Integrating Social Mediain Your Marketing Mix

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Social Media Marketing:

If history has taught us anything, it’s that when the economy suffers, so do our

marketing budgets. A recent survey of marketing professionals conducted on behalf of

PRWeek and Manning Selvage & Lee by research firm Millward Brown indicates that 68

percent of marketers expect their advertising budgets to stay the same or decrease in the

coming year. However, 75 percent of those same marketers say they expect to spend

more money on digital marketing programs.1

More evidence social media marketing will thrive: Marketing services firm Epsilon in

August released a survey that revealed 59 percent of senior marketing executives expect

to decrease their traditional marketing budgets, while 63 percent plan to increase the

budget for interactive and digital marketing programs.2

Finally, Forrester Research noted earlier this year that e-mail marketing would likely

increase during a recession, while advertising dollars would flow toward trackable online

media, such as search marketing programs. More interesting still is Forrester’s assertion

that interactive social applications such as communities, social networking sites and

word-of-mouth marketing prove worthwhile because they depend not on a diminishing

ad budget, but on an abundant resource: your customers.3

Enthusiastic customers telling others about your product is a more effective medium

than any of the traditional media. They have the ability to motivate consumers in the

consideration phase of purchase, which, in times of recession, is more cost-effective

than the shotgun approach applied by most traditional forms of advertising.

Whether the United States is headed toward, or already deeply embroiled in, a recession,

one thing seems clear: interactive and digital marketing—social media marketing

strategies in particular—will play a part in how your brand survives and thrives.

This report describes how you can leverage social media such as blogs, forums, ratings

and social networking media to improve your marketing and build better customer

relationships, regardless of the economy.

Intro—A Case for Social Media Marketing in a Recession

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Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

Sources

(1) PRWeek and Manning Selvage & Lee Survey, July 2008

(2) Epsilon CMO Survey, August 2008

(3) Forrester Research, Strategies for Interactive Marketing In A Recession, February 2008

Leverage “Points of Enthusiasm”

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Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

At its heart, social media provides the opportunity for people to engage: with each

other, with a brand or with a topic of interest. It’s that interest that drives success in

social media marketing. Photography blogs engage people who are passionate about

photography; cycling forums engage people who love to ride their bikes. The long tail

of the Internet dictates that no matter how obscure your brand or product is, there’s a

group of individuals who care deeply about it.

But that doesn’t mean these people are going to flock to your new discussion forum just

because you create one. When CVS Pharmacy launched a user-generated content site in

early 2008, its focus wasn’t on pharmaceuticals and the things customers see when they

walk through a store. The passion for CVS customers isn’t based on what they buy, but

rather, how what they buy allows them to care for others. Their micro site,

www.forallthewaysyoucare.com, focused on the shared experience of caring.

www.forallthewaysyoucare.com keeps the message on the homepage simple: “We

know it’s in your nature to care. Now we’d like to hear your story. Submit it here and be

an inspiration to others just like you.” As part of an ongoing contest, users can submit

stories of caring, vote on their favorite stories, and forward stories to friends. Earlier this

year, the stories were voted on by a panel of judges and prizes were awarded to 10

submissions. The contest began again in October 2008.

CVS decided to make themselves a focal point for issues they knew their customers

faced and host that dialogue as part of a bigger marketing initiative. With support from

television and print ads, www.forallthewaysyoucare.com has attracted thousands of

submissions since its inception, and thousands more view the site each month.

3 Find what excites yourcustomers and thenbuild your communityaround that “pointof enthusiasm.”

Takeaway Tip

If the word’s ubiquitous use among the news media hasn’t hammered it home yet,

here’s the bulletin: Your brand needs a blog. A recent report on MSNBC noted than

only about 60 Fortune 500 companies have active blogs, but those leading the way

include Dell, Southwest Airlines and Coca-Cola. With such a small percentage of

corporate blogs active today, there are enormous opportunities for companies at the

front of this groundswell.

Take for example Marriott International. In January 2007, Bill Marriott, the then

74-year-old chairman and CEO of the international hotel chain, celebrated the

50th anniversary of the business his parents built by opening his 3,000th hotel

and starting the company’s first blog.

In his inaugural post he admitted to not being very good with computers, but stated

the following: “I believe in communicating with the customer, and the Internet gives

me a whole new way of doing that on a global scale. I’d rather engage directly in

dialogue with you because that’s how we learn and grow as a company.”

Marriott blogs on topics about which he is passionate, including the hotel’s history as a

family business, current events, the travel industry and politics. That passion reminds

people that Marriott is in fact a real person—a human face behind the brand. Marriott

routinely responds to individual comments on the blog as well, whether readers offer

suggestions or complaints about service they’ve received.

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Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

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Humanize Your Brand With Blogs

The blog has yielded tremendous dividends, with individual posts routinely receiving

hundreds of comments and bookings directly from the blog totaling $4 million in

incremental revenue since its inception, according to Marriott. Mr. Marriott commented

on this himself in his own blog as well as on MSNBC.

Another opportunity afforded by the blog is the ability to respond immediately to events

that impact the brand. Only a few hours after the bombing of a Marriott property in

Islamabad, Pakistan, Mr. Marriott was able to provide up-to-the-minute information

about the incident on his blog. Subsequent posts offered Marriott’s personal thoughts

on the tragedy, and the announcement of a fund established to help those affected by

the incident.

A blog can represent the corporate voice in its purest form, in this case the voice of one

man who is committed to communicating in an unfiltered way with his customers.

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Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

3 Build a blog thatemphasizes thehuman side ofyour business.

3 Business doesn’toperate in a vacuum,and neither shouldyour blog. Use yourblog to respond torelevant events in theworld around you.

Takeaway Tip

Don’t just open the door and start talking. If you start blogging on a certain topic, start

participating on the blogs or forums of other organizations that discuss that topic. Leave

insightful comments on other sites, and refer to your own site.

The trick is to do it in a sincere way. If you leave a comment with nothing more than the

URL to your own site, it’s obvious you’re just trying to seed links to your site and you

won’t be perceived as an authentic source of information. But if you can honestly

engage in someone else’s forum, then be part of that conversation and invite people

back to your house.

Don’t Just Start a Conversation, Join a Conversation

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Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

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3 To drive traffic toyour own site, leavecomments in otherrelevant communitieshighlighting yourexpertise andauthenticity.

Takeaway Tip

Often the simplest way to get people to join a conversation is to ask for their

participation. For example, McDonald’s Corp. fostered its nascent corporate social

network by allowing employees and owner-operators to turn registration for a

company-wide conference into profiles on the network.

Employees were able to supply information that would make it effortless for them to

find each other on the network, and when asked at the conclusion of the registration

process whether they’d like to submit a best practice from their experience to be

featured on the site, hundreds of people responded. McDonald’s not only expanded

buy-in for the network, but the company instantly added a wealth of user-generated

content to the site.

As an added bonus, since the best practices are tied to user profiles, all the content

is given immediate context. The profiles are built around information to help users

understand the context of that person at McDonald’s. Are you a restaurant

owner/operator? How long have you been with McDonald’s? What part of the country

or the world are you from? If a user gives advice on how to motivate front-line

employees, other participants can tell from that user’s profile whether the advice

comes from relevant experience.

Make Participation Easy

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Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

3 If you want customersor employees to joinyour online community,ask them, but makethe barrier toparticipation low.

3 Give context to thecontent. When youlearn more about theauthor, you learn moreabout the content.Grouping content bysocial attributesgarnered by userprofiles gives contextto that information.

Takeaway Tip

Shine a Spotlight on Great User-Generated Content

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Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

When users on your site have a great conversation or talk up your brand, show off a little.

Since people made those comments in a public forum, you’re free to use those comments

any way you want. Use them as quotes in your direct mail or e-mail campaigns. And even

though the social media part of your site might come off as a separate community, it

should be a part of your main Web site. Feature links to great posts prominently

throughout your Web site. If your social media platform allows it, inject community

content onto your Web pages by relevance. If a customer mentions a product in a post

on your community, that content should be visible on that product’s page.

Consider including links to the most active discussions, the most recent posts, or new

discussion topics on your homepage to draw people a little deeper into the conversation

occurring on your site.

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3 Great content shouldn’tbe wasted. Leverageuser-generated contentthroughout yourmarketing campaigns,online and off.

Takeaway Tip

So you’ve got your blog, but it feels like you’re talking to a void. Two or three comments

pop up on each post, but otherwise, it seems like engagement is low. The reality is the

majority of people visiting your blog are just going to read. Commenting on a post

requires a certain level of participation that some readers aren’t comfortable with.

That’s why it’s imperative to give your users multiple ways to participate. It might be that

there are users on your site who are more than willing to write a full-blown wiki entry on

how to use your products, but that requires a high level of commitment. A slightly smaller

level of commitment is posting a photo of themselves enjoying your products. Smaller still

is the commitment to comment on some of the existing articles or blogs on your Web

site. And one of the lowest rungs on the participation ladder is clicking a vote button and

rating a particular post or product as valuable or not.

Each one of those communication opportunities requires a different level of engagement,

and each will appeal to different levels of users. But if you have only one option, such as

writing original content, you could be shortchanging a whole subset of users who are

more than willing to participate on a lesser level.

But it’s important not to give up when it seems like participation is low. Write content you

believe is relevant to people, and you’ll continue to get picked up by search engines when

surfers look for that content. But don’t panic if you don’t see lots of comments. People

will still be reading, and reading is the first rung on the participation ladder. Most social

media tools will report statistics on how often your blog is read. So take comfort that

people are reading it, even if they aren’t responding vocally at first.

Everyone comes in at his or her own natural participation level, and ideally you’re able to

move them up the participation ladder by engaging them in the way they’re comfortable.

Multiple mechanisms for user contribution will help different people become active in

your community.

The Ladder of Participation

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Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

3 Don’t give up. Buildingan audience takes time.

3 Engaging in multiplesocial media marketingtactics will reach amuch broader audiencethan one tactic alone.

Takeaway Tip

Conclusion

Marketing in an economic downturn requires creative thinking and while experimental

media often can get cut during tough times, social media can drive traffic to your brand’s

Web site through the power of your customers’ enthusiasm. Find ways to leverage that

enthusiasm, and your customers will spread the good word about your brand when your

ad budget isn’t going to get the job done.

© 2008 AWARENESS, INC.

Awareness, Inc.880 Winter Street, Suite 300Waltham, MA 02451United StatesTel: 1 866 487 5623Fax: 1 781 622 2378

Contact Information:

Awareness Canada5050 South Service Road, Suite 100Burlington, ON L7L 5Y7CanadaTel: 1 866 487 5623Fax: 1 905 632 4922

Awareness helps companies build and operate branded Web 2.0 communities. These onlinecommunities let customers, prospects, employees and partners connect with each other andshare content. At the core of the Awareness solution is an on-demand social media platformthat combines the full range of Web 2.0 technologies—blogs, wikis, discussion groups, socialnetworking, podcasts, RSS, tagging, photos, videos, mapping, etc.—with security, control andcontent moderation. Awareness builds these features into complete communities for companies,or customers use the Awareness API and widgets to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into theirown web properties. Major corporations such as McDonald’s, Kodak, the New York TimesCompany, Northwestern Mutual and Procter & Gamble use Awareness to build brand loyalty,generate revenue, and drive new forms of marketing. Find out more athttp://www.awarenessnetworks.com.

Integrating Social Media in Your Marketing Mix

About Awareness

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is making a profoundimpact on marketing strategies for organizationsof all sizes. It is augmenting, enhancing, and insome companies, replacing old forms of anddramatic ways.

For example, traditional marketing, such as directand brand marketing, is one-way, push-orientedand interrupt-driven. These types of marketingactivities are from company to prospect. Theprospect doesn’t ask for them. They are “pushed”onto the buyer, interrupting them from whateverthey’re doing.

They’re also brand-generated. The content comesentirely from the brand to the customer.

Social media marketing, on the other hand, is defined by a new set of characteristics.

• It’s a multi-way dialog. Brands talk to customers, customers talk to brands, and—perhaps mostimportantly— customers talk to each other. This is a new type of engagement that was neverpossible until the arrival of Web 2.0.

• It’s participatory. Social media marketing depends on user participation—that's what makes itsocial. To truly be social media marketing, your users must participate.

• It’s user-generated. Most of the content and connections in an online community are createdby the users—not by the brand. Sure, there will be content and conversations that are brand-generated, but they will be the minority. The goal is to get your users to talk.

• One-way (brand to customer)

• Push and interrupt

• Brand-generated

Traditional MarketingDirect

MarketingLead

Generation

BrandMarketing

Image andReputation

Social MediaMarketing

CustomerEngagement

Social Media Marketing• Multi-way (brand <—> customer,

customer <—> customer)

• Participatory

• User-generated