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Module 7: Strategy and ROI

Building the community

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The Social Technographics ™ Ladder

“Taken together, these groups make up the ecosystem that forms the groundswell.

“By examining how they are represented in any subgroup, strategists can determine which sorts of strategies make sense to reach their customers.”

Six groups: Creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, inactives

Groundswell.forrester.com

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The Social Technographics™ Ladder

Forrester classifies people according to how they use social technologies.

Can quantify the number of online consumers within these groups using our consumer surveys.

Source: Forrester

CREATORS

CRITICS

JOINERS

SPECTATORS

INACTIVES

COLLECTORS

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The Social Technographics ™ Ladder

*Groups include people participating in at least one of the activities monthly.

Creators make social content go. They write blogs or upload video, music, or text.Critics respond to content from others. They post reviews, comment on blogs, participate in forums, and edit wiki articles.Collectors organize content for themselves or others using RSS feeds, tags, and voting sites like Digg.comJoiners connect in social networks like MySpace and Facebook.Spectators consumer social content including blogs, user-generated video, podcasts, forums, or reviewsInactives neither create nor consumer social content of any kind.

Publish a blogPublish your own Web pagesUpload video you created Upload audio/music you createdWrite articles or stories and post them

Post ratings/reviews of products/servicesComment on someone else’s blogContribute to online forumsContribute to/edit articles in a wiki

Use RSS feedsAdd “tags” to Web pages or photos“Vote” for Web sites online

Maintain profile on a social networking site. Visit social networking sites

Read blogsWatch video from other usersListen to podcastsRead online forumsRead customer ratings/reviews

None of the aboveINACTIVES

SPECTATORS

JOINERS

COLLECTORS

CRITICS

CREATORS

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Step 1: Identify internal community

If you regularly ... Your profile is:

blog, tweet, upload Creator

write reviews, post replies Critic

tag objects, use RSS Collector

join a network Joiner

read blogs Spectator

do none of the above Inactive

Profile them: How do they participate?

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Step 2: Matching

Profile Example Goal Tools

Creator amplify word of mouth blogs

Critic product development wikis

Collector market research RSS

Joiner public relationssocial network

Spectatorcanary in the coalmine

brand monitoring

Inactive getting started search

Identify the comfort level for participating.

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Step 3: Identify tools and objectivesTool Description Objectives

Internal blogMultiple individual/group blogs

For employees and interns only – gauge talent

Internal Forums Technology discussionsCustomer facing and internal-only

LinkedIn Business networkingMake employees, partners, suppliers upload profiles

Wiki Collaborative publishingEmployees, partners, customers, students – open knowledge database

Facebook fan page

Showcasing new products, launches

Engagement with advocates

Twitter MicrobloggingEngagement, Brand awareness, Media relations

YouTube CEO’s speeches, talksPromote CEO thought leadership

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Step 4: Identify external community

• People who know you

• People who want to know you

• People who don’t know you

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People who know youExisting clients: What do they want? • Quick info: eg: CEO bio, profile, map, contact

numbers, investor relations,CSR• New information: Updates on product or service• Support: Help them fix issues• Space to vent or suggest improvements• Promotions or discounts or events of upcoming

products• Use press releases, photos, videos, whitepapers,

testimonials, blogs, podcasts, wikisCompetitor’s myth: “If I post too much information,my competitors will use it against me.” In most cases, it doesn’t make a difference.

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Advocacy: Help the fanbase

Fanboy/girls: People who help promote your brand or product or service online because they like it.

“Help them help you.” ijustine.tv

Ideas: Blogger outreach programme. Provide content they can use, link, embed, share, mashup, send to others.Eg: widgets, free fun apps, games, prizes for their readers.

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People who want to know you &People who don’t know you

Potential clients who heard about you via third party: media, search engine, social network, chat, seminar, conference, trade event, other websites, technical reports, associations, groupings.What do they want?

• CLARITY: quick and easy information.• CONFIRMATION: Are you credible, competent,

capable?• ENGAGEMENT: Does your social media identity

suggest you are the kind of person (human) I want to do business with? Why should I come back to your website, social network page, follow your blog or Twitter account?

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Building the community

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Step 5: Determine objectives

• What do you hope to accomplish from social media?

• Where are your pain points where social media can be applied – internal or external communications, sales, marketing, HR, management, CRM, CSR?

• Will you aim for awareness training or use social media for a specific campaign?

• How will you gauge the level of success from the campaign?

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Step 6: Determine resources

• What can the company handle? • What resources can we dedicate in terms of people, tech, etc?

• Need to accept that staff, customers will be negative sometimes.

• If the company’s culture is top-down, command-and-control, you need to break mold by seeking third-party expert help.

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Scenario 1: Corporate-wide awareness training: You need to drum up support, identify talent, bring in trainers

Scenario 2: Find your SWAT team: Get a small team sneakily doing something and rack up some small wins. This method can backfire though. Eg: A page that attracts attacks.

Scenario 3: Officially start with a few committed bloggers, social networkers and tweeters and roll out wider if necessary.

NOTE: Share successes and failures and lessons from above.

Step 7: The roll-out

“Different strokes for different folks”

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The rollout• Fail fast: People will appreciate transparency. Don’t fear failures -

first time you cock up, try again.• Lobby: Personal motivations matter: eg: if there’s someone

wanting a promotion approach them individually. Get them on board and to champion project early so they can claim benefit later on. It’s all lobbying skills.

• Champion: Champions come from all depts. Age is not an issue. Just because someone is young doesn’t mean he/her is innately ‘digital.’

• Skeptics: Get some pessimists and skeptics on board. Give them the tools, learn from their criticisms.

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On management buy-inROI: There is no silver bullet to building a business case

• The 1st question is often ‘How can this help us?’ but it should be ‘How can we help our customers?’

• Evaluate the cost to achieve the same by traditional means ie: print advertising, marketing, support and IT dept costs.

• Justification: “If we don’t, our competitors will take market share.”

• Financial Dept: Give them the numbers.

• HR: Talk about staff retention.

• IT: Talk about leverage to buy new toys.

• Legal: Aim of legal dept is to reduce risk to zero. Businesses work by taking and managing risks.

• Executive buy-in will expedite the financial, legal HR team getting on board.

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Setting guidelines: example•Use common sense (don’t piss off your boss)

•Do not post entries that are personal attacks or culturally sensitive or religiously offensive

•Do not discuss unreleased products and features

•Post a standard company disclaimer on your blog, profile page and disclose affiliation to company or specific projects

•If you post all or parts of an internal email, conceal the names of the sender and recipients

• When expressing an opinion, emphasize that you speak only for yourself, beginning a sentence with "IMHO"

• If you doubt the appropriateness of a post, ask a peer what they think and then read it again the next day as if it were headline in a newspaper.

• Do not post too much noise (ie: inane accounts of your boredom with life)

• Respect the platform, be an adult

• Keep it friendly, and have fun

• Be wary of copyright issuesEG: http://channel9.msdn.com/About/http://womma.org/blogger/readhttp://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US/social-media.htm

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Dealing with the trolls

Source: 2008 Forrester Research

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On metricsThings to measure:

• Quantitative: Page views, Number of comments, Followers, Fans, Embeds, Mentions, Trackbacks, Number of RT, Savings in support costs

• Qualitative: - Comments, Positive/Negative/Neutral

– Did we learn something about our customers that we didn’t know before? Did our customers learn something about us?

– Were we able to engage our customers in new conversations?

- Did our employees find new cost-saving ways for external feedback, averting crises and reputation management?

•Customized dashboards: Trackur, BuzzMetrics

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Signs that your social media strategy is working…on their blog

They have interesting things to say about their respective profession and industry.

They update regularly and link to interesting ideas, stories and other blog posts

They provide glimpses into their life outside of work – family, friends, hobbies – that humanizes them.

They do not bad-mouth their current or previous employers, or colleagues (caveat: unless there is lesson worth learning)

They keep it friendly – no personal attacksThey seem genuine and honestThey have a picture, bio, RSS and blogroll

Adapted from Boris Epstein, CEO and Founder of BINC

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Signs that your social media strategy is working…on Twitter

Tweets often (between 2-10 times per day) Responds and genuinely helps others Has growing and healthy followers/following Keeps a balance between personal and

professional tweets Engages in discussion related to your business

and seems to get Twitter

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Signs community is working…on Facebook

Updates often: pictures, status updates, videosUsers sign up on your Group, Pages, EventsUsers leave comments and show genuine interest

in wanting to engage with brand, product, service, launch, event

Staff on Facebook are member of groups relevant to their profession

Staff updating with photos and videos of Events, Family Day, CSR programmes, New Product Launches – all PG-13

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Signs that your social media strategy is working…on LinkedIn They have complete profiles They have genuine recommendations from peers,

managers and colleagues They are members of groups pertaining to their respective

fields They update their status often They voluntarily answer questions They are linking to their employer, blog and other projects

of interest. They are participating and getting involved discussion in

the community.

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Signs of success… on GoogleWhen company or brand is Googled:

1. Leads me to company blog, webpage, landing pages, microsites, staff or company social media pages

2. Leads to active discussions on issues related to company

3. Leads to profession-related discussions and commentary on social media sites.

4. Does not lead to something controversial or negative, (unless a lesson to be learnt)

When staff are individually Googled:

1. Doesn’t come up blank.

2. Leads me to their online blog, webpage or social media profiles and company is identified. (3 and 4 above apply)

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