Hyphenated Marketing, A New Social Media Marketing Approach

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Towards a newTowards a newTowards a newTowards a newssssocialocialocialocial mmmmarketing approacharketing approacharketing approacharketing approach

Laurent Francois

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Digital environments have amplifiedbrands’ wishes to convert a widediversity of consumers into brandadvocates or even ambassadors.This marketing dream is reinforced bythe new semantics, which are rising allover the digital planet:

“Facebook fans”

would have a price;

“Twitter followers”

would be monetized

; “Empire Avenue”

would give a monetary value to socialinteractions. More generally, the newmarketing havens will allow for themaintenance of a strong link betweenbrands and well-known populations,which would be reachable andactionable whenever a communicationplan is launched. Pure illusion orpotential goal?

The aim of this paper is to introducesome new elements to the classicstatic “communication funnel,” that iswidespread in the advertising andmarketing industry. It does not mean atall that it should be removed ordismantled (the basic question “

Why do we communicate?

” has never beenthat important), but considered in amore dynamic vision.Digital spaces and strategies can bestrong levers to shape constant andreliable pipelines between consumersand marketers; they’re also big threatsfor weaker brands, as consumerexodus can skyrocket from one favoritebrand to another, depending on thecurrent bad buzz or affair.Blogger retaliation against Motrin isone of many examples thatdemonstrate how consumers can uniteagainst an organization.(

http://citizenl.net/2008/11/motrin-bad-buzz-a-risky-lack-of-love/

). And Greenpeace, instead of usingmajor TV ads to promote their cause,uses weak-ties among real people, andprovides materials to make word-of-mouth work like a domino effect(

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/07/19/forbes-greenpeace-vs-brands-social-media-attacks-to-continue/

).Regardless of what claims are made,many companies don’t know how to

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confidently respond to this kind ofattack.This predicament arises not becausethey don’t know their messages butbecause the attacks come frommillions of temporary vectors, not asingle “

ambassador

.”More basically, marketers seem tomiss a key factor when it comes to thedigital world: the most important assetsare most of the time invisible in termsof public digital footprints, but rooted inongoing private or semi-privateconversations; a

front

versus

back

logic. So organizing visible buzz is notthat important, compared to creatinglegitimacy and an opportunity to bediscussed among bilateral privateconversations.Another example of this difficulty toreach consumers where they are is therelationship between brands and themedia. Many companies try to arrangepartnerships with media. While thisimpulse is understandable—media canreach critical audiences for brandsthrough a wide range of programs,including CRM, communityengagement, event activation—manyof these partnerships fail because theyare still not linked to a global channelstrategy. In other words, thesepartnerships are experienced astemporary tactics, not yet fullyintegrated.On the media side, most of thesepartnerships have limited valuepropositions, often perceived only as“

promote and die

” operations. Whenbrands generate a relationship withpeople, very often their campaigns endin a very abrupt manner, like a badlyedited film. Instead, consumers shouldbe given time to connect with the storyof the brandIndeed, most of the communicationframeworks are still approached in avery static way. That is to say thatthere is still an inadequacy betweencompanies’ marketing tools and thepublic’s expectations. The typical one-year marketing plan does not really fitwith projects that influencers,consumers, and power-users couldsuddenly suggest. These are staticmethodologies (market studies/brandpillars), but successful relationshipmanagement requires more dynamicapproaches (active listening, directresponses, etc.).