Tag Archives: digital marketing

Lessons From David Plouffe

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David Plouffe, one of US President Barack Obama’s senior advisors rose to prominence as the campaign manager for the 2008 Obama campaign for President. Mr Plouffe is well known, not only because he was instrumental in the success of Obama’s historic victory but for the brilliant digital marketing strategy he crafted and executed with chief strategist, David Axelrod.

What they did
The Obama campaign raised approximately three quarters of a billion dollars, motivated thousands of dedicated volunteers, and spurred record voter turn-out by engaging the electorate as never before (although they were very likely inspired by similar successes in the Howard Dean campaign in the 2004 presidential race). Their technical staff developed clean, clear, easy to navigate web sites built on open source technology and even accompanying mobile apps, providing information on how and where to vote and educating people on the importance of the election, as well as information on the candidate, himself. Plouffe embraced social media and digital technology to reach technically savvy Obama advocates and reach outward from there.

How what they did was awesome
In other words, they were using the technology as a means to start conversations, provide value, educate and inform, rather than to simply blast sales messages to people. Sound familiar? Many of us now know this as social media done right, yet we also know that relatively few firms and political campaigns are so clever and brave to do the job so well, especially that early on in the social media game.

There is a lot of information out there on the digital work of the Obama campaign. If you want to know more, my sources list below is a good place to start.

 

Sources:

  • http://www.techvibes.com/blog/david-plouffe-explains-social-media-in-the-obama-campaign-at-convergence-2009
  • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/19/david-plouffe-pushing-new_n_864103.html

Personal Brand Basics. Part 2

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In my last post, I provided a brief introduction to building your personal brand, with an eye toward what I have done and how you might be able to learn from my experience. In this one, we’ll cover a few more key areas and discuss some general thoughts on the brand-building process. Without further adieu, here are some more of those activities.

Leverage LinkedIn. This most popular of professional networking sites has been highly effective for me. I regularly get calls from head hunters and company recruiters through my LinkedIn profile. Guy Kawasaki’s blog has some good tips for boosting your LinkedIn profile and making it more attractive to hiring managers, clients, and business partners. I’ll leave it to you to see what Guy has to say but generally speaking, here’s what’s working for me:

  • Make entire profile public and open — allow anyone and everyone to see your profile, whether or not they are logged in. This also helps Google index your page and people searching with it to find you that way. I also can receive messages and invitations to connect from any member, whether or not they know me, are connected, know my e-mail address, et cetera. That doesn’t mean I have to accept any such invitations but I will get them and this is often how recruiters contact me.
  • Fill in all the available fields. Enter your work history of the past five or so years. Show people where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and what you know. This is, after all, a huge part of your value to firms seeking employees, especially when they don’t have personality or other less tangible traits to observe yet (since they have yet to meet you).
  • Make effective use of key words. Use the types of words hiring managers might be looking for. If you are a social media expert, for example, you might want to include names for any methods you use or marketing philosophies you subscribe to, tools you use, and so on. Basically, use words you might consider if you were searching for a social media expert in LinkedIn.
  • Join some groups. Joining relevant groups can put you in touch with other people in your field or with the same interests as you. Many groups also meet in real-space on a regular basis so this can be especially good if you have moved to a new town.

Regarding Facebook. Odds are, you already have a Facebook account. Many of us have used this one in powerful ways to, not just connect with old friends, but to elevate their profiles, sell apps, and find other people to connect with in their fields. Beware, however, Facebook has damaged quite a few personal brands as well. It goes without saying that you have to be very careful what images and comments you post to Facebook and even when you do so (e.g. posting photos of yourself on the beach when your employer thinks you are ill). Unfortunately, what your Facebook friends do and post can also be a problem for you, especially if you are in the pictures they post or comments they make. Honestly, due to the lack of control members have over their profiles and the mixing of business and pleasure happening on Facebook, I recommend caution when using it as a brand-building tool and even think deleting your Facebook account is worth serious consideration to maintain control over your brand. Of course, this depends on your brand itself and your strategy for promoting it. For example, Paris Hilton probably has nothing to worry about in having a Facebook account, a director of public relations might.

Though our focus here has been on digital strategy, perhaps more important than everything we’ve discussed is how you present your brand off-line. How you deal with people and conduct business is probably the single most important element of your brand. As many of us know, word-of-mouth and personal references have the strongest influence over consumer behaviour. What this means for most of us is what anyone would hope for in a business partner — sticking to your word, delivering quality product on time and on budget, being an effective and pleasant communicator, among others. I also, personally, believe that being true to oneself is paramount. Its a great (and natural) way to differentiate yourself from the herd, aside from making everyone (especially oneself) more comfortable. So as you craft and execute your digital branding strategy, remember: Face-time is prime time.

Who Do You Trust? Why Earned Media Is Important

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In my previous post, I defined bought, owned, and earned media. Here, we’ll go a little deeper on one of those: earned media.

Engaging consumers through social media can be quite involved (depending on the level of engagement required). It requires a bit if a re-think in a firm’s marketing strategy and results can be mixed, with potential benefits ranging from none at all to suddenly becoming the talk of the town (or even the talk of many towns).

So why bother with earned media? One big reason is that these conversations about your space and/or brand are happening. You should be in on them. Another big reason is that of trust and effectiveness, especially in the on-line world. Rob Fuggetta at Advertising Age has a decent article, Five Reasons You Need to Focus on Earned Media which references some very telling statistics from Neilsen, McKinsey, and others on consumer trust. The research from Nielsen reveals that 90% of consumers surveyed trusted information from someone they know and 70% trusted opinions of other consumers posted online (that they did not know), while only 33% trusted on-line banner ads.* This data makes the effectiveness of earned media quite clear.

As Fuggetta also mentions, yet another benefit of earned media is the staying power of much (but certainly not all) of it. Those blog posts, videos, on-line store reviews and the like often remain up for years and are found by those searching the Internet for information about your product or other products in the segment. Thus a significant level attention gained from them can be long-lasting, though the effectiveness of older posts likely diminishes over time (I found no data on this so we have to make some inferences for now).

 

* The numbers quoted by Rob Fuggetta at AdAge were different than those in the actual Nielsen article he sourced from. The numbers I quoted above are from Nielsen. 

Sources

  • http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/reasons-focus-earned-media/227586/#author
  • http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/global-advertising-consumers-trust-real-friends-and-virtual-strangers-the-most/
  • http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/A_new_way_to_measure_word-of-mouth_marketing_2567

Media: bought, owned, and earned.

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Many companies in search of reaching a wider audience are looking to social media. There are are other reasons to participate in all the blogging, tweeting, chatting, and the like happening on-line as well, such as better engagement and dialogue with consumers. To really see the value and power in Internet marketing and social media, it’s beneficial to understand the concepts of bought, owned, and earned media and where social fits in to those constructs.

Bought media is exposure delivered through a paid-for channel or advertizing. Good old fashioned billboards, print, and television ads fall into this category, as do the newfangled digital sort — banner ads, sponsored links, paid search, and so on.

Owned media is a channel controlled (and often owned in the conventional sense as well) by the firm (or brand). Examples include the signs on a company’s buildings and vehicles, their web site, and company publications (like a magazine, blog, or newsletter, print or digital). Official brand Facebook, Twitter accounts also fall into this category.

Earned media are the highly effective word-of-mouth that not only transpires in meatspace but also in places like on-line forums, chat rooms/IM, Amazon reviews. Sean Corcoran from Forrester says viral videos are classified here too but a clarification is in order — viral videos produced and promoted by the firm are, in essence, bought media. Videos produced by consumers are more clearly seen as earned media.

Check out the sources links below for more information. Stay tuned for a post on stimulating earned media through your digital presence.

 

Sources:

  • http://blogs.forrester.com/interactive_marketing/2009/12/defining-earned-owned-and-paid-media.html
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_media
  • http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/04/earning-your-media.html
  • http://producerposts.com/producer_posts/2009/04/earn-it.html