Being Peter Kim

Is social media free?

In 2002, I was having a budget conversation with my CFO. I was general manager of the online store and we were discussing my requests for FTEs, technology upgrades, and marketing spend. The CFO asked me, "this is an online store...why do we need to spend any more money...doesn't it run itself?" (I'm 99% sure he wasn't joking.)

This week, news has been circulating that FMCG company Procter & Gamble will eliminate 1,600 jobs and shift more budget into digital media. The headline over at Business Insider is a bit more incendiary: "P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It's Free To Advertise On Facebook."

The statement that "it's free to advertise on Facebook" is wrong at minimum and leads executives to a potentially dangerous point of view regarding social business.

Marketing : IT :: Dogs : Cats

"Big data, cheap processing, and social media, are changing the advertising and marketing landscape. IT has been quietly hammering away on advanced analytics systems and platforms to aggregate and filter data, while sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can provide exactly the detailed demographic data that marketers say they need. Put it all together and you have technology that can spit out almost personalized advertising on one side and deliver quantitative measurements to gauge the effect every little marketing decision has on the bottom line."

Read more and comment at GigaOm: In a data driven world, marketing and IT must come together

Tweet

Three slides of social media history

Sharing a few slides here from my SXSW session earlier this year. I feel like an internet historian of sorts, since I started tracking social media examples back in 2005 and then published a huge list in 2008.

These are three examples that show some business results and are often mentioned. If you're not familiar with them...now you are.

Three slides of social media history

View more presentations from Peter Kim

Tweet

Web 2.0 wisdom

I'm working on something and collecting brief thoughts on how to succeed with social media. Cliche or not, can you help by adding catch phrases related to these?

• Fail fast
• Customers are in control
• Focus on people not technology
• Brands don't need a Facebook strategy
• Successful campaigns go viral
• Wisdom of the crowds
• Listen first

Take them at face value if you'd like...and add any additional insights in the comments below. Thanks!

Tweet

Altimeter: Career Path of the Corporate Social Media Strategist

Altimeter Group's Jeremiah Owyang recently completed research into the role of client-side social media strategists. Timely, as many Dachis Group clients are determining how to best organize for social business. Related: Jive's Gia Lyons considers the report from the E2.0/IT/internal side.

Jeremiah offers ten guidelines for hiring a social media lead:

1. Hire a program manager rather than a social media "hot shot."
2. Seek candidates with a track record of early technology adoption in their careers.
3. Scrutinize how they have used social media in the past.
4. Seek backgrounds that demonstrate the ability to manage dotted-line resources and agency partners.
5. Look for a corporate entrepreneur, comfortable with "calculated risks."
6. Ensure a culture fit - as the Social Strategist will tackle change management.
7. Find a natural born connector - both internally and externally.
8. Celebrate those risks by enabling them to "fail forward," while clearing their obstacles.
9. Enable them to connect to peers and invest in their knowledge and career growth.
10. Protect your investment by providing new challenges and compensate well - they are highly coveted.

Altimeter has made the research publicly available; you can access the full report here and charts & graphs here.

Report: Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist: Be Proactive or Become Social Media Help Desk

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.

In my experience, social business efforts are still nascent, making the use of terms like "career" and "strategist" a bit premature. Companies need help finding professionals who will put corporate brand before personal brand. They need agile managers who can respond quickly to emerging opportunities in rapidly changing platforms. Most importantly, an organization structure needs to be in place to govern "social" investments - technology, media, headcount - to drive value back to the business.

Don't get me wrong; I think this is a useful report. It's a highly useful guide for individuals who are currently in or aspire to hold social media management positions.

My advice to executives with the scope and span of control to impact the enterprise: focus on hiring social business executives who are interested in building corporate brands and bottom lines first, personal careers and ego after.

Tweet

Econsultancy: The Innovation Report

One of the research resources I've been following lately is eConsultancy. They're great at providing examples of non-US (mostly UK) digital and social initiatives - information that can be hard to find.

One of their latest pieces of work is The Innovation Report, which contains 144 pages of examples covering:

• Affiliate marketing
• E-commerce
• Email marketing
• Online advertising
• Online PR and social media
• Online video
• Mobile marketing
• Multichannel marketing
• Search marketing
• Usability and user experience
• Web analytics and optimisation
• Business models

For ongoing insight, eConsultancy's blog is worth an add as well.

The Innovation Report

You might also find these other lists interesting:

• Social Software
• Social Media Marketing examples
• Social Media Policies

Tweet

Who's on first? Key problems today with location-based services

Abbott: "Who’s on first."

It's a classic comedy routine by Abbott & Costello. And it's the first thing that came to my mind while watching the launch of Gap's free jeans promotion on Facebook Deals. Location-based services are hot right now - wildly promising but wholly experimental. With only 4% of online Americans using LBS, brands are paying an oversized amount of attention to opportunities in the space.

I see three key challenges today's brands face before LBS can work:

• Users aren't always as savvy as we assume they are. No marketer wants to make the mistake of assuming that all customers are the same or that the marketing department reflects the customer base. So while your team fights for mayorship of the office, recognize that your customers aren't yet doing the same with your stores. Here's an example of users "checking in" during the giveaway:
• Privacy is a sleeping dragon. Most users don't know about advanced privacy controls, but it's dangerous to assume they don't care. There was no mass exodus after the WSJ reported on Facebook privacy leaks. When I look at my Twitter stream, most users have location turned off - it's disabled by default now, but don't be surprised if that changes to support growth in the ad business. If that happens, then we'll hear about how much users really do care. Because they do. Deeply.
• You can't handle the traffic. Early brand interaction surprised and delighted customers. As more consumers became active, we saw front line breakdowns with social media middlemen. This has since been solved with promos utilizing existing POS systems. But that's just couponing, which has existed for 124 years - not 21st century location-based services. Today's organizations aren't ready to respond en masse at scale in real time.

LBS have lots of promise and some real challenges to solve. Today we only have a hint at what's on second and I don't know on third. 

Tweet

2010 Jay Chiat Awards: Call For Entries

This is a brief and long overdue post...I'm honored to be participating in the AAAA's 2010 Jay Chiat Awards as chair of the social media strategy category.

Assisting me with judging the category are some people you may know:

• David Armano, SVP Digital at Edelman
• Joseph Jaffe, Chief Interruptor at Powered
• Jeremiah Owyang, Partner at Altimeter Group

I've been following the social business/media/computing space for a while and a few years ago published a big list of examples and opened up a related wiki. In today's market, there are thousands of initiatives underway and agency partners providing assistance. I'm hopeful that we'll discover and discuss a new set of case studies from forward-thinking brands.

The entry deadline is technically today, but I'm sure exceptions could be made for late entrants who want to throw a hat into the ring.

I'll keep you updated as the process moves along.

Thanks - and please pass along to your favorite brand/agency person who deserves a shot at winning the award for social media strategy of the year!

A conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk

A couple weeks ago, I had a public, online conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk aka @garyvee. He’s on a PR blitz to promote the release of his new book “Crush It.”

If you’re not familiar with Vaynerchuk, he’s a self-trained wine expert who has used social media, online video in particular, to drive exponential growth in his family's wine business. At the same time, he's built a kingpin personal brand, signing a seven-figure, ten-book deal in Spring 2009.  Vaynerchuk stands as proof of how participating in one’s customer ecosystem leads to business success.

To view the entire conversation, visit The Dachis Group Collaboratory.

And you may want to consider subscribing to the Collaboratory's RSS feed.

Analysis of a wiki of social media marketing examples

I received an email today from Eyal Sela, the author of the productivity and Internet blog ProductiveWise. He is a freelance Internet and social-media project manager.

Eyal took a look at our community's wiki of social media marketing examples, which is now up to 968 entries.  Here's what he found...(click on either image for a larger view)

 

Thanks Eyal!