The agile method started, as you can probably guess, in the software development world. As technology has developed more and more rapidly, with shorter turnaround times between new products, development companies increasingly found that the old waterfall model of sequential design led to months and then years wasted planning for and developing products the technology had moved beyond by the time a release finally came to fruition.

Thus agile development was born as a speedy, transparent, collaborative and adaptive way to develop and test products in real time. It wasn’t long before this effective (and adrenaline-pumping) methodology began to spread into other industries.

Agile and Marketing

So just what does the agile method look like when applied to marketing? I learned the answer to this question when working with one of our clients, Outsystems, a custom applications builder that’s built not just its production but its entire business model around the agile approach.

Related: 3 Questions You Must Answer to Stop Your Business Going The Way of the Stagecoach!

# 1. Sprint planning

The agile method is all about reducing development cycle times. That’s something you can’t do unless you’ve taken the time to plan things out ahead of time. However, the difference between the kind of planning that happens in the agile method and that of more traditional models is the way tasks are broken down both between people and teams and over time.

• In traditional models, large goals are set and then various teams go off to do their own thing without much daily accountability, meaning there’s often a large amount of drift. This is often compounded when an organization holds too many ambitious goals at once.
• In the sprint planning at my organization, teams meet monthly to develop a list of priority projects that urgently require our focus. The rest goes into a sprint backlog for the next go around. We then break each project into actionable tasks that can further be broken down into lists, making it easier for various team members to step up and take responsibility for one small piece at a time.

# 2. SCRUM

Once sprint planning is complete and the month is officially launched, we gather together as a team every morning for fifteen minute SCRUM meetings.

• This is when we each stand up and report on what we did yesterday, what we’re going to do today, and any roadblocks we can foresee.
• This ensures both that no tasks are slipping through the cracks, and that we’re able to adjust both individually and on a team level to the conditions we encounter, rather than letting ourselves slowly become buried beneath a pile of missed tasks.
• Because we do this all visually on a Kanban board, it’s easy to visualize what’s happening where, and to spot and fix inefficiencies before they become big problems.

Related: How To Ensure You Are the 1% of New Brands That Survive: Repeat!

# 3. Individuals and Interactions

The agile development method at Outsystems emphasizes individuals and interactions over processes and tools. It’s easy to see how that applies to sprint planning and scrum, which encourage cross-team collaboration, but specifically in the marketing arena. I would say that same philosophy also applies to selling your business, not your product.

• With an entire ecosystem of social media out there and an internet culture that will ultimately reveal all hidden secrets, businesses that feel the most authentic, unique, responsive, and transparent are the ones that will thrive.
• The agile marketer understands this, using social customer relationship management tools to track and respond to comments online, as well as to encourage the kind of engagement that makes customers feel like they’re actively collaborating with a brand, rather than being begged to buy their products.

# 4. Using Analytics to Promote Change

The agile systems is, well, agile. While Outsystems rolls their product out in several stages, measuring its effectiveness as they go, my marketing firm takes full advantage of analytics both during and after a campaign to determine the effectiveness of our efforts.

• In the agile system, every project is a scientific experiment. The agile marketer knows that an unexpected result isn’t a failure, it’s information they should then use to re-launch a more effective campaign.
• We know it’s about questioning your biases and assumptions with actual data, and it’s about effectively managing and acting on that data by creating a dashboard-driven culture that can both keep you on top of all the relevant intel and help you see through visualizations to the next phase of your strategy.

Related: 5 Things The Best Boss I Ever Had Taught Me About Being A Great Manager And Leader

While it may not seem on the surface that software developers and marketers would have much in common, the agile system says otherwise. And I can tell you for a fact, it’s helped my firm get a lot more done.

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Readers are able to see information in a more impactful and direct light. Infographics have the ability to transform the way readers consume information, and thusly have become hugely popular, and will likely become more popular in the future. However, infographics are tools of communication, and can be used poorly and inefficiently if presented incorrectly.

The Importance of User Interaction

Infographics have been taken to a whole new level recently, and often use Flash and other media sources to present information. Consequently, the best infographics have, at least, user interaction capabilities. The below graphic, by Simply Business, has extensive interaction capabilities.

Click image to open interactive version via Simply Business

This infographic provides visual interest for the reader, but it also provides the reader with additional, interactive tools through each section.

• While infographics without reader interaction abilities still present information in interesting ways, they fall short of drawing the reader into the information.
• As the future of infographics progresses, there will undoubtedly be more extensive layers of interaction.
• However, an infographic doesn't necessarily have to be complex to be interactive; a simple feature that allows readers to click on a part of the graphic to read more information about that topic makes the graphic interactive.

Related: Social Networking In Ireland Infographic

Social Media Sharing Abilities

With the prevalence of infographics as a way to visually present information, it's natural that these graphics make their way through various social medias.

• An interesting and interactive infographic is very easy to share on social media sites, as long as it is presented correctly.
• In order to ensure that your infographic is easily shared, make sure that there are social media buttons near the infographic, so that readers can easily share what they have seen.

This infographic about social media, by The Search Agents, contains the social media contacts for The Search Agents.

 Click image to open full version of the Social Sharing Button Playground via The Search Agency

At the very least, it's necessary to share social media contact information as The Search Agency did; however, it would be best to create social media buttons that allow the reader to simply click the Twitter icon to link to the organization's Twitter page, for example. Many infographics include social media buttons on a side bar.

One of the best features to include in an infographic in order to create sharing is a personalized aspect.

• If readers cannot only interact, but enter personal information to see how they fit into the infographic, that will encourage more social media sharing.
• The BBC has an interesting infographic, which allows readers to enter their height and weight so they can see which 2012 Olympic athlete they are most similar to.

Personalized results such as this will likely stimulate more sharing, as readers will want to compare results.

Contextual Placement

However strong an informative and interactive infographic is, it likely needs supplemental information included with it. It's helpful to readers to expand upon the presented infographic, so they are left with a complete picture of the information they see. There might have been information that did not make it into the infographic, which would be helpful to include with the graphic.

• It is important to carefully place infographics within relevant information, so they flow coherently into the informational experience. You don't want supplemental information to detract from your infographic, or repeat the same information, but you do want to flush out the information you have provided.
• Infographics often work best when they are used in conjunction with the information you are presenting, and serve a specific purpose.

From an online marketing or SEO perspective contextual placement plays a larger role in how search engines such as Google evaluate infographics. With the 2011 Panda update and 2012 Penguin update penalizing traditional practices, most online marketing experts agree that contextual placement is a necessary component to the future of infographics.

The theory behind this is that Panda penalized duplicate and thin content. Placing an infographic on multiple websites with little to no text is a practice that Panda targets. Therefore creating unique, original content for each and every placement is now becoming standard practice.

Related: 10 Kick Ass Content Marketing Ideas

Infographics are not going away, but the future of sharing information visually is evolving. How will your company utilize infographics in the future?

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Giving back

Gap Adventures, for instance, has built giving into their business model by giving back to the communities in which it runs tours. This helps them beat the competition, making them look a lot better than that rival travel company that does nothing to make up for whatever ecological damage and social disruption their tours might create. Customers feel better if they know a portion of their tour fees will benefit the locals; that converts into purchases.

Related: Is Your Company Socially Responsible?

Cause marketing

For a company like Philip Morris, the name of the game is cause marketing, defined as any effort done either by the donating company, by the non-profit, or by both organizations together to promote the non-profit’s cause. By giving money to the Whitney museum, Philip Morris was able to have a branch named after their company. This means that every time a patron visits that branch, they’ll associate the Phillip Morris name with art and culture, rather than with negative news about cigarettes.

In this way, cause marketing can help a brand change, diversify or enhance its image, which directly builds trust and drives sales. One study found that as many as 85% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that supports a charity than a competitor that does not.

• Cause marketing will also increase exposure, as a business will be visible not just in its own ad and marketing campaigns but in the charity’s as well. This exposure increases even more when the company supports a charity’s event rather than just making a general contribution.
• If, for instance, your brand supports a charity’s fun run, you’ll have your name splashed across t-shirts and banners, which will get your brand on customer’s minds as they engage with something meaningful, memorable and fun.
• The same is all the more true if the charity you support does something truly unique, like the toe wrestling competition supported by Ben & Jerry’s UK, which encourages customers to get involved in an unforgettable way.

The benefits aren’t all external. If you give your employees a strong voice in choosing from amongst several charity and fundraising ideas, they’ll be invested in the process and eager about the cause.

Feeling good about what your company has banded together to do as a team will increase morale in the office, as will taking breaks from the every day routine to participate in events. And who knows? Thinking outside of the box for the sake of a charity might just get employees thinking differently about your business and innovating where they can.

Popular fundraising & Charity Ideas:

• Cancer: The Susan G. Komen Race for Cure and Live Strong are two organizations known by everyone. Think about supporting a local chapter or starting your own cancer fundraising charity
• Arts: Fundraising and charity for the Arts has always been popular but is usually focused within a local art community. That is until Kickstarter came to the scene giving fundraisers global exposure.
• Animals: The SPCA is a leader in this cause. Their commercial with Sarah McLachlan and images of abused animals has made quite an impression.
• Autism: A number of celebrities are advocates for autism awareness supporting charities like Autism Speaks.

Last but not least, working with a charity is beneficial purely from a networking perspective. Charities are stocked full of passionate, intelligent, and engaged people, some of whom might make a great fit at your company at a later date. If you work well with them, they’ll become as passionate about your brand as you are, eager to tell their vast networks about your products or services.

Related: Marketing: Time To Be Legal, Decent, Honest And Truthful?

Only good things can come of associating your brand with a charity. Just make sure to pick a cause about which the members of your company can be passionate so you can develop campaigns that are genuine, attention-grabbing, paradigm-shifting and new. Consider it the best kind of brainstorming exercise.

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And, because the world is a place of irony, this of course got them a lot of attention in the media, especially when Ford Tweeted in response: “It’s all about the execution. Our Facebook ads are effective when strategically combined with engaging content & innovation.”

And so, the great GM vs. Ford social wars began. Which one has it right, and what can we learn from their mentality, strategies, and results?

Marketing is no longer a one way street

While Henry Ford may have pioneered the industrial technology that revolutionized the auto industry in the early 1900s, GM is the company that’s stuck with an assembly line mentality. It still believes that advertising is a one way street, devoting $2.8 billion domestically and $3.9 billion globally to its overall advertising budget in 2010, making them the 3rd largest advertiser in the US. They carry this mentality into the social media sphere, using a “build it and they’ll come” approach without investing time or money into promoting engagement on the diverse channels through which consumers connect with brands.

For instance, GM developed a pretty cool initiative - the Chrevolet Plant a Tree Campaign - in which they promised to plant a tree for every one virtual tree planted by a user on an app they developed. But they promoted this app not by, say, producing a video on youtube and posting it to their Facebook page, tweeting out frequent messages about the program and retweeting involved users, or doing any of the constant, repeated and multi-channel efforts that comprise a tight social media campaign. They posted a message about it once and left it at that.

Related: Ford’s Social Business Model, Seeks Multi-Directional Expressive Capability!

Know what social media is and can do

It may sound like a small thing, but this example unveils a fundamental misunderstanding about what social media is and can do. As Scott Monty, Head of Social Media at Ford, articulates so cogently in this PowerPoint presentation, social media is about humanizing a company and increasing engagement. It’s not a place to post an ad and wait for the dollars to roll in. It’s a place where trust is built based on accessibility, transparency and authenticity. It’s about building relationships.

That takes time, effort, money, and patience

Think about this way. Social media (Facebook in particular) is a place where people hang out with their friends. If you’re the new kid on the block and you think the kids goofing off in that corner are the coolest, there are two ways you can try to get them to trust you and let you in:

1. Walk right up to them and say, “Hi. I’m a really fantastic person and I think you’ll enjoy my many positive features, including by not limited to my sense of humor, my brilliant smile, my intelligence, and my general success in life. Offer valid for a limited time only.”
2. Hang out near them, thinking of witty things to say when it’s appropriate, listening to them and letting them know when you’ve heard about something really cool that would be relevant or fun for them attend.

How do we know GM is #1 and Ford is #2?

Just take a look at the differences between GM and Ford’s Facebook pages. While GM features four slick, magazine-esque close-ups of its logo, Ford features twelve different ways that users can engage with their brand. That’s twelve different opportunities for users to connect with like-minded people, access the brand they follow and share quality content with friends (i.e. potential customers), and it’s all right there on Ford’s Facebook page.

Related: For Zuck’s Sake – A Facebook App Store?!

Traditional strategies and measurements alone don’t work

If you’re saying, “True, but this all relates to the unpaid aspects of a Facebook presence, not Facebook ads,” you’re right. The click through rates (CTR) for Facebook banner ads are dismal, especially in comparison to Google, whose users are 10 times more likely to click on its banners than on Facebook. Even worse, 57% of Facebook users admitting to never clicking through on ads or sponsored content.

But this again points to a lack of understanding about what social media is and how people engage with it. People go to Google already motivated to find a theory, explanation, product or service, while people go to Facebook to connect or catch up with friends. That means they spend far less time on Google than on Facebook (53.5 billion minutes vs. 12.5 billion minutes for Google in May 2011), so any measurement of CTR ignores the effect of simply having a banner in a user’s consciousness for hours at a time.

This means that CTR is far less important on Facebook as it is on Google. Facebook ads are not about providing a solution that’s urgent to the user right now. It’s about raising a brand’s presence in a user’s mind so that when they do need that solution, that brand will be the first to come to mind.

That’s why Facebook ads are just one part of a greater social media, content and engagement strategy

A surprising or compelling yet traditional Facebook ad might not be clicked on, but it will drive traffic to a brand’s Facebook page, and it can be used to promote engaging content a brand has produced on other channels. This could be a microsite that promotes a wedding roadtrip contest or a video contest to win a Ford Fiesta. Whatever the strategy, advertising is no longer just about driving users to the product. It’s about driving users to the content that will drive them to the product. It’s about fitting a brand into a larger relationship, trust-based, content-rich strategy.

GM should know this, given how important trust is to their big-ticket item industry, where people buy based on relationships rather than on impulse.

Related: Does Facebook Timeline Make Custom Tabs A Thing Of The Past?

Take-aways

So, what can the marketing would and the automotive industry learn from Ford & GM’s very different experiences with Facebook advertising?

• According to Mike Priestner, CEO of dealer network GoAuto, “We need to understand what social media is and is not.” Mike’s tips for were:

• Focus on developing rich, engaging, quality content.
• Engage regularly in conversations with your users.
• Don’t use a build it and they will come mentality. Promote on multiple channels.
• Don’t just measure CTR. Measure engagement.
• Be patient.

And, most of all be human. That’s what social media is all about.

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