Meet the new cloud consumer

Are you ready for the next billion? There are 7 billion people on the planet today, and another billion are predicted to arrive in the next 10 years. A child born today will experience a terabyte of data in a single year. She will own her first computer by the age of five. And with another 15 billion connected devices coming online in the next 3 to 4 years, the way she will experience the world will be fundamentally different than the way we understand it.

The new cloud consumer is redefining ownership. This generation understands that people don’t own entertainment content anymore—it’s simply borrowed from the cloud.

It’s time we start thinking about brands in the same way.

Tips for succeeding in the cloud

Encouraging your consumers to become your brand advocates is the new currency of the cloud. Creating opportunities for them to have authentic peer-to-peer communication is the best way to continue to build an engaged customer base. Doing so enables your customers to promote your brand far more effectively than relying on traditional top-down messages, which often come across as heavy-handed, no matter how clever the headline.

No matter the type of cloud platform, and regardless of who your customer is, be it a Fortune 500 CXO or a 14-year-old girl who is considering diet cola, the following guidelines can help build your brand in the cloud.

Content. King of the Cloud.

Drive your success by giving your consumers content they can own, feel a part of, and share with their peers.

Create engaging content. Think infographics instead of whitepapers. Short videos over lengthy manifestos. Develop animations and simple, useful tools and apps that encourage customers to engage with your brand.

Embrace a syndication engine. Engagement is not a one-time event, it’s an ongoing conversation, requiring constant encouragement and updating. Push content out to your consumer regularly and consistently.

Create content that is adaptable to all devices, but optimized for each platform. An incredible iPhone app looks less impressive on the iPad, for example.

Brand your content, not the content container. Find subtle, smart ways to keep your brand ever present within the content, not just on your landing page.

Going beyond Content

Add a thought leadership strategy to the mix. Doing so positions your company and brand as an innovator. It’s critical, especially considering how quickly data—and brand advocates—move in the cloud.

Capturing the Cloud

Are your customers talking about your brand? If so, where? And how often? Use a dashboard that provides a single view of your brand’s relevance across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (and many others).

Track your brand’s impressions and reach in the cloud. Use analytics to figure out how many people are seeing your brand and, even more importantly, sharing it with friends and colleagues. Doing so can help shape content responses and further maintain your brand’s momentum in the cloud.

While the cloud can aid in building your brand, increased awareness isn’t the only benefit it has to offer. At CMD, we believe that taking your company to the cloud can help reduce costs, improve efficiency and boost flexibility. What do you think some of the biggest advantages of the cloud will be for your business in the future?

There’s a lot of coverage right now about personal resolutions like eating healthy food and exercising, however brands and marketers should also consider activities that they want to change this year. If 2011 wasn’t up to par, or you wish you had done things differently when it came to your marketing activity, you’re not alone. It’s healthy to take a pause and review what worked and what didn’t over the course of the last year, and make appropriate adjustments.  Now is the time to evolve and learn from the past.

Our team here at CMD did a lot of evaluation on the strategies and tactics that we implemented for our clients over the past 12 months and without question, it was helpful. After all, the definition of insanity is performing the same function time and time again and hoping for a different outcome. The bottom line? Status quo rarely works.

So, here are three resolutions that brands should strongly consider in 2012 if they want to shake things up and keep evolving in 2012:

Plan, plan, plan: It’s easy to look quarter-by-quarter, but nothing brings clarity to a marketing initiative like looking ahead 12 months, especially when it comes to content on your social channels. Take a shot at planning out your content for the year by asking yourself, “Where are all of our tradeshows? What messages do we want to hit, and when is the right time to deploy?”  Just like attacking a cluttered closet that you’ve been meaning to get to, keep the valuable content items and toss the rest. It will clear your mind and your marketing plans.

Pull the trigger:  How many of you have an idea in the drawer that’s never seen the light of day? Like a bowl-induced, New Year’s Day football coma, inertia kills marketing success quickly. Sitting on an idea or making a plan and thinking it to death doesn’t generate results. Take a proactive approach this year, trust your agency to deliver a campaign that hits your objectives, and go for it.

Remember traditional PR: Because I’m in the Earned Media/Public Relations group at CMD, I’m biased toward utilizing traditional PR channels. I love calling the desks at publications and pitching a great story. Social media has dominated the conversation the past four years, but remember that there are still traditional media outlets that can spread your word far and wide. They are looking for content. A few strategic pitches could bring you more good luck than a dish of black-eyed peas (it’s a Southern New Year’s tradition, look it up.)

What are your marketing resolutions for 2012?

Pip says, “Don’t believe the hype.”

There are rumors going around that Facebook ads don’t perform as well as banner ads. In fact, Mashable says they “perform half as well as regular banner ads.” I’m not one to believe all things I read on the Internet (just most of them), but we are living proof that Facebook ads can really rock if you follow some basic guidelines.

We recently ran a Facebook ad for a client, the purpose for which was to drive new likes to their Facebook page. The results? Our CTR was .071 percent (industry average for 2010 was .051 percent). We averaged a 57 percent conversion rate, which topped out at 76 percent. We saw a 20 percent increase in the number of fans and paid less than $2 for each conversion. Not bad for a Facebook ad. How’d we do it?


We kept it relevant.

Our client was making an exclusive announcement at an industry-only trade show. We timed our ad to run at the same time and draw new community members in with the promise of a big reveal.

We provided good content.

Our ad had a strong call to action: “like” this page for the announcement. After we made the announcement, we promised news from the trade show. On the page itself we posted pictures from the floor and took photo requests from our fans. If a fan wanted to see a specific type of product, even if it wasn’t from our client, no problem — we took the picture. We then replied directly to the person who made the request, letting them know that the picture they requested was up.

We changed up our ad’s picture.

After our client made the announcement, we changed our picture to an image of the product itself. It was like a mid-ad makeover! We were able to keep the content fresh and we gave our audience a first look at the new product.

We listened to our audience.

Facebook lets you update your ad’s keywords and change the people you’re reaching at any point. As we read news from the conference, we adjusted our keywords and our targeted audience to better reflect what we were hearing on the wires and the things our audience was writing about both on Facebook and Twitter.

Just goes to show, sometimes the Internet doesn’t know what it’s talking about (what was up with last week’s Jon Bon Jovi rumor?!? I totally believed it and nearly cried at my desk). I know this whole Facebook ad thing has some good data behind it, but if you follow the steps above, your ad will perform better. I promise. Now let’s all rejoice in the fact that the Internet was wrong about Jon Bon Jovi.

Erik Sebellin-Ross: Microsoft scores major nerd points from me for producing a somewhat realistic view of the future of mobile & desktop technology in this video. The video is marred only by the lack of personal jetpacks, a clear indicator of the inevitable dystopia we’ll all have to contend with.

Stefanie Week: Are tablets truly the future for news media? A survey by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism gives a pretty interesting look at how tablet users are consuming news on their devices.

Darcie Meihoff: One of my favorite sources for thought-provoking business strategy articles. An example of a recent one I thought was particularly good and relevant is from the Harvard Business Review: 5 Reasons Companies Fail at Business Model Innovation.

Sarah Biedak: I’m reading about Klout’s new scoring system. Interesting to observe the evolution of influence rating. I have never put much stock in influencer scores from grading sites, but that could change. Excited to see how the other players in the market respond to Klout’s update as their actions will likely result in improvements and additional options in the user rating realm.

Julie Yamamoto: Cavemen want efficiency too – from VMware.

Anita Marks: A New Musical Duet for Social Media – Twitter has hired a former record label marketing manager to handle music partnerships for the company’s Content and Programming team.

Melissa Lion: Ready to occupy the digital space? Well, you can follow the Twitter account @OccupyKlout. Or you can occupy any URL here: http://occupytheurl.com/. What are you occupying?

Ben Samples: After watching this TED Talk about how gaming can make the world a better place, I was very interested to find this article showing how Mashable has integrated gamification to increase reader engagement. I’m very interested to see future applications of game mechanics used to influence behaviors – hopefully in positive ways.

What did you read this week?

Along comes a reference book that stands a chance of changing this thinking. Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman are carrying the torch for the benefits of social for B2B marketing with Social Marketing to the Business Customer ($18.72 at last check). They’ve put forward a solid reference text that can help communications professionals get up to speed quickly in this rapidly changing space.

The book is divided roughly into thirds, and its first part is aimed squarely at communicators who may be new to social marketing. Part one focuses on building the case for social marketing and setting up the policy infrastructure to govern the use of social media within an organization.

I’ve certainly talked with many managers in the last three years who feel pressure to adopt social media, yet the speed and exposure brought about by these marketing tools overwhelmed them at first. Gillin and Schwartzman have clearly been there too. They put forward practical advice and a framework for organizing efforts that help make sense of the space for those who are starting out.

Part two dives into tools and tactics. I heartily agree with the authors because they advise listening to customers intensely before any “talking,” or marketing, begins. Schwartzman is an SEO guru, and I appreciate the overview of search best practices presented in part two. These tips truly benefit any online marketing activity, regardless of the specific components.

Another benefit of part two is the “non-techie’s guide to choosing platforms.” This is a skim of commonly used content management systems (CMS) and community platforms, such as Jive, that a communicator will want to add to his or her social marketing toolkit at a mature stage.

The last portion of the book runs through several quick case studies that describe uses of the major social networks, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, wholly in a B2B context. Kudos to the authors for looking deeply at the activity online and finding unusual B2B case studies, such as an interactive game launched by Cisco.

Gillin and Schwartzman make you wait for what I consider to be the holy grail of social marketing. The final chapters address lead generation and ROI from communities and other social marketing. Given this year’s merger of listening platform Radian6 and SalesForce.com, lead generation is fast becoming the tip of the spear for many B2B social efforts. To accomplish this, integration throughout all levels of activity is key. To me, that means breaking down silos, working in interdisciplinary teams and much more intense planning.

The authors offer some helpful tips on ROI, but don’t expect mystical answers to the meaning of life here. Like most of the book, the ROI formulas put forward represent practical thinking and require organizations to put a dollar value on customer and fan acquisitions. If social media practice is still the “Wild West,” (debatable, but indulge me), ROI is its Main Street where the duels are taking place. There is as yet no standard that we can all work from, so it’s up to communicators within their organizations to set up logical, consistent systems to demonstrate ROI. This at least gives us a common reference to consider as a community.

What social reference books do you have on your shelf?

Turntable.fm

A web, and now mobile, app that allows users to act as DJs within virtual dance clubs (“rooms”).

Social: Interaction among the DJs and the audience plays a key role in each room’s popularity, as the members can chat with one another and the crowd has the opportunity to rate each song played on a scale from “Lame” to “Awesome” (“Lame” songs are skipped).

But there everyone was, wedged into the doorway and standing on tiptoes in the hallway to get in. No, it wasn’t a massive PR announcement for the latest social media tool. Nor an in-depth exploration of cloud computing. Or the ever-popular analytics topic. The most jam-packed session during my three-day SXSW tour was the good old-fashioned topic of company culture.

Company culture? In the age of ROI, metrics and bottom line, hard-charging analytics? It’s true, at the epicenter of digital Nirvana that is SXSW, some of the greatest tech minds were focused on . . . the touchy-feely stuff.

Soaking in some local culture: CMDers embrace value #6

To those who have spent any time considering this topic, it’s pretty apparent why.  How to create a positive company culture is one of those “squishy” things that businesses—especially those that are growing and evolving rapidly—have a difficult time defining, and obtaining. You can’t run a P&L report on it and you can’t PowerPoint your way into it. Yet everyone at that session intrinsically understood that without it, keeping and attracting great talent, innovation and grabbing a competitive edge were nearly impossible.

In the room that day, there was an outpouring of suggestions for how to create good culture: “Have more fun!” suggested one person. “More pizza and beer parties!” added another. “Recognize star performers!” an enthusiastic participant called out. “Focus on better internal communications!” a panelist insisted.

All worthwhile tactics to consider, no doubt. But when it comes to culture and principles that a company and its employees embrace, most recognize it goes much deeper. As some of the best companies out there today demonstrate, culture is the way you treat one another, customers and community. It’s how you approach product and service offerings and how you build the right kind of talent. It’s not something simply stated or said; it’s woven into the very fabric of a brand’s being.

It’s clear that good culture starts not with tactics, but by first identifying what you value above all else. With the guiding principles of how business gets done at your place. And then, it’s how those values are embodied, instilled and upheld.

So at CMD, we decided to take a hard look at our values. We drew inspiration from companies we most admire (in particular, Zappos and Clif Bar) and landed on nine that hold the most meaning for us and define the agency we strive to be. CMD’s values are as follows:

1)     Deliver amazing service and solutions

2)     Demonstrate leadership through innovation

3)     Be best in class and craft

4)     Exceed expectations

5)     Own it: take responsibility for the success of CMD, our clients and the team

6)     Foster a passionate, collaborative, can-do spirit

7)     Be nimble, adaptable and contribute to positive change

8)     Pursue professional and personal growth

9)     Build karma with kindness: Do the right thing by people, community and planet

These values go hand in glove with our mission, which is simply this:  Empower brands. Boost business. Spur success.

It’s pretty energizing to be among a group of people who share these common beliefs and work hard to put them into practice. These are ideals that we can hold one another accountable for, and celebrate when we achieve them (over pizza and beer, certainly). At least for me, that’s what motivates, inspires and builds community inside agency walls. To that end, our film and video group created this internal piece—the CMD faces who represent and uphold our values each and every day. We hope you’ll recognize a few:

Have company values or a culture that inspires you?  We’d love to hear what makes your business tick.

Thanks to video streaming services like UStream and Livestream, which take live video footage from a webcam and serve it up for audiences on the Internet, the capability for brands to broadcast from a trade show or event is achievable. In fact, UStream has partnered with Facebook so if you have a Facebook fan page you can live stream content directly into the social network. But, think about the process and setup before you jump in with both feet. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Earlier this year our team proposed a live stream engagement for a client from their largest trade show of the year. The idea was to pull the video feed into the company’s well-trafficked community and involve viewers in each day’s activity. Armed with nothing but a web camera, a laptop with a dedicated WiFi signal, and a few prayers, we recommended the live stream tactic in order to expand the footprint of the company’s booth beyond the show walls and reach those who could not attend.

Did it go off without a hitch? Yes, in a manner of speaking, but there were some lessons learned:

• If given the option for a hardwire Internet connection, take it. We relied on a wireless signal which connected well from the depths of a busy trade show floor, but we would have received better picture quality with a high-speed connection.
• Prepare. There’s no detail too small to rehearse or write. Treat the live stream as you would a television show. Everything needs to be scripted.
• Test the technology multiple times. The CMD team tested the equipment at least three times before we departed from the agency, and then again at the show floor the day before the event. Just to be sure, we didn’t promote until we knew it would work.
• Have a good microphone setup. Trade show floors can be noisy, so we invested in a wireless microphone package that provided excellent sound quality and took the worry out of live streaming the event. Nothing is worse than capturing video and not being able to hear the people on camera speaking.
• Bring grip tape. Don’t worry, you’ll find out why if you try live streaming video from your next event. OK, here’s a hint: chances are excellent you will need to either tape something together for the short term, or hold something back that’s in the frame, or both, so trust me on this one.

What questions do you have about live streaming?

The annual Challenge calls for workplace teams to pocket their car keys and rely on bike transportation for an entire month. Individual mileage is logged by each rider, and it’s then fed into a live leaderboard displaying the teams that have the highest percentage of commutes done by bike.

For us, the challenge is fun, it’s competitive, and it’s a great way to encourage colleagues, partners and clients to practice healthy and sustainable living. As CMD’s team captain Sharon Huber puts it, “It’s all-around more rewarding to ride a bike to work than to sit in traffic in your car. Who gets the reward? The planet, the car drivers, and your ass.”

Are you riding in the Bike Commute Challenge? Be sure to leave a comment on this post with how many miles you log each way, and if you happen to see any of the earned media team members pictured below riding our bikes around, be sure to give us a wave! Safe riding. =)

Ben Samples: How User-Generated Content Is Changing SEO – Great article that further illustrates the multiplying intersections between search and social. As marketers, we need to be aware of this – and other overlaps – as we plan holistic strategies and programs.

Melissa Lion: Ever just mark all as read or say yes or no to something simply because the act of critical thinking is far too much trouble? This article in the New York Times magazine explores decision fatigue and how it affects the decisions we make or are made about us. It also has a look at that afternoon sugar craving we all feel. According the author, hoovering that dark chocolate bit of wonderful will help us make good decisions as we finish up our work days. Dark chocolate for all!

Darcie Meihoff: Love this list! Social media books that have nothing to do with social media. There’s some oldies but goodies here.

Anita Marks: The Big PR Lesson Companies Still Need to Learn about Facebook – In this article, Forbes explores how non-profit ForestEthics is using social media to forward its anti-tar sands oil agenda by pressuring corporate purchasers of the fuel, and how Nestle demonstrated a sub-optimal response to that pressure.

Gary Rubin: Turns out Facebook is not invincible on all fronts social media. The company is abandoning Places and seemingly yielding location-based social media interaction to companies like Foursquare.

Bill Fisher: I am totally intrigued by the new Glassboard mobile app, covered in a recent GigaOm post. It’s a cross-platform group communication tool that’s focused on simplicity and privacy, and some are calling it the anti-Facebook. Whatever you call it, it’s clearly targeting a very real and growing market of businesses that want to be social and build community, but want to keep audience members close and protected. I see this is a great option for private communities of brand advocates or “ambassadors,” who thrive on social communication but often need to share corporate information that’s not for public consumption.

Stefanie Week: Must. See. More. PINS! If you don’t know what that means then let me be the first to welcome you to the cult following that is Pinterest. Melanie Warner Spencer from the Houston Chronicle shares her addiction with Pinterest and gives a great overview of what this social network is all about.

Jesse Davis: I liked this article by Brian Solis about 14 Best Practices for Brands to Grow their Audiences in Social Media. You can’t go wrong by compiling best practices… right? Building a community is becoming increasingly difficult because people are subjected to so many “like this” or “follow me” requests that users are becoming more resilient to the chatter. The article has some good tips and tricks to grow a healthy audience and break through the noise.

What did you read this week?