FreshNetworks Blog

As social media is still regarded as a new form of marketing and engagement, lots of companies seem to be more comfortable “trying out” social media as a one-off campaign.

Social media campaigns are an attractive proposition as they can generate a lot of buzz and excitement and are usually the basis for a lot of the social media case studies you will find on the web.

Even though we’re a social media agency, here at FreshNetworks we don’t just focus on campaign work; we also look at long-term engagement through a sustainable social media strategy.

In our experience, social media campaigns are perfect for raising awareness on a short-term basis. They’re also a great way of getting exposure for brands, companies or products that might not be that well known, or have fallen from favour in some way.

Campaign work is high impact but due to the cost and resource involved it’s not good for driving value over a long period of time.That’s not to say that campaigns should be disregarded completely. In fact, they are very effective when used alongside a sustainable engagement strategy.

Campaigns generate the high level of buzz that brands so desire. However, if there is a long-term strategy for engaging with the people who have come across your brand or product as a result of the campaign then the impact won’t drop off once the campaign has finished. Using campaigns as part of a wider social media strategy will help you build awareness and drive value over a longer period of time.

In order for a sustainable engagement strategy to succeed it must be set up with the needs of both the company and the user in mind. The reason why single, one-off social media campaigns are often favoured by brands is that engaging with people on a long-term basis takes time and effort. You need to build up relationships and develop trust with your audience. However, it’s worth the time and effort as ultimately the people you engage with will become a valuable asset to your company.

The video below from Richard gives a brief summary about our approach to social media campaigns and sustainable engagement:

One sector that is really embracing social media is the travel and leisure industry. And it is an industry well suited to social media and online communities – people share an experience or situation and this provides a reason for them to connect and engage with each other (and with a brand). We have seen some great uses commercially from companies like Marriott and InterContinental and Expedia but social media really works well in the travel and leisure industry when it is used in real time. In the latest FreshNetworks Video, Matt Rhodes describes three areas where this works well:

1. For customer service – Social media is a great customer service tool – not only does it allow you to connect with and engage customers online, but it also means that when you solve one query you do so publicly for all to see and for all to share. This winter I was skiing in the French Alps this winter when snow back in the UK  caused a halt to most of the flights leaving Geneva for London. I knew that Easyjet were using Twitter, but rather than tweet them myself to ask if my flight was going I saw that somebody else already asked the question and I could see the response. Saving me from having to ask the question and Easyjet the hassle of having to respond to the same question multiple times.
2. For real time experience capture – Social media is quick and easy making it the perfect media for allowing people to express the way they are feeling in the moment, which does not always come through if you are writing a review after the experience has finished.
3. For real time information sharing – Holidays and stays don’t always got to plan and things change: the weather, the times, the traffic etc and so social media is great for being able to transmit information in real time.

See our video post on Social media in the travel and leisure industry below.

Social networks online are fundamentally different to our offline social networks – our friends, acquaintances, colleagues and others. Offline we have distinct groups of people that we interact with in different ways, whereas online in social networks we tend to merge all of our friends into one main pool.

This great presentation from Paul Adams, head of user experience at Google, looks at how we interact offline and online and takes a sociological approach to understanding how people interact in social networks and the consequences of this. From the dangers of two groups of friends colliding to the challenges for brands in social networks, this is a great presentation and our Required Reading at FreshNetworks this week. The presentation has a lot of detail in and is worth a good look through and although these are his own findings I know from my experience studying this area that there are a lot of research papers to back up his results.

There are a few points that I think are key take always for companies looking to use social networks:

1. Social Networks are not always the best places for brands to interact. Social networks are very user centric places. All the diagrams that are in Paul Adam’s research are cantered around the user it is about their connections, their friends, their family, their swimming group etc. because of the size of the audience on social networks there is a tendency for brands to go into them and want to tell everyone about their products and services, some brands can work very well in social networks but most of the time people don’t want to be interrupted in what they are doing and there are more beneficial ways to engage.
2. The power of weak ties is decreasing. Paul Adams talks about tie strength which is based on sociological theory (see the work on Mark Granovetter on “The Strength of Weak Ties”) this theory explains the links between people in different social circles. Strong ties are the links that you have with friends and family and are thought to be most influential when a recommendation is needed. Weak ties are links that you have with people that you have an affinity to but are not in regular contact. Weak ties are important to bridge the gap between different social circles and for getting information disseminated throughout different groups on the internet. People naturally build a large network of these weak ties and the process of identifying influencers who are willing to share opinions is becoming more and more important. It’s not who you know in your network it’s how likely they are to speak about your company and be trusted.
3. People have different personalities in different areas. Everyone acts differently in different social groupings and when they are hanging out with their mates they might want to be associated with a bar or a beer or certain places but they might not want their family or co-workers knowing.

Social networks yield a high reward if companies can engage people but are a hard place for brands to get it right and are just one part of social media.

An issue for many brands who are developing a social media strategy is how they translate what they do in one country into other markets in which they operate. As a European social media agency, we are very used to helping clients take a US or UK strategy and then roll this out across the rest of Europe. And in doing this we have looked at organisations who have done this well. And those who have done it badly. The usual mistake is to assume that what works in one country can be taken and implemented in another country with no changes. More often than not this is not the case.

In this week’s video post, Matt Rhodes talks about how to approach developing a European social media strategy and why what works in one country might not work in others. Matt discusses how each country in Europe has different ways of using social media, and how these influence the way strategies should be developed. He gives three areas that brands should investigate when launching social media activities across Europe:

1. The audiences are very different in each country in Europe – they behave in different ways and have different needs
2. The social media landscape is different in each country – Facebook is not always the right tool, you need to understand what is right in different markets
3. The position of a brand is different in each market – your brand may be different in different countries and your aims in each might change

As more brands are looking to develop European and even global social media strategies really understanding these issues is becoming critical. It would be great to hear about your experiences in this area so far and how you see the differences across Europe.

Matt Rhodes at the FreshNetworks Breakfast Briefing

Another successful FreshNetworks breakfast briefing has just come to a close. This time the topic was ‘social media and retail’. The two speakers were Naomi Paget (Head of Direct Marketing at TM Lewin) and our own Matt Rhodes.

The breakfast briefing was split into three main parts. First, Naomi talked about how TM Lewin has been using social media as part of their e-commerce site and then Matt presented the results of a recent campaign we ran with Jimmy Choo. He also discussed how to take the first steps towards looking at social media from a business perspective.

First up was Naomi. She is one of our clients here at FreshNetworks and has been working with us since spring 2009.

TM Lewin: the Off the Cuff online community

TM Lewin have a very clear strategy of what they want to achieve from social media (some of these aims include things like “educate and excite customers about the brand and product, Get customer insight into our product, marketing and services and be seen as an authority on business dress”) and they now have a presence on various social media platforms including a Facebook page, YouTube channel, Twitter account and their own community ‘Off the Cuff’. The strategy is performing well against their objectives (see #FreshNetworks tweets for some of the highlights) but one thing was clear from Naomi. Internal passion is the key to success.

TM Lewin has made the most of their community because the employees utilising it have a passion to proactively engage with community members. Because of this enthusiasm, community members have direct contact with the senior management team at TM Lewin, making them feel more valued and increasing loyalty. TM Lewin is using this engagement to help spread positive messages through its current (and prospective) customer bases, gaining valuable insight and feedback on their activities.

TM Lewin has also noticed that people who enter the ecommerce site via the community are more likely to convert on their first site visit and so the community is directly attributing to sales (we can’t share the exact numbers but they are not insignificant!). It was great to hear Naomi’s talk because it highlighted the fact that social media isn’t always about the £ sign – sometimes this comes second to the other benefits that engaging with social media can offer a business.

Jimmy Choo: CatchAChoo

Next up was Matt Rhodes talking about Jimmy Choo , the CatchAChoo campaign and the importance of having a solid strategy for the foundations or all your engagement.
We have just finished running a campaign for Jimmy Choo where we organised a treasure hunt around London using Foursquare to help promote the launch of their new trainer range. There were a number of clear objectives behind this campaign (full case study coming soon) but the main reason we used this approach was because learnt from working with Jimmy Choo on a previous project that the actual purchasing of the shoes is part of the appeal, therefore using Foursquare seemed like a perfect opportunity to bridge the gap between online and offline engagement.

Four steps to building a social media strategy

CatchAChoo, followed a process that was the basis of the second part of Matt Rhodes presentation – a four step guide to building social media strategy:

1. Understand what people are saying – Before you start any social media strategy you need to know who is talking, where they are talking and what they are talking about. This is an important step as it allows you to identify the needs of the people you are engaging with and how you should go about approaching them.
2. Know what you are trying to achieve – Matt used an appropriate analogy to sum up this point:“if you were going to the moon you would have a solid reason for doing so! You would just invest all your time and resources doing it for no reason”. Social media it is not as grand as flying to the moon but it does follow similar logic. If you’re going to be invest time and resources, have a clear strategy of what you want to achieve and how you will measure this.
3. Experiment – Social media tools are changing all the time so using your initial insight from step 1, keep your aims in mind but try different things out. There are no right or wrong ways to use different tools; it all depends on your audience and your business so try different things out until you are meeting your aims.
4. Ruthlessly measure the impact you are having – This is the most important stage. All your interactions however they are being undertaken should meet the aims of your initial strategy. Regular reporting will allow you to have a diverse strategy and understand what is working well (and what isn’t) so you can change your tactics to make them more beneficial to the business.

It was a great event with some really good questions and thoughts coming from the people that attended. Thanks to everyone that came and we hope that you all took something away with you (besides a load of chocolate muffins) and if you have any thoughts on what was discussed it would be great to hear your comments!

So the first FreshNetworks breakfast briefing has just finished and we had some great insights into how not for profit organisations (NFP’s) can use social media for strengthening their membership offering.

Breast Cancer Care Case Study

First up to speak was Bertie Bosredon, Assistant Director of Services (Information & Multimedia) at Breast Cancer Care. Bertie has been busy changing Breast Cancer Care’s social media strategy to utilise other social media platforms and contribute to overall integrated structure. More importantly changing the way they use social media to start listening and conversing with people online.

There were some key messages that resonated from his presentation, these were:

1. Have an integrated approach

Breast Cancer Care realise that a lot of conversations that were happening online were not necessarily happening in their space but through working with key influencers on other platforms supplying them with packaged information you can increase your presence online and collaborate with a lot more people.

2. Involve your members in planning

Bertie has been getting members involved in the planning of the current and future use of social media asking them what they would look for when engaging with Breast Cancer Care and how they could work this into a strategy that would best fit their organisational aims. Although a simple concept many companies forget that members and users usually know more about your brand then you do and can deliver some great insights.

3. Aligning all channels of communication

Breast Cancer Care have made sure that the social media strategy that they have been using is aligned with their offline print material so that it doesn’t matter where members go for the information. This means that they can use the channel that they prefer and the message will be consistent.

A popular point from Bertie: it doesn’t matter about the traffic to your site; care about how many people interact with your content even on other sites.

Social media marketing for not for profits

The next speaker was our very own Charlie Osmond from FreshNetworks. Charlie was speaking about how social media can be used for marketing and with specific reference to NFP organisations. Engaging people online is not about going for that quick win viral campaign but to successfully engage people online you need sustainable engagement.

Some key points to take away from Charlie’s presentations are:

1. The importance of the community manager

Engaging people online especially for sustainability requires a good community manager. They need to be able to reach out to people and facilitate discussions on a multitude of different platforms.

2. Know your tools but don’t let them drive your strategy

In order to be able to know what channels are available to you, you have to have a grasp of what’s in the vast social media environment. To create a successful strategy you should be looking at the aims of the business and the needs of the people that you want to engage.

3. To drive word of mouth for a certain cause take the ‘believe, belong and bear witness approach’

A great way to get people involved in a cause is to find people that believe in it, help them become involved in it and then help them bear witness to what they believe in this will help spread the message of the organisation through yours, and their own networks.

Steve Bridger on social media in charities

Finally but by no means least was Steve Bridger. Steve is a social media consultant and has some great (and extensive) history in community management for various charities. One of the more prevalent points of Steve’s presentation was the importance of putting people at the heart of your social media strategy

Some great points from Steve:

1. Help your advocates to amplify their voice

A lot of member organisations were using their current strategy to try and control conversations and go against ‘the flow’ of what people were online to do. They had a clear goal that they wanted to achieve and member organisations should be “enabling and empowering” these people to help deliver your message.

2. It’s about relationships not transactions

Member organisations and more specifically charities are currently set-up for transactions and are very ‘me’ focussed, there is greater value for charities if they position themselves for conversations and engagement.

3. You have to be in it to win it

A lot of companies are hoping for a win in social media what ever that may be but they don’t have a social media policy or ban social media access completely. A restrictive approach rather than a guided one causes bottlenecks at many organisations and restricts valuable internal knowledge.

It was great to see the focus on relationships and emphasis on the value rather then how much money can be made. There were lots of interesting perspectives and too many to write all in this blog post. A big thank you to all the people that attended there were some great discussions and insight from lots of different organisations and another big thank you to the speakers involved.

Last week I attended an event on social media measurement and ROI as part of Social Media Week London. There were a lot of issues flying about such as ‘the meaning of ROI’, ‘campaign objectives or strategic objectives’. And some interesting perspectives from the panel on all of these topics and some discussions with the crowd. However one of the more important points discussed  was the use and relevance of objective setting. It was refreshing to take a step back and remember that with all this emphasis on objectives and direct results that we don’t forget that engaging in social media will usually help in ways that you never intended and objective setting can sometimes narrow your focus.

I have personally been working on evaluating some of our 2009 social media engagements, showing how this engagement met the initial objectives that were laid out as the foundations for undertaking the projects. After sifting through a lot of analytics, community data, and online buzz monitoring there were some really good results. The nicer part of this however was looking at some of the data and seeing the impact that a campaign had, that you would never have intended or expected it to.

A community that we have recently launched was set up with a view to strengthen the brand among a younger target audience, become an authority in its category and drive insight through the business. The campaign is doing very well in meeting these objectives, but we have also noticed that we have driven a lot of questions from people abroad and have been able to help international customers feel closer to the business and given them the ability to ask questions that they are restricted in asking due to the lack of stores in their country.

This is one of many examples that I have come across of social media adding value to a business that was never originally forecast or planned. I agree strongly that to make engagement a success and not open your company up to unwanted activity then you have to have clear objectives but make sure that your measurement is not as focussed as your objectives because you will miss out on value that you never intended.