Why Are Brands Underutilizing Social Media?

It’s easy to criticize brands for underutilizing social media (especially if you’re an “expert” like the tens of thousands on LinkedIn), but from our experience, it really comes down to two things.

Don’t let this picture deceive you.  People aren’t underutilizing social media because of my poorly Photoshopped image of the Twitter bird as Flavor Flav (original pic courtesy of Radio Grenouille).  No, they’re underutilizing social media because of TIME and Money (sorry, we didn’t have a cool picture of money).

More than a few media outlets have picked up on the fact that many CEOs aren’t using Twitter or other social media channels, and each week, I seem to get bombarded by a new marketing group of experts who wants me to pay to come to one of their conferences to learn how to use social media effectively.

Side Note:  We’re not sure how all of these people have become experts so fast or we’re not considered one too.  After all, we’ve handled social media and digital PR strategy for brands ranging from lux auto manufacturers to furniture brands to snowboards and eco-initiatives.

In our collective experience, which I’ll say is pretty solid, the top reasons people are underutilizing social media in their marketing campaigns are time and money.

On the time front, a good campaign (and not everyone needs a good campaign… lots of people do ok with less than mediocre ones) takes effort to plan.  You can either choose to blast out Tweets and send me a Facebook update every single day about how you posted a new colorway for your Fall 2010 sock collection, or you can take the effort to put some strategy behind your program and hit the right people, at the right time, the right amount of the time.  And if you’re not a social media expert (like we are!), you’re also going to need to take some time to learn about the ins and outs of these channels… factor in about a week if you’re a quick study.

The other main factor we see in brands underutilizing social media is money – human capital, finances needed to secure an outside firm to help, etc.  Although there doesn’t necessarily have to be a hard-cost media buy with social media (we’ll post later about those “pay to play” digital PR programs) execution still requires some sort of resources that you pay for in one way or another.

Your social media execution should not be left to an intern or junior colleague who is knowledgeable about what Farmville is, but won’t know how to handle negative posts, develop a strategy, see around corners, etc.  Likewise, if you have a mid-level employee manage your program, that’s adding onto their workload or taking away from another area.  There’s also the option of having a small consultancy such as BBPR or a larger firm, such as our friends at New Media Strategies, but regardless of who you use, expect to pay something for help executing in this “free” space.

To sum it up, yes, many brands are underutilizing social media (and probably aware of it).  At the same time, many are most likely also underutilizing advertising, press release blasting media relations, guerrilla events and their own website.  While these “experts” are well meaning, they should also take a step back and realize that utilizing social media isn’t as easy or “free” as we’d all like to think.  Heck, we haven’t updated our “free” blog in more than a month!

How To Monetize Twitter

As much as I joke about Twitter with certain colleagues, Twitter can be extremely useful.  At BBPR (blatant plug!) we regularly Tweet on behalf of certain clients in the eco, surf and NASCAR worlds.  Call it ghost tweeting, Twosting, whatever… just don’t call us social media experts, because their are enough of those on LinkedIn at the moment.

Anyway, as a marketer, I do find Twitter quite useful.  It helps me stay on top of trends and forge new relationships with journalists and passionate consumers.  While I can’t say that it’s brought BBPR any direct revenue (must… not… debate… ROI…. yet…) it’s definitely helped us help clients, some of which have asked us for proposals and strategies to better use this massive time suck online platform for peer-to-crowd engagement.

Is there a way Twitter can be monetized?  Sure there is, multiple ones.  But the best one I’ve seen so far was at CostCo today.

For a mere $19.99, you can have a directory listing the @ handles for all of your… ugh, you get the idea.

Congrats Mr. Celebrity Twitter Directory Publisher.  While the owners of Twitter are searching for ways to make it profitable, you’ve beaten them to the punch in the offline world.

Who said print was dead?

Are Marketers Turning Social Media into Junk Mail 2.0?

Are you That Guy?

The collective here was wondering about this the other day.  We get a lot of mail… call it direct mail, call it junk mail, it doesn’t matter.  Most of it gets recycled right off the bat, but on rare occasions we do get some useful items (typically coupons to the local car wash or two-for-one sandwhich deals).  But most of what we receive goes straight into the recycling bin since we’re not in the market for new vertical blinds, fleece from LL Bean and no longer desire free panties from Victoria’s Secret.

Similar to what’s filling our real world mailboxes, we often feel that a lot of what comes to our attention through Facebook or Twitter isn’t relevant or exciting.  And a big part of that may be due to fellow marketers pushing their clients non-stop.

Depending on who you speak with regarding peer-to-peer channels, the guidelines on disclosure can vary.  We subscribe to the “be obvious” school of judgment.  If you’re an employee of a company and you make a Facebook post about an event you have going on or new product your launching, it’s probably obvious to your friends that this is somewhat about your job (regardless of if your employer asked you to make the announcement or not).  On Twitter or in a message board, your profile can should reveal a lot about you.  When you’re a contractor (say part of an external PR support team, such as BBPR ), the lines tend to get a little blurred on what you’re posting because you really endorse it and what you’re endorsing because you’re getting paid.

As marketers, we need to be vigilant and ethical about how we communicate online.  Let’s say a large-scale PR firm launches a new campaign for a client.  Is it ethical for each person at the firm to post about “this cool new _____ I found” with feigned enthusiasm?  We’re not sure, but what do you think?   Similarly, what if everyone at a particular company submitted a story to Digg because their employer asked them to (or they were paid to)?  That could very much skew what comes our way.

(You can read the full article about the above image here: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2007/04/hacking_social_)

We don’t have the answer to this question, just our own opinions.  However, we do believe a level of disclosure is needed for marketers and companies in general.  Otherwise…. well, Facebook is going to be a lot less fun.

If you were wondering if we disclose when promoting our clients online, just see below:

Social Media Strategy – Have One?

Right now, it seems that there is no shortage of “social media experts” out there. It’s so popular, I expect a new event to be added to the X Games… EXTREME TWITTERING or something like that.

Just kidding. I really do enjoy the X Games.

Anyway, regardless of if you have a social media expert on staff or not (if you don’t, just go on LinkedIn, there seem to be quite a few available these days), it’s not a bad idea to have a plan in place for your social media program.

A plan? What I’m referring to is having a basic idea of what you’re going to use your brand’s Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, etc., profile for.

There are a lot of options out there.  One option is to just spout about what’s going on with your brand.  Another option is to interact with fans/followers.  Have a conversation with your brand’s champions and challengers.  Or, you can selectively respond when the need arises, have the time or feel the situation warrants it.  That seems to be what Surfrider does.

Recently we made an announcement for project BLUE.  Because Surfrider is a beneficiary of project BLUE, they reposted the news on their Facebook site.  It turns out a fan on the Surfrider page doesn’t think the organization does enough and made a public comment about it. While some organizations just let these comments stew and go unanswered, the folks at Surfrider responded quickly and succinctly.

Nice job Surfrider.

Take a second to think about what you’re doing online, how you’re doing it and who is handling the execution. Make sure you have a program in place and people running it who can adequately respond to issues.  Honestly, I feel it’s unlikely that any organization will have enough staff to respond to, or even want to respond to, ever comment, challenge or kudo posted about them on the Internet.  However, you should make sure whoever monitoring your program is on it and has the maturity to make the right decisions, including when and how to respond.

Your social media presence is an online extension of your brand. It’s the sign people see as they pull into your parking lot. If someone sprayed graffiti on your sign, you’d try to clean it up, no?

(If someone did this on our building, we’d probably leave it

80 Percent of Good PR is Showing Up

The title of this post is somewhat of a joke, it does have some merit in terms of media relations.

I’d like to think the crew @ BBPR is excellent at what we do.  But despite the team here being game-changing PR pros incredibly lucky in love with our incredibly newsworthy clients so excellent, sometimes we score great media placements just by being responsive.

Disclaimer:  I can’t actually prove that PR is more effective than advertising, but it’s in my best interest to say that it is.

While I don’t necessarily agree with Woody Allen that 80 percent of success is showing up, I’m usually shocked when I hear from reporters that someone at a particular brand hasn’t gotten back to them about a story.  In the last two months I’ve heard three times from reporters/editors at widely distributed, national publications that brands were unresponsive to media requests.

I once read an interview (wish I could find the link) where a well-respected executive in the surf industry voiced his disappointment about how a certain men’s lifestyle magazine did a piece on surf fashion, using products made by non-surf manufacturers.  He was bummed about the magazine’s feature of brands that didn’t have authentic ties to surfing.  Rightfully so, but it may not have been the editor’s fault.  It could simply be that the other brands, while not first in surf, were great about returning the editor’s call.

Note: Done correctly (not just in terms of creative execution, but media buy as well), we do think that advertising and other marketing initiatives outside of PR are extremely important and relevant.  Watch for more on that later.