Content is everything
Obtrusive advertizing doesn’t work within Social Media because the consumer is in charge of the agenda. In order to get a message through, to the consumer, a company has to provide added value. Consumers are not looking to increase their awareness about a product, and in general, increasing awareness is not an approach that someone can adopt pro-actively. Increasing awareness comes from the repeated exposure to a message and it is a passive process. Social Media require consumers’ involvement and participation. As Jimmy Maymann points-out: when a billion consumers add their content and creativity, the passive consumer becomes an active user, thus the advertisers needs to evolve from “push campaigns” to interactive campaigns. Pop-ups and websites where advertising are too dominant will drive users away, when they are not blocked automatically by the web browser. According to ABC Studios’ president, Mark Pedowith: “Digital Media has leveled the playing field, opening doors for anyone to have immediate and unlimited access to an audience. But content must evolve with the platform” [MAYMA08, p.11]. The questions that advertisers, ultimately need to answer are: “why would I click on this link?” or “why would I watch this video?”, and the next question “would I send or recommend it to my friends”?
Social Media relies on strong values
There are countless examples of companies making the headlines because of their unethical behavior or because the message they are sending is considered by some as offending. Recent examples included BP’s handling of the Mexico’s Gulf oil leakage. BP purchased several key words including “oil spill” with the major search engines, in an attempt to promote their cleaning efforts, but the effect was the exact opposite and people had the impression that BP was trying to polish its image rather than cleaning the soiled beaches [BUSKI10]. Social Media advertising is about authenticity and honesty, if users believe that a company is trying to use them or is lying to them, then the backlash will be brutal. Transparency and honesty are other key values of Social Media [JILG10]. People don’t want to be fooled, especially when they look for recommendation or read a review, hence if a company is trying to promote its own products by faking good reviews, the negative effect will be dramatic. It is also important for companies starting to use Social Media to be humble. Consumers were using Social Media much before most companies even knew about their existence, therefore companies shouldn’t behave as if they new the ins- and outs- of Social Media, they should be respectful of the user and act responsibly. Not allowing people to post a comment will, for instance, send a very negative message to the users, it will sound as if the company is using Social Media as a bill-board or a corporate advertising in disguise; worst, removing comments will be compare to censorship, which will eventually be revealed. Finally, Social Media are about mutual trust. This is what a company should aim for. Social Media are a great tool for spreading a message, but they are also a great tool for listening to consumers. Showing that their concerned have a spot on the corporate agenda, and addressing their concerns in a pro-active manner is the best attitude that company can adopt [MAY10].
A new set of relationships
Social Media redefine the relationships’ between companies and customers. In the era of push marketing, companies didn’t really have to listen to the customers, now they have no choice, because customers have the tools to spread their messages to the world. Companies, whether they like it or not, have to engage into conversations. There is a greater proximity between the customer and the brand, therefore a direct conversation is possible, this is what happens on forums for instance; from a consumer perspective, this an opportunity to get specific request or questions directly to the brand and from a company perspective, this is an opportunity to get “unfiltered” customer feedback. But conversations do not start only with companies, they also start among customers, this is an opportunity as well as a challenge for any companies. Rupert Murdoch, NewsCorp’s CEO, said: “Media companies don’t control the conversation anymore” [MAYMA08, p.8]. Apple, better than many companies, understood that consumers acting as brand advocate are more efficient than the best sales men at promoting a brand and its no surprise to see that the company performances are rising while at the same time it’s also one of the most discussed-about brand on the cyberspace. Electronic-Word-of-Mouth (eWOM), in the digital era, is playing similar role than the 1950s Word-of-Mouth (WOM) when it was first studied by Whyte and William, to analyze the spread of air conditioning installation in American neighborhoods [WHYTE54]. The difference between WOM and eWOM is the scale, while in the 1950s it was limited to a small circle of friends or family, a positive (or negative) experience can now be communicated to the world [HENNI04]. In the digital world, authority doesn’t arise solely because of someone power or wealth, as we saw above, customers and corporations can express themselves on the same level, we therefore observe an equalization among authorities, and to push this concept even further: customers become the new authorities. Someone, who is an expert in a topic, will be able to gather fans (Facebook) or followers (Twitter) who will be exposed to what this person has to say, and who will spread the message within their social networks. Those people are referred-to as electronic Key Opinion Leaders (eKOL) or e-Fluencers [WATTS07], [KELLE03], [BURSO08]. According to Peter May, platform manager at Vodafone, companies should nurture special relationship with them in order to spread company’s information in the online world. They have a public that can often not be reached using traditional media [MAY10]. In a sense the digital world is a democracy, and authority emerges because of someone’s engagement and peer’s recognition.
Everyone’s a producer?
Some of the most successful video on YouTube have been posted by amateurs. This example outline that fact that production quality is not the main requirement to be successful on the Web, as we said earlier, content is premium [PRIES10] and as long as it is good, the message will spread among the users. Some Social Media experts will even advocate for “unprofessional” content, because the user might feel closer to the message that is being carried. Another characteristic of Social Media is the decentralization and collaborative process of production. This is of course facilitated by digital tools, everyone can contribute to the production of a video for instance, there are even examples of live concert on YouTube where the musicians met and formed their band online. Despite the fact that everyone can contribute to content production, the fact is that users can be classified in three categories regarding content production (see Picture 3, Appendix, p.53), they are either just looking for, or, sharing information and therefore not producing anything, or active producers; but the share of active producer is rather limited [CHENG09] & [HEIL09].
Dynamic distribution channels
How to get your message across to your customers? This is a basic question that most marketers need to answer. In the era of Mass Media, the answer was relatively easy and the major limitation was the budget (e.g.: buy air-time on a major TV channel during prime-time). In the digital space, it is quite different. The variety of platforms means that the challenge is not anymore the budget, but rather the reach. Marketers have to define who they want to reach and what is the best platform. The era of Broadcasting is over, welcome to the era of “Narrowcasting” [MAYMA07, .39]. A successful Social Media campaign will use several channels, for instance: specialized websites, Social Networks, Blogs … and will, in general focus on a very specific group. According to Coca-Cola the “next big thing could be decidedly more niche” [ZMUDA10]. The distribution channels are rapidly evolving, and it is important to stay up-to-date and to feel which platform is the right platform to use for the message that the company wants to communicate. Email is not anymore the tool of choice for sharing content, in 2009 Facebook became the main tool for sharing information [OSTRO09].
The metrics / K.P.Is of Social Media
Measuring the Return-On-Investment (R.O.I) of any marketing activities is a prerequisite to a successful advertising strategy; furthermore, what cannot be measured cannot be improved. Just like any other marketing activities (e.g.: branding…), Social Media’s R.O.I need to be demonstrated, but a new set of Key Performances Indicators (K.P.I) need to be adopted. Companies will often measure the numbers of “followers” on Twitters or “Fans” on Facebook, but this metric is only the tip of the iceberg and is not always the most relevant. According to Lustig [LUSTIG09], companies should evaluate: the Reach, the Engagement, the Sentiment and the Business outcome. For each KPIs, specific tools are available (see Table 1).
Table 1: Social Media KPIs and monitoring tools, adapted from Lustig et al, [LUSTIG09]
| Reach | Engagement | Sentiment | Business outcomes |
| - # of users reached - # of visits and unique visitors - # of page views - Content viewed | - Time spent, number of visits - Twitter follows or Facebook fan - Download, uploads, viral forwards | - Positive / negative comments - Survey, polls - Fan, friends | - Brand (awareness, affinity, perception) - Sales (actual, inquires, leads) |
| Example of commercial tools available | |||
| Crowd factory, Radian6, Cymfony, Nielsen Buzz Metrics | Biz360, SAS, Trackur, Cymfony, Cheskin | BBE, Insightexpress, Dynamic Logiv | |
[MAYMA08] Maymann, J.: The Social Metropolis. Go Viral III. In: http://www.goviral.com/goviral_iii.pdf, file created on 2010-09-26.
[MAY10] May, P.: Interview with Peter May, Platform Manager at Vodafone. 2010-10-03.
[HENNI04] Hennig-Thurau, T.: Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: what motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the internet? Journal of interactive marketing volume 18 / number 1 / winter 2004.
[WHYTE54] Whyte Jr., William H.: “The Web of Word of Mouth,” Fortune, 1954-11, 50, p. 140-143.
[WATTS07] Watts, D.J.: Influentials, Networks, and Public Opinion Formation. Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 34. 2007-12.
[KELLE03] Berry, J., Keller, E.: The Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy; Ed Free Press. 2003.
[BURSO08] Burson-Marsteller: The Power of Online Influencers: Your Company’s Newest Stakeholder Group. In: http://www.burson-marsteller.com/Practices_And_Specialties/AssetFile/E-Fluentials%20Brochure.pdf. File created on 2010-11-07
[PRIES10] Pries, P.: Interview with Peter Pries, Interim Senior Global Director Corporate Marketing at QIAGEN and owner of MarketingPlus X. 2010-10-25.
[CHENG09] Cheng, A., Evans, M.: Inside Twitter An In-Depth Look Inside the Twitter World. Sysomos Inc. In: http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/. 2009-06.
[HEIL09] Heil, B., Piskorski, M.: New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets. Harvard Business Review. In: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html. 2009-06-01.
[ZMUDA10] Zmuda, N.: Coca-Cola Looks for Another Billion-Dollar Brand, But Marketer Thinks Next Big Thing Could Be Niche Product. Advertising Age. In: http://adage.com/article?article_id=146778. 2010-10-28.
[OSTRO09] Ostrow, A.: Sharing on Facebook Now More Popular than Sharing by Email. In: http://mashable.com/2009/07/20/facebook-sharing-data/. 2009.
[LUSTIG09] Lustig, J., Rozic, S., Smith, M.: Measuring Social Media R.O.I. CrowdFactory.
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