Social Media is an intergral slice of your marketing “pie”

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Matterhorn Social Media

In the old days advertising choices consisted primarily of print, radio and TV. One can argue the value of each but indisputably the cost of TV was highest. There’s an old joke about three media salespeople waiting to leave the lobby of Ogilvy and Mather Advertising in the 1960′s and a receptionist who was confused about which coat to hand to which sales rep. “It’s easy,” a colleague told her “The radio rep has the wool coat, the print rep has the cashmere coat and the TV rep has the fur coat.” And that was invariably true until the 1990′s and the advent of Internet ads.

We’ve come so very, very far. Those brands and businesses that were reluctant to make the jump in to online marketing missed the boat and allowed their competitors to get a leg up. They played catch-up for years and had to commit big money to capture the eyeballs and mind share that their forward-thinking colleagues had jumped on as soon as it was available.

Social Media is a relatively new advertising medium and one that we encourage businesses to embrace right away. It’s not going away, it will only grow bigger and more prevalent and no one wants to play catch-up. Social Media’s unique aspect is that it allows interactive conversation between advertisers and their clients and prospects. It’s not a novelty, PG&E and Ford, for example, have jumped in wholeheartedly. Even notoriously conservative Wall Street investment houses are using it daily. Real Estate firms use it to market to, and educate, their prospects. Technology firms use it to release new products and provide customer service. Restaurants use it to promote their seasonal offerings and specials. Horse Farms use it to sell horses and to attract new, and interact with current, customers. It’s difficult to think of a business that would not benefit from Social Media.

Is Social Media the only tool that an advertiser should use? It can be. Quite effectively. And it can also be a very important slice of a marketing pie that includes other products that have performed well for a firm in the past, such as online banner ads, and yes, even print.

Should you use every #SocialMedia product for your firm?

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Matterhorn Social Media

This is a question that we are often asked, and unless you’re running the marketing for P&G the answer is most likely “no”. Each of our client’s needs are very different: One may need to do general branding and client outreach on Facebook, another wants to interact with his community on Twitter. Some do both and we always encourage building your network on LinkedIn. Visually-oriented firms do well on Pinterest and YouTube and there are still Google+ loyalists out there. You get the gist, which is why we listen carefully to our client’s needs and fill out an extensive questionnaire together before building their social media channels. And sometimes, we add products as we go along!

Why Linked In?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Matterhorn Social Media

LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is a leading social media product that is geared toward business professionals. It’s where you interact with colleagues from both your current firm, if you wish to, and your former places of employment, if you so desire. It’s also where you connect, or “link” with many other professionals that you know — college classmates, members of your volunteer groups, etc. You’ll be amazed: Once you enter even a small bit of information about yourself LinkedIn will recommend more folks and it’s likely that you will know, and want to connect with, some of them.

Business owners need to be in touch with as many people as possible – networking is crucial to the success of every small firm and a professional network is an invaluable tool to stay in touch with contacts and to meet new prospects. Members can join LinkedIn groups that are relevant to their particular industry and network further within those groups, learning and teaching along the way. As your contacts change jobs, or move away, their LinkedIn profile reflects the changes and you’re still connected. It’s a refreshing alternative to the old days, when if a colleague changed jobs you’d likely never find them again.

Here are the keys to LinkedIn:

1. Network: Connect with everyone that you know and regularly peruse the people that LinkedIn suggests to you.

There are two schools of thought, some people connect with anyone at all and some people are finicky. I’m finicky. I need to know, be acquainted with, or have heard of the good reputation of the person with whom I am connecting. It’s my network and it’s valuable. I like to keep it tight. Other LinkedIn users will connect with anyone who asks. To me that’s like having an open house and posting the invitation on Craig’s List. But if you’re comfortable with that (and believe me many folks are) go ahead.

2. Participate: Post articles, thoughts and comments on LinkedIn regularly. Specialize in a single area. That’s not to say that you can’t ever vary from your chosen area of expertise, but, unlike Facebook, it’s a professional place and members are not likely to shout “Go Yankees” as their status update. Share links to articles. Post industry news. Follow companies that you like. Reply to posts that you find interesting. Comment on your connection’s posts. Be involved.

3. Listen: My father used to tell me that if I was quiet I might learn something. This applies to LinkedIn. If you’re following your industry’s leaders and news on LinkedIn you’ll notice recurring themes and stories and you can act on it. For example, not long ago it became obvious in the social media industry, which I follow closely, that social media thought-leaders were not pleased with the Google+ product. As the reasons why continued to be shared daily I decided not to put my social media clients on Google + for now. That may change on the future. We’ll see.

Remember, establishing your LinkedIn account is important and maintaining it is the key. It will work for you if you work on it regularly. Any questions? Please email me at Carin (at) matterhorncompany.com .

Questions? Please email me, I’m happy to answer them.

Words on Social Media ROI

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Matterhorn Social Media

In the old days of print media clients could rarely track the Return On Investment (ROI) of an advertisement, unless it was a direct-response ad. Leading publishers and ad agencies knew this, and often created “branding campaigns” to increase awareness of their product, relying upon the logical formula that the more people who were aware of their product the more the product would sell. And mostly it worked.

Online advertising did not become an industry standard overnight, for several reasons, including the fear of new things (will it last?) the aesthetic differences (initially much less glamorous medium than that page four color in Vanity Fair), and a whole new language of pixels and CPM to learn.

But online ads offered something new: The ability to track who sees your ad and who clicks on your ad for more information. Suddenly, ads were not just lovely pages in a magazine; they could be immediately measured and tweaked at a moment’s notice. Not possible with a magazine. Clients and agencies loved it. They could now track their ROI. This is one of the reasons that print advertising is on the decline, the other being that, compared to print, online advertising is a much less expensive vehicle to deliver a client’s message.

Enter social media. A new frontier. Cost effective , and a platform that transcends both print and online ads as it allows companies to interact immediately and directly with their clients and potential customers. A firm enabled with social media can, for example, chat back and forth with customers on Twitter in real time thus building or maintaining relationships. They can answer questions and push information out immediately on Facebook. They can post videos of product demos or events within minutes of the event’s occurrence. Photos and collections of products can be curated on Pinterest. This is new. This is exciting. This is how business “should” work.

And as businesses plan how to best brand themselves and interact with customers on social media channels , the traditional media school of thought automatically seems to go to ROI. The media world has thought in terms of ROI since the beginning of Advertising. It’s how it was always done. That needs to change.

Just as moving from print advertising to online advertising required a change of thought, a new and different understanding of how media can affect your brand and sales, the move to social media is a paradigm shift. It is a new medium in which to service, communicate and brand to your business customers. To make them a part of your firm’s “community.” A conversation with a customer on Facebook or Twitter, for example, can grow or restore a customer relationship. This is invaluable.

These days every business must interact with their customers to succeed. There obviously rarely a measurable ROI on those interactions, but the positive results should not be discounted. Social Media is not a print or online ad campaign, or an ad in the phonebook, it’s not a one-way non-conversation, it’s an interaction. A relationship-builder.

After initiating their social media presence a firm can certainly look back months later and likely see an increase in their followers and improved customer service interactions. This is if their social media is handled professionally and regularly by either a dedicated, enthusiastic and knowledgeable employee or outsourced to a professional social media firm.

The challenge is this: Businesses must dedicate budget and manpower to build and maintain their social media presence. And, as stated above, it must be done with energy and enthusiasm and regularity. Monitoring and maintaining your firms social media presence is ideally a daily effort. It requires research and plenty of fresh and relevant content. In order to succeed, in this economy and the future, every sized business in corporate America, from a small business to a multi-national, must commit to social media

Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest et.al, is how business will be done in the future. Period. In many cases it is how business is done best now. It’s a wholly different medium – one where directly- measurable numerical ROI is not front-and-center but rather people are. The only guarantee in Social Media is that if your business does not use it you’ll be left behind.

Kodak CMO Jeff Hayzlett, when asked recently about social media adoption, said “What’s your return on ignoring?” Well said, sir.

Poor Social Media management could cost your firm money

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Matterhorn Social Media

I’ve hesitated over writing this post. One reads so often that all news should be positive and upbeat. But this story will serve, hopefully, as a wake up call to firms who are handling their Social Media poorly:

A few days ago I bought a sack of potatoes from Safeway, a very large grocery chain. Upon removing them from the oven and slicing them open I was astounded to find that they were black and rotten on the inside.

I called the store where I made the purchase, several times, and each time was put on “hold” for so long that I hung up. Then I realized that Safeway surely must have a Social Media account, so I tweeted to them. Here is what occurred:

Me: @safeway Photo of the inside of (rotten) organic baked potato we bought at X store yesterday. Ruined our dinner! (photo was attached)

No response from Safeway… So a day later I tweeted them again:

Me: @safeway Are you on the case? Here’s yesterday’s message about bad food (photo and the previous day’s tweet were attached.)

After hours, and I could see that they were busy on their twitter page, they tweeted me asking me to send them an email. So they wanted to take this offline, which I understood. I emailed them and, you guessed it, they didn’t answer.

So, I tweeted them again:

Me: @safeway We sent the requested email – did you see?

By now, as you can imagine, I was very displeased with Safeway. Not only because they sold me rotten food, but because they were not giving me good, or any, customer service and I had been a customer of theirs for over twenty years. They committed the HUGE sin of having Social Media products and not using them correctly. The point of Social Media is to interact with customers. Interaction requires at least two people. Safeway dropped the ball.

They did eventually email me. Did they offer me anything for my troubles? Perhaps a free bottle of water or a free delivery? Me, a customer of twenty years who spends thousands of dollars per year in their store? No. They told me to return the potatoes for a refund.

So there are Social Media lessons learned here. First, consumers should be able to reach out to their Social Media-enabled businesses and get a timely and appropriate response. Second, companies that execute Social Media poorly are at risk of angering or, worse, losing customers.

I’m buying my produce at Whole Foods from now on.