10 minutes of social media could save your brand and change your industry
The recent kerfuffle over Ragu’s latest campaign illustrates the power of a simple cliche in social media: listen. Rather than rehash the entire thing, I’ll point you to CC Chapman’s blog posts here, here, and here about it.
So how would you, if you were a brand manager evaluating a campaign or looking for an idea to give to your agency, avoid this sort of thing? Here’s a recipe for using this social stuff to your advantage, rather than burning bridges.
First, decide what you’re looking for. In this case, let’s say you’re a spaghetti sauce company that ultimately wants to increase sales. You’ve got this idea in your head that you want to highlight that your products make cooking dinner so easy, anyone can do it. Fair and good. Don’t throw it to your agency just yet. It’s time to do about 10-15 minutes of homework.
Start collecting data. Aggregate stuff from a bunch of different data sources – Twitter, your own Facebook page, competitors’ Facebook pages, etc. In this case, let’s start by collecting things about spaghetti sauce and people making dinner.
Next, look for common word and phrase frequencies. Free tools like Wordle and WriteWords can give you raw passes at the frequency of words and phrases. In this case we’re examining how many people are talking about making spaghetti sauce.
The third step is to choose a social construct to try out. There are literally hundreds to choose from in the field of behavioral science. In this case, let’s go with normative social influence, which is basic bandwagon theory. In normative social influence, we tend to conform to the norms of the people around us. The more we see a norm, the more we are likely to conform to it.
In this case, we see a number of conversations about people making spaghetti sauce, especially meat sauce. There’s a social norm at work here: people who do or don’t make their own spaghetti sauce. 5 minutes of reading publicly posted conversations about it demonstrate that there are those folks who make their own and those folks who wish they could make their own but instead have to buy a packaged product.
Furthermore, another 5 minutes of reading reveals that the general sentiment around pre-packaged sauce tends towards negative while the general sentiment around homemade is very strongly positive. Interesting! If you wanted to capture strong positive sentiment around your product or service, you’d want to find a way to harvest some of that positive sentiment around the act of making homemade spaghetti sauce.
Let’s take a quick look now at a list of products available in the manufacturer’s spaghetti sauce line:
Do you see the opportunity here yet? There’s a large void between “make my own sauce from scratch” and “buy a jar of stuff”. The void is the same void that Betty Crocker and many others filled with cake mixes years ago: a make your own spaghetti sauce kit. Right now as a consumer your choices are to either buy a pile of raw materials or buy a finished product. There’s no middle ground. If you wanted to harvest the sentiment around homemade sauce, there’s an opportunity to engage the consumer in the actual process of making something while removing a lot of steps that tend to discourage cooks who lack confidence in themselves.
Suppose instead of bashing any one particular group for being inept in the kitchen, you gave them a gateway towards becoming a better cook (using your product, of course)? A homemade spaghetti sauce box set would fill that need precisely. What’s more, a quick glance around at the various competitors in the space reveals that this is a product that no one else has:
This all came from 10 minutes of listening, a little Google searching, and a basic understanding of one aspect of human nature. Where would you go from here? Start following everyone talking wistfully about their mother’s homemade spaghetti sauce that they can’t make, and put together a focus group to see if they’d find value and happiness in a product that served their emotional need to make something homemade while not requiring them to demonstrate culinary expertise. If it passed the focus group, roll it out as a product and see how it does.
I’d be willing to bet that there’s a very large untapped market of folks who want to make something that feels homemade but lacks the complexity of actually making it from raw materials. This is the power of social media; as Tom Webster says, it’s the world’s largest focus group.
Before you go roll out your latest campaign, product, or ad, take 10-15 minutes to listen, look to see if you’re on target, and whether there are additional, more lucrative opportunities to take advantage of. You’ll save yourself potentially a lot of reputation damage and you might just change your entire industry.
Oh, and if you’re looking for a spaghetti sauce recipe, here’s mine.
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The defining characteristic of the superhero
Think for a moment about the defining characteristic of the superhero. Pick a few. Batman, Superman, Professor X, take your pick.
What binds them all together?
Their moral choice to use their powers for the greater good.
- Superman could flat out rule the entire planet and there wouldn’t be a damned thing anyone could do about it if he chose otherwise. Instead, he willingly forfeits infinite profit, dominance, and rule for using his powers to everyone else’s benefit.
- Bruce Wayne could do exactly as so many wealthy do today: live the good life, and let Gotham burn. Why work to save the city that murdered his parents? Instead, he sticks his neck out – literally – every night to make Gotham a better place.
- Professor X could rule the world as well. Cerebro plus his own powers could simply have him mind control everyone, and we’d all be living happily under his thumb. Instead, he chooses to help others reach their potential instead.
One of the discussions at PodCamp Boston 6 was the dilution of labels, how things like “social media expert” and “social media guru” are effectively meaningless. Some people have even used “social media superhero”. Let me put it in blunt terms: superhero is not a term you ever get to legitimately apply to yourself. It’s what others refer to you as and you’re probably the last to get the memo because you’re too busy trying to make the world a better place with your powers. If you want to be a superhero, start by losing yourself entirely in your quest to better the world even at great personal risk and expense.
You know what we call the guy running around for their own glory at everyone else’s expense, making claims he can’t back up, using other people, and trying to claw his way to the top?
The villain.
Don’t be that guy.
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Announcing new affiliate partner, the SSL Store
This post was updated to reflect that Facebook’s deadline is October 1, not October 14.
As you may or may not know, Facebook will be requiring all custom App developers to have SSL certificates installed on their Facebook Apps in order to be published as of October 1, 2011. This is going to break a lot of apps, particularly those made by folks looking for simple things such as Like Gates and custom landing pages.
I’m pleased to offer stupidly cheap SSL certificates from Comodo, Verisign, GeoTrust, and more through a new affiliate partnership with the SSL Store. For as little as $30 per year, you can meet Facebook’s requirements for digital certificates on your Apps. My recommendation is Comodo’s Essential SSL Certificate for $30. Any Facebook Page owner should be able to spring for that.
Once you’ve purchased an SSL certificate for your Facebook App, you’ll need to install it on your web server or have your web hosting provider install it for you. A list of instructions for installing these certificates can be found here.
Note that this change doesn’t affect regular Facebook Pages themselves, only those Pages which have developed a custom App of some kind (like a Like Gate).
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Food for thought: old scandals become new again on Facebook Timeline
Are you a brand on Facebook?
Have you had… incidents… in the past that might paint your company in a poor light, even if you’ve changed things up and learned your lessons?
This might be a good time to clean up your Wall and archive/delete older stuff. Why?
Don’t think for a moment that Timeline isn’t coming to your company’s Page. Every old scandal will be new again.
Start cleaning NOW.
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How to Share Circles on Google+
Shared circles just became available for Google+. Here’s how they work.
First, go to your Circles tab and hover over any circle.
You’ll get the option to share the circle to your timeline. Give it some flavor text and hit the Share button. You’ll note that shared circles have a limit of 250 people.
Note something useful: you can restrict the sharing of circles as you would any other post. Thus, if you wanted to share a circle of influencers with your coworkers, for example, you can do so without the shared circle becoming public knowledge.
Here’s what folks will see in your timeline:
Clicking on it will let them add those people to their own circles.
What are some of the applications of this?
- People who are currently hiring: a nice idea for a shared circle of folks who have jobs posted. If they’re using Google+ to post those jobs, you’ll see them aggregated.
- Webinar co-presenters: doing a hangout or webinar? Create a circle of the panelists so that people can follow them.
- Conferences: got fewer than 250 attendees? Toss ‘em all in a shared circle and you have an instant ad-hoc group. (or break up a larger registration list into a couple of circles)
- Coworkers: get everyone in the company linked up by sharing your company list with your team.
One final thing to keep in mind: shared circles are effectively posts in your timeline, not persistent links like a Facebook Group. That means if you want to promote a circle, you should either bookmark your original share post or re-share your circle on a regular basis. Want some longevity on your circles? Consider putting a collection of them on your blog so they’re findable over the long term!
What will you be sharing from your collection of circles?
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