How to create must-read content: top ten tips...and add a cheetah

As the Content Marketing World Conference wrapped up with a cheetah (more on that in a minute) I wanted to share my top ten take home points.

It was a jam-packed two and a half days. And as often happens it's hard to put it all in context - some of what I've learned is going to take time to sink in.

But clear themes emerged. All are relevant to those (many) financial services firms and institutions who lag their consumer marketing peers in terms of online marketing and integrated campaign management.

Here are the "top ten" tips I think are most relevant for financial services players

1. Know your audience...really know your buyer's persona(s)
2. Plan well, carefully and in detail - beyond the content editorial calendar to speak to a number of buyer pain points and needs
3. Measure. Define metrics, run measurable campaigns and use measurement to refine
4. Commit to continuous improvement - content marketing doesn't stand still because the audience's context, the technology and your expertise are ever-evolving
5. Create GREAT content. Stuff people would crawl over cut glass to get to...
6. Be consistent. If you have a good story that is interesting to your audience keep telling it. Just because you're sick of the story doesn't mean your time-poor multi-tasking audience is
7. Create a path to the content - there's no point building a "castle in the desert" (thanks Fergus!) where no-one will see it
8. Integrated content and campaigns are the only way to go...standalone doesn't give your content the best chance of being found
9. Content marketing is easier than ever - tools are now evolved, cost effective and accessible to average users
10. Content must work on many, not one, platform/s

Finally, I think we can almost forget traditional marketing KPIs based on impressions and reach - instead how about we focus on the most important metric? Sales.

And the cheetah? Jack Hannah of the famed Columbus Zoo had a live one on stage. Now if that doesn't grab attention I'm not sure anything will.

Thanks to Joe Pulizzi and team for a very worthwhile conference. Can't wait to welcome you to Sydney in March 2013.

Power Storytelling in B2B post 1: Content Marketing World 2012

If your content isn't grabbing attention it's not working.

If people aren't talking about it, it's not working.

If it's not shared, it's not working.

So what to do about it?

Brand story telling is the art of sharing your distinct value in ways that resonate with your buyers, compelling them to engage, trust and ultimately buy from you.

Positioning is all about your distinct value as a company. What is that distinct value?

Your distinct value, says Ardath Albee (@ardath421) as a company is the intersection of your company's strengths with your customers' needs.

Ah ha, I thought, the old Venn diagram of "what I do" and where it overlaps with "what you want".

Marketing hasn't changed - just the channels have.

And as Ardath says, how you tell the story, over time, matters. A great example is Volvo.  The story is still, after decades, about safety.

The conference blurb for her session kind of says it all:

"Just as every B2B company stakes a claim to a market position, each of them has a story to share. The challenge is in figuring out how to share that story in a way that aligns with the needs and priorities of prospects and customers. But, it’s not just sharing the story, it’s about making it so compelling that it elevates perceptions of value and urgency resulting in more qualified leads and faster purchasing momentum.

B2B marketers are facing a business environment with an increasingly complex mix of channels and skills needed to create a content and eMarketing strategy that, when executed well, results in quantifiable proof to downstream revenues."

De-jargonised what does that all boil down to? 

Do something of value. Tell a story about it in a way that speaks directly to the needs of your audience. Then share like hell.

I'm attending Content Marketing World 2012 (#cmworld) from 4 to 6 September for BlueChip Communication. I'll be bringing back the primary insights for financial services in Australia, and sharing them with clients and colleagues. Email us to attend one of my (free) highlights presentations in Sydney during September, October this year or February 2013. 

Winds of change: are you prepared?

By guest blogger, Aideen McDonald

As BlueChip took its place at last week's FSC Conference, there was a feeling in the air that made me sit up and take notice. Something was markedly different. There was a freshness whipping through the rooms, circling attendees and entwining itself in the presentations. And, as quickly as a cold wind slaps you in the face, it hit me: the financial services industry is finally getting involved in the online conversation and embracing social media.

The twittersphere was the strongest, most consistent breeze. Personalities such as Conference MC Tracey Spicer (@spicertracey), Liberal member for Bradfield Paul Fletcher (@paulwfletcher) and media representatives including The @Australian's national affairs correspondent David Crowe (@CroweDM) and trade media Money Management (@moneymanage) exchanging thought-provoking comments throughout the three day event. Conversations were abuzz with even the FSC's own mascot @RegTheFSCMascot, christened by BlueChip's own Bruce Madden (@madd_23n), getting involved in the action.

The conference included not one, but two, sessions on social media - unheard of for an Australian financial services conference up until now. However, the appetite for such discussion was such that both sessions attracted big crowds.

The first, "Social media - fad or the future" had Bravura Solutions' (@BravuraFinTech) Roland Slee (@Rslee) and BlueChip Communication's (@bluechip_comm) own Carden Calder (@Carden) present practical ways #financialservices businesses can add social media to the marketing mix to reach an attentive and targeted audience.

The second #socialmedia event at #fscac took place centre stage with Rohan Lund (@Rohanlund) of Yahoo!7 highlighting the overall importance of financial services coming to meet the rest of the world in the digital world. Lund also focused intently on the real advantage wealth management businesses have in this space given their access to relevant data and customer bases.

The chatter on Twitter, discussions at the social media presentations and even the conversations that followed, highlighted that, while the financial services industry is still lagging behind most in Australia, interest is certainly building.

As noted by Financial Standard (@FinStd) via Twitter during the conference, people were not raising hands for social media a few years ago, but industry leaders now seem to understand that it is not a fad, but the future of your business. How could it not be? It's the fastest and surest way of connecting with your audiences whether they be advisers, HNW investors or consumers. And if the FSC conference is anything to go by, the social media storm is brewing fast and ready to hit. The question is: will you be ready?

Aideen McDonald is an Account Manager for BlueChip Communication

Social learning: buzzword bingo winner or simply better education?

Experiential, collaborative and common sense

Once upon a time, as a postgraduate research student, I learned a lot about research methodologies. One was "action learning". It was as it sounds like - learning through action. At the time I thought some flaky social science academic had made that up to justify a lack of empirical data in their thesis. And they may well have.

But as time (frighteningly some 20 years) as elapsed I've come to value "scar tissue". Things that can only be learned by doing. Actually by failing and re-doing until we learn painful lessons.

And decades on from the horror of the group assignment, it's clear to see why we (and generations since) were made to do them.

Because the process is sometimes as important, or more important, than the outcome.

And because in any organisation, big or small, collaboration is key to success. And through collaboration a whole new horizon opens up - the opportunity to learn from the experiences of others. It's an opportunity to learn from three, three million or three billion.

And finally action learning, particularly collaborative action learning, makes perfect sense.

Definition?

Tony Bingham, President and CEO of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) defines social learning as "learning that happens outside a formal structure or classroom ... the way people have always learned from each other. Social learning centres on information sharing, collaboration and co-creation."

Social learning is learning with and from others. It happens at conferences, cafes or online - with or without social media tools.

Why is it important?

Maria Ogneva, Director of Community at Yammer, says, "If your goal is to increase customer satisfaction, perhaps the impact metric you are looking for is the increase of speed of a response to a customer, and how collaboration helps you do that. For any social effort to be successful, it has to tie to a business objective."

So in short the team who learns together, works better together.

And in social media or social business working (fast) across distance, division and medium is a basic survival skill.

Who is talking about it?

Mashable: http://mashable.com/2012/05/19/social-learning/

Who is doing it well?

Nokia

Using social media as a tool to learn about their products http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/nokia-5800-xpress-music/debj4Te6N8GtUR5-UhXTRA

Developing mobile educational products (Nokia Education Delivery, Nokia Life Tools and Nokia mobile mathematics) Nokia reaches out to those who may not have had learning so accessible to them. http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/people-and-planet/impact/social/social-investments/

Some useful links:

100 examples of using social media for learning http://c4lpt.co.uk/social-learning-handbook/100-examples-of-use-of-social-media-for-learning/

An info graphic ... not great resolution but some good facts on social and online learning http://interactyx.com/social-learning-blog/infographic-the-state-of-digital-education/

Top three ideas for financial services?

1. Try a social media internal conference

Use both staff and external speakers and share experiences - with careful content curation it will lift everyone's social expertise

2. Get the C-Suite into a "social sandpit"

Over breakfast or lunch, have every senior executive in front of a laptop or tablet with their own Twitter, a Facebook account and a Pinterest login. This is about safe, anonymous learnings by doing

3. Social superheroes

Everyone wants their five minutes of fame ... a quick employee survey can reveal untold social talent. Given guidelines, secret social superheroes can teach everyone else a lot, and feel rewarded along the way

uVent: what happens when financial services brands don't listen

If you haven’t heard of uVent, stop what you’re doing and pay attention.  It might affect your job, your employer or your business. And if it takes off it will certainly affect reputations.

uVent is a consumer complaint platform allowing people to complain about products, service or poor treatment they receive from business.

It kicked off last month. The first time I looked PayPal and AAMI were copping it. Now the opening home page tab has a bunch of finance brands, and their number of vents, listed.

Importantly, the complaint stays on the site until it is resolved – which means the business has to take action or suffer the continual indignity of a semi-permanent public airing of the complaint.

Ouch. 

While the site hasn’t been live long it managed to attract a whopping 11,000 complaints in it’s first week.

A side note: the business model is interesting. It allows businesses to have premium access not only to respond to their own complaints but to gain leads from complaints about competitors. At least that’s how I read this StartUp Smart interview with founder Anthony Mittelmark.

uVent has been designed as a sort of neutral complaint resolution centre. The problem big financial services  businesses face is that they’re hampered by internal red tape (also known as compliance ie obeying the law) when it comes to resolving client complaints.  The slower they are the more their reputation will be damaged.  In fact, it’s the lack of response which drives consumers to sites like uVent in the first place.

In the old days clients would complain by phone or letter.  Now they do it in a public forum.

If you think public complaints don’t make a difference, consider this. 

Cadbury chocolate developed a new recipe for its chocolates which involved the use of palm oil, a product that has been linked to deforestation in Indonesia.  A swelling of objections on Twitter and Facebook forced them to abandon the plan.  

GASP clothing store lost its reputation and its customers after their poor service was discussed all over the social media, ending up with spots on the major current affairs shows.  The store at the centre of the kerfuffle closed its doors. Mind you if you saw the footage you might have gleaned a sense that their spokesperson..well...lacked credibility.

But wait, there’s more... Qantas PJs, Domino’s Pizza (ugh), Nestle and even Virgin. 

Social media makes it easy to damage a corporate reputation. At least online. One comment, another comment and then the snowball effect kicks in. So what’s the response?

In many ways uVent is the symptom not the cause. It’s not uVent and sites like it we need to worry about – it’s the way we care for  customers and how we handle negative comments on social media.

No brand is perfect.  And fortunately almost no one participating in social media expects it to be.

What they do expect is speed – a response time that can’t wait for three levels of compliance.  So a good first step is a social media issues management policy and procedure. 

Whether dealing with uVent or other online commentary “winging it” won’t cut it. What can help is listening – and a prepared approach to issues resolution and customer care. 

Knowing what you can do and say, and how - before it happens, is a good start.

What the "s" in social media really stands for

“Superfluous,” some argued just three years ago when we presented our first social media seminar to clients and colleagues. Some sceptics argued that Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn would never gain critical mass when it came to communication with investors, advisers or asset consultants.

“Scary,” and an unnecessary open door to public criticism, others said.

Some sceptics became converts as we ran those social media seminars, and they started on a journey that today sees them using content marketing and social channels successfully as part of their overall marketing and PR program.

I’d make a strong case that the “s” in social media stands for “same same but different.” 

As we work with clients developing social media capability, one truism has become a touchtone in our consulting practice.

The execution may be (very) different but the principles are the same.

The “same” is that great communication is still grounded in understanding the context, knowing the audiences and saying something worth listening to – in the audience’s judgement, rather than our own.

In reputation management, proactive positive PR, or in managing issues or a crisis, best practice offline is still best practice online. It just has to be executed fundamentally differently.

The “different” is usually faster, with greater transparency and more engagement. And of course messages are being delivered via very different channels. Yes, the medium does become the message. Or worse, the absence of the medium (let’s say you’re not using Twitter yet and everyone else is) becomes the message.

Once upon a time we were using faxes, lots of paper, telephones and briefings to reach audiences such as employees, journalists and government. Now we’re using Yammer, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs. The channels are different, and yes, they’ve changed the messages but strategy, process and creative are still needed and largely similar.

Three years ago when we ran our first social media seminars we talked about whether there was a business case for social media. At the time I suggested it was like websites in financial services in the 90s – by the time we had a business case we’d be the only one in town without one.

Financial services is now well past the social media tipping point.

Not having a website now is inconceivable. So too is not managing your reputation in social media. 

This post was first published in PRognosis, the BlueChip client communique on 16 February 2012

Why financial services suddenly had a social media conversion

It's been a while since we first started the conversation. And last year suddenly the dialogue changed complexion.

Instead of saying:

"Really? No it's just another Gen Y fad" or

"Sure, that will work for Coke but not for our (insert financial services brand here) audiences" or

"I don't think we need twitter or facebook. Not really our audience"

...many senior executives started to ask...

"How do we get there?"

And what drove the change? Well there was carrot and stick I suspect - from above, below and outside.

Before I start sounding too much like a Dr Seuss book, let me explain.

Many times recently I have heard (forgive the paraphrasing if you recognise yourself):

1. The Board want to know what we are doing about social media
2. Our staff feel we really should be using social media / using social media more
3. We had this issue that started on twitter/facebook/on a blog/online but we couldn't deal with it properly because we're really not set up to.

And so now we have social media religion. Yes, it's a touch feverish but doubtless that will settle down after the first blush of conversion wears off and social becomes the 'new new new normal'.

We've had the "new normal", post GFC. We've had the "new new normal" of volatility and GFC Mark II threats. Now I'm calling a similar major shift - the new new new normal.

Okay it's kind of hokey jargon but long term, social media will fundamentally change how we communicate as people and organisations far more than a couple of bouts with liquidity issues, bank failures and sovereign debt issues.

Possibly it already has.

If so, most in financial services are playing catch up.

The sweet spot remains (online) for financial services PR

After a lively discussion today with a group of senior corporate affairs people in financial services I thought I should check back to a few things Paul Cheal and I said in our first financial services social media seminar in 2009.

Re-reading this post it's interesting to see just how much is still the same...and fortunately a lot of what we said then held true, or still applies. Take this snapshot for example:

- choice of information channels & sales channels will proliferate…
- at the same time the rise and rise of social media means choice of marketing tools can be overwhelming.

 

Where to start?

By taking the same principles we learned in traditional PR, communication and marketing online – and playing by the new rules of the social media world.

The sweet spot for financial services is online PR.

By online PR we mean:

1. Quality and quantity content that earns you search engine superiority and viewer attention

2. Communication direct to clients in both institutional and retail marketing

3. All linked back to an effective website AND

4. Engaging your audiences with the next “P” in financial services marketing – philosophy.

Because in the new digital democracy it will be what you stand for, what you do and how interesting you can make it, that earns you the attention of the people who matter most to your business.

Download BlueChip Communication's ten steps to online PR for financial services here.

Earthquake, social media and financial services

Boring picture, interesting moment.

This (uninteresting) picture is of just before a minor earth tremor hit New York today.

PAICR delegates reacted with complete calm. The "after" picture would have looked the same with one big difference - everyone had their phones in ther hand checking twitter for what the hell just happened.

According to nearby tweets some New Yorkers evacuated their buildings.

Maybe so, but we sat tight. There were few native New Yorkers in the room, meaning most had plenty of personal experience from elsewhere in the U.S. of earthquakes.

Regardless, no one was really sure what the trembling tables, clinking glasses and shuddering floor actually meant, in the moment.

Personally I was eyeing the doorways, wondering how many conference goers might fit in each. Not many, the simple mental math suggested.

And then it crossed my mind, as I suspect it did others, for just a moment, that perhaps this wasn't an earthquake but something more frightening.

And at about that point everyone reacted. Some headed for the doorways, others reached for their iPhones or Backberries and some, like me, turned to the person next to them to see if they were thinking the same thing: minor earthquake.

Yes, the earthquake-experienced said, that sure felt like one. But no-one, least of all the conference organisers or asset consultant panel, actually knew. It clearly wasn't a subway-scale shake we'd just felt.

So where did everyone go for the actual answer? Twitter. Email. Google.

And in that lies the answer to an earlier question in the panel session I and others presented on social media.

The question was this: what possible use is twitter for an institutional asset management audience?

And the answer? As an immediate response to news events. With markets making headlines, and news media not alwways able to report the whole story, we're increasingly looking to information (such as twitter) that is direct from the source - and actually bypasses traditional media.

Just as the first reports about today's eathquake did. The Mashable coverage below is a good example of how citizen journalism, or direct reports leave traditional media for dead, in the moment.

The implications for brands are clear: social media gives you a golden opportunity to speak direct to audiences who matter most, WHEN it matters most. In the moment.

Here's how Pete Cashmore saw it on twitter.

Deborah Well, PAICR Social Media Chair

I'm currently attending the PAICR Conference in New York, and today I had the pleasure of interviewing Deborah Well, PAICR Social Media Chair, about the state of social media in US asset management.

In this four minute video she shares:
1. A summary of where social media use is at in the Unite States (early adopters, fast followers and, yes, plenty of laggards)
2. The opportunites for asset managers in using social media (hint: better broadcast of messages!)
3. Major issues for those seeking to use social media in financial services - with regulation taking the number one spot.