Social Media Engagement

Engagement, regardless of where it happens, is every marketer’s goal. One of the things that make this so difficult of course is the multitude of channels through which we interact. Social elevates the degree of difficulty. When the web first emerged it disrupted the brick and mortar world because it redefined the idea of location. Instead of being blocks away, the nearest competitor was now just a click away. Today social is doing the same to the web.

Time spent online is exploding. While certainly 3-screen living plays its part, much of the growth is attributable to the growth of communities and social networks. At this point there is a strong chance a customer has interacted with your brand and formed impressions long before they’ve reached your site. In the end it still comes down to location. Your customers are social and you need to be too. It’s imperative, therefore, to find ways to extend and expand your brand engagement into the social space.

Setup for Alterian’s inaugural SM2 Buzz Bowl

http://bit.ly/Buzz-Bowl

You don’t have to work in marketing or advertising to know the Super Bowl has developed into the largest single day advertising event in the world.  We have all grown familiar with the urban legends, like maybe some of the more outlandish like the risk of “simultaneous flush” or “estimates” of a case of beer consumed for every man, woman, and child.  With a worldwide audience estimated from 200M to 1B it is no small wonder that brands pony up hundreds of millions for the advertising rights every year.  It is the ultimate “reach” vehicle of the broadcast calendar year.

Over the last couple of years, as the interactive and social channels have gained traction, the big three of TV, radio, and print have been hurting – shedding some $10B in ad revenues, or 20% of their annual turnover.  To date, this hasn’t impacted Super Bowl advertising which remains largely unscathed as the iconic symbol of mass media.   And while undoubtedly the competition on the airwaves will be as fierce as that between Indianapolis and New Orleans, there are some changes afoot that promise to make this year different.

For the first time, some of the large brands, like Pepsi, have broken ranks and are embracing social media marketing.  Exiting the Super Bowl is fairly symbolic as it signals that brands are taking social media seriously and view it as an alternative way for engaging with consumers.  Just two years ago, it would have seemed preposterous to think a major brand would walk away from their Super Bowl spot.

Beyond the cost, one of the driving factors behind this shift is the notion of engagement.  While as marketers we’ve long aimed for this, we’ve never really been able to act upon it.  Our problem has been, that while we could speak, we couldn’t listen.  Social media enables a whole new form of communication with individuals that simply wasn’t possible in the past.  Via social channels, consumers not only have a voice – they can be downright deafening.

One of the complaints about social media to date has been the difficulty in measuring it.  This perspective seems uniformed.  Social media is actually more quantifiable and measurable than its traditional counterparts.  As a matter of fact, social media can be used as a barometer for your multi-channel messaging and a real metric for measuring response, message traction and target audience reaction.  Regardless of how an individual receives your message, they are going to share, express, and engage with your brand via social channels.  You no longer have to guess how well your message worked because if you listen people will tell you.

Our goal with the SM2 Buzz Bowl is to bring clarity to the voice of the market and identify which brands were most successful at generating engagement.  In the end, the most successful brands won’t necessarily be ones that focus just on social media, but rather the brand that can foster an emotional connection with consumers that bridges broadcast advertising to the social community.  We measure this by using our proprietary Social Sentiment Engagement Index (SSEI) where we track not only the buzz generated, but then also weight it according to sentiment.

So… who will carry the day on Sunday?  Will it be the socially attuned Pepsi?  Big ad spending In-Bev? Or even another “Rock Star” from Intel?  Either way, check with Alterian, because… we will be listening.

http://bit.ly/Buzz-Bowl

What will all marketers fired in the next 18 months have in common?

They don’t understand inbound marketing…

As marketers, we’ve been beat over the head for the last two years with what is no longer working.  How many times have we heard that the reality of reachability and addressability has shifted the balance of control to the consumer and that our traditional approaches have begun a painful death spiral?  What’s been missing from this conversation, which is often the case in times of change, is a meaningful conversation about the path ahead. In recent months, however, and flying under the radar an emergent school of thought has arisen that points to our collective future – inbound marketing.  With a tip of the hat to Hubspot whom, with support of the SEM, WOM, and social media agencies, has chiefly defined the space.  The ambition of this piece is to define what inbound marketing is and then investigate the specifics of what is involved in launching an engaging inbound program.