“What’s the point of social media?”

No, for real, raise your hand. I know someone’s asked you. You’ve probably had a moment when you’ve even asked yourself.

The “point” of social media, as with any other marketing efforts, is to grow your business.

Consumer behavior has changed a lot in the past 10 years, and it’s no secret that your customers expect to see you all over the Internet. But that doesn’t mean that you should move forward without a roadmap.

But how do you find that treasure map? Here goes-

1) Focus on Your Business Goals

Anything that takes company time and effort should be closely tied to your overall business goals. If you’re going to use resources to create Social Media content, why deviate from what you’re already trying to accomplish?

Ask yourself a few questions to see how Social Media can connect to your overall marketing plan:

• How does your business provide value to customers?
• Why do people pay money for your product or services?
• How are you working to grow your business?

Once you stop to consider what motivates people to choose you over your competition. You can capitalize on that motivation, and not just in your social media plan, but also in your larger marketing strategy.

2) Use Metrics in Perspective

How do you think about your social media numbers? If you’re looking at things like shares, followers, repins, and likes, you’re probably not going to be able to tie these metrics back to your overall marketing goals. Those numbers are “Vanity Metrics,” and mean nothing in terms of how and when people are hearing your messaging- and more importantly, what they are doing after they hear you.

Eric Reis describes Vanity Metrics as any data that doesn’t help you make decisions. He suggests using actionable metrics, like split-testing new features, tracking conversions on a per-customer basis, tracking groups of customers over time, and monitoring customer behavior based on specific keywords.

What it all boils down to is this: track what your customers are doing to find and move through your conversion funnel, and know how that affects your bottom line.

It’s not that user behavior on your social media properties isn’t important, it’s that those interactions need to tie back to your overall business model and goals.

3) Measure Social Media Against Key Performance Indicators

Before you start any social media campaign, start with your biggest goals, and build your content around them.

If you are you trying to increase Lifetime Customer Value, consider ramping up your customer service offerings on Facebook and Twitter. Then test to see if your customers stick around for longer, or if those people talking to you on Facebook and Twitter take less time to convert.

Want to grow your sales? See which sites are sending you the most referral traffic, and post more high-quality content to those sites. You can monitor to see if the referral traffic from those sites results in a higher average transaction total or higher conversion rates.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what to do with those vanity metrics- narrow in on them and use them to make decisions! Track which posts are getting you the most repins, likes, retweets, shares, and clicks. If those are the posts that your fans like the most, they can point out what you should be doing more of (and what you can ix-nay).

And the next time someone asks, “What’s the point of Social Media?” you’ll know the answer – it’s helping your business grow!

Times are a changin’ over at Facebook.  Many individuals have chosen to make the switch over to the new Timeline profile page for their personal accounts, and brand pages are following suit, being converted to the new layout by Facebook on March 30^th.  With change comes uncertainty.  But, fear not!   A recent study by Simply Measured is easing marketers’ and brands’ apprehension about the switch by reporting a 46% increase in engagement or more engagement per post with the Timeline for brand pages.

When Facebook announced the upgrade for brand pages on February 29th, they promised the Timeline would help “showcase brand’s unique stories and identities.”  The new layout gives brands the opportunity to emphasize powerful images to their fans.  Brands are now able to tell a more engaging company story by adding pictures and sharing every awesome milestone your company has accomplished such as grand openings and new product launches.

Still a bit nervous about the switch?  Below are the main changes implanted by the Timeline for your brand page:

• The following is viewable “above the fold”: Category, About, Photos, Map (available for Place Page, Custom App, and Additional Custom Apps.
• Your custom tabs are not lost forever with the Timeline, but are now called “applications”. They will be aligned just under the header image to the right and will be able to accomplish the same things we did with the custom landing tabs.
• You can designate a couple of these apps as “favorites”; these will show up underneath your header image and to the right. To access additional applications, visitors will have to click the downward-pointing arrow to the right of your favorite apps.
• The pin-post feature can be used to promote and drive traffic to the custom apps or draw attention to certain posts. The post will remain at the top of the Timeline for a week.
• Fans and non-fans are able to message businesses privately. While businesses cannot initiate a private message to others, they can respond to incoming private messages.

Still have questions?  The JAR Group can help you re-vamp your social media strategy beyond the Timeline and increase your fan engagement to maximize brand awareness and your ROI.  Contact us if you’re interested in finding out how the JAR Group’s social media services could grow your brand’s online presence.

JAR’s very own Hide Harashima and Dan Vassallo were moderators at two roundtables, “Getting Insights from Social Analytics” and “Measuring ROI for Social Media Campaigns”, respectively.

I was fully impressed by The Wall Street Journal Digital Network’s media strategies. They implemented an incredible outreach to expand their typical WSJ demographic by including non-traditional outlets for the brand, like Pinterest. Knowing what folks were interested in, they were able to reach out to them through other forms of media showing this new audience that WSJ is more than just “news”. This cross distribution proved to be incredibly successful and today, their WSJ Facebook page now receives, on average, 100 “likes” or comments per post.

Jenny Dervin, VP of Corporate Communications for JetBlue Airways was very insightful on how to build an audience for your brand. One word: ENGAGE! Your markets are your conversations and that is what you are trying to build.

These speakers, along with an awesome presentation by Tasti D-Lite’s VP Technology, BJ Emerson, were all focused on transparency, reaching your audience in real time, and engaging with those interested in your brand. These corporations have prime examples of successful marketing plans that brought insightful strategies I will definitely start putting into practice!

A few of us were perched up at our sponsor table for meet and greets with the attendees.

We had a lot of traffic in our little area, but I think these books are really what drew them in! They were a hit!

We’ll be sponsoring another BDI event on April 19, The Social Customer Service Leadership Forum. Register early! AJ Lawrence, our CEO, will be a panelist along with Robin Carey of Social Media Today and Morgan Johnson, social Media Strategist of JetBlue Airways.

See you next month!

1. Be Human. Be Real. – What separates Tim Tebow from other Super Star NFL players is his level of awareness about himself and others. Here’s what Rick Reilly had to say about him,

“Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or is dying, or who is injured, flies them and their families to the Broncos game, rents them a car, puts them up in a nice hotel…gets them and their families pregame passes, visits with them just before kickoff, gets them 30-yard line tickets down low, visits with them after the game (sometimes for an hour), has them walk him to his car, and send them off with a basket of gifts.” (Read the full article here: http://es.pn/xDUFOa)

Does your brand have this level of commitment to the community you serve? Your brand is an extension of who you are as a company and its culture, what you do “off the field” carries just as much weight as it does “on the field.”

2. CARE – Absolutely. This deserves its own category. There is NEVER enough “CARE” for brands, big and small. If Tim Tebow has time to visit his fan just before kickoff, brands have no excuse but to do the same before a product launch. However, if product launches are the only time your brand reaches out to the community, well then that’s not really caring, is it? Obsess over questions like, “What ways is my brand extending our CARE to my customers/clients/community?” If you or your brand is not addressing this question, you’re missing a fundamental building block for the future of your community.

3. Be CURRENT – On Tim Tebow’s website (www.timtebow.com), you’ll see strong calls to action. You’ll see relevant social media plug-ins that help his fans connect with him. You’ll see updates of his latest tweets front and center “above the fold.” In the current digital age, there is no excuse for your brand not to have the social tools to connect with your community. First of all, it’s free. Second, it has the potential to substantially increase the size of your community in a short amount of time. This is true for brands of all sizes. In a matter of seconds, a single persons’ opinion about your brand can be amplified to hundreds of people instantly. You/your brand can choose to embrace real time connections with the community, or always be chasing a step behind.

4. Have a PERSONALITY – CBS analyst Shannon Sharpe reported, “The fans love this guy.” (Full article here: http://bit.ly/yLTL3p) His personality is contagious. Tebow’s featured video on his website is two minutes and thirty seconds long. In that time, he has given a snapshot of who he isn’t afraid to be. HIMSELF. There’s nothing worse than a brand without a clear sense of who they are. Not only know your brand, but OWN it. If your brand’s personality is dependent on a marketing strategy, well then that’s an area your brand needs to work on. Ultimately, you need a brand VOICE.

5. EXECUTE – It is not a fluke that Tim Tebow was the first round NFL draft pick for 2010 and the first ever sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. The last minute touchdown, against the Steelers, showed the NFL community that he CAN execute under extreme pressure. If your brand isn’t delivering on its goals, don’t be afraid to drop what you’re doing and re-asses your brand model. In this industry, actions speak louder than words.

6. Have CHARACTER – This is what Tim Tebow has to say after the devastating loss against the Patriots, “Any time you’re getting beat like that; it doesn’t change how you fight. It didn’t matter whether it was the first play or the last play or whether we’re down by 42. … I wanted to be the same player.” (Full article here: http://www.tebowzone.com/) If brands can carry that same attitude even with the most disappointing results, which every brand will inevitably face, it will not only force you to think about the core of your brand but it will also inform the choices your brand makes in the future.

7. Have Original Content – Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past weeks, you’ll know that Tebowing is now an official dictionary term defined as, “to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different.” (www.tebowing.com) Dedicated and loyal fans have made “Tebowing” into a trend and has spread across all media channels including a local New York News Channel. You’ll see lots of schwag (T-shirts, hats, cups, etc.) with a Tebowing logo which is instantly recognizable. Does your brand have this kind of influence to the community your brand serves? The real question is, does your brand give fans something great to talk about? Maybe getting your own dictionary word is a reach but we think that serving original content is a good place to start for any brand.

8. Get INVOLVED – The truth of the matter is there is no way your brand can understand your community by sitting on the sidelines and reporting in from the outside. Being involved means active participation in the conversations taking place around your subject matter.

9. Have a MESSAGE- In the world of social media, there is heavy emphasis being placed on specific platforms brands use to deliver the message when the truth is, it’s the MESSAGE that counts. Consider Tim Tebow’s virality across various platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, G+, etc. It wasn’t the platform used, it was the MESSAGE.

10. Be Humble- Despite the historic loss for the Broncos against the Patriots 45-10, there’s one thing that cannot be taken away from Tim Tebow. According to the ESPN Sports Poll, Tim Tebow is now America’s favorite pro athlete but here’s what Tebow had to say in response, “…I hope people see I’m real and genuine. I hope they see that I make a ton of mistakes but that I always get back up and try again.” (Full article here: http://es.pn/wWCdpB) It’s not hard to see why Tebow has over a million fans following him on Twitter. Can your brand be humble enough to admit to mistakes but show willingness to care genuinely about the community? Remember that, in the end, your brand is an extension of who you are as a company and its culture.

In the early days, we had a barter economy; we would trade our resources and/or services to sustain our livelihood. You get half of my cattle and in exchange I get a bag of salt (it was very valuable back then!). It was not only necessary for survival but also for establishing good merchant relationships to garner future transactions. In reality, not much has changed, other than the platforms used. This is because of (you guessed it) technology. Though the word “platform” may be used in various contexts, I would like to make it synonymous with two words (just for now and sake of clarity): Digital space.

Facebook, as you’re probably familiar with this popular social networking platform, occupies the same space. You can connect, share and post all within a click of a mouse. It is a remarkable thing. For most, Facebook has become the single most powerful vehicle we share news and information. In addition, a new social vehicle emerged in 2006 which allows all of the information to be shared in real time. Welcome to Twitter. Everyone can now share a “Tweet” (a 140 character limit) of anything they want the world to know and “Follow” anyone they find relevant to their interest. Just like that, everyone is potentially connected to each other. In this day and age, “The world is at your fingertips.”

In the digital space, everyone gets to create his/her own “brand.” In other words, the traditional days of marketing which, almost always, required a middle-man (the publisher) are now largely over. Anyone can now publish anything anywhere through various publishing platforms in this digital space. Thousands of businesses (corporate brands) have caught on to this and now use social media as part of their overall marketing strategy (a smart move.)

Many businesses now hire “Digital Agencies” to develop marketing strategies to track, measure and increase their corporate brand visibility in the digital space. You might be asking yourself why the “digital space” is so much more in demand than traditional media streams (TV, Newspapers, radio, etc.). There are several reasons: a.) When people are operating in the digital space, they’re actively participating and b.) For the first time, these platforms have made it possible for businesses to directly engage with their consumers and establish relationships with them in the digital space. Now, corporate brands have an opportunity to put a face to the name and do business while being human. (isn’t it also cheaper?)

So what do I do? I work for a Digital Agency.

After attending a great seminar about community building put on by Lauren Perkins,  the founder of Perks Consulting, I learned some ground rules to keep in mind when targeting a community for your brand.  Here at The JAR Group, we take pride in helping our clients expand their brand’s community and recognize the importance of great networking.  Below are some questions to keep in mind when exploring your audience.

First off, why does a brand need a digital community?
Identifying a community for your brand creates a space for customers to come and talk about your product, share stories and even ask questions directly to YOU.  This is your chance to reach your customers directly and build customer loyalty.  It can also be a great a way to drive traffic and sales.  Specifically, the more outlets available to your customers to reach your brand, the more likely they are to engage.  This increased engagement will help the customer feel connected to the brand and let them know their opinion is important.

Where do we find the community for my brand?
It’s important to look for conversations already taking place about your brand online.  Find out where your community congregates and see what they’re saying!  Conducting listening studies are a great way to get to know your customers online.  In addition, creating key word alerts and targeted searches are both powerful tools in identifying the buzz around your brand.  These are all great ways to discover your brand sentiment and establish communication with your customers.

Where should my community live?
Once you’ve discovered where your buyers are hanging out online, why not bring your brand to them.  If your customers are willing to spend time on already existing social platforms, simply make them stay more. One way is adding social shopping to your brand’s Facebook Page.  Sure, most people don’t look at Facebook as means to buy products online, but if your audience is there already discussing and sharing experiences about your brand, adding an area to purchase directly from Facebook might not be a bad idea.  Even if they don’t buy directly from the social media site, it’s a great way to expose them to the products and encourage browsing for a future purchase.

I have some loyal followers—but how do we expand?
It’s important to remember building relationship, whether online or in person, takes time.  Once you’ve reached a certain amount of brand followers, it can be easy to reach a plateau and loose focus on expanding your community.  It can be helpful to list all of the key players you touch from a business standpoint- affiliates, employees, vendors, influences- to help build your network.  Creating a laundry list of everyone who could potentially buy your product and prioritizing them into groups is also an effective way to market to potential buyers you had never thought of before.  Ask yourself how each of these groups engage in your business and what they want to gain out of the relationships?

Creating and maintaining your brand community can be thought of as an innovative customer service center.  Personally, one of the first things I look at when exploring a new brand is customer reviews.  Granted, I sometimes question the similarities between the person behind the review and myself, I still take a fellow consumers’ opinion into consideration.  I am always pleasantly surprised when a brand reacts to a customer’s negative review by trying to make the situation better-either by offering coupons for future purchases, remedying the situation altogether, or simply going out of their way to apologize and ensure the problem will not happen again.  These experiences can be very influential on consumer behaviors and may be the decision making factor between choosing to engage with one community over another.

Contact us directly if you want The JAR Group to help you find and build your brand community.

]]> http://www.thejargroup.com/your-digital-community-if-you-build-it-they-will-come/feed/ 0 http://www.thejargroup.com/video-and-the-possibility-of-increased-engagement/ http://www.thejargroup.com/video-and-the-possibility-of-increased-engagement/#comments Mon, 02 May 2011 20:34:22 +0000 JAR Team http://www.thejargroup.com/?p=4103 Video is acknowledged as a good way to engage visitors and increase the time they spend on your owned web and social media. When one thinks of online video, though, it’s primary as one-way broadcast or, perhaps, two-way chat managed by the host site. TokBox’s OpenTok enables brands to apply video in a more “social” manner — with interaction among visitors.

Let’s take a look at OpenTok and some of the ways it’s being used. Perhaps there’s a spark of an idea for you.

OpenTok is a set of JavaScript or Action Script APIs, offering control over the selection, sizing, layout and interaction of individual video streams to integrate video chat into web experiences or mobile AIR apps. Features include concurrent streaming to multiple pages and sites; creation of both “viewer” and “participant” roles; and scaling up to 20 screens. OpenTok is free; revenue for TokBox comes from advertising displayed in the OpenTok services.

Among the suggested applications are:

• Interactive customer service
• Marketing research with live video chat interviews
• Interactive banners with live video chat distributed over a network of websites
• Ad campaigns using social gaming strategies with video chat

Here are examples of sites that are currently (or have been) live:

The Overload Show – Talk show where two presenters and a guest talk shop with audience interaction. Check the site for the next show time.

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe — A place to “kiss” your friends under the mistletoe, then capture and share the moment.

My DunkTank — Fundraising game.

TubeIt — YouTube video sharing with real time video discussion.

TrendTok — Connects trending Twitter topics and live video chat.

Additionally, Chat with the Band is a (not currently active) concept Facebook app designed to provide music artists with a video platform to engage with their fans.

How do you engage with your audience?

A new Forrester/GSI Commerce report called “The Purchase Path of Online Buyers” found that fewer than 2 percent of online orders from Nov. 12 through Dec. 20 resulted from buyers coming from a social network.

Email marketing and search advertising, meanwhile, proved to be more effective in driving sales.

The study also reveals that:

“45 percent and 53 percent of hard and soft goods transactions, respectively, touched at least two marketing touch points. This data highlights opportunities for retailers to think beyond the traditional ‘last-click’ measurement they typically attribute to marketing programs.”

Fiona Dias, executive vice president of strategy and marketing for GSI Commerce, reasoned that the data could be explained by taking a look at Sunday church services. She told Mashable:

“If you go with the theory that you should market where the people are, then you should be running off to market during church services. Facebook has the same analogy. Buying things from retailers is maybe tenth on the list of things they want to do on Facebook.”

This is very interesting especially when brands are creating E-Commerce tabs on Facebook in growing numbers as of lately.

As explained by The Guardian, which first broke the story:

“Security researchers have discovered that Apple’s iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner’s computer when the two are synchronised.

The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner’s movements using a simple program.”

The researchers themselves, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, published their findings on O’Reilly Radar before presenting them at the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

“Apple has made it possible for almost anybody – a jealous spouse, a private detective – with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you’ve been,” said Warden, who also noted the “data-gathering isn’t accidental.”

Researchers say the recording of the data may have started in June 2010, with the release of the iOS 4 software update.

Beyond the obvious invasion of privacy concerns, why should consumers be worried?  Warden explains that too:

“The most immediate problem is that this data is stored in an easily-readable form on your machine. Any other program you run or user with access to your machine can look through it.

The more fundamental problem is that Apple are collecting this information at all. Cell-phone providers collect similar data almost inevitably as part of their operations, but it’s kept behind their firewall. It normally requires a court order to gain access to it, whereas this is available to anyone who can get their hands on your phone or computer.

By passively logging your location without your permission, Apple have made it possible for anyone from a jealous spouse to a private investigator to get a detailed picture of your movements.”

Meanwhile, Apple has so far declined to comment on why the file is created or whether it can be disabled.

And that silence, not surprisingly, is not sitting well with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), or Congress.

An FCC official told Politico the agency is “looking into the matter,” while key Members of Congress with in both the House and the Senate with control over privacy and tech issues took a more direct approach towards Apple.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), head of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s new privacy panel, sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs late Wednesday asking the company why the hidden feature was even included in the iOS software.

And Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, confronted Apple in a statement and pledged to draft “comprehensive online privacy legislation” that would keep the heat on the issue, and Apple.

“I intend to ask Apple and the federal agencies charged with oversight some very direct questions to understand the frequency and extent of this data collection and the use, protection and sharing of this sensitive information,” Inslee wrote.  “This episode, and many others, illustrates the need for enhanced government oversight of data collection activities.”

Keeping the focus on Apple, and other tech companies, is a route the researchers would likely recommend.

In a video posted along with their study’s findings, Allan and Warden say there’s “no immediate harm” from the availability of users’ data, but caution that “why this data is stored and how Apple intends to use it — or not — are important questions that need to be explored.”

Could this new research change the your opinion on owning an Apple product or is this expected?

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Branding in the Digital Age: You’re Spending Money in All the Wrong Places (sorry the article is behind a pay wall), David C. Edelman,  the author, states that today’s consumers connect with brands in fundamentally new ways. Working with our clients here at the JAR group, I definitely agree. We use many forms of research around these consumer decision journeys to help our clients focus their efforts, and it is fascinating, to watch these journeys’ growing twists and tangles.

We all know and live in this word where the internet has revolutionized the way consumers interact with brands and how they purchase.  Social Media is further changing the way marketers communicate with their customers and, happily enough, re-writing their traditional marketing strategies.  Marketers will have to align their marketing plan and budget with key points from the “consumer decision journey” to optimize their sales and improve customer satisfaction with their brand.   The HBR article suggests that the journey can be broken down into four stages: consider, evaluate, buy, and enjoy, advocate, bond.

Marketers have spent years working with the concept of the sales funnel; consumers start with a large number of potential brands and slowly narrow their choice down to make a purchase.  After they buy the product, their relationship with the brand typically dwindles with little or no further engagement.  This was known as the Funnel Metaphor.

Today, buyers constantly utilize the digital resources readily available to them taking on a consumer journey when researching a product.   In this model, brands are continuously being added and subtracted from the consideration group during the evaluation stage.  Customers compare the brands in question, often  using multiple online resources besides the company’s website.  After the purchase is made, consumers bond with some brands through online touch points, advocating for brands that engage with them with a positive experience, while often voicing strong opinions about negative encounters as well.

The authors indicate marketers should focus their budget on stages in the journey rather than spending across media such as television, radio and online. In many instances, the most powerful incentive to buy is someone else’s advocacy.  It is important to allocate spending to third party advocates that can help grow and shape your brands’ online presence.

What do you think is the most influential part of your clients journey?  As a consumer, what type of journeys do you take before making a purchase?

At the JAR group we have seen our client’s sales efforts greatly increase when concepts like these are incorporated into the strategies we develop. Using the concept of the consumer decision journey tied together with attribution modeling around the impact of each touch within the journey has shown significant increases in revenue and even more fun, ROI.

Feel free to reach out to us if you would like to discuss your consumer’s decision journey and how you can take the journey with them.