Are You Blasting or Listening When You Market Online?

Since last week’s post about measuring what you should (not what you can) generated some nice feedback, we thought it merited a follow up discussion.

As our good friend Stephen D. Rappaport noted in a recent guest article for one of our clients, “social media is still considered a broadcast medium” by too many organizations and “that’s a huge missed opportunity.”  

While Steve’s piece was intended for trade association executives, many of his key points are relevant for financial and professional service firms like yours. For instance:

·         Too many organizations still treat social media as a one-way broadcast medium and are missing great engagement and intelligence-gathering opportunities from clients and prospects.

·         Social media strategy is much greater than merely nudging or bribing your audience to share, tweet or follow your content and calling that engagement.

·         Think of your audience as belonging to a tribe, with your leadership as the elders. Discover the core reasons for your tribe’s existence and why members want to belong.

NOTE: Click here for information about Steve’s new book, The Digital Metrics Field Guide The Definitive Reference for Brands using the Web, Social Media, Mobile Media. Put in on your summer reading list.

Conclusion

Whether it’s a tweet, a blog post, an enewsletter or a video, if you’re still using social media to blast things out to clients and prospects—rather than using it to stimulate a discussion—then you’re missing the point. No matter how well your pieces are designed and written, if you’re using them as a one-way bullhorn rather than a two-way dialogue, then it just shows you’re cheap, possibly lazy and not respectful of your clients’ and prospects’ time.

Have a great weekend. Best, HB

Our blog has more, as does the FREE Resources page of our website.

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TAGS: Steve Rappaport, Digital Metrics Field Guide, measuring social and mobile media, one way broadcast vs. two-way medium 

Are You Measuring What You Can…or What You Should?

Most of you on this distribution list are numbers people. We live in a world of Big Data, analytics, CRM, BPM, ROI and benchmarking. Even the baseball stat junkies among us have a profession named after them—sabermetrics. So how come it’s so hard for us to determine if our marketing is working, especially our digital marketing, which is supposed to be so measurable? 

As our good friend Stephen D. Rappaport noted in a recent guest article for one of our clients, “The great majority of digital metrics put a number on tactical results—the things that campaigns encourage people to do, such as opening emails, clicking links, reading pages and viewing videos, posting and commenting, sharing, downloading content, installing apps, liking, checking-in, and friending, connecting or following.

But according to Rappaport, who’s been a longtime advisor to our firm, putting a number on tactical results is not the whole story. We’re often measuring data that’s easier to collect, not what’s strategically meaningful. Instead, Steve says you need to:
*  Develop a theory about how digital media should help your firm or organization achieve tangible goals like thought leaders, client retention, recruiting, or new client acquisition.

·     
 * Create a measurement framework based on your theory, such as awareness, engagement, participation and advocacy/evangelism.

·         * Select and fit metrics to the framework.

NOTE: Click here for information about Steve’s new book, The Digital Metrics Field Guide The Definitive Reference for Brands using the Web, Social Media, Mobile Media. Put in on your summer reading list.

Conclusion

If you have the courage to ask what you need to hear--not what you want to hear--about your marketing efforts, then you’ll be well on your way to understanding what metrics really mean and what steps to take next. Steve’s got 197 of his favorite metrics for you just waiting to be explored.

Our blog has more, as does the FREE Resources page of our website.

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TAGS: Steve Rappaport, Digital Metrics Field Guide, sabermetrics, measuring social and mobile media 

Are You Ready for Generation C (Competitive)?

Are you planning to hire youngest members (or prospective members) of your profession this summer? If so, you might want to get to know them better. They bring a lot to the table, but they certainly don’t sit at the same table that you and I did at that age. Don’t waste their talents.

On the surface, Millennials may seem to lack the verbal acumen of previous generations and they certainly don’t seem as willing to pay their dues. But, they’re more than just tech-addicted slackers. They have a huge built-in network of contacts from Day One of their professional lives—contacts that could be useful to you as well. They can find the vast majority of what they need to know right on the web (even if you can’t) and they’re MUCH MORE COMPETITIVE. Much more. University of Michigan studies suggest that today’s students score about 40 percent lower in measures of empathy than students did 30 years ago. Maybe it’s because they’re come of age at a time when “disruption” is considered a good thing, at least in business and technology circles.

Growing up with cutthroat competition

If you have a millennial and Gen next person in your life right now, you know what we mean. Everything from Little League baseball and youth soccer, to marching band to getting into college is substantially more competitive today than it was for older generations. What we did at 18, they’re doing at 14. What we did at 15, they’re doing at 12. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the classroom, the ball field or summer internships. The stakes just seem higher.

As David Brooks’ wrote in his New York Time op-ed piece Tuesday, not only is getting into college more competitive, but students begin to be haunted by fears about their job market prospects much earlier. The image of a “benign job market is pretty much gone (as expectations about what constitutes a good job have risen). Even incoming college freshmen seem to fear they will not find lucrative and rewarding work.”

According to UCLA’s annual study of incoming college freshmen, job training and making money is a much higher priority for today’s students than it was for previous generations. For instance, researchers found that in 1976, 50 percent of freshmen said they were going to college in order to make more money. By 2006, almost 70 percent of freshmen said that. Their values have changed, too. In 1966, only 42 percent of freshmen said that being well-off financially was an essential or very important life goal. By 2005, 75 percent of students said being well-off financially was essential or very important.

“Affluence, once a middling value, is now students’ top life goal,” quipped Brooks. “In the shadow of this more Darwinian job market, it is more acceptable to present yourself as utilitarian, streamlined and success-oriented.”

In order to stay connected with the next generation, Nicole Malcom, Director of Operations for the American Holistic Nurses Association (AHNA) told me recently that “you need to stay abreast of the latest technology, even if you are not currently using it.”  Gregory Brooks, President of the association management company, AMC Source told me NextGen is very resourceful. “They’re connected globally and prefer to bypass red tape. To get to them, you must provide community, tools and resources they need—stuff that they cannot get on their own.”

Conclusion

“The next generation is idealistic and cause-oriented,” according to Chris Williston, voice of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas (IBAT) whom I interviewed recently for Association Adviser.  “They want to connect with your cause, but they need to understand the narrative you’re putting forth and how they can become a part of it.  If you can do that for the next generation, they will tell your story for you, with themselves cast in the starring role.”  If that’s egocentric and narcissistic, so be it. You need Generation C on your team. Learn how to work with them, not against them. Or else, you’ll soon be competing with them.

Have a great weekend. Honor the moms in our life. HB

Our blog has more, as does the FREE Resources page of our website.

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TAGS: David Brooks, UCLA study of incoming freshman, University of Michigan study of empathy, Independent Bankers of Texas, AMC Source, Association Adviser, American Holistic Nurses Association