When I first started blogging on MEGOAgain.com in 2007 it was because I was excited about the new world of new media, and wanted to share what I was learning.  I wrote about using RSS Readers and Social Bookmarking and of course Twitter.  For the last few years I have tried many of the new social tools that have popped up but none have kept me up to 1:30 in the morning playing like Twitter did in 2007. None, until I tried Quora.

What is Quora?

Quora is a website where you can ask a question on any topic and then the community will answer them. There is a potential to receive multiple responses to your question. The community can help you sort the good from the bad by voting answers up and down.  You can follow topics of interest to you, or search for existing questions before asking your own.

Why is Quora interesting?

Like any social network there are always naysayers who wonder what’s the point. For Twitter they asked who is going to want to hear what you had for breakfast? And, for Quora they question how it is different from other Q & A sites that exist.  It will be interesting to see where Quora goes if it goes mainstream but for the time being I think it will keep people coming back for a few reasons:

• With the ability to vote answers up and down, the good stuff floats to the top
• Quora allows users to create a summary of the responses (take a look at the response to Who are the best female speakers on the topic of Social Media?)
• With the addition of the “voting” on answers there is a bit of gaming excitment. Did your answer get voted up? Down? I love going into a question I responded to and see it at the top! Yes, public recognition matters – we are human.
• Ability to be thanked and thank others for answers. It is nice to know that someone read your post and it was helpful to them. #warmandfuzzy
• The quality of responses is currently amazing. With experts, influencers, and other movers and shakers participating you can find questions answered by “experts” on a variety of subjects. A question about Forbes received a response by the Executive Editor of Forbes  and a question about casting is answered by Ashton Kutcher. Yes,  Ashton Kutcher is on Quora.
• I can follow topics of interest and my friends which guarantess that each time I sign in there is new stuff that is relevant to me in my news feed.
• Easy to share content of interest on other social networks that I already particpate in.

So here is where I get really excited….

What is the potential for a customer service team in social media?

The obvious potential is for employees at brands to respond to questions on Quora.  If a company has active participants in social media channels they could respond to questions where the community has been unable to help (unanswered topics) or respond where misinformation has occurred.  In addition I see a few other opportunities for monitoring and gathering insight:

Monitoring: I would suggest companies should at the very least be paying attention to what people are discussing about their brands on Quora. It goes without saying that a company should have an ear to the ground on the entire web. Monitoring should be step 1 on Quora. Also noteworthy, thanks to @jowyang it seems Quora creates Twitter accounts for some brands (see comments on his recent blog post Quora for Business currently not allowed but you should still monitor).  These Quora created Twitter accounts can make it easy for a cutomer support team to monitor questions related to their brand. A few examples: BlackBerry; Zappos, Intel.

Gather Insight: By listening to the conversations a business can gather insight and feedback on their products/services. What are some of the Frequently asked Questions? Why?

An important note for businesses considering responding on Quora – Quora doesn’t allow accounts for organizations only humans. So, your staff will need to set up individual accounts and within their profile/title show association to the company. With any social network – remember to play by the rules, understand best practices and etiquette before jumping in. This post on Quora – a Marketer’s Manifesto does a great job of outlining guidelines for businesses participating in Quora.

What do you think of Quora? What is the potential for social customer service?

My background in marketing pushes me to promote and actively search out word of mouth opportunities for the good work being done by the business.  Therefore, my role in customer service today makes me distinctly aware of efforts of the business to hide “help”.

Help has become a bad word. No company wants to admit that their customers might need help so they hide customer service under the fold in tiny print on their webpage as seen on the Nintendo Canada page.  Others call it “Support” so the connotations are that the manufacturer is sustaining or upholding their customers. The definition of support from Dictionary.com includes ”to bear or hold up (a load, mass, structure, part, etc.); serve as a foundation for”,  ”to sustain or withstand (weight, pressure, strain, etc.) without giving way; serve as a prop for”,  and ” to maintain (a person, family, establishment, institution, etc.) by supplying with things necessary to existence; provide for: to support a family.” Is this really what customers want when they visit your website? Don’t they just want you to help them get unstuck in whatever issue they are currently experiencing?

Why does the term “Help” have negative connotations to enterprise? The marketing assumption is that the website, the conference booth, the direct mail piece etc is  a sales opportunity to new or existing customers. If you want to sell something you want customers to believe your solution to their need is simple and easy. Having a “help” section on the website, or dedicated help staff at a conference booth could mean you have a complicated product.

The question is do customers really think this way? Aren’t a certain percentage of traffic to your website post-sales customers looking for how-to and directions? I don’t expect that when I buy new television that I will know exactly how it will work with the rest of my Audio-Visual equipment and I will go directly to the website to find the answers to the questions. What I do expect is that this information is easy and clear to locate. Too often this is not the case as manufacturers hide “help”  behind “Service”, “Support”, within the fine print and by pressing 10 for a representative.

Why not simplify? It is ok to ask for help and  to ask for directions. Better to encourage your customers to use your products to the best of their ability than to frustrate them in their search for help. Help after all means “to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need; contribute strength or means to; render assistance to; cooperate effectively with; aid; assist” (Dictionary.com). Clear and simple.

Some time ago (before my sleepless night) Beth Harte had an interesting post “Is Social Media the Same as Marketing?” She questioned the term “Social Media Marketing” and said “the term social media marketing is not working for me: social media is about sharing and discussing information. It’s communications, not marketing.” What ensued in the comments section was not only a discussion of whether we could call social media – marketing or social media marketing; but a conversation examining the hierarchy and definition of Marketing itself. Now I am a little late jumping into the discussion – believe it or not this has been in the “drafts” for a long time!

Define Marketing…

Some comments on the post placed Communications squarely as part of marketing, others separated marketing and communications as though it were Church and State. The four Ps are mentioned, and then suggested they are an over simplification of marketing.  Marketing runs the show. Communications runs the show. One comment says PR, Sales, Marketing, and advertising are all different disciplines. Another says MarCom and PR are separate but collaborate more often. Still another commenter says that the P for Promotion stands for various communication techniques that would include PR, personal selling, advertising and publicity.

Dale Evans, the author of Social Media an Hour a Day said

“marketing is being defined more and more by what consumers experience and translate into shared content than it is by what a marketer has to say directly”

Walter Pike quotes Peter Drucker:

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself”

As does Gabriel Rossi:

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

And Laurie Broderick quotes the AMA

“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”

the original market

Ultimately, I don’t think it was necessarily the definition of marketing that was really in question, as all definitions brought up seem to recognize that the role of marketing is to have such solid understanding of their customer base that they strategically create, deliver, and appropriately price the products or services that this customer wants or needs. The original meaning came from literally going to the market to buy or sell goods. However,  I think confusion surrounding the definition comes when we assume that Marketing is just sales promotion.

From the variety of comments it may be that the trouble is not defining marketing, but defining the roles that fall in the umbrella of marketing. In particular, the role of Communication and Marketing Communication.  My understanding has always been that MarCom would fall into “Promotion” – one of the simplified 4P’s of Marketing. In, my working experience it has always been that MarCom and PR have reported into Marketing.  I realize that is not always the case.

Start with the Basics

I took a look at Marketing using the perhaps over simplified 4ps (from my school days, many years ago!):

The Marketing Mix:

Product: Create a product that fits the needs or wants of your customer. Specifications of the goods or services should meet those requirements.

Placement: Otherwise known as distribution and refers to the channel in which a product or service is sold.

Pricing: This is the process marketers use to set the price of a product for market.

Promotion: Textbook definition houses the following in this “P” – Advertising, Sales Promotion, Publicity, Personal Selling (Sales), Branding and other methods to promote product or service.

It is this final P that seems to be the conundrum. Many businesses house these promotional roles in a variety of silos, others have them report directly to Marketing, still others work in tandem with the Marketing group, and of course still others outsource some of these roles to (a variety of ) agencies. Some include only those aspects that would be considered Marketing Communications:

According to Wikipedia: “Marketing communication is concerned with the general behavior of an organization and the perceptions of the organization that are promoted to stakeholders through these touch points. The six areas usually associated in this representation are: Advertising, Public Relations, Promotions, Direct Marketing, Event Marketing, and New Media.”

Others see MarCom as those “selling” aspects of Communication and leave PR out of the mix – seeing it as a Communication role.

Needless to say it is all a bit of a mixed bag.

We also need to examine Marketing as potentially having three additional Ps  (often associated with Service but could just as well work when talking about products):

People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. In the customer’s eyes, the people are generally inseparable from the company and they can therefore highly affect the customer’s experience.

Process: This is the procedures involved in providing a service (or product) which can be crucial to customer satisfaction. Example I buy a new Humidifier at Sears for my baby’s room, take it home and discover it sounds like an airplane jetting off so I take it back – but have to wander the store (with stroller and baby in tow) find an elevator and return it to hardware (where there is no immediate staff member to help) – despite numerous “Service” desks on the main floor.

Physical evidence: To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what a service (or product – especially key for online shopping) would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies, or testimonials. This could also refer, I suppose to the physical appearance of the product – the quality (or lack of) it promises.

Is it Marketing vs Communication?

After reading Beth’s post and the numerous comments I decided I would search about to figure out if there was a rule of thumb for the relationship between Marketing and Communication. It seems once again that there are two schools of thought. In fact- this leads to two possible hierarchies.

1) Marketing is the 1-way, the push, the sell. Communication is two-way. They are two different disciplines. Two different departments.

2) Communication is a piece of the marketing puzzle. It is the tactics used to market and to converse with the target market. Same discipline. Same department.

Hmmm. Doesn’t help does it? While I believe that Communication must work in an integrated manner with the Marketing department, it seems that there are just as many that see the two as very separate pieces of the corporate puzzle.  If separate how do we ensure that all communications are sending the same messages? And, where does Social Media fit in – Marketing or Communications? Both?

The Dreaded Social Media

Like Beth, I dislike the term Social Media Marketing.

Social Media is defined as “primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.” (Wikipedia). The words “sharing” and “discussing” being an important factor to differentiate the “media” from other one-way channels such as television.

The problems I see with the term “Social Media Marketing”:

It is a name that in a few years will be dated. The web is, and has been for years – social. What happens when every site has some sort of forum, profile sharing, comment field etc. Will we still call it “social”? Or will that be rather redundant?I wonder if the even the term “media” too closely relates it to Television and Print Media which are traditionally used in an interruption method which as of now is a method which has not worked for the web.

and Social Media cannot be seen as only a tool to send simple outgoing marketing messages, as it also allows for two-way communication which can help an organization do much more. Amber Naslund said it best in the comments to Beth Harte’s post:

“Social media doesn’t just need to fit into marketing or public relations or other disciplines that are used to communicate. It’s also about customer service, technology and user experience, client relationship management, product and service innovation. It’s an undercurrent of so many more business touchpoints than we’ve ever seen, and I think that’s causing some consternation. In a good way, but it’s still hard.”

Social Media is two-way, it is authentic conversation between customer and company – and in such should fall under Communication. However, look at it in another way it works to benefit marketing in a number of ways:

Let’s just look at a few examples:

Product Idea Generation and Product Innovation

Sites such as My Starbucks Idea and Dell Ideastorm allow customers to work along with the company to develop products and innovations. To work this must be a collaboration between Marketing and the customer. However, as always it must remain “on brand” and conversational – so Communication must also be at play.

Customer Support Forums

Software companies have for quite some time had self-service support forums, allowing customers help other customers. These types of forums allow customers help others trouble-shoot, personalize and understand the product or service. Examples could include simple Forums; or more developed community oriented sites with blogs, wikis or active consumer groups. This type of support can have an effect on how the brand is perceived, and despite the fact these are not employees of the company, on overall satisfaction with the product or service.

Customer Support via Twitter

Many companies are using Twitter to promote products or services, or drive traffic to their website. More effective however, have been the companies such as JetBlue, Starbucks,  and others who have also offered Customer Support through their Twitter accounts.

Corporate Blogs

There are certainly corporate blogs that are using the blogging platform as a tool to promote only, either to solely offer information on products or to drive traffic to their corporate site by optimizing for search using the blog. However, these are generally not successful in engaging their customers.  Other blogs that offer more insight, helpful content, and increased depth of information such as Graco’s Corporate Blog or Fiskars Fisk-A-Teers Blog have helped to build loyalty amongst their target demographic while of course increasing brand awareness. But, once again is this genuwine communication – Marketing? or Communication?

There are an amazing number of examples of Consumer Generated Content (wikis, videos, blogs, even advertising), File Sharing (photos, videos), Fan Pages, Social Networks, desktop widgets, online widgets,  – Peter Kim has an amazing list of social media examples.

Clearly, it seems to me if we treat these social media examples as “marketing”  or a simple tactical tool to sell products or services we are missing out a vast amount of information, we are missing out on a authentic conversation with our stakeholders and customers.  On the other hand, if it lies in Communication – then Marketing can miss out on an incredible space for innovation and collaboration.

This brings us to my 3rd point on why I dislike the term Social Media Marketing

It cannot be a silo. social media needs to fit in the grand scheme of the brand strategy. It needs to be consistent with other communication channels and it needs to work with the 7 Ps of Marketing. Because of this -  hierarchies may need to change.  Perhaps an executive level that joins the discipline of Marketing and Communication, and Customer Service allowing an integrated approach to communicating and marketing to all stakeholders, to all customer touch points.

The problem that Beth Harte recognized is that if we place social media in this type of integrated approach is that “the mashup will allow for people [aka agencies] to offer services like Social Media Marketing or PR Communications or Marketing Relations or… (really, you don’t want me to go on right?) without having a firm grasp on any of the disciplines that they are trying to deliver or implement.”

This kind of approach means that any advertising agency, PR agency, boutique can claim the title of “social media” expert since they work in the realm of communication or marketing, or advertising. The onus is then on us (the “us” that work on client-side) to flesh out the agencies that “know” and those that “think they know” or “don’t know” social media. As Beth says ” the walls need to come down and the need for two-way communications is forcing a sledge hammer through the walls. But at what cost?”.

This comes down to my reason for blogging in the first place. As someone working on the client-side I believe I need to understand what the agencies I work with are trying to sell me. I understand my business best, but if I just take what the agency is telling me without actually comprehending it, and being involved myself then I am not doing my brand justice. So I am involved in social media – social networks, blogging, listening and contributing. We need to be accountable to our brands and unfortunately this will mean sorting out the agencies selling “snake-oil” and those that are true communication “experts”.

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Images: stock.xchng