There’s been a recent shift in the marketing community’s relationship with social media. Many marketers have moved from feeling their way around nervously, to understanding the potential of social media for their campaigns. But few have effectively driven revenues from this new channel so far. There’s now a plethora of tools out there to help monitor brands and analyse who is saying what, but marketers need to know how these can be used to best effect.
The industry has also come to realise that for social media to be used by brands successfully, it’s a two-way street. It’s about listening to feedback from customers and using it to enhance innovation and service delivery, as well as to drive promotions, accelerate product launches and inspire purchases.
Consumers are constantly sharing their opinions online and in order to engage, marketers need to know where these dialogues are occurring, what is being discussed, and who is driving the conversation. This has given rise to a new and important channel: word of mouth marketing. Marketers need to be tapping into these online conversations, via social networks, blogs, video uploads and ratings and reviews, which all influence today’s purchasing decisions.
The rise of the new ‘member get member’ marketing
Used effectively, social media enables a new version of ‘member get member’ (MGM) marketing. This means if a brand engages with customers on social channels, those customers’ friends will see what they’re doing and if it’s worth their while, they’ll join in.
Research reveals that 90 per cent of consumers trust opinions of friends and other consumers over traditional advertising. So, getting customers and advocates to do the marketing instead of paying out for advertising can be a very effective tool.
Kicking off the MGM campaign
The first step for marketers is to categorise the way existing customers and prospects use social media.
We’ve identified the following social media categories that users fall into:
- Wide netters – are everywhere, all of the time. The kind of users who make you wonder how they find time to fit it all in
- Selectively social – know what they want to get out of social media and stick to it. They are targeted and occasionally ruthless when it comes to losing and unfollowing contacts
- Social placeholders – occasionally reluctant and sometimes positively scared, they’re online because they don’t want to miss anything, but will rarely make the first move
- Getting started – these users are finding their way around. Learning to organise the plethora of information out there is key. Most social media channels are intuitive so users are quick to move into other categories
Once identified, marketing professionals can then target their top candidates.
Singling out the socially savvy
Firstly, marketers need to start with the customer, for example using email addresses to identify, recruit and engage with social customers within online communities. It’s possible to find out users’ level of social activity online and a segmentation analysis can reveal the best targets for particular brands, based on the individuals’ personal social influence and reach. At this stage, it’s important to find out the most popular interests customers have, like particular sports, celebrities and music choices that will complement the products marketers are approaching them with.
After the top influencers within social networks have been identified, it’s time to start approaching them individually. It’s important to provide them a positive experience with the brand, like offering free samples, product previews, getting them to rate products and participate in voting or competitions, while encouraging them to share their experiences with their networks along the way. This form of direct social media marketing will help savvy marketers to use ‘social influencers’ to increase awareness and drive positive conversations about their brand as well as collect valuable feedback for use in the further development of their products.
It is then possible to measure and report on both the direct and word of mouth effectiveness of marketing messages, as well as changes in social activity as a result of the member get member marketing campaign. This will help demonstrate ROI and hopefully lead to the ultimate goal – increased sales.
Putting intelligence behind the social media masses
By using key social influencers, marketers are able to sift through the social noise and find the best targets to help with their campaigns. Long gone are the days when marketers could only look at what is being said about their brand. They now have the power to direct the social chatter in their direction, as consumers have become a new media. Having social intelligence is the key to executing targeted social media campaigns, making the brand shout louder over an increasingly crowded market place.
Steven Plimsoll
VP for Multi Channel Marketing Services Europe, Acxiom