Live from Milken: Is your brand social enough?
In today’s competitive business climate, it’s vital for companies to have a strong brand presence, — and increasingly that means far more than merely having a static website, according to participants in the “Developing Your Brand for Online and Mobile Audiences” panel at the Milken Global Conference this week in Los Angeles.
Mike “Zappy” Zapolin, author of “Internet Warrior” and the creator of Music.com and Beer.com, led the panel. Joining him were John Battelle, CEO of Federated Media; David Liu, managing director and head of digital media and Internet for Jefferies & Company Inc.; Andrew Miller, founder of Internet Real Estate Group LLC; and Michael Steib, director of emerging platforms and TV ads for Google.
Among the key takeaways from their lively conversation:
- Think of ways to help people do what they already love. It’s really easy to build a website now, Miller said. “Now the key is how you cut through the clutter. The best websites are ones the facilitate behavior people are already engaged in,” citing the success of Internet dating sites.
- Think about how to make your product worth talking about. Brilliant marketing strategies won’t save a terrible product or service, said Steib. “If the chocolate sucks at Chocolate.com, it’s not going to work.”
- Think small – and then even smaller. Liu says the most impressive business models he’s seeing today rely on segmentation of the web. They target a specific group of power users or customers that really value the brand. He’s less bullish about businesses that try to be all things to all people.
- Think mobile. When you shift to a mobile environment, everything changes, Battelle said. The very way that we interface with the web will soon change – instead of text searches for comparison shopping, we’ll be able to just scan a bar code inside the store. “That changes the entire retail supply change,” he says. “It then means your brand has to mean something in terms of value besides price.”
- Think like a millennial. Gen Y doesn’t interact with the Web in the same way as older users, Liu said — if they aren’t connected to the cloud, they felt disconnected. When they’re in a shopping mood, they don’t even search in the same way, he said. They just post it in their status on Facebook and their friends give them advice.
- Think beyond the traditional ad/content divide. Your best ad might not even look like one, Battelle said, and consumers don’t care. “As long as you like something and it ads value to your life, it doesn’t matter where it came from,” he said.
SmartBrief editor Sean McMahon sat down with “Internet Warrior” author Mike “Zappy” Zapolin after the session to discuss the next big thing in social media. Find out what he had to say.
How is your company devising its branding strategy to accommodate such a rapidly changing environment?
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Posted by @VzNana on April 30th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
This post is excellent! Any corporate being stepping into the social media arena (and if they're not, they should be!) needs to read it! I'll do my part to get the message out there. Thanks for your thoughtful summary on how brands can do the BEST job of being social.
Posted by Trenchwars on April 30th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
I love this article but I would turn around the headline from: "Is your brand social enough?" to "Is your social strategy branded enough?"
The problem I see with most social strategies is that – well – there is no strategy beyond hitting metrics associated with the number of fans in a group or number of interactions. Social media strategies and programs need to drive to specific business results.
The key, therefore, is to ensure that your social strategy is designed to be a branded interaction engine that can be monetized in a variety of ways, (e.g. — ads, products sales etc etc). I love your well edited list because it provides the strategic guideposts to do just that. Add a well designed layer of technology platforms for content and community management and voila – you have a well branded interaction engine based on the dynamics of social media.
That’s when the marketing fun really begins.
Judy Shapiro
Posted by am+ » 3 Schlüssel zum Marketing der Zukunft: Spezialisieren, Sozialisieren, Mobilisieren on May 1st, 2010 at 5:02 pm
[...] “3 keys to marketing’s future: Specialize, socialize, mobilize“ auf einen Artikel bei smartblogs.com, welcher wiederum anders betitelt fragt/e: “Live From Milken: I…. Trotz des kleinen Verwirrspiels finden sich darin einige festhaltenswerte Anregungen über [...]
Posted by Vishakha Rana on May 3rd, 2010 at 5:17 am
Very useful article! Good tips by Judy and Babylon. I wonder how some companies cut through the clutter of thousands of offerings available to the audience. Does it require a proper blueprint of strategy and a dedicated resource in your organization to manage the social media area? Also, I wonder if branding your business through this means , means your massive presence on such community or niche websites, banner adverts or much more than that? What could be the objective of a firm- Immediate , long term? Does it really suit a high-end complex product or is good enough only for Fast moving consumer goods, apparels and short cycle sales? Perhaps it takes longer to establish connect for a long cycle sales? Is it a reach "massive" target audience strategy?
Thanks !
Vishakha
My recent post While you are living…..
Posted by citysylvester on May 24th, 2010 at 12:48 am
Great article! The points are clear and the information is authentic. Gen Y does interact differently with brands, and it's because of our network structures. What use to take a full day of research can now be done in less then an hour on a facebook update. Because Gen Y now has backstage access to your brand, you need to put in the effort to prove your value more then you talk about it.