Digital Marketing Final
double-edged sword
Consumers today react to products, services and ad campaigns in real-time through social media, creating new demands on organizations. Generating and sustaining high levels of engagement and enthusiasm online requires clarity around the firm's goals and values.
plan the content
Content Types Original content is what naturally springs to mind for most people when they think of company social media content. In addition to (1) original content, a company can also post (2) user-generated content, (3) co-created content, and (4) curated content. Original content. Original content is, as its title suggests, content that is original to the company. The main advantage of original content is that the company is not limited by outside entities and retains complete control over the messaging and creative content of its posts. The vast majority of social media content created by companies is original content. Repurposed content refers to content created by a company for another purpose (e.g., content for an ad campaign or for a pamphlet) and repurposed for a social media post. Repurposed content is still original content, since it was created by the company. Posting repurposed content can be beneficial because it makes better use of limited resources and helps to keep company messaging consistent across multiple channels. User-generated content. User-generated content is any content created by a platform users. Often, companies invite customers to create content around a particular theme and then either (1) choose some of the best submissions to be reposted by the company or (2) encourage customers to use a particular hashtag so that the users' content will automatically be linked via the hashtag. User-generated content can have two important benefits for a company. Not only does the company expand the amount of potential content to use, but the company also personalizes the connection it has with its customers. Posting content from customers can humanize the company and thereby make the company-customer connection feel more personal. The major disadvantage of user-generated content is that customers often do not have an incentive to respond to the company's request for content. Creating content requires effort on the part of the customer, so a customer will not generate content unless they have an intrinsic motivation (e.g., they already feel a close connection with the company or creating the content is itself fun) or a sufficient extrinsic motivation (e.g., they receive a discount or an entry into a drawing in exchange for submitting content). User-generated content with customers typically works best during a concentrated time window rather than on an ongoing basis. Co-created content. Co-creating content with other brands can yield benefits for both of the participating brands, because both brands get exposure to the other brand's followers. Though co-created content exists on all social platforms, it is especially widespread on YouTube. Another benefit of co-created content is that combining creative forces can help a company create unique content. Content creators must continually create unique and appealing content, which can be difficult to do consistently. Teaming up with another content creator is likely to result in content that is unique from each creator's solo content. Curated content. Finally, companies can also post content created entirely by another entity. On Twitter, this may be as simple as retweeting someone else's tweet. On Instagram, many profiles (particularly in the travel sector) do not create any of their own photos or videos but merely post pictures taken by other Instagrammers. Company social media profiles can post curated content to supplement their original and co-created content, but curated content should typically be only a small proportion of the content.
measuring success
Measuring Reach Total Number of Likes/Subscribers/Followers. Total followers should likely not be a KPI, because having millions of followers does not guarantee widespread reach of social media content. In fact, most social media experts consider total followers to be nothing more than a vanity metric. That said, if accumulating engaged followers is the central aim of a company's social media efforts (in the short term—this would not be a good long-term strategy), it will want to track the total number of followers or subscribers it has earned. Follower Growth. The percent growth or decline in a follower list is useful metric for tracking efforts at list growth. Impressions/Views. Even when a company has very engaged followers, its content is not likely to be seen by even half of its followers. Not every follower will see every piece of content the company posts. First, not every user will use the social media platform frequently enough to see all the content. Second, most social media platforms only show a subset of potential content to users. Tracking how many followers saw each piece of content lets the company know the real reach of its social media content. This tracking can be done in terms of raw numbers or as a percentage of followers who saw the content. Measuring Engagement Re-Posts/Re-Tweets/Re-Pins. A reliable measure of the quality of any individual piece of social media content is the number of its followers who like the content enough to post it to their own social media profiles. Re-posts are how a company gains the valuable earned media it strives for. Likes/Comments. Not to be confused with a "Like" of the company's Facebook page, this measure refers to likes or comments on a particular piece of content on the company's social media platform. Though re-posts are more valuable than likes or comments, earning likes and comments are still valuable because they indicate that followers are engaged with a company's content. Engagement Rate. Rather than measure engagement with a particular piece of content, the engagement rate measures the percentage of users who have engaged with any piece of content within a given time period. A company might measure the proportion of its followers who have clicked on, liked, commented on, or watched a video of any posted content within the last month, for example. This provides a good indication of the overall level of engagement of a company's base of followers. Having a large number of followers is not beneficial to the company if this engagement rate is close to 0. Measuring Loyalty Conversion Rate. Any content that promotes a particular product should increase the sales of that product directly from the social media platform where that content was posted. Tracking the percentage of users who purchase directly from a piece of social media content is easily done with any analytics package. Purchase Frequency/Likelihood. If the goal of a social media campaign is to create customers or retain customers through its social media content, then followers of that social media account should purchase more frequently or be more likely to purchase than non-followers. This measure comes with two large caveats, however. First, a higher purchase frequency or likelihood may not be caused by the social media content—it may only reflect the fact that loyal customers are more likely to connect with the company on social media. Second, obtaining the data that make this calculation possible may be difficult. Several software programs enable companies to connect customer purchase data with those customers' social media data, but these connections are often imperfect, meaning this calculation is based on partial data. Social Listening Measures Social listening requires the use of a social listening software like Crimson Hexagon, SproutSocial, Nuvi, or one of dozens of others. The first step is to train the listening software on the words and phrases the company wishes to track. Even this first step has pitfalls, as mentioned in Section 1 of this chapter. Volume. Companies often believe that the total number of social media mentions is a good reflection of their social media performance. After all, earned media is one of the goals of social media activity. However, this line of thinking has two pitfalls. First, not all social media mentions are positive. Second, the total number of social media mentions may not be reflective of overall business performance. BMW may earn more social media mentions than Honda, but Honda earns a much higher profit than BMW. Sentiment. Social listening software provides automatic sentiment coding. That is, it will score each social media mention as positive, neutral, or negative. The percentage of positive social media mentions can be used by companies as a signal of their performance, but this measure also has pitfalls. First, such automatic encoding can be inaccurate, since the software typically cannot understand sarcasm. Second, some product categories, like airlines, are simply more prone to negative social media mentions, so even a high-performing company may end up with a high percentage of negative social media mentions. Changes in volume and sentiment. Because of the pitfalls of both volume metrics (total number of social media mentions) and sentiment metrics (percentage of positive comments), companies should not blindly trust either metric is an indicator of performance. Instead, companies should look at the combination of volume and sentiment benchmarked by the past. That is, what matters more than the volume and sentiment is how the volume and sentiment have changed. If a company sees an increase in volume and a decrease in sentiment at the same time, this may indicate a coming brand crisis. An increase in volume and an increase in sentiment at the same time may indicate highly effective social media activity that should be built on. Topic. Not only do companies want to know the sentiment surrounding company mentions, they also want to know what is being said. Are consumers talking about customer service, product quality, brand image, and so forth? The topics being mentioned in consumers' posts can serve as a gauge of performance on a variety of dimensions.
choose the platform
The size of the active user population on a platform is an important consideration, and it is a large reason that Facebook is frequently a good choice. However, what matters more than total population is the population density among a company's likely customers. For example, a company wishing to target a younger population will find a higher density of their potential customers on Instagram or Snapchat rather than on Facebook. A company conducting social media in Mexico will find more active users on WhatsApp.
slow typing
This and fat-finger clicking are related, but distinct. The fact that a keyboard on a mobile phone has keys that are too small to be tapped with 100% accuracy is only part of the reason for the slow typing. Typing with two thumbs is much slower than typing with 10 fingers. As a result, filling out forms on a mobile device is extremely cumbersome. This obstacle continues to hinder mobile purchasing.
four questions a firm needs to ask before developing a digital strategy
What are your goals, Which platforms should we be using, What is your content strategy, Are you ready to talk with your audience — in real time
Low Clustering Network
When each person in this network knows only one or two other people in the same network.
High-Clustering Network
When each person in this network knows three to four other people. So the connections are much more dense than the left one.
consumer narrative strategy steps
Work with consumers to generate believable and compelling stories. Convert stories into high-quality presentations. Embed stories in your social media mix. Integrate paid media strategies with voluntary sharing of stories on social media.
timelessness
a company can nudge press coverage toward its response to the controversy rather than focusing on the controversy itself. A company should also admit any wrongdoing
Training
a company should have a plan in place for its employees to respond to complaints.
transmedia storytelling
a technique that allows a story to unfold across multimedia platforms and that solicits the active participation of fans and end users in the story's expansion across these media. The spreadability of the narrative is an important consideration and is accomplished through viral marketing practices in social media channels. finding the core fan base that will disseminate the narrative is a crucial element of the campaign
Transparency
after which it can then focus the conversation on actions it is taking to resolve the wrong.
does it focus on telling a good story,
clear plot and main idea are central to the storytelling narrative
perceived authorship
consumer authored stories and stories jointly authored by consumers and companies had similar levels of impact and both had more impact than stories authored by companies alone.
processors and internet connections
continue to improve, mobile speed continues to be an annoyance for consumers. It may be worth exploring the Accelerated Mobile Project's website: https://www.ampproject.org/. It is an open-source initiative backed by Google to encourage web designers to implement websites that will load quickly for users.
self-brand connection
degree in which the consumers incorporate the brand into their own self-concepts which results in varied intensity levels of consumer-brand relationships
directional network
differentiates the direction of each connection. In other words, instead of just saying that nodes A and B are connected, we care about who is connected to whom.
behavioral
dimension include activity or interaction with the product or service
was each piece of the narrative easy to find
essential to assume that the audience did not get lost or confused by the subplots of the story
seeding
essentially involves the choice of the initial or first-generation customers that you want to use to spread your viral message. This is about choosing this customer right here on top. Of course in most campaigns, you will start with more than a single person. So there may be multiple individuals at this top level. The question is, who should these people be?
involvement of the audience
fan participation and engagement
distribution
films marketing agency would have to determine the role each social media platform would play
strong ties
good for influence. when more trust and persuasion will be necessary, and therefore, you want to go with these
social monitoring
is the process of tracking content on social media sites, blogs, news sites, wikis, forums, message boards, and other websites as a way to find out what people are saying about your brand, your competitors, your industry, your products or services, and just about anything else you're looking to learn.
viral coefficient
number of invites * conversion rate This provides a mathematical measure of how viral a campaign is. This number needs to be more than 1 for something to really go viral. contains two components: the number of invites sent out by each customer and the rate of converted customers among the invited.
emotional
posts attempt to generate moods or feelings in the recipient
relational
posts make a connection beyond the recipient, for instance encouraging the use of product together with others, or as part of a tribe of interested consumers.
intellectual
posts prod the recipient to engage in conscious mental processing, perhaps through humor, problem solving, or creativity.
sensory
posts stimulate the senses and could involve breathtaking images or shocking multimedia content
fan feedback
provided the films marketing team with cues of what it was looking for
online reputation management
recognizes that negative online content can have unnecessarily damaging repercussions long after the underlying issues have been addressed. ORM is also about equipping businesses with the tools needed to handle new negative issues and turn customer complaints into satisfaction and loyalty. not a method for avoiding responsibility for bad business practices. A company should be using all online feedback to improve its products and services and its employee training.
non-directional network
when there is no difference between two friends on a social network. This direction also does not allow one person to be another's friend and the other person not friend back.
weak ties
you want to go with more connections but not necessarily high tie strength. if it is just a viral video,
social media objectives
(1)Find new customers through social media posts (2)Find new customers through social media ads (3)Find new customers through search engines (by way of social media) (4)Increase customer loyalty through social media posts (5)Increase customer loyalty through social media ads (6)Increase customer loyalty through social monitoring (7)Gain customer insights through social listening
fat-finger
For a time, many media websites advertised quite profusely on Facebook, and the way they recouped their advertising costs was to generate excessive advertising revenue through.
Distribute and Promote Content
The best social media content in the world will not benefit a company if nobody consumes its content. Thus, an important aspect of social media activity is the distribution of content. To achieve distribution of its posted content, a company must attract engaged followers to its owned social media profiles. As mentioned previously, company social media profiles are typically at a disadvantage, because platforms are less likely to show posts from companies than posts from friends. To overcome this disadvantage, a company must have engaged followers. A second method of achieving distribution is through earned media, which is any exposure to the company's content generated by the activity of agents external to the company. Finally, a company can pay for distribution (i.e. paid media). Owned Media Though each social media platform is unique, almost all of them have a method for allowing users to follow content from a particular entity, whether that entity is a person or a commercial interest. The most important consideration in attracting engaged followers to a social media profile is the alignment of incentives. In the early days of social media, companies often provided attractive external incentives (e.g., a free gift or a discount on a product) for users to Like its Facebook profile or to follow its Twitter account. As a result, some companies amassed huge lists of followers, most of whom were not interested in the company's content. When attracting followers to its social media profiles, the company should base these appeals on the value being provided to followers. Instead of a generic, "Connect with us!" call to action near its social media buttons, a company could include information in its call to action about the value provided in its social media content. A restaurant could, for example, use a more descriptive call to action, such as, "Get regular dining coupons by connecting with us on Facebook." Another consideration in attracting social media followers is to "strike while the iron is hot." The proverbial iron is hottest just after a customer has made a purchase or had a meaningful and positive interaction with the company. For online retailers, the confirmation email that is sent out with a purchase is a prime place to include a call to action to follow the company on social media, as is somewhere inside the delivered package. For brick and mortar companies, in-person calls to action are a prime source of social media followers. Of course, attracting engaged followers is also fruitless if those followers do not stay engaged. Keeping followers engaged requires posting not just engaging content, but observably engaging content. That is, the posted content should foster clicks, likes, and views that the social media platform can observe as evidence that the followers enjoy seeing the company's content. Of course, the best type of engagement is a share or re-share of the company's content, which would generate earned media. Earned Media Earned media refers to any publicity a company received from unpaid promotional efforts. On social media, earned media typically refers to content shared or re-shared by social media users, but publicity from traditional media outlets can also be a profitable source of earned media. Earned media can be extremely beneficial for companies, because it is free publicity. But successful earned media campaigns require a mix of good execution and good luck that cannot be produced at will. Creating content with the expectation that it will "go viral" and/or generate extreme levels of earned media is unlikely to be successful. However, creating content to maximize its chances of generating additional earned media views is a wise supplement to a company's digital marketing arsenal. The most thorough evidence-based framework for how to encourage consumers to talk about a company (and thereby generate earned media) comes from Contagious, the 2013 book by Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger. In it, Berger details six factors that increase conversations. They are: Social currency - we tend to share things that make us look good to others Triggers - we talk about things that are associated with things in our environment Emotion - feeling deepens our connection, making us more likely to share those feelings with others Public - we are more likely to talk about things that are observable Practical value - if it's useful or solves a problem, it's worth talking about Stories - it is human nature to like stories, so create a story that makes the company a protagonist Paid Media Achieving distribution for paid media content is straightforward—the company pays for distribution of its advertising content. The primary benefit of social media advertising is the ability to distribute ad content only to social media users who are good targets; that is, people who are likely to be influenced by the company's advertisements. Every social media platform allows advertisers to select advertising targets based on a variety of factors, including demographics, interests, behaviors, etc. Chapter 10 will provide information about ad targeting on each social media platform. But advertisers should be aware that just because sophisticated ad targeting is available on a social media platform does not mean that the ads are being effectively distributed to the best targets. Ensuring effective distribution of ad content requires both testing and measurement of results.
less information
The fact that a mobile screen cannot display as much information as a larger screen has important implications for mobile users' cognitions. Desktop users tend to think more holistically, because they can take in a greater variety of information and incorporate more parts of information into a larger picture. Mobile users, because they can only see a small chunk of the picture (both literally and figuratively), tend to think in more detailed, concrete terms. This can have important implications for not only the quantity of information desired by the consumer, but also the kind of information. When consumers think holistically, they are more likely to make cognitive connections between a potential purchase and the role it will serve in their future actions. For example, a purchase of a backpack will be cognitively linked to future activities like hiking or going to school. When consumers think more concretely, they are more likely to consider the purchase in isolation. The purchaser of a backpack will think about the features of the backpack (pockets, size, zippers) in isolation.
cycle time
The shorter this is, the more likely a campaign is going to go viral. We mentioned that Old Spice's decision to create the videos in a short time span helped reduce the viral cycle time and push the momentum of the campaign.
Social Listening
requires the use of a social listening software like Crimson Hexagon, SproutSocial, Nuvi, or one of dozens of others. The first step is to train the listening software on the words and phrases the company wishes to track. Even this first step has pitfalls, as mentioned in Section 1 of this chapter. Volume. Companies often believe that the total number of social media mentions is a good reflection of their social media performance. After all, earned media is one of the goals of social media activity. However, this line of thinking has two pitfalls. First, not all social media mentions are positive. Second, the total number of social media mentions may not be reflective of overall business performance. BMW may earn more social media mentions than Honda, but Honda earns a much higher profit than BMW. Sentiment. Social listening software provides automatic sentiment coding. That is, it will score each social media mention as positive, neutral, or negative. The percentage of positive social media mentions can be used by companies as a signal of their performance, but this measure also has pitfalls. First, such automatic encoding can be inaccurate, since the software typically cannot understand sarcasm. Second, some product categories, like airlines, are simply more prone to negative social media mentions, so even a high-performing company may end up with a high percentage of negative social media mentions. Changes in volume and sentiment. Because of the pitfalls of both volume metrics (total number of social media mentions) and sentiment metrics (percentage of positive comments), companies should not blindly trust either metric is an indicator of performance. Instead, companies should look at the combination of volume and sentiment benchmarked by the past. That is, what matters more than the volume and sentiment is how the volume and sentiment have changed. If a company sees an increase in volume and a decrease in sentiment at the same time, this may indicate a coming brand crisis. An increase in volume and an increase in sentiment at the same time may indicate highly effective social media activity that should be built on. Topic. Not only do companies want to know the sentiment surrounding company mentions, they also want to know what is being said. Are consumers talking about customer service, product quality, brand image, and so forth? The topics being mentioned in consumers' posts can serve as a gauge of performance on a variety of dimensions.
consideration
stage of the buyer's journey is the phase that helps your target audience consider your product or service as an option to resolve their problem. This is a key part of converting these leads to customers.
trust
the holding out by a company to the public by advertising, solicitation, or other means that the company is available to act as a fiduciary
