Marketers are farmers. Increasing yield is not just buying more land & spreading more seeds.

I’ve often wondered why marketing the social media way just feels so natural.  Maybe its rooted (sorry, no pun intended) in my growing up on a farm in New Brunswick.  Maybe it’s the garden I used to grow each year as a kid for a vegetable competition in the county fair in the Fall.  Or maybe it was the 10000 onions I grew, weeded, watered, harvested and sold as a 13 year old to make enough money to buy my C-64 (ah this is taking me back.)  Whatever it was, as a marketer I see myself as a farmer.

(photo credit – Cindy’s World - via flickr)

If you’ve ever planted and tended to a garden or crops you know that it’s a heck of a lot more than just planting the seeds in the spring and harvesting in the fall.  Yes, that’s the general idea but there is a lot more to it going on in between those two points.

Next week I’m presenting on a panel at eMetrics in Toronto.  The topic is social media and measuring from awareness to action (seeds to harvest). This analogy popped into my head when considering the approaches to many traditional marketing campaigns.  In general, increasing yield (actions) for traditional marketing can mean throwing more money at a campaign through more media buys (buying more land) and spreading the message wider (planting more seeds.)  More often than not it does result in improved results (increased harvests) but at what cost?  Is this really the most efficient way to grow business (crops)?  Is this approach really going to fly especially in today’s economic climate?

When approaching marketing from a social media centric view I see marketers considering of other ways to increase yield.  With a farmer, he/she would listen to a number of metrics and react accordingly before planting, during the growing season and at harvest time.

• Is the soil in need of nutrients?
• Which plot of land has the best soil mix for the seeds to flourish?
• Should I rotate the crops so as not to overtax a plot of land with the same crop year after year?
• Is the season predicted to be wet or dry and how will that effect what I plant?
• What crop can give me the best ROI with the land I have and the time I have to give it?
• Are there weeds growing that are smothering the plants enough that I need to remove them?
• Are the plants being attacked by pests and should I spray?
• Is there an early frost predicted and should I harvest now or risk the plants being killed if I don’t?

To me the best farmers know how to listen to the signs before, during and after the growing season.  They are always in tune with Mother Nature (community) and make an effort care and feed for each and every plant (relationships).

Social media-grounded marketers do the same thing.  They listen to their community to assess needs and match that to what they have regarding resources to offer.  They plant seeds at the appropriate time and listen for signs as to how they are doing.  They provide care and feeding where appropriate and reacte to forces outside their control.  And they listen for the points of need when potential rewards are good for both the community and for their business, creating a win-win season.

And because they are “out in the field” in social media they have many metrics at hand to help them ascertain what to do next.  I’ve included some of these metrics in the draft of the presentation found here on Slideshare. Using this analogy, what are some of the metrics you would recommend?

March 27th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 12 Comments

Hats – a social media metric

Just back from SXSW and had a great time.  Met up with lots of friends and put real faces to the faces I already knew on Twitter and such.  During at least one of the discussions there the topic of social media metrics came up.  It’s a hot topic, especially with the folks with a traditional media background.  Many are used to standardized measures like click-throughs, eyeballs, GRPs and it’s occasionally said that social media doesn’t have metrics because it doesn’t have any standardized ones.  For me that’s completely the wrong conclusion to draw.  Social media has lots of different ways to measure success – and frankly that’s big advantage in my books.  It really depends on what you are doing in order to determine the measurement technique.

Take for instance my favorite event of SXSW this year – All hat, no cattle – organized by @richardatdell, the Dell gang, and @armano.  Yes, you could look at the ton of #allhat buzz on Twitter.  You could look at the real world attendance numbers and the smiles on the faces of those attending – and the compliments after.  But you could also look at the number of people now wearing hats with their avatars on Twitter (@shashib, @conniereece, @catchuplady, @jennfowler, @mackcollier, @geoffliving, @jasonfalls plus myself included – @davidalston. NOTE: I also see that @markdrosos has a hat now too.)

Update #1: Adding more that I missed…

Update #2: More folks I missed (you can see this success metric gets better and better)

I have to thank Geoff Livingston for pointing this out this obvious metric to me.

And it’s true.  Take a look at the hat’s being worn by a number of the folks who attended the event.  Richard Binhammer and David Armano were the original hat guys but the number has grown – and the stories behind why each one is wearing a hat as well.  That’s a pretty cool metric for success IMHO.

Did I miss anyone?

March 20th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 6 Comments