Place, product, price and promotion.

We all learned these basic marketing principles in college and they still stand up today. But the social web is a true shift in the way we communicate and go to market.  For the first time, mankind has access to real-time, free, instantaneous, two-way, global communication — and the good old marketing mantra needs a little updating.  Here are my thoughts on the NEW Four P’s of social media marketing — People, Presence, Pervasiveness and Publishing.

People

The social web is the first true PEOPLE-driven communication channel.  Everybody’s a video star, a rock star, a broadcaster, an author. Everybody creates, reviews, publishes, and bitches.  Publicly.  Permanently.  We have the opportunity to listen intimately and often. We can tune in to laugh and cry with our customers, wherever they are in the world. The consumer-driven web is the biggest marketing revolution since radio.

Presence

This is different from the old concept of “place.”  The old marketing “place” to sell, market or distribute was a tangible location like a grocery store. We knew where our consumers were … and they’ve probably been there for decades.   Where are they getting their information today?  From a video game?  From a link on a tweet?   From their phone?  From a coupon on their phone automatically sent to them by an RFID/GPS system while they are standing next to your product in the grocery store?

To make it even more complicated, a customer’s source of information may be constantly shifting.  Think of the implications if you choose incorrectly or your competitor moves into an emerging platform more rapidly. Kind of makes you want to go back to newspapers, huh? That’s why you need to develop a presence that can adapt and adjust to wherever consumer attention drags you. It will be fascinating to watch the big brands create a unified and compelling presence across so many platforms.

Pervasiveness

Let’s take a lesson from Twitter to illustrate this key concept. For years, Twitter hasn’t focused on making money. It has focused on DOMINATING  and pervading a consumer space. Why? They know that consumers will have the bandwidth for just one micro-blogging site. Once they devote their emotional equity to one platform it will be extremely difficult to get them to switch. Perhaps impossible. And that’s what Twitter is counting on.

So it might be easy to get folks to taste a new brand of cookie or soft drink, but it will be much more difficult to get them to switch to an unfamiliar communication or marketing channel.  Brand marketers jockeying for precious consumer online attention will have to develop ideas and entertainment concepts that are pervasive and with high emotional switching costs.  Not cheap. Not easy.

Publishing

Five years ago, would you consider a shoe company to be a significant publisher?  Yet Zappos has more than a dozen blogs. I contend the biggest challenge to any marketer may be the publishing of consistently engaging, meaningful content. And increasingly that means cutting through the clutter with entertaining content like puzzles, games, contests and videos. The implications of sustaining an organization’s publishing presence is daunting!

So what’s your take on this?  How are you adjusting to the new P’s?  How are you integrating them with the old ones?

Jay Baer is one of the few bloggers I’ve found who consistently provides business-based, practical marketing advice.  I usually agree with him.  But he made a reference to social media marketing on a post this week that struck me as odd:

“… unlike every other marketing tool for the past 200 years, it’s a meritocracy, and that benefits us all.”

I’m only picking on Jay because this is the most recent iteration of a theme I’ve observed countless times — the opinion that somehow the social web is in a special new category where you actually have to EARN the trust of your customers.  Another variation is that the social web has “changed everything” about business and marketing.

No, it hasn’t.

The free market economy has ALWAYS been a meritocracy and always will be. If you don’t provide a quality product or service and you don’t represent it in an honest and compelling way, you won’t earn your way into the hearts and wallets of the world’s consumers.

Pre-social media, pre-Internet, even pre-mass communications, the fundamental tenet of marketing was this: Establish a brand promise based on consumer trust and never, ever break that trust. The concept is simple, the execution is extremely difficult.

Marketing is a continuous war to promote and protect your brand, whether it is a company, hospital, university, sports team or individual.  Social media offers an exciting new way to connect, but the marketing fundamentals are truly still the same.

The social web is just a new battlefield, not a new war.

How is the social web affecting your battle plan?

Zappos* is a successful company with a well-publicized, aggressive employee use of social media.  In fact, it may be the most famous social media model in all of blogdom. They have 13 blogs, 50,000 videos and their employees tweet like rabbits in heat.  It’s worked for them and it’s a wonderful case study. I get it.  But it’s probably the wrong model for most companies.   

And here’s the point where the waves of Zappo-sniffing social media purists come crashing down on me.  So be it.  This is dangerous stuff. 

It is relatively safe to blog and tweet about shoes.  But in many companies, the risk of an all-employee social media free love policy will far outweigh the benefits.  For many important companies all it will take is one Twitter-induced SEC violation, a leak of vital competitive information, or a national defense breach, and the hammer will come down on the use of social media forever. Policies are usually made to deal with the lowest common denominator.

Is this a leadership issue? Not necessarily. There are irresponsible people everywhere.  There are disgruntled employees even in the best-managed companies.   Where corruption can occur it will occur. Welcome to the human race.

So what’s the answer?

Under the following conditions, the Zappos model might be ideal:

• Company culture supports employee engagement
• Company leadership understands the model
• Customer base is active on the social web in a meaningful way
• Benefits outweigh risk of security breach

If just one of these conditions are not met, the free love policy cannot work. 

That’s not to say that social media won’t work in some form with almost any company if there is appropriate training, role clarity, effective policy and boundaries. But you have to fit the tactics to the strategy — and the culture — just like any initiative. 

A marketing leader has to make effective decisions based on what IS, not on what you WISH for. You can’t “will” a social media effort to work in your company just because it worked in the Zappos corporate culture.

For an excellent and thorough perspective on the need for effective and appropriate corporate social media policies, I recommend Kent Huffman’s recent post on the subject.

OK, your turn. Let ‘er rip!

*If you are unfamiliar with the Zappos social media model, Jeff Bullas has written wonderful case studies on this company:

• How Does Social Media Help Deliver On Zappos’s 10 Core Company Values

• Why Would Your Company Need 13 Blogs?

• Revelations On How An Online Retailer Went From Zero to $1.2 Billion

• 6 Ways Zappos Uses Twitter To Increase Sales

The GE Social Media Team: Gary Sheffer, Jen Walsh, Sean Gannon, Lisa Lanspery, Mike Eisenreich, Megan Parker and Vivek Kemp

At long last, I bring to you my valued {grow} folks, a true B2B social media success story that can really be measured by MONEY.  I believe this is the only one in the world.  ; )  And it is GENIUS!

Best of all, the success comes from one of our very own {grow}-er’s, Nathan Dube aka @DubiousMonk, a frequent comment contributor.

Nathan works in the marketing department of Expert Laser Services of  Southbridge, MA.  The company is a managed print services provider and provides printer/copier sales, service and supplies.  Nathan’s challenge was to increase awareness for his company through social media initiatives.

His idea was to let people release their technology angst by finding the most creative ways to destroy their printer — on video.  The “Destroy Your Printer Video Contest” was promoted through the company’s blog,  Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  The oddball humor of the contest gave it a great buzz and more – web traffic more than doubled and the company gained more than 100 new inbound links. Recycler magazine did an Internet TV special about the contest as well as an article which was the most-read topics on the site for several weeks.

The submissions can be found here and they are hilarious.  The winning entry involves a backhoe (but I think the dynamite should have won: “We’re approaching the target!”).

Momentum for the contest picked up as people fell in love with the crazy ways people destroyed their printers.  One fan was an employee of nearby Telesian Technologies, who called up Expert Laser Services and asked them to be their new service provider.

That’s right.  New business. Money in the bank from a social media victory.

Nathan said getting a new customer was just icing on the cake. “The focus of the contest  was not ‘let’s get customers’,” he said. ” The focus was to drive more traffic to the website, build inbound links, and create good content.  The fact that we landed a new service and repair customer was not our goal, but it happened.”

And to make a happy ending even happier, the winner of the contest, Cottage Revolution of Wales, MA, donated their winning toner cartridges to Catholic Charities.

• Did this lady just win the lottery?  Or did she get goosed or something?
• Why was she compelled to rise out of her chair and stare straight at me and laugh?  It’s unnerving.
• There is a very small coffee cup behind her. Why is it so small?  Is it a demi-tasse?  Is it a cup for sake?  Is she caffeine-intolerant?  I just want to hug her and say, “Drink a nice BIG cup of coffee.  This is America, honey. Our cups hold a quart.  Here, have mine.”
• It looks like she’s knitting.  But what is it?  She’s wrapped it around her neck somehow.  Lady, that could be dangerous.  Put down the sharp objects and slowly unwrap that that thing from around your neck.  And what is that on your breath?  SAKE?  We’ve notified the authorities.

a) If you don’t know if this trend is applicable to you (hint: it probably is), it’s important to find out! Tap into your existing data to discover core users and trends. If you’re not a data person, I know two people who can do this type of analysis quickly and affordably. Drop me a note or call me and let me know if you need a reference.

b) Word of mouth is 4X more effective than personal selling and 7X more effective than most types of traditional advertising. If your fanatics are driving sales better than any marketing effort you could dream of, what are you doing to make it easy for them? Wouldn’t fanatic-focused marketing be the most effective ad dollars you can spend?

c) Surround your 4 percent with the tools to help them recruit others to your brand. Ideas – special deals, gifts, logo-clothes, programs available for them to pass on to friends.

d) These people want to give back to your brand. How do you engage them, encourage them, and listen to them in a special and personalized way? Ideas: Invite them to special one-on-one sessions with company employees and executives; develop personal portal websites where they can submit ideas, stories, photos; feature them in your ads and promotions.

e) If you are building your brand with a limited budget, don’t focus your marketing dollars on the masses. Start small with your core fanatics.

f) Now that you have identified and nurtured your core 4 percent, how do you replicate them? Do a simple profiling exercise. Click here for a previous article that will give you ideas on how to do this quickly.

g) Here’s the most important point of all – LISTEN to them. These people are your leading indicators of customer satisfaction and a potentially powerful source of innovation who WANT to help you! Dig deep. Spend time with these people! Show them the love!

Illustration: Cheryy8_15

One such rule is that large brands historically use any opportunity for customer interaction to push their product and promotions. Engaging their brand advocates in conversations, rewarding their customers with special deals and promotions, and encouraging word-of mouth on a daily basis is new territory. The real fun begins when they branch out and offer relevant and useful content for their social media audiences. Sometimes this is an easy leap and just a matter of giving them a few creative ideas that are aligned with their brand.

For Gap Outlet and Banana Republic Factory Store, we created a series of tweets (and soon Facebook posts) that run several times a week called “Fab without a Fortune” – these are tips that speak to their social media audiences and show them the brand “gets” what they want and is there to help them shop smarter, stretch their dollars, and still be fashionable. We’ve had a great response with these.

The other invisible rule I sometimes come up against is the “email is king” mentality – brands want to use social media to drive people to their email lists because then they’ve GOT them. I see many companies with big budgets for email marketing, and they need some help understanding that social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook can be less intrusive, more direct, and offer better results.

Customers are more likely to follow you or fan you than give you an email address. And, it is mega opt-in – customers want to hear from you more than say, once a week – they want to hear from you several times a day. I have seen double digit click through rates on Twitter and Facebook that put email marketing to shame. These companies need some guidance to transfer resources and rethink their approach so they can ask their loyal customers to join them on Twitter and Facebook.

Tomorrow: Robin’s six social media strategies for YOU!

I see some brands that are reluctant to integrate traditional marketing (website, blog, email, or offline/online advertising, promotions etc.) until their social media programs are deemed “successful enough.” For these clients, it helps to have good analytics, a focused pilot, and to plot out the integration with their marketing strategy in phases.

Other brands have jumped head-first onto the social media bandwagon because they HAD to be there, but with minimal strategy, focus, and expertise and haphazard alignment to marketing/business objectives. They’re now wondering why they aren’t seeing the returns hyped by the media. These clients are open to integrating social media into their marketing mix – they just need help evaluating the best way to go about this – choosing the right channels, campaigns, and communication strategy.

What accountability does the social media aspect of brand management have? What metrics are in place and what tools do you use to measure progress?

The social media segment is finding itself increasingly accountable. At first, there were a lot of people talking about how social media doesn’t have traditional ROI, it has all kinds of other types like ROE, and how it was impossible to quantify the monumental impacts on brand equity and community. But that doesn’t fly for long with brand management.

You need to justify and quantify your efforts and the resources spent. And you need to be smart about it. There are numerous applications and platforms out there and it can be difficult for companies to know what to use and how to put it all together in a report that is really useful. I have my own selection of favorites which I customize to report both financial and non-financial indicators and present it in a compelling, useful, and actionable format.

While measurement and analytics are carefully tailored to each client, those of you trying this at home will want to include these same elements in your reporting – financial ROI to measure sales, transactions and customers; non-financial metrics to measure mentions, sentiment, link click-throughs, exposure, virals (retweets, comments, shares, etc.), and conversations/engagement.

I guide my clients in creating a social media brand persona, and we define its limits together. I usually help craft or tailor guidelines for interaction and participation for all employees/contributors.

There is a lot of hand-holding that goes on – brands are sometimes stuck in the traditional push marketing voice – you know, the one devoid of human connection. They have to be educated on how to speak with a personality that people can connect with, and one that reflects their brand values.

Tomorrow: Social media culture change and consumer info overload!