SO MO LO - The Confluence Of Social, Mobile & Local Marketing

The Democritization of Search

Google's recent change in their secretive algorithm, intended to improve quality of search results, was met with muted response from the search industry.  While some brands were negatively affected, others were not impacted at all.  The net difference seems to be negligible.

But this move points to a larger issue.  The quality of search results is deteriorating. 

Recent incidents of gaming the search ecosytem, most notably by JCPenney and Overstock.com,  amplifies this issue.  Linking from .edu domains, as Overstock demonstrated, juices your quality score due to the presumed quality of these links.  JCPenney's "black hat" tactics, which they continue to claim was the unilateral decision of their search agency, was only discovered through a very basic analysis from a third party.  How could the crown jewel of Google's algorithm be so blatantly and easily compromised?  What does all this suggest to the future of search marketing?

Search is poised to experience the largest overhaul in it's young life, moving from the minor and periodic algorithm changes that are meant to keep SEO spammers off balance.  While these simple changes have modest and temporary success, SEO experts quickly adapt, recovering from short-term penalities.  After a few weeks, they're back to new tactics that help their clients exploit the next gap in the algorithm.  The cycle continues.  Quality continues to decline while the vastness of the Internet expands.  Search needs to respond.  And it is.

Rather than the (frequent) maniacal focus on links to content to dictate relevance, new search algorithms will strongly consider how content is consumed and shared by people.  And not just by anyone.  But by people who you know, who you trust, who you interact with and who exert influence on your decisions.  This, of course, is the world of social media.  A world where more than 500 million people convene every day, spending 700 billion minutes sharing 50 billion pieces of content.  And that's just Facebook.  Add in other social portals like Twitter and LinkedIn and the audience metrics are staggering in their size and scope.

These large audiences are creating vast troves of data that will be harvested to help solve a problem that has been a shortcoming of the Internet since its' early days...understanding the context of the content?  And this problem is getting bigger and more complex as the Internet expands, posing a threat and an opportunity to the Search industry

The Web's architecture, which does a great job of expressing how a page should appear, does little to explain the meaning of a page.  This is left to humans to interpret because machines - like the vast arsenal of machines at Google's disposal - can only do so much to understand context and meaning. 

This gap in using machines to understand meaning and relevance is magically filled by other people who influence you - in the parlance of Facebook, your Social Graph.  Search engines who tap into this data will for the first time expose, share and connect pieces of data, information and knowledge in a way that's most relevant to individual needs and interests.  Powerful stuff.

What does this all mean to marketers responsible for driving traffic, increasing brand visibility, improving conversion and increasing customer lifetime value?  It's quite simple - adapt or perish. And adapt with urgency, bypassing incremental steps in favor of bold moves. Sure, the allure of fine tuning SEO has the possibility of dropping revenue to the bottom line.  And, yes, the future of social-centric SEO remains a bet at this point.  But marketers ignore this movement at their own peril.  Action is required to define your strategy and execute.

As I've written often in past blogs, the need to aggressively build an audience of fans and followers  remains an essential first step.  And fortunately, there's many techniques that are proven to build this audience at scale.  There's also a wide array of technology providers who are delivering platforms that manage all aspects of a brand's social presence. Platforms like Buddy Media and Involver have good core functionality that speeds time to market and gives multiple avenues to build and engage your social audience.

Fully embracing Open Graph (OG)...which essentially means enabling your content with Likes...is another critial step towards exposing your content to new and emerging search algorithms.  Facebook has recently given marketers a new incentive to implement OG - "Likes" behave similar to "Shares", which is a much better consumer experience and gives brands more control over the content that appears in News Feeds. 

Complementing both activities, activating OG and building likes and followers, is a sound advertising strategy using Facebook display ads and Twitter Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends.  These platforms are relatively immature but can drive value despite their limitations.

The looming question is this - how much time do we all have before social search becomes mainstream?  Not as long as you think. 

It's a virtual certainty that Facebook will solve social search.  Too much money and opportunity for growth in Search to cede this to anyone else.  They'll either do so through building their own capabilities, or, more likely, acquire a company like Blekko who is farthest along in social search.  Twitter is also determined to pick up more of the search pie.  Rather than syndicate their "firehose" of content to third parties, they'll have their own solution to real-time search.

So change is coming to Search.  Responding to this change is not an option.  How you respond and the urgency of your response will separate winners from also-rans.

 

The Network Effect

For the past decade, since Google mastered the search algorithm and created the AdSense and AdWords profit machines, brands have been investing countless resources to optimize their Search Engine Marketing (SEM) practices.  Pursuing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – often referred to as Natural Search – offered opportunities to drive highly efficient traffic.  The vast majority of online marketing was – and continues to be – focused on SEM and SEO, with Google dominating the conversation.

 

This Google-centric online marketing strategy is changing in dramatic ways.  The change is giving hope to brands that are looking for ways to diversify their traffic sources and drive better efficiency in their marketing spend.  It’s the network effect that’s crashing the Google party.

 

No longer are consumers defaulting to a search box to answer their questions, particularly when it comes to shopping.  Rather, they’re developing networks that are always accessible and always connected to one other.  And some stats bear this trend out with the network enablers now accounting for an increasing share of the time spent on the Web.  Facebook’s 500 million users are now accounting for 17% of time spent on the Web.  This #1 ranking is followed by Google-owned YouTube, which accounts for 10% of time spent.  Add sites like Twitter and LinkedIn and you find that time spent on the Web will soon be dominated by these network enablers.

 

In the device world, the other network enabler is the rapid ascent of mobile.  Apple’s success with iPhone 4 and the activation of 160,000 Android devices every day bear out the importance of mobile in the network ecosystem.

 

So now when I’m walking down the street and notice a display for an HDTV, I’m just as likely to scan the bar code, review deals from online and offline merchants, check out user reviews and product demos, fire off a post to my various friend networks to see if they have tips, immediately view Twitter conversations about the product in question, instantly download a coupon to my smart phone and make a purchase decision.  All of this happens within moments of me seeing the display.  And all of this potentially bypasses a traditional Google search box.

 

Even if I do start my shopping experience using mobile search, the differences in the user experience between mobile and desktop is upsetting the status quo.  Mobile search results on smaller formats means different copy treatments and different contribution from SEO…you just can’t fit as many results on the screen that’s 20% the size of typical desktop display.  What’s more, the click off the search results are hitting landing pages that are difficult to optimize for the mobile platform.  Even if these pages are mobile-optimized, brands are realizing that there are limitations in the user experience that impact their conversion rates and, ultimately, their efficiencies from mobile search.  It seems that only Amazon, with $1 billion in sales coming from mobile, has effectively navigated the mobile shopping world.  This is largely due to their superb integration of one-click and how they have wrapped other cutting-edge capabilities into the mobile experience. 

 

But the shift away from traditional search isn't explained by social and mobile alone.  Display advertising is also carving into search dominance as networks of consumer profiles and behavior data are linked with targeted advertising to drive efficiencies.   Layer on top of this the hot market for real-time bidding and other demand-side aggregation technologies and display advertising has rediscovered its mojo.

 

Even in the display advertising space, Facebook is creating a machine of their own.  Their built-in network of friend relationships, which is accounting for their #1 ranking in time spent, also translates into 16% share of the roughly $9 billion market.  Google’s share is well under 3%.

 

Am I suggesting the demise of Google as a major source of  online traffic?  Of course not.  But I am suggesting that brands wake up to these changes and move quickly.  Brands need to build networks of interconnected audiences, each interacting with networks of content that deliver unique and relevant user experiences.  Marketers need to aggressively move into the world of multi-channel online marketing, placing particular emphasis on mobile and social so that the end-to-end user experience - between desktop and mobile device - is optimized.

 

While not an easy transition to make, there are some concrete actions that will give marketers the platform necessary to exploit this network effect.

 

Starting with Facebook, brands need a strategy that distributes their brand experience across Facebook and increases reach among their 500 million members.  Activating the Facebook API on your site for login and “Like” purposes, developing a feature-rich Facebook app and developing a strategy to increase your fan base are the three legs of the Facebook stool.   Monitoring social conversations and sentiment about your brand across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and delivering relevant messages into these conversations, is another way to improve the network effect.

 

On the mobile experience front, brands need to develop their mobile platform with a keen eye towards the entire user experience.  Mobile optimized web sites are mandatory.  Smart phone apps should be an important part of your arsenal with two important caveats…unique functionality using smart phone apps and a distribution strategy that gets your app into shoppers’ hands.  This second part is often overlooked – but must be given proper attention if you expect mobile experiences to gain traction.  With the Apple AppStore now boasting over 100,000 apps, getting your app noticed in this noise is increasingly difficult..

 

The final step in this network strategy is to build a data, analytics and messaging management platform, supporting each of your digital channels.  Harnessing your customer interactions across these channels and using this data to drive relevant messaging will ensure your network becomes a vibrant and valuable asset.  New tools for multi-channel campaign management, embedded analytics, real-time decisioning and ultra-powerful data warehouse systems using the latest data appliance technology make all this possible.  But it requires investments and commitment at the most senior levels of the company.

 

The network effect is upon us.  That is undeniable.  Marketers need to embrace the change.  Otherwise, consumers will seek out brands that are consistent with how they shop and buy products and services.

Personalizing the Retail Experience

As I recently entered the American Airlines terminal at O'Hare, the standard 15 minute screening process was clearly a thing of the past.  Pat downs were causing delays and the controversy surrounding the imminent installation of full body scans was heating up.

Now comes word from today's Wall Street Journal that body scan technology may eventually be found in the Wal-Mart near you.  Not for security reasons - this technology is being developed to use features such as gender, age and height to personalize marketing messages.  The primary motivation seems to be competing more effectively with online retailers - stating that this capability could help "traditional retailers develop marketing approaches that better counter Web-based competitors".

Indeed, online retailers have (or are building) all the tools and capabilities to personalize their merchandising efforts based on any number of factors - how you got to their web store, whether this is your first or second visit, how you shopped last visit, whether you're a loyal customer, your sensitivity to offers (and even the types of offers), your likely purchase pattern, etc.  This certainly has the potential for creating a better shopping experience and is at least one of the big reasons Amazon has become such a juggernaut - hook the consumer on books, get to know their shopping and buying preferences then expand into other categories by targeting offers to these same consumers.  For today's online retailer, investing in these personalization platforms is becoming more essential to maintaining a competitive edge.

But this us v. them thinking misses an important point.  Multi-channel retailers should be thinking of less intrusive - but sill powerful - ways to personalizing the retail experience.  One step is to fully use mobile technology to get information in the hands of the consumer while they are able to touch, see and feel the product.  Unleashing valuable and authoritative content empowers the consumer with knowledge they need, differentiates the brand and potentially compresses the shopping cycle. 

Using cell phones to look up product details, review personalized offers and read product reviews is low hanging fruit.  Now that smart phone penetration is at critical mass, developing tailored versions of web sites, delivering full video product demonstrations, creating specialized applications for the iPhone and other devices, and exploiting the GPS location capabilities gives multi-channel retailers new ways to drive store traffic and convert this traffic while the consumer is in the aisle.  Surrounding a solid mobile strategy with social media accelerates the content distribution, provides an avenue for user generated content to become part of this ecosystem and gives the marketer a powerful word-of-mouth tool that accelerates payback from any mobile investments.

So let's leave the body scans for the airport.  There's other practical, low-cost and non-controversial ways to level the playing field between multi-channel retailers and online retailers.

Integrating Social Media into Current Channels

The fact is undeniable - Social Media is rapidly becoming a mainstream tool for marketers.  From awareness and brand building to acquisition and retention, Social Media is carving out a role as perhaps the most efficient and effective tool at a marketers disposal.  Understanding trends in social media and harnessing the power of these emerging trends is rapidly becoming priority #1 for marketing executives.

I'll not explore all the nuances of social media...that will be saved for future posts.  Rather, I'll frame the opportunity in the context of existing multi-channel approaches and how to weave social media into these existing strategies.

So here's the context.  You've been historically using online and offline media to create awareness, consideration, preference - as well as drive acquisition and retention/loyalty.  You've also deployed PR effectively and have integrated this with your advertising and marketing communications strategies.  Targeting continues to be important - but is elusive as the data quagmire envelops the organization.  Efficiency and accountability is the name of the game and you constantly balance widening the top of the funnel with cost-effective acquisition and retention efforts.  Now, a complex multi-channel strategy is being challenged even further with the emergence of social networking.

The CEO and Board are reading about the massive audience reach of Facebook and Twitter et al and are demanding more specifics about how to exploit these social sites.  They throw around the concepts advanced by Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg and others - Social Graph Marketing - as the panacea to better marketing.  They believe that the promise of viral and word-of-mouth will increase EBITDA by reducing marketing expense while simultaneously reaching aggressive top line growth objectives.  They want a shift from costly channels to low/zero-cost channels.  And they want it now.

Sound familiar??

Quickly, you need to understand more about social media and how to invest resources while not taking your eye off the current marketing mix.  Best approach - put a 2 month plan in place and isolate a small team (1 or 2 hot shots depending on your size) who is empowered to experiment and learn.  Their job is simple - design and execute in-market pilots that validate how social media works with your brand and how this new channel can fit into a multi-channel approach. 

Here's a handy guide to getting the ball rolling:

1. Immediately create a presence on notable social sites - I'd start with Facebook, Twitter and Flikr.  Make the presence informative and fun...experiment with new formats that encourage your brand to come to life in these environments...let people participate and engage with your brand in a way that hasn't been possible before
2. Identify tools that allow you to administer your presence in these social communities.  The list of tools is growing daily and include content authoring/syndication, automated messaging, measurement and analysis tools, etc.  Develop a checklist of basic needs
3. Inventory the digital assets you have already developed - product shots, product descriptions, photos, images, videos, blog content...anything that can be reasonably useful/interesting to your community members.  Devise a way to distribute these assets throughout the various branded environments you've created in step #2 above.  There are many tools to help take these digital assets and propagate them throughout the Web.  Find the best tools and syndication services that meet your needs.
4. Identify the online blog community that influences your category.  Find out how this community behaves, the frequency of their blogging, the type of blog content that they focus on, etc.  In short, learn as much as you can about this community.  Use this knowledge to tailor your outreach to this community.  Make this outreach authentic and sustainable.
5. Create a system to actively monitor all forms of "chatter" about your brand.  Administer this chatter so that responses are quickly formulated and functional leaders in your organization can engage. 
6. Once you have this foundation laid, design and launch pilots that meet basic objectives:

• Build the number of community members...whether followers on Twitter, friends on Facebook or influential bloggers
• Drive engagement with your brand by encouraging interactions - making content viral, signing up for newsletter alerts, answering surveys, providing targeting/profile data, participating in community interactions (like product reviews) and of course purchasing

The idea here is to not over-think...be execution focused.  Get results and react to trends.  Use results to weave Social Media into existing multi-channel strategies.

My next post will dive into more details about setting up pilots...examples of tools, what makes a good pilot, success measurements, pilot duration, creative and development process, etc.