Social Media and its role in communications

Social Media
Its role in communications

Expectations
Interactive and engaging
Ask great questions – the more you give the more you get back
Share your experiences and frustrations
Questions and answers
Smiles
Be active in conversation
Use real/relevant examples

OverviewSocial Media AgencyWeb Design And Development

Kobe earthquake
January 1995

People kept asking 1 basic question
What can I do to help?

Reality
Wasn’t much we could do
Internet hadn’t matured yet as a place to respond to disaster
Donate blood
Pick up phone – donate money
Not much else to do in 1995
No way to collaborate in time of crisis

9 / 11
Trying to sort out fact from fiction
Google groups

Tsunami
Boxing day 2004

From 2001 – 2004
Group of bloggers got together – “Tsunami help blog”
Easy to role out blog – add wiki – now hub where people can share info. Collect info through mobile phones and be aggregated in 1 place
Go to place for any info

Queensland Floods 2011

Queensland floods
Hashtag on twitter #qldfloods
People posting info about lost relatives
Friends/family turned to social media in desperate bid to help find loved ones
Suddenly internet made big leap. We could donate something else. Skills. Technical. Faster and larger scale
Integration into traditional media with eg. Hashtag
People working together, collaborating

Services
Queensland Police – Facebook/Twitter profile which communicated key messages to residents including evacuation information for those who are able to access 3G services – Facebook got 125 million hits
RSPCA - Call out to adopt animals resulted in entire shelter being emptied before the flood waters took over

Sweet Tweet – Video

What we will cover today!
Social media stats - the state of our nation 2011
Monitoring, listening and engaging
Setting measurable objectives
Strategy
Planning and Policy
Resourcing
Integration
Reporting
ROI Model
Have the conversation – buy in

Introductions
Name
Where you are from
Position
Where your organisation is at in terms of social media – eg. Planning stage, implementation stage or continuous improvement

Biggest cultural shift we’ve ever lived through…it’s not social media…it’s the internet…and it’s still a baby!

Almost 40% of Australians are now interacting with companies via social networking sites – Source Nielson
State Of Our Nation

Number of Australian’s utilising Social Media is estimated at 9.9 million – March 2011.

Per Capita
7 hours, 19 min, 13 secs per month
Australians are The Biggest Users Of Social Media

86% of Australians online are looking to fellow users for opinions and information about products, services and brands.

More people spending time online
More people asking open q’s online and sourcing answers via virtual friends/brands
Quicker responses
Easier to find information
More connected via computers/phones/ipads etc
Less foot traffic for certain industries
What do these stats mean?

iPhones/Smart phones
Wireless Internet
3G
Internet Cafes
Increasingly Free Wifi
GogoWifi – On a plane
Easy to jump online

Half Hearted Approach doesn’t cut it!

1. Listen – monitor/measure
2. Strategy
3. Policy, Style Guide, Crisis Management
4. Planning and Resourcing
5. Platform set up – profile management
6. Integration/Campaigns
7. Monitoring/Reporting
Social Media Excellence7 step approach

Monitoring and Measuring

Monitoring and Measuring
Investigation into demographic online
Your brands digital footprint
Sentiment – positive, neutral, negative
Competitor analysis
Conversational segments – categorisingeg. Customer service, mention of new product, etc
Share of voice
Crisis Management - keywords

What it is? (Listening, defining the social landscape – find out where convo is happening eg. Twitter/forums)
Why listen ? (gain understanding of conversation, call to action, sentiment, sales, customer service, to assist in writing a social media strategy)
Connecting with industry – cross promote
Monitoring

Identify & build categories
customer service
sales opportunities
crisis management
generic mentions
Brand-Specific Mentions

Discover how people feel about the brand/industry
Build a benchmark for future comparison
Topic Trends
Identify any trends associated with your organisation/industry
Build a benchmark for future comparison
Sentiment Benchmarking

Identify & measure key competitors for benchmarking & strategy comparison
Competitor Benchmark

Demonstration of Monitoring Tools

Example of desktop

Free Monitoring Tools
SocialMention.com
Search.Twitter.com
Research.ly
Klout.com
Google alerts
Twellow
Bit.ly

Shared Interests and values vs demographic categories

Task
Write down what types of “social key words” online users may say about your brand/product/service.
Who are your competitors?
Write down 1 up and coming comms/marketing campaign – what would you want to track from this? Eg. sentiment, keywords, influencers for the brand
What are you users passionate about, what amuses them and what do they choose to do in their free time?

Social Media Strategy
Goals
Measurable objectives
Identify metrics
Look at current strategies – possible integration
Measure success
ROE and ROI (if necessary)
Small wins using social media VS full social media program

Elements of a Social Media Strategy

What have you done so far?
Tick these off on the sheet
Circle what needs to be done next

Building a Successful Social Media Strategy
Create Buy In
Make sure upper management believe in social media and the purpose it has in the organisation
Ensure that it is used for relationship/community building initially – and number one goal is that it is not used as a sales tool
Long term commitment, long tail approach – not marketing gimmick

Common Social Media Objections

‘Social media allows you to be more engaged with your current and potential clients. It is the most powerful communications channel we have right now, due to gaining real-time responses from consumers.’
‘Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t mean we have to.’
‘It gives our company a voice and shows that we are listening and responding’
‘It gives another customer service channel outside email and phone.’
Fear of Following Trend

Fear of Change
‘The business/marketing world continues to evolve and so many companies are reinventing themselves as innovative by the use of social media. The fact that fortune 50 companies are embracing social media should be enough for it to warrant conversation for us.’
‘We are going to what we know works for our company. We have been fine without it so far.’
‘If we don’t give this an opportunity, we will miss out on lead gen and the cost savings it can offer.’

What About Resources?
‘Let’s dip our toes in the water by running a social media report for our company; then at least we know where we stand and can use the information to move forward.’
‘It is going to require too many resources within the company.’
‘Just like any other marketing campaign, social media will require resources. However, we need to look at the benefits of what social media can do for our company. Eg. Cost savings, lead gen. ’
‘We need to focus on what we want to accomplish through goals, objectives and success metrics.’

Testing and Experimentation are Keys to Success

7 Steps for Social Media Strategy

1. Determine your goals and objectives
Customer service, Marketing, PR or Communications – It’s irrelevant
Understand goals and objectives and how they tie in with company goals
Be SMART 
How will you integrate this?
What are some of your goals????

2. Research
Monitor and measure - Snap shot report
‘Dip your toe in the water’ report
Develop list of social media sites where you can engage your target audience

3. Identify influences
Outline an outreach list
Radian 6 – or other monitoring platform
KloutScore
Technorati
Alltop
LinkedIn
Blogger outreach program

4. Engagement Strategy
Valuable/shareable content
Timeline
Influences
Consistency
Use right platforms
Relevance
Encourage colleagues to identify opportunities

5. Integration
Integrate Marketing/Communications activations
Ensure all social media platforms are ‘talking to each other’ in some manner.
Website
Mobile devises
TVC’s/Radio/Print

6. Measure results
Tie in goals and objectivese.g. Improve brand presence – number of followers on Twitter/fans on Facebook/comments on blog/comments in social environment
What metrics are you using to measure the success of social media? What objectives are you measuring using these metrics?

7. Analyse Adapt Improve

Planning
The Planning, Ideas and the Documentation

The use of social media within your integrated marketing
Building a strategy for your brand or product
Planning
Being creative
Safety stuff…

Integrated Marketing
Coordination of a variety of promotional vehicles (e.g., print/broadcast advertising, public relations, direct marketing, in-store promotions) and multiple stages in a promotional campaign to ensure that the marketing message is consistently received by the greatest possible number of people in the target market.

Are you just going to produce a brouchure or print ad and not extend the story?
Extend the story – story board from the start with all comms/markteing activations
Collect the data
Eg. Want see why your friends talking about x right now! Head to our facebook page to watch the video/hear what people are saying!
Storyboard Social From The Start

How do you integrate social into your marketing/communications?

It’s pretty simple really…
Find out what people are saying in your market and about you
2. Speak to this in ALL of your product or brand marketing/communications
3. Validate your marketing by monitoring your market

The best thing you can do to benefit from social media as part of your integrated marketing is to create a virtuous circle:
Seed your campaign, launch or product on social media to build buzz.
Allow customers to purchase, enquire and test through social media post-launch.
Offer incentives to encourage sharing of your product or brand benefits online.
Drive your growing community to chosen social platforms.

Whatever media you are using, here is a checklist for making social media a part of your effort.
People will search you on all social platforms. Be ready. Make sure all platforms in use have up-to-date product information. Direct people to your website if you have to.
Offer product support on social media. People will want to know more and FAQS are often Frequently Abandoned Questions.

Cont...Whatever media you are using, here is a checklist for making social media a part of your effort.
3. Monitor your campaign using one or more of the social media monitoring tools during and/or after the bulk of your marketing activity.
4. Collect any feedback received through social media and add it to your review of your activity. Look to use it in your planning for next time.

Building a strategy for your brand or product…

1. Define what you want to achieve
Make sure you are clear about what success looks like but also that your objectives are SMART.
Specific = we want to increase sales of X through X platform
Measurable = we want to increase sales by 20% or X units
Achievable = we want to improve on last time by a x amount
Realistic = we have set aside X resources which should mean success
Timely = we have allowed X time to meet these objectives which is feasible

2. Collect your data and research
a. Find out as much as you can about your current or prospective customers.
b. Use every touch point you have to learn about them.
c. Add a basic survey to your email newsletter or website. Run a short poll on Facebook.

2. Collect your data and research
Ask your customers face-to-face what they like about your product/service. If you are a larger business, consider working with a data partner like Sensis, Eperian, Radian6 or thinktank media to form a good picture of who your customers are and where to reach them.

3. Plan to your strengths
You will need to know the company/organisation well enough to be able to work to your strengths.
You will need to know/identify key players and their strengths

3. Plan to your strengths
Some things you might need:
One or more people - write in a conversational tone
A steady supply of candid/interesting photos from both phones and a good quality camera.
Periodic videos from staff, customers, and community members
Contributions from staff and suppliers
Dedicated time to manage your activity and expectations from staff incorporated into job roles. Staff may not be as enthusiastic about social media as you. Make it each for them to be involved.
Start with what you KNOW you can do well.

4. Be outstanding
a. Don’t look to move into a new space with the same ideas that worked for old media.
b. Social media is a completely different series of networks to those that have gone before (with the exception of word of mouth) And demands a different approach to incentivizing actions.
c. Instead of a discount voucher redemption, think discounts for sharing your purchase (a $1 off the price for every FB like).

4. Be outstanding
Rather than posting a letter to your best customers, visit them in person by tracking their Foursquare or Facebook check ins and give them something face to face to show how you value them. Market just for the people you reach initially. If you can give 100 people a great experience they could tell 13,000 people through social media.

4. Be awesome
Rather than providing a limited product offer based on time, add a gaming element by only allowing purchase by those who have purchased earlier products or services (ie. ‘collecting’) e.g. Krispy Kreme Mystery Donut.

Sweat the small stuff

Eyeballs break #1:1 million Heineken Hugs

6. Test your strategy in advance
Once you have decided how to roll out your marketing activity, you can easily test your methods online prior to the main activity.

6. Test your strategy in advance
Some simple ways to do this include:
Post similar photo days apart on different photo-sharing sites like Flickr, Picasa or Photobucket. Which sites draw the most comments or likes?
For links to your website, post the same content on Facebook and Twitter on different days and measure the click throughs using bit.ly. Which platforms works best?

7. Launch, learn, evolve and refine.
When you are ready to launch your main marketing activity, campaign or product, take your online community into your confidence. Give them a preview first. If it’s a product, send out samples to people willing to review them pre-launch.
Advocates need to be looked after and in return they will speak on your behalf.

7. Launch, learn, evolve and refine.
When you get feedback, acknowledge it and incorporate it where you can. If you have a gym you might not realise you have 5 empty rowing machines but queues behind the bikes. You’ll get that feedback from FB so act on it.
Set up a monthly meeting with your strategy team to review how your plan is progressing.

So what does a strategy include I hear you thinking?
Objectives. 3-5 are good.
A theme. It helps inform everything you do.
Benchmarks. Where you are now.
Segments you want to reach. Give them a face and a name.

Continued… So what does a strategy include I hear you thinking?
5. Platform Strategy. Outline which you will use, how and how often.
6. Calendar. Plan out your activity months in advance (but be flexible).
7. Responsibilities. Who does what, when.

Creativity…
Key driver in social media
I can’t teach you to be creative at a workshop.
I can offer some tips and hopefully share some inspiration.

My tips:
Don’t expect great ideas at work.
Be prepared to get it wrong.
Good ideas from elsewhere can be used again.
Encourage your team to have good ideas and help it happen.

Resourcing
Time
Staff
Equipment
Agency

Resource Calendar
Content timeline
Road map
Profile management
Employee identification – e.g. Community Manager or Agency
Integration of social media strategies into current marketing calendar/comms plan

Planning - Gantt Chart

Hootsuite.com
Content calendar/scheduling

Style Guide
Your sister, your mother, your best friend, your grandmother. Friendly, Fun, Conversational, Motivational segments
Only ever one ! No short cut words. Limited 

Policy, Crisis Management & Style Guide
Style Guide
Create a voice and tone for your brand
Identify words and phrases commonly used
Keep tone consistent
Liaise with other internal users to maintain continuity

Twitter
@ - what does an @ mean to your organisation – when would you @ message
What does an RT mean to your organisation
DM – when would you use a DM
Lists – Do you need to great lists?
Favourite – when would you favourite a post
#FF – follow friday

Policy
Have a staff policy
Educate all staff on do’s and don’t’s of social media
Educate all staff on why the company is using social media
How will they play a part in this?

Policy

Guidelines

Training Your Company for Social Media
Taking steps:
Help staff understand your business’ bigger social media picture
How their use of channels fits into big picture
How their online interactions impact the reputation of your company’s brand (as well as their own personal reputation).

Digital Footprint

Education
Almost guaranteed that small segment of your employee base won’t be comfortable with even the basics of online social networks.
You’ll need to account for them.

Education
Invest time, effort and do a bit of thinking outside the box to create a strong and comprehensive social media training program for your company.

Education
With the right information in hand, you can create a solid training program that gets your basic-level employees feeling comfortable and your advanced-level employees ready to use their social networking skills on your company’s behalf.

The specific reasons why training everyone in social media use is so important

Hiring
Hiring an intern to run your social media program - A BIG NO NO
Even the most “skilled” social networkers will need to be trained in some way or another.
Just because they’re good with their personal social media activations doesn’t mean they’ll be a hit business wise!

Who and Why?
Digital Native:
Savvy Technologist:
Reluctant User:
Digital Contrarian:
Digital Newbie:
You’ll have all of these archetypes within your employee base, and will need to create training based around the various comfort and use levels of each.

Digital Native:
The digital native is someone who’s grown up in a highly digital world. They’ve had access to various online social platforms most of their lives and are very comfortable using those platforms, as well as adopting any new ones that come on the scene. Digital tools are a part of digital natives’ daily lives, to such a degree that many of them would be at a loss as to how to go on about their days if some of these tools were taken away.

Savvy Technologist:
The savvy technologist is someone who, while not having grown up with them, feels comfortable using most online social platforms and digital tools. These people approach new platforms with caution and often let others fumble around before joining in.
While they lean toward using digital tools to manage their daily lives, savvy technologists have no problem reverting back to their analog ways if necessary, and sometimes even opt to maintain those analog habits that seem more efficient and effective (e.g., maintaining a written day planner).

Reluctant User
The reluctant user is someone who’s aware of the digital world and social media but hesitates to explore and dive into the digital space. These people have heard of big-name social networks like Facebook and probably carry around a smartphone for work, but that is the extent of their digital adoption. They do not think about or use digital tools more than necessary and generally resist incorporating those tools into their lives.

The digital contrarian
is someone who’s averse to the digital world. They’ve probably heard of social networking but they think it’s a bunch of rubbish, and they’ll use email for work purposes, but if they have a personal email account, it was set up by a friend/sibling/child and is rarely if ever checked. These people prefer and almost strictly use traditional communication channels to reach their friends, family and business partners. If you send them an email, they’ll ask you why you didn’t just give them a call.

Digital Newbie:
Unlike the digital contrarian, the digital newbie isn’t opposed to the digital world so much as they are simply unaware of it. While the digital native might feel these folks must live under rocks, digital newbies go on about their day not thinking or wondering about the online social world or the need for an iPhone. Their life and day-to-day activities go on just fine without any digital intervention, and they don’t see the need to change their habits or behaviors.

The preparatory steps you need to take during your program planning phase

Discussions needed
Surrounding specific social media needs/expectations of each team within your organisation.
Seeing how those needs and expectations fit within the boundaries of your current social media strategy

Training program
It’s important you create a training program that ties to your company social media plan and addresses the various needs of those who will be participating.

A loose framework to plan your training course programming

Training Program and Framework
Due diligence
Brainstorming the who, the what and the which
Create your social media team
Using external training and resources
When building your program you need to state your goals, objectives, benchmarks and reviews

Your basic program
Explain what is social media through question and answer
Explain direct benefits for the company
Listing how to identify and new business
Community management
Collaborations with other internal teams
Continuous learning

Internal hurdles and considerations

Internal Hurdles
Nervous?
Trust your employees
Find their voice within the framework
Honest/natural voices
Honest customer service – if you make a mistake deal with it through social media
Listen

Ongoing education and post-training resource planning

Ongoing Education and Training
Keep your finger on the pulse
Knowledge is power and it is never too late to start!
Continuous improvement

Crisis Management
Create social media steering group
Foresee what could go wrong
Have strategies in place to address a crisis
Tackle head on – be authentic
Who? On what platform? In what timeframe? E.g. – Domino’s Pizza incident

Workers fired for Domino's prank video

The Response

Reporting
“dip your toe in the water’’ social media report

Basic Plan - Priceline

Case Study
KLM Airlines

KLM Airlines

Facebook welcome pages
Richmond Football Club
Priceline
Competitions

Caroline Serviced Apartments
Facebook Voucher – 4 weeks - results
Voucher Application by thinktank media
Built to offer Facebook fans 20% off advertised rates for apartments
. In just 4 weeks, it has proved to be a great success:
Almost 1 in 3 new Facebook fans used the voucher to make a booking.
Through this promotion alone, Caroline Serviced Apartments have gained 35 new fans.
Overall, in just 4 weeks, the Facebook page has driven 15 booked nights at their Brighton location, and 8 booked nights in South Yarra.

Case Study
Governments NATAL trauma centre for emergency blood.

ROE/ROI Model

Your questions answered

Outstanding Resources
http://thinktankmedia.com.au/blog
http://mashable.com
http://radian6.com/blog
http://socialmediaexaminer.com
http://www.ted.com/talks/
http://thenextweb.com/
http://slideshare.net/sammutimer

contact usthinktankmedia.com.au 03 90231487(03) 90231487

Social Media and its role in communications

by Media Manoeuvres on Sep 12, 2011

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Social Media and its role in communications — Presentation Transcript