The 4Ms of social media marketing

Many of the aspects of marketing in social media are similar to mainstream or other online media. There are nuances like the extra special need for ”authentic” communications (i.e. be upfront with who is behind the initiative) or the real viral power of the networks. I believe that the following framework the 4Ms is a good way to understand social media and make better decisions on how best to interact to increase relevance and ultimately sales.

Stage 1: Monitoring – in this step company decides what sources of conversation they want to track. Is the opinion of bloggers most crucial, is it better to look at discussion forums, review sites etc. In our experience this is both industry and campaign dependent. Once the sources have been identified the next step might be too look for country specific information or other demographics. Companies then choose brands they want to monitor for and set up a system of tracking. There are a number of free tools that can be used (Yahoo Pipes for example, Netvibes, Blogpulse) and some commercial class (Ok, ok Attentio has one of these)

Stage 2: Measurement – Now it is time to see first results of the monitoring exercise and identify where the brand perception is today and what trends are emerging. At this stage it can be quickly seen how brands perform against same in class or best in class. Also there is country specific tracking to see if the brand performs better in one area versus the next. This measurement enables companies to see how they perform but it also sets the comparison point which will be measured again after a campaign.

Stage 3: Magnitude – The first steps find out where the conversations are and also offer the first pass on measurement. Now the next level of data looks at the difference between the grass roots buzz and the influential buzz. Who is pushing the debate around the brand or issue? Are these people with large communities and active commentators? Yet again how does this compare with other companies in the sector? Influencers may be an authority on a certain topic but not another, this explains why targeting only popular blogs may not be the way to go with a communication campaign.

Stage 4: Mingling – At first I was calling this mixing or even meddling (Thanks Michaela for helping me with this). This is how companies decide to engage with social networks or blogs. The number of ways of doing this is increasing. Bloggers are often asked to seed products. Companies may directly advertise with blogs or forums. Market research firms recruit panelists from demographically friendly social networks. I’ve seen company’s blog themselves in greater numbers, enable forums and enter into more discussion directly with blogs either ad-hoc or actual commenting strategy. This whole area is not mature yet, to some it is still an experiment, to others like Microsoft it is core to communication strategy, I know of a number of companies who just do not touch this space yet (this will change).

Conclusion: Even if companies decide to avoid stage 4, it is likely they should already be doing stages 1-3. This can be done relatively cheaply with free tools available. Stages 1-3 should include counting the raw buzz, identifying sentiment, tracking web and feed statistics, but also were possible seeing how social media impacts the brand and sales. When companies decide to mingle with social media they should increase efforts with stages 1-3 to make sure that they can take away learning from their tracking and understand ROI. There is more to come with case studies showing how companies interact with social media with good and bad results.

6 Comments »

1. [...] Attentio Blog » Blog Archive » The 4Ms of social media marketing Many of the aspects of marketing in social media are similar to mainstream or other online media. There are nuances like the extra special need for ”authentic” communications or the real viral power of the networks. (tags: socialmedia attentio marketing communications) [...]

   Pingback by links for 2007-05-08 « ‘Cross The Breeze — May 9, 2007 @ 12:39 am

2. [...] According to Simon McDermott, the four stages are: Monitoring – figuring how which components of the conversation are best for your company [...]

   Pingback by What are the Four M’s of social media marketing? - 10,000 Marshmallows - Marketing Accountability: How to eat 10,000 Marshmallows — May 9, 2007 @ 1:44 am

3. [...] Earlier in the month, I wrote a post called What are the Four M’s of social media marketing? This was in response to a post Simon McDermott over in Belgium wrote on Monitoring, Measurement, Magnitude and Mingling as a “a good way to understand social media and make better decisions on how best to interact to increase relevance and ultimately sales.” [...]

   Pingback by Dell Quells HP Hell: What REALLY listening to customers really means - 10,000 Marshmallows - Marketing Accountability: How to eat 10,000 Marshmallows — May 24, 2007 @ 9:55 pm

4. 

   Great post! It made me understand social media marketing much better now. I hope to increase traffic in my online business.

   Comment by arlene — July 4, 2008 @ 2:36 am

5. 

   Social Media Marketing is really the trend these days. i market most of my products through social networking sites..

   Comment by Angely — November 1, 2009 @ 4:28 am

6. 

   i do Social Media Marketing specially when promoting a new website or an affiliate product. Social media is more effective than offline advertising in my opinion.

   Comment by Michelle — November 16, 2009 @ 12:41 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment