Decoding Social Media Marketing

Over the last week, some very smart people have been unsuccessfully trying to define "social business strategy" and "social business design" However, instead of bringing clarity to the discussion, all these attempts have added more confusion.

The problem is that a lot of people are decoding "social business strategy" and "social business design" as "social business + strategy" and "social business + design" and trying to define what a "social business" is. This has, not unexpectedly, led to a pointless discussion about cause-based and non-profit "social business" organizations.

I would want to clarify that at least our version of "social business strategy" has nothing to do with the idea of businesses giving back to the society. It's a worthy ideal, and businesses don't think about it as much as they should, but when we use the term "social business strategy", we are not talking about it.

I would urge everyone to decode "social business strategy" and "social business design" as "social + business strategy" and "social + business design". When you do that, the cloud of confusion lifts up. The terms "business strategy" and "business design" have a specific, widely accepted meaning. The term "social" here refers to "social technologies" and the four norms embedded in them: user-generated content, collaboration, community, and collective intelligence.

"Social business strategy" is different from "social media marketing" ("social media + marketing") in two important ways. First, when you stop looking at "social technologies" through the "media" lens, you realize that content is only the first level in what these technologies enable: collaboration, community and collective intelligence are the other, higher levels. Second, when you stop looking at "social technologies" through the "marketing" lens, you realize that their impact goes beyond merely reaching out to customers, to connecting customers, partners and employees.

"Social business strategy" is a good label for what "some" of us do because it enables us to talk about social technologies and business value, without limiting ourselves to the "media" and the "marketing" lenses. Therefore, the social business strategy label can potentially become the rallying point of a movement for "using emerging social technologies for transforming businesses, instead of merely reaching out to customers."

Source: 20:20 Social

Tweeting all the Way to the Bank

Over at VentureBeat, Matt Marshall is reporting that Twitter will introduce its first revenue-generating series of premium services.

In an interview with co-founder Biz Stone, it was revealed that Twitter is in the initial phases of introducing commercial accounts to businesses seeking detailed analysis of activity in and around the brand on the popular network as well as other data not available to Twitter users directly.

In the next phase, Stone indicated that Twitter may also debut a new set of corporate-specific API’s that would allow the company to insert a customer layer over the profile and other aspects of the network to more effectively engage with the community, while increasing strategic visibility.

Stone revealed to Marshall, “Twitter will still be free for everybody and we’ll still tell them to go crazy with it. But, we’ve identified a selection of things that businesses say are helping to make them more profit.”

He further elucidated, “We want to build statistics or analytics that let users know — ‘How am I doing on Twitter?”

This news is the latest in a short series of information bursts following the company’s announcement that it is rolling out a new set of APIs to integrate geo-location into Tweets, mostly likely to contend with rising competition of geo-location networks such as Loopt and FourSquare and also as a potential generator of hyper-local advertising revenue.

Source: VentureBeat

Inbound Marketing

If you have any responsibility over your company's marketing efforts or better marketing expenses, then you most likely are living in a new world where budgets have been slashed and customers have gone scarce. Over the last decade, outbound marketing (advertising, TV, radio, online sponsorships, cold calling, trade shows, even email blast) has been the common approach for targeting audiences. But with a tidal wave of media being forced on customers and their attention spans, inbound marketing has taken root as consumer preference and continues to shift the way we seek information and decide on purchases.

Inbound marketing consists of media and mediums that consumers use and in turn, chose which messages and companies they wish to know more about. For example, instead of interrupting people with TV ads, videos are created and spread virally to only those engaged and willing to participate with the social media. Other examples of Inbound Marketing are: blogs, white papers, SEO, webinars, and RSS feeds.

Although inbound marketing should not necessarily replace outbound marketing, if not practiced as part of an overall marketing strategy, companies will lose out to competitors that embrace it. Social media is here to stay and with lower costs and better targeting than outbound, even the smallest player can compete with the biggest bully in the market.

Social Media: Use it or Lose it

The concept of using user-generated content in social applications surely isn't a new topic. But how not using it can result in damaging and devastating consequences rather is. The verdict is out that consumers from all types of industries are looking and listening to what other like-minded people have to say about a specific product or service. For example, a leading OTA (Online Travel Agency) states that 40-50% of vacation condo rentals come from referrals of friends and family. With social networks and content sharing bringing together consumers like never before, companies can't ignore the power of this new influential purchase channel.