Social2B had the pleasure of attending Internet Week at the Metropolitan Pavilion yesterday, to not only enjoy the delicious offerings of Pop Sugar’s coffee bar and Momofuku Milk Bar cookie offerings (although a pleasant addition), but of course to experience current innovations in the World Wide Web community.  From the Google+ promo photo booth (and a great discussion with attendees on how Google+, in yet another move to take over Facebook territory, has updated their photo capabilities to include high level photo editing, GIF development from similar photos in a photo album, and more) to a presentation by the developer of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, there was plenty to hear and see at this technology wonderland.  Because of Social2B’s involvement in the social media marketing community, we will focus on a two innovative panels — “The Power of Marketing in the Moment” and “Mobile First Publishing: Is This The Future?”

Marketing in Real-Time: Capturing the Moment to Seize the Future

Real-time marketing has made a splash over the last several months, ever since Oreo came out with their brilliant Dunk in the Dark ad during the Super Bowl blackout this year.  Their real-time response tactics and ability to react quickly and both recognize and capitalize on an opportunity has started a trend for many others to do the same.  During “The Power of Marketing in the Moment” panel, Sarah Hofstetter, the President of 360i, along with other panelists, discussed the challenges and opportunities of real-time marketing.  Key takeaways included:

• Especially when marketing on a big stage, such as the Super Bowl, you need to be aware of your competition and how you will be vying for attention, especially across social media platforms.  So the question is: How do you create the right moments?  You need to know what’s right for your brand to jump into the conversation and capitalize on certain moments.
• How do you get a massive organization to move and react in real-time and react in real-time?  In the advertising space there are usually many channels to go through before obtaining approval, so you need to come prepared.  B. Bonin Bough, VP of Global Media and Consumer Engagement at Mondelēz International, talked about how it’s all about preparation.  If you have a set strategy in place, invest in the right resources, and “have the muscle memory,” you can then seize the moment and be able to perform during these big moments.
• In the ability to capture the moment, you take audience engagement to the next level by advertising in real-time.  It’s taking the strategies that social media have implemented (as we have seen prove successful in areas such as customer service), and moving them into the ad space.  By capturing audiences in the moment, you can seize the future of marketing.  If you are able to take a big event that creates buzz everywhere, and are able to attach your brand to that moment, the possibilities are endless for the exposure that will create, as we saw with Oreo’s thought leadership and impact on the marketing space.

User First or Mobile First? The Jury Seems to Still Be Out….

With everything going mobile the question of the day seems to be whether to automatically create content for mobile optimization first, or implement a more responsive design strategy.  Although the panel was titled “Mobile First Publishing: Is This The Future?” the panelists themselves seemed to also be questioning this, as many maintained that they design for the user first (i.e. responsive design).  Some of the questions that came up throughout the discussion, that are significant to owning the mobile advertising space were:

• While there is no doubt that the mobile web is critical, especially with the amount of discovery occurring through social media channels, should media go mobile first?
• Do you actually need to create new content for mobile or can you just curate it differently?
• Mobile consumption is a multi channel experience, so how can that be optimized to engage with users throughout the day?
• How can we monetize the relationship between users and mobile across multiple channels?
• How can we more readily build better mobile ads (because according to Brian Morissey, Editor at Digiday, “most mobile ads suck”)?

“Native advertising” was a term that continually made its way into the conversation as many of these questions were asked.  As Jack Marshall of Digiday so pointedly wrote about in an article earlier today, the terminology around this topic is still quite vague, making the discussion of “native advertising” a tricky one, yet the panel navigated their way across the topic, discussing this in terms of advertising through unique content that is integrated successfully into the user experience.  This means knowing your audience, and knowing how to advertise to them in a way that doesn’t end up just being your typical banner add, or a Pandora commercial that interferes with the user’s enjoyment of their experience.  Mobile consumption needs to be user friendly, and perhaps “mobile first publishing” and the implementation of micro content can in fact be the solution for this.

By Jess Spar

I don’t know where to begin, since this has to be the most difficult blog post to write in many years. Remembering someone close, after they are gone, is a difficult task – not because you have no words or feelings, but because you have too many.

I’ve met Ytzik in 2010 at a Digital Media Conference in New York and we immediately hit it off. He was determined, bright, with his eyes piercing right into you. He didn’t say much and mostly listened, but I knew then and there that we would be working together. He was talking about B&H, his last place of work where he was a Head of Digital, and was passionate about his work, citing digital photography, market opportunities, and social media avenues that he developed and deployed. But Ytzik was never a man of many words – he was always about doing something and seeing the best part of something. His ideas broke the box and leaped out in the open, making others wonder about what they might be missing.

His career was diverse – a Coopers Principal, Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist and a Social Media Guru. His approach was always grounded in something very solid and well-defined. If he focused on something, he delivered – that’s how I remember him. His early ideas on methodologies for ‘Social Media Enterprise and Scalability’ are now being implemented by many companies – he saw the Salesforce.com scaling into it, and many others. He could surprise you with great definitions, consulting approach, a process, which was logical and creative at the same time.

Ytzik was also a dreamer. He could easily run a much larger organization to manage all the processes and to navigate the growth. He dreamt of Social Media becoming a commodity and accessible to many, not just a few in the know. He loved the idea of Call Centers and Contact Centers offering Social Media services to those who couldn’t afford it or to understand it. He believed in venture and fortune and loved working with many startups.

On a personal note, Ytzik was a great and proud father. He never said much about his family, and I always had to dig information out of him, but once we became close, he always loved to talk about his Army days, his sons, his daughter and his loving wife. One day I found out that he used to be a Tank Commander in an Israeli Army, patrolling borders and fighting wars. He was very proud of his children and loved to talk about one of his sons serving in the Army. He was a concerned dad, but never talked about his fears or worries. “It will be allright, it will be all good”, he used to say, instilling confidence and projecting firm convictions. He never showed his pain or worry – he was always bright about things, always positive.

And that’s how I will remember him – a father, a bright face with a smile, a firm handshake, and a mensch! Rest in peace dear Ytzik – we will always remember you!

Social media’s infiltration of the business world has only increased over the past few years since its implementation as a marketing tactic.  Companies are using social media marketing techniques across various platforms, channels, and networks to promote their brands and engage with potential clients, customers, and business partners.  Social media marketing has quickly gained traction in many industries, yet many of the professional service industries have shown hesitance in the acceptance of social media due to transparency and compliance issues.  Although social media has gained wider acceptance over the past few years, many of these concerns still remain.

This is where a well-defined corporate social media policy comes in.  Although the world of social media keeps growing, the same principles for a social media corporate policy still apply, as can be seen from the following excerpt from Kent Huffman’s post A Corporate Social Media Policy: Do You Really Need One? written in 2009.  While this provides an in depth and detailed view into the elements of a corporate social media policy, the essentials of this hypothetical policy can be boiled down to 3 basic points: Clarity, Monitoring, and Reputation Management.

1. Clarity

• Make sure that your social media policy is clear, and implement the guidelines of employee social media use into your onboarding materials.
• Ensure your policies remain up to date and send employees reminders of these policies.   They should also be able to access the policy through your online company network, where the guidelines should be posted.
• Encourage feedback from employees to make sure they have a complete understanding of the guidelines.  Be clear about repercussions for any breech of the policy.

2. Monitoring

• Inform potential employees early on that they may be asked to provide you with any public social media profiles during the onboarding process so you can monitor their social media usage. This act of full disclosure can avoid any controversy over privacy issues.  Employees will be more conscious of what they are posting online if they are aware that their actions reflect upon the company.
• There are many tools out there that can find red flags in what employees are posting.  Use them.

3. Reputation Management

• The social media policy of your company can be rather flexible depending on the nature of your industry (whether employees can post on behalf of the company or not, use the company name, etc.), but it should ultimately be used as a reputation management tool.
• Outline for employees what acceptable behavior online entails and what needs to be cleared through HR first. BE DETAILED! You want to leave as little room for misinterpretation as possible.

As long as your company can define clear expectations for employees’ use of social media, then you can use social networks to your advantage.  The great thing about social media is that if you monitor it closely, even if there is a breech of policy, it can be amended quickly.  A corporate social media policy for employees that is effectively partnered with a social media marketing strategy can actually enhance your company’s image.

If the guidelines allow for employees within the company to act as brand ambassadors you can actually increase employee engagement and morale, and enhance your visibility throughout the marketplace.  If you give employees the opportunity to gain your trust, you can ultimately use them to optimize visibility for your company across multiple channels.

By Jess Spar

Recap

Yesterday Social2B attended the Business Development Institute’s Social Media Marketing Summit for Law Firms as a proud sponsor of the event, where professionals from the legal services and marketing industries came together to explore case studies and convincing arguments in the hopes of persuading law firms to dip their toes in the water of the social media pool.  We were surprised at certain topics missing from the discussion (or only briefly skimmed over), such as the value of Google+, despite a heavy focus on Twitter, Facebook, blogging, and surprisingly Wikipedia in one case.  That being said, the presentations were engaging, and gave lawyers a tangible jumping off point by focusing on content development and relationship/reputation management as a way to dive in.

The 5 C’s: Creating and Curating Consistent, Calculated Content

One key insight attendees could not leave yesterday’s event without was the importance of curating and creating content, and doing so with the end goal in mind, whether it be customer acquisition, customer retention, or simply becoming an authoritative voice in the community.  This was primarily discussed in terms of blogging and the type of content to contribute to the marketplace.  Speakers advocated for finding niche topics and LinkedIn groups to become involved with, to LISTEN in order to ascertain the voice of the group, and only then contribute as a member of the community.  In order to truly engage with your audience you need to be a part of the conversation and make your content accessible, i.e. “DON’T write like a lawyer!” (Gene Quinn, IPWatchdog)

In content marketing one must be able to identify and target their audience base, but creating and sharing high quality content is what’s going to engage these potential clients and influencers.  As Scott Mozarsky of PR Newswire adeptly pointed out, clients aren’t going to choose you amidst the thousands of other lawyers if they can’t rely on you to give them valuable and useful information.  A law firm’s currency online is their content, and by continuously delivering relevant content, they establish their worth in the community.  Once you are able to do this, you can then take that content and promote it and engage across platforms, and then analyze the results.  It’s important to keep in mind, however, that the PR and marketing silos are starting to merge, so if you truly want to have success in analyzing the metrics, it may be worth investing in a platform that can do so across the multichannel platforms.

Video’s role in content marketing was a highlight of the summit, with attorneys and marketers acknowledging that this can be a game changer in online marketing, but has yet to truly make its landing in the legal services industry.  Video offers a more engaging and eye catching experience, and acts another tool for generating new interest, and therefore traffic.  Especially when using YouTube, your SEO efforts will increase as well since content posted on Google owned platforms increases SEO rankings in any Google search (which is another reason why we are surprised Google+ was a discussion point at the summit).

Controlling and Managing Your Reputation

Not only does content marketing help you get your voice out to the people, it helps for SEO purposes.  The more material you have with targeted key words, the more like it will come up in a potential client’s search, which is ultimately the end goal.  The more content that comes from YOU, the more control you have over what comes up first on that Google page search.  As a lawyer, reputation management is a critical aspect when considering involvement in social media. While many law firms are concerned about the possibility of offending clients, all it takes is common sense to consider whether or not something should be posted.  Self-censorship is important, yet it isn’t rocket science.  If you can combine quality content development with adept profile management, you can greatly enhance your online reputation.

Another important step to controlling your online reputation is managing your online profiles.  By integrating your profiles (both your company’s and each individual attorney’s) across social media platforms and linking with your company’s website you enable a consistent brand for yourself and your attorneys across the Web.  If a potential client can move seamlessly between your profiles and content, the more easily traffic towards your desired landing page can be generated.  Developing microsites for your company can achieve this desired goal as well, as discussed by Jennifer Bankston, CMO of Labaton Sucharow LLP.

Conclusion

While we found that marketers and attorneys seem to know the value of content marketing for the legal services industry, it seems that there is still a long road ahead for many to fully understand the benefits of social media marketing and the various platforms that can be used.  We encourage law firms and their attorneys to dive to more material on the offerings the World Wide Web has for optimizing your visibility and standing out from the masses.  For further thoughts on social media marketing for the legal services industry, and to stay up to date on relevant industry news, trends, and tips, join our Seriously Social community on Google+!

By Jess Spar

As different platforms and strategies are increasingly developing in the digital world, multi-channel marketing is becoming the new standard, bringing with it the need for a new wave of analytics measured through a common framework for consistent data.  The traditional PR metrics are no longer enough to get a sense of audience reach, engagement, and interaction and SEO is now only the tip of the social media marketing iceberg.   There needs to be a comprehensive platform for the online marketing mix out there, and the Web Presence Optimization (WPO) platform model is proving to be the solution, with WPO Inc, a SaaS platform, at the helm of this ship.  With 9 out of 10 b2b marketers using content marketing, companies need to be able to measure beyond page impressions, into the realm of all points of presence, including those that SEO cannot impact (TopRank).

WPO platforms focus on content marketing, and can monitor, measure, and manage this content across points of presence within and outside of a company’s owned web properties.  This means that the platforms can integrate PR, social media marketing, SEO, industry marketing, SEM, and content marketing disciplines covering everything from Exposure — OTS/impressions, brand mentions, share of conversation, search rank, click-throughs — to Engagement — comments/posts ratio, number of links, Twitter mentions and RTs, bookmarks, pins, shares, likes, URL visits, awareness, resolution rate (Richard Bagnall).

Marketing metrics generally reflect audience reach size as opposed to audience relevance.  They focus on the numbers, instead of the “influential who?” WPO Inc’s competitive benchmark takes this next step to track not only clients’ own online activities and influence, but their competitors’ as well, a performance indicator that maximizes exposure and optimization by analyzing best practices of those in the same marketplace.  Audience demographic and physiographic results are among key analytics that can be incorporated into this feature’s offerings, as they point to a company (and their competitor’s) target audience.  The platform tracks not only clicks, but identifies patterns in behavior as well assisting in understanding customer sentiment about the brand in comparison with competition, predictive modeling, and contact strategy.

Organizations need to align their efforts in measuring data across different media channels to get a holistic view of their marketing strategy; the WPO Inc model does just that, with over one hundred best practice WPO performance indicators, available even in their Early Adapter model, optimizing marketing effectiveness across paid, owned, and earned media (Minnesota Public Relations Blog).  The platform deploys sophisticated analytics tools to measure and optimize marketing budget allocations across the multi-channel space, increasing ROI.  With the increasing number of channels audiences are using to find and engage with a company, and therefore the explosion of complex data accompanying these increased interactions, a unified analytics strategy can help derive customer insights more efficiently for customer acquirement, engagement, retainment, and growth.

The Inevitability of Change:

As traditional models for print media are becoming less sustainable and the Internet is continuing to demonstrate an increased efficiency as a distribution channel for content, the publishing industry is facing a number of challenges including a decline in readership, a shift by authors towards self-publishing, and the digitalization of content.  These changes in the publishing world have lead to a reduction in subscriptions, circulation, and ad sales, forcing the publishing industry to look at their role in the content marketplace in a new way.  Many publishers have subsidized their print publishing with an online counterpoint, but there are other moves the industry can make in order to survive the push to digitalize.  Publishers need to put themselves in the mindset of a content marketer in order to mitigate the problems that have infiltrated the publishing industry over the last several years.

Traditionally, a publisher’s expertise has focused primarily in producing and packaging content for an audience, not in monetizing that content online.  As the digital model of content consumption becomes more prominent, the publishing business model must evolve into one that leverages the user-centric nature of the medium.  However, in order for a new model to succeed, the support of the magazine and newspaper industry is essential so that a publishing company’s input can still be heard and so that they can maintain their status as the primary distributor of online content.

Going Digital

Subscription services, mobile apps, and E-books, are already cropping up as viable alternatives to the old write-bind-push model.  The stats show that there is no denying the trend toward tablet- and e-reader-based consumption, which should comfort publishers that they can surely find success in this channel:

• E-books are already a fact of life for booksellers, having readership by Americans aged 16 and older increase from just 16% to 23% in 2012 (Pew).  At the same time, amongst that same demographic, the number of those who read printed books fell from 72% to 67%.
• In a Forrester survey (via Publishers Weekly), 23% of publishing executives report that 50% of book sales at their company are in the digital format, not physical.
• As early as June of 2010, only 32% of frequent buyers were purchasing their books from a brick-and-mortar store, and that number still decreased to around 20% by the end of 2012 (Forbes).

While going digital appears an easy fix, the publishing industry can be doing more. In the Internet age, everyone online has the opportunity to be a publisher. Thus, full-fledged publishing companies need to differentiate themselves from the typical blogger in order to become “Content Kings.” Editors already curate the best content, now they just need to refocus audience support from their “printed brand” into online territories, therefore increasing awareness of new opportunities to buy premier content and eventually boosting sales.

Social Sales Strategy and the Power of Peer Suggestion:

Publishers have a big advantage for “social” engagement over other industries, because their consumers, or readers, are fond of sharing their opinions and generating content of their own.  Therefore it’s not surprising that word-of-mouth and social media are the go-to tools for empowering the audience to buy a book, for example, and then recommend it to a friend.  Social media provides an ideal opportunity for publishers to capitalize on readers’ love of sharing their opinions with others, despite the act of reading itself being a solitary activity.  Goodreads, a social networking site for book lovers and an example of this opportunity, allows users to organize libraries, write reviews, track reading progress, search recommendations, and more, all while connecting with their friends. Social networks also provide unique opportunities to converse with the authors themselves, publishers, and fellow readers. According to Otis Chandler, Goodreads CEO, peer recommendations account for the largest source of book discovery and are the most convincing factor when deciding whether or not to read a book.

Word-of-mouth is a powerful influential tool that is crucial to sales, proving social marketing to be a major boon to publishers moving forward, be they printing houses, multi-tiered publications, magazines, booksellers, or even bloggers. Robust social marketing campaigns aimed at turning consumers into creators of content are sure to help publishers to increase awareness of their brand (or support the existing brand), generate revenue, and enhance the user experience.  Publishers can implement social reading platforms in order to create a social reading environment for their content, or at the very least, utilize social networks in order to interact with customers.

What Does Social Reading Look Like?

A prime example of a successful move to the online space via social reading is the well-known publishing brand, Scholastic.  They have implemented a platform called Storia in order to create an interactive experience for their readers.  Storia is an app that can be downloaded directly from their sites, and it includes mobile and desktop E-reader capabilities, resources such as dictionaries, a text-to-speech read-aloud tool, and note-taking tools, and learning activities. This sort of user-centric functionality creates loyal consumers, in part because they have a one-stop-shop for all things related to Scholastic. This puts the power not in the author or title, but in the platform itself.

On the other hand, sites like Bookish are focusing more on placing the power with “the people,” where the influence of the platform is driven by the community Interactions are focused more on each other as opposed to the content.  Co-owned by Penguin, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster (three of the “Big Six” publishing houses), Bookish is for print what Hulu is for television: a mechanism for discovery, brimming with content from all of the major players, as well as self-published authors. Although the site is still in its infancy, there is a lot of potential to connect readers to authors, publishers, critics, and each other.

Regardless of which route a publishing company takes, it is clear that implementing some sort of social marketing strategy is essential for surviving this period of industry flux.  Those that prevail will be the ones that provide value for their readers beyond the initial purchase of a magazine issue or book.  Publishers need to be able to convert readers from passive consumers of content into active participants.  Publishers are already content curators: the next step is to engage audiences, and use that engagement to bolster the library of content.

Google + vs. Facebook

As the popularity of Google+ continues to increase, law firms are being forced to rethink their strategy. Attorneys are already growing a decent following on Facebook and Twitter, sharing the latest in legal news (as well as showing themselves as likeable people). Small communities are popping up around such topics as accident injury, food poisoning, and toy recalls. Google+ is clearly not going anywhere any time soon, giving the legal industry something new to think about.

Although Facebook is a valuable tool for building community and presence, your average user doesn’t generally log in to Facebook with the intention of looking for services.  Generally they will use a search engine with questions about where to go, who is the best attorney around, etc. According to a survey found on Get Noticed Get Found, 21.9% of people looking for a specialty lawyer used a search engine versus only 10.5% looking elsewhere on the Internet, and a minimal 2.1% asked on a social network. That’s where Google+ gets its edge.  You can achieve SEO rankings in searches for your firm, while also allowing for discretion with potential clients that is not often afforded by a social network such as Facebook or Twitter.

Google + Benefits

Google+ has a lot of the same networking and community building benefits as other social networks (such as the ability to build a profile with links to your website and other pages), but can be more easily controlled and monitored:

1. The first step toward obtaining these benefits is to create a company page. This should make an impression, yet still be professional.  Visuals are key to social marketing, so assess what design scheme can work for your firm.
2. Create community pages for your company.  This will allow you to invite people from your personal Google+ account’s circles of contact (you should organize your circles beforehand allowing you to maintain different categories of relationships – clients, potential clients, leads, etc.).  Once you have organized your contact circles, you can then tailor your communities and updates to each circle, allowing for a more personalized and engaging experience.  You can start different conversations with each community, and use features such as Google Hangout or Google Communities to do so (San Diego Esquire).
3. Control your privacy settings to determine what you want shared and searchable.   You can share posts publicly on your profile, which will appear in Google searches (so keep in mind SEO value when posting), but if you want something to be visible for an elite few (perhaps a specific client), you can make certain posts private.
4. It’s got the stats supporting it! According to an Infographic found on The Social Ballot, in 2012 625,000 new people joined Google+ daily, 40% of marketers used Google+, 70% wanted to learn more about it, and 67% planned on increasing Google+ activities.  This number is only increasing in 2013 as the popularity of Google+ grows.  If marketers are so intent on taking advantage of all Google+ has to offer, why shouldn’t you be doing the same as a legal professional?  You want to market yourself and your services in the best way possible, and the data shows that Google+ is the place for success.  People are constantly sharing using Google+ and its +1 feature, and you’ll want to be a part of that conversation!
5. Content marketing! This is a term you have probably heard over and over again, but it’s an extremely valuable tool for improving your firm’s reputation, and Google+ has the perfect platform for doing so.  You can share industry related articles and post some of your own to become a clear expert voice in the community.
6. Use Google+ Business!

The Bottom Line

Google+ is a social networking platform, a publishing platform, and an essential tool for increasing SEO. It will grow your reputation, visibility, and give you an opportunity to see what’s out there and how your competition is using Google+ to their advantage as well.  Make sure you’re not left in the dust, and get in gear for Google+!

To learn more about the benefits and opportunities for law firms to succeed through the implementation of a social media strategy, the Business Development Institute is hosting the Social Media Marketing Summit for Law Firms May 9, 2013.

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It is undeniable that the way users are watching television has continually been evolving over the past few years.   77% of people use their computer while watching TV, and many are even watching their shows directly online (Huff Post Tech).  The use of online television platforms and video service providers such as Hulu and Netflix continues to increase, as does the use of these channels across mobile devices as well.  Increased mobile viewership, as well as a growing trend in multitasking TV viewers has led companies to search for new ways to optimize video monetization.  Viewer engagement has emerged as a potential gold mine for video monetization, by responding to the ever-changing attention span of the consumer and the constant drive towards connecting through technology.

Incorporation of Social TV

Social TV has been around to some extent for quite a while now, especially across social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.  Shows such as American Idol are constantly engaging viewers with hashtags relating to that week’s show and voting through text messaging, while sports channels also use the network to post play-by-play updates and encourage fans to discuss the game as it happens.  Viewers watching shows online can “check in” about the shows they’re watching, and even automatically incorporate these updates into their Facebook status (especially when using channels such as Hulu that are linked to their Facebook account).  Social TV is meant to enhance a viewer’s experience, and really engage them with the content they are watching.

Implementation of the Second Screen

With the success of social networks for Social TV, another logical step for viewer engagement has been the development of apps related to the viewing experience.  These apps are often accessed using a “Second Screen”– a term coined for the use a second device to accompany a viewing experience.  Consumers can track their March Madness bracket and see how their competitors are doing through the ESPN Bracket Bound app, a Game of Thrones app was released to keep track of characters, and multitudes of other TV-accompanying apps have been released over the past few years.  This is where monetization comes in.  While a lot of these apps are free (albeit accompanied by sponsored ads in order to monetize), many are also bought from an app store, or have an option to upgrade in order to gain access to more features, which brings an influx of revenue as well.

User Engagement and Social Commerce

The use of Social TV and Second Screen methods are a way to enhance viewer engagement with the end goal of increased revenue.  One of the ways user engagement can accomplish this is by fostering social commerce.  Especially with online TV viewing, one of the most popular methods of video monetization is through ads before, during, or after a video, with pre-roll “dominating” this group (mediacamp).  Mobile video revenue is predicted to reach over $16 billion by 2014, so how can advertisers capitalize on this mobile viewership?

• Choose Your Own Adventure: Hulu has been successful in melding the worlds of video monetization and user engagement by allowing users to choose their own commercial experience.  At the start of their chosen television program, they are asked to choose between two or three commercial experiences, and can also say whether a given ad is relevant to them or not.  This way Hulu can more efficiently identify how to market sponsors to their audience, therefore increasing sponsor’s revenue while also allowing the viewer to actively engage in their commerce experience.  A consumer is more likely to purchase a product chosen they have chosen to watch a commercial for than one that has nothing to do with their lifestyle.

• Incentivize: Loyalty programs are another way to drive commerce through user engagement.  Many television shows, whether online or traditionally viewed, are rewarding viewers for both watching and engaging with content (Gartner).  Through these programs, television shows can collect customer data to determine which ads will best reach target audience, and therefore lead to better a higher success rate amongst the show’s sponsors and therefore a more optimized video monetization strategy (Social Annex).

In the emerging cross-platform environment, television shows can optimize their video monetization by giving users the option to interact with a show through social engagement (Social TV) or accompanying content (Second Screen).  In the multi-device modern era, users connect to content through engagement, to the extent where they are often willing to pay for that experience.  As engagement continues to become intertwined with television viewing, what will be the next step for capitalizing upon the “user experience?”

By Jess Spar

People don’t trust marketers. In fact, people are skeptical of just about everyone outside of their own social circle. According to a recent Forrester survey (via TechCrunch), it’s likely your audience trusts social media messages less than sponsored search results or even direct email marketing. However, despite its perceived unreliability, social media may actually be the perfect sphere for gaining credibility due to the accountability and transparency inherent in the nature of its platforms. After all, you’re only as good as your word.

Moving forward, the conversation between brands and clients should be a dialogue, not a monologue. It is a “give-and-take” form of communication, not a “push” of ideas on a passive audience, which is the way that traditional broadcasting has worked in the past. Customers (be they businesses or consumers) want to talk to companies and brands in a more personal way.  Although this new model may scare some marketers, it should elate them. Forbes reminds us of the old adage, “All things being equal, we do business with people we like and trust.” Social media affords all brands the opportunity to be the likable “next-door neighbor” rather than a hawkish door-to-door salesman. The more transparent you are, the more your audience will trust and respect you. The key to transparency, then, is genuine, human communication.

Defenders and Detractors

For starters, here are some objectives for using social media messaging to increase transparency:

• Honesty – When someone asks you a question, answer truthfully. If someone calls you out for making a mistake, own up to it. “No cover-ups!”
• Openness – Encourage conversations. Don’t delete negative comments or remarks that differ from your stated opinion.
• Individuality – Display prominently your business’ values and identity.

This last point is the most radical departure from more traditional methods of doing business. Before social media, how many hungry Southerners ever considered whether or not Chick-Fil-A supported marriage equality? In today’s digital landscape, however, a small cohort of conscious consumers can make public inquiries about corporate responsibility, and then instigate a boycott if they find the answers unsatisfactory. OK, so maybe there is a reason for some marketers to be a bit scared, but these problems can be mitigated or altogether avoided with properly transparent communication. Indeed, many of Chick-Fil-A’s supporters defended the brand vociferously, storming to nearby keyboards and restaurants.

If you have an open Twitter account or Facebook page, customers will certainly use it to heap praise upon you, as well as lob complaints. How you manage these comments will determine what people say about you to their friends and family via word-of-mouth (the most trustworthy source of product information). Keep in mind that these word-of-mouth interactions now happen instantly in the same channels where you’re pushing your product.

The best practices are to behave on social media the same way you would on your personal pages:

• Retweet your supporters
• Ask questions of your followers
• Defend yourself to your attackers
• Share content relevant to your audience’s lives
• Avoid too much self-promotion

Do this in a respectful, personable tone, and do so publicly. Soon your reputation will grow more favorable, bringing with it consumer trust and positive interactions.

Managing relationships, remaining compliant

If you’re concerned with building relationships, customer service gains quite a bit from utilizing social media. A successful deployment would foster deeper consumer relationships, create brand ambassadors, and ultimately drive sales.  Customer relationship management (CRM) is perhaps more important in some industries than others. Service providers, such as healthcare professionals, wealth managers, and lawyers, would be wise to adopt a transparent social media strategy. These industries, where the dissemination of information to clients and industry peers is paramount, are begging for the democratization of communication, which social media provides.  Again, this could sound a little frightening to people in these industries, especially with regulations regarding what is and isn’t an acceptable topic of discussion. Doctor-patient confidentiality must remain intact, for example, and insider trading is still illegal. Many would argue that giving legal advice in 140 public characters is similarly a bad idea. With common-sense practices and the right safeguards in place, however, even these compliance-laden fields can reap the benefits.

Remember that while social media is the future, customers expect business interactions to follow the traditional values of responsibility and humanness.

Seriously Social, Social2B’s Google+ community, provides a discussion platform for members to share strategies and best practices to maximize social media’s potential within services industries. Become a part of our community and share your thoughts with us and your peers on the following:

• To what extent should a brand publicize its politics?
• What weight do customers place on accountability?
• How else can a business present itself as more human and less corporate?

By Adam Lauria

“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.”

–       Bill Joy, Cofounder, Sun Microsystems

The word Crowdsourcing was coined by Jeff Howe in 2006, a portmanteau of the words ‘crowd’ and ‘outsourcing.’ It is used to describe the phenomenon using group intelligence to solve problems and complete projects.  A darling of Web 2.0, more and more companies have jumped on the crowdsourcing bandwagon over the past few years, even federal government agencies with the Federal Communications Commission crowdsourcing ideas on how to improve America’s broadband infrastructure (Tellus Venture Associates).

The benefits of crowdsourcing are immense – not only does the crowdsourcing model has the potential to significantly reduce expenditure in the long term by not having to maintain permanent staff ‘on the bench,’ it also allows companies to engage staff on a per-project basis, thus benefitting from having the people with the exact skills and expertise to fit each particular project.

However, it can be a double-edged sword. The skills and expertise that are so easy (relatively) to capture by assembling a temporary, specialized workforce are also easily lost, and cooperation is often short term.  ‘Crowdsourced’ projects also need to be managed carefully – when working with unknown entities, it is vital that they are managed properly to ensure the most positive outcome is reached.

There is also a lack of stability.  When job security is still a large concern in today’s economy, and even the most indispensible employee is worried, we are naturally led to ask:  is there such as thing as stability anymore? Employees are fast becoming a liability for some corporations. As well as take-home salary, there are taxes, training, insurance costs, and so on, and companies are being forced to consider entirely new ways of working in order to survive, including open source and crowdsourcing models.

Practical Applications and Examples

Crowdsourcing has many benefits in the business world, and not just for companies lacking in resources.  It can be used for collective intelligence, voting, creation, and funding (Business Insider).  There are a number of examples where large brands and small Startups are using ‘crowdsourced’ models to feature new products, solicit opinions on new features and improvements, and form groups of affinity, or professional social networks.

• The CMO Club, a social professional network of leading top marketers worldwide, is an example of a well-integrated model for collective intelligence, with ideas, research content, and online and off-line conversation leading to the improvement of quality of the marketing discipline. “I was really tired of low quality marketing conferences and ‘vendor-centric’ presentations and decided that leading marketing executives could do better”, stated Pete Krainik, Founder of The CMO Club. “The crowdsourcing of ideas and conversations, leading to action and improvement is what we are all about.”
• Many companies have used voting over the years to determine their next branding direction – whether it’s having consumers vote on a flavour of Mountain Dew or the next Doritos Super Bowl commercial.  By involving the masses and tapping into a “group think” consumer mentality, companies build brand engagement, loyalty, and a stronger knowledge of what the consumer actually wants.
• Kickstarter, a crowdsourcing platform, has shown an extremely high success rate through the creation and funding aspects of crowdsourcing.  It helps projects mainly within the arts industry (music, gaming, film, etc.) grow, with “more than 3.8 million people” that have pledged “over $568 million, funding more than 39,000 creative projects” since their launch in 2009.  Kickstarter funded 10% of the films at Sundance in 2012, and projects all over the world have shown success because of this crowdsourcing option.
• The “Mommy Bloggers” trend has exploded over the past few years as an ideal product promotion platform.  These moms blog about their life experiences, usually with other moms as their target audience.  They review products, plays, restaurants….basically anything that applies to their everyday life.  There are niche mom blogs covering everything from travel and social networking for parents to baby basics and dealing with teenagers. Because of the multitude of mom bloggers, brands can crowdsource from a large community and use this resource to blast product promotions, press, etc. and reach a large audience.
• Our marketing expertise group, Social2B, is an example of the crowdsourcing model on an international scale – with associates and experts based around the world, including the US, UK, as well as Russia and Eastern Europe, we leverage a bank of multilingual, multicultural experts to call upon when needed.  This new way of doing business allows even the smallest of companies to harness the power of a large group of specialized talent.
• Another example of a site using crowdsourcing is LinkedIn, which provides fertile ground for thought leadership, member exchange, aggregation of expertise and ideas, and distribution of content, thus ‘crowdsourcing’ content and user feedback.

Crowdsourcing and Communication

Large corporations have always used occasional freelancers; crowdsourcing is merely an extension of this. If properly coordinated and planned with legal and human resources, the crowdsourced environment is a tremendous vehicle for communication  – a way to massively increase knowledge, and by extension, the ability innovate and increase production. Yochai Benkler, of Yale University, in his book The Wealth of Networks, sums it up extremely well:  “The world is becoming too fast, too complex and too networked for any company to have all the answers inside.”

Social Media and Crowdsourcing are also becoming synonymous. Many ideas, case studies, and even human resources are gathered and distributed using Social Media – from Facebook polls to Twitter contests, Social Media is the perfect platform for crowdsourcing to take place.  While crowdsourcing is often used to collect data, it can also be used to accomplish actual work that needs to be done.  Twitter is taking advantage of its immense influence by running a crowdsourcing program to translate Twitter into several languages, having users do this work themselves (Prescient Digital Media).  Wikipedia is another quintessential example of crowdsourcing, as the users are the ones to post their research, albeit not always accurate, so one must keep in mind that the data may not always be correct when crowdsourcing.  Choose which projects to use crowdsourcing for wisely, as some may lend themselves more readily to this method without as much margin for error (i.e. voting campaigns).  Ultimately, as long as a project is being monitored and managed correctly, there can be many benefits to crowdsourcing, with a growing community for your company, and the advantage of a distributed workload.