SME and social media

I've conversed with many small and medium sized businesses. And one thing that keeps on resonating from them is - "what do I do in social media? Help us address it".

SME fully recognize the importance and relevance of social media. To them its a cost-effective channel to reach their audience. However there is confusion in their minds on multiple fronts:

1. What is the best way to get their message out to users? i.e. should they put up a facebook fan page and have twitter presence? or both?
2. What about mobile? What do they do - create a smartphone app or advertise in mobile. If so, how?
3. How to measure ROI?
4. They have invested heavily in building out their web presence, however audience growth is in social media. "Can I leverage my web site in there?" This is especially true for SME who have built out storefronts on their web site. How are they going to mimic it in social media.
5. If everyone talks about "engaging with users", how is that achieved? Is it via simple ads or more engaging ads? If its engaging ads, what format works the best? Display or social apps?
6. If they in the market for performance advertising - generating leads, etc. How to do it?
7. How to do it in a cost-effective manner? Today companies in this area are charging arm and a leg - min. of $5,000 to start the campaigns.
8. And, last but not least - "I want to do it now and in a cost-effective manner".

These are some of the questions we grappled with in Oolium when we built out customizable, simple to use social application for SMEs.

Mobile & Social and Advertising

Are mobile and social related in a consumer mind? I think so; when we talk to advertisers, I hear the following - "how do I make my campaign work in social media". If I dig into this, by social - they mean not only facebook and twitter but mobile devices as well - smartphones, iPAD and its upcoming clones.

And consumers (end-users) think the same. They are not doing technical differentiation as we, Silicon Valley folks do - social media is the site while smartphone is a platform to deliver the message. Nope, the consumers don't differentiate it, for them all of these are channels to get the information about their friends, share messages, get relevant messages delivered to them.

So, ad campaigns for social must be tailored to not only facebook and twitter but all mobile devices as well. I call these new media advertising. This give advertisers the greatest ROI - most bang for the buck.

In effective advertisers are following the audience, as they shift from reading (portals like Yahoo) and searching (Google) to engaging. The latter being serviced by facebook, twitter, smartphones, and mobile devices.

Welcome to the new world.

What is an effective ad campaign in Social Media?

Advertisers have been asking this question for the past few years. What is an effective ad campaign in Social Media. What they have found is CTR for display ads in any social site is lower than the already poor display ad CTR on portals like Yahoo. Well then what works? Is it search ads? But there is hardly any search traffic (how many times do you search in Facebook?). So that is not it.

Before we get into a discourse on what works and what doesn't; let's understand the end-user behavior in these sites. What is the user trying to do in any social site - they are interacting - engaging with their friends in discussions, commenting, sharing, etc. In reality social interaction is similar to what we humans have been doing since time immemorial - we interact and engage. And therein lies the answer. The effective formats in social media are the ones that engage and interact the user in some action.

Just look at display ad sold by Facebook to large brands - these incorporate polls within a display ad which can be shared with your friends (Facebook requires an annual brand commitment of $20,000 prior to using these ads). Similarly fan pages which attract an audience must have engaging applications built into it. These don't have to complex, but you need elements of polls, comments, contest, etc. Without these simply broadcasting a brand's message is not going to be effective in Social Media.

Facebook Likes - a lot of "interest" data being collected

Facebook likes are becoming commonplace - not only in facebook pages but off-network (outside of facebook.com) as well. Blogs use it, brands are incorporating it. Just check out the use of facebook "likes" in websites.

So, the question arises - how can we use this data more efficiently? I've always believed that, apart from being the place that folks are spending most time on the internet, facebook is a very rich data store. Facebook knows what its audience is doing both on and off-network. And that's a rich source of data. Think of its benefits:

1. Tracking trends. Urban outfitter knows not only the number of customers who "like" their product but their specifics as well (demo and profile)
2. I should rephrase, its not Urban outfitters but Facebook. They can sell this data back to the client!
3. Word of mouth marketing. There is no better way to sell than word of mouth from your own friend. 80%+ sales are from word of mouth marketing. Sharing feature of like is best suited for it.
4. Virality. Sharing with friends.