It is impossible right now to discuss brands and social media without hearing about the Social Newsroom and real-time content marketing. Oreo brought it to the world’s attention and made it big with their Super Bowl ads, but the concept continues to gain attention from companies and is attracting even more questions about how brands can integrate it into their current social media strategy.

As a concept, the purpose of the Social Newsroom is to deliver real-time, viral content that is relevant and highly engaging with a brand’s online audience – putting news, trends, online buzz and culture at the center of the content. Given many names, the social newsroom, the creative newsroom, real-time marketing, content marketing, native advertising, and others – it is about uniting the ideas of real-time, relevant, and viral content and sharing it with a brand’s online audience.

There are greater uncertainties though when trying to identify and define the pieces that contribute to making up the Social Newsroom – as a social media strategy, tool, and content development process. The purpose here is to identify the pieces we see as integral parts in developing the Social Newsroom and incorporating it into a brand’s social media strategy.

Profiling

Knowing and understanding your fans and followers increases a brand’s ability and opportunities for delivering the right content at the right time. Not only do people want to know what is happening five minutes from now, they also want to zero in on the information that is important and relevant to them – as music lovers, sports enthusiasts, parents, consumers and political activists.

Knowing fan demographics, interests, and characteristics is crucial to the creation of relevant content, giving fans the topics they are interested in, care about, and want to share within their own social networks. Looking at the brand, not only from the brand’s perspective, but also through the eyes of fans can uncover how the brand fits within their every day lives, enhancing content creation that connects and engages.

News and Social Monitoring

More and more, news travels to people through social platforms and their online networks. In the desire to be constantly aware, social media has gained yet another purpose in people’s lives. People are looking to friends, fans and followers in their social networks to keep up-to-date on the latest and greatest news and online buzz.

Monitoring social platforms and online conversations reveals what is being talked about right now, enabling a brand to spot hot topics and issues as they happen. Focusing on real-time conversations across social platforms also give a brand the opportunity to spot trends before they become viral.  Social monitoring helps a brand get closer to its fans and understand topics and issues that are important to them.

The Organization

The evolution from traditional marketing campaigns to a newsroom mentality is not only about finding and creating great content, but also about the processes and methods through which the content is created. The Social Newsroom relies less on planning and the creation of original campaign content, and more on content discovery, curation and sharing. This shift requires additional capabilities from Community Managers, Editors and Content Creators to adapt current processes and systems. A major challenge can be the speed at which newsroom processes should function and changing the current ways of thinking and developing content.

Tools

Profiling, monitoring, content discovery and performance analysis are only a few of the ways that tools and technology can help support the Social Newsroom. There are many tools out there right now with the goal of helping brands in their efforts to build a better Social Newsroom. Some tools are helpful for profiling and getting to know your fans better, others focus on finding the most relevant stories and publishing the content in one seamless system. It is a big task to research and find the right tools, so first understand what the specific needs are for building your Social Newsroom.

Getting it Right

While there are many challenges in bringing all the pieces together, ultimately the Social Newsroom is about real-time and relevancy. It has to be happening now to break through all the other content and it has to be relevant to attract meaningful attention and recognition in the fast-paced online environment. News that has no connection to the brand or its fans will only succeed in damaging what the brand stands for, confusing fans and their relationship to the brand. Brands that get it right create relevant content because they know their online audience and because the best content not only connects with fans, but also connects fans to the brand – building better engagement and better brand relationships.

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On its Facebook page, Facebook has recently released a photo album with 12 photos containing some of the platform’s major growth numbers in the past year. Most of the numbers compare growth from last year to May 2013.

The number of monthly active users has more or less stagnated and has only grown 23%. However, the number of Likes and Shares has grown significantly, which indicates that even though there are not so many new users joining the platform any more, users still enjoy content and are willing to engage with it.

So, content is still king

Facebook seems to put more and more focus on content, especially with the new news feed, which is still in the process of being rolled out to users as well as the launch of Home. The new news feed gives Facebook room for more engagement potential. I guess the interpersonal relations have more or less saturated on the platform, but since so more businesses are still joining, Facebook is adapting to it and making room for people to interact around common interests in the shape of content from business pages.

The launch of Facebook Home is another way for Facebook to focus on experiencing content.  The number of mobile active users is up 54% from last year, so Facebook is really accommodating to their users’ behaviour and needs.

Here are some of the data that I am referring to, but you can see all twelve the photos in Facebook’s photo album.

Photos: Facebook

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The video app Vine is moving into a golden age. The six seconds format perfectly suits today’s news stream and will probably be an advantage like we have seen it for Twitter’s 140 character format. It makes it shareable and accessible. Some huge brands are already using the new service, but what can you actually do with it?

The biggest strength of Vine is its simplicity. With the phone in your hand, you can suddenly be a director. The app allows you to as many frames as you want within the six seconds of video shot. This makes it a perfect tool to create visual storytelling and express creativity.

Just like Instagram has become a way for people to share great and good-looking photos from your everyday life, Vine can become a great way for people to share sequences of their experiences. Visual content is more and more in focus as a way to express who you are and to create engagement – both for individuals as well as for brands.

Some of the brands that have already embraced Vine include:  Lowe’s, General Electric, Puma, USA Today, Urban Outfitters, Barcardi and Doritos.

It is only your creativity that sets the limit for how Vine can be used. Here are some examples of how brands are using Vine so far:

• Product demonstration: Why not demonstrate a product instead of just having a still photo. This will make your products come to life.
• Competitions: Challenge your users to generate content. Give people a hashtag to use that will gather all the material.
• Behind the scenes shots: Include your users and make them feel closer to your brand by for instance showing them exclusive shots before big events or just random happenings at the headquarter.
• News reporting: Bring your story to life with a video. Live footage is of course the best way of documentation.
• How to videos: This is also in line with product demos, where you can either show how to make great use of your products, short cooking tips, or home improvement tips.

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Most people have heard of Facebook EdgeRank by now. But many probably also gets a bit lost on the way of actually accommodating to the algorithm. The logic behind Facebook is often difficult to decipher and page owners can easily feel that the equation is out of their hands. We have found this infographic from the Postrocket blog that summarizes how EdgeRank works.

In the infographic, Facebook’s news feed product manager, Will Cathhart, has broken down the algorithm into 4 main social factors.

1. Your previous interactions with the author
2. Your previous interactions with the post type
3. Reactions from users who already saw the post
4. Amount of complaints or negative feedback

It really boils down to the fact that Facebook is very much centered around relations and engagement. This is something that companies and organizations need to adapt to and also why their usual marketing messages cannot always be transferred directly to Facebook. On the other hand, what page owners can do is to consider the format of the communication to work better with Facebook. For instance, use plenty of visual material and really think of what makes value to the users. Have a look at the infographic and let us know what you think.
(click to view large)

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In today’s media landscape, brands constantly strive to engage its users, customers and stakeholders. However, it is easy to get lost by making it a quest for Likes or by focusing too much on your own products in the communication and thereby loose engagement. One of the most crucial things when creating content is to make it relevant to your users. Your audience needs to be able to connect your products and services to their own context, so why not help them out? Relevant content adds value to the individual and makes him or her more prone to engage with it. Here are a few tips to help you make more relevant content.

Choose the right timing

Very often, relevance is a question of timing. People are often concerned with what surrounds them right here and right now. It may be the changing weather, a big concert, breaking news, and so on. This of course also includes a local aspect to the calculation, but if you are able to create content that can match this, you are very much headed in the right direction. Follow the news and be up-to-date to know what is happening around you, or search the web for trending topics.

Get to know your users

When knowing your audience well, it is much easier to answer the question: what’s in it for them? Leverage the data you already have to know what inspire your audience. Does your brand for instance attract an audience with certain interests or hobbies such as sports, cooking, music or politics, then this can give you ready ideas on how to create themes and topics that match your user’s interests. This part will become more and more natural as you get to know your users through dialogue. Also, you can try to ask your community what they like.

Align with your brand

Last, but not least, there’s a reason why a user has connected with you in the first place. If your users have liked your Facebook page, it is because they are interested in what you do. Simply give them what they want. Probably they expect your page to give them inspiration, entertainment or useful tips from you as an expert within your field. However, there’s a fine line between doing it well and over-doing it, so keep an eye on how your content performs and whether it is still in the interest of your users.

A consumer brand like Coca-Cola can easily combine their product with events and experiences but the challenge looks much more different for a welfare organization or a company dealing with waste. The key, as well as the challenge, is to center your communication around passion points that both the business and the users have in common and in this way incorporate both business goals, user interest and place and time relevance in your content. In that case it will be a win-win situation for both.

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Everything is closer and goes faster in the world of social media. People on Greenland can respond to a thread written in Madagascar within seconds. People are able to find likeminded people, build communities around specific interests, and find inspiration and support within those communities. If one yells, the reach is not only limited to local and random surroundings. An army can be assembled from the whole world, within seconds, ready to fight and destroy your brand. So how do you respond, stop the army from increasing, and maybe turn the situation around to your benefit?

What does the monster look like?
How do you identify a potential avalanche of negativity towards your brand? First of all – keep your enemies close. Get to know the people who will disagree with your brand’s believes. What are your company’s or product’s weaknesses, who will speak up for it and why? Sometimes you don’t have to have enemies to get issues. Spelling mistakes, incorrect facts, or unhappy customers can turn into a big issue, and worst of all a crises that can damage your company and it’s reputation. Documented complaints, well written stories, photos, videos, and writers with high reputation are most likely to start the issues.

Prepare yourself!
Have a Content Team or a Community Manager who is responsible for monitoring and taking part in the conversations concerning your brand. This can stop the avalanche before it’s even started. Time means everything, the faster you can stop it, the smaller is the risk that it will grow big and out of control.

Content in the making
All content is exposed to thousands of eyes. It is thus important to put your content under a telescope and to look at it from different angles. Ask yourself if your content can be misunderstood. No? Then ask your colleague. Next, proofread it for spelling, grammar and facts – everything needs to be triple checked before it is posted. If your content can possibly be misunderstood then have arguments, sources and a clear message ready for a quick reply.

What you should do
It happened! Heaps of angry, passionate comments are now appearing on your page, so what will you do about it? People need answers! The most provocative thing is when someone doesn’t answer you back. If you don’t have the answer yet, then say so. People will feel that you take them seriously, and maybe they calm down a bit if you don’t ignore them. You need to create a good answer. Most importantly you have to keep it short. A long explanation can loose a lot of readers and also ruin your purpose – to give a clear message. Have a decent tone that won’t reveal your frustrations. Give it a personal touch by signing off with your first name so the audience can see the real person behind the big brand. In this way, you give your message authenticity and take responsibility, which is very important. If you want to take really good care of your baby, then get yourself an app that shows when new comments or posts come in. Then you will always be well prepared if hell comes knocking at your door.

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A lot of brands know that they need to create conversations with their audience, but don’t know which conversations.

The consumer journey is more fragmented than ever, and multiple topics are influencing the consumer. Relevance is thus key to break through the increasing consumption of content. Brands need to “think as a media company” and improve their editorial skills in order to create shareworthy stories that are valuable for the community members.

Create Conversational Touch Points

Thinking as a media means to know what stories your audience wants to take part of.

Define a list of topics or themes that you can create conversations about based on your brands values, beliefs and target group. The purpose of the topics is to drive conversations in a community. Conversational touch points do not necessarily relate to the brand as such, but if the community members are capable of connecting the two, it creates great possibilities for engaging conversations.

As an example, Kronenbourg 1664 uses French culture as one of their conversational touch points. It can be easier for their users to engage about this touch point, than to only talk about the product itself. Talking about the topic creates engagement and strengthens the brand value.

When you have outlined your conversational touch points, then organize it into a conversational calendar along with events such as product launches etc. The calendar helps you to plan your content and it can be used as an overview of topics and future activities to create engagement around.

Create a Social Newsroom

Context and timing is everything. Thinking as a media also means being able to predict happenings and trends and being able to create the real-time stories in advance.

Many brands have long content creation procedures; one part where the editorial planning needs to be done according to strategies, another where the content should be produced, and a third where the content should be approved and alternative changed according to feedback. Though, the implementations of real-time content can be lost in these procedures.

Brands and agencies need to track up-coming trends, make room for ad hoc content and being able to spot relevant news connected to their conversational touch points.

In Jonas post about Social Newsroom, you can read which points you have to leverage in order to make the framework happen.

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Creating content is not something new, we have been doing this for ages. But the way marketers understand content has been changing. Because of the development of social technology has the emphasis on human social behavior on digital platforms increased.

Human behavior

This means that our everyday social behavior has moved to a digital space. We are now nursing personal relations online, sharing our thoughts, and getting advises on all kinds of topics. This opens up for practical ways to take action; we are sharing more content, collaborating in new ways, with more people, and independent of our locations. And in this way the world is getting socially connected.

Whether it is through Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook – the individual has become its own broadcaster, with the ability to build his or her own communities or engage in existing. Easily, people can connect with likeminded and establish communities based on shared understandings.

Understand your audience

Online social activity is making it easier for marketers to find their target group, and at the same time getting new and valuable insights about their audience. This valuable material is compatible for listening and engaging with your audience in a more suitable way.

Just imagine how different the language use, values and ideals of the different major soccer clubs in the UK are. It may still be soccer, but every club claims its own value and identity. So if you are not present where the values and understandings are been created, you are missing out on a lot of valuable insights.

Jump in the right suit, by communicating on their terms, in their environments, and learn their keywords and normative world that determines what’s right and wrong. In this way you’ll be an expert in understanding your community.

Local content

This idea behind the creation of contextual content is applicable to regional and local marketing, as society also share a common set of values and cultural aspects.

That is why we at Mindjumpers focus so much on local community management and hereby enabling creation of authentic and relevant content for larger brands that desire community management on a global scale but activated locally in an authentic way.

And by understanding your audience on this level, you are able to create interactive content in an ongoing process that is authentic, relevant and in line with the given linguistic code.

To sum up, marketers have to be part of the community they engage in for getting the deeper understanding of the shared values, morals and culture of the community enabling creation of interactive content that is relevant, authentic and contextual.

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Engagement is key when you want to run a successful Facebook page. Updates with questions, eye-catching photos, and share worthy stories that go viral are all important elements to make your fans more devoted to your Facebook page and brand.

Contests can increase engagement and improve your image but it’s important to have an understanding of what you’re up against before entering the big competition.

Get more fans, likes & engagement

Most marketers believe that matters, as for instance customer service is what the consumers desire on social media. This infographic however underlines that what the consumers really want is exclusive content and promotions which happens to be the box that contests fit into. It could thus be a great idea to make a contest if you want to improve your fan base. You should in this case always make it mandatory to like your page before participating.

Serious relationship

Contests can create a stronger relation between fans and your brand. The participants are actually putting an effort in the favour of your brand by joining the contest. Hopefully, the contestants will be so passionate about the competition that it will benefit your edgerank with threads of conversations revolving your brand or the competition. You should keep in mind that with your contest you do not only have a serious but also an open relationship. Therefore it’s important to include a viral element, like ‘share’ or ‘invite a friend’ that can increase the amount of competitors and spread the knowledge about the contest.

Get the permission!

Remember to get your permission text straight. In this text you describe more explicit what the rules are, what the prize involves, and maybe you can also get the approval to send out newsletters to your fans.

User generated content

Contests have many sizes and shapes. They can for example end up generating testimonials, essays, videos, and photos from the contestants. People are participating because it’s entertaining, and perhaps they are eager to win. When the competition is over they have a stronger relation with your brand but they might have forgotten about their contribution. In this case I use the motto ‘One man’s trash another man’s treasure’. Once you remembered to state it in the rules, you are free to create all the user-generated content you like. Don’t be afraid of annoying your fans. Most people love when they get their stuff exposed, especially on an official site. Also consider making a fan section on your Facebook page, which will function as a showcase of the finest examples of your fans’ contributions and express your appreciation of your fans.

What’s in it for me?

When your potential contestants are exposed for your contest, they make a quick decision, should I do this or not? Don’t play hard to get! If you want a lot of contestants, don’t ask for a homemade one-hour video. Make a light level call-to-action that doesn’t demand too much of the contestants.

Another good advice is using photos. This is well-fitted content for Facebook since it’s all about the images, and this type of content is simple to produce for the contestants and easy to understand for everyone.

Secondly, the prize is also an important motivation for the contestant. It should always be in the right context regarding to the brand and it’s strategy.

A vacation to Hawaii seems to attract a lot of people but this also can also sound like an overwhelming prize that is unreachable. Concert tickets, Ray-Bans, or a tablet are on the other hand more realistic prizes and attractive to win.

Goals

When you start planning your contest the first question you should ask yourself is what is your goal? Do you want to expand your likes? Do you want to launch a new product? Do you wish for stronger engagement? Afterwards you can plan the contest following this main goal, let it revolve the same social values as your brands’ and maybe include subscriptions. The contest should always go hand in hand with the same goal your brand aims for.

And remember, a contest is not about winning but about participating!

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Context influences the way people understand expressions. The challenge for global brands is to create stories across countries without being lost in translation, wasting impressions or inhibiting local engagement.

How is it possible to put content in the right context if you’re communicating with hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people located in different countries with several different cultures and local trends influencing how they perceive a piece of content?

A challenge for international brands

For international brands and companies, it is a challenge to control and maintain product perception worldwide. There is a wish to convey a global identity across markets and at the same time have the possibility to do marketing initiatives on a local level. Facebook’s structure of Global Pages enables you to do globally controlled local activation. Further, this still requires that brands know how to adapt to the different local cultures, how to master the local languages and being able to track local trends.

How to put content into local context

A solution to this challenge can be to implement a Glocal strategy — locally adapting a universally embraced core idea that will resonate in any market anywhere in the world.

If you can form your content to a local context, you can create relevance – and relevance means interest. To do this, we believe that only Community Managers who grew up and are still based in a certain country can create content with true authenticity and with the right context. To take language, culture and real-time trends into consideration, are tasks a Community Manager located outside the markets isn’t able to execute.

Local Community Managers can monitor across social media channels for user-generated content with high relevance to amplify through the local brand channel. This content works as peer-to-peer recommendations on a local level, which are even more relevant and scalable to the given local community. Click here to see how local community management creates value for Ben & Jerry’s.

Assure a universal brand strategy

Concentrating social media strategies and guidelines to one common hub where the local markets gather and find support, can secure an aligned global communication and enable best practice across local markets. Try to create a hub where you can share knowledge, best practice cases and processes such as editorial planning helping local managers follow the global social media marketing plan. A central hub is also a cost efficient way to use your recourses.

Develop a universal editorial strength

Garinois-Melenikiotou, CMO of Estée Lauder, suggests in the article for Harvard Business Review, that by 2020, “global brands and agencies will reorganize themselves — with speed, agility, and editorial spirit — to create stories that will travel across countries without being lost in translation.”. I would like to say; we already now need to develop this skill and being able to offer consumers more value and to optimize brand content based on local culture and trends. Things are moving fast. You have to grab attention and be able to create that certain bond that makes people feel part of your brand community – on a global and local level.

Mindjumpers Network

Mindjumpers Network is our way of working with local market activation for global brands. We enable agencies and international brands to do local social media management in a quality assured and cost efficient way across markets and countries through native Local Community Managers situated in the specific markets. If interested in more information about the network, you’re always welcome to contact us.

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