Mike’s Points

UPDATE, March 7, 2008: The fine folks at CustomScoop’s Media Bullseye republished the below post. I updated the content to include two other services: CyberAlert’s BlogSquirrel and CustomScoop’s BuzzPerception.

See a need, fill a need: It’s a philosophy that is one of the primary themes of Robots (and what inspired Rodney).

You could also say it’s the driving force in a free market, and why many businesses are started.

While social media is still in its infancy — it’ll have a long life, so many years is still an “infancy” — many who’ve been involved have several years experience. Some of us, even have a couple!

However, while the social media populous has been and continues to grow, the tools available to public relations professionals have been lacking, compared to what we’re used to offline. Offline, there’s media tracking services like Luce (okay, BurrellsLuce) and Bacon’s (okay, Cision), as well as newer online and less costly services like Factiva (via the WSJ) and NewsLibrary.com. If you’re tasked with keeping track of clients’/your employer’s media coverage, it’s great knowing you have other professionals and reliable services to work with.

But, online? It was much more manual and, from my experience, included doubt because social media was so new, and there. seemed. to. be. so. many. blogs! Early search engines like GlobeofBlogs, Technorati, BlogPulse and Google Blog Search while free, were very manual and still left a bit of doubt.

However, 2007 saw and early 2008 has seen the birth of many new social media tools. Tools that actually have functionality and make our jobs easier. Still, there’s spam and junk blogs to filter out, but the functionality of these tools versus what’s mentioned above is like day and night.

Here’s a rundown of the tools I’m familiar with — please offer your comments and positive/negative feedback if you’ve tried them, or add your own cool tools. (When possible, I’ve included what I know about each of the services — but by no means are my comments below a thorough commentary of all tools noted. For your own use, please review/evaluate these services yourself.)

Comprehensive tools

Techrigy’s Social Media Manager: Covers blogs, as well as a discussion boards/forums, social bookmarking sites, Flickr, YouTube and other, Twitter, etc. Offers a lot of functionality and flexibility. Note: I had an extensive evaluation of SM2 last fall and into early 2008 before we committed to a contract with Techrigy. I’m very satisfied with SM2, and company has been extremely responsive to suggestions and on-going communication.

Radian6: Similar to Social Media Manager in its range of social media covered. It’s been in the news every so often with contracts with some notable agencies. Note: I had demo of Radian6 early this year, and liked what I saw. In many ways, Radian6 and Social Media Manager are comparable — though each have their “differentiators.” There were a few key differences as to why we chose SM2.

Visible Technologies’ TruCast: I’ve not had a demo of TruCast, but from its site and from some communication with a sales person, it seems to offer capabilities comparable to the above: a “comprehensive solution for social media analysis and participation. Our enterprise level solution enables clients to complete the conversation by allowing them to track, analyze, and participate in blogs, forums, social networks and online communities.”

Forums/Boards

As a smart man once twittered — “forum mining is a tough nut to crack; it’s the deep, unsexy social web stuff that’s oft influential AND overlooked…” — discussion forums and boards are more important than blogs in social media monitoring in many ways. You can obtain so much feedback and trend information on companies, issues and industries by monitoring and participating. And, unlike blogs, you have only a few places to look.

Awhile ago, I had a post about a number of vertical forums and boards. Now, without time-consuming, in-depth searching, you can use board-focused search engines to find, review and monitor them.

BoardReader: “BoardReader was developed to address the shortcomings of current search engine technology to accurately find and display information contained on the Web’s forums and message boards.” (Personal/Local note: It was developed by some U of Michigan people! Go Blue!)

Twing (courtesy of the aforementioned “smart man,” aka Mike Manuel): “Our intent is to enable you to quickly find highly relevant communities and discussions pertaining to your interests, as well as keep you informed on the latest trends influencing communities.”

Omgili: “Omgili is a specialized search engine that focuses on ‘many to many’ user generated content platforms, such as, Forums, Discussion groups, Mailing lists, answer boards and others.”

Ultimately, it really doesn’t matter what tools we use — clients/employer just want quality, cost-effective results. However, it sure is nice when the marketplace sees enough demand to develop tools to make our respective jobs easier and more effective.

See a need, fill a need.

– Mike

Control of branding and “the message” or word-of-mouth talk about a company, product, service, issue, etc., is a common theme in social media. It’s been written about in many books, on many blogs and, heck, even in person I’m sure.

And, it came up in a brief back and forth Twitter conversation I had with Geoff Livingston Thursday.

Maybe we’re talking about the same thing, but taking a different approach. Maybe it’s just semantics. Or, maybe we disagree.

As I’ve said in the past, businesses ultimately have control. Or, at least, the most influence.

Let’s start at the beginning: Essentially a company forms when someone sees a need in the marketplace and tries to fill it. (Yes, there are variances, like when a someone makes a product and then tries to find a need, but let’s stick with the basic premise.)

Before that company starts, there is no conversation, reputation or perception about it. It didn’t exist.

That company markets its products, so has contact with prospects, vendors and, ideally, customers via marketing communications, sales personnel, retailers, customer service personnel, etc.

Then, prospects and customers react to those “touch points” with the company — and have the opportunity to give their opinion of the touch point, whether its bitchin’ about a product online or giving rave reviews to the next door neighbor.

What online communication and social media — email, blogs, boards, etc. — have done is give consumers more power. More influence. More opportunity for our voices to be heard by a larger audience. Yes, more control over how ABC Company Inc. and its products are perceived.

But, remember, WOM is as old as history. (Just ask Adam about Eve’s review of the apple!) Companies have never been in total control of their brand or the WOM chatter.

Today, various tools and technology on the Internet give consumers more influence than ever before. Despite that, the ultimate influence of a company’s brand and the perception of its products and services is in the hands of the company.

The company starts all “conversations” via its marketing and other customer contact activities. We’re all just reacting to those contact points. And, we’re having a level of control or influence as to the positive, neutral or negative tone of the chatter — as we’ve always had.

But, ultimately, the company has the most control and influence because it initiated the chatter — via good or bad products, customer service, etc., — or it chose to heed the feedback of its marketplace.

Just like all good companies have done, and will continue to do.

– Mike

especially social media.

Today, the Center for Media Research has a must-read report: “Emotional Business Bonding on Social Networks,” based on research from Communispace:

“New research from Communispace, supporting the hypothesis that people are looking to fulfill six essential social needs online, and drawing on the Maslow hierarchy of human needs, concludes that businesses that help facilitate those needs are more likely to create deeper emotional bonds than usually exist between companies and customers.”

The key point that, while consumers don’t necessarily want a relationship with companies, they do want their needs met. You market by meeting needs. And, in the online world, you need to meet personal, social needs to be successful.

You don’t “hook” people. It’s much more subtle. I don’t mean deceptive tactics, but play into human nature.

This is an approach I bring up every so often via Twitter (in reply to Chris Brogan) or here, and definitely in my work when possible. Here are some pointers and thoughts on how to:

• In social media marketing, keep in mind we’re typically dealing with every-day people; not people at work, like reporters. Even if you are dealing with professional or industry bloggers and in other social media, you need to meet their needs.
• Effective working in social media requires the same long-term commitment and effort as in face-to-face dealings with people.
• Be humble, admit when you’re wrong, and be open to criticisms (call it “market research” if it helps).
• Contribute to the social media you’re involved in when it doesn’t have anything to do with your employer or client. In addition to sharing knowledge and helping others, it can lower barriers to how people view you when you’re not always bringing up employer/client-related stuff. After all, you are there to better the community, right?

Ultimately, when you’re in public relations (or other professional communicators role), you’re involved in social media to market a company, product, service or cause. Just make sure that you don’t forget that your audience’s needs need to be met first, before they will consider your needs.

– Mike

In writing this post, you’ll notice that I (too) often linked back to my own posts. I try not to do that (too) often, but it’s often easier to make my points. In this process of reviewing past posts, it struck me how similar Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, referenced in the Communispace story, is to Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

I guess it depends.

Earlier this week, MarketingVox reported that BrandWeek reported that mobile and banner ads were the least trusted sources of media. Here’s a rundown:

• Newspaper ads: 63% of media consumers surveyed said they trusted newspapers ads.
• TV ads: 56%
• Search ads: 34%
• Banner ads: 26%
• Mobile ads: 18%
• Sites focusing on one brand, built by brand marketers: 60%. (Also called microsites. See my previous post.)

Contrast those trust percentages for ads with blogs:

Consumer-created blogs were trusted by 61 percent of global respondents, a figure that shot up to 66 percent for US-only respondents. That, combined with the 78 percent who trust word-of-mouth recommendations, suggests people put far more stock in the opinions of other “real” people.

So, for advertising, is it a person’s level of comfort and familiarity with the medium that impacts trust? Why are newspaper ads more trusted than banner ads?

And, funny how, even if a person is familiar with a company — say via advertising and other marketing efforts — he/she will trust a stranger — that is, a blogger — more so.

The survey reinforces the notion that bloggers are viewed as everyday people, given the benefit of the doubt, and trusted. Not some cold-hearted, profit-greedy corporation.

And, for ALL bloggers — even marketer types — we must not take that trust for granted and fake blog or fail to ensure transparency in our work.

Otherwise, we’ll get rightfully blasted, and whittle away a huge trust factor — which can be so valuable to our companies and clients when we do develop trusted relationships with bloggers. And, need them.

– Mike

While mainstream media (and the media relations/PR pursusing them) and mass-marketing tactics like advertising (offline and online) will always have their place, the future is definitely small.

As in small, targeted, niche-focused marketing. Micro marketing.

Okay, that may not be an “ah-ha” moment, but it is something to think about.

It’s easy to see micro marketing in social media. The blogosphere is pretty much nothing but a bunch of niche, topic-, cause- and geography-focused bloggers. The same is true for discussion boards.

But, there are other areas to view small marketing.

Website development. Microsites are growing for campaigns, product launches and just product emphasis. Bill Hanekamp, CEO of The Well has touted microsites, particuarly through WOMMA. (And, my employer has and continues to develop client microsites, as it’s determined that, that’s the best strategy.)

And, when you think of it, good media relations and public relations is about targeting your message, and working with the media as they prefer. While some mass media contact and distribution is appropriate, with today’s tools, every contact should at least appear as if it’s one-on-one. (Disclaimer: I researched and used GroupMail in a previous professional life. And, liked it.)

Don’t just take my word for this micro marketing work. Major auto OEMs and aftermarket manufacturers have also turned to micro or niche production to allow auto owners to customize their vehicles.

And, coming back to the online world, Amazon.com has known about personalized marketing for many years.

All the above and more is why, in today’s marketing world, to be successful, you have to be micro, not macro.

– Mike

That is right. The Internet Generation is savvy when it comes to all things Internet.

A classic example occurred when my oldest son had a Harry Potter birthday party last month. Among the “potions” my wife concocted for my son and his friends to make or see, was “leech juice and frog eyes.” As you can tell from the audio, there was no fooling these fourth graders. They knew it was Diet Coke and Mentos.