nFusion recently sponsored the 2012 Social Summit presented by Bazaarvoice and I had the pleasure of attending the event for the first time. I was struck by how major marketers have embraced the power of user ratings and reviews, not only for helping customers make decisions but for getting feedback on which products may have issues. If you missed the event, videos are now posted at http://summit.bazaarvoice.com/session-videos/.

Bazaarvoice Social Summit 2012, Austin, TX

If you can’t watch all of the videos, these are my three favorite sessions:

1. Information is Beautiful by David McCandless. David is a visual journalist and tells stories by turning data into infographics. His approach got me thinking about how to tell complex stories more simply. Never has the idiom “a picture is worth a thousand words” been more true.

2. Social Data: The Genome of Your Business. This session is a great overview of how social data is being used to improve marketing effectiveness. Presented by several Bazaarvoice executives, this session is a good crash course on what is possible in the world of social commerce.

3. Building Engagement: How to Foster Strong Consumer-Brand Relationships by 3M’s Raj Rao. Can a big company really embrace the possibilities of using social data to be more innovative and responsive? Raj shares how the 3M team taps the power of customer feedback to move the giant company forward.

How is your company turning user ratings, reviews and peer support into competitive advantage for your firm?

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Highlights from Bazaarvoice’s Social Summit

In the Web 2.0 world, customer experience is the key differentiator between leaders and laggards. While the importance of delivering great experiences for customers is generally understood by most companies, executing well across all customer touch points is a challenge for most. Over the next few month, I’ll be collaborating with Grant Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer of Pegasystems, the leader in Business Process Management (BPM) and software for customer centricity, to facilitate discussions on this topic and explore:

• The role of the CMO in designing and managing desired experiences across all customer touch points and organizational silos
• How companies are addressing this critical issue and some worthy lessons learned
• How technology helps deliver more predictable and profitable customer experiences

Our first events will be in the Washington D.C. area on March 20 (CMO Club event page) and Philadelphia on March 21(CMO Club event page). If you are a marketing leader in either area, please join us for the conversation.

For those of you who can’t make it, I’d welcome your feedback by taking a short survey (about 5 minutes). Just click on this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Customer_Experiences. The findings of our research with be made available after PegaWorld in June.

In the meantime,  I will periodically post some of our early insights here for your review and comment.

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The Role of CMO in Designing Customer Experiences

Yesterday Google announced the acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which was a big surprise for most of us. For more details on this news there’s a good summary on Mashable.

I had dinner with the CMO of Motorola Mobility, Bill Ogle, several months ago at the CMO Council Summit. Among the things we discussed was the possibility of the then recent spin-off from Motorola eventually being acquired. Neither of us had Google on the short list of potential acquirers. But why does this news matter to other marketers?

Take it as another big signal that the smart phone is rapidly becoming THE computing device that will impact how consumers and business decision-makers interact with information and entertainment. According to Pew Internet Research, 25% of smart phone users primarily access the Web from their phones and 23% of adults go online from their phones regularly.

This current adoption pattern has accelerated the need for companies to mobilize their websites. We’re currently helping marketers ranging from restaurants to technology companies deliver a better user experience to smart phone users. Yes, there are many more uses of mobile devices in the marketing mix (text messaging, QR codes and apps to name a few), but if you haven’t prioritized making your website a good experience for mobile users, you may be frustrating a quarter of your visitors.

Want an opinion on how your website is performing for mobile users? Drop me a note or leave a comment here.

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Google buys Motorola Mobility. So why should marketers care?

There has been a lot of “ink” this week about Google+. Is it the next big thing? Is it just another social network? Did Google finally get something new right? All common questions. My answers are “Not sure yet,” “Not exactly” and “Looks like it.”

So here are three things marketers should do next week:

1. Learn more about it. Chris Brogan wrote a nice post “10 Things CMOs Need To Know About Google+”.  Start by reading it.

2. Set up your profile. Nothing helps you get a better understanding of a new tool than using it. Go to plus.google.com to get started. If you need an invite, let me know and I’ll send you one.

3. Add +1 to you website. It will make it easier for people to share your content and improve your SEO results. Not sure how to do it? Click here for details from Google.

So what is your take on Google+? Will it be the next big thing? Is it just another social network to manage? Did they actually get this one right?

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3 things marketers should do next week about Google+

Samsung Central Station for mobile

If you are like me, your smart phone has become an indispensable companion. And it is changing the way we make purchase decisions. Whether getting real-time information on product ratings and reviews, finding directions to the nearest retail outlet or scanning a QR code to learn more before you buy, mobile devices are becoming integral to the buying process.

We recently helped launch a mobile microsite for Samsung’s Central Station (type http://samsungcampaigns.com/centralstation into your smart phone’s browser to check it out). Our data is showing more and more business decision makers are exploring information from their mobile devices, so having content formatted for that experience is very important.

Consumers are even more actively using smart phones in the shopping process. Here’s a good report with more insights from GS1 if you are interested in the many ways mobile devises are reshaping retail experiences.

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How smart phones are changing the way we buy

Last week, I shared a quote from the CEO of PF Chang’s China Bistro:

“If you are going to open up a dialogue with customers, you better show up to the conversation.”

So when I saw an article in Nation’s Restaurant News entitled, “Speed matters when it comes to Facebook,” I began to wonder how well companies are actually conversing with their customers. According to a study by Expion, which was published in the article, there are wide variances in the speed and frequency with which restaurants respond to comments posted on Facebook.

Opinions vary from one restaurant to another about what percent of comments they should respond to.

“We think nearly everything warrants a response,” said Chris Arnold, spokesperson for Chipotle. “For a company like ours where so much of the marketing is driven by word-of-mouth and things that feed word-of-mouth, these platforms are really great tools to use.”

KFC and Panda Express clearly exhibit a different philosophy.

This leads me to pose five questions for which every company should have answers:

1. What is our desired response time to comments on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms?
2. Should our desired response time vary by platform and type of comment?
3. Which types of comments warrant a reply and which types do not?
4. What is our actual response time and response quality?
5. What will be our systems and resourcing plan to achieve our desired responsiveness goals?

Companies that operate call centers to interact with customers have all these questions answered and have standardized metrics and procedures in place. It’s time to bring the same discipline to interacting with customers via social media.

How many of the five questions can your company currently answer?

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How fast should you respond to comments on Facebook?

One of my highlight’s from this spring’s SXSW Interactive conference (#sxswi) was a discussion I had with Julie Hamp. In her role as SVP, Chief Communications Officer at Pepsico, she sees first-hand both the challenges and opportunities associated with social media.

She is quite candid about the difficulties of integrating all touch-points, including social media engagement. But she is bullish on the power of  “dynamic engagement loops” and the ability to use real customer feedback via social media to shape company decisions.

Here, in her words, are her insights (and my poor cinematography).

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Pepsico’s Julie Hamp on integrating social media

There are few events as old school as this week’s Masters golf tournament. Anyone who has had the good fortune to visit the tournament appreciates the manual scoreboards, the lack of jumbo televisions and the infamous pimento cheese sandwiches.

But I’ve been impressed with how actively the tournament has embraced digital media this year. Through the website, the iPad app and the iPhone app, a Masters junkie like me can not only watch live video on any of my devices but can get real-time scoring, video interviews and interesting historical information. And, best of all, we can apply for the ticket lottery for next year’s event online.

I particularly like the iPad interface. It provides easy access to a lot of video content and to journals of some of the players. This app highlights the new possibilities that a touch-based tablet can bring to improving the user experience.

While I am lamenting that I’m not in Augusta this year, I have to tip my cap to the new school guys on the tournament staff who are sending “a tradition unlike any other” directly to my mobile devices. Maybe next year I can say thank you in person!

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The Masters embraces the digital world!

Any marketer who is trying to drive business through a local venue is challenged with the increasing array of ways to engage consumers. Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of local store marketing has never been more daunting or more critical. The historical methods of Sunday circulars and television ads are losing steam while new approaches like search marketing, digital coupons, social media and mobile apps are growing in impact.

This is because consumers’ use of technology is altering the way they live and shop. One good example of this is how location-based services on smart phones make life easier for users, whether it is finding directions, getting other people’s opinions or finding special deals.

Use of location-based services

Marketers who already have a full day’s work often find it difficult to stay on top of all the digital techniques that could help them drive more traffic within their budget limitations. To help them with this problem, our agency just released a white paper that simplifies 10 top activities that they should be looking at more closely. The paper is free, so if you are interested, download it here.

How has your buying behavior changed in the past year? What has impacted you the most? Deals from Groupon? Reviews on Yelp? Likes on Facebook? Apps on iPhones? I’m curious which of the digital and social media options have been most useful to you.

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10 digital ways to activate local store traffic

…was that there wasn’t any big news. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What this told me is that digital and social marketing have become part of the mainstream conversation among marketers. The questions are no longer, “What is it?” and, “Should we?” The questions most frequently asked are “how” questions.

How do we get our bosses to approve our plans?
I had coffee with Deb (@va_deb) from AARP and learned about how the organization has embraced social media marketing. AARP is now committed, so that should tell you something about how far we’ve come. eMarketer reported that 79% of companies are now funding social media initiatives. Listening to Fara Howard from Dell, she suggested letting your customers’ voices convince your leadership to do things. Nicole Cochran from Chili’s reminded us that “executives are kids at heart, so expose them to the fun and they will buy in.”

How do we assess what is working?
Experts in the area of social capital acknowledge that the tools are still improving. Bill Parkes (@BillParkes) projects improvements to occur with increasing rapidity, monthly not annually. Zach Hoffer-Shall (@znh) from Forrester advocated using multiple measures and not limiting your view of social success to what is easily measured in one channel. Mike Spataro (@mikespataro)  reinforced that perspective. Richard Margetic (@margetic) reviewed how Dell oversees a global command center to monitor social conversations about its brand and evaluates the ripple effect of a customer’s voice. Understanding the connections will be an important part of assessing impact.

How do we connect all the dots?
I had a great conversation with Julie Hamp, Chief Communications Officer at Pepsico, about the importance of integrating all touch-points, both traditional and digital. She openly questioned why the Pepsi delivery trucks don’t have a URL or Facebook icon on them. I like the way she thinks! Organization silos and services provider fragmentation will continue to make this a problem, but astute marketers are beginning to realize the synergistic impact of linking all the digital touch-points.

Along with these meaty issues, attendees did get to see some new things. A good summary of eight companies to watch was recently provided by AdAge. Here’s the link.

What will SXSWi 2012 have in store for us? My guess will be a few new ideas and lots of discussion about how to leverage what we already have. Any predictions?

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The big news at SXSWi…