Marketers, your audience has a big head start

I attended the Philadelphia American Marketing Association meeting and award ceremony last night in Center City and met some of the most talented marketers in the area. The Keynote speaker was John Owens of ING Bank who concentrated on the importance of social media and marketing. He stressed that it is not going away and you need to be a part of it. He's absolutely right! ING has a team dedicated to social networking and is brand that "gets it." As marketing consultants, we have the ultimate responsibility of strategizing, managing and measuring our client's campaigns in the most effective and efficient way possible. We also tend to gravitate towards media that we're comfortable with. Time to step out of your comfort zone!

At one point in the presentation Owens kindly asked everyone to stand and cluck like a chicken - which most did (including me, I hate to admit). The point he was trying to make, an extremely valid one and one my father always reinforced (as a Naval Officer), was "never follow." It's the easiest way to run your ship aground! Of course, that's a great life lesson as well but with regards to social media, what works for one brand might not work for yours or your audience. Your efforts must be customized. I know you're saying "yeah, yeah, yeah, Meg…we know that…nothing new here." Here's the kicker, you're not in control anymore! Your audience is. The sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be. They are the driving force now and your efforts must be customized to how they want to receive information.

My best advice is to listen. If you didn't hear that…I said LISTEN! So what the hell does that mean, Meg? It means that your customers/clients/supporters/haters are out there talking about you/your products/your industry/your brand right now. They're praising you. Hating you. Referring you. Comparing you. You need to know what they're saying. So listen! There are many free applications out there to do just that. Try Addictomatic.com where you can plug in keywords and see where conversations are happening relative to that word(s). Or buy a "listening" application that is more robust like Radian6 that can measure sentiment, tell you if most people are mentioning you in blogs or on Facebook or Twitter. As marketers, I don't have to tell you how valuable this knowledge is!

In the end, it all comes down to ROI. With social networking, it's not as easy as tracking a lead from a website to a sale and generating a cost-per-lead/cost-per-sale. With social networking, you have to determine what a "win" is for your company. Is it exposure that your company otherwise could have never afforded? Is it market research - identifying trends in your target markets? Is it driving traffic? Engaging your consumers? The ultimate "win" is a sale - no doubt - but folks, again, you need to be doing this so don't use ROI as an excuse. Pick a win and go with it. You don't have a choice anymore! If you build it, they will not come! You need to go to them and they have quite a head start on you!

Until next time, this is Meg Ferguson from Philadelphia Internet Marketing Resources saying have an efficient and effective day!