Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Social Media Marketing and The Engagement Expectation
Most businesses have realized that when it comes to social networks like Twitter or Facebook, simply broadcasting content isn’t quite enough. Consumers want companies to engage with them on social networks — not because they want to have a relationship, per say, with a brand of soap or shampoo, but because they appreciate the opportunity to give feedback on products, receive meaningful information from brands, and catch the occasional bargain, among other things.
According to research from Cone, some 74% of US new media users have a generally more positive impression of a company or brand after interacting via new media. That might be why so many marketers are planning to move from the trial phase of their social marketing efforts toward strategic use of the channel next year: Customer retention and engagement ranked below only new customer acquisition in a Unisfair study of leading marketing priorities among US marketers in 2010.
Still, engagement means many things. For some, it means creating a team of customer service representatives to scour social networks for complaints, questions and praise. Best Buy’s Twelpforce is one successful example of this. JetBlue’s Twitter feed is another. But here’s a question that has been raised by some, and is worth considering: Are customer service efforts on Twitter a danger when customers start to expect a direct response and brands aren’t available or have the resources necessary to deliver? Will consumers view it as the same thing as not picking up the customer service phone line?
Noah Brier of The Barbarian Group, along with Hive Awards’ Alan Wolk, AdWeek Editor Brian Morrissey and Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer, chatted about the engagement expectation in this excellent video. Take a look: (Watch the whole thing, or skip to the 4:00 minute mark.)
The Social Media Bubble Part 2 of 3 from Hive Awards on Vimeo.
Money quote from Schafer:
You can’t set expectations where, if you have a problem with a Best Buy gift card, the Best Buy CEO is, all of a sudden, going to help you out. It’s just not rational. Things don’t happen at that kind of scale. At the end of the day, understanding social media as a brand doesn’t necessarily mean having a conversation with your customer. That’s a real big misnomer out there. [The alternative solution, therefore] may very well be enabling your customers to have conversations with each other.
Schafer also points out how instead of directly engaging customers on social networks, brands like Apple have created forums and communities where customers can interact with other customers or ‘brand-certified’ specialists. What do you think? Are you willing to allocate the resources to manage the engagement expectation, or are there alternative solutions? What type of social media engagement is right for your brand?
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by eMarketer: Social Media Marketing and The Engagement Expectation | http://bit.ly/4UmUtE by @ClarkF #eMarketerBlog…
I think it is valuable to allocate $ towards the stratgeic initiatives. I find that many people want the quick sale and dont think about investing in long term faithful customers. Part of my social media proposal is educating the client, and even then its like faith, if they dont see it (right away) they wont invest in it for too long.) Thanks to publications like yours companies will look at social media more seriously. Its not a campaign, its a commitment! – Cara Mandart Black Dog Social Media
Well said, Cara. I agree that social media marketing, in general, is a long-term commitment, not a campaign that begins and ends in a manner of months. Marketers are starting to realize this, and in 2010, we’ll begin to see more long term engagement strategies from brands.
I would add that to truly engage with customers in meaningful dialogue marketers are going to have to implement platform technologies like enterprise marketing management or marketing asset management. No army of production artists or tweeters can ever communicate quickly enough to maintain the type of cross media dialogue consumers will expect. Highly sophisticated marketing automation technology will be needed and its fair to say that marketers in general are woefully prepared.
This expectation danger is exactly why I am wary to recommend social media to small business as a word of mouth tool – unless they already have it as a hobby interest.
Your buyers will lead the way if you need to be online.
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[...] Consumers want brands to engage on new media, and brands are getting ready to do so — but do brands realize the resources necessary for success?Read More… [...]
Interesting ideas. I’m also curious to see how marketers, and brands, for that matter, deal with it in the coming year.
[...] 2009/12/29 in Uncategorized From: http://www.emarketer.com/blog/index.php/social-media-marketing-engagement-expectation [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lauren McCadney, BJ Emerson. BJ Emerson said: Agreed, great article Gavin. RT @gavinbaker: engagement expectation, what to do? Great article @emarketer http://bit.ly/7bjrmI [...]
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by LMcCadney: In the land of social media how do you balance “interaction” and “scale”? Interesting thoughts in this article http://bit.ly/5Ie1D6...
I think you ask the most important question, “What type of social media engagement is right for your brand?” And that’s partly why I have a problem with Schafer’s money quote, instead of assuming that every company, and in every community it is not possible to communicate I think it really does depend upon the company and their community.
Dell for example, a large consumer and B2B brand has a process for managing engagement across closed communities and open communities like blogs and twitter. Listening platforms find opportunities and Dell goes through a triage process, decided whether to respond or to leave a post well enough alone. Here’s one important point, everything that Dell can find that’s related to them is read, there be no action taken but it is read. Now they don’t reply to everything, but the company does have the resources to respond to most incidents.
Look at another company like Emerson Process, a large B2B engineering company, its perfectly possible for Jim Cahill the chief blogger there to respond to everyone in the community, he focuses on the influencers and media bloggers, but he can also correspond with clients. Engagement with each customer is worth the effort each contract with Emerson is typically in the millions and he gets 3-8 leads a week from social media. No one can tell me that the value derived from social media is not worth the engagement for Emerson.
I’ve been watching and involved in the Enterprise Social Media community since 2003. I’ve seen fads come and go, content appears to be king at the moment, but your post hits the nail on the head, without engagement companies lose a lot of opportunities to gain ideas, solve customer problems and gain direct sales as a result of the interactions around brand related conversations through search and word of mouth.
John Cass
Author – Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging
Stephen’s point is a good one, and wonder what enterprise marketing management software is worth the investment for small social media companies, like mine, who are growing. I would love anyone’s suggestions.
[...] vs Prescense.egg on Aviary. I caught a piece on eMarketer by Clark Fredricksen today about the dilemma of customer engagement companies face when moving into [...]
Thanks for the thoughts, guys.
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