12 Personas to show you who’s online and how they feel about being online

If you want to use social media to build relationships with your customers and prospects, you’ll want to have a very good idea of exactly who they are. ExactTarget and CoTweet have done the heavy-lifting to develop 12 online personas to help you understand customer expectations and behavior on social media.

Their report examines both user-generated content and user-content consumption and charts the results. Here is a quick list of the 12 social media profiles.

  1. Inner Circle: more interested in keeping and enhancing existing relationships than making new ones. Facebook is the tool of choice. Marketers will have a tough time reaching them.
  2. Cautious: very selective about what they share online. If they “Like” a company Facebook Page, it’s only because their friend owns the company. Facebook is their daily tool, but they attempt to keep their social footprint small.
  3. Info Seeker: they’re in search of information and consume it when they find it. They don’t create much content. They’ll “Like” a Facebook Page so they can share, not receive.
  4. Enthusiasts: their offline interests and hobbies drive them online. They intentionally use Facebook to show their support for favorite brands. Enthusiasts rely on each other, not companies, for information.
  5. Deal Seekers: they’re hungry for promotional content everywhere they can get it. Believe it or not, their median income is actually above the national media income.
  6. Shoppers: these folks are more interested in talking about shopping than actually buying something online. Instead, they scour the Internet researching upcoming purchases. Quality, not savings, drives their quest for content.
  7. News Junkie: you know this one—they spend a lot of time searching for late-breaking news. The contribute a ton of content, too, especially as comments on news sites. Surprisingly, they’re even “more likely to read product reviews than Shoppers, Enthusiasts, and Deal Seekers.”
  8. Gamer: the Internet exists to connect these folks with both games and other gamers.
  9. Social Butterfly: you also know this one—”making and maintaining a lot of online friendships” is top priority for them. [hey, stop staring at me. I’m not a social butterfly. I could stop at any time, if I wanted to. Really, I could.] They both create and consume massive amounts of content. Folks fitting this persona make up a relatively small portion (13%) of online users.
  10. Business First: heavy content creators but focused on using everything for business purposes. Also a small group (8%). Though they’re not likely to follow brands on Twitter, “they are the most active on Twitter.” Facebook is NOT the tool of choice. [see, I told you I’m not a Social Butterfly. I’m a Business First guy, right? Oh, wait, maybe not: this is the “most affluent” persona. Guess I’m back to Social Butterfly.]
  11. Megaphone: another one you’re probably quite familiar with. They’re aggressive online, receive more email than anyone else, but see Facebook and Twitter as preferred avenues of interaction with brands. While they’re The Influencers, they are also easily influenced and are “more likely to become a subscriber, fan or follower at the recommendation of others.”
  12. Open Book: they lay it all out on the table. Though they don’t follow brands on Twitter, they are very active on Twitter. If you want to reach them, you’ll have to be very open in encouraging and responding to candid feedback.

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Facilitating Integration: Functional lines blurring due to social media

At this point there seems to be few parts of traditional organizations and the functions within them that will not be touched or even perhaps radically altered by the forces of social media connectivity and communications. But there are still many naysayers out there asking

Why do we need social media?



Some typical responses from those who still don’t get it:

To share inane updates with random persons only hungering for us to follow them back?

To expose ourselves to just one more medium where avid advertisers can spam us into submission?

No if there wasn’t more than this, I would set the Twitter Fail Whale as my screensaver and never turn the application on again! (exercising maximum restraint to avoid mentioning obvious parallel to recent Twitter service uptime issues; oops I guess I just did, sorry @biz =)

Fortunately there’s more, much more to social media that can and will make a difference. A difference in one to one communications, one to many communications and most importantly to all manner of human organizations.

So what is functional integration and why should we all want more of it?

Easiest place to start is to think about what are all the things we hate most about typical organizations today?

Departments which have become little fiefdoms dedicated only to the glory of their self important manager to the detriment of all else.

Companies to whom suppliers and customers have become no more than predatory targets to latch onto and suck their blood until they die.

So what’s new, isn’t that just the way most big companies have been for the last 100 plus years?

And how’s social media going to make a difference in the face of such utter dysfunction?

Well first off there’s nothing better when it comes to Smashing the Silos with Social Media. So whether it’s between departments in one company or between companies needing to work together for improvement, the nature of hypercommunication via social media makes quick work of any little emperors who might try and get in the way.

Through social media, the truth always seems to find its way through any attempts to distort or stop it. There’s now just too many eyes and voices feeding a collective pool of information available to all for the truth not to emerge sooner or later.

So the bottom line for those companies or people who think they can go on treating their customers and co-workers like garbage is that their days are numbered.

Before, except in the most extreme of cases, they could easily divide and conquer those customers who dared to speak the truth about their shoddy service or products. Now a simple keyword search on Twitter reveals what the world really thinks of them. And if they also treat their employees in a similar manner, just what their employees also think of them.

Add to this their environmental record, product quality, social responsibility and even customer service and you get the picture of this new era of accountability and transparency.

And if we really would like to have some fun with this and truly make a difference, the simple application of the above to politics, countries and even the entire planet will reveal the ultimate potential.

Jeff Ashcroft

Your Customers Are Going Mobile

We’re in the midst of yet another technological revolution slated to be bigger than that of the TV or PC and marketers will be faced with how to most effectively deal with it.

The new market is Mobile and it is about to change everything.

No longer will the customer be found tethered to a TV or PC screen, perfectly positioned to receive a marketer’s message on the marketer’s terms. The Mobile consumer is on the move, on location, and the marketer will have to find where their customers aggregate in this new digital landscape and how to interact with them by adding value.

It’s not the lean back of TV or the lean forward of the PC, but rather the lean very forward of Mobile. It’s up close and it’s personal. Mobile customers are doing a lot more than talking on their phones, based on the latest Pew Research Center study Mobile Access 2010:

  • The majority (54%) have sent a photo or video
  • More than a fifth (23%) have accessed a social networking site
  • A fifth have watched a video
  • Eleven percent have purchased a product
  • Eleven percent have made a charitable donation

These Mobile activity indicators are barely the tip of the iceberg of what Mobile is doing to the marketing landscape. More than 13 million people accessed bank accounts through Mobile sites in one month and more than five million people are using banking apps, according to comScore. And that’s just one industry.

The size and scope of Mobile cannot be underestimated. By 2013, there will be roughly five billion mobile subscribers worldwide, according to noted research firm IDC. And global enterprises will be impacted in even more profound ways.

For example, nine out of 10 Mobile users in China text on their phones, based on research conducted by Sybase 365. In the U.S. market, they found only 13 percent use Mobile commerce and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. While that’s slightly higher than Canada, nearly half of those in China already use such systems.

In Japan, consumers are accustomed to swiping cell phones rather than credit cards for payment and in South Korea free Mobile TV has been around for five years and broadcasters there say almost 30 million people watch TV regularly from their phones.

Many of the large brands already have been experimenting with Mobile while many are taking a wait and see approach. In a Mobile marketing study we conducted at the Center for Media Research at MediaPost Communications, 41 percent of those not yet doing Mobile campaigns do not plan to in the foreseeable future. Another study by Acquity Group showed that only 12 percent of the top 500 retailers had sites optimized for Mobile phones.
The time for marketers to get into Mobile is now. It is the wave so you can be on it or under it.

  • What is the overall Mobile strategy of the business?
  • Where do your Mobil customers aggregate and what Mobile platforms do they use?
  • What role does your CIO or IT department play in this? Are they onboard?
  • Can your point of sale system or rewards program be integrated and maximized for your Mobile customers?
  • How do you plan to deal with your customers on location?

And those are only some of the questions that need to be addressed.
Mobile marketing is not about providing coupons and discounts, it’s about determining how you will interact with your customers when and where they want and defining the future of your brand in the Mobile environment.

Chuck Martin

Chuck Martin is a New York Times business bestselling author and was the founding Publisher of Interactive Age, the first publication to launch in print and on the Web simultaneously. He is Director of the Center for Media Research, MediaPost, in New York and former Vice President of IBM’s publishing and advertising division. He is the Co-Publisher and Editor in Chief of Social Media Marketing Magazine. He is currently writing a soon-to-be published book on Mobile.

Can the social web play a role in customer retention?

The recession has culled the weak from the pack but it’s likely that your competition is still fierce. Is there a way to attract and retain B2B customers without lowering your price? And is there a way to leverage the social web to keep your customers … even in the extreme case of a commodity market?

Holding onto customers in a buyer’s market is one of the most extraordinary challenges in business, especially if you’re selling a commodity (Commodity = purchasers view suppliers as identical on all factors but price, i.e. common coal, steel, or chemicals).

There is usually only one winner in a commodity market — the lowest cost supplier — except in periods of high demand when supply falls short. But there are ways to lock-in customers even in ugly downturns. One strategy I used throughout my career was to create a systematic plan to raise switching costs. By this I mean create obstacles — through valuable benefits — to prevent a customer from leaving you for the competition.

A process to retain customers

This process starts with getting out to your most valued customers and listening. And I mean REALLY listening. We would sometimes have half-day sessions to explore un-met and under-served customer needs that would …

  • Improve their competitive position
  • Enhance profitability or productivity
  • Eliminate waste
  • Lower risk
  • Increase speed to market

One strategy that uncovered potential points of differentiation was to ask customers what they hated about their job. This always seemed to get people to open up about an idea we could implement to make their life easier! Some other potential approaches to this challenge:

  • Solve a customer problem (reporting, data-gathering, analysis/testing) that might add slightly to your cost, but establishes enough value to create a hurdle to switching
  • Create a specialized service that would be difficult for competitors to match (we did a specialized truck-return recycling program, for example)
  • Work actively with customers to influence specifications and terms that could advantage my company or disadvantage a competitor
  • Focus retention efforts on most profitable customer locations
  • Look at eCommerce integration options to enhance retention

Notice that all of these ideas go beyond the basics of price, quality and service. Those aren’t strategic initiatives. Those are competitive tablestakes these days.

When customers don’t play nice

This process of listening, reacting and renewal must be continual and integrated through an effective CRM system. But it doesn’t always work.

In the middle of all this great creative marketing work I just suggested is another dynamic. Purchasing may not want you to implement your ideas – even if there is an advantage – because it reduces their flexibility with suppliers. They may even force you to hand over your innovations to competitors. I witnessed this in the automotive market in the 1990s. This ended up hurting customers because when there is no reward for innovation, innovation ends.

Now what about the social web?

Is it possible to develop some distinct value through social media that could create a switching cost? My answer – probably not. The social web might be a tool to listen and tune-in to possible innovations and market needs but I don’t see how social networks can create sustainable switching costs in this part of the sales cycle. It’s free to everyone and easily duplicated by competitors.

However, I do think you can create PRIVATE information networks and communities that create distinct value. For example, one idea that worked really well was a private, unique market information hub for customers who remained in our top tier in revenue.

What are you doing to hold onto your best customers in tough economic conditions? Can you think of any way to leverage the social web for DISTINCT value in a commodity market?

Mark Schaefer

Mark Schaefer is Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions and CMO of Freesource Inc. You can find him on Twitter at @markwschaefer and on his blog {grow} at www.businessesGROW.com

5 Steps to Add Social Media to Your Marketing Mix

Social media participation is a marketing game changer for every size of business. The playing field is leveled and companies from @Ford with 198,000 employees, to @AmeriChoiceFCU with 60 employees, to @GoodHlthRewards with 7 employees have equal opportunity to tell their story, attract an audience, listen to the customer, and make the sale.

Perhaps you think blogging, tweeting, and checking-in is a fad. Who cares if @AlanBr82 had coffee at Starbuck in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania? @Starbucks cares and commercial real estate developers like @RichardEJordan2 care.

“Social media brings new tools to our preliminary market studies,” says Rick Jordan, CEO of Smith Land & Improvement Corporation. “In real time, we can learn consumer trends and desires. Twitter is one massive focus group. As a property owner who leases office and retail space, it’s good to know that our tenants have a loyal following and are building community. By tracking conversations, we can discover what products and services people want in a region and attract specific tenants to fill the needs. That’s good for business.”

Chances are high that your competition is already engaged on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Foursquare. To find out, go to www.socialmention.com, www.trackle.com, or set up some Google Alerts. If you’re not on at least one of these social platforms, you can join the conversation today to add social media to your marketing mix. It’s never too late to tell your story.

Where should you start?

1. Meet with the CEO to establish executive buy-in. Top-down support drives a social media marketing campaign. Peter Aceto (@CEO_INGDIRECT) is an excellent example of an executive who harnesses the power of social media for a business advantage. He tweets about his institution, his team, his family; and he has gained loyal customers and fresh insight because of his transparency. Ford’s Global Digital Communications Director @ScottMonty explains the power of these tools and the CEO’s support in a video interview at Ford’s World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. Whether an executive understands these nascent tools or not, dismissing them can be business suicide.


2. Develop a social media strategy. Don’t make this step too difficult—plan for where you want to engage your target audience (are they on Facebook or LinkedIn, are they local or global, are they retail or B2B), and plan the content of your messages. Focus your strategy, and commit to participation in at least two channels where your customers or clients are. Determine objectives, messages, and who will lead the messaging. Every tweet and post embodies your brand. Don’t be fooled by the language and brevity in the social media. Those 140 characters carry tremendous potential to boost your brand or set off a PR nightmare. Are you determining trends, seeking opinions, looking for new customers, finding influencers, or pitching the media? Start with measurable objectives and allocate sufficient people, time, and money to accomplish them. (This is where the value of #1 is realized.)

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4th of July – “Independence Day” – Declare Yours!

The thought of Independence Day brings to mind the current economic environment as well as personal family challenges for me. Many of us go through our lives, day to day, thinking that our only recourse is to put our heads down, one foot in front of the other, and persevere. It is easy to fall into this rut and believe it is the proper course, the only way to go, and all we have to hope for in the future.

I say NO. “Action is the active ingredient that transforms goals into reality!” Let us never forget that we can always improve the situation in which we live, make a better life for ourselves and the ones we love, and effect/fight for change even when the odds are against such change. Being courageous enough to act on your goals/desires/needs to make a better life, better widget, better business and/or better world, is the first and most crucial step in making your goals into reality.

I experience this realty each and every day in business and personally. I am 52 years old, have had big wins and big losses in business, and know that the game is far from over. There is huge opportunity presenting itself today in this new social media world and I am determined to not let it pass me by and finish with that desperately needed win. YOU CAN DO THE SAME.

In addition I face serious challenges in my personal life that many would walk away from, as I have been told over and over by those who would and many who have seen those who do; but I am determined to have a positive effect on the lives of my daughters and face those challenges head-to-head each and every day. Although this is exhausting mentally and physically, I do not bow in the face of the onslaught and odds that have been against me from the start.

Therefore in the face of all these financial and personal challenges we all face… I declare MY PERSONAL “Independence Day,” and you need to do the same!

Video: LiNC 2010: Paul Greenberg – 5 mins with an SCRM Expert

Paul Greenberg, founder of the 56 Group, Social CRM expert and keynoter at the LiNC conference this year, gives his take on the Social CRM industry and what companies are, and aren’t doing….

Key takeaway for me is how Social CRM is one of the driving factors creating the need for the types of functional integration described in my recent post Facilitating Integration: Functional lines blurring due to social media.

Follow Paul Greenberg on Twitter @pgreenbe

Brands Need to be Prepared for Social Shopping

Social shopping has many components is expanding everyday, and has been around for centuries. Women shop socially with friends and family, and always have, so convincing them to share, participate and have fun with it is not the issue, but rather its the myriad of choices, the ever evolving applications, and the education process that goes along with all this innovation.

The problem as I see it is discovering and using the appropriate applications that will get the traction and scale required to make them valuable to both shoppers and brands alike.

Brands needs to work with companies that specialize in getting out on the front lines constantly testing, vetting and crowd sourcing to determine the viability, user friendliness, and potential long term value of new applications and how they will change the evolving social shopping landscape.

Ted Rubin

Guidelines for Group Collaboration and Emergence

I’m in the middle of taking a course on Virtual Learning Environments (syllabus here), and reading a few chapters from Adaptive Software Development by Highsmith. It approaches the team-building and collaboration process from the perspective of complex adaptive systems theory, and contains some interesting insights in evolutionary development and creating environments where emergence can occur. I’ve created a summary of a chapter that I’d like to share, as I think it can be valuable for many of us, and specifically for the community of practitioners around the junto concept.

Collaboration is an act of shared creation or discovery. (schrage89)

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The value of social media advocacy? $136.38

It’s the big question in word of mouth: what is an advocate worth?
Well, according to research Syncapse and Hotspex have just released on eMarketer, on average $136.38. The study looked at the Facebook fans of the 20 biggest corporate brands on the site, and calculated the fans’ worth from a combination of how much they spent on the products, loyalty, recommendations and earned media.

In fact, for many food and beverage brands on Facebook, fans spent more than double on the brand than non-fans.

This reiterates the findings of a study earlier this year, which showed that consumers were more likely to buy from or recommend a brand after becoming a Facebook fan or follower.

It’s an interesting start to WOM ROI, although of course the real impact of advocacy goes far beyond Facebook, to cover not just the other social media platforms but real life conversations too.

Facebook fans are a notoriously passive group, and just clicking on a ‘become a fan’ button represents none of the participation and opinion-giving that true advocacy entails. Of course, there’s an exciting implication here. If these guys earn so much for a brand, how much more valuable must the fans be who actually bother to upload photos and videos, write detailed, passionate reviews on their pages and blogs and forums, and take that enthusiasm to the dinner table and the school gates?

Working out the ROI of an individual advocate beyond a single platform is a mighty complex task, but we’re getting there. For now, research like this indicates just how powerful that proactive, cross-platform advocacy is.

Molly Flatt