Digital Strategy Basics

Digital Strategy!
Basics
Jimmy Ghazal!
Head of Digital | Mercury / Quantum!

!
!

@jimmyghazal

Google: !
A Search Engine !
Or a Reputation
Inspector? 
© 2013 | Jimmy Ghazal

What Are We !
Posting Online? 
Our timeline says everything about us. Timelines don’t lie.
!
Both professionally and personally.
!
Are we posting too much? Are we not posting at all?
!


Personal Profiles
You are what you post.
!
Your “common” friends are your references now.
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Avoid schizophrenic profiles: !
You cannot be a legal risk management consultant on LinkedIn and a drunk !
party-goer on Facebook.
!
Define who your are in real life and project it virtually.


Recruitment Through
Social Media
Recruitment is done more via social networks than on any other platform.
!
Complete/update your profile on LinkedIn. Traditional CVs usually get outdated.
!
Put your real and proper information / job description.
!
Join your official company pages on LinkedIn and Facebook.
!
Remember that recruiters scan your information, posts and tweets to know more
about your personality. Make sure your profile is well maintained.

Discover !
the personality !
of your brand

Today’s Geppetto
Geppetto and today’s online community managers have few things in common:
!
A static product they want to bring to life.
!
They want it to look good, have a strong character, lots of friends,
and most importantly, be liked by all.


I Want You 
Products now talk to us in the ﬁrst person.
!
They engage us in interactive conversations and debates,
we quote them, they comment back. We like each other statuses.
!
We sometimes ﬁght, but many times they reward us with presents.


We Want to Connect 
When socialising, we tend to look for speciﬁc basic qualities that create
connections, we try to ﬁnd those who are:
!
Like minded, friendly, amiable, interesting, funny, popular, smart, original,
trustworthy, knowledgable.!


No Shades of Grey 
When brands go online they cannot adopt a grey personality:
People will not relate to them, they will be dull and unappealing.
!
People want to connect and interact.!


Who Am I? 
Crafting a brand's personality is a crucial element of the online experience.
!
It determines the brand’s appearance, tone of voice,
how it communicates with people and how it reacts to situations, etc.!


Deﬁning a Brand’s Personality 

Lazy!
Has potential!
Occasionally interactive!
Reactive!
Takes occasional risks

Openness

Passive

Active

Mature!
Trustworthy!
Predictable!
Quality driven!
Plays it safe!

Old!
Boring!
Doesn’t take risks!
Shouldn’t be online!

Conservative

Dynamic!
Original!
Engaging!
Proactive!
Young!
Takes risks

Find Your Voice 
Be original.
!
Be creative.
!
Be engaging.
!
Don’t Lie, don’t be annoying.


Identify Your !
Target Audience 
Digital’s greatest strength is the ability to personalise, !
customise and target specific communication.
!
Define your audience and target them specifically.!


Target Speciﬁc
Platforms 
Find your target audience’s top used platform and use it.


Use Platforms That
Best Represent You 
You don’t need to be on every social media platform available.
!
Find the platform that best works with your line of communication,
reﬂects your brand and creates the best type of engagement.


Branding Your Page 
Maintain a visual connection across digital, social and traditional channels
to execute consistent and impactful branding.


Strategy First 
Brands rush to create a presence online and start talking to audiences.
!
Most of the time this is done without planning and strategy.
!
Results can sometimes be devastating for the brand.


Community Manager 
Community Manager (CM) is not the sole representative of the brand online.
!
The whole business model of the brand should be involved:
Marketing, PR, HR, customer care and subject matter experts.
!
The (CM) is the moderator and facilitator of the online conversation.
!
Special situations require special expertise to intervene.


Represent the Brand
Not the Person 
(CM)s often forgets that it is the brand that they actually represent.
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They often represent the company’s manager or they voice their own opinion.
!
This results in a brand with a voice that is not its own.


Community Management | Normal Workﬂow 
Internal Divisions
Legal

PR

Marketing

HR

Customer Care

Brand Representative

Community Manager

Fans

Users

Activists

Bloggers

Comments

Community Management | Crisis Workﬂow 

Internal Divisions
Brand Representative
Legal

PR

Marketing

HR

Customer Care

Community Manager

Fans

Users

Activists

Bloggers

Comments

Listen and React 
Send


Listen

Adapt

React

Brand Objectives
and Success Criteria 
We cannot publish a product online without determining
its objectives and its criteria for success.
!
What do we want to achieve?!
!
How do we measure success?
!
Do we want it generate more website visits, increase sales,
generate Facebook likes, or comments and interactivity?

Align Efforts and
Communications 
The global strategy of the brand and the digital strategy should be going
in the same direction.
!
Client, marketing, PR, social media, customer care should be working
under same agenda, but on different platforms.


Planning !
your Campaign 
As much as your product is likely to be popular, media creates the spark
and awareness that gets it noticed.
!
Media channels and plan to be aligned with brand objectives:
Audience, channels, medium, segmentation.
!


Mainstream Media!
and Digital Media 
Integrating social media with traditional media.
!
Using ofﬂine channels to build online reach and generate trafﬁc.
!
Web analytics to measure channel conversions. !


Deﬁne Media KPIs
What is expected from this media campaign?
!
How do we determine if it is successful or not?
!
Key Performance Indicators need to be established before launching a campaign.
!


Media Types
Paid
Search ads!
Facebook Ads!
Sponsored Tweets!
Endorsements!
Banners

High!
Engagement

Earned


Inﬂuenced Networks!
Media Coverage!
Blogger’s Reviews!
Likes, Comments and Shares!
Word of Mouth!

Owned
Digital Real Estate!
Website, Portals !
and Communities

Amplify your existing!
communications strategy
Social / !
Word of Mouth
Consumer engagement!
and participation
Digital Media

Consumer reach!
[Generating Awareness]
Traditional !
Media


Build, !
Engage, Amplify 


Viral Success, !
Global Word of Mouth 


Power of Analytics 
Gather intelligence!
!
Analyse ﬁndings and understand the user’s behavioural pattern.
!
Recommend activities and determine communication strategy.
!
Create customised products and services.


Don’t Over Do it. 

Sometimes all that the brand needs is a simple website.


Don’t Put Your Eggs!
In One Basket  
As much as we are all dependent on Facebook,
a Facebook only presence is not recommended for Brands.
!
What if Facebook shuts down?
!
What if you violate an agreement and get kicked out?
!
Create a website that feeds content into Facebook.


Site To Facebook !
Or ViceVersa 
Start giving people reasons to go your site and keep them there.
!
Your site is your best asset.
!
Don’t remain completely dependent on Facebook.


B2B / B2C 
Try to identify best day and time to share B2B and B2C content:


Incentives !
On Social Media 
Pros:
Reward loyal customers.
!
Earn new customers by providing incentives.
!
Cons:
Users are in it for the gift only.
!
In the future, Users won’t interact with your brand without incentive.


Mobile: !
Unveil its potential 
40% of internet users access the web via Mobile.
!
Targets customers anytime.


Aggregated vs.
Original Content 
It is interesting when you post relevant articles, pictures and videos
you found online.
!
But as a follower, fan or visitor, I could ﬁnd this same material on several
other sites. Where is the added value here?
!
Give me something new, unique, interesting, that I can ﬁnd only on your page.
This will create loyalty and interest in your content.


Writing !
for Online Audiences 
First; a short and appealing title.
!
Avoid long paragraphs. A long story can vary between 400 to 800 words.
!
Break the story into smaller sections.
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Introduce multimedia items: pictures, videos, graphs, infographics.
!
Create social media titles and descriptions.

A Picture is Worth !
a Thousand Likes 
Visualise important posts.
!
Take care deciding the pictures you post, they are your best chance
of getting your audience’s attention.


Trust The Review 
Make sure your product gets plenty of reviews - good reviews.
!
More people now make purchases / online decisions based on the customer
reviews they read on blogs and sites.


Inﬂuencers 
Why is it important that bloggers and Tweeters talk positively about your brand?
!
They have dedicated followers and people they inﬂuence.
!
They are trusted for their outspoken opinion.
!
They keep at it until they get a convincing answer.


Recruit Fans !
not Likes 
Stop and analyse the type of fans you have.
!
What can I do to make them more engaged,
how can I turn them into brand ambassadors?
!
Do I really need all of them? What are they doing on my site or page?
!
Do I meet their needs, do they meet my objectives?


Converting Fans!
Into Advocates 
Forget about the highest number of idle fans.
!
!
It’s about quality not quantity.
!
Personalised targeted content creates more engagement
with individuals and communities.


Fan Journey 
Like

Fan

1

Engaged User

2

3

Advocate

Engaged !
Users

Fans
Likes

Advocate
4

Citizen Journalists 
The mobile has given everyone the ability to become a reporter.
!
People now report things immediately via their devices.
!
During crisis, war and revolutions, more news is gathered via citizen reports
than any other mainstream media.
!
They are there, they have a tool, they have witnessed the event.


Brand Reputation 
It takes years to build good online presence.
!
It takes few hours to:!
!
-Bring everything down.
-Take over the ﬁrst google pages with negative and disruptive comments.
-Create negative social hype that cannot be reversed.!


Prevent Disaster 
You cannot prevent people from posting negative comments about you
or your brand.
!
But, you can surely prevent a small issue from snowballing into something
too big to be stopped.
!
A single badly managed issue can in days transform into thousands
of little out-of-hand crises.


Listen, Analyse!
and Reply 
Listen to your audience.
!
Analyse what is being said.
!
Reply to the important issues.!


To Ignore is Bad!
To Delete is Worse 
Don’t run away from an answer.
!
When issues arise, it is best to address at once.
!
When people write comments, they expect answers.
!
It can only get worse if you don’t answer them.
!
If you delete a comment, it will show up again on a different platform
(and much bigger).

Press Release !
No More. 
Long gone are the days when you wait until the lawyer and the PR issue
a press release in the sunday morning newspaper.
!
Today’s reaction time needs to be almost immediate.


24 hrs 
Is the maximum number of hours you have to reply to an issue.
!
The brand’s legal, PR, Marketing and CM teams should be ready 24/7
to support the community manager in order to answer major issues. !
!


Don’t Just Answer 
If you are not sure of the right answer, seek advice before replying.
!
You cannot undo.
!
If you are the brand owner, check with legal ﬁrst.
!
If you are the (CM), check with marketing, legal and customer care.
!
(Negative posts, replies - Auto replies, handling and removing posts)


One for All,!
and All for One 
PR, marketing, social, legal, HR and customer care are now interconnected.
!
Brand strategy is to be validated by all.
!
Communication guidelines are to be aligned by all parties.


Guidelines Books!
What to Say & When
You can’t send a soldier to battle without ammunition.
!
You can’t expect the community manager to be able to respond to all questions
without guidance.
!
A guideline book must be drafted by all parties in order to secure generic answers
for all frequently asked questions.
!
Choose your Ambassador / your social representative.


FAQs Do Help 
Create a FAQ section on your site.
!
Create ‘how to’ tutorials.
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Highlight recurrent issues and solutions.
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Point out watch-outs to your team.


Watch-outs 
Speaking the same language doesn’t mean that every one relates
to the same message.
!
Talk to people in their own dialects and values.
!
Understand social, religious, economic, cultural differences 
and values.
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Don’t use words before checking their hidden / double / local meaning.!
!
Credit original content owners and publishers.

Thank you
Follow on Twitter:!

!

@jimmyghazal

Digital Strategy Basics

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