Manhattan Marketing Maven

The 48 Hour Imperative

Every marketer makes offers. The difference between the successful marketers and the also-rans is follow-up. Fast, personal, on-point follow-up turns a random offer or a blind pitch into the beginnings of a meaningful relationship. More great campaigns have been killed by the lack of fast-acting follow-up than anything else. 

The most effective marketers build follow-up communications into the initial plan. 

Why? 

First, to break through the clutter. Prospects are busy, not paying close attention and not looking for a message from you. Distracted by others they are generally bombarded by messages that don’t matter to them. 

Second, to differentiate your brand. Prospects are so used to being ignored or treated with one-size-fits-all messages that when you actually listen and respond you instantly separate yourself from the pack. And if you listen and respond in ways that are personal, relevant and synchronize with what they told you or what they want -- you have a momentary shot at becoming their new best friend. 

Both forms of follow-up require a strategy and technology to implement. Map out the most likely responses to your offer and how you intend to respond to each one. Drawing a schematic forces you to think practically. Those squiggles on paper lay out the links between your marketing concepts and your infrastructure. The process forces you to factor in all the people, systems, channels and departments that will have to work in concert to effectively follow-up.

It helps if you can program “triggers” and automate much of the follow-up. Triggers should be linked to choices that prospects make. If they select a particular industry, they are offered White Paper #1. If they are actively in a buying cycle, they get different content and your inside sales team gets cued. The BANT criteria should shape how you trigger follow-up messages. So should elapsed time. 

48 hours is the outside limit for follow-up messaging. If a prospect took an action, you have to assume some level of conscious action. But in the same moment you must anticipate that the conscious action is at the low end of the urgency or value scale. Therefore unless you follow-up while your brand still lingers in short term memory caches, the prospect will forget that they had any interaction with you whatsoever. 

The offer-response-follow-up cycle has to be rhythmic. If they download the white paper, an automatic e-mail is sent out 48 hours later to assess readership, satisfaction and next steps. If they take the benchmarking survey, their results are automatically compiled and e-mailed at the end of that business day, a reminder or follow-up message is automatically sent 48 hours later and the compilation of survey results is automatically dispatched 30 days hence.

Treat each response like a nuclear isotope with 48 our half-life. Act quickly to follow-up and respond, probe or ask for preferences. We live in a world of nanoseconds. After 48 hours your precious prospect interaction lost and so is whatever cash or capital you spent to create the moment. 

 

 

4 Ways to Engage Millenials

Every younger generation knows better. Every younger generation wants to un-do, reject, fix or repair the mistakes made by their elders. Every younger generation brings its own POV to the party. 

Seventy-five million individuals born between 1981-2000 grew up with computers at home and at school, are beyond the tricks and techniques of advertising and wield enormous buying power. Millennials are better educated, more diverse and better at multitasking that their Boomer parents. They’ve been indulged, encouraged, pampered and have different expectations and sensibilities than their elders. Catching their attention and involving them in a brand isn’t easy.

Consider four ways to open the conversation: 

Give them instant access and status. Collaboration, shared responsibility and consensus constitute their worldview. Millennials want to be taken seriously and have both a voice and vote. They expect to weigh-in on the key issues regardless of rank, tenure, status or skill set. They don’t want to be bossed around and expect to be included in every relevant decision. They reject hierarchy. Seniority and tenure are dirty words. They don’t want to be bored or have to work their way up along a well-trodden path. 

Maybe this is a presumption unique to this generation. Though, I doubt it. It feels like the same youthful enthusiasm that newbie’s have always brought to the party. The plea for immediate inclusion, access, status and respect is characteristic of people not yet burned by the system, circumstances or peers. Vaguely socialist, it’s a good but naïve starting point. 

Personalize a user-driven experience. Raised as digital natives and gamers, it’s all about the intuitive experience where there are always several ways to solve the puzzle and where the best idea always wins. They want cool design and easy navigation to deliver end user benefits. And they want to be able to adjust the level, the design, the content, the frequency or intensity according to personal preferences.  They watch TV on a laptop or a tablet as they text their friends, create custom iTunes music mixes and play Xbox games against unseen opponents in China.

These are different expectations from Boomers or other generations. Millennials gather and process information differently. Nothing is linear in their world. They live out loud and freely share information among themselves. They embrace new technology and new devices instantly. Used to multi-media, non-linear data displays and multi-channel multi-tasking, they experience the world differently. They owe no loyalty beyond the next experience and demand constant improvement and re-invention from their favorite brands. 

As a result those seeking to communicate with them have to engage them on their own terms. This requires a different construction and parsing of content as well as a radically different approach toward fundamental concepts like reach, frequency, media channels and engagement. 

Eco-consciousness doesn’t matter. It’s a nice-to-have but not a cornerstone of their worldview. They assign the responsibility for saving the planet to business rather than to individuals. But as they better understand the trade-offs between business efficiency and ecology or humanitarian causes, they are willing to make fiscally friendly decisions. The global economic crisis forced them to recalibrate their expectations and their spending habits. Efficiency and value trump causes.  Evidently, the younger crowd isn’t much different from the rest of us in this regard. They are more than happy to live in the moment and pass on the consequences of their actions to the younger generation. 

It’s about character not celebrity. Raised in a celebrity culture, Millennials reject direct endorsement and the cult of celebrity preferring instead to relate to the characters portrayed rather than actors portraying them. They snicker at faux celebrities like the Kardashians and discover and embrace home-made YouTube stars. Used to selecting images and qualities to represent themselves, they reject the obviously manufactured personalities shoved down their throats by media and marketers. 

Millennials demand the right to anoint their own celebrities and esteem peers or personalities found worthy by crowdsourcing or by other more “democratic” ways. Stars are still stars for the younger crowd with all the volatility, vulnerability and hype that goes with it. Maybe this is where social networks, word-of-mouth communication and peer-to-peer recommendations play the biggest role rather than relying on traditional tastemakers or star-makers. 

The younger generation will inherit our jobs and our economy. Understanding their formative experiences, understanding their needs and perspectives will determine how successful they can be at digging us out of our economic troubles, re-inventing our business models or bringing about the revolution we all clamored for when we were their age. 

 

 

Facebook's New Ad Units

Does it really surprise anyone that Mark Zuckerberg has his own vision of how advertising on Facebook ought to work? Is anyone really troubled by the fact that he is willing to force advertisers to conform to his wishes by changing the rules yet again? 

New ad units and parameters are expected to roll out next week. This continues the evolution of an advertising universe in which Facebook encouraged brands to build apps, buy ads and run promotions to aggregate large audiences. Then Facebook encouraged individuals to sort themselves into sellable segments. Then Facebook created filters using a sophisticated EdgeRank algorithm that essentially eliminated the free reach they enjoyed from spending to collect all those fans. And now, after experimenting with sizes, placements and formats, Facebook offers brands options to buy back the access and the reach they previously enjoyed. If you feel like a rat running through a maze, you’re getting the point. 

The new units, which were leaked online, are touted as bigger, more prominently placed, and likely to prompt more engagement, better recall, more brand affinity and greater purchase intent based on research that nobody has seen. They will be better integrated into fans Newsfeeds and will be sold on CPM basis, like broadcast advertising, and because they are intended to be used for awareness and brand building. 

The units will be inherently social drawing copy and images from posts on brand pages. They will also automatically clue Facebook friends that you engaged with an ad and give users the options to Like, Share or Comment on the ad messages. 

The system is designed to parallel and reinforce the Facebook experience and gestalt, which will materially improve communications for many brands, especially those who took a banner ad approach in their Facebook ads. Ideally the changes will be a trifecta by making Facebook fans, brands and shareholders happy. Let’s see how it shakes out!

 

The Pinterest Success Formula

Pinterest, the virtual pin board, tickler file and scrapbook, has come out of the woodwork two years after launching and captured the attention and the traffic of 10 million unique users and generated approximately 1 million pins almost overnight. The average user is a woman who spends 15 minutes per session on the site. 

According to RJ Metrics, Pinterest engages users two to three times more efficiently than Twitter did at a similar point in its history. Eight weeks after signing up, 40-60 percent of users are still pinning. This is counter to the usual cycle of sign-up, test and abandon that plagues so many sites and niche social media properties. 

In an arena of social media phenomena, it’s the latest skyrocket that sent start-up CEOs and VCs into a state of jealous lust. 

How has Pinterest done it and what is the formula? 

Newness. We’ve been doing Facebook and Twitter and the others for a while.  As we become complacent about social networking or burnt out on cat videos and baby pictures, it’s a shiny new object. 

Familiarity. Pinterest uses technology to do what most women already do – clip, pin and save stuff. They tapped existing scrapbooking behavior and it’s muscle memory with a new twist by adding the ability to share and see other women’s pins. 

 Petula Dvorak called Pinterest “digital crack for women” arguing that “the site’s churning cycle of interest, hope, inspiration, jealousy, desperation, despair and depression keeps them coming back. Add easy functionality. You sign-up and hit the “Pin it” button. It requires no investment of time or learning and accelerates behavior many women were doing anyway. 

Etsy is the most pinned site followed by Google, Tumblr, Flickr and shelter sites like Martha Stewart, Better Homes & Garden, Houzz, Apartment Therapy, Real Simple and others. Pinterest takes flipping through magazines and clipping them out of the bedroom, the nail salon or the waiting room and puts its online and on public display. Over 80 percent of pins are actually re-pins. Women see stuff other women like and virtually endorse it by passing it along or re-pinning it. 

Strong Visuals. Pinterest is about pictures. It is a visual cornucopia reflecting personal tastes, choices and aspirations. Women vie to pin the most interesting and arresting images because what you pin says something clearly and definitively about your taste, aesthetic, class and lifestyle. It’s a fantasy look book and an on-going social competition that everyone can rally to. 

Press. Pinterest has become a media darling. And each story or link brings new traffic and new users to the site. The volume of coverage has created a spike in registration, even though newbies may be less committed or engaged than users who found Pinterest before it was cool. Add the usual woman-to-woman WOM to this press gusher and you have serious inbound momentum. 

 

5 Insights from Inventors

Inventors think about things that don’t yet exist; that aren’t there. They operate on a different frequency. 

They iterate, incubate, massage, manipulate and relentlessly test ideas. They seek to fix things and fill voids. Some ideas are radical, some incremental, some innovative, some ingenious, some inventive, some derivative, and some inexplicable. Some become prototypes though far fewer become viable products. 

Inventors can’t rest and can’t except the status quo. They have to fix it, find it, create it, built it, fabricate it, re-route it, re-wire it and make something new. 

Here’s 5 marketing lessons these guys taught me. 

Experience is Everything. We are sentient creatures. How we feel determines what we want and what we do. Feelings drive us. Marketers have to communicate or stimulate feelings to move the needle. 

Everything is Filtered.  There are no fresh or new experiences. Language, culture, experience, media and context filter everything. Every communications choice – words, color, image, music, tone, face etc – hits pre-set buttons which condition the response. 

Before we start, some part of the target audience has already made up their mind.  Each individual brings a huge bag of pre-judgments to every experience and every message. Knowing nuances and idioms, improves our chance for breaking through. 

People React Predictably. There’s no better barometer of human nature than watching random consumers react to something new. You can almost see the mental gears grinding as people sort, filter, file and compare the new thing against their stored databank of information and experiences. 

Some are surprised. Some instinctively point out the flaws or speculate about the downside while others instantly riff on the new thing suggesting features, changes, colors, applications and functions to make it better. 

By understanding and planning for the spectrum of predictable reactions, marketers can anticipate how we experience the new and to shape both the initial presentations and the follow-up messages. 

We Live in a Tower of Babel. It is very difficult to frame a single idea and communicate it to a wide range of people who come from different places, think differently, use words differently and hear differently. The inherent difficulty of framing and transmitting commercial messages hits you in the face. There are few common understandings about what is funny, cool, sad or ironic. 

It’s All About Differentiation. What’s new, what’s different, what’s better and why should I care are inventors’ and marketers’ challenges. If it isn’t different or different enough it dies. Marketers must exert as much effort and creativity into positioning and framing the difference as inventors must in creating something different.  

 

Building Brand Relationships

I have more relationships that I can handle.  I do a so-so job, managingup, down and sideways at the office.  I do a little better with my gorgeouswife, great kid and lovelorn dog.  I struggle to manage relationships with dog-walkers,doormen, dry cleaners, tech guys, postmen, next door neighbors, visiting cousins, finance guys, college pals and professional peers.  I am maxxed out. 

I really don’t have room for relationships with my fabric softener, myshoes, my dishwasher, my news agent, HBO, The Mets, each of the 65magazines I regularly read, my iPhone, Verizon, my toothpaste or my TV set.  And even if I did, I am not sure I’d do any better relating to them. 

I guess I should be thrilled that hundreds of corporations have decidedto take this burden off my shoulders by investing in Facebook pages, Twitter Feeds, Wikipedia entries, e-mails, text alerts, loyalty cards and CRM programs. I am flattered that   somebody out there is trying to keep up with me, keep track of me and keep selling me. 

The problem is I’m an odd duck.  So are most people.  We don’t really dowhat we say we do.  We can be distracted and rerouted by deals and offers.  Wechange our minds easily and frequently.  We take advice from strangers at cocktail parties.  We can be sidetracked by slick design. And for large categories of goods and services just don’t care.

When all the hype, tech talk, bells and whistles are stripped away, CRM rests on threefundamental direct marketing principles.   

Birds of a Feather flock together.  If you can find the demographic, psychographic lifestyle or workflow patterns that define your most valuable or most frequent customers – you can find them easily and serve them better. 

RFM Rules. If somebody takes an action, it’s easier to get them to doit again.  The sooner; the better.  And if you watch how much they spendyou’ll get a feel for how much they could be worth to you as a customer.It’s all about recency, frequency and monetary value. 

80/20 is Real.  20% of your customers yield 80% of your volume.  Ideallyif you can identify the 20%, you can communicate with them much morecheaply and thereby maintain volume while increasing margin.   

After all this, when a marketer gets it right it’s a beautiful thing.  When they blow it, it’s a colossal waste of money. Allow me to site a few examples from my relationship-rich life.  They are not statistically significant or projectible.  But I have a hunch they reflect the state of the CRM art. 

Norm Thompson: Fifteen years ago I saw an ad in The Wall Street Journalthat read “I make the world’s most comfortable socks.  If you doubt me, sendme your card and I’ll send you a free pair”.  Being younger, poorer andmuch more gullible (I thought there was a real guy named Norm in Oregon).  Idid it.  So did ‘Norm’.   ‘Norm’ sends me a flyer about my socks twice a year.  And like a lab rat I buy 3 pairs twice each year. Do the math.  For the wholesale cost of a pair of socks and thirty 50-cent mailers Norm has built me into an annuity with a present lifetime value of $570 and a future value worth at least $38/year.  It’s an ROI you or I would kill for. 

American Airlines: I am a mile whore.  But American seems to know whenand where I fly even though they’ve never asked me a ton of nosey questions.They post my new points quickly and offer me deals on the routes I fly.They upgrade me much faster than their competitors and generally make mefeel like a big shot.  On most flights I get automatic upgrades oftenpresented with handshakes from smiling gate agents.  I’ve repaid theirlargess with frequent use, several incremental vacation packagepurchases, light mileage redemption and positive word-of-mouth. And I'm not so worried about their bankruptcy filing.  

Amazon.com:  The home of the original predictive filter bedevils me.I purchase an average of 40 printed books each year using that magical, demonic ‘1 click buy’ feature.  I haven’t grasped the Kindle yet. But they aren’t very grateful.  They never write or call.   Even the stodgy old BOMC celebrates my loyalty better. 

Brooks Brothers: I have worn Brooks Brothers Oxford cloth buttoned-downshirts since I was eleven.  I used to buy them with money from my paper route.  Since they’ve gone cyber, I have benefited from some great discounts.  But, I can’t tell if they’ve sorted me into a “value buyer” category or if it’s just a coincidence that I only get discount catalogues and discount emails. Yet, they’ve never zero-ed in on what I buy, referred to my purchase history or offered me a logical cross-sell. 

Hertz:  I’ve been a Gold Card holder for twenty years. I still get a kickseeing my name on those digital boards and by passing the counter filledwith tourists and losers.  Immediately getting in the car and drivingaway makes me feel important and very savvy.  But what’s up with their pointsdeal?  They offer me all kinds of irrelevant coupons.  If they’d look atmy transaction history and my address, they’d know how lame the offers are!  Is it still a relationship, when one side no longer pays attention?   

Ultimately building relationships with customers is about paying attention.  The technology facilitatescollecting and analyzing data about your customers.  But the game is wonor lost in using the data at the right time with the right customers. Ideally CRM is like a friendship.  With each exchange and each interaction theparties learn more about each other.  Each gently adjusts for the nextencounter and generally feels good about the whole thing.  Aim your CRM, eCRM and social CRM programs to achieve this. 

 

The Psychology of Facebook

You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud or an evolutionary biologist to figure out that there is something about Facebook that resonates deeply in our psyches and in our lizard brains.  New research is attempting to identify and document how this works. 

The fact that people accumulate friends and family members and then post and watch countless still images and videos feels very primal and tribal. We are exercising the passive aspect of our flight or fight instincts as we build our social networks.  Recent survey data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests that individuals extend their introvert or extrovert tendencies and play out predictable gender roles in social media. 

Twenty to thirty percent of Facebook users are “power users”. Like those people who call into talk radio shows, these individuals create the most content, post more frequently, like more aggressively and comment on or tag others pictures and posts often. Yet only 5% of the Facebook user base, do all of these things. For the majority Facebook is a more passive experience where they get more than they give. 

The Pew folks found that  … 

• 63% got a friend request but only 40% made one
• The average person hit “Like”14 times/month but was “Liked” by others 20 times
• Users get 12 messages, but send only 9
• Comments outpace status updates 2.5:1
• 35% of users were tagged in photos, but only 12% tagged a friend in their photos
• Women updated their status 3 times more often than men 

There seems to be an emerging engagement dynamic that combines a consensus on courtesy, expected behaviors and the desire to watch, listen and see without too much of an investment of time or emotion. 

The average Facebook user has 245 friends. The average friend of a friend has 359. Each person’s friend list is loosely connected. There’s a mere 12% overlap when friends are matched against friends’ friends. Yet 80% of friend requests were reciprocated and fewer than 5% of Facebook users “unfriend” somebody. We seem link ourselves to the more popular kids in the class and watch them do their thing. Facebook feels a lot like High School. 

Facebook also appears to be a habit leading to addiction for a segment of the user base. Psychologist Wilhelm Hofman of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago wired up 205 people in Wurzburg, Germany and quizzed them 7 times a day for 14 days to see what they were doing and feeling.  He found that Facebook and Twitter are more addictive and harder to resist than alcohol or cigarettes but not as desired as sleep or sex. 

Hofman speculates that the addictiveness is hard to resist because the cost (in time or emotion) is so little. “ Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of the high availability and also because it feels like it doesn’t ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities even though one wants to resist.” Resistance to the allure of Facebook degrades further as the day goes on accounts for strong evening and night usage. 

It’s no surprise that as 50% of US Facebook users visit the site daily, 40% of women,  polled by Lightspeed-Oxygen Media, admit to being Facebook addicts. One in three check Facebook before they brush their teeth or wash their face in the morning. One in four checks Facebook in the middle of the night or falls a sleep PDA in hand. 

Facebook means you never have to be alone. Facebook insures you always have someone to talk to and something to see and react to. Facebook is so personalized that it borders on narcissism. On Facebook you can brag, rant, pose, emote, share, offer TMI and act out in ways that your real friends and family might not tolerate. And while many users voice privacy concerns about Facebook, a kind of cognitive dissonance is at play when people post all kinds of intimate thoughts, feelings and pictures. 

It’s one of the very few experiences that almost always delivers on expectations. A Facebook session always includes something that each individual cares about. It’s much more reliable and friendly than most real friends. Facebook reaffirms connections to clan, tribe, class and community. Facebook might just be the antidote to existential loneliness. 

The implication for brands is clear. Be human. Try to connect with each person individually. Tap the egocentric, the longing, and the sense of community, the feeling of inclusiveness that speaks deeply to us and keeps us coming back.

 

6 Newsfeed Marketing Tactics

The Facebook marketing challenge has evolved from accumulating to engaging fans. The new success objective is to efficiently and effectively beat the Edgerank algorithm to get the maximum number of posts onto fans walls and trigger the multiplier effect that places brand content in the NewsFeeds of your fans’ friends. 

On average only 3-7% of fans see any given status updated posted to a brand page. In general, there’s only a 2 percent chance that a given post will get any kind of viral pass-along. Brand pages with a million fans or more generally see 1.1% of fans clicking or sharing content. 

Effectively using the Facebook platform is the new black. NewsFeed marketing is to Facebook what SEO is to Google. 

Becoming an effective NewsFeed marketer begins by paying close attention to the content, composition and cadence of posts and then tracking the number of likes, comments, shares and original fan posts you provoke. A consensus is emerging around the definition of engagement – the gross number of interactions (comments, likes and shares) divided by the total number of brand fans. This formula is becoming a new KPI for social media success. 

Start by understanding the general patterns among your fan base. Keep in mind that most fans come to the branded Facebook page just once; to like you or to sign-up. After that initial action, all the actions takes place on their Wall where fans grant attention and access to the people or the content they care about. 

Some of the general observations about usage patterns are emerging in research from companies selling Facebook publishing and metrics tools like Vitrue, Buddy Media, Hubspot, PageLever and EdgeRank Checker. They offer fragmentary ideas for testing rather than a comprehensive view or a proven prescription for action. 

Consider these six emerging clues: 

Photographs generate the most engagement, 54% more than text alone and 22% more than video. Photos are favorably weighted in the Edgerank algorithm. They are the high engagement vehicles for Facebook users accessing the network using mobile devices. 

Early Birds Rule. Posts before noon get 65% more likes, comments and re-posts than those after noon. For mobile users after 7p is prime time. Think about where your fans are and what they might be doing that will compete for attention with your posts. The rates of Facebook use at work grew 300% in 2011. Identify peak usage times for your brand to insure that you maximize the potential eyeballs reading each update. 

Best day of the week varies. Friday is the biggest day for re-posts and mobile comments. Saturday draws the most shares. Wednesday is the big engagement day for QSR and CPG brands. 

Shorter is Better. Posts with 240 characters or less with a photo prompt the most engagement. The longer the post; the smaller the engagement rate. Posts with links drive likes and re-posts at much higher rates. Brand pages with more than 1 million fans are seeing CTRs of 0.14 for links. 

Punctuation reduces engagement. Avoid frequent use of question marks and exclamation points. Word choice affects readership and interaction, though the vocabulary for impact varies widely by business category and user demographics. Directive language (e.g. please like this or please re-tweet) works for 20-35% of users and will drive 4X engagement. 

Cadence Counts. The average Facebook post has a shelf life of 3.2 hours. After 180 minutes, the likes, shares and comments die off. Yet more than 2-3 posts per day is overkill for most brands. Increasingly brands are looking at the type of posts and categorizing them to discern optimal sequences that draw the most engagement. Ideally brands will develop content sequences (e.g. link, photo, coupon, survey question) that delight fans and drive maximum interaction. 

Focus on Fans. Look at behavior, sensibility and the intensity of your fan relationships. The average Facebook fan is a fan of just two brand pages, joins 12 groups, hits the Like button 9 times and posts 25 comments, usually during 55 minutes of Facebook face time daily. 

Develop an editorial calendar and individual posts with this in mind. Zero-in on your core fans; those with highest propensity to engage with your brand. Similarly, during the 3.2-hour shelf life of each post, the more you directly respond to fan comments, the more you influence the Edgerank algorithm in your favor. You have to carefully plan your content and then stay engaged and work it as fans consume it.

 

The implications of these six patterns is that compelling, interesting, share-worthy content posted at the right time, with an image, in the right sequence will both delight your fans and effectively game Facebook’s Edgerank formula. There is scant evidence to suggest that fan feedback per post drives additional reach. The burden is on brands to craft competitive content and engaging experiences.

 

What's Your Twitter Strategy?

What is your Twitter strategy?  

Many brands are on Twitter because they believe its required table stakes. You have to be on Twitter because millions of people and all your competitors are. Yet these same brands post the same stuff on Twitter as they do elsewhere and generally complain about how hard it is to define unique content, spawn free viral distribution or measure the business impact or value of all those tweets. 

Twitter seems to be a barometer of the global news cycle, an early warning radar for trends or shifting popular tastes and a companion/commentary/feedback medium for TV, live music, pop culture, sports and theatrical events. But brands can get the benefit of these insights without investing in pages, content, moderation or sponsored tweets. 

Twitter is a news ticker dominated by news organizations and pundits of all stripes. The amount of re-tweeted material is almost equal to the original content. Finding a unique voice, a persuasive posting cadence and enough engaging content to keep up with the constant ticker pace with compelling or unique content sufficient to prompt significant numbers of re-tweets, comments or riffs is a real stretch for many marketers. 

Several of my clients are asking if Twitter is still worth their time and treasure. They are trying to understand what role Twitter plays in their marketing mix and trying to justify continued spending on a labor-intensive media channel with uncertain returns. 

Initially there were many claims about customer service on Twitter. A few brands are doing a notable job. Yet 99 percent of customer service issues are still handled on branded websites and 800 numbers. And while many brands continue to respond to customer concerns on Twitter, its not considered mission critical nor is there data to prove the assumed brand halo that supposedly comes from tweeted customer satisfaction. 

Twitter has been touted as a cost efficient coupon distribution tool. And there is research to show that coupons are both downloaded and redeemed on Twitter at greater rates than on Facebook or branded websites. But how much are brands willing to spent to cater to deal whores who may or may not ever return to their stores and sites or pay full price for anything? 

Twitter can be a fast way to get news about brands, products and marketplace or competitive developments out quickly. But even using the #hashtag convention as a reach extender, reach is function of the number of followers you can amass and brands generally trail celebrities and news organizations in this category by significant margins. So much so that a cottage industry has sprung up among B, C and D list celebrities selling their popularity and followers via tweets on behalf of brands. It’s not clear if Twitter news distribution trumps e-mail, web publishing and ePR techniques for either reach, virility or engagement.

Its beginning to feel like Twitter is a novelty act that doesn’t have either the communications or business impact that brands can get from other social media networks. 

So what’s your Twitter strategy? Where do you stand?

 

Facebook's Latest Gesture

Mark Zuckerberg wants you to live your life out loud on his platform. The expansion of Facebook Gestures will make it possible to share much more of your daily life with your Facebook friends. 

Gestures uses the Open Graph idea, which automatically tells your friends what you are doing in almost real-time. These are those posts in the right-hand Ticker that say, “Sally is listening to Lady Gaga.” Hulu, Spotify and The Washington Post were early adopters of this functionality, which came into existence last fall at the f8 developers’ conference. 

The expansion of this functionality means that users will give permission to access 3^rd party apps and then have their activities broadcast indefinitely. These notices will appear automatically in the Ticker and, based on a secret formula, the more important ones might get into your Newsfeed wall. 

The idea behind all this is to optimize sharing and eliminate the hesitation that the near ubiquitous Like button creates, since its an explicit endorsement or approval of content. Instead by creating these automatic apps, you can share what you’re doing without assigning a value or judgment. This frictionless sharing will extend from what you are reading, watching or listening to into an unlimited number of personal areas. In no time verbs like, cooked, ate, went to, saw, visited, tried on, hiked, fished, hunted, inhaled, extruded, ran, bought, flashed or swallowed will pop up in your Ticker. 

And while many of us are already at the TMI level, Zuck & Company are operating on the assumption that we are endlessly curious about all the details and nuances of our friends lives. This is tied to the assumption that if “birds of a feather flock together,” Facebook can target and sell wholesale access to distinct flocks for advertisers. 

Surprisingly this stream of personal information might just make sense for retail brands and brands who rely on habitual, seasonal or repeat businesses. Imagine a million people daily seeing that their friends  “ate a Dave’s Hot ‘N Juicy Hamburger at Wendy’s” or “bought 6 cups of Chobani pineapple yogurt” or “downed a six pack of Bud Light.” Assuming that we share a psycho-demographic sensibility with most of our friends this kind of advertising, even assuming the impressions have less attention-per-post, might be much more persuasive and even more directive than traditional online or offline ad formats. 

And so the newest Facebook gesture just might be double-jointed.