Brandthony

The one thing I’ve noticed in my short time working at Conversation, a fairly new social media agency, is that clients still have a hard time understanding the marketing value of social media initiatives. They fully understand the math: hundreds of millions of people are on social networks like Facebook more than any other Web site, but they still do not understand how to utilize the networks to communicate marketing messages. Sadly, attempting to communicate the network effect such an initiative can have seems so foreign from anything they’ve ever studied and experienced that explaining it sometimes raises even more empty, puzzled looks.

I believe, among other reasons, there are two main problems brands have with social media strategy. There are certainly others, but I want to keep this fairly brief especially since I have work to get to.

1. How does “communicating” in a “two-way conversation” with customers translate to sales and how do I measure that ROI?
2. I recently found data that suggests 55% of Twitter accounts are inactive. Not only do I not understand this platform, but it seems as though I won’t be speaking with any real prospects.

Let’s address each one at a time.

1. Communicating in a two-way conversation with customers is fundamentally not a “direct response” initiative, so why are we expected to measure its effectiveness by those metrics? Communicating on social media platforms is branding with the opportunity for sales, not sales with the opportunity of branding. I would argue that conversations can result in brand loyalty and sales, while marketers could argue that conversations could result in just conversations without sales.

Multi-million dollar TV ad campaigns with the intention of branding that could result in a lift in sales gets green-lighted without much of a problem. Whatever happened to the 80/20 principle, where 80 percent of business comes from 20 percent of your customers? What better way is there to constantly communicate in a friendly, helpful way with that 20 percent than through social media. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Imagine the power your brand can have with the streamlined manufacturing and distribution power of the current corporate marketplace along with the loyalty and customer satisfaction engendered by Mom-and-Pop shops.

2. Now, some may argue that I should discuss Facebook here, but I’ll take on the challenge of explaining Twitter in a mere two paragraphs. First, the basics: Twitter is a platform where a person can “tweet” about anything they find interesting, whether it be “Am I stupid or is quisitive really NOT a word?” or “Wow, check out this cool video: www.video.com.” All of these tweets are archived and searchable, and if another person finds value in what another person is tweeting they can “follow” them and subscribe to their updates so they can keep track of what’s interesting to that other person, who’s often a complete stranger unlike the connections on Facebook.

Now, for the problem of activity. Sure, there are a lot of dead accounts on Twitter and I believe that will always be the case. But check out this information from yesterday’s USA Today by Nicholas Christakis, a physician and Harvard University sociologist who is co-author of a new book, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.

Much of the work by Christakis and Fowler is based on research using the Framingham Heart Study, a key group of 5,124 adults within a larger network of 12,067 people in Framingham, Mass. Each had an average of 10.4 ties to others — totaling 53,228 ties.

Now, assuming that most adults have 10 solid offline connections, let’s assume only one of those 10 is on Twitter (10 percent isn’t a bad estimate). Now, let’s assume the average Twitter user has 49 followers. Now let’s also assume the average Facebook user has 120 friends.

Now for the following example, when I say “reach X% of connections,” I mean the connection has actually read and taken note of the message. If you reach only that one person out of that offline group of 10 with a valuable enough message, and they in turn repeat your message on Twitter and Facebook and it reaches 10 percent of their connections (169 total), then your message has now reached 17 other people.

Now let’s say 20 percent of those people (3 people) distribute the message to their network of a combined 507 connections and again reach a conservative 10 percent of their connections, now the message has reached a total of 67 other people. And so on and so forth.

And we haven’t even taken into account how online messages don’t live in a bubble online, and can be spread offline by people who were reached online. In other words, a valuable promotion can spread by word of mouth easier than ever before, and messages live on all media online and offline.

There are still many areas we haven’t touched on, including the fact that you can see what people are saying about your brand in real-time, and have the opportunity to not make the mistakes of, say, Kryptonite bike locks.

That’s the (truncated) true value of social media for marketers.

Another interesting read: ‘Flocking’ behavior lands on social networking sites (USA Today)

Considering my motto is “Blogging A Branded World,” it seems only fitting that I blog about this disturbing image from Stephen Von Worley of Weather Sealed. It’s a heat map (click for full size) of the United States visualized by the distances of nearest Mickey D’s.

Some people may be blown away while others may find the sparse Western area surprising. Having lived in Colorado, it isn’t. Per capita, McDonalds is just as abundant out West as out East, but people are spread out more in the West. When I lived in Pueblo, CO, two hours south of Denver, there was a lot of open space between cities. The closest city north was Colorado Springs (2,000 feet higher in elevation than the much ballyhooed Mile High City), and it took a drive of 35 to 40 minutes through a vast wasteland to get there. Plus, don’t get me started on the emptiest state I’ve come across: Kansas.

McDonalds is the lifeblood and DNA of America, while, at the same time, a remnant of an era from which we’re now transitioning. That’s not to say McDonald’s isn’t as prosperous and ever-present today as it was 10 years ago, but that I do subscribe to the idea of The Long Tail, which asserts the position that we’re fragmenting into specific interests and creating smaller niche markets that, when combined, equal the former dominance of the mainstream. McDonalds is a relic which reminds us that in some industries, however, that movement hasn’t taken place.

So I have to work on a list of bars for my latest internship and I was shocked when I saw this gorgeous bar at the Hudson Hotel in Central Park West. I’m a huge movie freak and I immediately thought “2001,” and surely enough the description at the right mentions it. This is just a beautiful piece of work that I gotta commend them for, even if I don’t have much to say about it right now.

Click the image to see it in all it’s glory. What do you all think?

UPDATE: Here’s a capture of 2001 for reference.

Hello my fellow tech/markting buddies (and strangers): One of the most popular subjects I’ve noticed is how everyone handles all of the info out there on the web. In such a volatile job market we’ll all working extra hard to either keep or get a job, and as such we’re all undoubtedly trying to raise out aptitude in our respective fields.

Therefore, we’ll all consuming tons of information every day from blogs, Twitter, and – for those who remember their existence – books. How do you guys get your info gathering on without getting overloaded? Here’s how I usually do it?

My Daily Regimen

• One hour catching up on Twitter updates, especially links from those I follow
• Brandthony post if inspired
• One hour going through my RSS feeds (TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, etc)
• Brandthony post if inspired
• Relax
• Repeat

What about you guys? How do you go about it?

As everyone has heard by now, Starbucks is launching new offshoot cafes under the “Inspired by Starbucks” brand in an attempt to grab some of the nightlife market. The new cafes will add alcohol to the menu, and Starbucks hopes customers will sit back and relax after a long day of work to listen to some live music and socialize with nearby cuties. It’s an interesting brainchild of Starbucks’ senior project manager, Major Cohen, but there are many reasons for Starbucks to prepare for disappointment.

With the national unemployment rate at 9.5% (myself included), it would be an obvious understatement to say this is the wrong time for Starbucks to be experimenting with a new chain of cafes. According to a story by the LA Times, 40 percent of bar owners are reporting down sales. And a quick visit to the message boards at Nightlife & Bar Magazine leads to many threads about the recession hurting business for many owners. Example:

“I have a pub in a city that has over 15 colleges in the county. I am slow and most of the other bars and clubs are also. One large club just closed a month ago. Scary.

Even though Starbucks is only experimenting with one location, it’s risky to guage the viability of a new business unit during a time when no industry is experiencing growth. People are cutting corners all over the place, and even if they try the new “Inspired by Starbucks” cafe once, they probably won’t visit continually since they’ll perceive it as a novelty not worthy of their limited disposable income.

Additionally, the nightlife industry is fickle. Customers like to visit new and different places in order to unwind. And while I may be thinking too deeply about it, Starbucks is normally associated with a pre-work ritual for most. While it’s true that a lot of people sit in Starbucks, sip coffee, and chat, it’s the first stop in the morning before heading into the office for the vast majority of their customers.

Is it possible that for the new cafe’s target market (basically, professionals who still have jobs), Starbucks may be more associated with work rather than relaxation? If I use Starbucks to gear up in the morning, I’m not sure if I’m using it to unwind at night.