Sometimes a tiny note can be more efficient than social media.

Today, almost every small company has a social media precense. Social media fascinates us all because there is still much to discover and new ground to brake. We want to embrace it totally. Immediately. It is however important to remember that social media is not automatically equal to marketing. In social media discussion forums I sometimes get the impression that social media is seen as a custom-made marketing tool: How can it be used? How effective is it? How can it be analysed? How much should we budgetize for social media marketing?
But social media are not custom-made for marketing purposes. It is new and cool, but as always in markeing we need to focus on who we want to communicate with and why. The wide range of social media allow most companies to find something that fit their communication, but social media do not necessarily fulfill all the company's marketing needs.

Social media is not exclusive, sometimes a hand written note can be a better way to reach out:

In Gothenburg in Sweden I saw all those spades in a sand pit. On each spade there is a note attached saying that a daycare nearby are having some places open for new children. It is a small local parent run daycare, that value engagement and  communication. Those parent run daycares are quite popular so they do probably not want to open up their communication to wide. But they want to commnuicate with an engaged parent living nearby, probably on maternity or paternity leave spending the day with their child in the sand pit. Quite a good idea I think!  


    

If people don't come to Facebook, let Facebook come to the people

I have now relocated to Zurich, Switzerland, and haven't had much computer time lately. But you don't necessarily need to be connected to get into social media networks. One day when I was walking down the Bahnhofstrasse, the big buzy shopping aorta in my new city, I passed a "Facebook Photo Box" that caught my attention. The clothes store "Big Boyz" has placed a "FOTOBOX" in their shop-window. Bypassing people can pose for a photo that will immideately be uploaded on the Big Boyz Facebook site as well as on the shop's website. They call the project "Big Züri Smile" and mean that it gives the whole world the possibility to get a vision of the Züri-style. "Real time. Real cool." And it is really cool! When visiting the Big Boyz facebook fanpage and website I see that I am not the only one who likes the idea. Over 2000 people have uploaded pictures where they are posing to show their best "züri-style".Unfortunately the FB fan page has a lot left to wish for and the Fotobox idea could be drawn a lot further, but the basic idea is really good. As the "züri-style is spread over the world" the Big Boyz is generating trafic to their website and gaining new local customers.

Wouldn't this be a great idea for an opera house, a theater or a cool art gallery!? Place a Fotobox in the foyer and let people take their picture, tag it, and click: their networks will know that they have been to a certain performance or a vernisage before they have even left the building. I think that a Fotobox would be actively used because it is a fun, and also, people generally want to get the word out when they have been to the theatre/opera/art exhibition and gained some cultural capital, n'est-ce pas, Bourdieu? Great way to get the word out!

Don't believe that you own your FB fan page

I was recently at a restaurant here in Sydney. In the ladies room I saw that they really need to work on their social media strategy... The sign above was  hanging on the toilet doors.

The text says:
 "To win a free bottle of wine, all you need to do is to share your experience with us on Facebook! The most creative comment every week will receive a free bottle of wine."

Hummm... the most "creative comment"?

Everybody is trying to figure out social media for the moment, and it is good to give it a go... but I think this is an extraordinary example of a bad strategy. Today everybody is talking about the "new marketing": the customer oriented marketing that  is based on listening to customer needs and creating relations. The restaurant's idea is probably to create a big fan base: by posting you let your friends see that your are their friend etc. But really, with social media they got a brilliant possibility to see what people really think, respond to that, create a great experience for their guests and then let the guests do the positive marketing for them. Instead, they ask their customers, without even having created a relation, without even bothering to ask what people really think, to do the marketing for them. For a bottle of wine..?

I think that one golden social media rule is: Always remember that your fan page is actually not your fan page. You are monitoring, listening and communicating. But you don't own it, you don't have the right to tell people how to act and what to think. In social media everybody is the owner of their opinion.

How the art sector can design Momentum Effect

Many organisations run in to trouble when it is time to analyze the ROI of social media marketing.When I started reading about how to measure the return of social media marketing,  I immediately ran into the expression "momentum effect". Momentum in combination with social media was highlighted in April 2007 when Market Evolution revealed that the momentum effect had counted for more than 70% of the ROI for a certain number of examined companies using social media marketing. 

Jean-Claude Larréché, professor at Stanford University has written the book “The Momentum Effect – how to ignite exceptional growth”. His definition of momentum is: “The momentum is a tremendously potent phenomenon by which under specific conditions, exceptional organic growth is created - growth that feeds on itself... momentum growth requires a delicate combination of a number of specific elements, working cooperatively and simultaneously. This combination can occur by chance or by design.”  

In the art sector we are very well familiar with theatre productions or art exhibitions that attract big audience groups when we least expect it: An artistic production that just gets the pieces right and the word of mouth effect takes off. I suppose that this word of mouth spin off is a fair part of the momentum effect by chance. 

It is difficult for the art sector to secure "word of mouth" about artistic products because of their unpredictable nature. It is therefore difficult for us to design momentum effect. The "product" is partly born in the meeting with its audience, when it is already sold. But if the companies in the 2007 survey answered that momentum effect counted for more than 70% of ROI, then we definitely need tools to design momentum in the art sector.

Social media never sleep

If I was a company I would have to recognize a certain failure in my social media strategy right now. My trip to Europe destabilized my regularity on social media sites and I haven't been a very active blogger lately. One of the most important mantras to keep in mind when trying to achieve a successful social media marketing is REGULARITY. Social media never sleep. There is no such thing as not having time, being sick, having to pick up the kids from school, lack of inspiration or quality time with the family. A successful social media presence implies spending quality time with other community members on social media sites, not your family. However, even if we do have a life there is still hope for social media success.

Just as just we schedule our personal meetings throughout the day, we should also schedule our social media appointments

We shouldn't publish everything all the time, but we should be consequently present and publish regularly

Luckily I am not a company but the social media mantra is now also my mantra: Consistency and Regularity. See you soon. 

Personal vs Professional in Social Media

I am back home after having spent two long summer months in Europe. I have been embarrassingly disconnected, but my social media reflections haven't been completely switched off though. For example, even if I would have wanted, I couldn't have missed the Facebook scandal that filled the media for a couple of days when I was in Sweden.

In Sweden EVERYONE is on Facebook. And so are the employees at the National Immigration Office. The scandal was about an employee that had published a "what's on your mind"-update with a racist undertone. This was seen by another employee at the immigration office, communicated to the direction, and the racist-accused employee was now threatened to lose his job. The man said in interviews that he did not understand why the phrase was experienced as racist. He was also shocked over all this attention that this little meaningless text got.

Well,

1. Things are not longer what they are, they are what they seem
   
2. One person does not get to chose what's meaningless and what's not. Loads of people chose together what they find interesting and meaningless
   
3. And at last, times have changed and our private and professional persona has merged.

How to add value in social media networks II

A common imperative amongst social media experts is: “Add value!” To be able to create active communities and a strong social media presence, we have to contribute with “valuable content”. Okay, but how..?

I have been doing some research and found some points that might guide us when we try to “add value”. In my last post I wrote about how we can add value in our own created communities on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, but working with a strong social media strategy in the performing arts we also need to be present in forums, blogs and other social media sites. Here are some thoughts that we should have in mind when “visiting others”: How we can add valuable content and contribute in a way that will be noticed by the community members.