Top Social Marketing Quotes of the Week (7/27)

This week was a big week in the marketing world. After 98 years, Converse rolled out the much-anticipated Chuck II, Facebook announced that more than 75% of its ad revenue comes from mobile ads, and the Society of Digital Agencies released a report stating 27% of companies are taking their marketing in-house. With all these announcements on our mind, we’ve turned to some of our most trusted resources for advice, trends, and tips and compiled them here for you.

• The Quote: “Look beyond naming opportunities: Create emotional experiences that tell your brand story.” – Christian Lachel in an interview with Kerry O’Shea Gorgone
• Why it Matters: While the quote above is certainly the main takeaway from Lachel’s interview with the MarketingSmarts podcast, my favorite part of it happened to be one that I emotionally attached to. Lachel said, “Don’t focus exclusively social analytics: Some brand fans still mail love letters.” These days, marketers often struggle to weigh the analog declarations of love if it doesn’t fit neatly into our analytics spreadsheets. Brands should think of social media and digital marketing to identify the people that live and breathe their products in daily life — in conversations, in private emails, in good old fashioned letters. There’s no way to find every one of them, but social media can give us direction on where to look.

• The Quote: “In a healthy brand-consumer relationship, a brand doesn’t merely sell and a consumer doesn’t merely buy. They both better each other. They create a positive feedback loop where brands provide a range of utility both pre- and post-purchase. In return, customers buy products and services, while providing personal data that helps brands serve them better. This should be the new standard.”  –  Nelson Freitas for Digiday
• Why it Matters: In this article, Freitas calls for the end of standard loyalty programs and a move to drive loyal customer behavior throughout the sales process, including post-purchase. He talks about the danger of appealing to the discount hunters instead of the customers with the most to offer in return, and that return not always being the sale, but behavior like reviews and engagement that drive repeat purchase. It’s a great breakdown of ways to look at loyalty in a digital world, and the focus on helping the customer improve their lives is a message all marketers should hear.

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Confirmation bias] can take the form of looking only for evidence that supports a desired outcome.”

• The Quote: “Using data and analytics to support pre-existing beliefs is called “confirmation bias.” This is a particularly acute problem for modern analytics due to the potent combination of access to massive amounts of data, sophisticated methods and the seeming irreproachability of data-based decisions. Confirmation bias can advance personal and political agendas or technical outcomes in ways that are difficult to detect. It can take the form of looking only for evidence that supports a desired outcome.” – Sam Ransbotham – MIT Sloan Management Review
• Why it Matters: Confirmation bias is a huge issue across marketing. The world of big data comes with a lot of big ways to manipulate information and misinform strategy. We see this in the industry of influencer and advocate marketing often. Brands are still in the business of “buying” or “renting” influence through users with large networks, rather than grow long-term relationships with the advocates that love them most. They’re chasing large number of likes, shares, and comments, and reporting them up as growth of community. Quality community members, thoughtful shares to interested parties, and constructive conversation are what is truly driving digital success, even if the results take a bit longer to see. Data should be used to help inform better ways to build systems that work. When done right, it’s an incredible resource that can help marketers reach consumers in ways that have never before been available.

• The Quote: “Brookings is reaching a much broader audience than if it relied on a single feed alone. Through its program, center and project accounts, Brookings has attracted a strong following of more than 237,000 people, so breaking them up into groups for more direct and relevant conversation just makes sense. “This allows for greater engagement and opportunities to promote relevant events, research and scholars with these more specific audiences” – Alison Burke & Ashley Wood of Brookings to Jennifer Beese of SproutSocial
• Why it Matters: Your brand’s customers are receiving up to 3,000 marketing messages a day. That’s a lot. Finding the most relevant customers, at the time your brand can be most useful to them should always be the goal. Segmentation is a a great way to get there. We recently wrote a blog on the importance of segmentation that can do more to explain our take on the topic than this quick blurb.

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