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What is Social Media Engagement Anyways?

18
August
2010

As buzz words in the web industry come and go, currently everyone is focused on “engaging” their audience and customers. Andrew Bates reviews Brian Solis’s book Engage as well as current trends in social media engagement.

Andrew Bates
Social Media Practice Lead

The idea of engaging the customer is not new. Advertisers and marketers have described this concept of attracting and holding the attention of the customer for decades. Today, brands, online marketers and social media thought leaders not only want their audience’s attention, we strive for interaction, participation, and a 2 way dialog. So is this social media engagement?

In Brian Solis’s book conveniently titled “Engage,” he offers insights and lessons learned that can be applied by any internal champion or brand evangelist. Although this book was published earlier this year, getting to it now reminds me of the fundamental truths that escape many organizations. Brian discusses activities focused and “designed to help bring everyone to the table.”

In Engage, Brian (@BrianSolis on twitter) focuses on:

- Fostering online networks and communities that honestly represent your brand and culture while cultivating “loyalty and trust” with your audience

- Genuinely participating in those “online ecosystems”

- Continually adapting by following new media trends and other ways to build connections

- Needing internal champions and well as establishing organizational structures and procedures to communicate effectively

Brian also wrote a Mashable’s blog post earlier this year where he clearly defines and quickly identifies the Rules for Social Media Engagement. In this post, he provides valuable and tangible guidelines that includes more then just the do’s but also a few of the don’ts while seeking opportunities to grow participation and communication with and from your audience.

The concept of engaging your audience and community to foster brand awareness, loyalty, and interaction is definitely not new. Engagement (along with many other buzz words) gets lost in the promotional web spam, but many of the facts remain the same. Good communication still requires listening, following through with fast and appropriate interaction, and above all being honest and genuine. In today’s world successful engagement is not about a catchy ad campaign. Brands and organizations must be authentic and they must act.

How do you define engagement in social media?

@EyeTraffic

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Forrester Research Reports Even More Social Media ROI

21
July
2010

Andrew Bates discusses the value of Forrester Research’s 2010 Social Media ROI report. Key social media topics cover measuring return, mitigating risk and improving efficiencies.


Andrew Bates
Social Media Practice Lead

There has always been a logical need for businesses and organizations to quantify all marketing and branding efforts.  Online marketing and social media are no different.  Our customers are constantly looking to social and new media as cost effective and measurable resources to drive sales, gain audience, lower costs, and improve brand sentiment.

Most have already found consistent ways to gauge the value of ecommerce, search engine optimization, and search engine marketing.  Although large brands like Dell and Dunkin Donuts have already shown considerable profits and operational efficiencies via social advertising, many still struggle with the concept.  So much so that Stefanie Berliant , one of EyeTraffic’s SEM and Digital Media Advertising leads, blogged about MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Social Media Marketing & PR Benchmark Guide last year.

Forrester Research has yet again prepared an incredibly detailed 2010 report on social media ROI.  Although this report is not free, it is worth every penny.  I wont give away all of the amazing information, but I want to highlight some of the ways marketing and communications managers can validate their organization’s social and new media activities.

Augie Ray of Forrester details everything from ways to measure these activities, to concepts like risk mitigation, and he provides tangible case studies for each concept covered in this report.  Beyond the analytic tactics and tools that we use very day to help our customers, he covers some other very important issues with concrete examples.

Here are just a few insights that caught my eye:

  • Activities that get in the way of achieving objectives
  • Failing to attribute results to those channels and investments that deliver the results
  • Asking, is the organization better prepared to note and respond to attacks or problems that affect reputation?
  • Avoiding short-term gains coming at the expense of long-term brand health

A couple great case studies:

  • Petco.com lowered product return rates significantly by allowing user generated reviews
  • 1-800-Flowers continues to drive consistent ecommerce sales via Facebook

I won’t go into too much detail.  This is a report that all social media agencies and CMO’s should purchase and keep handy.  Does your organization employ any of these strategies?

@AndrewBates

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What we learned from the Nestle social media crisis of 2010

18
May
2010

More fallout from the Nestle social media crisis of 2010 teaches us a valuable lesson brands need to understand

Andrew Bates

Social Media Practice Lead

Earlier this year you may recall the Nestle social media incident.   Our Media Program Analyst at-large Blake Bowyer covered the incident and ramifications for us in March during the fiasco in his post 10 Days Later: Nestle’s Social Media Implosion.

Basically Greenpeace initiated a Facebook and YouTube attack against Nestle for contributing to deforestation.  The way Nestle handled the situation caused the crisis to grow and become a web wide phenomenon.   2 months later, and Mashable shows that Nestle is still dealing with Greenpeace’s social media backlash.  The Nestle web site is covered with their new found concern for the environment.

Again we see that poor crisis management and a lack of engagement strategy lead to a PR nightmare.  Does this mean large brands should avoid social media?  No – the big public brands need to get ahead of these possible negative public attacks by embracing and developing  a social and new media strategy that includes some amount of planning for dealing with negative audience sentiment.

@AndrewBates

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My Mom is on Facebook, and She May Be More Popular Than Me

23
April
2010

Facebook reached over 400 million users in early 2010 with the +55 demographic growing at an increasing pace

My Mom is on Facebook, and She May Be More Popular Than Me

Andrew Bates

Client Services Manager

This is no new phenomenon.  You logon to Facebook one day to check your messages and to see your friends making awkward faces in candid photos.  Then in your new connection invitations you see…, could it be?  Its mom, and she wants to be your friend.  Now whether you accept or not is up to you, but the invitation reminds me of the reach of social media and the lion’s share that Facebook has today.

I give some of the credit to MySpace for kicking off the free personalized social profile and gaining a great deal of attention early on.  In 2006 MySpace was the most popular social network in the US, but the site’s reign was short-lived.  According to comScore, Facebook surpassed MySpace as the most popular and visited social network in 2008 based on monthly average visitors.  Now Facebook has more than 400 million users and has traffic and usage statistics that rival the mighty Google.

We can safely say that social networking may have started with the younger generation, but Facebook has gained acceptance with all age groups and has become a legitimate marketing platform for businesses, groups, and non-profits alike.  What obviously has me baffled is the acceptance and growth outside of the 24-34 year old demographic.  According to Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs and a number of sources, in 2010 the +55 age group is growing in Facebook by over 900%.

So the trends are showing that we all may soon get that invitation to connect from our parents, aunts and uncles, and maybe even a grandparent here and there.  I’m looking next to see the usage statistics for this +55 generation over the next 6 months to a year.  If my mom’s profile is any indication, her group of friends are engaging on a daily basis and embracing “wall to wall” posts, the “Like” feature, and posting many images and video.

Next time someone asks you if this “Facebook thing” is going to last.  Just tell them to ask my mom, your mom, his or her own mother… She is likely online right now, and she may just have more friends than you.

@AndrewBates

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