Developing a social media strategy The Road Ahead
The world has changed New Economy Thinking GREEN Global Citizenship Dependency on Technology Proliferation of media choices 2
Your company has changed Staff Reductions CMO tenure 22 months. Outsourcing of Jobs More accountability Smaller budgets Faster Less fun Demanding customers Less risk tolerance 3
The Customer Has Changed More online channel choices Comparison shopping Increased Mobile communications Less to spend More fear Searching for Value Less loyalty Less trust in Gov t and business More people talking To each other
Now What?
Can You Answer 6 key questions 1. What are your customers and prospects saying about your company, products, and employees on line? 2. What are the key trends in the marketplace you need to be aware of? 3. What is your competitive position to these key trends? 4. Who are the key on line influencers? 5. What does the marketplace feel about your company overall? 6. How will I engage my customers to keep them loyal to my brand?
Yes if you use social media. 7
Why Social Media? The top media Influencers are: Internet 39% TV 18% Radio 12% Magazines 3% Newspapers 2%
Why Social media? Fastest growing communications vehicles 300% growth over last year Facebook 350 Million users Twitter 18 Million users Linked in 50 Million users
Why is social media important? Social networks out-perform other key categories in ALL key metrics Social Networks Current Events Multi-Category Ent. Sports Weather Source: Nielsen Online Netview, August 2008 10
Forrester s four-step approach to social media P O S T People Assess your customers social activities Objectives Decide what you want to accomplish Strategy Plan for how relationships with customers will change Technology Decide which social technologies to use
POST P:People:begin with social listening Use available data sources to understand the social behaviors of your target audience
Use online monitoring to hear what is being said Includes: blogs, videos, images, news, forums, micromedia: Twitter/Friendfeed and Facebook.
Variety of monitoring tools Freebies Technorati (authority, links), blogs) Del.icio.us (quality/type) Google Analytics (traffic) Feedburner (subscribers) Compete/Alexa /Quantcast (relative traffic) Social Mention (search engine) Appsholic (social media) Addict-o-matic (social media ) Seph/Google Trends,Trendpedia, Yahoo Key word ( Buzz) Video/photo (YouTube, flickr),metacafe, Truveo) Social bookmarks (Digg/Stumble Upon) Forums (Boardtracker/Twing) Communities, widgets Paid Methods: Radian6 Scout Labs Buzzlogic Visable Technologies Nielsen Buzzmetrics
When listening..you will be focused on the creators and influencers 18% Creators Publish a blog Publish your own Web pages Upload video you created Upload audio/music you created Write articles or stories and post them 25% Critics Post ratings/reviews of products/services Comment on someone else s blog Contribute to online forums Contribute to/edit articles in a wiki 12% Collectors Use RSS feeds Add tags to Web pages or photos Vote for Web sites online 25% Joiners Maintain profile on a social networking site Visit social networking sites 48% Spectators Read blogs Watch video from other users Listen to podcasts Read online forums Read customer ratings/reviews Forrester Social Ladder 44% Inactives None of the above Groups include people participating in at least one of the activities monthly.
Monitoring Tools The tools are still in the early stages of development and have many weaknesses. You need to have a variety of tools in order to confirm the data. Check the raw data so you don t collect information on topics that you are not intending. Where possible include text mining tools and expertise. Many sites like Facebookstill have proprietary interfaces so using crawling tools may not give you what you need. You are listening primarily to the content creators and the influencers not your entire audience base. You may be listening to people who are not customers but who influence your customers.
Include voice of the customer In addition to online monitoring include voice of the customer research to get a broader understanding of what customer s want. This can include focus groups, market research, in home interviews, in store observations, etc. The key is to talk to a variety of your customers not just those who are speaking on line. They can be found In your store, on your web site, in customer service.to your sales reps etc.
Select your objectives POST Corporate function Research Marketing Sales Support Development Forrester 09 Typical groundswell objective Listening gaining insights from listening to customers Talking using conversations with customers to promote products or services Energizing identifying enthusiastic customers and using them to persuade others Supporting making it possible for customers to help each other Embracing turning customers into a resource for innovation Appropriate social applications Private communities Brand monitoring Blogs Communities Social networking sites Video or user-generated sites Brand ambassador programs Communities Embeddable widgets Support forums Wikis Innovation communities Suggestion boxes
Common Objectives of social media Partnerships Customer Feedback Loyalty Employee communications Community Building: Your Company Public Relations Content distribution: News, thought leadership Events. Tech /Product Support- Customer Service Sales: Recruitment Brand Research
Develop your strategies POST How are you going to achieve your objectives?
Strategies: what to cover Legal Brand Image Community Ethics and integrity Participation & Community dynamics Intellectual Property Rights Technology Strategy
Key Strategic Questions Participation How do we encourage and manage user participation? How do I control the flow of good and bad content? What user activities do I want people to engage in? Engagement Who can get in and what can they do? How to control access? Are We public or private? Will I segment by user type? Do I need authentication? User profiles? How do I assign privileges? What identity management? Complia nce How do I track member s content? Who has what permissions? How do I audit compliance/ What do I do if people violate the rules? Content ownership Who owns the content? What are the terms of use? Under what circumstances can the content be reused? What happens to those who don t comply? Tech strategy What is my tech strategy? Build or partner? What is needed? How will this be funded? Will I do it phases? What do they look like? Metrics How will I measure success over time? What are the key metrics? How will they get shared?
How to engage people? People Advocate You People Collaborate With You People Produce Content About You People Engage/ Rally Behind You
Metrics Determining what to measure? 24
Social Media measures what happened Traditional media measurement deals with what you sent out/aired/saw Doritos super bowl ad- House Rules Buzz created before SuperBowl by getting customer to develop ads more than 4000 submissions. Consumers voted. Replayed on You Tube more than 700,000 views Repeated on TV news shows Tweeted about more than 35,000times Most watched TV commerical and most talked abut social media measurement deals with what actually happened
Examples of Key Measures Click stream/ activity -Traffic how many come to site -Interaction how many people are passing info on your product or brand - Member engagement do people interact with the brand more frequently-talking about it, passing info around, sharing stories etc. - Unique visitors - Member registrations -Sales leads Results/Impact - Product feedback/ideation - WOM Influence - Comments per post - Cost savings ( - Tech. support -Insights -Competitive Intelligence -Increase in Public Relations mentions -Increase in paid and natural search -Sales -Customer retention -Profit
What is your Social Media Shooting for? Reach how far does it travel? Authority how trusted is the source? Relevance does it support your intended direction? Influence who shares and passes along with who? Engagement how involved do they get? Are they passing the data to others (re-tweet)? Do they recommend you?
What is Your Social Media Shooting for? Interaction do they do anything with it? Share it? Incorporate it with new media? Velocity how fast does it travel? Attention how much time do they spend with it? Sentiment how positive are they? Do they care? Net Promoter are they recommending you? Do they retain? Sales/leads/Profit - are you generating more leads and more sales?
Technologies POST Determine which technologies are needed to meet your needs?
Technology platforms The technology platforms must support the business strategy. Often times The community grows in ways that are unexpected. Building capabilities over time enables the company and the community to grow together. Start with other firms who have social media expertise. This enables you to Focus on the strategy first, rather than the technology. Once you feel you Have a good handle on who you are and what you need you can then decide if you would prefer to build the capabilities internally or not. The technology investment is usually low so spend the time determining the functionality needed.
Summary of Web 2.0 Technologies : Wiki. Commenting,shared work space Blogs, podcasts, video casts Prediction markets, info markets, polling Tagging, social bookmarking, filtering, Ratings, RSs Facilitates co creation of content/applications across large distributed set of participants. Broad collaboration. Offers individuals a way to communicate/share information with broad set of other individuals. Broad communications. Harnesses the collective power of the community and generate a collectively derived answer. Collective estimation.. Add additional information to the primary content to prioritize information or make it more valuable. Metadata creation. Social networking, network mapping Leverages connections between people to offer new applications. Social graphing. 31
Other key questions to ask 1. What technologies will be needed? Now and in the future? 2. What are the core functions or features? 3. Can we build the capabilities internally or do we need to partner with other experts? 4. If we partner, what should we be looking for? 5. What skills does our staff need to learn to respond to the community and to keep things running smoothly? 6. How will we protect our intellectual property rights? 7. How will we protect the identities of our members? 8. What are the risks associated? How will we escalate problems internally? 9. What are the associated costs (fixed/soft/ongoing)?how will we balance cost against potential income? 10. How will we improve over time? What are the key milestones?
Summary of Social Media Strategy Join Listen Engage Add value Connect Marketing leads are manually transferred to sales via a Country leader Leads contain prospect s name and contact info. Leads are several weeks old by they time they get to a sales rep Marketing does not track how many leads are converted. 33
Summary: how to make social media successful Join the conversation Learn about the tools Invite others to join Get top management to support the effort. Get them to lead by example. Make it easy for others to particiapte by incorporating it into their daily jobs. Encourage participation by providing feedback and recognition. Target a critical mass of people who can benefit from the collaboration. Maintain the right balance between freedom and control.
Questions? Contact : Darcy Bevelacqua Success Works 917 520-0261 darcybeve@yahoo.com http:www.linkedin.com/in/darcybev http://twitter.com/darcybev http:www.facebook.com/darcybev
Why Success Works? Company Consulting with a focus on multi-channel customer knowledge Experienced with CRM technology, process and people Results focused: manage projects on time and on budget Partnerships with key vendors and ad agencies People Experienced professionals with 20 + years helping clients plan, implement and manage projects that drive strategic value. Professionals with Big 4 consulting experience, agency, vendor and client side experience. Extended network of professionals on call Values Provide exceptional client service and results. Use experienced personnel to bring best practices and encourage rapid innovation. Cost effective: pay only for the resources you need. No overhead. Agility: ability to expand and contract quickly to meet client needs. 17
Range of industries Media and publishing Internet service providers Fashion and retail Professional services Hospitality, travel Financial services Insurance Telecom Consumer packaged goods Technology Health Care Non-profit Sample of our clients Direct marketing 37