Blog Archives
Three Keys to Becoming a Successful Digital Strategist
"Thinker" by J.A.C.K.
So, you’re a digital strategist. But, what exactly do you do?
It’s a question I field at least twice a week and I’ve come to realize that I rarely answer the question in exactly the same way.
In short, I help clients achieve online marketing goals by crafting creative social campaigns and managing a variety of digital projects. I research and dig up communities, brand advocates and other target audiences and think about the best way to reach those audiences. I trendspot and think about new ways of connecting clients and brands to their target audiences and key influencers. I shoot videos, manage website builds, drive brainstorms, analyze design elements, plan blog content and drum up creative marketing and community engagement strategies across a variety of social channels. I help measure, analyze and assess the results of the effort, tweak and do it all over again. Oh yeah, and I drum up new business. That’s just the start…
One thing is for certain – being a digital strategist is never a dull gig. As I’ve specifically focused on digital strategy for the past six years, I’ve naturally had plenty of opportunity to interact with other digital strategists in the industry. In my opinion, there are three key personal qualities that regularly surface among good digital strategists.
1. Flexibility
It’s easy to be impatient in our hyper-connected, million mentions and messages per minute industry. It’s also absolutely critical that a good digital strategist be patient and flexible. A digital strategist at an agency will typically be pulled into five or six completely different projects on any given day. It can be demanding not having 100% background and insight into a project yet still having to deliver input by a set deadline. That’s also what keeps the job exciting and challenging at the same time. My biggest piece of advice for any aspiring digital strategist is to make every effort to get your hands on as many projects as possible. The learnings across different brands and industries will be invaluable down the line.
2. Creativity
Digital strategists are most frequently utilized at agencies to manage particular online marketing projects to support account teams around an integrated communications strategy. Personally, I source creativity from a variety of channels at all points throughout my day and through a LOT of reading and analysis. Oddly enough, most ideas for projects I work on rarely surface during brainstorms or on demand but instead often bubble up while driving, surfing the Web on my own time, working out, or doing something completely non-work related. The end point being that it helps tremendously if you’re rooted in thinking outside the box and good at inspiring and training others on your team to think differently. You will thrive if you are someone that constantly thinks ahead and looks at things from a unique perspective. Proactive creativity is often a distinguishing factor that elevates a digital strategist from good to great.
3. Drive
There is a reason that most digital strategists seem as though they are online or connected at all times. They are.
Some of this certainly stems from the nature of the industry but strong digital strategists have a natural drive and passion to learn about new trends and gather insight well ahead of the curve. We want to be the first ones to apply a new effective creative strategy or tactic that will help our clients achieve their goals. As a result, you often see digital strategists running multiple blogs on their own or actively creating content across the Web to gather, organize and share their thoughts in a coherent format.
BONUS: Ability to Roll With the Punches
In their book Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier talk about how it’s pointless to waste time creating long-range plans. It’s true. In today’s communications world, plans and priorities change in a moment’s notice and things rarely go exactly how you intend. It is a point I stress repeatedly when speaking with college students that are preparing for graduation. If you want to be successful, you need to move quick, be flexible and learn that success typically occurs when you hit 75% of your intended vision.
These three are certainly a start but what other strong personality traits do you often see in solid digital strategists?
Image courtesy of J.A.C.K.
4 Tips to Help Your Brand Build Online Customer Loyalty
Whether you’re a startup just beginning to build an online community or an established brand with embedded fans and followers, it’s important to remember that vocal customers and potential customers carry an amplified voice online.
We all operate in a fluid, fast-paced world where social engagement with customers is now the norm. While this can seem intimidating for companies at first, developing a strong online customer engagement process doesn’t need to be overly complicated. The payoff? The potential for creating loyalty and quickly transforming customers into powerful online advocates.
Let’s take a look at an example. Recently, a coworker passed along the following exchange he had with car-sharing service @zipcar:
Kudos to Zipcar for their smart engagement and quick move to capitalize on transforming a vocal customer into a loyal customer. An engagement such as this never would have occurred unless Zipcar had taken some preliminary steps to maximize this opportunity.
So, how does a company go about ensuring that they engage and embrace customer advocates through social media? Here are a few tips to get started:
1. Listen & Assess
Obvious – it always starts with careful monitoring. Put your ear to the Web and carefully track conversation/keyword activity across your own social channels as well as overall brand mentions across the Internet. Whether you do this using a free approach with alerts and keyword monitoring in Google Reader or through a paid service such as Radian6, active listening and monitoring is essential. Over time, you’ll quickly see engagement and volume trends surface to help you plan for resource staffing.
2. Put a Process In Place
You need to have a strategy and process in place before you start engaging with customers through social media. This means having both a technical platform in place (e.g. a simple tool such as Get Satisfaction, established a separate support Twitter handle, defined FAQs, etc.) and an established flow chart that clearly outlines how inquiries will be handled as well as who has the necessary knowledge to address those inquiries. “Grow and adapt” is not a sound customer service approach.
Will engaging customers through social channels require more time and resources? Yes. But, I assure you that the investment will far outweigh the cost. Social channels exist and customers expect to be able to engage directly with your company through those channels. Provide the home and structure for them to do so efficiently.
Take a moment to think about how important first impressions are to everything we encounter on a daily basis. The success of your brand or product relies on A) providing value that meets or exceeds customer expectations and B) excellent customer service. Nail both these early on and you’re well on your way to building strong customer loyalty.
3. Move Quick
In most cases, customers just want to know that they are being heard. Think about your own customer service experiences – would you prefer to be left on hold or unanswered for a long period of time or regularly provided updates about your issue being worked on?
Even if an answer to a customer’s issue is not readily available, it is imperative that a company communicate progress and actually work as fast as possible to resolve the issue. As with any social channel, your interaction with one customer is often being viewed by many, many others. Engaging customers quickly in a public forum can set the tone for how your company operates and also be hugely beneficial for setting precedent on how to resolve an issue, thus eliminating need for further similar customer interactions on a specific topic.
4. Reward Customers for No Reason
I can’t harp this one enough. In the case above, Zipcar changed a satisfied customer into a powerful advocate through a simple Twitter exchange and small monetary gift. Companies often only think about rewarding customers following negative experiences. By following Zipcar’s proactive approach of rewarding supportive customers, you are enhancing your credibility and strengthening brand trust for a very nominal cost.
In the end, your customers will be happy when they know they can rely on a consistent, humanized customer service experience.
What other tips would you share to help companies set up for success with online customers?
5 Key Takewaways from Content Marketing Retreat (#CMRetreat)
A couple weeks ago, I attended the 2nd annual Content Marketing Retreat (#CMRetreat) hosted by Fusionspark Media along with our Content Director at Weber Shandwick (@mydeadlyballoon). Having missed the first annual retreat, I was excited to finally head across the sound to beautiful Langley, WA for a day of big learning.
The Retreat exceeded my expectations on all accounts. Great location, stellar organization throughout the day, knockout food (holy homemade pumpkin bread) and of course most importantly, an all-star lineup made for an excellent trip.
Throughout the course of day one, attendees hear from Rod Brooks, Russell Sparkman, Tim Frick, Jayme Thomason, Chris Baggott, Pawan Deshpande, Mark Jacobs, Jeff Erramouspe, Simon Kelly and Robert Rose.
The crowd was a diverse group from all over with a slant towards those working in smaller organizations. Topics covered a wide range, from top level content marketing strategy to maximizing use of Google Analytics data to improve content optimization. While many conferences can drag at certain points, the short presentation structure followed by panel discussions made for a great format to maintain audience attention throughout.
Below are five key takeaways that stemmed from the Retreat.
1. Content Marketing is Not Rocket Science
Sorry, it’s just not. Does content marketing require smart analysis, technical insight, natural instinct for audience demands and the ability to piece everything together into a solid strategy? You bet, but it takes practice and requires that you are constantly thinking about how best to stay a step ahead of your audience and the competition.
2. Brands That Succeed at Content Marketing Fail…a Lot.
During his presentation on developing a step-by-step content marketing plan, Robert Rose emphasized the importance of establishing an office culture that embraces innovation. You, along with your coworkers or employees, need to feel that it’s okay to fail. In fact, you need to be realistic about the fact that success often stems from a series of smart failures where you’ve progressively learned more and more about how best to achieve your goals. The iPhone and iPad weren’t created overnight and neither will your strategy for how to sell X products or engage with Y number of people. Try and keep trying.
3. Data Is the Hidden Gem Behind All Good Content Marketing
It’s scary to me these days when a company or organization gives you a blank stare when you ask about website or engagement analytics. Data drives strategy. If you don’t have a benchmark and ongoing consistent measurement to track what content is resonating with which audience, you don’t have the fuel necessary to revamp your content marketing plan.
4. Curation is An Art Form
Successful curators have amazing taste. They know their audience’s taste like the back of their hand. They know the value of attribution, the importance of framing and how to deliver content to their target audience in the right format in a consistent fashion.
5. Content Marketers Understand the Difference Between Audience “Needs” and “Wants”
Rod Brooks did a great job putting this point on display. Rod is the CMO for Pemco Insurance. We all need insurance. We know that. Do we all like to talk about insurance on a daily basis? Nope.
What we do love to talk about is our family, friends and community. We love to discuss topics of shared interest that resonate across the board relevant to our safety and well being.
The same applies for your company. Stop trying to shove your audience’s needs down their throat and take a broader look at the shared values and interests of your target community. What type of content does this audience want? What do they care most about? THAT is your point of entry. That is your bridge to building trust and creating robust dialogue.
Thanks again to Russell Sparkman and all of the presenters. Looking forward to another fantastic gathering next year.
