The promise of social media is Social Business Design – the use of tools and technology, not as the endgame, but rather as a means of aligning social media and business strategy.

A social culture shift has the power to elevate your organization by facilitating:

• internal/external connectivity
• the need to deeply understand your audience (the precursor to community development)
• a collaborative approach to managing your brand

But how do we get there?

The Next Step for Social Media

We’re in the early stages of social media strategy – there are still far too many practitioners preaching use of the tools without a connection to objectives, metrics, ROI…or fundamental business strategy.

How to we reach the goal of building social business models? Tom Webster at Brand Savant had some great thoughts in a recent blog post titled What’s Wrong with Social Media Strategy:

“Social media’s next act has to be through the corporate HR director’s door, and ultimately the CEO’s door. To get there, however, social media has to prove itself by more readily embracing effectiveness metrics (not just statistics) to raise its profile in the organization. Give the CEO the numbers to justify continued social media engagement, and that engagement will continue–and ultimately be the Trojan horse for what human business can become.”

What do you think? What are some of the challenges of delivering on the promise of social media?

David Armano writes about filtering “the signal from the noise” in a great blog post : How Filter Failure Contributes to Business Failure.

The idea that resonates with me revolves around the need for organizations, be it big business, non-profits, entrepreneurs, etc. to develop processes that go beyond the tools, to hear (and act on) relevant signals in the sea of social media noise.

The concept of meta-filtering signals and having strategies/resources in place to act on those signals in a meaningful way, adds an important new dimension to social media strategy for business.

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One of the first things an entrepreneur or organization needs to consider with respect to social media strategy is social capacity. What are your true capabilities when it comes to  engaging in social media?

3 Factors That Affect Social Capacity

Culture

• Is your organization passionate about their stakeholders and do you believe that audience engagement has value?
• Does you organization see social media as an opportunity or a waste of time?
• Is your culture built on open communication or hoarding information?
• Culture has a lot to do with your ability to plan and execute a successful social media program – Trying to launch a social media initiative in an environment that doesn’t really care about communicating with stakeholders is a waste of time and money.

Time

• Social media demands time – time to come up with a plan; time to create content on an ongoing basis; time to use the tools for listening and participation
• The amount of time you have doesn’t need to have a bearing on your level of social media success – but it should guide your level of participation
• If you don’t have a lot of time start slow and select social media tools that fit with your ability to create content and manage participation (I suggest starting with one…two if you’re ambitious)

Attitude

• Do you believe that engaging with your audience is the right thing to do…regardless of ROI?
• Yes…regardless of ROI. Before you lose your mind and start writing nasty things in the comment section, let me clarify
• I get the fact that ROI is important  – you have to understand your objectives and use analytics tools to measure the success of your social media efforts – whether that’s leads, sales, engagement levels, etc.
• But it’s also important to realize that social media is intangible…and be willing to view social media the same way you would some of your other marketing channels
• Be honest – Do you know the exact ROI of all your existing marketing initiatives?
• How about negative ROI – What’s the Return on Ignoring your audience?

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This visual was inspired by Seth Godin. Check out The Five Pillars of Success post.

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1. Develop strategies based on the dynamics of online search, content marketing (brand journalism) and social media
2. Create great content that helps answer your target audience’s questions and solve their problems
3. Publish content on the web and across social media channels
4. Promote content using search engine optimization, permission based e-marketing and social media
5. Manage, maintain, review, update and archive content on an ongoing basis
6. Collect, measure and analyze marketing data to assess engagement, conversion rates, leads and sales

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Deb Lavoy’s blog post about a power shift from hording to sharing brings up on a very interesting point about how we value our services based on the information we provide.

The power of the internet combined with the recent popularity of “FREE” is turning information into a commodity. It’s becoming less and less about the actual data – value and brand equity are built on your insight and the ability to use information to solve your target audience’s problems.

Service providers need to shed the “cold war” mental model (where information equals power) and embrace a less fearful view – where information is the conduit between you and your target market.

“Information isn’t the treasure, its how you got it and what you’ll do with it, and fear is the only thing keeping you from discovering your post information, insight-economy value.” (Deb Lavoy)

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“Differentiate or die” (Jack Trout).

• What’s the opportunity cost of being the same?
• How are you REALLY different from your competitors?
• What can you do to get noticed?

Check out this great read on radical differentiation: ZAG: The #1 Strategy of High Performance Brands

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• Time is a finite resource.
• Growing your small business depends on understanding where to allocate time
• Time is currency – it has value and needs to be managed
• Tangible time is spent creating revenue i.e. billable hours, time spent creating something that will be sold, retail store hours, etc.
• Intangible time is spent investing in future growth i.e. strategic planning, research, listening/learning about clients and their needs, networking, etc.

How are you spending/investing your time?

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By Mark Smiciklas

As consumers continue to use search engines as the primary tool for researching products/services and for finding solutions to their problems, are small business owners keeping pace with a commitment to search engine marketing (SEM)?

Research posted on Search Engine Land suggests a search gap between consumers and small business advertisers. If this holds true, what are some of the reasons causing reluctance to SEM?

Lack of SEM Appeal

Tim Cascio, owner of Chicago based GS Marketing Group Inc., sees most of his clients benefiting from search marketing – but some still feel that SEM doesn’t apply to their business. Tim feels there are four classifications that help define why search engine marketing may not appeal to some small businesses:

1. Status Quo

• Members of this group have built successful businesses spanning generations.
• They are often risk averse and have a high degree of confidence in last year’s print media schedule, regardless of how the media landscape has changed around them.
• And, because of their profitability and past success, they don’t get excited about being responsible for a new initiative that they have to manage.

2. Lack of Expertise

• Members of this group’s first and last attempt at search marketing was years ago and they love to describe how search marketing simply doesn’t work for their business.
• This group is not likely to be familiar with the ever-increasing capability and sophistication of Google AdWords, including  Geography targeting, conversion tracking, ad scheduling, A/B pages and ad rotation. They likely ran 100 search terms or less with only one ad, pointing to their home page.

3. Half Way There

• Members of this group underestimate the benefits of professional copywriting, compelling design and strong calls-to-action on their website.
• Without these components, even the best search marketing implementation will fall short.

4. Conversions Too Costly

• Members of this group feel that the paid search cost per sale is too high.

Regarding cost, Cascio goes on to say that “online consumer product stores should consider it a success to break-even on the first sale to new customers. When effective in-touch programs reach out to new customers and good products are offered at a fair price, it seems reasonable that many will become repeat customers, some for life. A low percentage of repeat customers would use paid search to order again so long as branding is reinforced throughout all packaging and communications. The original PPC investment pays off as soon-to-be loyal customers return year after year.”

Education

In many cases, it seems that ignorance prevents small business owners from adopting SEM and other online marketing strategies. Kelly Seiler, an engineer with Northrop Grumman in San Diego, has a personal story that helps illustrate this point.

Kelly’s father owns a transmission shop and always felt that a website and online marketing was not necessary – and not really worth his time and effort. “It took him attending a session at a conference to see the advantages of having an online presence,” says Seiler. “As a result of amazing returns in terms advertising dollar to sales generated he has scaled his yellow pages ad down to just a one-line listing and moved that money to search engine marketing.”

Corinne Montgomery, an internet marketing specialist at NetBiz in Portland, OR, agrees that lack of knowledge is holding some small businesses back from the benefits of SEM. She feels that many owners don’t really understand online marketing fundamentals and how the internet could be of value to their business.

Trust

Another component of education that may prevent small business owners from delving into SEM is trust – How many online marketing practioners lack the proper experience or qualifications, offer poor value or distribute bad advice?

Flyn Penoyer, a San Fransisco based website marketing expert, feels trust can be a major issue. “I think the main reason (small business) is reluctant to embrace SEM is that owners have seen too many people get ripped off by folks that claim expertise and fail to deliver,” says Penoyer. “It is obvious that many of these individuals are not working in the best interest of their clients.”

Alignment

David Gray, principal and strategist at DIG360, a retail consulting firm based in Vancouver, offers a different perspective. Gray feels that not all businesses may gain their initial or primary exposure as result of SEM. In these cases, online marketing tends to round out (rather than dominate) a consumer’s experience with a brand.

“I don’t question the premise that many consumers use search and that many small businesses don’t optimize websites for search,” say Gray. “But the two facts may not align as nicely as we would like.”

He goes on to say that consumers do not necessarily use search to facilitate every single interaction with a small business. For example, many people still prefer to go to brick and mortar establishments i.e. the mall, downtown retail stores, etc. to engage in the shopping experience first hand.

He adds another example: “Neighborhood dining is often triggered by passing by a restaurant – the physical media and the website are simply there to confirm a cross-street, menu or hours of operation.”

When it comes to business-to-business transactions, Gray feels that “the first exposure may through a more trusted route than search i.e referral, and a website visit acts to provide further information and credential checks.”

“I think each case needs to be vetted on its own merits… what are the high impact cases for SEM/SEO and where can other approaches yield as good or better result,” concludes Gray.

What to do think? Is there a SEM gap?

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By Mark Smiciklas

This most recent visual was inspired by the BBB Standards of Trust.

Every small business, product, service or brand goes through the process of building and maintaining trust with customers, a target audience or wider stakeholder group.

Essentially, an organization’s behavior in a number of different areas acts as a “trust filter” – positive actions let trust flow through while negative actions block trust.

Key Trust Behaviors

• Truth – Honesty is the best policy. Nothing erodes trust faster than lies about your product, service or policies.
• History – There is no shortcut when it comes to time. Gaining trust involves creating and repeating positive interactions over time.
• Privacy – Be diligent when it comes to data security and never use personal information in any way other than stated.
• Integrity – Approach every interaction with integrity.
• Promises – Keep them…Simple.
• Response – Address product, service or company related issues in a prompt and professional manner. We operate in an on-demand service culture that equates “slow” with not caring.
• Marketing – How you advertise goes a long way towards building trust. For example, spamming vs. permission based marketing.
• Transparency – Be open about all the things that are important to people when they deal with you i.e. terms, conditions, guarantees, etc. Don’t hide behind your policies.