Conversify

Losing Control and Liking It.

Monique Elwell — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:03:16 +0000

Clients express concern frequently over the lack of control of their brand in social media. Frustrations and fears range from someone Tweeting inappropriate comments about their brand, leaving negative comments on their Facebook Page, or taking their TV advertising it, spoofing it and then putting it up on YouTube for all the world to see.

Our first response is that your consumers are talking about your brand regardless of whether or not your organization has decided to join in on the conversation. Engaging in Social Media allows you to correct facts in a post, express that you hear your consumers and can improve upon the problem, if one exists. It can also turn a negative into a positive. By unexpectedly showing up when consumers don’t think you’re listening to their gripes gives your organization and ability to address the problem.

There is also some evidence that some negative reviews help sales. The Economist wrote in its March 5th edition 2009 about interviews it had conducted with a number of the main shopping sites: Amazon, BaazarVoice and Shopping.Google.com (fomerly Froogle). Those companies research has a few neat conclusions.

# of reviews matter, people are more likely to buy products with 10 reviews than less.
Once there are 20 reviews, people will start to review the product more.
Negative reviews are necessary to sell the product, too. It provides a believability. In other words, if all the reviews were 100% positive, then the reviewers must be biased in some way. In the consumer’s mind, no product is perfect.

So, a bad review isn’t all that bad, after all. And neither is a bad comment all the time. What’s important is that you culturally understand how to deal with negativity and don’t over react. We’ve helped dozens of clients, and frankly, I think it’s a strength of Conversify’s. Here is a good case study for one of the crises we handled successfully.
What are your favorite examples of turning negatives into positives?

What Can Social Media Do for My Brand?

Monique Elwell — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:58:02 +0000

Today I was asked what value social media brings to brands. It’s a great question, as I told the inquirer, it requires a different way of thinking about your marketing efforts. People get tripped up with social media because it doesn’t always follow the traditional linear direct marketing model, i.e. I place an ad, it drives traffic, my sales go up.

While social media certainly can be used as direct marketing (I tweet a coupon and get a number of people responding to that. My ROI is how many people purchased), I strongly argue it is better as brand marketing, engendering loyalty and promoting evangelism.

I like to think of it as much more of a loyalty model: I capture in those consumers interested in my product/service or have used it and have had a satisfied experience. I then can continue to have a conversation with them and don’t need to continually recapture them with additional marketing spend.

The next step is to leverage social media to emotionally engage your audience. Make your site entertaining and informative. If done right, emotional engagement leads to loyalty and loyalty leads to evangelism. Both loyalty and evangelism leads to new sales, repeat sales and ‘forgiveness’, meaning loyal fans will forgive your follies and give you a second chance.

There are certainly other valuable things you can get from social media, including feedback from your customers (amazing what you can learn!), a faster customer service channel, product innovation ideas and more.

What other benefits have you gotten from social media?

Why We Went Quiet Yesterday

Nik Hewitt — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:29:09 +0000

Stop SOPA

Yesterday we had a redirect on these pages and said nothing in our social channels. Not a Tweet, not a Post. Nothing. Let’s face it, this was out of character. So why? What motivates people like us and sites like Wikipedia, Redit, G00D, even Google to take a stand?

Currently there’s legislation under consideration by the United States Congress that gives many of us serious concern. The ramifications of this legislation go beyond the US and stretch across the whole internet. Many websites, especially social sites, are based in the USA and, if the legislation passes, many countries will likely follow the USA Government’s lead.

This legislation is called the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA) in the Senate. These bills are an attempt to control the illegal piracy of copyrighted content (like movies, software, and music). Preventing piracy of copyrighted content is a commendable goal, and we totally support legitimate and sensible efforts to combat these activities and protect content creators.

However, SOPA and PIPA goes far beyond simply addressing piracy. This proposed legislation actually threatens any website that features user-generated content. SOPA and PIPA don’t attack the real problem, and do nothing to build up the services that do solve the problem, and simply can’t work from a technological standpoint.

Imagine if any copyright holder could file a claim that your website is hosting unauthorized content (such as a song in the background of a video or even a link to downloadable content in one of your forums). Under the proposed law, ad networks, payment providers and ISP’s will be liable for their user’s infringement. While PIPA targets only foreign sites, the mechanism by which it does so is to put tremendous levels of compliance and liability on third party service providers in the US. All these services would be compelled to immediately remove support for a site or face a costly legal battle that would likely shut off the service entirely. Many small and niche services would be simply unable to meet the costs that come with defending their sites against possible violations.

The real fear is the massive unproductive damage these bills will have to communication, jobs, the economy, and innovation – not just in the US but world-wide. It’s because of this we felt we had to take a stand and go quite yesterday to support our clients, tens of 1000′s of our fellow web-workers, and the core principals of the Internet. Thank you for your understanding.

It seems yesterdays web-wide action may have had an effect. There are now 35 Senators speaking out against Mondays vote on PIPA. Last week there were just 5. It will take 41 “no” votes to permanently stall PIPA (and SOPA) in the Senate. When communities speak with this level of volume, congress has to listen. President Obama’s 2008 campaign success was due in large part to the social media support of under 30 voters, and congress knows the power of the WWW to raise an issue in the public conscious.

If you would like to know more about yesterday blackout please visit the SOPA Strike website.

HOW TO: Many Locations, One Social Account.

Monique Elwell — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:11:20 +0000

Many hotels, restaurants and franchises with multiple locations are struggling with their social media brand architecture. If you are a restaurant with ten separate locations, should you have a set of social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for each location? The answer is often ‘Yes’ as it provides for a local feel and personal is social, but sometimes your budget just doesn’t allow for it. Perhaps you are just starting out in social media and you want to crawl before you walk.

We have often had this conversation with hotels, restaurants and franchises and here’s a tip on how to use one set of channels, under the auspices of your main brand, to do the heavy lifting for your multiple chains. Note, though, that if your locations exceed 10, this might be difficult to execute properly. Your channel may explode with 8 or 9 locations (plus the main brand).

When you create your Social Media Conversation Guide and Social Media Editorial Calendar dedicate roughly half of your messaging for corporate messages that apply to all locations and (roughly) the other half to local happenings specific to those establishments. In our illustration below, you can see three different ways that you can deploy local flavor without having separate local channels. We have created a fake brand of pubs in England called the “Tap and Tweet” (as suggested by our friend Trevor at TankPR, via Twitter).

Examples: Corporate Messaging

@TapTweet: Fancy a free jug of Timothy Taylors Landlord on your birthday, or cocktails? Take a look at our Members Club – http://bit.ly/link001

@TapTweet: We know how tricky it can be to find good gluten free menus in other restaurants, we like to apologise on their behalf…

@TapTweet: Planning something special this Valentines day? We have exclusive special celebrations for food lovers – http://bit.ly/link002

@TapTweet: Children should eat from the same menu as grown ups! Just smaller portions – http://twitpic/002 [photo of small child enjoying his meal]

@TapTweet: Want high quality British food with a festive twist? Take a look at our festive menu – http://bit.ly/link004

@TapTweet: Chicken liver parfait with plum chutney & sourdough toast, shall we book you a table? – http://twitpic/003 [photo]

Examples: Just the Name
In the following examples, we illustrate each Tweet with the full name of the establishment and sometimes even what street it is on. The advantage to this is everyone will know what location is speaking. The negative is long location names will shorten the content you can put out in the limited 140 character Tweets. Space is less of an issue for most other social networks, like Facebook.

@TapTweet: Happy Anniversary Jane, from all of us at Cavern Street in #Nottingham – http://twitpic/004 [photo of person celebrating birthday in Nottingham pub]

@TapTweet: Welcoming Claire from Bradford, our new Ilkley waitress. She speaks fluent Yorkshire, likes Italian wine, loves to ski – http://twitpic/005 [photo of Claire smiling and working in Ilkley pub]

@TapTweet: Live jazz piano from local pianist & regular John Smith here tonight at Stockton Heath – http://twitpic/006 [photo of pianist with glass of wine etc.]

Examples: Hashtag
A slight alternative to the full location name is to create a hashtag for each location. Here we abbreviate Tap & Tweet with TT followed by the location or an abbreviation of a location. In some examples we just use the location name. An additional advantage is that often location hashtags are used for other reasons, so those who search for #Nottingham (or journalists etc., who use it for research) will find posts about your establishments as well.

@TapTweet: Congratulations to Geoff from all here at #TTStratford-upon-Avon on his recent promotion. We love an excuse to break out the Cava!

@TapTweet: It’s 6am here at Millstone Lane, #Leicester, & here’s the first delivery of the day – http://twitpic/004 [instagram photo of shire horses and dray from Hook Norton Brewery]

@TapTweet: It’s #GRADUATIONDAY here in #Sheffield. Big thumbs up to our friends Rich, Jane, Michael, & Tina on their new degrees! – http://twitpic/009 [photo of students in capes with proud parents in pub]

@TapTweet: First snow of the year in #Ilkely! Lucky it’s nice & warm inside. – http://twitpic/010 [photo of outside of pub in snow]

Examples: Carrot

Here we use a ‘Carrot’ with initials denoting this is Stockton Health. In the Twitter background, we would have each restaurant named with the Carrots so people who know which establishment was speaking. The positive is carrots only take up 2-4 characters when compared to the much longer place names, however, it might be more difficult for those new to Twitter to associate a place with a carrot and it may be totally lost if retweeted.

@TapTweet: @SDMumford Yes, you can buy gift certificates, please Direct Message us with your phone number & we’ll give you call to set one up! ^SH

@TapTweet: Cheers! @customer1 & @customer2 from @localbusiness1, our Friday lunchtime regulars. – http://twitpic/011 [photo of 2 business lunch-time diners with staff] ^HG

Many thanks to my co-author, Nik Hewitt, for his help with the ideas and the messaging on this post!

Do you have other tips to show local flavor within a corporate run channel?

Five Tips to Increasing Fans & Followers in Social Media

Monique Elwell — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:13:55 +0000

I was in a LinkedIn Group the other day and came across a member in group who wrote, “We all know how it can be challenging for a new business to grow a fan base. So let’s follow each other’s business on Facebook. If you’ve got a business page on Facebook simply leave a link to your page in a comment. This is a simple, easy , painless networking tool and can benefit everyone in the group! I am borrowing this brilliant idea from other Member on LinkedIn – Thank You. ”

Okay, so we’ve seen this in every LinkedIn group at some point. I know whoever wrote this had great intent, but I am sorry to say, your result is not going to be what you want it to be. Why? Because there was no thought toward strategy. Before doing anything in social media you need to ask two rather critical questions.

First, who is your target audience?

Is it your employees?
The people who buy your products & services?
Your partners or vendors?
Or some combination of all three?

Second, what are your objectives?
Depending on the audience there are dozens of things you might want them to do in the short-term and that might differ from the long-term. Some examples are:

Increase communication between management and employees.
Respond quickly to complaints for people who have purchased your product/service.
Develop a community/database of individuals who are interested in your brand or have had a satisfied experience.
Engage with your community to develop an emotional connection and convert them to loyalists who evangelize your brand.

Without that your results will be accidental, and accidental efforts produce accidental results.

Since the original request really focused on ‘increasing fans’ as an objective, let’s look at some tips to increase fans of your targeted audience.

Reach out to influencers.
Develop a Conversation Guide and Social Media Editorial Calendar.
Import your email list.
Run ads on Social Media sites (currently Facebook, Twitter and Linked In have them.)
Leverage Hashtags.

But…be careful when buying fans and not spending any efforts to engage with them, resulting in what we call Fan and Forget.

What are some other tips to get quality fans?

Does Your Social Media Style Match Your Brand?

Karen Woodward — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:20:53 +0000

You know that annoying girl at the office who talks in acronyms? Or that guy who won’t stop clicking his pen in meetings? Your social media style can be just as irritating to your fans. Make sure you know your audience and are talking to them accordingly. Monique wrote about brand personality and tone last week, and there are a few things that I want to add:

Establish your brand’s style and voice
Don’t just make this up. Know who your customers are and how they talk and want to be talked to. Are they teenagers? Are they sophisticated? Are they primarily men, or women? Without naming names, there is a home improvement company that frequently talks like a teenager in their social channels. Lots of 2’s in place of to and OMG!s and fave!s Someone remodeling or redecorating their house is an adult. So it’s off-putting when the voice of a leader in home renovation sounds like someone who rides a skateboard.

Think before you post
Have fun, be creative, but don’t go crazy. It’s always okay to try something new, such as going a little more casual, or adding some humor. But don’t swear (it’s rare that anything heavier than a “WTF” is appropriate) and only use jargon if it’s appropriate for your brand. For example, if you work in financial services, or the law, anything other than the appropriate jargon sounds odd. And I’ve said it before, but please do not talk like a PR bot. Don’t say, “We apologize for any inconvenience,” when you mean, “I’m sorry.” Only use words like “optimize,” or “leverage,” or “robust” if it fits your brand’s personality. You should never sound like you cut and pasted from a press release.

Humor is good, but remember that it often doesn’t translate well when typed out (which you’ve probably already learned with email). Also, people have different senses of humor. What’s your brand’s humor? Dark? Silly? Teasing? You better know it.

Where do you sit?
Not literally, although it could be. Do you sit in an office and have “office bets” you can talk about? Do you work at a major Big Box store and “grab time to tweet” between helping customers? Are you a tour group leader who’s traveling all the time (with loads of pictures and videos?). Figuring this out will often help you with voice and ideas of what to post.

Are you a We or an I?
Are you speaking as a group, or are you speaking on behalf of the group? There is no right or wrong here, and it may just be a matter of your personal style preference.

The above is just a sample of what we consider when developing a Brand Voice and Style for our clients, and it’s something I love. Every brand is different, and your voice should be too. Listen to your customers – they’ll tell you how to talk and behave.

Have you ever been irritated with the way a brand speaks to you on social media?

What is your Brand Personality and Tone?

Monique Elwell — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:38:05 +0000

A big portion of what we do here at Conversify is blogging, Tweeting or providing status updates on behalf of our clients’ brand. Before we can do that our clients need to share with us what their brand personality is so we can engage as their brand in social media in a consistent tone.

It’s best to hire a consultancy to do all the work that is required to really develop a great brand strategy, (included in that will be a brand personality.) There are a number of marketing consultants that we recommend, but recently we have been working with Content Evolution, founded by Kevin Clark, former Head of IBM’s Global Brand.

At the end of that process, you will likely have brand personality. Often that is roughly five words that describe your brand.

Harley Davidson Cycles, “Rugged and Macho with a Spirit of Adventure and Freedom”
Target “Stylish & Trendy, Younger, Competitively Priced”
ESPN “An Authoritative Passion for Sports, Knowledgeable with a bit of Irreverence.”
Conversify’s brand personality is, “Social Media pioneers who are approachable, instructional, business-focused and witty.”

[Special Thank you to AmicusBD for some of the above sample brand personalities outlined in their White Paper #6 found here ]

A brand personality could also describe your brand as if it were a person (grandmom, little boy, teenage girl?) or an animal (cuddly puppy dog, sly cat, aloof zebra, etc.)

Since social media is a constant conversation, we need the more fleshed out brand personality (the one that is described as a person.) How we would speak on behalf of each of the above brands would be very different. Once we have that brand personality, we may or may not have to nuance it for social media. Many brand personalities come off as too aloof for social media—adding that approachability is our specialty.

How have you adapted a brand personality (yours or another organization’s) to social media. What has worked and not worked?

Social Media Predictions Beyond 2012 [pt. 2]

Nik Hewitt — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:59:15 +0000

“I figure lots of predictions is best. People will forget the ones I get wrong and marvel over the rest.” ~ Alan Cox

With a few basic top-level predictions earlier this week – namely brands beginning to better understand social ROI, integration of shopping functionality into social channels, and web 3.0 and the semantic web doing our discovery and finding our markets for us – let’s take a look at a few more for the coming year (and for the future of social media and the Internet in general). It’s fairly safe to make predictions this year, as apparently the world is going to end before I’m proven wrong. Here goes:

Social Gaming, and Gamification

With games like Farmville attracting millions of users and creating billions of dollars in revenue, it’s not surprise that the social gaming industry is huge. Around 60 million players strong in the US alone, and growing daily. One in five Americans from the ages of six and upwards currently take part in some sort of online social gaming platform. Revenue possibilities don’t only look good, they are the sort of 20ft barrel throwing gorilla we just can’t ignore. In 2009 social gamers spent $2.2 billion on virtual goods. In 2013 it’s expected to hit over $6 billion.

Looking at this another way, being on a diet is now a social game. We are encouraged by our peers and through input by friends and relatives. ”I ran 5 miles and burnt a bazillion calories” is now a common thing to see from a friend in our streams, and we give them a quick casual click to say well done, point, “go you”. Facebook is encouraging this still further with it’s new integrated apps and imminent ‘Timeline’ (legal problems pending) and Google+’s inherent games platform.

A lot of iPhone and Andriod apps seamlessly connect to our social profiles, almost by default, and let us keep track of our progress as well as share the data with our friends. We want to share our achievements, and there’s a certain ‘gamification’ that bridges social and real world together almost seamlessly now.

Social gaming is definitely growing, but more brands are going to cotton onto it. Already we’re seeing growing game sponsorship, especially by the entertainment industry, and free sharing applications based on achievement (all sponsored by brands).

Even Klout is a form of social gaming, gaming the channels themselves, and it’s possible we’ll see a call for regulation in 2012 and for an ‘independent social standard’ in this area to fight current skepticism of such metrics.

Mobile is MASSIVE & GROWING

All serious social channels have a mobile component. Smartphone access to our channels is in our pockets 24/7. There’s 160 million Apple iDevice users and 152 million Android users. I’ve personally posted photographs to Facebook (and Twitter) from just about everywhere, and logged into 4SQ from the top of the highest peak in the UK. I love Instagram (and it’s coming to Android any day). Network coverage is growing, functionality is growing, apps are getting more affordable and the internationally accessible skill base for developers is growing. We share our lives, immediately as they happen, via mobile. We share our experiences of products and places, immediately as they happen. If we want an app it’s within our reach to build our own, and we can already see a massive shift in the time spent on social networks on mobile devices. This is going to continue to rise. Soon, word-wide, the majority of people will experience the World Wide Web in their hand, and not their desktop or in their lap.

Imagine combining our geographical location and with added Web 3.0 targeting. Imaging that Mall scene out of Minority Report where Tom Cruise walks into the mall and the advertising knows who he is, but instead your phone is receiving push notifications when you’re in a certain geographical area with products, deals and services that are targeted just to you. Imagine quickly sharing that with your networks. Delivering advertising based on your geo-location AND your interests could be gold, both together. Ok, maybe not so much in 2012 but we’re getting closer (Japan is way ahead of the game) and it’s only just around the corner.

Starbucks and others are already using smartphone technology to allow you to make payments. We should keep an eye on this for sure. The Google+ app for Android has a mobile payment system, which could open a wealth of possibilities for shopping and payment.

The age of the all purpose Star-Trek Tricorder is with us NOW, and it’s growing. Just wait ’till India catches up, which brings us on to…

Access

Right now there are 860 million social network users, and growing. Anyone can set up a social channel. It’s part of our every-day and integrated into our routines. Look at the London riots – from coordinating clean-up to coordinating unrest – it’s part of life now…

India and other countries and catching up. Wi-fi and 3G, soon 4G, are everywhere. More an more people will get access, and the world is multi-linqual. The point of social is it gets people talking, from the scientific community to hobbyists, and this will continue to grow and people will find new ways to use social media that we just don’t expect. It’s social. It’s the best and worst of us (well, those of us who have access) as a species, and the number of people getting access to connection and technology is growing by the hour.

Changing Channels

Sort of obvious really. Things will become more popular, and less popular, and things will stay the same. I know, I know, but it’s true.

Sure we can make some broad sweeping statements. Google+ will get integrated into EVERYTHING Google does in a very obvious way, but will grow slowly. Facebook will still rule the playground, but be prepared for supersaturation and further security related back-lashes. Tumblr will grow in popularity. Traditional blogging will get less prevalent, but increase in quality and retain it’s SEO value.

On the whole we’ll still have to monitor audiences closely, but be sure they will change and the channels will keep moving the goal posts. The only thing we can do is be vigilant, maintain strong standards, and be true to our friends, fans, and followers by listening.

So there we have it, combined with the post earlier this week that’s my top-level guesses for 2012 and beyond.

Oh, also, just to put your mind at ease, I very much doubt the world will end and I’m prepared to go on record saying that. If I’m wrong, who’ll be around to hassle me on Twitter about it?

I’d love to know what you think, and if you see any top-level patterns forming you’d like to add?

Social Media Predictions Beyond 2012 [pt. 1]

Nik Hewitt — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:37:58 +0000

“The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its prediction and then disappears.” ~ Bill Vaughan

It’s that time of year again when we have to dig out our crystal balls and do the obligatory blogging of predictions for next year. As a futurist, here’s a few top-level guesses based on the technology, trends, and the direction we’re naturally drifting, for 2012 and for the future of the social web:

Brands ‘Get’ Social ROI

Companies are going to start understanding one of the core elements of social media. Sure, they do ‘a little’ already, but be prepared for every niche commodity and his dog to see the light of day. They have to or they’ll fail, and watching those of us out here making the headway is going to educate them. If they don’t get it in 2012 they’ll miss the boat.

Social media ROI is not about numbers of followers, it’s about engagement, evangelism, and good will. Businesses is going to genuinely start to see the real opportunities of letting B2B and B2C customers behind the curtain and the advantages in sharing what they do.

In the very near future just about everyone will be able to see a place for themselves in the social space. They’ll realize that ROI depends upon what you are trying to accomplish with your social media campaign, and that channels are a tool toward accomplishing that. Social CRM will go ‘prime-time’, and I’m glad we’re already here.

Online Shopping

All the digital heavyweights are making a play for your living room. Apple, Netflix (especially in the UK), Hulu, Amazon, Google…

It started with Warner Bros. offering The Dark Knight through its official Facebook page, and now brands are really starting to see the real results driven value in having a custom eStore in their social channel.

Look at Starbucks. They have a captive audience of nearly 27 million people in Facebook. They add one tab, that’s a lot of coverage. Who needs to direct people anywhere else? There’s less and less need for a destination site when there’s the potential for people to click away by clicking on yet another page. Why not do it directly in the social channel? We’ve built store fronts for clients selling everything from souvenirs, to wine, to concert tickets and it’s always boosted sales massively.

In the next year your favorite social sites are going to become some of the major channels of future online shopping, maybe (eventually) even giving Amazon a run for their money. Even better if we can gather recommendations from our friends and get trusted input in our purchases. As reported by Internet Retailer, an online study showed that a massive 68% of consumers with Facebook accounts say a positive referral from a Facebook friend would make them more likely to buy from or visit a retailer. The future of social-shopping is very bright indeed.

Social is an integral part of the marketing mix, and the big companies will be leaning on it more and more to keep their customers in-the-loop. Best Buy, Macy’s, Target, and Wal-Mart publicized their Black Friday deals early to their Facebook fans. Amazon and Toys R Us ran contests, giveaways and flash sales to coax consumers into “liking” their Pages. Best Buy created an event page for Black Friday and got nearly 28,000 people to RSVP as “attending.” The future is shopping.

Web 3.0

The back-bone of the web is changing all the time. Flash is on it’s way out. @font-face is on it’s way in. HTML5 is going to get more widespread and designers will find ways to make it rock our world (for better or worse). User experience will continue to grow as a paramount concern. These are technical certainties, but it all goes far beyond the code we see on the surface.

Web 3.0 will be, for want of better description, a self-aware web. Already, if we ‘opt-in’, we have an integrated social media experience. We tag pictures, register our thumbs up with e-commerce sites and publish them to Facebook, we have our Twitter feeds publishing on our Linked-In and Facebook profiles , we give a casual +1 to a button on a niche site about the new Avenger Movie and Google might soon be generating us a Spark for Marvel Comics.

Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are collecting this (and other) information about each any every one of us: Our likes and dislikes, our interests and preferences. A massive, and some might say scary, amount of data attached to each and every one of us. This, as defined by the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, Tim Berners-Lee (who coined the phrase), will be called The Semantic Web. This is Web 3.0, where machines will become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers.

Soon, we’ll not need to search for information in the way we do now. Instead, data is going to find us based on the collected pool of information about us. 2012 will see the web, no doubt driven by search giant Google, moving more and more in this direction. It’s all about the data, and if we embrace it without a skeptical back-lash the right information will be served to the right people at the right time, saving us all a lot of effort and energy. Imagine the applications for this within, and because of, social channels. The semantic nature of social networks is going to allow us almost unimaginable targeting to whatever we see as our perfect demographic.

We are going to have amazing targeting power in the future, and 2012 will move us closer. Just look at Facebook Social ads, and that’s only the beginning.

Anyway, that’s a few to begin with, more in Part 2. As per the groundhog, I shall now disappear.

I’d love to know what you think, and if you see any patterns forming you’d like to add?

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Your Fans

Karen Woodward — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:05:28 +0000

We often say that numbers don’t matter as much as engagement. Having 100 followers who talk to you all the time is more important than having 1000 who never talk at all. Social media is about conversations, and discovering and fostering your evangelists. Yet we still see companies who are more concerned with the quantitative results over the qualitative. And that’s understandable. It’s easier to measure how many followers you have than it is to figure out what a good conversation has gotten you. But we’re sticking to Numbers Don’t Matter as Much as Engagement.

What happens when you buy fans

There are lots of ways to drive people to your Facebook, Twitter etc. You can buy them, you can upload mailing lists, you can host a sweepstakes or contest. That will work. You will get fans. But then something happens that we call “Fan and Forget.” This occurs when people fan your page and then forget about you. Your lights are on, people are in there, but they’re not paying attention to you. It’s like your 3rd grade birthday party when your mom made you invite the whole class but half them didn’t want to be there. You light your birthday cake, you talk about how great this party is, but no one is listening.

Compare that to…

Compare that to a channel that’s filled with people talking to you – posting to your wall and commenting on your posts. These are your friends that you hang out with all the time.They love you, they are loyal, and they tell other people how great you are. When something goes wrong they have your back. When you ask them to buy, they will. This may be a smaller group, but you can count on them.

One of our clients has an organically-built fan base that is incredibly engaged. This doesn’t mean that we just chat all day, although some of our posts are just silly fun. We strategically post at least once a week about the product and where to buy it. Over time, we’ve seen that whenever we post something encouraging people to buy, they do. (But if you slam them over the head and ask them to buy with every single post, they won’t. That wouldn’t make a very fun birthday party.)

When you buy or bribe followers, you haven’t affected them emotionally. They won’t feel as if they’ve chosen to be your friend, and they won’t feel any reason to be loyal to you. Having said that, it is still possible to turn these followers into fans, it’s just more difficult. If you have an entertaining page, and you consistently post/tweet, and you listen to your followers, you can capture some of these people and eventually turn them into engaged fans. One of the ways we have accomplished this is by paying close attention to the people who are following us and providing them what they are asking for, or responding to their concerns.

So what’s the lesson here?

Don’t buy your fans. But that’s not always possible is it? Unfortunately, numbers still matter. So if you have to buy or bribe in order to get fans, make sure you have an entertaining page that is updated constantly. Listen to your followers, especially on Twitter. Find out what they want and see if you can give it to them. The whole purpose of social media is to act as a friendly place for you to chat with people who love you or are curious about you. If they don’t already love you, at least make them curious. That’s a much better party than your awkward 3rd grade one where people couldn’t wait to leave.

What are your thoughts on buying fans?

(And you really want a cupcake right now, don’t you?)