2. social media isn’t just for interns
The emergence of a powerful new
communication platform that reaches well
over 300 million consumers is nothing short of
remarkable, but it also might not be the best
time to hand over the keys to an intern to drive
the conversation. Sure, these new platforms
are the playground for the young and
connected, but the user profile of most social
networks is older than you might think, and its
climbing quickly.
2
This just in, consumers are now
spending more time on social
networks than any other form of
website, including porn.
To make the most of this newly emerging
opportunity to connect with your
consumer, to shape your brand, and
develop long-term customer
relationships at a fraction of ‘above the
line’ media costs, this opportunity simply
can’t be squandered.
“For companies, resistance
to social media is futile.
Millions of people are
creating content for the
social web. Your competitors
are already there. Your
customers have been there
for a long time.
If your business isn't putting
itself out there, it ought to
be.”
BusinessWeek, 2009
3. setting up an account is not a strategy
3
While the simplicity of social platforms can
enable rapid growth, it can also create a false
sense of accomplishment for those who don’t
create a focused plan to leverage the power of
these platforms for real business goals. Now is
the time to take a moment and think about
your overall business strategy and what role
social media might play in hitting your
objectives. The bad news, if you don’t currently
know where your business is heading, then
Regardless of whether you have
one or one million friends,
followers, or fans there are
multiple ways your business could
benefit from a more proactive
social media strategy.
social media might just be an express
ticket to nowhere.
Take a quick inventory of how you’re leveraging
social media today:
Public Relations
Customer Support
Market Research
Brand Marketing
Promotions
Consumer Education
Sales
Product Development
Customer Relationship Management
4. 1. public relations
4
Social media platforms touch well over 350
million people world wide every single day.
These platforms represents one of the most
direct and immediate channels into the hearts
and minds of consumers, voters, and the public
media. For certain brands this platform can be
a direct communication platform that enables
brands to find supporters and evangelists (by
filtering through organic posts) as well as
identify dissenters, opposing threats and
Social media platforms present a
completely new opportunity to
instantly deliver messages to
millions of people. The impact on
public relations is simply ground
shaking.
negative messages about you, your
company, your brand, or your entire
industry.
How the various platforms are employed to
shape the public perception, and to impact
traditional media channels is part art, part
science. Crafting compelling messages, and
embracing transparency are the foundation for
success.
5. 2. customer support
5
For a huge number of businesses there is a
hidden cost that is rarely discovered until after
it’s too late in the game. Long after the sale is
made, this hidden problem can grow into a
huge drain on profitability in the form of
customer support costs. Good customer
service is essential to maintaining a positive
brand image, and it is a key strategy to
eliminate product returns.
Where traditionally customer
support has been viewed as a cost
centre, smart brands are starting
to use social networks to help
offload their support costs on to a
community of super users.
The net effect of this strategy is often
two fold. Consumers get the support they
need (at virtually no cost to the brand)
and they also feel more connected
to a larger pool of consumers who also use the
same product or service. It’s hard to argue with
a potential win/win scenario.
6. 3. market research
6
The value of good information is hard to
measure. Launching new brands, developing
new products, and effectively targeting a new
pool of consumers requires knowledge that
simply doesn’t exist inside the four walls of
your company. Traditionally brands seeking
market research have had to rely on expensive
firms who pool consumer opinions, feedback,
and insights into structured presentations that
cost both time and money.
Having access to tens of millions of
consumers who are openly talking
about their rational and emotional
needs is a newly discovered
goldmine for market research.
Real time analysis of consumer trends,
virtual focus groups, and other insightful
interactions are all made possible at a
fraction of the cost of traditional
methods for gathering information. Sure, you’ll
still need some sharp minds and effective tools
to filter through all the garbage, but there is a
reason commercial fisherman use a net instead
of a hook. If you are thinking about changing
directions, launching a new brand campaign, or
just itching to know what consumers are
thinking about your business, product, or
brand, the answers are closer than you think.
7. 4. brand marketing
7
While this may be one of the most common
ways that brands are currently using social
networks, there are clearly those that ‘get it’
and those who don’t. The key difference comes
from playing a behaviour-supporting role in the
life of your consumer. It is your job to make
their day a little better by enabling a social
relationship with your brand. Want some
simple pointers? Take Starbucks for example.
They have launched a slew of social tools
across a variety of platforms from Facebook
Marketers should take notice of
what they didn’t do; drown their
fans in an over-caffeinated flood of
chest pounding information about
their product.
to the iPhone. Each application provides
some utility for the customer, from store
locators, to pre-ordering your specially
customized drink before you even get in
line.
While the sheer size of this new channel (and
half a dozen triple lattes) can often get brands
so excited that they can’t help but shout about
their product, the real value is in the
meaningful relationship that you can foster
between the consumer and your brand.
8. 5. promotions
8
With the power of direct communication to
consumer comes the responsibility of crafting
compelling promotions that get cash registers
to ring, put more bums on seats, and create a
contagious pass along effect. Smart, effective
promotions don’t require you to have a million
fans before activation. When brainstormed and
built right, these efforts can be the key to
doubling or tripling a smaller social presence
overnight.
Some of the most successful
promotions have employed the
power of the network itself to
create a fan base that didn’t exist
prior to the promotion.
One great example is a Burger King
promotion that asked consumers to
sacrifice 10 friends (un-friend them on
Facebook) in order to get a free
Whopper. By playing with the core
emotional driver of the user
(number of friends) they created a memorable
promotion that had a powerful viral effect (for
every friend that was sacrificed they got a
message telling them why; a free Whopper
sandwich from Burger King).
9. 6. consumer education
9
The consumer interaction process follows a
continuum of:
excite > educate > motivate > convert
While there are plenty of great examples
where promotions or marketing campaigns can
execute all of these functions in one fell
swoop, more often than not you need to think
strategically about how you’re going to bring
your consumer along the path to a point where
they’re ready to buy and that’s where the
education phase often gets overlooked.
Brands should be leveraging the
interactive capabilities within
social platforms to educate and
motivate their consumers through
discussion boards, “ask the expert”
buttons, threaded discussions, and
other media tools like videos,
images and reference quotes.
Unlike 30 second ads, social networks present
a platform where you can share information
over a longer period of time. Leverage that
time effectively and you can educate
consumers about even the most complex
solutions.
10. 7. sales
10
Integrated retail applications let you shop at a
virtual fashion show, order a pizza, or
download the latest album from your favourite
band from inside Facebook. With the ability to
integrate transactions and revenue generating
applications into social media platforms comes
all of the challenges that online retailers face
today, only things are a bit trickier working
inside the four walls of a social application.
This newly born ability to sell is
starting to catch on and more and
more retailers are reaping the
benefits of enhancing their appeal
inside the social shopping centre.
The good news is property is still cheap, and
you can always be just one click away from
your customer. Plenty of people compare social
networks to where there are cool kids and not
so cool kids. Life comes full circle with the
addition of the shopping centre checkout
counters.
11. 8. new product development
11
We’ve already talked about market research,
and what role social media can play to help
streamline and strengthen customer
development. There are several other ways
that social media can be used to directly
impact the product development process.
Market leaders like SAP (software) and Cisco
(hardware) have recently completed programs
where they leverage social media to draw upon
the collective wisdom of crowds to identify
Some companies have started to
leverage a public pool of collective
brainpower to help their business
identify innovative new market
opportunities, and even assist with
the development of new product
concepts.
new products and innovative new directions
for their companies. Cisco set up a program
that awarded the winner of their challenge (to
find a 1 billion dollar opportunity) with a
$250,000 cash prize. By leveraging the reach of
social media, these companies have been able
to harness the brain power and innovation
from minds that exist well outside the walls of
their building.
12. 9. customer relationship management
12
One of the most interesting things about social
media is the longitude of the relationship with
the consumer.
Where list building was a major tactic for
building an inexpensive platform for
marketing to consumers over the last few
years, social media presents an equally
powerful long term strategy for keeping
customer relationships in tact tomorrow
and beyond. The impact of the platforms
over time has not been fully realized, but
the projections look interesting. With
pop stars, authors, and companies
building networks of millions of fans we
may see the proverbial 15 minutes of fame
stretched to 15 years or more. One can only
imagine what impact a persistent network of
millions of fans could have. What would it
mean if a boy band like Take That had a
persistent social network that represented
even half of the buyers of the 100 million
records they sold? Maybe we’d still be listening
to Nigel Martin-Smith’s next big boy band
instead of One Direction.
While nobody can predict the
lifetime membership to the latest
social sites, it seems that there is a
chance that they could outlast
consumer’s email and street
addresses.
13. 10. undiscovered
13
Okay, it’s true, we told you there were 9
categories of how you can use social media to
impact your business and life.
We lied, there’s 10. Because of the rapid
evolution in this market, we decided to
nominate a 10th category and have coined it
‘yet to be discovered’. Hopefully the 9 other
examples we pointed out inspire some ideas
around how social media could impact your
business, but if you didn’t see any don’t fret.
This market is changing daily, so stay
tuned to see what’s coming next.
From emergency contacts (like twitter sites set
up to stream news after an earthquake) or
simple tasks like family management (“I’ll pick
you up from football practice at 6pm”), we’re
just starting to scratch the surface of what will
evolve in the near future. Nearly every day
thousands of new applications are launched,
and thousands more are being drawn up on
white boards around the globe, so stay tuned…
The exciting part is that we have
yet to uncover even half of the
ways that these emerging
applications and disruptive
technologies will impact both
consumer and corporate life.
14. how to get started
14
Let’s face it, in the complex and ever-evolving
world of social media, it’s easy for even the best
of us to take a wrong turn and get lost. That’s
why it it’s essential to first create a highly-
targeted social media strategy with clear,
achievable goals; whether it’s product
development, consumer awareness, PR, or even
offline footfall and purchase. To fully leverage
emerging social media tools and techniques, it
requires you to put together a smart, up-front
strategy before lighting the fuse.
In order to help some of the ‘not so early’
adopters out there plot a course of action,
we offer up our four step process.
1. Plan
2. Build
3. Promote
4. Measure
The 4-Step Process
15. plan
15
Our planning process typically takes a few
weeks where we work to clearly define the
business goals, and unfold a crystal clear map
of how we plan to get to the finish line
leveraging the best tools and resources
available. This ‘immersion strategy’ process
breaks down into two main components.
Evaluating your brand and business
objectives, your business assets, your
consumer, and your overall brand
positioning to help guide and structure
each social media engagement so that is
can be tied back to a business goal.
Evaluate
Identifying the right strategic opportunities
for best leveraging your assets and
resources, so you can focus on building
meaningful customer relationships,
increase organization effectiveness, and
grow your social platform effectively.
Identify
16. build
16
From custom pages and content to promotions
and contests, you’ll probably need a team of
talented creative types to put together all of
the essential ingredients you need to create
memorable and meaningful social brand
experiences. But whatever you do, don’t
confuse social media with an opportunity to
shout about your product. Really take the time
to dial in your creative communications; as the
images, words and content that you choose
have a massive influence on what consumers
feel (and say) about your brand.
Find a team of designers and developers
to build custom Facebook and Twitter
pages, applications, and promotions that
seamlessly integrate with the look, tone,
and feel of your brand while inspiring
meaningful social interaction.
Build great stuff
Building up a social media presence is
great, but it’s only one half of the
equation. Momentum is generated by a
dedicated community manager that
maximizes and manages all of your
brand’s activity, including both inbound
and outbound messages.
Work on it 24/7
17. promote
17
If you’re going to take the time to create and
deploy an interactive promotion, take full
advantage of the social web and watch it
spread. If you want to be a hit at the party,
don’t shuffle around the room handing out
brochures explaining the features and
functions of your product. The way to develop
a large and loyal following is by first inspiring
people so they’ll want to connect with your
brand. A major component of the project
planning that we work on is the
overarching content strategy that will be
employed to help position your brand for
success. Skip this step in the process and
you can quickly find yourself on the
outside looking in. Remember, in social
media, content is king.
Create compelling content
events, user-generated content contests,
e-couponing campaigns, and product
giveaways. These promotional efforts
should centre around great content, but
ultimately leverage integrated sharing
and promotion technologies that give
your message the best shot to grow
organically.
Deploy a wide range of engaging
promotional campaigns, including:
exclusive branded content, sweepstakes,
18. measure
18
One of the core components to creating value
through social media is your ability to measure
the impact. We leverage real time applications
and the latest reporting tools to pull in and
analyse millions of daily updates, blog posts,
and mentions about your brand. Each is
tracked for both volume, sentiment (good or
bad) and changes in volume or sentiment.
With robust measurement tools in place you
can clearly see the impact your brand has
across the social platform.
Regardless of the focus of your social
strategy, the ability to track, measure,
and listen to millions of consumers in
real time presents a strategic
opportunity that has never existed
before now. Hint: If you aren’t tuning
into what consumers are saying about
your brand, your industry, your product,
and your competitors, you’re missing
the point.
Real time reports
By listening in you’re able to 1) mine
insights for new opportunities; 2) identify
key influencers; and 3) understand how
our promotional campaigns are fairing.
Identifying the tone of what’s being
talked about online (positive, negative,
neutral), to uncover timely truths which
enable you to build better products,
promotions, and customer relationships.
19. 19
Our clients range from start up ventures to
international brands. If you think that you might
benefit from a conversation with us, please don’t
be afraid to drop us a line, we’d be happy to talk
shop.
You can call us on +44 (0) 208 241 3730 , drop
us an email info@luciditylondon.com or visit our
website at www.lucidilylondon.com
Don’t be afraid to ask
