The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf(CBTL), Business strategy case study
Coa soc med.111710
1. Don’t Throw Out Your
Rolodex!
Building Your Network Through Social Media Marketing
Brian Mack
Director of Marketing & Admissions
Pilgrim Manor Retirement Community &
Pilgrim Home Care Services
2. FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF
YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY
COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF
YEARS.
3. The Paradigm Shift
Social Media has fundamentally & irreversibly
changed the nature of relationships between
producers [providers] & consumers.
4. How Engaged are
Council on Aging Members
in the use of Social Media Tactics?
(A totally unscientific survey)
8. 74%
62%
31%
26%
24%
12%
10%
What is your #1 purpose for using SM?
(42 of 47 Responded)
Networking
Sharing Info
Socializing
Prospecting
Contact Mgmt.
Recruiting/Hiring
NA
9. 68%
62%
53%
35%
15%
12%
What are your goals for SM?
(34 of 37 Responded)
Promote Prod./Svcs.
Grow Network
Grow Sales/Referrals
Gauge Brand Perception
Customer Feedback
Other
10. 13%
20%
33%
13%
6%
15%
How often do you "check in" w/ SM?
(45 of 47 Responded)
More than 1X Per Day
1X Per Day
2-3X Per Week
2-3X Per Month
Less than 1X Per Month
Never
11. 76%
26%
24%
19%
14%
7%
9%
Greatest barriers to adopting SM tools?
(42 of 47 Responded)
Time
Technical Support
Personal Resistance
Organization Resistance
Budget Constraints
Metrics/ROI
Other
12. What Kind of Marketer are You?
A Push Me?
Or
A Pull You?
13. Traditional Marketing Channels
• Print
• Broadcast
• Electronic
• Display
Newspapers
Periodicals
Direct Mail
Television
Radio
Website
Banner Ads (PPC)
Billboards
“Intercept” Signage
14. Social Media Marketing
Is:
- Based on “Pull” tactics
- A robust tool for enhancing
traditional efforts
- Highly cost efficient
- Highly quantifiable
Is NOT:
- A strategy in and of itself
- An excuse to eliminate
traditional media
- A free ride
- A “magic bullet”
15.
16.
17.
18.
19. The Evolution of
Social Media Engagement
Observing /
Listening
Responding /
Conversing
Pushing /
Creating
Engaging
21. Set Your Course
(Before You Weigh Anchor)
1. Define your goals
2. Define success
3. Develop strategy
4. Know your positioning
5. Identify target
6. Recruit resources
7. Confirm infrastructure
8. Establish Policies
X
22. Lay Up Your Provisions
(Be prepared to feed the monster!)
Social Media is first and
foremost a content-based
medium.
Your organization likely has
reams of appropriate
content already created.
That information will likely
require some modification
before it can be posted
online.
23. Regularly Check Your Progress
• Quantifiable results bring
marketing credibility
• Employ available tracking
tools like Google Analytics
• Monitor your online
presence
• Create a means of
gathering contact data
• Incorporate links to your
most common referrers
24. Time Management
• Schedule SM Time
• Delegate
• Don’t Recreate Wheel
• Manage Disruptions
• Control Info Overload
• Leverage Tools
• Annotate & Share
• Create Templates
• Unplug!
25. Stock Your SM Tool Box
• Google Analytics
• Fan Pages & Groups
• Hootsuite
• Google Reader
• Wordpress (Blogs)
• Google Alerts
• Delicious (Bookmarks)
26. Resources
• Groundswell
by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff
• Search Engine Marketing by Mike
Moran & Bill Hunt
• Permission Marketing
by Seth Godin
• www.dailygrind.com
• www.mashable.com
• www.hubspot.com
• http://twitter.com/BFMack
• http://twitter.com/pilgrimmanorgr
I am NOT an expert is Social Media, but am rather a Marketing Strategist with a specialized focus in healthcare and senior services. The content of this presentation therefore is not meant to suggest a level of expertise, but is instead an attempt to relate my personal experiences in understanding and integrating SM into a comprehensive marketing planning approach.
Title – Refers to the fundamental truth that Social Media is a 2 dimensional Medium, but we still need to live in a 3 dimensional world. There is quite simply NO REPLACEMENT for actual 1 on 1 human interaction such as we all get here each month! SM can support and even enhance these experiences, but never replace it!
There are 6 letter “F”s in this sentence.
For the first time in the history of marketing, individual consumers can have a direct influence over over the products and services they buy.
- Conversely, marketers now have the opportunity to identify and engage their customers (those with the greatest propensity to buy).
If those who responded to the survey are representative of the group as a whole, then we are roughly split right up the middle in terms of our engagement w/ SM.
The question focused on the 4 most popular SM platforms and delivered predictable results. However, the 11% in the “other” category is of particular interest because it acknowledges that the 4 major platforms only scratch the surface of available options. The take-away here is that successfully leveraging SM means finding tools that fit well within your overall strategy and deliver desired results. That said, for the purposes of today’s conversation, we will focus primarily on the “big 3” (Facebook, LinkedIn, & Twitter).
The overwhelming demonstration of organizational support for SM represented here was a surprise to me! Of all business disciplines, the healthcare sector is notoriously suspicious of marketing in general, and also tends to be reluctant to relinquish control of its communications.
These responses indicate that those of us currently using SM do so as a means of communicating with other professionals.
This slide is similar to the previous one, but exemplifies a fundamental disconnect in the way that SM can be most effectively leveraged for positive results.
The greatest areas of interest related to SM are focused on Promotion, Networking, and Sales, while significantly fewer of us indicated interest in understanding how we are perceived by our customers or in engaging them in conversation regarding those perceptions.
This too is a pretty encouraging picture. Those using SM tools are doing so with some relative degree of frequency. Like any other marketing channel, SM is a frequency based medium, so the more you are “present”, the stronger your “presence”.
Here’s another dramatic message that will not likely come as much of a surprise to any of us. As far as successfully engaging in SM, there is good news & bad news to report related to the time investment required.
The Bad News: Effectively using SM to its full potential requires an intentional and consistent effort. SM is at its core, a content based medium. Your SM presence is only as good as the quality and frequency of your content. The content “dragon” (your audience) is demanding and unforgiving if ignored.
The good news: there are a variety of tools and resources that are specifically designed to assist building SM management into your schedule.
Traditional marketing strategy is based on the premise that the brand determines how it wants to be perceived by the market, then develops messaging that is “pushed” via these channels to (what is hoped to be) the targeted consumers.
- Pull tactics are about individual relationships w/ an audience:
- Intentionally seeking to understand interests
- Delivering content that engages those interests
- Provides opportunity for the audience to share in an exchange of ideas around those interests
Social Media is a tactic (another tool in the marketer’s arsenal) NOT a strategy itself!
Saying “SM strategy” is like saying “telephone strategy” or “e-mail strategy”! It’s a tool!
SM can be highly cost efficient given the nature of many popular platforms. However, a significant commitment of time and “sweat equity” is required to be successful.
SM efforts can be tracked down to individual mouse clicks and targeted to individual addresses if desired. However, it will not magically create demand/customers/buyers for a company/product/service that is not already delivering on a brand promise that solves an existing problem for the consumer.
Facebook is like a Class Reunion: Users reconnect with friends, share photos, plan events & track attendance, etc.
Twitter is like a cocktail party: Users “follow” each other & (using 140 character statements) share statements & content links that are of interest to their audience.
LinkedIn is like a Chamber of Commerce Meeting: Intended primarily for professionals, users have the option to post their professional background, experience, etc. and connect to other professionals in their discipline and/or community.
Observing/Listening: The entry level; (learning to crawl before learning to run); Allows time to understand the tools, who the players are, and what strategies best fit your organizational goals.
Responding/Conversing: Once an understanding of who the players are and what the conversations are about, you begin to respond (particularly to those conversations that involve your brand and/or business) but also just those topics that are of interest. SM is a conversation medium!
Pushing/Creating – After having had the opportunity to engage in conversations you will begin to understand the value–sets of those who are participating. This then affords an opening to begin to provide content that satisfies the identified values. Gradually, you will even discover opportunities to create content specifically tailored to an individual situation. Chances are, if it’s important to one person it may be of value to others as well. As the creator of that solution, your personal (organizational) credibility is enhanced in direct relationship to the satisfied value.
Congratulations! You have effectively established real relationships via SM and are now “engaged”. But take care, like any other relationship, those in SM require ongoing effort to maintain & grow.
* A word of Caution: The nature of this evolution is NOT to reach a point where you can now repeatedly push advertisements for your latest widget. That doesn’t mean that you can’t educate your audience about what makes your product/service/organization special, but these activities must be done sparingly and with a LOT of value-based engagement in between! The fastest way to SM obscurity is to push sales-pitches without any sign of engagement.
1. Define your goals: EX - Drive traffic to your website, increase referrals, etc.
2. Define success: How are you quantifying whether you have achieved your goals?
3. Develop Strategy: “Because everyone else is on Facebook” is not a strategy! As was stated earlier, SM is a tactical tool that (along w/ other tactics) delivers on your goals. When thinking specifically about SM, your engagement should create incentives (values targeting) for someone to seek you out for their benefit.
4. Know your positioning: How do you line up in the market against your competition? What is your “Unique Selling Proposition”?
5. Identify Target: Essential for determining which SM platforms to leverage.
6. Recruit Resources: We’ll discuss this more in a mement, but presuming that you are not going it alone in implementing your SM tactical plan (and I don’t recommend it!) who else within the organization is going to support your efforts?
*Starting a SM campaign without adequate support is WORSE than not engaging at all!
7. Confirm infrastructure: In other words, be sure that the “back end” systems are in place to support your efforts. Is your website current & easy to navigate? Is it optimized for popular search engines? Is your website & SM presence linked?