This week we welcome our new Account Management intern, Topher Howden, to the Raidious family.

Topher came to us via Matt Chandler’s Web Marketing course at the Art Institute of Indianapolis where he is majoring in Web Design and Interactive Media, but his skills are so wide-ranging that he’s going to try his hand at the client service end of the business.

We are all excited to have him on board for the summer as he completes his required internship hours. And if we become angry with him we will call him by his full four names.

Topher will be working directly under P.J. Gindling, VP, Client Service, assisting with the general functions of that department including file organization, gathering reports, and client communication. Topher’s internship will offer him the opportunity to learn all sides of Raidious business from an Account Management perspective.

And we won’t even make him go get us lunch.

On Monday InsideFacebook.com reported in-depth on some changes to the Facebook Like button. This is in relation to using the Like button on a published site. Basically, they are replacing the “share” button on sites with “Like” and “Like (with comment)”.

This means when you have this functionality installed on your site, and a user “likes” something, the user of your site is effectively syndicating your content directly into Facebook, publishing it into the streams of all their friends.

Let’s hope that content doesn’t suck, eh? The real world equivalent of this would be advertising to get people into your store, then handing them 150 flyers to go give to all their friends, along with a personal endorsement (implied, at the very least) of how great your company is.

You can’t get that with paid media. You can’t get it with earned media. Only owned media gives you this unique scenario where not only do you get to control the message, and the platform, but the credibility of the source is almost unquestionable.

If my friend says it is so, it must be true! I trust them. I confide in them. I have a relationship with my friends that brands–regardless of their budgets or their hip factor or their sheer will–will never, ever be able to replicate, because brands are not people.

What is an impression like that worth compared to buying a print ad (if it’s good enough I’ll see it online), or having a story featured on the local news (which my friends curate for me on Facebook)?

I would have to say it is worth a helluva lot more than any tactic a traditional medium–paid media or earned media–can offer. Plus, you can track each actual impression or interaction all the way through to conversion, if you know what you’re doing on the anlaytics front. Earned media and paid media are at best a guess, an approximation.

The Like button could (and probably will) become one of the top syndicators of your content, if you employ this technology on your site or your blog. What else are you doing to syndicate your content?

We have seen a lot of success with our clients on Reddit, as well as occasionally on Digg (hit and miss). Twitter and Facebook syndication works. We have also recently been working more traditional syndication into our content planning, as well as guest blogging strategies for brands and thought leaders.

Getting the content off of your site or blog and proactively getting it in front of people is critical to your success, and a Facebook Like button is a great start. Let us know if you need a hand with this, or other syndication strategies; we’ll be happy to help!

In the early 1980s there was an obscure song by an obscure Indiana band entitled “Real Rock & Roll Don’t Come From New York.” In the world of marketing, Tom Hirons and Company prove that great advertising doesn’t have to come from New York either.

An agency leader since 1978, Hirons & Company are local, regional and national leaders in research-based messaging and tracking, public relations and marketing development, field hearings and public information sessions. In 2009 they not only named Raidious their lead digital partner, but they were nice enough to lease us some space in their very fancy new building when we grew out of the first Raidious office in just five months.

If you’ve been lucky enough to get to know Tom Hirons, we don’t need to tell you he is one of the nicest people on the planet. In the highly competitive ad agency business, Tom stands out as an honest, trustworthy, and forward-thinking agency principal. He walks the walk, and he has been a great role model to the senior team at Raidious, whether he knows it or not. We can only hope to maintain the same level of good-natured authenticity and sincere dedication to client success that Tom Hirons has become known for over their last 30+ years in business. He does things right, and he does the right things.

Hirons & Company is a joy for us to work with. Tom Aschauer, Deana, Meghan, Chris, and all of the other Hirons team members have been great. We’ve been honored to be entrusted with the digital component of a lot of their client relationships, and we have worked with them on a lot of great projects. We’ve made some great friends as well.

Thanks for everything Tom Hirons, and everyone at Hirons & Company. We are honored to be working with you.

eMarketer recently published some great research on current trends in marketing spending for social media.

Social Media = Content

According to their report there was a 23% increase in social media spending excluding paid advertising, which is a great sign for a company like ours. What’s even better is they are projecting an additional 35% for this year.

This is a great indicator that marketers get it. In the online space, you can’t buy brand preference, loyalty, awareness or affinity: they must be earned.

That’s not to say paid online advertising doesn’t work; it is very effective if there is a clear call to action, conversion path and great creative. But it is difficult for advertising to accomplish what an authentic, humanistic engagement can accomplish as it relates to hearts and minds.

One of the issues eMarketer brings up is the difficulty in tracking the marketing spend due to the number of different budgets from which it comes. Is it advertising? Not really. Is it PR? Probably not. Is it coming from IT? Nope. The need for resources to drive the socialization of business is the reason we’re here, but we constantly find ourselves working with our clients to help them figure out where the budget should come from.

So what’s the answer? We usually tell clients it should come from their Media budget, as social engagement–while not free–is still much more efficient than a typical offline media buy.

For instance, for about the cost of a week on a mid-market radio station or a single half-page newspaper ad in a mid-tier market, we can proactively manage a brand’s presence across the entire internet.

We make, manage, monitor, moderate and measure the content we create across all your brand’s digital platforms and outposts. Reallocating just a small portion of the offline media budget allows brands to actively participate in and leverage social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, company blogs, websites, email programs, and even mobile devices.

We’d love to tell you more about it: contact us any time. Here is a link to eMarketer’s full report if you have an extra $695 and you’re really interested. In the meantime, ask yourself: where is your social media budget coming from?

UPDATE: I changed the title of this post, because I came up with a better one. Also, there is a discussion we started related to this over on our Facebook Fan Page if you’re interested.

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Anecdotal evidence didn’t work in your middle school science fair, so it shouldn’t be expected to hold up in the high stakes world of marketing. We must be able to provide measurable results in order to justify shifts in budget and overall priorities.

You could hire an expensive consulting company to conduct extensive market research, or you could start with the “FEED” Digital Brand Experience Study.

Razorfish, an industry leader in market and technology research and implementation, “surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers (50.5% female, 49.5% male) in four major age groups to understand how their adoption of Internet technology and services impacted the way that they engaged with brands.”

The overriding message in the (very stylishly presented) report and the data, both provided online at no charge or in book form from Blurb:

“Simply put, ‘connected consumers’ are the new mainstream.”

Brand engagement in the digital space–and the accompanying shift in marketing dollars–is more than just a game of “Everyone else is doing it, so we should too.” In fact, it would be more apt to say “All of our customers and potential customers expect it, so we need to do it to survive.”

According to study results:

“65% of consumers report that a digital brand experience has changed their opinion (either positively or negatively) about a brand or the products and services a brand offers.”

The report outlines these new habits of the highly connected consumer base in a section called “digital primacy.” According to Forrester’s 2009 North American Technographics Benchmark Survey cited in the report, “consumers spend 34% of their total media time online and 35% watching television.” These numbers shift dramatically toward the online realm for those 45 years old and under.

Consumers are becoming increasingly fluent in the use and adaptation of digital technology, augmenting the opportunities for increasing brand awareness and engagement. Of those surveyed, 84% “rely on the web to get current news or information,” among other significant statistics.

What this means is that companies ignore or underutilize the digital space at their own peril. The audience and its expectations are shifting to the online world, and reasoned, measured efforts must be made in order to keep up.

This Had Better Be Good

Building brand affinity online goes beyond creating a Facebook “fan page” or tweeting about new products. Customers want special offers and deals.

Of those surveyed who follow a brand on Twitter, “44% say access to exclusive deals” is their primary motivator for doing so. Similar results (37%) are found among those who “friended” a brand on Facebook or MySpace.

These numbers suggest not only that companies should be offering incentives for new and loyal customers, but point toward the overarching expectation for customer service in the digital space.

It is the totality of user experience that builds the brand. Among the 70% of surveyed consumers who have participated in a brand-sponsored contest or sweepstakes:

• “96% are more aware of the brand
• “96% are more likely to consider that brand when in the market for a product or service
• “96% are more likely to purchase a product or service from that brand; and
• “92% are more likely to recommend that brand to others.”

An unsatisfactory experience with a completely voluntary exercise such as a giveaway or other interactive promotion does not yield this level of affinity. Beyond the stunningly high number who end up more likely to make a purchase, the 92% who would recommend the brand to others should be enough to get anyone’s attention.

Show Me Some Numbers

In the days of static websites, possibly with ecommerce capabilities, measurement of consumer purchasing decisions was an fairly straightforward matter of spending a modicum of quality time with site analytics.

The digital world has changed with social media, allowing for a longer tail of engagement with brands and corporate entities. Digital experience is more than building a brand: it can now determine that brand’s success or failure for a large and ever-growing segment of the market.

While it’s one matter to sway consumer opinion based on digital brand experience, it’s quite another to drive sales. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed reported that an online experience has affected (either positively or negatively) their opinion about a brand or product, it’s the numbers on the resulting call to action that show a direct correlation between those opinions and buying habits:

“97%—a near-unanimous majority—report that a digital brand experience has influenced whether or not they then went on to purchase a product or service from a brand.”

For first-time purchasers, the results are equally staggering:

“64% of consumers have made a first purchase from a brand because of a digital experience such as a web site, microsite, mobile coupon, or email.”

What we see here is that online–more so than any other media–has a direct, measurable impact on the marketing funnel. We don’t need to rely solely on surveys and market research; we can correlate those survey findings with real, hard data collected via technology.

What It All Means

Billboards and TV commercials aren’t customized to an individual’s personal tastes and habits. The digital space, however, is built to be a two-way interaction, and marketing must adapt.

Each and every medium–display, broadcast, print, digital–is related and can affect consumer opinion and purchasing. Multi-channel marketing must be coordinated and branded appropriately, and deliver a high level of customer experience and engagement.

Consumers expect interaction, incentives, and consistency of service across digital platforms. Companies must respond to this immediate, explosive impact or suffer.

• Read the report
• Download the PDF
• Order the book

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There was a great article over at Media Post called “Social Media and Just-In-Time Monetization” based on an interaction at OMMA Global.

Mat Zucker of OgilvyOne was lamenting his clients’ reluctance/inability to sweep into action when breaking news or events spur conversation about them online. He used as his example MTV’s lack of immediate response to the Kanye West incident at the Video Music Awards.

His proposed solution was a social media “SWAT team” charged with swinging into action to respond to such events, and turn them into potential money-making opportunities.

Most large companies are afraid of immediate, targeted response to breaking events involving their brand.

Marketing efforts are coordinated and planned for months or years with ad agencies and PR firms, who aren’t equipped to handle “rapid response.”

How does a company address the ongoing, immediate conversations happening about them in the digital space? The solution seems obvious to people like Zucker–and to us at Raidious: employ a team of content producers adept at all the social media platforms to respond to such events in the company’s voice.

The internet is not a media buy; at its most basic level it is a means of communication between two people. As companies are increasingly aware, they are vastly outgunned by the masses. If 100,000 people tweet about your brand, or three million people view and comment on a YouTube video criticizing your company, they can do untold damage to your marketing efforts and the money you’ve spent on them.

The alternative is to engage in the conversation and leverage these types of events into customer service opportunities and reputation management.

Ultimately, this parlays into monetization: you are talking directly with customers (and potential customers) while the topic of your brand is fresh in their minds. They see you as engaged and responsive, and are more likely to begin or continue to patronize your brand and services.

This opportunity is fleeting; the “news cycle” is very, very short. MTV waited a month to wade into the conversation–presumably so they and their strategists could come to an agreement on the response–and by then it was too late.

Rather than jumping on the loose ball and recovering the fumble, they watched from the sidelines and missed a potential game-winning touchdown opportunity.

The ability to be agile with your message its platforms, and to employ rapid response when customers are voluntarily engaged with your brand, are the keys to grabbing the pigskin and hustling it into the monetization end zone.

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