. For that reason today it makes much more sense to advertise the existence of a product, especially valid in the case of small or new companies, the class of the product and its superiority – why should we consider buying it.

However, we should not forget that today’s society is flooded by products and services and it becomes more and more obvious that other differentiators are needed to turn consumers’ attention towards one self and their product. It is advised that as long as you cannot provide a product impossible to copy, you have to invest in building an image that will make your product more desirable than the products of competitors. Doing so includes different types and mixes of activities as CSR, brand communities, partnerships, welfare, support of causes or science/medicine/sport/culture/etc., discussion groups, company outreach, transparency, reporting and many more depending on the branch.

That is why I will say it once again – advertising has its purpose, goals and results when used as a part of a thorough marketing strategy. It should not be underestimated, but even more importantly, it should not be overestimated.

DIDI