The Jordan Rules

The most innovative companies are engaging their audience, customers, and employees in completely new ways with the help of new technology. In the following post, I’ll outline how we’re currently using some technologies & how new/ emerging technologies are changing how we’re able to use them.

There are 4 primary spheres that are influenced in various ways by various forms of digital media: branding, marketing, sales, and productivity.

Standard Usage: Used to display content without interaction or allow users to interact with content though touch

Advanced Usage: Additional input options can allow users to interact with content in a more relevant way - examples include fiduciary marker recognition, mobile integration via bluetooth or text, facial recognition, augmented reality.

Power Usage: Integrating multiple output options can allow users to extract value from the sign in a more valuable or tangible way. Examples include printing, DM samples, coupons, mobile output.

Standard Usage: A centralized library of company information that is used to distribute relevant information across an organization. Also used for collaboration & administration.

Advanced Usage: Social integration allows users to increase collaboration & communication efficacy. Social integration can also serve as training for social media marketing initiatives. Additionally, data hooks & feeds can be integrated to allow for social media workflows, monitoring, & response assessment.

Power Usage: Real-time marketing metrics & data integration will allow users to analyze and make business decisions quicker and more effectively. Enhanced social collaboration tools will allow decisions to be optimized and agreed to quickly. This quick feedback-loop will allow more effective multivariate testing on all business initiatives.

Standard Usage: A html & text-based communication that is either focused on providing information or focused on encouraging action. Examples: Promotional email, email newsletter

Advanced Usage: An integrated community-based email subscription allows users to subscribe to the content they want and set up delivery frequency & format.

Power Usage: Adding easy sharing features can encourage users to pass-along your content; the real power involves creating sharable content that users find valuable.

Standard Usage: Developing a strong presence on specific social networks involves listening, responding & engaging with your audience. Learning memes from each network you’re using will allow you to communicate & engage in a more effective way.

Advanced Usage: Incentives, games, contests, and valuable content are effective ways to increase community engagement. Ideally, advanced engagement tactics will be ongoing initiatives that flow into each other; rather than the campaign-based system that allows contests, games, and content to end & make way for the next campaign.

Power Usage: Harnessing the power of multiple social networks & integrating communication, engagement, & data with ongoing marketing efforts will allow users to interact with your brand & with each other in ways they’re familiar with.

Standard Usage: SEO & SEM activities have been well documented over the past 5 years. Although often not used, there are guidelines you can follow to ensure good return on relevant search queries. (i.e. Guidelines from Bing, Guidelines from Google)

Advanced Usage: The value of real-time search is encouraging brands & individuals to ensure new content is being created and communicated frequently. Real-time search is emerging as a very important element of SEM activities.

Power Usage: Search has been expanding its capabilities and relevancy weightings into new areas for the past few years. Staying up to date with these advances and new features will allow you to take advantage of valuable changes & opportunities. (Trends: Mobile Search, Visual Search, Location-based Search)

Standard Usage: The e-commerce model allows users to make purchases online. Multiple payment options (credit card, Pay Pal, Google Checkout) and delivery options (instant delivery, postal delivery, in-store pick-up) are available with individual benefits & risks.

Advanced Usage: Adding a social commerce layer allows users to communicate with other users who may have more insight about a product or service. The influence of knowing a friend purchased a specific brand is also a major benefit of adding a social commerce layer.

Power Usage: Integrating mobile commerce with online & in-store systems takes sales to a new level. Technologies like QR codes, visual search, image recognition, and location identification in combination with mobile payment platforms can very easily allow a user to choose where, when and how they want to make a purchase. (Note: This also has can have a major impact on customer service, brand affinity, and loyalty)

Standard Usage: Users are able to download these apps to their device or are able to access them through a mobile browser. These apps use the mobile devices inputs to communicate with & display stored information or information available online.

Advanced Usage: Augmented reality, image recognition, QR technology & advanced security systems are advancing the utility of mobile devices. Ubiquitous device synching with other digital media will add substantial value to all mobile apps. (i.e. bluetooth bars built into digital signage)

Power Usage: Users personalization options are stored within the mobile device which can be easily connected to other devices for quick customization. This would be useful for single-sign on across multiple devices, easy payment options, and CRM type communications. Additionally, when synched with a digital device; the mobile device can offer multiple input & control options. (i.e. controlling a digital kiosk by speaking commands into your mobile phone)

Standard Usage: Most sites exist under as a domain - i.e. www.google.com, Google owns the google.com domain and all the content that lives within it.

Advanced Usage: Cross communication aggregation links feeds from multiple sites and aggregates them for the typical audience of the channel the stream is appearing on.

Power Usage: The invisible site is a concept I’ve been talking about for a few months with a couple clients. The idea involves an advanced monitoring system and a publishing platform. Essentially, a brand manager (or other individual) can set up a workflow based on key words & sentiment. The monitoring system will return results that can be seen as opportunities to introduce audiences to the brand. This would be the primary form of communication with the audience and that ‘brand stream’ could be subscribed to and filtered by any user based on a hierarchical taxonomy schema. There would also be an infusion of the brand in key locations throughout the web (i.e. wikipedia, social networks, etc)

The great thing about new technology & new ways of thinking is that novelty is an effective way of creating awareness. Consider who has the ability to make use of new technologies & who your high-value customers are. If you find out that you’re highest value customers use a specific type of technology, it would be smart to design a way to make use of it in a novel way. (i.e. If you find out 30% of your highest value customers have an iPhone; don’t just make an iPhone app, figure out a way to make your companies core competency more accessible to iPhone users.) It’ll be this way of thinking that will truly differentiate an innovative company from one that’s playing catch-up.

I encourage comments & questions here on via Twitter @thejordanrules

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An issue that’s plagued marketers since the rise of digital communications has been figuring out how to control the integrity of their message. 2 underlying causes of this concern are the editable nature of the internet, and the ease of online-self-publication. The evolution of search & social media has begun to aggravate this concern again.

I believe a user’s perception of your message can be interpreted many different ways & your message should account for that interpretation; meaning, message control isn’t as important as a user’s interpretation of the message.

There are 2 primary arguments:

1.     Ensuring each user receives a properly vetted message will provide the best chances of users interpreting the message correctly.

2.     Allowing the message to be altered by each user and redistributed will increase the efficacy of the message. Miscommunication is understood to be the responsibility of the sender, rather than that of the originator.

I think these arguments represent two divergent views on the same continuum. At one end, the marketer wants complete control over the message; at the other end, the marketer submits his message for redefinition to the crowd. Two good Canadian telecom examples are Bell who tried to keep control of the message (http://www.bell.ca) and Wind who turns to the crowd to define a majority of its communication (http://www.windmobile.ca)

 

Digital communications channels that allow a high level of control

Display Ads

Paid Search

Email

Status Updates

 

Digital communications that do not offer as much control

Video Channel

Contest/ Content Integration

Organic Search

Social Bookmarking

Social Networking

Mobile Networking

Twitter/ Microblogs

Blogs/ RSS

 

Combined with the knowledge of which channels deliver the best results based on your business, you now have a framework to help you throttle the control you have over your message. The idea of throttling control is to find the ideal balance between accurate branding, reach, and influence.

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Many of the clients I’ve been consulting for have interesting notions about social media. One common idea is that social media is an ongoing effort and doesn’t conform to normal lifecycle rules.

The Social Media Lifecycle Framework

I would agree that social media initiatives are different than many other campaign models, but I do think most initiatives deliver a higher ROI when the following lifecycle framework is considered & followed.

Conversion Funnel

 

Monologue: A broadcast form of communication that works well for creating initial awareness. Before broadcasting your message, be sure to craft your message by listening to what people are already saying about you.

Conversion A: Converts users who have simply heard of you, to users who want to have a conversation with you.

Conversation: A participatory form of communication that works well after you’ve created a community. Not everyone in you’re community will feel comfortable engaging in conversations, which means your community needs to be large enough to support multiple levels of participation.

Conversion B: Converts users who are participating in conversations, to those who will take your message & use it to influence others.

 

Influence: An extended form of conversation that works well when influential community members believe your message. Influential communication is effective at achieving perfect conversion.

Perfect Conversion

Conversion C: Fulfilment of the end objective. This is where the user is converted to customer.

Advocacy: Customer advocacy may occur if users expectations have consistently been met or exceeded. This refers to the entire customer experience; not just through social media. At this stage, customer advocacy can occur at any time.

 

Amplification Funnel

Customer Service/ Support: A system that ensures customers are satisfied with their purchase.

Conversion D: Converts users who are satisfied, to users who are engaged with your comity & are actively seeking further engagement.

 

Community Engagement: A system that allows users to interact & share information about being your customer. (i.e. A Burger King campaign connecting personal trainers with Burger King customers. This type of campaign could be used to connect frequent customers with the resources necessary to ‘burn-off’ their favourite Burger King meals.)

Conversion E: Converts engaged community members to participants within the conversion funnel of a product extension.

Extensions: This can be considered the beginning of a new conversion funnel or the end of the current amplification funnel. This is where customers learn about something else you sell. (i.e. A digital agency that also offers search strategy.)

You can now begin the life cycle again.

In an unrelated note, I’ve been engaged to write a handbook on various social media & enterprise 2.0 topics. I would like to encourage anyone who reads my blog to submit topic suggestions. I’m totally open to all ideas & if a submitted topic makes it to the book, I’ll acknowledge your contribution within & will send you a complimentary copy. You can send ideas to me via Twitter (@thejordanrules) - or via email (thejordanrules@gmail.com).

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Jumping into social media marketing before you’re ready can be devastating to your business. The argument that people are already talking about you through social media channels has been used to push brands into social media marketing before they’re ready.

It’s a myth that you’d be better off participating than not participating. The voice you create for your brand can have echoing repercussions.

There are 3 questions you need to ask yourself before you ‘take-the-plunge’ into social media marketing. If you can’t answer yes to these 3 questions you need to do some work before participating & engaging with your audience through social media channels.1. Do you have social media balance?
2. Do you have the right corporate structure?
3. Does your T.V. know what your computer’s doing?

 

Question #1: Do you have social media balance?

This refers to your understanding of the social media space, and what kind of goals you need to define. There are 4 things participating in social media will affect:

Brand Awareness

Even if you’re brand is ubiquitous and everyone’s aware of it; social media connects a human face with your brand. Take Nike, for example; visiting their Facebook page, I was able to find out which of my friends like their brand. This brings a new level of brand-awareness into play.

Of course, the traditional level of brand awareness should be a consideration too. With video’s like the Twilight trailer receiving an estimated 300 Million collective views, social media is quickly becoming a mass awareness tool.

Take Away: Participating in social media marketing will affect awareness. If you’re social media goals don’t define how you want brand awareness to be affected; you do not have social media balance.

Brand Image

Brands can be very effectively defined using social media, but even if you’re not defining your brand using social media, you need to define how you want your brand to be perceived within the channels your participating in.

Social media allows users to connect with your brand in a more intimate way than through traditional channels. This brand intimacy can be a double-edged sword: Wielded properly it can create brand advocates who will evangelize your brand identity & protect you from social media trolls. Wielded incorrectly can create brand dissidents who will actively damage your brand image & encourage users to find alternatives to your brand. These two extremes have always existed; but have never been more prominent than with the rise of social media.

Take Away: Participating in social media marketing will affect brand image. If you’re social media goals don’t define the brand image you want to create & support, you do not have social media balance.

Conversion

Getting users to do things has long been the goal of online marketing initiatives. Social media marketing will affect your conversion funnel. Because conversion goals can range from awareness, to repeat purchase it’s important to note that every level of your conversion funnel can be affected by social media marketing.

A Facebook ecommerce solution can convert engaged users to actual customers. A Facebook Connect-enabled website can convert brand-aware users to engaged users who you’re able to communicate with in the future. A well curated Twitter stream can convert a dissatisfied customer to a satisfied one.

Take Away: Participating in social media marketing will affect your conversion rate. Conversion goals are important to set on a channel-by-channel basis; in many cases several conversion goals will be set for a specific channel. If you’re social media goals don’t define these goals, you don’t have social media balance.

eCRM

Slightly different than the other 3 elements, eCRM is affected by social media marketing by changing the users expectations of the brand/customer relationship. Social media gives brands the ability to collect very insightful user information. If that information isn’t properly collected, analyzed, and used to influence ongoing marketing initiatives users will consider that brand a poor listener.

Take Away: Participating in social media marketing will give you eCRM data. If you will not collect this information, analyze it, and use it to influence marketing campaigns, you do not have social media balance.

Question #2: Do you have the right corporate structure?

Even if you have social media balance, you might be setting yourself up for failure by not having the proper corporate structure. Many brands have delegated community management to specialists. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there should be a response assessment & escalation procedure. I’m currently adapting a process brand call-centers use for contact assessment & escalation to be used for social media response assessment.

The important thing to note, is that a community manager with properly established goals can be a valuable addition to your corporate structure, but social media participation & monitoring should be infused throughout the organization. It should be noted that different members of your team will have different levels of responsibility for participation & monitoring - if a team member has 0% involvement with social media marketing initiatives (and 0% of his time is allocated to participation & monitoring) you need to consider defining a system where participation & monitoring is available to those employees who want it.

Note: In addition to having an enabled & empowered corporate team, you need to ensure the right tools are available. Tools like Tweetdeck, CoTweet, Sysomos, & Radian 6 can help enable your teams to get the most out of your social media marketing activities.

Question #3: Does your T.V. know what your computer’s doing?

Many brands have a ‘zone’ strategy, where brand experts divide duties. The might be one person in charge of marketing communications, one person in charge of business communications, and one person in charge of in-store; authority over these areas may even be further delegated to sub-brand specific, medium-specific, or campaign-specific managers.

If these zones don’t have a good collaborative process; it’s probably not a good idea to throw social media into the mix. As outlined in question #1, social media will affect 4 key areas of your business & should be integrated across the entire business. If you’re marketing, business, and in-store communications are being created for what-works-best; you might be missing out on synergies across communication channels. (i.e. Providing a Facebook url as a tag line at the end of a broadcast campaign might seem like it works best for both the broadcast & social media campaigns; but understanding that users often use the search box when looking for things on Facebook might suggest that you ask users to search for a keyword instead. The extra time it takes for users to listen to this message might not make the most out of the broadcast time, but might provide a better net conversion rate, providing a higher ROI across media.)

I understand that if a brand never participates in social media, it won’t ever be able to perfect things. There is a theory that it might be better to jump in and make corrections as needed. If you’re transparent about the fact you’re learning, you’re audience might respect that. — From a cognitive perspective, it makes sense. People generally understand the learning process and can be gracious about certain mistakes. I’m not suggesting that brands avoid social media in fear of failure; but know the game before you start making big bets.

I appreciate all comments & questions. I encourage you to respond to this post here, or on Twitter to @thejordanrules.

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