MC Hammer on Social Media Strategies

This post was written by guest blogger, Jim Reed

During Adweek's Social Media Strategies conference this week, keynote speaker MC Hammer told a childhood story about how he would walk to the Oakland Coliseum on game days from his Oakland neighborhood and watch 50,000+ people stream into the stadium. It didn't take long for him to realize that the likelihood of someone buying something from him was pretty good. He wound up selling popcorn, peanuts, soda, etc. but Hammer makes this analogy to a group of social media marketers because the odds are in the numbers. Facebook now has more than 300 million active users, so in the long run marketers are bound to sell something.



Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are the latest toys for marketers to ponder, but the results are still to be determined. Conference panelists and speakers agreed that brands need to be on these platforms now because it takes time to gather a following, to get a stride, to see what works, and most importantly to provide a channel for your customers to reach out to you and hear from you. There was a lot of discussion about putting an actual human behind the tweets and status updates. Rather than a stiff corporate logo with carefully crafted copy for each tweet, consumers will identify more with a real person who can type with wit in real time. Dunkin Donuts has Dunkin Dave. Comcast, who has a notorious reputation for bad customer service, now has a guy name Frank answering customer complaints via Twitter. We at Traction have several humans chiming in (Adam, Theo, Renee, Kellie, Jim) – the point is to maintain a personal voice.

But what about Facebook? The big takeaway from Facebook is to remember that microsites are islands in the Internet – no one will visit your pretty microsite unless you spend great effort and great cost driving traffic to the site. So don't make a microsite experience on Facebook. Leverage the features inherent to social media by encouraging users to express themselves and share with their friends. At Traction we incorporate these strategies for our client, Adobe. On Facebook we encourage users to upload their own creative work, to participate in discussions, enter sweepstakes, and of course share content such as tutorials and interactive games.

Real or Fake?

Check out Traction's latest for Adobe's Facebook fan page: Is it REAL OR FAKE? Go play now.

Distributed Consumption. Yummy.

“Shouldn’t I be doing something in Facebook?”

Or LinkedIn? Or MySpace?

These are a questions Traction is hearing from virtually every client we serve. The answer is maybe. If your target spends time in that particular social network and if you can add value in a strategically relevant way, by all means, go for it.

Facebook has over 60,000,000 members. Fifty-four percent of those members log in every day. They spend an average of 22 minutes a day there. That’s a significant chunk of time.

By creating a presence in Facebook, your brand is simply going where your target is. If you knew your target took the 38 Geary bus home from their office job in downtown San Francisco, you’d probably want to put ads there. Your customers are more tech-savvy and have more options than ever before. They are inevitably interacting with technology in new and different ways.

The big lesson for interactive marketers: Your customers are “consuming” content and services on their own terms. If you don’t help them do that, you risk having your content, your brand, your box of soap, simply not be consumed.

So, is Facebook the missing link in your perfect marketing strategy? Of course not. But what Facebook represents just might be.

Your target is spending all this time in Facebook (or MySpace or Bebo) because they want to be there—not there because they want to be on your website.

I saw someone from Google give a presentation last month. He presented four best practices in the digital marketing arena. At the top of the lineup was a recommendation for companies to “detach and distribute” their content to customers. What’s does this mean?

We, as marketers, are challenged with a seemingly endless stream of new ways to connect with audiences. “Rich” media. RSS feeds. Social networks. Second life. ARGs (alternate reality games). Widgets. iPhones. Interactive TV. The blurring of the lines between the browser and the desktop. Even “experiential marketing.” These are all part of reality today. And they all are about “detaching” and “distributing” content and services. A client at SAP told me about a developer who was running SAP ERP with his Wii console. If that's not an example of users consuming content on their own terms, tell me what is.

Unfortunately, understanding this only leads us to Challenge #2: nobody wants to be “friends” with an ad.

Fortunately, there’s a secret to success: Adding relevant value. If you can make my social networking or mobile or desktop computing experience better, then you’ve added value to my life and I’m willing to engage with your brand. If the value you’ve given me supports your brand strategy, congratulations, you’ve made a personal connection with me in a deeply relevant way.

Social Network Marketing (a.k.a. Ode to a Facebook Page)

I'm writing a proposal for a Facebook marketing program. Thought I'd work out the introduction here:

Social networking has erupted onto the digital landscape in the past few years with unprecedented velocity. Many marketers understand they need to make use of this new medium, but few understand how or why. This is the reason scores of brands are fumbling around sites like Facebook with marketing programs that are failing miserably. They are failing because they are treating social networks like they treat landing pages—just another channel for direct response.

But nobody wants to be friends with an ad.

Facebook has 65,000,000 members. They claim that 54% of those members log on to their accounts every day—and spend an average of 22 minutes there. That's a long time on the internet. They're spending all that time in their social network because they want to be there—not because they want to be on your website. Unless you can add value to the social network experience, you're just wasting your time.

_________ has a terrific discount for ___________. We absolutely want to trumpet its availability. But is ____ off enough for them to join a group and come back?

Take a look at the top applications created on the Facebook platform and this concept of adding value comes to life. Just about all of them take some aspect of Facebook culture and embellish it in some way to improve the Facebook experience. The Wall becomes FunWall and SuperWall. The Poke becomes Superpoke. Friends becomes Top Friends.

And yes, a discount provides value too. Some of the old rules still do apply.

But Facebook is about connections. Connections between people. Our job—if you choose to hire us—is to do more than connect customers to your brand. It's to connect them to one another through the lens of your brand.