GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIAHOW TO BECOME THE REAL DEAL @ SOCIAL MEDIA

Joseph Nolan | Principal

RealDealCommunications.com

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Guide to Social Media is an aggregation of best practices from the top social media and

communications practitioners. It is designed to enhance your perspective of ―social media‖

and its fundamental dynamics.

How-to processes and strategies enable the most novice users and corporate community

managers alike to build consensus for action, create and manage successful communities and

drive brand relationships in both on- and offline environments. Use this as a tool to support

continuous improvement, benchmark your current activities and plan for future online

involvement.

SOCIAL MEDIA DYNAMICS

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITIES

SOCIAL MEDIA MEASUREMENT

Contents

SOCIAL MEDIA DYNAMICS

The

social

media

landscape.

6

Major

brands

driving

social

media.

Old communication model

BRAND MEDIA CONSUMERS

Communication today

CONSUMERS

BRANDMEDIA

Firms communicate directly with

consumers in two-way conversation

Consumers communicate with other consumers

P-2-P recommendations and WOM the most important

Consumers/users are…

Reporters

Channels

Ambassadors

Detractors

Billboards

Spokespersons

Critics

Legitimate

Controversial

Powerful

Connected

Authoritative

Omni-present

Loyal

Fickle

Platforms

Social media communication factors

Research, strategies and decision making should take these into account

Factors affect each platform differently

Factors affect user experience differently by platform

Reach

Frequency

Speed

Timing

Duration

Location

Relevance

Legitimacy

Credibility

Intimacy

Authority

Community

INFLUENCE &

RELATIONSHIPS

Social

media

enables

info to

travel

faster

than

ever.

Many-to-many principle

Social media enables and promotes the flow of information to transform

P-2-P into 1-to-Many then Many-to-Many

One post/comment is no longer to just

one user, thread, community, site,

network

One post/comment can be visible by tens

of thousands instantly

Synergy is the standard

Platforms are integrated

Users update multiple profiles

simultaneously

Snowball effect on steroids

Snowball effect

Absolute truths about social media

CONTROL = 0%

MANAGE = 100%

Controlling socnets and users is impossible

Managing socnets and users is possible

You control the content you produce

You control how fast, often and well you

respond

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Scope of social networks

Socnets

are

complex,

connected

communities.

Strategy

is

required.

Ask yourself before you start

Are your customers likely to be online?

What’s your story?

Are you ready to handle negativity?

How will you incorporate this into people’s daily jobs?

How will you measure results?

How long are you willing to give it a try?

What’s your willingness to experiment, take risks, and adjust your plans?

Strategy step 1: Research & Listen

1. Locate existing online conversations about your brand

• Collect market intelligence and customer insight

• Search existing sites for brand information

2. Demographics

• Identify key target audience(s)

• Create a technoprofile for each audience

i.e. how they interact with the web and devices

• Find out which sites are the most important and WHY

3. Monitor ongoing conversations about your brand

• How is user activity changing?

• What is motivating user behavior?

• Why are users speaking about these specific topics?

Strategy step 2:

Define Target Areas for Campaigns

Who is likely to be most interested in my content?

Who do I want to communicate with and why?

What kind of audience does this social community have?

What are people currently saying about my website or business?

Which type of person is likely to purchase my product or service?

What tools or online services do my target audience use?

Which websites does my target audience frequent on the net?

What do my target audiences have in common with each other?

Strategy step 3: Select platform(s)

Start slow

Research the capabilities of prospective platforms

Gauge internal/external resource allocation

Assess employee proficiency with platforms

Select platforms based on target audience activity and ability to manage

Understand which platform elements relate to which goals and user behavior

Increased brand awareness

Reputation management

Improved search engine rankings

Increase customer bas.

Generate leads

Drive sales

Build awareness

Make money from your content

Establish thought leadership

Educate customers

Customer-source part of your product development

Reach new channels of customers

Improve internal communication

Increased relevant visitor traffic

Improve sales for a product or service.

Strategy step 4: Set Goals

Segmenting campaigns according to objective increases

effectiveness and the ability to accurately measure ROI

Strategy step 5:

Engage|Energize|Interact

Pick the right social platform

Build a power social profile

Social optimize your web pages

Create targeted content

Start your own social network

Respond…keep the conversations going

Respond quickly…prove to users you value

their attention and are committed, manage

conversation topics and direction

Being active attracts more users

PHASE I

PHASE II

Strategy step 6: Go Offline

Online conversation is a conduit for offline activity

Use real-world events to drive traffic to online domains in order to continue the

conversation with consumers

Using offline to drive online creates a positive vicious cycle that keeps consumers

connected to your brand more frequently

Offline events are the #1 driver of traffic and attention to online communities

Strategy step 7: Establish KPIs

Establish measurement objectives prior to campaign launch

Appropriate metrics vary according to campaign objective and platform

New technologies are making it much easier to measure social media ROI

Effective and next-generation measurement gauges ROI—Return on Influence

Cross Channel Media Monitoring

Communications Management

Reporting

Competitive Intelligence

Marketing Effectives

Trend Tracking

Blogger Identification and Outreach

Tribe Intelligence

Influencer Analysis

Workflow Engagement & Crisis

Management

Buzz lifecycle

Social CRM & Web analytics integration

ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITIES

Reason to engage consumers

ClickAdvisor.com

They

will

like

you

if

you

talk

to

them.

Build

relationships.

91 90

Community basics

Every community has super-users:

high authority, highly active.

Know who they are.

neilperkin.typepad.com

Activity FrequencySee what my friends are up to: 86%

Sent a message to someone: 79%

Posted/updated my profile: 70%

Looked at profiles of people I didn’t know: 65%

Searched for someone that I used to know: 59%

Send a friend/connection request: 53%

Listened to music: 47%

Read a blog or journal: 51%

Wrote on someone’s profile page (e.g., wrote on a wall, posted a testimonial):

55%

Watched a video: 40%

Sources: North American Technographics Retail And Marketing Online Youth Survey, Q4 2007

Behavior in communities

Plan, then build the community

Create with a clear objective in mind

Targeted at an identified customer segment

Relevant to target segment

Deliver value

Recognition driven, rewarding members through community status levels

Viewed as containing valuable, relevant and interesting information

Places where members are encouraged to participate & share knowledge

Attractive to topic experts

Manage the community

Well-managed by a dedicated team

Committed to ensuring the content is updated regularly

Moderated by professionals

Available 24/7

Responsive, easy-to-use and navigate around

Complimentary to an organization’s core business

GOAL CONTRIBUTION EXAMPLE

Listening

Direct customer insight

New product ideas

Beta testing

Insight Communities

Scan and monitor existing communities

EngagingCreate an emotional attachment

Advertising based on network

Marketing campaigns (interactive)

Advertisements

EnergizingExcite your biggest fans

Word of mouth

Applications, Widgets

Media

Supporting Peer-to-peer support Customer-created groups

Embracing Members become contributors Ideastorm, SalesForce

Launching a new community

EmailSEOSMS

WEBSITEVISITORS

PositiveUser

Experience

EngageWith Peers

GainKnowledge

Word ofMouth& ViralContent Community Advocacy

Drive traffic and engagement

Web Site Value Proposition is introduced through Email, SEO and SMS campaigns

Lifestyle-enhancing online tool kit

Valuable & relevant content

Active & engaging community of peers

Members-get-member strategies

Member referral programs

Word of Mouth

Viral campaigns

Email

Search EngineOptimization SMS/Text

WEB SITE

Word ofMouth

ViralOnline

Circular

Multiple

Iterations

From

One instance

CONTENT must be: COMMUNITY must be:

ONE WAY – ONE TIME

Circular

Multiple

Iterations

From

One instance

InformativeValuable InterestingRelevant

EngagingEducational

EntertainingEnhancing a lifestyle

Traffic strategy

Brand Benefit

Information andReduced cost to Serve

BRAND NARRATIVE

(Being interesting)

DATA

THROUGH DIGITAL

CHANNELS

Leading to

Behavior Change

Customer BenefitInvolvement

BRAND UTILITY

(Being Useful)

Mark Hancock, Strategy Director, Agency.com…http://www.holycow.typepad.com/

How community engagement

models work

Brand community lifecycle

Be

patient.

Be

prudent.

Legitimate complainer

Needs help with products orservices or wants to warnothers

Raises legitimate issue; may use strong language but seems open to reason

Solve problems or explain policies, publicly if possible

CompetitorWant to promote competing products

Continues to mention other brands; parrots their marketing messages

Engage rationally and respectfully with your company’s perspective

Engaged criticThink they can make things better

Makes suggestions, not just complaints; responds intelligently to others’ criticisms

Create forum to encourage discussion; recognize good ideas publicly

FlamerLike to argue with other members

Tend to participate in “flame wars” and may have specific other members they target

Refocus discussion on higher goals of community

TroublemakerHave a grudge against company; hope to create problems

Complains continuously and cannot be satisfied; uses incendiary language

Address individually and privately, if complaints continue in face of attempts to resolve, remove from community

Type of detractorWhy they

make trouble How to recognize What you should do

Dealing with detractors

Higher repeat visits

More repeat

custom

More loyal users

More loyal customers

Higher levels of interaction

More opportunities to interact

More useful site

Better customer experience

More content

More feedback, ideas

More traffic

More people talking about your brand

More links

More word-of-mouth referrals

More authority

Something worth talking about

39Mark Hancock, Strategy Director, Agency.com…http://www.holycow.typepad.com/

The virtuous cycle

SOCIAL MEDIA MEASUREMENT

Can we measure social?

Social media is new…

Measurement can be difficult…

Yes, measurement IS POSSIBLE!

What’s being measured

Quantitative Data

Credibility

Engagement | Impact | Stickiness

Innovative metrics

Measure activity

Pageviews

Unique visitors

Members

Posts (ideas/threads)

Number of groups (networks/forums)

Comments & Trackbacks

Tags/Ratings/Rankings

Time spent on site

Contributors

Active contributors

Word count

Referrals

Completed profiles

Connections (between members)

Ratios: Member to contributor;

Posts to comments; Completed profiles to

posts

Periods: by day, week, month, year

Frequency: of visits, posts, comments

Survey metrics

Satisfaction

Affinity

Quality and speed of issue resolution

Referral likelihood

Relevance of content, connections

New member metrics

New 'friends' after 30/60/90 days

Number of friends met online that users have met offline

Number of friends met online that member has subsequently collaborated with

Number of ideas that the user has gotten and then used in their work

Measure marketing/sales ROI

Cost per number of engaged prospects (community vs. other initiatives)

Number of leads/period

Number of qualified leads/period

Ratio of qualified to non-qualified leads

Cost of lead

Time to qualified lead

Lead conversion

Number of pre-sales reference calls (to other customers)

Average new revenue per customer

Lifetime value of customers

CS ROI metrics

Customer satisfaction

Number of initiated support

tickets per customer per period

Support cost per customer in

community

Prod. Dev. ROI metrics

Number of new product ideas

% of ideas from

customers/prospects/community

Idea to development initiation cycle time

Revenue/Adoption rate of new products from

community vs. traditional sources

Strategic insight on social

measurement

Number of mentions (tracked via web or blog search engines)

Positive/Negative listing ratios on major search engines

Long term relationships and establishing authority in your area of expertise

The value of engagement with your user base on a personal rather than database level

Are you able to convert negative conversations into positive ones?

Are you able to reach demographics that don’t respond to traditional media?

Is social media able to reach your market and engage them faster than previously?

Is it possible to spot trends far enough in advance to direct or at least get ahead of them?

Can your social media presence create volunteer evangelists?

ROI how-to

ROI how-to

Ranking metrics

Ranking metrics

About the Real Deal

Joseph Nolan is the consummate strategist and innovator. Over the

last eight years he has immersed himself in the influence professions

through interactions with the world’s elite brands and top universities.

Today, he continues the pursuit of his passions for educating, the

fusion of strategic marketing and communications and pioneering

strategies for capitalizing on the collegiate and affluencer segments.

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