Digital Brand Engagement - a methodology for establishing the quality of your brand's online interaction with the influencing consumers within your industry.

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Brand & Blogger Engagement
aka How Brands need to embrace the
Blogosphere
26th March 2009

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Summary Abstract
Online marketing has typically followed the tradition
of offline marketing - One way broadcasting - “Push”
Social media provides interactive platforms for
anyone to have a voice online. Two way
communication is now possible and the consumer is
not afraid to voice their opinions, which in turn
influences other like minded people.
Brands are being forced to change their engagement
strategy. There is no recognised blueprint…some are
lost!

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Some Definitions…just in case!
Brand: A major business heavily using the
Internet to engage with their consumers
Blog: A web log/web site/social medium offering
an interactive communication platform
Blogger: An individual that actively maintains
their own blog and contributes to others

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Some Facts to Set the Scene
*105 Million Blogs as of 24th March 2009
• 34,000 added the previous 24 Hours
*77% of Internet users read blogs regularly
*1.4 Billion “tweets” on Twitter to date
• Twitter is a Micro-blog
*2 Billion searches in Google a day
• 1 Trillion URLs indexed by Google
What is Social Media?
• 34 definitions on
http://econsultancy.com/blog/3527-what-is-social-media-here-are

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Methodology
Starting Point:
Brands
• Your Brand
• An equivalent Benchmark Brand
Identify influential active Bloggers
• Associated with your Industry Sector
• Identify these based upon Technorati and Google
Rankings
Then undertake quantitative and qualitative
analysis…

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Don’t dive in! First…
Understand behaviour in detail
• Get to know the bloggers’
Values
•
Motivation
•
Behaviour
•
Influence
•
Monitor, observe, listen, analyse
• Before you decide to dive in
• Actions speak louder than words
• http://econsultancy.com/blog/3013-top-ten-tips-for-brand-engageme

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Bloggers
Qualitative Measures:
Quantitative Metrics:
Content: Fact, opinion,
Reach: Number of
plagiarism/originality, other
Readers/Followers for
each target blog Sentiment: Positive, negative
or neutral
Authority: (Technorati
methodology) number of Motivation: Belonging, Self
links and age of links esteem, Self actualisation.
Money!
Ranking: Position held
in search engines Interaction: Links with other
bloggers,
Buzz: Number of visits,
comments and activity Value: Is content referenced
elsewhere, is it helpful

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Your Brand…and your competitors
Qualitative Measures:
Quantitative Metrics:
Content: What are the brands
Name: Number of times
saying? Defensive, helpful,
brand is mentioned,
which brands are other.
mentioned Tone: Dominant, peer to
peer, subservient,
Interaction: Which
brands interact when Timing: Proactive, reactive,
they are mentioned. Who: Who is representing the
Engagement: How many brand? Seniority, agency
blogs does each brand Outcomes: How does each
interact with; number dialogue conclude? +ve, -ve,
and frequency of neutral.
comments
Neuroscience research?

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Observations about Twitterers
“Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant
update of who you are, what you are, where you are.
Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of
identity” Oliver James, Clinical Psychologist
“Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby,
unless people recognise you, you cease to exist.” Dr
David Lewis, Cognitive Neuropsychologist
“Twitter is like a giant baby monitor. The person writing
wants to be at the forefront of your mind, nothing more.”
Alain de Botton, Author of Status Anxiety
But should Brands take them seriously?

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Blogger Motivation v Value of Content
Is Value of Content proportional to Blogger Motivation?
Motivation
Value
Is there a pattern associated with the “noise:value”
ratio?
Noise
Value

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Does Any of This Matter to Your Brand?
Is the fact that a comment is “out there”
on the web enough for your Brand to
take notice?
How does Sentiment, Authority, Reach,
Buzz Volume play a part?
• I.e. do -ve comments have a bigger impact
than +ve?
• Or do all comments have equal influence?

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Benchmark Brands
Some Perceived Benchmark Brands:
Top 10 Brands
• http://mashable.com/2009/02/06/social-media-
smartest-brands/
Dell has 88 Twitter Channels….one of which
netted over $1Million for them in 2008.
• http://www.slideshare.net/KerryatDell/nine-observations-p
Check out Skittles
• http://www.skittles.com/

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Key Assumption Avoidance
People can’t always consciously articulate the
reasons for their behaviour
Sometimes they aren’t prepared to say what
they really feel due to cultural and social
reasons
• Surface structure is modified in three ways*:-
• Generalisation
• Deletion
• Distortion
• This is extremely difficult to spot
* Bandler & Grinder (1976) The Structure of Magic 1 - Science & Behaviour Books, p 13- 20

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Digital Brand Engagement Journey
Advocacy
Interest
Awareness Experience
Commit?
Opponent
Go elsewhere
or come back later
On Site Off Site
Off Site

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Ignore this!
(It takes no account of the social web)
“The Eric Pietersen Engagement Model”
Click-Depth Index (Ci) is the percent of sessions having more than “n” page views divided by all sessions.
Recency Index (Ri) is the percent of sessions having more than “n” page views that occurred in the past “n”
weeks divided by all sessions. The Recency Index captures recent sessions that were also deep enough to
be measured in the Click-Depth Index.
Duration Index (Di) is the percent of sessions longer than “n” minutes divided by all sessions.
Brand Index (Bi) is the percent of sessions that either begin directly (i.e., have no referring URL) or are
initiated by an external search for a “Branded” term divided by all sessions (see additional explanation
below)*
Feedback Index (Fi) is the percent of sessions where the visitor gave direct feedback via a Voice of
Customer technology divided by all sessions
Interaction Index (Ii) is the percent of sessions where the visitor completed one of any specific, tracked
events divided by all sessions
Loyalty Index (Li) is scored as “1” if the visitor has come to the site more than “n” times during the time-
frame under examination (and otherwise scored “0”)
Subscription Index (Si) is scored as “1” if the visitor is a known content subscriber (i.e., subscribed to my
blog) during the time-frame under examination (and otherwise scored “0)

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Outcome for Your Brand
Create an engagement model that:
• Includes the social web
• Analyses and outlines the key influencing and value
factors of the consumer’s/consumers’ blog posts
and comments
• Provides a framework for your Brand to follow
• to improve the quality of consumer engagement via the
social web
• benefiting both your consumer and your brand
To help you improve the quality of your online
brand experience for your consumer

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Contact Us
Engage-me@somatica.co.uk
http://www.somatica.co.uk
http://www.youtube.com/SomaticaBranding
http://twitter.com/somatica
http://www.somaticadigital.blogspot.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/Somatica
http://delicious.com/SomaticaGroup