How to Build Brand Equity Through Participation In The Social Web
How to Build Brand Equity Through Participation In The Social Web
Mark Ghuneim - Wiredset - July 7th, 2008
Now, more than ever, it is crucial to engage your online audience through social means. As six of the current top-ten web destinations are social, it is apparent that social participation is now the currency and language that speaks to a massive market segment. More importantly, social behavior has evolved from being solely integrated into destination sites to becoming a feature-set on many sites that were not initially socially-focused. For example, The NY Times and Google News have both recently added social or participatory layers and features to their existing sites.
There are several questions to ask before jumping into in the social media space...
• What type of marketing is appropriate in a social environment?
• Does my brand belong here?
• What value do I bring to the community and social environment?
When developing a brand's digital strategy, it is important to have a fully conceived vision for participating in the social web. This participation will be vital to the success of your digital strategy in building brand equity.
Whereas publishing was the key tactic during the first phase of the web, meaningful involvement in the social web now best speaks to and reaches consumers. Brands must transition and augment their advertising and marketing strategies to create programs that will best address the emergent social behaviors of online consumers. By doing so, firms will have the opportunity to positively enhance their brand's reputation and image in the minds of these online audiences.
I. Campaign Check List
Goal: Your campaign goals need to be clear, concise, realistic, and mutually agreed upon by all concerned. Outline specific deliverables, desired traffic impressions, adoption rates, and total impressions. These need to be achievable as well as reviewed and adjusted periodically throughout outreach.
Discovery: Walk-through and map-out all components of the project or campaign before embarking. This is ideally done very early in the planning process and consistently reviewed against the project goals. All key players on the project need to be involved; technology team, marketing directors, agency, client, outreach team etc.
Term / Duration: If you are creating a campaign with a planned obsolescence, it should be identified up-front. Soliciting and gaining consumer involvement only to subsequently dissolve a program can lead to negative brand association.
Demographics, Audience, Research and Targets: Most social network user-bases are different and each has its own specific needs. It is thus important to identify and understand your target audience so you can build a campaign that best speaks to the needs of these users.
Resources (Team, Technology): Clearly identify key technology to be utilized and key personnel to articulate and execute.
A campaign's checklist may look like this...
• What are the business objectives?
• What are the resources needed to render and realize these objectives?
• Who is the project manager, community manager, editorial director, etc?
• What technology will be used?
• How does your technology work with the target networks and social services? (inter-operability)
• How will the campaign be created?
• How will it be deployed?
• How will it be marketed?
• How will it be tracked?
Define Best Practices and Reporting: A clearly articulated standards and practices policy around your program must be outlined before implementation. Things to consider include transparency, value exchange, consistency across messaging, lexicon, rapid response scenarios, etc.
Common Sense: Like in any other activity that engages the consumer it is important to think through and consider all scenarios before creating a program. For example, what are the potential points of liabilities, legal ramifications, sources of pain, etc.
II. Key Social Media Brand Behavioral Characteristics
Authenticity - Credibly reach your audience in their language
Sustainability - "The characteristic of being able to coexist with another system indefinitely"
If you plan on showing up to the party, you must first build a reputation with your new-found authentic identity and then have the ability to continue this social media activity into the future, leveraging company or organization resources to make the program a part of your ongoing consumer-facing strategy
Clear Value Proposition - It is vital to understand how will your presence will create your expected experience and thus benefit your user base and audience. Good tactics here include enabling existing behavior or making a contribution to the community in a way that is beneficial to all. Think tools, technology, etc.
Listen and Follow Other Thoughts - This is both figurative and literal. First you
need to listen to what the community before you can jump into the flow. Think early BBS rule-sets. Lurk, listen wait for your moment.
Distributed - Your brand is platform agnostic, in turn, you need to be available where your audience is.
Consistent - Irregular behavior is frowned upon.
Reward - People like free things; build brand affinity and love by sharing a little of what you have got
Smart Behavioral Targeting - Mindful of PII (Personal Identifiable Information), target both the behavior and the demographic differences of your audience with complementary campaigns and contextual content.
III. Key Achievements and Results
Prerequisite for next phase of web behavior: Like publishing was a prerequisite for the initial phase of the web, participation is now the necessary behavior to engage in the social web.
Market place differentiators: Done correctly, your participation in the social web will start to become a marketplace differentiator for your brand. For example, Zappo's participates heavily in the social web. This differentiates them from others in their vertical and illustrates that they get and enable the behaviors of their customers.
Increased Customer Loyalty: Of top level importance. This is basic business logic you want to keep; please the customers you have. Because you have engaged your audience and spoke to them in their language, loyalty will increase.
Edge Strategy: This has been said many times, but for good reason. Smart brands reach their audiences when and where these consumers need them. That often is a combination of touch points across various edges of the internet and ideally tied into your main site or specific consumer-facing company destination.
Early Adopters, Influencers, Brand Advocates: Provide the tools and access to the key campaign components so they be personalized and shared with fluidity and ease across any social network or platform. The following characteristics of your brand within the social media sphere will be defined by your behavior, reputation, and identity which are all illustrated through each point of campaign.
Alternate C.R.M Strategy: Community driven CRM is not an independent or incremental marketing component. It should be woven into email and real-life consumer interactions, ultimately illustrating your brand's value and equity.
Defined Best Practices: Building on what you outlined at the start of the campaign, fill-in and adjust based on lessons learned.
IV. Conclusion
Building Brand Equity - Effective and timely execution in social-media sphere will serve to differentiate your brand, drive brand identity and reputation while create loyal consumer bases.
Choosing the right program for your brand is a complex and important decision. It is important to foresee and understand the full scope of the campaign and its value proposition before embarking.
There is already a lengthy list of failed social media branding strategies (it is nice you showed up to our party with a gift, but you were not invited in the first place). In this day and age, product launches are often considered to be successful if the public or press does not skewer a firm or the campaign. This is no way to define a marketing win.
Smart companies will build brand equity over time by bringing value and enabling their communities in means that best speak to the lifestyles and preferences of their target audiences. Doing so digitally will be as common-place as a billboard at a baseball park. The difference being that a smart campaign will talk to and listen to its fans.
Mark Ghuneim - Wiredset - July 7th, 2008
Now, more than ever, it is crucial to engage your online audience through social means. As six of the current top-ten web destinations are social, it is apparent that social participation is now the currency and language that speaks to a massive market segment. More importantly, social behavior has evolved from being solely integrated into destination sites to becoming a feature-set on many sites that were not initially socially-focused. For example, The NY Times and Google News have both recently added social or participatory layers and features to their existing sites.
There are several questions to ask before jumping into in the social media space...
• What type of marketing is appropriate in a social environment?
• Does my brand belong here?
• What value do I bring to the community and social environment?
When developing a brand's digital strategy, it is important to have a fully conceived vision for participating in the social web. This participation will be vital to the success of your digital strategy in building brand equity.
Whereas publishing was the key tactic during the first phase of the web, meaningful involvement in the social web now best speaks to and reaches consumers. Brands must transition and augment their advertising and marketing strategies to create programs that will best address the emergent social behaviors of online consumers. By doing so, firms will have the opportunity to positively enhance their brand's reputation and image in the minds of these online audiences.
I. Campaign Check List
Goal: Your campaign goals need to be clear, concise, realistic, and mutually agreed upon by all concerned. Outline specific deliverables, desired traffic impressions, adoption rates, and total impressions. These need to be achievable as well as reviewed and adjusted periodically throughout outreach.
Discovery: Walk-through and map-out all components of the project or campaign before embarking. This is ideally done very early in the planning process and consistently reviewed against the project goals. All key players on the project need to be involved; technology team, marketing directors, agency, client, outreach team etc.
Term / Duration: If you are creating a campaign with a planned obsolescence, it should be identified up-front. Soliciting and gaining consumer involvement only to subsequently dissolve a program can lead to negative brand association.
Demographics, Audience, Research and Targets: Most social network user-bases are different and each has its own specific needs. It is thus important to identify and understand your target audience so you can build a campaign that best speaks to the needs of these users.
Resources (Team, Technology): Clearly identify key technology to be utilized and key personnel to articulate and execute.
A campaign's checklist may look like this...
• What are the business objectives?
• What are the resources needed to render and realize these objectives?
• Who is the project manager, community manager, editorial director, etc?
• What technology will be used?
• How does your technology work with the target networks and social services? (inter-operability)
• How will the campaign be created?
• How will it be deployed?
• How will it be marketed?
• How will it be tracked?
Define Best Practices and Reporting: A clearly articulated standards and practices policy around your program must be outlined before implementation. Things to consider include transparency, value exchange, consistency across messaging, lexicon, rapid response scenarios, etc.
Common Sense: Like in any other activity that engages the consumer it is important to think through and consider all scenarios before creating a program. For example, what are the potential points of liabilities, legal ramifications, sources of pain, etc.
II. Key Social Media Brand Behavioral Characteristics
Authenticity - Credibly reach your audience in their language
Sustainability - "The characteristic of being able to coexist with another system indefinitely"
If you plan on showing up to the party, you must first build a reputation with your new-found authentic identity and then have the ability to continue this social media activity into the future, leveraging company or organization resources to make the program a part of your ongoing consumer-facing strategy
Clear Value Proposition - It is vital to understand how will your presence will create your expected experience and thus benefit your user base and audience. Good tactics here include enabling existing behavior or making a contribution to the community in a way that is beneficial to all. Think tools, technology, etc.
Listen and Follow Other Thoughts - This is both figurative and literal. First you
need to listen to what the community before you can jump into the flow. Think early BBS rule-sets. Lurk, listen wait for your moment.
Distributed - Your brand is platform agnostic, in turn, you need to be available where your audience is.
Consistent - Irregular behavior is frowned upon.
Reward - People like free things; build brand affinity and love by sharing a little of what you have got
Smart Behavioral Targeting - Mindful of PII (Personal Identifiable Information), target both the behavior and the demographic differences of your audience with complementary campaigns and contextual content.
III. Key Achievements and Results
Prerequisite for next phase of web behavior: Like publishing was a prerequisite for the initial phase of the web, participation is now the necessary behavior to engage in the social web.
Market place differentiators: Done correctly, your participation in the social web will start to become a marketplace differentiator for your brand. For example, Zappo's participates heavily in the social web. This differentiates them from others in their vertical and illustrates that they get and enable the behaviors of their customers.
Increased Customer Loyalty: Of top level importance. This is basic business logic you want to keep; please the customers you have. Because you have engaged your audience and spoke to them in their language, loyalty will increase.
Edge Strategy: This has been said many times, but for good reason. Smart brands reach their audiences when and where these consumers need them. That often is a combination of touch points across various edges of the internet and ideally tied into your main site or specific consumer-facing company destination.
Early Adopters, Influencers, Brand Advocates: Provide the tools and access to the key campaign components so they be personalized and shared with fluidity and ease across any social network or platform. The following characteristics of your brand within the social media sphere will be defined by your behavior, reputation, and identity which are all illustrated through each point of campaign.
Alternate C.R.M Strategy: Community driven CRM is not an independent or incremental marketing component. It should be woven into email and real-life consumer interactions, ultimately illustrating your brand's value and equity.
Defined Best Practices: Building on what you outlined at the start of the campaign, fill-in and adjust based on lessons learned.
IV. Conclusion
Building Brand Equity - Effective and timely execution in social-media sphere will serve to differentiate your brand, drive brand identity and reputation while create loyal consumer bases.
Choosing the right program for your brand is a complex and important decision. It is important to foresee and understand the full scope of the campaign and its value proposition before embarking.
There is already a lengthy list of failed social media branding strategies (it is nice you showed up to our party with a gift, but you were not invited in the first place). In this day and age, product launches are often considered to be successful if the public or press does not skewer a firm or the campaign. This is no way to define a marketing win.
Smart companies will build brand equity over time by bringing value and enabling their communities in means that best speak to the lifestyles and preferences of their target audiences. Doing so digitally will be as common-place as a billboard at a baseball park. The difference being that a smart campaign will talk to and listen to its fans.
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