Social Media Strategy

Social Media Strategy Vanina Delobelle, PhD www.vaninadelobelle.com May 2008

What are Social Media ?

Forums and Online Communities

Social Networks

Multimedia sharing

Social Bookmarking

RSS readers

Microblogging

What are new Web usages ?

Consumers behave differently
Follow them !
They meet in different places
Social networks, blogs, forums
They share content and spread the voice
Viral videos, blogs, Twitter
They influence
They comment
They advertise themselves

Consumers communicate more
Go where they are !
People regroup on communities
Word-of-mouth is stronger
People read blogs and consume more user generated content
People tend to take part in online conversations and are happy to communicate with brands

Strong trends
Follow again !
41% of users read blogs
47% of the time people spend on the internet is spent looking at content and 33% spent communicating
91% of users are likely to buy on recommendation
330 million online video viewers
Twitter is 1 million users and 3 million messages/day
LinkedIn is 19 million users
MySpace is 110 million users
…

Why set up a Social Media Strategy ?

Conversations
… and conversations !
« Markets are conversations »
« Markets are getting smarter, more informed , more organized. »
« People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. »
« The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. »
« Companies that assume online markets are the same markets used to watch their ads on TV are kidding themselves . »
« Companies that don’t realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a results and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity . »
« Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance . »
« Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die . »
(http://www.cluetrain.com/ #manifesto)

With or without you…
… the conversations will happen !
For a better control of your brand, you must participate in the conversations
Once you trigger a conversation, you should not leave it

The ultimate effect
Brand community !
Build a non-marketing community outreach to deliver a voice for your organization
Use the buzz power
Reach people where they regroup

The other effects
Reach the right people !
Long tail effect
Reach the small communities on the web
Connect with people
Reach the people where they are
Keep brand positioning
Keep brand awareness to relay offline marketing campaigns
Generate more traffic
Enlarge the targeted segment

What are the expected results ?
Much more than before !
Leverage current marketing results
Get better brand awareness
Get better brand management
Get better user stickiness
Get better quality products
Get more sales

A cost free strategy
Does not cost a $ !
No money investment is required
No external company needs to be engaged
… it will just cost the time you will be ready to invest !

Case Study : DELL
Showing that it works !
Team of community managers that interacts with community on blogs, forums,…
Monitoring all mentions of Dell online (RSS, Searches) and tracking mention of positive , negative, neutral
Dell never censors critical blog comments and responds quickly to criticisms on their blog and on others
All Dell employees are allowed to comment on blogs that discuss their company, but they must use give their name and identify themselves as Dell employees
Since 2006, when Dell launched its DirectDell blog and major online community initiative, online mentions of Dell have gone from more than 50% negative to only 20% negative
Dell’s community initiative strongly supported by CEO Michael Dell
Dell is routinely cited on blogs, white papers, at conferences…as an example of a company that understands and embraces the value of community

Risks of not having a defined strategy
You might lose control !
An exemple :
People talk about you in a bad way
You do not know how to answer so you reply anonymous
An influent blogger realizes this and buzz about it
The buzz increases
You lose control and decide to respond honestly…too late
You set up a bad image and now you have to deal with crisis management
Results : You lost the opportunity to express yourself easily from the first time and you lost lot of time and credibility in one shot.

What strategy ?

Some actions to undertake…
… to start with
Go and meet users on the Internet
Answer comments left by users on multiple blogs. Read what they say about your brand.
Set up collaborative tools
Make sure you offer tools to your customers to share with you about your products (blogs, forums, online surveys).
Connect with your customers
Be present on online social networks and create a profile for your brand.
Replay offline campaigns on the Internet
Post your last TV campaigns on YouTube, announce your coming event on Twitter, post feeds on Facebook, Blog about your brand...

Some actions to undertake…
… to start with
Engage users in product testing
Create restricted communities who will be able to test the product and help in its development. Create user communities.
Engage users to buzz
Share and present your products to bloggers in order to engage a viral wave.
Trigger the conversation
Engage the conversation on your blog and over chat rooms. Post on other blogs.
Develop an honest and viral state of mind
Be open, do not be afraid, be honest and share as much as you can.

Some behaviors…
… to embrace !
Embrace transparency
Do not post with fake names.
Do not delete critical comments
Do not be afraid and respond to them.
Build trust
By showing you are truly listening.

Combine the tools
Use multiple tools and spread your presence !
Leverage the effect by using multiple tools
One media or one profile is not enough to see the effects
It is the combination of multiple tools that will make you successfull

Be patient
The effect will be there !
You will only see small changes at the beginning
The strategy is powerful when users will see your engagement
One page on facebook is not going to create miracles but the combination of multiple tools might
Never release your presence because communities need to be animated

Facebook
Create a page !
Create a page for your brand

MySpace
Create a page !
Create a page for your brand

LinkedIn
Create a group !
Create a group about company employees

Twitter
Create an account !
Create an account and share useful links

YouTube
Post videos !
Create viral spots like lip dubs
Post helpful content for users

Slideshare
Post presentations !
Create useful presentations

Blogs
Share with bloggers !
Blog on your corporate blog
Share with bloggers and keep them informed about your actuality – They are interested by news

Follow conversations…
… and reply !
Read all conversations that are done about your brand
Participate to these conversations by replying and commenting
Respond quickly for a stronger effect
Share quality content

How to measure success?

What actions to measure ?
Buzz !
See how the person in charge is doing…
Responsiveness of a communication that should be lower than 24h
Number of quality blog posts
Number of meaningful comments
Quality of content shared

What KPI ?
Traffic and quality !
Number of links from other sites to the brand’s URLs
Number of posts quoting or linking to the brand

Which tools for metrics ?
Easy tools to set up now !
Subscribe to Google Alerts for the URLs/words you want to monitor
Create a Technorati account
Follow the number of your Feedburner subscribers

For more conversations… www.vaninadelobelle.com

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Social Media Strategy

by Vanina Delobelle

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