Hello. My name is Chris and I’m a performance brand marketer. At least I used to be. Prior to my time here at the Dachis Group I lead strategic marketing and branding efforts for companies like Electronic Arts, Nike Golf and Converse. A large part of my career has been spent identifying the essence of a brand and attempting to create an emotional connection between that brand and its consumer base. Over the years, as brand marketers we have been on a relentless pursuit to discover more engaging ways to both acquire and connect with consumers. From traditional to digital media, experiential marketing to advocacy programs, there has long been a diverse range of marketing tools at our disposal. Then along comes social media and in the broader sense, social business. Not simply a new tool but what we believe to be part of the largest shift in the communication landscape in the history of mankind.
Research shows us that by now virtually every marketer out there has incorporated some form of social media marketing into his/her strategic plans, if for no other reason than they didn’t want to look totally incompetent in front of their CEO.
But generally speaking, all that has happened to date has been what we like to call “testing, tasting and trying.” Marketers have largely been mired in the adoption stage, where it has been more about trying different things and not enough about measuring or fully understanding the impact of those efforts. I know this because I was once there. Yes, I tested influencer programs to see if we could create and harness the power of brand advocates. When everyone was doing it, I developed widgets designed to distribute brand content out into the social web. And if it was possible, I created an app for it. The problem with all this… it was essentially the marketing version of throwing spaghetti up on a wall to see if it sticks. Most of these programs were executed with little, if any, ability to truly track and measure the impact they had on metrics like brand affinity, brand buzz and purchase intent. What was I thinking?
Thankfully, we are starting to turn a corner. Social programs, now considered more mainstream in marketing departments, are becoming operationalized. Companies are becoming more connected not only with their consumers, but also with their employees and their supply chain. As we witness the emergence of true social business intelligence, I find myself feeling just a little bit of envy when considering the variety of analytics tools available to today’s CMOs and Marketing VPs. At the heart of this opportunity for marketers lies all the data that is being generated thanks to a social ecosystem that continues to redefine the way consumers and brands interact. This data is the foundation of the Social Business Index, which the Dachis Group launched back in September. As a result of this big data analytics platform, which analyzes over 27,000 brands from over 25,000 companies, “testing, tasting and trying” can become “listening, learning and optimizing.” Brand marketers cannot only see how social their company and its brands are, but they can see how they stack up relative to their competitors, by industry, by geography and more.
One thing is clear; most agree we will continue to witness a trend where more and more corporate marketing dollars, typically earmarked for traditional brand media campaigns, will flow towards social efforts.
As a result, it is becoming increasingly necessary for today’s marketing leaders to demonstrate some sort of return on that investment. Even if that result is simply the capturing of useful data to inform better decision-making, which many consider to be “table stakes” these days. Perhaps it’s time to take the next step and look into how your company might be able to leverage the data behind the Social Business Index. I would also invite you to check out the Social Business Council. It’s the closest thing to a social business “support group” you’ll find and a great place to learn from others.
