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!
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Great, great post! The tracking of pass-alongs is something that would help marketers show their stakeholders how messages move through SNs, and then between SNs.
I’d say my #11 would be: Increased two-way communication features within the brand pages. Without creating dedicated user profiles, it’s sometimes hard for a brand to really get that same level (although not impossible) of interactions with users.
Again, great list!
Cheers,
Ron
@ronschott
Nice post Marty. I enjoyed our chat last week and look forward to working with you and Ali to find more opportunities where Windows can add value to influential social media communities.
Totally agree with you. I also recommend people to ask on how we can target people by industry rather than the typical age, interests etc.? What if you have a product/service only for people working in that industry? To me innovation is tuning one’s service to their customer’s unique requirements than a fixed pattern
Marty,
You’ve got some great points there and I couldn’t agree more especially on #10.
While we’re still at the slope of another “hype cycle” for SN, innovation drawn from this will benefit everyone in the long run. Brands that “get it” realized that their brand promise (product/services etc) has to align with their message in order to be authentic or liked.
The transparency and fluidness of SN merely created a better mouse-trap in an attempt to keep companies honest, do what you say and deliver not just the expected value but unexpected innovation to their audience.
I love the idea of being able to connect with the brands that I care most about but I also appreciate being able to give my two cents to brands I don’t use about WHY I don’t.
While this isn’t an example of online social media, it is an example of social media in its grassroots form… face to face with real people: I was one of 60 women bloggers who had the opportunity to participate in the Ford: What Women Want Tech & Quality event the day prior to the BlogHer conference in Chicago. I don’t own a single Ford vehicle but my opinions were still heard. Not only did they walk away with a little insight about what I want in a car, but I walked away with a new respect for their company. I didn’t feel like they were just trying to run sales pitches.
Companies that really get that consumers want their voices heard, whether online or off, will be far ahead of their competitors.
Greta post! I see this as a Digital Media Strategist and have this to say. None of these SN’s have a great interface to reach out to friends, followers, etc. that does not appear to be SPAM. When combined with the crush of messgaing people are getting, it is a tough sell. Maybe better than direct mail (still), but getting worse.
The messaging we can send out is not efficient in that “everybody” is sending out such messaging. How do we rise above the clutter? For example, the difference in Pages and Groups in Facebook is confusing at best and we have decided to “deploy” both for clients until we can anonymously message in Pages to all.
Myspace is to wracked with kietshe apps and other hard to download eye candy that to really get to the people is hard … It’s crazy to find “new” leads on myspace at this stage.
Twitter is the best APP for RT dialogue I have used in years! But we are limited until recently with tracking …
there is more of course.
my 2c