Brands don't talk in social media, people do. Here's why it's key to listen to the conversations about your brand and translate them into action.
As consumer behavior continues to evolve, the role that social media plays in a brand's overall marketing and communication strategy continues to grab a larger seat at the table. As with any initiative, a successful social media component requires integration with the overall brand strategy, in addition to a well thought out execution process.
Rob Key, founder and CEO of Converseon, started his Spotlight presentation at the iMedia Brand Summit in Coronado, Calif., by stating that the real value of social media, and the resulting customer engagement, comes when it's infused throughout the entire organization. The approach that Key takes at Converseon goes well beyond the tactical aspects and focuses on changing the company DNA to embrace social media from all areas of the organization. While this approach makes perfect sense, it's ironic that many organizations jumped straight into tactical, diving in head first when social networking tools started to generate buzz. It's this reason why developing a blueprint is crucial for developing sustainable value.
When it comes to social media success, the cornerstone revolves around listening to your customer. As Key explained, "When you're being defined as a brand online, it's not about your site, it's about all of the sites talking about you." Key followed up by discussing the problem that many brands have regarding what is being spread about your brand and then indexed on Google.
"The Google algorithm is not about the truth, it's about relevance," Key said. For this reason, it's vital for a brand to be listening and then participating in the online discussions. Key went on to further illustrate how this works by showing examples of what he described as the "waterline" regarding the conversation and its relationship to search engine visibility.
The transformation that a brand must undergo to become a "listening" organization centers on moving away from the traditional marketing funnel: eyeballs, awareness, consideration, preference, action, loyalty, and buyers. Key explained that the new marketing funnel resembles a complex series of pipes with inputs that now include peer reviews, recommendations from friends, competitive alternatives, and user-generated content.
After Key went over the basics, he walked through Converseon's Blueprint for Effective Social Media Engagement, which is designed to be a best practices approach. The first step is listening. "In a listening organization, it's key to have a process that is infused across the organization to drive action," Key said.
The next stage is to plan and organize, with a focus on building the foundation for effective social media engagement and key elements, such as articulating the business case, creating guidelines, and allocating resources.
After the first two stages, the engagement stage becomes ready. In this stage of the process, the social media strategy is executed. Finally, everything is measured, determining the impact on reputation, generating sales, and helping customer service.
After walking through the blueprint, Key dove into the details, showing examples of how you can use the information mined from tracking and trending the language people use to discuss your brand. By looking at sentiment, as well as creating buckets around consumer voice profiles, brands are able to identify where the paid and earned opportunities are, based on where the conversations take place.
In summary, brands don't talk in social media, people talk. Key reiterated that social media is about people. Becoming an organization that listens to the conversations being said about your brand and translating those conversations into action is the basis for social media success.
Sean Cheyney is the vice president of marketing and business development for AccuQuote.