We are in the age of the Social Consumer, where social networks are transforming business as the attention of the consumer is focusing on their social streams. They learn, discover and share with their friends.

Facebook has generated a lot of BUZZ lately with its unveiling of a new location based “Places” with local deals. Successful companies are integrating Facebook into their marketing strategies. Fortune 500 companies are racing to see who can get the most “likes” and companies like WalMart are banking that you will share their deals with your friends.

Here are 5 reasons it is imperative that your business have a Customized Facebook Business page.

1. Fish Where the Fish Are. With over 500 million active users and 50% of them logging on to Facebook in any given day you are bound to have clients on Facebook.  Companies embracing social media will hold a strong competitive advantage.
2. Engage and Build Relationships. It’s not about selling your products and services but building relationships. To build relationships you need to create followers or fans of your brand, otherwise known as those who “Like” your page and content. Facebook’s Wall element provides a perfect opportunity to engage your visitors in 2-way conversations. Status updates can engage your clients by providing value as well as direct visitors to answer questions, post their comments and share their photos and videos.
3. Effective and Reasonable Marketing (Ads). Facebook ads are reasonably priced and you control your daily budget. You can target your niche market with pay-per-click and pay-per-impression options. Ads can be directed back to your business page to grow your fan base or directed to your website to make a purchase or redeem a coupon. Facebook recently included a social element to their paid ads with a set of metrics for the ad administrator. Nielsen report claims that almost 70% of users are more likely to click on an ad previously visited by their friends.
4. Maintain Strong Brand Awareness. You can build brand awareness with a customized Welcome page,  Product or Service page. Facebook Contests generate brand awareness especially when used in combination with Facebook ads. Users submit essays or photos and then ask their friends to vote for their entry. They can also share their entry on their wall making your brand visible to all of their friends.  You can also increase brand awareness results by integrating Facebook with traditional marketing channels.
5. Provide Customer Value.  Value can come in the content you share, from how-to videos to customer service tips. You can offer specials for Facebook users only. Facebook Places is a location based tool for smart phone users like the iPhone and the Android. Once a business claims their place they can offer a deal or coupon for mobile users who check in at their location. The deal then appears on the users news feed where all of their friends can take advantage of too. You can also receive company value through polls and surveys and gather research from questions.

The results of these 5 elements will be the number of “fans” or “likes” your Facebook Page will produce.  How much is a Facebook fan worth?  Retailer Daily concludes,

“The average value a Facebook fan provides a brand is $136.38, but it can swing to $270.77 on average for “best” fans or go down to $0 in the “worst.”

Entwine Digital has created and managed many custom Facebook pages where clients have grown their fan base significantly. Darin Kidd’s page received over 1000 fans within the first 48 hours.  Our most recent project with Tony Williams, song writer and musician of Call the Law it’s Christmas, is to use Facebook to promote the Black Friday release of the animated video of the holiday song. Williams said, “I don’t know much about it but I do know I have to be on Facebook to let people know about my song and get the video to go viral.”

Have you tried to explain to clients, colleagues, businesspeople or students:

• Why social media works?
• Why consumers feel they are not listened to?
• Why traditional advertising has lost much of its power and is not trusted?
• Why the Digital Media revolution is alive and growing?

I recently re-discovered this 2 minute video. It’s a very powerful demonstration of digital marketing and answers all of the questions above. Take 2 minutes and watch The Breakup.

As a viewer, you just experienced the five keys to Digital Marketing in a dinner dialogue between a man (the Advertiser) and a woman (the Consumer). The acting, the content and the gestures are exquisite as it shares the growing gap between traditional advertising and the consumer.

The five keys to a successful Digital Marketing Strategy are reflected in this video.

1. Listening – The Advertiser is a bit arrogant and not listening to the Consumer.
2. Engagement – The Advertiser is talking past the Consumer by shouting “non-genuine” messages. They are not engaging in conversations.
3. Relationship – There is no relationship between the Consumer and the Advertiser. There is NO trust therefore they don’t communicate or share in the dialogue. When she says “I want a divorce”, he won’t even listen!  She is done with traditional advertising!
4. Value – The Advertiser is sharing all the things he is doing for the Consumer but she says “you don’t know me”, as if saying “I find NO Value in what you are offering; I don’t receive any benefit.”
5. Access – The Consumer states that “they don’t hang out in the same places.” The consumer can’t access the advertiser’s messages because she doesn’t use the same media outlets.

At the conclusion the woman (Consumer) leaves the restaurant –“ I’m out of here” reflecting our current consumers turnoff with traditional media and their attraction for digital marketing with their use of social media.

Showing this 2 minute video has helped our clients understand the need for digital media and the new role of the consumer in the marketing mix. As a marketing professional, what other ways have you explained this shift in marketing to your clients?  As a consumer, was this video helpful in demonstrating the power of digital marketing?  Please leave your comments below.

Clients generally have unrealistic expectations of a integrated digital marketing strategy.  They expect results immediately or within the first 3-6 months. We prepare our clients for real expectations by reviewing a Digital Marketing Timeline.

An Integrated Digital Marketing strategy has five stages during a 27+ month period. (note: the timeline can be collapsed to 6+ months depending on the relevancy and the timeliness of the promotion) During each stage the number of touchpoints,  client marketing efforts that  touch the customer, are expanded. These touchpoints build on each other and grow exponentially.  As your network expands the media (traditional advertising, PR, online, social) begin to synergize with each other. In the future a successful strategy will be self generating and grow virally.  The goal is to convert your network of touchpoints to actions that support your strategic objectives. Here are the expectations projected for the five stages of the Digital Marketing Timeline Strategy.

SETUP   (0-3 months)

• assess touchpoints in relation to customer lifecycle
• build online environment
• establish baseline
• setup digital media infrastructure
• establish listings on search engines
• gain followers
• initiate relationships
• develop content strategy
• assess digital footprint
• increase member interactions
• begin gaining new referrals/leads
• initiate brand mentions

TRACTION   (4-9 mo)

• transform touchpoints to conversation points
• implement digital media optimization
• gain traction on social media sites
• integrate mobile with social media
• gain responses to call to action
• place on search engines
• gain new sales/members
• gain initial thought leadership interactions
• build member satisfaction/feedback
• increase customer service  

POSITIONING   (10-15 months)

• convert conversation interaction points to conversion points
• gain positions on search engines
• gain thought leadership interactions
• gain new sales revenue
• develop brand loyalty

EXPANSION   (16-27+ months)

• stabilize position on search engines
• establish some recognition as a thought leader
• gain brand  power
• gain consistent stream of revenue

VIRAL GROWTH (future)

• expand networks exponentially through fan/follower networks and social communities

Healthcare professionals and marketing consultants converged in New York City this month to attend Social Communications & Healthcare; Case Studies and Roundtables, a conference hosted by Business Development Institute. Ira Kaufman, President of Entwine Inc, and I were honored to have been chosen to Moderate Roundtable discussions.

Hospitals, non-profits, pharmaceutical companies and medical professionals are searching for effective venues to engage patients. They are investigating the application of social media as they are confounded with compliance issues, newly proposed FDA regulations and conservative management. The conference featured case studies of healthcare companies and organizations that are using social media in different contexts.  Some of the companies included:

Center for Disease Control (CDC)

The CDC has been using social media for the past 3 1/2 – 4 years. They integrate health messages from campaigns and interventions using social media to help get the word out.  They use as many formats as possible to be where the people are. The CDC performs a yearly satisfaction survey and they found that visitors who use social media have a higher satisfaction rating (a full 5 points higher) and rate the CDC site as trustworthy.

Johnson & Johnson

J&J uses multiple platforms and integrates them to redefine relationships. They use blogging, video, Facebook and Twitter along with their main websites to engage and contribute to the conversations. J&J also has a successful social community for it’s Diabetes Institute.

Pfizer

Pfizer is very proud of its progress in adopting social media.  They have gone from crawling to walking. Their Twitter feed is one of the top feeds in NYC. They have an active Facebook page, and more importantly their employees can now access Facebook. YouTube is proving to be a big part of their social media strategy.  Pfizer has successfully used social media to do clinical trial recruitment, monitoring and brand protection, as well as drug counterfeiting education.

Our roundtable discussions were focused on Harnessing the Power of Social Media. We challenged participants to consider six new perspectives in using social media platforms in healthcare environments.

1. Twitter is more than a traditional broadcast tool. It is a powerful conversational initiator. Too many companies only push their brand on social media. Healthcare organizations need to change their mindset and create value to attract visitors.
2. Twitter and Facebook have very powerful search tools that allow users to gain a real time read on the comments and interest of other users and thought leaders in their targeted space.
3. Re-tweeting is a powerful distribution mechanism for your content and messages. Testing the effectiveness of different keywords in stimulating re-tweets produces results.
4. Careful keyword selection and inclusion in blog posts and articles realizes gains in search engine positioning. As each Tweet is a individual  page and optimized by the search engines, targeting your keywords will drive users to your content hub.
5. Social media has proven to be a very reliable sourcing venue for recruitment. Combining LinkedIn with Twitter and Facebook have produced great results for our team. Our results were recognized when Kissito Healthcare was listed as one of the top fifty employers recruiting with Twitter.
6. Monitoring your company brand and industry provides opportunities to engage patients and future clients. It serves as an immediate way to track conversations about your brand. Use 3rd party applications to deliver results immediately to your inbox.

Patient Touchpoint Strategy

Patient touchpoints or interactions with health care facility and professionals define patient centered care. They determine the total patient experience and satisfaction, affecting not only the clinical tasks but patient outcomes.  With the growth of online and social media, healthcare administrators have new tools to evaluate and effect patient centered care.

California HealthCare Foundation Study of Health 2.0 suggests,

“Innovative collaborations online among groups of patients, medical professionals, and other health care players are challenging the notion that health care happens only between a single patient and doctor in an exam room.”

In the growing Health 2.0 model, online and social media have dramatically increased touchpoints (34% of patients use social media, 46% health portals, 67% search engines).

Josh D. McGilliard, VP Marketing, Kissito Healthcare commented,

“Touchpoints or places where our brand constituents come in contact with our brand, are considered the underpinnings that hold the Kissito brand together. Whether they are external or internal before or after initial engagement, it is the only way to identify with the constituents on a consistent basis. Social media is becoming an important part of the mix.”

What are the touchpoints for today’s patient?  Now consumers research diseases, best practices, cures, pharmaceuticals on WebMD.  Medical information is shared by TV commercials, radio talk shows, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and brochures in doctor’s office.  Friends share stories and recommendations; patients join online support communities.  Interactions with medical/hospital staff are critical (admissions, billing, doctors, pharmacists, nurses. dietitians, CNAs, aides, social workers, therapists.) Patient discharge plans include regular interactions with case workers. The summation of these points is the Touchpoint Map.

The next step for healthcare professionals is to design a Touchpoint Optimization Strategy that will increase the quality of the total patient experience:

Step 1: Create a Patient Touchpoint Map

Interview a sample of patients to determine which touchpoints relate to their healthcare experience.

Step 2: Evaluate Patient Touchpoints Effectiveness

Determine which of these touchpoints each patient values at each stage of medical intervention (discovery, treatment, discharge, aftercare) referred as the patient life cycle. Then compare these touchpoints in generating conversations and patient relationships, increasing patient satisfaction and comfort level and effecting outcomes.

Step 3: Design Patient Touchpoint Optimization Strategy

Select a cost-effective mix of marketing tools that target your demographic and stage of intervention to increase touchpoints and conversations and improve the patient experience.

Step 4: Assess Patient Touchpoint Optimization Strategy

Evaluate the effect of the strategy in terms of increasing the quality and satisfaction of the total patient experience.

For example, a McKinsey Study of hypertensive patient’s habits for taking their medicines revealed that the adherence practices were related to six patient segments. They included skeptical patients, confident patients, concerned patients, confused patients, resigned patients, and proactive patients. By targeting a Touchpoint Strategy to these segments, the organization can greatly increase the effectiveness on their marketing efforts.

Entwine Inc was selected by the Adhesive and Sealant Council to educate industry leaders about social media and B2B marketing at the 2010 Adhesive and Sealant Spring Conference in Savannah, Georgia. Ira Kaufman and Patsy Stewart studied the industry and gathered examples of companies starting to embrace social media such as Lanxess, H.B. Fuller, Cytec, Hexion and Arizona Chemical. It really wasn’t a surprise, but  the adhesive and sealant industry has barely tapped into social media.

Social Media Revolution – Creating Value for Your B2B Business

Our presentation, Social Media Revolution – Creating Value for Your B2B Business, introduced industry leaders to the value of Social Media when used in an Integrated Media Marketing Strategy.  We divided it into three parts; the case, the integrated strategy and the social media marketing tactics.

Industry executives were quite interested but shared their skepticism.  Eva Ackerman, VP Research & Technology, Rectorseal Corporation, commented,

“Honestly, using social networking for more than social chatter was new to me. I was quite skeptical. Your workshop showed me the value and made me a believer. I see new opportunities to try social media for our company.”

They were challenged by a lack of understanding of the power of social media, how to apply it to their company and integrate it with current marketing efforts and how to measure the results. Larry Owen, Senior Vice President of Franklin Adhesives & Polymers said,

“I need to get involved in social media, our company needs to get involved. I have committed to our marketing department that I will research and learn more.”

Larry Owen, Ira Kaufman, Les Burch

The presentation demonstrated how B2B companies are embracing social media to generate results. An Integrated Media Marketing Strategy incorporates social media to increase customer touchpoints to engage with clients and build relationships. Social Media Marketing tools help to expand a B2B company’s digital footprint. Your online environment is your hub; this could be your blog, website or landing page. The spokes or social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn drive traffic back to the hub and create buzz.

Les Burch, President of Sashco shared,

“Your presentation helped me understand how the many pieces of social media fit together strategically and how they can develop communities that care about our products and create a buzz about them.”

To help us better understand the needs of the Adhesive and Sealant Industry we are conducting a survey of the attendees. We will compile the data and determine ways B2B can best benefit from the inclusion of social media in an integrated marketing strategy.

You can view our entire presentation on Slideshare.  Click here to view the slides.

The vast changes in media have triggered a revolution in marketing.  Rupert Murdoch noted it in 2006.

“To find something comparable, you would have to go back 500 years to the printing press or the birth of mass media… Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now, it’s the people who are taking control.”

Business Response

Business is quick to acknowledge the changes but their response is varied.  In a recent survey of small business owners

“67% agreed that social media is a good way to increase business, yet 39% did not plan to use social networking in their marketing plan in 2010.”

79% of the  Fortune Global 100 are using at least one social media platform.  Most of the companies have had success with social media.

Office Max: “Marketing is all about change… At OfficeMax, we’ve embraced social media and incorporated it into our marketing strategy to reach today’s digital consumer through humor, entertainment and personalization.”

Cisco: “We see social media, such as blogs, as a great way to build your business and tap into the ideas and input of people using your products.”

Another study suggests “47% of brands are still in the experimental phase with social media”, meaning they “exhibit lots of social activity with little connection or integration with each other.”   Businessweek reports

“Over the last two years, social media have dramatically transformed the pace at which information is shared….71% of companies plan to increase their investments in social media, but only a third have guidelines for how it should be used.”

Clearly there is a marketing opportunity!  But business owners and marketing managers are overwhelmed with the new learning curve and question its effectiveness. Agencies are active in the social space, trying to make sense of all the new tools and prove its value for their clients.  Yet a new evolving group, focusing on Integrated Media Marketing and using social media as art of a comprehensive strategy, is opening up new markets and strategic opportunities.

How are you on implementing Social Media into your marketing efforts?

Traditionally marketing is about advertising or promoting something.  We scream “something”; we hope it is loud enough to interrupt the consumers’ attention and motivate them to take action.  That’s one way to do it.

Marketing has progressed — customer databases target select groups and the internet provides customers with search that directs them to company websites. We say something to the world, await a response and then respond back.  But the communication is still one way.

Social Media, the New Solution?

Enter social media. Two-way conversations are realized in real time – open communication is the objective, controlling the message is almost impossible. The focus is to promote conversations among customers and potential customers. Each conversation is a “touchpoint” with the consumer and provides the company with insights, data and new marketing connections.

To date most marketers see social media as a tool or a component of the marketing mix. Social media is much more than a promotion tool; it is the “atmosphere” or cloud in which more traditional efforts are magnified, grow and flourish.  It requires a comprehensive strategy to be successful.

Social media has begun to impact business communications (e.g., branding, customer service, recruitment, organizational development).  But it has not been integrated into ongoing traditional marketing efforts and the marketing mix.

Integrated Media Marketing, Generating Marketing Capital

Enter Integrated Media Marketing, the next step in the marketing revolution. This strategy is the seamless integration of traditional marketing with online, public relations and social media. This builds on the recent Forester study,  No Media Should Stand Alone which suggests;

“All types of online media can play specific roles in meeting marketers’ objectives — especially when seamlessly working together.”

From the outset Integrated Media Marketing is designed to be holistic; it is not just adding social media as another silo to the other media channels; but blending or “entwining” the components (TV, radio, online, public relations and online marketing) as a unified strategy.  Social media must permeate all elements of their marketing mix, as the driving force of an Integrated Media Marketing Strategy.

This Strategy augments and synergizes the different media components to generate a new asset, marketing capital. The resulting marketing capital is greater than the sum of each of the media inputs, generating new value added by

• Expanding exposure by effectively driving your message across all media
• Efficient use of marketing dollars
• Accessing the viral power of user distribution
• Addressing sensitive and negative issues
• Expanding customer touchpoints to gain new insights on their brand (corporate, employer); interactions on customer service; opportunities for recruitment and product research.

The Obama Presidential campaign successfully generated marketing capital with a unified brand of “Change”. President Obama’s team used all forms of social media and wove them seamlessly with traditional media and PR, while “integrating online advocacy into every element of the campaign.”  His expanded marketing capital resulted in an empowered volunteer network,  high approval ratings, 90% of donors were under $100 and a landslide election victory drawing from political center.

An Integrated Media Marketing Strategy develops engaging customer relationships which generates new marketing capital and a sustainable competitive edge.

Strategy! Strategy! Strategy! -  the key to successfully integrating social media into your marketing mix.  Business Week points out that  companies are moving from Discovery to Experimentation and finally to Adoption in their social media experience.

With this growing expertise, experts agree that 2010 is the year for Developing Strategy,  Integrating Media and Designing Metrics.

As Social Media Marketing is becoming more strategic, companies are adopting a strategy to align their objectives with metrics that define and reflect an Integrated Media Marketing approach.  This will define their success. Mani Karthik compiled an awesome list of ten social media presentations by thought leaders in the industry. These companies are using a social media strategy to achieve their objectives. We thank Mani for including the latest Entwine presentation as the first on his list.  We shared this presentation with executives at the Salem Roanoke County Chamber event in Salem, Virginia.