Social Episodes

In the last year, the popularity of foursquare, and location-based services in general, has grown significantly.  Last weekend foursquare hit another milestone by passing the three million-user mark.  This is less than two months after they topped two million users. With the growing popularity among users, brands have been trying to figure how they can leverage foursquare as part of their marketing mix.  Several brands have run programs on foursquare featuring branded custom badges, unique check-in tips, and custom landing pages featuring lists of to-do items. While user adoption of foursquare is growing at a staggering pace, many brands are taking a “wait and see” approach before adding foursquare to the marketing mix.

Yesterday, Awareness launched the foursquare Social Marketing Toolkit, which is collection of five pieces designed to help enterprise marketers understand how to leverage foursquare as part of the marketing mix. It’s designed to help sophisticated and novice location-based marketers alike and contains some great sources of information. You can download the foursquare social marketing toolkit here.

For me personally the most informative piece is “foursquare for the Enterprise”, a 45-minute webinar featuring Jason Keath.  Jason weaves actionable advice with real case studies giving marketers an overview of how they can begin to use foursquare in their marketing efforts immediately.  Below is a list of the other pieces included in the toolkit.

1. “Top 10 Ways Enterprise Marketers Can Leverage foursquare” – graphic eBook
   All the salient points of a 45-page eBook boiled down into an easy-to-consume PowerPoint-like document. Included in the eBook are not only the Top 10 Ways Enterprise Marketers Can Leverage foursquare, but also the top 4 challenges of marketing with foursquare.
2. “The State of foursquare” eBook
   foursquare is a social network focused on connecting users and allowing them to broadcast their locations using mobile devices including the iPhone, Blackberry phones, and Android phones. In this eBook we will discuss foursquare and how brands can leverage the network as part of their marketing mix. The report features data gathered over the course of the last two months and observational analysis of key brands running marketing programs through the channel.
3. “foursquare for the Enterprise, A Brave New World” webinar with Jason Keath
   foursquare and several other location-based services (LBS) are the new pretty girl at the party. This webinar breaks down how your business can leverage foursquare and other LBS platforms, reveals emerging foursquare marketing best practices, and how these LBS technologies can improve your other marketing efforts.
4. “Chapter 21: The Social Marketing Compass, Creating a Social Media Plan” — complimentary download of an entire chapter from Brian Solis’ Engage!
   Brian Solis, author of Engage!, defines the Social Marketing Compass as pointing, “…a brand in a physical and experiential direction to genuinely and effectively connect with customers, peers, and influencers, where they interact and seek guidance online.” He goes on to state, “At the center of the compass is the brand; essentially, everything you do will revolve around it.” He details how the players, platform, channels and emotions all tie together with an enterprise brand to provide you, the Enterprise Marketer, with a Social Marketing Compass to lead you through the new web to help build, cultivate and measure success for your business.
5. “Chapter 1: Word of Mouth Goes World of Mouth” — complimentary download of an entire chapter from Erik Qualman’s Socialnomics
   Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics, describes the current social media movement as a time when, “It’s important to free your content from being trapped in a “walled garden” because people have quickly grown accustomed to the news finding them, and there is no turning back,” and, “Businesses don’t have a choice on whether or not to DO social media, their choice is how well they DO it.”

A few weeks back our CTO Dave Carter released two eBooks on the State of Foursquare and the Top 10 Ways Enterprise Marketers can Leverage Foursquare.  If you haven’t had a chance to view them yet, check them out, they are both great reads.  During that same time Awareness released Foursquare Perspectives, a free tool that allows marketers to research announced new functionality that provide brands with valuable and useful insights about how Foursquare users are interacting with their physical locations. In addition, we announced that the Awareness Social Marketing Hub supports publishing tips to multiple Foursquare channels.  The message is we believe Foursquare is an underutilized tool in the enterprise and when used correctly it can be a powerful part of an enterprise social media strategy.

I have also been asked to put together a presentation that talks to the challenges and benefits of Foursquare which is below.  The presentation kind of took on a life of it’s own and has grown into an extended graphical version of Dave’s eBook. It uses some of the information included in Dave’s eBooks but goes deeper into case studies and tools utilizing other resources and references.

I’d love to hear from you with any feedback you have on the presentation.  Hope you enjoy it.

I’m just going to come right out and state the obvious: I love vacations.  I know, that’s a bit of a shocker, right?  Seriously, one of my passions in life is travel and like most people, I enjoy planning trips.

The planning process itself is fun for me because it builds up my expectations for the trip and gets me excited about where I am going. I’m in the process of planning a summer vacation with my wife and it got me thinking that it wasn’t long ago that the type of planning we do today just wasn’t possible.  We were at the mercy of a travel agent to plan a dream vacation or next business trip. The web has completely revolutionized the way we research, plan and book travel. With the influx of travel sites available, finding and choosing what fits our needs and budget is only a click away.

Social media has taken travel planning to the next level by providing recommendations on destinations as well as feedback on hotels, airlines, rental cars, price, etc from trusted advisors, travel experts and friends in a way that was not previously possible.

This new power in the hands of the consumer gives us the ability to seek exactly what we want and literally “name your own price” for hotel, airfare, and car rental.  This has left the travel & leisure industry struggling to keep pace. When you consider that most travel decisions are based primarily on reading peer reviews it comes as no surprise that travel & leisure organizations are looking for new ways to engage and promote discussions from their most loyal and enthusiastic customers across the social web.

From the point of view of the brands involved, keeping customers engaged and happy is paramount if they’re going to increase sales and market share. This is exactly why brands such as Fairmont, Marriott, AirMiles, American Airlines and JetBlue are leading the charge.  Each have active followings on multiple social channels (primarily Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr as well as their own branded communities) and are highly engaged with their market. These communities provide a forum for the brands to build new online relationships, engage customers, provide unique personalized promotions, provide customer service and increase sales while reducing costs across the board.

According to a Google study, 33 percent of travel website readers changed their travel plans based on a negative or not so favorable online peer reviews. This is exactly the reason why major hotels  and airlines have shifted their marketing strategy to one that keeps loyal customers engaged online.

A March 2009 study by Knowledge Networks,  found that between 10% and 24% of US social media users turned to social networks when making purchase decisions about various categories of products and services. (eMarketer, October 2009) Also, it was found that online social network users were three times more likely to trust their peers’ opinions over advertising when making purchase decisions. (“Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape,” JupiterResearch, March 2007)

Further, if a hotel or airline has a good base of members registered following them on the social web, it will maintain and increase sales. In fact, studies show the rate of staying at a hotel or flying on an airline instead of at a rival establishment is 50 percent higher for active members (elliott.org, 2004).

Ultimately, having an active community across the social web and a valuable destination drives an enhanced experience for loyal customers at a lower cost for the organization.  The challenge faced by many organizations is how to manage multiple social channels, ensure security and control and ensure a positive customer experience.

When a travel and leisure brand decides to engage with its consumers online it needs to be sure to offer a platform that will assist its members as best it can. This, on top of offering superior experiences, facilitating true conversations with members, and offering an easy-to-navigate framework of resources for its members.

Bottom line is loyalty and interactions go both ways. As long as travel and leisure brands recognize that community members are valuable marketing resources, strategic decisions as to continued engagement can be made.

Finally, when you empower your customer base to communicate their desires, likes and dislikes openly, you are allowing them the power to connect with your business and others. This power is valuable to them and gives you a key competitive differentiator in your industry – one that allows you to compete more effectively and drive loyalty, and increased sales.

Photo Credit: mon of the loin (via flickr) Used under a creative commons license

How do you Maximize Engagement across the social web?  That was the question I was asked during an interactive panel discussion at SXSW.  Joining me on the panel was a team of marketing and engagement experts including, David Meerman Scott, Eric Qualman, David Carter, Chris Heuer, Paul Gillin, Brian Solis and Peter Fasano.  We met at the Social Media Clubhouse to discuss this topic in detail and chat about how brands using the Social Media tools to engage with their customers.

The complete video footage is below.  Hope you enjoy the discussion!

In 2009 Awareness hosted 19 webinars featuring a wide range of marketing topics presented by a host of social media thought leaders.  These sessions grew in popularity over the course of the year, attracting thousands of viewers and featuring entertaining and thought provoking conversations.  There was a ton of value in every session and here is my list of the Top 5 Sessions of 2009 (along with some honorable mentions):

1. “End the Hype!!” A Live Panel from IMS with Jason Falls, Paul Gillin, C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, and Brian Solis
   

   Photo by Derek Wilmot

   What could top a rock-star panel streamed live from the floor of the Inbound Marketing Summit at Gillette Stadium? This session was particularly exciting for me for a couple of reasons.  First, it was live streamed, which adds a completely new dimension (as well as a new level of stress) to a traditional webinar.  Not only does it mean people tuning in are watching you instead of a set of PowerPoint slides, but it also means there are a ton of technological hurdles you need to consider.  Luckily, Matthew Mamet and the video gurus at Visible Gains stepped up and handled the technology component.  Second, it featured an all-star panel of individuals that I have a lot of respect for in the social media space: Jason Falls, Paul Gillin, C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, and Brian Solis.  As the host, it put a ton of pressure on me to ask good questions, facilitate good conversations and to make sure I give each presenter enough air time.  In the end, we had a great conversation, shared some interesting case studies and had a deep discussion on metrics and social media ROI.

   A link to the live session is here

2. Scott Monty, Ford’s Social Media Strategy, From Zero to 60
   I learned more from Scott Monty in 45 minutes than some people I talk to for hours.  It’s rare for a company the size of Ford to provide such a detailed look inside their social media strategy.  Paraphrasing Woody Allen, where he said ”90% of life is just showing up,” Scott Monty, Head of Social Media at Ford Motor Company shared with us how Ford subscribes to the Woody Allen philosophy of social media which is “90% of social media is just showing up.” Its about being where people expect you to be.  Showing up is easy, its the other part that is hard and is often where the majority of corporations fail. Well Ford is certainly doing more than just showing up. With Scott to guide them, the corporation that has experienced its share of challenges,  is now seeing significant success in their social media efforts through their many campaigns. Proof of this success could possibly be attributed to the company’s recently posted profits of nearly $1 billion in its third quarter.Here is a link to the slides and recording (written by Christine Major)
3. Larry Weber, “Marketing on the Social Web”
   I have probably seen Larry Weber speak 5 or 6 times and I have read all his books (”The Provocateur”, “Marketing to the Social Web‘ and most recently, “Sticks & Stones“).  I continue to be amazed at how much I learn from him and I continue to be a fan of how he thinks.  This session set a couple of records for Awareness sessions.  First is was the session with the highest pre-registration – over 3000 people signed up to tune in.  Second, it’s our most downloaded set of slides on slideshare (currently has 11,500 views, 118 favorites and 42 embeds).  Finally, this was one of our most active conversations on Twitter.  We received hundreds of comments and questions throughout the session leaving me scrambling to keep up.  I said this on the call and I’ll say it again, if you haven’t read “Marketing to the Social Web” pick it up, its a great read from a guy with a ton of insight on the space.

   View the slides from Larry’s Session here

4. Mitch Joel, “Six Pixels of Separation”
   I had the chance to read Mitch’s book, “Six Pixels of Separation“, the weekend prior to the webinar and had tons of my own questions I wanted to ask.  My only disappointment was that because we received so many questions from listeners on Twitter I never had the chance to get to any of my questions.  Mitch spent time discussing how the world of new media and how to market with a brand-new perspective that is driven by compelling results. The smarter entrepreneurs and top executives are leveraging digital channels to get their voice “out there”-connecting with others, becoming better community citizens, and, ultimately, making strategic business moves that are increasing revenue, Awareness, and overall success in the marketplace-without the support of traditional mass media.

   Click here to view the recording of the session

5. (Tie) Jason Falls, “My Agency Doesn’t Get Social Media… Who Does?” & C.C. Chapman, “Passion is Contagious”
   Both of these sessions we great because, first, the content rocked.  They weren’t the typical sessions talking about dialog, transparency, and general social media B.S. , they both talked about actually things you can use in your business and gave great advice.  Second, neither session needed a deck, etc.  We could have had a discussion for 45 minutes without relying on decks.  Both C.C. and Jason are expert presenters who have great experiences and backgrounds, but more important is they are great guys who are very easy to talk with.Jason led a discussion called “My Agency Doesn’t Get Social Media… who does???“  and focused on the successes and failures of social media within marketing agencies. He talked about the right questions to ask agencies as you engage them to define and manage your social media strategy and, most importantly, what to look for as you select an agency.

   I have known C.C. Chapman for a couple of years.   We first met when we were both speakers at the New Marketing Summit (now the Inbound Marketing Summit).  Actually, I think our first “in person” meeting was just before I  interviewed him for New Marketing T.V. What’s really interesting is that while we both graduated from Bentley University (granted it was at different times – C.C. is WAY older than me ) and shared several friends (shout out to @bostonsarah), we first connected through social media. It’s true, social media actually works!  The  first time we actually “spoke” was months before we met in person when we began chatting on Twitter and Facebook.  Since our first meeting at NMS I have seen him speak 5 or 6 times and I always learn something new from him.  This session was no exception.

   (Photo Credit: Jason Falls)

Honorable Mentions:

1. Chris Brogan, “Trust Agents“
   This will go down as the webinar that almost wasn’t.   Our original session was going to be a traditional webinar delivered by Chris focusing on his new book, “Trust Agents“.  Unfortunately, there were some technical issues and we were forced to cancel the session (want the detailed story, click here).  The good news is we were able to coordinate a live session with Chris few weeks later.   The session streamed live from the Visible Gains offices in Waltham.  It’s always great chatting with Chris and this session was no exception. He has some great case studies and really interesting insights on how to use social media as part of your marketing mix and how to grow vibrant communities.  Check out the session here.
2. Brian Solis, Socializing your Corporate Brand
   Brian’s session focused on “Socializing your Corporate Brand”. I had not had the chance to meet Brian prior to the session but had read his book “Putting the Public back in Public Relations” and have seen him speak on a couple of occasions. What I like most about this discussion was his use of actual, real-life, tactical examples that marketers can use today to start communicating in the social web. The session didn’t focus on theory and spent time addressing the tactical questions of the audience which made for an excellent session.  Check out the session here.
3. Adam Broitman, Innovative Marketing
   Adam Broitman is founder and ringleader at Circ.us. I met Adam for the first time at New Marketing Summit (now the Inbound Marketing Summit) when we sat down for an interview on the state of new marketing (click here to view it). Adam has great insight into the agency world (spending some time at Digitas, Morpheus and Crayon) and has a very unique (some may say “innovative”) way of thinking about marketing and social media. He’s also a lot of fun to chat with and, as you we see in the recording, he’s both an entertaining and thought provoking speaker.
4. Rachel Happe, “The Community Maturity Model”
   Rachel Happe and Jim Storer of The Community Roundtable along with Adam Zawel, XPC Community Facilitator at Palladium Group presented “The Community Maturity Model.”  During the webinar, Rachel brought us through the different phases of The Community Maturity Model while Adam shared his first-hand experiences building and managing Palladium Group’s community.  According to Rachel, community is about the relationships between the people in your community and not just a content-rich website (the “audience” Brogan referred to). It is these relationships that drive engagement, passion and long term relationships. Reminds me of Ford Motor Company and their success in using social media to drive that passion for its vehicles.

We have some great speakers already lined up for 2010!  Check out the latest and greatest schedule at our website.  Got ideas for a speaker or topic?  DM me @bostonmike or email me mike.lewis(at)awarenessnetworks.com

Here is a segment of my session at Web 2.0 – The Elephant in the Room: Social Media ROI.  While the session was on Social Media ROI this segment focused on the 7 Misconceptions of Social Media (Truth be told, this could have been be a session in itself).  I had a blast delivering it and heckling some of local Yankees fans.  All I can tell you is when a group of Yankees fans can appreciate a Sox fan has to say about social media you know all is right with the world.  I hope you enjoy it as well.

The top 7 list mentioned in my presentation are:

1. Build it and they will come
2. Use social media to BROADCAST, not listen
3. What if it all goes wrong?
4. It’s FREE!!!!!
5. We only use the FREE social web
6. We are tracking the wrong stuff
7. We have no plan or objective

What do you think… Are there any misconceptions I missed?

Are you part of the Revolution?

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you have already seen this video.  At over 1M views on YouTube in the last 3 months, it’s one of YouTube’s more popular videos.  In case you haven’t seen it yet, check out the video below:

I have seen the video a bunch of times and the stats continue to impress, particularly:

1. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
2. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
3. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
4. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

These stats tell the story – for brands social media isn’t a fad, it’s the way consumers communicate.  To keep up, organizatons need to join the conversation and participate.  Do you agree?

Who knew that talking to a crowd of Yankees fans could be so much fun?  Last week I led a discussion at Web 2.0 in New York titled “The Elephant in the Room: Social Media ROI”.  After catching some flak from the locals on being a die hard Red Sox fan we got down to business and discussed ROI.  During the talk I walked through a case for ROI and presented some case studies from companies I have worked with in the past.  The conversation sparked some interesting questions, some debates and a lot of interesting dialog.  I’m hoping to have a recording up in a few days (stay tuned)… The slides from the presentation are below, hope you enjoy!

Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation

Is it important to be connected? Mitch Joel, Author of Six Pixels of Separation and President of TwistImage believes we no longer live in a world of six degrees of separation. In fact, we’re now down to only six pixels of separation, which changes everything we know about doing business.

Last week we had the chance to sit down for a session with Mitch who discussed how the world of new media and how to market with a brand-new perspective that is driven by compelling results. The smarter entrepreneurs and top executives are leveraging digital channels to get their voice “out there”-connecting with others, becoming better community citizens, and, ultimately, making strategic business moves that are increasing revenue, awareness, and overall success in the marketplace-without the support of traditional mass media.

It’s was great chatting with Mitch and I, personally, learned a ton during this session.  He has great insight and case studies and has a unique way of simplifying social media marketing in a way the makes it easy to understand the benefits as well as how to get started.  We talked a little bit about the future of social media, how to build vibrant online communities and how marketers can be successful using social media.  The recording is below, I hope you enjoy it.

The conversation on Twitter was also terrific.  Here are my top 10 observations from some of the people joining the conversation on Twitter:

1. @JayFleischman: 48% of leisure time is spent online
2. @elysa every single day 20% of ALL searches on Google are searches that have NEVER been done before #awarenessinc
3. @MVMNT_Mike: If you want to enter social media, do something now! Don’t worry about mistakes, learn along the way #awarenessinc
4. @REMdreamtime: strategy component is sorely missing from digital agencies via @mitchjoel #awarenessinc
5. @NunesThompson: Always ask WHY! Say why you’re on #SM, not the fact that you’re on it. #awarenessinc
6. @AprilMPhillips: “It’s more about your attitude and not about your age.” // @mitchjoel on social media // So true! #awarenessinc
7. @elysa: 6 things you can do RIGHT now: 1)acceptance 2)digital augments not instead of traditional marketing #awarenessinc (cont) 3)every opt is chance to build/share/grow 4)open up and share more 5)it’s about your attitude not your age #awarenessinc
8. @garyasanchez: brands need to create online strategy: why are they on twitter rather than just being on twitter – build community! #awarenessinc
9. @RonArden: #awarenessinc The shiny new objects are just a bunch of tools. You need to decide what to do with these tools to make them useful.
10. @tamadear: Why are peer reviews trusted more? Because we think our peers’ motivation is closer to our own. #awarenessinc

Last Thursday I hosted a panel live from the Inbound Marketing Summit titled: “End the Social Media Hype“.  It was particularly exciting for me for a couple of reasons.  First, it featured an all-star panel of individuals that I have a lot of respect for in the social media space: Jason Falls, Paul Gillin, C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, and Brian Solis.  Second, it was the only panel to be streamed live from IMS – thanks to our friends at Visible Gains (formerly PermissionTV).  We had a great conversation, shared some interesting case studies and had a deep discussion on metrics and social media ROI.

I want to thank all the panelists for their time, honesty and insights during the session, Visible Gains for providing the streaming technology and Justin levy from New Marketing Labs for helping to pull everything together.

Below is the link to the session and I hope you enjoy it.

End the Social Media Hype

Finally, a special thanks to Matthew Mamet and the team at Visible Gains for helping to bring this session together on such short notice! As you view the highlights notice that the video has been edited to focus on the areas that are most interesting to the viewer. This is both cool and beneficial as is makes for an awesome viewer experience. If you are looking for software to support streaming video, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to check them out.