Is Your Strategic Lens Clear?

I saw an article yesterday in MediaPost by David Berkowitz that led me to the 360i Social Marketing Playbook. I was attracted by the strategic approach David described and immediately downloaded it.

The chapter on the “strategic lens” alone was worth it. The 56-page report (download from this page) is well worth reading. It covers the strategic waterfront from preparing to engage in social media marketing to metrics for measuring success and includes an introduction by Randall Rothenberg and another interesting perspective on the future of marketing by Jeremiah Owyang.

The strategic lens is especially relevant because it focuses the organization on its strategic needs and abilities. That’s important, because I believe many firms are still in the early “we’ve got to have a Facebook page” absence of objectives and overarching strategy. In his article David points out that 360i already had considerable expertise in the social arena and used the Social Marketing Playbook to advance their corporate strategy. That’s walking the walk! That would also mean that they had learned the particular etiquette of the social media. And finally, the importance of providing value to customers can’t be overstated, given the number of choices customers have today.
This publication should be required reading for all social marketers. Their ending checklist is good, and gives a sense of the topics covered, but the entire publication should be a “read and heed” for all of us!

Parsing Generational Differences in Social Media Use

I was as surprised as everyone else I know to find that older demographic segments were adopting Facebook and Twitter until I began to think about the reasons. They include keeping up with our younger family, friends and colleagues and having time to learn to use new social media platforms. That assumes the platforms offer relevant benefits—and they do, to all generations. However, the pattern of differences in motives and usage between generations is fascinating.
It’s well summarized by this graphic from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The slideshow, below, focuses on teenagers. That’s a group we know to be Internet-savvy and social, but they have their own pattern of uses.

The slideshow is worth paging through, but here are a few of the key findings:

• 93% of US teens use the Internet. No surprise there.
o 87% of parents of teens go online (slide 4). Hopefully some of that time is spent monitoring what their teens are doing.
• 64% of teens are content creators and they solicit feedback on their content (slides 10,11). While the content may not have lasting literary or artistic merit, what does it mean that they are creating and sharing?
• 91% use social networks to keep in touch with offline friends. Here’s a quote worth considering, “Rather than replace offline relationships with online ones, social media tools work best when they augment relationships that have other dimensions.” I’m not about to downplay the dangers to teens of people they meet online, but that’s not the reason most of them go online. Have social networks largely replaced the telephone for my generation and email for more recent ones? I think so.

Eating, Thinking and Staying Active with New Media

View more OpenOffice presentations from PewInternet.

The report recommends (slide 20):

o Connect with teens using the tools they already know. That’s essential advice for all the generations. It’s the essential message of the pyramid.
o Make your resources infinitely sharable. Teens (and Gens X and Y) are prone to share information. Older generations, including Boomers, are active online but much less likely to share content.
o Create opportunities to collaborate. Give them opportunities to do things they like to do!

I keep coming back to my classroom mantra—developing social media strategy is really hard! The differences in usage patterns are a major reason. The Pew Internet and American Life Project is the best source I’ve found for a lot of wonderful data. Search the generational monikers on their site to find important data about your target audience. And don’t make the mistake of assuming that groups only a few years apart in age use the Internet and the social media platforms in the same way. They don’t!

Rock the Outdoors!

Some of my best post ideas come from friends as is the case with the Nature Rocks campaign from The Nature Conservancy. Thanks!

This is a complex, highly-integrated campaign that’s rather difficult to pick apart on two levels. The first is The Nature Conservancy program itself. The second is its relationship to a program sponsored by another national environmental organization.

TNC itself is sending the welcome page (left below) to its own email list. I didn’t get the original email, so I don’t know whether they sent the page itself or a text link to it. The welcome page is the home page of a campaign microsite. The objective of this campaign is explicit; empower parents to enjoy the outdoors this summer with their children by giving them necessary tools. The page has a user-submitted image that changes daily and the opportunity to submit your own nature pictures. When you click through you find a robust content page (right below).
The main campaign page lists outdoor activities in the left bar and more in-depth planning resources on the right bar. I looked at some, not all, of the Nature Activities. There’s lots of information and some interactivity (a carbon footprint calculator). Their newsletter is described as the Great Places Network; interesting but a bit confusing.

In terms of integration, look at the nav bar at the top of the Nature Rocks page and the TNC home page, right. The TNC nav bar graces the top of both pages. (No icon for Nature Rocks; the My Nature Page takes you to the campaign page).

In one sense, the duplication of the nav bar is good integration. It, however, makes it rather difficult to navigate around the Nature Rocks site. From most of the activities page you can use the back button (once you discover that Home takes you to the TNC home page!) to get back to the Nature Rocks main page. On the newsletter signup page I couldn’t get back at all. I had to close out and that closed me out of the entire site. This could easily have been fixed by a Back to the Nature Rocks Home Page text link at the top of each page. Simple usability testing! But overall, a great site with a succinct mission statement at the top of each page.

I didn’t set up a My Nature Page, although I’m a huge fan of personal pages and content feeds. What it reminded me of, though, is a classic question from CRM. When groups get too enthused about the concept I ask, “Do you want to have a relationship with your ketchup?” In the traditional context, most people answer “No.” Web 2.0 has changed that; think back to the Heinz promotions. But it hasn’t changed the basic premise. Each of us, individual or family, has the time and energy to manage only a few relationships. When we set up a personal page and invest time and effort in it, will we want to change? Think first mover advantage here, although better ideas can always trump.

When I searched to find out what kind of PR they were getting I discovered a whole other aspect of the campaign. Briefly, it’s a national campaign sponsored by The Children and Nature Network. The objective of the campaign is to provide local grassroots organizations with tools to help children experience the outdoors. It links to a Nature Rocks main page, which lists TNC, REI as well as C&NN as the partners in the endeavor.

By now, are you confused? Probably! Unless you follow the links, you don’t see how it all fits together. That’s the marketer perspective—and when you take the trouble to tease it out, both the C&NN and TNC programs have clear objectives, my signal that there’s a significant underlying strategy. Each is one piece of the puzzle, and there obviously are others.

The visitor doesn’t care. There’s great information on each site. The sites link together to provide more good content; they provide a pretty good user experience, and they really do offer tools to parents who are challenged in terms of outdoor experience for their children.

A word about REI. I saw their partnership in the first press release I found. I couldn’t find anything else that touted their involvement—including anywhere on their web site. REI does a lot of good things. Why fail to promote one of them? I’ve written a lot lately about cause-related marketing because I think it's a great way to create positive brand associations while doing real good.

This is a great program and any parent can find tools for successful outdoor experience. A lot of parents will find it valuable. Kudoos to TNC and other organizations who are getting the word out about these tools!

Compensating Mommy Bloggers--The Virtue of Transparency

This post was originally published in the ReachingWomenDaily blog.


As I recounted in the first post in this series, I originally became fascinated with mommy blogs by watching my daughter, a new mother at the time. I gradually became aware of their potential as marketing media, although in those early days, I was thinking mostly about their value for targeted online advertising.

I was also intrigued by the number of blogs that were busily distributing coupons.I should have realized sooner that there was more to the coupon activity than meets the eye. It began to dawn on me when I saw this press release and visited the Jessica Knows blog. Her right nav bar has clear indications that she is affiliated with various brands. She also has a clear disclosure statement.

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog does accept forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. We will and do accept and keep free products, services, travel, event tickets, and other forms of compensation from companies and organizations. The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. The owner(s) of this blog is sometimes compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for some of our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question. This blog may contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified. To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org/

For several months there has been a lot of buzz about compensating bloggers (WSJ, subscription required) but most of it hasn’t focused specifically on the mommy blogosphere. Here’s a good example; this post explains the controversy surrounding Chris Brogan’s Kmart posts and links to Chris’s reply. The controversy raged for awhile even though Chris’ posts were clearly labeled as being sponsored. The mommy blogosphere is so active there are now various lists of top ten mom blogs. This one focuses on the coupon blogs. I took a look at all 10 and found the following:

• Only one had a disclosure statement and it seems word-for-word the same as the one above. It probably came from the same place. Good for these 2 bloggers!
• Most of the others give clear evidence of monetization. I’m basing that on the blogs being hosted and design and navigation suggesting the use of a professional programmer.

My sample size of 11 blogs wouldn’t pass the “representative” test, but I think the results are compelling. Mommy bloggers are being compensated in various ways and they aren’t bothering to disclose it.What should marketers do? I think it’s obvious that they should require a reasonable level of disclosure. The disclosure statement in use seems to cover the waterfront and it would make sense to require it of affiliates. Perhaps what the business is supplying to bloggers makes a difference, so I’d further suggest:

• Coupons. The mere distribution of coupons through blogs doesn’t seem to create a huge issue. Do users care where coupons come from? I don’t think so! Is there sometimes paid travel or other compensation for the couponing affiliates? It appears so, and disclosure of that would be desirable.
• Product descriptions and ratings. Full disclosure is required when products are being discussed. Consumers have come to rely heavily on peer ratings, and they want to know if the recommenders are truly peers or whether they are compensated endorsers.
• Content. Be sure to brand any content that is made available for use in the blogosphere. That protects both sides.

Wal-Mart seems to have gotten it right with their Elevenmoms blog. It’s linked to the Wal-Mart site and the bloggers and nature of their activities are disclosed. From there, it’s a matter of how well done and useful the blog is. If consumers find value, they will use it. And Wal-Mart, apparently having learned its lesson a couple of years ago, isn’t letting itself in for brand-damaging disclosures.

Transparency Rules!

Author Notes: The second post in this series can be found on RWD. Soon after this post was written the FTC began an investigation of compensated blogging.

Cisco Engages B2B Customers in Idea Generation

In my early days writing about the web, I remember my editor saying that I just had to read a book entitled Net Ready that focused on Cisco Systems’ thoughtful use of the web, especially connecting its customers to provide support to one another. That was easily a decade ago but the title well describes Cisco’s continuing innovation of Internet marketing programs.


Cisco recently launched a promotion for its WebEx conferencing system that makes good use of both social media and cause-related marketing. Called Pass the Ball, it asks people to submit ideas that can help change the world and to rate the ideas of others. Each time an idea is submitted or rated, Cisco makes a donation to Teachers without Borders.

I count 10 categories of ideas ranging from Education/Innovation with 117 ideas currently to Sports/Entertainment with 26. (What does it say about their target audience that Arts/Culture has more ideas than Sports at 36? Some of the other categories have a predictably high level of activity, but that comparison is fascinating!)

They are working the promo aggressively with activity on Facebook and Twitter, especially. The Twitter “ad” on this page appears to be a live feed instead of a “safe” static capture as is sometimes done.

In looking for information, I ran across their recent Connected Life campaign. It had a different scope (it didn’t seem to focus on a specific brand, but instead on their corporate theme) and it attracted over 600 entries from a selected set of countries. I don’t know what their success metrics are, but 600 entries looks pretty good to me. The implication is that Cisco knows how to involve and engage their totally B2B audience, and it seems reasonable to assume this benefits their brands like WebEx.

It also suggests another issue. I read somewhere recently that one social media practitioner disputed the idea that there are social media programs/campaigns (I use the 2 terms interchangeably). The argument was that social media involvement is an ongoing process, not a campaign with a beginning and end. The Cisco programs seem to illustrate the issue.

Corporate social media involvement has to be an ongoing process; you just can’t turn it on and off, you have to stay involved. Equally important, corporate marketing departments have to learn from each social media foray and practice continuous improvement. At the same time, there can be individual programs like these two from Cisco that have distinct beginnings and endings. The skill then becomes integrating these promotions into an overall, long-term social media strategy.

Another important integration issue—interesting, isn’t it?