Social media marketing practices that were cutting edge and driving millions of dollars in revenue 12 months ago are now either so pervasive as to be ineffectual or no longer permissible. However, underlying principles remain the same. The trick is to apply the principles and not necessarily the practices.
Emerging communications and markets
Social media can pave the way for connections among cultures and for meeting planners. Usage around the world differs; a 2011 survey undertaken in China by TNS/Group M found that users there tend to be more accepting of brands within social media spaces than in other countries.
The survey also found that Chinese social networkers tended to have fewer but closer friends. In China, best practices include fan clubs and voting; brand placement and virtual gifts.
In the US, 24 per cent of netizens have created online content; in China it’s 44 per cent.
Social media is already big in India with mobile Apps, allowing non-computer access to a greater number of people.
Closer to the meeting industry, a recent survey of US association members showed the use of social networking sites by members nearly tripled from 12 per cent in 2009 to 33 per cent in 2011.
Marketing experts Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein differentiate the different platforms based on how much personal information they reveal and how rich the medium is in terms of level of interactivity. Blogs, therefore, say a lot about the writer, but are generally low in ‘richness’, although this is changing with developments such as Tumblr (a content rich blogging site).
Facebook is personally revealing and relatively high in terms of richness.
Social media provides different tools for different occasions and the use of each must be carefully considered.
It is suggested that companies focus on categories based on richness or depth of information, but also consider the longevity of the information they post. For example, blogs tend to be shallow, while Web communities are deep. But both are long lasting. Facebook, on the other hand, is shallow and short-lived, as is Twitter.
Recognising how long information can and should stay live or be updated or deleted on any medium is therefore a vital part of any social media strategy.
And meeting professionals could use categories to support their strategic decisions more effectively, rather than promoting different events in the same manner across all platforms.
We know that social media has pervaded every department in business. It’s not just about marketing any more (if it ever was). Human resource departments now search Google for Facebook profiles and Twitter streams for potential employees. Top executives have Twitter and Facebook profiles (and blogs) from which they write about their philosophies or about the company’s future. ‘Well-rounded’ employees often have Twitter streams, a Facebook profile and perhaps even a blog.
There is a real expectation that everyone should be ‘writing’ something.
Trust in these networks may decrease as users migrate away from ‘managed identities’ toward more genuine ‘real world’ encounters.
Websites are changing as several big players adopt Facebook-enabled pages, so that users don’t have to leave the network.
Speedo previously considered developing 120 microsites, but, similar to a recent move by Coca-Cola, decided to build 120 tabs within Facebook instead.
Others are creating their own social networking space. For example, owners of ITU Telecom World 2011 decided to make networking and knowledge sharing core components of their event to create a deeper level of engagement for attendees. They commissioned a customised, white-label social networking platform, YourSpace. This enhanced the show’s onsite networking opportunities with discussion boards and private meetings.
One key goal is to develop real sociability from virtual sociability. Tools such as Gowalla and Foursquare (geo-location tools used on Smartphones and tablets) allow users to check in at various locations throughout the world in order to exchange icons, meet other users and better explore the community they have travelled to. These can be integrated with other social media.
A future perspective
Despite the rapid growth of social media use, only seven per cent of the online population currently uses social media.
What will it look like when this rises to 50 per cent? How will this drive the development of new tools?
In the online environment, what was once audience has become producer, with instant news created via phone, video and text by amateurs.
Developing a mature response to this shift in power without resorting to shutdown or censorship is key. Mature use moves us beyond creating messages and into creating an environment for convening and supporting groups, something the meeting industry excels at, but must now do online as well as in the meeting room.
The Internet needs to enable what people already do: consume, produce and share.
The bigger picture suggests scenarios based on six key factors:
1. Scale: Big net vs. tight knit (Facebook vs. groupme)
2. Privacy: Open hand vs. closed fist (seamless flow vs. user control)
3. Specificity: One for all vs. one for each (Google+ vs. specialised networks and ‘digital partition’)
4. Pervasiveness: Turn on vs. tune out (always connected vs. selectively connected, Twitter vs. Flickr)
5. Utility: Play vs. plug (socialise/fun vs. functionality, Farmville vs. Ebay)
6. Worldview: Confirm vs. challenge (opinion/content filtered by social net work vs. new experiences)
These scenarios suggest that as people become more savvy with their social media, they will use them in a greater variety of ways.
Social layers rather than social silos
Perhaps it is time to stop viewing social media as a marketing tool, and start using it to simply join in. As one expert put it: “A good social media objective might be anchored in discovering what can be learnt from the community, what people would like to see more or less of. These objectives are not about propagating a message, but about unravelling a story.
“The shift is from ‘I’m speaking to them, to I’m listening to them, we’re talking, we’re working together’. Real opportunities are identified and taken to build brands collaboratively with an engaged audience of those who care about what the brand stands for and does, and want to help make it stronger.”
Some say thinking of social media as a marketing tool leads to silos of inactivity, and that organisations that embrace it successfully do so by integrating it across all business functions: social layers rather than social silos.
It’s important for brands to analyse the quality of their followers. Identifying the committed advocates and engaging with them is far more important than a numbers game or mere entertainment.
Choosing the right social media platforms is also vital, as users are highly loyal, but to their networks not their brands.
Amazon, Tripadvisor and Facebook all create personal relationships between companies and users, as well as connections among users themselves. They also rely on the ‘prosumers’ through user-generated content.
Know your delegates
Before businesses can engage and collaborate with clients, delegates and partners, they need to use social media to understand online consumer behaviour and thence understand, mingle and collaborate; not direct, control, promote.
An increasing number of brands use online discussions as research tools. Sportswear brand Anta did this in the Chinese market, listening to conversations in the Hoop China basketball-based BBS. It found that the Chinese nickname for Luis Scola, an NBA star, was Si Ke La, a transliteration that means four carats. Using this, it created a diamond logo for its Scola range with a four in the centre.
Suggested rules for managing social media networks as research tools include: a) Creating a disaster recovery plan if things don’t go well; b) Engaging consumers in continuous dialogue, and c) Putting trust in deep engagement rather than a set sample size.
Oft overlooked sources of valuable information are brand opponents. They are usually the most active consumers, and engaging with them can reveal important insights into the concerns people may have.
However, many organisations are overwhelmed trying to track social media, not knowing where to begin.
Tools exist to help sift and make sense of this wealth of information. Companies can track both internal and external messages and provide employees with guidance. However, management consultant Gautam Ghosh, has suggested three main activities for marketing research using social media.
1. Identify what to monitor. Start with a small number of key sites and expand outwards as others emerge. Track competitors and trends.
2. Gauge impact. Find out what’s important, and how many people are seeing it, rather than trying to monitor everything.
3. Integrate social media monitoring with other media. Strategise your entire media plan; include press coverage and word of mouth.
Are you #Confused?
In the meetings industry social media, in all its forms, has already become an intrinsic part of the product, enhancing the meeting, and at times, replacing it.
The use of social media before, during and after meetings is expected, and is already undoubtedly changing the format of many meetings.
Tweets, for example, provide feedback channels that don’t follow the strict Q&A protocols customary at conferences, but are immediate and uncontrolled. They can capture all possible voices or lead to an unmanageable deluge of comments. In a sense, such feedback amplifies the impact of a meeting: weaknesses become more evident, as do highlights.
While social media hasn’t yet been universally embraced, the following benefits have already been identified.
- Linking to a broader community
- Sharing best practices
- Amplifying the voice of a particular group
One concept calculates customer social media value (CSMV), by level of engagement with each social medium. Customers can then potentially be segmented by their CSMV.
Assessing the value of networks and the participants within them can help businesses focus efforts and resources when deciding on a social media strategy.
Meeting professionals can identify the small proportion of passionate fans and target them for the creative development of a meeting, followed then by the larger number of engaged community members whose value lies more in evaluation.
Rewarding delegates for creating pre-meeting discussions andblogs that lead to conference attendance is clearly a possibility.
Some believe social media is overrated and soon to be overused by marketers. However, consumers are already seeing the merger of TV and social media.
It’s fine not to adopt certain elements of social behaviour, but in a world where sociability has such cultural currency, abstinence should be an educated, articulated choice.
The key: Identify and, if needs be, create networks of partners, suppliers and customers, ensuring that customers perceive greater value in being part of a network than being out of it. Then, serve your network.
Ten takeaways
1. Join in but don’t own. Experiment with social media as a person before jumping in as a company spokesperson
2. Create when you’re ready. Format your organisational network as you would your social. Start by thinking who you can help rather than what you can gain
3. Segment on social media use. Don’t assume everyone will use each platform in the same way (if at all). Identify real friends and nurture them
4. Develop strategic, targeted, device agnostic strategies. Technology may change rapidly, so have a strategy that works regardless of the platform
5. Monetise online access, but only if it provides real value
6. Personalise by serving. Online communities of shared interest are new market segments. Identify, join, nurture and serve
7. Build social media into your marketing mix. Integrate them into communication, product, value, accessibility and convenience
8. Humanise the company voice. Participate as a contributor and not a marketer.
9. Don’t forget the internal customer. Social media are increasingly used within organisations to create better satisfaction, collaboration, creativity and trust
10. Use features as they become the norm. Don’t rush into each new development; do recognise the new normal when it lands.
This was first published in the Issue 71/2013 edition of CMW. Any comments? Email cmw@mashmedia.net
