Social media as a marketing platform was all most marketers could talk about in 2009. Helped by mass worldwide adoption, as well as wilting marketing budgets in the face of the global economic meltdown, every chief marketing officer was under pressure to ‘get on Facebook’.

As the dust settles, companies have burnt their fingers in their forays onto social media platforms, many because they operate in industries that don’t lend themselves to the free visible flow of customer interaction. Some have suggested that these brands should give social media a skip, but there are examples that have lit a path to success.
I’ve been consistently amazed at the haphazard rush that many local corporate brands have taken to get involved in social media, without a true understanding of their product and customer environment. Many of these have been in the more demure financial services industry, which has a predominantly higher level of ‘grudge purchase’ products.

These brands, especially those like short-term insurance and medical schemes, offer products that are usually complex, and that customers choose because they feel they have to have them as a defensive purchase, rather than buy them for more positive reasons. However, there are plenty of other brands that fall into the ‘simply unsexy’ category, which have had trouble ‘glamming’ themselves up for social media.
For these brands, social media is a difficult prospect. Firstly, and most obviously, customers don’t necessarily want to have a relationship or interact with a brand that they’re not entirely happy about buying in the first place.
Secondly, these brands often offer complex products that customers don’t understand, and there are proportionately more customer complaints than in other industries, merely because these customers don’t understand what they’ve bought. Ultimately though, this is a scary prospect for corporate Boards, where any service weaknesses are aired very much in the public domain.

Very often, these brands end up trying to use social media purely as a customer service channel, which can open up a deluge of customer complaints, which more often than not gets ignored altogether or negatively affects the brand. There are those that have persevered and succeeded though, and one of the most successful social media campaigns in the UK offers some insights into creating social media experiences in these industries.

Read the rest here.

Every marketer, ad man (or woman), PR executive advertising or digital marketer has to embrace social media skills within their focus areas – it’s a resource-wide skill requirement. The sea change of how marketing and communication is being conducted in a post-digital world means that social media has taken a platform (as opposed to a channel) role, even beyond traditional media such as television or print.

Many social media players will say that marketers should outsource to social media agencies, as they would digital or PR  agencies, but in my opinion, this is a false choice. Visit every PR agency, advertising agency, digital agency, BTL agency or even events agency, and they will tell you all the great things that they are doing in social media as support platforms for their communication initiatives. Social media is simply not another marketing channel.

Recently, a few of the highest profile social media thinkers have been making moves to PR agency groups, the most notable being David Armano. Armano’s move, as one of the guiding lights of social media strategy globally, to the Edelman agency served as a lightning rod for discussion around the fit between social media and public relations.

The debate centred around opposing views of where social media as a skills set would end up settling, both in terms of organisational structure and relating to agency partners. As much as social media experts will say that they hold unique abilities in developing and translating campaigns on social media platforms, I believe that this requires a deeper understanding of customer engagement.  Whilst social media is a marketing-wide skill requisite, it fits most neatly being driven side-by-side with public relations skills.

Let’s be frank, before the term ‘earned media’ became a buzzword amongst the social media crew, it’s essentially exactly what PR agencies have been doing for decades. Public relations (much wider than media relations alone) is all about connecting a brand to its audiences, using media pitching to create free publicity (earned media), events and one-to-one interactions to drive word of mouth and brand engagement (sound familiar?), the influencing of opinion leaders (ditto) and the creation of public campaigns to educate and affect perception of target consumers about the brand (still with me?).

Social media lives on a digital platform, but digital platforms are the delivery vehicle; the understanding and strategy goes back to customer engagement theory. There is absolutely no doubt that crafting social media strategy requires hand-in-hand development with digital agencies, as they best understand the possibilities and capabilities of the digital platforms. But when tying into broader marketing strategies that solve business issues, I believe that the strategy will not be driven by digital agencies or digital specialists but led by those with communications and customer engagement experience and skills – both traditional public relations skills.

I posed the question of whether social media’s most natural fit is with PR to Steve Rubel, Director of Insights at Edelman Digital on Twitter. His answer summarised my thinking in 140 characters:

“I believe lots of agencies will be involved in social media but that PR will often drive the strategy.”

What do you think? Where do you think the future of social media strategy will lie?

20.  To Lose My Life – White Lies

One of the breakthrough bands of the year and definitely a band for the future. Reminiscent of the The Editors at times.

19.  Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You

What more can one say about the little MySpace princess of pop? ‘Fear’ was undoubtedly one of the best crafted pop tunes of 2009.

18.  Middle Cyclone – Neko Case

More class from Neko Case. Always willing to bear the rawest elements in her lyrics, she combines hauntingly powerful vocals with alt-country hooks to create a varied and interesting album.

17. Jaydiohead – Jaydiohead

The little surprise package of my year, this mashup album from New York DJ and producer Max Tannone mixes Jay-Z’s rhymes with Radiohead’s instrumentals, with devastatingly good results. Hit the download page here.

16. Everything is New  – Jack Penate

An artist whose boy-band image make him someone people love to hate, but there’s no doubting the quality of this album. Check out ‘Pull My Heart Away’.

15. The Ecstatic – Mos Def

Mos Def’s best album in years. Mixing those old-skool instrumentals that made Black on Both Sides such a classic, he seems to have finished experimenting and gone back to what he does best. With a lot of stagnancy in hip hop at the moment, probably best that it’s an old hand leading the way forward…

14. Merriweather Post Pavilion – Animal Collective

The darling of the indie critics, Animal Collective’s 2009 effort was undoubtedly one of the richest and most original albums of the year. Fell short of listening longevity for me, but undoubtedly a worthy addition to the best of list.

13. The ’59 Sound – The Gaslight Anthem

Technically this album was released in late 2008, but it spent the most amount of time in my speakers in ’09 so I’m putting in here. An awesome sophomore album from the New Jersey band, full of unconstrained energy and heart that did a lot of road trips with me.

12. Post-Nothing – Japandroids

There’s always something to be appreciated about a band that throws any hope of commercial radio airplay out the window. The absolute rawness of this band really grabbed me this year. ‘Wet Hair’ took me up many steep hills on the trails in ’09.

11.  The Sound they Make – New Ruins

Their description as alt-goth interested me on eMusic before I listened to this album, and I’m really glad I did. Not on many people’s radars this year, this was another of my surprise packages. Layered guitars and driving percussion. Quality.

10.  The xx – xx

Another indie critic darling, but one that lived up to the hype. Stripped down instrumentals and claustrophobic lyrics dripping with tension and hurt on a beautifully constructed album. Check out some of their remixes of other artists too.

9.  Wolfgang Amadeus – Phoenix

You just know these Frenchies had a lot of fun making this album, and its impossible not to bob yer head at almost every track. A definite summer pool party album. Check out ’1901′ and ‘Lisztomania’ and ‘Girlfriend’.

8.  Manners – Passion Pit

One of the most popular indie albums on the underground circuit, and another great summer album. If you liked Empire of the Sun, you’ll love this. ‘The Reeling’ and ‘Moth’s Wings’ are the top tracks on the album.

7.  Florine by Julianna Barwick

Another real personal pick this. Julianna Barwick’s Florine EP was my panacea during some of the most stressful moments at work this year, as well as the perfect tranquil environment for some of my longer trail running excursions. Close your eyes and listen to ‘Cloudbank’.

6.  Sort of Revolution – Fink

A new find for me this year, and his back catalogue is well worth exploring too. This understated Brit brings acoustic class to my lineup and was a solid addition to many of my playlists this year. Best track on the album, ‘If I Had a Million’. Check out ‘This Is the Thing’ from his 2007 album ‘Distance and Time’ too.

5.  It’s Blitz – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

A huge shift in style for the YYY’s on this album, which was an incredibly brave move such is the indie ownership felt by so many of their fans. Dropping driving punk riffs for synths and ballads, this album delivers on so many levels. ‘Hysteric’ is a masterpiece.

4.  The Wishes and the Glitch – Say Hi

One of the greatest things about the internet is the democratisation of content creation, and this is rarely more apparent than in music. When a guy from Seattle can produce six albums over the last seven years from his own apartment, from writing to finished digital production, one gets a sense of its power.  The Wishes and the Glitch is an eccentric album which shows off Eric Elbogen’s lyrical skills and technical prowess to deliver a charmingly unpolished, authentic indipop gem. Check out ‘Spiders’,  ‘We Lost the Albatross’ and ‘Northwestern Girls’. (By the way, this is another late 2008 release which snuck into my 2009 list)

3.  The Midnight Organ Fright – Frightened Rabbit

These Scotsmen were another new arrival for me this year, although this is their second album. You won’t find this on many best of lists this year, it’s a little more obscure; but the album held a lot for me. Scott Hutchison’s raw Scottish accent and intense lyrics accompany an expansive range of songs from stripped down ballads to energetic, driving floor fillers. All in all, an eclectic, emotive, quirky and challenging album; ‘Fast Blood’ and ‘Good Arms vs Bad Arms’ being the most illustrative.

2.  Two Suns – Bat for Lashes

Ever since I saw Bat for Lashes’ awesome video for ‘What’s a Girl to Do?’ off the first album I’ve been enamoured with Natasha Khan’s hauntingly beautiful voice and innovative instrumentals. ‘Two Suns’ was an album I constantly came back to in 2009, and its layers of lyrics and rhythms gave it the longevity. An epic follow-up to ‘Fur and Gold’, and an album which should have won the Mercury Prize this year. You should hear ‘Daniel’ and ‘Two Planets’ first. ‘Daniel’ video below:

1.  Fantasies – Metric

Look, by way of disclosure I’ve got to note that Metric are probably my favourite band out there, so some may see these this as commonly clouded bias. However, this being my list and all…

After Emily Haines took time out to craft her solo masterpiece, ‘Knives Don’t Have Your Back’, the band reconnected to start writing for Metric again (see video below).  What followed was a brilliantly balanced album that brought a bit of maturity to the wilder, rawer elements of Metric’s previous albums. Don’t get me wrong, the flying synths and big riffs are still there, but both lyrically and stylistically, there’s definitely a new feeling on this album. ‘Fantasies’ was undoubtedly the album on my heaviest rotation in 2009. ‘Satellite Mind’, ‘Stadium Love’ and ‘Help, I’m Alive’ are the ones to start with.

Emily Haines on writing for the album in Beunos Aires (watch it):

So there it is, my best of for 2009. Drop yours in the comments…

Now we’ve all got very caught up in 2008 and 2009 about the explosion of social media and how that has turned the marketer-customer relationship on its head. Social media has essentially turned low-impact, low-reach word of mouth into high-impact, high-reach communication. It’s taken conversations between limited physical social circles and lifted them onto virtual but global social media platforms, with much greater opportunities – and threats – to brands.

However, what’s been lost in our love affair with social media, is that consumer choice, and the consumer’s role in using those choices, is the true driver of consumer empowerment. In truth, social media is a platform for conversation around brands and in the modern sense, the focal point of consumer empowerment, but choice is the driver. If there was little or no brand choice (such as existed in the closed apartheid brand environment in the 80′s in South Africa), there would be no empowerment.

As consumers gained more information from more sources and greater access to competitive product options within categories, they made more informed purchases, and were more vocal about making brand choices based on both a demand for greater satisfaction and for the non-tangible communication that brand purchases attached to them. It’s important to note that I’m not referring to social media here; the antecedents can be found in the media proliferation of the late 80′s and 90′s, the explosion of brand choices in product categories over the 90′s and the (terribly-phrased but what else can we call them) Noughties, and the general comparative product information and testimonials available on the internet in the pre-social media online environment.

Greater access to product information in conjunction with wider brand choices, allowed consumers to both express themselves more and demand more from their product purchases. This, along with the frustration with a daily bombardment of broadcast advertising messages, led to greater and more vocal challenging of the fact and fiction of marketing messages and thus, increased ownership of brand choice. Empowerment, through choice.

Anyway, that’s a digression from Mitchell’s timely op-ed piece. He asserts that consumer empowerment in this modern social media world is based on choice, voice, the ability to specify needs and wants, and the control over what he calls ‘choice architecture’:

“The first level is choice. The classic arena of choice is between competing products and services. More recently, however, consumers have also gained much greater choice over the sources of information they pay attention to. This has huge implications for marketing communications.

The second level is voice. Consumers’ ability to use online social media to publicly express their views and feelings is a hot topic. Viral messages have far-reaching implications for reputation management. As Bond noted: ‘Within seconds, customers can compare notes, demolish price structures, destroy marketing strategies and tell the world to shop elsewhere.’ If, that is, there is a genuine ‘elsewhere’.

Another layer of voice, with even bigger implications, is consumers’ ability to volunteer information about themselves: who they are; what they want; what they want to find out about; what their changing life circumstances and goals are. Volunteered personal information could, literally, turn many aspects of marketing upside-down – into a process driven not by marketers, but by consumers.

A third level of empowerment is the ability to specify what I want, how and when. This is more about empowering processes rather than choice or voice.

A fourth level of empowerment is control over ‘choice architectures’ – the ways in which our choices are constructed, framed and presented in the first place.

This really does put the cat among the marketing pigeons. A menu in a restaurant is an example of a choice architecture. Yes, the menu ‘empowers’ diners via choice, but the restaurant-owner retains power as the ‘choice architect’, selecting what choices his customers are presented with.”

We are experiencing a radical shift in the marketing environment and more particularly, in the marketer-consumer relationship. This shift has yet to complete its course and there will undoubtedly be further changes to the marketing mindset as consumers begin to realise the potential power that they hold. One would argue that is not yet the case, where consumers are becoming more vocal and finding their feet in this new ‘empowered’ environment, but there hasn’t been the collective harnessing of this power over brands as yet.

It’s going to be a really wild ride, but brands have to understand their role in the process and work with their customers to ascertain the right level of empowerment that is right for the brand. Too little, and consumers will make other choices; too much, and the brand will cease to have an identity.

So, I’ve moved over to a new domain, which gives me a bit more freedom about what content I can write about. Marketing, business, entrepreneurship, music, my personal life, and yes, maybe a little politics too. And so this is where I am, I’m checking back in…