Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

If you’ve got a heartbeat and are looking to improve your business results in “today’s economic climate,” it’s likely you’re looking into social media these days. In the years I’ve been consulting and participating in social media, there’s never ever been more interest in the space, which is delightful to me.

But the reasons you should (or shouldn’t) try Twitter or Facebook or (insert the latest social media darling here) are often unclear - until you begin answering questions about your brand.

Amplifying Conversations Online

Social media are blogs, podcasts, videos, and news that enable people to participate with your brand by commenting, rating products (think Amazon) or statements (”like” is the new Black), by uploading files (think YouTube, Flickr).

As my esteemed colleague Dawn Foster notes:

“Social media is generated by the people and for the people with content created by anyone with a voice (average Joes, village idiots, respected journalists, CxOs, etc.).”

The important thing to note is that each of those groups are out in force online with loud, amplified voices. Putting your brand in their hands is exactly what you’re looking at when you’re looking at social media.

When people ask me for an overview of social media channels they might consider, I always start with the caveat that it will depend on their prospects and customers, and where they hang out. And then I’ll talk about specific types:

• LinkedIN is on the business-centric end of the scale of social media sites. Traditionally it’s been used for recruitment, hiring and general networking; but there’s a growing use of LinkedIN Answers that allows participants to develop thought leadership for their products, services and brands inside of LinkedIN.
• Business blogs are becoming more popular, with even the most regulated companies like banks and healthcare organizations entering the blogosphere - too often, these blogs are treated as extensions of the PR department’s mouthpiece, so fall flat in their potential to drive thought leadership and compel conversations about a market. Consumer trust of corporate blogs is dropping as a result.
• Facebook’s use by brands is growing quickly, as are the aging population demographics. Many large brands are exploring Facebook Pages and Groups where users can post their own content in support of their favorite products, groups, even cities.
• YouTube is arguably the most viewed social network. The #1 activity of people who are active in social networks is to watch videos online, according to Universal-McCann. More than 100M people watched videos on YouTube in October, 2008. The average visitor watched 92 videos in the month. Much of that activity was driven by the election, but the power of the medium to attract viewers is indisputable.
• Twitter, the popular microblogging site, has grown more than 750% in the past year, with 5K - 10K users joining every day. Twitter is oft used by customer service folks to make sure user experiences are good, and is a source of immediate hits of a brand’s online reputations - whether they’re good/bad/ugly. But with everyone jumping on the bandwagon (heck, you’ll even find John McCain Twittering - albeit “slowly”), it’s only a matter of time before the digerati leave it in droves.

When Social Media is Good:

1. Brand awareness - Skittles recently turned over their corporate web site to feeds from their Facebook page (with more than half a million fans) and Twitter (where they quickly found the dark side of social media - some people posted bad/nasty stuff just to be seen on the Skittles.com site. Remember Dawn’s ‘village idiots?’) But they got HUGE press as a result. Regardless of the adeptness of intention, awareness is one result.
2. Brand engagement - letting users interact with your brand is a great opportunity for your company to learn from your users and advocates - in areas like product development (asking questions about what customers would like to see in future products, etc.), research and stimulating awareness among their peers.
3. Thought leadership - when surgeons at Henry Ford hospital in Mass. Tweeted a surgery live, they got great press and were able to position themselves as innovative and forward-thinking.

When Social Media is Not Good:

1. When it doesn’t have the support of the leaders of your organization - you must get buy in and support from the folks at the top
2. When it doesn’t support the strategic goals of your business - that’s why you and I would start any social media conversation with a series of questions about your brand…
3. When your brand values are not embodied in every employee in the organization.

As I’ve told many people, had the social web been as active in 2000/2001 when I was at Enron, the folks in charge would never have been able to hide the things they did - precisely because of my last point. Neither the leaders nor the foot soldiers of any organization can be out of synch with the values their brand holds - and exhibits in the social web. There are too many opportunities for employees to share their observations and ideas in public.

Ping me when you’re ready to answer some questions. I’d love to have a fun discussion about your brand, and your values and objectives around it.

Then we’ll get to the social media stuff.

It’s something my company, Marqui, pioneered four years ago, and (in doing so) launched an ethical debate that still rages today. This week there have been some very interesting debates on the ethics of sponsored social media because Forrester just issued a report called “Add Sponsored Conversations to your Toolbox.”

(I have to admit, I haven’t read it. At $749, I wonder how many will download the 8-page document… but I digress.)

Over at RWW, Marshall Kirkpatrick took issue with Forrester’s stance in a post titled “Forrester is Wrong about Paying Bloggers“. There’s fascinating dialogue between Marshall and Jeremiah Owyang, (one of the authors of the report) in the comments, as well as others chiming in - so take a moment to read them if you can.

In a post on his personal blog yesterday, Jeremiah listed brands and how they’re paying for marketing their products through the social web - including bloggers.  From Dairy Queen to Mercedes, big brands are experimenting with social media and enticing others with offers to play with them.

I’m absolutely fine with that, but did find (at Marqui) that our brand’s voice wasn’t heard in the debate until we began blogging ourselves, and engaging in the conversations that we were pulled into once the firestorm broke out.

The is NO substitute for having a seat at the table when people are talking about you - and yes, even for you.

So go ahead. Let folks drive your cars, eat your bars and give coupons to their readers… why not? But there are three things you must embrace - having been the impetus of this great debate - from WOMMA’s  Code of Ethics:

Honesty of Relationship: You say who you’re speaking for
Honesty of Opinion: You say what you believe
Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity

And I have to admit, it’s fun to watch the sparks fly, four years later, and have them scorching others for once. My hair’s grown back and I’m now concentrating on helping brands protect themselves from what I had to go through in the olden days…

In early January the CDC and FDA warned of salmonella in peanut products from the Peanut Corporation of America, a peanut plant located in GA. One of my clients, the Academic Network, jumped into action once early indicators began to surface.

(They’re a Stericycle company, whose job it is to help manage recalled peanut and peanut paste products by getting them out of stores and destroying them.)

The Academic Network’s role is to provide health care professionals to help answer questions about product recalls, and provide the social media “listening” services necessary to help companies anticipate product recall issues.

I set up the listening systems for them, and help monitor them during crises like this, the largest food recall in history.

Anticipating Risks to Mitigate Them

We started monitoring the web (Twitter, Facebook, other social media sites) for conversations about peanuts, and the experience was quite amazing.

Some highlights:

• We were able to predict the spread of the recall from people to pet food - days before any announcement
• We predicted the spread of fear from peanut products to peanut butter in jars weeks before peanut butter jar sales dropped off by 25%
• We reached out to associations (like the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association and the American Peanut Council) to help them handle the huge job of getting the right information out to people online. No one listened.
• People talk about peanut butter online a lot (probably second only to bacon) and we watched the hysteria grow exponentially the day after the inauguration, when Tweets and posts like this appeared:

…and it really hasn’t stopped. Victims of the peanut recall are not only the poor unfortunate souls, families and pets who ate the tainted stuff; but the businesses who are losing millions in sales of perfectly good products.

Traditional Response Fell on Deaf Ears - While Hysteria Grew

As the fear of peanuts, peanut paste and peanut butter spread in that first few weeks, no one from the food industry proactively reached out to consumers online. If they did, I didn’t see it.

Oh, sure, there were press releases announcing that products were safe, but unless you were subscribing via RSS to certain key phrases, they were falling on relatively deaf ears - as evidenced by the falling sales of peanut butter products of all kinds.

Apparently the food industry (and those who represent them) are glacially slow in their platforms and processes; and were unable to react to the needs of consumers and deliver information in the right channels of communication.

Meanwhile, Online…  People Reached Out to Help

From the beginning, the confusion was mitigated slightly when news reporters, bloggers, Tweeters and others shared links to the FDA site where, (weeks later) they’ve finally added search capability to help navigate the growing list of tainted products.

In a highly unusual - and I’ll bet expensive - move, today you’ll see ads and coupons in papers across the country from companies like ConAgra and Smuckers attempting to tell consumers their products are safe. That’s one way to try to recoup confidence in products.

And I’m finally seeing Google ads from providers - not just trial lawyers - on peanut butter searches:

Learning Our Lessons - Stopping the Spread of Fear

What should we do next time? (And there will be a next time, just change the food source and product…)

• Association sponsorship of a social web site dedicated to quelling the myths around recalled products, staffed by nutritionists, nurses and doctors - why not? It takes no time to put one up - if you know what you’re doing. And you can answer questions in near-real time. Imagine the resource that would be to consumers.
• Point searchers to it using PPC advertisements - engage search behavior to spread the word
• Mobilize the millions of social media connectors to get the word out - give us good information, and we’re delighted to help out

One of the pictures (and I love pictures) I’m most proud of during this mess is this one, from Google Insights:

See the regional interest in the recall? The Portland-based team supporting the Academic Network’s efforts has been highly engaged - and it shows.

I just hope next time we’ll have some industry partners interested in hearing how they might leverage the knowledge we’ve gained from this terrible scare much earlier in the process.

I’m sure there would have been millions of dollars in savings, much less hysteria, and (perhaps even) lives saved as a result.

With the new administration in Washington comes a hope I can feel and see with my own eyes.

1. One of my favorite positions on the Obama team is that of Director of New Media, headed by Macon Phillips.
2. He’s one of the new contributors to the Whitehouse.gov blog  - which is (according to Macon) about Communication, Transparency, and Participation - after all, “Just like your new government, WhiteHouse.gov and the rest of the Administration’s online programs will put citizens first.”
3. According to the contact form (!) on the site, “President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history.”

My tiny nit is that you can’t comment on the blog posts, but throughout the Whitehouse.gov site, there are statements that lead me to believe we’ll be able to participate online for the Obama administration to see that participatory government (voting often on issues, expressing our feelings, opinions and fears) will be just what this country needs to “get back to leading.”

Yes, we can!

One might think - due to my absence here - that I’ve just returned from some exotic trip over the holidays. Only in my mind. Although the view from my office was transported from a neighborhood of Portland to that of a Alpine ski village for about 10 days.  The holidays were delightful for me and mine… and I’m just now back to blogging.

I have been working away through the holidays, and am proud to say one of my recent client projects has just come into fruition: the delight of bringing Ellen Hoenig Carlson’s voice into the blogosphere.

Ellen is a long-time pharma marketing executive, and today consults with some of the most visible brands in the healthcare space. I’ve been lucky enough to be her Sherpa as she’s pointed her enthusiastic intelligence into the social media space.

Her post today is especially relevant to those of us who are contemplating 2009 with a mixture of excitement and fear. (Who isn’t, in this world climate?) One of five marketing points in her post today, “Stepping Up to Change in 2009” rang especially true to me:

“Breaking through fear. The brain is highly responsive to fear, and doesn’t allow for learning or new thinking when people feel afraid. Fear is one kind of stress that disables the very kind of thinking that we need most. “

Amen.

Just as we’re watching banks latch on to the money we’ve recently injected into the financial systems in this country, we must pay attention to how our brains latch on to fear - playing with it, allowing it to morph throughout the conscious and unconscious patterns as we go through our days (and nights).

Who’s been waking up at 3:00 a.m. and thinking anything but negative thoughts lately? Can we train our brains to focus on the positives (even in the middle of the night), or is it just best to turn on the light and read? (Note: a colleague of Ellen’s is launching a blog that will cover that very soon… stay tuned!)

Anyway, welcome to the blogosphere, Ellen. Your five imperatives for marketers in 2009 comes at just the right time for me. Thank you for lending a sane voice into an increasingly complex world. Perhaps in listening and learning, we’ll not only be better marketers for it, we may also sleep more soundly through the night.