This document discusses how people have become the new media through social engagement, influence, and activation. It notes that we are in the midst of a profound cultural shift where captive audiences have given way to active ones who no longer defer to big brands, but instead refer to their friends. The document provides examples of how social media usage and influence has grown exponentially in recent years. It advocates that marketers leverage social media to build trust with consumers by focusing on engagement, influence, and inspiring real actions and advocacy rather than just outbound publishing. The six steps discussed are: study and plan, listen, publish, engage, influence, and activate.
13. Captive audiences have
given way to active ones.
Customers deferred to big
brands for value messages –
now we refer to our friends.
And advertisers often treated
audiences like herd animals
– in reality they act much
more like a swarm. No one
force guides them.
CAPTIVE > ACTIVE
DEFERENCE > REFERENCE
HERD > SWARM
FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/HUTCHIKE FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/RREIS
13
14. CLICKTHROUGH RATE FOR AVERAGE BANNER AD
0.19%
FORRESTER, 2008
CLICKTHROUGH FOR AVG FACEBOOK WALL POST
6.49%
VITRUE, AUGUST 2009
Trust between peers drives an activation
rate 38x that of the intrusion model.
14
15. LET’S TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT
THIS BUSINESS OF MARKETING
15
16. CONVEYING VALUE
THROUGH OUTBOUND
MARKETING HAS WORKED
FOR 150 YEARS
MARKETING IS A $1
TRILLION PRACTICE
GLOBALLY
EVERY NICHE HAS
EVOLVED INTO A
SOPHISTICATED CHANNEL
EFFECTIVE MARKET
IMPACT EQUALS JOB
SECURITY
16
18. When I was a kid, we had three TV
stations, one newspaper. Got home
at 5:30pm. No work-related calls at
home. Maybe four major cigarette
brands. Easy to remember a tagline.
18
21. But now we can get pretty much whatever we want, whenever. That
expectation has been set. And you’ve seen how people can become
completely unglued when their latte is made incorrectly.
ORGANIC, SOCIALLY-JUST, SOY
HALF-CAFF, MOCHA FRAPPA WHATEV…
NO FOAM NO WHIP NO SLEEVE
21
22. THE CONSUMER IS NOW FIRMLY IN CONTROL
LISH
PUB
Y TO
We can’t fight time
ILIT
starvation. Attention is a
B
tough ask. We can’t stop
ER A
product choice or media
clutter. But we CAN
SUM
leverage consumer
CON
publishing and build trust.
ORIGINAL VERSION: AGENT WILDFIRE
22
23. Trust drives preference, and ultimately,
transactions. So do your marketing
91%
efforts engender trust — or destroy it?
OF PEOPLE GLOBALLY WILL BUY FROM
COMPANIES BASED ON TRUST
77%
PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO BUY FROM
COMPANIES THEY DISTRUST
EDELMAN PR, 2009
23
24. CHANGING PRIORITIES: “How important are these
factors to corporate reputation?”
US 2006 US 2010
Quality products & services
53%
Transparent & honest practices
83%
Attentive to customer needs
47%
Company I can trust
83%
Strong financial performance
42%
High-quality products/services
79%
Fair pricing
38%
Communicates frequently
75%
A well-known brand
37%
Treats employees well
72%
Good employee relations
35%
Good corporate citizen
64%
Socially responsible
33%
Prices fairly
58%
Visible CEO
23%
Innovator
48%
Dialogue with stakeholders
23%
Top leadership
47%
Employee/CEO blogs
12%
Financial returns
45%
These three key factors are best
EDELMAN TRUST BAROMETER, 2010 served by social content.
24
25. TRUST IS TODAY’S KEY TO REVENUE, AND SOCIAL
CHANNELS ENABLE US TO ENGAGE IN WAYS THAT
BUILD TRUST—AND LEVERAGE THE PRE-EXISTING
TRUST BETWEEN PEERS.
FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/POWERBOOKTRANCE
25
26. MANY REMAIN SKEPTICAL
A lot of Boomers still are confused about the value of social channels.
It’s because of our generational lens. And no one has really explained
the cultural shift in terms that Boomers can relate to.
PHOTO: FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/YUGENRO 26
27. BOOMERS
All about propriety. We were trained in formalities, taught to never
offend. Oversharing is “weak.” Guarded = safe. And your suit & tie is
a sign of trustworthiness.
GENS X&Y
All about affinity. Formalities are ignored, sharing means being
found, and they grew up with Google. Your suit & tie = untrustworthy.
2010
THE YEAR MILLENIALS WILL SURPASS BOOMERS
IN THE WORKFORCE
PHOTO: FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/KATINALYNN 27
28. Computer-based
graphic design, 1986
Email marketing, 1996 Web marketing, 1997
MANY MORE FEEL THEY
DON’T HAVE TIME FOR
“ONE MORE THING.”
Remember the graphic designers who refused to adapt to a computer? I
remember my CFO asking why we needed Internet email when we had
voicemail. And remember when we started needing HTML programmers in
Marketing? It’s time to adapt again – especially in a recession.
28
29. SO HOW DO I TAKE MY
ORGANIZATION’S SOCIAL MEDIA
TO THE NEXT LEVEL?
29
30. 1. STUDY
2. LISTEN
DDB° SIX
3. PUBLISH
STEPS TO
4. ENGAGE
SOCIAL
5. INFLUENCE
Many organizations have
gotten into social media
6. ACTIVATE
primarily to publish (the old
outbound model). But there
are better opportunities.
30
31. KNOW YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL
GOALS
1
KNOW YOUR BRAND VOICE AND
MANNER
LEAD THE CONVERSATION WITH
LEGAL ABOUT RISK & PRIVACY
STUDY &
PLAN DETERMINE INQUIRY HANDLING
DETERMINE EMPLOYEE
GOVERNANCE
PLAN FOR REPUTATIONAL CRISES
DETERMINE METRICS
31
32. MASHABLE.COM
CASESTUDIESONLINE.COM
1
SOCIALMEDIAGOVERNANCE.COM
WOMMA.ORG
STUDY & FORRESTER MARKETING SUMMIT
PLAN
@KDPAINE
@JOWYANG
@ARMANO
@AMBERCADABRA
32
33. After Oprah started on
Twitter, self-appointed
“gurus” quadrupled. Be
careful of whom you turn to.
A prolific publisher does not
equal an effective marketer.
APRIL 2009 DECEMBER 2009
4,487 GURUS 16,000 GURUS
BL OCHMAN, DEC 2009
33
34. NOW THAT WE UNDERSTAND THE
2
RISKS AND REWARDS, WHAT
SHOULD WE LISTEN FOR?
RAPID RESPONSE TO PR CRISES,
SALES OPPORTUNITIES
LISTEN DETERMINE SENTIMENT, MOTIVE,
ASSOCIATED TOPICS, SHARE OF
VOICE
CORRECT MISPERCEPTIONS
IDENTIFY BRAND CHAMPIONS
34
35. PERCENTAGE OF COMPANIES THAT
HAVE IMPLEMENTED SOCIAL
MONITORING PLATFORMS
54%
PERCENTAGE THAT HAVE NO IDEA
46% Ummm…during the Greatest
Recession of Our Lives? Srsly?
E-CONSULTANCY, SOCIAL MEDIA AND PR REPORT, NOVEMBER 2009
35
36. LOOKBOOK.NU
Brand enthusiasts may be
pushing your product
without your knowledge.
By listening, you can
identify & empower them.
LEVERAGE CO-CREATION
OPPORTUNITIES
36
38. SAS SMA
CYMFONY
VISIBLE TECHNOLOGIES
RADIAN6
PAID TOOLS
SYSOMOS
Deeper data samples;
better results;
partnerships with SCOUTLABS
Google, Facebook; rich
media & comments; MOTIVEQUEST
multiple languages
LIFT9
38
42. YOU CAN’T JOIN A
CONVERSATION ABOUT
YOUR OFFERING WITHOUT
AN ENTRY POINT.
42
43. NOW THAT WE CAN HEAR OUR
MARKET, WHAT SHOULD WE
3
PUBLISH?
TIME-RESPECTFUL CONTENT,
HIGHLY TAGGED AND EASILY
CONSUMED
PUBLISH THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
PROOF POINTS
PERSONALITY & STORYTELLING
PIECES
HOW-TOS AND GUIDES
43
44. 4
NOW THAT WE’RE PUBLISHING,
HOW DO WE INTERACT?
CREATE ENGAGEMENT
GUARDRAILS & GOVERNANCE
ENGAGE
CREATE OPPORTUNITIES TO
INTERACT WITH THE CONTENT
HEAR & RESPOND
44
45. ONLINE REPUTATION RESPONSE PROCESS:
EXTERNAL SITE / SOCIAL VENUE
LOCATION
EXTERNAL ON-SITE
POST POST
TYPE OF COMMENT
POSITIVE BASHING / RANT / ERRORS / NEGATIVE
COMMENT? DEGRADING SATIRE MISGUIDED EXPERIENCE
TYPE OF RESPONSE
CONCUR RESPOND MONITOR RESPOND RECTIFY
PUBLICLY POSITIVELY SILENTLY WITH FACTS EXPERIENCE
BASED ON US AIR FORCE WEB POSTING
RESPONSE ASSESSMENT V2.0
45
46. ONLINE REPUTATION RESPONSE PROCESS:
ORGANIZATIONAL SITE
LOCATION
EXTERNAL ON-SITE
POST POST
TYPE OF COMMENT
POSITIVE BASHING / RANT / ERRORS / NEGATIVE
COMMENT? DEGRADING SATIRE MISGUIDED EXPERIENCE
TYPE OF RESPONSE
CONCUR RESPOND MONITOR RESPOND RECTIFY
PUBLICLY POSITIVELY SILENTLY WITH FACTS EXPERIENCE
You may decide to create a separate process for comments that appear on
your organization’s site.
46
48. Realities: anyone can edit. All edits are
tracked. There are THOUSANDS of people
who spend HOURS UPON HOURS
tweaking articles. These edits are often
based upon whimsy. Engage carefully and
transparently.
48
49. TOOLS LIKE WIKIWATCHER TRACK
CLANDESTINE WIKI EDITING AND LINK
CHANGES BACK TO ORGANIZATIONS
— TRANSPARENCY IS CRUCIAL —
49
50. NOW THAT WE’RE
INTERACTING, HOW
5
CAN WE CREATE
INFLUENCE?
HOW CAN WE
ENABLE LIKING,
INFLUENCE FANNING, AND
FORWARDING?
HOW CAN WE
IDENTIFY THOSE
WITH THE GREATEST
INFLUENCE AND
ENGAGE THEM?
50
51. NUMBER OF ITEMS SHARED BY
FACEBOOK USERS EVERY MONTH
FACEBOOK, APRIL 2010
25,000,000,000
That’s a boatload of influence. Your brand, your value, and your content
should be creative and compelling enough to be a part of this massive,
trust-based global sharing.
51
52. FIFTH HIGHEST SALES DAY EVER FOR
VIRGIN AMERICA THROUGH
“PROMOTED TWEETS” (APRIL 20, 2010)
52
53. DDB Canada did an opportunistic campaign called ¡Hola Palooza! in
which we worked to get Mexican tourists to consider Canada. So our
Radar team hit the airport and enthusiastically welcomed Mexicans and
shared their reactions on YouTube. Click the image to view.
53
54. 6
HOW CAN OUR
INFLUENCE INSPIRE
ACTION?
WHAT BRAND OR
ACTIVATION PRODUCT ADVOCACY
HAVE WE
GENERATED?
HOW DO THOSE
ACTIONS AMPLIFY
OUR VALUE?
54
55. “I COULD HAVE JUST NAMED THIS THING THE VX150
OR ZI8. BUT I THOUGHT THAT THE PEOPLE WHO BUY
THE PRODUCT SHOULD COME UP WITH SOMETHING
MEANINGFUL TO THEM.” – JEFFREY HAYZLETT,CMO,
KODAK
55
56. DDB Canada created an integrated campaign for Knorr’s Sidekicks
meal accompaniment products. The traditional media was meant to
creatively build brand affinity and awareness of this healthy, low-
sodium product. Click the image to view the video.
56
57. In addition, we were asked to bring
Salty to life in social media, to
extend the campaign long after the
spots had been pulled. Our Radar
team engaged on Twitter,
Facebook, YouTube and even
ChatRoulette using Salty’s “voice.”
57
66. 6000 FACEBOOK FANS
400,000+ VIDEO VIEWS
1000 TWITTER FOLLOWERS
SALTYʼS
18,000 SALTY & PEP SHAKERS SOLD
SOCIAL IN FIRST 25 DAYS
CAMPAIGN
HIGHEST SITE TRAFFIC EVER
RESULTS
SIDEKICKS SALES ROSE BY 10%
SIDEKICKS SURPASSED UNCLE
BENʼS AS #1 BRAND IN MEAL
ACCOMPANIMENTS
66
67. ENGAGEMENT DEMOGRAPHIC 70%
FEMALE, 30% MALE – 62% WERE
AGED 25-34
SALTYʼS
SOCIAL HUMOROUS TWEETS RECEIVED
MORE ATTENTION THAN BRAND
CAMPAIGN MESSAGES
LEARNINGS
USERS WERE ATTRACTED MORE TO
CONVERSATIONAL TOPICS AND
LEADING QUESTIONS
67
68. TRADITIONAL AND
SOCIAL REINFORCE
ONE ANOTHER
Traditional and social efforts work incredibly well together. Traditional can
create and supercharge a conversation, and social can it post-campaign.
68
69. BRANDED SITE
EXTERNAL MKTG‐MANAGED PRESENCE
EXTERNAL THIRD‐PARTY SITE
Integrated Traditional/Social Marketing Mix TRADITIONAL MEDIA/PR
TOPICAL COMMUNITIES:
IP, HELPFUL TIPS
D E T E R M I N AT I O N
E V A L U A T I O N /
C O M P A R I S O N
A W A R E N E S S
PRODUCT
LAUNCH
P U R C H A S E
MICROSITE
S T O R Y T E L L I N G
L O Y A L T Y
HELPFUL RESOURCES RECIPES
SEO
EVENTS DOT-COM SITE COMMENTS
COMPANY BLOG (IP) ONLINE SAMPLING FACEBOOK
FAN PAGE
N E E D
E‐COMMERCE PARTNER
ONLINE YOUTUBE CHANNEL:
STORYTELLING, IP
PRINT
EXTERNAL BLOGS: IP, TIPS
OUTDOOR
PR Social can also help push distracted
consumers through the funnel by providing
SAMPLING PGMS proof points and helpful information at various
stages of purchase consideration.
RETAIL
69
70. DDB Canada created a campaign for Canadian Tourism called
Locals Know: the idea being that locals know the best spots and
hidden gems to visit. We built LocalsKnow.ca and used traditional
media to ask Canadians to post video “commercials” of their favorite
local destinations there, leveraging consumer co-creation and trust.
Click the image to view the video.
70
71. OVER 4000 USER-GENERATED
“COMMERCIALS” UPLOADED
450,000 UNIQUE VISITORS TO
LOCALS LOCALSKNOW.CA
KNOW 2,200,000 PAGE VIEWS
CAMPAIGN
2.7 MILLION CANADIANS BOOKED A
RESULTS
TRIP WITHIN CANADA
FORBES MAGAZINE CALLED IT ONE
OF THE TOP TEN TRAVEL
CAMPAIGNS OF ALL TIME
71
73. AUDIENCES HAVE CHANGED
FASTER THAN WE’VE REACTED
OUR LENSES CLOUD OUR
PERCEPTION OF THIS CHANGE
TRUST DRIVES PREFERENCE,
TRANSACTIONS & REPUTATION
73
74. REEXAMINE MARKETING IN
TERMS OF DIALOGUE, TRUST,
ENGAGEMENT, INFLUENCE
CONSIDER A STEPPED
APPROACH
LET YOUR AUDIENCE CO-
CREATE
74
75. SOCIAL AND TRADITIONAL
TURBOCHARGE ONE ANOTHER
AND SHOULD BE PLANNED
TOGETHER
THINK MARKETING ENERGY,
MORE THAN MARKETING SPEND
GIVE YOURSELF TIME
75
78. DDB IS THE WORLD’S LARGEST
ADVERTISING AGENCY BY
REVENUE, WITH 200 OFFICES IN 90
COUNTRIES.
TRIBAL DDB IS THE AWARD-
WINNING DIGITAL DIVISION OF
DDB, WITH 56 OFFICES AND 1200
EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE.
RADAR IS OUR SOCIAL BUSINESS
SPECIALTY AREA. OUR 20-PERSON
RADAR TEAM IN VANCOUVER
CREATES AWARD-WINNING SOCIAL
PROGRAMS FOR NUMEROUS
ORGANIZATIONS.
78
80. FOR COUNSEL ON HOW TO
SOCIALIZE YOUR ENTERPRISE,
CONTACT HELENE LEGGATT AT
780-917-6600.
80
Hinweis der Redaktion
Hello, everyone. My name is Eric Weaver and I am a digital strategist and account director for Tribal DDB Canada. We are the digital marketing division of DDB. I’m here to talk to you today about how PEOPLE have become the media, and how you can better present and extend your value using engagement, influence and activation.I'd like to thank my DDB Edmonton colleagues for having me, and to thank YOU for taking the time out from your busy days to attend this presentation.
They’re asking us questions like, am I doing this right? Should I expect more? Will this live up to its promise?Welcome to the club. We’re all riding this bus that’s rocketing toward some unknown destination. Because no one has seen anything like this in the history of marketing.
The social web is part of a much broader cultural shift, a profound one, that is absolutely transforming our society.I’m fortunate: for years, my job has been to investigate new technologies for my clients to see which ones have legs and which ones are just fads. So I test everything through my own BS filter. And I can tell you that this is perhaps the most exciting time in marketing. The numbers are astounding.
How many of you have joined LinkedIn? More importantly, how many of you have created LinkedIn profiles for your business?That’s good because every day, <CLICK> more than 67,000 people join Linkedin.
And then there’s Facebook. Any guess as to how many people are now members? <CLICK> That’s right: a half a billion people.
Every day, more than 830 THOUSAND people join Facebook. Every day, I’ve been told, they add three floors of data center space. Never before in history have so many people joined one website. <CLICK>And to put things into perspective, imagine every single man, woman and child in Edmonton and several suburbs joining Facebook each day. That is a hugely significant number.
And these are not short checkins each day, or rare visits every week or so. <CLICK> The average Facebook user spends a total of 55 minutes on Facebook each day. Multiply that times hundreds of millions of people and you have a tremendous amount of time, attention and trust.
How many of you have a fan page on Facebook? More than 1.5 million organizations do. And did you know that every day, <CLICK> more than 20 MILLION people fan something? They tie their personal identity, their online affinity, to something. That’s powerful.
So they’re fanning. On the consumer side, how does that help business? It turns out that people are more likely to buy if they are engaged within social sites. 50% reported this year that they are more likely to buy from you if you live where they live online. During the greatest recession of our lives, this is a significant number.
Not only are they more likely to purchase, but they’re more likely to act. If you use Facebook Connect to join a site, vs creating and remembering another username and password, <CLICK> Facebook has found an uptake of four times the number of people who will go ahead and sign up for membership within a third-party site.
These online “fannings” are more than a click of a Join button. They become touchpoints on someone’s Facebook wall. And not just there. Consumers are creating brand representations and touchpoints around YOUR BRAND, everywhere. McKinsey estimates that 66% of all touchpoints are now generated by customers! I used to be the guy making those touchpoints! Not any more. Your brand has become OUR brand, owned by the collective We.
In the past, we really had a captive audience, but now it’s much more active.<CLICK> Consumers deferred to powerful brand messages, but now they refer to friends and peers. <CLICK>In this new environment, groups we once looked at as herds now act much more like a swarm: one moving in its own direction, unguided by fences, barbed wire or reins.
The power of the swarm is evidenced by what we’re seeing in some channels.I used to create shiny, interactive banners that tried to get your attention. They had Flash, they had video, they had quizzes. They were cool! But nowadays, they have an abysmal .19% clickthrough. Those customer-generated touchpoints now include things like Facebook Wall Posts. So I might fan Virgin America and as my friend, you might see that and wonder about it. Because of that inherent trust, wall posts have a 6.49% clickthrough. 34x the standard clickthrough of a banner.
So why are some things working and some not so much? Let’s take a fresh look at our profession.
Let’s take a quick quiz. Winston tastes good like…
Maxwell House Coffee is …
Trust isn’t just some secondary lever. On the commercial side, consumers are telling us it’s perhaps the most important.91% of people surveyed globally will buy from a company based on their trust of that company. And here’s the kicker: 77% of people surveyed refuse to buy from companies they distrust. So of all these levers, trust is the one that drives preference. Trust drives transactions.
You can see how things have changed just in the last four years. While quality products still drive reputation, trust-related issues have moved to the forefront. Financial returns, once very important, have dropped as a reputational driver. And which media help convey three of the top four drivers? Social media.
My mom is not a believer in the internet. In fact she says things like, “oh that internet. Lots of bad people hang out there.” And so I tell her, “yeah, thank god they don’t use telephones. Or Freeways.”Many boomers like me are also skeptical of the value of all these social tools. Here’s why.
Boomer-era marketers often see social as an add-on, one more thing to do in a time- and attention-starved job.I remember graphic designers back in the 80s saying the Mac was a toy, refusing to adopt the computer and exclaiming how true artists used hand-held tools. They’re mostly out of work. I remember my CFO telling me I was nuts for wanting to create internet email capability for my agency; “we have a perfectly good voicemail and fax system.” And marketing directors confused as to why they needed to hire programmers. It’s natural to resist change; but that often has a great cost.
Many people quote-unquote GET ON social media by creating a Twitter account and or a fan page for their business. They might upload some content to YouTube, they might do some Google searches to try to see what comes up around their brand but basically, they’re pulling 2 levers. They’re still subscribing to the outbound model.In fact, we see several more steps beyond publishing.
First, study and plan. it’s important to know your organization’s goals. I know lots of marketers who know that a quarterly sales target is important or that they need to reduce calls to the call center. But what about the overall organization? How can these goals be supercharged through social media? (TALK TO THE REST)
There are lots of great resources out there but these are the ones we’ve found most helpful.
But we advise caution in terms of who you turn to and study.In April 2009, social media strategist BL Ochman found around 4500 self-described GURUS were on Twitter. Expert, superstar, rockstar, sensei, ninja, and yes, even SOCIAL MEDIA JEDI MASTER. Then Oprah got on Twitter and sent her first tweet. And within a few months the number of newly-minted gurus jumped to 16000. That translates to about 54 new gurus per day. It’s a bit of a joke. Someone’s ability to self-promote does not equate to success in or knowledge of social tools or sites.
Step 2 is to listen. We recommend doing this before you publish. Why? Because your time and energy and budgets are finite and content that doesn’t follow your plan or doesn’t leverage your audience’s desires can become expensive noise. (TALK TO REST)
Many organizations have started this journey without an ear to the ground. As of November, 54% of companies in a recent survey indicated they are monitoring the social space. <CLICK> That means another 46% don’t even do that! You can’t intercept PR or brand crises if you don’t know they’re happening.
This is a website called Lookbook. On it, Millennials create their own amateur fashion spreads using famous brands. They tag these brands, along with the type of print, material, and colors and place their photos online where other Millennials rate their look. Talk about putting yourself out there! In this spread, a young would-be model from Des Moines is showing off a Penguin brand shirt, owned by my client Perry Ellis. The company had no idea that their brand was being marketed, by young people, to other young people, in a very real, very authentic way. By hearing, we can identify influencers and advocates and empower them.
There are a number of free tools that let you monitor your brand’s online mentions and hence reputation. They are
Paid tools generally provide a lot better information, in fact, we recommend them like a Forrester membership. They provide incredibly valuable market intelligence and are worth the cost. These companies get select datasets from companies like Facebook and Google and have deeper pools of data to work with.
Here’s an example of a ScoutLabs report on NAIT. You can see sentiment changing over time, the general level of buzz, mentions and quotes.
One of the interesting features of ScoutLabs is its ability to assign various quotes, posts and content to monitoring team members, who can respond to individuals, tracking that activity.
If you have a local business like a retail store, you’ll find increasing references to it on Yelp, CitySearch and social games like FourSquare, where people will check in at your place of business and provide feedback, tips, watchouts and rants. Many organizations don’t think to check these local sites for references, and miss the opportunity to engage, respond and correct perception there.
Listening is great but you can’t join a conversation if you don’t have an entry point: in other words, if you’re not at the party with an active, engaging social media presence. You have to be publishing.
Many of you are already publishing. We encourage our clients to create content that respects time starvation. Make it highly tagged and consumed. Build trust through proof points. Build utility through guides and how-tos that transcend a mere brand offering. And think about it as something at the end of a someone’s search, not an interruption along the way.
Create the right content, conversation and conditions to elicit engagement and interaction rather than just consumption. But make sure you’ve created organizational responses so that people know how to engage, how not to engage, and when.
This engagement process document used by the US Air Force is so thoughtful it’s been used by countless companies in determining an initial approach to engaging stakeholders both on internal and external sites.
With posts on your organization’s site, you may want to do things a tad differently. For example, you may want to respond to every single comment, vs on social venues.
Realities: Anyone can edit. All edits are tracked There are thousands of people who spend hours and hours correcting articles. It’s often based on whimsy. Companies MUST be absolutely transparent about their edits and must accompany them with annotations/citations.
Apple, Dell, Microsoft and many others have been busted clandestinely altering their wiki pages. Bad idea. Why destroy trust through covert ops? This is when social media will backfire against you in a huge way.
We’ve been talking about the swarm. Like flocks of birds, people, perception and opinion often change course en-masse without a leader or a top-down mechanism driving this change. They gravitate in various directions. Our goal is to create influence among many by making our content and conversation easily liked, fanned, and forwarded to others.
Influence is happening everywhere, constantly. <CLICK> On Facebook, for example, people are sharing links, photos, videos, posts – pretty much any and everything – to the tune of 25 billion items per month. Your brand, your value, your content – should be compelling enough to be part of this massive sharing.
Here’s a great example of influence. Recently Virgin America tried out the Promoted Tweets channel in which VA tweets appeared in your stream based on what you searched on. They offered a limited number of discount codes for 50% off a companion ticket, which were reshared over and over. This had an instant and dramatic effect on their bottom line.They also created a hashtag called #NowPlaying to encourage in-flight users to share the movies they were watching, specifically to increase engagement, and leveraging influence to spread the offer.
Creative content, when shared amongst influencers, can also have a very large and negative impact to both bottom line and online reputation. Influence has HUGE power and organizations should be prepared to put out reputational fires with “social media water.”Creativity is a huge factor in buzz-building, engagement and influence. And when you don’t engage, people can use creativity to really make an impact in your business.
Here’s an example of an opportunistic influence campaign we did for Canadian Tourism, that we called Ola Palooza. The idea was to find a way to get Mexican travelers talking and referring Canada as a travel destination to friends and peers.
And finally, once we have influenced, what actions have been generated? How have we activated our audience? Have they been inspired enough to advocate our offering? And how do their actions amplify and reverberate online? Or perhaps the action we want to inspire is internal amongst employees.
Just before the Consumer Electronics Show this month, Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett asked his users over Twitter what they would call the latest waterproof version of their ZI-8 pocket hi-def video camera. The winner would win a free trip to Vegas to join Jeffrey as they unveiled the new camera to thousands of attendees. Jeffrey said: Kodak used Twitter to get people to not just read or comment, but to do something; in this case, helping name their product. Great example of activating your market around your product.
In addition to the traditional media work, DDB came up with the plan to give Salty a life after being snubbed. We built presences on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even ChatRoulette!We engaged with people directly through the “voice” of Salty to raise brand awareness and engage users, influence their behavior and activate them to create fan content.
In addition to the traditional media work, DDB came up with the plan to give Salty a life after being snubbed. We built presences on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even ChatRoulette!We engaged with people directly through the “voice” of Salty to raise brand awareness and engage users, influence their behavior and activate them to create fan content.
In addition to the traditional media work, DDB came up with the plan to give Salty a life after being snubbed. We built presences on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even ChatRoulette!We engaged with people directly through the “voice” of Salty to raise brand awareness and engage users, influence their behavior and activate them to create fan content.
In addition to the traditional media work, DDB came up with the plan to give Salty a life after being snubbed. We built presences on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even ChatRoulette!We engaged with people directly through the “voice” of Salty to raise brand awareness and engage users, influence their behavior and activate them to create fan content.
In addition to the traditional media work, DDB came up with the plan to give Salty a life after being snubbed. We built presences on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even ChatRoulette!We engaged with people directly through the “voice” of Salty to raise brand awareness and engage users, influence their behavior and activate them to create fan content.
The response has been incredible. Salty has been featured in numerous blogs and in traditional press, but also we’ve inspired people to create their own content. So people have shot and uploaded their own YouTube videos (some with thousands of views), creating and posting fan art, even buying the shakers and posing them in fan photos.
The response has been incredible. Salty has been featured in numerous blogs and in traditional press, but also we’ve inspired people to create their own content. So people have shot and uploaded their own YouTube videos (some with thousands of views), creating and posting fan art, even buying the shakers and posing them in fan photos.
The response has been incredible. Salty has been featured in numerous blogs and in traditional press, but also we’ve inspired people to create their own content. So people have shot and uploaded their own YouTube videos (some with thousands of views), creating and posting fan art, even buying the shakers and posing them in fan photos.
The response has been incredible. Salty has been featured in numerous blogs and in traditional press, but also we’ve inspired people to create their own content. So people have shot and uploaded their own YouTube videos (some with thousands of views), creating and posting fan art, even buying the shakers and posing them in fan photos.
The response has been incredible. Salty has been featured in numerous blogs and in traditional press, but also we’ve inspired people to create their own content. So people have shot and uploaded their own YouTube videos (some with thousands of views), creating and posting fan art, even buying the shakers and posing them in fan photos.
And our results have been incredible too.
This campaign shows that traditional and social media actually reinforce one another. Traditional media can build mass awareness through creativity and emphasizing trust messages, super-charging the conversation around a brand. Social media can both seed the social space with media that audiences can talk about and share, building influence and activation, and can sustain the conversation started in traditional long after the campaign has ended and the commercials have been pulled from rotation.
Social tools can also be used to build trust all along the purchase funnel, motivating consumers to get past time- and attention-starvation. Traditional media, done smartly, can provide air cover while social sites can steer the swarm, coach the dialogue, provide value and amplify brand enthusiasm.This is a integrated mix we did for Nature’s Path Foods, to help determine where time and energy should be spent in terms of media creation and placement.
Here’s another integrated campaign we did for Canadian Tourism. The idea was to crowdsource destinations from the people who know Canada best: Canadians. We created a site for consumers to upload their own video spots for special destinations they loved. We also brought awareness of the effort through traditional channels: outdoor, online, broadcast and inserts. The results were far better than we expected. People — and the places they love — became the media.
So there you have it. Six steps by which we would encourage you to leverage social channels. I’d encourage you to think beyond studying and publishing to look for ways to get into engagement, influence and activation. And here are some tips.