As I began to read the articles and opinions arriving at lightening speed across my computer and iPhone, I started learning more about him. I then realized I didn’t know Steve Jobs at all. Did he have a family? I wasn’t sure. Did he like certain art or music, what was his favorite food? I didn’t have a clue. What college did he drop out of? When did he start the company? I didn’t know those things either, or perhaps I just didn’t remember them. I also wondered how many people did know all of these things?

As the CEO of R2integrated, a sense of embarrassment came next. I’m supposed to be an expert. I work in the industry. I advise people. How do I not know the answers to these questions? And considering I had never met Steve Jobs, why am I so upset right now?

Life Changer

We use the devices Steve Jobs invented every day. We build marketing programs on top of these platforms and have watched the face of these programs change with every release, every announcement. What will Microsoft do next? Or Google? We waited both anxiously and excitedly about what would come next. We, along with a large number of other digital pioneers across the world that focus on communications, have embraced these technologies and shown our clients how to embrace them too. We have all watched as much of the world embraced them.

At the core, I think the reason Steve Jobs affected me so much is because of the real role he played for me and, perhaps, many others. He changed the way I lived. There has been and will be many inventors in this world. And many of them have changed the way our parents and grandparents lived and many others before them. I probably take those inventors for granted, as I’m sure their creations touch my life daily. But for me and at this moment in time, Steve Jobs is the one who changed my life the most. These are the inventions that will have lasting impacts on the current generations and pave the way for the next wave of inventors.

Somehow the work Steve Jobs did has become embedded in my daily life. I use it everyday. It’s goes with me everywhere. I have a reliance on it. I also, and perhaps most importantly, have a love for it.

Steve Jobs helped put devices, technologies, feelings and, yes, connections into my hands and the hands of millions, if not billions, of others. Not bad for a man I never met and, as mentioned before, knew little about.

The Networked World

As digital communications specialists I can’t help but look at how Steve Jobs affected our industry. One could argue the Internet as a whole was the true communication invention and Steve Jobs played a role in powering it, or maybe helping us to recognize its potential. No one can every really quantify the true impact the past ten years at Apple had on our profession, but we do know it was big, very big.

We now have to reach audiences on a wide variety of different screens where our message and creative may need to be adjusted accordingly. Now that the consumer can bring the device with them, we need to be prepared not just for when we want to reach them, but for when they want to reach us. Our most engaged customers can now be with us whenever they want to be and we can give them additional value propositions we couldn’t before. The devices and the valuable utility they bring is embedded in our daily lives, and smart brands can get more embedded as well. The opportunities and challenges are still in their infancy. For those that do communications every day we aren’t going to be sleeping any easier anytime soon.

I do have one other thought worth exploring: I know I am speculating a bit here but I see human beings as becoming increasingly more networked with devices like the iPhone and iPad driving the enablement of this change. The screen has gone beyond an information delivery vehicle to a vehicle for connection, a conduit to relationships. Real human connection was an activity reserved for physical space, but these devices have shifted that space. I can be sitting with my best friend and talking to another via FaceTime while texting to another. I can then surf the web, gather some information, share and discuss it. As I do this I feel connected. When I am not doing I feel detached.

I can also use all of these instant connections to make decisions. At the core of this vast network we will soon be able to learn pretty much anything about anything, and to do it quickly from anywhere and with anyone. The ease in which these devices move information from person to person or persons to persons and the fact we can take them with us feels like the beginning of an uber-networked society. Not a network of computers. But a network of people with a device, yes MY device (The iPhone is this case), as the gateway. Billions of interactions will move through this network every second.

How much time will consumers spend in this network every day? How “glued” to us will the devices become? What will we use them for? In the context of marketing communications I think people will use this network to make more informed purchasing decisions. These networks will ensure the truth about a product is known to all that care to know, disrupting us one day and empowering us the next. These networks will help consumers make better decisions by obtaining information quickly that in the past was simply unavailable. Information the marketing department may not even have. These networks will change the way we buy, and as a marketing communications professional in the “get them to buy it business” that is something to pay close attention to.

Steve Jobs did not create this network alone but his inventions and vision over the past ten years have certainly played a large role. He has certainly changed how we communicate and, in effect, changed our profession. I can’t wait to see the next thing Steve Jobs and his team invented. It is likely sitting as a prototype right now under lock and key at Apple’s corporate offices.

What will it be?

The first generation iPad is a revolutionary personal media device. Individuals like me who consume media such as magazines, newspapers, videos, games, and books, can do so in digital form wherever they want, whenever they want with the iPad.  The first version iPads, however, are basically receiving devices and not necessarily creation devices like our laptops—at least for now.

Because the iPad is now a receiving device, count on the creation of an entire Internet-based or e-based advertising platform around it.  This will usher in a new era of services offered by digital marketing companies, ad agencies, brand managers, and more, and you will actually witness a new advertising model evolving very quickly—not unlike the advertising paradigm that evolved on laptops with the first generation of Internet publishing.

Once there is some maturation of the content distribution process, you will see ad messages on the pages of your iPad. There will also be advergaming, advertising as you download and read books, advertising as you peruse photos, advertising on your videos, and many other business applications and models in the advertising space.

The next generation or subsequent versions of the iPad may be more of a creation device when Apple builds out or improves the keyboard, increases the iPad’s computing capabilities, and the unit’s software becomes more powerful. The question will then become whether I should bring my iPad OR my laptop.

I am inclined to wait until these changes happen before purchasing my iPad, but I will keep a close eye on how this remarkable technology and its applications develop.

Brands depended on a publisher’s ability to reach those communities and paid to have their content delivered to those groups. The role of the brand was passive and non-participatory.

Enter the Internet age, where the roles and appearances of publishers and brands are not so distinct. The online world is fragmented. Internet search technology has not only empowered consumers to seek data and opinions from multiple sources, but also to share and voice their own. Instead of being served or organized by publishers, communities of interest are self-organizing, appearing all over the Internet on social networks, blogs, discussion boards, et al.

For this reason, brands no longer need to rely on publishers as the primary communication conduit to communities. Brands are now developing their own Web content and experience-rich places where they have direct access to and can control interaction with consumers. The Internet as a research and buying engine—and changes in consumer behavior—has turned brands into publishers.

Bearing in mind the need for a complete and well-designed strategy, there are a few simple actions brands can take to help start this transition.  

First, brands need a way to publish. Brands should identify and establish platforms for the delivery of community-oriented content. This would include a CMS and other tools that can simplify regular content updates and customer interaction as well as other community-centric functions such as blogs, discussions, wikis, membership, etc. Third-party networks must also utilized Facebook and Twitter are the most familiar examples of existing social platforms with little barrier to entry that brands can leverage to publish their message.

Once the platforms have been established, brands must fill them with engaging content that focuses on the interest of the community, not solely on brand products or services. Editorial objectivity is often the toughest new challenge for brands as publishers. The content must be useful and unbiased to avoid appearing promotional and self-serving, while still conveying, or relating to, the brand values.  

Next, brands must connect with communities by facilitating dialogue and sharing within them. For instance, discussion forums should be places where people may share freely, leave readable comments, view comments from others, and exchange information. Brands must also be active participants, not merely moderators. They should respond quickly to issues and requests, demonstrating to the individuals and the community at large that they are responsive and involved.

Lastly, brands must understand what is happening in their community and responding accordingly. By doing so, brands are able to make adjustments to their offerings and image that will keep the community involved, while simultaneously attracting new members.

Mobile platforms, and the applications they run, constitute a channel for brand-consumer interaction that cannot be ignored. Brands that ignore this interaction risk extinction, and therefore must seize every available opportunity to enter the mobile applications marketplace – or must they?
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Almost any technology that includes a means to engage the user can be thought of as an application. This includes everything from spreadsheet applications to “Are you smarter than your friends?” quizzes.

There’s an app for that
To determine whether or not the creation of a mobile application is right for your brand, which type of application makes the most sense, and how to design a successful one, marketers need to consider a couple of key factors.

First, does your brand have highly sought-after, proprietary content and can you extend your brand’s value proposition to the mobile environment? Next, how useful is your brand’s proposed application?

By plotting the usefulness of a potential application against your brand’s content and value proposition, we find that almost every type of application falls into one of four buckets: content-based, entertainment-based, branded utility and straight utility.

By seeing which of these four categories an application falls into, marketers can better gauge the likely success of their application.

A mobile application based on highly sought-after, proprietary content presents companies with the opportunity to offer customers something that they simply could not get before in a mobile environment.

Several major sports brands, for example, now offer content-based applications that provide live audio broadcasts of games, as well as fast, accurate statistics, news and detailed team and player information, keeping fans in the action no matter where they are.

What’s the brand value proposition?
A mobile application is most effective when it is an extension of an existing brand value proposition.

Consider mobile banking applications. These are branded utilities that provide a service the user needs while also connecting to the brand. These are the most powerful types of mobile applications because they engage through function and usefulness while connecting with the essential value of the brand’s products or services.

Branded utilities are considered low-hanging fruit as they leverage consumers’ already-existing interest in the value offered by the brand’s products or services.

In the absence of either highly-sought after, proprietary content, or the ability to extend your value proposition, creation of a successful mobile application can be a struggle – but not impossible. Enter the entertainment-based application.

Recently, a well-known brewer launched an application resembling a pint of beer that poured out when the mobile device was tilted. While it was good for a few laughs and may have made a few mouths water, this application provided no real extended worth or usefulness to the user.

Entertainment-based applications such as this can effectively support short-term campaigns or events, but often become obsolete or forgotten when the campaign ends.

With a saturated marketplace, particularly if you do not have an established entertainment or gaming brand, an entertainment application is a tough challenge.

Function before form
The last type of application is a straight utility which serves as a tool for daily life. Currency converters, cocktail directories, or similar straight utilities are handy for the user, but they are usually devoid of entertainment and often have no brand connection.

Software companies tend to dominate the straight utility space, making competition by brands very difficult. Brands should keep in mind, too, that successful straight utilities need to be ready for long-term viability including upgrades and releases of new versions.

While straight utilities serve important purposes, they often fail to increase engagement and connection with and understanding of your customers.

If the application you are considering is neither useful, nor connected to your brand and value proposition, you should not waste time or money creating it.

Mobile applications can offer brands tremendous value in building customer interaction, brand loyalty and general product or service awareness. But their true advantages and helpfulness to brands are often distorted by their popularity and sexiness.

Carefully examine your brand’s value proposition content and your potential application’s functional merit before dialing into the mobile application realm.

Online social spaces are fascinating market research tools because they have taken the old, and very expensive focus group model, and made it super efficient.  Inside of social spaces we can hear real conversations about our companies products and services and our competitors.  We can hear conversations about trends in our industry, what people care about, and what they don’t.  Because all of this information is on the computer it is recorded and stored for later consumption.  Using search engines like Google helps uncover these conversations many of which happen hours or weeks before but all very valuable.

As new technologies are created to aggregate the collective statements of our markets we start to get an fascinating picture of who our customer is and what they want from us.  These technologies and monitoring tools do the hard part for us.  But that is just the beginning.  Many social communities can be tapped by marketers to increase the level of engagement with our audience.   Find the opinion leaders and ask them to evaluate your next product.  Ask community members to assist with your next idea or the next name for a new service you are putting together.  We can now get proactive and tap this crowd wisdom on a one on one, or one to many basis.

However, we need to be careful.  Like any good market research exercise the sample size is important.  Listening to a small sample could cause your results to be less accurate.  The lesson here is to apply standard market research best practices to this new medium to achieve the best results.

Social technologies have sharing attributes and features that have changed the way we architect our content. Now, all content can be distributed with the goal of a follow on sharing action. This sharing action accelerates the message distribution. Just last week we sent out a press release about a new partnership with InfoGroup. Within a few hours this announcement was being sent to thousands of people on Twitter who in turn sent the message to numerous others. We monitored the process closely and witnessed the distribution speed and efficiency that socially engineered content can bring to an organization. Since Twitter has limitations on characters, we had to engineer the message to fit and therefore we say that the content was socially engineered for Twitter.

The Iranian election is an interesting case study in socially engineered content distribution. The challenger in the election has many supporters who are using social spaces to push messages to others. Ask yourself: How does this content need to be created to encourage sharing? Keep in mind tone, word count and call to action. Social spaces provide powerful platforms for sharing and we need to create content with this in mind.

As with any set of tools we need to continually ask ourselves: Why would someone share? What is the value proposition for sharing? What is the reason? The latter is the question that matters most and the one that we often fail to answer. Let’s be honest – your content may seem great to you but will your customers, partners and community share it for you? The answer is probably not, unless of course there is a compelling reason. Find that reason, architect your content for sharing and place it in social spaces. Then let your message acceleration begin.

1. Reach out to an existing community.
2. Create your own community.
3. Accelerate your message using sharing tools.
4. Market research.

In the last post we talked about the first part of our social marketing framework.  Now we are going to talk about part two – creating your own community.

The first thing I want to talk about is creation of a community; you can’t just create your own community.  Communities take time to form and when we try to build a place on the web and then expect all our community members to show up, we usually come up empty.  All companies already have the building blocks for a community in their customers.  You may have an email database.  You may have a user group.   You may have an advisory board.  You may have a number of prospects that are thinking of using your product and are in the sales process.    All of these people are potential community members with the word potential being the key term.

In addition there are probably a number of already existing communities in your industry that may not be yours but still have a number of potential community members.  If you look at the first part of our framework, we talk about reaching out to existing communities.  The people in these communities can become part of your community if you use the right tactics and build real relationships with them.

So what is the approach to building your own community.  Here is an approach which we call the “social bridge.”  A social bridge is when you take someone, provide them with a high piece of value and have them interact with the value in your community.  The result is a new community member.

1. First, identify customers, influencers and prospects that already know you well and that you can access.
2. Then identify all the existing communities and the different access points you can use to reach them.
3. Create a compelling piece of value for the community.  This step is the hardest but also the one that determines success and failure.  Do not sell to them.  Examples of value may be free tools, content if it is really good, access to experts that are your friends (or on your payroll – did I just say that).  The key is the value has to be there.
4. Build a place on the web where community activity takes place and provide accessibility to this value.  Don’t send just an email, have the content on your product feedback portal and have people interact with it there and then let the community add to it.
5. Once users have interacted with your value in your social space, reach out and build a real relationship with them.  Do this slowly and bring more value to the table over time.  Grow their engagement.

What many of us missed in the early days of community speak is that the tools that allow a community to form are not the reason they form.  Being able to chat, share, tweet and comment are just things you can do.  And yes, your community space has to offer that type of interaction.  But that is not why people come.  They are there for the value proposition.

So in the end if you want to execute on part two of our model, identify your existing circle of potential community members and also find the already existing communities in your industry.  Reach out to them with real value and have them interact with that value in a “socially powered” place.  Then build on that interaction slowly and build a real relationship.  When they are ready to buy they will do so.

My last blog post outlined four major categories for a social media marketing plan.   Despite the many different social approaches to social media marketing, we argued that there are only four real categories:

1.    Reach out to an existing community
2.    Create your own community
3.    Accelerate your message through sharing tools
4.    Perform market research

My next set of posts will look at each category individually, examining a specific company and the tactics they utilize.   We will also review customer behavior.  If tactics are working, it is because they are inline with behavior.

Case Study – Boxtone
Category – Reaching out to an existing community

Boxtone is a dynamic software leader in the management of enterprise blackberry deployments.  Yes, all those mobile devices that companies are carrying around have big implications and risks to the enterprise; Boxtone is the leader in this area.

When deploying their overall marketing communications strategy, Boxtone CMO Brian Reed noticed his potential customers were extremely active in online communities.  As there is a learning cycle associated with making this type of software decision, much of the learning was taking place peer to peer in a number of vibrant online communities.  We are not talking about a few comments on a blog post but forums with over 100,000 entries.  Boxtone also saw very quickly that certain opinion leaders had risen up in these communities and people were listening.  These opinion leaders had become experts in the field and potential Boxtone customers were going to them for ideas and insight.

Using part one of our social marketing framework, Boxtone began a strategy of reaching out to these communities and opinion leaders.  The key point here is this:  they did not try to sell their product to these groups.  Instead, they spent time listening and discussing what was needed in the marketplace.  They engaged the opinion leaders and asked them to evaluate the product and suggest improvements.  They invited people to industry events and built long term relationships.  Yes, in the end, Boxtone’s goal is customer acquisition, but one lesson here is to be patient when reaching out to existing communities.

Another lesson deals with customer behavior.  In the case of Boxtone, the learning cycle behavior prevalent in the target customer base birthed a number of online communities.  Boxtone’s success in reaching them can be attributed to the fact that this behavior existed in the first place.  When working on part one of our framework, the first thing to do is focus on customer behavior and see if community trends are forming.   If not, part 1 may not work for you.

Our social marketing framework attempts to answer the question: “What can I really do with social media?” There are many different approaches and tactics but what am I really doing with social media? And, based on the things I can do, well, do they make sense for my company? Will they work?

You might think there are countless things you can do in social marketing but I would argue that you can only do four. In fact, any social media tool or tactic touches one or all of these four areas. When we did our training with Microsoft last year we showed them these four parts. We then took a number of different social media tools and tactics and tried to see if we could find one that fell outside of the four. We could not.

For this blog post, we are going to list the four things you can do with social media. The only four things. Our Social Marketing Framework blog series will span the next 45 days; we will explore each one of the parts and try to break the model.

Here are the four things (drum roll):

1. You can use social media to reach an already existing community.
2. You can use social media to create your own community.
3. You can use social media to accelerate message distribution.
4. You can use social media for market research.

As an example on how the model works let’s take a few social marketing tactics and see how they work within the model:

- FaceBook ads – Applies to 1 above.
- Blogging – Applies to 2, 3, and 4 above.
- Widgets – Applies to 3 above and maybe 1, if placed in an existing community.

Take any social marketing tactic or tool and see if there is something other than the four things above; if you uncover something, let us know. It is going to be challenging to find one.

Don’t miss our next blog; we will examine each of the four areas in greater detail.

We are all aware things have gotten a little more complicated in the execution and launch of digital marketing strategies. But what is more interesting, and for some of us a little scary, is that the marketing professional’s accountability for all things digital hasn’t changed that much. They are still the one responsible and unlike the days when your IT operations person could pose as your webmaster and update your site you now need search expertise, email expertise, social expertise, data management, CRM expertise, ROI analytics, creative, and oh yeah, that IT operations person. Did I mention how busy that person is each day?

Marketing professionals have done a good job of outsourcing some of these requirements and have tried to train themselves in certain disciplines, for example email marketing. The goal being the ability to take the responsibility in house. Is this working?

What has really been of interest this year in talking with our clients and other marketing colleagues is the slow evolution to “Managed Digital Marketing” models. In a managed model you hire one company that has expertise in these areas and you purchase, on a monthly basis, a fractional ownership in each person working on your account. This model isn’t any different than other outsourced models except in the case of digital marketing you have quite a few different disciplines to buy. One of those people is an expert in your content management system and one is a creative mind. There is another that understands analytics and yet another that can do a digital media buy. Did I mention the social media expert you now need? In the past there was always the build vs. buy, in source vs. outsource debate amongst CEOs and CFOs. In the age of digital marketing the in source model could be suspect. Is it even an option? How many V.P’s of marketing are going to work tomorrow with a cross functional team of digital experts ranging from search to social to content management to IT operations. I realize this would be ideal, but I wonder how realistic it really is. Are the inherent complexities of integrated digital campaigns going to force us into a 100% outsourced model? Nobody can be sure but as we talk more and more to our clients and the marketing professionals that are responsible for all of these tasks, the answer is moving closer to yes.

It may seem on the surface that a 100% outsourced model would be good for a company like R2i. After all, we sell all of those services. We have learned this is not always the case. The complexities and daily ebb and flow of marketing campaigns requires a true collaboration between agency and client. In doing our work with clients we have found that although all tasks can technically be outsourced, companies need some internal talent available to work with us. In some cases the most vital of these people are IT professionals. We need to find the proper balance.

I do believe that complex digital marketing will by its nature create new outsourced business models for companies like R2i to take advantage of. But the jury is still out on how to do this the right way to get maximum value for clients. We are trying to figure it out and encourage all marketers that are sitting in that digital hot seat to help us do it. Join the conversation! It may look like the future, but there is much work to be done in finding the models that work best.