Paula Drum, an innovative marketer at H&R Block (which has really been at the forefront of social influence marketing) is moving onto a new job. She posted some pearls of wisdom on her blog which I feel are an absolute must read. What makes her opinion matter is that its expressed from the first hand perspective in trying to make a large, consumer facing brand more social online. Here's an excerpt:
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Companies can spend a lot of money trying to launch a social media program. For the most part, I would really classify those efforts as an integrated marketing campaign. Your approach and funding of an integrated marketing campaign needs to be in line with the size and scope of your overall marketing budget. Social media programs can be a lot more cost efficient from a media budget standpoint, but, you still need human capital to run them. In many cases you may be trading media $ for the human capital needed to run a program.
And when talking about selling social influence marketing to the C suite she chooses to use a phrase that I first heard from her a year and a half ago and still love. She explains it in this excerpt.
One of the most popular questions that I get asked is how to build support at the C-level. Having a clearly defined objective is critically important to gain support of any initiative. However, everyone is always focused on the ROI or return on the investment. I have defined ROI a little differently in this new and emerging space as Risk Of Ignoring. There is an absolute change occurring in how we communicate and seek information as a society. The millennial generation is the first digital native generation with very different expectations of companies and marketing. In the not so distant future the millennials will be a larger purchasing demographic than the boomers. Not understanding this segment will be detrimental for future marketers.
Read the 10 tips in their entirety on her blog, Positively Paula. Full disclosure. H&R Block has been a client of ours. We've done a lot of digital and social work for them in the last one year both directly and in partnership with other firms too. Best of luck with your new job, Paula!
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