Engaging Customers with Social Media

Today's Top Social Networking Sites

Below is a list of the most frequently used social networking sites, how they can be used, and what companies are using them:

1. Facebook: Facebook is currently one of the largest social networking sites. It also seems to be the most popular; according to our textbook, in a study of 10,000 visitors to the top internet retailers, Facebook was the most visited, with 81% of users visiting regularly. As a social site, Facebook is a place where companies can post interesting and creative content, like contests, polls, pictures, events (whether real or virtual), and where the company can interact in a two-way conversation with consumers. This is a great environment for companies to get feedback from their users.

Barnes & Noble (https://www.facebook.com/barnesandnoble) does a great job of this. They have a lot of information on their Facebook, they encourage fan interaction, and they post a lot of their deals and coupons on their wall.

2. Twitter: Twitter is more of a one-way mode of communication. Users can retweet posts and @reply to posts, but Twitter is still more about one-way communication than interaction. With Twitter, companies can post links to news stories, and direct users to their website.

Newspapers (http://www.twitter.com/nytimes) are a great example of how to use Twitter. They tweet a brief description of the latest headline, then link to their website, where users can read the full story.

3. YouTube: YouTube is a great example of user generated content. It's also great for companies because they can post ads, creative videos, and anything else that seems appropriate for their target audience. A great advantage of YouTube? Sometimes, companies place ads in certain geographic locations, to satisfy the needs of the people in that location. That means that different locations receive different ads. With YouTube, companies can post all their ads in one place, so users can see the ads that won't be playing on a television near them any time soon.

For the first group project in class, my group focused on Levi. I really loved their YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/user/levis?blend=7&ob=5), and felt they came up with some really creative ways to attract their audience. They focus on their "Levi's Go Forth" campaign, and post different versions of their campaign video in about ten different languages. Levi does a great job of linking their YouTube with their Facebook, as their Facebook page has a tab dedicated to the Go Forth campaign.


Other less-used and less-common social networking sites include the almost-forgotten MySpace, the image-supporting Flickr, and the professional networking LinkedIn.

Consumers are on social media. Companies need to go where their consumers are. Some social media might not be right for all companies. The company may have to pick and choose which sites work best for them. Either way, they need to adapt to some kind of social media site, if they haven't already.

#socialmedia: it, or lose your followers. It's up to you.

The E-Marketing Plan

The notepad that Tweets

Chapter three of our textbook goes into detail on how to create an e-marketing plan. The seven steps are as follows:

1. Situation Analysis: This is the environmental scan, the SWOT (internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats). This allows a company to see what they can and can't do, where they need to improve, what opportunities they might be able to explore, and what their competition is doing. In some cases, the SWOT for a company's online presence might be different than the SWOT for the company's brick-and-mortar store.

2. E-Marketing Strategic Planning: In this step, the company does a market opportunity analysis (MOA) to better understand their target market. This is also where a company can determine things like differentiation and positioning.

3. Objectives: In order for an objective to take form, it must have a task and a time frame, and it must be measurable.

4. Strategies: This concerns the 4 P's of Product, Price, Place, Promotion.

5. Implementation Plan: Here, marketers implement their objectives effectively, with an emphasis on information-gathering tactics

6. Budget: The most important aspect of budget is the ROI (return on investment) and the cost/benefit analysis of the strategic plan.

7. Evaluation: Evaluation should be a continuous thing. This way, if numbers or profits start to drop, it will be easy to correct the problem in a timely manner, because you will have tracked the success of the plan from the start.

If all else fails (or you're just plan lazy), you can always do what Twitter founder Jack Dorsey did: skip all the steps and just write it out on a legal pad:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Twttr_sketch-Dorsey-2006.jpg

Hey, if it worked for Twitter (with over 100 million registered users as of September 2011), why not?

The Importance of Strategic Planning

With better planning, would Borders Bookstore still be here?

I'm a complete book nerd. So of course I need to ponder the closing of Borders Bookstore. Would they still be here if they had planned better? What if they'd hopped on the e-reader bandwagon sooner? And if they had shifted their level of commitment to E-business?

Strategic Planning: Defined in our textbook as, "the managerial process of developing and maintaining a viable fit between the organization's objectives, skills, and resources, and its changing market opportunities." Clearly, Borders neglected the parts concerning their resources and changing market opportunities.

Borders once prided itself on carrying the largest inventory of books in their brick-and-mortar stores. They stocked thousands of books, and had just about one of anything you were looking for. And then if that one thing you wanted wasn't there, it was almost guaranteed that another store had it. But as the economy declined, was this the smartest idea? They had the resources (like shelf space) to stock this amount of books. But what about the remainders? What if they had a slow week? Where did they fit new books as they came in? Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble had a larger online inventory, and, guess what, they are still here. Where's Borders?

E-reader Bandwagon: This ties in to the strategic planning idea of "changing market opportunities." Borders did not adapt very well to their changing market. As the economy dipped and people began to curb the amount of money they spent on books and other pleasures, Borders simply carried less stock, thus going back on their guarantee to always have what you were looking for (as mentioned above). While Amazon and Barnes & Noble were competing to become the top e-reader seller, Borders simply carried less, and sent out fewer (or smaller) coupons. It wasn't until 2010 that Borders partnered with the Sony Kobo - except the Kindle was introduced in 2007 and the Nook in 2009. By the time Borders introduced the Kobo, it was too late for them. And the biggest disappointment? The Kobo wasn't even an original Borders product.

Another mistake Borders made? Continuing to stock such a large inventory of music and DVDs, despite the shift to online video streaming, Pandora Radio, and iTunes.

Level of commitment to e-business: As I've mentioned, Borders really relied on their brick-and-mortar stores above all else. They had more inventory in their stores than online, and they held off on the digital e-reader until they were desperate. What if Borders had had more of an enterprise level of commitment to business? What if they had made the shift online sooner, rather than later?

Stocking more inventory online would have meant freeing up shelf space in the brick-and-mortar stores for new books, or more popular books. Rather than have books sit on shelves for weeks and months, thus losing them money, it could have meant stocking just a few and losing less profit on those not sold. It also could have given Borders more room to do other things - anything that could have given them a leg up. A bigger cafe, more gadets and gizmos, maybe even an area in the store devoted to their e-reader, as Barnes & Noble stores have done.

Clearly, Borders neglected to create a long-term strategic plan. They didn't look into the future, and they refused to adapt to their environment until it was too late. We'll never know what could have happened if they'd done things differently. We can only wonder.

R.I.P Borders.

Past, Present & Future

Hello Digital Media. Goodbye brick-and-mortar entertainment retailers.

The first week of class, we discussed the past, present, and future of the Internet. The Internet is still a relatively new technology, but it’s growing and expanding at a very quick rate. We started with web 1.0, with basic HTML, one-way communication, and static webpage’s. We then graduated to web 2.0, with social networking (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc), user generated content (UGC), and user interaction and collaboration. And now we are in web 3.0, with wireless networking, Smartphone’s and smart appliances, and personalization.

The advent of web 2.0, social media, and user interaction have created a shift in power away from sellers, and into the hands of buyers. Consumers can go online, compare prices, check peer reviews, ask friends on Facebook, and customize and personalize their order. Soon enough, there will be no use for brick-and-mortar stores. As it is, many companies have collapsed under the strain of the economy, and have been forced to shut their doors. Technologizer, an online blog, posted an article back in February, using a timeline to chronicle the large retail stores that have gone under since 2003 due to the surge in digital media, such as books, music, and movies.

http://technologizer.com/2011/02/17/borders-bankruptcy/

Among the retailers mentioned are: Borders Bookstore (the most recent), Tower Records, Hollywood Video, and Virgin Megastore.

Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, e-readers, tablets, and online video streaming have made entertainment stores nearly obsolete. And the trend has these stores closing their doors one after another. Small, family-owned stores have suffered the most.

With the future of web 3.0 continuing to unravel before us, it’s becoming clear that everything is going online. It won’t be long before all brick-and-mortar entertainment retailers close up shop for good. With the way things are going, many other stores could become a distant memory, as well. What’s next? Maybe we’ll be saying goodbye to malls and outdoor shopping centers, if things keep going the way they are.

It’s a scary thought, huh?