SeattleGirl

Can you land a Value Prop in Social Media?

This last month I've been heads down working on execution of our social media strategy for the Windows7 launch. We have some really exciting strategies we are working to land with our partners. We are lucky enough to have a huge ecosystem of partners, from OEM's (computer manufacturers) to retailers. We want to make sure this launch is as inclusive of our partners as possible. We are looking at all the ways we can leverage our existing communities and bring them together to exponentially amplify our message.

Lately my job has been socializing our programs and strategies with executives to make sure we have buy-in and support as well as leveraging 'owned' and 'earned' properties for promotion opportunities. These conversations are very interesting and extremely helpful in landing the strongest social media strategy we can. My exec's ask great questions that really push me to make sure I'm satisfying our business goals and objectives with my tactics and not just landing UGC (user generated content) for the sake of it. A few of the questions I got this week are:

1. How does this land our products Value Proposition?
2. How does this compliment and/or tie into our advertising and marketing programs?
3. How does the integrate with our existing domains; Windows.com and Microsoft.com?
4. And the big one…. How does this help customers understand which PC to buy???

Good to Great social media strategies should be able to do all of these things as well as build customer evangelism and advocacy. What we are looking at now is how we present our customers voice in an honest and authentic way while still satisfying our need to land key messages and product features important to Windows7. If I open up the flood gates and bring the voice of my customers front and center (which we are going to do what if they never talk about the new, cool stuff that will sell Windows 7 like snap, security, simplicity, Media Center? We have a pretty good indication that consumers will talk about these features because we've been monitoring the conversation about Windows7 since the beta launched in January. We know what customers are raving about so I'm not worried they won't discuss it. I'm more focused on how to I present the conversation in a way people can navigate and find the information they are most interested in. Organization of all the social media content is a new challenge. It's coming from multiple social network sites. We want to let all voices participate and organize that conversation in a way that will reveal our strong value prop. This is the cornerstone of my strategy and what I've built our programs around.

Make sure and involve your execs in your reviews. They will see things you miss. They will call out uncertainties and they will hopefully (in my case definitely) make your strategy and programs better.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,windows marketing,social media marketing,social media,windows7,Community marketing

Dear SN's: Here's what brand marketers want

The majority of my job focuses on how Windows can connect and build relationships with our most passionate customers on Social Networks (SN). I run the social media team for Windows so I'm 100% focused on how I can drive my business and build brand loyalty for Windows through the social web. About 75% of that means working with SN's. The top SN's we focus on in the US are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace. I have relationships with people at each network and appreciate the partnerships they are looking to create with brands. But my one frustration is while they continue to innovate on their product offerings for both consumers and brand marketers they do very little to reach out to me and ask me what I as a brand marketer values and would be willing to pay for. Since all of these brands are free to users it would make sense they would want to understand the value of the people that actually pay for their product, the brand marketer.

Notice I don't say advertisers. I'm not an advertiser. I don't sit on our media buying team (paid media), I work on our earned media team. I still have a budget, albeit a sliver of a media buyers budget, but nonetheless will spend money this year to promote and market my brand. So I ask myself, why aren't my partners at the SN's more interested in what is of value to me. I am happy to help them innovate and bring products to market brand marketers will pay for, but quite frankly no one has asked . So I'll do what all bloggers do, post it here for others to weight in on and maybe some of this feedback will get back to the SN's I am hoping will hear it.

10 things brand marketers want from SN's:

1. Access to people who would be interested in my product. I don't need to see everyone, just the people that have an affinity for what I am selling. (Facebook does this pretty well)

2. Ability to have a conversation where I can respond to enthusiasts and naysayers (SN's get points for this. They all offer this feature)

3. Portable content so if someone wants to share what I am talking about with their network they can easily pass-along

4. Ability to track the pass-along of that shared content

5. Cut through the clutter. A few of the SN's have gotten so riddled down with 'stuff' you can't discover anything of value. How can SN's help brand marketers cut through the clutter.

6. Featured brand pages (YouTube and MySpace do this now but it will cost you)

7. Kill the modular layouts. There is very little ability to customize brand pages on SN's due to modular restrictions.

8. Automated language 'clean up'. Delete any comments with four letter words.

9. Tagging functionality. This would make it possible for people to discover conversations across networks. (Twitter #tags are the closest thing to this right now)

10. A better partnership – innovate WITH me

I'm sure there are lots more I haven't thought of. Would love to hear what others think. Cheers!

Technorati Tags: marketing,windows marketing,social media marketing,social networks,facebook,youtube,twitter,myspace