My response to a “who owns social media” question was a bit longish and self-contained, so I thought I’d share it here:
Social Media should be treated as just another marketing channel. Each channel has it’s rules, it’s purpose, it’s strengths and weaknesses. Social Media is good at shaping opinion, so it seems like it should be part of PR.
But doing so is a mistake because it restricts messaging and it can lose its authenticitity. What about the voice of the other constituencies in the organization? What about promotions? PR can’t and shouldn’t try to manage the voice of every facet of an organization.
Should Marketing own it? Social Media channels are contact points that impact an organization’s (or individual’s) brand, after all. I say “no” for the same reasons. An organization isn’t simply made up of the peeps in Marketing and PR.
Social Media needs to owned, directed and managed by an integrated team of people that represent the organization as a whole. If you’d like to see an organization that “gets it,” take a look at the Verity Credit Union Blog, and check out the list of writers on the right.
Oh, they are pretty good at it — the Verity blog was the first credit union blog ever.
Since 1996, I’ve served on the advisory board for a number of the marketing-related programs for the University of Washington’s Professional and Continuing Education division. If you live the Seattle area, you should know about the Advanced Interactive Marketing Certificate.
Here’s a short video overview:
Check it out, and share this post with anyone you think might benefit from the program.
Each year, King County recognizes organizations that have made recycling and waste reduction a priority, so we’re honored to make the “Best Workplace for Recycling and Waste Reduction” list once again this year.
Instead of us telling you how, here’s an excerpt from the webpage listing this year’s recipients:
Outsource Marketing is a fourth-year Best Workplace that is building on past recycling and waste reduction efforts. In 2009, Outsource Marketing rebranded their business to better reflect its responsible approach to business and marketing. Most messaging is done electronically at Outsource. Instead of printing letterhead, notecards and envelopes that might go to waste, the new brand made it possible for it to print small, customized quantities in-house as needed. Old letterhead stationery was turned into notepads. A series of videos were also created to focus on recycling in the workplace.
Outsource Marketing’s printed collateral system consisting of a folder, mini-brochure and multiple insert sheets and cards was replaced by a customizable brochure that is printed and bound in-house using plain string. It has also been formatted so it looks great when delivered digitally. Outsource Marketing has increased its use of collaborative online tools, video conferencing, instant messaging and other technologies to increase waste-free communications. Each staff member has signed a “green pact,” promising to reduce, reuse and recycle where possible. In addition, Outsource Marketing continues to implement responsible, green marketing efforts for its clients.
Advice to others: “A project without a leader won’t get done. Appoint a ’green czar’ to lead initiatives and provide support to develop an empowered group. Take a look at marketing materials with an eye toward waste reduction. “
Would you like your organization to be a bit greener? Contact us and we’ll be happy to share a few tips with you.
This live streaming video of the oil spill turns my stomach, so I’ve been struggling with this question for weeks: “Can Responsible Marketing help restore BP?”
My gut says “never!” but my brain says “maybe.”
The fact is, trust requires both competence and character—two things BP lacks.
I know it’s early to ask, but if BP did the following things:
Successfully stopped the oil spill
Adequately cleaned up their mess
Proved they made their other rigs safe; and
Reinvested a large percentage of their profits into other renewable energy options
…would you be willing to give them a second chance?
I boycotted Exxon after the Valdez spill, so I’m on the fence on this one, folks. I’d have to see something pretty special from BP to get me to reconsider them.
Normally, I’d say this is Responsible Marketing: Use paid search to share the positive and combat the negative. Bully for BP.
But where’s the competence? Where’s the character? I see neither and BP has lost my trust.
They’ve stumbled so badly, so often and on so many fronts this feels like a desperate ploy to manipulate public opinion. Actions speak louder than words and I’m no longer listening.
In fact, I’ve boycotted BP.
So what do you think? Does this feel like smart marketing or slimy spin?
And what will it take for BP to regain your trust?
The White House is calling on food makers to curb marketing of unhealthy foods to children, part of a broad assault against childhood obesity.
The recommendation is part of a 120-page report released Tuesday that outlines steps to fight the national epidemic. One in every three children ages 2-19 is overweight or obese, the report says. First Lady Michelle Obama has taken up childhood obesity as her signature cause.
The recommendations are for the food and beverage industry, media and entertainment companies and food retailers. Recommendations from the report urge these parties to:
Extend their self-regulatory program to cover all forms of marketing to children
Avoid in-store marketing that promotes unhealthy products to children
Limit the licensing of popular characters to food and beverage products that are healthy and consistent with science-based nutrition standards
Adopt meaningful, uniform nutrition standards for marketing food and beverages to children
Develop a uniform standard for what constitutes marketing to children
Set uniform guidelines to ensure that a higher proportion of advertisements shown on their networks and platforms are for healthy foods and beverages
Introduce an on-air labeling system that helps consumers easily distinguish between advertising for healthy and unhealthy foods
Develop and deploy technology to block unhealthy food and beverage advertising
And if the above doesn’t work, the FCC will be called in to revisit and modernize children’s programming rules.
This is a step in the right direction, but is it enough? Self-regulation hasn’t worked well on Wall Street. Will this be enough to rein-in Madison Avenue?
Research has shown that for knowledge workers, using money as an incentive actually hurts performance. You read that right. If you want your team to really shine, give them a purpose:
We’ve been talking about the marketing benefits of adding purpose to an organization since the beginning here. The research findings illustrated in Daniel Pink’s new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us add another dimension to the argument:
If you want to fire up your employees, give them some personal freedom–and give them a purpose.
Know a company that’s managing and/or marketing with meaning? Share it here.
A surprising perspective regarding B2B email marketing was published recently in the Harvard Business Review blog that got one of our client’s hackles up, and I think it will yours too.
My comment was one of 48—most in violent opposition to the idea:
As we all know, the phrase “permission marketing” was popularized in Seth Godin’s book of the same name in the late ’90’s. By his definition, email needs to be “anticipated, personalized and relevant” or it’s spam, and I agree with him.
Would it be good for business to be able to communicate with their customers via email? Of course.
But if a customer doesn’t want their inbox to be filled with messages from their IT company, their marketing firm or their any other B2B partner, it’s their right.
Almost 10 years ago, research was done at the University of London regarding the effects of information overload on knowledge workers. At that time, the average knowledge worker was interrupted 168 times/day on average. This influx of information resulted in an average short-term reduction of the worker’s IQ by 10%.
We’re busy at work. We have things to do, customers to serve and many of us, hours to bill.
I’d argue that B2B spam is even MORE harmful than B2C spam. At least when we’re reading our personal email, we can deal with the clutter at our leisure without thinking twice. Hitting the delete button on B2B spam is more difficult—we’re processing our inboxes as fast as we can, but have to stop and review the latest spammy message from one of our vendors to make sure there isn’t relevant information we need for our jobs.
[B2B spam] shows a lack of respect for a customer’s time and is clearly irresponsible marketing.
While it’s true that there is some level of permission granted to communicate with your customers, it’s not an open door to send them all your marketing communications until they ask you to stop.
