The Brains of the Outfit

I saw on Twitter this morning a link to Bob Greene’s article entitled Olympic spirit fails a test. While I agree with him that the Olympic Committee’s response was lousy, I wanted to take a moment to comment. Why?

Because it was Nodar’s responsibility the moment he got on the sled.

I’m a motorcyclist and I take part in a lot of track days. For those of you not familiar with the track day concept, it’s where an organization rents a racetrack and then charges individuals to go ride on it. Most of these organizations do as much as they can conceive to run a safe, fun track day.

But on the other side of that coin, you have us, the riders. We’re out there trying to push our own personal skills envelope, to be faster, to wring every bit of performance out of ourselves and our machines. And sometimes a rider gets too far outside that envelope, and crashes.

And sometimes a rider dies.

And whose fault is it? My personal feeling is this – once I swing a leg over that machine and take control of it, everything that happens next is my responsibility. If I happen to die while doing this thing that I love, it’s nobody’s fault but my own. And I have told my significant others as much. I will not have my memory marred by lawsuits against the racetrack, other riders, or the track day organization.

I think Nodar Kumaritashvili might have felt the same way – I know many of us who participate in dangerous sports do. So mourn Nodar, and let the Olympic Committee know how poor their reaction was, but forget about trying to place blame. Let’s not mar Nodar’s memory that way.

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I love articles like this one. I think Kievman has missed the point of doing social media for business and of marketing in general.

Marketing is about ROI.

If companies haven’t been able to find the real-world results of their social media efforts, there are two distinct possibilities. Either they’re not doing social media effectively, or they’re not measuring it correctly.

I’d be willing to bet that DemingHill’s largest Fortune clients care about ROI as the first thing of importance, but they understand that all the activities that Kievman mentions in this article are tied to strategies that bring measurable ROI.

Relationship building creates ROI by creating brand equity and increasing net promoter score. Kievman mentions “creating communities of key constituents.” Why do you do that? Those key constituents are either going to be influencers or buyers. Another point Kievman misses is that customer service, brand monitoring, brand awareness, and crisis management can all be performed or influenced via social media.

This statement is really problematic to me: “…if you are not converting outside of social media, social media will not help you convert and improve your ROI.” If an activity has a net zero effect, that’s truly money for nothing. The whole raison d’etre of marketing is to increase conversion. Does it have to be direct? No – very few marketing activities are direct.

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I was speaking to the North Fulton Small Business Owners this morning, who, by the way, are a really fantastic group. Not a huge group, generally 15-20 people, but really dynamic and very networking-savvy. While talking to these folks, I got a question that I’ve been getting quite a lot lately about separating your personal from your professional profiles.

My answer – you can’t.

Sure, it’s technically possible on individual outlets to do it with privacy settings and company pages, but why would you? Some of my best business leads and referrals come from people who, had I decided to try and separate my personal and professional lives, I would have placed in the “personal” category.

Let me offer a couple examples. One of my old high school classmates has connected with me on Facebook. Not an uncommon occurrence, you’re thinking. He’s become a pretty regular reader of this blog, and a fan of Realize on Facebook as well. He has recently connected me with a friend of his who is on the adjunct faculty at Rollins College. She has invited me to speak to her new media class virtually, as a practitioner who isn’t there in Florida, and who has a broad base of geographically dispersed clients across industries. Had my “personal” friend not been as aware of my business, I’d have missed that opportunity.

One other opportunity came in today that started the same way. Another high school classmate, also connected to me on Facebook, has unbeknownst to me, been reading this blog and generally following the activities of Realize. I received an e-mail from him today through the contact form on the Realize Web site. He runs a large seafood business back in my hometown, and is looking to us to help him solve some pretty serious marketing issues. Again, a “personal” contact that resulted in business.

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I received a letter yesterday from The Dream House for Medically Fragile Children, who Realize has chosen as a charity to benefit from our community outreach program.  If you live in Georgia, they need your help, and it’s easy and inexpensive, but it’s urgent.

In 2008, the State of Georgia created licensure for Children’s Transition Care Centers (CTCCs) – places where medically fragile children could be cared for while they are transitioned out of institutional care and into regular homes. These centers are designed to help the families of these children coordinate resources and care for these kids for a successful transition to a full time regular home.

When this legislation was passed, a Medicaid administrator on the advisory committee for this bill insisted in a very high staffing ratio as part of the rules and regulations for this licensure, and acknowledged at that time that Medicaid would need to provide reimbursement to support this ratio.

Medicaid administration here in Georgia is now objecting to reimbursement for CTCC services.

Help us help Dream House by supporting their letter-writing campaign. All you have to do is download the advocacy letter, sign it, and mail it to the State officials listed in the letter.

Or, if you’re more comfortable simply making a donation, we’d encourage you to do so immediately. This delay in reimbursement for CTCC services from Medicaid has created an operational shortfall.

Thank you for supporting Dream House for Medically Fragile Children and Realize’s community outreach.

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Got the faculty guide for the first course I’m teaching at Shorter College in 2010 today “Understanding Markets and the Environment.” Looks like it’s going to be a great class, and a tough one. It uses the newest edition of a book I used for my MBA, which helps me and the students. But you know, something seems to be missing. I’m trying to figure out where I’m going to work in social media.

The answer? Probably everywhere.

It has influences in a lot of places. It has changed the process of economic exchange. The digital domain has virtually eliminated hard money, and I’m seeing a lot more barter these days, as well, particularly among social media mavens who can add value to each others goods and services.

Market research has not yet completely changed in methodology, and the statistical concepts remain sound. But what about the concepts from Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds? If ever there were concepts suited to the digital domain and social media it’s market research and crowdsourcing.

Segmentation has become ever more important, and more interesting as customers self-segment on social media. It has, however, become easier to identify your lightning-rod customer and your brand ambassador.

What’s going to be difficult is teaching about advertising. I know this text – it’s all about traditional advertising models. I’m curious to see if it even mentions social media in this latest edition. Somehow, I doubt it.

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It’s election time in lots of locales, and that has made for some interesting social media bedfellows, if you will.

I’ve heard more about local and state elections and referenda than I could imagine possible – or that I really care to know, to be honest. Some of the state issues are interesting, since they have bearing on the overall national agenda, but the local stuff isn’t quite so fascinating.

A case in point: I recently spoke to the Roswell, Georgia Kiwanis club on Using Social Media to Build your Business, a presentation I thought went very well, and it garnered me a few local Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and LinkedIn connections. Well, many of those folks work for the municipality, are running for public office, or are campaigning for someone who is running for public office.

I’ve heard more tweets about voting for various city council candidates in the last week than I can shake a stick at. I can’t vote for these folks. I don’t know their platforms. In many cases, I don’t know what party they represent.

I’m hoping that I’m the exception in these Tweeters follower group – but I doubt it.

One particular gentleman running for State House truly has missed the point of community-building, both off- and on-line. I met him in person at the Suwanee Business Alliance. (Great local business alliance, by the way). He came on really strong – classic politico – shaking hands, introducing himself, immediately launching into his pitch, starting with his party affiliation. I politely excused myself, letting him know that I’m not a voter in his district. I didn’t tell him that I was in general disagreement with his party’s politics. Maybe that was my mistake.

He somehow got hold of one of my business cards. I hand them out like water, so it’s not surprising. The next thing I knew I was getting his direct e-mail campaigns, he was following me on Twitter, I got a friend request from him on Facebook, he invited me to become a fan of his campaign on Facebook, and he asked to connect with me on LinkedIn. This from a guy who I politely blew off at a networking event!

Know your audience, folks. Targeting is the key, whether it’s on social media or anywhere else. You can very quickly make an enemy of someone who at worst was indifferent. I’d rather have someone not care at all about what I’m doing than actively discourage people from voting for me or buying my product.

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Yesterday evening was another big first for us – our first official Realize-sponsored event, ‘Food (& Wine!) for Thought’. Knowing that most businesses are in the swing of planning and budgeting for 2010, we wanted to gather a group of business owners and decision makers in the north Atlanta area to share our thoughts on marketing for the upcoming year.
We partnered with a fantastic restaurant in Flowery Branch, GA called Grapes & Hops Bar & Bistro, who was very welcoming and provided a wonderful facility along with great food and drink. Also, Salon Greco in Suwanee attended and very graciously provided all of our guests with gift certificates for free massages or facials.
After a bit of networking and introductions, we all settled in to watch John present a 20-minute slideshow on what we believe are the absolute ‘must-dos’ for marketing your business in 2010. After the slideshow, we all joined in and discussed the challenges of marketing in our current economy, how best to balance traditional and social marketing, brand authenticity, and what to plan for down the road.
We’ve already received quite a bit of favorable feedback from this inaugural event and hope you can join us for the next one! If you’d like to check out the presentation, we’ve also uploaded a PowerPoint version onto our website. Check it out and let us know what you think!

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I find myself continually faced with the same problem, and it’s a marketing classic. How do you measure brand equity? Or more to the point, how do you communicate it in a way that makes sense to non-marketers, particularly those in small business?

brand equity – the monetary value of a trademark or distinctive name identifying a product or manufacturer beyond any amounts spent building it.

I’d argue that most businesses aren’t really interested in the asset value of the brand, particularly the small and medium businesses that make up the majority of my clientele. The question most of my clients would love to hear answered is this: “How much market share, revenue, or profit will be contributed by this campaign beyond that which we can directly measure in conversions?”

To quote a friend of mine: “I’m sorry, but I’m fresh out of clairvoyance.”

There are some pretty simple rough measurements you can do periodically that will give you an idea of what your brand is worth in revenue terms. At the simplest level, it’s the difference between the stock value of your company and the book value of your assets. If you don’t have stock, it’s still not terrifically difficult. Assume a growth rate based on historical figures and do a net present value calculation of your forecast revenue for the assumed life of your business. (20 years is a common figure.) The difference between that and your asset value is the value of your intangible assets. For most small to medium businesses that don’t have significant technology or R&D, that’s roughly equivalent to the incremental revenue generated by the brand. But that still doesn’t help with the clairvoyance problem.

Here’s what I’m getting at – while brand equity is a good reason to do some projects that don’t have significant, measurable ROI, it’s important that you look at those projects closely, as marketers will frequently use brand equity creation as an excuse to do questionable projects. If you hear a marketer making brand equity claims, ask a few questions.

• Is brand equity creation a priority for me right now?
• Are there other projects with more measurable returns that are more valuable to me?
• Am I willing to make an attempt to measure my brand equity over time? If not, am I willing to trust this marketer to create brand equity that neither of us are likely to measure?

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I was sitting in a branding interview yesterday, and had a bit of surprise. The gentleman I was interviewing was one of the principals of the company, and the evangelist for the company’s services.

The thing that surprised me was this – he knew his company’s place in the industry. He actually knew and could explain their value proposition. If I had handed him a blank Bowman strategy clock, he could easily have placed his company on it. I’d be willing to bet he could have easily explained to me his positioning relative to Porter’s Five Forces.

This type of thing shouldn’t be unusual, but it is. I interview more people within more companies who know themselves well, but are lost as to their industry and position within it, especially within service industries. For example, the employee assistance program who doesn’t know their market is commoditized and how to deal with that.

Therein lies a problem. If you don’t know your industry environment, you can’t create marketing strategies to deal with that environment, and it’s easy to fall for whatever some slick ad salesman throws your way. I even catch some of my clients in that act – they’ll get a spam promising them the world, and consider it as an option, in spite of the fact we have a solid, planned, measurable marketing strategy for them that is getting results. Luckily, my clients are all smart enough to forward it to me first and ask if it’s a good idea to pursue.

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I presented Using Social Media to Build Your Business to the Roswell, Georgia Kiwanis. Great group, and they had a bunch of future Kiwanis from the Roswell High School Key Club. Definitely a good time. A video excerpt is below:

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