Posts Tagged ‘Social Media Marketing’

Dear Corporate America, stop creating your own social networks!

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Every so often a new technology comes along and fascinates and excites businesses and consumers alike. Previously, e-commerce won our hearts. Then we all fell for search engines, and the world wide web was redefined. Now, that new technology is social networking and it’s an exciting place to be. New technology sprouts each week, creating interesting niche networking opportunities for anything you can think of. The world is becoming connected, and businesses are catching on this time a little earlier than they did with e-commerce and search engines.

So what’s the problem? These people are not built to be early adopters. Corporate America, listen up - stop creating your own social networks. You are missing the point entirely, and it’s going to create a backlash that could harm the real potential of social networking. Sears, just because you partnered with MTV, you are not suddenly cool and creating a stand alone social network around back-to-school shopping just isn’t the right thing to do. Let me explain what you are doing wrong, and why.

There are many social networks out there that have become a part of people’s lives. These web based networks are breaking down barriers and connecting people in ways that weren’t previously imaginable. With all this wonderful connectedness, it’s completely confusing why companies of any size would think that they had a product or corporate brand that was SO fascinating as to compete with the likes of Facebook and Myspace. Besides being blindly arrogant to the point of being comical, why does this matter? Because, the value in social media is creating networks and connecting people - not using disparate social networks to separate people. One of two things is going to occur. Either the site will be wildly successful and build a community of like minded people who worship that particular brand and reduce their interactions on other social networks, OR, an extremely small number of people will join your social network and your marketing team will be forced to say that “social media marketing” didn’t work for your company. Which sadly, will not be true at all.

Think about the missed opportunity when a company decides to forgo participation in the greater social community to instead create their own closed network.
1. They are forcing customers to divide their time among networks. (Bad idea)
2. Consumers who choose to participate in the network are connecting with other people already passionate about the product or brand, with no ability to spread the network virally among their other friends online who might not know about the brand.

They lose the benefit of network effects generated by being able to connect to various people with different interests all over the world. These companies who start their own social networks are saying, “I’m happy just serving our existing customers.” It’s terrible, and it’s a total misuse of the technology.

What should they be doing?

Build on your loyal fanbase within existing networks and social media sites to better leverage the network effects of these larger communities. Build affinity groups within Facebook and Myspace, use Twitter to build a network virally, start or join a group on Linkedin…there are so many different ways to creatively use social networking to BUILD a network that will provide much better results than creating your own closed network. FUJIFILM cameras wouldn’t decide to start their own tv channel because tv advertising was all the rage, so it’s not obvious to me why companies like Fuji are creating their own separate social networks because that’s the hottest new technology to hit the business magazine rack.

Can you list some examples of large brands/companies that ARE doing social media well?

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Posted in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Twitter | Comments

Twitter Marketing Statistics from Cherp

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
New Blog

We’ve been working hard to finish up our first few case studies, and as a part of that we’ve been gathering data on Twitter users that we feel backs up our case for Twitter as a marketing and branding platform.

Part of our research was to do research on 1000 random Twitter users, and measure the following information:

1. How do Twitter users access their Twitter account? (twitter.com, SMS, iPhone App, Blackberry App, other mobile app, blog or browser plugin)
2. % of Twitter users that are openly with a business (must have a URL to a business website in their profile)
3. Was the business user a techie/designer/other
4. % of Twitter users with an active blog linked from their profile
5. % of Twitter users with blog who actively promote the blog (10% of tweets link to blog)
6. % of users who work in social media in some capacity (non blog)
7. What % of Twitter users follow a brand (defined as a Twitter user using a brand name and a not posting for personal reasons)
8. What % of the brands followed were B2C or B2B
9. % of Twitter users employed in the media (TV/RADIO/NEWSPAPER/NON-BLOG WEBSITE)
10. % of Twitter users with at least 25% of their posts made from a mobile device
11. % of users who are actively promoting something versus simply tweeting
12. # of followers
13. # following the Twitter user

Since most of this information isn’t made public by Twitter, we needed to poll a large enough number to gather better statistics on the more than 2M active users.

For example, according to Compete.com Twitter had roughly 2.25M unique visitors (Quantcast has the number of people visiting Twitter at 1.5M.)

This is that magical hockey stick shaped growth that start-ups consider the ultimate sign of success. These numbers may not tell the whole story. The iPhone App Store offers 8 Twitter specific apps, and 2 others that allow users to post to Twitter. This doesn’t include the large number of blog or browser plugins, downloadable applications like Twhirl and sites like FriendFeed. When you consider this with our research which shows only 50% of Twitter users post from www.twitter.com, that number appears to be far greater.

Facebook may have 100M users, but with a closed network users are limited to a smaller segment of that 100M. Twitter’s open network and integration of search (after acquiring Summize a few months ago) means that Twitter offers the potential for much larger personal networks.

Stay tuned this week for more information from our research and the release of our first case study.

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Posted in Featured, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter Marketing | Comments

Cherp Reaches the Alltop

Monday, September 1st, 2008

What’s amazing is, we’re just getting warmed up!

Alltop, all the top stories

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Posted in Social Media Marketing, Twitter, Twitter Marketing | Comments

Cherp Responds!

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Well, we’ve earned some fans and our fair share of haters (which I think makes us official) in the 48 hours since we launched the website. While there were some comments on Twitter to start the ball rolling, credit goes to Chris Brogan who helped create a remarkable amount of buzz. Since many of you have read his blog I won’t restate. While he wasn’t doing backflips, he did ask the question that I expected:

Mind you, I’m wondering just how creative one gets in 140 characters…I’m all for nifty social media projects, but this one has me wondering. You?

Mashable also was quickly engaged by the idea:

Is this something that’s really necessary, or even a viable business idea?

Of course, the real magic is in the comments. We’ve been amazed by the sheer volume of opinions about this idea. Some really get what we’re trying to do, others are at least very interested, and a loud number seem personally offended by Cherp as if we stood them up on prom night.

We are for real, and we realize it’s both bleeding edge to develop a business around Twitter and equally crazy considering the stability issues and API changes. Those two reasons are also largely why we think this will work - why not let us deal with keeping up with new tech and API changes. We’re not unaware of the risks, but like any early stage technology it’s about getting people to use it in sustainable ways that provide benefits for the time investment one makes.

That’s the question we want to help companies answer, and we think it’s going to require some innovative ideas about how to use a technology that has largely been co-opted by bloggers to help build a network of readers for their blog. Twitter has undeniable SEO benefits, a growing number of users (many of whom are influencers in the blog and tech space,) and they haven’t turned it into an ad network (yet.) What this means is there is this untapped, flexible communications tool with interesting potential waiting for people to come up with compelling ways to use it. And here is the thing, not to poke a bunch of rowdy bloggers in the eye, but Twitter isn’t going to reach critical mass serving bloggers alone. It needs to be engaging for consumers, and provide benefits to businesses, or it’s going to just be an SEO tool for bloggers which will eventually die off.

Cherp isn’t just PR 2.0, and we’re not a web design firm. Cherp isn’t a social network - for that we’re using Twitter and we’ve built it right into the navigation. Cherp isn’t trying to sell some “blueprint” that will guarantee you will be a social media rockstar and earn you a bajillion dollars if you join our membership. Cherp isn’t spending a bunch of venture capital.

Cherp IS a company whose sole focus is to use Twitter as a platform to help brands build an engaging bridge to consumers that provides BOTH ongoing benefits, and we want to do it in really interesting ways. So buckle up and keep this in mind, a bigger healthier Twitter means more opportunities for all of us to connect with new people online. Whether that means distribute our latest blog post, get product or brand feedback instantly, listen to consumers, or launch a new business - it’s noble and probably naive, but we see power in Twitter and we want to help people harness it. Our success will help you too.

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Posted in Twitter, Twitter Branding, Twitter Marketing | Comments

Creative ways to use Twitter, 2.

Monday, August 25th, 2008
New Blog

My last post “Creative ways to leverage Twitter” received some very positive emails and feedback.

Paul F. said: “I thought Twitter was a useless toy at first, but now I see it has potential to be a great tool.”

Someone identified as geek2.0 sent me a note that said: “Loved your post about Twitter. I have a feeling it’s going to be the big star out of web 2.0 sites, maybe more than Facebook.”

What are some other creative uses of Twitter?

I’ve been scouring Twitter looking for another example of an interesting way to use Twitter. For the most part, it’s more of the same. But it occurred to me that if a company were inclined, Twitter could be a great replacement for forums, and the networking nature could provide a benefit that forums don’t - new customers. What do I mean?

With a forum, users register to be able to read and post to the forum. Other users comment, and if the forum is run by or moderated by a company (an example is technical support forums for software) than frequently you get responses from company representatives. This is fine if you want the conversations to be fairly encapsulated within the forum. But what if you want to use the forum to grow your business? Having existing customers talk about your product with other existing customers can drive self-service behaviors, drive down support costs, but most importantly can spread positive word of mouth. How can Twitter be an equal or better option to existing forums?

Twitter provides a more public forum and allows people who are already using the site to network a new way to interact with your brand, using a social network they are already participating in. Now not only do other customers see their posts about your brand, but so does the rest of their network (and anyone searching on Google for that matter.) It leverages the network effects of Twitter not just to solve the problem or answer the question, but also to raise awareness of the brand.

Another considerable benefit of using Twitter as a forum is the transparency this gives to the company’s technology and support. Now users can hear how others are using the product, or solving the problem, or unique ways they’ve been able to leverage whatever widgets the company builds. Sure, this could be a problem if your customers hate your product or you have frequent trouble keeping things working - but frankly if this is the case then transparency isn’t your concern.

If you are a technology company and you offer (and meet) your SLA requirement in your terms of service, why not make that entire interaction public? Get the search engine visibility, PR or blog promotion, and network benefits of using a site like Twitter as your help desk. One of the biggest complaints of many software customers is the agony of having to submit a support issue through the automated attendant, or the online trouble ticket software that may or may not net you a response. With Twitter, your customers may end up solving each other’s problems - saving you time and resources.

What’s cool about Twitter is that it’s a blank canvas. It’s a new communication tool with a world of possibilities. Any other ideas for creative ways to use Twitter?

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Posted in Featured, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter Branding, Twitter Marketing, microblog | Comments

Creative ways to leverage Twitter.

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Social media is a phenomenon. No one will argue with it’s popularity, traffic, and continued monopoly over people’s time on the web. For marketers, this is wonderful as it offsets the loss of access to consumers due to declining television ratings and diminished popularity of radio. Google grew to monopolize advertising in web 1.0, and traditional marketers missed the boat. Now, all eyes are on social media and marketers are ready to react.

The question is, now that everyone is participating, networking, tweeting and friending…what are companies going to do to leverage these tools?

Twitter is a great example of a popular social media tool that is ripe for creativity. Twitter can be used to build a community, network directly with consumers, share PR news and updates, add personality to your company’s brand, provide status updates related to your company or service, and probably a litany of things that have yet to be discovered. For all it’s traffic and users, Twitter is missing 2 significant things that made companies like Google and Yahoo! successful - it has yet to provide a clear way for anyone to make money using it in the way that Google Adwords and Overture did before.

Let’s explore options on Twitter that could create value for businesses. There are the less creative things like sponsorship and advertising. Twitter could require company or branded accounts to pay, versus their current unlimited free model. I think one of the more creative ways to leverage Twitter would be to build communities.

This is The Community Model:

For the Community Model, let’s take a popular brand, website or blog with a growing but dedicated following. Rather than create it’s own branded social network, why not leverage Twitter to extend the blog and build a community of readers. This way, readers with like interests could begin to follow the blog’s Tweets and the connect with each other. The blog or website could use Twitter to give additional insight, live blog special events, provide a “behind the scenes” look at activities at the blog, and pre-release teasers to articles.

How does this create value for companies?

The Community Model would help distance blogging from social media, allowing companies to make it a mainstream form of publication. For established brands, this could be especially useful since their blog likely resides on a subdomain and is closely tied to the main website and brand. Leveraging Twitter in this way would allow them to frequently update without having to post directly to the blog, but still keeping up frequent connections with consumers.

Why would consumers do this?

Consumers are capable of brand loyalty, but more than anything this gives uninitiated consumers an entry into Twitter and a way to connect with like-minded people in a non-brand specific way. Forums on websites have proven successful, but by participating in forums you are tied to a particular website or brand. Twitter provides an ability to go beyond that company and continue growing your own personal network (this also benefits the companies involved as well, since it amplifies the network effects of each member. Thanks to Yoan Blanc or his excellent visual representation.)

This is just one example of way to leverage Twitter to build a community around a blog or website. Do you have any ideas of how Twitter can be used to create branding or marketing opportunities beyond just posting Tweets?

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Posted in Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter Branding, Twitter Marketing, microblog | Comments