Based on a 2011 social customer survey of our clients, Lithium presents the current state of customer communities and the social web, explores life beyond Likes and Tweets, and reveals what’s next for social CRM and social strategies in 2011. Dive into what brands expect from their investments in social networking sites, how and when they integrate community with social media, how they measure success, and what they hope for from social media in the future. Learn how brands are using both customer communities and their Facebook presence together to build trust, peer-to-peer engagement, pre- and post-sales support, to drive awareness, and to disseminate marketing messages.

1. facebook and beyond:
lessons for brand engagement
with social customers

2. share this whitepaper
contents
1 executive summary
2 Facebook and brand communities - what are they good for?
4 success/failure and future needs
5 next generation social support
7 organizational ownership
9 conclusion
subscribe to
request a demo
SocialMatters
we help companies unlock the passion of their customers.
The Lithium Social Customer Suite allows brands to build vibrant customer communities that:
reduce service costs with grow brand advocay with drive sales with innovate faster with
social support social marketing social commerce social innovation
lithium.com | © 2012 Lithium Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved
2

3. share this whitepaper
executive summary
As recently as two or three years ago, the idea that brands • The two channels were seen as roughly equal in their
would provide a social channel for their customers to ability to create brand awareness. Clients who have
engage with them was controversial, even radical. Now it’s initiated brand communities see awareness benefits
as particularly salient in the first year, suggesting that
convention. Facebook is a big reason for this change. As
“newness” of an engagement channel is in itself a big
of this writing, 56 percent of Fortune 500 companies host driver of awareness.
Facebook pages, and that number is growing daily.
• The ability for customers to submit and discuss ideas
Since social customer programs were controversial just for product or service improvement is the biggest
two years ago, many of those companies are new to the downstream benefit of social customer engagement for
experience of engaging with social customers and are looking clients who have developed brand communities. Clients
who consider their Facebook efforts less successful
to answer the question, “What do we do next?”
are particularly interested in bringing this capability to
Facebook in a more structured fashion.
Brands that have engaged with social customers in other
channels can help us answer this question. Lithium’s After Peak Facebook
clients have considerable experience with social customer As Facebook itself approaches full penetration of its core
engagement through brand communities and Facebook markets and its members start to regularize their behavior,
pages. Lithium conducted a survey of its clients to better historic growth rates for participation in corporate Facebook
understand how they see the role of Facebook (and other pages will slow. Call it “peak Facebook.” Recent surveys
social media outlets) in their overall engagement strategy. have also shown that existing consumers’ engagement with
The results provide an interesting glimpse into the different corporate Facebook pages may be tenuous and fading. For
roles played by different social media channels, and example, 81% of those who have become fans of a brand
potentially into how they will converge in the future. have abandoned at least one such relationship because of
Some highlights include: “irrelevant, voluminous, or boring” marketing messages.
• On the whole, respondents rated their communities as
This suggests that marketers who are committed to using
more successful than Facebook at activities that require
trust: peer-to-peer engagement and providing pre-and- Facebook to foster relationships with social customers will
post sales purchase support; Facebook was seen as need to invent or adopt sophisticated long-term strategies for
more successful in disseminating marketing messages. customer engagement. Fortunately, many of the techniques
learned in brand communities can carry over into Facebook.
1

4. share this whitepaper
Facebook and brand
communities - what
are they good for?
One of the first questions we see from brands developing a Figure 1 compares the brand community’s perceived
social customer strategy is, “Do I need both a brand community effectiveness with the Facebook page’s perceived
and Facebook, and if so, what role does each one play?” effectiveness in 10 different areas.
The answer to this question always depends on The first thing to note is that the one area where Facebook
circumstances and business requirements, but given that our shines is in outbound messaging. Because Facebook offers
audience has experience with both venues, we have a very outstanding reach and many brands use it as a publishing
good sense of the role that each one plays. platform for periodic updates, its prowess as a vehicle for
improves our search results
disseminating marketing messages is not surprising. Social
media marketing vendor Vitrue has computed that a fan
base of 1 million translates into $3.6 million in equivalent
creates awareness of our brand, products, or services
media per year, and brands such as Coca-Cola already see
more unique visitors to their Facebook page than they do
allows us to communicate our marketing message effectively to customers
to their company web site. In these situations, Facebook
represents a means of message dissemination that
creates beneficial customer-to-customer engagement
compares favorably to advertising on a cost-per-impression
basis.Interestingly, however, Facebook was not cited as
empowers customers to help one another with pre-sales purchase questions
significantly more effective than a brand community in
creating brand awareness, or creating goodwill for the brand
empowers customers to help one another with post-sales support questions
in social channels. Given the Facebook platform’s reach and
viral features, one might have expected higher scores for
gives us metrics we need to assess program goals Facebook’s ability to increase brand awareness, but there are
several reasons why the scores may be lower than expected:
gives us a good sense of how our customers are feeling
• Brand awareness is still largely campaign driven, and a
Facebook page alone does not constitute a campaign.
helps us identify particularly valuable customers
• Even when campaigns drive users to Facebook pages
and increase the brand’s fan base, there is no guarantee
creates goodwill for our brand in social channels
that these people were new to the brand. Most users who
associate with a brand page probably have a prior affinity
for that brand.
community effectiveness facebook effectiveness
Figure 1: Overall effectiveness of Facebook and brand community.
2

5. share this whitepaper
• Finally, as we have seen through social media monitoring
Figure 2: Anticipated benefits vs realized benefits
studies, “buzz” around brands spikes during successful
campaigns, but typically returns to a steady state after anticipated → → → realized
campaigns end.
One further explanation may be that our community clients
report that brand awareness benefits peak during the first
year, even as other benefits increase over time. If this holds 13.5% 27%
true across other social channels, it is possible that the fact
of starting a new program in and of itself is responsible for
increased awareness — probably because that program pre-sales consultation
involves an introductory campaign. When the shock of the
new wears off, what is left?
anticipated → → → realized
As it turns out, brand communities annuitize exceptionally
well. Peer-to-peer engagement and an environment where
users answer one another’s questions emerge as a corps of
devoted users forms and mobilizes. Indeed, scores rise in 46% 78%
these areas as communities move into their second and third
years, suggesting that communities hold their users’ interest
over the long haul. customer feedback/ideation
Figure 2: Anticipated benefits versus realized benefits.
Peer-to-peer buying advice and customer ideation were two Both of these “downstream” benefits are most likely to emerge
benefits exceeding client expectations. as byproducts of trust among members of a community.
Brands tend to be more willing to harvest and discuss ideas for
The survey tells us that benefits clients anticipated when
service improvement when they trust that their customers are
embarking upon a social customer program are not always
ready for a sustained dialog rather than drive-by complaints.
the same benefits that emerge over time. This is particularly
And people are more willing to trust product recommendations
true in two areas: idea development, and peer-to-peer pre-
from their peers when those peers have proven themselves to
sales consulting. Customer feedback/ideation was listed
be reliably knowledgeable over time.
as an original purpose of a community 46% of the time, but
a realized benefit 78% of the time. Peer-to-peer pre-sales
consulting was an original purpose 13.5% of the time but a
realized benefit 27% of the time.
3

6. share this whitepaper
success/failure Facebook page’s effectiveness community’s effectiveness
and future needs improves our search results
creates awareness of our brand, products, or services
allows us to communicate our marketing message effectively to customers
To see these benefits, brands must cultivate relationships creates beneficial customer-to-customer engagement
with their social customers over the long term. While the
constraints and affordances of the Facebook platform and empowers customers to help one another with pre-sales purchase questions
brand communities differ, there is no reason why the aspects
that make brand communities deliver annuitized benefits empowers customers to help one another with post-sales support questions
cannot exist in Facebook. Whether they will emerge depends
largely upon the choices that brands make about how to
gives us metrics we need to assess program goals
engage with their customers on Facebook. And those choices
will likely depend on whether brands consider what they are
gives us a good sense of how our customers are feeling
doing on Facebook successful or not.
As we can see from Figure 3, among respondents who helps us identify particularly valuable customers
consider their Facebook efforts successful or very successful,
three key benefits stand out: the creation of brand awareness, creates goodwill for our brand in social channels
the ability to communicate marketing messages effectively,
and the fostering of goodwill in social channels. In each of the more successful more successful
less successful less successful
three cases, there is a wide gap in perceived efficacy between
respondents who are happy with their Facebook efforts and
those who are not. On the other hand, even those who are beneficial interactions of any kind among customers. At this
happy with their Facebook program do not consider it to be point in its evolution, Facebook seems to succeed or fail
very useful in helping users answer one another’s questions for brands based on reach and the perceived goodwill that
(either pre- or post-sales) or in helping them identify goes along with that, rather than on elements that are
particularly valuable customers. specifically social.
Figure 3: Facebook and brand community effectiveness As we can also see from Figure 3, respondents who see
in 10 areas, cross-tabulated by more successful and less their community as successful or very successful give the
successful overall perceptions of success community exceptionally high marks for creating beneficial
peer-to-peer engagement, for helping customers with
Strikingly, only about 12% of respondents who consider their questions, and for providing insight into customers’ attitudes.
Facebook forays successful believe that it helps users answer Interestingly, there is basically no difference in clients’
one another’s questions. Fewer than half thought it created assessment of a community’s utility for communicating
4

7. share this whitepaper
outbound marketing messages between those who think Figure 4: Additional needs from Facebook by perceived
it is a roaring success and those who think it is moderately success level with Facebook.
successful. On the other hand, there is a large perceived
We can see that when Facebook isn’t seen as successful for
gap in the awareness value of a community between
brands, its best benefits are still as an outbound marketing
those who feel it is very successful and those who feel it
vehicle — just not a particularly successful one. In that case,
less so. Perhaps one reason for this discrepancy is that
what do brands want Facebook to do for customers that it’s
members themselves are the marketing channel in a
not doing? We asked respondents to rank various things that
brand community. Even though it provides opportunities for
their customers might do on Facebook that they can’t do or
outbound communication—though blogs and tweets—a brand
can’t do well. When we correlate those rankings with the level
community succeeds or fails on the basis of its ability to
of success those clients are currently enjoying with Facebook,
create engagement.
several things stand out:
answer product questions
51.4% • Overwhelmingly, brands whose Facebook efforts are
50% flagging want some way to recognize their customers’
status and achievements on Facebook — in other words,
display status or achievements to reward good behavior. Conspicuous display of status
42.9% and achievement is a deeply ingrained feature of Lithium
8.3% communities and is generally seen as a prime motivator
of consumer participation.
submit ideas for service/product improvements
62.9% • Respondents who do not see their current Facebook
50% efforts as successful see the ability for customers to
submit ideas as substantially more important than
search our knowledge base those who are satisfied with Facebook. Again, this maps
60% very closely to the ideation benefit we saw earlier as a
66.7%
downstream effect of brand communities.
see the best/most useful content that others have submitted • The ability to find products or services recommended by
60% friends or colleagues is also seen as a potential area of
58.3% improvement by those who are not particularly satisfied
with their Facebook efforts.
identify other customers with similar backgrounds or needs
42.9%
50%
find products their friends or colleagues have recommended
60%
50%
mentions by respondents who rate their Facebook pages as less successful
mentions by respondents who rate their Facebook pages as successful
5

8. share this whitepaper
Figure 5: Additional needs from Facebook by community
success level.
As we can see from Figure 5, brands who are less successful
with communities also want to see a more prominent display
of status and achievements on Facebook. But what is perhaps
more interesting is that clients who are at higher levels of
success with brand communities are much more interested
than their peers in introducing the ability for users to find
others who resemble them, and the ability for users to locate
products that their friends and colleagues like. These are
characteristic “social networking” features.
In other words, when Facebook efforts are not successful,
brands want Facebook to behave more like a community.
When communities are successful, brands want to benefit
from Facebook’s networking features to a greater extent. If
Facebook’s potency as a generator of awareness begins to
decline over time, that trend suggests a convergence between
the interaction modes in Facebook and those of brand
communities is extremely likely.
6

9. share this whitepaper
organizational
ownership
If we see a coming convergence between the way people answer product questions
interact on Facebook and the way they interact in a
brand community, it is worth asking who will lead that
convergence and how it will take place. Enterprises vary
display status or achievements
in their determination of who owns social customer
initiatives. In some organizations, social customer initiatives
are owned by customer support or customer experience
teams. Increasingly, however, they fall under the purview of submit ideas for service/product improvements
marketing or corporate communications functions.
Figure 6: Additional requirements from Facebook by social
program ownership. search our knowledge base
As we can see from Figure 6, organizations where marketing
owns social initiatives are demanding less of Facebook
in terms of new modes of customer engagement. In fact, see the best/most useful content that others have submitted
ownership by marketing is more important than the perceived
success of a company’s Facebook page in determining
whether a company is interested in customers engaging
identify other customers with similar backgrounds or needs
through Facebook in more involved ways. Customer support
and customer experience groups continue to be more
interested in the exchange of ideas and the answering of
product questions. find products their friends or colleagues have recommended
customer support and experience groups
marketing groups
7

10. share this whitepaper
customer support and experience marketing and comms
a
f f
e b b the scaling problem. Time and again, we have seen that
e
d larger communities with a devoted core of superfans actually
d require less intervention from companies than fledgling
c c communities. The “downstream” trust benefits pay dividends.
There is no reason why this shouldn’t be so on Facebook, but
a) executive buy-in b) resources to scale our efforts c) coordination across
many organizations are in earlier stages of their experience
teams and departmentsa) executivetools e) lack of agreed upon metrics and
d) too many buy-in with Facebook.
standards for success f) lack of customer interest
b) resources to scale our efforts
c) coordination across teams and departments
d) too many tools
Figure 8: Requirement for ROI measurement by channel and
Figure 7: Largest challenge with social customer programs,
e) lack of agreed upon metrics and standards for success program ownership.
by program ownership
f) lack of customer interest
A final area in which brand communities differ from other
Marketing-led organizations’ biggest concern with social
channels for marketing-led organizations is in the need to
customer programs is how to scale them. Figure 7 shows
prove themselves through ROI metrics. As we can see from
the chief concern as scaling initiatives with (relatively) less
Figure 8, marketing-led organizations generally have higher
concern about coordination across teams and departments.
demands for ROI, but this is particularly true for brand
44% of marketing-led organizations cited “resources to
communities. We suspect this is a function of the perception
scale our efforts” as the biggest challenge, as against
that Facebook engagement is free because a Facebook page
34.4% of everyone and (9/34 - 26%) of non-marketing led
is itself free, but also of the maturity level of Facebook as
organizations. This suggests that one reason marketers are
a technology and a marketing venue. As we see increasing
less aggressively pursuing “deeper” engagement through
convergence of social channels, we should also expect to see
Facebook is that, unlike support or customer experience
demands for more sophisticated Facebook measurement
organizations, they lack human resources — like contact
tools, and growing demands for Facebook to prove its value.
centers — that are perceived to be required to ensure that
social customers get the satisfaction they require from
engagement through Facebook. Better, perhaps, not to hold
out the promise of a sustained dialog with customers if an
organization cannot make good on that promise. brand community
The survey shows that marketers and customer experience
are equally committed to responding to customers in brand
communities and through Facebook and Twitter. However,
it would not be surprising if Facebook’s reach threatens to
become overwhelming if customer actions on Facebook
called for a response. Indeed, perhaps one thing that
marketers have learned with online communities that they
customer support
have not (yet) learned with Facebook is that customers and experience
themselves can be the solution — not just the cause — of marketing and
corp comms
8

11. share this whitepaper
conclusion
There are significant synergies between Facebook and brand The dividends of a well-developed Facebook presence will
communities. Both offer unique marketing advantages, and ultimately depend on marketers inventing or adopting
we’ve helped customers extend the reach of their brand sophisticated long-term strategies for customer engagement,
communities on Facebook. For its sheer size and viral such that their Facebook presence derives its value from
features, Facebook is generally considered more successful peer-to-peer relationships. But those relationships also have
at disseminating marketing messages, and is roughly equal in to be based in trust, both among customers and between
its ability to create brand awareness. As we’ve seen in online customers and the brand. Establishing this trust is a key,
venues before, however, driving people to a social site without long-term strategy. For instance, fostering productive
providing an outlet for their needs invites a peak-and-trough peer-to-peer relationships among customers and rewarding
customer engagement, rather than a sustained, vital and positive behavior helps to create trust, as does identifying,
profitable enthusiasm. A campaign-based wave of awareness motivating, and highlighting your brand’s superfans. The
will eventually peak and subside, and may then create downstream annuities of trust and engagement only grow
unrealistic expectations for customers. As these channels when brands cultivate true, multi-directional relationships
evolve and the awareness benefits subside, marketers should with their social customers over the long term. The potential
consider Facebook a useful platform for cultivating an online ROI is tremendous.
presence run more like a community than a campaign.
Lithium social software helps the world’s most iconic brands to build brand nations—vibrant online communities of passionate social customers.
Lithium helps top brands such as AT&T, Sephora, Univision, and PayPal build active online communities that turn customer passion into social media
marketing ROI. For more information on how to create lasting competitive advantage with the social customer experience,
visit lithium.com, or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and our own brand nation – the Lithosphere.
lithium.com | © 2012 Lithium Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved
9