Post-“Like” Social Media Marketing

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Gary R Schirr

The previous post in this blog questioning  the role of organic social media marketing once Facebook closes the “Like Economy”, generated a lot of comments on FB, Twitter and this blog from people whose opinion I value.

  • Some of the respondents questioned whether there really will be any role for organic SMM going forward as all platforms seek to monetize.
  • Some like Jason Falls said that organic will always be central to a social media marketing effort.
  • Dave Kerpen and others said that the market has already shifted to “pay for play.” Content and engagement will continue to be important but promoted posts and ads will be essential for reach. Content and engagement become part of the “digital IMC” mix.
  • Mark Schaefer pointed out that “post-Like SMM” is consistent with his warnings about “Content Shock” – content losing impact because of a glut and limited audience attention. Both forces could lead to digital marketing that is more expensive and has scale advantages for large companies.

The evolution of SMM in a post-Like world of Content Shock will be a recurring theme in 2014.

What should a business do now? I would urge four steps for the present:

  1. Maintain engagement with your community – do not lose any momentum you have going.
  2. Continue to produce great content.
  3. NOW is the time to get up to speed with Facebook promoted posts and ads, LinkedIn ads, Twitter ads and even Google ads!
  4. EXPERIMENT with the ads. Google will give you $150 of free ads, Facebook $50. At $5 a day that is 10 free days of experimentation. Find out if some approach or target seems to produce results.

How do you see social media marketing evolving?

What actions would you recommend for a business today?

For more on these issues see my original post on the post-“Like Economy” and Mark Schaefer’s series on Content Shock.

Posted in Blogging, Content, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Teaching SMM | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Is there value in #Organic #SMM after Facebook closes the “Like Economy”?

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Gary R Schirr

Facebook shut down the “Like Economy” in December 2013.

You do remember the like economy: businesses large and small would encourage – or even bribe with promotions – their customers and prospects to “like” their Branded Facebook Page. Going forward businesses could then keep in touch with their fans through clever posts, content and promotions that would appear in the communities’ news feed and timeline. The content would have to stay good or the brand page might slip in priority or be de-Liked, of course…but there was the hope of a continuing link to a community.

But in December Facebook made another change to its news feed algorithm (the algorithm formerly known as “Edgerank”) which dramatically lowered the visibility of branded page posts. According to a study by Ignite Media a post by a brand’s Facebook page could expect to reach 16% of its fans a year early; after the algorithm change that figure seems to be 2.5%!

Of course Facebook has a solution for the problem caused by the algorithm change: paid posts! An article in Ad Age praised Facebook for being more open about the algorithm change this time than the change last year, noting that the last time it modified the feed and de-emphasized brand pages it had denied any effort to promote ads. The Ad Age article goes on to say that under the new scheme “the main reason to acquire fans isn’t to build a free distribution channel for content; it’s to make future Facebook ads work better. ‘Your brand can fully benefit from having fans when most of your ads show social context, which increases advertising effectiveness and efficiency'”

A consultant who works with social causes told me that he has advised his clients to immediately cease efforts to increase FB page likes. He noted that he views the primary benefit of Likes going forward is to grant paid access to the fans’ friends with an implied endorsement. Since most of his clients are not comfortable with that approach, he sees no reason to promote likes.

At least on Facebook, organic alone is not going to be sufficient for brands. It will be a combination of paid and organic efforts. The increased importance of promoted posts along with the demand for more and better content has led Entrepreneur Magazine to predict that social media with be more expensive this year.

This leaves me pondering some questions about social media marketing going forward:

  1. Is the purpose for organic social media marketing going forward primarily to COMPLEMENT paid posts and ads, as well as  SEO efforts?
  2. Will small businesses be priced out of SMM?
  3. Does the decline of organic combine with a newly proclaimed “Content Shock” (Mark Schaefer) to fundamentally alter what we mean by social media marketing?

I SEEK YOUR THOUGHTS!

[For more information I would direct you to the four articles linked in the post.]

Posted in Content, Digital Marketing, Facebook, SEO, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Teaching SMM | Tagged , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Job Search and Starting Out Tips!

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Gary R Schirr
I posted my terse notes about a good talk to college seniors by @LearnEarnRetire on Storify:
[View the story “Job search and starting out tips” on Storify]
Job search and starting out tips
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Social Media users praise brands in private and criticise in public

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Gary R Schirr

With Ana Canhoto’s permission her post about how customer’s complain and compliment brands and products in social media is posted here.

Her post illuminates an issue raised in an earlier post in this blog on social media complaints: Social Media Complaints – Put it to them?

I recommend readers interested in marketing research follow her blog!

anacanhoto's avatarAna Canhoto

Jan Kietzmann and I have been investigating how social media users talk about their consumption experiences online, a phenomenon called “electronic Word of Mouth”, or eWoM. While there is considerable research regarding why and, to an extent, how consumers engage in eWoM, our research is novel in that it:

  • Investigates how different aspects of the consumption experience influence eWoM, and
  • Considers not the experience in itself, but the consumers’ assessment of the experience
  • Is not specific to one single social media platform

This post give a very brief overview of our findings, and the full paper can be accessed here (paywall) or here. We have both good news and bad news for marketing managers.

But, first, let me tell you a little bit about the framing of our study.

What we looked at

cafeThink about the last time you bought a coffee. Was your satisfaction with the experience…

View original post 794 more words

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##@!# Marketing: Too much #Hype?

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Gary R Schirr

I teach a class called “social media marketing” and fervently believe that social media does change everything…especially what marketing people do. But what actually IS the new paradigm? So many flavors of marketing are discussed in relation to the online world.

I really enjoyed the book Marketing in the age of Google and believe that the concept of ZMOT is powerful… But acknowledging the importance of search engine optimization, I believe that we have moved beyond simple Search Engine Marketing or Google Marketing. eMarketing and Digital Marketing are too general and sound like Internet Marketing from the pre-social days.

So what should Social Marketing be called. I much prefer Social Media Marketing to Facebook Marketing and do not believe that FB will get the stranglehold to merit their name on the new paradigm. Many observers stress that the change is bigger than a single platform like FB or even all the SM platforms as indicated by SMM and have tried to name a new paradigm based on a more fundamental change.

In this brave new world customers must allow us to interact so perhaps it should be called Permission-based Marketing or Like Marketing (however with the changes made to the algorithm-once-known-as-Edgerank, Like has become pay-for-play on FB). Inbound Marketing also reflects the power shift to customers.

Content Marketing seems the preferred flavor today. The mission of an organization is to engage its customers and prospects with the right content at the right time!

Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, Internet, Klout, SEO, Social influence, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, twitter | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

#Twitter #Surveys – Are #DMs now worthless? How much #Automation?

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Gary R Schirr

I attached quick surveys to a couple recent posts on twitter issues. All the normal caveats apply: the sample size is small, it is a convenient online sample, and the sample is likely NOT NORMAL since they read my blog and are willing to respond… 😉

But I thought the responses were interesting.

In “Do you check your Twitter DM’s regularly” I argued that Twitter DMs are so spam-y that I often ignore them for long periods of time and they have become largely useless to me. Yesterday Mark Schaefer posted his opinion on Facebook that DMs were no totally worthless and most of the comments seemed to agree. In my earlier post I asked readers their opinions and to date the 18 respondents don’t seem to agree with my opinion or Mark’s:

  • 44% said that they still check their Twitter regularly
  • 22% still check but find them less useful
  • 28% only rarely

In “Should any social media be automated?” I argued in favor of Twitter automation, short of ANY content automation. The 19 respondents who answered were more conservative then me:

  • 76% argued for scheduled posts only and
  • 18% argued for NO AUTOMATION whatsoever.

What do you think on those issues? Hit the article links above enter your opinion and/or to see the full detail of responses.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Social Media #Complaints! Put it to them??

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Gary R Schirr

A recent article suggested that social media would help kill bad customer service. The article highlighted disgruntled customer @HVSVN who spent over $1000 on Twitter promoted posted so that his complaint about lost luggage was widely viewed.

Thanks for ruining my EU business trip #britishairways. I shouldnt have flown @BritishAirways @British_Airways. Never flying with you again

— ░▒▓█ (@HVSVN) September 2, 2013

The business class passenger spent over $1,000 on promoted tweets like the one above. He also tweeted his reach and bragged (gloated?) about the damage he had done to British Air’s reputation and brand with a relatively small investment (for him).

The article linked above claimed that companies will have to offer better service and better response to complaints in order to avoid campaigns like the one from @HVSVN.

Companies have learned to monitor customer complaints online and to prioritize complainers with high influence as measured by Klout, PeerIndex or Kred scores. Now organizations should be alert for irate or irascible customers with the means to promote their complaints!

Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Content, Facebook, Klout, LinkedIn, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, twitter | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Tips on #Teaching #Social #Media Marketing: Another Hangout!

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Gary R Schirr

Four members of the elite LinkedIn group “Teaching Social Media Marketing…” – Don Stanley, Jeremy Floyd, Matthew Kushin, and yours truly – met for a Google+ Hangout on “50 tips on teaching social media marketing.” Since we didn’t get past the halfway point another Hangout will likely follow. The discussion is here:

Two of the other participants have also posted the Hangout with interesting additional material:

  1. Matthew also promoted use of Google Drive and
  2. Jeremy listed the 25 tips for people who don’t want to watch the video.

Check them both out!!

What tip would you add?????

Posted in Blogging, Content, Facebook, Higher education, LinkedIn, Social Media, Teaching SMM, twitter | Tagged | Leave a comment

Mysterious #911 Photo….

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Gary R Schirr

On 9/11, THE 9/11, I was at home in Lake Forest, IL, weighing several job alternatives. My last two employers both had offices in 1WTC and I still had a permanent pass to that building. As I watched events unfold, I counted, recounted and again recounted the floors in the tower below where the plane rammed that building. People I knew were trapped and dying: some were likely among the ones we could see – live on TV – jumping to certain death.

Forty people I knew perished while I was watching on TV. Two, Jim P. and Diane L., were friends and two of the best salespersons I ever knew. A couple of days later, when mail service resumed, I received a photo in an envelope with no accompanying note, return address, or even writing on the photo. 

The photo was taken at a futures and options industry function at Top of the World in 1 World Trade Center that had taken place  a couple of months earlier. That evening some of us had slipped out a side door and actually stood outside, on the roof of 1WTC 100+ floors above the ground, enjoying the view while leaning on a simple railing.

In the mysterious photo I was sipping wine with Diane – a friend and great salesperson who perished on that day. I have never discovered who sent the photo or why no note was enclosed…

I seem to have lost the photo during my move to Virginia, but I will never forget.

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Wisdom from #LinkedIn #Live!

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Gary R Schirr

I had the pleasure to participate in LinkedIn Live, a joint effort of LinkedIn and the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council in June. Davis Schneider of LinkedIn put together a slide show to summarize some of the themes from the conference. I thought it was worth sharing on this blog:

The conference was attended by 150 small and high tech business people and had a waiting list.
Posted in Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment