Hispanics are one of the largest growing populations in the United States. This has been pretty much public knowledge for quite awhile now. We(hispanics) are constituting a large piece of the population that are now internet savvy and computer ready with projections that these numbers are growing. It is no wonder that hispanics are turning out to be a large target market for many businesses. There is a large purchasing power that is still relatively untouched.

Social Marketing is touching every body, every ethniticity, every age, and every pocketbook. The only thing that I find that is disheartening is when you have a company(Pepsi) or even a state(AZ) for that matter, that cheapens themselves by not thinking through their strategies and proposals before making it public. Let’s not be just put some thing out there just to put out there without some form of study or at least some background checking. If you know your market, you can speak to the market.

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Read more on this here

I used to wonder why I got invitations, game gifts, friend request, and all of the other requests that you send out in Facebook during the workday. Everyone is on at work and “visiting” Facebook. I play on Facebook as well so I can’t say anything bad about it. I’ve actually had to ween myself off of it because I was spending 1 hour every morning plowing, harvesting, seeding, or feeding the damn fish. TOO MUCH!

Check out these results from the article above:
Business Traffic and Bandwidth

Top five websites visited by businesses:

* 1. Facebook – 6.8 per cent of all traffic
* 2. Google – 3.4 per cent of all traffic
* 3. Yimg (Yahoo!’s image server) – 2.8 per cent of all traffic
* 4. Yahoo – 2.4 per cent of all traffic
* 5. Doubleclick – 1.7 per cent of all traffic

Top five business bandwidth sites:

* 1. YouTube – 10 per cent of all bandwidth used
* 2. Facebook – 4.5 per cent of all bandwidth used
* 3. Windows Update – 3.3 per cent of all bandwidth used
* 4. Yimg (Yahoo!’s image server) – 2.7 per cent of all bandwidth used
* 5. Google – 2.5 per cent of all bandwidth used

WOW! I wouldn’t be surprised that many companies are going to start blocking Facebook from their Internet Access.

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The three items listed are:
1) Expect social media to deliver measurable, qualitative outcomes, not quantitative novelty.

2) Trust your instincts, question your consultants and ask yourself, “am I a tool of the tools?”

3) Ask better questions that don’t seek universal standards.

Some think that creating a Facebook ad or group will accomplish their social marketing efforts. That is but the first step of many. There are several things that need to be researched in order for it to become effective. Any social marketing effort must have some sort of measurable outcome in order to know if it is truly working for you. Accumulating fans is great but how are you going to convert those fans to a sale? How are you going to keep your fans informed and interested so that they can keep coming back.

Questions needs to be asked of any marketing professional that is delivering this methodology to you and they should be able to answer all of them and/or at least go out and find the information for you. Innovation plays a key roll in all of this. What is ‘it’ going to be that makes me convert my status from a fan to an actual sales figure. Then once I become a ’sale’ why would I want to share that experience with everyone else. Those are the questions that need to be answered, tried, and practiced in order for any type of social marketing to take effect. You don’t just want to be like everyone else. You need to stand out and deliver.

“It is not easy being cheesy”, taken from the infamous Cheeto’s advertising, but you may have to think along those lines in order to get establish yourself an outcome.. that can be measured.

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‘Yo Sumo’ which translated means ‘I Add’ and definitely not even close to the ‘I count’ tag line that they were hoping to capture. This campaign is laughable at best. As I read the positive and negative comments regarding this campaign, I wonder if big brands and ad agencies will ever “get it”. ‘Yo Cuento’ in spanish is as a clever as “I add” in English. I wonder if looking at it from that point of view, would Pepsi move forward with this campaign.

Then you stick a personality who is hispanic but gets by when speaking in spanish. There are several well-known personalities that speak spanish. If you are targeting the hispanic population, select someone who can speak both well and fluently. “We felt the Hispanic consumer needs to go beyond simply being counted, and count,” said Martha Bermudez, Pepsi’s senior marketing manager, multicultural marketing. Thank you for thinking of our community but don’t do something ridiculous and screw up the translation Ms. Bermudez. With the high ranking position that you hold, this should have been a big RED FLAG unless you yourself just ‘gets by’ with your spanish language literacy.

One more thing before I get off my soap box, this has nothing to do with not giving Hispanics enough credit or talking “down” to them. This campaign represents how disconnected Pepsi is to their target market. Maybe it’s time to try a new agency?

Yo soy hispano y yo cuento!

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But, in the bigger picture, I will tend to like more things than I would become a fan of and, hence, my profile will tend to show a more deeper side of me.  I then become part of a more specific demographic and more specific targeting trends.  Hmmm… interesting!

Read on and let me know what you think.

Facebook is scaling back on the word “Fan” and ramping up usage of “Like” on brand pages. According to a confidential e-mail sent to ad agencies today, the social media site will change the “Become A Fan” button to read “Like” within the next few weeks.

When asked about the change, Annie Ta, spokesperson for the Palo Alto, CA-based company, confirmed via e-mail that the words on the button would be changed. But she wasn’t able to offer other specifics about whether “Like” would replace “Fan” in other places on Facebook. “We’re still working on some of the details, but brand Pages can still be referred to as ‘Fan’ Pages after the change,” Ta replied.

Facebook, in the note to ad agencies, said it wanted to give the agencies advance notice about the change that could affect upcoming advertising campaigns or Facebook strategy.

Part of the confidential e-mail read: “Over time, as users adapt to the language change, we recommend that you invite people to connect to your Page by saying ‘Find us on Facebook’ or ‘Like us on Facebook’. You may also choose to put more emphasis on your custom URL than you used to.”

The e-mail also explained how the new “Like” button will be differentiated from the “Like” feature already seen in user updates.

How it may affect ads was also addressed in the e-mail to ad agencies. “Users will understand the distinction through explicit social context, messaging and aesthetic differences. An Engagement ad unit, capable of making connections, will feature the ‘Like’ button and show social context above it such as, ‘John Doe and 3 of your friends like [Page Name].’ Standard ad units, not capable of making connections, will simply feature the word ‘Like’ by itself, and may show social context above it that says ‘John Doe and 3 of your friends like this ad.’”

Facebook users have been clicking the current “Like” feature nearly twice as often as the “Become A Fan” button, according to the memo. And the social site appears convinced using “Like” more often will increase engagement between consumers and brands.

The e-mail read: “‘Like’ offers a simple, consistent way for people to connect with the things they are interested in. These lighter-weight actions mean people will make more connections across the site, including with your branded Facebook Pages. We believe this will result in brands gaining more connections to pages since our research has shown that some users would be more comfortable with the term ‘Like’. The goal is to get the most user connections so that you can have ongoing conversations in the news feeds of as many users as possible.”

Scott Kleper, CTO for the San Francisco-based social marketing firm Context Optional, suggested that the change could indeed create greater engagement as Facebook intends. “Becoming a fan of a brand is perceived as a large commitment and is an important measurement metric… ‘Liking’ can be another great driver of awareness and an opportunity for users to show an additional form of affinity,” he said.

Scores of brands, such as Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Skittles, have cultivated online communities on Facebook.

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by Bethan Jones

NEWS

Mobile and social channels will be the fastest growing areas of business-to-business marketing spend, analysts have predicted.

The cash splashed on B2B mobile marketing in the US is set to quadruple over five years – rising from $26m in 2009 to $106m in 2014, according to a report from analyst Forrester.

The rise and rise of the smartphone in the enterprise means marketers are waking up to the mobile channel as a valuable tool for getting their message across, the report said.

Spending on social media marketing in the US is also set to boom, reaching $54m in 2014 – up from $11m this year.

According to the report, businesses must interact with their customers in order to get the most from their social media spend.

“Explore the use of cost-effective social marketing tactics like blogs and Twitter that allow you to connect and converse with your customers, and use display advertising to build excitement around your products and direct customers to these more immersive experiences,” the report said.

Forrester raises a caution flag, however, against businesses diving into social media without a firm strategy in place. The report suggests setting up a social media hub that spans all areas of the business: “We recommend creating a cross-functional social media committee or centre of excellence to develop social media strategy, process and guidelines,” it said.

Marketing spend across all interactive marketing channels – including paid search, display media, SEO, mobile and social – is expected to double from 2009’s figure of $2.3bn, climbing to nearly $4.8bn in 2014, the report added.

Increased spending on digital marketing has been stimulated by the need for marketers to avoid expensive offline campaigns and adopt channels where ROI can be more readily proved, Forrester said.

My comment:

Thank you Bethan for this information.  It is hard to believe that I so much money is going to be available out in the market.  The days of newspaper ads and yellow page deals are pretty much counting their days to extinction.  If your marketing proposal doesn’t come with an application that works on Iphone, has an ad on Facebook, an immediate tweet on Twitter, or any one of the several social marketing techniques, it may go without saying that you have a very good chance of not getting the contract.

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It is interesting to read what this expert, who is credited from coining the phrase ’social marketing’, is saying about where the marketing market is today and where companies/institutions need to be aware of when it comes to social marketing.   He believes that ‘one requires a radical change in mindset & approach in such an age of turbulence.’  He states that he is working on a new framework called ‘holistic marketing’ which will go beyond the already well known framework named the ‘four P’s’ (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion).

These are only some of the excerpts but if you would like to read more, please click here to view the entire article.

You have said that the average company is using only about 10 per cent of the Internet’s potential. Which ‘eavenues’ are particularly under-used?

Companies should be increasingly turning to the new media, not to replace the old media, but to find blends of the new and the old that work well together. Tools that should be considered include webinars, blogs, podcasts, and most importantly, mining the social networks, where so much dialogue takes place about products and services (both favourable or unfavourable). We haven’t yet figured out how to use these new avenues and vehicles profitably; we’re still in the experimentation phase. Most companies are still using traditional media for the bulk of their promotions, but they should also be carrying out experiments to determine where they can mine some ‘gold’ in the new media.

You are credited with creating the concept of ‘social marketing’, which seeks to discourage unhealthy behaviour amongst consumers. Are you pleased with the results so far?

Very pleased, but social marketing involves much more than efforts to discourage unhealthy behaviour. The purpose is really to encourage positive behaviour and the maintenance of such behaviour, and to show people that while they are free to make their own choices, some choices are very counterproductive to their lifestyles and goals. Social marketing ideas have been widely applied to well-known causes like ‘say no to drugs’, ‘exercise more faithfully’ and ‘eat healthier’, but they can also be applied to broader social causes.

You have said that turbulence often leads to all the wrong responses from management. Like what?

One wrong move is to do nothing — to continue with the way you’ve been doing things. A second wrong response would be to panic, which often leads people to behave so conservatively that they forget that, as a wise person once said, ‘a crisis is something that shouldn’t be wasted’. Crises produce all sorts of new opportunities.

The third wrong response is to just cut budgets across the board by some fixed percentage. Let’s say a service-focused company cuts its service budget by 20 per cent. This basically removes the key factor that led people to prefer this company over others in the first place. So if there must be cuts — and often there will be some slashes in both budgets and in hiring — this must be done with great selectivity and care.

MAJOR SHIFTS IN THE MARKETING MINDSET

FROM marketers thinking about customers to everyone in the company thinking about customers.

FROM selling to everyone to trying to be the best at serving well-defined target markets.

FROM organising by products to organising by customer segments.

FROM emphasising tangible assets to emphasising intangible marketing assets such as brands, customer equity, channel loyalty and intellectual property.

FROM building brands through advertising to building brands through integrated marketing communications and performance that satisfies.

FROM making everything inside the company to buying more goods and services from outside.

FROM making profit on every sale to building long-term customer value.

FROM aiming for more market share to aiming for more share of each customer’s wallet.

FROM being local to being ‘glocal’ — both global and local.

FROM focusing on shareholder benefit to focusing on stakeholder benefit.

Until now, many business leaders have operated with a ‘playbook’ based on two underlying market conditions: a bull market and a bear market. Is this approach suitable for the Age of Turbulence?

These two playbooks will always be of some use, depending on whether the business cycle is going up or down, but as I’ve indicated, we are now also dealing with all kinds of unexpected disturbances. Just one disruptive technology entering an industry can have the effect of an earthquake: the ‘plates’ can move and suddenly an industry can find itself destroyed. Look at what happened with Kodak and film: we all stopped buying film for our cameras.

Luckily, there are things you can do in the face of such disruptions. One is to have an early warning system in place, because you’ll be in a better position if you can detect early signs of trouble; you can make preparations and adjustments. An early warning system would survey all of the external forces that could potentially damage your company. The second thing you can do is scenario planning. A lot of value can come from thinking about what you would do if an extremely pessimistic scenario took place.

Not that this scenario will actually occur, but what would you do if, in fact, things actually got that bad?  Suppose a competitor was to invent a better-quality product and sell it at half your price. What would you do? Another way to stretch your team’s thinking is to have them consider a highly favourable scenario, and what they would do in that case. Such scenario-building exercises have long been used by the military, and they can help companies think about what they would do under different ‘what if’ conditions.

The third thing we need is flexible budgets. Instead of every department having a firm budget, regardless of what happens, each department should be prepared to say what they would cut if they had to cut 20 per cent from their budget, and what amount of money they would ask for if things suddenly got so good that they could capitalize on some amazing new opportunities. These three tools — early warning systems, scenario planning, and flexible budgeting — can provide a strong defense against surprise developments that affect every industry.

Your marketing textbook is in its 13th edition and is used in most MBA Marketing courses worldwide. Are the ‘four Ps’ still a useful framework?

Definitely, because all marketing plans still have to address those four big questions — Product, Price, Place and Promotion. However, we are working on a new framework that will involve a more holistic set of considerations. What we call ‘holistic marketing’ entails the development, design and implementation of marketing programs, processes and activities that recognize a wide range of interdependencies, including the work of integrated marketing (the four Ps); internal marketing (i.e. getting support from the other functional areas); performance marketing (i.e. developing metrics to indicate what you’ve accomplished); and relationship marketing. So this new concept of holistic marketing goes way beyond just the four P’s.

Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

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When I moved to Costa Rica six years ago, I entered the internet stone age. I was used to paying all my bills online, doing my Christmas shopping online and even doing my job online. All of a sudden I was surrounded by paper bills, physically going and standing in lines to do my banking and pay my bills. High speed internet was not available outside of San Jose so ISDN was my best bet. Costa Rica has come a long way since then.

In the time I have lived here, doing business on the internet has evolved leaps and bounds. The banking system was the first to take the gigantic step towards gaining the confidence of the Costa Rican community, online marketplaces, blogs and now social media have followed. Businesses large and small realize that an internet presence is crucial so they are thousands of web pages are floating out there without a purpose. (Many haven’t discovered the magic of SEO yet)

My online initiatives have always been US driven buy in the last year I’ve  been turning my attention to Costa Rica. I have had the good fortune to meet many large business owners that are on board with the online initiative but not quite sure how to get it started. Their marketing firms are still green when it comes to online marketing so whatever they have done so far hasn’t produced large returns or no measurement has been achieved. Traditional media is adopting the call to action message to be .com related but those are few and far between.

With that being said, you can imagine my surprise to be going thru my google reader this am and coming across this article in Adage: Costa Rica’s Pilgrimage Goes Viral. The article spoke about Jotabequ’s online initiative to get people to do the pilgrimage to Cartago online. The idea was great, the site was interactive but why the heck did I not know about this site until 7 months after? I live in Costa Rica, I read the local papers; I am online everyday and nothing, nada until today. (By the way, congrats to Jotabequ for winning a local award for this initiative)

So this brings me to the conclusion that Costa Rica is missing the online buzz. The ideas are there but online road maps are not being laid out. Costa Rica is still stuck on traditional forms of media and ignoring the importance on advertising online, viral marketing and SEO. As veterans in this space, it is our responsibility to get this great country online and create a strong online Tico community. Educate businesses on the online potential that is slipping away day by day.

What have your experiences been doing business online in Costa Rica? What are you doing to instill confidence in within the Tico online community?

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As any mammoth company would do, they threw money at the problem, “farm cash” to be exact. Bing kicked off a Facebook “Fan” page and complimented it by running a sponsored ad on the bottom right of the FarmVille page. Their ad was simple, “become a fan of Bing on Facebook and receive three units of “farm cash””.

 Here are the stats from that campaign:

 12:40pm Tuesday – 8:11am Wednesday – Before the campaign started, Bing had 117,000 “fans”. By 8:11am on Wednesday that number rose to 539,000. As of recently, Bing’s “fan” page has 564,000 fans compared to 524,000 for Google’s fan page. According to AppData, 28.7 million people palyed FarmVille on Tuesday, giving this strategy a 1 to 2 percent click thru rate from players.

 Now that Bing has this fan base, the conversion strategy starts. Fan page postings include “find better tips for FarmVille on Bing” or their latest posting:

 Bing Any FarmVille fans out there? Try using Bing to get the most out of your crops and animals.

We’ve got great results to help you make better decisions in FarmVille.  binged.it

Microsoft’s Facebook strategy seems to be on the right track; getting fans involved through Facebook and getting them to try their decision making engine Bing.

As all of us tackle the social media maze, it’s refreshing to see huge players such as Microsoft tackle the social media market share dilemma one fan at a time, just like us little guys do.

If you had that kind of budget, would you have done anything different?

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“ As with most social media activity, the majority of interactions occur off your site, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t analyze your site’s social media referred visitor segment. To get the most value out of your analysis, you should break the segment into two sub-segments:

1. Social media referred visits that are attributed to your efforts.
2. Social media referred visits that are attributed to individuals outside your company.”

Once you have identified both segments, compile a list and identify which social media networks send the most traffic to your site. A second step would be to research other sites that might be just as beneficial and add them to the list.

You have completed your lists and you are ready to jump in. Fan pages and profiles are created, links pointing to a landing page or your website are set, but how do we measure? There are a number of social media monitoring tools out on the web that are free and on a paid subscription base that you can use:

FREE:
http://www.monitter.com
http://www.search.twitter.com
http://www.twendz.com
http://www.technorati.com

Google analytics – You can now use google analytics for your Facebook pages. (It’s not realtime as it takes a day to take off but its worth it)

FEE BASED:
http://www.radian6.com
http://www.collectiveintellect.com
http://www.techrigy.com

You can pick and chose which tool fits your needs best and apply them to your strategy. Not sure about where to start? Drop us a line and we can help you get your social media strategy started without breaking the bank.

If you would like to read the article in its entirety, click here.

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