Ad Sales Blog

Social media, coming as the primary tool of customer engagement

The study I did for Social Media Today, “The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications” was the first study to document the trend where social media grows from its current use as a general communications tool used for public relations and marketing into a primary tool of customer engagement.

 What does this mean and what this look like when it comes?

While working on another social media research project in the Multi-Family Housing Market (the apartment community management business to those of us outside this industry) I interviewed Eric Brown, owner of Urbane Apartments in Royal Oak Michigan, who helped show me the way.

Brown owns about 400 apartment units just outside of Detroit and is a true social media pioneer who put up a MySpace page for his business in 2004. Brown recalls members of his staff objecting to the idea fearing that any apartment manager using social media would get a lot of complaints which would be shared everywhere. Over some staff objections, the page went up and the complaints came in. But Brown found he could use the feedback to improve his organization. After that, Brown began a steady investment in building a social media presence. As his social media presence grew Brown discovered he could dispense with many of the traditional tools, and expenses, of marketing and PR.

Early on, when Brown discovered his social media activities were attracting new residents at a sufficient rate to keep his apartments at above average occupancy he discontinued his print display advertising. As the stream of new residents continued Brown found he could discontinue his use of online apartment listing services as well. Later, Brown discovered his social media was generating so much positive press that he no longer needed a formal public relations program. Finally when I interviewed Brown just a few months ago, he challenged me to “Google” the name his town followed by the words “Apartments for rent.” Sure enough, Urbane apartments were near the top of the search. That spelled the end of the “search” budget.

With a growing social media presence Brown had dispensed with display advertising, classified advertising, search, and a separate public relations program. At Urbane Apartments, the prophecy documented in “The Coming Change” study had been fulfilled.  Social media, once just a tool used in public relations and marketing had become the core tool of customer engagement.   

As media salespeople selling those display and classified ads it is time to consider what we can do to profit from the sweeping changes social media is causing. More posts on that are coming.  

Link to the study, “The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications”

Blogger Gary Vaynerchuk sells an ad

Gary's advice for every blogger who wants to sell advertising, "GRAB IT!!!" His infectious enthusiasm and entertaining Joe Pesce delivery make this a must see for everyone in media sales. To demonstrate his technique, Gary makes a cold call to a beer company for a blog site he just made up. Chutzpah!

Twitter "We don't consider ourselves a social network"

In this short video shot by Fortune magazine, Twitter CEO Evan Williams explains the vision for his company which captured a lot of attention but which has yet to post a profit. When Williams says, "We don't consider ourselves to be a social network...I'm not sure what the right category is for us" it floored me. With all that has been said and written about what Twitter is and is not it's interesting to hear what the top guy running it actually thinks. 

Social media hijacks McGraw-Hill's "Man in the chair"

Whoa. This is personal. For those of us who spent time in the B-to-B media sales trenches, McGraw-Hill's iconic "The man in the chair" ad was the closest thing to media sales religion we had. In a clever live action video the BMA brings the vision to life and updates the "Man in the chair" with big social media implications. At first I took offense, but then saw their point...and it's a good one. To all of us who worshiped the "Man in the chair" and used his likeness on sales call, after call, perhaps we need the update most of all.      

Social media marketing $ to grow faster than all other online media

  Forrester Research just released a five year forecast of interactive marketing spend that predicts  dollars spent on social media marketing will grow at the the fastest rate. 

All online media are set to grow in average double digits every year, but advertising in social media will show the largest in the 5 year period.

Starting with 2009 Forrester projects the following: 

Social media: 34%, mobile marketing: 27%, online display advertising: 17%, search marketing 15%, email marketing 11%. Search and display have such a huge volume advantage at the start of the five year run, that they will still dominate the overall spend five years from now. 

Read about the study  http://tinyurl.com/l8ajzl