While many companies struggled to maintain their figures over the last year to eighteen months, others have grown - even in these tough economic times. One significant factor in their success appears to be the level of engagement with customers and stakeholders. Sally Falkow (APR) Social Media Strategist at Expansion Plus, and Rebecca Lieb, VP North America, Econsultancy will discuss research that shows how important engagement has become and how it is tied to financial success. They'll present case studies that show that this applies just as much to small and medium businesses as it does to large corporations.

1. Engagement:
The key to success in 2010
How engagement affects your bottom line

2. Presenters
• Sally Falkow
PR Trainer of the Year
• Rebecca Lieb
VP, Econsultancy.com

3. Why Engage?
“If we trust our customers, we can actively listen to
what they’re saying.
“We can build the right product for our customers,
instead of finding the right customers for our
products.”
− Steven Covey, author, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

4. ENGAGEMENTdb Study
Key finding: those companies with the highest
engagement factor also had the best financial
results over the last year

5. What is Engagement?
• We’re not talking about a presence in the online
social sphere
• It’s not using these channels to broadcast messages
• Engagement is deep and meaningful social
interaction with your stakeholders

6. What Shows Engagement?
• People talking about your brand/product/company
• Storing and sharing content
• Visiting more frequently
• Giving feedback
• Leaving comments
• Referring your company to their friends
• Loyalty to your brand

7. Benefits of an Engaged Customer
• The type of behavior most likely to help
organizations is the recommendation of product,
service or brand
• However, marketers are benefiting more from the
relationship‐building aspects of customer
engagement, rather than the more direct financial
benefits

8. Interest in Customer Engagement

9. Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Hot 100”
• 26 percent of these companies are active on Twitter
• 37 percent are on LinkedIn
• 11 percent have a Facebook page
• Just over a half have a newsroom on their website
• Only 7 percent optimize their news content for
search
• Just 16 percent are actively engaging their
customers

10. Inc. Magazine’s 500
• 25 percent are active on Twitter
• 46 percent are on LinkedIn
• 31 percent have a Facebook Page
• 19 percent are engaging with customers

11. Fortune 100
• 54 percent have a Twitter feed
• 94 percent use it for news and announcements
• 47 percent are on LinkedIn
• 32 percent have a blog
• 44 percent have a Facebook page
• Only 17 percent use all three
• 22 percent are actively engaging customers

12. CMO Engagement Gap
The engagement gap refers to the difference
between the influence of the internet
in consumer decision‐making and the amount of
spending, and effort, by corporations and
organizations in trying to interact with and shape
the thinking behind those decisions

13. Key Finding
The move to quantify “customer affinity” and
increase “customer advocacy” has become a new
measure of effectiveness
‐‐ CMO Council

14. Focus on the Bottom Line
• Most marketers and corporations are now looking to
reduce costs in order to improve the bottom line
• Current economic indicators point to a vital need for
business revitalization through better customer
engagement and analytics
‐‐ CMO Council

15. New Measurement of ROI: Engagement
• There are thousands of social media channels,
each with a slightly different value proposition
• It’s a daunting task to objectively evaluate various
marketing efforts across all social mediums
• Engagement is the best criterion
− The Wetpaint/Altimeter Group ENGAGEMENTdb Report

16. Engagement
As the number of channels increases, overall
engagement increases at a faster rate

17. Engagement: The Lifebelt
Companies that are both deeply
and widely engaged in social
media surpass their peers in
terms of the two most
meaningful financial
performance metrics –
revenue and profit –
by a significant difference
− The Wetpaint/Altimeter Group

18. What is the Bottom Line?
• These highly engaged companies grew, on average,
18 percent in revenues over the past 12 months,
compared to the least engaged companies who, on
average, saw a decline of 6 percent in revenue
during the same period
• The same holds true for two other financial metrics,
gross margin and net profit
− The Wetpaint/Altimeter Group

19. Why You Need a Strategy
• Engagement can’t be skin‐deep, nor is it a
campaign that can be turned on and off
• True engagement means full engagement in the
channels where you choose to invest
• So make sure you pick correctly and wisely

20. Revenue and Profit
Those brands that are deeply engaged have
sustained strong revenue and margin growth in
spite of the current economy

22. Starbucks
• Small team of 6 people
• Launched MyStarbucksIdea.com
• Involve people throughout the organization
• Understand the various channels of engagement
• Consistency of approach and experience
• C‐suite champions

24. SAP
• 35 people on social media team
• Managing a community of 1.7 million users
• Opened the platform to anyone and everyone
• Two‐thirds of contributors represent customers,
thought leaders, analysts, and partners from the
broader SAP ecosystem
• Encourage employees to use social media for work
• Engage in new channels where people already are

26. Dell
• Started from crisis mode – “Dell Hell”
• Very conversational
• IdeaStorm.com
• Social media becomes part of the job – like email
• Synchronized content across channels
• Went from worst to first

27. The Strategy
• Listen to your customers, users, readers and
stakeholders
• Find detractors and evangelists
• Learn from them
• Let them contribute
• Be open to their ideas and comments
• Respond, answer comments

28. Find Communities and Identify Influencers
26 in Head
600 Beauty Bloggers
106 in Magic 460 in (US only)
Middle Long
Tail
Top 60 Map

29. The Strategy
• Use what you learn in the listening phase
• Find the right influencers for your space
• Audit your current content assets
• What can you make digital?
• What tools make sense?

30. Find Communities and Identify Influencers
Magic Middle Map
Cluster View Brand View
1 Color = 1 Cluster Orange=Lancome, Green=Clinique,
Yellow=Both, Blue=None

31. Engagement
What will engage your audience?

32. Engage and Facilitate Conversations
Engage
for Track your
Best ROI engagement

33. Engage and Facilitate Conversations
Share of voice
Share of conversation
Share of mind

34. Case Study:
David’s New “Rock‐and‐Sling”
How Service‐now.com is Beating Goliath

35. Service‐now.com Two Years Ago
• Great product, visible CEO, early customer wins
• Limited:
• Collateral
• Tradeshow footprint
• Webinar activity
• PR
• Lead generation limited to cold calling and four
industry events
• No social media

36. Situation
• Competing against Goliaths
• The Gmail of big business service desk software
• “Sling” = disruptive technology
• “Stones”= customer champions
• Rapid growth

37. Campaign Research
• Listening to prospective customers
• Knowing the buyers
• Knowing the competition
• Finding the “slings” to make headway in the market
• Identifying market champions to tell their stories

38. Sources of Exposure
ITtoolbox
analysts whitepapers email
social media
press
website
sales webinars
prospecting topical /
demo
list imports
online
community demo
regional
wiki industry events
exec
local user groups events
briefings

39. Social Media Levels the Playing Field
• Mass media have changed
▪ Print newspapers
▪ Magazines or pamphlets?
• Marketing is questioned
▪ Who do you trust?
▪ LinkedIn is social media‐speak for Rolodex
▪ The power of a customer reference
▪ A plug at a trade show
• Information has been democratized and individualized
▪ One‐to‐many is now one‐to‐one
▪ This is Web 2.0

40. Battlefield Strategy
Legitimacy + authenticity = relationships
• Identify yourself
• Be respectful
• Stranger danger
• Add value
• Permanency can be good and bad
• Stay relevant
• Listen to the market

41. “Slings”
• Blogging
Community, Wiki, Forum
Create content, link, tweet, comment, repeat
Policies regurgitate common social sensibilities
Encourage customers and partners
• Twitter
Microblogging
Getting started
• Your Twitter name
• See who other people are following
• Follow folks and engage
• What aren’t you doing?
• A sampling of others: Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Slideshare

42. Current FY goal = $50M+
$28M
$13.9M
$8.8M
$1.8M
FY 06 07 08 09 10
market
market
entrance
entrance
solid product
solid product leading
leading
customers ITSM provider
customers ITSM provider
redefined
redefined
market
market
ITSM
ITSM
standard
standard
orchestrate
orchestrate
ITSM
ITSM

43. white papers
webinars
industry
events
web
Q4 ’07 Q1 ’08 Q2 ’08 Q3 ’08 Q4 ’08 Q1 ’09 Q2 ’09 Q3 ’09
registration

44. What’s Next?
• Press releases take on a different role
• Industry validation
• Lead generation and promotion efficiencies
• Global and regional events – to go where they are
• Monthly newsletters
• Video training

45. Syndicate the Content
Add RSS Feeds

46. Court Social Media Traffic

47. Case Study:
Skin MD Natural

48. Situation
• Launching a new kind of lotion
• New category
• No public awareness at all

49. Campaign Research
• Consumers are using search engines to research
products and services
• The most trusted forms of advertising today are
word‐of‐mouth from other consumers, opinions
posted online and branded websites
• One of the top five influences prior to purchase is
reading an article

50. Objectives
• The campaign aimed to reach consumers online
through high search rankings on specific keywords
and phrases, articles, blogs, newsgroups and
forums
• Create a new search term – “shielding lotion”
• Create awareness of the brand Skin MD Natural
with dermatologists and the public

51. Consumer Education

64. Payoff
• More than 400 bloggers talking about their products
• Conversations in targeted forums and blogs
• Increased traffic to the website
• Product in over 5,000 pharmacies across the US
• Partners in many other countries

65. Engagement is the Key
Current economic indicators point to a vital need
for business revitalization through better
customer engagement and analytics

66. White Paper
Download now at:
www.marketwire.com/mkt/PDF/Marketwire_White_Paper_Engagement.pdf
or:
download from thank‐you email

67. Resources
• Expansionplus.com
• Press‐feed.com
• Proactivereport.com
• sallyf@expansionplus.com
• Marketwire.com
• Marketwireblog.com
• www.SM10X30.com

68. Q & A