HOW DO USE THE DIFFERENT SOCIAL MEDIA SIGHTS?

            Each social media platform has a target audience. You must know what this target audience is if you are to get the most out of these sights.  For people who are new to social media, the misuse of the different sights can cause unintended problems. I hope in this article to explain, briefly, just how to use each sight.

  There is etiquette to be followed if you are go have an effective social media strategy. Social media is a privilege that people grant you. This is what social media is. It is a two-way conversation among two people. This privilege is equivalent to the privilege that is extended in personal conversations. If we talk over people, they will ignore us. If we talk out of turn, they will ignore us. If we don’t have anything to say, if we don’t have content that adds to people’s lives, they will ignore us. Each social media platform has a specific purpose.

      Facebook is a social sight. Great brands are created on Facebook, but they are created discretely. Facebook is a place where people meet, make friends, and get comfortable with one another. Facebook is a great place to create relationships. Linkedin is a business sight. This is where go to create a business or professional network. It is a place to ask questions about your profession, to meet people from all over the world, to learn new stuff about your professional area. Linkedin is a training sight.

            Twitter is a place where you go to have constant communication.  On Facebook and Linkedin, people want relationships and they want to integrate with you, but there is a break off point. Especially on Facebook people do not want you on their newsfeed constantly. The newsfeed is your personal homepage. It is the first thing someone will see when Facebook is accessed.

            People only want to see a few entries from you; otherwise they will become overwhelmed. If this happens they will ignore you.    This is an important fact, especially to people who are new to social media. If you are ignored, you defeat your purpose in having a social media sight.

 There are several sights that integrate with all your platforms. One post will appear on all your sights. This is a great service because it saves you time, but you have to be smart when you use it. If you post over 50 times a day, this will overwhelm a Facebook feed. Just as in a personal conversation, if you talk constantly, people will ignore you. In my own situation, I do have an integration sight. I usually make 10 posts, first thing in the morning. Then I switch to the more specialized sights for my professional stuff.

            This is why Twitter is my favorite sight. The purpose of Twitter is for constant, in time conversation. Twitter is a combination blogging and texting sight. Twitter has achieved substantial scale recently. In my experience, as a resident of the United States, most of my professional contacts are on it, as well as most large media and professional organizations. Twitter’s strength is that it is communication that is in real time. In my experience as an author, I have found that with Twitter, I can communicate with physical people, and get information from media sources, such as Time, as a write articles. Twitter encourages this and it is acceptable behavior. Twitter encourages conversation and lots of scale. This is why, if you follow Twitter during your business day, you are not playing hooky---you are engaged in legitimate business activity.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY AND BRANDING; HOW DOES PROCTOR AND GAMBLE CREATE BRANDS THROUGH BUSINESS SOFTWARE

Business Intelligence software is software that takes enormous amounts of information and predicts accurately what consumer’s desire.  Social media is a game changer in the creation of modern brands.

Because of this incredible scale, business intelligence software is critical in developing modern brands.  It involves high-speed calculations. It involves world class statistical analysis.  Much of business and sports are analytic driven.  Business intelligence software gives a company a tremendous competitive advantage. Business Intelligence Software develops world class brands.

Proctor and Gamble is an example of how this is done.  This company endlessly analyzes data created from its business intelligence software. This software has the capacity to crunch up to 10,000 scenarios simultaneously. This creates the ability to predict whether premium-priced diapers will be a bust in Morocco or the impact of a toothpaste promotion could have in Brazil in comparison to this same promotion if it runs in Chile.  

This software is teamed up with Facebook and other social media platforms. Social media is now a special tool that was not available in times past. Business Intelligence software has been available since the early 1990’s.  The presence of social media creates huge information networks very quickly. Metcalfe’s Law says that a network of 2 quickly becomes a network of 1,092.

A product engages with a customer and the customer likes the product. This customer communicates this product with their friends. Social media is very viral. Through the “comment” box, a marketer can very quickly learns just what a customer likes about their product and what they don’t like. Business Intelligence Software and social media platforms allow the company to quickly develop highly differentiated and well-positioned products that a customer in a particular market truly wants. This creates strong, world class brands.

Branding is the ability to provide a consumer with just the thing that they want at a point of time when whey want it.  If you deliver a product that is exactly what your customer wants, naturally this is going to give you and your organization an advantage that your opponent simply cannot offset.

This is critical to Proctor and Gamble.  They can’t create revenue by buying other companies or brands. They must expand by creating products that people really do want.

This creates a problem for Proctor and Gamble. This problem can only be solved if highly desired products are created. Proctor and Gamble is large. To achieve just 4-6% growth, this company will have to develop a $4 billion business.

Proctor and Gamble'sdomestic markets are mature. Most of the growth won’t come from there. The company’s new revenue streams must come from emerging markets. Emerging markets have profit margins smaller than mature economies.  To off-set the lower margins, the company will have to sell larger volumes.  This can only be done by offering products that people in emerging markets really do want at price points that customers can afford.