crowded space: the business case for social media

Tony Felice, Developer & Strategist

Tony Felice, Developer & Strategist
Frequent speaker on Visibility, Acquisition and Analytics
Over 15 years of experience in Interactive Marketing
tfelice@reddoor.biz
http://twitter.com/tonyfelice
Today’s Presenter

Offices and Denver and San Diego
Internet Presence Management agency
50 full-time employees
Diverse client base
Red Door Interactive

Internet Presence Management

“
if a new technology extends one or more of our senses outside us into the social world, then new ratios among all of our senses will occur in that particular culture”
-Marshall McLuhan
The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man,1962

All media is inherently social
Communication vector
Ubiquitous
Social media is a solidarity good
User Generated Content
Blogs
Wikis
Lifestreaming
Review sites
NOT a broadcast (or push) medium
1 Billion
4.1 Billion
Social Media
Videos viewed per day on YouTube.1 YouTube outperforms Yahoo! as the second largest search engine.2
Source: YouTube, ComScore
SMS text messages that are currently sent each day, nearly doubling the number from last year.3
Source: CITA

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The Impact Social Media
The explosion in Consumer Generated Media over the last couple of years means consumers’ reliance on word of mouth in the decision-making process, either from people they know or online consumers they don’t, has increased significantly.”4
- Jonathan Carson
President of Online, International, The Nielsen Company
Consumer Trust in Advertising*5
Source: The Nielsen Company
*Respondents reported some degree of trust in the respective advertising medium
e.g. 90% of respondents trusted "completely" or "somewhat" recommendations
from people they know5

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What’s the buzz about?
Consumer Behavior
Measurability
Availability and ubiquity
Challenges
Point of message origination
Lack of (direct) control
Shift in power
Solution
Be honest, transparent
Trusted helmsman
Plant seeds
2 Billion
The Impact of Social Media
pieces of content shared weekly on Facebook 6
Source: Facebook

UNDERSTANDING THE AUDIENCE

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Audience Segmentation
Demographic
Geographic
Technographic Profile
Creators
Critics
Joiners
Collectors
Spectators
Inactives
72%
73%
Understanding the Audience
Of domestic internet users have some degree of trust in opinions and reviews posted online.5
Source: Nielsen
Domestic internet users visit social media sites.7
Source: Forrester Research

Joiners
Inactives
The number of users that maintain an online profile has more than doubled since 2007.7
The number of users that are inactive in social media has dropped nearly 60% since 2007.7
Social Technographic Profiles, 2007-Current7
.2007. 2009(est)

ΔYoY
Creators 17%
Critics 48%
Joiners 40%
Collectors 58%
Spectators 44%
Inactives -43%
Social Technographic Profiles, 2008-Current7
.2008. 2009(est)

people worldwide have started a blog.8
Source: Technorati
Social Technographic Profiles, This Audience
184 Million
60.3 Million
people in the US report reading blogs, and there are 346 million blog readers around the world.8
Source: Technorati

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Ensure analytics are installed on the target site
Describes traffic patterns, inbound vectors
Identifies geographics
Details keywords
Focus groups
Targeted emails
Monitor social channels
Monitoring is critical
List of tools in “Resources” appendix
25%
of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.9
Source: SES Magazine

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Identify communities, discussions and influencers
Monitor challenges to your brand
Find relevant industry information
Inform your overall Social Media strategy
Who are the influencers?
What are these people saying?
When are these influencers active?
Where are the conversations happening?
Why are people talking (or staying quiet)?

65 Million
20%
active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices … 50% more active than non-mobile users.6
Source: Facebook
Twitter traffic comes thru the website. Where does the other 80% come from?10
Source: Guardian

STRATEGY

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Initial considerations
Verify infrastructure
Analytics
Benchmark traffic profile
Establish a Policy
Visibility
Contingencies
Plan B
Third party outages
High level buy-in
Strategy
The Good, the Bad, but not the Ugly. If the content is positive or negative and in context to the conversation, then we approve the content, regardless of whether it's favorable or unfavorable to Intel. However if the content is ugly, offensive, denigrating and completely out of context, then we reject the content.”11
-Intel’s Social Media Policy

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Budget and Resources
Identify your motivation
Market research
Customer service
Crowdsourcing
Advertising (Influencing)
Select appropriate channels
Locate key influencers
Define the Level of Effort (LOE)
Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Strategy
Over and over again, connecting people with one another is what lasts online. Some folks thought it was about technology, but it’s not.”
-Seth Godin, author of “Small is the New Big”, pg 208

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Plan
High visibility
Heavy engagement
Basics
Provide value
Expertise & opinions
Set and meet expectations
Design interactivity
Social Objects
Contests
4pm
Strategy
may be the best time to deliver social messaging. While the general traffic patterns on twitter remain relatively constant throughout the day, retweets peak at 4pm.12
Source: Dan Zarrella, The Science of Retweets, pg. 20

JOINING THE CONVERSATION

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Dynamics
Relationships
Conversations
Phatic Communications
Joining the Conversation

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Lifecycle
Listen
Respond
Engage and Nurture
Create Buzz
Be Transparent
Converse

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The currency of social interaction is trust. The equity is influence.
As in real life, hard won, easily lost.

DETERMINING ROI

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Determining ROI
Business has not changed, this type of marketing is simply a shift in the way business is done.
Hard Metrics
Soft Metrics

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Hard metrics – financial impact
Cost reduction
Revenue generation
Soft metrics - transactional precursors
Brand Mentions
View-throughs
Click-throughs
Traffic
Impressions
Determining ROI

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Maintain an activity timeline
All events driven by strategy
Any events that may impact the campaign
Press Releases
News Articles
Awards and Recognition
Any milestone events in the campaign
Social Reach (network milestones)
Shared Content
Configure analytic funnels (goals)
Determining ROI

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Compile transactional precursors
Pull the hard numbers
Sales Revenue
Number of Transactions
Customer Count
(Identify new vs. repeat)
Overlay all the timelines
Transactional precursors
Traffic
Funnel goal completions
Conversions
Determining ROI

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Do events in the campaign coincide with fluctuations in transactional metrics?
Frequency
How often customers are transacting?
Reach
Number of Customers (new vs. existing)
Yield
$ per transaction
Determining ROI

STAYING CONNECTED

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Social media should be approached as a long-term strategy, supported over time by consistent communication and valuable content
Short-term campaigns work best for follower acquisition, short bursts of increased activity to support a seasonal promo or blended campaign
To be successful, you have to stay connected.
Staying Connected

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Understand long-term expectations
Growth and Impact
Resources
Staying Connected

CASE STUDIES

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Raising awareness
Adding value
Increasing sales
Targeted Campaigns
$3M attributed to Twitter alone
Connecting with customers
Case Study: Dell
We thought, ‘Great-this has a really short lead time, and it will let us communicate our message effectively. We started using it for one-way communication.
…We realized that people were really interested in talking with us.”
- Stefanie Nelson, manager of demand generation at Dell Outlet.

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Blogger Rebellion
“Dell Hell”
Blindsided from ignorance
Listened
Joined the conversation
Learned the right way to interact
Reached out to community
Acknowledged customer
Timeline: 3+ years
Case Study: Dell
…clueless Dell, your customers can just blog their questions and answers without you. Or should I say, former customers?”
- Stefanie Nelson, manager of demand generation at Dell Outlet.

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The Hub
Failed mySpace clone
Encouraged teens to upload photos, videos, shopping lists
Jim and Laura, bloggers
Disclosed as a hoax funded by PR agency, Edelman
Facebook Failure
Attempt to attract college students
All they got were haters
Case Study: Wal-Mart
Communities already exist…Instead you should be asking yourself, what can I do to help this community do what it wants to do?”
-Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, CEO

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Recovery
Ratings and Reviews
The Checkout Blog
voice for Wal-Mart’s product folks
Elevenmoms
Colony of mommy bloggers
Transparent, full disclosure
The real success: High level buy in
Case Study: Wal-Mart
…we’re not hesitant, we’re ready to embrace this stuff.”
-H. Lee Scott, Walmart, CEO

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Let’s explore what crocs should do to be successful with this marketing approach.
Hypothetical: Crocs

SUMMARY

QUESTIONS

Ground Floor is a new agency within Red Door established to give students hands-on experience managing and growing a real interactive agency.
TEAM WORK
developing interactive strategy
designing and implementing integrated programs
analyzing campaign performance
managing clients, employees, and vendors
EXPERIENCE
work directly with clients and vendors
professional support from your RDI counterpart & faculty support
Internship Program

Email: tfelice@reddoor.biz
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyfelice
Twitter: http://twitter.com/tonyfelice
Web: http://www.reddoor.biz
Blog: http://reddoorbuzz.com
Intern Program: http://groundfloorbuzz.com/
Email: dobiz@reddoor.biz
Twitter: @reddoorand @reddoorjobs
Contact the Speaker
More Info on Red Door Interactive

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Citations and Reference

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Slideography

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Resources