Marketing Technology for Growth

There is currently much buzz, and much debate, in business and marketing circles over the meaning and usage of the term SoLoMo (social, local, mobile). Never one to miss an opportunity to inject myself into the conversation, here is my take on the two most relevant aspects of SoLoMo, what it is, and why it matters to businesses.

I’ve written and thought a fair bit over the past year about the impact of social local mobile (SoLoMo) on consumer behavior and business marketing. Only after employing SoLoMo best practices to narrowly avert a plumbing crisis in my home did I fully realize its value. For those of you looking for a real world example of SoLoMo in action, I submit my own personal case study.

This past week has been a busy time for SoLoMo app Foursquare. On April 10^th, the company unveiled a new version of the app which takes full advantage of Foursquare’s trove of user data by highlighting its local discovery search function and offering personalized recommendations that take into account user location and past check-in behavior. The very next day, CEO Denis Crowley announced that Foursquare had secured $41 million dollars in additional funding. The day after that, Ad Age came out with an article revealing Foursquare is developing a new ad product which will leverage users’ location and behavioral data and sell it to businesses that want to create targeted ads on other platforms. These changes, coupled with the fact that the company already has 33 million users who have registered a whopping 3.5 Billion check-ins, suggests to me that businesses will want to incorporate Foursquare into their digital marketing sooner rather than later.

In today's Marketing Technology Minute, Chris and Spencer discuss why the sudden shift to a mobile-first mindset poses a huge threat to bricks-and-mortar businesses, and how some are adopting SoLoMo marketing strategies to stem the tide. While e-commerce, or "etail," websites such as Amazon have largely profited from the transition to SoLoMo, a number of big-box retailers haven't fared as well, finding it difficult to stay competitive in today's hybrid online-offline shopping environment. Many are faced with diminishing sales conversion rates, as shoppers treat their stores as mere "showrooms" for products that end up being purchased online. To stay on top in the digital world, companies like Walmart are leading by example, embracing digital technology and SoLoMo to integrate mobile into the retail shopping experience. This "clicks and mortar" approach is helping physical retailers bridge the growing divide between themselves and the digitally minded consumer.

By its very definition, the phrase “paradigm shift” implies disruption. In business, consumer paradigm shifts are particularly disruptive, as they force the companies affected to alter (sometimes dramatically) existing models in favor of new ones. Faced with choice of exchanging the certain for the uncertain, it’s no wonder most companies opt for a wait-and-see approach to change, tacitly hoping that time will prove any shift unnecessary. Unfortunately, the growing influence of technology in business is exponentially increasing the speed, prevalence, and magnitude of paradigm shift disruption, allowing brands little time to adjust or evolve. In such a chaotic business environment, acceptance of change is often a lagging indicator; by the time it’s been fully realized, the opportunity has passed.

Graph Search is Facebook’s debut in to the search engine market. Although CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has made a point of emphasizing that the new tool is "not Web search,” many have speculated that Graph Search is the social media website’s attempt to compete with their biggest competitor, Google, in the market for search.

SoLoMo makes a great addition to an already solid marketing campaign, but by itself will not save your business. In a recent post, I shared a few tips on how to integrate SoLoMo into your marketing strategy. Now, I want to break that advice down even further. Specifically, what are the predominant digital marketing interfaces and how can your business decide which ones make sense to use?

One of the unchallenged assumptions of marketing is that greater personalization implies greater relevance. If brands or marketers can tap into the ever-shifting zeitgeist of their intended audience to deliver that perfect message, they’ll likely capture not only the hearts and minds, but also the wallets, of their marks. It is within this framework that Facebook CEO Mark “Zuck” Zuckerberg implores businesses to try and grasp the possibilities of the social network’s new Graph Search social search engine.

With the majority of cell phone users now opting for the cleverer mobile devices on the market, getting social, thinking local, and spending on mobile are more important than ever. This presents a huge opportunity to engage with consumers in a different way than traditional advertising, but requires the implementation of an integrated cross-channel campaign to meet the expectations of potential buyers. SoLoMo is not a separate tactic in a digital marketing campaign, but an extension of it.

Today’s sophisticated consumers are using mobile devices to access social media and business web/ecommerce sites. They’re roaming the streets clutching smartphones and tablets looking for things to do or to buy. To compete in this new SoLoMo environment, businesses need an integrated approach. Brands need to get social, think local, and spend (on) mobile.