Eggblogg

Marketing has to change and I can't wait

This excellent post by Amber Naslund inspired me today: On social media and culture shift.

There's no denying that the 'media' is changing, driven (it seems to me) both by technology and attitude shifts, and as a result we have the new, and rather scary 'social media' landscape. Accordingly, marketing, and much of what is held up to be traditional marketing practice, must change.

I suppose this belief makes me a somewhat unusual marketer. I've always been a bit disillusioned by certain aspects of traditional marketing, and I seem to spend more and more time now telling people that most of what they've learned about marketing from text books is dead.

This may not appeal to potential clients who are looking for the same old, same old when it comes to marketing. But when it comes to keeping my head down and doing stuff that people ask for, while knowing in my gut it ain't gonna work, ("the client is always right, and besides, this is what we were taught on that CIM diploma 10 years ago..") I just can't do it any more.

So it's thrilling to hear it put so well by people who really do know what they're talking about: things need to be done differently, right across the company. Social media is not an add-on. As Amber says in her post, "for most companies, adopting social media means changing their mindset about how they do business".

Luckily, there are organisations out there, small businesses in particular, with less 'company culture' baggage, that are open and interested in doing things differently, prepared to experiment and unafraid of change.

Social media and the end of TV's supremacy, and why it's great for small business

This week I'm giving another workshop presentation for ProfitNet, this time for the Crawley group.The subject is 'An introduction to social media for business', and although it's not the first I've given I find myself doing yet more last minute research to try to ensure what I say is as up to date as possible.

Things change so quickly, and I love uncovering other people's thinking on this as it's all so new and we're all very much learning.

I was excited to come across this from David Armano - an insightful diagram to explain the social engagement spectrum. The comments on the blog post are just as interesting - more than one person suggesting a circular rather than a linear representation may be better. But generally I think it's a great way of setting out the key changes that we're seeing in the media.

When leading a session about social media marketing, my starting point is always how changes in the media, driven by changes in technology, regulation and indeed attitudes, means that our thinking about marketing needs to change too.

Although Armano maintains that the 'old ways' of marketing still hold, in that TV and mass broadcasting are still necessary to build awareness, I think for small business in particular the important thing to realise is that they no longer have the supremacy they once had. Thirty years ago a small business had no hope of marketing itself to a national audience, because TV advertising was the only way to do it and it was too expensive for the little guys.

In the old days, 'creatives' were the agency people who created adverts. These days everyone can be a creative - someone who thinks creatively about the full spectrum of the media and comes up with ideas about how to work with it in new, innovative ways. The move away from dependence upon the old mass media channels has to be good news for small business marketers.

Customer service via Twitter - too much to ask?

Recent research has revealed that just 10% of registered Twitter users are responsible for 90% of tweets, and, in another report, we've learned that 80% of Tweeters have fewer than 10 followers, with 30% having no followers at all.

What these stats suggest is that despite all the declarations that Twitter has gone mainstream, it still has a way to go before (and if) it reaches critical mass as a communications channel.

Which is bad news for those of us who are desperate to see improvements in customer service. I've said before how Twitter is potentially a fantastic customer service tool - not only facilitating immediate, synchronous (realtime) communication without the cost and frustration of contacting call centres, but also introducing a proactive approach through monitoring Twitter conversations. Some firms are already using Twitter in this way - most famously Dell, but I've also had good experiences with smaller outfits such as Campaign Monitor.

Unfortunately, those that could really benefit from listening more proactively to customers and solving problems promptly, such as banks, local government departments, utilities and telecomms providers, haven't yet cottoned on.

Personally I can't wait for the day when call centres as we currently experience them are dead in the water, premium-rate phone calls to customer service become a thing of the past and large companies re-connect to their customers via real people operating Twitter accounts, transparently and consistently. Now that's what I'd call customer service.

What I get out of using Twitter

I'm often asked 'what's the point of Twitter?' and in many ways the answer depends on the context.

They may mean 'what's the business rationale for using Twitter?' Or 'why does anyone use Twitter?' Or sometimes it's just 'why on earth do you spend time on that Twitter thingy?'

Twitter is like any large gathering - there are people sharing interesting news, private jokes, asking and answering questions. There are open discussions, people watching and listening, others touting their wares or showing off, others sharing stuff they doing, seeing or learning. There are the loud ones, the quiet ones, the excited ones and the bored ones.

I got into using Twitter when I first heard about it, early in 2007, because it's my job to keep up with what's new on the web. But it was a year or so before I started getting anything much out of it. Now I use it as a social network, a research tool and a way of sharing knowledge and experience with many great people, some in my industry and others completely not. Some of them I knew before, some I've subsequently met, others I will no doubt meet at some point, others I'll never meet.

Just to give you an idea, this week on Twitter I've:

...discovered the top 12 social media stories this week
...followed people's comments on a controversial Prime Minister's Question Time
...learned how beautiful a Sussex morning can be
...promoted my eTips blog post
...discussed whether to attend an industry event
...laughed at a spoof 'ebook' promotion
...recommended a supplier to one of my contacts

But, I hear you saying, what about the question 'what's the business rationale for using Twitter?' More on that in a future post!

In the meantime I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what you get out of Twitter, or, if you're not a Tweeter, what your perception of it is.

What does creative writing offer to the business/commercial writer?

Last week I took part in a one-day workshop for people interested in writing biography. We had sessions with William Fiennes, Hermione Lee and Jenny Uglow. They got us into writing exercises, listening exercises, they praised and criticised (kindly), we talked, wrote, lunched in the gorgeous gardens of Charleston, we came away inspired.

The reason I'm writing about this is because I suppose I'm a bit defensive about it. "If you're going to write, write, don't just do workshops on the subject", as one friend put it. It's true. I like to call myself a (sort of) poet, I read poetry, I think about taking time out to do more writing, I long to find a poetry group I can join in order to read, write and improve. And now I'm interested in biography writing.

It probably sounds a bit lame but I do think that creative writing, and even just creative writing exercises, are good for all kinds of writers. I may never write a best-selling biography or get a book of poems published, but I may get better results and have more fun with the sort of writing I do for clients or for my own commercial interests.

Williams Fiennes told us to focus on the details and to find our own authentic voice: two tips that to me made complete sense in the context of all writing. So I definitely learned something from the day. And the lunch was lovely.