The best way for brands to achieve results in the modern web is to organize teams around execution, eliminating micro management and unnecessary approval processes. Why? In many ways marketing is now something that’s won at the edges as much as it is around the “big idea.”
Executing in a daily, consistent fashion will help a brand gain the critical traction necessary to win modern marketing channels. Especially if competitors can’t organize their marketing in this way (as I’ve noted in a previous post on this subject).
With that, I wanted to share a few ideas regarding why it’s important to organize your team around execution:
Social channels work best if given talented ownership with autonomy
A key skill for marketing professionals is to be adept community managers. David Armano wrote a post awhile back with the headline: “Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire A Community Manager.” But really, all marketers should be skilled at this and deftly be able to grow a community of relevant, interested users across platforms (niche and large) and call their communities to take an action. To achieve this, channel managers should have owners with the autonomy necessary to respond and engage in real-time. To do this while mitigating risk, it means not relegating social to someone willing to do it cheaply, but actually make an investment to hire someone who understands your industry inside and out and what constitutes appropriate behavior. To go cheap here is to put your entire brand’s reputation one-click away from disaster.
Those empowered to be data-driven at a rapid pace will be best positioned to win
Social channels move at a rapid pace, now more than ever. In the days where message boards and forums reigned supreme, social was more timeshifted. Now in a stream-powered web we’re seeing conversations and ideas spread much closer to real-time. Those able to adapt to trending ideas quickly and be data-driven to iterate the day’s tactics are better positioned to win than those who ignore the robust and useful dataset social presents.
Consumers are now demanding instant satisfaction
Several research reports over the last year have cited consumers demand a fast response in social (it’s not uncommon to hear a response is anticipated in hours, not days). This data isn’t surprising: as the web continues to move in the direction of real-time, it’s the new norm that marketing and customer service have to work together and realize that simply being assisted by a company is in many cases “remarkable.” That is to say, it’s worth commenting on, which in social means positive word of mouth. Be remarkable by showing up when your biggest fans ask for you or need help. Showing you actually care is a severely underrated marketing tactic.
Ability to remix, re-imagine content and news on-the-fly is core to modern marketing
Marketing has traditionally been all about big campaigns that take a lot of planning and work to create and make a big splash. The modern web equally rewards those able to remix and re-imagine content across channels in a way that’s useful, fast. Useful means many different things to different consumers: it could mean making their jobs easier or it could even mean something that’s entertaining. The point is that marketers need to be adept remixers of content and news (their own and others).
The modern web present a unique opportunity for brands, but even with social not being new, challenges still exist in organizations who are still building teams or training existing marketers to get up to speed. The good news is that it’s not too late and with work and perseverance, all brands can make a transition to an execution-oriented team. Don’t throw out those big ideas – they still have a place. But organize your marketing team to be able to execute fast and nurture a community bit by bit.
Launch, iterate, refine. Don’t overthink. Getting people capable of this is key.