Ed-Glen Chamber Presentation
Today I spoke with the members of the Edwardsville-Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce. They invited me to speak with them about incorporating social media tools in their marketing strategy. If you missed the event, or are just plain curious, you can download my slide deck on SlideShare, along with several recent presentations I have made on web user behavior (specifically millenials) and more (http://www.slideshare.net/bethkeserauskis).
The Jury is Still Out on Twitter
I have seen some successful customer service interactions on Twitter and experienced not some not-so-great customer service interactions on Twitter, specifically involving Dell. I am still not exactly certain how Twitter can be successful from the individual user, or customer, perspective. If you are a corporation looking to get involved in Twitter from the perspective of generating original content, how can you generate content that people actually want to read? Obviously, most people don’t really care about the mundane things, such as me sending a tweet saying that I am driving to work this morning. The people who are preaching about Twitter as an opportunity for your business to get engaged with social media seem, to me, to be more interested in increasing their number of followers or the number of tweets they send versus really trying to engage with the audience. I question, do you actually [have a signal with] your customer or you are just generating a bunch of noise? If you have 100,000 followers, I challenge you to show me that you actually can have an interactive relationship with all 100,000 people. So if you are just generating and broadcasting content for the sake of hearing yourself talk, and that’s your objective, maybe Twitter is for you. If you are actually using it to try to connect with people, I still have yet to see how that is actually a viable option.
The other thing that I have noticed is that many of those who are preaching about twitter or generating the most content or the most followers also happen to be male. Now, this may sound exceptionally reverse-chauvinist or reverse-sexist, but I wonder if what is at play here is that women in their 30’s and 40’s have kids and careers and families and are trying to balance them all. The things that get cut from your time are those things that don’t have the biggest bang for their buck. I am wondering if Twitter is one of those that has yet to show a big bang for the buck and is, therefore, being dropped from the radar of some individual women. Now again, I don’t have any substantial proof to make these statements but it is just a feeling I have, especially when I am talk to several women also in the field of marketing and advertising that feel the same way about how can you incorporate Twitter as an effective communication strategy.
In the subsequent post, I will talk a little bit about the rich customer service opportunities that abound, monitoring the conversation about your brand using Twitter, and finding ways to have conversations with individuals that I have seen to be successful. But –just Tweeting for the sake of hearing yourself talk is not an effective communication strategy unless your whole goal is simply to make yourself look good and make noise.
The “Twintern”
The new buzz word in marketing is the “tw-intern.” This is where you decide, as an organization, that you want to embark on a new social media technology like Twitter and you’re going to hire an intern for the job, hence the word “tw-intern.” What I often ask as someone considers putting an intern in charge of their social media strategy is, if your local news affiliate is shows up at your door to do a story on your company for their evening news broadcast, would you put your intern in front of the camera to best represent your brand, company and key message?
I would venture to guess that 9.5 times out of 10, the answer is, “Absolutely not! Why would I put an intern in front of the news media?”
So then I say, “OK. Let’s talk about the reach that your local news affiliate has, perhaps it’s 40-60 thousand people who may be watching the news and paying attention to the story. On the other hand, tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, a blog – any of those technologies – have the potential to reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions or potential customers.”
So, if the news media was able to reach millions of people and you wouldn’t put your intern in front camera, why on earth would you consider putting an intern in front of something with a reach as potentially broad as a social media technology such as Twitter, Facebook, a blog, etc?
Now, I understand that most organizations face a substantial budget crisis and cash flow problem, especially higher education institutions (even more specifically, institutions within the state of Illinois). However, it is time for us to rethink our overall marketing and advertising strategy and make it much more efficient to include important technologies that are appropriate for your target audience that have a much broader reach than perhaps a television interview, or a story on the front page of your local paper.
Much more to come on this subject!
Coloring Outside the Lines
There are some times we need to color in the lines, and sometimes it is acceptable to color outside the lines. This morning, I saw an example of where we sometimes just need to pay attention to solid white line. As I merged into an exit lane to get on the highway, I realized in this situation there is an extended white line for a reason – to allow semis to enter the highway gracefully. Ninety percent of people cut quickly over the solid white line, so I’ve made it a habit to follow the rules, color within the lines, and wait to transition until the solid white line becomes a broken white line. Just a personal pet peeve of mine. However, there are times that we should push the boundaries, cross the solid line, and color outside the lines.
So I ask you, what are you doing in your marketing strategy to color outside the lines? Are you challenging the old perception of how things should be done? Are you incorporating new social media strategies into your plan, perhaps without asking permission? Are you testing and showing ROI before trying to convince the world that new social media technologies are useful tools? How are you coloring outside the lines?
Or, who are you allowing to stay in their safe zone by not pushing boundaries, not coloring outside the lines, not transitioning onto the exit ramp at a different place, a different speed, with a new, different vehicle? Start coloring outside the lines (in the right places, of course!) today!
About Me
I am currently the president and general manager at Access Marketing Company. You can read my full resume on my LinkedIn profile. Some of my favorite accomplishments include canning and preserving much of my summer vegetable and fruit garden, being part of the St. Louis Business Journal Class of 2007 Top 40 under 40, and continuing to play beach doubles volleyball – even placing in an EVP doubles tournament.
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Beth Keserauskis 