MarketUP: Marketing & PR Services

How many social networks do you engage in on a regular basis - and is the time spent worth it? This is a frequent topic of conversation that I've seen crop up on - guess what - all those social networks! And the answer may be different for you as a business versus as an individual. If you are an agency, as we are, representing both your own business and your clients' - you can multiply your social involvement by an X factor and imagine then how much time commitment is involved.

Evolution

More than a decade ago we started with the corporate website as online presence - and it was pretty much one-way content posting, maybe with an email newsletter sign up form and a few questions submitted. Blogs became a more popular form of individual expression, and were then appended to business websites - or replaced them if you were smaller - and responding to Comments was added to the mix.

Enter in rather quick succession the real-time networks: MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - and many others (some defunct). Posting and responding to content exploded. The time commitment increased exponentially. Then we had to tie  each network to the other - to cover all the bases. LinkedIn jumped on the bandwagon - add another connection. Social sharing/rating increased: Blogger, digg, del.icio.us, Wikipedia, reddit, Posterous, and more. And don't forget - not in historical or hierarchical order - Flickr, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, FourSquare, GoWalla, Klout, Blip.fm, last.fm, Orkut, bebo, Google Buzz, Google Reader, Google+, SlideShare, Instagram, just-out-of-the-gate Pinterest... The latest count on the Share bar widget is over 330! I'm certain to have missed your personal favorite. Amplify this by mobile check-ins and gamification apps like EmpireAvenue (!) or the Zynga lineup - and who has time for anything else???

Opportunity?

Recent GetBusy Media blog post by Ryan McBurney repeats the idea that the next big business opportunity will be 'Social Assistance'. He in turn quotes Mashable's Nova Spivack's excellent post on 'Sharepocalypse', a catchy headline to be sure...that forecasts a whole new category of Social Assistance that includes SRM, curation, awareness, personalization, automation, and analytics (of course).

But what's the ROI? The ever-asked question by my clients and undoubtably yours.

The point to all of this busy-ness, connecting and sharing - from a business standpoint - is multifold: brand awareness, current and prospective customer engagement, and business development, all resulting in sales. The belief that larger numbers of followers, fans, likes or comments = greater revenue is one of the yet-to-be-realized dreams for most companies. But it doesn't mean we should give up all activity. It means we are still trying to figure out the right formula, depending on your particular goals, strategy and what you are selling.

Monetizing

Another yet-to-materialize theory is Social Media advertising results. We have experimented with Facebook ads - and while they have indeed yielded more 'Likes', that alone has not translated into more paying clients. Nor much meaningful additional engagement. Like all marketing strategies - it takes time to build trust and commitment. The Center for Media Research reports a study from the Pivot Conference this past Spring showing that with all the online activity, we have become really good at ignoring the stuff we don't care about - like ads. They call this 'banner blindness'. To quote, "Usability guru Jakob Nielsen demonstrated through heat maps where eyes are focused on a website screen. Consumer attention is shown to zero in on text and not the banners around it."

So what to do? Rethink paid media. Get creative. If creating a custom Zynga game hits your demographic - maybe that's the way to go. Realize however that we are all competing for eyeballs and TIME.

Just barely squeezing in time to write a blog post about this topic indicates that I might be on the 'overload' side of the equation - but it also could mean that I need to hire more people! If only the measurement of outcome and profitability were simpler.

Disclaimer: Lest you think this post was one giant self-promotion bit, because the many links go to my own profiles, they were linked as examples rather than just a generic 'welcome' page for each service. And they are not stellar examples in most cases - because I neglect many of them! Feel free to add your own sites/links in Comments - and I'll go check them out, like them, comment, etc. - as I have time. :)

Photo attribution: Ludwig Gatzke's photostream, Flickr, Creative Commons license

Morning. Early. Coffee. Feed pets, including 'wheeking' guinea pig (who knew they could be so bossy??) Multi-task: watch news, read email-blogs-RSS feeds, check Huffington Post for entertainment and politics.

Then to work - much of which involves similar activities: Reading, analyzing, decision-making, responding. Interacting, commenting, Tweeting, posting on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

And when you are a marketing services provider who (most likely) manages the blogs, Facebook pages, websites and Twitter accounts of your clients - that can involve a good part of the morning. Or evening. Not to mention 'feeding yourself'. What I've found is that it takes an incredible amount of self-discpline to keep on task and not get distracted, particularly if it's for my own MarketUP business.

Several different articles - and conversations - converged in my brain this morning. It just took about 17 hours for me to get some thinking time for expression.

It started with the piece: Why Flattery is Effective - Research - Harvard Business Review. Definitely worth the read. The gist of it is - we all like compliments. They motivate us. Duh. Let me think, would I rather hear 'your hair style makes you look matronly... your suit is drab...you were too blunt and pushy in the meeting...your report had no conclusion... you bored the audience to death...OR, would I rather someone told me 'your hair is lovely/shiny today...your blouse is such a cheerful color...that was terrific diplomacy in a tough meeting...your report supplied important data...you really engaged the audience.' Hmmmm. Let me give that a NANO SECOND (or less) of thought.

So many people talking. Or tweeting. Or writing. Or communicating something online. Lots of press on all of this too: Mainstream TV CNN gives out their different Twitter accounts on the air, so do most of the other network and cable news channels. The Huffington Post is a giant series of blogs all connected to various other online sharing sites. The White House posts online, on Twitter, on Facebook, and yes, even on My Space.

It's a noisy world these days, but I still believe a well planned PR strategy is one of the most cost effective ways to build brand, buzz and bonding with new contacts - particularly if you are a small enterprise. Public relations is not some magical, arcane art. It is dedication, work, and should be based on honesty. It involves establishing trust - between the publicist and the reporter, or between the press release content and the reader. For something to be 'newsworthy', it needs to be a real story and provide factual information which matters. PR is a responsibility.