JeffMolander.com

USAA bank uses social media
to deliver meaningful, profitable outcomes

by Jeff Molander

Time to read 3 minutes. Time-stretched USAA customers already demonstrated a willingness to use desktop scanners to make deposits.  So the bank decided to make what they're already doing align with customers' love-affair with mobile devices.  The result: meaningful customer outcomes and profits using social media and mobile applications.  USAA is one of today's best examples of social media and mobile device use in banking.  As part of my keynote speaking, I'm often illustrating how leaders like USAA are using utility to create meaningful outcomes.  Read on for all the details.

Case study on Moosejaw:
Improving social media marketing outcomes

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 7 minutes. Today, Abercrombie & Fitch announced flat Web and declining store sales.  But they have well over 1,000,000 "followers and friends."   How can this be?  And Moosejaw... they're missing out on the 'digital native social commerce' action too.  Here's how to discover if your brand is under-delivering using social media -- and how to improve it. 

How a Ben Franklin craft store
is using social media to sell

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 7 minutes. Experts say "building community,"  "buzz" or "engagement in the conversation" is joy.  But crazy people like me still like to SELL things.  And so do a few remaining Ben Franklin stores.  Today I'll show you how a Ben Franklin store in rural Washington accidentally discovered how to create a winning social media strategy that drives more buyers into the store.  I'll also share a shortcut with you: Stop looking for "what works" from agencies and consultants.  Start asking yourself, "what works in our stores?"  Then use tools like mobile texting to supercharge it.

A shortcut to finding
what works in social media marketing

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 5 minutes. You need to create sales and leads with 'social' media/marketing.  That means finding "what works."  Discovering stories of businesses creating actual sales, customers, leads, subscribers -- not just Facebook friends or Twitter followers.  These practices live in places we cannot predict nor reliably access.  Or can we?  I'll show you what to look for at conferences, in trade magazines, podcasts, video and slide decks of presentations.  These are the haystacks we often search -- looking for buried needles.  Here are shortcuts you can use to find and apply "what works" and avoid what doesn't.

How Adagio is beating Bigelow Tea
to the social media punch

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 8 minutes. Bigelow and Adagio Teas are two competing "tea-commerce" brands.  But Adagio is a clear category-leading online purveyor of tea.  In this short article I'll quickly give you the skinny on what they're doing to sell more tea using a remarkable approach to Web marketing and social media.  This ten-year old 'pure' Internet company is dominating its larger, older competitor.  And they're doing it without even taking phone calls from customers.  Here's their secret so you can follow their lead.

Social media: creating improved outcomes
in medical practices

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 4 minutes. Exceptionally successful doctors and medical professionals are applying social media tools to create more meaningful relationships with -- and positive outcomes for -- patients.  Are you a pharmaceutical company looking to help physicians achieve these goals?  A doctor?  An adviser to medical practices?  I'll show you how to quickly plan and implement social media tools in ways that produce meaningful patient outcomes.

Why marketing on Facebook may not
help your business

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 5 minutes. Like many marketers, 1800Flowers is intoxicated by excitement over "social media" and the supposed revolution it's creating.  But are you willing to bet your marketing dollars on customers shopping using Facebook?  Why?  The excitement and expectation around social media is too often illogical and dangerous.  Yes -- it's smart to experiment but yes it DOES cost real money to do so.  No -- most marketers CANNOT  afford to fail using social media in a down economy.  Resist bloggers, trade media and "experts" in their rush to hail "all that is Facebook" as bold and innovative.  Here's how.

Why business Twittering deserves
a second look, a strategy

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 4.5 minutes.

Social media:  It's so important that "it will change everything..." so broad that it includes just about everything and so profound that nothing can measure it.  To infinity and beyond!  Sound familiar?  When it comes to Twitter, there's no shortage of nonsensical justification for Twittering.  Just do it!  But should your business Twitter?  Should your intern experiment with it?  How much ‘engagement’ is needed to realize an actual sale or lead?  I'll shine a light on finding the answer for your company.

There is no such thing as ’social media’

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 3.5 minutes. The sooner marketers realize "all the Web is a social media" the sooner they'll improve results of Web marketing.  All the Web is a social media -- and always has been.   Web 2.0 hysteria finds many marketers handcuffing themselves by believing in a "faux newness" that doesn't exist.  Social media is "so new", techie and "so specialized" that it's walled off from email, affiliate marketing -- everything else.  Result: Digital fails to integrate with offline marketing in ways that create sales, leads and improved customer experiences.  Bug once you see all media as being "social" everything changes.  The path to improving Web marketing results is clear.  

Are merchant selling networks the birth of
‘Social eCommerce?’

by Jeff Molander

There's an endless amount of silly and illogical hype around Facebook and Twitter -- their ability to create a new form of advertising.  Forget advertising for a moment: When will e-commerce become socialized?  Which companies will actually enable it?   eBay's unbridled success gave birth to an ecosystem of  companies that "help sellers sell"... and eBay brings buyers and sellers together around shared interests to gab, blog, review products, etc.  But there aren't any companies out there helping sellers connect with other sellers to create "merchant networks" -- with one exception.  Not until today have sellers been able to instantly connect with other sellers to expand their own inventory (find new stuff to sell) AND create new sales channels (recruit other sellers as distributors).  Check out this short video for the basics and here's a link to the media release http://pitch.pe/16159 What do you think?