Your markets are on social and you need to be there. However, your social strategy needs to be based on the business metrics which define your success. This final Capstone Project in the Social Marketing Specialization will put the methodologies, tools, and insights you have learned to the test as you create a multifaceted plan to assure effective social marketing is an integral part of your business strategy. Whether your company has a sophisticated Engagement Strategy or you are a new start-up, you will learn to harness the full power of social marketing to grow provable market share and build stronger relationships with your high value markets. For success in today's digital world, you must have a plan to integrate your social and mobile marketing strategies into your business strategy. In this Capstone you will use the practical skills that you’ve mastered through the Specialization to demonstrate your ability to integrate social and mobile marketing strategies into a company’s business strategy. 2016 Capstone Schedule: 1st offering begins on February 29 (2/29/16). It will be offered again starting on May 23 (5/23/16), August 29 (8/29/16), and November 28 (11/28/16),
March 9, 2016 Online Meetup Recording
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From the course by Northwestern University
Social Marketing Capstone Project
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From the lesson
Selecting a Strategy
Select the strategy for your Project and establish your empowering concept.
Meet the Instructors
Randy HlavacLecturer, Medill IMC; CEO, Marketing Synergy Inc
I want to get it for everybody.
But first off welcome.
There we go.
Well welcome to the Capstone and the discussion group.
What I'd like to do is a couple things.
I'll show you the different Excel spread sheets.
And take you through some tips and things that you might want to consider.
And then I also want to more importantly open it up for questions and comments.
So, you get the absolute most out of it.
Just to give you a bit of background.
This course has been a real cutting edge course for Coursera.
They had never done things like tool kits both paid and unpaid.
They had never done it with a TV set and
had a lot of people coming in from all over the world.
It was a new experience for Northwestern to do it that way and
so we kind of learned as we went.
But one of the things that was kind of a hallmark of the course, and
I think you see it, is it was to empower you.
In other words, it wasn't a professor pontificating about a theory,
it's like here are tools, go do it.
And part of what we wanted to do was, we went to companies like IBM and
Tolexalytics.
And we said, give us your best stuff.
I mean give us the cutting edge and then we're going to give it to the learners.
And so as you see, all the way through the course, everybody that you talk to or
you heard from, were basically there to help you and to give you their experience.
And one of the things that I hope you got out of the program
is that we are all just a click away.
And we are all just struggling to keep up and keep moving and
so as you're going through you know and going even beyond Capstone.
Remember, we're all part of a big community.
And we're all here to help.
And so, I hope you never hesitate to let us know if you needed anything.
But anyway, as we were shooting,
the fastest way to ever done a mooc was two and a half months.
And, for mine we had to one every month.
And so, as we were going through,
we were shooting as fast as we were scripting them, but the key was,
I was always conflicted as to what to do about the Capstone.
And so, the Capstone, I was actually about ten weeks ago,
I was on my second glass of wine, watching the Blackhawks play hockey.
And I turned to my wife and I said I wonder if I could take my entire
course and put it into an Excel Spreadsheet.
And she said well if you do that they will fire you and I laughed.
But anyway, the key was could you do it?
So I actually put together the Excel Spreadsheets you have.
And basically, I gave them to my class and, my graduate class, and said,
see if you can break them.
And they found it, things we had needed to do, but I quickly edited them.
And the key was what I wanted to do in the Capstone was what you did all the way
through the course and that is, give you the same template that we use in my class,
that you can use to plan any marketing project that you want.
And so the entire thing is designed to empower you, but not only do social
marketing projects but you could actually do this for any kind of marketing project.
And I put in, it's everything that's in my course except for the competitor analysis,
and you can always put that spreadsheet in if you want.
But basically this is exactly how we do it at Northwestern.
And so, just a quick aside, I had to write an RFP to
get into an international competition to try to win this business,
to do the social marketing, and when I wanted to do that, I
had to fill out an RFP and when I got that there was only a week left to send it in.
So what you actually are going through the five MOOC's are actually my 10-week course
compressed into five MOOC's.
I really didn't drop a whole lot out of it, I mean this is basically
a North Western graduate program you all have been through.
And so you've done really great but
all the assignments I actually give to my students.
So you're getting a whole North Western course.
And this is actually what you're doing now and
Capstone is the final presentation we do for a client.
And so I thought you might find that interesting.
>> Thank you.
>> Yeah.
Excellent.
>> And my course runs exactly the same way is that
we actually bring in these speakers and have them talk.
And the students could ask them questions, each get an hour and
then we go back to the topics that we go through.
So anyway that's kind
of the background of the- >> [INAUDIBLE] course.
>> Now if you'd like me to [INAUDIBLE].
Make sure you mute your [INAUDIBLE].
Thank you.
So anyway would you like me to [INAUDIBLE] spreadsheets or what would you like to do?
Is it okay if I give you a quick overview of the spreadsheets.
>> Yes, please.
>> So, let me go through that.
Share the entire desktop, there we go.
Okay, this is my desktop and let me take you through the first ones.
The first one is the actual template that you go through.
You should be able to see it now.
>> Yeah. >> Mm-hm.
>> Yeah. >> What this is,
is the actual process that I teach at North Western, but
it's also the one that we build the class around.
And so the first thing that I ask you to do is assess your market.
And I ask you a series of questions.
The thing I want you to do here, is that as you go through this,
I want you to answer just enough that you feel real comfortable with it.
In other words I'm not trying to ask you a ton of questions.
What I'm taking you through is sort of some checkpoints that you will want to do,
when you begin to access any marketing program that you have.
>> Okay.
>> And so You write as much as you need to explain it to yourself.
And probably the biggest thing that, I wrote an email to you on this.
One of the biggest problems I find with my student teams here at North Western
is that they don't, they try to do too many markets.
In other words they don't focus on one market but they try to do two or three.
Will everybody please mute their microphones for right now?
>> Okay.
>> Thank you. I'm getting feedback.
But anyway what you do is go through this.
[NOISE] Okay.
And basically what you're doing is, I asked you the total size of the market and
you can generally find that.
I then go through and ask you a very key question which is,
what is the first year or purchase value of a new customer?
The reason we do that, is we need to use that to calculate stuff at the end.
The key is if you don't know, take a shot at it.
Just guess.
Do your best guesstimate.
And then as you going through this basically what I do is ask you
to think about whether this is a trigger or event or passion market.
Which one are you going to target.
Then I give you some checkpoints.
But the key behind it is these are just pieces that you probably need to put your
social puzzle together.
But make it relevant for you.
Okay, this isn’t a right or wrong thing, it's just basically,
let’s think this all through together and put some resources together,
so you can drive your program forward.
And so these were just checkpoints that I like to go through.
Then what we do is we say, okay, now given the market and your understanding of it.
Which one of the three strategies that you want to do?
And one of the things I wanted to put it in here was that this entire thing is
structured so you can do anything you want.
Whichever strategy you think is best, that's what you should do.
And so, I actually take you through engagement and how to do that.
And so, if you're going to do engagement, I gave you a second spread sheet.
And so, let me just show you that real quickly.
One of the things that happens because engagement is basically putting out
content on the social networking sites, what I use is this.
One of the things that I find is that
a lot of people when they try to do engagement,
they don't think about how much content are they going to have to put out.
And so as the result, they never think it through.
And the nice part of this spread sheet is, you can go month by month,
and what I would encourage you to do is, I try to do the social listening.
And what I want to do is I want to pick up ten or
15 topics at people really wanting to talk about.
Then I fill out the spreadsheet for at least one quarter.
Here's what I'd like to do every week.
And then I might even replicate that for the next three quarters.
So, I have four quarter's with the staff.
And then, as you're going forward, you don't have to use them.
In other words,
if I go to a convention or a conference, I'll probably replace that with a topic.
But I find that it if I kind of plan out at least a part of a year,
I have enough topic areas that if I get into a bind I can go and
say, yeah, I could write something on that.
And it's kind of a way of just triggering the thought.
And so, this is a really complex table but
it actually gives you a year's worth of planning.
And I don't fill all these out but basically,
I'd make sure I've got the weekly themes done.
And then I kind of work it through with more detail as I program it out.
So these are just something for you to look at, but
when you're thinking about doing engagement, it's a good way to do it.
Everybody, okay with that?
>> Yeah.
>> Yes, thank you.
>> And again, it's there for you to use.
And then, what you do if you want to do engagement then,
what I take you through is let's figure out the engagement funnel.
And all funnels start with the total market.
And then an estimate of the total social market.
And generally, as I've told some of you, 90, 95%,
98% is probably your social market.
But the reason I do that is if you're doing something really niche or
if you're going after a poor market like the farmers.
You may want to say, but the numbers a little bit less than that.
It gives you a way to adjust it and then, what you do is you can go through and
you lay out the rest of the funnel.
With all funnels I like an optimistic average and pessimistic scenario.
And the key is, it's just a little difference in terms of the numbers.
And then you figure out what the funnel looks like.
So an engagement funnel is really short.
Because you just try to get people to your network.
If you're doing nurture, you'll see that the funnel has more detail.
You've gotta take them to a landing page, then they will have to register.
Then they have to go your content, visit your website and
then eventually they become product purchasers.
And so as you got through it,
I don't care which of the three strategies you want to use.
Your social IMC, it has a little bit more detailed funnel.
The key is, put in the funnel that you really want and
put in the steps that you really know that they have to go through.
The consumer journey.
And then, let's put together some numbers that seem reasonable or that work.
And the key is you drive it all the way down to product purchases with your best
assumptions.
And what I'd like to do is I actually put these together.
Then I'll go to an influencer that's in the market and
I'll actually share that with them and say, do these numbers look right?
Or I'll go to an agency like Andy Crestodina's Orbit Media.
I will say, I'm thinking about this round of budget.
I am thinking about doing these steps.
Is this about what I will expect to see with this target market?
And again, you kind of have to play around with it, but
it gives you kind of the flow that you go through.
Then, the next part will be to actually go in to starting to
plan the marketing program.
And first off, does anybody have any questions on funnels or,
well, we'll come back to that.
I'll hold off on questions.
You then figure out your go viral marketing program and
I gave you a couple examples.
And I put this one in and it was kind of an average one.
Keep in mind that your amount of
work that you're doing on social sites is basically a personal cost.
But this one has some pretty interesting things.
Then you go through and you put together the whole budget.
Which means, what is your empowering concept if you're doing empowering?
Or what are your nurturing concepts?
What does it cost for people?
What does it cost for technology?
And finally, here's your marketing plan.
You add that all up and that gives you your total.
Then what you do is you go to a justification,
where basically you're calculating two things.
What is the break even, which is how many people do I have to sell to
recover my marketing costs and then, base on your three scenarios.
What is the arrow, what's going to be the marketing ROI?
Which means, you're returning money to the company to be used for,
anything that they wanted to give you for profits.
And for contribution margin as they call it.
And basically, that lays out the pieces that the sea level suite,
the CEO and so forth, will want to see.
They'll focus on what is our break even,
which tells them how risky is it, and then how much money will we make?
And what you want to do is ideally get the MROI of the pilot of the budget
over a hundred for
your most pessimistic assumptions, then everything above that’s gravy.
And so, it’s basically the way we put everything together here at North Western,
we start with the market.
Everything in IMC starts with the market and the business plan flows out of that.
And the key thing is that, as you're going through and doing this for real, for
yourself.
You'll go back and forth between the go viral marketing budget,
the budget overall, and the justification metrics, and
the funnels until it flows right and seems reasonable.
And that's what you're looking for.
The thing I always tell my classes
is that everyone of our team puts together their own puzzle.
And everyone puts it together differently but as long as all the pieces fit and
it seems reasonable to you.
That's what you want to go with.
And so, it's a little bit right brain, it's a little bit left brain.
And you work your way through it.
The other thing I gave you was an actual
scheduling template and this is kind of the next step.
This is what we actually use at North Western, and what I actually use for
my own company is that, we start with a launch date which is here in September.
We then put in all of the things before launch that we have to get done.
And then we actually have the launch date.
And then we start figuring out all the different things that we want to do for
all the different channels that we're going after.
And so, I put this in here so you could actually see how we do it.
We actually schedule, figure out what our paper click's going to be.
We figure out our social components.
We figure our who the bloggers are, and the key is, I guess they should enable it.
The key is this is how we actually put stuff together to figure out how we're
going to attack the market if you will.
And so, this was actually a program we put together for our company.
And so it gives you all the different pieces to play through.
And so anyway, those become kind of the key things that we actually work through.
So I probably should ask the, Bossman when he was on how to get back to blue jeans.
Well, let's see if I can.
I'll unshare my screen.
Yeah, here we go, stop sharing.
And now I kick it back to all of you.
Those are basically the tools that I gave you.
They're really designed for you to do any kind of program that you want.
And so, I just wanted to give you a brief overview.
And I'd like to open it up to questions or comments, or
anything that you want to ask me about what you're doing.
Don't all ask at once.
>> [LAUGH] >> Do you guys have any questions about
what you're working on or how I could help you at anyway to make this
the maximum success for you >> [CROSSTALK] My question-
>> Randy, I have,
my challenge was to get the numbers but I'll look for
something close to it as reasonable enough.
>> Right.
>> Yeah. That's what I'm going to do.
because I was going to ask a question along those line but
you've answered my question in your presentation.
>> Well yeah, here's what happens.
I'm very big on what I call the act of getting started.
My first mentor when I first started, that was his big thing.
And it's like, put in a number and you can always make it better.
But if you don't put in a number, you never get started.
So, as you're going through, there's going to be numbers that are,
I teach something called the lean start up and they call them leap of faith.
You say, I think it's going to be 2% and you go on.
The key is, once you test up and track it,
you're going to see if those numbers are accurate.
But you can also talk to an agency or you could do other things to make them better,
but put in the stuff that you know.
Understand what it is you're kind of doing as a leap of faith and
you can always change it.
And so, the key is to iteratively get better.
And that's the whole idea behind AB testing.
It's the whole idea behind performance funnels and
actually measuring them for real.
Is it's just a step at a time, and don't obsess, don't get paralysis by analysis.
Don't analyze everything to death.
Just say, okay this will work.
Let's see all of the other pieces and how they fit, and
then put together your marketing plan.
>> Okay.
>> Other questions?
>> I have that problem that you were discussing earlier,
having too many different markets.
>> Yes.
>> So, its a real challenge.
>> But, here's the deal.
My student's do this all the time.
They try to be everything to everybody for their client and then in the end,
they ended up being nothing to anyone.
And so what I encourage you to do, is to start with a very defined market.
And then work your way through the process.
And then what happens you'd say, well this market and
this whole marketing plan would actually work for another market together?
And that's fine to add them up.
But what happens is, and this is a deadly point.
You start off both with too broad of a market.
So the very thing I ask you is, what is their mission?
And if you cannot answer that, your market's too broad.
So if you're struggling with mission, it's because you're trying to do a mission
to five different markets that don't have a common mission.
So cut it back.
So here's what I do.
Because you have these spreadsheets for Capstone, just pick one market.
And then as you go forward, add new ones.
In other words you might have, my company,
Marketing Synergy, we have about ten different markets that we develop.
But we develop them each individually.
In other words, there's different influencers.
There's different hashtags.
There's different ways they communicate.
Each one of those is separate, but I could get out to all of them through my company.
So that's where you use stuff like Hootsuite to make that all happen.
So, if you're struggling, think simpler.
Go ahead.
>> I'm finding buffer is working really well for me right now.
>> Yep.
>> So that's being really helpful.
I took on too much, because I started volunteering, but
I have kind of picked one company as my token, here,
I'm going to use you as my guinea pig.
>> Yeah, and do it that way and just pick one product or one target market that they
have, and build everything out, and that's the best way to do it.
>> Thanks. >> When you hit a problem area,
especially planning their mission, you probably just need to be simpler,
so take one market at a time and do multiple plans.
As opposed to trying to gang them all together because it never works.
[SOUND] >> Thanks.
>> Other questions?
>> I have a question about identifying your target market and the number?
>> Mm-hm.
>> So let's say you identify there's 1,000 B2B companies that you could target.
>> Right. >> In your defined target market.
But you're also in a highly competitive industry.
>> Right.
>> And how do you, like what do you usually estimate is the number of
businesses you could truly target when there's so
many other people competing for the same business.
>> Well, here's the thing.
Let me address that as what I call in my class, stinking thinking.
Here's the deal.
You're going to become unique to your target market.
And so, I don't care how many competitors there are, they are probably not going to
do what you will do to help them achieve their mission.
And so, the key question is, if there are 1,000 in your target market,
that's the number of companies and people in them that you want to target.
Then what you want to do.
Let's say, if most of those were on social,
then you're plans going to go right at them.
And the question isn't how many competitors do you have.
It's what puts you into a unique position to be of value to them?
And think not about your products but
about how you're going to help them with their mission.
And your competitors aren't thinking that way.
They're thinking about selling their products and
that's going to put you into a really unique position that they can't cover.
That make sense?
>> Yep, definitely.
Thank you.
>> Yeah. Go for uniqueness and
the key is that's what we gravitate towards is the people who can filter and
focus stuff that are of interest to us.
And if you could do that, you're going to be in a unique position and
that's where little companies suddenly could take out big companies
because what they're doing is so special.
That the bigger companies will gravitate towards them.
>> Okay. >> Other questions?
>> Randy, for a not-for-profit, how would you measure whether you're hitting
the target, when all we're really trying to do is raise awareness of an issue,
rather than sell a product or a service.
Does that make sense?
>> It does, and in fact,
one of the things I like to do in my grad classes is I always give them a couple of
not-for-profits because it drives them crazy.
>> Really had.
>> [LAUGH] >> But, here's what you want to do,
you want to say if these people are your donors,
how much would they be worth to you?
Are they worth $10 or $50, or $100 over the course of a year?
And, what I ask my not for profits to do,
is to just give us a plug figure, an estimate that seems logical.
If your targeting people that ultimately become donors, the key question is,
if I bring 100 people, how many of them will be donors and
if they become donors, what is the average donation amount for a year?
Plug those numbers in and the reason you do that, is that a lot of not for
profits like to set their revenue at zero, and the bad part is
you're going to be investing resources into the whole program.
If you set the value at zero, you can't prove any worth for the program.
So, you're investing without any potential for revenue.
So, here's what you do.
Plug in a value that you think is right.
Build out your budget, and I guarantee, if you do that well,
because I've seen a number of not for profits do it.
When you sit down with your board, you're going to say, look,
I need you to invest $10,000 in this to recover this amount of value,
which is a lot more than $10,000.
And if you do it that way, then you might even have a special
donation run to give enough money to actually execute your plan.
And so think about it that way,
I mean, think about that you're going to be showing sub-senior people your plans.
So, let's set it up with some revenue flow, so we can prove the value of it.
Does that answer your question?
>> Yes. Thank you very much.
>> You're welcome.
We deal with that all the time.
Other questions?
>> Randy?
I'm from India.
I have a target market for urban spaces in India.
My target market is like event marketing for
higher-middle class people, because it's for all major cities.
Totally, my target has around 5 million people.
But, I want to know, is it good to go city by city where we have cultural differences
probably, for example, Bangalore has more of a cultural difference and
other like [INAUDIBLE] business [INAUDIBLE] is it good to go like that or
cultural diversity, don't you think?
>> The key becomes how much your system is going to handle that.
If you don't have a lot of competition, it's great to start with one city so
you can get your, you get the bugs worked out of your system and
make sure it's going to work for you.
With a little bit lower investment,
then you can roll it out to the other 11 cities.
I use something called Lean Startup and they say what
you want to do is to identify your MVP, which is not your most valuable player but
your minimum viable product, and take it to market where you can get
experience quick, and then roll it out as you move forward.
So, that's not a bad strategy if you could do it.
>> But I still have good competition.
The only thing is I want to stand out for cultural events rather than business.
>> Okay, so here's the deal.
You can set up your funnels to do it in aggregate,
but test it in one market.
If it hits your metrics,
then roll it out to all the other markets because it'll work.
>> That's great, thanks.
>> My question is, I'm always concerned about how fast can you
determine that you're going to be profitable, and
that's where the performance funnel becomes really key.
You hit the first few levels of the performance funnel and
you're getting at what you want.
You know the plan is going to work, so go ahead and roll it on out.
>> Randy, I have a question.
>> Yes.
Go ahead.
I heard you. Go ahead Aaron.
Is that what your name?
>> Yes.
>> Go ahead.
>> Hi Randy.
I'm volunteering for a non profit at the moment, like, I Tweeted you about it.
So, basically the problem that I have is according to the research,
that the non profit conducted.
It's a non profit working for children in spades.
>> Right.
Right. >> So, basically, the problem is like 60
to 70% of their, What do you call, awareness is created through schools.
So, basically, 10 to 15% is student experience.
So in total, almost 80% of it is through schools.
So, basically, it's word of mouth.
>> Right. >> So, if I have to target,
should I target the principal or should I target the students?
>> Okay, good point.
We ran into the same thing here in Chicago.
And what we found was, we wanted to target the teachers and
the principal to educate them about the program.
So, that then we could bring in the students.
So, the target market was actually the influencers who were in education.
Plus targeting the principals and the teachers, so
that you can get enough awareness that you can roll the program out.
That answer your question?
>> Yes. Thank you so much.
>> Yes.
And also, somebody asked about, where do I find out about Lean Startup?
The gentleman's name is Eric Ries, R-I-E-S.
He has a book called The Lean Startup.
It's a great book, and then he has a lot of webinars and seminars out there.
But start with the book.
It'll teach you how to start a company without building a product or a service.
It starts with, target a market and then build everything else out around it.
We use it in my course, but we use it in all of our engineering classes.
It's kind of the standard of how you build a company for entrepreneurs.
So, it's a good book.
Other questions? >> And what's the name of it?
>> It's called The Lean Startup.
L-E-A-N Startup.
>> Got it.
>> And I love the idea.
It says, start with a market and build it, and
learn everything using landing pages til you figure out what they want.
Then figure out the 85% product which is called the MVP.
Roll that out, and then start ratching it up from there.
And so, it's a great strategy.
If you've never read it, it's really a fun one to think about.
>> Is that the same thing as a cash cow Randy?
>> No, it's very different.
It's actually a methodology of how to actually build a business
from the ground up without building your products first.
Instead, find your market and what they actually want.
It's kind of perfect for what we teach here.
That says, dont worry about the product, worry about the market and
what their mission is.
And then give them something to fulfill their mission.
Another- [CROSSTALK] Go ahead.
>> That's going really old school, find out what they need and then create it.
>> Yeah, but I'll tell you, being an old guy, I can't tell you how many companies I
worked with where they came and they said, here's our product, now go find a market.
>> [LAUGH] >> So, a lot of companies build it first
and then, so I've been at it all different ways.
One question was, I'm doing something extremely hyper local.
The key thing to do their is to look for the influencers in that specific market,
particularly things like E-newspapers, E-newsletters and
then the people that do that.
If you go that way, you could get into hyper local markets really easily.
And the other thing is, to make sure that as you're doing it,
that you're constantly telling them that it's just for this specific market.
But, think how you do it locally.
We had one that was a restaurant.
So we figured out how to use social to get people to come in.
And our empowering idea was having a chef come to the restaurant and
actually show people how to make things.
And we actually have contests of, here's 10 ingredients,
what would you all make and then the chef pick the winner.
So think of things that would work within a local community to make that work.
So that was one question that was typed in.
Other questions?
>> How do I?
Can you hear me?
>> Yes, I can.
>> Hello Randy.
First of all, thank you very much.
I'm a realtor, and I target the Hispanic market.
You have answered many of my questions via the Coursera website.
Thank you so much for that.
>> You're welcome.
>> I think I have that figured out but I have another question for
you, if that's okay.
>> Sure.
>> In my spare time I am a musician.
And I'm launching a CD through Kickstarter.
Do you have any experience launching things through Kickstarter
that can work with all that you have taught us?
>> I don't have a lot of experience with it.
But I think the key is to really target your market and
use twitter to using the right hashtags and going to the right influencers,
to tell people that you're doing the Kickstart program.
And then that'll take, and give them the Bit.Ly link so
they can click right over to it.
So what you gotta do is publicize using the social media.
And so think like we talked about in the course.
What are their hashtags, who are the influencers, what are the key words,
what are the topics they're talking about.
And relate it all to what you're going to be doing to get them
to get excited about it.
Does that help you, Oscar?
>> A lot, thank you so much, Randy.
>> You're welcome. >> Thank you.
>> Snowda? >> Yes?
Anybody have other questions?
>> Randy, this is Tatiana from Geneva.
I have one comment.
I just found that the link setup was available online free of charge.
So maybe that could be helpful to others.
>> Very cool.
>> And then there are three questions.
>> Sure.
>> One is, sorry.
>> Go ahead.
>> So my first question is a very typical one [CROSSTALK]
>> [FOREIGN]
>> Okay, hold on.
Everybody, could you mute your microphones and go ahead, Tatiana.
>> Hello.
>> Yes?
>> So my first question is [CROSSTALK].
>> Hang on, go ahead and go to your first question.
What is it?
>> I'm a little bit lost with A/B split testing.
>> My question there is when I start testing, yeah?
>> Yeah, let me answer her question on A/B split test.
Go ahead, what is the question real quick?
>> [FOREIGN] >> Okay, so the question is that when I go
testing the messages, how much of message do I reveal to the market?
>> [FOREIGN] >> Because I'm writing articles
at the moment.
>> Okay, hold on everybody.
Stop please, please mute your-
>> [FOREIGN]
>> Can you please?
>> [FOREIGN] >> I can't understand what you're saying,
so please mute your machine [LAUGH].
Tatiana, here's the question.
Let me take her question real quick.
I test enough with the messages to know that it's differentiating.
I don't tend to use influencer names, but I use hashtags.
And what I do, is I'm really looking for what emotional appeal works the best for
my target market.
So I use a hashtag that they use to talk.
Then once I learn what works on Twitter,
because I can learn that real quick, I just roll it out.
As soon as I know what the central theme is, I use it for communities, I use
it to go to the influencers, because it tends to be the one that works the best.
So A/B split test is just a way for your to learn how to do it.
Now, if you go over to something like Lean Startup,
they actually show you how to build a business using essentially A/B split test.
And so there you'd want to have a more statistically reliable sample but
it's the same basic process.
So, just do enough so you'll learn it.
Then go out to the influencers and the communities and LinkedIn and every place
else and use that theme as a way of getting the message through to them.
>> Right, I think it's just practicality I'm a little bit lost with.
I'm doing a yoga festival, and I discovered that very important for
people are topics like stress, insomnia, etc.
So how do I craft the message for A/B split testing?
Do I put #insomnia on Twitter, or how would you do it?
>> Well the key is,
if you're going to talk about things like stress and insomnia,
it's probably going to be a safety message that's going to work the best.
You could also say overcome insomnia and
improve your life which is much more of an esteem type question.
Or join others as they are taking on and
tackling things like insomnia, is a belonging.
So think of belonging as part of a group.
Esteem is being the best you could be.
And then safety is things that you're afraid of or
things that you're concerned with.
Put those three together and those will give you your messages so
you can test in an A/B split test.
>> Okay.
A very quick second question.
I'm presenting your presentation tomorrow
so that- >> Good luck.
>> Direct, give a yoga festival.
>> Okay. >> And I'm a little bit
scared because she doesn't have a lot of money and
I'm proposing campaign on Google Ads and Facebook.
>> Right. >> What do we do in this situation?
How would you work with that?
>> Here's what I'd do, is I give her the entire plan and say, the pilot I'm
going to do is to actually prove it to you by doing these two or three things.
Then, once I prove you that,
I'd like to go into the next level where we get in a little bit deeper.
And I give her the whole budget, but
show her a pilot that she'll accept, and then take it from there.
>> Okay, got it.
And my last question is, I so much love this course on social media.
Is there any course you would recommend online on the whole digital marketing?
>> Well the next one that I would recommend you look at with Northwestern is
we have one called Content Strategy.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Which is how do you do content and develop it.
We also have one on leadership.
I think there are other ones.
There was some discussion that the Wharton School has a good one on gamification.
>> Uh-huh.
>> And so I'd start there.
I know that Illinois has another one on digital but
the students who went through it.
I had some students snoop in it so I could see what they did.
>> [LAUGH] >> They
thought it was a pretty good course.
So you can take a look at that as well.
>> Okay, thank you. >> It is a pretty good course,
I'm actually doing it myself.
>> There you go.
I hate to advertise the competition, but I heard it's a good course, so go for it.
>> [LAUGH] >> Is the Content Strategy one
through Coursera as well?
>> Yes it is.
>> Right, thank you.
>> Yeah and it was John Levin who was the dean of the school and
he's a good friend of mine.
And Candy, Lee in there, and I'm in it too.
So there's a bunch of us that put it together.
But it's basically attacking the whole idea of how do you develop really relevant
content and do story telling online, on digital.
And that's what it focuses on.
>> Right, thank you.
>> Randy, a personal question to you.
>> Sure.
Go ahead.
>> I want to know if you're coming up with another program like an expert or
advanced level of program for social media.
Because I think like I've done a few MOOCs and this is one of the most engaging.
>> Well, thank you so much.
Well, we are looking at, I'm trying to get the funding to try to do a couple of them.
One would be a real deep dive into social listening and social monitoring.
And we're also looking at doing another one on some
of the things like gameification and some of the other techniques.
And so we're looking at that.
One of the things that's hard is that
they had to invest a lot of money into this program and it's working out well.
because I'm the first one that's ever recouped the money.
So I have some good [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH]
>> Good feelings there.
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> But anyway we'll-
>> How do you do this, Randy?
>> Yeah, well it was kind of neat.
We're the first one to actually- >> Thanks a lot.
>> Go from there.
But I'll keep trying to, we're always looking for new things to do.
I think this transmedia storytelling is big.
Privacy and data security is big.
But we're talking about a lot of different things that we may want to try.
>> Thank you.
>> Mm-hm.
Someone asked about, where's the one on gamification?
I heard it's on Coursera from the Wharton School of Business.
You'll have to look for it.
It's Wharton School, gamification.
Somebody asked me that, typed it in.
Other questions?
>> Randy, I have a question.
>> Mm-hm.
>> I'm dealing with entrepreneurial farmers in Africa,
and some of them do not really have Internet penetration in Africa,
it is still not very high, so I strongly to buy into social media.
I mean, it's the fact that instead of using Internet or
having Internet connection.
>> Right.
>> It's hard enough and I'm trying to solve, tell them look,
you can go on social media and be seen now as the top leader or expert.
Engage and talk with your customers.
You can sell more.
It's very difficult for me.
I don't know if you could advice me how to go around that.
I'm struggling, really.
>> Well, I looked at your case what you were talking about.
The one thing I would advice you to do is, I think you ought to center your strategy
around influencers who are out there all the time, and
who talked to the farmers when they're online, and try to build a community
that way so that as they become more Internet savvy, it'll work.
And also, think about it not in terms of website, as much as it would be
a mobile application, because in Africa the mobile's going to come first.
And so think about how to do it that way.
So I do it as a mobile app, not as a community, but
the community would be through the app itself.
Then it goes through the influencers to try to get it out into your target market.
>> Okay.
>> At least give that a try.
See what the numbers look like.
Yeah. >> Will do.
>> Hello Randy.
I have a question.
>> Sure.
>> Should we complete those two additional spreadsheets,
one with the detailed schedule and the other for the AB testing?
Are those part of what we should do for
the capstone deliverable or- >> No,
they aren't part of the capstone deliverable.
I gave them to you so you would have them.
>> Yeah, they're helpful.
>> Yeah, so I wanted to give it so when you got done with capstone,
you'd have the major spreadsheets that I've ever used to do social,
so that was the idea behind it.
Basically you just have to do the one to fill out your plan, and
that will get you to certification.
But I look at it as lifetime learning, so
I gave you all the other ones to use them as you see fit.
>> Yeah, that's great.
Thank you. >> Mm-hm.
Any other questions?
>> Randy, I had a unique observation when I was working on.
>> Okay.
>> When I share tweet,
I will get lesser engagement compared to what I'm actually when I'm live.
It is actually, is it like, I'm not sure but I have observed,
I still didn't find any substantial evidence on record, but
still many people are telling me, okay, I see that observation.
>> You usually see a difference between the rolling out of a message and
just testing it.
And one of the things I like to do, is once I understand the theme,
every tweet that I do, for example, I'll do it at three different times.
Because the length of a tweet is so short.
So I do it the morning, afternoon, the evening, or the next day.
This is how I get to the world market, and
I do the same things with what I do on LinkedIn.
But the key is, as you do notice the thing and what happens as you do enough,
you'll say, whatever response I'm getting in my test, I'm going to get one and
a half times or 75% less, or whatever.
And you'll be able to factor it in and actually make it predictable.
But there are differences.
In the real world, when we roll something out, we have a different
performance expectation than what we test, simply because there is a fall off.
And so I just know that that is out there.
>> So actually when you are using hashtags.
My people are very acting like we don't they dont really use hashtags.
How can we tackle with them?
>> Well the key is I make sure that I had the key words in there that would define
the market because think about what they are searching on and searching for.
Also, identify some influencers and really watch what they are using for
key terms and key topics, because that's how you're going to link into it.
>> Yeah, that's it, thanks.
>> Another thing I just gotta question on how, can we get some sample budgets?
But, I think if you go to one of the weeks,
I put just put out the bunch of them.
They're both sample budgets and sample performance panels better on capstone.
So, you should be able to find it.
And use that to, I just gave you a bunch that we actually use in different classes.
And I just made them so you can't tell who exactly it is.
But there are B to B, B to C, and not for profit budgets in there.
>> [FOREIGN] >> That
is something you can just download.
Other questions?
Anything I can help you with?
>> It's not about the capstone project, but
that interesting test, I think in the first one, where
there's 14 questions, and about which social media you registered for.
And if you left them blank.
>> Yeah.
>> I messed my mark.
>> Well,I know, I'm sorry about that.
We actually, for some of these, we set passing at, like, 50%.
The one thing that drives me nuts is, I, myself, and my team have
no access to any of the quizzes, or any of the things after we set them up.
And so we tried to make them as easy as we can.
Don't worry about it.
Your grades are not going to follow you around.
[LAUGH] So as long as you got through it, that's a big thing.
It is like, we'll just keep rolling along.
We're trying to make corrections as we go.
But a lot of them you just have to kind of make the whole thing run.
And we'll go through it- >> Yeah, it's awesome.
It is extremely engaging, very moorish, if you know what I mean.
[LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] ] Yeah.
>> It's addictive in it's own way, and I thank you for
all the work you put into it.
It's phenomenal.
>> You're welcome. >> And students too, for
everything that they have contributed.
>> One of the things I hope you notice is that everything I teach you in the course,
we actually put into the course.
For example, we teach you gamification.
And so the first thing I do is I start the clout contest that everybody gets feedback
all the way through.
And so essentially we gamified it, as well as we teach you about gamification.
And so we really spend a lot of time working on the idea of community.
And so that was the fun of it was actually doing it.
A lot of my grad students when they get to the last class they go,
you gamified this whole thing.
It's like, yeah.
Now you've learned.
Makes it fun.
>> Could I just ask- >> Can I ask another question, please?
>> Yes, sure.
>> Sorry.
>> No, go ahead.
Oscar, go ahead.
>> Is there a chance that you can use
Bluemix again with Facebook?
>> Well, here's the deal with Bluemix.
At the end of your six months, if you go out to them and
them that you're a developer, they'll give you another six months.
And so by didn't tell you that here.
But anyway, you could certainly do that if you want to go deeper into Bluemix.
They also, IBM has Bluemix training and certification.
One of the things I want to tell you, I'm glad you brought this up.
>> My God.
Okay, I don't know if you heard my question,
[CROSSTALK] because I got kind of broke up.
It was about Bluemix and Facebook.
>> Right.
I'm not sure what they have for Facebook,
you have to look in to Bluemix to see what it has.
>> Okay.
>> So Bluemix is a development platform and so I know
that they've done something with, they did of course that stuff with Twitter.
But we'll have to work our way through that,
but bluemix, I just wanted to show it to you so you could see what AI is happening.
But one thing I forgot to tell you and this is a secret for you guys.
You all have your IBM ID, that's yours forever.
When you did the first sign up.
And that'll get you, if you go over to and look at IBM Watson.
Actually, SMA is now on a test system on Watson.
So you just click on social monitoring, and it brings you in to SMA.
And they have stuff like Smarter Planet.
That IBM ID is yours permanently and it opens the doors to all the IBM
platforms if you want to go out and see stuff.
They've got great videos on how CEOs and CMOs are using systems.
Watson is available to you.
The Smarter Planet stuff's awesome.
And so anything that they have on IBM,
you can get into at least see with your IBM ID.
And while Bluemix will stop after a while, and the other ones,
that IBM ID will be yours forever.
So be sure to use it.
There's some great stuff out there, for free, that you could do.
>> Okay.
Okay, thank you so much.
>> Sure.
Somebody asked about you know you have a 1.25% to describe a scenario.
The key thing is, we don't know what the response rates going to be.
So pick a conservative one and make that your average, then go down a little bit
lower for your pessimistic and up a little bit for your optimistic.
Run the numbers and see if you end up with a positive MROI, and
that's the way you go through and do it.
>> Okay.
>> It's a little bit hard.
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> Yes?
>> Sorry [LAUGH] >> Go ahead Rachel.
>> Sorry. >> Yeah.
>> When we're submitting our project,
is it going to be the same way that the others have
been? So just copy and paste underneath
the prompts, the question- >> That's what I understand it's going to
be, yes. >> Great, thanks.
>> So I'm assuming that, and
one of the things I put out, there was a question on that today, so
I asked some people at Kyocera.
You can put it out all at once or you can put it out little by little.
But once you put it out there, you cannot go back and revise it.
So whichever way you want to do it is the way it'll work.
>> Great, thank you.
>> Sure.
Anybody else have any questions or things that I can help you with?
>> Actually.
>> Go ahead.
>> My question is now related to the capstone.
>> Sure.
It has to do with cloud.
I really don't get the cloud.
My cloud score goes up and down, kind of a yo-yo, and
I'm tweeting, and I'm using all the right hashtags.
>> Right. >> And
then one day I check my cloud score.
I'm so high, I'm giving 1.5, in the next two, three,
four days it goes down, and then stop.
What is it with cloud?
>> Well, here is the deal.
Cloud is not the perfect tool, but it does give you influencers and
it gets a lot you started on Twitter and actually seeing how things working social.
And the reason I use cloud, is it gets you into the right habits.
And so now that you're done with it, or now that you're done with the class,
don't stress over your cloud score.
But I use it to find new articles, I also use it to find new influencers.
And I don't really worry about whether my cloud score is 64 or 54.
The thing is,
as you keep doing good things, you start to see good things happen.
That whole idea of give to get.
And so to use it that way, and don't stress it,
that your numbers aren't going huge.
Just keep doing what you know are the right things, and
it's just a good way of getting you into doing it and then going from there.
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> Being close to yeah, okay.
>> Yeah, don't lose any sleep over it.
>> Okay.
>> Any other questions?
>> [CROSSTALK] >> Yeah, go ahead.
Is that Oscar?
>> Yeah.
I think it's most interesting to think about this course was that
the gamification I learned about.
Because this was a kind of indirect marketing.
When we engaged on real estate of communities and all,
at the moment we start impacting, they might feel that they're already promoting.
How should we [INAUDIBLE] idea that we are getting promoted instead of just
suggesting?
Because if they asked, is it a good time to invest or not,
if I tell yeah, I [INAUDIBLE] promoting his bank.
>> Yeah. >> So how should we set up?
>> I'll tell you, once you start promoting anything that people will leave.
The key is if you want to talk about investment bring them a lot of great
investment advice and ideas on investing and
eventually they'll ask you to help them.
You're going to find that in the new world you have to,
basically, be there to support the community.
And then be there when they're ready to buy.
And if you do it right,
you're going to promote yourself just because you stand out so much from them.
Because you're doing such cool things that they find valuable.
They're going to come to you when they're ready to buy, I guarantee that.
And if you start promoting yourself.
Here's what I do.
If I was running a webinar, and this is what I tell my clients.
Put your company name up behind the webinar so that it's always there.
And make sure that your website is powered by your company.
But it's actually named after the community and they'll know you because
you're there at the start and the end of the webinar, whatever.
And the fact the you're bringing them, they will recognize who you are,
so you don't push it.
You just be there when they're ready to buy is really the key to doing this right.
>> Okay so for an quota we have our top people interacting and
if we embed our link on our.
>> Yep.
>> Yeah.
>> If you look at the Randy Hlavac, at myself on Twitter,
you guys are all interacting with each other, having a good time, and
learning a lot, like when Nick found the actual crisis that was happening with CBS.
The key is, make it a fun thing for people to do in their area of interest, and
they'll be ready to buy from you when they're ready to buy.
If you can't find those examples, I'll make sure I get them out there,
but I thought they were out there.
I apologize.
>> [LAUGH] >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> It's not a problem.
I went through and pulled them all together.
Go ahead.
>> I found that in doing the course, there were a lot of things that we were already
doing that were really just validations of, okay I'm on the right course.
I'm on the right path.
Like our publication is gamified.
We have a contest.
And I don't know if you're familiar with it where you are, but
it's already doing that, and then bringing that element to it online.
So we have trivia in the publication.
We have our 1980s trivia that we publish online.
>> I think that's the key.
When I started this class, I never really said it in here,
but the way this all happened was, about nine years ago, I was teaching my class.
And I talked about viral marketing and a lady who was a middle manager at Crate and
Barrel said I get that but when I go to the CFO, I can't justify any people.
So she said, how do you that?
How do I justify this?
And I turned to the class and said I have no idea.
So, let's go out and find the best companies that are making money on social.
And that's what started the whole thing.
And so I hope you find that you're doing the right things.
And if we just keep going and putting in more right things,
we're going to get to where where we want to get to.
So that's cool.
I am able to see that you're doing it the right way.
That's fantastic.
Anybody have any other questions or anything at all?
>> Just to thank you, Randy.
You've been fantastic.
>> Well, thank you so much.
I'm glad you guys enjoy this.
>> Yeah, no, thank you.
>> But the key thing is,
if you have questions, remember, all of us are only a click away.
Do you think I should do another one of these in a couple weeks?
Would that be worthwhile?
>> Yes, please.
>> Sure.
>> I think so.
>> Yeah, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to do-
>> Sorry, you should.
[LAUGH] >> Okay, I will be sure to do that.
You guys have a great evening.
[COUGH] Excuse me.
[COUGH] Sorry about that.
[COUGH] One more time.
Thanks for your great questions and then we'll just get back together again and
don't hesitate to send me any question that you have.
We're here for you to make you a success and that's our whole focus.
>> Randy, so how is it possible to send you questions?
Is there a feedback loop?
>> Well the key is if you have questions you can send them to me @Randyhlavac on
Twitter, or if you go to the Northwestern Midil and look for Hlavac it gives
you my email address for Northwestern and so you can certainly send it there.
But it's r-hlavac@northwestern.edu.
So either way works.
[COUGH] Some other people [COUGH] actually do it through LinkedIn and
that works fine too.
So however you want to get to me you can get to me.
>> Okay.
>> [CROSSTALK] I love the international scope of this and
seeing everybody from everywhere.
It's really awesome that we're all doing the same thing
for- >> Yeah.
>> The same purpose basically.
because we wouldn't be here if we didn't want to be right?
>> Yeah, no, I think that's great and I love the international flavor of it too.
And I appreciate some of you staying up really be late at night or
early in the morning to attend this meetup.
It was a lot of fun and we're going to do it again so thank you all for coming and
I will talk to you later.
>> Bye. >> Thank you Randy, it was a
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