JitterJam® Social CRM

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

We’ve talked a lot about the strategy and implementation of social media and social marketing. Different types of businesses can have different goals, approaches and strategies for social marketing, and this series of discussions center round how different vertical markets and businesses can use social marketing to their best advantage.

The second discussion in this series focuses on Social Marketing for Non-Profits. Non-Profit organizations have many different challenges. From regulation to resources, lack of awareness to lack of marketing budget, non-profits are constrained in many ways. How can social marketing change the fortunes of non-profit organizations? How can they use social marketing to spread the word? How can they find the time and resources to engage with their community over social channels? How can they leverage their relationships to enable more effective communications? How does social marketing fit into their marketing mix?

Here are the ideas sparked by our discussion.

1. Non-profit organizations are all about engaging their community.
• Social media is an extension of “community.” Non-profits are already focused on serving their community. Social media extends that community—and the reach—of a non-profit organization.
• The community may be greater than the membership of an NPO. For example, an environmentally focused NPO (e.g. Sailors for the Sea) may appeal not only to the direct membership (people who have access to waterways), but to all people who are concerned about the environment (people who are concerned about the health of our oceans and waterways). The greater community of people concerned about the environment are potential members—not just the direct community of the focused organization.
2. NPOs can leverage one another.
• Peer organizations, vendor, service providers and other associated companies and organizations can leverage one another and share in the development of the common associations and communities where they intersect.
3. Time is not on their side.
• Like all organizations, resources are always in demand. With NPOs, resources are even more limited. How can they find the right mix of social activity? What’s the right mix? What kind of presence does an NPO want to have on social networks?
• One thing is certain. If an organization becomes active on social networks, they must continue to be active. Abandoning a social presence can quickly turn off current and potential customers and community members.
• Scale and reach are enhanced by social networks. NPOs can reach more people with less resources, so the investment IS worth it.
4. Thought leadership and content curation are cornerstones to social engagement for NPOs.
• NPOs are often the “go to” organizations for consumers looking for information about their area of expertise.
• Sharing information, links and data, making personal connections with those seeking guidance and information…these activities that were traditionally done in person are now leveraged across social networks.
• Finding the right content that resonates with your community is key.
5. Hub and spoke.
• Influencers are very important to organizations trying to reach a wider audience.
• E.g. in reaching a youth audience, the message is much more powerful coming from peers than from the organization. By identifying and working with peer influencers, the NPO becomes the hub and each influencer becomes a spoke.
6. Using social media for data analytics.
• While social media is about consumer engagement, it can also be a driving force for the NPO to become a data analytics driven organization.
• Analyze the data to do business development, marketing strategy, build broader capabilities within the organization
• Optimize, analyze, strategize the data that is available.
• Cull through the raw data to facilitiate the 3 major business goals: membership, fund raising, awareness building.
7. Community partnerships between NPOs and corporations are a win-win.
• Sharing success: Both parties benefit from the association and alliance.
• Corporations public image are enhanced by the community focus.
• NPOs can leverage corporate resources, analysis and insights and share them in concert.
• Corporations can share in the trust built between the NPO and the community.

 
As you can see, lots of great ideas and thoughts come out during our Creativity Coffee sessions. Our current series of discussions center around different vertical markets and how each can adopt and benefit from social marketing. Won’t you join us in the discussion? It’s free, and you can dial in if you can’t join us here in Bedford, NH!

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

We’ve talked a lot about the strategy and implementation of social media and social marketing. Different types of businesses can have different goals, approaches and strategies for social marketing, and this series of discussions center round how different vertical markets and businesses can use social marketing to their best advantage.

The first discussion in this series focuses on Social Marketing for Restaurants. From local favorites to national chains, restaurants are harnessing the power of social media to get the word out about their unique value. From Yelp to Facebook, Twitter to Foursquare, Flickr and beyond, how can restaurants best utilize the vast opportunities of social sharing to prosper? How does social marketing fit into the restaurant’s mix?

Here are the ideas sparked by our discussion.

1. Restaurants are already focused on their local communities. Social is a natural exension.
• Local establishments thrive on engaging their local community, and social media is an extension of that established outreach. If a business has a culture of being a contributing member of its local community, then their move into social is a natural extension of their current activities.
• The community activities of a restaurant can be easily shared—and fostered—via social channels. A restaurant’s associations, charitable works, events and more should be shared socially. People connect with businesses on many levels, and knowing that a local business is giving back to the community that supports it…that helps people connect to the business on a much deeper level and fosters greater customer loyalty. Social is also a great way for a local business to announce and promote their local causes.
2. How can social media help a restaurant thrive and grow?
• Reaching new markets. Social media can help a restaurant reach a different target market. For instance, a fine dining restaurant that has traditionally drawn an older clientele can start using social media to reach a younger generation of diners.
• Drawing consumer mind share. Regular and engaging content via social channels enables an establishment to continue to remind its customers of what it has to offer. Regular brand impressions (including enticing new menus, specials, seasonal food, etc.) will keep a restaurant’s customers interested and prompt them to dine with the establishment more often.
• Social discovery. One core value of social channels is brand growth through “organic” sharing. Restaurants shouldn’t limit their social chatter to information about themselves. They should curate and share information, recipes, food knowledge, local events and more and share information they find through their social channels (e.g. retweet).
• Direct customer feedback & engagement. Interacting with customers directly enables a restaurant to elicit direct feedback from visitors and draw “fans” in closer to the brand. If there’s a negative feedback situation, restaurants can attempt to turn a negative experience into a positive customer service experience, and, perhaps, change an unhappy customer into a rabid advocate. Most consumers will respond to an attempt by the restaurant to make amends for a bad experience. The key is for the restaurant to not only respond to directed comments (e.g. phone call, email, Twitter DM) but also publicly shared comments on social channels.
3. On which social channels should restaurants concentrate their efforts?
• Facebook. Having a fan page is a great way for restaurants to start actively engaging their current customers. Facebook enables rich content sharing by both the restaurant and its fans and viral sharing simply by showing up in their fans’ news streams.
• Twitter. Twitter enables restaurants to search for and engage individuals by location, by profile information and by their social conversations. Finding and following new people who are talking about restaurants, food, wine and dining in a local area enables the restaurant to “lightly” touch new contacts and make them aware of the restaurant. If the contact follows back…that’s the first step towards a happy customer!
• Yelp, Trip Advisor and other travel/review sites. Yelp provides restaurants with a way to both connect with diners and to provide diners with incentives to visit their establishment. Trip Advisor Some restaurant owners are concerned that competitors might try to “play” the system and post negative comments about their establishments. Others are concerned that some of these sites try to extract advertising dollars in exchange for removing negative comments. However, many sites enable restaurants to curate relationship with diners.
• FourSquare, Gowalla and other location-based services. Location-based services enable restaurants to incent people to visit (e.g. reserved table or parking space for the Mayor, Ben & Jerry’s 3 scoops for $3 for checking in) but also allow the restaurant to interact with the customer when they are on the premises.
4. How should a restaurant integrate social into their marketing mix?
• Create a strategy. Integrate social into your overall marketing strategy. Define your goals and measurement for social media just as you would for your other channels. Since social media is an ever changing “moving target,” make sure you leave room to review, refine and experiment your approach and tactics as you learn.
• Cross-pollinate. Make sure to provide links to your social accounts through your email marketing newsletters, on menus, on signage, on the restaurant’s website, on advertising, etc. Make sure that you can enable customers to immediately connect with you through social channels while their on your property (posted connections via text, email, Twitter and Facebook links, etc.). Cross-pollinate your channels by announcing your email marketing newsletters, events, new menus, etc. on your social channels.
• Make it fun. Social channels enable you to engage with customers on a more informal basis. Use humor, share fun photos (and let your customers share their own), create fun contests and more creative methods to allow people to engage with you on a personal level.
• Plan for it and staff it. If you decide to engage in social marketing, make sure that you plan for the resources necessary to manage the effort. Social consumers don’t like being abandoned, and doing so will turn these current and potential customers off. Your social presence and image should mirror the experience of your restaurant.

 
As you can see, lots of great ideas and thoughts come out during our Creativity Coffee sessions. Our current series of discussions center around different vertical markets and how each can adopt and benefit from social marketing. Won’t you join us in the discussion? It’s free, and you can dial in if you can’t join us here in Bedford, NH!
 
Photo Credit: Mattox

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

The eighth (and final) use case in this series of discussions is Community Development. In our prior discussions, we talked about how social media opens the door not just for “media impressions” (aka Building Brand Awareness) but direct engagement with consumers. In this discussion, we talked about the new “community.” In the past, a brand’s direct consumer engagement was either initiated by the consumer, required the business to create their own hosted community, or was held behind closed doors (e.g. focus group). Community Development was focused on brand-hosted, closed communities that were only focused on the brand’s products and were often centered around customer support.

Today’s social networks are enabling organic and user-generated virtual communities to flourish. The word “community” may just mean a common thread amongst individuals—a conversation, a linkage, or an organic group like a Twitter list—and thus much harder for brands to identify, participate in and benefit from. How can they find these communities? What are the ways that they can engage consumers within those communities? What are the rules of engagement?

Here are the ideas sparked from the discussion.

1. How have communities evolved?
• Communities used to be focused on formal organizations on a local and national level. Before online communities existed, organizations formed on a local (and eventually grew to a national) level to bring people of like minds and interests together. The goal was to promote networking, education, and common interests and commerce. Trade organizations were the most prevalent, but interest-based organizations of all kinds formed.
• The online world expanded the breadth of interest-based communities. The online world enabled communities of all kinds to form and for people from all over the globe to participate on a local, national and global basis. “Community” no longer pertained to professional or trade organizations; community could now be people with common interests connecting with one another.
• Social networks have changed the notion of community. New, organic communities with both loose and tight ties have formed due to the growing prevalence of social networks. People are finding others with the same interests just through the content and conversations they share and post, and brands have the same opportunity to search for, find and engage these organic communities as a member of those communities.
2. How do businesses find these “organic” communities?
• It starts with search. Example: A dog food company looking for Dachshund owners for their special Dachshund food. The company can do a search (e.g. Twitter search, Google search) on the word “Dachshund” and start to evaluate the shared content, the crowd, the degrees of engagement, and the links and figure out where and how to start engaging the community.
• Many communities are very loosely organized. The threads of an online community may just be conversations. The definition of social community may just be people who share the same interests. That community may be linked by a single conversation, and the community might grow, change and even appear or disappear based upon current conversations. However, a brand can pick any point in time and find those community members with that common interest or thread and start following that thread for the people participating in the conversation, linked to the people talking, looking at blogs/websites/content that show a common interest, etc. These are the threads that bind these organic communities and a way for brands to find those who are participating.
3. Why do people seek online communities?
• Affinity. Finding others with a common interest to share common experiences. Finding people like you.
• Support. Finding information, answers, solutions or just comfort and assistance from others who have experienced the same situation, have the same problem (e.g. Intervertebral Disc Disorder in Dachshunds, repair diagnosis and parts for a vintage Mercedes).
• Information. Share or gain information on a specific subject or topic of interest.
• Ego. “I become the expert. People look to me as an authority.”
• Personal satisfaction. There’s an interest in contributing in a community for personal satisfaction; giving back to others; making connections with people; bridging a knowledge gap. Of course, even though a person is a member of a community, there are levels of engagement like the levels described in Charlene Li’s Book Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead (illustration to the right).
4. What are the “Golden Rules” for any business joining online communities?
• Contribute. Organic online communities are about common interests. Contribute to those communities with genuine, valuable insight, content and comments. Don’t let your membership in that community be about YOU.
• Be unselfish. Share information. Share experiences. Share content.
• ROI should not be your immediate goal. ROI should not be an immediate goal. Join the community without that expectation.
• Be genuine. People with passion about the subject matter should be driving the community membership. Fake interest in a community will show through. Be genuine and real.
• Be appropriate. Show that you GET the consumer.
• Build trust. Your participation in that community is the first step to building a trusted relationship with these new contacts. Once you start tooting your commercial horn, you can easily destroy that trust.
5. Online communities are not ALWAYS the answer.
• Online fallacy. Note that a brand can’t make the assumption that their community is online. The community is out there…just not always online and on social networks! It’s very market dependent.
• B2B vs. B2C communities. There’s a significant difference (e.g. HVAC business vs. Dachshund owners). What’s clear is that the people who join communities are generally passionate about the subject or interest, but that passion and level of engagement vary in intensity. There are also natural leaders that emerge…the influencers in a group.

 
As you can see, lots of great ideas and thoughts come out during our Creativity Coffee sessions. Our next series of discussions will center around different vertical markets and how each can adopt and benefit from social marketing. Won’t you join us in the discussion?
 
Photo Credit: biewoef

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

The seventh use case in our series is Product Development & Innovation. In our prior discussions, we talked about how social media opens the door not just for “media impressions” (aka Building Brand Awareness) but direct engagement with consumers. In this discussion, we talked about one of the advantages of this direct engagement—the ability for brands to generate new product and enhancement ideas from their customers. Listening to customer feedback AND engaging consumers to provide ideas and input to future product features and offerings—even crowdsourcing to develop or vote upon new product ideas—enables consumers to participate in the product launch process and enables brands to get early feedback and develop early advocacy from these engaged consumers. Here are the ideas sparked from the discussion.

1. Consumer beverage example.
• Through their product monitoring, they took a look at the brand mentions of the consumer beverage brand and the keywords that people used to describe their product experience. The keyword that kept coming up was “Protein.”
• They stuck the word “Protein” on the label and sales went up.
• Listening to consumer chatter to learn what consumers perceived was the value of the product helped the brand to tap into a new market need. What happened here wasn’t a product innovation per se, but a marketing shift to meet the perceived market need. The MARKET identified the value proposition, and the marketer tapped into that value prop through monitoring social media.
2. Avoiding the “marketing effect.”
• Companies have historically turned to focus groups and surveys to get product ideas and feedback. However, being a part of a focus group or a survey has a conscious or unconscious impact on a subject’s answers and opinions. Controlled studies can provide valuable insight, but the “marketing effect” of these controlled environments may skew the results in a way that could skew the results favorably/unfavorably from true consumer opinion. In addition, people often self-select for focus groups; they WANT to provide strong opinions, and those opinions may not be representative of the general population.
• Social media allows brands to “listen” to the “true utterances” of consumers, unguided by their own questions or biases. By monitoring social channels, brands can see consumer’s spontaneous or unguided opinions and experiences about their products.
• However, are social consumers representative of the customer base as a whole? Does a company make a decision based upon just the social voices? Is the social consumer a target SEGMENT or representative of the customer base? How does the demographic of the target customer map to the demographic of the social consumer? Do they intersect? If you’re using social media to drive product innovation, does that feedback represent the entire buying public? These questions need serious discussion and evaluation to determine the fit between social feedback and overall market evaluation.
3. How are brands using social media for product development?
• Not many companies are doing it. We’re still in the early stages of this kind of brand monitoring and the integration of those results into product research.
• Gatorade’s Social Media “Mission Control” and Dell’s IdeaStorm are exceptions.
4. Product Development Use Cases.
• Listening for Feedback.Listening for feedback is the first step. Start listening for what people are talking about, how people are using our product, how they perceive the value of the product, what messages and keywords are buzzing (e.g. “Protein” in conjunction with a beverage).
• Marketing Messaging.Shift product messaging to match consumer preferences, discussions and use cases.
• Crowdsourcing.Get people to drive the design and specifics of a new product. Or even pre-pay for a new product based upon crowdsourced designs. Utilize crowdsourcing to vote for a favorite (e.g. Mountain Dew flavors).
5. What kind of consumer companies can benefit from these use cases?
• Airlines.Southwest was not charging for passenger luggage when the trend from the other major airlines was to begin charging for bags. “Bags Fly Free” shifted their marketing message (rather than policy) and turned into a huge consumer value proposition.
• Dominos/Food Service.Took consumer comments (e.g. “tastes like cardboard) and created an ad campaign to combat those misconceptions. Additionally, Dominos used a potentially damaging PR incident and launched their social campaigns to combat the potential PR headache. Their public transparency helped save the brand’s image.
• Everyone.Individual consumers have a voice today. One conversation can drive a brand’s message, and a brand can take a potentially damaging, negative comment and turn it into something hugely positive. (e.g. Wheat Thins “Crunch is Calling” takes tweets and drops a huge load of product in front of the consumer who tweeted)
6. How does the “social innovation” process happen in a company? How do companies develop the right processes to handle this innovation?
• Someone (usually a stake holder) within a company needs to see the value of this kind of new media “experiment” and prove its value.
• A company’s internal culture and processes have a deep impact on whether social innovation can occur within a company. Is the company receptive to new ideas? How do they process and internalize product feedback? Do they continually try to drive innovation?
• Lots of companies believe that social marketing = having a Twitter account or a Facebook fan page. There’s SO much more to it.
• Ease of implementation has a significant impact on social innovation. Southwest’s “Bags Fly Free” was a marketing campaign. It required no business process change. Mountain Dew’s flavor crowdsourcing was a huge campaign that impacted packaging, bottling, shelf space, media, etc. However, innovation can also come from within (Subway Five Dollar Footlong came from a single store).

 
As you can see, lots of great ideas and thoughts come out during our Creativity Coffee sessions. Won’t you join us in the discussion?
 
Photo Credit: 123dan321

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

In our past discussions, we have talked about how individual initiatives are the genesis of the use of social media / social marketing within a business or a brand, and that these initiatives are usually driven by a single purpose—a use case. The sixth use case in our Creativity Coffee series, Measuring Buzz and Sentiment, focuses on the “first steps” that many brands and businesses take when engaging in the social realm—listening for brand chatter and measuring the sentiment of that chatter.

In a prior discussion, we talked about how social media opens the door not just for “media impressions” (aka Building Brand Awareness) but direct engagement with consumers. However, many brands cannot close the loop between social engagement and retail sales (e.g. soft drinks) and media impressions are key towards understanding the ROI of their overall marketing campaigns. Many brands monitor social media and measure buzz and sentiment as metrics for their messaging through other media. Others monitor buzz and sentiment to ensure that they can act upon any negative trend or incident. In this Creativity Coffee, we discussed how brands are using the data they collect when monitoring social conversations and tackled issues around who SHOULD be monitoring their brand. Here are the ideas that sparked from the discussion.

1. Larger companies are already monitoring sentiment and brand awareness/buzz.
• Brands have traditionally used customer surveys to understand customer brand sentiment.
• Larger companies are often more comfortable doing surveys and keeping results private.
• But public brand chatter, including positive and negative comments, are going on regardless of whether the brand is listening and monitoring social conversations.
2. If a brand is monitoring buzz and sentiment, what should they be doing with this data?
• Evaluate whether their overall messaging (transmitted through social and other media) is taking hold
• Over time, see how the brand’s campaigns are impacting buzz and sentiment (more positive, more chatter, etc.)
• Risk mitigation: Identify a crisis threat/situation and identify key influencers to help change the sentiment or address the issue
• Use information (comments and ideas) for product development and improvement (that’s next week’s Creativity Coffee topic!)
• Identify areas for improvement (quality control red flags)
• Identify key influencers to help promote the brand
3. What is an influencer for a brand?
• There aren’t that many influencers for a brand; usually less than a dozen people are true brand influencers
• Buzz and sentiment for social media is driven by the 98/2 rule–the top 2% are going to have influence over a vast social circle
• Brands who engage and develop relationships with consumer advocates enable their message and brand goodwill to be propagated in an organic, natural manner in the consumer’s own voice; it carries much more weight than a brand-initiated message with other consumers
4. Is there a line where a business is too small to be monitoring buzz/sentiment?
• A mom & pop store…does it make sense for them to be monitoring social networks for buzz/sentiment?
• What is the tipping point for size of community and business that makes measuring buzz, trends, sentiment worthwhile?
• Quantity of conversation going on about a brand drives whether they should monitor and measure the buzz and sentiment.
• Even if a brand or company is below that ‘line of demarcation,’ they might want to measure brand buzz as a baseline for future growth.
• If a brand isn’t monitoring, they won’t know IF their brand spikes in social buzz. Also, you never know when a conversation is going to erupt; it may not be specifically about YOU, but it could impact you in some way (competitor, market, etc.)
5. A company SHOULD monitor its brand regardless of the technology.
• In a small business, someone in the company usually needs to “love technology” even for a minimal amount of monitoring to happen. But it’s easy to have even basic brand monitoring (e.g. Google Alerts).
6. Progression of social monitoring.
• No monitoring. Lots of businesses aren’t monitoring for social chatter about their brands. Why? Many are consciously or subconsciously afraid of getting ‘bad news.’ Company culture and methods may also prevent them from adopting new media and technologies.
• Data as reality. Businesses may think they know the cause of a specific result, but by mining data versus using intuition they can learn the real cause for an effect. But the brand must be willing to act upon that data (even if it’s not what they want to hear). E.g. Supermarket scanner data. After scanner data was available, the more forward-thinking food companies used that data to get an advantage–picking the “right” shelf space to drive more sales, stocking product by market, etc. That’s one huge benefit of social media–getting more data about consumer response and using that data to get a huge competitive advantage.
7. Consumer perception IS reality.
• What consumers perceive about a brand (versus the brand’s message) IS the brand’s reality. The whole idea that the brand has control over the consumer’s perception and conversation is an antiquated idea but deeply rooted in traditional business and media.
• But brands need to be careful. The vocal social person may not be representative of the brand’s majority of customers. They just might be the most vocal (squeaky wheel) but may drive the brand to make the wrong decisions overall.

Are you monitoring buzz and sentiment about your brand? How do you act upon that information? Let us know and join the conversation!

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

In our past discussions, we have talked about how individual initiatives are the genesis of the use of social media / social marketing within a business or a brand, and that these initiatives are usually driven by a single purpose—a use case. The fifth use case in our Creativity Coffee series, Sales Promotions, focuses on how businesses can derive direct revenue from their use of social marketing.

Recent studies have shown that almost 40% of people connect with brands over social channels because they want to receive offers and discounts. But another recent study stated that people DISCONNECT from brands because of over-posting or irrelevant content.

Brands want to see ROI in their social marketing efforts, and one of the core ways for them to directly associate revenue and profitability to social marketing is through sales promotions. Dell Outlet is one of the key success stories along that line; they have a Twitter account dedicated just to selling discounted merchandise. But how can the brand take advantage of engagement with consumers for Sales Promotions? What are the rules of engagement? How much is “just right?” What are the best practices? Here are the ideas sparked during our Creativity Coffee.

1. How much is too much?
• Example: An outdoor products retailer is sending out email marketing newsletters EVERY DAY or TWO. They are not segmenting the list by interest, they are not providing special promotions other than through email marketing, and their promotions are similar each time (usually 20% off). While people are more forgiving of promotional emails around the holiday season (they are LOOKING for deals), how long will it take the average consumer to disengage and unsubscribe? If this retailer were doing the same thing on social channels, how much LESS tolerance would a consumer have to this barrage of deals?
• Brand exclusivity often drives how contacts perceive a promotion. Designer brands may erode their brand status by offering discounts too often; but when they do, many people will probably jump at the chance of getting 20% off of current season items.
• Predictability may erode a brand’s revenue stream. If a retailer provides discounted offers too often, consumers may just wait for deals before purchasing rather than looking for every day value a retailer.
2. Unless the social account is JUST for deals/promotions, there should be a healthy mix of content and promotions.
• People come for community, stay for content!
• While people are looking for deals when they connect to a brand, great content that pertains to the brand’s target audience will help the consumer engage with the brand on levels higher than just “give me a coupon.”
• Brands that ONLY provide promotions through their social channels will miss the opportunity to learn more about their customers, engage them further and develop those customers into brand advocates.
• Social channels may be the lead to a consumer opt-in to sales promotions, but they may not be the PREFERRED channel for the delivery of those promotions. Savvy marketers will enable delivery of promotions on multiple channels and let the consumer drive their preferences and the rules of engagement.
3. Frequency of communication varies by social channel.
• Twitter updates can fly by, and a consumer may see an occasional Tweet. Multiple promotions may or may not be noticed and may or may not “annoy” followers.
• Frequent Facebook updates, however, may have a greater annoyance factor especially if a contact doesn’t have a huge volume of communications from their contacts. The brand’s status updates may stay on the consumer’s news feed, and too many promotions (or even too many updates) may cause the consumer to disconnect from the brand.
4. Should the brand offer “exclusive” deals through each channel (or to drive more people to a desired channel)?
• That depends on the brand’s goals for each channel.
• IF a brand decides to offer “exclusive” promotions on a particular channel, they better make sure that they follow through and make the deals worth the consumer’s engagement on that channel!
5. Value of social channels to brands = the database!
• Example: Pepsi Refresh campaign. Tons of people signed up to support different causes…and Pepsi built a huge database. What now? How are they going to use this information? Where’s the ROI?
• The database can lead to distinct, attributable ROI for social marketing. Deal distribution, tracking by channel and by person, offer redemption in the retail channel and direct ROI. This is happening today!
• The database can also provide media impression data. ROI for traditional marketing/advertising used to be about media impressions and ROI based upon sales volume for a period during/after a campaign. With social, there’s a greater ability to measure the direct and residual impressions (through social sharing) in a traditional light AND measure sales promotion redemption as well.

Intrigued? Would you like to join the discussion? Our next Creativity Coffee will be focused on The Use Case for Measuring Buzz and Brand Sentiment. We hope you’ll join us!

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

In our past discussions, we have talked about how individual initiatives are the genesis of the use of social media / social marketing within a business or a brand, and that these initiatives are usually driven by a single purpose—a use case. The fourth use case in our Creativity Coffee series, Direct Customer Engagement and Feedback, focuses on how businesses can take advantage of the open nature of social media and have unprecedented direct access to customers and prospects.

One of the core opportunities for brands and businesses to utilize social marketing is to engage directly with their current and potential customers. While brand awareness is a first step in a business’ social marketing value chain, the ability to directly connect with a consumer to draw them closer gives the brand the opportunity to drive consumer advocacy, engagement and feedback. How are brands achieving this today? What are the best-practices they need to use to ensure positive consumer response? Here are the ideas sparked during our Creativity Coffee.

1. Businesses can take full advantage of social media channels by enabling engagement by type of consumer.
• Finding and publishing meaningful content for social sharing that will engage consumers can be a daunting task. What kind of content are people looking for? What are the best practices in engaging people socially?
• Altimeter Group published an “Engagement Pyramid” and accompanying tactics for marketing to different social consumers in the marketplace. They hypothesize that in social networks, 90% of people are Audience members, 9% are Editors (create content), and 1% are Curators (heavily involved in online communities). Their recommendations for engaging people at all the levels of the pyramid are included in the SlideShare document below.
2. Should social marketing carry over the brand’s marketing messaging to its social voice? Will this be “engaging” to consumers?
• Your social voice should be your brand’s voice (reflecting brand identity, values), but on a personal level. A social voice should be just that…social (rather than just messaging/promotion oriented).
• The social voice, and the content and communications that are published socially, should reflect the “pillars of the brand” (the company’s/brand’s values) as well as the topics and flow of conversation by people using the brand’s products. For instance, an organic food product’s social voice should include content and comments about the organic lifestyle, organic recipes, sustainable farming, and other “key pillars” and topics that support the brand’s identity. This kind of content will attract the “audience” that’s most likely to buy the brand’s products and create an opening for “Watchers” to become “Sharers” and even “Commenters” (in Altimeter’s terms).
• The social content shared by the brand should enable target customers to identify and develop brand affinity and advocacy. Even brands with “commodity” products (e.g. gasoline) can engage with consumers based upon their brand’s “pillars”; for instance, an oil company can engage with consumers about conservation, ecology, etc. Just make sure that the social voice is a true reflection of corporate values…social consumers want to see authenticity in the brand’s social voice.
3. The depth of a consumer’s social engagement with a brand is closely tied with brand affinity, the brand’s social activity, and the trust built between the brand and the consumer.
• People buy from the brands they like, use, admire. If they find those brands on the social web, it’s an opportunity for the brand to get closer to the consumer.
• When engaging consumers that may not have a relationship with the brand, a business should use a light touch first and then let the consumer set the pace of engagement and communications. For instance, a brand can comment on a consumer’s Twitter status update and follow that person. If the consumer follows back and even sends a comment back, it’s a great first step. Brands shouldn’t try to sell at first touch; they should let the consumer investigate the brand; just following that person will introduce the brand to the consumer.
• Most brands look towards driving new contacts to their website; social media (and content sharing)helps people “find” the brand, and the website enables the brand to explain what benefits they offer to the consumer. Make sure that the website is clear, provides great conten and value, and supports the brand’s social identity. Make sure links from the brand’s social pages (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) are directed towards appropriate pages on the brand’s website.
4. Asking for permission to market is the best way to ensure that you don’t overstep your boundaries with the consumer.
• Strictly adhering to the communication preferences of the consumer helps you keep that consumer engaged and helps you develop trust with that consumer.
• The “ask” should NOT be done at first touch; however, asking at various junctures on the brand’s website, Facebook page, on landing pages, etc. is desirable and acceptable.
• Remember: Date first before thinking of marriage!
5. How does a brand place value on consumer “engagement?”
• There’s pressure from “corporate” to have measurable, tangible results from social engagement. In fact, some within corporate leadership still don’t see the value and are afraid of seeing the negative comments that are being posted about them. Remember that the comments are happening whether or not your company is listening; social engagement is an opportunity to receive feedback from customers and to urn negative consumer experiences into positive outcomes. But you can’t do that if you’re not listening to and engaging with social consumers.
• The value can be measured like other media–impressions, clicks, and even commerce. The use cases are there…but the business needs to commit to moving forward with social marketing in order to prove the value.

How are you engaging with consumers? What is/are your use case(s) for social marketing? What value has it brought to your company? We’d love to hear from you!

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

In our past discussions, we have talked about how individual initiatives are the genesis of the use of social media / social marketing within a business or a brand, and that these initiatives are usually driven by a single purpose—a use case. We identified a number of use cases that drive ownership and implementation of social marketing within a business. The third use case in our Creativity Coffee series, Customer Service, focuses on how businesses can utilize social networks to improve the customer service experience for consumers.

Comcast’s @comcastcares is the “poster child” for the successful use of social networks to provide customer service. Frank Eliason (@FrankEliason), who has since moved on to Citi, led a team of 17 people to provide customer care over Twitter. While some companies have followed suit, others are reluctant to provide “public” customer service. What’s clear from today’s Idea Spark Creativity Coffee discussion is that regardless of whether companies address brand issues and sentiment publicly, people will talk. So what should companies do—and expect—from customer service as a use case for social marketing? Here are the ideas and points from our discussion.

1. There are three core customer service opportunities.
• Reactive: Response to a direct customer complaint, comment or inquiry. For instance, a customer sends @ComcastCares a message stating, “I can’t figure out how to work this new interactive guide on my DVR.” @ComcastCares responds with a link to their online user guide.
• Proctive: Engaging a customer who has posted a complaint, question or comment about the company, brand or product on the real-time web. For instance, if a consumer Tweets, “I can’t figure out how to work this new Comcast interactive guide on my DVR.” While the remark wasn’t directed at the Comcast customer service group, they respond with an @ message to the consumer with the same link. This proactive approach shows the consumer that they are keenly interested in ensuring a positive user experience.
• Progressive: Engaging a consumer who is is having issues finding a solution to a problem or even having a problem with a competitor’s product and engaging them with the brand. For instance, a consumer Tweets “I can’t get more than 1Mbps of speed on my DSL.” @ComcastCares could respond with, “We’d love to help you solve your issue. What’s your zip code? Perhaps we have a better solution.” This could be a Sales or a Customer Care function.
2. The main barriers for companies to enact socially-focused customer care are fear and “lack” of resources.
• Fear. Fear of “airing dirty laundry” in public could be a significant barrier for a company or brand to enact real-time customer service. However, remember that consumers are going to talk about your brand regardless of whether you are listening and responding to those comments. Wouldn’t you rather have the opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one?
• Resources and Planning. Taking a reasoned approach to providing customer service via social networks takes some planning and coordination. How many hours a day will be covered? Who is responsible for coverage? Do those people cover social networks exclusively? Does this effort require additional resources, or can the business start with existing personnel? How does this overlap with sales/marketing? These questions are asked and answers for other customer service channels and should be addressed for social as well. Current escalation procedures, PLUS procedures for escalating critical public issues, should be known and in place.
3. Customer service is a form of Marketing.
• How does thinking of customer service as a Marketing function change the scope of the role of customer service for your brand?
• There is a huge opportunity for brands to enhance their relationships with their customers and develop advocacy through customer service. Comcast was able to change public perception of their brand through the positive public customer service experience. No all problems CAN be solved to a customer’s satisfaction; but the willingness of a brand to show they care about the customer’s experience is half the battle.
4. What can brands do to offer live social customer service?
• Test the waters. It’s more than likely that brands that are socially active are already fielding customer service questions and issues through their social accounts. Brands can begin by actively listening for customer needs, questions, issues, etc. and involving the customer service organization as part of the social marketing process. Those key individuals can be tasked with responding (in a timely manner) to the real-time customer inquiry and problem resolution. There needs to be a mechanism in place for coordination and assignment of social conversations and responses to make this a viable first step.
• Measure value. How does this shift in activity improve customer satisfaction? How has call/email volume decreased since enacting real-time customer service? Has the sentiment about the brand improved? Make sure that you have Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to measure the effectiveness of the effort. But also make sure that you give the effort enough time TO have an effect.
• Pick the right people. Make sure that you select the right people to provide this type of support. The people chosen should be well-versed in social media as well as your brand/product. The make-up of your work force can drive or kill the opportunity. choose wisely!
• Dedicate. Brands who have successfully tested the waters can take the next step—dedicating resources (personnel, procedures, social accounts) to customer service. But don’t forget that it’s just one avenue for customers to connect with the brand and have issues resolved. Don’t lose sight of the overall value of customer service and satisfaction.
• Be first. Brands that take this step to provide real-time service set the bar for their competitors. They are seen as forward-thinking leaders rather than playing catch-up. Being first in a brand category provides significant competitive advantage (press coverage, brand buzz, etc).
• Crowdsource. Part of the advantage of “public” customer service over social networks is the ability to crowdsource. Publishing useful information and great content to support the customer experience is a great way to have your customers spread the word through their own personal social networks. It’s a mind shift away from traditional customer service towards the development of a customer community. Your customers can help others, and you can point your customers to the community as a resource.

 
Customer service is never an “easy” function, and selling social media as a channel for customer service may be difficult in your organization. While saving money may be one goal, make sure you also think about customer satisfaction (and extending customer lifetime value), retention, developing advocacy and community, reducing the cost of customer acquisition, crowdsourcing and other benefits of good customer service (and good marketing) when pitching a plan to your company. And don’t forget that ALL your employees are your brand ambassadors. Even though they may be home and surfing through Facebook, it’s likely that they are still “on the clock” when it comes to advocating your brand or company. Customer service is every employee’s responsibility, whatever their job.
 
Has your company or brand engaged in real-time customer service? How has the experience changed your company?
 
Photo Credit: thadz

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

In our past discussions, we have talked about how individual initiatives are the genesis of the use of social media / social marketing within a business or a brand, and that these initiatives are usually driven by a single purpose—a use case. We identified a number of use cases hat drive ownership and implementation of social marketing within a business. Our last Creativity Coffee topic—Using Social Marketing for Lead Generation—was the first in a series of roundtable discussions focusing on use cases. We talked about how Lead Generation is a very B2B (or high-ticket B2C) concept that centers around having a sales force or team, and how companies can utilize social marketing to accomplish this task.

This week’s discussion centers around Building Brand Awareness. Many companies jumping on the social marketing bandwagon are doing so with the goal to build brand awareness. From local businesses to multi-national brands, social marketing can provide new ways for the brand to get closer to their current customers and to reach new consumers otherwise unaware of or disengaged from their business. Today’s discussion surrounded how businesses go about developing brand awareness with social marketing. Here are the ideas sparked during our discussion.

1. The initial Brand Awareness use case is to get out there!
• Many brands just jump in with a Twitter account and a Facebook page. But without some sort of ongoing commitment, policies and goals, the accounts become dormant and whatever effort was put into the accounts turn into negative impressions. It’s estimated that only 25% of brands with Twitter accounts are active!
• Some brands who haven’t jumped in may be suffering from analysis/paralysis—the need to get every policy and procedure in place before embarking on social marketing. Policies NEED to be in place; you don’t want employees representing your company or brand’s voice in an unfavorable way; but you also need to not let fear keep you from getting engaged in social marketing.
2. Brand awareness, impressions and mentions are used as core metrics.
• Brand awareness is a metric that has grown out of traditional media and has been applied to new/digital media. Brand impressions are a key metric and is usually equated to predicted sales based upon prior campaign performance. For example, X media will provide Y impressions and will generate (on average) Z sales.
• Companies use brand mentions on social networks as a core metric not only for measuring social media but general brand awareness. Counting brand mentions over time shows how much buzz there is about a brand and how that buzz changes over time, correlates with other media buys, etc.
• Brand mentions are often used to see how new messaging has spread through the social public. For instance, brands may track how many people have been using their old messaging to discuss or describe their product, how many are using the new messaging and how the conversation shifts over time.
• In some cases, agencies are driving these metrics as part of their overall branding strategy for a company. But are agencies prohibiting companies from doing more? Traditional agencies AND their brand customers know and rely upon standard metrics; how can they move towards using new media metrics to show value? And SHOULD they manage their clients’ social “voice;” does it matter to consumers that an agency is the “man behind the curtain” for a brand’s social account? Food for thought.
3. The use case for Building Brand Awareness = Consumer Engagement.
• Social marketing should be about engaging people; the ‘awareness’ starts with that initial light touch; for instance, following someone on Twitter who mentions an interest that pertains to your market, a competitive brand, the use of a product in your category, etc.
• Brands can take that initial awareness further and engage consumers more deeply. Social networks provide so much more opportunity than just brand awareness and impressions. Brand awareness is a good start as a use case, but social marketing affords so much more. We’ll talk about other use cases in driving consumer engagement in a later discussion.
4. There ARE solid proof points, but direct ROI is still elusive.
• Bank example: An agency’s bank customer saw the average age of their customer drop by 4 years after they launched their Facebook page. Since there was no way to track “clicks” through to account sign-ups, there was little direct ROI data. But that demographic data was very telling.
• How do you measure goodwill? Social marketing helps to build goodwill between the brand and current and potential customers. Sentiment analysis and brand mentions can help showcase more positive attitudes amongst consumers…but can a business measure the ROI for goodwill?
• Engagement CAN be viral. Traditionally, if a consumer had a positive experience with a brand, he/she would tell people on a one-to-one basis. With social media, that positive experience can turn into a viral brand bonanza. If brands are NOT engaged in social marketing to build/monitor brand awareness (and conversation) that can turn into a brand nightmare as well (look at United Breaks Guitars, for example).
5. Social marketing is not a lone channel. The use of social marketing for brand awareness works in conjunction with all other channels, media and messaging.
• Social marketing should be used in coordinated way to drive brand awareness. It is not the only available method to drive awareness, nor is it the RIGHT channel for EVERY situation. E.g. email is a primary preferred channel for receiving deals/offers/promotions today while social is seen as “conversational”. Both have their value–and their place in a brand strategy.
• One last thought: Make sure you understand individual consumer preferences for communication with your brand and strictly adhere to them!

How is your brand using social marketing to drive awareness? Let us know!

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

Our last Creativity Coffee topic focused on Who Owns Social Marketing in a Company. The ideas that flowed from that conversation pointed to the concepts that individual initiatives are the genesis of the use of social media / social marketing within a company and that those initiatives are usually driven by a single purpose—a use case. We identified a number of use cases that drive ownership and implementation of social marketing within organizations, and that “sparked” this series of discussions.

Today’s discussion surrounds the use case of Lead Generation. While it’s a B2B concept, does it apply to B2C? What is the use case for social marketing for lead generation? Here are the ideas sparked from the discussion.

1. “Lead generation” is a clear B2B term and practice.
• The practice generally gathers contact information for potential “interested” parties for follow-up by a sales team. Leads are generated through a variety of means, including website forms, direct inquiries, trade shows and events, outbound marketing campaigns and more.
2. B2B Use Case for Lead Generation: Using social marketing for engagement and direct lead nurturing similar to the process in other media—but in a much more accelerated fashion.
• Few B2B companies are using social media/social marketing as a primary initiative for lead generation.
• Those who are have the ability to directly engage with those who are making purchase recommendations or decisions. They are listening for business “consumers” who are making statements on the real-time about a need for a solution for a problem, who ask for product recommendations, etc. B2B companies that are “listening” for these conversations have a clear advantage over their competitors since they capture the person making inquiries or evaluating product at the instant their attention is focused on that need. Converting that lead—or at very least, getting a shot at the sale—is much more likely than through (often stale) leads from other sources. Need to lead to sale can happen very quickly. Social marketing puts the B2B organization in the “right place at the right time.”
3. In the B2C world, “lead generation” is focused on high-ticket items with a similar sales process as in B2B.
• Most leads for these high-ticket items (e.g cars, appliances) = people walking through the door. Price point drives this use case.
• Consumers walking through the door are MUCH better informed than ever before and have very different expectations of the sales process and of online information. Salespeople need to be cognizant of the information available and add value to the customer’s buying experience beyond the downloads and documents available on the web. It’s vital for salespeople to be seen as knowledge resources to develop a level of trust with the customer.
• Direct Sales B2C Use Case for Lead Generation: In this B2C sales instance, the sales organization/retailer/dealer can become knowledge centers and spread that knowledge through social marketing—sharing information with the consumer on their blog as well as via Twitter, Facebook and their website. This sets a brand image before the first consumer interaction and can very well lead to inbound inquiries and feet in the door.
• The B2C sales organization can also use social marketing to monitor discussions surrounding the buying community and engage those who are talking. For instance, a local kitchen cabinet dealer can listen for those talking about kitchen remodeling and renovation, home renovation, painting kitchen cabinets, etc. and focus on engaging individuals on a conversational basis (imparting their knowledge of the 5 key criteria when evaluating a contractor, etc.).
4. For (mass-market) B2C companies and brands, lead generation is not a social marketing use case. The use cases for social marketing are focused on driving the 3 A’s: Awareness, Advocacy and Action—moving consumers from intent to action.
• We’ll be talking about Building Brand Awareness use case in our next Creativity Coffee.
• Overall revenue generation, brand impressions, brand/product referral and consumer “word of mouth,” reputation management and consumer advocacy are all goals for social marketing by large brands.

Please join us in the discussion about the Brand Awareness use case for social marketing in our next Creativity Coffee. As always, our discussions are open to everyone and there is no cost or obligation to join the discussion. You can join us live or dial in!