A couple months back, I had the privilege of participating in a live webinar panel discussion entitled, “Doing to Delivering: Five Considerations for Making Social Media Strategic”.
I was joined by:
Chase Bowers – Internet Communications Specialist, U of Alabama
Melissa Richards – Director of Marketing & Publications, Va Tech
The webcast was hosted by John Mohr of Systems Alliance and was geared towards helping marketing teams in higher education learn how to make social media an effective component of a school’s integrated, strategic communications program.
And, you can check out our social media response flow chart, adapted from the US Airforce Public Affairs office’s own plan. It’s a fantastic logistic blue print to for managing social media response.
Hi folks! I will be at the upcoming Site Executive User Conference, “Empower” in Baltimore, MD on November 15, 16 & 17, 2011. This conference is free to all existing SE customers.
On Day 2, I will be participating on the keynote panel, “Creating an Excellent User Experience” along with Dan Greller – Legg Mason (@dgreller); Ken Nakata – Director Accessibility Consulting Practice, HiSoftware; Jeanne Ivy – D.C.D., Web Consultant, Systems Alliance (@jivydesign).
Following the keynote panel, I will be leading a session along with John Mohr (@johntmohr) entitled, Web Effectiveness Strategy Track: Social Media – The Value of a “Like”.
I almost don’t know where to begin with this one… so first, I’ll show Chapstick’s most recent ad:
Did Chapstick make an ass out of itself in its recent campaign, or did the social media team fall on its butt?
Okay, now that you’ve seen the advertisement, AdWeek writes a great article summing up all the shenanigans that ensued upon the advertisement’s release. Mainly, the ad encourages people to go to Facebook, and they do. They speak their mind (some politely and constructively, and most likely some not so friendly). Chapstick proceeds to delete many comments and flounders a bit as it tries to issue explanations for the deletions as well as the advertisement itself.
Whew.
So what’s my take?
First, I’m a male in my 30’s and probably one of the targets of this ad which most likely appeals to women just as much as men. And creating brand awareness is what advertising is all about – and now we (people who write long winded blog posts on the internet who have a combine readership of about 5 people), are talking about it – generating a MASSIVE amount of earned media for Chapstick. Is it all good? They say any press is good press… and in this case, I would agree. The negative press is more related to Chapstick’s handling of the feedback versus the ad itself. Sure, some people are going to be offended by sexually-suggestive advertising, especially in the US which tends to be more conservative in this area. But we’re not seeing even a boob in this ad… just a clothed derriere. So I think people need to be a little less sensitive.
In my opinion the ad is creative and fun… and those of us who use Chapstick (myself included, though I tend to be brand agnostic when it comes to my lip protectors), I don’t think I have ever used up a whole tube of Chapstick before either throwing it out because it has a date from the prior decade, or losing it. And, based upon the number of tubes I purchase annually for my beautiful and intelligent wife, she either uses it once a minute, or suffers from the same problem the woman in this ad does; frequent-loss-of-chapstick-syndrome. I tend to find tubes in the bottom of backpacks, purses, suitcases; in glove boxes, junk drawers; in couch cushions and medicine cabinets, and of course winter jacket pockets.
But let’s get to the heart of the matter, what Chapstick really screwed up – its social media team/response. As the team started observing a larger number of comments coming in to its Facebook page, they should have had a better triage and response procedure. Criticism is a part of any business, and you should be willing to accept it. And via social media, your policy should be to acknowledge, empathize and if necessary, address. In this case, Chapstick should have delete any posts that were clear violations – over posting/spam, foul language or harassing in nature. If it saw a large number of these, it should have posted a notice on its page very quickly explaining its policy. “Please understand that do want to hear from customers about this advertisement and anything else related to their use of Chapstick, but please be respectful of others and the community. If your comments are deemed disrespectful or foul, we will remove them.”
And you usually do not want to be defensive in social media, as the community and really tear you apart… so on that issue, be particularly careful. Let the community have its debate. Your supports will defend you if you have a solid customer base and product.
If you really did screw up in your advertisement, or in a related area, it is extremely important that you have a rock-solid escalation policy so that issues can bubble up the chain of command efficiently and consistently. The last thing you want to happen is to issue a statement that isn’t convincing or credible – the community will see right through it. (Take the New England Patriots for instance, in response to QB Tom Brady’s “drinking comments“). Don’t think your customers, especially the ones on Facebook are dumb. That strategy will not be successful.
So, if you need to issue a clarify statement, or even the dreaded “mea culpa” then you only want to do this once. And, be prepared for comments about your admission. You will receive feedback.
Chapstick has a legacy of quirky, cutesy, and slightly-suggestive advertising. It works. And this latest ad worked too, but the social media team got in the way.
A recent article by Erik Saas at The Social Graf sums up the state of would-be competitors to Facebook nice and succinctly. I do believe that folks may be generally agnostic when it comes to social media with a hint of laziness or hesitancy towards adopting new technologies when they are for the most part content with current offerings. In other words, while people may have some issues with Facebook, there’s no real viable alternative, because there are not 750 million people on any other network; and, your current investment (building relationships, posting pics) is too time consuming to replicate elsewhere.
While Google+ made an admirable run at challenging Facebook by gaining a massive number of new signups in a relatively short time period, it seems to have stalled out because users simply aren’t using it as heavily as Facebook.
A comment post on Erik’s article by Douglas Ryan at Digitas suggests that technology, not a direct competitor will ultimately unseat Facebook as the king of all social media. I tend to agree with this hypothesis to an extent. Technology will change (or evolve) and may perhaps offer new tools to exploit pop culture, but ultimately that will take a new competitor to introduce.
Facebook would not succeed without ubiquitous internet access (be it wired or wireless), and the next service will surely need a new technology as a catalyst to unseat Facebook.
But, not all social phenomenons sunset as fads. In the early days of the ‘net, pundits called online shopping a fad, as “people would still want to go to store for a tactile experience”. And sure enough, both co-exist. However, I would not say online shopping is a fad. Similar statements could be said about online music sales, eBay and amazon.com. We forget that these “things” where once social phenomena because they are no mainstream. Facebook could very well become the Google of social media – something that is here to stay.
Ron Jones at ClickZ wrote a fantastic article which breaks down how to get started measuring social media, by categorizing different outcomes and their corresponding measurements.
For small businesses, I’m not sure all of these are applicable, as it may take more time to measure than benefit gained from knowing the results. So don’t get hung up on daily, or even weekly monitoring. In fact, doing quarterly assessments is a great way to bench mark your long term growth in social media. Hubspot and some other companies have complimentary tools and checklists for evaluating how well you are covering social media, and Ron’s article will help you translate those results into some meaningful metrics.
Additionally, I suggest keeping a log of your most memorable successes and failures and producing a quarterly social media report which highlights your quarter from a narrative perspective (supplemented by metrics of course). It should outline what you accomplished and why it was important. You’ll also want to map out your upcoming quarter’s plans.
On Wednesday, August 24th, I will be co-presenting live on a panel to discuss, “Doing to Delivering – 5 Considerations for Making Social Media Strategic”.
From 1:00 – 2:00 pm ET, you’re invited to participate in an interactive panel discussion with Web, marketing and social media experts from Virginia Tech, University of Alabama and American Public University exploring ways you can make social media an effective component of your school’s integrated, strategic communications program.
Panelists:
Chase Bowers – Internet Communications Specialist, University of Alabama
Melissa Richards – Director of Marketing and Publications, Virginia Tech
Dan Soschin – Director, Interactive Marketing, American Public University System
How much is a “Like” worth to your business? Do you count the number of likes you have and eagerly report those totals to your management team to proclaim your social media success? Well, as I have stated previously, you first need to understand your goal with social media, and in this case, what you hope to get out of your Facebook page. If you are going for brand awareness, likes might be a good place to start. If you are trying to introduce your brand into a market place that is aware of your industry/product/service, but not your brand, you can use advertising on Facebook to target your potential customers. If you get a like, you’ve succeeded in making this potential customer aware of your brand (or you have succeeded in getting an existing customer to like your brand). Either way, I would proclaim you successful in the first step. Now, you must engage these fans on your page by providing compelling content, contests, discounts or other materials that make them respond.
Once a fan responds to something on your page (including their initial like) it shows up in the news feed of all their friends.
So, if you get 100 likes, and the average Facebook user has about 150 friends, you’ve essentially received as many as 100 times 150 impressions, or 15,000 brand impressions. How much would you pay for 15,000 brand impressions? Maybe a CPM of $1, for instance? that would mean an ROI of about $15 extra dollars for those earned impressions. Certainly not a windfall, but that’s just what you would pay for the impressions, not what they are worth. So, what is the value of 15,000 brand impressions? Maybe you know that for every 2500 impressions you typically make a transaction. So now, you have the earned media value, plus six additional transactions (15,000 divided by 2500).
Obviously, I’ve made a huge amount of assumptions here. And that’s my point! You need to plug in your own data and metrics to understand the value of earned media and engagement on Facebook. Go beyond the raw count of “likes” you have and look at what value that brings your business in branding and other activities to establish the true ROI of a like. Only then can you understand if it is worth advertising on Facebook.
Here’s a great five-minute video overview of a ComScore report on this very issue.
Jenna Lebel penned a fantastic article on Likeable.com that discusses how to get started with measuring social media. It is spot on! The first thing you must always do is understand what you hope to achieve. In this case, you need to ask yourself, why are we using social media, and why does that matter? Is it to generate sales opportunities, build relationships, create brand awareness, provide customer support, or something else? This is so important, as each of these goals may translate into a different set of metrics.
Now, as you go about your measurement and management of social media, you might be focusing on one particular area, such as lead generation, and realize you are also gaining in another area, say customer service. So, it is okay to update your goals AND metrics as you go along. An ROI strategy should not be without some elasticity.
I’m doing a number of presentations over the next several months looking at the next step of ROI. The step that comes after you have identified your goals… How to convert those goals into some sort of metric, report and dashboard. I will share that information hear soon! In the mean time, start documenting your goals!
Facebook is drawing in new advertisers each data from the paid search world. However, the principles that apply to advertising in paid search (and even display) do not necessarily apply to Facebook. There are many differences including the size and type of images that work well, the type of copy that produces results, targeting, and perhaps most importantly, the type of ad.
In this post I will briefly highlight two types of ads new advertisers will immediately be forced to chose from: ads that go to your off-site landing page and ads that encourage people to “like” your Facebook page, delivering them to your Facebook page.
Facebook Advertising: Ads with Like Buttons & Ads Without
MarketingProfs just published an articlediscussing a large comScore Facebook study that definitely proves that the 2nd type of ads (the ones with the like button) will, in most all cases, outperform ads that take users off of Facebook.
Here’s why:
When someone “likes” your advertisement, that activity shows up in their newsfeed. The comScore study shows that Facebook users spend a large amount of time reading news feeds, so your friends will see the like activity related to the activities you perform. This is profound because the average Facebook user has between 100 and 200 friends. So, for every “like” you get, you get (FOR FREE!) as many as an additional 100-200 brand impressions (and potential free likes if those users then chose to engage with your brand from the feed).
However, if you are driving users to your Facebook page, there are some things you need to keep in mind:
1. You should have a custom welcome tab that explains who you are, provides a call to action, and contains other relevant information. This will be your first chance to convert a like into a customer.
2. You need a strong, vibrant and engaged community. This starts with good community managers who engage the fans with meaningful content, polls, discussions, and offers (if relevant).
3. A social media policy that covers the management and moderation of your community to address negative issues, customer service, and so on.
I will be a panelist on an upcoming webcast entitled, “Doing to Delivering – 5 Considerations for Making Social Media Strategic”. It will take place on Wednesday, August 24th at 1pm ET. I hope you can join us!
The webcast is being hosted by Systems Alliance and I will be co-presenting with Chase Bowers (Internet Communications Specialist, University of Alabama) and Melissa Richards (Director of Marketing and Publications, Virginia Tech)
Dan Soschin 