At its essence, strategy is a guide to behavior. And, when
communicating your strategic intent, the most important goal is
conveying your unique aspects and advantages with specific and engaging
words.
This is hard. But, if you’re not being challenged at coming up with
an effective strategy statement, you’re not trying hard enough. Because
It is a real challenge to translate strategy into execution, this is something we must continually work at, that is, communicating strategy. Research has found that only %14 of employees understand their company’s strategy and direction.
The strategy might be flawed, but even if it’s flawed communication
will not fix the problem. That is why you have to be clear and specific.
For example, one of the most clear specific strategy statements I’ve
ever heard is from Southwest Airlines (not surprise here huh?): To be
the low-cost airline.
Everything flows from that statement. It helps clarify decision
making at every level of the organization to the point where there is no
doubt in anyone’s mind of what they have to do. To get to that point,
Southwest Airlines also had to come up with a very clear and specific
strategy.
With that said, before writing an effective strategy statement, we must get the strategy right.
Here are 6 key attributes of an effective strategy, from the book The Strategist: Be the Leader your business needs:
The 6 Hallmarks of Great Strategies
- Anchored by a clear and compelling purpose. It is
said that “if you don’t know where you’re going, there isn’t a road that
can get you there.” Organizations should exist for a reason. What’s
yours?
- Add real value. Organizations that have a
difference that matters add value. If any of them were to go away, they
would be missed. Would yours?
- Clear choices. Excellence comes
from well-defined effort. Attempting to do too many things makes it
difficult to do any of them well. What has your business decided to do?
To not do?
- Tailored system of value creation. The first step
in great execution is translating an idea into a system of action, where
efforts are aligned and mutually reinforcing. Does this describe your
business? In most companies, the true answer is no.
- Meaningful metrics. Global outcome measures like
ROI indicate whether a strategy is working, but key performance drivers,
tailored to your own strategy, are a better indication. They break big
aspirations into specific, measurable goals, and guide behavior toward
what matters.
- Passion. It’s a soft concept, but it’s at the heart
of every great strategy. Even in the most mundane industries, companies
that stand out care deeply about what they do.
Table: Use of Social Media Metrics 2010-2013 
The results offer several interesting insights. The emphasis on pure
financial metrics is waning. Sales levels, revenue per customer, profits
per customer, and customer retention costs show the steepest drop off
in usage with all decreasing by more than 45%. This shift is important
because it demonstrates the realization that payoffs from social media
are not likely to have a first-order impact on company sales and
profits.
Instead, the impact of social media is likely to have first-order
effects in non-purchase behaviors, such as people sharing opinions about
companies and brands. This sharing, in turn, creates exposure, builds
knowledge, generates attitudes, and ultimately prompts purchase.
Reflecting awareness of this fact, companies are increasingly using
voice metrics—such as referral and buzz indicators—to measure the impact
of social media. The number of companies using “net promoter score”
increased 30% while the number of companies using the number of
followers and friends increased 27%. Buzz indicators increased less
dramatically but still grew by 3%.
These voice effects are important to companies in several ways.
First, consumers get exposed to and build knowledge about brands and
companies without searching on their own. This may be from others who
have had company or brand experience and share in forums or blogs as
well as those who are just transmitters of “hearsay” chatter, but have
no direct experience. Either way, this type of voice can easily get
upgraded to the level of “information” that research has shown consumers
believe is valuable. Second, companies realize that not all voices are
created equal.
Although opinion leaders and mavens have been measured
for decades, the ability to track who is connected to whom and the
movement of information between consumers makes voice metrics even more
powerful. The emerging power of “Klout” is a testament to this. Third,
companies are beginning to demonstrate that these voice metrics are
leading indicators of company growth. This has already been demonstrated
for net promoter score. Once that connection is solidified across other
voice metrics, the use of these metrics will really take off.
The increased use of text analysis is consistent with the focus on
online word-of-mouth that we see in the referral and buzz metrics. While
only 8.5% of companies are using such metrics, there was tremendous
growth with a 28.8% increase in usage over the last 2.5 years. While
tools are still emerging to make the most of text, this trend indicates
that companies not only want to know if customers “like” their product
or service or if customers are willing to “refer” it to others, but also
what customers are actually saying in their own words. This unfettered
look at what customers are saying about products or brands can be
exceptionally valuable for companies that want to catch early
marketplace signals they want to ride, amplify, comment on, or squelch.
Of course, “voice” is always better than “exit.”
However, whether
voice equates to company learning and company growth hinges on whether
companies can capture that voice, effectively filter it, create
actionable insights, and drive those insights into strategies.
Since
the 1950's, executives have been saying the equivalent of, "Half our
marketing budget is wasted. The problem is, we don't know which half."
Whether
you are in senior management or on the front lines, you should want to
finally end this sea of red ink that masquerades as "valuable
promotion." It should be intolerable not only if you work in marketing
itself, but also if you work in finance, operations, engineering,
design, or customer service.
Wasted marketing dollars prevent
true innovation from taking place. Marketing waste makes it impossible
to fund a wide range of actually useful initiatives.
The best
reason to identify waste is not to cut costs, but instead to free up
much-needed funds to improve customer experience, develop innovative
products, and actually attract high potential customers.
I'd like to suggest that in three steps, you can find much of the waste in your marketing budget.
Here's how:
1. Identify the marketing programs that you have no metrics to measure.
One
of the downsides of social media is that it has led some marketers back
to the sort of fuzzy results that used to be associated with image
advertising. Many vendors resist any attempt to attach specific metrics
to their efforts.
For example, they imply you are a hopeless
Neanderthal when you ask, "In a success scenario, how much will your
social media program increase our revenues?" Beware such vendors.
It
is quite possible to attach metrics to a well-thought-out social media
effort, or any other marketing effort that actually results in your
business winning, keeping or growing customers. This doesn't mean that
every marketing dollar needs to correlate to, say, three dollars of
additional revenue; it does mean that you should set specific goals and
track the results.
Bottom line: don't ever spend money on a marketing program unless you can measure the results.
2. Identify the marketing programs that have no benefit for customers.
Some
of you just blinked, shook your head, or re-read the last sentence. You
might think that I'm confused. Marketing, after all, is about growing
sales for our company. Its purpose is to help our company, not our
customers.
Nope.
In today's hyper-connected world, marketing
must benefit your customers. It should teach them valuable information
they can use immediately. It should enable them to enjoy benefits and
services about which they were previously unaware. It should broaden
their perspective and deepen their understanding.
Years ago, I was
part of a team that CFO Magazine engaged to reach out to hundreds of
financial executives to determine which CRM programs were most
successful. There was one clear factor that determined whether a project
proved profitable: whether or not it had a tangible benefit for
customers. In contrast, projects that simply automated internal
marketing functions almost never paid for themselves.
Marketing
that has no benefit for customers is nothing more than spin selling, and
spin selling nearly always ends up with a race to cut your prices to
almost zero.
Bottom line: don't ever spend money on a marketing program unless it has clear benefits to your customers.
3. Identify the marketing programs that have attracted unprofitable or marginal customers.
I
was one of the first Groupon-haters. Why? They encouraged small
businesses to sell services at a loss to customers who would nearly
always be unprofitable to serve.
If the only means you have to attract a customer is to cut your prices in half, you don't want to attract that customer.
Too
many companies focus their marketing budgets on customers who will
never be profitable to serve. Such companies are living a fantasy: they
delude themselves into believing their firm has a bigger market than it
actually has. They also suck the energy right out of their business.
Look
at it this way. If you work like a dog 70 hours a week to make no
profit, you are not running a business, you are running a charity.
(Caveat: ignore the last sentence if you plan on selling your company
for $5 billion; more on this if I ever am foolish enough to write an
article on How to Build the Next Facebook.)
The truth is, your
company could be better off diverting money from advertising into
customer service or product development. Get a bigger share of the
business from your most profitable customers; the way to do that is to
expand the scope - and quality - of the services they find useful.
Bottom line: don't ever spend money to attract customers on whom you will lose money.
Posted by:
Bruce Kasanoff
When a negative event hits the social media channels, organizations sometimes cower. It could be anything from an errant tweet (Chrysler) to a major political hot potato (Chick-Fil-A).
Before negative social media causes you to hide your head in the sand,
consider three ways those angry comments can help you bring a quicker
resolution to the event.
1. Negative social media can help you distinguish a temporary negative event from a real crisis.
If you’re not confident on this point, you might create a crisis out
of something that isn’t. Remember, every negative comment does not need a
response. Two basic operations will give you a good start here: monitor your online brand mentions in real-time, and get everyone on the same page about response strategy. A triage response system will help. Sometimes a negative event is just a thunderstorm–it will pass quickly.
Initially identify an event’s intensity and predicted cycle length.
Can the event be diffused with an immediate response? Setting emotions
aside, is it just a blunder or a multi-layered issue that could become a
full-blown crisis? Does the event have immediate external ripples–are
people outside the organization directly affected? Are you monitoring in
real-time to track the volume level (number of posts, retweets,
additional mentions)? An example of an event that you may just want to
monitor for escalation: a blogger with a limited audience criticizes an
organization’s action that has no external ripples. If the event doesn’t
get any traction within 48 hours, it may have run its course. If you
are monitoring the event, you’ll be able to track its escalation.
These incidents need to be closely watched with volume and sentiment tracking. Key metrics you should be watching: sentiment changes and speed of change,
volume changes (frequency of comments or posts), event mentions to
non-event mentions, and increase in regular social media metrics (reach
metrics: likes, shares, RTs, mentions). Remember, an increase in
Facebook page likes isn’t always positive if you have your page set to
receive comments only from people who like the page. Detractors will
like your page so they can comment and keep up with other detractors’
comments.
2. Negative social media can help you recognize actions you need to take to resolve the event.
Even though it may be hard to hear, you need to listen to criticism with a learning ear. Because of organizational blind spots,
sometime we won’t see issues that need addressing. Angry detractors can
reveal actions we need to take now, alert us to key questions that need
to be answered, and give us hints about remedies that can speed
mitigation. Detractors can also be broadcasting news about the event
that you haven’t even heard yet.
Learn to listen past the anger and recognize the real need. Granted, some posts are just plain hateful, but a carefully written posting policy and good use of filters on Facebook can weed out the profane hate speech.
3. Negative social media can help you start conversations with detractors that can turn them into advocates.
Most people don’t post negative comments in hopes of receiving answer
from the organization. They just want to have their say. But some
detractors would like answers. I helped a client through a global viral
crisis recently, and one of the smartest things we did was post an email
address where people could initiate offline conversations with the
organization, and let them know the exact hours of the day the inbox
would be monitored. Many who took the time to email asked thoughtful
questions. Replies to questions need to be carefully worded and
thoughtful, however, as they are public communication. We found that
many of the conversations ended up back on the Facebook page. The people
had posted them with a positive comment about the organization for
being helpful and willing to share information. I will add that we did
not answer every email as some people just wanted an additional channel
to have their say. But we did thank them for taking the time to give us
some input and assured them we were listening.
Even though negative social media can turn an event into a crisis,
it also holds value in helping resolve the event quicker.
About cksymeChris
Syme heads a strategic communications and training agency in Bozeman,
Montana. CKSyme.org specializes in real-time communications with a
crisis/reputation expertise. She has 25+ years in the communications
field including university media relations, PR, teaching, radio,
newspaper, and crisis/reputation management. Her recent e-book, Listen,
Engage, Respond: Crisis Communications in Real-Time, is available on
Amazon.com. Her insightful blogging can also be found on Social Media
Today, Blog High Ed, EDUniverse, AllTop, and Montana Business . She and
her husband have two grown daughters and enjoy the best of both worlds,
farming in northeast Montana and living in Bozeman, MT as well. She is a
graduate of Montana State University and did her graduate work in
crisis management at Eastern Washington University.
People responsible for marketing budgets want to know if there is
any ROI value in social media. Is the ROI of social media marketing
capitals being thrown away?
Patricia Redsicker, an expert in the Edison Research exploration, takes a look at the statistics in the USA.
Here are the 9 most interesting discoveries in the study:
1. Almost 58 million Americans visit social media networks every day.
The “Social Habit” is defined as “the tendency to visit social media websites a few times per day.”
Shown
in the diagram below, by the middle of 2012 the number of Americans who
had “The Social Habit” increased by 22% (approximately 58 million
people), while only being 18% in 2011.
Why are people visiting social media websites?
- 89% of people do this to stay in touch with family and friends
- 67% - to entertain themselves
- 66% - to learn about new products and services
- 48% of people visit social media networks for their career
The
main conclusion is that consumers spend more and more time on social
media - so you may need to consider finding new means to establish the
contact with users and to interact with them throughout the day.
For
example, you may post a short poll or a question on your Facebook Page
in the morning, publish a useful article in the afternoon, and upload an
interesting picture or a short video clip in the evening. Do not forget
about the week!
It is important to understand the consumers needs and apply social media efforts accordingly.
2. Twitter draws new active users
Twitter
continues to draw more and more new users - it is evident by the
figures on the diagram below. The author of the article mentions that
the level of interaction between Twitter users increased by 69% in 2011
to 76% in 2012.
The main conclusion is that engagement on Twitter
is on the rise. Give useful guidance and information (such as links to
articles) in reply to users questions instead of just publishing promo
content. In Redsicker’s opinion, this will help you to establish a
confident online presence as an thought leader in your industry sector.
3. Approximately 40% of American people hear about tweets through traditional mass media
The
research data indicates that more than four in ten Americans hear about
or read tweets almost every day in media. The author gives an example
of TV shows such as Piers Morgan Tonight and Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN,
which use their Twitter and Facebook accounts for advertising purpose
and extended discussions.
The
main conclusion is that every day the TV audience deals with a wealth
of information about Twitter and the communicative capabilities it
provides users with. If your company advertises on TV (or is about to do
this) you should advise your audience to follow you on Twitter and
participate in online discussions.
4. Brand following behavior in social sites doubled over the past two years
This
has become a real revelation for Redsicker. Indeed, the diagram shows
the brand following behavior on social networking sites for the last 3
years. Redsicker predicts it is most likely that the trends will hold.
The
main conclusion: free offers and special deals for existing customers
and interesting entertaining content may be pointed out as the major
reason why users follow brand pages in social media networks. Therefore,
promote special offers from your website on your social media networks
pages as well. These may be free research reports, webinars, or
giveaways with products and/or services.
Get creative and vary special offers as often as possible to keep the users interested.
5. Facebook is the dominant platform for brand following behavior
79%
of users prefer using Facebook to connect with brands and products,
while only 9% of users prefer using Twitter. Why Facebook? The author
replies:
● Facebook is a well known territory. Consumers spend a
lot of time in social networking sites communicating with their
relatives and friends; that is why it is not difficult at all to connect
the brand.
● Secondly, Facebook users are strongly inclined to
trust the opinion of their friends. If their friends like the brand they
will most certainly “like” it as well - birds of a feather flock
together!
● And finally, Facebook has more convenient and visually
interesting interface that other platforms have. This allows brands
offering daily deals, contests, prizes, etc. with maximum efficiency.
The
main conclusion: to increase the number of your subscribers on
Facebook, consider giveaways and providing entertaining content. You may
also reward dedicated subscribers and attract the new ones providing
significant discounts on goods and services you offer (i.e. 50% and more
discounts, but not just 5% or 10%).
6. Young Facebook users have lots of friends
Redsicker
draws attention to the diagram that illustrates 18-24 aged Facebook
users having most of the friends as opposed to adults. Taking into
account that birds of a feather flock together, brands subscribers’
friends on Facebook, as a general rule, act the same as their
subscribers.
The
main conclusion: increase your brand visibility on Facebook. Target not
only your fans on Facebook but also their friends. Study the profile
pages of your subscribers and determine their demography, interests,
social behavior, etc.
This information will help you create the
content that will be targeted at your subscribers. Then, create a
message you can share, for example - specials that require voting (if
your subscriber votes, his or her friends may want to vote too). The
goal is to frequently show up on the feeds of users, by that encouraging
your subscribers’ friends to interact with your brand.
7. Nearly one-quarter of social networking users use “Daily deals” sites and services
In
author’s opinion American people are not crazy about special deals like
Groupon offers at all. Only 23% of social media users are registered
users for “daily deals” services. There are a lot of customers who made a
purchase on Groupon and shared their negative opinion in numerous
resources about their experience.
Nowadays this segment of
business is totally covered by Amazon and Google. Marketing specialists
are supposed to watch the interesting reaction of their customers over
the next 12 months.
The main conclusion: in Redsicker’s opinion,
Groupon’s business model is pretty doubtful. But from the customers’
point of view, everybody likes special deals. That is why you just need
to be careful and make sure there is social media marketing ROI, in case you use this type of service.
8. One third of social networking users are “Silent”
The
majority of people on social networks are active and post status
updates to social networking websites regularly. Nevertheless, 34% of
social media users do not ever post status updates for various reasons.
Some of them are observers (those who just watch and absorb
information), and others are newcomers who are yet to improve their
social and/or communication skills.
The
main conclusion: those who are “silent” or newcomers may not
communicate via social media but still, they are able to hear you and
can be useful to your business.
If you noticed silent observers
among your subscribers, try to address them directly via message. They
will most likely answer the question or the suggestive comment. To
encourage newcomers to communicate with your brand, try to share some
sort of behind-the-scenes information or photos that will appeal to
them.
9. “Check-In” Behavior Stalls
Networking
services such as FourSquare witnessed a decline in users’ “Check-In”
activity in 2012. 57% of users almost never have used a “Check-In”
service to post a status update that provided location.
The
main conclusion: if your marketing strategy is based on location, try
to attract new customers with special deals and discounts. Taking into
account people feel worried about their privacy and safety, your offers
should be unique allowing them to check in.
Let’s summarize.
Nowadays
marketing specialists have wonderful possibility to take into
consideration Redsicker’s conclusions. Knowing what social media
marketing ROI requires they are able to develop strategies adjusted for
users’ behavior.
Redsicker advises to consider Facebook and
Twitter’s popularity, as these platforms attract many new users. On the
other hand, the author cautions against sell-out services, as users are
not fond of them. Lastly, it is strongly advised to offer special deals
and discounts.
What are your recommendations regarding measuring social media ROI?
Written by: Roman Viliavin, Vice CEO at Promodo Online Marketing Company.
Roman
is an unconventional thinker and candidate master of chess. Roman has
been working in the field of search engine optimization since 2005 and
is the moving spirit of the company. Participant and speaker of all
major events in SEO business. Roman has successfully completed dozens of
projects and gladly shares his experience with SEO community via
articles and various online and offline publications. Follow Roman on Twitter and Facebook.
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