Page 343 - Social Media Marketing

connects their respective business programs with their customers. The majority of the 321
cases and examples presented in this book have been, in some form or another, a type
or instance of a social application. ■ SOCIAL APPLICATIONS DRIVE ENGAGEMENT

Given the encompassing nature of social applications, how then does one seg-
regate the various functions and uses of these tools for planning and design purposes?
Clearly, lumping together Dell’s “IdeaStorm,” SocialVibe’s charitable giving applica-
tion, and Foursquare’s “Mayor’s” designations as used by Starbucks and saying “I
want one of those” isn’t likely to produce a successful outcome. What’s needed is a way
to categorize the various types of social applications so that they can be connected with
business objectives. Business objectives, after all, drive the specification and develop-
ment of social applications.

I Love You More Than My Dog

As an aside, read the book I Love You More Than My Dog (Portfolio Hardcover, 2009). Author
Jeanne Bliss goes into detail in the processes that create amazing customer experiences: Not only
are these are the kinds of insights gained through collaborative social applications, they also
point up the degree that Operations and Marketing must work together to build long-term cus-
tomer loyalty. You can follow Jeanne on Twitter (@jeannebliss) and read more about Jeanne
and her work here:

http://customerbliss.com/

Important to note here is what is meant by a “successful outcome.” Josh
Gordon, President of Selling 2.0, published a whitepaper in Social Media Today
entitled “The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications: Separating the
Biz from the Buzz.” Josh points out the roughly 60/40 split between the use of social
technology in business for branding (about 60 percent) versus collaborative applica-
tions (about 40 percent). While lots of businesses and organizations are using social
media—recent CMO surveys have put adoption at something north of 80 percent—the
majority of these uses are still rooted in a traditional approach to marketing. Given the
numbers of people who collect around social sites, the appeal of marketing programs
that are intended to push a message into these sites is understandable, but it misses the
larger gains in engagement that come about through social applications that support
content creation, sharing, and collaboration. Using social applications for awareness
can provide a starting point, but there is more that can be done.

For social-media-based marketing, the beneficial impact to branding efforts,
increased lead generation, and “more buzz” are all success-oriented objectives. To be
sure, however, these applications barely scratch the surface of social technology. What
is of interest here—and what defines “success”—is the degree to which collaboration