Product. Price. PROMOTION. Place.

Tweet

The title of this blog was originally thought of as a group in the late 1940’s and once the clever phrase “The Four P’s” was coined in 1960, the concept really took off and wound up in many a hard bound Marketing 101 text book.


And more recently, three more P’s were tagged on: Process, Physical evidence and People. Uh, okay.


But what about that third word in the original four P's: Promotion? Encarta describes promote as: To publicize a product so that people will buy or rent it.


And that’s still true; however, the parameters have changed just a bit. Well, namely, the channels. There’s still “traditional”, such as direct mail, billboards, radio, TV, and magazines of course. And then there’s social media. And that one gets more convoluted, complicated, and time consuming all the time. 


Promotion was so much easier before the days of social media! You just hired a PR agency and they took care of most of it. Then social media came along. And many businesses decided to handle that themselves. Sure, let's post the special on the menu a couple of times of week and maybe throw a 10% off on there or two. Oh and maybe a blog post now and then. That’s what social media is all about, right? I’m selling my product.


Well guess what? That’s not it! It’s not even about you or your business. And I’ve written about that so many times. It’s about creating awareness for your service and/or product, in essence, promoting, but more importantly it’s about the people who have an interest in what you have to say!


It’s a kinder, gentler, type of promotion. It's a long term commitment. It’s conversational, thought provoking, and community oriented. It brings to you both interested fans and people who like to throw pebbles and stones. And it continues to require more and more planning, thought and time. If you’re feeling bogged down by it, get someone else to do all that so you can plan menus, paint great works of art, fix broken plumbing, prepare taxes, or whatever it is you do exceptionally well.


LinkedIn. Facebook. Twitter. Google+. Interest specific Social Networks. And now, Pinterest has come in like a hurricane! Too much. And you’ve got to have a presence on all the big boys to ensure that your audience is hearing you. Sigh.


How are all of you folks with businesses managing all that?


Double Sigh. 


Promotion. Sometimes you wish you hadn’t heard the word!  Pink Floyd even sang a song about it. See below.


This is P in the Blogging A to Z Challenge. Here's N and O.  If you haven’t had enough of me, stop by for more on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Data, Social Media, and You.

Tweet

How do YOU pronounce it? Day-ta or Dat-a?

What actually IS it? Encarta defines it as information, often in the form of facts or figures obtained from experiments or surveys, used as a basis for making calculations or drawing conclusions.

Surveys? Experiments? How does this apply to social media? And, you thought I was going to talk about ROI, didn’t you?

Ah, questionnaires. Good old fashioned quantitative market research; an excellent way to get some insight from your fans, followers or circlers. And plenty of free sources to use. But beware of bias and improper wording; I’ve seen lots of poorly written surveys in my time!
Find a market research professional, tell them what it is you’d like to learn from your clients, and let them do the rest. Great data starts from the best preparation, from defining the issue, including determining the possible actions that will be taken as a result of the findings, creating the questionnaire, testing, fielding, processing, analyzing and reporting.

What do you want to learn from your fans on Facebook for example? Some ideas include:

• Demographics, beyond the location, age group and gender that Facebook provides to page owners
• Gather ideas on what they’d like to see on your page
• Test out a new product concept
• Their opinions on a particular subject; perhaps something that you’d like to blog about at a later date
• Greater detail on their interests (psychographics in market research speak)
• How they feel about some of your current products and likelihood to buy
• What charity they’d like to see you make a donation to

And the other half of that definition, experiment?  How about trying something new with your posts? For example, my other endeavor, Groovy Reflections, offers products, namely hand tie-dyed t-shirts sporting the brand logo. Personally, I don’t enjoy getting in people’s faces touting these offerings.

So, instead, I’ll post something that’s more on the “softer side”, such as giving away a shirt instead (have been doing this every 500 new fans).  Discussion about the free shirt will be lively and some of the more curious folks may inquire more about the products while others will explore quietly on the website. It's both engaging and creating awareness.

Not exactly a focus group facility!

It’s not as good as having a focus group, but you’ll get some qualitative feedback. DO remember that this is a very informal way to gather information and it’s not representative of the population at large that has an interest in your brand or business.

Focus Groups, either in person or on-line would provide some concrete data on the respondents as well as their individual responses in conversation based on a well-planned out guide contain the question you’d like to have the respondents discuss.

Data is powerful if gathered wisely! Do learn from it to make your social media efforts even more successful!

For more data (ha!) on data, say hello on my Facebook or Google+ pages or tweet me.

This is "D" of the Blogging A to Z Challenge. Don't forget your A, B, C's!