Social Marketing, Analytics and the Customer at the Center of It All: Interview with Aaron Kahlow

Think you’ve heard it all when it comes to Internet marketing? SES advisory board member and conference speaker and founder of Online Marketing Institute, Aaron Kahlow (@AaronKahlow) wields the element of surprise. In advance of next week’s conference, Aaron answered a few questions about his session on search-social synergy. The responses I got back look at our powerful marketing channels in a way that subverts some progressive ideas en vogue today, favoring an approach that the SMB community can sink its teeth into.

Aaron’s Online Marketing Institute is an educational resource for all areas and levels of digital marketing. Over the years, he’s heard the stories of challenge and triumph of all kinds of businesses looking for solutions to their pain points and ways to take advantage of the hot channel, social media.

It’s from this context that comes some sensational statements. A few standouts include:

• The average SMB shouldn’t be worried about real-time anything.
• Avinash Kaushik’s analytics recommendations don’t apply to the majority of businesses.
• Consumer intent versus consumer interest is a made-up, misguided construct.

And while these statements can sound astounding alone, they make a lot of sense when you consider them in their big picture context.

Piquing Consumer Interest vs. Targeting Consumer Intent

At SES San Francisco next week, Aaron will be part of the session called Activating the Social-Search Dynamic. The session description on the site says, “If search marketing is all about delivering value from consumer intent, social is about delivering value from consumer interest.” So I asked Aaron to describe the synergy of intent and interest, and the point of distinguishing between the two. His advice? (Emphasis added.)

Aaron’s approach to Internet marketing isn’t to read consumers’ minds. Instead, he advises businesses to use social and search channels for their strengths, raising brand awareness and driving conversion, respectively. He compares looking at analytics and trying to intuit a visitor’s intentions to looking at footprints in the sand. A bold statement.

So what of analytics? What does Aaron think is the way to look at analytics that will yield the best effect for Internet marketing? How do we avoid the mentality of chasing footprints in the sand, making up stories about our customers and getting caught up in the minutiae of the data?

The False Dilemma of Data Deluge

I asked Aaron for his thoughts on not getting bogged down in data and seeing the real value in the measurements available. After all, attend a few conferences and you’ve probably heard analytics guru Avinash warn against getting caught up in data puke. Aaron’s response (again, emphasis mine):

Unrealistic Real Time Marketing

At this point I realized Aaron’s drawing some clear distinctions between big brands and SMBs in terms of marketing approaches that that can be adopted. SMBs often look to the big brands to for cutting-edge tactics that can be adjusted for smaller budgets. I asked Aaron for some guidelines when utilizing real-time social media metrics and tweaking social campaigns on the fly as dictated by real-time data.

For the People, By the People

So do we get it now? In talking about the opportunities and strategies and tactics of search and social marketing over and over, we’re overthinking it. When you’re drowning in data, or contriving campaigns for different social channels, get back to the basics. Ask your customers why they’re doing what they’re doing on your site. Return to the source, the people. I asked Aaron what he thinks draws people to conferences like SES and OMS to learn about what social media can do for their business…

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.