FreshNetworks Blog

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.

Research released by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) in the UK suggests that people are growing increasingly tired of requests to join brand pages or install brand applications in Facebook and other social networks. The research found that almost two in every three of the 2,000 respondents to the survey were fed up with the constant requests to join groups and try new applications.

Digging deeper into the research reveals more information. When asked what they disliked most about social networks, the most popular response (with 31% of respondents citing this) was too many invites to install applications. The second most cited dislike (16% of respondents) was advertising that “isn’t relevant to me”. Remaining dislikes have relatively low incidences (such as the 5% of respondents who dislike the “addictiveness” of the social networks themselves). And 12% of respondents reported no dislikes at all.

It is the insight into the attitudes to branded content, pages and applications that is, however, most interesting from a social media marketing perspective. With so many people saying they are turned of by invites to join pages, install applications or join groups, brands need to work harder to get a consumer’s attention and to get them to engage with them.

Of course, this has never been easy. In fact, engaging people in social networks has always been difficult for brands. Social networks are very personal spaces where users go to connect with their network of friends – to share photos, plan events, keep up with what they have been doing and to message them. They are personal spaces focused on the individual user and their connections and as such can be difficult for brands to enter. People are having a personal conversation and interaction and are sometimes sceptical of the role of a brand in this space.

The most successful uses of social networks by brands are less about getting people to do things with them in this space, but using it as part of a hub-and-spoke model. Rather than a brand trying to engage people separately in Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and every other social network and forum site, it is better to use these as gateways to somewhere else. People may not want to engage with you and interact with you in Facebook, but they may be willing to find out more about you and then, if and when they want to engage, go somewhere else better designed for this.

This is really where online communities come in. If social networks are personal spaces where people connect round friends, online communities are spaces where people connect round a shared interest, idea, theme or topic. It’s much easier for brands to play in this space. To get people to engage with you, talk to them and interact with them. It’s your party that they have chosen to join, rather than being their party you have interrupted.

So this IAB survey comes as no real surprise to us at FreshNetworks. We know that social networks are difficult places for brands and it can be best to use them not as the start and end of your engagement or marketing strategy. It is better to work with social networks, and the people in them, as part of a more developed approach. Meeting people in social networks but bringing them to a place you host to really engage with them.

Some more reading

• Components of Social Media Marketing: The Moogis Case by Wyndstorm (fastforwardblog.com)
• More notes from “Social Media Marketing” (specialdee.wordpress.com)
• Social Media Marketing Industry Report (incsub.org)
• Charlene Li Predicts Social Networking Will Be Ubiquitous, ‘Like … (jonggunlee.tistory.com)

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 March.

1. How to use Twitter for PR

A great presentation from Corinne Weisgerber that outlines how brands can use Twitter for PR. From tracking and monitoring, through live-reporting and activism, to public relations and crisis management. A great introduction for anybody interested in the topic.

2. Social networks and online communities more popular than email

It’s now official. Social networks and online communities are now visited more often online than email. This is reflects the way people are now using the web, and how social media sites actually let us do new things, rather than being an new way of doing old things.

3. Social media ROI: Measuring the unmeasurable?

There is a lot of discussion about how to measure the ROI of social media. Some people claim it isn’t possible, but this just isn’t true. The key is to work out what you need to measure and why, and then work out how to measure it. Too often people don’t do this step.

4. Examples of online communities in the retail industry

As part of our series of online community examples,  we looked at examples from the retail industry. Case studies from Wal-Mart, Sainsbury’s and Starbucks.

5. Russia – the fourth largest social networking market in Europe

Whilst we’re all talking about Facebook and MySpace, Russia is becoming a big force in social networking in Europe, with the fourth largest market for users. Sites like Odnoklassniki (Одноклассники) and VKontakte (В контакте) are leading the market there and showing how a relative late-comer to broadband is rapidly becoming one of the fastest growing markets for social networking.

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)

Our post a few days ago on measurement and ROI in social media, Social Media ROI: Measuring the unmeasurable, prompted a fair amount of discussion. The main thrust of the post, and of the presentation it highlights, is that in order to measure ROI in social media, you need to have a clear and reasoned understanding of what it is you’re measuring and why.

When building ROI models for online communities at FreshNetworks, we follow an approach that includes the following four steps

• Identify what success looks like in the online community
• List the success metrics you can measure
• Ignore things that might be a distraction
• Track and measure your success metrics ruthlessly

It isn’t rocket science, and social media ROI really shouldn’t be. The tricky part of the process isn’t measuring and tracking the metrics, but identifying what they should be in the first place. This is the stage that needs time and focused effort. But in some cases a very clear success metric can be identified.

One such case is of social media activity as a fundraising tool for not-for-profits. Here the measure of success if usually the cost effectiveness of the fundraising – they want to raise as much money as possible using as little resource as possible. And they are in a great position to compare the cost and effectiveness of a number of different methods.

One great resource for those in this industry is frogloop‘s Social Network ROI Calculator. This is a fantastic resource that calculates in a degree of some accuracy the ROI that not-for-profits can get from social media campaigns. As frogloop say about the calculator:

You can use this tool to calculate an estimate of cost and return on investment for the recruitment and fundraising efforts of your staff in social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. It works sort of like an online mortgage calculator. Just enter the starting assumptions in the yellow boxes below and the tool calculates results automatically.

The tool does require a lot of information but it is a comprehensive tool that delivers real and analysable ROI data for not-for-profit social media campaigns. Taking staff costs and a range of data on email acquisition rates, average donations and activities in social networks, it can calculate in quite some depth what the ROI story might be.

Go to the ROI calculator for social network campaigns

Of course, the problem with complicated models like this is that they are suited only to certain circumstances. This calculator would not be appropriate for all not-for-profit campaigns, but where it is it’s a great resource.

Subscribe to updates from the FreshNetworks Blog

Some more reading

• Social media is here to stay… Now what? (vator.tv)
• Recession resistant: 95% of social media marketers will maintain or increase social media spending (socialmediatoday.com)
• Marketing on the Web: How to Profit From Social Networking (jonggunlee.tistory.com)