My own take on marketing theory is similar to the Seth Godin school of thinking - everyone who touches a customer/client is a marketer… even if they don’t know it. While is may sound strange to some, customer service staff are most definitely marketers. Real life experiences have one hell of an influence on a customer’s perception of a brand… moreso than any marketing message ever will. Indeed, this tale focuses on a couple of recent experiences that changed the way I perceive two businesses.

The shitty customer experience

I love curry. So much so that my fiance playfully refers to me as a curry muncher. So when I recently discovered a curry restaurant around the corner from my work I was delighted. However, that feeling was quickly tainted by my first customer experience…

‘What do you want!’ barked the snarky looking staff member who served me. I knew I wanted curry, but they had a lot of options. What they were lacking however were labels for each curry.

‘What’s that one?’ I asked pointing at one of the curries. She started serving it into the take away container immediately.

‘Hang on. What is it?’ I asked. ‘Butter chicken’ she snapped back. Fine… I like butter chicken. It’ll do. I pointed to another one. Same question. Once again she ignores me and begins serving. Sigh…

‘Excuse me… can you tell me what it is please?’.

‘Rogan Josh’ she snaps back. I guess that’ll be fine as well. She gives me the serving. Next problem. My meal is nine tenths rice and one tenth curry. This wasn’t cheap curry either (or should I say outrageously expensive rice).

‘Ummm… can I have some curry with my rice?’ I say somewhat tongue in cheek (but somewhat serious). Now she’s really annoyed. It seems I’ve insulted her work. She snatches the serving back and puts the teeniest little extra bit of curry on it. Urrgh… forget this. I concede defeat, take what I’m given and leave, never to return. Which is a shame because the curry was great. But my customer experience sucked so much that I’ll make a point never to buy from them again. I figure I probably would have eaten there twice a week. Over the course of a year that’s a fair amount of cash their friendly staff member just cost them. Let’s recap… this particularly sprightly staff member:

1. Spoke to me in a rude manner
2. Failed to answer my questions
3. Gave me a product I was unhappy with

No marketing message from that restaurant could ever change my perception of the place. My customer experience has forever tainted my perception of the restaurant. I guess it could have been worse though. At least I didn’t get served poo…

The incredible customer experience

My second tale is a much happier story. And as you may have guessed, it relates to my recent engagement. Which is just as well I suppose because nobody wants their engagement to be a shitty experience! I wanted to do something unique for the special occasion. I’d already booked a trip to Tasmania, an island an hour off the coast of my home town. Part of the reason I chose Tasmania is because of its amazing natural beauty and wilderness, something both my fiance & I appreciate. So a nature tour sounded like a perfect way to pop the question.

I tracked down a company called Inala who provide personalised nature tours. I called their office and spoke to Tonia, who I advised of my very special request. I told her of my wish to propose on a secluded beach. But of course, having never visited the island before I had no idea where to do it. I needed her local knowledge to choose the appropriate location. What’s more, I also needed her help to plan a covert operation in which Inala would set up the proposal site for me (complete with champagne and the proposal written in the sand). In her own words, it was ‘a mighty responsibility’… But it was a responsibility that the people at Inala handled unbelievably well.

Over the following days we liased regularly via email to concoct our cunning plan. Tonia was not only professional, but genuinely excited to be involved in the event. Within a few days we had a watertight plan. And plan worked to perfection. The location Tonia selected was unbelievably beautiful. I couldn’t have chosen a better one myself. And the covert operation to set up the scene of the proposal worked brilliantly. My unsuspecting fiance received the shock of her life. Then there were the little extra touches that Tonia and the Inala team threw in. A floral wreath made from local fauna was settled next to the bottle of champagne. And Tonia ended the day by giving us a card of congratulations. It’s fair to say that Inala nature tours created an amazing experience we’ll never forget.

So what’s the point of these random stories?

The point is that marketing does not operate in a silo. Customers don’t judge a product based on its marketing message. Marketing may influence a customer’s purchase decision, but their perception of the brand is based on a whole range of factors including price, product quality, opinions of friends and of course customer service/support (amongst many other things). Bad customer experiences become bad marketing via word of mouth.

My local curry restaurant has a great product. But I won’t buy it, and I tell my friends not to go there either. Conversely, I have probably told almost a hundred people about my amazing experience with Inala. Some of them are going to Tasmania soon. I suspect they’ll give Tonia a call. And of course, with this blog that message will ultimately spread to thousands. There is a reason the Internet is called word of mouth on steroids…

Good marketers don’t just concentrate on creating outstanding marketing campaigns. They also create great brand perceptions by managing all elements of the customer experience. Anyone can make a sale with a crafty marketing message. Just ask any spammer. But not everyone can keep that customer coming back for more…

And for those who are interested, here’s a snap of the happy couple. Now do those look like the faces of satisfied customers or what…?

Social media karma is a little concept I introduced via Shana Albert’s blog a few months back now. The premise was identical to everyday karma:

“The laws of karma state that our personal actions & behaviour influence future experiences.”

Good things happen to good people… and so forth. Within the realms of social media, it simply meant that the rewards of participation typically went to those who consistently contributed in a manner that was socially acceptable to the community:

“People who succeed in social media embrace the principles of good karma. They don’t ask for support from the community, but they receive it anyway because of the positive contribution they make.”

While there is little doubt many of the banned Digg power users made a positive contribution to the community, over time some began to test the boundaries of ethical participation. In particular, a definite shade of gray emerged in the methods used to build and maintain influence - the personal network.

The importance of a social network

Sphinn is the only social news network I’ve ever attempted to infiltrate. Digg never appealed to me based on its sheer size, along with the utter B.S. that was typically popular over there. Sphinn on the other hand was small enough for a newbie to contribute in a meaningful manner, and relevant to both my job and personal blog. Perfect!

After fumbling around in Sphinn for a while, one thing became clear to me - the most active and visible members were extremely well connected. People knew who they were and followed their activity. They had a large network of supporters. And that network contributed significantly to their influence within the community by voting for work they had written or submitted. Indeed, I later wrote a post on how to begin the process of building an influential network.

The network effect that I had observed at Sphinn was evident at Digg, only on a much larger scale. But while Sphinn’s networks seemed to work within a gentlemanly manner of mutual support (as far as I know), the Digg networks were far more organised… and automated. And this is where the karmic circle begins to take a turn for the worse…

Blind voting

Within the first few months of launching my blog I noticed a strange phenomenon. Regardless of the social news site on which my work was submitted, I always seemed to receive more votes than visitors. The more influential the submitter, the more votes my work would receive (although this didn’t always translate to more traffic). Being fresh and naive, I pondered who was really reading social media.

Six months later and I realise blind voting is rife within social media circles. People vote for their friends’ submissions and vice versa… whether they’ve read the article or not. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. It’s a tactic used to maintain favour between social media cohorts. I may be an ‘holier than thou’ purist, but the concept never really resonated with me. It just seemed like bad social media karma. Sure… I like to support my friends, but not if their work sucks. I’d never put my name to a piece of work I hadn’t read and approved in real life, so why do it in the online world…?

The answer of course is traffic. Marketers love Digg because of its ability to send thousands of new visitors to a site. But in the chase for eyeballs, some marketers either got greedy or lazy. Scripts were created to automatically vote for friends’ submissions. And the good karma that had been created via genuine participation began to evaporate…

Digg’s response

Naturally, blind voting isn’t a practice Digg were keen to allow. Much like search engines need to protect the credibility of their search results, social news sites need to prevent perceptions that their voting system is being gamed/manipulated. Widespread bans were issued to members using scripts regardless of their status. Some of the victims were dead guilty, but others may have been innocent. After all, a number of ethical scripts existed that provided usability enhancements for hardcore Diggers.

Digg’s official response to the issue was that scripts create an additional load on the server and slowed the site down. Personally, that angle sounds like a monumental load of bollocks, but I suppose Digg were never likely to acknowledge the practice of blind voting.

So did the recipients get an almighty dose of social media karma?

It’s hard to say given Digg’s less-than-forthright response to the issue. If only blind voters were given the boot, I’d say yes. But by attributing the issue to all script users rather than just blind voters, we simply can’t be sure.

What I do know however is that artificial participation goes against the principles of social media. The purpose of a social news site is the aggregation and distribution of news for the people, by the people. The key word is people… not robots. When discussing participation tactics, social media marketers constantly use buzzwords such as credibility, authenticity & trust. Yet when it comes to our own participation, we think it’s ok to let robots do our dirty work…

So yes… perhaps it was a dose of karma after all.

One of my favourite social media analysts Jeremiah Owyang raised the issue via his blog last week. But rather than give an overt opinion, Jeremiah simply asked for feedback on a number of questions. In particular, two were poignant:

1. Will consumer usage of social media increase or decrease during recession?
2. Will brands/marketers increase spending on an unproven marketing channel?

While I’m a little slow to respond to Jeremiah’s post, it’s better late than never right…? Here’s my thoughts:

Social media usage

Jeremiah’s first question is particularly interesting. In times of economic turmoil, consumer habits typically change. Spending habits become more conservative and greater consideration is given to each purchase as disposable income declines. However, is there any reason to expect social media usage to also decline during a recession. I doubt it… why would it when social media is free.

Internet access is now widely considered an essential requirement of modern living. I doubt very many people would consider taking themselves offline in order to save a few pennies. Indeed, if anything, it’s likely that people will spend more time online as they look for cost effective forms of entertainment. Social media could in fact experience an increase in usage for a number of reasons:

• People may choose to connect with friends and colleagues via social networks and IM rather than meet in person to save on entertainment and travel costs.
• People may dedicate more time to consolidating professional networks via LinkedIn due to concerns/ paranoia about job security.
• As unemployment increases, people may turn to the Internet for income opportunities, with social media providing a free source of promotion & traffic.
• With more free time, people may look to become active contributors/publishers via blogs and other social media tools.

So given that social media usage isn’t likely to decline, is it reasonable to expect corporate social media budgets to maintain a status quo? Not bloody likely. In fact, social media is likely to be the first place marketing managers look when slashing their budgets…

Corporate spending on social media

Jeremiah’s second question asked whether brands were likely to abort their social media initiatives in the face of diminishing marketing budgets. In short, the answer is… you betcha! While social media has risen to capture the attention of millions of users worldwide, few businesses have been able to translate that into corporate success. Hell… Facebook hasn’t even got a viable revenue model. So is it any surprise that the brick and mortar companies of the world haven’t figured out how to leverage social media as yet.

There is little doubt that social media is yet to comprehensively prove itself as a channel that can deliver a tangible ROI. Which means it is directly in the firing line when marketing budgets get slashed. While many companies have tested the waters over the past few years, there aren’t a lot of documented success stories to provide marketers with the confidence they need to continue to invest in social media. Indeed, many of the benefits of social media participation are fuzzy intangibles that are hard to link to ROI, such as:

• An enhanced understanding of customer needs
• The establishment of deeper customer relationships and increased loyalty
• The creation of a community of customer advocates
• Positive word of mouth and referrals
• Opening new channels of customer communication

Other benefits are more tangible, but still have negative connotations during recession:

• Traffic surges from Digg & StumbleUpon look great but rarely lead to increased product sales.
• Great social content attracts inbound links, but this longer term SEO strategy may be abandoned to focus on short-term acquisition campaigns.

With adversity comes opportunity

It’s probably clear by now that I don’t hold a lot of hope for corporate social media budgets. Quite simply, social media is an easy target. In fact, if I was in charge of a marketing budget at the moment I suspect I’d cut back on social media and invest in paid search, SEO & email. But I work for a digital agency, so my only budgetary concern whether any of our client will slash their online budget… yikes!

But with adversity comes opportunity. Despite the economic realities, there are a myriad of business related applications for organisations savvy enough to recognise them. Some opportunities that come to mind include:

• Cutting back on market research budgets by using social media to gather free (and unbiased) customer insights & intelligence
• Creating a customer facing blog to reduce reliance on other costly forms of communication (postal mail & telephone)
• Using social networks such as LinkedIn & Facebook for employee recruitment purposes
• Creating instructional/educational product demo videos and posting them to YouTube to reduce reliance on customer support staff.

There must be a million more… So while big businesses cut marketing budgets in the quest for ROI, smaller organisations are likely to continue to experiment and innovate within social media. Because while it may well be unproven… it’s also free. And that’s worth a lot too. Just ask Google, YouTube & Facebook. They never started with big marketing budgets…

Or for a truly inspirational story on how the really small business can benefit, check out Mark Hayward’s case study on social media for small businesses.

The social web is just like our universe

I find there is a natural symmetry in relating the social web to our own universe. Both are expansive, monumental in size, constantly evolving & largely unexplored. And in the bigger picture, our home (whether it be earth or the corporate home page) is just a minuscule component of a much larger entity…

The composition of the social web mirrors that of our solar system. I ask clients to picture their web site as earth. Beyond the walls & boundaries of their own world, millions upon millions of destinations exist. Some of these destinations are enormous. If the client’s web site is earth, Facebook and Digg are indeed the Jupiter and Saturn of the social web. But like of our own universe, the majority of entities are small. The millions of blogs, forums, chat rooms and niche communities within the social web replicate the stars, moons, asteroids & comets of our universe. And with millions of communities comes millions of opportunities for organisations to enter the social web frontier…

Exploration begins with research

There was a time when scientists believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Many businesses currently view the web in a similar manner. They believe that their corporate web site is the centre of the universe. It’s not. Social technologies have forever modified the way in which people publish and consume content on the web. Product reviews, comparison shopping, consumer forums and industry blogs enable customers to gather information from a plethora of sources outside of the corporate web site. Companies no longer have total control over brand related digital communications. And while this concept is truly alien to many old school marketers, it creates a myriad of opportunities for organisations to connect with customers, learn about their needs, forge deeper relationships and build customer advocacy. But only for companies that are willing to venture into the unknown…

Astronomers never limited their research to the earth’s own atmosphere. New telescopic technologies facilitated the exploration of deep space. Companies now need to follow the astronomers’ lead. Sure… they may not be ready to launch a mission to Mars any time soon. But if they don’t develop their own social media telescopes, they’ll never be in a position to leverage the social web in the future.

Of course, social browsing itself isn’t a new concept. Flock and Browzmi are two primary examples of social browsers. Both allow you to surf the web with friends and keep tabs of their activity across multiple social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon. But these browsers essentially preach to the converted. They don’t bring new people into the social realm of the web. Social interaction is limited to your personal network. Exit Reality changes this.

A new type of social browsing

Exit Reality makes it possible to connect with friends and strangers alike while surfing the web. As you browse different web pages, an integrated chat feature updates to list everyone currently viewing the page in the Exit Reality browser. Which means with Exit Reality, every single web site is a real time social networking platform. Social interaction is no longer confined to the walled gardens of individual networks such as Facebook. Conversations can happen anywhere with anyone. The opportunities and applications for web surfers are endless:

1. Ask fellow surfers for help in finding a specific page
2. Ask fellow surfers for product reviews
3. Ask fellow surfers for other companies that offer similar products
4. Meet people with similar interests online as you surf
5. Watch videos on the web with friends
6. View photo galleries with your friends

However, it’s the applications for web site owners that really interested me. I immediately imagined the potential for true audience interaction via my blog. I tend to monitor my blog at least several times a day. What if every time I visited the blog I was able to connect with my readers in real time and open a direct line of conversation with them? What if I anticipated a surge of social media traffic and made the time to introduce myself to each of the hundreds of new readers visiting my blog? I’d be willing to bet I’d be able to send that infamous social media conversion rate climbing.

The potential for businesses is even more lucrative. Customers would no longer be left to fend for themselves on a corporate web site. Indeed, staff could become virtual sales people, tasked to roam the site and help customers. Problems with web design and information architecture be minimised, with staff able to guide customers through the web site. Indeed, the level of customer service delivered on the web site could begin to replicate an in-store experience.

Now that’s cool!

The downside of Exit Reality

Despite the clear potential of Exit Reality’s social browsing, I doubt it’ll catch on any time soon (at least in its current format). The product has a significant downside, which also happens to be its most publicised feature. And that… is 3D browsing. Once downloaded, Exit Reality transforms the World Wide Web into a virtual world. You are able to select a personal avatar and walk’ through your favourite web sites. Here’s what Google looks like in 3D browsing mode.

Each web site is transformed into a virtual room. The site you are visiting can be seen on a 2D screen, and the links are visible as ’street signs’. You can run around the room… but there’s little else you can do. In fact, I couldn’t even run a search. The only way I could access the search engine was to click on the 2D Google screen, which transported me to standard a 2D search. Hmmm… why exactly would I want to view the web in 3D if the core functionality is redundant…? The story gets worse when I go from an uncluttered site such as Google to a busy site such as Sphinn.

Eeek!!! There’s about 1000 links/street signs confronting me on Sphinn’s home page! The usability experts would be having a coronary. How the hell am I meant to find my way around this room…?!?! And again, the functionality of the site has been stripped. I can’t actually do anything. I get an error when I try to vote for an article. And whenever I click on a link I’m taken to a 2D version of the site. So what exactly is the point of the 3D browsing…? Whenever I try to do something I’m taken back to 2D.

Am I missing something here…?

So what’s the verdict for Exit Reality?

Unfortunately, Exit Reality has taken one really good idea (social browsing) and married it with one really bad idea (3D browsing minus the functionality). The social browsing component is only active when browsing in 3D mode. Subsequently, the positives of Exit Reality’s social browsing experience are redundered redundant because… well… browsing the web in 3D is utterly ridiculous (not to mention pointless). People have intent when browsing the web. Exit Reality’s browser actually makes it harder to fulfil that intent.

However… all is not lost. I’m sure the major browsers are watching with keen interest. And if we’re lucky, the Firefox crew may just integrate a similar chat feature that will truly create a social browsing experience.

You see, for the last few months I haven’t been chasing eyeballs. At all. In fact, I’ve spent most of my time sending eyeballs to fellow industry bloggers. During my guest blogging world tour, I have effectively donated traffic to my hosts. Almost all of my guest posts hit the front page Sphinn, which generally equates to at least a couple of hundred visitors. Combine that with a handful of Stumbles and I’d estimate most of my guest posts generated at least 500 pairs of eyeballs. Hell… I even helped Tad lift his subscriber count by 100 overnight.

And what did I get out of the whole exercise…? Not a hell of a lot. At least if you measure in terms of eyeballs… In each case I would have been lucky to generate one tenth the number of the eyeballs that my host received. But that’s cool. Because I wasn’t chasing eyeballs. I was chasing brains. Rather than targeting the generic social media user, I was targeting the readers of respected industry blogs (aka the brains). Quality over quantity. Because I suspected that they were far more likely to turn into loyal readers of my work.

And you know what? I was right. Even when traffic to my blog plateaued (due to reduced publishing frequency), my subscriber base continued to steadily grow… because I was targeting the right people… the brains.

But… losing traffic is never a good thing if you can avoid it. In particular, the social proof attached to my blog started to decline. Sure… people claim that that Alexa Rank, Compete Rank & Technorati Rank are a crock. But at the end of the day, if you’re not Darren Rowse or Seth Godin, people look for signals to judge the strength of your blog (and your authority). And one of the primary measures is your traffic rank. And as you can see… mine was nosediving.

So… I did what any normal online marketing blogger would do in this situation. I wrote some Sphinn bait. I got some eyeballs back. And I started to reinvigorate my traffic rankings and social proof. Because at the end of the day, it’s a fine balancing act. Getting yourself in front of the right audience is a great first step. But it doesn’t seal the deal. Just ask Miss South Carolina. There’s no point nailing the swimsuit competition if you botch up the judge’s question (if anyone can tell me what she’s trying to say I’d like to hear it by the way…).

So I went chasing some eyeballs. Because sometimes they come in handy too…

The Sphinn hater

The Sphinn hater is perhaps the finest example of an oxymoron you’re ever likely to see. The hater seems to truly detest the place! Most of their interactions on the site are focused on:

• Broadcasting the extent to which Sphinn’s content sucks
• Starting arguments and belittling fellow members via the comments
• Desphinning content that doesn’t meet their personal quality standards
• Bemoaning the state of Sphinn and social media in general

Ironically, despite their apparent hatred for the place, the Sphinn hater seems to be more active than most other members combined. Go figure… It seems they just can’t take that hate message far enough. Perhaps they subscribe to the Calcanis marketing model: Controversy + acting like a jackass = links/attention.

The inane comment spammer

This type of Sphinn lurker is particularly annoying. Commenting within blogs and forums can be a fantastic way to forge relationships and networks within an industry. But… only if you contribute something meaningful to the discussion. The following comments do not (I repeat… DO NOT) fall into the category of meaningful discussion:

• Great post. I agree that <insert point of article>
• Thanks for the information. Keep up the good work.
• Great find. Thanks for sharing.

In isolation, these type of comments can be innocent enough. However, a continuous trail of inane comments only serves to make a community collectively dumber. Clearly, at some point the comment spammer has read Dosh Dosh’s article about the value of commenting (or perhaps even my own article on blog commenting). Unfortunately, they seem to have missed the point. Indeed, the irony is that repeatedly leaving pointless comments in a professional network such as Sphinn is likely to taint future relationships with peers rather than improve them.

The flamer

The flamer is not to be confused with the Sphinn hater. The flamer doesn’t hate Sphinn itself. They do however, seem to hate most people who lurk there. As a result, their favourite past time is engaging in comment wars with fellow members. Common fodder for flame wars include:

• Black hat vs white hat SEO
• Ethics in marketing & social media
• The future of SEO

Comment flamers are generally easy to spot. Just look for members with negative votes next to almost every comment/contribution they make (even the valid ones). Interestingly, most flamers seem to revel in that negativity rather than be perturbed by it…

The purist

The purist is the natural enemy of the flamer. Purists are characterised by their highly strung beliefs on all things marketing (and ethics in particular). Indeed, their opinions are often so vehemently strong that they border on religious commandments. Purists can often be found spouting their views towards flamers in a rage of passion. Common purist beliefs include:

• Black hat SEOs are the devil’s spawn
• Maintaining phony social media accounts is a criminal offense
• Marketing IS ethics

Sphinn is extremely fortunate to be home to a number of purists. Otherwise, most of us wouldn’t know when we’ve done something wrong…

The voting whore

The only word to describe the voting whore is desperate. Indeed, voting whores deal in the currency of desperation! They can be found resorting to absolutely anything necessary to scrounge a few Sphinn votes, including:

• Organising vote swapping alliances with fellow whores
• Creating fake accounts to vote their own stories up
• Tweeting, Plurking & IMing everyone in their network for votes

Ironically, if they spent a little less time whoring and a little more time writing decent content, they probably wouldn’t have to work so hard to generate their Sphinn votes…

Eager newbie

As the name suggests, eager newbies are fresh members of the Sphinn network. But that doesn’t stop them from being amongst the most active! The eager newbie is on an unwavering mission to gain visibility within the Sphinn community… usually in order to attract attention to their new online marketing blog. The behaviour of the eager newbie is comparable to that of a kid starting a new school, desperately screaming “Look at me”, and includes:

• Submitting 5 articles a day to Sphinn for an aggregate tally of 7 votes
• Commenting on every second story in an attempt to prove their intelligence
• Adding every existing Sphinn member to their friend list so that they appear popular

Unfortunately, the lifespan and patience of an eager newbie is limited. Generally, if some level of success is not tasted within the first few weeks, it is only a matter of time before they transform into a voting whore.

The star

The star is Sphinn’s equivalent of LeBron James. They contribute regularly and make participation look so damn easy it makes the rest of us feel sick. The star is typically a prominent industry player with a well known SEO agency, a high profile blog and regular speaking gigs at search conferences. And that profile naturally translates into utter Sphinn adulation from the masses. In fact, the Sphinn star has such power that they can:

• Submit their grandma’s cooking recipe and watch it go hot in 3 hours
• Send flamers running scared from a debate with a single retort
• Watch on in amusement as fellow Spinners fight to submit their latest post (which is almost guaranteed to go hot).

The only downside to the life of the Sphinn star is the ongoing stalking from fanboys and newbies eager to establish a relationship with their hero…

The leech

The leech doesn’t participate on Sphinn. They don’t vote, submit, comment or provide any sort of meaningful contribution. They just subscribe to the RSS feed and suck it dry for information. I’ll bet Danny Sullivan hates them!

So which one are you?

Now that you know the true nature of the dysfunctional Sphinn family, it’s time to fess up! Which one are you? I’ll happily admit I’m 70% eager newbie, 20% purist & 10% voting whore. Who else is game to reveal their true Sphinn colours…?

One question though… does my voice really sound like that…?!?!

Read/listen to the Your SEO Mentor interview