The best way to show our readers that a serious, planned approach to social media as a key marketing channel can lead to success (when integrated with offline channels), is to provide case studies or corporate examples of triumph and prosperity.

Today’s post is going to do just that. In 2008, Starbucks (YES, I am one of their devotees ) found themselves in some serious hot water. Sales were down, there were major corporate management changes (which included Starbucks former CEO Howard Shultz returning and some management being let go), store closings, and some of the rapid rate expansion was slowed so that the company could go back to basics. The challenge? “How do they get back their relationship with their customer — the one they had when they first began?” Shultz claimed that, “Starbucks had lost its soul.”
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A friend called me today and asked me to watch the Oprah show—something that I don’t do during the day. The topic was about an up coming CBS show where Presidents/Owners of companies go undercover to see what it is like to work out in the field.
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Much of the work we have been doing in our company, SHARE, has focused on social media and finding ways to leverage engagement for clients and their customers via Facebook and Twitter. Many want low cost ideas that will engage their potential friends and followers in ways that are meaningful to them. Of course, they want the ideas to be unique, out of the box and promise a gazillion friends. Many of these companies don’t plan for or strategize how they are going to keep those friends when the campaign or promotion is finished. How are YOU going to keep those friends—that collected their coupons for free offers of your products or services—from ending their relationship when your campaign ends?
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One of the big questions out there for many marketers is—what kind of advertising and marketing could be and should be leveraged from social media sites? How are our customers using these sites and how does it relate to our brand? I have spoken before about the maven circle we all have in our lives. I do believe that social media really allows brands the opportunity to reach those mavens and use them to tout their experiences to their perspective circles. We all have those “go to” people that we seek out for specific things in our lives. Now that circle is beginning to expand with blogs, twitter and Facebook all providing opportunities for people to talk about the products and services they like—or dislike.
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This is the mega million dollar question. We don’t need to mention the stats. All businesses are now re-analyzing their marketing mixes and plans to find out who really is their target market. I think marketing to women is truly key for all businesses. The problem is (as mentioned in a meeting earlier this week) what happens if we market to women and we find out—through our research and analysis—that our target market is really men or a higher percentage of men? What do we do then?
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I have had an interesting discussion with one of my group members from Linkedin. Yesterday, I posted a blog article regarding IBM’s upcoming  social network—as a way to Share what I have to say with a professional audience and provide better exposure for our business bcad Group and our agency Share. For those that do not know Linkedin, it is a social networking community for professionals—where you can connect with business people and through those connections have access to their connections. It is a great way to create exposure for your business and your services. Gain new insights, network for knowledge and learn about other peoples experiences.
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I am definitely a fan of anyone who aims to teach me something new each and everyday. One of my favorite ‘tutors’—and probably one of yours—is Seth Godin. His blog posts teach me something each day and they often do it with a humorous edge that cleverly points out the obvious. I think many of us spend so much time looking to find the answer in some calculated, statistical way (because ‘it can’t possibly be that simple’) that we often miss the point. So many solutions would reveal themselves—brilliant, flashing light bulb moments—if we could just sit still and allow ourselves to ignore the clutter. The jargon. The white noise.
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If you’ve been following my posts, you may have begun to recognize a familiar pattern. One that involves me wading daily through all sorts of trend reports, ezines, e-mails and blogs from every industry you can imagine. In my world, meetings never begin before noon (that’s if I have anything to say about it) and my morning kicks off with a potent cup of joe and a mountain of mail overflowing in my inbox.
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