Social media - time to implement like hell

Social media clearly remains a hot topic.

Not just among the evangelists - it crops up everywhere, in lots of conversations, presentations and meetings. Last week alone, I met with a guy doing his dissertation on social media, filled out a survey for social media for the marketing institute and fed into another survey trying to get an understanding of salaries for digital marketers.

Last September I outlined O2 Ireland's new social media strategy. Perhaps in another post, I'll explain in more detail what the strategy looks like - as we've some good stuff and an well-thought through structure (I think anyway).

From a practical perspective, the decisions we made included: (1) what activity we would do, (2) how we would do it, (3) who would do it (4) how much money we'd invest and (5) what success would look like.

I'm happy with it. It will evolve of course. And tactical mistakes will be made I'm sure. But the important thing for me is that we are clear on our strategy - thus no more lengthy discussions or time wasting debates on what we should or should not do. Rather, we're into execution.

In the words of Jack Welch "In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell".

If you buy one marketing book this year - buy this.

I buy the books for our marketing department library (well, less of a library, more like a load of shelves). So I'm always on the look out for the good ones. Every now and again, you stumble across a book that really makes you think. Like this. Or this.

How Brands Grow is one of these. It is honestly a thing of beauty. If you already work in marketing and are involved in any decisions around brand management, acquisition or retention strategies, you'll find this thought provoking.

Future of ad agencies?

It's been on my mind a lot recently. What is the future of advertising agencies? We still need agencies to make ads. Especially good ads. Like this one. Or this masterpiece. And if you believe that advertising cannot drive profitable growth, spend a few minutes enjoying this.

That is not what's on my mind. No, rather, it is the business model I wonder about.

There was a time when there was a distinction between the advertising, direct marketing, promotional, digital and PR agencies. Not these days. If you are doing an email campaign directing folks back to a landing page, with maybe some online PR linked driving people to Like us on facebook - who gets the work? The digital agency? The direct marketing? PR firm? The ad agency?

And where is the profit on these? In the past, perhaps you could pay some agency wages from selling in a microsite? Especially if the marketing folk don't have control of the big corporate website. But no need for one of those. A wordpress blog page will do or a facebook page. But you won't make much margin creating one of these.

If you're a fan of Helge Tenno, you're probably of the view that digital is less about what brands say. It is more about doing stuff that creates value in our lives, often offline. Like Couchsurfing (something I admit I find just fascinating, although not sure it's for me).

So surely producing digital stuff that makes our customers' lives better is worth paying for? Like a useful app or something. Yes, but for some reason, we kinda feel anything internet-related should be cheaper. We've got used to a google-docs, youtube view of the world - the internet wants and deserves to be free attitude, including apps.

Throw in some serious cheap ways for clients to outsource creative, design and development - (yes, the world really is flat) and there goes the bread and butter work too.

I don't have answers. But guessing I'm not the only person asking these questions.

P.S. I read a very interesting book a few years ago about future of agencies called Space Race.

Social Technographics Explained

For class on social media.

Social Technographics Explained

View more presentations from Josh Bernoff.

Direct Marketing links

For my class. Here is some stuff I find useful / insightful in relation to digital direct marketing:

Seth Godin's email checklist.
Using (long) copy to sell.
Free email marketing resources from mailchimp including a practical guide on how to create an email marketing plan.
marketingsherpa.com has lots of email marketing resources, including top ten email newsletter mistakes.