If you attend any conference that has any kind of social media component you will no doubt hear reference made to the savvy consumer. You will hear how they are demanding transparency and engagement and want to be included in the conversation. Most importantly you will hear that they don’t believe the lies of advertising anymore and that social is the way forward.

The Savvy Consumer – Mythical Being

The Savvy Consumer is not a new being. Contrary to what social media “guru’s” might tell you. Consumers have been savvy for decades. They have been discerning, they know a real deal when they see one and they know when they are being ripped off. The rise of social technologies like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus didn’t give rise to the Savvy Consumer. Consumers have been having the conversations over the garden fence, around the water cooler, on the phone and in the stores where they shop for as long as shops have existed.

The demand for transparency pre-dates social technologies by several decades – I don’t remember reading about Erin Brockovich using Twitter to demand transparency from Pacific Gas & Electric Company – though I have no doubt she would do so today. Consumers have always wanted to have transparency in their relationship with brands. So where does this idea of the sudden appearance of the Savvy Consumer come from?

The Savvy Consumer & Social Technologies

It is far more likely that social technologies like Facebook, Twitter, Google + and blogs have woken marketers to the depth of understanding that consumers have of their methods rather than those technologies giving rise to the Savvy Consumer. Marketers are being shown that Social Media allows them to follow and even join in conversations, as though these conversations were new. They are being sold on the idea that if they adopt these technologies that they might stand a chance of catching up and perhaps regaining the upper hand with the Savvy Consumer.

The Savvy Consumer has decades on the newly sophisticated marketer. Social technologies will not make up for that gap. Social technologies are revealing the extent of the gap between marketers and the Savvy Consumer. Social technologies are providing the opportunity for the Savvy Consumer to organize around issues that matter to them faster and in a much more cohesive manner than ever before. The biggest revelation that social technologies has brought is not the existence of the Savvy Consumer but the existence of the unsophisticated marketer.

The Savvy Consumer and the Savvy Marketer

The Savvy Marketer is learning from the Savvy Consumers behavior. Learning to use the social technologies in the same way. Social technologies have brought back the need for artistry to marketing. Finesse rather than brute force in messaging has always been the core of great marketing. Perhaps this is the most important lesson marketers can learn from the Savvy Consumer, not that they don’t want marketing, not that they don’t want to be sold to, but rather that they want it to be done with style and grace.

I tell audiences, clients and anyone else who will listen that there are three main components to any successful marketing campaign that involves social technology. Fun, Repeatable and Shareable. To combine these three in one campaign is a difficult act and one that actually requires a lot more thought than many marketers are willing to give to their campaigns. The Savvy Consumer knows when they are being played, they also know when it serves their purposes to join in.

What are you learning from the Savvy Consumer?

Image used under CC license by Elsie

I’m sure if you Google CC Chapman & Ann Handley‘s book Content Rules you will find a hundred reviews. So why am I adding to them? Its very simple, this book comprises quite possibly the best handbook for a topic that I have been talking about for ages in presentations. It does it in a way that is much more accessible than I can make a presentation and to top it off it is written in a style that makes the book not only a good read but a handbook that you are going to want near your desk on a regular basis.

What is in Content Rules?

I’ve been harping on for a while now that when people say “Social Media Strategy” what they really mean is Social Technology strategy. I say this because in the same sentence that they mention social media strategy they go on to talk about how they created a Facebook page or a twitter account or a youtube page. Content Rules covers what a Social Media strategy really is, which is a content strategy. CC & Ann do a great job of outlining what constitutes content in a social web world and more importantly how to attach meaningful metrics to those content elements.

It would have been a valuable book if they had simply written about the elements of content, content style and audience applicability, all of which is covered. However, by illustrating that there are metrics that go with these types of content the book becomes instantly more valuable. Marketers so often forget that whatever activity they do they should be able to measure in a meaningful way, a way that actually makes sense to someone outside the marketing department.

Content Rules as a style guide

While it isn’t, nor does it set out to be, a reworking of the AP style guide, this book covers something that is often missing from expositions about content, that of style and voice. By explaining these essential elements CC and Ann again show that they not only understand content from a marketing perspective but from both a content creator and an audience perspective. No matter what type of content you are producing, and they cover the whole gamut in this book, including:

• Blogs
• Video/Photos
• Webinars
• ebooks/White Papers

establishing a voice for your communications is essential. That voice is going to come from your organizations style, your communicators style and most importantly your audience needs.

Content Rules as a handbook

What really makes this book stand apart from others on this topic is that as I mentioned this is not a book you are going to simply pick up read and then allow to collect dust on a shelf somewhere. This is a book you are going to return to time and again as your organizations content strategy develops. It is in effect a handbook for the content publisher. The book is basically divided into three sections. The first part covers what content is, the second section elaborates on that and identifies ways in which these content types can be used, the final section consists of case studies that illustrate what the previous two sections have been talking about.

This really is a great way to put this topic together. I defy anyone in the content creation arena not to learn something from Content Rules.

Foursquare has announced that the service will now be available in five languages other than English. These are French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Japanese. Apparently more languages are promised. The two year old service started out with only a handful of US cities in which the service worked. They added more and more as demand for the app increased, they took polls and listened to users on Twitter to build out the roster of cities, first in the US and then in other countries. Finally, last year they went global and removed the city list allowing checkins from any location.

Why Foursquare is Local Again

The move to incorporate local language support is a very smart one on the part of Foursquare. Of course for the user base it makes a lot of sense, if you speak Italian why do you want the services you use to be producing content in English? However, I can see three other distinct advantages for Foursquare from this move. Firstly, they have long supported the third party application development community, which is very strong in the US and growing rapidly outside the US. This move allows developers outside the US to pull data in their local language and integrate that into whatever apps they are building. Secondly, advertising partnerships across the world just became a lot easier for Foursquare to develop. Again this feeds back to having localized content. Third and final reason, none of their competitors have this feature, which will only add to their position as the number one Social Location Sharing app available.

Should Others Follow the Foursquare Example?

Given that Foursquare claims daily checkins from more than 200 countries worldwide it will be hard to see how other apps could resist the need to localize their applications. Facebook has had localization for quite sometime (though I don’t know if that extends to their mobile app – if you know that it does please leave a comment). So it’s likely we will see some of the other Social Location Sharing apps start to roll out a localized version. Certainly it would make sense for them to do so in at least Spanish to open that market up to their advertising base.

There is  of course a big difference between translation and full localization. Right now Foursquare has translated the app into local languages rather than localize the app. I could definitely see Foursquare taking that final step and becoming the first really global player in this space by localizing the experience in their major markets. e.g. Badges that are not just translated but actually culturally relevant to the users.

Is Being Crunked on Foursquare the same in Japanese?

The Foursquare team talk about the challenges that they faced with this rollout on their blog. This included trying to decide what the various badges and awards would be called in the different languages. For example there really isn’t a direct translation of the word Foursquare into the languages that they have initially rolled out and would they really want to lose their existing brand identity? The most humorous of the translations that they made was for the Japanese for “crunked” apparently they settled on 飲んだくれwhich translates roughly as “Drunkard”.

If you use apps like Foursquare in another language please share your experience in the comments below.

Smart Marketing, at least the way I like to describe it is something that makes you look or listen or watch twice (at least). Something that you want to share. Something that juxtaposes the expected messaging about a product or service with a visual or a message that is completely unexpected.

Recently a friend forwarded me an email that they received after they had signed up for Hollrr, a web rating service that I had recommended to them.  Like so many other users of all these services, they signed up, played around for a little while then moved on to the next thing. We all do it. Twitter received a lot of criticism over the number of accounts that were abandoned within three months of being opened. But that is fairly normal behavior for a lot of users.

Hollrr recognizes this but is taking a proactive approach to try and stem the flow of users who sign up and then forget them.  The email is below, now as Groucho Marx said, Comedy is like a frog, if you dissect it, it dies. So while I’m going to point out the things that I think are relevant I’m not going to pull the message apart too much, enjoy it.

XXXX, are you playing hard to get?

It’s been nearly two weeks since we first met and I’m starting to get
the feeling that you’re ignoring me. I mean, all signs were pointing
to yes when you gave me your name and email and didn’t tell me to NOT
contact you.

Not only is this opening funny but it reminds the recipient that they opted-in to receive emails. Basically saying hey we aren’t spamming you. Sometimes it’s important to remind the reader that they did ask for emails to be sent.

When you ticked my terms of service box, I thought you told me you
loved me. How could you not?!? Look at all the great things other
people are saying about me. Am I just another notch on your belt like
the Foursquare and Aardvark floozies you play around with?

Keep yourself relevant and current. By comparing themselves to Foursquare Hollrr reminds the reader of what type of service they are, and perhaps why the user signed up in the first place. They also make the assumption that the user is an early adopter and they play on that.
My friends tell me that you’re ‘just not that into me’, but I really
thought we had something together. Don’t you know what you mean to me?
Don’t ever leave me….because if you do….I’d find you.

Ok so the last paragraph might come across as a little creepy, but of course that’s the humor, after all it’s meant to be from that rather strange person that you met at a mixer/happy hour/tweetup that is just a little socially inept.

Yours for eternity,

Hollrr

Overall I’d say a great job by Hollrr of sending out a reminder about their service without making it boring, using some Smart Marketing to re-engage a user and generally spread the word about their site.

How would you respond to this email?

Smart Marketers can leverage the days news to become a core feature of their next Smart Marketing campaign.

How many of you start the day with breakfast and the News? Whether you consume it online, on the TV, from a newspaper or the radio in the car on the way to work you are being supplied with Smart Marketing opportunities. Mostly you probably ignore the news you receive unless you find the story really resonates with you, likely because you have a hundred other thoughts running through your head and are already trying to get geared up for your work day.

However, the daily news can actually be the source for your next Smart Marketing campaign. Knowing how to tie those back to your product and which stories are likely to grab the eyeballs and attention of your potential customer is the Smart part.  Take a look at the headlines today and think of them as potential sources for a campaign, which ones would appeal to your audience?  Here is a fun example I came across:

The Simpsons aired an episode on August 1st in which they followed up on a previous “dream” episode from 1995, in which Lisa Simpson meets her future husband. One Etsy vendor tied the story to a pair of Piggy Cufflinks, exactly like those in the episode that they were offering for sale.  While not the most obvious connection, it’s definitely Smart Marketing, after all if you knew someone who was a Simpson’s fan and they were getting married soon (we are in wedding season after all), then why not get them a pair?

The Etsy vendor knows their audience, they know what they are doing right now (thinking about weddings) and they know that people who buy from Etsy are more likely to be looking for something that is unique and personal rather than mass produced. That is Smart Marketing. Of course it takes work to plow through the headlines and pick that one story that works for your audience, but so does trying to think of a quick campaign from scratch. Even the down stories can be used to your advantage, though of course those take a little extra careful thought.

What news story could be your next Smart Marketing campaign?

I was recently able to experience an interesting campaign that paired two companies that you would not immediately think of together.  The partnership between Hanes and JetBlue. Now call me weird but when I think of underwear I don’t immediately jump to airlines as the most likely partner.

Before I continue – the disclosure: Since 2009 I have been part of the Hanes Comfort Crew, a panel of Social Media advocates and advisors. However, they do not in anyway pay for content. They do make opportunities available to the Comfort Crew and we are free to use our discretion as to whether we accept them or not. This post was not requested or paid for.

What I liked about this was precisely that. The pairing was unexpected. This is smart marketing. The instinct to reach for the most obvious partner or association in what we perceive to be the mind of the consumer is the downfall of many marketers. I am a big fan, for example of the work of David & Goliath, the agency behind the Kia commercials. After all who puts a full size Sock Monkey on a mechanical bull as a way of selling suv’s to soccer mom’s?

So what was the idea with Hanes and JetBlue? Actually they hit upon one of the things that passengers are most concerned about, Comfort. Both brands are very focused on comfort. Hanes from a wearable perspective, JetBlue from a traveling perspective. They partnered up to try and bring comfort to the passengers of the early morning east bound flights in the US. The red-eye or Shut-eye as JetBlue calls it is certainly a place where passengers seek comfort.

I traveled from Denver to New York City on a JetBlue flight which departed from Denver at 00.50 (for those that don’t do military time, that’s ten minutes to 1am). The gate was surprisingly busy with a lot of people catching a few more minutes of sleep laying on the floor, slumped in seats, or sitting against pillars. If ever a bunch of people needed comfort this was it. As fate would have it, I was greeted at the gate by none other than Molly Lynn who is not only a great crew member for Jet Blue but a Social Media maven in her own right. She had been “warned” I was coming and that I’d be taking pictures & possibly video.

Warning or not Molly treated every passenger extremely well, again something that everyone flying at that ungodly hour wants. At boarding time, the passengers were advised that on boarding they were welcome to take a free Hanes t-shirt. This tied in with commercials that Hanes had been running both online and on TV for their new T-shirts with a no roll collar. Again part of the comfort angle. For this to really work it would have been better if each passenger had been handed a T-shirt at their seat, but as I later found out, that many t-shirts in boxes would have been way too much weight for the aircraft to carry around.

Some of the passengers didn’t take a t-shirt, especially those who were obviously headed to a business meeting at the end of their flight, others simply eyed them suspiciously as though heeding the security announcement that they shouldn’t take things onboard from people they didn’t know. The people that did take them were the ones you would expect to take freebies, kids, student aged travelers etc.

Overall this campaign gets my Smart Marketing nod because of the unique pairing. The execution was very difficult because of the physical limitations but for a company as traditional as Hanes to try new and innovative things is a great sign. For all of its buzz, Social Media will only take you so far. Getting closer to the customer in the real world should always be a part of a Smart Marketing campaign and not reaching for the obvious is definitely the way to make things memorable.

What Smart Marketing have you seen lately?

Image used under Creative Commons License by HowNowDesign