Chapter 2
The Shift to Conversation: Content, Context and Avoiding Cheap Talk
In the race to be liked on Facebook or followed on Twitter, brands must focus on creating engaging content that resonates with their customers or stakeholders. Social media content should always be relevant to who you are and what you do. The most authentic brands resist the temptation to follow the buzz and always strive to look and feel the same on the outside as they do on the inside. Traditional media relations, as we know, are gradually being eclipsed by the rise in social media relations. The days of PR departments endlessly issuing press releases to generate news and capture column inches are in decline. What's more, traditional print coverage is becoming less relevant to brands, many of whom are now significant media owners in their own right (Nike, Red Bull, Audi).
With access to large groups via social networks, brands are beginning to engage significant numbers of customers or stakeholders in regular conversation and, when managed carefully, positively influence their perception. In that context, generating engaging and relevant content (or news as it was once known) continues to be one of the most important disciplines for strategic communication professionals.
While the means of communication are shifting from traditional media to social media, the need to focus on creating engaging content that resonates with a brand's publics, be they customers or stakeholders, has never been more important. Yet some brands have placed too much emphasis on reaching scale quickly at all costs, without due care and attention towards the quality of the connections being established.
Unlike press releases of old that often jumped straight to the big sell, social media requires brands to be less direct and more willing to engage in conversation.
Getting started
The best content-led engagement strategies are built on a simple three-pronged approach: listen first, engage second, and seek to influence or persuade last. Sequential in order, but not necessarily equal in terms of time needed to master each phase, it is essential before getting started to gain insight into what people are saying about your brand.
Asda followed a methodical five-year plan when first approaching social media in 2009. The first year was almost entirely dedicated to listening and monitoring. Year two led to trials of Twitter handles and the introduction of a new interactive corporate blog/website called Your Asda. The monitoring and listening continued, leading to insight that enabled Asda to focus on engagement in year three. In year four, armed with three years' worth of insight, two years of trialling things and a year of outreach and engagement, Asda was able to accelerate its efforts and significantly grow its presence on social media. Year five sees the introduction of tightly managed programmes that seek to influence customers by sending large numbers of them towards specific activity, be that online or in store.
Social networks like Twitter have become relatively free, real-time focus groups, where increasing numbers of people openly discuss a brand's advertising, pricing, products and services, members of staff or customers. As a result, savvy marketing and PR professionals have quickly learned the importance of listening closely to what is being said. The old adage that your reputation is what people say about you when you leave the room is still true, but social media monitoring now gives brands unrivalled access and insight into those conversations outside the room.
Brands in traditional sectors like financial services have taken longer than most to get started, dwelling on stage one. There are notable exceptions like First Direct, which led the way in trialling social media on its core website. However, many others have at best been listening without much engagement – perhaps fearful of regulators, or amplifying customer service issues, or because internal structures cause inertia.
Other sectors like retail and travel have recognized the opportunity, and have worked hard to avoid reputational issues by listening closely to what people are saying about them, and moving quickly to intervene, taking problems offline to resolve them swiftly.
Blindly following the social buzz each day can take brands into uncomfortable territory, and can leave customers – be they followers or fans – questioning the validity of their relationship.
Just because everyone else is talking about something doesn't mean a brand should too. For example, when the Duchess of Cambridge announced she was pregnant, brand after brand clamoured to celebrate the imminent new arrival. Many fell into the trap of making tenuous connections.
When approaching social media, it is absolutely key to have a clear content strategy. It forces brands to consider who they really are and what they stand for. The risk of not having a strategic approach is that some brands try too hard to be popular by blindly following the crowd or buzz of the day, inserting themselves into conversations without a clear reason or purpose. Even sponsoring non-related but popular hashtags on Twitter can be met with a muted response at best or a negative reaction at worst. Asda Deals sponsored a Ricky Gervais trending hashtag to recruit new followers. Many reacted angrily to Asda Deals appearing in their timeline.
Content and context
Natural and meaningful conversations in social media reflect conversations in real life. They are two-way dialogues, not one-way broadcasts, where open-ended questions are posed to seek out opinions.
Conversations in the real world become more meaningful as the relationship develops, and don't tend to jump immediately into a justification of a particular viewpoint or into an aggressive sales pitch.
So when brands adopt this style in social media, with an audience that it hasn't harnessed and built trust with, the reaction can be either negative or disengaging.
Context therefore dictates a brand's tone of voice. Red Bull has a clear brand proposition, giving it the licence to associate itself with a breadth of hair-raising events and activities. Most brands, however, are more restricted in what they can legitimately be interested in. If you are a shop that sells baked beans, always bear in mind that's how others will view you.
Social media content should always have a clear purpose, be that to inform, entertain or inspire. Before embarking on a social media programme, brands should consider carefully what outcomes they are seeking to achieve. Are they attempting to gain insight, elicit a response, or drive traffic, whether online or in-store? By being explicit about what their social media content is trying to achieve, they are better placed to set clear, measurable goals that can act as a benchmark for future activity.
Building the right relationships
The biggest mistake a brand can make on social media is prioritizing the rapid acquisition of new fans or followers above the quality of the relationships they are building. At Asda there is a mantra when it comes to measuring the success of social media – “fans are for vanity, engagement is sanity”.
Some of the most successful brands currently harnessing social media have taken an organic approach to building their communities. That's not to say that organic necessarily means slow. From a standing start it is possible to build large communities and reach scale quickly, but the tactics used are important and will dictate who joins the community, how actively engaged they are, and how relevant a connection has been made.
When handled well, social media lets brands recruit ambassadors and cheerleaders, who once engaged have the ability to turbo-charge natural word of mouth and act as the first line of defence when things go wrong. Stefan Olander, VP of Digital Sport at Nike, famously said: “Once you have established a direct relationship with a consumer, you don't need to advertise to them.” That's how powerful social media can be.
One size doesn't fit all
While the mass market appeal of Facebook gives brands the opportunity to reach large numbers of their customers through their newsfeeds, other social networks can create opportunities to reach different customer segments or interest groups.
The key is understanding the unique benefits each social network might bring to your brand – and then, if you decide it's worth investing the time and effort, identifying the type of content or conversations that are appropriate in each context. Simply copying posts designed to generate fan engagement on Facebook and pasting them into Google+ or Twitter is missing the point. Content strategies need to be in a continual state of review as the social media landscape shifts and changes.
Tailored content that fits distinct social platforms and meets the needs of the specific audience is likely to develop in the same way as it did for traditional PR professionals who once had to write different releases for different sectors – be that trade, consumer, local or national.
Hope and Social is a six-piece rock band based in Leeds, Yorkshire. Formed in 2008 the band is characterized by its “Pay What You Want” approach to music. Nobody really “manages” them as such, but they work hard to ensure their fans feel every bit as much a part of the band as the musicians themselves.
They have released four albums in less than four years, all under the banner of Alamo Music, the first ever fan-funded, fan-owned record label.
This is how they describe themselves on the home page of their website www.hopeandsocial.com:
“We make timeless music and give it away, like our brand new album All Our Dancing Days. We involve people in everything we do, and they never fail to amaze us. We have fun and make art. We create events to remember. We talk about what we do and stuff we care about. We hail from Yorkshire in the north of England, where we have an enigmatic studio called The Crypt. We share what we learn from the mistakes that we make. Fingers crossed, we will die with our hearts out in bloom. We are Hope and Social. Lovely to meet you.”
Ben Denison “helps out” with the band, and has had a huge influence on how they have adopted social media, making it an integral part of how the brand operates and functions. Ben says:
“Content and context is king. Putting your products within a story is absolutely key. They become more valuable objects that way. People buy into the story and the product. As the two become intertwined you lose track of which is the story and which is the product. The barriers are removed.
Organisations used to be characterised by how they saw themselves from the inside and how others viewed them from the outside. When the two were different, something would inevitably leak. Social media now means the two must be the same as you tell your story to the outside world.
Social at its best is small; it is telephone not megaphone. Brands therefore should think of social media like being in a country pub. You wouldn't walk in and start shouting about how great a person you are or handing out cash. You'd sidle up to the bar, pull up a stool and listen in to the conversations going on around you. You'd join in when you had something interesting to say, and it wouldn't be about you, it'd be about something you know that you want to share to spark the interest of others. Social media is no more complicated than that.
Wherever possible you should celebrate the values of the organisation that you are in. Have a common belief that everyone aligns themselves to, a higher purpose that connects with people, and moves your content away from the functional to the emotional.
More and more forms of corporate communication are moving towards conversational style harnessing the personality of the brand. Emails sent from organisations are more likely to be opened if they are interesting, not just shouting calls to action at you. You can't preach or direct people to go here or go there all the time.
Cleverly devised content is a person to person experience with the ambition of creating “vibrating” advocates as I call them. Cheerleaders who have been positively infected by who you are, what you stand for, and what you do – but in that order not the other way round.
Thinking person to person means every post, every tweet, every email, every interaction has to be as good, if not better than the last – otherwise the people who you are engaging with will slowly begin to lose interest. And winning them back round is really hard to do.
As social media develops and grows it will be important for brands to create sub-groups and smaller clans of people who are passionate about certain things. You can't expect everyone to love everything about you, so remind yourself you are in the country pub and striking up conversations.
Building friendship is based on equality and genuine interest in others. Then if you're really smart you can tell them about your little country pub down the road and when you leave, they may just follow for a nightcap, and if you're really lucky they′ll bring one or two friends with them.”
Danny Blackburn is head of content at IMP Media Ltd, a social media agency based in Leeds with clients including Everything Everywhere, Hobbycraft and Asda. He says a lot of companies admit they focus on engaging content without really understanding what it actually means: “In a nutshell it's about having a clear strategy to begin with (we're saying X to Y in order to achieve Z), knowing your audience, giving them what they actually want, and doing it in a way that encourages them to respond, get involved or tell others.” He points to a number of examples of brands getting it right.
Intrepid travel: Genuinely inspiring, high-quality content. They really understand the motivation of the people they're conversing with. They use social media in a way that manages to promote the brand without actually feeling like it's promoting the brand. I look forward to their posts popping up in my newsfeed: www.facebook.com/intrepidtravel.
Rapha Racing: Yes, I know it's cycling (snore), but it's a cracking example of brand extension. Rapha clothing is expensive, exclusive, boutique gear for people who “appreciate quality” (or “with more money than sense”). The Facebook Page exudes the same feeling which makes people want to spend so much cash. It's aspirational, reeks of quality, and makes you feel like you're part of a club. The fanbase is small, but that's fine for a brand like this: www.facebook.com/rapharacing.
Red Bull: It's an obvious one, but you can't argue with ‘em. They're essentially a media company now – massively high production values, producing content that's perfect for the people they're trying to reach and to convey the image they want to put out there. They have a massive fanbase and engage them online by covering the subjects the fans care about and (generally) the subjects that aren't covered anywhere else. Great use of sponsorship too, amplifying the very best stuff they produce far and wide: www.facebook.co.uk/redbull.
Danny adds: “It's all about really understanding who you're talking to and producing relevant content – that takes investment of time, money and creativity. You look forward to, enjoy and welcome the most engaging Facebook content appearing in your newsfeed.
I guess it's easier to stay relevant when your target demographic is focused and narrow. If Red Bull suddenly diversified into nappies and baby wipes they'd struggle to talk to their existing Facebook audience in an engaging way – the same is true for Asda if it tried to talk to its audience about action sports. Although babies riding freestyle motocross bikes would be quite cool …”
Biography
Dom Burch (@domburch) works for Asda. He studied PR at Leeds Metropolitan University back in 1994, graduating with a BA Hons degree in the summer of 1998. His first (unpaid) job was with Cause Connection, a CSR unit within Saatchi & Saatchi, before being properly employed by Green Flag in Leeds as a PR assistant. Following a two-year stint at Direct Line in Croydon Dom joined Asda in 2002, working his way up from PR manager to head of PR and social media. He is the architect of Asda's social media strategy, and looks forward to the day when he never has to speak to a journalist.