Mal Chia – Southern Soapbox

As I wind down my time at Square Holes, I thought it would be fitting to reflect on the digital trends I’ve observed over the past 18 months. While there have been dozens, these are the ones that have the biggest implications for marketers and communicators.

So without further adieu…

1. Mobile finally takes off. Seriously.
   We’ve been saying this one for a few years now, but this time it really is. In the last 12 months there has been a seismic shift in the role mobile phones play in people’s lives. Driven by falling data prices and the spectacular growth of the smartphone market (seriously, 1 in 3 people I know has either an iPhone or Blackberry with a few Android phones starting to pop up as well) we are becoming less reluctant to use our phones for things other than voice and text. Even the way we use social media is quickly shifting to mobile.

   Quite simply, people are demanding content where and when they want it. With the imminent release of the iPad, how we consume content is about to change forever. Add to this the fact that 40% of Australians would rather lose their wallet than their phone and you can see our changing attitudes.

2. How we find news has changed.
   In the days pre-social media, if you wanted to find out what was happening in the world you needed to actively seek it out by either reading a newspaper, watching the 6 o’clock news or tuning into a radio news bulletin. Now, the news finds you. Social media and the evolving web has changed how we find out about today’s breaking news stories. We have become less and less reliant on offline and online news outlets, and are instead finding out from within our networks on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Not to say that mainstream news is irrelevant, rather that social media is driving traffic there.

   And just recently, Jon Klein, Presdident of CNN had this to say,
   “The competition I’m really afraid of is social nets. We want to be the most trusted source. But on Facebook, people are depending on their friends as news sources.”

   With stories like the Michael Jackson’s death and the Hudson river plane crash either breaking or finding legs on social media, we’ve only just scratched the surface of where this is headed.

   

3. Forget the water cooler. Shared experiences are happening online.
   The internet has transformed how we exchange information with each other. Rather than being reserved solely for times when we are hanging out socially at the backyard BBQ or around the water cooler, we now share what we are feeling, thinking or doing 24/7 on social networks. Instead of making us feel disconnected (as the skeptics predicted), we are in fact more connected now than ever before and with an ever larger network of people to boot!
   Social media has empowered us to share information in ways previously reserved for pundits and the media. We trust the recommendations of our peers over so-called experts and aren’t afraid to let the world know when we have a bad experience. You only need look at awards shows or events like the release of ‘Avatar’ to see how powerful social media can be at making, or breaking, your success. Similarly, brands are also more accountable than ever before and can no longer afford to ignore the conversation e.g. Domino’s, American Airlines, Dell, etc.

What do you think? Do these trends apply to your business? What other digital trends have you observed?

“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”
- Sun Tzu

The Chinese military general and author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu, says that in battle, there are only two forces at play – direct and indirect.

Direct forces, he says, are how most battles are conducted, by matching the enemy head on and slugging it out till the death.

Indirect forces, however, are about outmaneuvering the enemy and winning by targeting their weakness and turning elements such as terrain and cover to your advantage.

While it is important to use the right combination of direct and indirect forces in your strategy, it is always the indirect that wins the war.

Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat

Marketing is also made up of direct and indirect forces.

Most marketing tends to be focused on direct forces. It becomes a case of churning out one tactic after another in an effort to match your competitors. Your biggest rival starts a Facebook page, so you start one too. They drop their prices, you follow suit. They launch a new TV campaign, yours is on the air within weeks. Direct methods can be easily imitated and unless what you’re doing really strikes a chord with your audience, it will rarely lead to any real long term gain especially when you consider that once the campaign is done and dusted and the budget is blown for the year, consumers will have moved on to something else. Even product innovation is only a short term advantage unless you have the resources to keep staying one step ahead.

Strategising might be slow, but it works

In order to succeed, you must be relevant and engaging, and the only way to do this is by taking into consideration the indirect forces at play. What gives a brand a sustainable competitive advantage is the how they leverage the indirect forces in the marketing. Take Apple for example. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player or even the most innovative, but it is the one that went on to dominate the market. The reason was partly because of Apple’s innovative design but mostly because of how the Apple brand is positioned and the in-built cool imbued in all its products.

From a marketing perspective, indirect forces are the intangible elements that can’t be easily copied by your competitors. Fundamental to achieving this is a superior understanding of your customers and competitors so that you can identify where the gaps and opportunities are in the market and positioning yourself to claim this space. At the risk of oversimplifying, it is then a matter of leveraging these insights and developing an appropriate strategy to inform your tactics.

Ultimately, what this means is that if you want to succeed you need to get your brand right and not get obsessed with the tactics. While direct forces are essential to keep you in the game, it is the indirect that will win it for you.

In the words of the late Theodore Levitt, “determine a mass market, identify a small niche within that market and do it better and differently than anyone else.”

(Anyone else think the title of this post sounds like an awesome B-grade HK kung fu flick?)

The biggest mistake businesses make using social media is that they all too easily forget about the ‘social’ part.

Social media is not and should not be used as a pure promotional channel.

The problem is, most businesses treat it the same as they would TV, radio, magazines or newspapers. You can’t treat social media (or any digital channel, for that matter) that way – the audience just isn’t as captive and it’s easy for them to look away if they don’t like what you have to say.

If you spend enough time reading about digital trends and social media, it’s easy to start thinking that everyone knows about this stuff. The truth is that most businesses still have a very old-school marketing mentality and approach any new platform as just another opportunity to spruik their message.

The real value of social media only comes when you are being social.

The strategy most businesses seem to employ is to harvest as many followers as possible and then spam the hell out of them. Not good.

Instead of shouting your message, find a way to be useful to your community of friends and followers. Add real value to your interactions by sharing cool links to stuff they might find interesting as well as to your own great content whether it be funny or actually useful. Simply put, do something beneficial to your community instead of self-serving.

While some self-promotion is tolerated and can even be helpful when it is targeted and timely, too much and you may find that your audience will start to switch off.

You’ve probably heard the old adage that everyone in an organisation from the mailroom to the boardroom is in some way or shape is a marketer, but what about sales? Is everyone also a salesperson, or in fact, do marketers also need to be salespeople?

As a marketer, I’ve always hated the generalisation that marketing equals sales – something I’ve experienced in many organisations I’ve worked at where Marketing, by default, is driven by Sales.

However, as a digital marketer in a city as stubbornly traditional as Adelaide, I’ve found that it has become really important for me to know how to sell, especially if I’m pitching an idea that isn’t just about a website. For most marketers, sales is a dirty word, but now more than ever it is important for them to know how to ‘sell’ if you’re going to get the job done.

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