Mesh and teaching old marketing new tricks

New Media - Teaching Old Markets New Tricks

Mike McDerment talks with Jen Evans, Maggie Fox and John Jantsch

Q: what is new media and why is it relevant to have this conversation

maggie: this is like what is art? Technology is important but there are important cultural shifts happening as well. Email and social media accelerates the shift of communities of interest, we can find people who share our passion.

Q: so how is this affecting the market place.

Jen: it’s a pretty disruptive marketplace; there is a knowledge and skills gap; people are getting caught up with the tech instead of the behaviours.

Q: what are the tools?

John: I’m mixed on the term new media and I think it leads people to think there is a new way to market…but it has always been a good idea to build content, to build a community, to connect t people. The tools donl;t change the thinking, they allow you to amplify and get greater reach. they are not a replacement for basic marketing questions.

Q: people are generating content themselves. you can broadcast directly to your customer, there’s no third party involved. so what does that mean

Maggie: you don;t build a community, you join it. it enables companies to connect directly. Everyone can do it; for business, if you do your research, find out what they want and need. It gives you the opp to form a relationship.

John: look at how easy it is to set up a blog and talk to the market. now businesses are talking to their customers.

Q: in a PR role, you try and reach journalist, instead of a customer. this changes.

Jen; the easiest way to create a relationship is one based on trust. you can do it correct now, not through editors, or editorial or advertising. You can create a value based relationship by leveraging the community.

Jen: blogging - you have to have a distinctive voice; you have to have someone who likes to write; they have to be able to write;

John: don;t let it be an excuse to not to do it if you don;t have this straight away. I forced myself to write which made it better.

Audience:

Q: what is a good way to do good outreach to blogger.

Maggie: start by reading their blogs.
John: treat them like journalists. I may a lot more attention to people who are participating.

Q: How do you manage the community response?

Jen: this is the most challenging thing; we found that the best way to start is with a controlled loop, through a controlled reachout. get a sense of what the feedback will be and getting a sense of how they will respond. then plan how to address it.

Q: you know what success looks like. how do you measure? what is the currency?

Maggie: we call them engagement metrics. numbers alone have no meaning. we address it per client; for one we joined a forum and monitored comments as well as setting up a blog and inviting comments. we assessed ourselves against the forum and found we were doing better.

Jen :the crux is to be clear what your goals are. and plan programme and metrics on these. typically 10% drive activity, are you getting these?

John: I look at opportunities (small business)

MIke: you talk about the Dove…that is tactic, short timeline. but over a period of time you build an audience that stays with you, that is loyal..

Q: how difficult are the tools to use
John there is a real danger of overestimating how easy people find these things.,

Q: how do you integrate on and offline? over 50% of my membership are not online

Jen: if you know that, is there specific incentive to reach out online? you need to know the audience and the media they are listening to you. if you are not capturing information about people, then this is a lost potential.

Q: I can only do so much; at what point will we get fatigue.
John: we’ve passed that!
Maggie; we are getting convergence in SM, want 1 device. With facebook, you are starting to see convergence with SM
John: you need to take advantage of RSS to aggregate the content. yahoo pipes can build you an agg, with filters, or mysyndicaat.

Q: what is your experience in dealing with clients that are reluctant?
Maggie; there are risks, but greater risks in not participating. people are already talking and if you are not participating then you have no influence. I connect with evangelists in an org, you have to communicate and educate them a lot.
John: look at the search engine value of adding a blog. you will make your existing web presence far more powerful by writing

Q: launching a new online service..before you wanted to make a big splash, now it slower, you create waves that touch different people, more word of mouth.
Jen: freakonomics, they launched a blog, talked about it for a year before, they seeded their awareness before the book was there..the people were involved in the process.
Mike: what’s the biggest mistake with people dabbling?
maggie: dabbling. it’s a commitment. it’s a relationship.
John: marketing is always a long term game.

Q: what happens when you have a client who gets it too much?
Jen: do the research; if you have the audience then ask them. there are ways to assess the interest in different media.
John: avoid the temptation to do the new idea of the week
Mike experimenting is such a huge thing..
John: but need to stay focused on goals, acting as filters.

Q: our company has 3 channels - voice, web and mobile. Do you see communities developing around channels or across them?
Maggie: that’s a tech and content question. it’s about the content, people who are interested in it, they will gather around it where-ever,
Jen: we have found that communities that have offline interaction points are more cohesive.

Q: what elements need to be there to get people to come back and stay longer. what makes it stick
maggie: before you build it, you need to know what you need to build
Jen: 3 elements - content, vibrancy, fit. If those work for someone, they will be back.

Q: so how do you make them come?
John: update content (blog 3-5x/week). it;s difficult to build vibrancy if less than that.

Q: if your CEO is interesting but don’t have time?
Maggie: no ghost blogging..but solutions can be done. regular interviews with CEO, or other people in the team, ie Robert Scoble - midlevel people. The target want the minutia, the day to day stuff.
John: get a recorder and answer one question.
MIke: how do you get people there the first time?
Maggie: I’m not a fan of ‘marketing’ a blog…you can give the wrong message. if it is on target people will find it and it will grow organically. You need to participate…need to comment back. Moderating reduces interaction.
John: you can market, you can build a network.

Q: 3-5x a week, I take issue with. We are overwhelmed with content…why add to this.
John: you have to build an audience, my traffic drops when I don’t post… focus on what makes good content. it should be consistent..that is the driver. you can do less if there is an expectation.

Q: what other tools?
Jen: wikis, podcasts, video. understand the audience and what they want.
John: with podcasts, it turned me into an journalist. I interview people. I;ve not been turned down, it turns the table in terms of content creation.