In his post “4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business” social media writer Soren Gordhamer’s second point, “From Large Campaigns to Small Acts” confirms the notion that social media is changing the way companies approach marketing. In my opinion, the small acts leave the realm of marketing and enter that of operations and customer service.

In a classic sales funnel, marketing departments have historically included evaluation elements such as customer testimonials as a part of their broader awareness campaigns. However, in todays Web 2.0 world, potential customers are more inclined to conduct their own research online versus rely upon provided customer testimonials and case studies. Erik Qualman, the author of the book Socialnomics, stated in a post on his blog entitled “Statistics Show That Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think” that “78% of consumers trust recommendations from their peers”. These shifts in consumer behavior and thinking are causing marketers to be more concerned about pull based marketing in later stages of the sales funnel as compared to traditional push methods utilized in awareness phases. (see Huddle Productions Push vs. Pull Marketing)

Traditional Sales Funnel

Marketers have begun to approach social media in a variety of ways ranging from trying to commercially influence social media to providing the feedback forums or Twitter feeds on their own website. Regardless of their approach, at the end of the Web 2.0 day there is an elephant in the room that no marketer can ignore–the elephant is customer service which is driven by operations.

Marketing is charged with bringing customers in the door and operations delivers upon the brand promise. Prior to the arrival of social media, operation’s failure to deliver on what was marketed was resolved via customer advocacy programs internal to the company or externally through a variety of mechanisms including The Better Business Bureau. Today, social media sites provide an instantaneous avenue for feedback that can live online forever. In the event that this feedback is positive, the evaluation phase of a sales funnel greatly improved for a marketer. To the extent the feedback is less favorable, the fall out in the sales funnel will be significant regardless of the investment in awareness. The title of Pete Blackshaw’s book on a “customer driven world” tells it all–”Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000″.

Customer Satisfaction

It is my hypothesis that company’s who focus on executing outstanding customer experiences will prevail in the Web 2.0 enabled world. Social media’s near instantaneous feedback provides marketers and operators alike a considerable advantage. In writing this post, I decided to pull use the example of a company that sets the high water mark for customer service and execution. The company is Disney. Instead of trying to explain this myself, I thought it would be best to interview a customer service expert who is well versed in how social media can amplify the voices of dissatisfied customers. Listen to the podcast interview with Paul Grossman of Integrated Loyalty Systems who previously worked for Disney at Disney University.

In the end, if marketers want to be successful in today’s Web 2.0 driven world, they have to place a mandate on operations to deliver. In the cases where delivery isn’t perfect, customer service and follow through with regard to making good on the brand promise is essential.

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On Tuesday, September 29th, I had the honor of speaking in front of a newly formed special interest group with the Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter of the American Marketing Association. I’d like to thank Phil Roth of the DFW AMA for having me present as well as Mara Frey of the Collin SBDC who hosted the event at Collin College. Last I’d like to thank the Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter of The American Marketing Association for their generous gift of the book The Break Through Company by Keith McFarland.

I went ahead and recorded the presentation and put it on Marketing Bits. The deck I used can be downloaded from the following link: DFW-AMA.PDF .

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As would be expected in a Social Media Marketing services firm, our office is constantly full of buzz, opinion, and new discoveries int he world of online marketing. We also have some very interesting people stop by for meetings or to work on client deliverables.

Jerod and I thought it would be a good idea to simple turn on the microphones once and a while. After all, we do have a fully digital studio in our offices that we use for client work.

In our first podcast, we simply decided to have an open discussion about the complex world of social media and provide some insight as to where a small or medium sized business owner should begin. We cover topics like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, and blogging with WordPress. And believe it or not, we aren’t bullish on all in the social media world.

Enjoy the information and the debate!

We would like to thank the people over at Marshall Electronics for bringing the vintage warmth of Ribbon Microphone technology to a price point affordable by the masses. This is the first series where we are putting our newly acquired MXL R144 microphones to work! We connected these directly into our Zoom H4N and what you hear is what you get. (We do run our microphones into an 8 track board if we are recording 3 or more guests but for normal two person podcasts in person or via phone we go direct to the H4N)

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Back when I worked for Microsoft, I asked Bill Gates a question related to Spanish language marketing. The immediate response was that this was an “international topic whose responsibilty belonged with one of our Latin American subs”. At the time, The United States was the 4th largest Spanish speaking country in the world and the largest subsiderary for Microsoft. My point here is that often times in marketing, the neatly organized lines drawn by senior management get blurred.

Social Media has been one of those topics in the marketing world that immediately gets pushed off to the interactive division of an agency or even worse IT!   After all, it is the new kid on the block and involves both technology and marketing expertise.  Ironically, it falls right in the center of mainstream marketing and can be the element that makes or breaks a corporate marketing strategy, campaign, or initiative.

In a classic sales funnel, traditional marketing had direct impact on awareness.  Efforts were then made to publish the right reviews and testimonials to impact consideration or evaluation phase. With the rise of social media, the control of the information critical to the evaluation phase; however, has been returned to the people.

Classic Sales Funnel

As a marketer, the last thing you want to do is try and force the issue on social media like you did with customer testimonials in traditional marketing.  The Thought Pick Blog punctuates this with a list of 10 examples of social media campaign failures.  Success is more likely found by encouraging consumers. For example, instead of trying to force yet another survey on a customer, make a Twitter hash tag readily available to them so they can tweet their feedback. I am actually waiting for the day when a marketer takes the customer warranty registration process to Twitter.   Why not replace that warranty registration card we find in every product box with a list of 10 places they can share their product experience with others and get help or ideas.  After all, the warrant registration card is nothing more than a survey and the warranty attaches to the product with or without the marketing survey in the box. Why not have your customers engage interactively?

My point here is that part of marketing’s role in social media is to promote a company or brand presence in social media and encourage customers to engage. This promotion includes classic point of sale signage, employee talking points, and even reciept printout messages. Advertise that Facebook fan page, Twitter account, and/or blog and let the natural process of social media take place. The organizations who have this down the best are local news stations. These are the same local news stations that are accused of being behind the times.

The downside to encouraging social media interaction is that a marketer has to be willing to take the good with the bad.  I will have an upcoming post entitled “When Marketing Meets Operations” where we’ll look at the reality of operations’ role in social media.

Until then, take responsibility as a marketer for not only your social media efforts but for integrating them into the right elements of your traditional marketing strategy.