To define social media, what better resource to use than the seventh most visited website and collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia? There are three essential pegs to the definition: social media involves technology, some form of social interaction and, typically, creation or co-creation. This definition offers a much better perspective than just thinking about Facebook.
This article will give you an overview of the social media landscape. Along with explaining some key concepts, it will also provide you with examples of social media in action, as well as resources that you can use to further your knowledge. It is not an article about social campaigns that printers helped execute, but rather a look at how printers themselves can participate. Why should you keep reading? Social media is especially important for the small- to medium-sized companies (about 80 percent of printers). It is a "power to the people" method of advertising that is not costly. And while the matrices for measuring the effectiveness of using social media are still in development, this is an area where you are more likely to gain than lose. After all, not joining the conversation doesn't stop people from talking about you, so you are much better off being involved than not.
Categorizing social media
One of the obstacles of social media is that the amount and variety of sites available can be overwhelming. It is useful then to categorize the general uses of social media. This can be done in many ways, with categories ranging from three to almost 30. Here we will discuss a categorization of three types (not because it is the correct way, but rather because three is a manageable number). Along with an explanation of each of the types, we will take a look at opportunities to use them.
Type 1: Social Bookmarking
When you are browsing the web and you come across a website you like, you can bookmark it so that your browser remembers how to take you back there. Social bookmarking is similar to this, with many added advantages. For one, your bookmarks are hosted so that you can access them from multiple computers. Two, you can share your bookmarks with friends, colleagues and customers. Lastly, you begin to browse the Internet in a whole new way, driven by the recommendations of other like-minded people. A fringe benefit can also be that most social bookmarking is well integrated into mobile devices, from where we are increasingly browsing the Internet.
A practical example of social bookmarking is using stumbleupon.com (although there are many similar websites such as digg.com and delicious.com). Once you create a profile, you can download the toolbar for your browser and/or a free application for your smartphone. You begin by identifying your areas of interest by check-marking categorized topics. Once you have those selected, you press the stumble button and a site in your area of interest appears. You can give it a thumbs-up, which will bookmark it, or simply continue to the next site.
While the business applications of using social bookmarking are a bit more limited than the other two categories of social media, they are a wonderful way to share what you (personally, or as a company) find interesting. They make it is easy to share online resources with contacts and customers. In addition, you can be recognized for a project you participated in. Below is an example of sticky notes that went viral on sumbleupon.com for a company that specializes in hair loss.
Type 2: Social Networking
Social networking sites are likely the ones you are most familiar with. This assumption is largely based on the fact that more than 500 million users are on Facebook, spending a cumulative 700 billion minutes per month making it the second most popular site on the Internet. Another notable example is LinkedIn, a Facebook-like network geared towards professionals.
Today there are a variety of ways you can use social networks, which I will divide into two categories: participate and advertise. Creating a Facebook page (once called a fan page) is one way of connecting to friends, clients and prospects. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you need to create opportunities for engagement, not simply list the same set of services you already have on your website. A good example of this is the Cober Facebook page where the company shares photos of community events such as a food drive (most recently). Using the page as a way to tell your customers about a sale should be done sparingly as the purpose here is largely different. Think of it as a date (but with your potential client) — you wouldn't make a good first impression if you yammered on about work the entire time.
The Facebook page is an important piece of the puzzle because it allows for customer-driven recommendations. When a person likes your page, their network of friends see it.
Another method of using Facebook is to advertise by purchasing ads. Ads on Facebook can allow you to link to outside websites, to create events and to take polls. The investment is highly manageable — you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, and you can set a daily maximum so that you never overspend. Although the click-through-rates (CTRs) are not high, remember that the ads are still seen by users. This peripheral vision presence is much harder to measure but still highly beneficial.
One of the other obstacles for printers is that we are typically working in a business-to-business (B2B) environment. On Facebook, the target audience is largely the end consumer. However, you can still use ads as a way to promote your business. For example, you can create a product like the sticky notes discussed earlier in the article to sell to the general public, with the hope that at least some percentage of that public may need a printer at some point. After all, one of the areas in which this industry really needs to improve is self-promotion; we do a much better job at promoting others than we do ourselves.
LinkedIn also has similar advertising capabilities. There is an added benefit to participating on LinkedIn for companies in the B2B space because everyone is linked professionally (the companies and industries for which people work are identified as parts of their profiles). In this space, you could feasibly market printing services to manufacturers in Canada, for example. The other strength of LinkedIn is to recruit potential employees. While basic membership is free, with a paid subscription the ability to recruit and be recruited improves. For companies that have restricted the use of Facebook, LinkedIn is a good way to have employees engaged in social media in a more professional capacity.
Type 3: Media Sharing
The last category of social media is media sharing sites. Here I define media as the ability to share photos (Flikr.com), videos (YouTube), and text (Twitter). Investing in media sharing can start to hold some great value in the B2B market. The core of using this technology is sharing information and allowing others to have a say at the same time. Most importantly, participating in media sharing can improve your ranking in search results (search engine optimization (SEO) is what you want to research to understand this better).
Watching videos is high on client preference lists. As such, YouTube is an important tool in connecting with people. However, taking a demanding approach to video production can be overwhelming. It's important to remember that on sites like YouTube content is more important than quality. Some of the most viewed videos on the Internet are caught with a simple digital point and shoot camera. A quick search of terms like "printing company" reveals that a lot of what printers are still doing is highly promotional. As an example, a video of loudly running equipment offers little value to the client; you are much better off recording your prepress expert explaining how to make a PDF. If you want to use video for promotional purposes, it seems that humour goes a long way. Take the Printing's Alive video by Pazazz Printing or the Off Register video series by Sappi as examples. There are many advantages to hosting a video on YouTube as opposed to hosting internally. YouTube can drive people back to your website, it can make sharing the video easier so more people are likely to see it and it's an interface that people are familiar with.
However, creating videos can be a lot of hard work from concept to finished product. It makes sense to be strategic in the way you approach them. If your videos are going to be informative, you should build them around a concept that can be spun into a series of videos. If you are anxious to get something on YouTube but don't think that it's viable for you to update the content often, you can create one slightly longer video that doesn't leave customers expecting more.
Another great business tool for building brand and engaging customers and prospects is blogging. There are different types of blogs you can use. You can go the traditional route of writing article-type entries that your clients can comment on. This typically works well when it becomes a mix of professional and more social content. You can use a blog to explain a new printing process that you've invested in, then follow that post with your company's experience with the install, and maybe some photos to go along with the text. This will better build relationships with your clients.
Blogs tend to work better when they are associated with an actual person. If having multiple users is too complicated, make sure that employees sign the entries and tag them with the author's names.
While traditional blogging is very good for sharing larger amounts of information, micro-blogging is also very popular. In a micro-blog, you have to communicate in 140 characters or less. Twitter is the number one micro-blogging website. In our experience, Twitter seems to be the biggest mystery to printers and rightfully so — the professional value of Twitter is only beginning to take shape. The general idea is that you can have a conversation about a topic with a very large number of people by tagging it with a hash tag (#socialmedia). When others like what you have to say, they start to follow you and then they are exposed to all of your future conversations. This is another example where just talking about your company's capabilities is not likely to be engaging. The idea is to share interesting facts with others. As with regular blogs, when you set up a company account (ex. Toronto_Printer) it is becoming commonplace to initial entries by starting with an underscore at the end of the passage. If you have employees that enjoy contributing to Twitter on an ongoing basis, you can include their names in their profile names to further personalize the interactions (ex. Bob_Toronto_Printer).
Above all, with media sharing, it's important that you set an achievable goal for yourself because cutting back content looks bad, while increasing content is a positive sign. So if you are going to blog, start monthly — if you find that you have time for more, move to twice a month, then weekly, and so on. There is a general expectation for consistency when it comes to new content online, which you have to manage.
Now that we have established some of the common categories of social media, as well as investigated some opportunities for printers to use them, I wanted to share with you some expert industry opinions. Let's focus on the topic from both the perspective of a printing company (CJ Graphics, in particular) as well as sharing some expertise from some social media professionals.
Talking to Social Media Experts:
Before taking a look at social media through the experiences of a printing company, I wanted to share with you some opinions from expert social media professionals.
First, I had the opportunity to chat with Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image, renowned speaker and author of Six Pixels of Separation (a great read!). I was first introduced to Mitch at a Fujifilm seminar. This is not surprising as Fuji is heavily engaged in the social media space. Mitch is a wonderful speaker who has plenty of advice to give.
Mitch suggests some best practices for using social media:
1. Find an interesting angle for your content.
There are many ways to think about this, however, I would suggest that personifying your social media presence, or giving it some personality is key.
2. Connect and interact with the people who are already in your area of interest.
Remember that social media is a great place to build relationships with other like-minded professionals.
3. Don't shill your wares. Be helpful.
Again, don't just promote product — connect and communicate with your clients.
Mitch also suggested that printers who are starting out in the social media space should take a look at the business book, Social Marketing to the Business Customer, by Paul Gillen and Eric Schwartzman.
My favourite piece of advice from Mitch's book, Six Pixels of Separation, though seemingly less significant, is to maintain the same profile photo across all social media sites to help others recognize you in a variety of locations.
In addition to talking to Mitch, I wanted to talk to another professional with expertise in the B2B marketplace specifically – Eliot Johnson, senior manager of social media strategy at KPMG International, an accountancy firm. Eliot described himself as a social media enthusiast, interacting online on a personal and professional basis. What is unusual about Eliot (relative to the printing industry) is his position at KPMG. His mandate is to develop the enterprise global social media strategy and address governance issues. There have been increasing numbers of companies that hire a specific individual to create strategy for social media, and printing companies have the ability to take this approach. Increasingly, we are seeing positions such as Digital Innovation Specialist posted in our industry.
Eliot began his career as a Web and graphic designer, moving his way into developing integrated media campaigns and managing accounts for ad agencies. Since then, his career has turned toward primarily focusing on the social media space.
During our talk, Eliot stressed the importance of developing a strategy first, before dabbling in social media. He explained that the value of social media is partly in the accomplishment of social reach (sometimes also referred to as earned media). This is where you have built relationships with clients that center around trust and loyalty. Once established, the promotion cost of this type of community is exceptionally low, which is great for small- to medium-sized companies.
Eliot also believes that one of the current pitfalls of social media currently is that it is addressed as simply an ad hoc activity or has been placed on the shoulder of marketing teams without additional staffing. This is problematic because their previous duties have not disappeared, making the workload unmanageable. In a world that is constantly connected, social media can take a considerable amount of time and effort. And like any other marketing discipline, it requires a knowledge base.
His most important piece of advice was to be authentic. The real opportunity in social media is to be able to communicate with customers as people and not consumers. Once you develop a strategy around the message, and properly distribute the work, your last task is to remember that you are building a community around people, and when it comes to social media, people are what you need in order to drive your message forward.
One Printer's Take on Social Media: CJ Graphics
Lee Eldridge, director of interactive solutions at CJ Graphics, is one of those individuals who seems to be very comfortable with technology, embracing the opportunities it delivers, and his title is a good indication that social media is a big part of CJ's business strategy. His advice for social media strategy is very pragmatic coming from an expert.
N: What social media websites do you currently participate in and why?
L: The C.J. Group of companies tailors our approach to social media differently depending on the specific brand in question. Our wide format division, for example, is very active on Twitter, while other divisions use Facebook, YouTube and blogging sites. Our approach to social media – like other areas of business – is utilizing the right tools for the job rather then chasing trends. We've had some great successes using Twitter, Quora and the LinkedIn forums/discussions to identify leads and start dialogues with potential new clients. Too many companies focus on the "broadcast" aspect of social media and ignore the ability to participate in the conversations going on.
N: How has CJ's strategy to social media evolved?
L: Over time we've come to realize that (for us, at least) it needs to be a team effort to be truly successful, and that having a well-defined and specified strategy is key. Like most aspects of business, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. We've also needed to re-examine how we process most of our outgoing messages, as the dialogue on social media sites is constant and ongoing; any model in which communications need to be filtered or approved by several individuals is almost doomed to failure in a social media context, as it stifles the ability to connect with your clients, peers and audience.
N: What are some lessons learned that you could share with other printers starting to become involved in social media?
L: The unfortunate truth is that most self proclaimed "social media gurus" have a lot of difficulty coming to grips with an industry that specializes in custom manufacture for a predominantly B2B environment. Marketing a local coffee shop, top-100 band, or chain of fashion retail stores requires a very different approach to social media then a professional print-service provider. Particularly in that some of the best work we do is rarely attributed back to the printer by the end-user or consumer of the printed product.
The greatest truth about social media is that there is no straight-forward path to success or catch-all strategy. The way to use social media effectively is going to be as unique as each individual company.
The best advice that can be given to anyone who wants to get started in social media?
Do extraordinary things, talk about them, listen and respond.
Given that there is no magic weapon when it comes to social media, your last step in internalizing this article is to continue to read and learn about social media. Below are some ideas on various types of reading/watching/listening materials that can help you in this regard (in addition to the ones already mentioned earlier).
Books:
• Social Media Field Guide: A Resource for Graphic
Communicators
Julie Shaffer and Mary Garnett
• Success Secrets of Social Media Marketing Superstars
Mitch Meyerson
• The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media
Tony Bingham, Marcia Conner, Daniel H. Pink
• Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
Ann Handley, David Meerman Scott, C.C. Chapman
Podcasts:
• Internet Marketing: Insider Tips and Advice for Online Marketing
• iTunes: podcasts > Business >
Management and Marketing > SiteVisibility
• Six Pixels of Separation – Marketing and Communications Insights
• iTunes: podcasts > Business >
Management and Marketing > Mitch Joel
• Social Media Podcast and Sales Training by Shane Gibson
• iTunes: podcasts > Business >
Management and Marketing > Shane Gibson
Follow on Twitter:
Blogs:
The human side of media and the social side of marketing
The Social Media Marketing Blog
Videos:
Clay Shirky: How social media can make history
Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)
Social Media ROI: Socialnomics
How to Be a Social Media Change Agent
Measuring the Effectiveness of Social Media
(Special thanks to Mitch Joel, Eliot Johnson, and Lee Eldridge for participating in the interviews and Anna Whatman for compiling the list of resources.)
