Non-invasive Social Media Strategies

Also known as superficial strategies, "toe-in-the-water", strategies-that-remind-me-of-advertising, not-rooted-in-organizational-behavior strategies, and a-less-risky-strategy. It is kind of like non-invasive surgery - no big impact on the patient, easier decision to make, less change. I am talking about the two fundamental ways that businesses and brands can plan and execute word of mouth programs online that leverage aspects of social media.

One way is to embrace the changes that go along with a culture of conversation with your customers and stakeholders.

The other way is to look at digital word of mouth (WOM) as just another channel and try to figure out how to weave it into your media or communications plan.

A lot has been written about the first way. Many social media evangelists including ourselves have waxed poetic about the business and karmic benefits of authentic conversation and an earnest interest in customers/stakeholders/employees as people. (Far fewer of these evangelists offer any credible measurement model. They often just speak about "getting it" and criticize those who don't. It is critical that we all get very disciplined about measurement and reporting impact to have our arguments hit home in favor of the "one way")

Brands who embrace their fans fall into this category. While part of me wishes this path was for everyone, it's really not. Microsoft, Harley Davidson, Nintendo, LEGO, Intel, Dell and others have all done this, no matter how imperfectly.

The other way
Many brands and businesses want to take advantage of social media - influencer outreach, activation of networks or communities and radical visibility - to fill out their marcom plan. They are not ready, or maybe even suitable for organizational change. They need to launch a product, boost sales this quarter, or demonstrate that they are innovative. We see this with many consumer package goods companies (CPGs). They are sales machines. Often their brand leadership is transitory at best. The brand managers move from brand to brand within the organization as they conquer challenges. Short term gains - those that get measured in no more than a season or a year - are the key driver.

Examples of the "other way:"

contests that solicit user generated content for some marketing purpose -i.e. submit your photo to win, submit your video to be part of a commercial, submit an essay to win.
Brand Facebook pages without an outreach or community strategy - basically just a beachhead with no plans to go further inland.
Viral video attempts
Many ideas that leverage social media channels but without the conversation or intent to do much more with the consumer generated ideas/content.

Experiementation with the other way, which treats digital WOM as a "channel" breeds an interesting pressure. One that I actually believe is good for Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) as an emerging fresh discipline. One that could help the "one way" (I mean the fisrt example I gavce above, not that there is only one way to do it

Unintended Trojan Horse(s)
The "other way", the way of the experimenter who may not be committed or even fully aware of the potential benefits of WOMM, does three important things:

1. It let's brand marketers try some of the techniques of social media and activating WOM before going any deeper - a move that might require business or organizational change that just won't happen at the brand marketing level.

2. "Light experimentation" is shared across the organization, across brands in a typical multi-brand universe. The stories of social media success spread through the halls pretty quick. This pushes the learning across more brand teams.

3. It forces a measurement discipline on WOMM. These marketers live and die by KPIs (key performance indicators). If the WOMM effort doesn't compare well to their advertising or PR metrics, it's going to be hard to repeat 3 times (sometimes institutional memory is short in a multi-brand marketer just due to the churn of brand leadership and teams)

What's the downside?

Simple. This less-committed approach, can lead to trying shortcuts around best practices in WOM. Many best practices require a different way of thinking of marketing and the benefit of building relationships with customers. Shortcuts can lead to program "underperformance" and a perceived sense of failure. E.g. "social media didn't move the needle as much as my online advertising"

Both ways exist. Both ways are valid. Both ways are here regardless of what WOM purists would prefer. (they would prefer the "one way").

Can we inject enough best practices into these less intrusive experiments to make more CMO's and more brand managers believers in the bigger potantial of WOM to transform their business?