Agency Marketing Technology
Using social networks to market
Gen X and Gen Y lead businesses into 21st century marketing techniques
By Steve Anderson
Steve loved to dazzle his high school science students with cool and unusual experiments. One of his favorite experiments was to drop a couple of Mentos candies into a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke. Almost immediately, the soda in the bottle would erupt with a spectacular geyser—like Old Faithful blowing its top in Yellowstone National Park. Go to YouTube and search for “Diet Coke Mentos” to see some of the examples.
But then Steve got a brilliant idea. Instead of showing this experiment to a class of 30 students each year, why not share it with millions of people on the Internet? He posted streaming video of this seemingly trivial little demonstration on his blog. And the rest is history—the candy in the soda “volcano” became one of the most downloaded videos on the Internet.
Unless you’re living in a cave, you can’t help but notice the impact of, or at least the buzz about, social networking sites. These sites include online communities like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn … free online image-sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube … virtual communities like Second Life … and sites that invite user-generated content like blogs and forums. Since Facebook launched in February 2004, the company says the number of active users (those who have used the system in the last 30 days) has jumped from 130,000 to 43 million.
Who is frequenting these sites? As you might expect, large percentages are the younger generations, teens, high school and college students, and young professionals in their 20s. Yet an increasing number of users at the sites are people who are older and want to use them for the same reasons as the younger generations, to more easily connect with people. Certain sites like eons.com target this older group. Eons.com is designed for people 50 and over.
Why should agencies care about social networking sites? One reason is that all types of businesses are exploring how they can take advantage of these new methods of communication. Using the sites as a marketing tool requires an understanding of a marketing technique called viral marketing.
Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to increase brand and product awareness. Viral marketing is analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.
Viral promotions may take the form of funny video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even text messages. It is claimed that a satisfied customer tells an average of three people about a product or service he or she likes, but 11 people share their dislike of a product or service. Viral marketing is based on this natural human behavior.
Perhaps your agency should begin experimenting with these types of sites to attract and retain new prospects and clients. In order to attract younger generations as clients and employees, agencies need to market in different ways and in places that these generations frequent. And believe me, they frequent social networking sites. Just ask your kids about their MySpace or Facebook accounts.
One of the characteristics of Gen X and Gen Y is that these groups rely on the opinions of friends and other people they trust when they’re deciding what services to purchase and from whom. They often do this on the Net. Creating a MySpace and/or Facebook account is one small step toward learning what marketing looks like on a social networking site. For example, local businesses often use their MySpace pages to advertise what musicians will be playing at their establishments.
On a personal level, I recently experienced the power of social networking. I set up my own Facebook account after a musician friend of mine sent me an invitation to be his “friend.” I wrote him back saying, “Aren’t we too old for this?” His response was, “I’ll go anywhere people are talking to get my message out.” He has a point.
A few days after setting up my account, I received an e-mail from an individual who had attended the same university I had and who remembered me. We traded a few e-mails, catching up on the last 25 years. This is just one example of how these types of sites can help people connect in ways that they never could have before.
Setting up a networking site
Here’s how social networking sites work:
• Go to the Web site and sign up for a new account.
• Create a profile that captures information about you. The profile can include as much, or as little, information as you’re willing to share. I have added information such as the high school and college I attended, the various places I have worked, hobbies and other interests I have, along with some basic demographic information.
• Once your profile is established, you invite “friends” to link to your profile. Each site has created a unique method to allow you to easily send a “Be my Friend” request. I allowed Facebook to review all of my contacts contained in my Outlook file to find matches for other people who had an existing Facebook account. Of the approximately 1,800 contacts, almost 50 had an existing Facebook profile. I reviewed the list and selected the people whom I specifically knew and sent a request that they become my friend and link to my profile.
• As people accept your invitation, your network grows. As your network grows, your potential reach increases from your friends, to whom your friends know, to whom your friends’ friends know. This shows the power of networking.
Each social networking site has its own unique twist on how it manages the relationships among all the parties. On Facebook, for example, any time someone wants you to become a friend, you have to approve the request.
An easy place to start experimenting with how social networking can increase customer satisfaction is to create a profile for your agency on one of the popular sites. For your commercial clients, create a profile on LinkedIn. Once the agency profile is completed, have someone in the office look up your existing clients to see if they are members. If they are, invite them to join your network. Once you make connections, you can then begin interacting with them.
You may be surprised at the number of existing clients who are already members of a social networking site. It is worth some time to begin experimenting with how you can take advantage of social networking to build a deeper relationship with existing clients and prospects.
The author
Steve Anderson has been a licensed insurance agent for more 25 years and is executive editor of The Automated Agency Report (www.taareport.com). He helps agents maximize producti-vity and profits using practical technology. He can be reached at (615) 599-0085, e-mails are welcome at Steve@SteveAnderson.com or visit his Web site at www.SteveAnderson.com.