Blinded by Channel-Centric Marketing: the Eye of the Beholder

 

channel centric marketing blinds usWhen social media started to become ‘big’, a new species was born : the social media expert, also known as pundit, maven or guru. Many of them had a PR or blogging background and few had a (digital) marketing background.

There is nothing wrong with that. At least, until they started talking about…marketing. This new breed of opinion makers, often blinded by personal branding and influence scores, rapidly started shouting that the end of traditional digital marketing had arrived. Email was dead, blogging would follow and advertising was doomed.

As we all know, history has a tendency to repeat itself. In no time social media got siloed and nicely divided in the organizational structures we have known for ages. The battle for the ownership of social media could start. ROI became Return On Influence and KPIs changed overnight. [Read more...]

Building Your Internal Social Media Expert Team

 

Christopher Barger

Christopher Barger

An important aspect of setting up a social media strategy is building a team to make the program work, regardless of the scope and goals. Social media is not a free lunch, and you need your internal team of social media experts to make it happen. Tips and considerations.

Let’s agree on terminology first. An expert is someone with proven expertise in his line of work. Terms such as guru, maven, rock star, pundit or ninja have nothing to do with business, and if you use them to describe yourself, no serious manager will ever hire you.

This post is based on some workshops I organized with Christopher Barger, who just released his book ‘The Social Media Strategist’. Christopher works for Voce Communications and is a social media expert in the true sense of the word. [Read more...]

The Social Networks Your Organization Needs This Year

 

Facebook social network fans 2012Socialbakers released an infographic a while back, providing an overview of the social networks that are important for organizations in 2012. The infographic is based on data that look at how some major brands and media companies do on the big social networks. It takes into account three different parameters.

In a blog post on Econsultancy, CEO Jan Rezab concludes that Facebook and Twitter are currently best suited for media companies, with a more passive role for Google +.

For brands, especially Facebook is a must, with Google + as a “the next place to be”, despite the fact that it lags far behind the king of social networks. [Read more...]

Treat Bad Customer Reviews as Good Friends

 

Bad and good reviewsWhen a customer is disgruntled, the act of solving his problem in a rational and authentic way – meaning not hiding the truth – is an excellent opportunity to turn him into the most loyal customer you ever had.

Does this mean we should mess up as a strategy? Of course not. You know the popular saying in these ‘connected times’: “an unhappy customer will tell xyz (fill in a number) perfect strangers.”

However, our mania about reputation and fear of comments make us forget the basics and often even take wrong decisions as research about “bad” or “negative” customer reviews shows. [Read more...]

Brian Solis on Digital Darwinism and Customer-Centricity

The End of Business As Usual by Brian SolisAs you probably know, Brian Solis published a new book a while back, called ‘The End of Business as Usual’. Since it’s an ideal time to catch up with my reading before going underground for the end of the year, I asked Brian some questions that are related to the ideas he develops in it. 

A talk about Digital Darwinism, customer-centricity (and how many businesses unfortunately siloed social media), the social business and a new breed of consumers that requires you to be extremely adaptive.

Or, as Brian says: #AdaptorDie. [Read more...]

What Online Influencers Want From You

logo LEWIS PR

Never before businesses and opinion makers have paid more attention to what is known as online influence. Identifying influencers has become an obsession for many marketers who aim to ‘use’ the…influence of online influencers for their marketing goals.

It has also become an obsession for organizations fearing the power of negative comments from a PR and web care perspective. The debates about online influence are numerous. What is it? How do we use it? How do we measure it? Has Klout anything to do with it?

Instead of adding yet another viewpoint and throwing with definitions, let’s take a look at what online influencers themselves think and want. [Read more...]

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