FreshNetworks Blog

Image by iwona_kellie via Flickr

We’re going through quite a momentous period of change in the UK at the moment. Slowly but surely, the analogue TV signal is being turned off. In it’s place we have digital TV. This is a huge change, not just because people need new equipment to receive the new signal, but also because this change lets us consumer television in the way we have always wanted.

No longer do I have to start watching a programme on the hour. No more must I be in on a Wednesday night to catch the latest episode of The Apprentice. No longer is my TV schedule dictated to me by the broadcasters. They may think I want to watch game shows on a Saturday evening, every Saturday evening. But perhaps I don’t. Digital TV gives the possibility for real choice and control over what you watch and when you watch it.

This reflects a change in consumer behaviour we are seeing across media. When users (consumers) are given the chance to personalise and control their own experience, they use this. This is natural – not everybody wants to do the same things in exactly the same way. And so whether it’s allowing you to personalise a site’s homepage (as with the BBC), tag content in a way that makes sense to you, or choose what you want to see when, personalisation is key.

When we are planning and designing online communities with our clients we work hard to understand the target audience, the people we hope will be members of the community and benefit from being a part of it. However, it is important that some degree of control and personalisation is given to the user – be that letting them arrange their own profile page, choosing which view they see when they join the community, or just giving them an easy and simple way to navigate the site according to the content that matters to them most. Finding ways to allow this kind of personalisation (be it simple or complex) will enhance the community member’s experience. And watching and analysing how people personalise their experience helps us to understand them more too.

Users like personalisation. They like to have some control over how they navigate and use the online community. As their other media consumption becomes more tailored and within their control, their expectations here will only increase.

At FreshNetworks we aim to bring you the best posts in social media, online communities and customer engagement online. In case you missed them, find below our top five posts in April.

1. What Susan Boyle teaches us about social media

In less than a week, a church volunteer from a village in Scotland became the most viral video ever online. It was the most popular topic on Twitter, the most viewed video on YouTube and one of the most discussed topic online and offline across the world. What made this video particularly interesting is that, ostensibly at least, it wasn’t designed to be a branded viral video. It was popular for a simple reason – the content was good. Of course making good content (and indeed predicting what content might be good) is not as easy as we might hope.

2. Engage different consumers in different ways – why segmentation is key

The most popular of our posts from the Marketing 2.0 Conference in Paris looked at how and why segmentation adds value to marketing and to the way you engage your customers. We look at the case of LEGO and the segments that they use, how they deal with each of these segments separately and the value this brings to the business.

3. The best market researchers to follow on Twitter

Twitter was a popular topic again in April, with more people using it and more people talking about it. Finding the appropriate people to follow can sometimes be difficult, which is why this post (based on a poll of Twitter users by Research Reinvented) is popular. The top market researcher’s to follow on Twitter as nominated and voted for by other Twitter users (I’m in the list @mattrhodes).

4. Top 20 UK marketing blogs (numbers 11-20)

The first of two posts that listed the top 20 marketing blogs in the UK according to Ad Age. There are some great blogs in there and Charlie has built an RSS feed of all of the blogs in the list. As with all listings like this, things change. The good news for us here at FreshNetworks is that since this post we’ve moved from the 20th to the 10th best marketing and media blog in the UK. Happy times!

5. The Net Promoter Score and the value of Promoters

Many big brands and organisations use the Net Promoter Score as a way of measuring how happy their customers are with them. Rather than asking this question directly, it asks them whether they would be prepared to refer the brand to a friend. This requires a deeper level of thought and commitment and is seen by many as a better measure of satisfaction. This post looked at two case studies (one from LEGO and another from US network providers) to show the real, revenue value of Promoters and why businesses should focus their efforts on them.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Presentations from Facebook and MySpace at the Marketing 2.0 conference caused something of a stir – first of all for getting both on stage at the same time, and second as Damien Vincent from Facebook, having only just joined them from MySpace, seemed to momentarily forget who he was working for.

But the content of their presentations was interesting, if only to see how both organisations approach selling their marketing potential to brands. Of particular interest was a set of statistics shown by Olivier Hascot from MySpace, based on surveys in the UK. They found that:

• 40% of Brand Friends remembered the advertiser when shopping either online or on the high street
• 22% of Brand Friends said that they spend more money with the advertiser

These could be impressive statistics for MySpace and would no doubt interest any advertise looking to raise both brand awareness and customer spend in the current economic climate. But I’d like to understand a little bit more about them. I’d like to know if the suggested cause and effect (that being a Brand Friend on MySpace led to greater brand awareness and higher customer spend) is actually the case, or if something else is at play.

As acquisition statistics, these do look impressive. If, as a brand, I could get 40% higher brand awareness among non-customers, and 22% higher spend from new customers by being friends with them on MySpace, there would be no question that this would be a good idea. However, I suspect this is not what’s happening.

Consider a brand advocate or even just a regular purchaser of your brand’s products. I imagine that it is these people who are likely to befriend you on MySpace. It is also these people who are likely to both have your brand at the forefront of their mind when out shopping, and spend more with you as a result. So rather than these two outcomes being a result of a consumer being your Brand Friend on MySpace, it could be that all three outcomes (higher brand awareness, higher spend and being a friend) are a result of them being a regular customer or even a brand advocate.

If this is the case, then it could be that social networks, at least the Fans and Pages bits of them, are strategies for retention of existing customers rather than acquisition of new ones. Would you become a Friend or a Fan of Nutella if you didn’t like that particular chocolate spread? Probably not. You are much more likely to join them in this way if you are already a customer, and probably one that is willing to attach themselves (and their social network profile) to your brand.

So from this perspective, activities in social networks are probably best focused on customer retention. Letting your most loyal or enthusiastic customers become your friend so that you keep your brand at the forefront of their mind and they ultimately spend more with you.

Of course, there may be some brands where social networks are a perfect hunting ground for acquisition targets, but I would expect this to be restricted to more aspirational brands or products. Whilst I might not become a fan of Nutella if I wasn’t already a customer, there is a high chance I might become one of the new Peugeot 308 before I have actually bought one. But this is because I am willing to attach the aspiration towards this brand to my profile. This is probably unlikely with most products.

Read all of our posts based on the Marketing 2.0 Conference here.

Some more reading

• Social network advertising wasted on millennials (thisisherd.com)
• Managing Your Social Networking Efficiently in 2009 (revenews.com)
• ‘Unmarketing’ and giving your community control (thisisherd.com)
• How to Choose the Right Social Networks for your Business (pajamaprofessional.com)
• Chinese Social Networks ‘Virtually’ Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace: A Market Analysis (tsurch.com)

It’s been a busy week at FreshNetworks, with Charlie on Web Mission 09 in San Francisco and me in Paris for the Marketing 2.0 Conference. A great chance to meet people and also to learn, and this week’s Required Reading for the team is one of the presentations given in Paris.

Wolfgang Lünenbürger-Reidenbach from Edelman presented about word-of-mouth and why it is important to brands. What I like most about this presentation is the emphasis that it places on word-of-mouth not being about technology. Too often, discussions on word-of-mouth revert to the mechanisms by which people hope this will be transmitted – by widgets, social networks or online communities.

Technology is, of course, important, but word-of-mouth is actually a social function. It’s about people trusting and respecting your brand so much that they are willing to put their reputation in line with it – recommending it to friends and peers. It’s about people doing your advertising for you and about helping you gain penetration in markets you could never reach effectively with traditional advertising. And perhaps most importantly, it’s about the outcome, not the process. Word-of-mouth is only useful when people act on what they hear.

Some more reading

• Branding in the age of social media (freshnetworks.com)
• Engage different consumers in different ways – why segmentation is key (freshnetworks.com)

Online communities are about engagement, between consumers and between them and the brand. They bring huge benefits for and brand or organisation, from rich insights through innovation and ideas to word of mouth and advocacy. The question we are often asked is why the consumers would take part. Why would they take part in your online community.

My presentation at the Marketing 2.0 conference in Paris earlier this week addressed this very issue and discussed different ways in which you can incentivise people to take part and which of these we have found to be most successful at FreshNetworks.

1. Pay people to take part

We’ve discussed incentives in online communities before and the simple truth is that if you are building an online community that is about long-term engagement and real dialogue then they don’t necessarily have the impact you want. Online communities are about social interactions and social dynamics. Once you pay people or incentivise them to take part (by giving them, for example, vouchers or entry into a prize draw for completing a minimum number of actions each month) you shift the member’s mindset from this social one into a market one. They make a judgement on what you are giving them and how much effort they are willing to expend for this. And the end result is typically that you don’t get the kind of involvement that you want. Some people may do slightly more, but these will be fairly transactional contributions. And you may even dissuade some people from doing as much as they would otherwise.

2. Feedback from the brand

There is a definite benefit in online communities to real feedback from the brand. You are not leading the online community but taking part in it alongside all of the other members. With this in mind you should take part and respond to people in your online community. Feedback is essential and an online community won’t work, won’t grow and won’t meet your objectives if you don’t take part. It should be seen as a normal part of community management, and the way that you reward people for their comments and contributions. They want to know you’re listening and responding so do this.

3. Using your brand’s expertise

Over and above the importance of listening and responding, there is a real power of using the expertise that is inside every organisation to give something back to your community members. All organisations are experts in something – you may be an insurance company that has a lot of information to help home-owners, or you may be a travel firm that has expertise in travel and making the most of your holiday. Whatever your brand and whatever your product you will have expertise that your customers can use. And there is real power in this. By putting yourself forward as experts you are giving people an insight into your brand and an opportunity to engage directly with you. By answering questions from community members, you are incentivising them within a social dynamic rather than giving them money and making their behaviours more transactional. And video brings all of this to life a lot more.

At the conference, I presented a video we have made to showcase how you can use expertise in a community, and you can see this here:

Social media in action – Using expertise in online communities

So our advice is simple. Don’t incentivise people with money or anything equivalent to this. Rather involve yourself in the community – give them feedback and leverage your internal expertise. It’s the best way to launch, grow and build a real online community.

Read all of our posts based on the Marketing 2.0 Conference here.

Some more reading

• What Socrates Can Teach You About Social Media (jessenewhart.com)
• The Business of Community Networking Conference (blogstring.com)
• The Community Golden Hammer (troysabin.com)