Marketing with Social Media Means 4 P Shift

4 P’s of Marketing Make Way for 7 P’s of Social Media

In traditional marketing schools, there are 4 P’s in marketing. These are product, price, place and promotion. In the 20th century these were followed as rules and guidelines for marketing anything and the marketer with an acute understanding of the 4 P’s generally succeeded in achieving his/her marketing goals.

The four P’s may also be translated into solution based approach known by the mnemonic, SIVA, i.e.

Product = Solution
Promotion = Information
Price = Value
Place = Access (Distribution)

Social Media Marketing expert Brian Solis recently posted an article about the 5th and 6th P’s in marketing. He believes these are People and Purpose. I agree that these are very accurate additions in in the twenty tens, however I think the shift is much bigger than simply adding these two.

Positioning may be the seventh P in the traditional (older) marketing world. In social media marketing, however, positioning stands for messaging, which can sometimes be frowned upon. Positioning or messaging in marketing has connotations of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and the stigma of false advertising.

And conversely to Brian at the risk of rattling off several words that being with the letter P, I think the following seven words beginning with P provide a useful picture of the philosophy of social media. I believe we have shifted from the 4 P’s (Product, Promotion, Price, and Place) to the following:

People
Purpose
Passion
Proximity
Participation
Partnerships
Promises

The 4 P Shift in Marketing

We start with People as people are the most important component in any marketing campaign.
In social media marketing, as in life and all marketing, nothing happens without people. Gary Vaynerchuck once said “The people in your life make the world better. People are literally the best thing in the world.” If there are no people to see/hear/respond, there is no promotion.

With the onset of “world of mouth” media, yes that’s not a typo; all people now have a voice and a purpose to share what is most valuable to each of them. Social networks facilitate the human need to connect and share, breaking all previous barriers of place, making the world smaller and giving people courage to participate at their own levels.

The shift from traditional marketing to word-of-mouth marketing is an evolution from a broadcast to the masses sales-like approach to one that is much more focused on community, tribes, followers, fans and connections. Social media marketing is about People first and foremost and people with a purpose.

The next six posts will explore the rest of the new P’s in the context of Social Media Marketing. Please feel free to add your comments below.

Speaking Social Strategy

I am honored to be speaking at two business organizations and teaching several classes on social media marketing strategy for SF State University’s College of Extended Learning’s Social Media Marketing Program over the next month. If you’re looking to learn a little more about social media marketing and how to develop a winning strategy, I hope you’ll consider joining me at one of the following events:

On Tuesday, May 22, I speak at the NorCal BMA, Business Marketing Association’s Marketing Roundtable in Palo Alto. The topic is Strategic Thinking for Social Media Marketing and should start your Tuesday off nicely since it will be jam-packed with juicy worms for those early birds.

The Introduction to Social Media Marketing: The Power of Community class starts on June 4th and usually sells out, so make sure you register soon. The classes are on the evening of Monday June 4th and June 11th and all day on Saturday June 16th. We cover social media marketing basics, what it means to be a community manager, developing your social media strategy and successful and failed implementations of social media marketing.  This class is part of the Social Media Marketing Certificate program and is the kick-off course for students seeking a certificate, but it’s most definitely open to everyone.

On Thursday June 7th I will be presenting at WIC (Women In Consulting).  This is a four-hour workshop on how to Master the Art of  Strategic Social Media Marketing for consultants marketing their own businesses as well as marketing consultants, implementing marketing strategy for their clients. I’m excited to be collaborating with Women In Consulting as the organization has several veteran marketers and consultant members and is a great opportunity for in person social networking.

On Wednesday June 13th, we kick off the Social Media Marketing Intensive: Strategies, Campaigns and Measurement at SF State’s downtown campus in San Francisco. This is a three-day workshop including Day 1: Strategic Social Media Marketing, Day 2: Social Media Campaigns: Best Practices, and Day 3: Social Media Metrics and Performance Measurement. I teach Day 1 and the supremely talented and my co-advisor of the Social Media Marketing program, Avery Horzewski is teaching Day 2. Then we tag-teach the Measurement class on Day 3. It should be a fun and collaborative intensive lens into social media marketing, how to develop your strategy, campaign building best practices and tips for measuring your social media marketing efforts for constant improvement.

I’m very excited to have all of these engagements and looking forward to discussing ways to keep your audiences engaged. Since the topic is social media, it’s sure to be fun for all and well, super social.

Are you planning to attend any of the presentations or classes? If so, do you have anything specific you are hoping to learn? Please let us know by commenting below. Thanks!

Tweet Worthy = Tworthy on Twitter

Twitter Tips

What’s tweet worthy, or tweetable in your world? Since tweeting became mainstream in 2011 and even for many years before that, techies have been inventing new t(w)erms related to Twitter. I tweet (post) to my tweeps (Twitter followers) several times a day and there are several tw words that have been used to brand new Twitter related products.

Twitalyzer, for analyzing your Tweet stream, Tweet This, a bookmarklet for sharing posts on through Twitter, Twitteriffic, a Twitter client, Tweety, another Twitter client, Tweetdeck, a Twitter client/app for pro Tweeters, Twellow, a place to connect with other Twitter users, Twitzip, a zip code based Twitter messaging service, and the list goes on and on.

One of the most valuable things about Twitter for me is the knowledge sharing. People share links to interesting and unique content on Twitter all the time and we have definitely entered our teenage years in the era of content curation on the social net. While surfing around and finding tweetable content, I like to call posts that are tweet worthy, “Tworthy.” Please forgive me for adding to the Tw lexicon, but certain sites, articles, video and Pinterest boards are certainly more tworthy than others.

What’s your most tworthy post? Is your tweet retweetable? And what’s your favorite twitter related t(w)erm? Please tweet about it with the hashtag #tworthy or add a comment below. Tweet on, Tweetsters!

8 Social Media Trends for 2012

Social media continued to gain popularity in 2011 and will grow even more in 2012. If you haven’t caught the social media bug yet, 2012 may be your year! Below are some of the trends we expect to see in the next 12 months.

Happy connecting!

1. Google+ is the new kid on the block

The latest big idea from Google and major social network on the scene, Google will continue expanding Google+ in 2012 and plans to integrate the social network with many of their other properties such as SEO, Reader, AdWords, and YouTube.

Though most social media users still spend the majority of their time on Facebook currently, it’s a good idea to create personal profiles and business pages on Google+ now so that you’ll be one step ahead while interest in Google+ continues to grow. Furthermore good implementation of your Google+ page can produce search engine ranking benefits.

2. Facebook on it’s own timeline

While Google+ is giving Facebook a run for its money, Facebook is projected to reach 1 billion users in 2012 (via dreamgrow.com). We’ve seen major changes with Facebook since Google+ entered the scene, not least of which is Timeline. This new profile format encourages users to “live their lives via Facebook” and use the social network as a virtual scrapbook. Although introduced a year ago, timeline is yet to be implemented on all personal profiles. You still have a choice. However, to remain competitive in 2012, Facebook will be releasing Timeline for brand pages and introducing mobile ads. Additionally, Facebook’s 2011 purchase of Gowalla is expected to result in some 2012 enhancements to Timeline. (This links up with the Geolocation trend as described below.) Mobile meets local meets social meets viral.

3. Twitter keeps on tweeting

While 2011 was the year of the URL shortener, 2012 will be the year of advertising. We are used to seeing sponsored tweets, but expect to see increasingly prominent ads on Twitter this year.

Additionally in 2012, Twitter will continue to be an important part of the world news landscape. In 2011 we saw microblogging play a major role in sharing news about Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, and the 2012 presidential election will make Twitter usage even more mainstream.

4. Aggregators keep getting better: Buffer and Crowdbooster

While technology becomes more advanced across social media, Twitter aggregators are making excellent gains as well. Buffer, an aggregator that schedules your tweets based on when your followers are most likely to see them, is now offering ifttt (if this then that). The ifttt service allows you to specify an action (such as favoriting a tweet) that will then trigger another action (such as retweeting said favorited tweet). There are many combinations that can be used with this technology so it is definitely worth a try! Buffer also allows users to email tweets via your phone or iPad.

Crowdbooster, another scheduling tool, provides a chart with data regarding your most successful tweets. With impressions on one axis and retweets on another, you have the ability to view total reach of your tweets. Pretty cool!

Crowdbooster Chart

5. Pinterest – Yes, pin your interests!

Interest in Pinterest grew immensely in 2011. By allowing you to “pin your interests” with images you find online, Pinterest is blazing the trail for an even more image-centric social media landscape. Additionally, Pinterest is leading the way in the transition from long form curation (such as tweets) to push-button curation. Much more popular with women than men, because of it’s wide usage for planning weddings and looking at fashion, Pinterest is a niche network competing in some ways with the likes of Stumble Upon.

As Pinterest continues to gain steam in 2012, more and more brands will sign on as well. Expect to see more “Pin It” buttons next to the “Like” buttons you see across the web.

6. YouTube – the number 2 search engine

Using video to get the point across (whether you are an individual or a business) will become even more prevalent in 2012. With 4 billion daily views on YouTube, why not put yourself out there? YouTube videos are very sharable on practically every platform and 57% of internet users surveyed by Yahoo say they watch videos daily. People will be online to watch videos even more in 2012, so now is the time to get in the game.

7. Geolocation – “I am here, are you near?”

Social will be even more local in 2012 with services such as Foursquare expanding their offerings and geo-deals such as Scoutmob becoming more and more popular. Users can already add their location to tweets and Facebook posts, so expect to see more and more connection between location and social media in 2012.

8. Infographics

While certainly on the scene in 2010, infographics became even more ubiquitous in 2011. Practically anything can be expressed via infographics these days and soon visual.ly will be providing a service that lets you easily build your own infographics. There are already several such tools available.

Infographics will be used more and more to display data. It’s easier to learn from a colorful picture than three paragraphs of statistics, right?

We’ll be back soon with 2012 trends in search, so stay tuned!

In the meantime what are your thoughts about social media trends for 2012? Please add your comments. Thanks!

How to Leave a Group on LinkedIn

You’ve joined several groups on LinkedIn and you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with all the email you’re getting from LinkedIn Groups, in addition to your already overflowing inbox.

Have you ever wondered how to leave a group?  It’s not totally intuitive right off the bat, so here’s a quick step by step guide:

  1. When logged into LinkedIn, choose Groups and then Your Groups from the options under Groups.
  2. Select the group you wish to remove yourself from
  3. Look for the More… tab at the top of the Groups page
  4. Click on More… and choose My Settings
  5. At the bottom right hand side of this page is a “Leave Group” button
  6. Click on that button to unsubscribe from the group.  Note that this will immediately remove you from the group.  You may of course join back again right away, but remember that you also may need to be accepted by the group administrator again if there is moderation on the group.

Also note that on the My Settings page you may adjust all the settings for how much email you receive from the group and how often you receive a digest

What are your favorite groups?  Would you care to share what you’ve learned and/or experienced by being part of a LinkedIn Group?

The Social Media Marathon

One of the reasons why social media is different from traditional marketing methods is that is something you have to start and participate in for the long term. It’s not like an ad campaign, where you sprint to get the creative, messaging and production complete before placing the ad on television, radio or in a print publication. Instead it is a marathon where you continuously engage with customers and advocates both about your brand and also by adding value to the community.

When you start a blog it’s for the long haul, in other words, it’s a commitment that you have continue to post great content to your readers for the rest of the blog’s life. It may not be something you pay for with money, but you will certainly be paying for it with sweat equity and/or your staff’s time.

Just like in the marathon, you will hit the wall where you feel you have nothing more interesting to say. That’s when you need to push your hardest and go the extra distance and just get another post out. If you’re struggling to find something to say, talk about someone else. The social media industry mantra is to talk about other people twelve times more than you talk about yourself. Why? Because you’re adding value to your community. Sharing what you like about other people shows your fans and followers more about who you are and it also leaves them feeling like you care about them. And that, my friends is the ultimate goal. Care about your community, because it cares about you.

I recently read Gary Vaynerchuck’s Crush It Vook which I purchased through Vook.com. I highly recommend the new Vook platform (and thanks to the amazing Cariwyl of Salon97.org for turning me on to it). The guy (Gary Vaynerchuck) is dynamic to say the least. He puts the P in Passion and is just an inspiration to watch. The best part about him is that he started from nothing and is now a multi-millionaire with several businesses including WineLibrary.com, WineLibrary.tv and VaynerMedia and he is still humble to boot! You go Gary V, you’re my man and I’m a fan. Thanks for keeping it real, sharing your passion, drive and knowledge. And thanks for caring enough to help anyone who is willing, to simply try.

Evidence of the Long Tail

If you haven’t read The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson, read it.  The book is much more entertaining that the Wikipedia definition.

I was just referred to this blog titled “Social Media Will Change Your Business” from one of my favorite Facebook contacts.  She’s not really a friend and I don’t even remember how I am connected to her, but she posts really great quotes on Facebook and I am inspired daily.  Thank you @claudiaguzman who I just today discovered that you are on Twitter.  I’m really going to enjoy following you on Twitter too.

The blog (and introductory video) mentioned above, was last updated in February 2008.  Yes, that’s a long time ago, but the story was first published in 2005 and the post is still receiving comments.  That’s the power of the long tail.  Post something once and it may just live on forever.  If it’s on the web, people can find it, link to it, share it and help it spread.  This is a great example of that and also the power of crowd sourcing.

What’s your favorite Long Tail story?

Social Media’s Power Shift

Here’s a good commentary on Social Media from the CEO of Radian6. Radian6 is a social media market research platform which enables you to listen, measure and engage with your customers across the entire social web. Think comprehensive analytics for social media sites and tools for increasing engagement.

Radian6’s CEO Marcel Lebrun says that Social Media is bigger than TV. Why? Because it’s “the biggest change in business communication since the introduction of mass media.”

While some people are still asking “Is social media is a fad?”, companies like Radian6, Biz360, Trendrr, Infegy, ScoutLabs and many others are figuring out ways to help companies rethink the way they communicate.

What do you think?

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