The concept of social listening is an integral component of being able to produce measurable ROI from your social media strategy. In Part 1 of this 3 part series, I discussed the value of balancing pushing content versus pulling data to garner insight.  I also introduced the concept of the 4 pillars of social listening: Features, Content, Accuracy and Infrastructure. Today we will further discuss the 4 pillars and how an understanding of them will help you make decisions for your program.

So how does this apply to the listening market’s development?

The graphic below is a representation of the cross section of the pillars described, the maturation of the market over time and where we are as of today. Each phase of the market as I described it is from the perspective of a madman selling the concept of listening to companies, agencies and consulting firms.  It is what I perceived to be important to those interested in buying and represents the cultural shift in the buying cycle of the customer.

The Features ERA: 2009-2011

The first era of social listening was the features era.  It was highlighted by the importance of “seeing”.  All that mattered for a very long time was the visual expression of data.  While people cared a bit about how much data a company gave them, the conversation of whether the data was accurate or not was invisible.  It was all about volume shifts and the numbers; not what was really behind them.  This era was highlighted by the trailblazing of the PR department (the true champions of social listening) who really owned it back then.  They wanted to measure and know how much reach and volume their company’s efforts generated.  It was really the Wild West back then.  Because the pace of PR is frenetic, they didn’t stop to smell the social media roses and often simply measured and moved.  As a scientist, I hated this era, because the blindness to asking the important questions about the data were nowhere to be found.  It was all about “can you express it?  I want to slice and dice, quality be damned!”

The Content ERA:  2012 – Creeping into 2013

If you care about measuring and expressing data, the next logical question is do you have all the data?  This was the hallmark of the content era of social listening.  Everything became about can you get me all the data.  How many languages do you have?  Do you have the twitter firehose?  Can you get it all, I need it all.  I need to be able to see every single frickin tweet.  Can you see them all?  If you can’t what can I do with this?  This conversation when I get into it always reminds me of Kramer talking to Jerry and George after he wins the coffee lawsuit when he was hopped up on caffeine.  Insert the dialogue using Kramer’s style and you are living in a content hell conversation.  Last year was all about this.  First, it was “can you see it?” and then it became “how much can you see?”  Again, I am not knocking the importance of content at all.  It is a critical part of being a good listening system (as there are new data channels that must be captured popping up all the time), but there is more than having all the data.  I mean, they have been polling forever using representative samples to make accurate predictions.  And I know you will say, I can’t miss any tweets when someone beats on my brand or when I need to find patient zero during a crisis, and you would be correct in this, but content isn’t everything.  It is a merely a key element.  During the content era.

The Accuracy ERA:  2013 and the foreseeable immediate future

Well, here we are…today.  The market is finally shifting towards accuracy.  ”Can I see it?” and “how much can I see?” has finally been replaced by the sensibility of “is the data trustworthy or actionable?”  It is nice to have the ability to express social data.  It is great that you can see everything.  But if your data is crap, how can you make any decisions? This is why accuracy is becoming so important.  If you are in a social media crisis and you are able to track the rise or fall in all the volume around the subject that is giving you heartburn, but can’t really understand if the data making up those sets is filled with crap, then how can you even trust what you are seeing?  I will go one step further, if you can’t accurately understand what that data is telling you, how can you know if what you are PUSHING is making it better or worse?  Let’s take another use case I love, customer care.  Yes, you need every tweet to be able to catch and engage issues your consumers are having with you.  There are, however, two sides to this use case.  One side is being able to quickly know who is talking about what so you can engage more quickly.  If the front end of that process is a dataset littered with junk the chances of you missing something goes up.  And if the data is no good, let’s not discuss how much time you are wasting searching for that tweet you need to engage with.  Again, if you have all the data and it is the right data, then the features that allow you to see it are actionable and trustworthy.  We are here today and the rise of accuracy is enabling the design of a litany of use cases across a variety of verticals.  If you have the first three pillars you can do much with your program…but it is still not enough.

The Infrastructure ERA:  2014

At the end of the day, social listening is an effort to tame big data.  In order to tame big data you need an infrastructure capable of managing the continued immenseness of it all.  The other three pillars will continue to evolve for sure, but those who will be standing at the end have the infrastructure to continuously innovate.  If you have built the right backbone, you can easily roll with the market as it tries to punch you.  Enterprise social intelligence is a battle that is currently raging, but is only winnable by those who have the flexibility of infrastructure to handle it all.  The infrastructure era will bring integration into the fold as well as a company’s ability to continue to execute the other three pillars with excellence.  Social enterprise intelligence will be about actionable data that is a closed loop process that brings value to the business every single day.  We are certainly aren’t there yet, but that day is coming soon to a marketplace near you.

So how can this help you make decisions for your program?

No one likes the word change in a software market, but if you haven’t realized you have to be a change agent to successfully sell and implement a listening program, get off the can and flush.  Whether you are an agency selling to your customers, an internal champion standing up your program or a software vendor attacking both, you are in the business of change, so accept your fate.  And when it comes to selling change, I find having a model to process anything that comes at you is imperative.  This is why I built this model.  It helps ME evangelize effectively because I can use this language in conversation I enter into during my day.  Below is how to think about the 4 pillars model.

So how can I tell those who will be there the end?  I would say this; if you don’t have the ability to flex over time with the market’s customized needs, you will not be picking the right partner.  Infrastructure will rule in the end because it will enable full integration across the entire enterprise.  That being said, you will also need accuracy to make sure that all that content can expressed with features that show you what you need.  Essentially, I am saying look for partners who express a strong RIGHT TO LEFT mentality.  This would be strong in infrastructure, who owns their accuracy methods, with the ability to integrate all that content while being able to show you data in a way that makes sense. You are looking for RIGHT to LEFTERS not LEFT to RIGHTERS as illustrated below.

Don’t be fooled by pretty interfaces with tons of content that is inaccurate.  That is why the market shifts and matures.  A RIGHT TO LEFTER will be a company that you know is heading where the market is and shows the ability to innovate as needed over time.

This was the second post in a 3 part series intended to open up a dialogue and discussion regarding social listening. Join the conversation and share your experiences about how you use social listening to build your social media strategy.

Within the past 12 months, we’ve seen no shortage of disasters that range from Hurricane Sandy, the mass shooting in Aurora and most recently the Boston Marathon bombings. For some brands, it may appear that the marketing window of opportunity has opened; if so, my advice to you is, shut that window and board it up… immediately.

Brands that refuse to shut the window and proceed to capitalize on these emotional events as a springboard for marketing ploys have quickly joined the ranks of ‘worst social media disasters of the year’. Just ask American Apparel (20% Off Sale during Hurricane Sandy using code “SANDYSALE”), Gap (promoting shoppers to shop at Gap.com to ‘stay safe’ and checking into Foursquare at “Frankenstorm Apocalypse — Hurricane Sandy”) and American Rifleman, whose scheduled tweet (“Good morning, shooters. Happy Friday! Weekend plans?”) was published as the mass shooting in Aurora was developing.

So, when do you separate your Brand from an emotional event?

1. When death, destruction or harm has unfolded.
2. Ask yourself and others, “Could this be perceived as insensitive?” If you hesitate, don’t participate.
3. Put yourself at the heart of the event – would you be handing out gimmicky 20% off coupons to families and those impacted by the tragic events? Didn’t think so.
4. Use common sense in the wake of emotional events. Weigh the risks of your content against the potential backlash or public perception that may follow.

These may seem like common sense tips, but as we’ve seen time and time again, social media common sense, isn’t very common. It’s easy to think in terms of a marketer without taking off the blinders. Basing your decisions on emotion and adrenaline under the premise of seizing the opportunity, can sometimes be a recipe for disaster.

Exceptions to the rule include:

• OREO: During the Super Bowl, Tweeted a timely ad on Twitter regarding the blackout, “You can still dunk in the dark.” Referencing the rules above, you can see how this timely marketing message clearly won over consumers and marketers alike. It’s probably also important to note that OREO had a 15-person social media team ready to respond to online activity during the Super Bowl; be prepared.
• Offering legitimate assistance to those impacted. Examples include insurance companies that offered guidance on how to file claims, volunteer organizations rallying to provide relief, hotels offering free stays to those impacted by the tragedy and airlines waiving cancellation or rescheduling fees. Even in these instances, Brands can become scrutinized. Keep your intentions pure, your messaging relevant / value-added, don’t try to push your Brand and ensure there aren’t any ‘catches’.

Helpful hints and tips:

• In the world of SMMS (Social Media Management Systems), it’s easy to schedule your content calendar well in advance and can also be the easiest thing to forget, so review and double-check your scheduled posts immediately. As a lesson learned from the American Rifleman example above, your scheduled post can put you in hot water, quickly, regardless of intent.
• Review your content calendar to ensure future posts aren’t perceived as insensitive.
• In general, your Brand loses nothing by canceling any scheduled posts or opting not to post anything for the day or the day following.
• If you choose to post, offering your commiserations, exclude anything that could be perceived as if your Brand is trying to jockey for engagement or content that relates to religion or politics; be agnostic. Keep it short, simple, relevant and to the point.
• If you’re in a large organization, ensure you alert all community managers regarding best practices and guidance for your organization so everyone is aligned and there’s one unified and consistent voice. Make sure the left hand knows what the right is doing.
• So you decided you’d post your marketing gimmick anyway? Run it past your colleagues and biggest cynics within your organization to get a quick pulse. 
• If you decide you want to push the envelope and be that daring marketer, ensure you have a crisis communication protocol in place. Don’t have one? Altimeter Group provides an excellent report: Social Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare (Link: http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/social-business-readiness)
• Lastly, if you make a mistake – own it, apologize and take responsibility to make it right.

In the end, it’s up your Brand to determine where you fall on the spectrum. Keep it genuine, empathize and take your foot off the marketing gas-pedal during times of tragedy. Be human.

Few brands attract my love and devotion as strongly as Life is good.

Their simple shirts, hats and other accessories have always made me smile. The vibe matches my love of the outdoors, a good dog and a kicked back approach to life.

But, today I don’t walk to talk about their clothes and instead share with you something much more important and that is the work that The Life is good Playmakers do to help kids overcome poverty, violence, and illness by using the power of joyful play to heal and strengthen children.

When you read their story about starting in 1990 as Project Joy and it growing into something larger and more powerful over the years you can’t help but be inspired. They now work with child care providers and children throughout the country.

Watch this video to discover their core values.

They’ve just announced the line up for their yearly Life is good Festival and it includes Jack Johnson, Hall & Oats, The Roots. Delta Rae and more. How many other summer music concerts do you know that have a family resource center on their site?

You can get involved in many different ways besides a simple donation. Festival goers can fundraise for special perks, you can get certified or simple buy Life is good products and a portion of all sales goes towards helping the kids.

I encourage you to visit the Life is good Playmakers page and find out more about them today. After all, it is important for each of us to protect and insure that our kids grow into happy adults.

Marketing has been shining the spotlight on the power of social media over the last few years. It’s been effective as we’ve seen budgets for social media and content marketing increase with hockey stick proportions. Now it’s time to add a new team in the race and look at how these tools can be used to drive sales in the organization. That means we need to take a hard look at where the sales team fits in the mix. I know a few of you just visibly cringed as you think of letting your sales team loose on social media channels, but the reality is that many of them are already there. If we don’t start empowering our sales teams with the knowledge they need to successfully use social media there will definitely be plenty to cringe about. I’ve always been a big believer in aligning sales and marketing to drive more sales because it’s in everyone’s best interest for the company to make more money. It isn’t an “us versus them” conversation anymore. We are all “them” and it’s time to band together to make some awesome together.

Inbound Marketing is the Wind Up

“Audiences everywhere are tough. They don’t have time to be bored or brow beaten by orthodox, old-fashioned advertising. We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in & be what people are interested in.” –Craig Davis, J. Walter Thompson

The top of the funnel starts with Inbound Marketing. Marketo, a marketing automation platform designed by marketers for marketers, defines Inbound Marketing as “the process of helping potential customers find your company – often before they are even looking to make a purchase – and then turning that early awareness into brand preference and, ultimately, into leads and revenue.” In essence, it’s about bringing prospects to your front door and then nurturing them through the sales process. Great inbound marketing requires a strong content strategy that includes resources your potential buyers are likely to search for before they know they have a problem your company can solve. This can include blog posts, e-books, guides, infographics, statistics, webinars, videos, and more. Further, it’s important to have content that is designed to trigger a lead conversion. This content strategy should include high value content that the user can download after filling out a form. Teams need to create a content engine that produces a steady stream of new and relevant content that is broken into two categories: informational content and decision-making content. Informational content is content that is interesting to your potential buyer, but doesn’t necessary have anything to do with the product or service you sell. Decision-making content is content that is designed to show possible purchase intent for your products or services and will trigger the beginning of the sales process. Marketing needs to support sales by creating a strong inbound lead generation framework.

Inbound Marketing Stats

• “Call to actions promoting ebooks get almost twice the click through rate as emails promoting webinars.” (HubSpot)
• “Those with over 40 landing pages got 12 times more leads than those with only 1 to 5 landing pages. (HubSpot)”
• “Inbound Marketing costs 61% less per lead than traditional, outbound marketing. Outbound average cost per lead $346. Inbound average cost per lead $135.” (State of Inbound Marketing, Hubspot, March 2012)
• 57% of companies have generated revenue producing leads from the company blog. 62% have done the same on LinkedIn. 52% produced revenue from Facebook. 44% generated revenue from Twitter. (State of Inbound Marketing, Hubspot, March 2012)

Social Selling is the Muscle

While marketing is creating an inbound lead generation engine sales doesn’t have to sit on the sidelines and wait for results, they have quotas to beat after all. Instead we can empower the sales team with training and resources to find prospects online. There are two phases of social selling. Building relationships with target buyers and finding sales ready buyers. Your sales team is going to be most interested in investing time in finding sales ready buyers. Never forget the power of the sales quota. However, marketing can show them the power of doing both and in some cases help to manage relationship building activities so they can focus their time and energy on sales ready buyers.

Automation isn’t the Enemy

The marketing team can use tools like InsightPool to find your target buyers on Twitter. It allows you to compare your following to the following of other Twitter accounts and then employs marketing automation tactics like following targeted buyers, then direct messaging those who follow back with a relevant piece of content and publicly mentioning those who don’t follow with a resource. InsightPool is essentially marketing automation for Twitter. It allows you to personalize every message with merge fields and even use a variety of combinations of messages so everyone doesn’t get the exact same message. While many may argue that we shouldn’t automate Twitter, the reality is that it is going to take time to get our sales team up to speed and they want leads now. I have no problem using tools that can provide the most personalized automated experience possible to help start the conversation and then let the sales team follow up with those who respond.

Social Media Explorer recently used InsightPool to let our followers in the Philadelphia market know that Jason Falls and I were coming to town for an event with ExactTarget. We were able to personally message each of our followers who lived in Philly to spread the word. This is something we simply couldn’t have done manually due to the time investment it would require. And our followers thanked us for it. It’s all about being smart with your messaging and which pieces you automate.

One-on-One LinkedIn Messaging

We all know LinkedIn is a powerhouse for B2B relationship building, but there is a challenge that hasn’t been readily discussed. The volume of messages a sales person would have to send in order to generate results would simply take all of the time and their sales manager wouldn’t be happy. Social Media Explorer has been testing using one-on-one messaging that comes from sales representatives and invites target prospects to join groups, schedule a meeting, and even download inbound marketing content. This requires a joint effort between the sales representative and the marketing team to ensure there is an approved message that is being sent and that the highest value prospects are being targeted to ensure there is a pay off for the sales team. The results have been outstanding. Click through rates are better than any landing page we’ve seen and the cost per conversion is substantially lower than other activities.

Social selling is the future of the sales organization. It is important for marketing to provide the proper resources, training and framework to ensure our sales teams can be successful in social media. They will want to jump on selling right away, so we have to show them which triggers make that okay and when to continue nurturing the relationship.

Social Selling Stats

• “In 2012, 72.6% of sales people using social media as part of their sales process outperformed their sales peers and exceeded quota 23% more often.” (Social Media and Sales Quota, A Sales Guy Consulting)
• “There is a direct correlation between closed deals and social media usage…54% of survey respondents have tracked social media usage back to closed deals.” (Social Media and Sales Quota, A Sales Guy Consulting)
• “50.1% of sales people told us that their time spent using social media ranged from less than 5% to up to 10%” (Social Media and Sales Quota, A Sales Guy Consulting)
• “The 21.7% of sales people who told us they were not using social media, the vast majority said that they either didn’t see the value (18.9%) or they didn’t understand it (45%). (Social Media and Sales Quota, A Sales Guy Consulting)
• “75% of the respondents told us they were given no training on effective use of social media.” (Social Media and Sales Quota, A Sales Guy Consulting)

Marketing Automation is the Knockout Blow

We’ve discussed generating high funnel leads using inbound marketing and developing low funnel leads by empowering your sales team to use social media effectively, but now we need to talk about the middle of the funnel. Marketing automation is what you can use to effectively move your high funnel leads through the funnel to close. When someone has subscribed for informational content and haven’t indicated product or service interest, I recommend that your email campaigns continue to send them more content and great resources. This should be paired with a secondary call to action that drives the next stage in the funnel. Depending on your industry this could be downloading a piece of decision making content, taking a meeting, or attending a product demonstration. Once someone has indicated product interest they should receive email marketing campaigns that both drive the next stage in the sales process, but also provide great resources as a secondary call to action. This allows the marketer to continually track where they are in the sales process and evaluate fall off. Further, marketing automation allows the marketing team to use lead scoring to ensure they are delivering truly qualified leads to the sales team. The reality is that if you sent all of the inbound leads you generate over to sales, they’d end up hating you. Why? Because the majority of those leads aren’t ready to buy and you’d be wasting their time. Instead nurture your inbound leads and bring them as far through the sales process as possible and then do the hand off. If sales says they still aren’t ready, put them back in the nurturing funnel.

Marketing Automation Stats

• 50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy. (Source: Gleanster Research)
• Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should advance to sales. (Source: Gleanster Research)
• 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
• 61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to Sales; however, only 27% of those leads will be qualified. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
• A whopping 68% of B2B organizations have not identified their funnel. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
• 57% of B2B organizations identify ‘converting qualified leads into paying customers’ as a top funnel priority. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
• Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Source: Forrester Research)
• Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (Source: The Annuitas Group)
• 46% of marketers with mature lead management processes have sales teams that follow up on more than 75% of marketing-generated leads. (Source: Forrester Research)
• Relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails. (Source: Jupiter Research)
• Event-triggered marketing can potentially save 80% of your direct mail budget. (Source: Gartner Research)

At the end of the day, being able to show that marketing is delivering sales ready leads and have a sales team that backs you up and sings your praises is a huge credibility win in the organization. It’s high time to start caring about credibility and proving you understand business considering that the Fournaise report revealed that “more than 69% of CEO’s say they have stopped enforcing key business objectives and indicators on marketing because they have ‘continuously failed’ to prove marketing strategies and campaigns delivered business growth.” Aligning social media with the sales team might be the perfect way to prove them wrong.

What do you think? Should sales teams be using social media? What reservations do you have? What opportunities do you see? Leave a comment and join the conversation.

There are few authors I’d recommend buying their books based solely on who they are and what they know. But Mitch Joel is one of them. With his first book, Six Pixels of Separation (Business Plus, 2010) he solidified his reputation as one of the leading minds in digital marketing. His new book, CTR ALT DEL: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It (XXXX, 2013) Joel is at it again, telling us what we need to know to be successful tomorrow, not just today.

The book goes beyond “be social” and “think mobile first” and makes the media landscape of the future appear very real. It’s honest, well written and fun. I sat down with Mitch last week to chat about CTL ALT DEL and why it’s not just another digital marketing book.

You can find CTL ALT DEL at your local bookstore and on Amazon. You can find Mitch on Twitter or at his awesome blog at Twist Image, the name of his agency. The links here are the affiliate kind.

The goal of every content marketer is to have his/her information shared across digital channels by their audiences. This is often easier said than done. What factors contribute to people sharing the content they consume online?

In researching the content for this infographic I came across a post in my Delicious archive that helps answer this question. Leo Widrich over on the Buffer Blog wrote a great post about what makes content spread. In it, he analyzes some of the elements that helped one particular blog post get over half a million likes. He also references an interesting research paper about what makes online content go viral.

This infographic highlights five key elements of viral content: scarcity, share buttons, skim-ability, practical utility and consistency. Are there any others you would add? The comments are yours.

Icon credit: Faucet designed by Monika Ciapala from The Noun Project

The concept of social listening is not a revelation, but merely a fait accompli.  If you are able to push information somewhere, someone will eventually want to measure its effectiveness.  The business world’s bend towards the painful statement (at least to me), “Can you show me the ROI?” is as inevitable a question as the sun rising.  And while this type of thinking is often the death of new ideas (because sometime you just can’t see the ROI when culture is involved), I have to admit its importance to bringing people along in the change game.

So what is this series  all about? I thought it would be useful to take a step back and discuss the maturation of the social listening market, at least from one man’s point of view.  I am writing this series of posts to put out there one idea of how our space has developed and would love this to be a dialogue rather than simply a one-way conversation.  So here goes…please engage because if don’t learn from each other, then what they hell are we here for? 

Yes…push and pull yet again.

I will start this post by bringing forth my social media push/pull concept.  It is a good frame of reference before digging in.  As stated in my last post, I realized in a very poignant discussion one day with both Nichole Kelly and Jason Falls about this concept.  Having spent a huge amount of my social media career on the pull side, I was a complete Luddite when it came to social media marketing.  As we were discussing a number of different tools, I realized how moronic my view was of social media.  I knew what social media marketing was about, but wasn’t too well versed in the applications to do so.  I got involved in this space by accident as my roots are in R&D.  And as I sat there discussing the variety of different tools I knew about conceptually but not intimately, I realized I spent so much time trying to get others to see the obvious virtue of social media analytics that I forgot to apply one of my 4 pillars of change management; operational definitions.  In our conversation, I learned that the majority of our market spends its time devising ways to push at you.  And what was astounding is that only a small fraction of the world at that point really cared about pulling.  And thus my push/pull slide was born.  One would argue it is so obvious that it isn’t novel.  But if you could see the faces of those I present it to during my interactions with customers, you would be surprised.  So essentially it speaks to an imbalance in most social media programs between their dollars spent pushing versus pulling.  And that’s it.  Right now I have it at 80/20, but it is probably more like 70/30 now.  For this post, it just frames the discussion that we are talking about the “PULL” market.

So what are social listening’s bite sized chunks?

In sorting out anything, I am cursed with the need to build frameworks that scale before I take action.  I find it more efficient and in the end it helps me evangelize more effectively because I am prepared to frame up any discussion into bite sized chunks.  So what does this look like for social listening?  Well, I see there are really 4 pillars to any social listening solution.  There are the features, content, accuracy and infrastructure.  Here are descriptions of each.

Features

This is where the majority of people live.  It’s the concrete space within tools.  Features are the elements that can be expressed through your social listening platform.  It’s the ability of the system to take the data and dimensionalize it so you can process what it means.  It’s the eye candy that makes your tool sweet and impressive.  It’s expressing the buzz, the demographics, the gender and even the soundbites.  Pretty obvious sure, but that is the point.  Most people care about this the most, and for obvious reasons.

Content

This is the data.  It is the coverage of your system and what you can pull in to be processed as a feature.  It is the language, the soundbites, and the sources.  For any given feature, the content is the what that makes that feature sing.  Again…this is pretty obvious.

Accuracy

For a long time, this was the ignored pillar. Accuracy is how easily it is to get the right data around the topic you are looking for. Accuracy is your systems’ ability to pull in meaningful and accurate data to help you feel confident in making business decisions.

Infrastructure

If accuracy is the ignored pillar then this pillar is the ghost pillar.  Infrastructure is your social listening system’s ability to grow over time.  It is the backbone of the other three.  Infrastructure helps you create features, manage content and have accuracy so you system can scale and become the platform we all dream of.

I recently attended a conference dedicated to creativity and commerce called C2-MTL. The paradox of the event is that you can’t teach people to be creative with traditional teaching methods. Yet I walked away awash in ideas.

How did this happen? How can you teach someone something that isn’t teachable The conference played by the first rule of communication: “show, don’t tell.”  Show, don’t tell is about conveying a message so that the lessons learned are personalized, rather than a list of laws. That’s a tall order. One that we, as marketers need to take to heart.

Here are 5 ways that this conference was able show innovation, rather than telling people how to be innovative and they can be applied to communicating lessons in leadership, writing, speaking or marketing.

1.       Create An Experience

The environment and the in-person experience in itself is part of the communication. There is a reason why churches have soaring towers and stained glass windows.  The design of a church invites people to go beyond mundane thoughts and feelings.

The conference environment at C2-MTL was in a dramatic, recently renovated 19^th Century building that sometimes houses modern art and had custom-built spaces designed to encourage collaboration and small meetings. There was a loft space where cocktail parties and other special events could occur overlooking the conference floor. There were small rooms set off by unusual looking dividers where people who signed up in advance could have time to meet the speakers. No sterile lecture halls here.

2.       Tell A Story

A story provides lessons that can be translated and interpreted

Show, don’t tell is about storytelling. The beauty of teaching through storytelling is that a story provides lessons that can be translated and interpreted. Storytelling inspires people because someone is sharing what they have accomplished and the listener learns it is possible and can use her imagination to decide how to apply it.

Blake Mycoski of Tom’s Shoes told the story of how he went from selling 35 pairs of shoes to selling millions by performing an extraordinary act of charity—giving away one pair of shoes for every pair he sells. I doubt that everyone who left that presentation believed that he was suggesting that everyone give away one item for every item they sell, yet there were lessons along the way about doing extraordinary things to set your business apart, and about having a purpose to your business that were more impactful because of the story.

Bobbie Brown told the story of how after she was acquired by Estee Lauder, her business suffered because the atmosphere was out of sync with her brand.  When she moved her office and the culture changed, business improved. There were no tactics that anyone could walk away with, just a clear picture of how corporate culture matters.

3.      Use A Metaphor

Think about the problem in a new way by making it look like something else. Instead of conference as learning opportunity, C2-MTL was more like a theater experience. (It helped that Cirque du Soleil was one of the sponsors of course.)  As one example, instead of a standard biographical introduction of the speakers, a costumed, storytelling master of ceremonies appeared under big-top style lighting reading a story from an oversized Steampunk style book . There was music on stage between presentations and a set that made the stage more dramatic.

A metaphor (conference as theater in this case) is a shortcut to understanding something in a new way by comparing it to something very different.  If I say conference as theater, I don’t have to give you a list of what I mean.

4.      Set An Example

To be creative, look at a problem from a new angle

One main reason people go to conferences to network.  Like-minded people with similar needs and interests are gathered together in real life.  If that didn’t matter, there would be no point to spending money on flights, hotels and conference fees.  Yet, at a typical conference, networking is a haphazard activity at best. C2-MTL purported to be innovative and showed that by inviting attendees to use a new software tool,  E-180, that allowed them to set up their profiles before the conference and enter specific offers and requests. Other attendees could then request meetings to learn or teach any subject. Over 1,000 meetings were scheduled this way.

Another case of creativity by example was the presentation by Andy Nulman. Instead of the standard presentation (of which there were few at this conference) it was an improvisation about creativity.

Nulman had arranged for images he had never seen before to be onto the giant screen behind him. In one image was a photo of a man sticking his head out of a car trunk.  Nulman’s lesson form the slides?  To be creative, look at a problem from a new angle.  So, if you’re a car designer, consider examining a care by sitting in the trunk.  I remember that example well because the image was so representative of looking at a problem from a new angle and it showed (rather than told us) that sometimes the pressure of having to find a solution quickly can lead to creativity.

5.      Reward The Best Examples

Intel, a sponsor of the conference ran a competition to find emerging innovative talent.  The winners and their stories were an integral part of the events, and the meet and greets.  By offering an incentive to people to be creative, the sponsors could highlight examples of creative endeavors.

Shining a light on the best examples of what you are trying to teach, is another way of communicating by example—the example of others.

As marketers, our job is to educate, inspire, talk to and listen to people. We’re often inclined to do this by lecturing but the most effective way is a less direct route that has more impact and better staying power. Show, don’t tell.

We human beings are pretty amazing. We love “new” and “sensational.” And we love to help. In the USA, that pursuit leads to raising over $39 million for the victims of the bombing at the Boston Marathon and millions more for the horrific disasters caused by the tornadoes in Oklahoma and elsewhere.

But it also means that we often “miss” disasters once the news cycle rolls on. Disasters like the one in West, a town in Texas. On April 17, a fertilizer plant explosion damaged a 37-block area of the town, leaving 15 dead, over 200 injured, and destroying hundreds of homes.

So far, about $1.3 million has been raised. The estimated damage costs top $200 million.

In a recent newspaper article, Karen Bernsen, the interim executive director of the West Long-Term Recovery Committee said:

“They want to come back to what they know. They want to come back to church on Sunday, lunch at the community center, coffee at the bakery. It’s just going to take some time to get back to what they know.”

Will you help them get back to what they know?

Make a donation today

Donations for West’s Long-Term Recovery are being handled through the Waco Foundation at their donation page here: Donate to West’s Recovery.

To learn more about the recovery and what you can do to help, visit the West Long-Term Recovery Committee website or check out their page on Facebook.

Here’s a slideshow of images related to the explosion shared by a local news station:

Tell Social Media Explorer about My Donation for Aggregated Reporting Purposes Here

Read more about Social Media Explorer’s #GivingTuesday program.

As digital marketing has continued to become a powerhouse in the marketing tool belt it has required agencies to consider how they can best serve the needs of the brands they serve. We’ve seen agencies slap social media on their list of services with little true expertise. Now we are seeing agencies slap content marketing on their list of services as it has become the new cool that everyone is all the rage about. This is a natural progression of service offerings and frankly agencies have to figure out how to provide these services because their clients are starting to demand them. We’ve seen transformation in the traditional full-service agency as well as a resurgence for boutique digital marketing and social media firms. But is that enough? The report “The Digital Marketing Agency of the Future” released today by Skyword argues that it isn’t even close to enough. They took the insights of 16 innovative agency leaders and created a forward thinking view of what tomorrow’s digital agency needs to look like.

Agencies Must Move to a Converged Media Strategy

It simply isn’t good enough to have a strategy for SEO, a content marketing strategy, another strategy for paid media, a separate email strategy, another strategy for social media and yet another strategy for public relations. These silos must be obliterated. The digital marketing agency of the future will have it’s eyes on every marketing channel and create strategies that are fully integrated and leverage the strengths of all of these channels.

“Adapting to a converged media model is easier said than done for the majority of today’s digital agencies. Growth has been the historic result of their ability to offer highly specialized services, such as public relations, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing and digital advertising. Originally thriving as ‘centers of excellence’ with separate departments and offerings, agencies need to rethink their model. In this new model, agencies must foster open collaboration, reduce costs, and jointly drive results for their clients.” – The Digital Agency of the Future

Customer Centric Delivery Model

According to the report, the digital marketing agency of the future will also have to make some drastic cultural changes. Where agencies today put the brand at the center of everything they do, the agency of tomorrow will put the brand’s end customer at the center. This will require agencies to be able to look through the lens of the brand’s customers to understand their needs and design strategies and implementation plans that will fulfill them.

“The successful agencies of tomorrow will require both a change in operational structure and a shift in cultural mindset. They need to evolve their approach from what Bob Collins, Content and Digital Strategy Director at Beehive Media, explains as ‘brand-centric to customer-centric.’ This transition to consumer centricity requires agencies to evolve centers of excellence, so that they foster expertise across all channels and functions, recognizing that customers aren’t searching for particular brands or companies, but looking to solve a problem, address a need or engage in an experience of interest or passion.” – The Digital Agency of the Future

New Talent and Skill Sets will be Required

The report highlights four new positions that companies need to start recruiting for including the data driven account owner, the conversationalist, the agile content creator, the customer insight specialist. These positions aren’t going to be easy to recruit for because in most organizations they simply don’t exist. Therefore, it will require agencies to recruit, train, and retain the personnel they put in these positions. Robert Murray, President of Skyward said, “the new team needs to have cross-functional understanding of all facets of marketing and specialize in a certain area under their framework.”

“Agency teams will need generalists, who understand the new world order of marketing, and specialists (e.g. strategists, content creators, writers, SEO specialists), to get it all done.” – Lora Kratchounova, Principal, Scratch Marketing + Media

The Future Agency Tech Stack

The digital marketing  agency of the future simply can’t ignore the role of technology in digital marketing. Agencies will become technology consultants for their clients from recommending 3rd party tools to building applications to fill the gaps. Ultimately, the agency could become the glue that holds multiple technology platforms together to serve the brands customers, the brands needs, and the agency reporting and collaboration needs.

“Agency technology stacks will include software development across the front-end, back-end and native operating systems.” – Perez Armendariz, Chief Digital Officer, CP+B

Clearly, this report has a heavy focus on the role that content marketing will play in the agency of the future. It says content will have to become a core offering for agencies to serve their clients. Being as the report is created by a company that has a heavily vested interest in the role content marketing plays you could argue that there is a certain level of bias. But it’s hard to argue that content is not going to become the center of the client and prospect relationship and that brands and agencies need to figure out how to create content that is compelling and inspires action. If that is the case, shifts in traditional agency models will become imminent.

What do you think the digital marketing agency of the future should look like?

Are you a brand? Does this model represent the type of agency you want to work with?

Are you an agency? What do you think of the model the report suggests?

Is it genius or esoteric fluff? Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Two friends of mine are expecting a baby any day now. They know it’s a girl and, as their last name is Barr, I’ve begged them to name her Tiki. Regardless, I’ll probably call the baby Tiki. Because I can. 

In all seriousness, though, picking the right name is an important task for a parent. This is what the child will be known as, what people will call her and will serve as the basis for potential teasing as a child. If I had a dime for every jackass who walked up to me in school and said, “Jason Falls down!” I could take you to dinner.

Naming is also an important step for your brand, business or product. It should easily communicate who you are and what you do, or at least arouse curiosity from prospective customers so they want to learn more about your story — whether it’s complete bullshit or not.

American Airlines is a simple, easy-to-understand business name. Adobe Photoshop is a similarly named product.

Aetna is not, but has a classical tone to it that might make one ask, “What does that mean?” Galaxy Tab is a similarly named product. You don’t know what it is, but it certainly intrigues you.

Heather Whaling’s Geben Communication is named such because geben means “to give” in German, which is a neat underline for her agency’s service to non-profits and giving spirit. That’s a cool story to tell and opens doors for her firm.

In 2009, as my friend Rob May’s startup was gaining traction, he realized he needed to re-name his product. While “Lifestream Backup” made a lot of sense to people in the social media space, investors and those not as social-friendly thought he sold outdoor equipment. After some thoughtful consideration, Backupify was born. That name conjures up both the explanation and some playful curiosity.

As the social technology space gets more crowded, software platforms have emerged with great names: HubSpot, Spredfast, TweetDeck. And some with very intriguing ones: Expion, Hoop.la. There are also ones that make me scratch my head: Sysomos, Syncapse, Uber, Crimson Hexagon.

Even more confusing are the product names and feature sets. I came across one recently that had a great name, but upon further review, was totally underserving the feature set. HubSpot’s new “Social Inbox” is aptly named, but since other social monitoring and social management companies have been selling a “social inbox” for a couple of years, we’re conditioned to think this is a place where you see all your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other network messages in one place.

HubSpot’s “Social Inbox” is far more sophisticated, though. It actually delivers on the promise of tying in CRM and marketing automation with a social inbox to create an incredibly powerful communications hub for your social engagement. If I were naming it, I would scoff at “Social Inbox” and call it something like Social Control Center or Central Nervous System or something far more inspiring.

(If HubSpot wants me to actually name it, it’ll cost more than a subscription to my blog. Heh.)

Keep this in mind when you’re at the point of naming your product, feature or even company: The name should either be incredibly clear in describing what you are or inspire curiosity in your target audience to ask.

The fallout of a bad name could be as minimal as some initial confusion on the part of your target audience, or as impactful as having them walk way thinking your product is one thing when it’s much, much more.

So, do you know the story behind your company or product name? Is it interesting? Compelling? We’d love to hear it. Please share with us in the comments! Who knows? If your company or product has a great story, we may be compelled to write about it here on SME.

The comments, as always, are yours.