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1:14 p.m., April 22, 2010----If you ask University of Delaware alumnus Lee Mikles and Patrick Callahan, co-founders of the Wilmington-based Archer Group interactive marketing agency and authors of the newly published book Engage Your Brand, social media and branding begins with asking questions and ends with adding value.
True to their word, the duo began their presentation, “Now What? Rethinking Social Marketing,” on Friday afternoon, April 16, in UD's Alfred Lerner Hall, with questions and capped it by suggesting ways to add value.
“As a company marketer, you're going through the transition of putting up a company blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, creating a Linked In account,” said Mikles. “So you're doing all the things you need to do -- you think -- but have you really changed how you market? Have you really changed how you engage consumers? Do you have engaged consumers?”
According to Mikles, theses are the issues marketers should be concerned about and these are the questions marketers must ask themselves.
After highlighting some of the challenges today's marketers face and sharing examples of how companies engage their consumers, Mikles went on to describe the rules of social marketing.
“Around 1930, Dale Carnegie wrote a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People,” said Mikles. “You've probably heard of it and although you might not have read it, this is a book that talks about how to make people like you. It covers everything from listening to someone, smiling, saying someone's name -- these are the exciting things Carnegie was talking about.
“And if you think about it, these are the rules of social marketing. You need to engage consumers, you need to be optimistic, you need to smile, you need to be honest, you need to listen. You can't just go out there with your message all the time and expect people to respond.”
Mikles stressed that as a social marketer, it is not the one-way conversation but the two-way conversation that works.
“It's getting people to listen, it's finding out what they are interesting in talking about, and then delivering value,” he said.
As an example, Mikles relayed two stories about banking giants Wachovia and ING.
“Wachovia opened a Twitter account and they had someone sign on every day to provide customer service,” said Mikles. “They told people things like where to find the nearest ATM or what to do if their debit card was lost or stolen. So did Wachovia connect with consumers? Were they marketing? Definitely not,” said Mikles. “Were they engaging consumers? I would say not.
“Now let's talk about another bank. ING. They don't have branches, they have cafes, and the way they approach Twitter and social marketing is different. One day someone was tweeting about the high cost of their kid being involved in sports. ING saw this tweet, replied with a message that they understood the difficulty of saving for extracurricular expenses, and included a link to an article on USAToday.com about great ways to save money on sports.
“There was no conversation about CD rates, no request to open an account, no claim that they could save the person money. All of that would have been appropriate and reasonable marketing, but what ING did was something different. They sent a link to somebody the way a friend would send a link to another friend.”
It was in this way, said Mikles, that ING demonstrated an understanding of what the person valued. The company listened to the concern of the consumer and sent a relevant link all within a very public conversation that still managed to add value.
Callahan followed Mikles with additional talking points about adding value to the consumer. “You need to ask yourself whether you are adding value to your consumer, but more importantly, how,” said Callahan.
To illustrate his point, Callahan shared an advertisement for social media that was placed by Pizza Hut. The ad read: “Summer Twintern. Looking for a summer intern who uses Twitter to manage Pizza Hut's social media presence. Job category: hot pizza/social media. The successful applicant will speak fluent OMG and LOL and correctly use the terms DM, RT and #.”
“Here's my point,” said Callahan. “In social, part of value is who is delivering the message. You need to think not only of what the message is but how it is being delivered.”
Callahan acknowledged that those who market cannot always be the ones to deliver a message. As such, he shared a story of a local company to describe an alternate way of adding value.
“Little Nest Portraits, a photography company founded by Laura Novak, is doing a great thing,” said Callahan. “Laura will tell customers that if they share her photos with 10 of their friends and get them to comment on them on her blog, she will offer a free photo session.
“She is transferring value to the customer and allowing them to speak on her behalf. It is not the manager or the owner getting the word out, but customers talking to other customers.”
In short, said Callahan, the keys to adding value are to listen, to realize that the consumer wants to have fun and to learn and to recognize that the consumer has a voice.
Mikles and Callahan capped their presentation by fielding questions from the audience. The event was followed by a reception in the Lerner Hall atrium.
Mikles, co-founder and CEO of The Archer Group, earned a bachelor's degree from UD in electrical engineering (1990) and an MBA (2001) also from UD. He teaches Internet marketing as an adjunct faculty member in the Lerner College of Business and Economics and has been a member of the Blue Hen Marketing Club's corporate advisory board since its founding two and one-half years ago. His perspectives on digital marketing have been featured in Advertising Age, the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets.
Callahan, co-founder and COO of The Archer Group, is a graduate of Drexel University and the Widener University School of Law. He focuses on harnessing innovation into repeatable processes, a skill he developed in setting up Accenture's legendary Infocosm section in Philadelphia.
The Archer Group is a full-service digital agency that offers regional brands a single integrated partner for digital marketing solutions, including website development, mobile application creation, online advertising and social media solutions.
Founded in 2003, the Archer Group has received numerous regional and international awards for interactive marketing excellence. It was featured in the 2009 “Philadelphia 100” list of the region's fastest growing companies and Inc. magazine's 2008 list of the nation's fastest growing companies. The company is based in Wilmington, Del.'s Lower Market Design District (LOMA).
Article by Kathryn A. Marrone