Think social media and conversational marketing might be the next train to heaven for your brand but don’t know where to board? Well, here’s three social media marketing models that will make sure you’ll find your station.

If you wanna get moving into the social country of love where conversation rules you’ve gotta get one thing straight. Valuable content is king. Buying a loudspeaker and start tweeting wont get you anywhere. Swedish brands like Comhem and Boxer have effectively proven that just twittering the 140 sign language doesn’t earn you any followers. Every social network will provide you with it’s own possibilities and traps. A well executed strategy is a must or you’ll end up in a minefield.

Here are 3 models by Johan Ronnestam that will guide your brand towards a successful social media strategy.

3 Models That Will Guide You Into The Social Media Landscape

1. The Social Staircase

   The Social Staircase is a model that focus on the overall process. It’s the stuff that pays for your ticket to love.

2. The Social Tool Matrix

   Now you know what kind of presence your business needs. Now it’s time to map the tools to make sure you know what to keep your mouth shut, when to speak and when to listen.

3. The Social Viral Spiral

   This is about speed. Spread that love I’m talking about below. But make sure you do it with finesse and timing. Create a couple of Social Viral Spirals and you’re ready to make out!

How your brand makes good use these three models is entirely up to you. When I’m working with brands within this area I off course spend quite a lot of energy and time on getting it right. But hopefully it will be of value for you without my help. Here we go:

1. Get your strategy right with the Social Staircase

The Social Staircase consists out of 4 steps that guides your brand into the conversation landscape called Social Media

I have outlined 4 steps that make up the Social Staircase. These are the ones I’d suggest you’d use too when you wanna move into the social room.

• Step 1 -Strategy
  Establish a strategy that supports your business. Whatever you do in life you should have a strategy in place that supports your business. In other words this means you should strive to achieve your vision, your goals and making sure you don’t loose money while doing it. This should be your approach to social media initiatives too.You should of course be prepared to risk money since it’s still an early adoption initiative. But still you should strive to measure results and revenues. Sooner or later your boss will ask you what he’s paying for and then that answer should be well prepared.

• Step 2 – Presence
  The mother of all conversions is content. Think about it – when you’re at a party, how long do you think your conversation would last if you didn’t provide any true value. Bullshit or merely staying quiet wont earn you any new friends. Of course some people you’ve known since way back will stay put but sooner or later even them will stop inviting you to their party.

  I haven’t bothered to create any models for this step. It’s a simple rule. Think about you and your business. What value can you provide people with and in what format? Blogs, Video, Photos, Podcasts, Livestreams, Advisory, Games, Knowledge etc. Based on your strategy in step 1 – what kind of value can you provide your target group and potential fans with? Cause that should always be your goal – turning people into fans! If you’ve done your homework this should work like a charm.

  If you’re looking for inspirations. Head over to the Social Media Wiki.

• Step 3 – Tools
  Ok. So know you know that kind of presence you’re after. Then it’s time to gear up. Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare, WordPress, LinkedIn, Scribd, Google Buzz might be the obvious ones. But dig deeper – there’s something for everyone out there and you should consider where your content will do the boogaloo at it’s best!Tools defined? Then move on and figure out when to run with it and when to slow down. Move over to the conversation step, create a set of social viral spirals and get down to business.

• Step 4 – Conversation
  Listen. Talk back. Listen. Talk back. Listen. Talk…This is what a conversation is all about. We could actually call it interactivity. You create valuable content and then once you let it out in the open – listen and learn how to fine tune those spirals of yours.

  (I’ve posted stuff before on the listening part and so have others – that’s of course crucial in this phase. Since neither me or them have posted a tip on Silverbakk then here it is.)
  

  You should avoid creating to many spirals. They will only confuse you. But on the other hand if you got to few you might not hit the right spots. After all, segmentation has been around for ages and it’s not for the fun of it. Segmenting who and how to target your audience is essential.

Let’s move on and a have a look at the Social Tool Matrix.

2. What content goes where – Outline your tactical tools with a Social Tool Matrix

It’s all about structure, planning, organization and control (once you have something to say)

Don’t pick any tool out there for the fun of it and definitely don’t let one person in your organization handle them all. Every tool has it’s own advantages and should be treated that way.

Once you’ve passed the strategy and presence step in the Social Staircase it’s time to map which tools can do the work for you. It’s now time to create a Social Tool Matrix.

The Social Tool Matrix basically makes sure you and your organization analyze and choose a set of social tools that can deliver on strategy. While you’re entering stuff into the matrix you’ll be forced to answer the following questions:

• What tools shall we use to fulfill our strategy?
  Choose your tools carefully. Just because your competitor is riding the wave over at Facebook doesn’t mean you should. Look back at the social staircase. What strategy and what presence should you support?
• Why should we use this tool?
  Publish, interact, spread, buzz, images, video etc. Remember that sometimes you’ll be better off with more than one tool doing the same thing. Video for example. YouTube, Viddler and Vimeo are all about video but have different advantages.
• Who should be responsible for the updates?
  Don’t drop the entire load on top of a webmaster. Make sure your social marketing is spread out horizontally on your organization. The right person for the job huh?
• What’s the naming / domain conventions?
  I use ‘ronnestam’ everywhere I can. What’s your strategy? Think before you act and then keep track of it!
• When can we say we’re successful?
  This is a hard one. People that comment your blog posts. Diggs. Linkups. Facebook recommendations. Re-tweets. SEO effects. Actual sales. You pick your own index but make sure to pick a couple. Both qualitative and quantitative cause they’re both important.
• Can we measure the return of investment (ROI)
  If success was hard this is pretty darn impossible when it comes to social media. Some of you might say it’s not. But isolation of social media effects are hard. One of the few examples I know of is Dells Twitter outlet and that’s pretty unique.
• What social spiral shall we use (this will be defined in the next stage)
  You’re not here yet. But once you get to the next stage of this post. That’s when you decide on the social spirals. Every time you activate a tool. Remember what and what good it does. The Social Spirals will lead the way!
• And whatever more you think should go into the matrix.
  Last but not least. This post is inspirational – not an actual guide. You have to do your homework and your business might need a lot more inside the matrix than my actual example. Get it right and you shall succeed!

Once you got the social matrix mapped you and everyone in your organization is prepared to start the conversation it’s time for one last thing – the Social Viral Spirals.

3. Get viral with the Social Viral Spiral

Choose your tools wisely and start a conversation

Many of you have of course seen Brian Solis Social Conversation Prism.I love it too but it’s more of a wonderful image that maps all the possibilities with the social web than help for brands who are trying to figure out what to do and where to do it. Of course you can do everything and in some cases maybe you should. But what you really need once you’ve got an idea what you can do is a tactical tool.

I’ve created the The Social Viral Spiral for exactly that purpose. Use Brian Solis Prism and then translate the tools and services you need and create your own set of Social Flowers depending on what you are trying to achieve.

What the Social Spiral does is basically define where, what, how and when you should seed that content of yours into the social web. Triggering conversations online must start somewhere and then continue over a series of social networks and tools depending on what your purpose is. Marketing campaigns are in need of a lightning speed spread. Corporate information might not need that spread at all but still needs to go social due to SEO reasons for example.

A brand or company can have as many spirals as they want but I personally think you should aim for 3 or 4 depending on what kind of product and services your brand produce. The purpose of these spirals differ depending on a set of factors and you will probably have to adjust them over time.

Once you’ve got an idea on what kind of content and activities should be matched with a certain spiral you will surely have better chances in succeeding and most importantly you will have moved the knowledge about conversation from a specific employee to your organization!

Things that affect the intensity/speed of your spirals.

• Type of content
• Timezones
• Time of actual publishing
• Internet behavioral patterns
• Where did you act the last time
• Number of followers on Twitter
• Number of friends in social networks
• Amount of social networks where you intend to interact
• How unique is the content you intend to promote
• What brand do you represent?
• Purpose – marketing, operations, news, etc…

Got that wired? Good. Then it’s all about creating that content and spin the wheel.

Right now you might have tons of open questions about this post OR it seems perfectly clear. I really don’t care which since I’ve gotta get this thing published before it consumes me.

Best of luck!

We’re fed up with boring old school advertising. We don’t want your information and rational explanations. We wanna dance, laugh, feel and love. We do not want be treated like idiots!

James Dean knew how to seduce people while looking pretty darn boring. But face it. He’s dead and would be pretty out of date now!

Information is all over us. We’re accessing it everywhere faster than ever. The more shit we get our hands on the less we wanna mess with, so you’ve gotta stand out.

Future brands don’t buy media they create brand dramas that build value and generate SEO equity – only then will you reach your future friends (aka. target group). Future brands tell stories.Future brands rely on drama and constant innovation – totally integrated.

Here are eleven bullets of love that you can load that brand gun of yours with: (or a crash course in modern branding)

1. Social currency

As social networks spread all over the world the opportunity to spread your brand globally is bigger than ever. What you’ve gotta do is get your head around your own brand values and think hard…think harder than ever before…what – can – you – give – to – me – that – builds – ME – among my peers. Yes. You heard right. You’ve gotta turn your mind around. It’s not about you winning. It’s not about you getting things. Give and you shall recieve. After all, we’re only humans deriving straight from a slimy fish or something. We only wanna fit in. And your brand can help us do that.

2. Creative excellence

People around the world are savvy. We’re accessing information from all around the world on the fly. We’re evaluating it on the fly. There’s no room for flaws. Get your business right when it comes to design, ideas and creativity. Only then will we support you! If you need some advice – talk to Mr Steve Jobs.

3. Value

You might trick us into falling in love with you. But in order for us to stay married you’ve gotta give us value for our money. A well known brand had a problem with too many calls to their call center. People complained about their products. This had led to a meeting where the management team were discussing how to develop the call center so that they could serve more people. A friend of mine were in the room and said “Why don’t you make your products better instead” – bang on target. Tomorrow there’s no room for errors. You’ll end up in price comparison engines, your page rank will drop or at least be associated with the wrong things, you’ll have protest groups on Facebook etc. Provide us with a true value and we’ll stay in love.

4. Open source

If you’re looking to race against the best you’ve gotta drop your pit stop times. With this blurry talk I mean – don’t get stuck in a big ass back-end system that won’t let you change things fast and cheap. Go open source as soon as possible. Drop everything else and run for it!

5. Know your target audience better than you know your mother in law

We’re not runners anymore. We’re not car lovers any more. We’re not mac fans any more. We’re not Nike lovers. We’re not adidas lovers. We’re everything! We want to be the best in everything we do. We don’t settle for less.

6. Join the conversation

Your brand is out there – everywhere. And you’ve gotta do your best to be part of it. Did you hear that – be part of your own brand. I mean it.

The blue dot is your brand!

Your brand is no longer built primarily on what you tell people about it. It’s built upon what other people say about it. Given that’s a truth I think it’s time for you to step into the crowd and start listening.
Note – start listening!

7. Linkonomy

Page rank – the one formula you should learn in school

This one is simple. As long as Google rules the empire – make sure people link to your site, your content and your domain. There’s no other way you’ll be seen. Ah…you probably have to link to them too

[updated]

@deeped commented that page rank is not all that simple to explain to companies. That’s not really my intention. But it’s a great point though. The guys over at SEOmoz, the best site on SEO, posts a great piece called Search Engine Ranking every two years. The survey includes the Top 5 Ranking Factors, the Top 5 Negative Ranking Factors, the Top 5 Most Contentious Factors and the Overall Ranking Algorithm. It’s a must read.

This year the Top 5 Ranking Factors were:

1. Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links

   73% very high importance

2. External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)

   71% very high importance

3. Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)

   67% very high importance

4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag

   66% very high importance

5. Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)

   66% very high importance

Head over to SEOmoz to read the full survey.

[end of update]

8. Usability

Curiosity used to make us ask for directions but not anymore. No matter if we’re talking online usability or how to direct people in a subway – lead us to the good shit now! Loading times no! Confusion no! Simplicity yes! Hospitality yes!

9. Kick Lucifer out of the basement and trade your media money for content

If you lead a large brand you probably have one budget in your safe. Then a couple of hundred meters down in hell you’ve got a big bag of media budgets waiting to be blown up. Ever thought about what that money can do for your brand online if you build things by the book (seo book that is)? Cut your media money by half and move that half over to the equity side of your marketing mix – online content. Built right, written right and distributed over the right social networks it will do ten times more for your brand than any 30 second commercial will ever do.

10. Make us laugh

Is there anything better than a refreshing laughter? It’s a trip. It’s a drug. It makes us fall in love. Never ever forget that. If you’re a CEO or a Marketing Director representing a brand that creates boring, no good, sleep ‘pilling’, price fighting commercials. Report yourselves to the next mission to Mars – cause we don’t want you on our beautiful planet!

11. Finally drop the following word from your vocabulary:

Control. You don’t need it and you can’t have it.

See you out there!

The Japanese group Sour was about to create a new music video for their latest song ‘Hibi no Neiro’. What to do?

Get some fans together from around the world, put them in front of a web-cam and let them co-create the video for you. Once you’re done – put it on YouTube and another 7 days later you have quarter of a million people lovin’ your music.

I don’t think it will be the same hype as the Ok Go video but it will sure spread like wildfire.

Updated: Jonathan Sulo linked to this post and in his comments I found another great example of crowdsourcing. Erik Torsner suggested we should feast our eyes on the Eternalmoonwalk, a tribute to the late Michael Jackson. I of course went over there and submitted a video myself. Another great example, not as controlled as the Sour video but still a great idea.

Everyone that works in communication shares a wet dream and it spells word of mouth.

Creating something that grows a life of its own without the support of mainstream media is what buzz and viral marketing is all about. But when we talk about creating buzz we seldom mention the dark side of the trade.

This visualization made by Mario Vellandi as part of a competition over at Logic+Emotion is a great eye opener. It really nails the fact that word of mouth got that dark side and that’s every brands worst nightmare, something Domino’s Pizza experienced recently.

(What I really love about the bloggosphere is the fact that a single image like this leads me to a new place that I have not yet discovered. Mario’s blog Melodies in Marketing goes straight into my RSS reader.)

Linus Omark, the 6th most viewed video on YouTube this week.

The 6th most viewed video worldwide on YouTube this week is a video showing Swedish hockey player Linus Omark, drafted 4th by the Edmonton Oilers, scoring in a friendly exhibition game against Switzerland.

Linus does what every innovator would do – he dares to do different.
And differentiation is what earns him fame.

If you’re into advertising, marketing or any kind of business for that sake you have so much to learn from this. Hell, if you’re looking to achieve anything there’s everything to learn.

In the end of the 80s I was privileged to be taken on as a member of the Swedish national snowboarding team. That’s when I first realized what differentiated the people who made the it in life and people who didn’t – the people in the team didn’t care what people thought of us, we did our own thing no matter what. I especially remember a snowboarding camp in Valfjället, a small ski resort (hill) in Värmland, Sweden. About 70-80 teens had gathered for a half pipe camp arranged by Greger Hagelin who later founded WE.

Me, years later piloting Greger Hagelin and WE co-founder David Hedman for a trip in a Piper PA-28 to Gotland.

It rained every day, yet early every morning before the lifts opened up a small group of us started to hike the pipe. Then once the lifts closed down that same group still hiked the pipe, the rain still poring down. Not much of a winter experience but for us it was all about passion. In that group we were all part of the national team or soon to be. The others practiced for an hour or two before getting pissed about the weather and leaving for the warm cabins. Once we got in later in the night we were told how stupid we were for staying out there all day soaking wet. We didn’t care.

If you wanna achieve something big. If you want your advertising or marketing activities to reach further. You’ve gotta do things differently and also be prepared to make a fool out of yourself. Don’t care what people will say if you fail. Get up and try again. Do your own thing.

So, when Linus, currently playing for Lulea HF, gets out on that ice and decides to try something he’s been practicing for hours, hours and more hours he feels sure of himself. He will win. However if he would have missed I’m sure he would have tried again.

Are you prepared to stick your nose out? Or do you play it safe?

I have a Samsung TV at home. I’ve been thinking of selling it. After seeing this viral that I picked up over at AdAge that’s not possible.

While we’re at it.

Yesterday I spent the morning at an MSN Innovate seminar arranged by Microsoft Advertising in Sweden. There I had the pleasure of listening to Naoki Ito, awarded creative director from GT Tokyo. A great presentation where he talked more about cultural differences and what made creative people creative rather than showing to many cases. However, one of the things he did show us was this TVC, a part of a concept called Love Distance.

Beautiful and probably one of the better ideas I’ve seen in a long time!

This video below got the ingredients you gotta have to cook that viral soup. It opens up with a quick association to one of the world most sold (and best) games – Guitar Hero. The sign also promotes that the video is about music – Prisoner of Society by The Living End. Shortly after the sport of BMX is introduced. We’re now wondering, where is all this going to go.

The effort of making this video is amazing and it taps straight into the young audience that loves gaming, music and sports. Last but not least – He f*#n nails that song!

Two days after posting the ‘Bike Hero’ video its been viewed 584,733, posted on 104 blogs and commented 2,533 . Phew.

As I was reading my stats in my Mint account a site that I hadn’t seen before. Viralvideochart.com stood out. Its a sniffy little thing where you can keep track of the virality of online videos.

The cool thing is that these guys measure virality, not videos shown. So the faster something is being spread, the higher rating. Basically a dashboard for the viral video producer.

Right now, the most viral video is this one:

Bam boom pjoink and that RSS goes straight into my feedreader.

There’s a lot of talk about viral marketing and especially YouTube video virals. Brands and agencies seems to think that viral marketing is a viable marketing method. It COULD be. But it might just as well FAIL big time. Of course it depends on the actual video but many great virals have been doomed to no viewers at all simply due to the fact that people don’t even spot them.

Every minute there’s 13 hours! of videos uploaded to YouTube. That’s the equivalent of Hollywood releasing more than 57,000 full-length movies every week according to Click for Nick. So, think of viral marketing via YouTube as an alternative strategy that might just kick off, but may also disappear into eternity without anyone noticing it.

Ford however, they’ve sort of gotten themselves a guarantee for viral spread. First, it a very good TVC from a brand that is boring, anti-personal and not so sexy. Suddenly this TVC proves the opposite. But more important, they’ve actually included people from all around their company. There’s one fantastic scene where all workers at the Ford factory sings along while eating their lunch in the Ford cantina.

Probably someone has told all employees to become part of this TVC and then distributed it to each and everyone. The effect? Well, for starters almost 100 000 employees will send the video to friends and family to show them the TVC the were involved in. Given that this has happened then it’s not a coincidence the video is already up there among the most viewed videos on YouTube this week. And it’s only been running for 7 days.

Crowd is the currency of tomorrow!

The creators behind SAW – one of the scariest horror movies ever has created a creepy video where Jigsaw, risen from the dead, promotes a competition on YouTube. A simple but smart concept where the man in the mask tells people to visit YouTube.com/SAW5.

The video above featuring Jigsaw has gained 3,139,460 views in 6 days. Quite an effort since Sara Palin covers about 80% of the most viewed videos (mostly harassing her) right now. Jigsaws urges to create their own mashup trailer to promote SAW5. When I visited the YouTube campaign site today, 1163 people had uploaded their mashups. So far none of these had started to build a substantial amount of traffic. The fact that the competition has been running for 6 days and the competition goes on for another 22 days will probably turn it into one of the more successful competitions run on YouTube. Since you can embed the movie it’s spread all around that’ll speed up the spread faster than if you’re trying to attract people to a certain URL.

Think about it. Airing this kind of concept on TV, trying to get people to visit some campaign site that takes for ever to load, get them to upload it and build traffic over time. This would have been impossible. This solution builds the SAW hype on youtube over time. Which trailer turns out to be the main traffic driver to the movies remains to be seen. But the whole campaign idea represents a smart way of building the hype.

Finally. Horror movies scares the shit out of me. So I’ll miss this one.