Tim Bursch

Remember the fast food burger wars? Each chain tried to differentiate. Burger King took the position that you could order a burger your way. It was a break from the pack with a personalized burger.
Today we pretty much expect that we can order food the way we want.

What about marketing content? Are you delivering it the way your customers want? With more and more of us opening email and checking our social networks on mobile phones, are your customers getting the best form of content?

This doesn’t mean you have to design all marketing for mobile only. It does mean you have to consider how the customer wants it served.

Desktop: Think about the cluttered inbox, busy Facebook newsfeed, and the river of Tweets. Will your message stand out?

Smartphone: Can I see a quick call to action? Will I read your content regularly on my bus ride or will it make me just want to delete?

If you make the content good enough and allow your customers to "have it their way," they will keep coming back.

How are you giving your customers choices in content?

Photo by: jeffreyw

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I keep hearing this term Transmedia thrown around in marketing, advertising, and social media today. What is it? Does it matter to me?

Well, here’s what I’ve found:

• The term was developed by Marsha Kinder and later expanded by Henry Jenkins.
• Essentially Transmedia is immersive and participatory storytelling across multiple forms of media.

In English? It’s a story that draws people in using multiple forms of media with many story entryways.

How is this used in marketing? Have you heard of Lost? A TV show that has spun off web sites, products, and a cult following.

How about the Halo game? Games, products, events, books, and more around a story. I think what Chipotle is doing with Jamie Oliver could fit into Transmedia Storytelling (TV, web, social media, print, in store, fan activation).

So, why should you care? Stories are compelling and therefore they sell. Stories are part of our DNA. We connect, fight, and come together over stories. They touch us at a deeper level and I think as consumers we want to make meaningful choices. Would you rather just buy a pair of shoes or buy a pair and give a pair?

I’m not saying there won’t be a place for commodity-type products and services. I am saying that more and more customers are buying the whole story, not just the widget.

Read more from the standard wikipedia entry, Mitch Joel’s blog, Big Spaceship, and Henry Jenkins’ site.

How is your company thinking about Transmedia? Does your story draw people in? What if it did?

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More and more brands are setting up outposts in Facebook. There is obviously some value in connecting with customers there.

When a brand posts something and gets a crazy amount of comments, what is the value? Is a comment equal to an ad impression?

My guess is someone is out there figuring out the dollar value of comments, retweets, and likes. They matter. But how do they compare with a display ad? Or billboard?

Let’s take a look at it this way- Passive and Active Marketing

Passive – ads, billboards, print, TV

• normal media
• top down influence
• impressions
• somewhat measurable

Active- social media, interactive sites, apps

• participatory networks
• sharing and word of mouth and peer influenced
• interactions
• almost all measurable

Both have a place in the marketing mix. But remember to pay attention when a customer or prospect takes time to make a comment because they are certainly paying attention to you.

How would you value a comment?

Photo credit: borman818

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Do you have multiple locations for your business? Or maybe your customers are global. Let’s say you are connecting and marketing to customers on Facebook.

Some businesses have one global page and serve up unique content using a custom tab.

Other companies have decided to create a page for each market.

What is a better strategy? It depends on content and resources.

[Let's just assume a multiple location/market business]

Content

In order to execute well in social channels you need to have compelling content. Content will drive engagement, which will drive action. So, think about where content will come from and ask yourself these questions:

• How is your business structured? Central and uniform or local control.
• Will you need to communicate unique messages to each market? Or will you have one main message that applies to all locations?
• Who are your audiences? Think through each one. If this involves multiple countries consider the language and moderation.

Answer these questions to develop your outpost strategy. Centralized or distributed.

Resources

Do you have one central team managing social marketing? Or is each market responsible? The big challenge is time and organization.

Many pages will require more content and more resources. Do you have a team that can monitor, manage, and engage for every location?

This issue will affect large and small businesses. If your audience is on Facebook, take some time to plan this out and be realistic about the resources you will need.

Know what is in front of you and know the possibilities.

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Social media is a fad. Social media is dead. Social media is going to change the world!

Whatever you think about social media, there are a ton of books on the subject. One that made me think recently was Socialnomics, by Eric Qualman.

Here are some of my takeaways:

• Social media makes the web more useful. Discover instead of search.
• Social media is an equalizer. Everyone can have a voice and you better be listening.
• The tools of social media can bring down the walls of work-self and weekend-self. They can help us take a real inventory of what we’re doing with our life.
• Consumers want to brag about their favorite products. Help them!
• We will look to our peers and social networks versus Google for purchasing decisions.
• Marketers are adding listening, monitoring, and engaging to their mix of core competencies.
• If your company makes a mistake, admit it and make it right. The truth will come out with transparency of social media.
• Advertising used to bookend content. Now it will be baked into the content. Integrated.

Favorite lines:

“Be more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy; listen first, sell second.”

“It’s a people-driven economy…”

Overall, Socialnomics is a good read. It helped me think beyond marketing with social media. If you are looking for lots of tactical advice, read Chris Brogan’s Social Media 101 (great practical book). However, if you want an overview on the  impact social media is having on business and culture, check it out.

One thing for sure, the author is walking the talk. See this recent exchange:

Go read the book or learn more on the site.

What books are you reading? What is impacting you?

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Just sharing a few resources I’ve been collecting lately on compliance and legal issues in social media:

• Huge database of social media polices (goldmine)
• One of the social media pioneers in a regulated industry: Mayo
• A few recent articles on compliance and engagement
• Follow WinstonAdLaw for great tips
• Read Shannon Paul for real world experience in regulated business
• Some thoughts from Radian6
• Examples of how NOT to mix legal and social media here and here
• More Mayo

What else would you add? Where do you turn when you have legal questions in social marketing?

Image credit: Sam Howzit

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I received an email from a great coffee shop for a free coffee. One day only. Free stuff is awesome, and I love coffee.

Relevant and compelling offer.

Hold on a second though, I got the email mid-morning. I already had one coffee for the day. Bummer.

It was more annoying than compelling. It didn’t make me want to go back out and get another coffee.

When you spend the time and money on creating good emails, please don’t forget about the timing and the relevance. Think about your customer experience.

How do you time your messages?

Image credit: Michael Filion

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The day begins with email. Then Twitter. Next listening. Add some Facebooking and blogging. Oh, don’t forget some coffee.

Do you work in social media? In other words, do you get paid to market, build connections, or serve people through social media?

If you’re like me, you are kinda always on. Checking. Responding. Commenting. Posting. All day and into the night. Maybe we are just a little crazy.

So, how do you manage any balance or sanity? Here are some things that are working for me:

1. Get up early to read or write. I’m trying to take some creative time before jumping into the river of media work.
2. Schedule ruthlessly. Put community monitoring, twitter, and listening time blocks into your day. And then stick to them.
3. 10-2-5. I’m trying this method for pounding through tasks. Sometimes instead of “play” for the 2 minutes, I’m cleaning my inbox.
4. Coffee. No, don’t drink more. Get out and meet with real people over coffee. Share, connect, help. You’ll both feel better.
5. Follow inspiration. If you have a burst of energy, run with it. Sometimes I get a second wind at night and work on more writing.

These are just a few ideas I’m experimenting with. What’s working for you? How do manage your time?

Photo by NightRPStar

Update:

Great resource here on Single-Tasking

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Part of my work is helping companies manage online communities. The cool thing about marketing in these environments is that it’s not really direct marketing. It’s joining customer conversations.

Because most companies are not perfect, customers will voice complaints and disappointment online. For everyone to see.

An interesting thing can happen:

[warning: Tim’s not an artist]

1. Customer has a problem and voices complaint in public.
2. Brand is listening online (you’re doing that right?)
3. Brand acknowledges, responds, hears the problem and the loop is closed.
4. Transformation happens. Customer tells others about the experience and a negative is transformed into a positive.

How are you tracking these transformations? Is this marketing? Share your thoughts.

Hat tip to Aliza Sherman for getting me thinking about transformations.

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So, if you haven’t joined the web is dead train and still want to keep your website, here is one more reason: Relationships.

No, people don’t have relationships with websites. But they do have an affinity with brands. Like a relationship.

Smart marketers use that. They tell you they miss you. Like this:

Smart businesses keep you coming back to their site. They know people are spending time online and not necessarily running out to the mall. So, they invite you to their other storefront. They know that you need a long-term relationship with customers to stay in business.

What do you think? Are websites old school? Do you build customer relationships with your site? How?

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