Sharing with the Information Ecosphere

I started thinking about social sharing and bookmarking when I was writing a post about small business and the local content site that’s actively supporting their Internet Marketing efforts. As you can see, Cape Cod Today makes it easy to share content, exactly what any content publisher should be doing. When you share something, they encourage you to share it again! You can sign up for their Twitter feed, which puts all headlines in your Tweet stream (they hope you’ll retweet it). It all comes under the heading of getting the content out, perhaps reaching readers who wouldn’t otherwise have seen the article or were not even familiar with the website. This article from the NYT last week discusses issues and has a funny graphic; be sure to expand it.

This advice is all well and good for a business site. Could/should bloggers and other types of websites do the same? That’s the easy one—of course they should! More difficult is to decide how to do it in order to have the most success in reaching your target market.

This set of icons from AddOn.com puts the issue in perspective. Note that this includes all the ways of sharing content, not just social bookmarking services. How on earth do you select from all of these? Probably the first thing you notice is that many of the bookmarking ser vices you’ve never heard of; every time I look at this chart I see an unfamiliar one! Next you might notice that some of them are clearly specialized—TellMyPolititician, for example. Some of them you might not think appropriate for a general-audience publication—PimpThisBlog strikes me as something I wouldn’t use even if it works for some audiences. Frankly, though that still doesn’t eliminate many of the bookmarking services.

You could start with the biggies; that’s what most people seem to do; they are also the most readily available. Here’s a list of the top 20 bookmarking sites if you want to start down that path. The AddOn.com graphic includes all major ways of sharing, not just the bookmarking sites, so their ranking—not surprisingly—has Facebook at the top. Here’s an article that gives some advice on what to look for.

Some of the sites are well known for catering to a particular target audience. Reddit is beloved of young tech folks; little known to the rest of us. An American Library Association division actually has a list of the best bookmarking sites for teachers.

What’s the best way? Choose several bookmarking services that seem reasonable and install them on your site. It’s easy, as long as you have access to the HTML. Then study the analytics; see what sites are sending you the most traffic. You may be able to get keyword data; that’s even better.

All bookmarking services have some reports available. You may find it necessary to use a metrics program (Google Analytics remains free and easy to use) to really understand the sources of traffic to your site. Then you can refine your choices and your visitors can help you share your content with the world?

Kicked-Up Marketing with Apps

Ad Age hosted an Apps for Brands conference last week that produced some interesting advice and case histories. There’s no doubt that apps for Apple’s iPhone represents market leadership with, according to last week’s email, 75,000 apps and 2 billion downloads as of today (the CNET article says 85,000 apps; I took Apple’s word for it). To marketers a more interesting issue is what other firms are doing in the space since few of us have a brand that can attract developers like the iPhone.

First, a couple of layperson’s definitions. An app (application) is software designed for end users. A widget is a graphical interface that allows users to interface (easily) with the application. In practice, the two are often indistinguishable from one another, since marketers are delivering a lot of apps, especially the mobile ones, as widgets. Examples from the conference include:





The Kraft iFood Assistant













Bank of America Mobile Banking















Benjamin Moore’s Catch-a-Color








Ad Age advises that apps must be real time and easy to use and to pay for if not free. They point out that people will pay for value if the apps are useful enough. They also point out that people are even more annoyed by intrusive advertising in the mobile environment than on the desktop as Major League Baseball found out. On mobile, click-through isn't the only metric that matters. Are people recommending your app? Or trashing it on Twitter? "We measure click-throughs, but we don't measure pissed off," said Mr. Bowman, referring to when MLB put an intrusive ad into its At Bat app.

They also point out that apps need to be part of an integrated marketing message, although people are most likely to learn about apps by WOM. Their recipe for success is utility, frequency and viral. Good advice.

Each of the apps above has a demo page; they are all worth looking at. The Benjamin Moore color app clearly wins the prize for most creative, but the other two offer genuinely useful services, and that’s really what it’s all about. The three firms above are all trying to sell a product or a service. Only Kraft charges; 99 cents. The MLB At Bat app (see it on their home page) is $4.99 at the Apple App Store; they are offering a value-added service. Make sense?

But is this another strategy that’s only for corporations with big advertising budgets? Not necessarily—more about that in a few days.

BMW Roars Down the Road (Desk?) Again

I found my original link to the new BMW “Expressions of Joy” campaign in a Tweet by Kevin Swanepoel—thanks, Kevin! My reaction was that BMW has done it again in terms of pushing the envelope on advertising (build your own) and, more recently, customer engagement (the graffiti wall).

The campaign, launched in the UK in the spring, is for the new Z4 model. If you look around you’ll find a lot of the typical—photo galleries (some so complex they froze my screen so I’m not providing links) and TV ads posted on YouTube.


But it’s the augmented (not virtual) reality application that intrigued me. It’s a technological update of earlier ad campaigns. Basically, once you download the software (called a paintbrush app), it lets you drive the new Z4 on your desk. If you wish you can create your own “expression of joy” and upload it to the contest on Facebook—reminiscent of the graffiti promo. There are several posts on the wall of the Facebook page and at least one on the photo page.

There are lots of comments about how much fun this is—and that’s a lot of the point!—scattered around the web. The one I liked most added something about how this was a geeky toy to be used by companies with a lot of money.

That is no doubt true. It seems to be a proprietary application; is it based on the Microsoft Paintbrush Tool? I can’t tell.

What I do know is that BMW continues to reach out to a young, well-heeled target market and to understand how to engage them. The challenge for other marketers is to use innovative, cost-effective ways of reaching and engaging their target audiences. Some of that is technology and tools; much more is creative marketing thinking!

Direct Response and Brand Marketing in the New Media

I picked up the link to David Carter’s blog post from Twitter yesterday. Truth to tell, I followed it because it mentioned NEMOA, the New England Mail Order Association which numbers among its members some of the best catalogers on the planet, also a lot of old friends. I was interested to see what was going on, and David’s slideshow focuses on what he learned from them; you’ll find it interesting.

I had a major “wish I’d said that” moment when I saw this graphic. David is a hard-headed social media marketer, and his “not a replacement strategy” warning is a good one. But what really struck me is that this says it all. Social media is a creature of the web, although it simply enables some physical world phenomena like Word of Mouth. Direct response, the province of the people at NEMOA, has been around for quite awhile. So has branding. What’s fascinating is that direct marketing and brand marketing take place, in similar ways, on and off the web. This is what marketers do—it really does say it all!

This morning’s article by Augustine Fou in ClickZ takes it a step further. Dr. Fou is proposing a new definition of digital that blurs the nice neat lines in David’s graphic. It’s a broad definition; "the collection of habits and expectations of modern users." Here is a summary of his major points:

Branding Is Dead
However, consumer habits have also evolved. Many people actively search for things online. And the moment they type in a search term or phrase, we know exactly what they're looking for at that exact moment in time.

While it’s true that traditional brand marketing in mass media has decreasing relevance on an almost day-by-day basis, brand development is still hugely relevant. It’s just done differently

Targeting Is Dying
As consumer habits change to "pulling" for information when they want or need it, marketers' tactics must also change. Tactics that fall under the umbrella of "push" marketing become less relevant because fewer modern users will tolerate being beaten over the head with ad messages.

Dr. Fou’s point is that people almost always start with search when they’re looking for information on the web, and that’s absolutely true. However, think about the post about McKinsey content last week; they are using Web 2.0 techniques for distributing content. Is that push? I’d say it is, but it’s either permission-based or very polite or both. No beating over the head here!

Social Media Isn't Media
. . .trying to use social networks and social actions as media won't work. Conversations can't be bought. And if they are bought, the community will find out and retaliate.

He concludes that marketers who get it “will gravitate toward techniques that cultivate genuine and open dialogue with customers, where brands humbly listen and learn, and then respond with new features and innovations.”

I totally agree. But I’d add that marketers still need to understand, and properly use, the three disciplines of marketing in David’s bubble chart. Direct response, often PPC these days, can be used to bring people to your site—which had better give them the information they are looking for and allow them to efficiently conclude a transaction (direct response) if they desire. Brand marketing still has great relevance—think all the “who do you trust” discussions. People you know and other consumers come first on the trust list. Brands (I’d include the adjective “trusted”) follow closely. Creating a trusted brand should be the overriding goal of brand marketing these days.

Where the lines really blur is between brand marketing, still a necessity, and social media marketing—more and more the way savvy marketers are doing brand marketing—as Dr. Fou said.

The disciplines are still there; the way marketers execute has undergone a huge shift.

Social Media Marketing Best Practices

I found the link to the Beeline Labs best practices white paper on a post by Lois Kelly on iMedia Connection. It’s a good post, with strategic advice that closely parallels the findings reported in the white paper. I’d encourage you to download the entire white paper from the site.

I was most impressed with two sections; Biggest Surprises and Most Common Mistakes. Those are especially important, and I’d like to recap them briefly.

Biggest Surprises:

• Customers want to advocate. People love to talk about experiences they’ve enjoyed; make it easy for them to talk about your product, your website, whatever.
• The value of early warning and speedy response. The sooner, the better. Otherwise, the damage may have already been done.
• Better planning. Get customer insight and incorporate it into planning and decision making.
• “No bad experiences.” Here’s what the report says, “Almost all companies said they were surprised at how few, if any, negative experiences had occurred from engaging in social media. While legal and management are often concerned about “what if someone says negative things about the company,” this has rarely been an issue.” Hear, hear!

Most Common Mistakes:

• Ill-defined purpose. That’s a tactful way of saying that companies start social media programs with no clear objectives.
• Disconnected silo. Social media isn’t a scary animal that needs to be isolated. It needs to be integrated with all other communications programs.
• Denial. Refusal to believe what is being heard in social media. Management wants “hard data.” By that time it may be too late. . .
• Just another “channel.” Their point is that social media should not be seen as just a new way to push out content, it should be seen as a way to reach out--to create and sustain relationships.
• Not using the right talent. This is a serious marketing (and pr) activity and should be treated as one.
• Listening but not acting. Need I say more???
• Over-engineering a process or workflow. Use automation to make the processes more efficient, but don’t let it separate the human beings from the social content.

Now that you’ve read this, don’t you want to read their Advice for Suceeding (pages 16 and 17)? Some of you might also find their advice for working with your legal department (p. 9) helpful.

It’s good news that there are enough companies with enough experience to contribute to the establishment of best practices. Now more of us should be practicing them!