S&E Social Media Presentation

No, it doesn’t mean forcing your graphic designers to bicycle to keep their desk lamps on, Ed Begley-style. Marketing green products can be challenging, especially when there is a cost savings to buying non-green. For companies like S&E, this could mean convincing groceries to carry their product, or convincing a cleaning company that they will have a value proposition to win business over other competitors. This presentation discusses green product and marketing, and provides 8 valuable rules to live by.

More than any of the other readings for this class, this book seemed to focus on the content of the message to consumers, as well as the channel. In this increasingly proliferated world, consumers are exposed to millions of touch points. For PR to succeed in the new media environment, Solis argues that they must adapt their content of their message to convey more authenticity in order to break through the barriers to decision-makers. The new media technologies can also help to create this more meaningful consumer engagement.

For example, Solis mentions PR individuals or companies who were consistently pushing out press releases in word document form; these were largely thought of as spam and some authors were blacklisted (sometimes publicly). This was for two reasons; they either weren’t relevant, or weren’t interesting, or both. With new technologies like video news releases (VNRs) or SMRs (social media releases), PR professionals are able to more genuinely connect with consumers, but the message still has to be meaningful, and even impart some knowledge on them in the process.

One of the most important realities discussed in the book is directed at those who fear negative feedback, whether it is in comments’ sections or elsewhere. These are the facts: negative conversations are taking place online all the time – but when you participate, you have an opportunity to respond directly to complaints, and manage the conversation. Even the companies perceived as the most loathsome can improve their image with the strategic use of PR – Solis cites the big, bad Microsoft as a current example of one.

For companies like S&E, the opportunity to use PR 2.0 will greatly improve on the value of their marketing tactics. Instead of using high-priced advertising buys, S&E can leverage things like executive blogs, VNRs, and SMRs to get their messages out. And while outside PR firms provide a different perspective, using internal executives and employees helps create an authentic and genuine experience with the consumer. Just as the new social media environment has leveled the field for consumers, giving them unprecedented access to products, companies, and other people, it has done the same for companies. Small companies with limited marketing budgets can make those marketing dollars stretch even further by using internal employees instead of agencies, and low cost social media tactics in lieu of high-priced traditional media buys.

There is the potential of cross-contaminating real newsworthy news stories with social media PR. And while this would seem to be the ultimate win for a PR professional, anyone with a hint of journalistic puritanism would cringe at the thought of the two worlds colliding. PRwatch.org has taken to exposing these VNRs disguised as news, and after watching a select few, it doesn’t even masquerade as a credible media source and could open up a company to new potential liabilities. I think in the case of VNRs disguised as television news, you’re pushing your message instead of leveraging the pull mechanism that is inherent in so many of the new social media tools that leads to genuine consumer engagement.

The Long Tail refers to those who are operating at the part of the graph that is flattest, where variety is high and popularity is low.

However, this theory is effectively the result of the incredible technological innovation of the last few decades, not one of the components. For example, Netflix is one of the companies that is most often referred to by Anderson, specifically because of its variety of products, and the algorithms by which the website recommends future movies to subscribers based on current movie choices. So there is no question of “which came first, the chicken or the egg” when it comes to the Long Tail – the suggestive nature of Netflix would seem to have come before the innermost movie interests of people could be revealed.

While reading the book, I couldn’t help but thinking (at first) that it flew directly in the face of everything I had ever read out about branding. And while social media is definitely hijacking some of the aspects of the world of branding, companies are still building and maintaining brands by developing a promise, values, or a mission. When I thought of the variety that is present on a Amazon or a Netflix, it seems to contradict the principles discussed in some prominent books on branding. Yet, it became clear as Anderson developed his argument, most of these companies who are taking advantage of the Long Tail are still staying on message and remaining true to their brand. Amazon is a bit of an anomaly – but that is the privilege of creating a brand that serves as a a great “aggregator”.

There is an aspect of many of these social media books that is incredibly satisfying to the consumer – the fact that the power of choice seems to be back in the hands of consumers. Anderson’s anecdote about Bonnie McKee and My Chemical Romance is one such example. Yes, to some extent, the music industry has learned the power of social media and harnessed it to its advantage. But this time, if we as consumers don’t like the new Miley Cyrus album, we have the opportunity to go to one of the great aggregators and find a new artists. And while an algorithm on Amazon may suggest artists based on common purchasing patterns, we can ignore those suggestions and still have a wealth of options that we can decide to explore.

Nowhere has this phenomenon been more prevalent than in the technology industry. Shirky’s account of Wikipedia, paralleled with the higher level development of Linux, is one of the better known examples of this. This seemingly “unsupervised collaboration” has pushed Google to the top of the Silicon Valley power structure. Collaborative work environments that account for time to work on individual projects have proven to be the recipe that continues to stretch the limits of innovation. But Shirky and others often seem a bit too attached to the size of organizations, believing that once a group reaches a certain size, it can’t achieve that maximum level of “flatness”. As Google has surpassed its 16,000th employee, its creative fearlessness still seems stronger than ever.

Google Wave

Shirky throws political movements in the mix as well. We have a very recent example of this in the Iranian elections -
millions of 140-character articles by the Twitterati. However, as Shirky’s argument relies heavily on power dynamics, one must ask – how much power does this new media environment really have? As it turns out, not much. The Iranian elections were deemed valid by internal parties, the bloodshed of protesters has faded from our eyes. When Twitter effectively takes down a corrupt or illegitimate regime, the power dynamics will truly have changed.

Compared to others, Shirky tends toward the theoretical. Groundswell reads like “how to sell”, where HCE reads like “why things are selling”. Shirky mentions social media tools, but only in the context of anecdotal accounts. Even the chapter list sets the stage for thought leadership – by seeking to answer questions with big implications.

With all of these books focusing on the power of social media in bringing people together, I have come to wonder about the future of traditional organizations. What if we lived in a world where no rigid organizational structures existed, where the only way groups and unions of people would form was when an issue or cause united them in search of collective action? Imagine the lack of bureaucratic or administrative functions. I think immediately to non-profits, some of which spend 20% of their funds (donations or otherwise) on simply gathering MORE donations. This does not imply that non-profits have not been adept at harnessing the power of social media. But what if activists believed that their issues were valid and worthy enough for a group of people to unite in a passionate showing of strength behind it?

S&E Mission 1
Disclaimer: This is not an official message from Sun & Earth.

The most important tenet of the book is that one seeking to use social media to communicate should not rush into it. Careful thought should be given to understand what you want to do with your consumers. Furthermore, this is how the book is organized; listening to and talking with the groundswell are just two of the ways marketers can utilize social media to make informed decisions based on research and insights. I believe their example of the “overenthusiastic blogger” appropriately describes what can happen when CEOs who have not thoroughly thought about how to best use social media get caught up in the movement.

Tools like blogs, consumer panels, forums, and product reviews are clearly important to incorporate into any marketing strategy. International leaders like Procter & Gamble have used them effectively to communicate with hard-to-reach audiences like pre-pubescent girls, as evidenced by beinggirl.com. I think in specific instances like this, Yi and Bernoff have produced content that is both relevant and applicable. Before developing a social media plan for a client, it will be essential to conduct consumer research, monitor internet mentions, study ethnography and purchasing behaviors, and any other new techniques to correctly identify what the groundswell is around the client.

The problem with books like Groundswell is that they inevitably fall prey to the temptation of being an advertisement for research vendors, including that of the authors. Yi and Bernoff both work for Forrester Research, and they discuss firms like Communispace, who often partner with Forrester. I believe it is tactics like this which separate the New York Times bestsellers which change the face of business from mere industry publications disguised as sales pitches – it is fairly obvious that the authors are striving for the latter.

They also rehash topics like word-of-mouth marketing, which has been discussed extensively by mainstream, non-trade authors like Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point. Additionally, their creators, critics, collectors, and joiners are akin to Gladwell’s mavens, connectors, and salesmen.

Given that the book was published in 2008, I cannot help but wonder as to how a special section on “don’t ignore the groundswell during a recession” would have fared in making the book more applicable. Companies consistently cut marketing budgets during economic downturns, despite research that shows brands who maintain or increase marketing/advertising during a recession increase market share. With consumer confidence a major indicator in a turnaround, companies can use the relatively inexpensive tactics inherent in social media to gauge consumer sentiment, while cutting back on advertising, or as Yi and Bernoff term it, “shouting”.