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How are some of the largest, and smallest, companies in the world using social media marketing to represent their sustainable brands?
Sunday I leave for San Francisco for the Justmeans Social Media for Sustainability conference. The range of speakers is very impressive, including:
- Josh Becker, General Partner & Co-founder, New Cycle Capital
- Raphael Bemporad, CEO and Co-Founder, Bemporad Baranowski Marketing Group
- Amy Skoczlas Cole, Director, Citizenship Outreach, eBay Inc
- Suzanne Fallender, Corporate Responsibility Communications Manager, Intel
- Ron Gonen, Co-Founder and CEO, RecycleBank
- Graham Hill, Founder, Treehugger.com and VP Interactive at Discovery’s Planet Green
- Jeffrey Hollender, Executive Chairperson and Chief Inspired Protagonist, Seventh Generation
More info at http://www.socialmediacsr.com
Thoughts, ideas, social media marketing case studies to follow
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There are still companies today that feel social media, and therefore social media marketing, is a fad, and is unnecessary for “my business.” Well, what if I told you people spend more time on Facebook than Google? Hmm…
Although how we use social media may change, the idea of social media is here to stay. Which means, if you’re not some how, in some way, communicating with your customers online, researching what your customers are doing online, responding to customers complaints online…you’re going to lose.
Read This Article
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“Share the Moment and Spread the Wealth”
That’s the headline in a recent NY Times article. It’s all about sharing. Sharing what you ask? Everything and anything on the web. Really. And you know what, I agree. Sure there are (and always will be) those who feel the ability to easily share content on the web will lead to massive amounts of spam, but one, the web is already full of spam, and two, I think the whole notion of sharing will weed out the sub-par content. That is, if content is obviously spam (which is pretty easy to catch) it die a quick death.
When I consult with clients, whether it be for social marketing, as a blog manager or site redesign work, I am adamant about making every piece of content ’shareable’, even static web pages. There are many reasons to do this, but most of all, it’s because you can and it’s very easy to do. There are many services which, for free, make it extremely easy to integrate sharing features into a blog post or web page. The NY Times article (which can be read HERE) mentions but a few, including AddThis and ShareThis. There are many more.
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A recent op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman in the NY Times is well worth the read. Interestingly, I almost ignored the article because of the title “The New Sputnik”, but to summarize, the piece is all about China’s new push on green technologies, and how if we (the US and most western nations) aren’t careful, China could easily surpass us on our push towards renewable sources of power.
What do we know about necessity? It is the mother of invention. And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity, watch out. You will not just be buying your toys from China. You will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.
Read the full article HERE
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Nick Barron over at Societrends put together a quick, but very worthwhile, two-part post titled “Social media puts on its business suit…” I highly recommend anyone interested in seeing how tools like Twitter can have a REAL impact on businesses, to read his posts.
Nick makes a great case for why organizations can reap benefits from the use of social media, but also the challenges they face. Furthermore, he points out the transparency of using sites like Twitter, which is one factor we always tell (err…warn) our customers to be prepared for.
You can read Nick’s posts HERE.
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A recent study by the Association of National Advertisers suggests more and more companies are using social media as part of their marketing efforts.
As marketers embrace new media platforms, social media and viral videos have seen the largest jump in ranking, according to a survey done by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), BtoB Magazine and in partnership with marketing services firm ‘mktg.’ The survey found that 66 percent of marketers utilized social media in 2009, as compared to 20 percent in 2007. Fifty percent employ viral videos, up from only 25 percent in 2007.
Some of these numbers shouldn’t be at all surprising, considering the buzz around social sites like Twitter recently. But while the numbers show significant growth in social media marketing, there are some lingering concerns:
The top concerns for marketers when considering newer media platforms are the inability to prove ROI (45 percent) and having metrics to properly allocate the mix of traditional and digital media (43 percent).
Proving ROI can be difficult, but it’s definitely not impossible. Furthermore, there are other advertising mediums that can’t necessarily track ROI either (say for example, a huge highway billboard) so does this mean companies should shy away from it?
The article mentions the top “social” sites – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & YouTube – but more importantly, and this is something we strive to explain to our clients, is that companies don’t necessarily need to focus their time and energy producing content on all these sites. Instead, choose those that have the greatest chance in succeeding based on pre-defined goals.
And just when you thought social media was still new, the article mentions what companies will be focusing on in the future:
In the next year, blogs are the new media format at the top of the list for all marketers (34 percent), followed by mobile (28 percent) and social media (23 percent), among marketers not already using each respective platform. Viral video and podcasts are also of high interest for many b-to-b marketers to begin using.
Good thing we specialize in blog management eh 
When we work on projects, our definition of social media already includes blogs, forums, videos as well as sites such as Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn. Combined, each of these social marketing strategies can prove very worthwhile.
You can read the full article HERE
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