SMX East Liveblog: All Search is Now Social

Think of an apple and a bag of marbles. Both simple images, and when you compare the two you’ll get an idea of the shift that social media has caused brands to make to stay relevant today. An apple is the old way of thinking of your brand, unified and on-message. The bag of marbles is a little more assorted, a collection, not a unified message but it has 300% more surface area. You’re able to increase the surface area of your brand by releasing individual advocates. Social media advocacy gives your business authentic reach. Speaker Tami Cannizzaro explains.

Speaker: Tami Cannizzaro, Global Director of Marketing, Social Business, IBM (@tamicann)

She leads the “Smarter Commerce Initiative” at IBM. She says we’re in a period of so much change in marketing. Have  you heard of Ello? In a period of 12 hours everyone on Facebook was talking about Ello. Social today is, more often than not, the authentic face of your brand. She’ll tell us how IBM has taken advantage of social.

A couple tools for allowing social media advocacy to give your business authentic reach.

1. Voices among employees. IBMers are encouraged to share voice and perspective within communities.

2. Inflencer marketing. She asked if it could scale and move the needle. Guest blogging, speaking, aligning, project together like an ebook or webcast — these are the opportunities IBM could give to influencers. She says it was about building real relationships.

If social is discovery, search is validation. Content marketing is the engine that drives search rank and brand engagement. How to build the content marketing engine:

1. Tap into cultural ethos. What’s happening in pop culture? What’s happening around my Brand? What new Trends can I tap?

2. Build relevant, consistent content. At IBM they have a spectrum that content falls into.

A weekly newsroom approach is how they do it. Goal To produce relevant content and real-time creative assets that support paid, owned, earned strategies, drive social selling and align with longer-term brand initiatives.

A cycle starts with a conversation to discuss news, events and trends. What’s happening in social that’s new and should be leveraged?

Then there’s the Editorial Sync, review and revise strategy and concept development. Then review the assets and adjust timelines. … She says that journalists are more suited for how content publication for brands works today vs. traditional marketers.

3. Optimize Paid, Earned and Owned. At the end of a week they may look at asset’s performance and put paid campaigns behind that content.

The third pillar of marketing today is finding relevant, shareable experiences. Here are examples.

American Express has become a trusted expert through their Open Forum, the number one social blog for mid-market businesses.

Nike builds community, with celebrities being advocates and then mobilizing community around shared interests like races or events at stores.

“Mean Stinks” anti-bullying campaign by deodorant brand Secret is an example of evoking emotion where customers can connect.

IBM partnered with TED and through this was able to provide moments of connection with customers in the resulting videos shared.

To review: 1. Think through how social is often discovery; 2. Having a robust content engine and mirror the market; 3. Build longer campaigns that builds community.

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.