Archive for March 28th, 2010
Cartoon: Dial ‘M’ for ‘My God, You’re All Over the Road’
I live in a place where they’ve recently banned the use of mobile phones while driving, with additional penalties for texting. And I have a lot of company: Six U.S. states have prohibited handheld mobile use by drivers, and 20 won’t be happy with you if you SMS from behind the wheel. (It’s having an impact. I’m noticing a sharp reduction in “Totally just ran someone over” tweets from friends.) Sponsor While the focus is on safety, and rightly so, I do wonder if there might be another benefit: inspiring more people to leave the car at home and take transit. Don’t laugh (well, not until you get to the cartoon, at which point I’d kind of appreciate it if you would). A lot of us treat mobile connectivity as a compulsion, and the enforced hour-long severing from the hive mind for twice-a-day commutes is a genuine pain point. And the growing strength of everything from location-aware apps to augmented reality will only sharpen it. For car drivers, the freedom of the open road, as illusory as it has been for decades, is about to get more so. Mass transit may at times be crowded and uncomfortable, but with the escape to cyberspace just a few keystrokes away, buses and trains may well eclipse the car as the homes of true mobile freedom. Force me to choose between my mobile phone and my car, and I’ll do my best to hang onto the phone. Your mileage, of course, may vary; what choice will you make? More Noise to Signal. Discuss
Matrix: Evolution of Social Media Integration and Corporate Websites
Many Brands That Adopt Social Are ‘Throwing Away’ Hard Earned Traffic Many brands are jumping on the social media bandwagon, without giving proper though about the impacts to their marketing effort. In particular, many brands are putting ’social chicklets’ on their homepage to “Follow us on Twitter” or “Friend us on Facebook” without considering the ramifications. Marketers spend millions of dollars to get people to visit their corporate website, so why would they be so quick to send them away? Use this strategy matrix to help make your decisions. Be deliberate by first understanding the ramifications: Matrix: Evolution of Social Media Integration and Corporate Websites Sophistication Example Benefit Challenge 1) Do nothing, no social integration Corporate websites that have no integration with social tools at all. Cheap. Ignorance is bliss, at least in the short term Your corporate website is irrelevant . 2) Link directly away without a strategy Corporate homepages that have chickelts that say “Follow us on Twitter” sending traffic away Encourages growth of social channels Sending traffic away, without having a strategy 3) Link away, but encourage them to share with a pre-populated message A chicklet that encourages new Twitter followers to Tweet at their friends “I’m no following X brand” Triggers a social alert as a form of endorsement Better than the above, it may not have a followup or call to action 4) Brand experience is integrated in social channels Extending the brand to social channels, so the corporate experience is somewhat mirrored on social channels Regardless of wherever users go, they are still experiencing the brand Social channels sometimes serve better as a conversational area –not for traditional branding campaigns 5) Aggregating the discussion on your site Aggregating select conversations from Tweets like the skittles homepage did, top discussions in communities or blogs Centralizes the discussion on your site, making it a resource to first look at. Low cost content Lack of control over which content can be created, still links off site 6) Social login systems that allow users to stay on site Using FB connect, or Twitter connect allow users to use their existing logins to access site, see how Janrain and Gigya (client) helps May increase sign ups, widening marketing funnel, chances are content is more accurate than a sign up form May not have access to email addresses, as users passthrough using social logins. 7) Social login systems that allow users to stay on site, but triggers viral loop In addition to the above, there’s an actual social or interactive experience on the corporate site that triggers them to share with their friends Users stay on site, interact with brand or peers, yet recruit other members in social networks Requires planning, a campaign, and extensive resources. 8. Complete integration between corporate site and social sites Other than URLs there’s no difference between a corporate site and a social site, the experiences are seamless Customers, prospects, and employees mix together, churning on new members and viral activity It doesn’t exist, yet. Use This Roadmap To Be Deliberate in Actions Use this guide to map your current situation and where you plan to go, copy and paste the framework into your corporate planning deck, and identify where your assets are now. Get actionable by taking these three steps: Take inventory of current corporate website assets. Social strategists must determine what level of sophistication they are at now, and document in their project plans. Take inventory of all corporate web assets and tag with this framework. Identify what the desire state is, and then build a plan against it. Note that the further you go down in sophistication, the more resources and stakeholder buyin are needed. Start small and slow, and be sure to have a strategy. Don’t arbitrarily jump into to social marketing space without measurable KPIs. Be deliberate in your actions. Indicate on paper what the measurable goals are and how they’ll tie back to business metrics: Increase brand awareness, increase leads, increase site conversion. Once you’re ready to get actionable, and are ready to integrate the technologies, see this important matrix of Roadmap: Make Your Corporate Websites Relevant by Integrating Facebook, Google, MySpace, LinkedIn, or Twitter .