FRANKthoughts

One the most common topics of debate we receive from clients is setting our goal for social media tools.   The easiest and familiar metric for marketers is to grow followers and fans for Twitter and Facebook respectively.  It’s a solid online metric that is similar to growing traffic visits and email databases.

Whilst that is important, it does not paint the broader picture of what social media is all about.  Conversations.  Conversations that help build advocacy, spreading the word (WOM), relationships and ultimately trust or loyalty.

At FRANkVizeum, we have illustrated this via our Conversation Venn Diagram.  By infusing the thoughts of Communities with traditionally 1 to 1 relationships between brands and consumers, we can clearly start seeing where brands sit.

Brands that communicate privately with consumers sit in “Closed Conversation.”   They could be feedback forms, newsletters, or surveys.  Whilst this is effective, it does not make use of the scalability of social media.  The metric here could be site traffic, email database, etc.

For brands that do not participate in any conversation but have consumers enjoying sharing experiences, stories, and news within the community, they sit in “Open Conversation”.  A great example is Nintendo Australia.  They do not participate in Twitter but there are a multitude of conversations, posts, RT, news, etc about the brand.  The metric here is volume of posts, tweets, RT from consumers.  The challenge is how do involve and mobilise the legions of fans?

Brands that use Twitter feeds as a way to broadcast news with little/no followers or active conversations sit squarely in “One Way Broadcasting.”  This is the traditional model in the social space with the focus on building traffic or news feed.  An example is TheAge twitter feed.  The metric here is growing Followers and/or volume of external tweets/post.

Ultimately, it comes down to the a brand’s objective.  Through these objectives we implement a strategy using the right tools and right metrics based on the above Venn Diagram. Eg. Traffic? News? Advocacy? WOM? Monitoring?

Our belief is Brands should find the right balance and should sit in the middle of all 3.  Not only broadcasting feed but to also build relationships to generate RTs and spreading the word to the community.

To support our thinking, there is recent research shared on Fast Company that looked at what is the most effective way to spread news on Twitter (a common client objective).  It shows “the most influential spreaders of news aren’t neccessarily those with the greatest number of online friends or followers.”

Source: Fast Company

We have known this for a while now (we even demonstrated this for GPO in our FRANkademy sessions), but this is the first piece of research that validates our strategy.  The trick is to find the right people strategically placed as the gate holder to people with larger followers that spreads the news.  These guys are hard to find as they aren’t immediately obvious (eg. through their number of followers).

By implementing the strategy that address the 3 points of the Venn Diagram, we can only find these “influencers” by a) increasing followers b) be active c) increase RT and conversations.  They will not only help spread the word, but build lasting relationships, loyalty, WOM, sales and traffic.

After an elaborate digital strategy process (aka Immersion) we’re very proud to launch Melbourne’s GPO new website.How did we start? The brief was to create GPO’s online experience. Here’s what we did:

1. Created an annual digital strategy which includes SEM, SEO and most importantly the community element that works alongside our media plan, creative, events and PR.
2. Found and employed the right person to manage the community of Melbourne’s GPO lovers and retailers (Welcome Sarah Willcocks -  Hi Sarah!)
3. Developed the new website with a strong focus on fashion editorial followed by an annual content plan featuring articles, photos, videos, competitions, events and more. Check out our first competition for your chance to win VIP tickets to GPO’s exclusive ‘Fashion at Altitude’ evening parade as part of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week on Wed 2nd Sept-  here.
4. Started a youtube, facebook, twitter and flickr profiles with measurement and management in place. (We didn’t jump at the tools. These were picked from the research and support our goals)
5. Understand that this is only the beginning, not the end product.

I’d like to thank all the people who worked on the project so far and to our clients ISPT and Tracey Winn.

Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Who wants yesterday’s girl?
Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Nobody in the world.

Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones wrote this about his ex-girlfriend Chrissie Shrimpton in the 1960’s – but today it seems consumers on a wider scale don’t even want today’s ‘paper’.  Much has been written about falling readership and the rise of new media, micro-bloggers and so on.  Sharp decreases in ad revenue, job losses and tangible changes in media consumption have also left The Independent Newspaper in the UK asking (in a very funky, interactive way) “What next for newspapers?’.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers thinks we should stop talking about the death of newspapers and start talking about the rise of news brands. To paraphrase their report, they believe trusted news brands will still hold sway, however the delivery mechanism and interaction with content will be radically different.  Of course, this is already happening.

The New York Times is one such ‘traditional’ media outlet grappling with the change.  Their Facebook (460,000 fans and an immense amount of content), Twitter (1.4m followers on the main channel alone with many other individual channels), and blog section (with 70-80 RSS feeds in specific areas of interest) give consumers options to access the media on their own terms – more opportunities for more people to interact more often.  Fantastic.  I am personally subscribed to a number of their online touchpoints, without needing to pick up a copy of the paper from a Manhattan street vendor.

This process of change raises two questions though – who manages this new space, and should all this stuff be free?

The first question of management – NY Times’ appointed Social Media Editor was recently criticised for not being fully immersed in the social media space.  Mashable wondered why Jennifer Preston, despite her job title, hadn’t tweeted in over a month (and then the day after the report was posted, why her frequency of posting went through the roof).  Her response was that she was in the process of ‘listening’ and working out how she can best bring value to the conversation and most effectively guide her journalists.

Mashable make a valid point.  Full credit to the NY Times for identifying the need to change and having a red hot go at it – but how can you be a social media editor and not fully utilise all the tools, participate in the conversation, and learn from inevitable mistakes when starting out?

I imagine an extensive amount of human and technical resource goes into managing the output and content of their social communities, without these consumers helping to pay the bills for their offices, computers, photographers, editors, and quality investigative reporters through newspaper sales and subscriptions (outside of online ad revenues).  And while the paper also ‘profits’ from increased user engagement, time spent with brand, and on a number of other metrics,  the second question arises – should it continue to be free?

NY Times are reconsidering the overall structure of their business model, recently asking subscribers if they would be willing to pay for online content.  The Wall Street Journal is already charging US$1.99/week for access to online premium content.  The possibility exists for New York Times to charge $US5 a month to access news/blog/multimedia content online.  They have already dabbled in this area – ending a 2 year experiment in 2007 that generated US$10m annually from premium subscriptions – which at its peak attracted 200,000 users.

The broader issue is that NY Times is only one publication – and that this trend can be multiplied across the hundreds and thousands of local and national newspapers globally.  Should all content be free?  Or should we move to a subscription model?  Should this be for all content, or premium content only?  How much is a fair price? And would you consider paying for all news sites?  eg. you would pay US$5 a month for the New York Times content, but not a cent for the Banbury Cake newspaper?

The danger of course (which is a frightening thought) is that after all the journalists have disappeared, future news services may be reduced to Today Tonight reports on extending your life by 20 years, celebrity gossip rubbish and popular content on major online portals funded by display advertising.  Is this where we want to be?  Or should we all pitch in and save credible journalism?

Want to make sure your digital agency can ‘walk the walk’ when it comes to managing social media for your brand?  Why not try the innovative approach Turkish Airlines have recently used for their global digital media pitch.  The brief was simple:  Selected agencies were sent only three paragraphs about the pitch and a list of keywords, with the pitch process lasting 15 days.  The keywords related to information scattered about the ’social media space’ that they would require to get more detail about pitch and brand objectives.  The first two snippets of information were sent out through Tumblr and Twitter.

Interestingly, two of the agencies pitching for the business have been keeping a diary of their journey through the pitch – Voden and 41-29.  Makes for very interesting reading as they discover new pieces of the puzzle!

Constantly thinking about new ways to attract web-savvy audience, TV networks are finally adopting online to promote their shows. Tomorrow, for the first time in Australia , From 12pm on July 3, 2009 until Midnight on the 5th of July, Ten will release the first 2 episodes of Rush – Series 2 – Online. This means that two weeks before the first episode of Rush plays on TV, It will be available online at the TEN Rush site. They also have a facebook page.

This is a massive shift from past years when TV networks protected their content and were inclined to put it up online. But why should they resist? Advertisers would love the extra exposure and the show will gain fans before the actual premier. I would love to see the show taking advantage of it’s key young talent and making some live updates on facebook/twitter/whatever. After all, Ten’s already doing it with So YOu Think You Can Dance twitter and enjoying more than 2700 followers. Will be good to find out how many people watch Rush online and if these people become the show’s most loyal audience.

In an aggressive social media program that goes far beyond what Ford has done in the past, the manufacturer is partly counting on members of the public to introduce its new Fiesta model to 20-somethings across the US.

Ford recently handed 100 Fiestas to 100 web fanatics in the target demographic, selected from over 4,000 applicants. These ‘agents‘ get to use the cars for six months in exchange for completing monthly ‘missions‘ with different themes. They’ll share their experiences through YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter accounts Ford created for the campaign. Ford have asked the users to be completely honest in their reviews, showing that Ford has unswerving faith in the product.

Ford’s point-of-view about the campaign: “We realized that the message is increasingly out of our control and that we have to roll with it,” Fiesta product manager Sam De La Garza said. “For us it all rests on the quality of this product. We’ve all driven the Fiesta, and we felt so confident about the car that we could start this. We’re going to allow people to tell the story [of the Fiesta] from their lives.”

While it doesn’t replace the millions of dollars of ‘traditional media’ launch expenditure Ford will still spend, it provides an extra layer of interaction with their audience, which is a brave move that must be applauded.   If marketeers for any brand have enough belief in the product/service they are selling, why not engage in conversation with the people who will ultimately be purchasing (or not purchasing) it?

The campaign commences April 21st.

An interesting article from Mashable! popped up earlier in the week which looked at how some brands are using Facebook to engage consumers.

Ben & Jerry’s, Adobe and the Fast & Furious movie release have all used the network in an effective manner recently as part of their overall brand strategy, the results of which are now being promoted on Facebook’s Marketing Solutions . The page is complete with case studies from the above brands, tips and how-tos, and discussion with marketers on how to get the best out of the site.

Adobe engaged design students with a ‘real or fake’ photography campaign using their Photoshop tool, to promote substantial discounts on their software that they were offering this target group. The campaign registered outstanding levels of interaction that eventually translated to sales.

By adding unique content about the new Fast & Furious movie to Vin Diesel’s fan page, the star added an additional 1million fans in a couple of weeks, helping the film register a strong box office result.

Ben & Jerry’s enabled users to share fun and personalised content with their friends about their favourite Ben & Jerry’s flavours, published in their news feed.

Since the rise in popularity of online social media, commentators have been speculating on how sites such as Twitter and Facebook will ‘monetise’ their growth in user base, like Google did with search engine marketing. Many brands have also struggled to come to terms with how they should position their brand on these networks.

With any social media play (and like the examples above), the primary objective must be to add value for the consumer; offering more opportunities for consumers to engage with the brand, where, when, and how they want to. This can only start from having a social media strategy that understands the consumer, the market the brand operates in, and how best they can add value to the consumer on an ongoing basis.