Our social media video series (http://www.bobvserp.com/) for a client called RedPrairie features a beautiful and slightly off-balanced research associate named Sally Frockmeister.  She was recently spotted on the new Louie CK show, video clip below.  We think she is simply doing more research on older men to better understand why they make such addle-minded business procurement decisions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevancy even less.”
— General Eric Shinseki, 2003

The inexorable change that’s upending marketing is accelerating.  The magazine and newspaper industries were decimated by this force.  I don’t mean the internet tsunami. That’s just the weapon. What’s wielding the weapon is the revolution of consumer choice.

“The digital world has so disrupted the business models of newspapers, radio, television, music and even Hollywood that the yin and yang of mass media and mass marketing are flying apart. We are in the midst of total collapse of the media infrastructure we have taken for granted for 400 years.”
— Bob Garfield, AdAge

The newspapers and magazines were not killed by a byte on their net. They were felled by old fashioned consumer choice.  They bled out because their readers chose a better way to get their news, place their classifieds, and hear about the newest products and services.  Certainly, the old media understands the concept of consumer choice. But they didn’t get just HOW MUCH choice and control the consumer demanded.  And not at the rate of change that it was happening.

I worked at Time Inc and can imagine the end-of-my-career laughter if I looked around the conference room at budget time and suggested, “5 year plan?  How’s this for a 5 year plan: every magazine in this room except People will lose half their rate base and 40% will cease to exist in 5 years.”

The big old media companies couldn’t move far enough.  And they couldn’t move fast enough. Apparently, they were not too big to flail.

According to the AMA, B2C marketers are planning to devote nearly one-fifth of their marketing budgets to social media in the next five years. In addition, growing B2B spending on social media is rising and lines up with the general goals of B2B marketers: customer relationship management and brand-building, which respondents claim will be the highest growth areas in the next year. Social marketing, with its strength in boosting brand engagement and loyalty, is an effective medium for both purposes.

That’s why Darren Ernest (above, right) is the most important man in town. He’s was one of the original SEO guys at a major NYC ad agency (Ogilvy’s neo) and is at the center of today’s biggest SEO and social media campaigns.  And he’s m3digital’s go-to social media guy. Darren is the center attraction at our meetings.  Clients talk about DRTV, print, maybe DM and then with wide-eyed interest turn to Darren and ask, “What’s the latest? Have you figured out how to make social media accountable?” He’s got the Wii controller while we fiddle with the Nintendo joy stick.

As for calculating an ROI on your social spend, the tools and metrics are getting better.  Here’s a good breakdown of the latest ways to measure your investment in social: http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/social-media-metrics/

ROI is the word for years to come. And as direct marketers – who have always understood that the consumer calls the shots, that ads that can’t prove their value are failures and that nimble flexibility is the key to profitability – we are thrilled to be square in the middle of this unprecedented change.

Vive la revolution de choix.

The first social marketing campaign was launched on the backs of horses with short legs carrying thousands of members of the feared Mongol Horde – whose digital handle today, no doubt, would be ‘the Hordsters.’

Genghis Khan kicked off his social marketing campaign after defeating the neighboring Naimans clan in 1190. His first official action as the Chief Marketing Overlord of the newly conquered was to create a new language (Genghis was a brilliant linguist who actually created a new language) so all clans could converse and exchange ideas and recipes for ways to boil, bake, grill, cure and saute the local fare. His progressive leanings also prompted him to insist on religious tolerance, a move intended to keep the many sects in his growing empire from murdering each other over whose god was real.

The new mother-mongol tongue and a sense of shared purpose (kill anyone that doesn’t join us, like Facebook) brought all these new roommates together and allowed them to function as a cohesive and somewhat cordial society. It was the real secret to his empire-building success. That and the mongol horde’s unrivaled ability to hit targets with an arrow while at a full gallop.

Over his lifespan his 9-tail yak standard was staked across more territory than any empire in history, including that more flashy, fabulous one based in Rome. Most impressively, it endured for several hundred years. The only way that could happen is if his multitudinous clans were united by a common mission and a common language. Social marketing. Basically, the flat organization of the Mongols outperformed the top-down org of the Romans.

Social’s Prime Function is Retention

The best of social marketing becomes a powerful loyalty program.  It’s usually not a terrific traffic generator on its own. But as Genghis liberally shared captured booty with everyone in the tribe – as opposed to adopting a Noriega-style of hording – thriving social networks engage the members and share … everything. With every new connection between one person and another, the links multiply and bind the members tighter and tighter to the tribe.

As you build your community be sure to open it for all to enjoy and, with clever, simple tools, encourage them to contribute original content. Give them easy access to other sites with similar missions. Give them free, relevant and useful content. Give them fun mobile apps. Give them free archery lessons. Give them a reason to keep coming back and to recommend it to their very valuable friends.

Genghis is famously quoted as having said, “The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

Some may call that callous and cold. I call it the art of picking a lane. The guy knew what he wanted to be and never varied from his vision.

Figure out what it is you are, create a rich environment for everyone that loves your widget to come and celebrate the awesomeness of that widget, and give them infinite reasons to spread the word.

One last note: Genghis was a stickler about analytics. He always did an accurate post-campaign body count. But as removing heads and stacking them for the bean counters to add up was a heavy, laborious task, he had his minions lop off an ear and toss it into a sack. Ears all weigh about the same so he just assigned a body count to a specific sack-weight of ears. The Mongol lesson? A campaign isn’t half as effective unless the metrics are all in place.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For our client RedPrairie, we created an online community focused on food safety.

Visit our new social media site

Many of RedPrairie’s clients are interested and invested in this hot topic. At the center of this Food Safety microsite is a documentary that we wrote, shot and edited about a 4-year-old boy named Jake who got snared in the salmonella/peanut butter outbreak from 2 years ago. It was a big story told through the eyes of a little guy. The ramifications are great for RedPrairie’s clients.

This style of marketing – create a microsite community and fill it with relevant, compelling content – is popular in that it takes the best of social media tactics and blends them with content distribution to engage and, if we’ve done or job, convert visitors to customers.

EPISODE 2

Click here to view the embedded video.

EPISODE 3

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our client offers a transportation solution for supply chain execs.  Big solutions with many bells and whistles and teams of people to integrate it smoothly into a business.  So they wanted a very cool, hip and thin solution that embodies what they offer in an iPhone app.  Now, when you’d like to estimate how much fuel that trip to Florida is going to run you, we have an app for that:  The Fuelculator!

How much pain will YOU endure when dealing with your ERP?   Watch how far supply chain execs bend at our faux institute … www.bobvserp.com

Companies need to protect themselves from a potentially company-killing recall.  And using our client’s proprietary one-button recall product is a brilliant first step. Now if we can only issue a recall on the little guy’s barber.

Dr Von Schnecktle knows all the ghosts in the ERP closet.  Watch him reveal all at our faux institute … www.bobvserp.com

RedPrairie offers a robust and efficient solution to retailers whose sales teams spend far too much time dealing with the stock room.

Mmmm, ERP.  Why do supply chain execs swallow the ERP story time after time?  Watch the hijinks unfold at our faux institute … www.bobvserp.com