The Social Media Paradigm Shift

Social media has catalysed a paradigm shift in the way that brands communicate with consumers online, whilst altering the way in which consumers consume such communications. The social media landscape enables us to use various social media-based tools to interact with targeted consumers, during the times when they are most likely to engage with our brands.

Australian brands have acknowledged the power of customer engagement via social media and are doing what they can to join and start conversations online. Marketing tool-kits have changed, morphing to include

social media, as a key component. No longer will consumer-facing brands rely on online sponsorship, email marketing and general advertising mediums alone for brand management and market exposure.The fact remains that consumers are spending more time in their social networking ‘zone’ than ever before and are less inclined to leave the platform whilst in their ‘social media zone’. This means that brands that are appropriately within the ‘zone’ will benefit. The amount of benefit will be varied, ultimately driven by engagement levels achieved.

Engagement for Brands

Social media enables us to advertise to, sell to, to connect and to engage with consumers in a two-way reciprocal manner. Consumers are now the empowered masters of our online domain, and they seek more from it – they want to interact more and to communicate more, whilst they want to be more ‘online present’. 52% of Australian online users noted that businesses should establish new ways to interact with them online. (Source: Nielsen)

Social media engagement for brands is about building trust with key consumers; it’s about partaking in 2 way conversations that add mutual value to at least 2 parties. Immersion within this space is an investment of our time and assets, and we do this in order to engage and interact more with current buyers in order to strengthen and retain current relationships, increase brand awareness and acquire new buyers.

Social media value is not just about shared brand content across the online landscape – it’s about the provision of content that holds meaning and relevance to the receiver, which then catalyses a reaction – an interaction between brands and users. When content is shared across social media networks, brands can achieve new consumer online reach levels, increased awareness and user engagement.

Social media offers brands a foundation for real time customer feedback, which can be used to improve future levels of customer service excellence, product, service and branding brilliance. Whether or not we like it consumers will talk about our brands in the way that they see fit. By not being involved in this space we miss the chance to partake in a conversation that could otherwise be detrimental.

By immersing ourselves within the social media space we are giving ourselves a better chance of joining conversations that without us, may catalyse a negative effect on our brands. Content share and concomitant word of mouth is a very powerful tool for disgruntled consumers and brands that are able to respond accordingly in the right place, in a timely manner will reap great benefit.

Brands that hold a social media presence are better enabled to respond appropriately to negative posts in comparison to brands that are not. A negative post that is responded to well can also act as a lever for a brand to show it’s human side – consumers not only appreciate commentary from brands in the way of general responses, updates and improvements, they are starting to expect it. A brand response to a consumer post (be it positive, or negative) can go a long way, potentially turning a negative situation into a positive consumer–brand experience, whilst it may catalyse new buyer behaviour and concomitant brand advocacy.

KISS Principle and Strategy

Brands should embrace social media as a new universe based-marketing medium and this means respecting the communities within, and consumer desires in line with what, how and when in terms of engagement and appropriateness of contact. Social media content provision, consumer engagement, marketing and branding efforts should be synergistic with greater marketing strategy and goals.

The closer we get to cracking the code that is social network engagement, the faster the landscape and the portals within it seem to change around us and so we must evolve with the landscape itself, if we are going to remain abreast of social media. Keep your social media effort well planned and keep it realistic, in line with resource manageability, and be prepared to monitor, to learn and to grow within the space.  Brands that take time to listen and learn prior to participating within the landscape will achieve greater engagement, becoming the leaders in this space. Whilst, brands that show a human side to business, promote transparency via truth, and value that engagement is a privilege will win. The winners in this space will be those who understand that this is a game of listening, online community membership and two-way communication.

Target market segmentation 101 is at the core of social media engagement success, whilst concomitant social network selection is key. Find the right network, listen, learn, and then join the conversation, with the plan of becoming a trusted member of the community. Keep your content fresh, relevant, transparent, honest, and show a human side of business wherever possible. Timely responses that are key, and remember that you have entered a consumer-based social media zone, so talk with consumers, not at them, in line with their interests, in order to retain their engagement. Note that if you fail to plan within the social media landscape, you plan to fail and a fail in this space can cause a potential negative backwash that could be detrimental to your brand.

Retention Strategy

A lack of retention strategy means that we are limiting our further opportunity outlook, in line with new client acquisition, current user retention, and word of mouth potential. A top-shelf social media strategy can score you a ticket to the inner circle of trust, but this is merely the beginning. A retention strategy is crucial if we are to retain user to brand interest, engagement and interaction within this space in the short, mid and long term. If you don’t have a Retention Strategy your social media effort will be only half-baked.

The most Engaged brands

Whilst there does seem to be a correlation between social media engagement and financial success, it is also important to note that this does not come about without investment, in terms of time and company assets. A large investment across multiple social media mediums is not necessarily the best way forward for all brands due to resource limitations, so we must refer to budget constraints and goals in any regard prior to ‘dipping our toes’ into this space. It is important to leverage social media in line with company mission and to access the correct portals and tools, in order to truly benefit. Many brands have spread themselves too thin across multiple communities, which has led to untimely responses and disappointing engagement levels. The world’s most engaged brands have created their social media presence in line with what was deemed to be realistically achievable at the time of entry, based on internal resource and planned task management.

It is possible to achieve great levels of consumer engagement by the use of a singular social network like Facebook, subject to a brand’s target market consumers being present and a well-formulated engagement strategy that considers who and what, in terms of internal staff resource management and key task allocations necessary to manage this medium appropriately.

Trust and Facebook for Brands

Consumers are more likely to buy a product that has been recommended by a trusted friend, or that a trusted friend is affiliated with. Social media is a merely a universe of many communities – networks of people who have joined to communicate with trusted others. Social networks are clusters of like-minded individuals, who have come together to discuss and share content in line with their interests and desires.

Facebook is Australia’s fastest growing, largest, most popular social network, with more than 7 million Australian users, growing by almost 500,000 users between mid August 2009 and October 2009 end. Facebook continues to grow exponentially, in line with consumer social networking desires. It provides consumers with a multitude of tools, not withstanding it’s real time, synchronous content share tool.

Brands that are making themselves present within Facebook will be the beneficiaries moving forward, as an inherent part of the online networking experience. Such brands will be insidiously top of mind when it is time for their related market segment to buy.

Facebook enables business to engage and interact with targeted consumers to build stronger, more interactive relationships with current clients, whilst acting as a lever for new business acquisition. It is an online community portal that links people and brands effectively, fulfilling mutually interactive desires. Facebook has become an ultimate marketing tool that exists as a cost effective portal for businesses.

Facebook dedicated Brand applications and Increased consumer Reach

The Facebook platform offers brands a hub for dedicated brand application creation and development. The most engaging, interactive Facebook applications engender instant

value add, and convenience based gratification for consumers, whilst providing an additional potential perception point to users.Facebook applications encourage user interaction, engagement and brand page traffic that can then be used to grow page ‘fan’ volumes. A good retention strategy can turn resultant page fans into a new messaging stream touch point for future content share and marketing endeavours. Facebook and it’s associated geometric mesh factor offers a unique multiple user touch-point for brands, across a wide user age demographic.

Heidi von Creytz

© Cheddar Marketing Pty Ltd