Connie Bensen

There will be no Pepsi ads at the SuperBowl this year. Pepsi has chosen to spend $20 million on a social media campaign rather than buying a 30 second spot at the SuperBowl. Mashable outlined how they are choosing to invest in building community.

The cost for a SuperBowl ad has been growing exponentially over the years. (Source: MSNBC)

• 1967 cost $42,500
• 1987 cost $600,000
• 2009 cost $3 million

ABC News notes that Pepsi spent $142 million on Super Bowl ads over the last decade.

This is a bold move! Being the first could be game changing. They will get a month’s worth of word of mouth now. Then when they execute on their campaign people will not only be aware, but that many more will participate. The $20 million will be spent on the Pepsi Refresh Project, an effort to to refresh the world we live in. Projects will be proposed by the community and then voted on. The philanthropy will extend into the offline world.

Imagine if that $142 million over the past decade had been spent on making Pepsi’s world a better place? (Ok, they need to advertise, how about half of it then?!)

This decision marks the shift that many of us have  been predicting.

• Social media marketing will become mainstream.
• Community building will take priority over a 30 second ad.
• Many channels will be leveraged rather than just tv

In January 2008 a number of us had a conversation on Twitter about the huge spend on SuperBowl ads. Mack Collier proposed a social media campaign composed of:

• $100 k hire a community manager
• $300 k hire 5 talented bloggers ($60 k ea)
• $100 k 20 events across the country ($5 k ea)
• $100 k hire someone to facilitate the offline meetups

So a company could spend $600 k and have talent of the highest quality. These people would listen to customers, participate in their communities online & offline, and encourage the conversation. Let’s assume the budget is $20 million like Pepsi is dedicating. That leaves you with a healthy chunk to for supporting your advocates and to build your brand’s community.

Will building community be more effective for Pepsi than a 30 second spot during the SuperBowl? What say you?

Here’s a slide deck with a number of predictions for 2010. I am honored to be included in such a distinguished group!

Dr. Taly Weiss presents the predictions in Twitter format so it’s a quick read.

ReadWriteWeb did a nice job of expanding on my first prediction.

PROSPECTING: Connie Benson, Director of Social Media and Community Strategy for Alterian says, "Social media monitoring will provide insight across all channels, as well as making social media an active outbound marketing channel." In this case Benson alludes to the idea that ROI on social media may entail leads generation. In other words, here social media ROI might be measured in the number of social media-based pitches against the number of deals closed.

My second is:

SM will shift from being experimental to having metrics and the loop will be closed so that SM Monitoring is necessary & actionable

Mashable also provided their perspective.

What do you think? What direction are we headed?

Everyone is putting their predictions out. Mine are always partially based on my work as well as the trends.

1. Companies will expect ROI from their Social Media efforts.

Social Media will shift from being experimental to mainstream. Larger organizations can’t justify embracing it without having it meeting their business objectives. It has to increase their bottom line. I have been working on an ROI series and that will kick off in January. It is possible to establish metrics around your efforts and measure progress! Can you afford not to? How will you grow your program and justify the resources if you’re not showing the progress & return? Olivier Blanchard has a great slide deck on Social Media ROI!

2. The Social Media Specialist (Community Manager) position will become mainstream.

Companies are going to quickly find that they need someone to guide their efforts externally and internally. Social efforts should be extended across the board.Jeremiah Owyang had a great post on how companies should plan a holistic approach and use social beyond marketing. My series will address that and it’s the foundation for my work at Alterian. My list of Responsibilities and Goals for a Community Manager continues to be my most read post.   

3. Cultural shift inside of companies.

This is going to be a challenge for many companies. In order to be successful in connecting with customers, organizations are going to have to have communications channels in place and the openness to utilize the information. I shared a diagram of how a community manager can increase sales & the many departments affected. Management is going to need to have a level of trust for their employees interacting online and understand that the risk can be mitigated by education & training.

4. Social Media Monitoring will be a necessary component

My colleague, John Tonini, made the prediction earlier this year that the market would shift from brands wondering if they should be monitoring social media to ‘What tool should we be using?’. 2010 will see a huge shift in the adoption rate of social media monitoring. January of 2009 kicked off a wave and I foresee that growth in the industry continuing. The tools are going to evolve quickly too. Our customers are driving that process.

5. Agencies and companies will hire data analysts

A new position is emerging. My favorite title is Social Media Metrician. Social Media monitoring tools don’t drive themselves. They need more than a human touch. They require people who enjoy digging into the analytics aspect, looking for patterns and trends. Web analytics people will be able to expand on their roles. Brands and agencies are going to need this new specialized position to drive their marketing intelligence. Marshall Sponder lists many predictions in regard to the role of the data analyst in 2010.

6. Integration of platforms and processes will be critical.

My job as Community Strategist at Alterian has me cognizant that marketing is going to be radically changing. My CEO listed our top 10 predictions at Alterian. One of them is:

There is a proliferation of things to monitor, measure and manage, making it very difficult and time consuming for marketers to pull together the overall picture for integrated campaigns. There will therefore be a move towards single integrated software platforms so that campaign planning and management are integrated with web and email.

Forrester is also looking towards the integration of platfroms too.

7. I will be meeting more of YOU in the new year!

The first six were very serious so I needed to lighten this up! The amount I traveled in the second half of 2009 made me quite aware that I no longer work with a startup! One of the exciting things about 2010 is that my calendar has me on the move! I love the TripIt feature in LinkedIn. It reminds me of who in my network live near my destination. And even more amazing, it shows the trips that coincide. I came close to meeting a friend from Spain when we were both in NYC! So if you use TripIt connect with me and I look forward to meeting you next year!

What would you add to my list?

Every month we have a webinar. Last month my topic was Best Practices for Monitoring Social Media. You can view the past recordings here.

This month, my colleague, Marcus Tewksbury has the stage with ‘How to Implement a Social Media Strategy’.

Marcus will be talking about how to add social media channels to your lead generation efforts. He will also be providing ideas on how social media marketing can be integrated in with traditional marketing efforts such as email marketing, PPC campaigns, and search. The webinar is on Thursday, December 17th 10:00am Central / 16.00 UK

Register here

Here’s a sneak peak on what he’ll be presenting.