This document discusses developing a social media strategy. It begins by noting how customers, companies and the world have changed with new technologies and media choices. To develop an effective strategy, companies should ask who their key influencers are online and what is being said about the company. The document then outlines Forrester's four steps to social media: understand your people and objectives, develop strategies, and determine which technologies to use. It provides examples of listening tools, objectives for different departments, considerations for strategies, and an overview of various social media technologies. The key is to join the conversation online, engage customers, add value for them and ultimately connect with customers to make social media successful.
2. The world has changed
•New Economy
•Thinking “GREEN”
•Global Citizenship
•Dependency on Technology
•Proliferation of media
choices
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3. Your company has changed
Outsourcing of
Jobs
Staff
Reductions
CMO tenure 22 months.
Smaller budgets
More accountability
Faster
Less fun
Demanding customers Less risk tolerance
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4. The Customer Has Changed
More online
channel choices Increased
Comparison shopping Mobile
communications
Less to spend
Searching for
More fear Value
Less trust in
Less loyalty
Gov’t and
business
More people talking
To each other
6. Can You Answer 6 key questions
1. What are your customers and prospects saying about your company,
products, and employees on line?
2. What are the key trends in the marketplace you need to be aware of?
3. What is your competitive position to these key trends?
4. Who are the key on line influencers?
5. What does the marketplace feel about your company overall?
6. How will I engage my customers to keep them loyal to my brand?
8. Why Social Media?
The top media Influencers are:
Internet 39%
TV 18%
Radio 12%
Magazines 3%
Newspapers 2%
9. Why Social media?
Fastest growing communications vehicles
300% growth over last year
Facebook 350 Million users
Twitter 18 Million users
Linked in 50 Million users
10. Why is social media important?
Social networks out-perform other key categories in ALL key metrics
Social Networks Current Events Multi-Category Ent. Sports Weather
Source: Nielsen Online Netview, August 2008
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11. Forrester’s four-step approach to
social media
P People
Assess your customers’ social activities
O Objectives
Decide what you want to accomplish
S Strategy
Plan for how relationships with customers will change
T Technology
Decide which social technologies to use
12. POST
P:People:begin with social listening
Use available data sources to understand the social behaviors of
your target audience
13. Use online monitoring to hear
what is being said
Includes: blogs, videos, images, news, forums, micromedia: Twitter/Friendfeed
and Facebook.
15. When listening..you will be focused on
the creators and influencers Publish a blog
Publish your own Web pages
18% Creators Upload video you created
Upload audio/music you created
Write articles or stories and post them
Post ratings/reviews of products/services
25% Critics
Comment on someone else’s blog
Contribute to online forums
Contribute to/edit articles in a wiki
Use RSS feeds
12% Collectors Add “tags” to Web pages or photos
“Vote” for Web sites online
Maintain profile on a social networking site
25% Joiners
Visit social networking sites
Read blogs
Watch video from other users
48% Spectators Listen to podcasts
Read online forums
Read customer ratings/reviews
Inactives None of the above
44%
Forrester Social Ladder
Groups include people participating in at least
one of the activities monthly.
16. Monitoring Tools
• The tools are still in the early stages of development and have many
weaknesses.
• You need to have a variety of tools in order to confirm the data.
• Check the “raw” data so you don’t collect information on topics that you
are not intending.
• Where possible include text mining tools and expertise.
• Many sites like Facebook still have proprietary interfaces so using
“crawling”tools may not give you what you need.
• You are listening primarily to the content creators and the influencers not
your entire audience base.
• You may be listening to people who are not customers but who influence
your customers.
17. Include voice of the customer
In addition to online monitoring include
voice of the customer research to get a
broader understanding of what
customer’s want.
This can include focus groups, market
research, in home interviews, in store
observations, etc.
The key is to talk to a variety of your
customers not just those who are
speaking on line. They can be found
In your store, on your web site, in
customer service .to your sales reps etc.
18. Select your objectives POST
Corporate Typical Appropriate
function groundswell objective social applications
Listening — gaining insights • Private communities
Research from listening to customers • Brand monitoring
• Blogs
Talking — using conversations
• Communities
Marketing with customers to promote • Social networking sites
products or services
• Video or user-generated sites
Energizing — identifying • Brand ambassador programs
Sales enthusiastic customers and • Communities
using them to persuade others • Embeddable “widgets”
Supporting — making it
• Support forums
Support possible for customers to help • Wikis
each other
Embracing — turning customers • Innovation communities
Development into a resource for innovation • “Suggestion boxes”
Forrester ‘09
19. Common Objectives of social media
Partnerships Employee
Customer Feedback Loyalty
communications
Community Building:
Your Company Public Relations
Content distribution:
News, thought leadership
Events.
Tech /Product Support-
Customer Service Recruitment
Sales:
Brand Research
21. Strategies: what to cover
• Legal
• Brand Image
• Community Ethics and integrity
• Participation & Community dynamics
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Technology Strategy
22. Key Strategic Questions
• How do we encourage and manage user participation?
• How do I control the flow of good and bad content?
Participation • What user activities do I want people to engage in?
• Who can get in and what can they do? How to control access? Are We public or private?
• Will I segment by user type? Do I need authentication?
Engagement • User profiles? How do I assign privileges? What identity management?
• How do I track member’s content?
• Who has what permissions?
Complia
nce • How do I audit compliance/ What do I do if people violate the rules?
• Who owns the content? What are the terms of use?
• Under what circumstances can the content be reused?
Content
ownership • What happens to those who don’t comply?
• What is my tech strategy? Build or partner?
• What is needed?
Tech
strategy • How will this be funded? Will I do it phases? What do they look like?
• How will I measure success over time?
Metrics • What are the key metrics? How will they get shared?
23. How to engage people ?
People People Collaborate People People Engage/
Advocate With You Produce Content Rally Behind You
You About You
25. Social Media measures what
happened
Traditional media
measurement deals with Buzz created before SuperBowl by getting
what you sent out/aired/saw customer to develop ads –more than 4000
submissions. Consumers voted.
Replayed on You Tube more than
700,000 views
Repeated on TV news shows
Tweeted about more than 35,000times
Most watched TV commerical and most
talked abut
Doritos super bowl ad-
House Rules
social media measurement deals
with what actually happened
26. Examples of Key Measures
Results/Impact
Click stream/ activity
- Product feedback/ideation
-Traffic –how many come to site - WOM Influence
-Interaction –how many people - Comments per post
are passing info on your product - Cost savings (
or brand - Tech. support
- Member engagement –do -Insights
people interact with the brand -Competitive Intelligence
more frequently-talking about it, -Increase in Public Relations
passing info around, sharing mentions
stories etc. -Increase in paid and natural
- Unique visitors search
- Member registrations -Sales
-Sales leads -Customer retention
-Profit
27. What is your Social Media Shooting for?
Reach – how far does it travel?
Authority – how trusted is the
source?
Relevance – does it support your
intended direction?
Influence – who shares and passes
along with who?
Engagement – how involved do they
get? Are they passing the data to
others (re-tweet)? Do they
recommend you?
28. What is Your Social Media Shooting for?
Interaction – do they do anything with it?
Share it? Incorporate it with new media?
Velocity – how fast does it travel?
Attention – how much time do they
spend with it?
Sentiment – how positive are they? Do
they care?
Net Promoter – are they recommending
you? Do they retain?
Sales/leads/Profit - are you generating
more leads and more sales?
29. POST
Technologies
Determine which technologies are needed to meet your needs?
30. Technology platforms
The technology platforms must support the business strategy. Often times
The community grows in ways that are unexpected. Building capabilities over
time enables the company and the community to grow together.
Start with other firms who have social media expertise. This enables you to
Focus on the strategy first , rather than the technology. Once you feel you
Have a good handle on who you are and what you need you can then decide
if you would prefer to build the capabilities internally or not.
The technology investment is usually low so spend the time determining the
functionality needed.
31. Summary of Web 2.0 Technologies :
• Facilitates co creation of content/applications
Wiki. Commenting,shared
across large distributed set of participants. Broad
work space collaboration .
• Offers individuals a way to communicate/share
Blogs, podcasts, video casts information with broad set of other individuals .
Broad communications.
• Harnesses the collective power of the community
Prediction markets, info
and generate a collectively derived answer.
markets, polling Collective estimation.
.
Tagging, social • Add additional information to the primary content
bookmarking, filtering, to prioritize information or make it more valuable.
Ratings, RSs Metadata creation.
Social networking, network • Leverages connections between people to offer
mapping new applications. Social graphing .
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32. Other key questions to ask
1. What technologies will be needed? Now and in the future?
2. What are the core functions or features?
3. Can we build the capabilities internally or do we need to partner with other
experts?
4. If we partner, what should we be looking for?
5. What skills does our staff need to learn to respond to the community and to
keep things running smoothly?
6. How will we protect our intellectual property rights?
7. How will we protect the identities of our members?
8. What are the risks associated? How will we escalate problems internally?
9. What are the associated costs (fixed/soft/ongoing)?How will we balance cost
against potential income?
10. How will we improve over time? What are the key milestones?
33. Summary of Social Media Strategy
Add
Join Listen Engage Connect
value
•Marketing leads are
manually transferred
to sales via a Country .
leader
•Leads contain
prospect’s name and
contact info.
•Leads are several
weeks old by they
time they get to a
sales rep
• Marketing does not
track how many leads
are converted
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34. Summary: how to make social
media successful
• Join the conversation
• Learn about the tools
• Invite others to join
• Get top management to support the effort. Get them to lead by example.
• Make it easy for others to particiapte by incorporating it into their daily
jobs.
• Encourage participation by providing feedback and recognition.
• Target a critical mass of people who can benefit from the collaboration.
• Maintain the right balance between freedom and control.
36. Why Success Works?
Company
• Consulting with a focus on multi-channel customer knowledge
• Experienced with CRM technology, process and people
• Results focused: manage projects on time and on budget
• Partnerships with key vendors and ad agencies
People
• Experienced professionals with 20 + years helping clients plan, implement and
manage projects that drive strategic value.
• Professionals with Big 4 consulting experience, agency, vendor and client side
experience.
• Extended network of professionals –on call
Values
• Provide exceptional client service and results.
• Use experienced personnel to bring best practices and encourage rapid
innovation.
• Cost effective: pay only for the resources you need. No overhead.
• Agility: ability to expand and contract quickly to meet client needs.
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37. Sample of our clients
Range of industries
Media and publishing
Internet service providers
Fashion and retail
Professional services
Hospitality, travel
Financial services
Insurance
Telecom
Consumer packaged goods
Technology
Health Care
Non-profit
Direct marketing 37