Chapter 2
Making the Case for Social Media: The Five Ws+H+E
THE RISE OF UNMARKETING
Fueled by a combination of popularity, curiosity, necessity, strategy, and trendiness, marketers are embracing a new recipe that injects a proactive, social approach to outbound communications and engagement—with or without all of the answers before they jump in. This approach, while courageous, requires faith, conviction, and champions who don't necessarily have access to metrics and case studies at the sole proprietor, small and mid-sized business (SMB), and enterprise levels. Many of the most, and also least, effective campaigns are implemented as a method of learning. As we all know, some social media campaigns excel while others publicly flop, which fosters cynicism and fear of embracing a transparent form of open and public dialogue. Some words of advice: Do not jump in to social media without fully understanding the five Ws and an H and E of social media.
1. Who: Define the brand personality and what it symbolizes.
Social media is about people connecting with people, not avatars. Bring your business and your brand to life. Give it a persona, personality, voice, and presence. If your company was a person, how would it look, behave, speak, respond, or lead? Also, make the brand stand for something that's worthy and desirable. Give it a mission and a sense of purpose.
2. What: Listen to online conversations and learn from what's said.
Assess how the brand is perceived today using search tools for the traditional and Social Web. Create a benchmark that captures what the world looks like today and pay attention to the general sentiment tied to your brand and competitors. Try Google, Collecta.com. Google Blog Search, and also Analytic.ly to get started. If you're working with a reasonable budget, also consider using services such as Spiral16 or Radian6.
3. When: Pinpoint when your opportunities arise.
Each tool mentioned here provides you with alert systems to let you know when your keywords appear online as they happen. Monitor the real-time Web to see the level of activity that takes place every day. Surface any conversations that represent opportunities for positive engagement as well as those that contribute to negative impressions.
4. Where: Track down where your presence is required.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and blogs are among the social networks most often discussed in popular media today. Using the same services discussed earlier, we get an exact idea of where your customers, prospects, and their peers are interacting online. Once we have this information, we can put together an action plan to become part of their conversations, learn how to build valuable relationships, and contribute to the loyalty and advocacy of the social customer.
5. How: Become a part of the community.
In your review, pay close attention to how people interact, and the culture and behavior that exists within the social networks that are important to you. Their words and actions reveal opportunities for value-added, not disruptive or offensive, engagement. Monitor the responses that follow each time we engage. They will offer feedback that teaches us how to improve and what steps we should take next.
6. Why: Find the reasons that warrant your participation.
Pay attention to recurring themes, topics, questions, insights, or the lack thereof. Doing so surfaces the reasons for initial engagement as well as the ideas that trigger creativity and value for engagement over time.
7. To What Extent: Identify the individuals who can help you tell your story.
Many individuals are earning authority within social networks, and what they say influences those around them. Their reach is expansive and is instrumental in effective word of mouth programs. We can identify who they are by using the same tools in Steps 1 through 6. Monitoring their activity and learning about who they are will also reveal their motivation.
While dollars evaporate from traditional budgets previously earmarked for advertising, public relations, events, and other return on investment (ROI) programs, individuals recognize social media as a cost-efficient venue for maintaining visibility, especially when compared to falling completely off the radar screens of potential customers, stakeholders, and influencers.
PEOPLE INFLUENCE BUYING DECISIONS, ONLINE AND OFFLINE
To most successfully capture mindshare and earn trust, we have to reverse the activities that have contributed to this negative perception held by consumers.
In 2010, Forrester Research Inc. released a survey that linked business buyers and their process of researching solutions to social media. The research group interviewed business buyers to learn about their social activity—in this case, more than 1,200 technology buyers in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom with 100 employees or more in seven major industries.
According to the responses, social media again proved to extend beyond consumers and business to consumers (B2C). In the real world of business-to-business research, analysis, and decisions, the Forrester data points to peer-to-peer influence and collaboration in social networks and blogs:
- 68 percent are Spectators—this group reads blogs, watches user-generated videos, and participates in other social media for business purposes.
- 31 percent are conversation lists—those who update their status on social networks.
- 33 percent are Critics—they contribute comments or react to content they see in social formats.
- 19 percent are Collectors—they use social technology to collect information and stay on top of trends.
- 59 percent are Joiners, who participate in social networks. Only 19 percent are Inactives, or nonparticipants.
This data demonstrates that social media is begetting trust as reinforced through genuine, sincere, and informative interaction between consumers, stakeholders, and brands.
THE DEMOCRATIZATION AND SOCIALIZATION OF BRANDED MEDIA
The democratization of content will only continue to further our global society. In the process it will transform traditional media and broadcast industries while also creating powerful platforms for everyday people with unique perspectives and ideas to cultivate global audiences. And every business, from mainstream brands to those run by you and me, will embrace social strategies to reach existing and potential customers to demonstrate value, solutions, and expertise.
This requires dedication, practice, and perhaps, most notably, an open mind and the patience to absorb a virtual fire hose of streaming information.
What you know today is quickly being leveled across an industry of people who are equally engaged and immersed—and thus becoming just as, if not more, knowledgeable than you. While new media is a great equalizer, it is also a source of motivation and inspiration to aspiring and ambitious students and professionals.
As a thought leader, you hold a power that most don't yet realize. You have influential people who follow and listen to you. This dynamic establishes authority and wields influence to further teach and change. You have the experience to create more effective teams that will work together to build an adaptive, customer-focused, and market-relevant organization. But you … we … are still learning. And we must practice what we learn so that we may gain proficiency. We need to make mistakes, experience triumphs, and observe when, why, and how we move the corporate needle, and galvanize communities through our work.
Businesses spanning every industry will empower employees to embrace the public through real-world and online interactions, requiring a renewed sense of adeptness, passion, and commitment. It's already underway and will one day simply become a function of most roles within an organization. The entire business will socialize.
Today's experimentation with socialized marketing will generate patterns, activity, results, and behavior that will serve as legitimate benchmarks for measuring metrics and ROI. It all starts with studying Web behavior and conversations to measure, monitor, and improve online experiences and activity. In a genre of social proficiency, we will leverage the insight gleaned from analyzing online events to develop more meaningful and compelling engagement initiatives, as well as transform our organization into one that can adapt to the real-world needs and wants of customers.
We need to be a genuine resource to the people who define the very communities that are important to us. As networks and new communities arise and thrive, we're experiencing a fundamental shift in content creation, distribution, and consumption—thus creating an active media-savvy society that is inspiring a more enlightened generation.
We have to relinquish any sense of entitlement we've earned or believe we've achieved over the years as the Social Web and the impending semantic Web (or, as Tim O’Reilly refers to it, “web squared”) continues to advance.1
Lead by example.2
Embrace those who are learning along with you.3
Answer your own questions.4
We are all in this together, and truthfully, we could be so much more than we are today. Let's embody the change we wish to inspire and become the experts we seek to guide us.5
You are part of a new generation that6 is humanizing the brands you represent. You are reshaping fundamental business dynamics and policies to establish, maintain, and cultivate loyalty and relationships with the people who define your markets. And, at the same time, the more you genuinely engage, create compelling and helpful content,7 and share valuable information, you too will become a respected, trusted, and influential resource to your company and outside communities.8
NOTES
1. Internet Usage Statistics, www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.
2. “Russia Has World's Most Engaged Social Networking Audience,” comScore (July 2, 2009), www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/ 7/Russia_has_World_s_Most_Engaged_Social_Networking_Audience.
3. “Global Faces and Networked Places,” Nielsen (March 2009), http://server-uk.imrworldwide.com/pdcimages/Global_Faces_and_Networked_Places-A_Nielsen_Report_on_Social_Networkings_New_Global_Footprint.pdf.
4. Jeremiah Owyang, “Social Media Playtime Is Over,” Forrester Research (March 16, 2009), www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,47665,00.html.
5. “Is Social Network Advertising Ready for Primetime?” eMarketer (July 9, 2009), www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007165.
6. Shar VanBoskirk, “Interactive Marketing Nears $55 Billion; Advertising Overall Declines,” Forrester Research (July 7, 2009), http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/2009/07/interactive-marketing-nears-55-billion-advertising-overall-declines.html.
7. Josh Bernoff, “People Don't Trust Company Blogs. What You Should Do About It,” Forrester Blogs. http://blogs.forrester.com/jackie_rousseau_anderson/10-09-28-latest_global_social_media_trends_may_surprise_you.
8. Jose A. del Moral, “Facebook Becomes the Main Social Network in Most Countries, but in Asia and Latin America,” Social Networks Alianzo's Blogs (February 22, 2009), http://blogs.alianzo.com/socialnetworks/2009/ 02/22/facebook-becomes-the-main-social-network-in-most-countries-but-in-asia-and-latin-america/.