I was lucky enough to recently visit Facebook HQ in Menlo Park, just outside of San Francisco. The multi-building campus is incredible and feels like it could have been designed by Willy Wonka, if Mr Wonka was a software developer with a penchant for working long hours. I didn’t lick any walls though so my empirical observations were limited. During the tour I began to think about how much Facebook had changed since it floated a year ago.

In the U.S. Securities and Exchanges letter announcing the Facebook float, Mark Zuckerberg famously (at least in the circles I hang out in) wrote, “Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.” Billions of dollars, and over a billion account holders later, Facebook is now very much a company, and one that the whole world is watching very closely.

A focus on generating revenues is having an impact on Facebook the company. While Zuckerberg didn’t seem over concerned with profit before the IPO, pressure from shareholders has shifted the company’s focus. Advertising on the platform has evolved very quickly and there are other revenue generating products being tested all the time.

It could be argued that Facebook may have floated a little too early. As a developer lead organisation (the vast majority of Facebook HQ employees are developers) much of what Facebook does is driven by software updates. The Facebook advertising platform has evolved through this method. But the relentlessness of adverting-focused updates has made it difficult for many people, and brands, to keep up.

My view is that Facebook could have done a better job of educating brands about how to best use the social media platform to generate long term value. The data that brands can now access thanks to Facebook is simply incredible. However for many marketers what that data is, how to access it, and why it is so valuable to marketing efforts is simply not clear.

Of course educating the world’s marketers, many of whom are still coming to grips with all the digital channels at one time, takes time and money. The float of Facebook generated the cash needed to accelerate this process and the world is now beginning to catch up. Much of what I do day-to-day is focused on helping my clients make big leaps in this area.

The question that I just can’t seem to shake is “why is Facebook not focusing on education more?” Many advertisers are using the platform the same way they might use Google adverting – without realising that customers are in a very different mindset. While Facebook may be doing a lot to improve the technical aspects of the platform for both users and advertisers, it’s the way advertisers are using the platform that may be part of the reason Facebook appears to be losing account holders.

Facebook’s next big challenge to overcome may have nothing to do with software. It might just be helping the rest of world reframe their relationships with customers – and think like Zuckerberg.

A recent study by online analytics company Experian looked at the browsing habits of people in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. They found that people are spending the majority of their online time on social media sites. In fact, the study found that respondents spend 27% of every hour online interacting with social networks.

With statistics like these it is little wonder that market leading companies are intensely focused on customer-centric innovation in the social media space. For example, Nike has launched a new platform that enables customers to use their Instagram photos to customise a pair of sneakers. With Nike PHOTOiD you can choose an Instagram photo which then applies the colours from that image to a pair of Nike shoes. Of course, you can then also purchase the shoes and have them delivered. By enabling customers to use their own photos to customise a pair of sneakers, Nike has created a way of purchasing their product with a personal memory and association already built in.

Nike are not the only ones embracing customer data and social interactions as a core force of business innovation. In fact, digital innovation is no longer being seen as an option. It is necessary for ongoing brand survival. So, what do you need to do to start this process in your organisation?

Define the vision

A successful innovation project needs a clear vision. The vision should take into account how the customer will interact with you and how that interaction will be an expression of the brand. The vision needs to be communicated clearly to all involved and built into the DNA of the project team. Nike’s PHOTOiD is an expression of the brand as an efficient way for customers to see the vast variation in colours a Nike sneaker can come in. It provides value to the customer instantly by using their own data, in this case photos, to customise the experience.

Prototype quickly

Truly innovative ideas do not come from “best practice” examples. They are new and exciting ways of engaging your audience. But that means there can be some elements of risk. The way to manage this risk is to look at the elements of the innovation and develop prototypes to test them. This allows small failures to be part of the process. In fact, they should be embraced. Thomas Edison once famously said: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Prototype and test to evolve your thinking rapidly.

Connect with the customer

Successful innovations in the social media space allow brands to connect with their market in really interesting ways. If you can let the user see how your brand interacts with their network or data then you will create something unique and truly innovative.

In today’s hyper connected and interactive world finding ways to get your customers to engage with your brand is not easy. Spend the time to be truly innovative and you will begin a whole new phase in customer relationships.

While many media outlets are still debating the various “pay for use models”, such as premium content paywalls, much of the rest of the business world has come to the conclusion that the real value is the audience, not the content itself. As a result, businesses are now more focused on generating and distributing high quality, and highly focused content like never before. The content is designed to inform the target audience, build trust and nurture leads.

The term that is being used for this trend is “content marketing”, and it requires more than simply hiring people who can write – you need to develop a content focused culture. In an organisation culture influences behaviours throughout the company. So what can you hope to gain by developing a content marketing-focused culture?

All eyes on the customer

Companies need customers. The better you communicate with and service your customer base, the more likely they will remain loyal, and loyalty is the secret to a lower cost per acquisition. Happy customers will also recommend your brand to others. The problem is, achieving this level of customer satisfaction is not an easy thing to do.

A company culture that focuses on generating content that is valuable to your customers will become obsessed with what that value looks like. This will create a streamlined experience for the customer and raise the baseline of customer service for the whole company.

Think digital first

In todays ultra-connected environment, digital communication and social media collaboration is transforming every aspect of business. The smart businesses are embracing this fact and are investing in the infrastructure required to make the most of this change. But the technology is only a very small part of what is needed to achieve success company wide. What is needed is a company that think and acts digitally.

A well developed content strategy can ensure that your company thinks digital first. And this means you are on the path towards speedier response times, lower costs of communications and a more collaborative work environment.

Everyone is responsible for the brand

Branding is all about consistency. A brand that projects an image in its advertising and then fails to follow through in the way it deals with customers has an issue with its brand that urgently needs attention. But how can you get everyone in an organisation focused on the brand message?

Making every department accountable for finding and telling great brand stories, even if only indirectly, helps make ownership of the brand become a company-wide responsibility. The customer doesn’t care about who is responsible for marketing or customer service, they simply want what the brand is promising. Content can be the lens with which your company views the relationship between the customer and your brand.

While the term “content marketing” may be the latest marketing buzz term, the effect of what a well designed strategy can do for an organisation should not be underestimated. Take advantage and use it as a catalyst to focus on your customers and transform your company.

Social media has been mainstream for long enough now for “best practice” examples to be widely available. Many of these are focused on marketing[campaigns] but it’s worth looking at a broader horizon to get a real feel for what works and what doesn’t.

The U.S. Army has, for the last few years, published the “U.S. Army Social Media Handbook” (http://www.slideshare.net/USArmySocialMedia/army-social-media-handbook-2012). Now into its third edition, the handbook is far more than a simple guide for soldiers.It is a fantastic starting point for anyone beginning to plan out their approach to social media. Let’s have a look at its top 4 lessons.

Have purpose

The most important message the handbook conveys is very simple - make sure you have a focus and a purpose when jumping into social media. The handbook puts it like this: “Determine what you plan to achieve with your social media presence. Make sure you have a way forward and a set of goals. Developing a social media outreach plan requires a lot of thought, so make sure you know how you plan to use social media to communicate.”

Don’t jump into tactics until you have a strategy

It requires a brilliant strategy to win a war and social media is no different. Spend time and effort building a great strategy and it will pay off. “The purpose of using social media is to place your unit’s messages in the social media space. But in order to keep people coming back to the pages, units should develop a strategy that mixes messages with items the audience finds interesting. Language should be conversational, fun and engaging.” Replace “unit” with the word “brand”, “company”, or “department” and the general applicability of this thought becomes very clear.

How to avoid failing

In a sense this is just an extension of “develop a strategy”- but it is really worth highlighting. The guidebook states “Most of social media failures can be attributed to organizations rushing into social media before determining what exactly the organization aims to achieve with social media platforms. Using social media effectively is a process and it requires strategy, goals, manpower and foresight.” Success on social media platforms is not hard to achieve. You just need to be prepared and committed.

Don’t avoid social media in a crisis – use it!

Contrary to popular belief social media does not cause issues – it just allows them to surface more quickly. And this is going to happen whether or not your brand is participating in social media - so it’s best to think about how to use social media platforms to your advantage. The U.S. Army says “Using social media to communicate with stakeholders during a crisis has proven to be effective due to its speed, reach and direct access. In recent crises, social media has helped distribute command information to key audiences and media, while also providing a means for dialogue among the affected and interested parties.”

It’s worth reading the full guidebook. You will find other keys messages. It will help you better understand why and how social media is all about winning hearts and minds.

The proportion of marketing budgets that gets allocated to the digital and social media space is growing inexorably. As a consequence, the focus on how to measure return on investment is intensifying. There is much debate about how to best design social media metrics. This is a symptom of the tension between “digital as add-on” marketing and “digital first” marketing – or digital marketing the way it really should be. The power is shifting, and a new frame of reference is becoming clearer.

To understand this concept of “digital first” marketing, it’s important to examine where we have come from. A little while ago digital marketing was viewed as the “add on” communication touch-point. It was a second-class citizen, constantly overshadowed by the marketing spend on television, radio and print. That position is rapidly changing and has been accelerated by behavioural changes that have followed the GFC. Digital marketing, social media communications and data utilisation in particular are now leading the charge for the smartest brands world-wide. And this is where the tension lies. Many marketers have come from a traditional background. They want to measure social media using the methods and metrics developed and tested in the traditional marketing spaces. But this approach fails to capture the true value of social media and can produce a completely inaccurate assessment of effectiveness. It’s like using an hourglass to measure the speed of a jet plane and then wondering why it’s not accurate. The two are simply not compatible.

The “digital as add-on” marketing world developed the way it has because marketers tried to force rules designed for traditional print and television media onto digital media. This approach focused on spikes in activity and classifying audiences into broad segments. They did not attempt to understand individual viewers, because that simply was not possible for broadcast media. The “digital first” approach must and will discard traditional rules, and develop techniques and measurements that focus on building long term relationships with individual customers. The new world is about delivering “personalisation in scale”.

Social media is relatively new to the marketing scene but search marketing has been around for much longer. When a consumer uses a search engine they are focused on finding what they want, and in the quickest possible way. They are displaying “search and buy” behaviour. To put it another way, they are in “buy mode”. Paid search marketing, such as Google AdWords, relies on this behaviour and displays ads that are aligned to the viewer’s search results. As they click on these ads we can quickly determine if this has been effective or not.

Social media is different. People are not necessarily in “buy mode”. They are interacting with their networks – they are in “social mode”. They may be telling the world that something in their life has changed which could suggest that a new product or service might be suitable, but they are not actively looking for it. Individuals enter the social mode early in the sales cycle, and that is what makes social media platforms so potentially valuable. If people connect with your brand early enough they may bypass the search and price comparison step altogether.

When consumers are in social mode they behave very differently than they do elsewhere on the web. They share, connect and have conversations. They complain, praise and ignore. In short they involve themselves in developing relationships, and they expect the same from the brands they interact with. In this mode the hard sell will get the same kind of cold reaction as a sales pitch at a wedding.

While social media channels were in the early stages of development the methods of measuring a brand’s marketing success mattered less. Now that social media channels are eating up an ever-increasing amount of market share (at the expense of other digital and more traditional channels) it has become vital that marketers deal with the measurement issue. Consumers are moving away from a “search and buy” mentality – driven by instant access to search engines and a desire for the best price – to a “browse and discover” mind set. In other words, another stage in people’s shopping habits has also moved online. Social media has been the catalyst for this and it will accelerate in the coming years.

It’s clear then that to measure the marketing performance of social media channels, different and more sophisticated metrics need to be developed. We need to have a much more holistic view of the customer’s online journey and be able to connect social media with other online activities. Let’s examine some of the factors we need to take into account.

Data value
There are many ways to look at social media marketing activity. My advice is to start with data. Different platforms give you access to different types of data. Facebook for example gives you the ability to gather email addresses, demographic information and, if analysed in the right way, psychographic data. If you can work out what is valuable to your brand and how that might be used to convert potential customers, developing an ROI framework that connects the “digital dots” becomes much easier. As the New York Times stated in an article called “Marketers Celebrate Glimmers of Recovery” back in 2011, “Data rules… content may be king in media, but in advertising, it is data”.

Direct and indirect conversions
Do you know what part social media plays in customer purchase decisions? A social media interaction may result in an immediate conversion or it may help influence the process in a more indirect way. These two types of conversion, one focused on the last interaction before the conversion, and the other focused on the number of interactions in the path to conversion, must be compared to get a clear view of the true value of your social media efforts.

The quality of your content
Your content may not be “king” but it is the fuel that brings the engine of your social media strategy to life. The technology means nothing to your market. It is the content they interact with. You need to know what type of content they respond to and what type of behaviours they display when they do. Tagging and measuring social media activity by its intended function (sales, customer service, brand development, conversational, thought leadership) allows you to optimise your content and see what really drives results.

Social vs. Search vs. Display ad traffic
Do you have a model to work out how much the site traffic generated by social media activity would have cost had it been generated by paid search marketing or display ads? It’s a calculation that can make a big difference when you are deciding where to direct your resources.

There are many other ways of identifying the real value of social media to your brand. What is important is that you spend the time necessary to get something meaningful that aligns to your business objectives.

The world needs to move away from viewing digital media through the lens developed for traditional media. We need to value each customer as if they were in the same room and speaking directly to us. Let’s be smarter and take the next step. Your customers will love you for it.

South by Southwest, or SXSW as it has come to be known, is a mecca for those involved in the tech start-up scene. The March SXSW festival is held each year in Austin, Texas and it has been the launching pad for mobile apps and social media platforms that have now become household names. This year an Australian social media platform that is changing the way that people search for, and interact with, real-world stores, cafes and bars is launching it’s latest offering for iPhone users.

Posse is a platform that has been gaining serious traction in the Australian market. But unlike other social media platforms that are trying to be everything to everybody Posse is squarely aimed at the female market. Founded by Rebekah Campbell backed by prominent Silicon Valley investors, Posse.com started life as a lifestyle site that encourages people to share their favourite shops, meeting places, gyms, bookshops, and watering holes with their network of friends. In short it is a highly efficient recommendation engine.

It’s not the the basic functionality of the platform that makes Posse unique. Where Posse differs from other players in the “qualified search” market is in the experience. It’s interface is illustrative and inviting. The language it uses is playful and friendly. It is focused on helping businesses develop deep relationships with consumers, not overloading users with “special offers”.

A less mechanical design has struck a cord, especially with women. 74% of the user database is female and on average they are highly engaged and socially connected and willing to share. Users of Posse create and name their own virtual streets and fill them with their favourite places in cities around the world. Similar to building your own town with only the shops you love. This approach is generating behaviours that even the tech big guns would love to duplicate. 71% of users to recommend 5 or more places – a feat that has so far alluded Facebook and Google. When it comes to social media it seems men are from Mars and woman are from Venus after all.

“Because we’ve made the process of recommending places fun, we learn a lot about what places are popular amongst different social groups.  This means if you try searching for ‘great coffee’, ‘cocktails’ or ‘hairdresser’ Posse can show you the favourite places of your friends, friends of friends and so on. People put a lot of effort into selecting the best places to put on their virtual streets so the recommendations you’ll find on Posse are quite special.” says Rebecca Campbell. She goes on to say “It’s unlocked a transformational shift in how people search. When looking for somewhere to go most people want a friend’s recommendation.” and Posse serves these recommendations up in a highly personal and entertaining way.

Since launching in beta in July last year, the Posse site has experienced more than 70,000 searches. The platform is now ready to move to mobile devices and make the leap to the USA. It seems this is just the start of another great story.

As major brands expand their social media budgets their marketers’ sights are moving to the new and innovative uses which are offered by less well known social media platforms. The rapid growth of Pinterest has attracted many of these marketers attention. There have been many interesting cases of Pinterest being used effectively but few stand out like Honda’s recent approach.

Pinterest was the breakaway social media platform of 2012. It is essentially an image scrapbook online. Pinterest users “pin” images they find online, then categorise and share them. Like all social media platforms, Pinterest offers brands an effective communication medium – provided they think through how it will be used. Honda’s understood that many people are spending large amounts of time on Pinterest, to the point of developing a “pinning habit”, and that formed the insight needed to launch their campaign.

Honda’s new CR-V has a “get out and live life” brand personality. The target audience for the CR-V comprise young people on the verge of reaching one of life’s big milestones such as getting married and having children. This group have grown up with social media and are now planning all of their big adventures online. Many of them are using Pinterest.

Honda began their campaign by simply identifying Pinterest users with high follower counts and connecting with them. They then offered these users a challenge – take a 24 hour break from Pinterest and Honda would give them $500 each to spend on making one of their pinned images come to life. Honda called it taking a #Pintermission

Honda set up individual boards within its profile and uploaded personalised images. Honda allowed the users they had contacted permission to add image content to these walls so they could upload their photos once their “Pintermission” challenge was complete. Honda also asked the same targeted users to create their own Pintermission titled boards and make Honda a collaborator. This tactic gave Honda exposure to many more followers and a much broader reach.

Honda also created promotional posters (http://pinterest.com/honda/need-a-pintermission/) that were easily sharable through Pinterest.

This may appear a complicated approach but they clearly got the formula right. Over 4.6 million individuals were exposed to the #Pintermission boards. The campaign gathered more than 5,000 repins and almost 2,000 likes. By usual metrics this is not a lot of direct interactions. But more than 16 million media impressions were garnered from the campaign. And the buzz extended well beyond the boards of Pinterest as conversations moved organically to Twitter and Facebook.

This kind of platform and content experimentation, together with audience engagement testing, will be something we see much more of over the next few months. There are a multitude of social media platforms on which companies’ audiences are sharing and communicating.

Trying out what works for each audience group is a necessary step in of the process of finding where your market is connecting online.That is perhaps the most important lesson from the Honda campaign.