NetPlus Marketing's VP of technology and creative lays out a game plan for harnessing user-generated media for media planning.

In my last article, I wrote about the importance of taking user-generated media into account and how it can not be ignored. Consumers are talking about cars, travel and hotels, financial services, consumer packaged goods, electronics and more, with many of these conversations happening online. And, the mainstream media is sifting through UGM more and more in search of new stories. So, let's talk about how you can actually put UGM to use to get results for your business and inform your marketing campaigns.

The first step to using UGM is to clearly understand who your prospective customers are and determine their likely online behaviors and outlets for UGM. Urban teenagers, for example, show a preference for mobile websites, text messaging and blogging via a social networking site like MySpace. Professionals in their late 20s and 30s, on the other hand, with a higher than average household income are more likely to read influential blogs and make comments, participate in relevant discussion groups and forums and network via sites like LinkedIn. 

The next step is to use some of the specialized search sites and tools out there to cut through the noise and find actual conversations relevant to your products and categories, services, brand and competitors to get an idea of what issues are important to them. This research will also most likely identify other venues, such as forums and discussion groups, where online conversations are taking place.

There are some great technologies like Cymfony and Nielsen BuzzMetrics, but they can be expensive, require extensive setup and aren't always necessary for basic UGM research and monitoring. There are a number of specialty sites out there that are free to use. Combining those with one of the major search engines and having a clear idea of what to search for can yield very meaningful results. Some of my favorite UGM search sites are Sphere, BlogPulse, Technorati and BoardTracker. 

Now you have a good idea of who your customer is, who some of the key influencers are, where they participate in online conversations, what issues are important to them and how they perceive and define your brand, products, services, industry and competitors. So, what do you do with that information?

First, let's talk about what not to do. Don't rush out to all of the discussion groups, forums and blogs you've discovered and seed them with postings about your company and its products and services. Consumers are quick to spot these postings and disregard them. In the end, they can also harm your brand. 

However, that doesn't mean refrain from posting. By all means, get involved in the conversation, solicit consumer opinions and address current issues with your company's point-of-view or course of action. By showing you take customer sentiments and opinions into consideration and are concerned about consumer issues, you can develop tremendous loyalty over time.

You can also use everything you have learned to inform your creative and online media plan. You'll have an idea about what messaging and creative will be most effective in your ads based on consumer feedback. Perhaps quality is the most important issue, so your creative should be tailored to convey a message of superior quality through both the copy and imagery. And, consider placing your media on sites where conversations are taking place. However, consider the ROI and what the likely response is going to be. 

Finally, consider a behavioral targeting program to target prospects and customers across the major advertising networks. This can be a very effective and efficient tactic because your media plan can include much of the demographic information you have gathered along with specific genres of sites that your targeted audience is likely to visit. As a result, you won't be wasting impressions on uninterested consumers.

Consumers are continuing to share and make their opinions and preferences known online. Savvy marketers are absorbing this information, learning from it and are applying it across a broad range of tactics. By addressing consumer concerns through direct conversations, making creative relative to important issues and using known online behaviors and preferences to create more effective media plans, you can move the needle and realize ROI through the use of UGM. 

Stay tuned for my next article in this UGM series on "How to Build Buzz and Awareness Through UGM."

Colton Perry is VP, technology and creative, NetPlus Marketing. Read full bio.