I recently presented at a Chartered Institute of Marketing workshop. Here is the e-mail I sent to all the delegates.

 Just to let you know I had not forgotten you all. Geraldine wanted to have the presentation loaded on the website so it can be accessed by everyone. If you have problems I am happy to e-mail a copy directly.

 I thought you would be interested in the following information I picked up at the European Podcasting Summit last week. Blogging and podcasting are both growing fast with up to 15% of people reading/listening. (I actually think this is an under-estimation as all mainstream media including BBC radio and TV now offer podcasts and blogs). In the US about 1/3rd of major companies use blogs internally to help inter-team and management communication. About 10% of US Fortune 500 CEO’s blog publicly as do the companies themselves. This is equally true for B2B and B2C companies. In Europe this tends to be lower. My reading is that France and the Nordics are moving fastest in Europe with the UK catching up.  

The power of Social Media also applies to science! At the Summit we heard from the Australian science research institute (CSIRO) that a video of intelligent fabrics by a professor posted on YouTube caused so much traffic that their web site crashed multiple times. Global main stream media was alerted and followed the story up by all flying to Australia causing them to have to go into ‘crisis management mode’ and hire a team of people to help manage it. Check it out at csiro (please note this is the post-event version not as originally posted on YouTube). The result was a number of major brands picked up on this and offered multi million $ worldwide licensing contracts to exploit the invention. Without YouTube it would have happened but not at the speed and global level. That is the power of social media to brands and business.

 At the session with you some people raised the question that I was only offering B2C as examples. I am sorry I had hoped my examples spanned a range of products and services. The underlining message I wanted to convey was whatever your size, your industry or market focus for your product or service consider using social media if you want:

•  A closer relationship with customers that includes ‘active conversation’.
• To get a ‘sling shot’ effect through super-connectors (CISRO above)
• To appeal to all ages and sectors of society (don’t tell me BBC Radio 4, Times Online and Guardian Unlimited are targeting the youth market!) – globally!

 Blogs, audio and video podcasts are just tools and the internet a delivery platform. Get the content right and you will get an audience. When selling to anyone you want to start a conversation and build a relationship. You can and should do it the ‘traditional way’ – face-to-face. But why not go global if you can? You cannot talk to everyone directly – there are not enough hours in the day. Even the CIM event needs a lot of organising and management so you cannot do those every week. Now just imagine if we had set up a camera or audio recorder and recorded our session together. We could have made it available (in full or edited highlights) as a podcast either free or for a small fee. Rather than a one off why not a series of ‘MasterClasses’? Would that help promote the CIM or its CPD programme? Now imagine I posted the link to my blog or mentioned in our monthly newsletter what would that do for traffic? What if you each did the same? What if some of those people you passed the link and details onto did the same with their contacts? What if someone out there is a super-connector? What would happen then?

 A final thought. All this is FREE. You get very little pass on with adverts or direct mail. Social Media has an inbuilt ‘viral’ hook – you send a link just as I did in the mail above. Our best campaign for a client is now running at less that 25p (and reducing by the month!) a LISTEN. That is people who have actual clicked to listen to the podcast. Do you know exactly how many people have actually read your press advert or a direct mail AND taken action? How much did that costs? I know when I was marketing for Tektronix I had the following cost-per-lead metrics for ROI averaged across Europe (based upon 1995 prices): You maybe better or worse than this but I want to cross compare to podcast/blog ROI.

·         PR - £65

·         Advertising - £45

·         Trade Show (not including staffing costs) - £32

·         Seminar and events (not including staffing costs) - £26

·         User Group Events (not including staffing costs and held in company offices so no room rental) - £22

·         Direct mail - £16

·         Customer Newsletters (not including staff costs for writing/editing) - £2.15 per edition (based upon 15k English language circulation and mix of pan-European postage rates)*

 * We did not carry any form of promotion but listed office addresses to get more info. It was impossible to track as the sales offices never qualified what stimulated the call.

 As we sold indirectly (via dealers and distributors) I could not measure actual cost per sale. My commission and bonus depended on increasing leads each quarter and reducing cost per lead. A tough challenge but that is US Corporate culture.

 Now look at podcasts and blogs. You have the initial set-up costs (design of page format or music and voice-overs), production cost per programme and then the time to produce (all the above activities take time too) but after that it’s all free except for hosting. No postage. No space costs. No media page buying. You still have to drive and build an audience but that is why Small World Theory is so important. Remember those stories of raves or parties when the parents were away that went wild? Somehow the word got out and the world descended on them! Just like CSIRO! That is the sling-shot effect. That is the power of Social Media.

One final thought. Comments and feedback are good. That is what is at the core of a relationship. For a great way to use social media and engage an audience check out Blendtec. The guys had a product – a blender – and decided to show its power and performance by blending usual things like mobile phones. They filmed it and stuck it on YouTube. It became very popular and people made suggestions as to what else to try. They did. You will see their web site now is built around this and attracts main stream media who in turn drive even more traffic. A lot of people say they are being stupid, dangerous etc. That just adds to the PR bandwagon.

The last observation. Hugh MacLeod is at it again with his Threshers voucher. £15m last time. What do you think this time? Check it out and maybe take advantage of the Social Media/Viral/WOM experiment yourself ...Look at his stats.....see the peaks.....