Sarah Hofstetter

360i Social Marketing Playbook

Click here to download the Social Marketing Playbook»

Marketing used to be different – a lot different. Today, brands are faced with a myriad of opportunities for reaching customers online; and, while the social landscape can be daunting, it holds a world of opportunities for connecting with consumers in deeper and more meaningful ways.

To help guide marketers during this exciting time of transition, we’ve published the Social Marketing Playbook. Our comprehensive strategic report aims to help marketers evaluate the opportunities available, determine which ones are best for their brands and develop a strategy following best practices for achieving success in social media.

The goals of the Playbook are to:

• Provide a framework for establishing a set of clear objectives and strategy when approaching social marketing
• Move beyond the checklist approach and offer a filter for evaluating the myriad opportunities and platforms
• Encourage thinking of social marketing as an opportunity to have a continuous, valuable exchange with customers
• Advance discussions on amplifying marketing results through the integration of social marketing and offline campaigns

In addition to leveraging the insights from contributors to this blog such as David Berkowitz, Sienna Farris, Shankar Gupta, Lara Hejtmanek, Katie Perry and Orli Sharaby, the Playbook also includes guest commentary by industry luminaries Randall Rothenberg (CEO of the IAB), Pete Cashmore (CEO of Mashable.com), Jeremiah Owyang (Blogger at Web-Strategist.com), Jeff Pulver, (Founder of Pulver.com and Producer of The 140 Character Conference) and Greg Galant (CEO of Sawhorse Media and Creator of the Shorty Awards).

In vein with the interactive nature of social marketing, we invite you to leave questions, comments and other feedback right here on our blog, or leave us a note @360i or on Facebook.

CONTEST: 360i is giving away 10 hard-bound copies of the Social Marketing Playbook during the month of July. To enter the drawing, take our quiz and enter your email into the “Your Name” field at the beginning of the quiz (your email will only be used to contact you if you win). Good luck!

Tropicana: Old and New by jlai321 via Flickr

Tropicana’s recent decision to revert to their classic packaging of 24 years was made after an uproar from consumers – largely in social media – against the new look. Granted, not everyone likes change, and with every change will come some negative feedback. But Tropicana realized something in retrospect: Each consumer’s opinion does not have equal weight. Despite all of their research – and I’m sure Arnell and the team at Tropicana did plenty of it – it’s hard to detect the few negative votes in a focus group who could be those who start an anti-Tropicana Facebook group, blog about their opinions, tweet to their thousands of followers, etc. Read the full article

While you can’t predict virality, you can set certain marketing principles in place to increase your odds. BL Ochman just published a fantastic story in BusinessWeek online debunking six social media myths. If you’re looking to explain how social media works to your boss or your colleagues, this is a fantastic starting point.

Social media marketing isn’t like traditional media planning. It’s not a “buy” – it’s an experience and a two-way conversation. BL does an excellent job explaining that, which can lead marketers to realize that this needs serious attention and should be planned holistically across media, creative, PR, through the lens of understanding the way consumers engage in social media today.

Read the full article