(Stupid Youtube wont let me enbed this video but the last line always kills me, ” you Cant stop a woman from shoppin!)
Its one of the world’s truisms, Women be Shoppin well a least that’s what we all believe to be true. Thanksgiving weekend in the US is always one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year with Black Friday being the busiest day. It’s the day so many look forward to in hopes of getting great deals and you best believe Women were Shoppin’ on Friday but where? See I don’t really get it, lining up at midnight to save15 bucks on a coffee maker at Wallmart doesn’t seem like the best way to spend my time, I mean there is an easier way with online shopping.
For the last 20 years Marc Maron has been a working stand up comic, he has been on the Late Show with David Letterman numerous times, on Conan O’Brien’s late night over 40 times but building a dedicated fan base had escaped him. Maron came up with some of comedy’s biggest names Louis CK, Patten Oswalt and Sarah Silverman all of whom had crossed over to much larger success on TV and on stage while he toiled in half filled comedy rooms continuing to be the comics’ comic. For almost 20 years Marc worked at his craft of stand up comedy but marrying it to commerce alluded him, he regularly discusses how he became jealous of his friends and bitter that he couldn’t find his own success.
Then in 2009, fresh off a stint on political radio and in career limbo he decided to try out something new and started out a free podcast where he would interview comics, mostly his friends, and also discuss things that were going on his life. At that point Marc had very little understanding of social media and had no idea just how much it would impact his career. As fans of the comedians Marc was interviewing searched for content of their favorite comics clips of Marcs podcast began appearing on youtube, then comedy blogs and comedy nerds started taking notice and shortly their after WTF had become a social media darling. Marc also joined in using twitter, facebook and his own email list and blog to promote his podcast. As the podcast became more and more popular, currently one of the most downloaded comedy podcasts so did Marc’s live comedy shows and he very quickly began seeing sold out venues full of ” his people”. It only took him 20 years to become an overnight success
I was recently in a seminar where we heard a social media professional discussing his frustration at the lack of engagement their social media campaign was having and he couldn’t understand why his audience wasn’t engaging in meaningful way. Thats when Janet’s (Miss Jackson if you’re nasty) poignant words came to my mind What have you done for me lately? As I was listening to the presentation I kept thinking what value are you offering your audience? What have you done for them to make them want to engage with you? What do they get? For any brand looking to gain customer or user engagement it cannot be a one way street, you need to offer them something and you have every reason to do so. Even my bookie gets that.
For many brands the reason not to enter the world of social media is a basic one; they cannot control the message and fear that someone might tell the world they suck. Is this rational? Customers have been complaining about bad service, bad experiences forever so what’s different about social media? Well the reach is potentially larger but besides that nothing so it doesn’t make sense to ignore social media as larger reach is also obviously a good thing for you. But lets go back, so someone on twitter says you suck, how do you handle that?
Well the first thing you need to do is ascertain if you do really suck? Is the complaint legitimate? Have we heard it before? Social media doesn’t create the complaint it is simply a venue for someone to vent their frustration usually because they have not found a satisfying result anyplace else. Social media provides invaluable customer information that would take a lot of resources to get otherwise, So use it!
That’s Ashton Kutcher aka stupid, Kutcher was one of the first and most prominent celebrities to use Twitter. He has over 8 million followers and 7000+ tweets, all of them enthralling I’m sure, but this past week Kutcher showed that even the most avid users can fall victim to the worst of all twitter sins.
The one question all marketers will surely be asked when trying to implement a social media plan for their companies is “Will this make us money? ” According Charlene Li the answer is yes, in her 2009 study The World’s Most Valuable Brands. Who’s most engaged? Li describes there is a direct correlation between financial performance and deep social media engagement.
In the study Li and her group study the top 100 global brands and attempt to quantify how deeply engaged they are in social media and then see if there is a correlation with financial performance. To measure engagement two separate criteria are used; number of social media channels and depth of involvement in those channels.
In the study, companies fell into four categories of social media engagement
Mavens – brands that have made social media a core part of their go-to-market strategies and are very active in many channels; usually driven by dedicated teams assisted by company-wide awareness and participation.
Butterflies — brands that recognize the need to be in many channels but have only met with real success in a subset of their activities; these companies are usually spread a bit too thin.
Selectives – brands that focus on just a few channels and excel in those; these efforts are usually initiated by an internal evangelist.
Wallflowers — brands present in only a few channels and very lightly in those; these brands are sitting on the sidelines and are wary of the risks. They are still trying to figure out the best next steps and investments in social media.
