Social media is about more than just listening to your communities, you have to care about what they say. The Brand Convection Model details the process and thinking around how brands can take masses of online conversations, filter them into intelligence and use this information to effect practical changes within the business that will lead to more sales and happier customers.

1. IS MY JOB TO MAKE THE
COMMUNITY CARE ABOUT THE
BRAND, OR TO MAKE THE BRAND
CARE ABOUT THE COMMUNITY?
- Reece Jacobsen, Senior Community Manager, Cerebra

2. The Brand Convection Model
Social media is about more than just listening to your communities; you have to
care about what they say. The Brand Convection Model details the process and
thinking around how brands can take masses of online conversations, filter them
into intelligence and use this information to effect practical changes within the
business that will lead to more sales and happier customers.
By @Cerebra

3. Listen
If you listen hard enough, you’ll find the signal
within all the noise.
More really is more when it comes to listening. You want to
listen to as many online conversations as your budget can
afford. It isn’t only the feedback that comes directly to your
social profiles that matters; you should be tracking all brand
mentions, direct or indirect, misspellings, joke names,
industry key words and competitors.
You should also be creating content that drives conversation
around specific areas you want to investigate. This
conversation will be higher value and will require less filtering.
The more raw material you start with the better the insights.
Once you’ve tapped into as many conversations as possible,
start filtering out any content that is irrelevant or contains
absolutely no value. Look for conversations that are
constructive and reasonable, offer opinions and
recommendations, clearly identify positive or negative issues
and are from a credible source.
By @Cerebra

4. Feedback
Humans are still the best tools for
evaluating other humans.
Now that you have usable information you need to work
through the feedback phase, which is to organise the
feedback (both positive and negative) into formats that make
business sense. The end results of effecting business change
can only happen if the information is specific and relevant to
the individual people within the business who receive it.
A variety of online tools can help you filter and sort through
the conversations and your community and reputation
managers will help to make the feedback specific to a
product / service / location / person / department etc. Finally
the feedback must be differentiated between quick and long
fixes, the source of the feedback must be specified, red flags
raised and competitor movements listed.
By @Cerebra

5. Interrogate
It is not enough to know the what,
you haveto know the why.
Turn the data into intelligence by interrogating it from every
angle possible. The more questions you can ask the more
answers you will have. The series of questions you ask will
turn unhelpful online conversations into insightful gems.
At the very least you should interrogate (in a gentle way) your
community managers, the customers who gave feedback,
the business units and responsible employees. Ask why over
and over until you get to the true answer. Only by asking
questions can you get to the pieces of intelligence that hide
in every conversation.
By @Cerebra

6. Learn
There’s a big difference between knowing a
weakness exists and knowing how to fix it.
You now have a usable, highly valuable set of information
that has been distilled and interrogated; it’s time to figure out
the lessons. While single pieces of information can contain
lessons, the greatest insights come by comparing
information. By building visual representations of the
information over time you will be able to spot trends and
patterns, recognize recurring issues and map the build up of
complaints in certain areas.
By mapping your information you will be able to identify and
define the key lessons that were hidden in all of those
thousands of online conversations.
By @Cerebra

7. Report
Don’t talk to me about problems,
talk to me about solutions.
The report not only analyses the feedback and
summarizes the lessons, it also when you convert the
feedback and lessons into strategic recommendations to the
business. The recommendations can cover any aspect of the
business, from product changes to service advancements,
however, the recommendations must be realistic, actionable,
understandable, measurable, repeatable and aligned to the
overall business objectives.
By @Cerebra

8. Solutions
Saying sorry isn’t enough, you must show
you’re sorry by changing your behavior.
We’re now through the listening phase and into the caring
phase. Listening is easy, interrogating and developing
intelligence is harder, and caring enough to define and
implement changes within your business is harder still.
In order to accurately map out solutions you need to
understand the background and root cause of the problem,
the legacy of the problem and if the company has attempted
to solve this problem in the past, why it failed, what lessons
were learned. There’s no point in repeating actions that have
failed in the past.
By @Cerebra

9. Actions
Actions, not words, are the best way to
show you care.
Taking action is the most important part of becoming a
social business. The insights contained in the report are
only of value if the organisation leverages them to effect real
change. When looking at defining the actions you need to
split the actions into segments based on the ease and speed
of implementing the action.
It’s helpful to separate immediately addressable quick fixes
and longer term ‘large’ fixes, and sort these according to
how or who will address them, whether it’s by geography,
product, department or person.
By @Cerebra

10. Processes
It isn’t enough to solve a problem once you must
solve it forever.
Very rarely do problems happen in isolation. If it happens
once it can happen again which is why you can’t only
directly solve the complaining customer’s individual problem,
you need to understand how and where this problem could
happen elsewhere and build systems and process to prevent
any future occurrences of this problem.
As you roll these systems out you must track and monitor
their success. The last thing you want is for the system to
become the problem.
By @Cerebra

11. Cultural Changes
It’s hard to read the label from inside the bottle.
It isn’t enough for your marketing team to care. Your entire
company needs to understand how socially connected
customers have evolved and how your company needs to
evolve to keep up with your customers. You can change your
systems and your agency but if you can’t change the culture
of your people they will be the weak link.
Systems, processes, training and new hires must all work
together to evolve the culture of your business into one that
sees your social communities as more than just an audience.
It’s not enough to simply listen you have to care.
By @Cerebra

12. LISTEN
AGENCY
INTERROGATE
LEARN
ACTIONS
PROCESSES
CULTURAL CHANGES
By @Cerebra
THE BRAND CONVECTION MODEL
SOCIAL BUSINESS
& CARING
SOLUTIONS
REPORTING
REPORT
ADVISORY
MODERATION
& LISTENING
FEEDBACK

13. About Cerebra
Cerebra was founded by Mike Stopforth (www.mikestopforth.com) in 2006. Since then, the integrated strategic
communication agency has grown from a small consulting outfit to a large team of incredibly talented,
hard-working personalities who all share in a passion for effective communication.
We are in the business of aiding companies in building communities, engaging with these communities
and finally activating these communities through the appropriate communication channels,
whether traditional or social media.
We would welcome you to find out more information at www.cerebra.co.za,
or connect with us on the various platforms.