The opening question that kick-started the course of conversation at this morning’s Journal of Marketing breakfast debate was: “You have to be on Social Media to be relevant. But can you monetise your involvement, and how do you link it with traditional platforms and manage the process?” – Jeremy Maggs –

So are we over-emphasising the need for social media? Herman Degener from Habari Group believes that if your brand is not on social media, you are missing out. “Your consumers are already there – you can talk to them, but do it in a strategic manner.” But where do we start?

1. Listen:

Before you set up your social media platforms, listen and research in order to find out where the best place is to set these up. Know where your consumers are; do they spend most of their day on Facebook or do they quickly check their Twitter feed at the red traffic light? Your social media strategy should start with an understanding of where consumers are talking about your brand. This may be difficult to determine with privacy policies in place, but on certain platforms, like Twitter, it is easy to search for your brand and to read what is being said about your brand.

Remember, consumers are not on social media to interact with brands, they want to interact with their friends, and this is who they will be speaking to about your brand. These consumers use your brand on a daily basis and interact with in at various touch points, meaning that they probably know your brand better than you do. Use this information to your advantage. Use feedback form consumers to improve business processes and customer service, to create new products and to improve the aspects of your brand that they deal with every day. So in short, there is no value in listening if you are not going to use the insights you gained from listening and push it back into your business with the goal of building a stronger brand.

2. Link your Social Media to other platforms:

What most brands are promising online is not translating to what they are delivering offline. It’s important that social media tie in with the rest of your business. Because people are spending lots of time on social media, it’s important to build a bridge between social and traditional media. How you interact on line will determine what you do in your traditional and offline media. It is no longer sufficient to say “follow us”. You should tell consumers, or even better, show them why they should follow you. Use traditional media to give consumers a reason to find and follow you on social media. People have their own impressions about a brand, whether the communication is online or offline, but if a brand is honest offline, it will work better online.

3. Engage

Carla Jones, form saidWot gives simple rules when it comes to engagement:  “Being on social media depends on your business goals. If you have nothing to say, don’t go on. If you have value to add and quality content, go for it.” Angus Robinson from Native added that social media is also not only about the platform – it’s also about networking and building communities of interest. People are passionate about the brand and will therefore follow it on specific social media platforms. This provides the opportunity to engage with them on a more personal level and in return reinforce their passion for the brand. Honesty is again mentioned as an important factor – Social media should not be used to try and fix bad products or services, it should be used to improve and interact. Brands should be honest about what they offer and not try and promote a wonderful product when in fact the consumers think the opposite.

4. Get them talking

It’s one thing to be on social media, and another to manage it correctly – it is important to always communicate in a manner that generates feedback. One way to do this is to follow the example of Woolworths who draws attention by using well-shot, professional images on their social media.

Social media should be used to get consumers talking about your brand. Herman Degener confirmed this: “positive or negative. If they can’t even talk about your brand, how are they going to buy it?” The problem here is that you cannot create a viral campaign – it can only become viral if the content is interesting and engaging. Suzanne Stokes, from MWEB explains this – social media is a form of word of mouth and brands should create content that is authentic and engaging in order to generate feedback from consumers to push back into the business. This creates trusts and loyalty as it leads to consumers becoming influencers. This is important as people listen to other people, rather than to brands.

So, is there a magic formula? Not exactly, but the best way to seed a conversation can be summarised as follows:

Value + Relevance + Engagement.

A packaging change by PepsiCo illustrates social media’s growing influence on corporate marketing. Just another example of how consumer behavior is changing the world. With a huge stage called the internet to voice opinions, upload video content and share with friends and foes the opinions they harbor, the citizen journalist can be a dangerous enemy to make.

Continue reading

In the last year you must have heard at least of one of the following terms:  digital branding, online reputation management, digital reputation management, digital footprints, Google reputation or reputation management online.  If not, it’s time you step away from the limelight you have been living in or step out of the dungeon you’ve been hiding in, because the odds are that something about you exist online. The question is… do you know what people are saying about you?

Continue reading