An introduction to some of the good and bad things about social media marketing

1. Social media marketing:
bursting the hype
Jeremy Swinfen Green
Managing Partner, Mosoco

2. Everything is changing

3. We’re all doomed
And don’t
say I didnae
warn ye!

4. Don’t panic…

5. So why bother with social media?

6. Market insights
• Insights into
– You and your competitors
– Changes over time
• The words they use
– The benefits the highlight
– The things they dislike
• Who, when and where

7. Many free tools…
Some free favourites: social mention,
tweetreach, hashtagify.me, twitonomy
And plenty of paid ones too: HootSuite is worth trying

8. Take care with measurement
• Do you understand what the data really mean?
– How many people will actually see your content?
– Is a simple action such as a “Like” worth much?
• Twitter “reach” is potential reach of a tweet:
followers and followers of re-tweeters
• One twitter users on average
–
–
–
–
Follows 100 people, who each tweet 5 times/day
Is shown 500 tweets/day
Spends 5 minutes/day on Twitter
Will only be able to read 100 maximum (NOT 500!)

9. Marketing communications
Engage
One to one
communications
Many to many
communications
Listen

10. Who should own social media
IT, PR or Marketing?
None of the above!

11. You need a triage system
Sales
Strategy
Marketing
PR
HR
R&D

12. Triage because social media = RISK
• Internal risk
– Board members
– Employees
• External risk
– Hackers
– The Public

13. And it’s a big risk
• April 2013: Syrian Electronic Army hack into
AP’s Twitter feed
– They plant rumours of bombs at the White House
• Result: the Dow Jones drops 143 points
– $136 bn is erased from the market

14. Risks: the board - compliance
• Board member responsible for social media?
• Corporate responsibilities: potential negligence
–
–
–
–
Not ensuring social media management is in place
Not ensuring security protocols are adequate
Not ensuring social media records are kept
Disclosing financial information
• Tweets allowed by the SEC: UK guidelines?
– Advertising Standards and Promotions
• Publishing misleading tweets from consumers
• Regulated industries e.g. FCA (FSA) guidelines: “Twitter
may be insufficient to provide balanced information”

15. Careless talk costs Likes
• Unwise posts may:
– Damage the brand e.g. personal opinions that appear
official
– Be accidentally libellous posts (e.g. the Christmas
Party)
– Anger or worry stakeholders (e.g. shareholders
hearing about slow sales)
– Create inadvertent contracts

16. Managing employee social media use
• Customised company social media policy
– Training to gain understanding and buy-in
• Monitoring
– Employee posts on company accounts
– Senior employee posts on private accounts

17. Employees who walk
• Social media assets e.g. Facebook pages not
owned by the business
– Set up by employee who then leaves
• Appropriate protocols for setting up and
maintaining social media assets
vs

18. …or who are being “walked”

19. Hacking
• Business pages being taken over
• Personal email or Twitter accounts being hacked
• Is YOUR password “qwerty” or “12345”?
“BurgerKing just got sold to
McDonalds…”
Dell’s Director of
Social Media gets
his Twitter account
hacked

20. Social PR crisis: when not if…
• Things that happen
– Product and operational problems causing unhappy
customers to complain in public
– Unhappy ex-employees post defamatory comments
– Unacceptable executive behaviour is uncovered
– Rumours of takeovers, financial troubles are
circulated

21. How to manage a social PR crisis
• Listen
• Prepare
– Identify the most likely problems
– Create template position statements
– Implement management protocols – who does what
• Practice
– Dealing with the speed and the stress of a PR crisis

22. So how can you use social media for
marketing?

23. Start with a strategy
•
•
•
•
Set organisational goals
Audit existing assets
Define resources available/possible
Ensure management processes are in place (inc
Board level responsibility)

24. Plan your campaigns
•
•
•
•
Listen and research audience “wants”
Develop personas
Set SMART objectives
Plan your channels based on their strengths and
weaknesses
• Develop Tone of Voice guidelines for different
channels
• Create an editorial calendar tool
• INTEGRATE with other marketing activities

25. Editorial calendar
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Publication date
Theme and subject
Audience/persona
Keywords
Author
Sign off
Channel
Purpose/Call to action

26. Innovation and content creation
• Idea generation can be hard
–
–
–
–
–
Book of ideas
Brainstorming
News, company news, industry news
Seasonal changes
Other people’s ideas reinterpreted or disputed
• Recycle content and reuse ideas regularly
• Rework content e.g. 1 whitepaper=
– 3 blogs
– 10 tweets
– I info-graphic

27. Great content
•
•
•
•
Is relevant and interesting (obviously)
Has a personal tone of voice
Uses appropriate grammar and spelling
Has interest hooks (headline, first sentence, last
sentence)
• Generates engagement (ask questions, run
competitions, be topical, respond to comments)
• Contains images
• Has a purpose: business-focussed calls to action
Jon Morrow, Henneke Duistermaat, Content Marketing Institute
Social Media Examiner, BufferApp

28. Video works wonders
• But you need text as well:
– SEO
– User preference

29. Content delivery: Driving audience
•
•
•
•
•
•
Post at different times of the day/week
Recycle posts several times
Reply to comments/thank followers etc
Engage with influencers
Engage with employees and customers
Ask people to “follow” you on your website, your
emails, your blog etc
• Be wary of buying followers – if only because
this can lead to complacency!

30. Evaluation and measurement
• What is a “Like” really worth?
– You can’t assume that “Liking” causes people to buy
– Correlation is not the same as cause
– £1000 sales from 10 people who Liked you doesn’t
mean each Like is worth £100
• But
– Likes have value as social proof, and may influence
other people’s decisions
– Someone who Likes MAY be more inclined to buy
(principle of “commitment and consistency”)
• Unfortunately these are not readily measurable…

31. Things to avoid: insensitivity

32. Things to avoid: pretending to respond

33. Things to avoid: giving people freedom!

34. Things to avoid: ignoring the news

35. Conclusions

36. What’s it all about?
• Social media effects are a lot less measurable
than some people might have you believe
• Social media marketing is important, but it isn’t
the only marketing game in town
• Social media goes a long way beyond marketing
and addressing the risks is essential

37. Thank you
jeremy@mosoco.co.uk
07855 341 589