Seven Deadly Sins in Online Marketing

We were a little over-ambitious in our Online Knowledgebuilder (OKB) yesterday. If you weren’t in the session, check out #EMGOKB on Twitter to get an idea of the session. Lesson for this presenter, 90 minutes isn’t nearly enough to truly delve into seven pretty robust challenges in the online marketing space. To start with there are so many different possible avenues to cover…advertising, search, website development, social marketing.

My colleague Doug Clark and I chose to focus on the more direct, relationship-building aspects of the online marketing environment. It’s by far the biggest missed opportunity by marketers in every industry and the hottest growing marketing opportunity today. Even there, the information emerging about the value of that effort is voluminous compared to even a year ago – great information for marketers and unanticipated wealth for our presentation. The seven “sins” Doug and I identified are, in “Late Night” countdown order…

7. Failing to create a relationship

6. Not knowing your audience

5. Using traditional tactics in an online space

4. Lack of integration

3. Undefined strategy

2. Being conversation challenged

1. Failing to know yourself

With more than 60% of Americans (as of 2008) using social media (Cone Business in Social Media Study) and, of those, more than 93% saying they believe companies should have a social media presence, there is no justification for a college or university to not actively develop a social media presence. The importance here is to act very much like a social butterfly…initiate contacts, invite people to your spaces, network like there’s no tomorrow! Seems like the University of Nebraska has made some nice inroads in the social space with its Club Red network for accepted students. As important, get to know these spaces; learn how people act, what people expect, what etiquette is used.

When it comes to audiences there is a singular truth – one official college/university YouTube and Facebook page, do not a social media presence make. You must tailor these spaces so that the conversations are meaningful to the various audiences you address – student prospects are interested in different information and conversations than alumni or current students. Additionally, knowing who these audiences are and what their motivations are when on the Web is another critical factor. Two good studies to read are BlogHer/Compass Partners’ Women in Social Media Study and Cone’s research. Finally, try to match the ages and experiences of your social media administrators (those that manage Facebook, YouTube, etc. pages) as closely with the audiences to whom they talk as possible. It’s more authentic for the user and will more likely build closer relationships.

Another sin we often see is institutions simply translating traditional marketing communications tactics to online tactics. Does this sound familiar?…your Facebook Page and your Twitter page consist mostly of news feeds from your PR/Media Relations team? If so, you’re missing a key opportunity to learn what your audiences are looking for, to get to know them and interact with them. Online marketing tactics are much more about talking, listening, learning, and acting your brand than reporting and telling your brand.

Not surprisingly, attendees at our OKB indicated that integration of mediums, messages, unit activities in this space is a continued challenge in most shops. And yet, in this new communications paradigm, cross-platform, cross-unit integrating is more important than ever. If the objective in this new environment is to get to know our audiences and establish relationships with them, then it is increasingly important to maintain a record of the history of the relationship so that it grows richer over time. No one likes a friend who is constantly asking them the same questions about themselves!

Closely tied with the issue of integrated tactics is the need for a strategy around an online marketing presence. A big DON’T is launching into social spaces simply because they are there. A big DO is to have a clear idea of what you are after from your customers in these social spaces. Another reason to segment you presence based on your audience. With one group, alumni let’s say, measuring numbers of participation and using engagement to increase donations may be the objective. That’s a very different conversation than one that seeks to encourage students who have been accepted to your institution to enroll. In order to understand if you’re being effective you’ll want to have ways to measure these strategies.

In the number two spot of the deadliest sins is the notion of being conversation challenged. We observe this taking a number of forms: institutions that create pages, but never converse; those that over post information, cluttering the inboxes of their audience with alerts; institutions that are very self absorbed — always sharing their viewpoint, but rarely seeking to understand their audience’s viewpoint; those that don’t seem to be listening – comments, and questions on their pages go unanswered and unacknowledged; and finally situations where institutions fall into the trap of responding to sensitive issues raised by students or others in the social space without considering the implications of those types of communications.

Doug and I wrapped up with what we considered the deadliest sin of all…the failure to know yourself. It’s one that really didn’t need a lot of belaboring as it’s really not new news to most. However, there are still a lot of colleges and universities that have neither defined distinctive brand attributes (we call it your brand platform) nor identified personality attributes that help add dimension to their brands. Without these foundations in place, launching into a social media space that demands a clear voice and point of view can be lethal…in particular, when many different individuals at the institution are responsible for representing its interests and don’t share a clear understanding of what those interests are or what the institution stands for.

That’s a quick recap of the presentation. If there’s one leave behind I have, it’s this. If you’re not social now, get to it. This isn’t something that’s going away. It will grow. It will change. But it’s here to stay in one form or another.

Check out the schedule on Online KnowledgeBuilders coming your way (Brand ER and Twitter up next) here http://www.emgonline.com/knowledgebuilders.htm.

Behind the Scenes

During my perusing of YouTube and the internet I have run into an interesting trend on YouTube – behind the scenes footage of commercials. Many higher education institutions may find this as another tactic that will help them stretch their marketing budget and still represent their brand.

Awhile ago, I blogged on London’s T-Mobile commercial. What I didn’t mention was that T-Mobile also posted a behind the scenes making of the choreographed dance routine in the train station.

Here is the original commercial again

And here is the behind the scenes making of the commercial

Here is a great new Air New Zealand (ANZ) commercial showing how their airline staff have nothing to hide (Warning: There is some slight nudity in this commercial, nothing vulgar)

Here is a behind the scenes of the ANZ commercial (Warning: Some slight nudity here too, nothing vulgar here either)

So why post them. There are multiple reasons:

1. A lot of money went into the making of the commercials, why not get a little extra “play” with the commercial. As seen in the behind the scenes video for the T-Mobile commercial, there was 8 weeks of planning, auditions, equipment, dance training, and hundreds of people. Also the price of the media buy. They put a bit of extra production and editing into the extra video and posted it on YouTube. More bang for their buck.
2. Gives those in the actual commercial a little more buy-in. As seen in the ANZ behind the scenes, the ANZ staff in the commercial had a sense of pride for the commercial and the company itself. This kind of pride I am sure will probably also spread to most of the other staff at ANZ as well.
3. More brand tie in. ANZ’s new message is that they have “nothing to hide” and T-Mobile’s message of “Life’s for Sharing” is again repeated in a more subtle approach in the making-of videos. The ANZ staff in the extra video explained or illustrated how they have nothing to hide by participating in the commercial. While T-Mobile went into more detail of sharing life moments by showing off their life behind the scenes.
4. Shows a bit of a lighter side. While the two commercials above are already light. There is always a lighter side still on the opposite side of the camera.
5. Gives a sense of “over the top”-ness. While everyone sees the final product, showing all that goes into an elaborate commercial can reveal some other brand messages like being the premier company in their industry (why wouldn’t they be if these companies didn’t go to all the trouble do these great commercials), detail oriented (T-Mobile would have to be to get 400 dancers choreographed), going all out for their customers (time and resources to make a 30 second or 1 minute commercial), and having fun (see 4 above).

Just like a commercial though, these behind the scenes videos are produced and edited before their final release or YouTube posting. It would not be a good idea to throw a bunch of scrapped footage together, post, and go TA-DA! While you are showing your extra footage and interviews of the commercials making, it is still a visual representation of your brand. Imagine the “play” some higher education commercials could get by posting their “making of” videos.

Camcorder Selection Was More Than Just Camcorder Selection

EMG has, for years, created broadcast-quality films and videos for client institutions, and these are typically produced by our experienced (and award-winning) film crew.  But to maximize emerging Web 2.0 applications, we plan to do a lot more quick turnaround, low-cost videos than we’re doing now.  And if we’re going to do it, we want to do it right.

I knew I was going to enjoy hunting for a camcorder since I generally love researching tech stuff online. Even when I’m not in the market for anything I spend a lot of time browsing sites like techdealdigger.com and bensbargains.net just waiting to see an intriguing deal. It’s kind of weird since I so rarely pull the trigger on anything.

When starting to look for a camcorder the one thing I realized right away is that you really have to consider your entire setup when purchasing one. Everything from the computer you’ll be editing the footage on to the microphone (if any) you’ll be using for sound. You need to have a roadmap in place before pulling the trigger.

I started by taking the natural step of reading some tech guides right off the bat. This one from PCWorld I found to be the most straightforward and comprehendible, while still having enough of the necessary details. Another helpful resource, as always, was CNET with both their Camcorder Buying Guide and Quick Guide to HD Camcorders.

The first decision you should address is how you want to record your media.

• MiniDV tapes? Recording on actual tape nowadays might seem silly when you can record directly to a hard disk or flash card, but according to a lot of folks, it still provides the very best in standard and high definition quality.
• DVD? I have no interest in recording to anything on a disc, and this option is especially unattractive because the quality isn’t quite as good. In addition to the fact that the smaller discs in digital cameras won’t load in a slot-loading disc drive found on many newer computers and laptops.
• Hard disk or flash card? Now we’re getting somewhere. The two small drawbacks to a hard disk camera are that it’s slightly heavier and it has moving parts, which run the risk of going south. So that leaves recording to a flash card; and there seem to be only a few small drawbacks. The biggest of the drawbacks is the “perceived” challenge of editing in the newer AVCHD format. Other than that you are good to go.

I spent an unbelievable amount of time investigating online forums and camcorder reviews looking into people’s experiences editing AVCHD content, specifically in iMovie on a Mac. I was concerned about it working at first, but I found more success stories than horror stories so I’m confident this is a good choice, at least for EMG. If we are editing video files on a computer with enough horsepower to process/edit the video (which we do), we should have limited issues. It’s also important to keep in mind we are downgrading the video for the Web… we aren’t actually presenting anything in full 1080p quality.

EMG ended up choosing the new Canon Vixia HF200, the updated version of the popular Canon HF100. The HF200 records directly onto flash memory cards and has no internal flash memory (the Canon HF20 does).

The camcorder JUST arrived so we’re just beginning to play with it and learn the ropes. You will probably see some videos soon and I will do a follow-up post in a month or so once we get some videos under our belt.