Shannon's thoughts on marketing, public relations, social technology, entrepreneurship and other things

Social media marketing is the shiny new toy. Everyone is doing it, trying it and seeing how to make it work for them. Your president wants you to bring in a social media expert to help the organization understand and utilize it to increase the bottom line. A good consultant will tell you it is important to listen to customers. A better consultant will show you tools to monitor what your customers are saying. A great consultant will work with you to take what you hear and use it to improve your organization, product and brand.

Consider some of these marketing insights for your brand and how to use them:

• Who are your best customers, biggest fans and most fervent defenders (brand advocates)?

Action: Reward their loyalty, invite them to be a Brand Ambassador or part of your Product Advisory Council*

• Are you marketing campaigns reinforcing your brand?

Action: Adjust your marketing strategy to support the brand promise

• Are your product development decisions based on what you hear your customers say they want?

Action: Give your customers what they are willing to pay for, not what you think they need

• Who are the movers and shakers (aka influencers) in your industry?

Action: Find your E.F. Hutton and put her/him to "work" for you

• What are your competitors doing and what do people have to say about them?

Action: Fill the gap of satisfaction for their customers

• What insights can you glean around product satisfaction, product management and product development?

Action: Start discussions to garner information

*If your organization doesn't have a loyalty program, consider implementing one.

Nugget of knowledge: Having conversations with your audience, getting to know your clients and ultimately building relationships with your customers is invaluable for long term success.

United should've listened:

On August 17th, @MarketingProfs launched #TechChat, "the first and only Twitter chat about social media marketing for the high-tech industry." And did they launch in style, their first guest was none other than Alltop founder and Reality Check author, Guy Kawasaki. These are some of the nuggets of knowledge Guy* shared, you can read the full transcript here.

#techchat [sic] I can't think of an org that shouldn't use it. In a sense, T[witter] is like "the Internet" 15 years ago.
#techchat I think the main purpose of social media is to increase page views :-)
#techchat I think the key to Twitter is providing great links as opposed to personal updates: "my cat rolled over."

#techchat [sic] Retweeting is the sincerest form of flattery!

#techchat Q. How to tie T back to sales? A. With custom landing page and coupon codes. I bet @delloutlet can tell you
#techchat T is great for sales. How else can you reach so many people so fast and so cheap?
#techchat T is the greatest marketing platform ever

#techchat And there are only 2 kinds of T users: those that want more followers and those that are lying.
@amoyal #techchat The best way to get good connections is to get more followers. It's the law of big numbers.
@RLMadMan #techchat I have 270,000 followers and I can have conversations. I try to answer every @ and D.
@amoyal #techchat If you don't retain your followers, it's bec u're not tweeting stuff that's interesting, not bec u have too many

#techchat Q about "influencers" I think "influencers" are bull shiitake. Nobodies are the new somebodies.
#techchat These days, "influencers" are fast followers, not leaders. This is why, ironically, you need to do mass marketing.
#techchat You don't know which "nobody" will be a "somebody" for your cause. The pyramid is inverted.
#techchat Also, influencers are so busy being caught up in their own BS and trappings, that they really don't "use" things well.
@mikefixs #techchat You'd be amazed at how little most influencers really know.

*These tweets are taken out of context and reading the transcript is recommended to receive complete understanding of Guy Kawasaki's tweets and the full value of the #techchat.

Marketers often speak about controlling their brand, which by definition is out of their control. In the most layman of terms, a product's brand is the individual and collective thoughts and feelings of said product's customers --> the product's brand is what people think and how they feel about it.

The most marketers can hope to do is influence what their customers may think of their brands. Marketing and advertising professionals have become experts in observation, research and human behavior, allowing them to give consumers what they want, when they want it and how they want it. On the other hand, consumer's believe they have the power to get companies to create, change or discontinue products through the use of or withholding of the almighty dollar. This begs the question, who controls a product's brand? The reality is closer to marketers and consumers share brands.

Social media is causing paradigm shifts (and some mild heart attacks) because of brand transparency. This phenomenon is causing fear and trepidation in the hearts of most traditional marketers and a false sense of bravado in consumers. For marketers, consumers used to call or write letters when they had complaints. Now they can blast brands on blogs, ravage products with scathing reviews and flog your flagship endeavors on Facebook. Brands are at the mercy customers, and truth be told, they always have been. The difference is customers now have a way to express and disseminate their discontent to hundreds, thousands, even millions of others almost instantaneously. For consumers, brands can easily share their cases of consumer abuse, exaggeration and fabrication to self promotion and gain. Brands and products can now go the offensive, telling their side of the story, heading off the firestorm of consumer ire before the clouds even begin to form. And while the axiom of "the customer is always right" may have been the governing principle for 20th century customer service, seemingly the pendulum is swinging back to center, where consumers and brands share responsibility for fulfilling the brand's promise.

As marketers learn to release their brands, they gain real time engagement, communication and recognition with their customers, all of which can improve the brand as its advocates take part in its success. Companies, C-suites, agencies and public relation firms should remember, consumers chose their products and services, they want brands to succeed, and working together, they can.

Additional resources:
What is a brand?
What is a logo?