How Marketers use Social Media in 2010

Below an overview of what marketers do with social media in this year. How will it be in 2011?

Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application

The days of using a mouse and keyboard are coming to an end!

Image via Wikipedia

When i first saw a mouse it was at an office equipent exhibition in Amsterdam (many of you weren’t even born then). I remember it well. It was on the Xerox stand and we all stared in awe. Most of us had no idea that we were watching the future and that soon it would be the default part of any personal computer. The video i have included may be just a similar moment in time. Showing us the new concept of interfacing with computers in a three dimensional way. View it and some time you may reminisce like i did above!

Who needs screens anyway!

Image by antjeverena via Flickr

Light Touch by Light Blue Optics.

We might not want screens in the near future. Great for augmented reality. Now what can we do with this technology fellow marketing monkeys? Every day a new challenge, yessss!

Home telepresence

CES: Cisco shows home telepresence.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

You better not wear your PJ’s when you pick up the “phone” next year.

The next step is holograms of the people we talk to. Or can we use our avatar in case we look like sh*t?

Budget redesign

Image via Wikipedia

Social media, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, adwords,……… What is the impact on your business? But another question is, What impact does it have on the allocation of funds within your budget? Just adding people to use the new technologies in your favor is probably not an option. Something has to give. In most organizations the amount that can be invested in marketing communication and in other marketing responsibilities (research, product development) will not be allowed to grow. What will the marketing department have to give up in order to invest in the future? You can’t have it all mister marketing manager!

Again the necessity of spending a lot of attention on accountability of everything marketing is investing money on will be key to deciding on what to keep and what to cut or spend less on. A redistribution of funds, for people and the rest, is necessary.

Try to define for your own organization what is the least successful investment and swap it for new, more innovative ways of creating value and letting people know about it.

Gert-Jan Scheers

Marketing to the top

Image by Just Us 3 via Flickr

A very recent study by Prof. Leeflang and Prof. Frambach showed a big difference in the perceived value of marketing’s influence on the succes of organiszations in Europe and the USA. Marketing in Europe seems to be pushed back to only one P, Promotion aka marketing communication. Product development seems to be back in the hands of R&D, Pricing with the people in sales and distribution…? In the USA and Israel marketing is still perceived as very valuable. Why the big difference between Europe and the USA? They didn’t give an explanation, at least not at the meeting I attended. I must read their book soon (it’s in Dutch).

Biggest reasons for the decline of marketing’s clout in the Euro boardrooms was

Social media cause a fundamental change in Marketing

Yesterday i was in a meeting with representatives of interactive agencies  in The Netherlands. We were discussing the possibility of setting up a taskforce regarding Social Media within the IAB. Part of the discussion was about whether to use the term Social Media or Social Marketing. Some of us argued that it is more important to focus on the radically new way of thinking about marketing communication. Others wanted to talk about the different technologies that enable this paradigm shift.

Then people started to ask what the customers want. Hey, smart move!

Are they ready to embrace the new way of marketing? Engaging customers in a broader sense. Or is that too abstract (especially in the current market conditions). Do they prefer to hear about successful marketing cases with specific social media tools? How to get short term results!

I suppose the industry has to do a bit of both. But even if the industry does nothing, the market will teach the companies a lesson if they don’t innovate in this area of marketing and corporate communication. It’s like a sea where the tide is coming in. Your carefully built castle near the sea will be surrounded and eventually erased as so many sandcastles are at the end of the day. Working with the sea, becoming part of the sea is the only way for survival.

Gert-Jan Scheers

Reputation Management on the Internet. Start NOW!

Image by s_falkow via Flickr

While you are reading this post, your customers are writing about you on the web. Good things, but also bad things. With that they leave an indelible impression on the Internet about your company. When more people add to a bad write-up about your company on some forum or blog, it gets harder to manage. If you keep a close look on what’s being said about your company, you can pick out the bad stuff and give your comments there. Either apologize and come with a solution, explain to the customer regarding his complaint or ask him more and try to make him happy again.

If you wait too long, other people may have added their remarks and your comment may end up on the bottom of the list where nobody looks anymore. Then you are too late! The damage is done and it is recorded for ever! Nothing you can do about it anymore. So don’t wait! Start today following what is said about your company on the web and manage the bad stuff by reacting ASAP!

Gert-Jan Scheers

An example of how to trace the buzz on the web.

Marketing & Communication Department?

Image by JerrySilfwer via Flickr

Last week I visited a major bank. They guided me through their building and suddenly I noticed a sign: “Marketing & Communication” it said.

Those things puzzle me and make me feel sad. Don’t I understand or don’t they understand? How in heavens name can the manager of that department allow to have such a department in the first place. D

oes he or she know what marketing really is? I wonder.

Communication is a major part of marketing. It is one of the 4 P’s since before I was born (which is a long time ago, believe me). Most of my students who take Marketing 101 took it because they thought that’s what marketing is all about! So what does marketing do in that bank? Product management? Pricing? Distribution? Market/marketing intelligence?

Even David Meerman Scott adds to the confusion with the title of his latest book “The new rules of marketing & PR” And PR??? Since when isn’t PR a part of marketing David?

I urge every real marketeer to explain what marketing really is. Marketing as a business concept and marketing as a business activity. Developing value (goods/services), pricing it, selecting the best way for customers to acquire it and communicating with customers and prospects about the value created.

Gert-Jan Scheers