When North Jersey’s largest shopping mall, Westfield Garden State Plaza, was looking for a new way to connect with consumers, it turned to two marketing tools becoming increasingly popular with retailers — a Facebook fan site and a Twitter account.

For the past 10 days, the Paramus shopping center’s representatives have been posting news about sales and deals on the Facebook page, and sending out instant messages via Twitter.com about celebrity sightings and restaurant specials. Mall enthusiasts have been signing up as Facebook fans at the rate of about 100 per day. As of Monday at 10 a.m., the site had 1,067 fans.

“Social media is shifting the way we communicate with our customers,” said Lisa Herrmann, the mall’s marketing director. The Facebook site and Twitter account “allow us to send out information that is significant to our shoppers with real-time updates in a fun and engaging way,” she said. The mall plans to expand its offerings with fashion tips and shopping suggestions from style experts, and video clips of celebrity appearances at the mall.

The use of Facebook pages and fan sites has surged among retailers over the past year. A study released by Hamilton-based interactive marketing agency Rosetta in January found that 59 percent of the top 100 retailers had Facebook fan pages, and that the number of such sites doubled during the second half of 2008.

National department store chain Macy’s debuted a fan site in late June and already has more than 11,000 fans.

The return on investment for retail social networking sites has yet to be quantified, but the investment needed is minimal, although some sites have spent money for features such as interactive contests. Computer company Dell Inc. last month boosted the business credibility of social networks by announcing that it had made more than $3 million in sales through links to one of its Twitter accounts.

Marketing executives caution that malls and other retailers should have a clearly defined marketing strategy in mind before they jump on the Facebook and Twitter bandwagons.

“We haven’t surveyed retailers to see if they’re getting the ROI [return on investment],” said Adam Cohen, head of the social media practice for Rosetta. “But frankly, to set up a Twitter account and a Facebook page is not that expensive.”

The value of such networking lies in allowing retailers “to connect with their consumers in a different way,” Cohen said. The sites let companies build relationships and a sense of community with their customers, he said.

Retailers, Cohen said, need to dedicate time and effort to truly interact with online fans. “Otherwise, I think a lot of companies are going to be disappointed. Or they’re going to be measuring the buzz by how often someone comments on their page. They’re going to have a hard time being able to really attribute that to any quantifiable increase in sales,” he said.

“It’s very powerful if you do it right,” said Abe Kasbo, chief executive officer of Verasoni, a Little Falls marketing firm that has seen its social networking projects increase tenfold over the past year. “You can stay in constant touch literally on a daily basis with your clients and customers,” he said. “But the big caveat is you have to have a strategy and you have to do it right.”

The biggest mistake, Kasbo said, is launching a site and not maintaining it with frequent postings and relevant information. “It has to be relevant to the customer or they’re not going to hang out with you” online, Kasbo said.

Another potential pitfall with Facebook fan pages is any fan is free to post comments about the retailer’s news alerts, and those comments may be negative. The Plaza site has generated very little discussion thus far, and all of that has been positive. But some retailers have seen their sites hijacked by disgruntled shoppers or even their own employees.

On most sites, however, the Facebook fans live up to their name. The Target site, for example, gets daily postings by people proclaiming their love for the Minnesota-based retailer.

Westfield Garden State Plaza got a running start on building the fan base by launching it the week “Harry Potter” movie star Tom Felton (“Draco Malfoy”) appeared at the mall. His appearance drew 2,000 fans of the film series, and the mall used the event to promote its Facebook site.

The no-Sunday-shopping blue laws of Paramus and Bergen County don’t apply to shopping tweets and Facebook updates. Herrmann said the Plaza’s Facebook and Twitter followers can expect to get news alerts even on Sundays. This past Sunday, Plaza fans online at 6:21 a.m. could learn that the Tourneau store at the mall was offering a free pair of TAG Heuer sunglasses with any purchase of a TAG Heuer watch.

E-mail: verdon@northjersey.com

I started my career working for legendary stock picker and investor Mario Gabelli. In my brief stint at Gabelli’s Rye, N.Y.-based firm, I learned much that has stuck with me to this day, including the basics of value investing. Value investing is about kicking the tires, doing your research from the ground up, and carefully evaluating a company and its stock based on its intrinsic value… before you pony up one dime for shares.

Value investing also looks at businesses in their totality and, just as importantly, over the long term. No flipping stocks, no short-term trades; value investors are overwhelmingly in it for the long run.

The era of managing quarter to quarter is over. If you’re in business, surely you’re in it for the long term, right? So your business, including your marketing approach, ought to reflect that reality. No one doubts Gabelli’s success, just as we all love to hear from Warren Buffet, the renowned value investor, pontificate about his latest corporate conquest. Both Buffet and Gabelli run their businesses the same way they invest: with an eye on value and for long-term success.What can we learn from these legendary investors about marketing and promotion? Here are four suggestions to include in your marketing plans that will deliver real value for your business:

Kick the Tires: Do your homework on marketing, including media. Not all media are created equal relative to your products, services, customers, and geographic service area. Take time to review all options before investing a medium. And because media companies are recognizing that we are in the age of engagement, many are providing advertisers with more venues to reach customers. They may include websites, networking opportunities, and direct mail, in addition to its core business offers. So do your homework on media and negotiate a good deal.

Avoid Marketing Bombs: Without a marketing plan, you’re dropping marketing bombs and wasting your hard-earned money. Recently, a CEO of a $500-million firm that sells telecommunications equipment said of his marketing: “Yeah, we got that idea, we tried it, and it didn’t work.” When I asked him about the context of that particular tactic within an overall campaign and why it did not work, he replied, “What campaign?” A tactical approach to marketing is far less effective than a strategic one, so invest in and employ market-driven strategy. Then measure your strategy in its entirety; don’t simply examine one tactic, no matter how important.

Know that People Buy From People: Bring your business out of the office. Target trade shows that have a close affinity to your firm. Investing in trade shows goes far beyond having a nice booth. It’s a great chance to network with other businesses, each a potential client. Trade shows allow you to measure yourself against the competition.

In addition, invest in opportunities to make personal connections, such as the simple act of taking potential clients to dinner. It may sound clichéd, but it’s the blocking and tackling that allows you to move down the field with consistency, and not the 60-yard “Hail Mary.” Very often, personal connections win more business than 9-to-5 sales tactics.

Do Good, Do Well: In the 1980s, American Express developed a unique campaign for their customers to help restore the Statue of Liberty. A penny for each use of the American Express card and $1 for each new card were donated to the Statue of Liberty Restoration campaign. In four months, $2 million was raised and, more importantly to American Express, its transaction activity increased by 28 percent. So integrating social causes into your marketing strategy will surely allow you to “do good”—while doing well.

PLAN FOR THE LONG RUN: The above are value-based tactics that should be included in your overall marketing plans. Don’t rely on one approach. Delivering value through marketing is ensuring that you integrate your tactics with business-driven strategy. So, if you agree with me that we’re in a new era of customer engagement, you’ll give your marketing plan a second look. If you don’t have a plan, build one around adding value to your business. And remember, that plan must deliver value to your market not just for now, but for the long run.

More Wine…

Yeah, more wine was just what I needed, so I pondered “Mr. Branding” on my way to get a Cabernet.  While brands are important, I’m thinking that this guy’s advertising firm is with a client for about 3 years and he’s telling me he’s builds brands?  Think about the venerable brands like Coke, Intel, Sony, Dunkin’ Donuts. How long did it take to build their brands?  But, I guess this is the trouble with branding. As I’ve said before, branding has become a  package to be sold, partly because it’s easier to sell to the client, it’s sexy, and partly because the client is looking for a quick and easy hit to sell the boss, the board, etc…and who’s to blame them? The most recent studies showed that the average CMO is around for under 24 months in their position…And what can you accomplish in that period of time?

Even More Whine…

I got my wine and went back for more questions. I wanted to learn about how he builds brands.

“Advertising.”

“What else?”

“That’s it”

“That’s it?”

“Yup.”

“What about integrating your advertising with the web?”

“Well, that’s up to the client, we’re in advertising.”

“What happened to your brand building?”

“Yeah, we do that through advertising.”

“Oh…I think I get a Merlot this time…If you’ll excuse me”

And that’s the problem!  We’ve got advertising guys or creative guys calling themselves brand builders. While that is in-part true, it is only part of a larger picture.  This is like the company who supplies the plane makers with seats for its planes calling itself an airline…But I digress.  As if I have to state the obvious, advertising is only one component of branding, it’s a cog in the wheel?  So why do advertisers and graphics people call themselves brand builders?  You have a great logo, now what?  You’re on the radio? Now what?  GEICO‘s advertising is impressive, engaging and now interwoven in our culture, still that is only part of the GEICO brand experience.  Call GEICO, speak to them, get their insurance, file a claim, interact with their people. That is their brand. I would consider their advertising, at this point, to be for brand awareness, which is part of their brand distribution strategy.

Why does this happen? Why do people continue to sell branding as a product? Because it’s appealing to talk “brand building” rather than advertising, it’s appealing to hear about how “your brand” can propel your business.  So if branding is a result of a bunch of market driven communications, interaction with the customer, connecting with the customer, and developing an emotional attachment to the customer, why do I continuously hear people present it in a simplistic manner, as a singular activity that happens over brief periods of time?

This is what I am now branding the selling of branding, as I define it here, as the “Madoffing of Branding.”  The Madoffing of branding is all about getting the account and selling your stuff. The times of managing quarter to quarter are over, they should have never started. And marketers need to become smarter about how they invest their resources. Suppliers of marketing services ought to partner with clients, as many industry on both the buyside and vendor side have been calling for years now. And when we partner with clients, their business becomes our business – yeah, that’s a bit scary and perhaps risky, but it is crucial for marketers, in this or any other enviornment, in order to stay relevant and deliver real value… It’s time for businesses to understand that while they are marketing for both today and the long term health of their business.  In addition, the buyers of marketing services ought to bear some responsibility by making sure that marketing programs they are purchasing are relevant to their business plan and more importantly, their customers..more to come.

According to a recent article from IMedia Connection, authored by Tim McHale, Interactive media and marketing are playing a critical role in extending financial service companies’ core values of trustworthiness and customer-centricity. The article encourages financial services companies to leverage two main differentiators, namely brand and customer service.

The bottom line:

1. Invest in brands that convey trustworthiness and experience

2. Invest in customer centricity and experience

3. Encourage user involvement on the web – relevant content and interactivity are a must.

4. Direct mail works well and ought to be a strong element in your brand distribution strategies

5. Customer Service is key to client retention and referral

To read the entire article go to: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/1904.asp