"@gretchen," Q&A: Getting Resources for Social

 @gretchen

Q:

How can I get city government officials to understand the need for social media, and the necessity for pouring more resources into it?
~ Valleri Merrill

A:

Hello Valleri,

Thank you for your question -- it’s a smart one. I understand how frustrating this task can be. In the early part of my career, I spent many years teaching the value of social to people who didn’t "get it" but held the purse strings.

The answer is 1) understand your overall business KPIs, 2) define your target audiences and messaging and 3) choose and prove which social tactics will solve the specific needs of the business (or city, in this example).

As one example, you might have an important initiative to increase water conservation behavior in your city. So, instead of pitching a high level concept about the need to increase social fan/follower counts for the City government pages, you could demonstrate a specific social tactic that would help drive awareness and activity around water conservation.

Next, you would identify the target audience and messaging for this initiative. Can you determine the demographics of the households which are not conserving enough water? Defining specific audiences will help you create messaging customized to their needs. For example, if college students are your target audience, you will want to communicate differently than if senior citizens are your target audience.

After you have defined your audience, you can choose which social network and content type would best reach and engage this audience. For younger audiences, Twitter, Instagram and Viddy are popular, but with over 1 Billion people and hyper-targeted advertising options, Facebook is often the best platform to start.

Let's say in this example, you choose Facebook because it's the best fit for your audience. You could create a Page post with your key messaging and then Promote that post into an engagement ad targeted to your specific audience demographics.

Next, you have two options:

1) Find published examples of successful work meeting these goals (here are 105 Facebook advertising case studies).

2) Run a small, affordable test to prove your tactic will work in this capacity.

For number 2, you will want to create a baseline to determine how well these goals are being met currently, and then measure your test regularly to see if you can see any changes & correlation. The gold is always in the data and you can learn a lot from very small data sets.

Please, note, all the data in the world won’t help prove social is a good use of resources if it doesn't meet the specific goals of the decision-makers. Once they see social channels are a good place to grow their business, they will be more willing to invest. And once you have some tactical successes, you can start working on a larger strategy for the organization.

I hope this is helpful, Valleri. I am interested to hear from other social professionals on this topic, as well. Anyone have a different approach?

(Questions can be submitted through my contact page. Please, write “ANONYMOUS” at the top of the message if you don’t want me to mention your name.)

By Gretchen Fox, Social Architect at grtchnfx

Bands and Brands, It's Time for an Official Union

Stop denying it, you guys are meant for one another.

If you don't work in music you might not know it, but bands and brands are exactly the same thing. Well, except of course, bands are cooler.

The similarity between the two is one of the first things that stood out to me after leaving Silicon Valley for the LA music industry. The concept maybe simple, but the opportunity is rich... and ripe for the picking.

To be specific, after the loss of revenue from record sales, bands need brand money; And with the voracious appetite of social media fans, brands need a constant supply of content -- and a way to be cool as word-of-mouth rules the webwaves.

For the non-concert promoter: Just as brand marketers launch products, the band managers, agents, and promoters launch concerts respectively but at a MUCH faster rate. Brands launch a new product often just a few times a year while the band's team does a full launch for every show at every venue.

Most brand managers can't even imagine the day-to-day reality of this. We're talking pitch materials, marketing plan, budget, graphic design, banners, videos, TV ads, radio ads, print, PR outreach, promotions, promotional events, social messaging/content, FB events, mobile messaging, and on and on - show by show by show. The volume is mind-boggling.

And then to crank it up a notch, the Band's image must be on-point and on-brand across all of these venues, shows, channels and media. Trust me, you don't ever want to portray an artist in any way other than how he/she/they want to be portrayed. Which means, the execution must be nothing short of perfection.

This is where the Band Manager becomes the Brand Manager. The two best I've seen are Jonathan Kessler, who manages the forever cool Depeche Mode, and Amy Thomson, the architect of the masterful rise and exit of Swedish House Mafia.

These band managers go through the same steps as any brand marketer except for one big difference: they have to maintain and protect their je ne sais quoi - it's critical. This elusive, magical quality is the one thing every brand wants but few have been able to attain.

The ability to be cool is fairly easy for bands. Just ask any guitar player in the 10th grade. It's the building and maintaining of it -- either for decades or up until a perfect exit at the top -- that is nothing short of Art. This achievement is almost always an actual brand managers dream never come true.

How is it that cultivating cool is like finding a diamond in the desert for brands, yet bands have it in spades? Does it just come down to a combination of product, skill, aesthetic, presence, mysticism and sex appeal? And if so, why is this combination way harder for brands and products to manifest? I will dare to speculate that this is because the people working on the brand side are just simply not as cool. Luckily for brands, I think the solve is presenting itself loud and clear.

I don't mean to pretend this concept is a new idea, brands partner with bands to export their cool all the time. But only recently has it transpired into something beyond the surface, something that might actually work.

The first big step was a deeper and more integrated alliance available with the pervasiveness of social media and content marketing. But now, brands are taking a giant step further and tapping Artists to become a part of the organization. Like we saw with Myspace and Justin Timberlake, and with Blackberry and Alicia Keys.

Now we're onto something. Brands can now leverage bands (artists) to cultivate their own kind of cool vs. hoping the cool just rubs off on their brand.

So, how do we go from the biggest brands and the biggest bands to helping the entire music industry? Scale.

I did a little research and found the brandsmeetbands.com domain is still available for a low cost of $9.99. And then I  found this. It's still in beta and looks pretty new. There appear to be strong indicators that the self-serve approach for matching bands with brands is still in a very nascent stage. What do you think?

Industry folks, is brand money a suitable replacement for the loss of recorded music revenue? Would a self-serve matching system work for bands that don't have agents? Is this the way for smaller brands to finally find a way to use music?

And then on the consumer side, do brands aligned with artists impact you? Do you still consider a band attached to a brand as selling out or is that notion completely outdated? Were you more willing to check out the new MySpace because JT was attached? Did you pause to think Blackberry might have another trick up their sleeve with the Alicia Keys announcement?

As always, I'm interested in your thoughts and eager to help both bands and brands find effective monetization strategies in the connected world.

By Gretchen Fox, Social Architect at grtchnfx

Rebel Yell

 "If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough."

—Mario Andretti

I believe in living on the wire. Taking risks. That "Safety" is the enemy.

Yes. This goes against the traditional American societal values taught across the country, except in places like The Valley, Manhattan and Hollywood. You know the words. The ones offered up as guidance meant to protect us from the crazy world of instability: "Go to school," "Mind your teacher," "Get into a great college," "Get a degree,"  "Find a sensible job," "Don't challenge your superiors," and on and on.

I heard that same rhetoric from family, teachers, friends, strangers... Pretty much everyone in the small cities and towns of North Texas where I grew up. Of course, there have been some shining examples of exceptions like my dad, Stephen McReynolds, who taught me to question everything and use my own brain (thank you!); friends like Nicole Jordan, Tameka Kee, Melissa Rowley, and Kyra Reed who have always said GO FOR IT when I've lacked certainty; and one of my mentors, Mike McGinley, who has consistently told me to live on the edge of my comfort zone.

But these voices were too far and few between. And I know, I'm lucky to have had any at all.

As a child, this fear-based dictation on self-preservation played on repeat, a constant threat to my entrepreneurial tiger spirit. But as I heard the drum of "safety first," it conflicted with the backdrop of life that I witnessed. Lines of frustrated humans in traffic, depressing stories about pointless jobs and awful bosses, and cities full of Little Boxes with plain, white walls and cheap beige carpet.

I was only a child when I vowed this would never, ever be my life.

Since that point, I've been called a "Risk Taker" and a "Maverick," often, in tones rife with judgement, contempt and even disgust. (Thoughts on these projections to come).

Being a risk taker means never taking anything at face value. It means never believing in the glass ceiling, the existence of a silo wall or that a dream is unreachable. It's living with Freedom of the Mind.

Of course, there are many consequences of choosing to be free.

Some consequences are great -- everybody always knows who you are and what you do. Some are tough -- insecure people will engage in warfare against your boldness. After thirty-plus years, I find the experience vacillates between the two. Daily.

Constant change, up-and-down, back-and-forth. Like getting public accolades for great work, press hits using words like "Kick Ass" and even being backstage as the center of attention of my rock star crush. But then there's the small and big failures that come with constantly pushing boundaries ... the scraped knees and bruised ego, and even having my position "Eliminated" at a moment's notice. Raise your hand if you've heard that song.

But still. No matter the consequence, I believe risk-taking is truly LIVING LIFE.

I can't breathe any other way. I feel panicked. Bound and gagged. Stuck in traffic, headed to a pointless job, to afford a little box of cheap carpet.

No thanks. I'll keep that childhood promise. Please... Plaster it on my tombstone:

"Did Not Cave."

What about you? What are your thoughts on risk? What risks have paid off? I want to know your biggest and boldest stories. Be brave.

And, of course, if you want to push your company or brand to new levels, take advantage of social and emerging media, break through the noise of the competition, or create change within the organization, email me here. It's my life's work.

By Gretchen Fox, Social Architect at grtchnfx