5 Reasons Your Business Should Not Be Using Social Media.
May 4, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
It’s fashionable to write these – ‘5 tips that will replace years of business experience and distal everything you need to know into less than 500 words’ – type blogs. They are often ‘retweeted’ by people who never read them, but like the headline because it somehow fits with something they think they should be saying.
It seems to be a formula that people consume easily though, so here are my 5 reasons why your business should not be using social media.
1. Because it’s new and cool.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there making social media pitches based purely on fashion. There’s a buzz out there. It’s new and improved. If you don’t have it, you are missing out. Every couple of years, something comes along that changes the way people behave. Just because something is covered by the media, does not mean that real people are using it as part of their everyday lives.
2. Because it’s massive. .
I guarantee you that if you have sat through a social media pitch, that you have been bombarded with figures like ‘If Facebook was a country, it would the 4th largest in the world’. The country with the 4th biggest population is Indonesia, yet my bet is that your business has no presence there. What’s more, you probably don’t have any plans to be in Indonesia any time soon. That’s because pure market size is not the only thing that matters to real businesses.
Last week there was a story about how Pepsico were going to use location service FourSquare for marketing purposes. The article reported that FourSquare has a million users. Let’s put that another way – there are about 308 Million people who don’t use FourSquare in the US alone.
3. Because your customers are interacting with each other on social media.
In 2008 there were an estimated 6.5 billion texts sent every month in the UK, but the vast majority were between individuals. There are very few companies (other than mobile networks) that have successfully used SMS text messaging for business.
Just because your customers and potential customers are talking to each other on social media is no guarantee that they want to interact with your business.
4. Because it’s cheap.
Anyone can set up a YouTube account. It doesn’t cost anything to create a Twitter feed or a Facebook page. Creating a LinkedIn Group takes minutes and you can blog away for free on all many of platforms.
Once it’s been set up, you can get an intern or an expert social media consultant to represent your brand assets the best way they see fit, despite in many cases not having any marketing or business credentials.
You’ve probably spent a lot of time and money to create your brand, why risk devaluing one of your most important business assets by cutting corners.
5. Because your competitors are doing it.
I’ve always had a dislike for consultants who think that their technology based model can be applied across industries and businesses without any need for modification. Look out for a social media pitch that tells you that you need to be on social media because there are others in your industry that are doing it. There are probably competitors of yours that do trade-shows or sponsorship or other outdoor advertising that you might not do. Me-too is never a reason to do anything.
1 Reason Your Business Should be Using Social Media.
There are many reasons why your business may benefit from using social media including; better customer service, increased brand awareness, targeted product positioning and understanding your customer’s requirements, but the number one, and only reason that your business should be using social media is…
Because it will deliver you revenue.
Social Media is just another weapon in your sales and marketing arsenal. It has a cost and it has a return. The only reason you should consider using social media for your business is if it is going to have a positive impact on the bottom line.
Value social media the same way you would value any other sales and marketing spend. What are your objectives? How do you know if you have succeeded?
If you are being told that engaging in the conversation is enough and hopefully over time it may lead to sales, then ask yourself how much of your marketing budget you are willing to invest in that hope.
If on the other hand, you are being told how social media can have an impact on key metrics within your business like; transaction frequency, basket value, margin, customer satisfaction and loyalty, market share, recall rate, cost per lead and return on investment, then evaluate those numbers against your current marketing options and make a business decision.
Pilote CEO to Present Social Media for Business Bootcamp.
September 29, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Pilote Media are proud to annouce their Social Media for Buisness Bootcamp seminar to be held in London on the 14th of October 2009. Presented by Pilote CEO, David Fuller, the 3 hour session is designed to dispell myths about social media and show how platforms like Twitter, Facebook and even ‘old fashioned’ forums and bulletin boards can be powerful business tools.
David, who has worked for global branding giants like Unilever and pioneering social networks says:
It’s a shame that the media focus on the celebrity use of tools like Twitter. There are millions of serious business people in the world who are realising that these platforms are not ‘just for kids’, they are an evolution in the way a brand talks to its customers, suppliers and the wider world.
Pilote have developed the seminar for those in business who are still coming to terms with the variety of tools that are lumped together as social media. In David’s view:
I talk to a lot of people who don’t understand why business hasn’t adopted some of these practises more quickly, but in the main, these people are early adopters. For those who are head down in the day to day running of a business, especially in uncertain times, it is not always easy to get your head around the opportunities and implications of new ideas. One of the problems though, is that social media has been sold as technology and is therefore seen as the domain of the IT crowd. Actually, these tools are for marketing, PR and corporate communications professionals and more and more, those in business development.
David’s Social Media for Business Bootcamp will run on the 14th of October, 2009 in London. For more information visit the event page.
Who is Managing Your Online Brand? Don’t Forget your Fans.
May 12, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
A couple of years ago I took part in a trade mission organised by the Motorsports Industry Association in the UK to visit the land of NASCAR. Standing in the garage area of Lowes Motor Speedway in Charlotte amongst a group of people who were used to the paddocks of F1, I realised that people in the business of sport often take their experiences for granted.
Between the garage area and the track, which was open to the public before the race, was an 8 foot chain-link fence. As our group casually ran our hands along the sponsor decals and listened to Jeff Gordon tell us how he thought the car would perform later, hundreds of fans pressed their faces through the chain-link fence, desperate to get a few inches closer to their heroes.
Our goal then was to convince NASCAR and others that fans treated the smallest piece of inside information from their sporting idols as gifts. We called it ‘pub-currency’ - the kind of thing you would tell your mates about while having a beer. Getting a text message from a driver or a photo that no-one else had via your PC desktop was something that sports-marketers wrote off as insignificant, but for fans, it was like standing in the garage or dressing room.
In 2009, the ability for sports stars to communicate ‘directly’ with fans is easier than ever. While some tools, like twitter, are still relatively niche, they are being used by savvy sports marketing people to give fans something they crave - frequent, direct interaction with heroes.
But that’s not all. Tools like blogs and twitter enable sponsors to develop long term relationships with consumers. The lesson we learned from NASCAR and later from Manchester United was that communication in the off-season was as important, if not more so, than news during an event.
So, I have declared my interests. I am passionate about using new and emerging technologies to enable brands to develop long term relationships with fans through sport. One of the reasons I set up yachtsponsorship.com was to communicate with promoters, teams and sponsors, the best practises from other sports and show they can be used with sailing to deliver real ROI.
The last couple of days, I have been researching how sailing as a sport uses these new technologies. The results vary massively, but in general there is a trick being missed, especially when there is nothing going on. During long distance races like the Vendee Globe, competitors were forced by race organisers and sponsors to blog daily, but now their websites are like time-capsules - as if the clock stopped a couple of days after the boat crossed the line. How can we build heroes in the sport if they go silent for months on end?
Here are some examples from the UK. Ben Ainslie, one of the most recognisable personalities in the sport, last updated his blog on the 13th of February. The last update on his facebook page was August 20, 2008. Alex Thomson, who is said to embrace new technologies last updated his blog on February 9, while his facebook page was updated on 10 December 2008 by an administrator.
Thank goodness for Paul Cayard. Paul is one of the sailors who writes regualarly and candidly - even when he is not neccesrily competing. This weekend, Paul was in Boston for the Volvo Ocean Race stopover. I know this because his blog tells me:
This event is really catching on with the mainstream public. It seems that anyone who gets a close up look at the event becomes hooked. There was a lot of non sailing public roaming through the race village this weekend and they immediately became intrigued. With the Race Village situated right down town, Volvo has really brought the event to the people.
Cayard has the best interests of the sport in mind finishing with:
I was speaking to a British sports marketing executive who was visiting the race for the first time, a guy who ran the marketing for Honda in Formula One previously, and he said that the Volvo is truly a top level sports marketing property. It was impressive to see the new faces, from other areas of sport, gravitating to the event.
I’m not sure if Honda F1 is the best example of sports marketing in recent years, but it’s good to know that finally the message is getting out there - that sailing at its best provides a great platform for sponsors.
Not all sailors have time to sit down and write blogs the length of Paul Cayard’s, but there is little or no excuse not to be able to shoot off 140 characters every so often.
Dee Caffari has joined twitter in the last couple of days, but the star of the Round Britain twitter comms so far is Johanna Payton, a journalist who is accompanying Dee on the journey. Maybe, just maybe it’s because Jo is new to the sport and has no preconceptions about what fans might find interesting. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have to walk a corporate sponsor tightrope.
Perhaps the problem comes down to a question of demarcation. Who’s responsibility is it to develop and maintain a consistent online presence? Is it a PR job or is it up to the competitors themselves to manage their personal brands and get to grips with communicating with their fans? Should the marketing teams of sponsors be involved or are they they ones blocking uptake based on corporate ‘brand-police’ practises?
Several PR agencies that I have spoken to in recent days have told me that they have the tools in-house to provide these services to their clients. One referred me to a brand that they were managing a twitter account for - it has 30 followers! Others have said that they believe it is something that the competitors manage on their own.
The growing online presence of fans hungry for content shows that there is latent demand from fans for more interaction - and it’s not that hard. If you can find time to blog while sailing about in the southern ocean, you can find time to communicate when you are off the water.
Here’s the ad - I have worked with sports properties such as NASCAR, MotoGP and Manchester United as well as individual athletes to develop long term relationships with fans. These relationships are hugely important to deliver additional ROI for sponsors as well as maintaining the health of a sport. If the fans go away or stop watching, then the sponsors will follow. If you want to use some of these new tools to attract or retain sponsors or even just sure up a fan-base get in touch via Pilote Media.
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Dark Blue Book
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Getting Onto The Plane
