As brands seek to obtain better returns from their social media efforts, it is critical that conversations become more relevant for the consumer. This is far easier said than done. Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang discusses the challenges today and steps required to prepare for more localized engagement and activation of your entire customer facing team.

1. National Brands: Prioritizing Efforts for Scale 1 Jeremiah Owyang Industry Analyst and Partner For Expion May 24, 2011

2. Image by wjklosused with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/wjklos/196781213 2 Brands are Jumping In

3. Apply traditional demographics, and broadcast marketing Yet brands miss out on the specific behaviors of consumers – and their intricate relationships online 3 The Old Way? Carpet Bombing

4. Brands score low on two-way Facebook dialog

5. 5 Compounding Demands Compounding Demands

6. Corporations struggle to manage hundreds and thousands of accounts 6 Spoke Spoke Spoke Spoke Spoke Executives Hub Spoke Spoke Spoke Spoke Spoke Customers

7. Kenneth Cole, Chrysler debacles prove need for parental controls 7

8. Regulated industries require additional safeguards 8 J&J pioneered the pharma blog, tweeting about the company not their products. KP posts a disclaimer: “Tweets do not equal medical advice.”

9. 9 Image by carl-w-heindl used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/thirty_and_three/426973571 Prioritizing Efforts for Scale

10. 5 ways companies organize for social business

11. Formalize a Hub and Spoke model quickly 11 Move from fragmentation and decentralization to coordination where business units can deploy own their own. Tip: Governance > Process > Education will organically manifest as a Hub.

12. You can never hire enough community managers or deploy and manage efforts. Therefore, establish a “Center of Excellence” at the Hub to support and enable business units Become an enabler for business units 12

13. 13 Prepare for social media triage Take reasonable action to fix issue and let customer know action taken Negative Positive Yes Yes No Assess the message Evaluate the purpose Do you want to respond? Does customer need/deserve more info? Unhappy Customer? No Response Yes Are the facts correct? Gently correct the facts Yes No No No Can you add value? DedicatedComplainer? Are the facts correct? Yes Yes No No Yes Respond in kind & share Thank the person Comedian Want-to-Be? Explain what is being done to correct the issue. Is the problem being fixed? Yes No Yes Adapted from the US Air Force Blog Triage Let post stand and monitor.

14. 14 Leverage the community for peer to peer support Best Buy leverages “super users” to answer 30% of all questions The myFICOcommunity has over 20K posts a month and 400K searches a month.

15. Use SMMS systems to identify market intelligence: Use for competitive intelligence, as well as social media performance Use analytics to identify ‘hot spots’ in conversations and also to improve marketing and support efforts ‘in flight’. Use this intelligence to suggest topics, and even phrases for local businesses who may not have communication resources Use Analytics 15

16. Get ready internally. Standardize processes and social media management systems (SMMS) Remember 1:1 doesn’t scale – leverage the crowd for first response. Use analytics to improve communication efficiency but to also empower local teams to use. Closing thoughts on priorities 16

17. 17 Q&A Jeremiah Owyang jeremiah@altimetergroup.com web-strategist.com/blog Twitter: jowyang With assistance from Sr. Researcher Christine Tran