Category Archives: social media monitoring

Six secrets from Google’s BrandLab

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Kim Larson, a brand building expert at Google’s BrandLab, works with more than 100 global brands each year. As part of the Engagement Project, she shares how letting go can lead to more rewarding relationships.

Brands put a huge amount of time and money into getting their standards right. All this is crucial to establishing a brand’s identity, but too much control will not help you to be more successful. The most important thing, on the contrary, is… Let go.

Here are six of the secrets of brands that do this well:

Secret #1: Take a supporting role Let the consumer be in the center of the conversation.The more flexible, the higher the chances to succeed. The idea isn’t to leave the consumer alone. Instead you take part in the dialogue. .

Secret #2: Control is an illusion I came across an amazing quote in this article :  “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”  By opening channels where consumers can express how they feel about your brand, you can actually get more  power to influence what people say and address it — the good and the bad.(That brings us back to all the conversations about listening to your customer and deciding whether to engage or not).

Secret #3: Make it easy to participate Not everyone will want to put an effort and speak up. So you should try to be creative and come up some easy yet interesting ways to engage with the customers.

Secret #4: If you open up, they will too  One of the greatest examples is  ‘Our Food. Your Questions’ campaign of  McDonald’s Canada. The customers could post any questions they wanted and the company replied to all of them. This results in more and more questions being asked and a huge spread of the campaign. Here is one of great examples of the campaign:

Secret #5: Showcase experiences Create opportunities for people to share their actual experiences. “Show, don’t tell”. Prudential’s Day One Stories campaign in which thousands of people posted pictures of the first day of their retirement brought sharing experiences to a new level.

Secret #6: Trust your fans Trust your fans, they know what they want from you. Taco Bell does a great job at this.  They consistently invite their customers to help redefine what their brand means over the last 24 months.Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed says, “You have to entrust 23-year-olds to protect or amplify the brand without the classic structure that organizations use to make decisions … If you are a control freak, you’re not going to like the future.”

Of course, a lot of the companies might be hesitant to accept the reality their brand currently exists in, however, if you want to succeed, let go…and embrace the change!

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Sharing is caring

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Following another discussion during the class on how important it is to be responsive to your customers via social media, I came across this quite interesting article.

It is a well-known fact that nowadays brands rely heavily on social media and particularly reviews.Those brands that respond to consumer reviews tend to have higher brand loyalty. Interestingly, shoppers who saw a brand respond to a review in which the product owner misused or misunderstood a product were 186% more likely to purchase than those who didn’t’ see the response!!!I Consumers who saw a brand respond to a negative review by offering a product refund, upgrade, or exchange were 92% more likely to purchase than consumers who didn’t see the response!! Seventy-one percent of consumers who saw a brand respond to a review changed their perception of that brand, cites the study. That brings us again to the disaster that United Airlines faced simply because they did not respond and did not admit their mistake at the very beginning.

So what does a brand’s response to a negative online review mean to its customers? According to the research study, 41% of consumers say it makes the brand seem like it really cares about its customers . Of course, brands should also not be too social; otherwise the consumers will think that once they start complaining and yelling that will result in refunds, free products etc

This sharing of ideas and services is also causing so-called collaborative consumption or, The Collaborative Economy. “This is embodied in the peer-to-peer lending economy in which consumers connect via social, mobile, and online to share their possessions, such as a car or an apartment.”

So in the end, it is always up to you what you make of your social media. However, one should never underestimate its power nowadays.

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Marketers’ secret weapon

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Following the discussion we had during emarketing class on how important it is to monitor social media and listen to your (potential) customers, this article might shed light on it.

“Social listening” has become incredibly important for marketers. Here are just a few facts and numbers from the article:

Over one billion active users are now on Facebook, and 200 million users are on Twitter. With the substantial amount of information shared on social media, marketers need to consider how to sift through data to find valuable insights.

Twitter is now a key driver for “Social TV.” More and more viewers are tweeting during program viewing to share observations and feelings for shows in real time, presenting new measurement questions and opportunities.

Fake social media offerings, coming in the form of a fake event or user group, are on the rise. According to an August 2013 Symantec Intelligence Report, fake social media offerings now account for 82% of all social media attacks so far this year, up from 56% in 2012.

So how can one distinguish between genuine useful data and fake social media? That is where social data analysts come in…The social data analyst brings in a combination of social and research methodology and can  segment the data to eliminate the irrelevant information. A good analyst can point out where imposter information is clouding your judgement.

For example, when a marketer is trying to uncover new consumer audiences by analyzing social networks these people are using, social data analyst can be of great help.”In the end, it all comes down to knowing how to translate data from social media into valuable information. Employing talented social data analysts alongside a marketing team or finding external social data analysts who understand an industry and brand helps to translate specific social conversations into actionable business plans.”

So once again, never underestimate the power of social media and do your best to get the most out of it! However, be careful not to get lost in consumers’web of data 😉 Hiring such an analyst might be a good option to consider 😉

 

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