A full house at the SMI conference this year, with some interesting themes emerging, the most important being the most obvious- that the aforementioned ‘influence’ of social media continues to steadily grow...
This year the conversation had moved on- the question was more of a ‘what are we trying to do?’ as it became clear that, although a majority of businesses now have a social media manager and strategy, it is still unclear for many what they should be trying to achieve- what the key deliverables should be for their business; that will add value, whether directly to the bottom line, or indirectly through building brand loyalty, repositioning the brand, finding a new audience and so on.
The key words that were repeated throughout the day were: engaging, listening, sharing, evolving, authentic stories- these are referenced in the take-away points below..
Building a successful social business strategy
The most successful social media strategies are those which are able to engage people; adding value and thus spreading through a variety of media for example:
Creating memorable moments (the recent Old Spice and VW Darth Vader offered up as examples)
Engaging with the local community in a positive way (such as the recent Dulux campaign)
Strong content- an authentic story that captures interest (such as Palladium’s documentary on the art scene in struggling Detroit)
Being useful- Adding value to customers (such as exclusive deals, sale previews)
We like sharing
The way we use the internet, the way we shop, is changing. Recommendations are becoming increasing significant- if we read an article, find a website, or a pair of shoes we like the look of, increasingly we will tweet about it, ‘like’ it on FB, or if Google have their way, we’ll use their new “+1” functionality to recommend it (the growth of ‘collective buying’ websites such as Groupon or LivingSocial demonstrate this well). In essence we are turning implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge in this way.
Make sure you’re connected
Corporate social strategies need to get a far more ‘connected’ relationship with customers; with influencers, and within their own organisation- they need to listen, and acknowledge before they engage, and join up the internal and external conversations they are having to drive positive change and evolution of the brand/product offering. Demonstrating that you are listening and learning builds loyalty, trust and thus Brand Advocates- a social media strategy built upon a succession of ‘campaigns’ on FB simply isn’t good enough.
The platform is less important
More emphasis is now being placed on how Social Media can be brought in Commerce, and embedded into the business’s behaviour, rather than simply bringing Commerce into Social media without perhaps a well thought out strategy. There was an acknowledgement that Apps have their limitations; and that businesses should actually be focussing on displaying content that is optimised for whatever medium it is being viewed on- to maintain consistency across channels, and better embed the brand and site in the customer’s day to day dealings.
Leveraging Social Media
The difficult bit after implementing a social business strategy is leveraging it for gain where possible- for example as the ‘collective buying’ websites have been able to, or using social CRM data to derive recommendations and actionable insights; with a drive towards more real-time data, again embedded in the business culture to drive behaviour change and improve engagement- but with a note of caution- that businesses need to ask themselves what customers are ‘getting out of it’ to ensure they are adding value whilst asking customers to share data or a message.
And to finish off with- a very interesting case study from Tesco fashion that I think sums up what retailers can get out of a well-executed social media strategy.
Tesco were trying to raise awareness of their F&F brand of clothing amongst the fashion and money-savvy audience with their social business strategy- and through judicious (but not entirely smooth) use of Twitter and FB to interact and build a relationship with customers and influencers (such as fashion bloggers) gain insight, deal with queries, they achieved some big wins such as:
Repositioning the brand
Reaching a new audience
Pushing the core message of affordable fashion
Creating interest and advocacy in the brand
Gaining valuable customer insight
Driving over a £1m in additional sales through social media originated activity
No comments:
Post a Comment