Herding Cats

Andrew Rohm, Michael Weiss

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781606498385
• eBook ISBN: 9781606498392
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Advertising
• Index: Business

One of the top marketing challenges that marketing managersand executives face today is to better understand social mediaand its promise as a marketing platform. The social media ecosystem, including traditional platforms such as Facebook andTwitter and upstarts such as Instagram and Snapchat, haveevolved significantly over the past 10 years; so much so thatkeeping pace with the latest social media platforms can seemlike herding cats.Inside, the authors provide a timeless perspective on how tocreate, manage, and measure social media content to help youcraft a more strategic approach to your social media efforts.They simplify the concept of branding and advertising (fueledby social media) so you can focus on fostering customer engagement;craft your organization's unique story; tell that storystrategically via social media channels; organize, manage, monitor, and measure those efforts; identify key metrics and measurethe performance through analytics; and understand the extentof change brought on by digital and social media related to howyou engage your customers.

Chapter 1

Who Are You and Why Should We Care?

If you were born and raised in the precommercial Internet era, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, you most likely grew up watching TV shows like the Beverly Hillbillies, Happy Days, or M*A*S*H and reading newspapers that were delivered to your parents’ front porch by the newspaper boy (what a quaint notion—having your morning or afternoon paper delivered by the enterprising kid down the block). If you did watch lots of TV, your programming most likely came from the three major ­networks—CBS, NBC, and ABC. All this made advertisers’ lives, especially media planners’ jobs, pretty swell.

To reach consumers and generate awareness, interest, or desire in your brand, and depending of course on their budget, all they had to do was develop a television commercial, a newspaper or magazine ad, a billboard execution, or advertise in the Yellow Pages. Because we didn’t have TiVo or digital video recorders (DVRs) back then, we had no recourse but to watch (or ignore) ads on TV. Many of us didn’t even have remote controls until the 1980s; so unless we wanted to get up off the couch and physically change the channel, we just sat there and actually tuned into commercials. And, our phones were actually used for making phone calls! Caller ID? We had to answer the phone to find out if we wanted to talk with the person on the other end.

Yet if you were born after the mid-1980s or in the 1990s, you’re reading this section as if you were reading your high school history book. And chances are you are reading it on a mobile device. The point is, the past 30 years (we’ll use 1982 and the launch of MTV as a reference point) have brought about amazing changes and shifts in the sheer volume of commercial media available and the way we consume it. As consumers, we have evolved and now expect a lot from companies and their brands, and in the true sense of instant gratification, we want it now! Moreover, if we don’t find brands’ messages interesting or relevant or funny, we are more able than ever to tune it out. In a recent article illustrating the concept of the social media ecosystem, the paper’s authors argue that “Consumers are no longer content with advertising as a bystander sport…Consumers now expect [and demand] to be active participants in the media process.”¹ The fact that we are no longer content to passively consume whatever content brands broadcast to us means that companies and advertisers must be much more innovative, creative, and accepting of risk than ever before to generate awareness, engagement, and advocacy.

Experts have called this the attention economy, the me generation, or (parents, you’ll love this one) simply the age of the spoiled and entitled consumer. Our behavior and expectations, combined with fast-evolving media technologies, force these brands in turn to work even harder than ever to reach us with advertising content that we’ll take note of and attend to. The result? Companies and consumers alike soon become overwhelmed with the explosion of media platforms and the cacophony of messages out there, vying for our attention.

In this chapter, we argue that to stand out and stand apart amidst this chaotic landscape of media and messages, you first must look inward and understand who you are as a brand, a company, or an organization, and why you do what you do. By doing so, you develop and present a clarity and uniqueness that will enable you to not only convey your unique point of difference (POD) to your consumers, but will additionally make the task of navigating what we call POEM—Paid media such as television, print, and banner ads; Owned media such as your firm’s website and Facebook presence; Earned media such as shares, comments, posts, repins, and retweets; and the M stands for media—easier.

We’ll tap into several useful frameworks and perspectives for better understanding your brand’s or organization’s unique POD as well as for better understanding your customers and your relationship with them. These frameworks and perspectives include the Golden Circle, demographic versus psychographic customer profiles, the functional as well as the emotional characteristics of your product or service offering, customer pain points, and customer need states and motivations. Let’s start with the why, as in “why do we exist as a brand, a company, or organization?”

The Why

Simon Sinek, in his widely viewed Ted Talk featuring the “Golden Circle” concept,² poses a simple yet important question to managers and executives: What is the why that lies behind those successful companies or organizations that lead their industries? In other words, in an existential sense, the question is analogous to “why is your company in business and why should anyone care?” Sinek’s Golden Circle is made up of an outer circle (what you do), a concentric middle circle (how you do it), and an inner, bull’s-eye circle (why you do it).

He begins his talk with the example of a well-known brand—the what, how, and why of Apple. Apple’s what is that it designs and markets desktop computers, laptops, phones, and other devices. The how involves Apple’s sourcing and marketing prowess and its manufacturing partners. The why—well, that’s where Sinek argues that Apple really gets it in terms of identifying its raison d’etre and why its products stand out vis-á-vis its competition. Sinek argues that if Apple was like other brands, it would pompously state that “we make great computers…want to buy one?” and be done with it. And this is how most marketing and social media is done. In contrast, Sinek goes on to say that Apple’s why is that everything the company does challenges the status quo; that at Apple innovation comes first, and secondarily, it just happens to make great computers and devices. Another great example of the Golden Circle is how Starbucks views its brand. Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, once remarked that one of his employees proposed Starbucks’ why as this: That Starbucks is not in the coffee business serving people, yet rather is in the people business serving coffee.³ This fits well to Starbucks’ positioning as “the third place,” that place where people go and hang out outside of the home and the office, similar to the quintessential Irish pub.

What does Sinek’s Golden Circle have to do with social media marketing and brand building? Everything. This chapter presents an important platform for thinking about, developing, and managing your organization’s social media strategy, one that is centered on the why concept and truly thinking about why your company or organization exists (its brand DNA), and further why you get out of bed in the morning to help lead that organization. Once you are able to move beyond the what of what you do on a daily basis (whether it’s to design and sell laptops and mobile devices or rid homes of termites) and the how of how you do it, you can begin to craft your why, your own unique story, and this enables you to begin thinking about how that story might be told, retold, and shared via social media.

Action Step #1

Think about some of your most admired or favorite brands in addition to Apple, whether it’s Nike, Virgin America, method, TOMS Shoes, Betabrand, or others. What is their respective why? Then, think about your company—what does it represent, what does it stand for, and what is its brand DNA? If you don’t know why you do what you do, and particularly if your social media presence isn’t able to communicate this, then how will your customers know? This type of exercise makes for a great company-wide brainstorming ­session—after all, how often do you and your colleagues truly take the time to reflect on what your company stands for and why you’re in business?

So, Who Are You?

No really, who are you? According to the terrific book on generating consumer insights titled Hitting the Sweet Spot,⁴ if you were to answer this question in marketing speak, you might say: I am a 25 to 34 year urban male in a DINK (dual income no kids) relationship with a HHI of $75,000+ and a moderate-to-high disposable income. I drive a premium-class SUV, dine out two to four times per week, and play video games five or more times per week. And, I am a low-to-moderate consumer within the fast-food category. Yet, to what extent does this description, one that attempts to define us in preset categories and demographics, really define who you are as a unique individual?

In response to the question “tell me about yourself” at a cocktail party or a job interview, how would you describe yourself? Would you describe yourself as belonging to certain demographics-defined categories or would you attempt to paint a more intimate or engaging personal portrait? After all, our parents did in fact tell us at a young age that we were truly one of a kind. If you were to answer the same question in a way that really communicates who you are and what gets you out of bed in the morning, you might have answered it a bit differently: I love waking up early to walk my black Lab, I sometimes eat too many French fries in one sitting, I can’t sit still in meetings, and I can’t wait to go bike riding in Provence next summer. Oh, and I lose my keys…all the time.

Whereas the first approach in defining your consumer—who, in fact, is indeed a unique individual—based on demographics is factual and accurate, if you were to truly differentiate yourself as the unique individual that you are, the second approach based on psychographics is much more descriptive to anyone wanting to get to know you on a personal level. Now, work to apply this same mindset to your company’s or brand’s customers and your social media presence, the space where your brand conveys the functional and emotional promise that your product or service delivers.

For instance, imagine you’re the founder of a small business—we’ll call it Catch-A-Treat—producing and selling gluten-free, surfboard-shaped dog bones. To position your company as a small- to medium-sized business competing within the premium, organic dog treat category would be accurate. And, that positioning places you in a multibillion dollar (and growing) industry. Yet is that really enough to set your company or brand apart from your (most likely thousands of) competitors? Taking this example even further, you could even define the essence of your Catch-A-Treat brand as one that symbolizes healthy, fun, surf-inspired snacks for dogs and their owners who believe that their beloved pooch deserves more than just the standard dog bone. After all, marketing scholars have described brands and their products (such as dog bones) as “nothing more than an artifact around which customers have experiences.”⁵ If you’re a dog owner, you might well be able to relate. If you’re not, talk to some friends who are dog owners about their attachment to their furry friends—you’ll perhaps be surprised at the seemingly irrational connection they’ve forged with their dog (or cat).

Taking this example one step further yet, imagine how this emotionally charged positioning (for instance, the Catch-A-Treat story) could be effectively and efficiently communicated via social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, Snapchat, and others, where the medium itself is by nature more intimate and social than traditional communication platforms ever could be. By thinking closely and deeply about who you are and what your organization or brand represents, you are one step closer to defining your why.

Why Should We Care?

Why is it so important to define and stress over your company’s or organization’s why? Remember, we interact and become engaged with companies and their products and services because they have something to offer. That new toothpaste you bought promises t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Abstract
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Who Are You and Why Should We Care?
• Chapter 2 Customer Engagement
• Chapter 3 It’s Story Time!
• Chapter 4 Creating Your Content
• Chapter 5 If Content Is King, Then Distribution Is Queen: How to Manage Your Story Across Social Media
• Chapter 6 Social Media Analytics: CSI Meets Advertising
• Chapter 7 Social Media Marketing Best Practices
• Chapter 8 The New Front Line
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Ad Page
• Back Cover