Advocacy

The advent of social networks, the noisy nature of the web, and our reliance on friends to inform decisions have led to a shift in success metrics for a website. Today to get ahead, we need to track the quality of visitors to our site, how these site visitors interact on our site, and how they share our content. These new metrics are forcing marketers to create more engaging content and experiences. The only way to do this effectively requires some knowledge of the user.

Acquiring this knowledge through tools that integrate social media on a site, such as collecting social profile data and empowering users to share site content and activities, will enable marketers to adapt and stay ahead. But, first, let’s step back and take a look at what is driving this evolution in online metrics.

1. Consumers are starting to expect a social experience online. The explosion in social media marketing has led to a growing consumer expectation for sites to offer social and interactive components. If I can interact with my friends when I’m on Facebook, why can’t I have the same experience on a brand website too? If I can win prizes when I play a game on a social network, why can’t I win rewards on a brand site?

2. The crowded web is pushing sites to become more personalized. It is increasingly harder for brands to stand out and gain the attention of potential consumers and advocates on the crowded web. To have any chance of succeeding, organizations need to tailor their offers and content to the individual user, but this requires a better understanding of that person.

3. Shortened attention spans online create a need for a frictionless online experience. For example, traditional registration forms create an obstacle to on-site engagement — “identity fatigue” is real. Need evidence that people are tired of maintaining separate identities and passwords at each site they visit? Recent research indicates that three in four consumers avoid creating new user accounts, and will change their behavior as a result. Fifty-four percent may leave the site altogether. And of those that register, 76 percent admit to giving incomplete or incorrect information. Some marketers think they are avoiding this problem by only asking for name and email address. But, really, how much targeted marketing can you do with just those pieces of data?

4. Multiple research studies show that we turn to our friends for recommendations when we are making a purchase or looking for information. Facilitating these types of conversations through word-of-mouth marketing has always been the role of the brand marketer, but now there are more tools at their disposal.

These forces are impacting how we measure success online. While we used to be focused on getting as many people to the site as possible while tracking site traffic, today it is much more important to get the right people to our site. The quality of site traffic has become more important than just the quantity.

We also used to concentrate on just increasing time on site. Now, we not only want qualified visitors to stay on our site, but we also want them to interact on our site. Whether it is commenting, writing a review, or listening to a podcast or a music download, we want them engaged and participating.

Tied to this is the concept of page views. The number of pages a site visitor viewed was once paramount. Today we want visitors to take it one step further and share on-site experiences with their friends and social communities. Whether through email, Twitter, or posting to their Facebook wall (or another social network), we want users to spread our content across the web.

It’s tough to offer personalized offers and information without knowing who is on the other side of the fence. And no one is going to share content that they don’t find personally interesting. While marketers have tracked user metrics in the aggregate historically, now we need to know more on an individual level. Who are they? What are their interests? How can I motivate them or influence their behavior?

This is where new social tools and technology enter the picture. Social login enables a website to shelve or augment its traditional registration process in favor of a faster and easier way to sign-up a user. Instead of filling out a form, the user can select a social network or email provider to initiate the process. Facebook Connect was one of the first pioneers in this space, but not all of your users are on Facebook so it makes sense to offer a choice of providers to ensure maximum coverage.

The user is now signing up on your site using a few things he/she already has — an active account with a social network that includes contact information and a profile with demographic data and interests. Even if the social login does not provide you with all the information your site specific sign-up form needs, you can speed up the process by pre-populating the form with an email address, name, gender, location, or other data fields. The improved user experience that results from bypassing lengthy traditional registration processes will be reflected in higher conversion rates.

The other big win is the profile data. Not all providers are created equal in this regard — Facebook and LinkedIn can pass more than 50 fields of data, whereas Twitter or Google will pass a smaller set. As mentioned above, 76 percent of U.S. consumers admit to giving false or incomplete information on a site form. With a social login, the profile data is more likely to be accurate since it is part of the user’s social network persona.

This social profile data can tell you a lot about your user — the very type of information that can power successful targeted campaigns and offers.

By Lisa Hannah

Motivations differ from general population

Luxury marketers take note, according to a February 2011 Affluence Collaborative survey, wealthy internet users connect with brands on social networks for significantly different reasons than the general population. The social networks they use to do so are different, too.

Among the general population, the main reason cited for connecting with brands on social networks was to receive deals and discounts. This result from the Affluence Collaborative survey backs up earlier research from several sources on why consumers follow brands on social sites.

But according to Affluence Collaborative, this was a much lower priority for the wealthy. Their top reasons for following brands were due to a preexisting affinity for and a desire to be kept informed about the brand. The least-cited reason mentioned by all groups surveyed was to be entertained, suggesting that social media marketers still need to provide fans with value, even if it isn’t directly in the form of a coupon or sale.

These findings coincide with earlier research from ExactTarget, which showed that a huge component of liking a brand on Facebook was due not just to an affinity, but as a means of self-expression for others to see. This promotional desire was more pronounced in Facebook users than Twitter followers or email subscribers. Affluents then, in their “love of the brands” they connect with, are largely acting as brand ambassadors.

On the surface, a November 2010 L2 Think Tank survey might appear to contradict these findings. Affluent members of Gen Y (ages 19 to 33) cited promotions and offers as the main reason for engaging with brands on social media. Women were more likely than men to engage with brands in general and to want to receive offers. However, the survey included those who were “projected to earn $100,000 in the next two years”—meaning the respondents were more aspiring than actually affluent. The second biggest motivator was still an affinity for the brand.

Data from the Affluence Collaborative study also reveals that the affluent aren’t using the same social networks as the general population. Facebook was the No. 1 social network used by all groups surveyed, but LinkedIn and Twitter attracted affluent internet users at nearly double the rate of the general population.

Any marketer targeting affluent consumers needs to know not only where to reach that audience, but what appeals to them. For wealthy internet users, connecting with a brand is largely about the brand itself, not gimmicks and offers. Affluents need to see a consistent message that makes following a brand meaningful for self-expression, just like when buying a brand in real life. Watering down the brand in order to gain a large social following may drive away the very people trying to be reached.

You can’t run your company the same way forever. Here are 10 ideas to bring about change and breathe new life into your business.

By Carolyn M. Brown

With the never-ending stream of new social technologies, apps and platforms rolling out every day, its easy to get lost in the minutiae of social media. Yet for there to be effective change, especially within large, top-down, hierarchical institutions, a company must have an over-arching understanding of the new role it has to play.

If a brand wants to build social communities, capital and influence, it must become the chief celebrant of its community, not its celebrity. This simple shift in approach unlocks enormous transformative potential for brands. Here’s why:

1. They spend less time talking and more time listening.

2. They start treating customers as living, breathing people.

3. They invest time and energy in relationships as well as profits.

4. They expand from a sales into a service mentality.

5. Their community can work for them and buy from them.

6. Their story becomes their community’s story.

7. Customers become emotionally invested in the company’s success.

8. Relationships start being built around shared values, as well as dollars value.

9. They automatically shift from a push/broadcast to a pull/social strategy.

10. Emotional connections with customers becomes natural rather than forced.

To achieve this a brand must undergo a re-visioning process ideally led by management. In doing so, they must re-frame how their products and services can be positioned to enable and celebrate the success of their customers and community rather than solely seeking profit or to indulge the vanity of their brand personality. If this sounds like broad strokes, they are. Such simple, broad intentions are the filters that will inform the details of social engagement, especially for large organizations.

Brands stand to benefit from such a shift in several ways, the most important of which is the customer goodwill, loyalty and, ultimately, the profits they will earn.

Leading brands already embracing this new dynamic. Nike with its open source Environmental Design Tool that benefits the entire sports apparel industry; P&G’s ‘Click for Water’ Blogivation campaign that empowers bloggers to help those desperately in need of clean water; Walmart’s Sustainability Index that has the potential to positively transform entire industries and supply chains; and Pepsi’s Refresh Project that helps regular people realize the ways they hope to improve the world.

Obviously such a reframing of thinking is difficult to adopt in the boardroom and even more difficult to execute company-wide. But as social media, technologies and business continue to change commerce, there will be those companies that leverage it to their advantage and those that it will destroy. For proof, CEO’s and shareholders need only look to the changes in the music, entertainment, publishing and, most recently, marketing industries. The time for brands to shift their thinking is now. The market has already changed.

Do you think a sufficient number of brands have integrated the implications of social business for their business models? Or do you think social business will peak and fade away?

by Simon Mainwaring (The Business of Social Transformation)

The ability of brands to track directly the impact of online advertising on physical sales is set to rocket this year, driving investment in online advertising, particularly from the FMCG sector.

Media owners Google and Yahoo have actively been courting brands through partly or fully funded programmes that track the impact on sales of digital activity across their networks. Offline data providers Acxiom, Experian and IPA Touchpoints are holding talks with ad networks, such as Specific Media, to track sales by combining purchase data with display, search and behavioural, and research companies ComScore and GfK are ramping up analytics to measure sales uplift as a result of digital activity.

Cadbury and Listerine are boosting online spend due to a growing confidence that ROI can be directly attributed to digital activity, according to Bruce Daisley, Google leader of YouTube and display.

“Conversations with brands, especially in the FMCG sector, are five times higher than last year,” said Daisley. “We also saw automotive brands move strongly towards using digital for branding in the run-up to Christmas, while L’Oréal bought five home-page takeovers.”

Cadbury, which has used the Google-backed programme GfK Media Efficiency Panel for its Dairy Milk brand, as well as Yahoo and Nectar’s joint initiative Consumer Connect for Creme Egg, to evaluate the impact of digital activity on sales, is extending the use of such tracking initiatives across the wider Kraft portfolio, according to Julie Reynolds, head of marketing for Cadbury Dairy Milk.

“Cadbury is one of the pioneers of such research, connecting digital media investment with real-world purchases,” she said. “It gives us further reason to continue investment in digital as a way to reach consumers.”

According to Juliet Du Vivier, digital strategist at Cadbury’s media agency PHD Media, who worked with Consumer Connect to track sales of Creme Egg, it has been historically difficult to attribute any sales uplift to digital activity. The studies now mean its branding online will grow.

“There have been previous studies but these were all relatively subjective,” she said. “GfK MEP and Consumer Connect show real sales, helping the market move and increase investment.”

According to PHD Media group manager and Cadbury account manager Katrin Schlenzka, this is the first time that a brand has been able to attribute uplift in sales to specific channels, as well as indicating the relationship between channels.

“While Cadbury has had its own econometric model for a while, it hasn’t been consistent and hasn’t looked at the role between each media,” she said. “What the Google study did was drill down by media to see the relationship between TV and digital, as well as breaking down the channels themselves.”

Online activity for the Cadbury Dairy Milk campaign, evaluated through GfK NOP’s 7,800-strong Media Efficiency Panel, used TV, Facebook, YouTube Promoted Videos, YouTube home-page takeovers and display banner advertising. Such activity delivered more than £2 of short-term sales for every £1 spent.

GfK NOP divisional director Babita Earle said, “Cadbury got it right because of the complementary fashion it planned it. There was less reach through TV, so the online ads could make more of an impact.”

Cadbury was also the launch partner and one of seven FMCG brands that used Consumer Connect, generating £3 of sales for every £1 spent on digital activity, according to an aggregated figure shared by Yahoo. Two of the brands have rebooked, according to Piers North, Yahoo UK head of strategy.

Consumer Connect is a derivative of Yahoo’s US product, Consumer Direct, which is running 500-plus campaigns. Brands buy exclusive audience segments off the back of the ongoing data programme.

“We knew that it worked in the US and, as we’re a global company, we can look to that as a pathfinder for products in the UK. Most brands are now multinational, which makes it easier to show what their US counterparts are doing. With Consumer Connect, nearly every campaign has come back with solid findings,” said North.

The industry still has a way to go, however, before such studies have a wider impact, according to North.

“The money will often come from other traditional media so it’s seen as a risk,” he said. “There’s always the concern that the investment won’t pay off. The nature of online is instant – we’re so used to implementing a search campaign or doing DR in real time – but a sense of longer-term vision and co-operation between media agencies and clients that allows you to plan across platforms is needed if this is to really take off.”