CHAPTER 4

Strategic Issues in Social Media Marketing

4.1 Introduction

Before taking you through this chapter on the subject of strategic social media marketing; a confession. I do not think it is possible to have a social media marketing strategy, or even any digital marketing strategy. I am, however, going to be a tad pedantic in the use of the words strategy and strategic—you will note this chapter is strategic social media marketing. I believe that the use of the term strategy infers some kind of document has been developed by all the parties concerned and that is then developed into a plan that is then disseminated around those interested parties (departments) who then slavishly follow the plan because not to do so “would be more than my job is worth.” That might have worked in less volatile world environments in a time when global communication was not really a reality and where the marketers controlled the message that was fed to the buying public who lapped up that message as if it were some kind of benediction. Mr Dylan might have warned us a while ago that “the times they are a changing,” but they have not only changed, but continue to change—and in the digital environment that change can take place on a daily basis.

So if strategy is dead, why long live strategic? Well, take any definition you wish of strategy and there will be mention of it being long-term in nature. You will note how the length of that term is rarely included within those definitions. It varies from industry to industry, but it is generally accepted to be over a year and probably closer to five years. Let’s split the difference and say three years. Three years in any digital marketing is the same as a lifetime in the Mad Men era of advertising. However, to be successful, any business needs to have some kind of plan that looks forward further than the next Google algorithm change or alteration in Facebook’s Newsfeed. That plan needs to be fluid enough to be able to react to change or be proactive when opportunities arise, but some aspects of business require longer term planning—strategic planning. Finance is the obvious example, something that is generally planned and assessed on an annual basis. Similarly, production requires raw materials to be ordered and shipped long before the production process starts. So there you have it: strategy is a formal document; strategic is looking beyond day-to-day operations. A bit too simplistic? Yes, but simple generally means easy to understand and implement. Can that be said of any strategy you have ever seen?

For those of us that were there, the mid-to-late 1990s was a time when few people (anyone?) really understood what the Internet was and how it was going to change both business and the society in which firms traded. From ’96 through to ’99,¹ I was—among other things—selling websites for a website development company. Apart from spending most of my time explaining to owners and managers—at small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) through to national and international brands—what the Internet was (I could do the “… developed for the military … data in packets … then came browsers … yada, yada, yada” speech in my sleep—and probably did) my strongest sales point was that so few organizations had websites that having one gives you a competitive advantage. Of course, that spiel lost its edge as more folk went online, and around that time I found work teaching at a University and so moved away from the sales environment. I had originally only got involved in the whole Internet/e-commerce/e-marketing malarkey as a favor to a couple of friends who were diversifying their book-publishing company—and when I started they had to tell me what the Internet was. However, four years at the sharp end of the most dynamic industry ever saw me negotiate a very steep learning curve and gave me knowledge and understanding of the foundations to what we know call digital marketing.

It is my opinion—and that of a number of people who were there at the beginning—that despite the technological advances of the last 20 years the basics of digital marketing² were established in those early years. The basics of search engine optimization, for example. However, what I also brought to the table was a lot of years in retail sales and experience and qualifications in marketing. I have been saying in classes, conventions, seminars, conferences, bars (well … anywhere) that the Internet brought nothing new to marketing. Better, faster, more efficient ways of doing things that have been around for years—but nothing new. At every one of those events I offered a pound (which was worth a lot more 20 years ago than it is now) to anyone who could come up with something that the Internet brought to marketing that did not exist previously. I have yet to give away a pound. Feel free to join in with my challenge, but I’ve got 20 years worth of responses stored up—and remember that better, faster, more efficient does not mean new.

Rant over—back to the book. Well, not really. You see, my potted history of life in Internet marketing betrays how and why I have the opinions I have about digital marketing in general, and social media marketing in particular. If you like, it represents my qualifications in the subject. That my experience is unusual—but by no means unique—gives me an insight into the subject that few current practitioners have. I do not hold myself as some kind of guru, however—I just happened to be in the right time at the right time with the right experience, and I can write books in such a way that publishers and the public seem to like. I consider myself to be a student of digital marketing—how can anyone be a master of something that changes every day? Back in the day I also described myself as a one-eyed man in the country of the blind³—I knew something about marketing on the Internet when most people knew nothing. I still know a bit more than most, but a great many people know more than me about specific elements of digital marketing, including a lot of my ex-students to whom I taught but the basics of the subject.

As I have mentioned previously, there is a serious issue within digital marketing of experts in an aspect of the subject (e.g., programmatic advertising) who know nothing of other aspects of digital marketing—let alone marketing in general—because they come from a computer science (i.e., technical) background. We are in a situation where everyone’s an expert, but no one is expert. It is not their fault, but this means they are not in a position to develop anything that is strategic in nature. More specifically, the majority of people working in social media do not have marketing backgrounds, be that in experience or education. If you take a look at the title of this chapter, the reason for my personal history should be making a little more sense. That history also gives me an insight into how—in my experience—the growth of commercial websites has a parallel with the growth of commercial social media. It goes back to a time after my “the Internet is coming, it is not a fad” stage when other folk realized there was money to be made in selling websites. The problem was that those folk were almost 100 percent from technical and/or design backgrounds. They produced websites they wanted to produce full of what we called at the time whistles and bells. These websites were not developed to meet the needs of the organizations and more importantly their customers, because those developers did not know—or care—about customer needs, satisfying market segments, and so on and so forth. And the business owners and managers were bamboozled by the Internet, networks, HTML, file protocols, servers, and such like. Indeed, truth be known, they were still scared of computers. It’s also worth mentioning that I sold a lot of websites because I talked to owners and managers about the marketing aspects of a web presence. I left the design and development to our techies, but they took their lead from me, often much to their distain. They wanted to include whistle and bells.

So when, as part of my work with a university e-commerce research unit, I came across businesses with websites that were performing badly (“It’s a chuffin’ waste of time this Internet malarkey”), my first question was always: “why do you have a website—what are/were your objectives for it?” Remember, the days of “websites will give you a competitive advantage” had passed, but most answered the question with “because everyone else has got one.” I will not bore you further with my response to such comments. I merely gave advice as an independent consultant—I worked for a university, I wasn’t selling anything. Neither will I go into detail—I assume you know it already—about any website needing to be developed so that it meets its objectives and the needs of its visitors. I’m guessing you are ahead of me at this point—but I am now often asked for my advice on social media marketing (“It’s a chuffin’ waste of time this social media malarkey”). And so I get out my 20-year old play book and ask: “why have you got a Facebook page—what are/were your objectives for it?” And here’s the kicker. As with websites in the 1990s, every one of those owners and/or managers says—like an echo from the past: “we’re on Facebook because everyone else is” (note: replace Facebook with any social media platform you wish).

And that is why this book has a chapter called Strategic Social Media Marketing, and also gives a very big clue into the answers of the titular questions raised in the last two chapters.

Sadly, I must also add that I could have written the above about any aspect of digital marketing by simply doing a search-and-replace on the relevant terms. A lack of strategic digital marketing planning—complete with objectives, of course—is commonplace. I would argue that strategic social thinking is impossible without a strategic digital plan—and both are impossible without strategic marketing policies. Which, in turn, should be drawn from the overall corporate strategy. If you think I am being a tad left field on this, consider this quote from Marcos de Quintos,⁴ who said: “social media is the strategy for those who don’t have a true digital strategy.” He was prompted to say this as the organization for which he was chief marketing officer had pumped significant sums into digital media only to see it outperformed by TV advertising. The company he worked for? They’re quite good at this marketing malarkey, you’ve probably heard of them. Coca-Cola.

Postscript. Just as I come across social media marketing campaigns developed by social media experts, I still come across too many websites developed by web design experts with no marketing skills or experience. But hey-ho, it keeps me busy in consultancy work. And as you now know what your first question should be, you could do the same.

4.2 Strategic Objectives

The key strategic objectives for social media marketing can be divided into three parts: (1) core objectives to any Internet presence, (2) models that a commercial organization can use in adopting social media for strategic marketing purposes, and (3) key considerations before determining any strategic social media marketing objectives. Note that I have presented them in this order, but all need to be addressed before the ultimate decision on objectives can be made. However, if any of the three cannot be agreed or determined then social media marketing should not be undertaken—it would be an indication that it would not be the right mode of marketing for the organization, brand, or product. I must also make a disclosure at this point. I have been using these models for a long time, so all of this can be found in some of my other publications, though I have, obviously, made changes to suit the nature of this book. I’m also going to start with a caveat from social media practitioner and author Shama Kabani (2013) who says: “traditional marketing rules cannot be applied to social media because social media is not a marketer’s platform. It belongs to consumers.” I would agree with her and add that it is something many products, brands, and organizations have failed to appreciate.

4.2.1 Core Objectives to Any Internet Presence

Since 1997 I have maintained that in marketing terms, there are three core objectives to any Internet presence or activity (note that my “three objectives” concept was first published in a book I co–authored: Gay et al. (2007) Online Marketing—a Customer–Led Approach).

Those three objectives are:

It is worth noting, however, that having a primary object of one of these is that if that objective is achieved then there can be a spin-off or trickle-down advantage to the other objectives. For example, effective social media customer support can increase the brand’s profile.

A footnote to these categories of objective is the issue of engagement. It is a constant that practitioners, commentators, and academics speak of engagement when discussion objectives and measurement of social media marketing—indeed, I do so throughout this book. However, there is no definition of what engagement is. I prefer the line of thought whereby any consumer who engages in a conversation with an organization, brand, or product on a social media platform is building a relationship with that organization, brand, or product and so would be in my branding category. However, other folk include under engagement such things as clicking on a link to buy a product or asking a product-related question on a social media platform—which come under income generation and support respectively. Hence, I reject engagement as an objective as it is inherent in the three stated categories of objectives.

4.2.2 Key Considerations Before Determining Any Strategic Social Media Marketing Objectives

Before embarking on any strategic social media marketing there are six key questions that must be asked… and answered. If the answer to all six is not a resounding “yes” then the marketing budget is better spent elsewhere. As Michael Porter famously said: “strategy is about knowing what not to do.”

4.3 Return on Investment

Return on investment (ROI), or lack thereof, is the ace I play when arguing that social media marketing is too often practiced by folk who don’t understand—or even have knowledge of—marketing. Or knowledge of business. Here’s why. Although primarily I teach digital marketing, I am employed as a senior lecturer in marketing, which means I also teach strategic marketing. I drum home to my students that any marketing tactic, campaign, or strategy must bring in more money than it costs. Marketers will appreciate that this is problematic where branding is concerned, but ultimately the same rule applies. I would argue that if an advert is placed in a local newspaper, it must increase sales by enough to realize an increased profit (that is, sales less fixed and variable costs). If it doesn’t then you should not place the advert (again, branding issues aside). Hardly rocket science, is it? Yet so many owners and managers get it wrong. In the previous chapter I made the point that social media marketing is not free. I repeat. Social. Media. Marketing. Is. Not. Free. Got it? I’m assuming that you appreciate; (a) how important this is, and (b) how relevant I think this is to any social media marketing strategy. And yet I see reference to the allusion that social media marketing is free on an almost daily basis—frequently stated or written by folk who should know better. Or should they? Maybe they are not marketers? Or perhaps they are perpetrators of the legend of the Emperor’s New Digital Clothes?

A brief example from my own experience is a university (not the one at which I work) recruitment team that was encouraged by management to use social media as a significant part of its marketing efforts. Two new members of staff were recruited to work the social media desk. Each was paid £25K per annum. A rough calculation for a UK university in determining the cost of an employee is to multiply their wage by 2.5, so these new additions to the payroll would cost the organization around £125K a year. I asked the recruitment manager what the return on that investment would be. He had no idea. Nor did he have any idea how to calculate it—or any real evidence that social media marketing actually had a role to play in students’ decision-making process. I then asked if, in a time of constantly reducing budgets, he could use the £125K in a more traditional way that had clear measurement for ROI—recruitment fairs was my suggestion. Oh yes, he replied without hesitation. I imparted the fable of the dodgy tailors who made an imaginary set of clothes for the Emperor. His shoulders slumped. As we were in the bar after a recruitment event I bought him a drink. It seemed the least I could do.

Figure 4.1 The top challenges for social media marketers

University marketers are not the only ones to have questions about any ROI from spending on social media marketing.

The 2016 SimplyMeasured State of Social Marketing Annual Report revealed that measuring ROI was the top challenge identified by 61 percent of marketers—with securing resources (38 percent) and tying social to business goals (34 percent) the next two. The same organization’s 2017 Report found that few marketers are using revenue and conversion metrics as their standards (see Figure 4.1).

Similarly, the Highlights & Insights of the CMO Survey⁶ for February 2017 found that only 37 percent of marketers say they can produce quantitative proof of the impact of social media spend. This could mean they are not using the correct methods of measurement—but I read it as more evidence that social media marketing is not giving a significant ROI. At least these statistics might be interpreted as an improvement on findings from the same organization’s February 2016 CMO Survey. It found that only 3.4 percent of marketing leaders reported that social media contributes very highly to the organization’s performance, with 40 percent reporting a below average contribution. The CMO Surveys make no mention of how much the respondents had spent on those disappointing social media marketing efforts—but if they are looking for some kind of return, there must have been investment. I would like to see an additional question added to these otherwise excellent surveys, it would be something like: “Do you, or have you ever, made similar levels of investment in any other aspect of marketing that consistently gives such a poor return on that investment?” I have asked that question many times of many people. The answer normally gives me the opening to relate a story about two crooked tailors. Compare this with the OnBrand Magazine’s State of Branding Report 2017,⁷ which found that 65 percent of marketing executives and brand managers surveyed had no plans to invest in new technologies such as 360-degree video, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), chatbots, and beacons in 2017. Proof of ROI was cited as the key issue. So why have so many marketers taken on social media marketing whilst at the same time questioning its ability to return any investment. My only conclusion is that they think that—unlike virtual and augmented reality—it is both free and easy to implement.

If the reason behind questionable ROI is related to the methods of measurement—or lack thereof—there are some who would suggest that using the correct methods only serve to prove the failings of social media marketing. Research from Sign-Up Technologies (2013) is representative of similar surveys—and I can find no recent research to suggest it is not still valid—suggesting that the average click-through-rate (CTR) for a tweet is 1.64 percent. That is: when a marketing tweet is sent with a link to a further marketing message, less than two in a hundred will click on that link. The CTR for direct marketing e-mails is accepted as being around 3 percent. However, it is relatively easy to send tens of thousands of e-mails to targeted lists—tweets are not so targeted. Obviously, some organizations, brands, and products have thousands of followers, but Sign-Up’s research also found that the CTR dropped to less than 0.5 percent for accounts with over 10K followers. That’s 50 people in 10 thousand—50 people who may or may not have an interest in whatever the marketing message might be. Switched-on businesses will know what percentage of these 50 people will make a purchase—or whatever the objective of the campaign is—and so it would be easy to work out the return on investment. The first section of the next chapter will help assess just what that investment might be, but these figures suggest that the return isn’t going to be anything to write home about. Sign-Up Technologies’ research asked no questions with reference to the costs involved in producing the ineffective social media marketing campaigns with such poor CTRs.

In the next chapter operational issues related to the implementation of a social media marketing strategy are covered—and every one of those issues costs money. At the very least, there is the time it takes to write each tweet or Facebook entry. And the cheapest scenario is to have an existing employee do that, which moves the cost into an existing fixed cost. Except that whilst they are writing the tweet those staff are not doing the job they were employed to do before they were given the social media writing task. Throw in the fact that such an ad hoc method of engaging in social media marketing is unlikely to be effective—it may even be damaging to the brand—and you have a negative ROI. If there is no profit, don’t do it.

Furthermore, there is the question of why people follow the organization, brand, or product on social media. As previously stated, it is my contention that the majority follow because they are already a satisfied customer. Yes, I know the concept of relationship marketing, and I know it costs more to find a new customer than retain an existing one—but isn’t it a reasonable assumption that a customer who follows would continue to purchase products whether they are on social media or not or whether they have liked the organization or not? The key issue, therefore, becomes; is gathering followers going to increase takings at the checkout? I suspect it is not.

My final comment in this section is to make it clear that ROI for social media marketing has been a question I have been raising for some time. In 2010 in an online musing I asked the question: “What’s the ROI in using twitter?” and attempted to put some numbers to the cost of Dell’s social media efforts which, as I said at the time, was “often held as a poster-child for the use of Twitter as a marketing tool.” A year later I turned my attention to Facebook. Interestingly—at least to me—is that I include the comment that; “it would seem that the Facebook evangelist bandwagon is threatening to steamroller all in front of it.” It is, in my opinion, the evangelist bandwagon that is responsible for peddling the Emperor’s New Digital Clothes.⁸

4.4 Measure and Monitor

If there is a constant in the results of research into social media marketing, particularly at a strategic level, it is that respondents find it difficult to measure any return on investment—or lack thereof. Having determined that social media marketing is an option for the organization, brand, or product, and then identifying suitable objectives and the platforms on which they might be achieved; then comes the issue of how to monitor that marketing so that an assessment of ROI can be made. Marketers who were early exponents of social media marketing followed conventional wisdom and assumed that audience size was the most important measure of success. They did little more than set up a social presence and worked hard to gain fans, followers, friends, or likes by a series of tactics that owed more to traditional marketing than the new social medium. Contests and like-bait content might have succeeded in running up a follower count—but they did nothing to encourage connection and relevance.

Furthermore, it is easy for such simple metrics to mask the truth. One investigation that perhaps I inspired—but did not actively participate in—involved a vegetarian sandwich stall on a chic market in a fashionable part of London. However, these were no ordinary sandwiches. Produced individually with enthusiasm and passion by two sisters, they were individual works of art, and—as they say—to die for. An ex-student of mine worked nearby, and being a vegetarian was soon a regular customer. The popularity of the sandwiches grew, and with it, the business. So much so that it won a local award and the sisters became local business celebrities. When asked in an interview for a magazine about their marketing the sisters said it was 100 percent down to Instagram, onto which they posted pictures of their culinary creations. Followers on the image-based platform peaked at nearly 30,000. However, I had taught my ex-student well, and she was as skeptical as me. So—with the permission of the sisters—she did a bit of research. It turns out that the vegetarian side of things had been championed by like-minded social media folk, with a great deal of me-too followers all around the world. Yes, that is all around the world, as in: realistically, never going to be customers. So my ex-student did some old-fashioned leg-work research, and stood next to the stall and asked questions. Wisely, the questions did not focus on social media. The results were that many regular customers followed the sisters on Instagram, but only after becoming regulars. The multiple images sent daily were routinely ignored by the majority—though some did select their sandwich for the day from a message sent that morning. None thought they bought more sandwiches because of the Instagram messages. Many customers had used social media to tell friends about the stall, but on their personal pages (i.e., social not marketing). And the main reason for repeat custom? The right product, in the right place, at the right time, at the right price. And how did most customers become aware of the stall? Mostly: word-of-mouth, shopping at the market, or the publicity generated by the business award. On the plus side, the Instagram activity—a quick photo on a smartphone and post on their site—took up very little of the sisters’ time and cost nothing. If posing each sandwich, taking the pic, and posting it took only 30 seconds—and the sisters did that (on average) 15 times a day—that is seven and a half minutes a day of not making sandwiches and not serving customers. Multiply the numbers up over a year and that’s around a week of sandwich making/selling time lost. 30,000 followers sounds great, but the impact of social media marketing on their sales would seem to be minimal. I refer you to the previous section of this chapter.

Although he did not realize he was predicting a problem that is now commonplace with regard to the wider use of the amount of data available to businesses and marketers, when asked—in 2011—about his organization’s stance toward social media measurement, Irfan Kamal, senior vice president, digital/social strategy at Ogilvy & Mather said:

Wise words that certainly described the general state of social affairs at that time. Sadly, some years later, it is still too often the way many organizations treat social media marketing metrics. That said, identifying what to measure in assessing the effectiveness of social media marketing can be problematic. Therefore, building desired outcomes into strategic planning is a logical step—and one that is a viable solution compared to common practice that has organizations (1) performing some social media marketing, (2) collecting some data, and then (3) trying to reconcile the two. Given the perennial issue of managers using data to justify expenditure—and so, their jobs—the results of such spurious analysis are skewed results based on data that has been interpreted to suit the manager’s needs. Completing no analysis is better than this practice as at least there would be no time and resources wasted in the exercise.

McDonald et al (2014) propose that social media metrics can be classified into one of four broad categories:

These could be used as metrics from which hypotheses and models could be developed. At a practical level, the following is a list of things that might be considered for measuring. Note that I have used as a foundation a list developed by Heidi Cohen for her excellent analysis of the extremely successful 2010 Old Spice social media campaign. It goes without saying that while some of the following are straight counts—particularly the financial aspects—others may need some data collection prior to the campaign for post-event comparison. It is also the case that the analytics of some may need to be sourced offline. The issues are divided into two categories: branding and finance.

Brand indicators (note how Ms Cohen categorizes engagement as an aspect of branding—as do I in Chapter 4 (Section 4.2) where I discuss strategic objectives of social media marketing).

Financial indicators (note that this involves a retrospective examination of actual costs that can then be compared to those predicted before the event).

Good news for the social media marketer is that since that Old Spice campaign, tools for social media data gathering and analysis have been developed by numerous software vendors. Much of this software can be made bespoke to the organization’s requirements, but some of the more basic measurement tools include the following:

The capability of these products has expanded significantly due to a combination of social media adoption, client needs, and advances in technology.

The availability of monitoring software brings us to another potential objective for what might be described as an element of social media marketing—that of using social media purely as a source of information as part of the organization’s market intelligence gathering efforts. In essence: listen to what is being said on social media but don’t get involved in it (hence the practice being known as social listening). Before going any further it is worth reminding readers that all the traits of good practice for research apply equally to social media research. The collection of pertinent data has always been determined by the three Vs: volume, velocity, and variety. It is too often the case that digital technology enables the relatively easy collection of high volumes of data—some would argue the rise of so-called Big Data is a result of this.

Before employing software—be it off-the-shelf or bespoke—to collect copious amounts of data, marketers need to be sure that: (a) they possess the skills and time to analyze that data, and (b) data can be translated into information that is to the organization—that is, it can be used to either improve the organization’s performance or identify failings of it. If these two issues cannot be confirmed, then collection of data is a waste of time and resources. Harping back to the title of this chapter, such research should be conducted at a strategic level with adequate resources and any resulting information being processed and fed into the marketing decision-making process. This differs from, for example, the way in which Twitter might be monitored by the social service team so that customer enquiries can be responded to or the public relations team might look for issues that fall under their remit. However, as is the case with the gathering of any strategic market intelligence, all staff that has a role in the organization’s social media at an operational level should be encouraged to share with the market intelligence department any data, information, or events that they feel can be used at a more strategic level.

Monitoring of user activity on pertinent social media platforms is usually made easier by the platforms themselves providing analytics data, often at no charge. This can provide valuable information. Increased visits to a Pinterest image of a particular brand of product or increased mention of that product on Twitter might prompt a retailer to promote that product on their website or retail outlet, for example. Similarly, planners of an event—a music festival, perhaps—could monitor social media conversations to help estimate interest and potential attendance, or concerns that may be putting people off attending; a perceived shortage of camping or toilet facilities, possibly. Such issues could then be addressed by the marketers. A further use of social listening is to help judge public feeling about a happening or incident involving or relevant to, the organization, brand, or product. An example of this is the United Airlines’ PR disaster when staff forcibly removed an overbooked passenger from one of the company’s flights. Rather than playing down the incident, if United’s PR and/or social team had monitored social media immediately after the event unfolded they would have seen just how big a social media furore was taking place globally. Similarly, in the run up to the U.S. Presidential election in November 2016, social media monitors noted from social conversations and postings that Donald Trump was far more popular than Hilary Clinton than the opinion polls were suggesting.

There is, however, another form of research into social media user activity. This is based on the offline concept of ethnography: “overt or covert participation in the everyday lives of people over an extended period of time” (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995) and was dubbed netnography (Internet-ethnography) in an early study by Kozinets (1997). This online version of a social science involves the researchers joining social media sites and entering into community discussion.

However, this kind of research is questioned on ethical grounds by some social scientists. To garner useful data the researchers must actively engage in the social media conversation rather than simply observing and monitoring what others are doing and saying. This raises the moral question of whether or not the researchers should disclose their (true) identity and purpose. The key issue is that (a) if the researchers act as another person their contribution could sway any conversation, and (b) if the researchers’ true identity is revealed the users may change their behavior—if they accept the researcher into the group at all.

It is often the case, however, that such complex research methods overlook valuable data that is sitting on social media sites just waiting to be harvested. It may be time consuming—though software is available—but by trawling social media sites such as LinkedIn, researchers might identify potential customers, competitors, or just the movers and shakers within a market or industry. What other people in the industry have to say about their own and the researchers’ organizations, brands, and products might also prove useful.

Although I would consider it to belong in a book on market research rather than one on social media marketing, there is also the use of social platforms as a channel to disseminate and collect market research. This could be anything from simple click one-answer questions, through hosting questionnaires to forum-type focus groups.

4.5 Legal Issues Impacting on Social Media Marketing

I have no intention, or the necessary expertise, to start addressing the legal issues that impact on social media marketing. My general advice at this point is to say: “pay someone who is qualified to advise you.” That said, there are a couple of issues that are worthy of attention. The first is that the legal department has a role to play in the day-to-day operations in that they must be prepared to be indulgent with regard to allowing negative comments, and even abuse, to remain on the organizations social media presence and give marketers the opportunity to respond in the social media philosophy rather than resorting to the letter of the law. Secondly, and there is more of this issue in the next chapter with regard to its impact on marketing, any member of staff who writes something on any social media platform that is owned by the organization is a legal representative of that organization. Nuff said?

Other legal issues to note include:

You have been warned.

4.6 Culture

Within academia—practitioners don’t really care—there is a constant debate over whether marketing is an art or a science. In recent years the science argument has gained strength on the back of digital applications—computers, programs, and algorithms are all science aren’t they? My feet, however, are firmly planted in the art camp. Science can help marketers make decisions, but science cannot make those decisions. Though much trumpeted, current applications of artificial intelligence (AI) do little more than decide which is the best option based on what has been included on its database. Scientific study is frequently based on the assumption that there is a specific answer to every question, generally known as positivism. This is fine if all the variables or units remain the same. For example, if you add together the same amount of substance “a” to substance “c” in a controlled environment at a set temperature there will be a fixed result. That result is the same now as when it was first conducted—and will be in the future. And it will be same result if the experiment is conducted in Chicago, Beijing, or London.

In marketing, however, we can’t even agree on what our variables and units are (add some advertising to some sales?) let alone find a controlled environment. The environment in which marketing is practiced—and researched—is made up of human beings. Humans are pesky critters who have a tendency to be different. They have differing thoughts and opinions based on individual experiences. And they are different if they are from Chicago, Beijing, or London. Marketing research—I believe—can at best be interpretivist, where any theory applies only in the time, place, and environment in which the experiment takes place. Marketing cannot have any laws or bodies of theory that are, as in science, universal. Ergo, marketing is not a science. An example of my somewhat naive view on scientific research comes from an organization who are one of the world’s leaders in re-marketing (if you put an item in an online shopping basket but do not complete the purchase the seller contacts you to encourage you to complete the purchase). They were conducting scientific research into the timeliness of the “you can still buy it” message, and so did multivariate testing sending the same message at timed intervals. After several hundred thousand messages had been sent and responses recorded it was decided—scientifically—that x minutes (I seem to recall it was around 37) was the optimum period for sending the message. However, the whole exercise was conducted by computer scientists. And very clever they are in their field, but I find that computer scientists are poor swimmers in the murky waters of marketing because, basically, they are not marketers. I am, and I asked if they changed the message as the time-to-contact increased? Or if the message was different for different products? Or if the time of the day (in whatever time zone the customer was in) was factored into the optimum time delay? Or if the customers were male or female? Or what age group they belonged to? Or if the canceled purchase was made on a PC or mobile device? Hopefully, you’ve caught my drift here—the environment in which the experiment was conducted was different for every single one of those customers and their decision to complete the sale (or not) was made in their own head at a time of their choosing. That the optimal time for a response was x minutes was pure chance.

So why this wander into the prickly terrain of science versus art? Well, that’s because I do not think you can measure the titular subject of this section. And why is that so important? It is important because culture is the key to social media marketing success or failure. Without it being right social media marketing will not work, no matter how well its elements are addressed. With it being right, you can overcome deficiencies in other areas. And it is the whole issue of what is the right culture for social media marketing that cannot be identified scientifically. Right is a gut feeling. You cannot measure or meter it. You cannot assess or examine it. You cannot reproduce it or fake it. You cannot convert to it. It is the way the organization, brand, or product is. The way it works. The way it operates. It is a management style—or style of management. Taylor’s Scientific Management won’t cut it in social media and neither will any organization that is unwilling to empower its employees or encourage them to take risks without a committee having discussed it first. Indeed, an organization that makes decisions via committees isn’t right for social media. It’s the way it treats its staff. It is its staff. It is what staff do if the manager doesn’t tell them what to do. It is its leader. It is informal rather than formal. It is what it is. If the organization has to ask if it is right, it isn’t. It is just right for social media marketing or it is not.

The nature of the product—and remember that in marketing terms the product can be tangible or intangible (a service)—will also play a part. Some products lend themselves to social media marketing. Some don’t. Some brands lend themselves to social media marketing. Some don’t. Some generate passion in their buyers, some don’t. A caveat is that a product and/or brand might be suitable, but if the organizational culture isn’t right then social media marketing won’t work. Conversely, an organization with the right culture can take a product and/or brand that is not considered suitable for social media marketing and make it work. Such is the nature of the right organization. To be effective in the social media environment there must be an almost automatic—organic, if you will—affinity to the way the product, brand, or organization acts in that environment. In other words, it already acts that way in the real world, so social media is a natural step to take. Whether we call it the culture, the ethos of the philosophy of the product, brand, or organization, it is its very nature that defines the way it trades and the relationship it has with its customers.

If culture is hard to identify as being right for social media marketing, identifying products that might be suitable is easier—but remember, the organizational culture still has to be right. There are a whole bunch of possibles: anything related to the entertainment industry; ditto sports; anything that is online only; anything that has some kind of personality (if it does, that suggests the organization is right, as the organization will have created that personality); anything that is in a niche market; anything related to a hobby; anything people talk about at the water cooler or down at the pub. Of course exceptions exist, and my problem in this argument is that they tend to be the ones that get the most publicity—and so we have the Emperor’s New Digital Clothes—“if it works for something so boring, it must work for us.” What I’ve just given you—you would have thought—is the foundation of a list as long as your arm of products suitable for social media marketing. But whoa there, rein back that excitement. The list of not suitables is almost infinite.

As a general rule—again, with notable exceptions—B2B trading does not lend itself to social media marketing. B2B tends to be formal, it is business after all, but B2C can be fun. Commentators suggest that humor is essential if social media marketing is to be successful. Guess what? Some organizations, brands, or products are just not funny. Furthermore, although the product might lend itself to humor, the organizational culture might not suit funny. B2B represents the vast majority of trading, realistically only shops or retail services deal with the end user, every other business sells its product or service to another business. And yes, before you say as much, I appreciate some firms sell to another business but their marketing efforts are aimed at the end consumer, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and cars being obvious examples, and many of those offer potential for social media marketing. My point about B2B products is that they are not marketed in the same way as B2C products. To test my assertion, take a look around you wherever you are as you read this—be that office, classroom, library, train, bus, airport… wherever. Now identify and list things that have been sold by someone to someone else. Some will be B2C; yours or other people’s clothes, for example. If you are at home, some of what you can see will have been sold (to you) in a retail environment. If you are in any kind of commercial space, what you see will have been sold to the owners of that space in a B2B transaction. OK so far? I’m guessing your list (mental or otherwise) is made up of complete products?

In my case, I’m in my home office and so as you can imagine, my list would be: table, PC, keyboard, mouse, mousemat, speakers, reading lamp, post-it notes, pens, and so on and so forth. But that’s my B2C stuff. What about the light switch, power sockets, window frame, door, door handles, door hinges, light fittings, and radiator that were bought by the house builder from a variety of suppliers. Then there’s the packaging in which all those goods were transported, stored, and sold. Furthermore, there are the component parts of everything on your list. The manufacturer of my extendible reading lamp, for example, will not have made the springs used on it; they will have been bought from whoever makes—and markets—springs. The same goes for the wire, switch, and bulb—and the metal and plastic that is formed into the shape of a lamp stand and its shade. Much of my consultancy and research is for and with this kind of business—particularly small to medium size businesses—and the way in which trade exists in those industries along with the expectations of customers, plus the nature of the products (most are pretty boring) all adds up to social media marketing not being suitable for those organizations. Going back to your list of products seen from where you are. Do you appreciate what I mean about the list of goods not suitable for social media marketing being almost infinite? Note that for many years I have conducted this look at the products around you exercise in strategic marketing classes. The objective is to make marketing students aware that marketing is not all Apple, Nike, and BMW, and in particular that B2B is very different to B2C.

An—if not the—exception to the culture must be right rule is LinkedIn. This is mainly because it is B2B in nature and design, but also because the writers tend to be individuals, even if they are representing organizations, brands, or products. It is also because LinkedIn users are there for a purpose which is almost formal, whereas other social media platforms favor the informal. LinkedIn is about work, not pleasure.

In the B2B environment there is often a relationship between the buyer and seller that exists offline and in private, not played out in public on a social media site. Certainly if I were a buyer for Wal-Mart, I would expect sellers—with whom I might be spending millions of dollars each week—to show me a little more respect than communicating with me via Facebook or a tweet. The State of Pipeline Marketing report (Pipeline Marketing 2016), which focuses on how B2B marketers drive growth, includes data not only on the channels used by B2B marketers, but how effective they feel those channels are. This data is shown in Table 4.1. I should add that these findings pretty much match my own experiences, with the exception that the elements that involve personal contact are commonly used more and so generate most income.

Table 4.1 The most popular and effective B2B marketing channels

	Marketing activities/channels used to acquire customers (%)	Activity/channel that makes the most positive impact on revenue (%)
E-mail marketing	88.6	8.3
Social media	85.0	3.1
Content marketing	81.2	9.1
Search engine optimization	78.0	9.1
Word-of-mouth/referrals	74.9	22.0
Conference/trade shows	74.5	9.1
Search advertising	59.6	6.7
Public relations	59.2	1.2
Outbound calling	58.0	8.3
Retargeting	52.5	0.8
Partner marketing	48.6	5.1
Display advertising	47.5	0.8
Video advertising	22.0	0.8
TV, radio, and print ads	12.5	0.4
Other	2.5	4.3

In general, the chart shows clearly just how different B2B marketing is to B2C. Specific to this book, however, is that so many indulge in social media marketing and yet recognize its shortcomings. A witness for the prosecution in the case of the Emperor’s New Digital Clothes perhaps? A final observation, prompted by my own research and experience, but reinforced by the State of Pipeline Marketing Report finding is that just because an organization, brand, or product has a presence on social media does not mean it is practicing effective social media marketing.

¹ At that time the UK was probably a year or so behind the United States in terms of the commercial Internet. Scandinavia was alongside us and we were ahead of the rest of northern Europe by about a year. Southern Europe trailed even further behind, some would suggest it never caught up.

² I currently call it digital marketing, but have written books using online, Internet, and e-commerce. It has also been called new media, cyber, and a number of others I don’t care to remember. As I say to my students; they are all the same. Well, not really—e-commerce has come to be the accepted term for making sales online. Ho hum.

³ From the story: “In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king,” dating back—probably—to the 16th century.

⁴ As part of his presentation at a beverage industry conference in New York and reported on http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/coke-cmo-defends-tv-colagiant-rethinks-digital-approach/307112/

⁵ Salesforce Marketing Cloud Advertising Index Q1 2016 Report.

⁶ Ongoing research funded by a partnership between Deloitte LLP, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and The American Marketing Association. See cmosurvey.org.

⁷ https://blog.bynder.com/en/state-of-branding

⁸ These stories are available on: alancharlesworth.eu/alans-musings/whats-the-ROI-on-tweeting.html and alancharlesworth.eu/alans-musings/whats-the-ROI-in-using-facebook.html.