Brand reputations can be built and destroyed online, just as they can offline. On one hand, the ability to actively demonstrate your brand values through social media channels offers exciting possibilities. The style of content you produce and the way you deliver and engage allows you to deliver your brand values in real time. This can be extremely powerful and is something we all as customers are increasingly seeking – we want to buy from people and companies who appear genuine and who share our values.
Conversely, if you get it wrong you can end up damaging the reputation of your brand and very quickly build a poor reputation. It’s this fear of getting it wrong that often puts companies off using social media. However, with some careful planning and preparation you can avoid damaging your brand and actually elevate it, building new customers and creating greater brand loyalty than before.
Is social media right for your brand?
So how do you know if social media is relevant to your company – and if it is, which channels to use?
To understand if it is right for your business, start in the same way you would when considering any form of marketing communication – by focusing on your business strategy. That’s where we at Clock would always begin. Once we fully understand what your business objectives are, who your target audiences are and where best to reach them, then we can develop a communication strategy that incorporates social media and aligns with your business objectives.
Only when you have identified your target audiences, and how best to influence them, can you determine if social media is right for you. In the b2b arena you almost certainly should be on LinkedIn and your prime branded destination should be your website.
Monitoring
A good start is monitoring what is currently being said about your brand, your products and your services. There are some free tools to help you do this, and it’s worthwhile spending some time watching conversations to understand if you need to change perceptions, build on them or create them. I would also recommend monitoring what is being said about your key competitors, the types of products and services you sell and the prevailing trends in your industry.
Once you have spent some time observing you will have a much better idea of the task in hand and this can help you prepare content in advance. You should incorporate into your plan a set of guidelines for dealing with negative comments, complaints or potentially damaging conversations. By preparing for these you will ensure you deal with anything promptly, professionally and with a level-head. Negative comments should always be seen as an opportunity to demonstrate your brand values and build your brand’s reputation. The other way of looking at it is that negative conversations will happen anyway, and you are far better joining in the debate openly rather than letting frustrations build.
Channels
Once you have your plan, and you’ve monitored conversations and developed some content, you need to identify the best channels for you. The decision should be based partly on resources available and partly on which channels your target audience can be found.
Selecting the right channel or channels is key to your brand being seen in the right places. Companies often make the mistake of trying to be active on every channel (video, blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc) and find they simply cannot maintain the level of interaction required to create a meaningful dialogue. My advice would be to carefully select a very small number and do them really well. This way, you can more easily maintain the level of interactive dialogue that’s essential to build any type of relationship and demonstrate brand integrity.
Creating brand influence
Social media is a great tool for widening your reach, positioning your brand and engaging with audiences in a way that is hard to do through traditional networks. Building trust is important in order to develop long term relationships. Once people trust your brand they are more likely to engage with it, recommend it and help you build a wider reach. In essence, to start to ‘influence’ your followers.
To do this you need to think relationship marketing, rather than lead generation marketing. This means providing useful information, responding to enquiries and participating in conversations with the aim of building trust – leaving selling to no more than 20% of your content. Most importantly, this approach requires a long-term view.
Integration
As with any marketing communication, social media is rarely successful if used in isolation, so ensure that your other marketing communications promote your online activity. This can include simple things like having links to your Twitter, LinkedIn or other social media pages on your email footer. Using the URLs of these pages in adverts, and creating an e-shot to let existing customers and suppliers know they exist, also helps to build an awareness and a following. If you are running a promotion on a Facebook page, remember to promote this through your other channels to present a cohesive campaign. And if you’re generating content for your blog, could this be successfully adapted for a press release? Wherever possible, seek to maximise reach through other channels.
Integration means reinforcing your brand messages through every possible channel where audiences could come in contact with your brand. A consistent message is a powerful one: inconsistency undermines your brand at every level. Share your marketing activity with your internal teams and, if appropriate, your external partners. It’s vital that everyone understands the messages being put out and is able to reinforce them through their contact with customers.
Measuring effectiveness
Within your strategy be sure to include some ways for measuring effectiveness.
What will success look like? Well, as with other communications it can be difficult to assess results precisely. However, there are some essentials that will help to ensure you are not wasting valuable resources and budget. Remember, social media is online and anything online can be measured. You just have to understand why you are measuring it and what to do with the information.
Here are a few suggestions;
• Relevance – how relevant is your content to your audience?
If you are writing blogs, measure feedback and comments, retweets and sharing of the blog. If you are using Twitter and Facebook, how many conversations are there from your followers and fans? Are they sharing your content and engaging others in the discussions?
• Perceptions – from your initial monitoring, what are people’s perceptions of your brand and 6 months on have they changed or improved? How do people respond to your products and services, when you post information do they provide feedback? Do you know if they are happy with your service levels?
• Trust – do you gain recommendations? Are new customers and suppliers approaching you? Are your staff engaging with your social media channels and contributing?
• Engagement – Are you building a loyal following? How often do people engage in dialogue with you on and offline? Can sales or customer service see a response following the posting of a promotion? Is there a reduction in after care calls following the posting of frequently asked questions? Are the sales team seeing an improvement in awareness?
• Awareness – Are your followers increasing, how many retweets and sharing of content do you achieve? Are your competitors and peers engaging with you? Is it helping with recruitment? Are you finding it easier to source new suppliers or reach new markets?
There are many tools to help you measure your reach and conversations about your brand, Google being a good free starting point.
Finally, I would reiterate the need to take a long-term view of social media. It is rarely something that delivers overnight success and it requires a dedicated resource. If you are intending to manage it in-house, make sure you have someone who understands your brand, your products and services and who has a good grasp of the technologies and methods. If you outsource it, ensure the company also has a good grasp of these and a direct line to the brand guardian in-house. Social media needs to be a continuous activity if you are going to successfully build your brand. Otherwise your audience will become disengaged very quickly and all your efforts will be wasted. Done properly, it is a valuable tool for elevating your brand globally and building meaningful relationships to grow your business.
Additional reading
Here are links to some interesting case studies on companies using social media:
UPS Case Study 1
UPS Case Study 2
Various
Toprankblog.com social media winners 2010
How Cisco have made social media an integral part of their website
Guidelines and policies
