Based on a 2011 social customer survey of our clients, Lithium presents the current state of customer communities and the social web, explores life beyond Likes and Tweets, and reveals what’s next for social CRM and social strategies in 2011. Dive into what brands expect from their investments in social networking sites, how and when they integrate community with social media, how they measure success, and what they hope for from social media in the future. Learn how brands are using both customer communities and their Facebook presence together to build trust, peer-to-peer engagement, pre- and post-sales support, to drive awareness, and to disseminate marketing messages.
What really drives engagement?
Most brands treat social media like traditional marketing. With crowdsourcing and co-creation, you can make your brand stay top of mind with fans.
Is your brand social?
Learn why some brands get it and have vocal, passionate fans who stay engaged, share content, and tell their friends.
Is your marketing user-centered?
Like user-centered design, this paper will show you how putting customers at the center of your marketing changes everything.
An article I co-authored focusing on the value of real communications and conversations -- no matter which social platform or site emerges, companies must be honest and smart in how they communicate.
Facebook advertising
Advice
- How to build a successful Facebook campaign
Buying
- Give estimations for the expected amount of clicks/views
- Billing Facebook
- Setting up premium ad campaigns
Campaign management
- Analyzing
- Monitoring
- Optimizing: Intelligent targeting, target on friends of “likes”
Fan pages
Design and development
Applications and gadget implementations
F Connect (connecting websites to Facebook)
Building and moderate communities
What really drives engagement?
Most brands treat social media like traditional marketing. With crowdsourcing and co-creation, you can make your brand stay top of mind with fans.
Is your brand social?
Learn why some brands get it and have vocal, passionate fans who stay engaged, share content, and tell their friends.
Is your marketing user-centered?
Like user-centered design, this paper will show you how putting customers at the center of your marketing changes everything.
An article I co-authored focusing on the value of real communications and conversations -- no matter which social platform or site emerges, companies must be honest and smart in how they communicate.
Facebook advertising
Advice
- How to build a successful Facebook campaign
Buying
- Give estimations for the expected amount of clicks/views
- Billing Facebook
- Setting up premium ad campaigns
Campaign management
- Analyzing
- Monitoring
- Optimizing: Intelligent targeting, target on friends of “likes”
Fan pages
Design and development
Applications and gadget implementations
F Connect (connecting websites to Facebook)
Building and moderate communities
How the New Facebook Post Lifecycle is Delivering ROI for Brands - Kenshoo S...Kenshoo
Presentation from the March 21st webinar hosted by Kenshoo Social and Shoutlet exploring the convergence of paid, owned, and earned social media and how to take advantage of this new landscape on Facebook.
Our major goal is to help you achieve your academic goals. We are commited to helping you get top grades in your academic papers.We desire to help you come up with great essays that meet your lecturer's expectations.Contact us now at http://www.premiumessays.net/
Integrated Marketing Communication Project for Facebook (Master of Arts Disse...Sayaka Brand
Dissertation Project for Master of Arts in Marketing Communications. This project is an integrated, multi-channel marketing communications project for Facebook as a social media platform and company itself. The aim of this project was to combat the loss of users as well as retain the existing user base, namely the millenials, in a meaningful way.
Delivered at the TDWI Executive Summit, Las Vegas, Feb 2010. Discusses socila medial and its relationship to business intelligence. Copyright William Baker.
Introducing The Community Director - The Community Manager has Evolved #CMGROgilvy Consulting
The job of the Community Manager has evolved to a more senior role…one that demands a specific set of professional skills.
For more insight into the rebranding of the Community Manager, click here: http://bit.ly/CMGRevolution
Top 11 tendencias digitales para 2011 (Millward Brown -Dynamic Logic)Retelur Marketing
Presentación elaborada por Millward Brown en colaboración con Dynamic Logic en el que se apuntan las 11 tendencias digitales en Internet para las empresas, marcas y consumidores en 2011. (inglés)
Comprehensive social media strategy by john bellJohn Bell
We spend millions defining and communicating the brand via marketing and communications channels. We need to take a fresh look at how the brand can behave in
social media. A crisp definition of our social brand will guide us from mere tactics to more impactful strategy. It will focus the efforts around best
practices from ethics to results and help our brands reap the benefits of social media faster and with a more enduring effect.
How the New Facebook Post Lifecycle is Delivering ROI for Brands - Kenshoo S...Kenshoo
Presentation from the March 21st webinar hosted by Kenshoo Social and Shoutlet exploring the convergence of paid, owned, and earned social media and how to take advantage of this new landscape on Facebook.
Our major goal is to help you achieve your academic goals. We are commited to helping you get top grades in your academic papers.We desire to help you come up with great essays that meet your lecturer's expectations.Contact us now at http://www.premiumessays.net/
Integrated Marketing Communication Project for Facebook (Master of Arts Disse...Sayaka Brand
Dissertation Project for Master of Arts in Marketing Communications. This project is an integrated, multi-channel marketing communications project for Facebook as a social media platform and company itself. The aim of this project was to combat the loss of users as well as retain the existing user base, namely the millenials, in a meaningful way.
Delivered at the TDWI Executive Summit, Las Vegas, Feb 2010. Discusses socila medial and its relationship to business intelligence. Copyright William Baker.
Introducing The Community Director - The Community Manager has Evolved #CMGROgilvy Consulting
The job of the Community Manager has evolved to a more senior role…one that demands a specific set of professional skills.
For more insight into the rebranding of the Community Manager, click here: http://bit.ly/CMGRevolution
Top 11 tendencias digitales para 2011 (Millward Brown -Dynamic Logic)Retelur Marketing
Presentación elaborada por Millward Brown en colaboración con Dynamic Logic en el que se apuntan las 11 tendencias digitales en Internet para las empresas, marcas y consumidores en 2011. (inglés)
Comprehensive social media strategy by john bellJohn Bell
We spend millions defining and communicating the brand via marketing and communications channels. We need to take a fresh look at how the brand can behave in
social media. A crisp definition of our social brand will guide us from mere tactics to more impactful strategy. It will focus the efforts around best
practices from ethics to results and help our brands reap the benefits of social media faster and with a more enduring effect.
Innovation webinar - How to make innovations come trueIFS
“A hungry dog hunts better”, is an appealing expression that fits perfectly to the innovation process within a company. However, there’s a big difference between the hunger to reach a goal because you have to, and to achieve a goal because you really want to. When hunger can be turned into passion it will make the difference between a good try and instant success. This session gives an insight of how IFS, together with our customers, turn ideas into innovations ready to hit the market. We call it Platform for Innovation. Take this opportunity to get inspired and learn why companies prefer the IFS way of boosting business.
Domestic violence affects the workplace in a variety of ways. It impacts safety, absenteeism, healthcare costs and lost productivity, to name a few areas.
Facebook and Beyond - Lessons for Brand Engagement with Social Customers Lithium
The dividends for a well developed Facebook presence will ultimately depend on marketers investing in adopting sophisticated long-term strategies for customer engagement.
2º oleada del estudio "The power of Like" elaborado por la compañia ComScore en colaboración con Facebook en el que se analiza el impacto e influencia que tiene esta red social para los intereses de empresas y marcas. (inglés)
The Power of_Like - How Social Marketing WorksBoris Loukanov
ANDREW LIPSMAN VP, Marketing, comScore
GRAHAM MUDD, Head of Measurement Partnerships, Facebook
Carmela Aquin, Senior Marketing Manager, comScore
Patric Kemp, Senior Data Analyst, comScore
Facebook Strategy Shift to Reach & FrequencyTom Edwards
Facebook recently instituted some major changes to their platform that greatly affect marketers. To help you navigate this shift, I have created a white paper that will help substantially.
The overarching point you need to understand is that organic Facebook reach is being reduced dramatically and it will cost you to reach your own audience. Facebook is now less about brand-published content being the sole driver of engagement. You must pay to amplify your content and you must create multiple variations of your content based on targeting different segments of your audience.
How Customer Communities Power Word-of-Mouth MarketingLithium
Word-of-mouth is storytelling—real customer experiences related by the real people that have them—and it influences up to 50% of purchase decisions today. Word-of-mouth becomes marketing (WOMM) when you harness the power of this inherent behavior, infuse it with intention, measure it, and use it to empower your brand. And in today’s social environment, doing so strategically is more important than ever.
Technology management in the age of the customerLithium
Don’t look now, but your company is losing control. Customers are now in the driver’s seat. Learn more by reading this Forrester Report on "Technology Management
In The Age Of The Customer."
Hey, Financial Services - Get Serious About Social, or Get Spanked!Lithium
Today’s banking customers want much more than a place to store and access their cash. They want help with financial planning, tracking, and goal-setting and are increasingly tapping alternative institutions for that help. Unregulated innovators like Google Wallet and PayPal are stepping in and putting increasing pressure on banks to adapt—or die.
Meanwhile, financial services firms have been slow to innovate, still stuck on strategies for increasing branch visits. In turn, the influence they have over the personal lives of their customers is waning fast. As we run headlong into a digital-first future, how can financial service firms remain relevant?
Download this slide deck from Lithium and learn:
1. Why social customer experience is fast becoming an important battle ground for the financial service industry.
2. How financial service firms use social for marketing, customer care and service innovation.
3. Which banks, credit card and insurance companies do social right, do it best—and how.
4. The returns financial service firms are getting from social.
5. Social strategies and best practices financial service firms can deploy today to get in the game.
Lithium whitepaper: Hey, Tech! Get Serious About Social Customer EnlistmentLithium
Learn about the current state social for tech and why social customer enlistment is a game-changer. Learn how to get social customers to co-create value with you with
gamification—done right. Get sustainable social strategies from Lithium.
Introducing Dr. Michael Wu’s The Science of Social 2 an in depth overview into how social media has revolutionized customer communication, the customer journey, and customer relationship management (CRM). As Lithium Technology’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Wu with his extensive knowledge has created a solution for our communication strategy by motivating customers and managing customer relationships for the long run. In this modern era where consumers demand convenience and quality, traditional business methods will no longer cut it. Dr. Wu along with Geoffrey Moore and his Four Gears, The Science of Social 2 presents a solution to help your business adapt and survive in this changing climate. To ensure a lasting competitive advantage, four gears are needed for success: acquisition, engagement, enlistment, and monetization.
Lithium Get Serious About Online CommunitiesLithium
When it comes to online branded communities, who’s doing it right? Who are today’s biggest winners and losers? Which brands should your customer community strategy emulate and why?
In this deck, we'll unpack the State of Online Branded Communities 2012, ComBlu’s evaluation of over 92 brands and 200 communities. Learn who is providing the most meaningful member experiences, the most integrated brand strategy, and the best engagement practices.
We’ll take a close look at today’s best and worst performers across three pillars of engagement— feedback, advocacy and community—and give you real-world advice for:
1. using customer communities as trusted content hubs.
2. tapping brand advocates to spread influence.
3. measuring the ROI of community engagement.
Today’s consumers want social experiences from web-based communities where they can find more relevant information, easily interact with peers and learn from other firsthand accounts of brand experiences. Join us and learn how your brand can get serious about customer communities.
Forrester Case Study: Giffgaff uses co-creation to build a differentiated mob...Lithium
In an empowered report by Forrester analyst, Doug Williams, giffgaff is highlighted for their vibrant community, run entirely by giffgaff customers using the Lithium community platform
Learn about social customer care told by Kate Leggett Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, Inc and Katy Keim Chief Marketing Officer at Lithium Tech
Dig into the dynamics of online reputation and learn about the available tools for managing it. Find out how to find, engage and empower your superfnas to drive real business outcomes with social customers.
Gold in Them Hills: Computing ROI for Support CommunitiesLithium
Learn the approaches used successfully by Lithium Technologies' customers to compute a realistic ROI (Return on Investment) for their support community initiatives
In January of 2013, we benchmarked the telecom social customer experience in order to better guide today's service providers toward strategies that make sense.
We surveyed 40+ global telecoms on their social customer experience investments and returns and found that more socially mature telecoms enjoy serious benefits:
greater reduction in call center volume
greater reduction in support costs
more confidence in the customer experiences they deliver
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
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executive summary
As recently as two or three years ago, the idea that brands • The two channels were seen as roughly equal in their
would provide a social channel for their customers to ability to create brand awareness. Clients who have
engage with them was controversial, even radical. Now it’s initiated brand communities see awareness benefits
as particularly salient in the first year, suggesting that
convention. Facebook is a big reason for this change. As
“newness” of an engagement channel is in itself a big
of this writing, 56 percent of Fortune 500 companies host driver of awareness.
Facebook pages, and that number is growing daily.
• The ability for customers to submit and discuss ideas
Since social customer programs were controversial just for product or service improvement is the biggest
two years ago, many of those companies are new to the downstream benefit of social customer engagement for
experience of engaging with social customers and are looking clients who have developed brand communities. Clients
who consider their Facebook efforts less successful
to answer the question, “What do we do next?”
are particularly interested in bringing this capability to
Facebook in a more structured fashion.
Brands that have engaged with social customers in other
channels can help us answer this question. Lithium’s After Peak Facebook
clients have considerable experience with social customer As Facebook itself approaches full penetration of its core
engagement through brand communities and Facebook markets and its members start to regularize their behavior,
pages. Lithium conducted a survey of its clients to better historic growth rates for participation in corporate Facebook
understand how they see the role of Facebook (and other pages will slow. Call it “peak Facebook.” Recent surveys
social media outlets) in their overall engagement strategy. have also shown that existing consumers’ engagement with
The results provide an interesting glimpse into the different corporate Facebook pages may be tenuous and fading. For
roles played by different social media channels, and example, 81% of those who have become fans of a brand
potentially into how they will converge in the future. have abandoned at least one such relationship because of
Some highlights include: “irrelevant, voluminous, or boring” marketing messages.
• On the whole, respondents rated their communities as
This suggests that marketers who are committed to using
more successful than Facebook at activities that require
trust: peer-to-peer engagement and providing pre-and- Facebook to foster relationships with social customers will
post sales purchase support; Facebook was seen as need to invent or adopt sophisticated long-term strategies for
more successful in disseminating marketing messages. customer engagement. Fortunately, many of the techniques
learned in brand communities can carry over into Facebook.
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Facebook and brand
communities - what
are they good for?
One of the first questions we see from brands developing a Figure 1 compares the brand community’s perceived
social customer strategy is, “Do I need both a brand community effectiveness with the Facebook page’s perceived
and Facebook, and if so, what role does each one play?” effectiveness in 10 different areas.
The answer to this question always depends on The first thing to note is that the one area where Facebook
circumstances and business requirements, but given that our shines is in outbound messaging. Because Facebook offers
audience has experience with both venues, we have a very outstanding reach and many brands use it as a publishing
good sense of the role that each one plays. platform for periodic updates, its prowess as a vehicle for
improves our search results
disseminating marketing messages is not surprising. Social
media marketing vendor Vitrue has computed that a fan
base of 1 million translates into $3.6 million in equivalent
creates awareness of our brand, products, or services
media per year, and brands such as Coca-Cola already see
more unique visitors to their Facebook page than they do
allows us to communicate our marketing message effectively to customers
to their company web site. In these situations, Facebook
represents a means of message dissemination that
creates beneficial customer-to-customer engagement
compares favorably to advertising on a cost-per-impression
basis.Interestingly, however, Facebook was not cited as
empowers customers to help one another with pre-sales purchase questions
significantly more effective than a brand community in
creating brand awareness, or creating goodwill for the brand
empowers customers to help one another with post-sales support questions
in social channels. Given the Facebook platform’s reach and
viral features, one might have expected higher scores for
gives us metrics we need to assess program goals Facebook’s ability to increase brand awareness, but there are
several reasons why the scores may be lower than expected:
gives us a good sense of how our customers are feeling
• Brand awareness is still largely campaign driven, and a
Facebook page alone does not constitute a campaign.
helps us identify particularly valuable customers
• Even when campaigns drive users to Facebook pages
and increase the brand’s fan base, there is no guarantee
creates goodwill for our brand in social channels
that these people were new to the brand. Most users who
associate with a brand page probably have a prior affinity
for that brand.
community effectiveness facebook effectiveness
Figure 1: Overall effectiveness of Facebook and brand community.
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• Finally, as we have seen through social media monitoring
Figure 2: Anticipated benefits vs realized benefits
studies, “buzz” around brands spikes during successful
campaigns, but typically returns to a steady state after anticipated → → → realized
campaigns end.
One further explanation may be that our community clients
report that brand awareness benefits peak during the first
year, even as other benefits increase over time. If this holds 13.5% 27%
true across other social channels, it is possible that the fact
of starting a new program in and of itself is responsible for
increased awareness — probably because that program pre-sales consultation
involves an introductory campaign. When the shock of the
new wears off, what is left?
anticipated → → → realized
As it turns out, brand communities annuitize exceptionally
well. Peer-to-peer engagement and an environment where
users answer one another’s questions emerge as a corps of
devoted users forms and mobilizes. Indeed, scores rise in 46% 78%
these areas as communities move into their second and third
years, suggesting that communities hold their users’ interest
over the long haul. customer feedback/ideation
Figure 2: Anticipated benefits versus realized benefits.
Peer-to-peer buying advice and customer ideation were two Both of these “downstream” benefits are most likely to emerge
benefits exceeding client expectations. as byproducts of trust among members of a community.
Brands tend to be more willing to harvest and discuss ideas for
The survey tells us that benefits clients anticipated when
service improvement when they trust that their customers are
embarking upon a social customer program are not always
ready for a sustained dialog rather than drive-by complaints.
the same benefits that emerge over time. This is particularly
And people are more willing to trust product recommendations
true in two areas: idea development, and peer-to-peer pre-
from their peers when those peers have proven themselves to
sales consulting. Customer feedback/ideation was listed
be reliably knowledgeable over time.
as an original purpose of a community 46% of the time, but
a realized benefit 78% of the time. Peer-to-peer pre-sales
consulting was an original purpose 13.5% of the time but a
realized benefit 27% of the time.
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success/failure Facebook page’s effectiveness community’s effectiveness
and future needs improves our search results
creates awareness of our brand, products, or services
allows us to communicate our marketing message effectively to customers
To see these benefits, brands must cultivate relationships creates beneficial customer-to-customer engagement
with their social customers over the long term. While the
constraints and affordances of the Facebook platform and empowers customers to help one another with pre-sales purchase questions
brand communities differ, there is no reason why the aspects
that make brand communities deliver annuitized benefits empowers customers to help one another with post-sales support questions
cannot exist in Facebook. Whether they will emerge depends
largely upon the choices that brands make about how to
gives us metrics we need to assess program goals
engage with their customers on Facebook. And those choices
will likely depend on whether brands consider what they are
gives us a good sense of how our customers are feeling
doing on Facebook successful or not.
As we can see from Figure 3, among respondents who helps us identify particularly valuable customers
consider their Facebook efforts successful or very successful,
three key benefits stand out: the creation of brand awareness, creates goodwill for our brand in social channels
the ability to communicate marketing messages effectively,
and the fostering of goodwill in social channels. In each of the more successful more successful
less successful less successful
three cases, there is a wide gap in perceived efficacy between
respondents who are happy with their Facebook efforts and
those who are not. On the other hand, even those who are beneficial interactions of any kind among customers. At this
happy with their Facebook program do not consider it to be point in its evolution, Facebook seems to succeed or fail
very useful in helping users answer one another’s questions for brands based on reach and the perceived goodwill that
(either pre- or post-sales) or in helping them identify goes along with that, rather than on elements that are
particularly valuable customers. specifically social.
Figure 3: Facebook and brand community effectiveness As we can also see from Figure 3, respondents who see
in 10 areas, cross-tabulated by more successful and less their community as successful or very successful give the
successful overall perceptions of success community exceptionally high marks for creating beneficial
peer-to-peer engagement, for helping customers with
Strikingly, only about 12% of respondents who consider their questions, and for providing insight into customers’ attitudes.
Facebook forays successful believe that it helps users answer Interestingly, there is basically no difference in clients’
one another’s questions. Fewer than half thought it created assessment of a community’s utility for communicating
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outbound marketing messages between those who think Figure 4: Additional needs from Facebook by perceived
it is a roaring success and those who think it is moderately success level with Facebook.
successful. On the other hand, there is a large perceived
We can see that when Facebook isn’t seen as successful for
gap in the awareness value of a community between
brands, its best benefits are still as an outbound marketing
those who feel it is very successful and those who feel it
vehicle — just not a particularly successful one. In that case,
less so. Perhaps one reason for this discrepancy is that
what do brands want Facebook to do for customers that it’s
members themselves are the marketing channel in a
not doing? We asked respondents to rank various things that
brand community. Even though it provides opportunities for
their customers might do on Facebook that they can’t do or
outbound communication—though blogs and tweets—a brand
can’t do well. When we correlate those rankings with the level
community succeeds or fails on the basis of its ability to
of success those clients are currently enjoying with Facebook,
create engagement.
several things stand out:
answer product questions
51.4% • Overwhelmingly, brands whose Facebook efforts are
50% flagging want some way to recognize their customers’
status and achievements on Facebook — in other words,
display status or achievements to reward good behavior. Conspicuous display of status
42.9% and achievement is a deeply ingrained feature of Lithium
8.3% communities and is generally seen as a prime motivator
of consumer participation.
submit ideas for service/product improvements
62.9% • Respondents who do not see their current Facebook
50% efforts as successful see the ability for customers to
submit ideas as substantially more important than
search our knowledge base those who are satisfied with Facebook. Again, this maps
60% very closely to the ideation benefit we saw earlier as a
66.7%
downstream effect of brand communities.
see the best/most useful content that others have submitted • The ability to find products or services recommended by
60% friends or colleagues is also seen as a potential area of
58.3% improvement by those who are not particularly satisfied
with their Facebook efforts.
identify other customers with similar backgrounds or needs
42.9%
50%
find products their friends or colleagues have recommended
60%
50%
mentions by respondents who rate their Facebook pages as less successful
mentions by respondents who rate their Facebook pages as successful
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Figure 5: Additional needs from Facebook by community
success level.
As we can see from Figure 5, brands who are less successful
with communities also want to see a more prominent display
of status and achievements on Facebook. But what is perhaps
more interesting is that clients who are at higher levels of
success with brand communities are much more interested
than their peers in introducing the ability for users to find
others who resemble them, and the ability for users to locate
products that their friends and colleagues like. These are
characteristic “social networking” features.
In other words, when Facebook efforts are not successful,
brands want Facebook to behave more like a community.
When communities are successful, brands want to benefit
from Facebook’s networking features to a greater extent. If
Facebook’s potency as a generator of awareness begins to
decline over time, that trend suggests a convergence between
the interaction modes in Facebook and those of brand
communities is extremely likely.
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organizational
ownership
If we see a coming convergence between the way people answer product questions
interact on Facebook and the way they interact in a
brand community, it is worth asking who will lead that
convergence and how it will take place. Enterprises vary
display status or achievements
in their determination of who owns social customer
initiatives. In some organizations, social customer initiatives
are owned by customer support or customer experience
teams. Increasingly, however, they fall under the purview of submit ideas for service/product improvements
marketing or corporate communications functions.
Figure 6: Additional requirements from Facebook by social
program ownership. search our knowledge base
As we can see from Figure 6, organizations where marketing
owns social initiatives are demanding less of Facebook
in terms of new modes of customer engagement. In fact, see the best/most useful content that others have submitted
ownership by marketing is more important than the perceived
success of a company’s Facebook page in determining
whether a company is interested in customers engaging
identify other customers with similar backgrounds or needs
through Facebook in more involved ways. Customer support
and customer experience groups continue to be more
interested in the exchange of ideas and the answering of
product questions. find products their friends or colleagues have recommended
customer support and experience groups
marketing groups
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customer support and experience marketing and comms
a
f f
e b b the scaling problem. Time and again, we have seen that
e
d larger communities with a devoted core of superfans actually
d require less intervention from companies than fledgling
c c communities. The “downstream” trust benefits pay dividends.
There is no reason why this shouldn’t be so on Facebook, but
a) executive buy-in b) resources to scale our efforts c) coordination across
many organizations are in earlier stages of their experience
teams and departmentsa) executivetools e) lack of agreed upon metrics and
d) too many buy-in with Facebook.
standards for success f) lack of customer interest
b) resources to scale our efforts
c) coordination across teams and departments
d) too many tools
Figure 8: Requirement for ROI measurement by channel and
Figure 7: Largest challenge with social customer programs,
e) lack of agreed upon metrics and standards for success program ownership.
by program ownership
f) lack of customer interest
A final area in which brand communities differ from other
Marketing-led organizations’ biggest concern with social
channels for marketing-led organizations is in the need to
customer programs is how to scale them. Figure 7 shows
prove themselves through ROI metrics. As we can see from
the chief concern as scaling initiatives with (relatively) less
Figure 8, marketing-led organizations generally have higher
concern about coordination across teams and departments.
demands for ROI, but this is particularly true for brand
44% of marketing-led organizations cited “resources to
communities. We suspect this is a function of the perception
scale our efforts” as the biggest challenge, as against
that Facebook engagement is free because a Facebook page
34.4% of everyone and (9/34 - 26%) of non-marketing led
is itself free, but also of the maturity level of Facebook as
organizations. This suggests that one reason marketers are
a technology and a marketing venue. As we see increasing
less aggressively pursuing “deeper” engagement through
convergence of social channels, we should also expect to see
Facebook is that, unlike support or customer experience
demands for more sophisticated Facebook measurement
organizations, they lack human resources — like contact
tools, and growing demands for Facebook to prove its value.
centers — that are perceived to be required to ensure that
social customers get the satisfaction they require from
engagement through Facebook. Better, perhaps, not to hold
out the promise of a sustained dialog with customers if an
organization cannot make good on that promise. brand community
The survey shows that marketers and customer experience
are equally committed to responding to customers in brand
communities and through Facebook and Twitter. However,
it would not be surprising if Facebook’s reach threatens to
become overwhelming if customer actions on Facebook
called for a response. Indeed, perhaps one thing that
marketers have learned with online communities that they
customer support
have not (yet) learned with Facebook is that customers and experience
themselves can be the solution — not just the cause — of marketing and
corp comms
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