Posts Tagged ‘trust’

Building Relationships: Choose Your Social Network Wisely

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Today’s world is fast-paced, uncertain and becoming even more demanding.  This goes for businesses certainly but also for individuals.  Consumers’ lives are packed with real-world complexities and more online and offline distractions than ever before.  Some believe this is why we have had such a strong uptake on social networks as studies show that 1 in 4 people have no one they can turn to in a time of need.  Overall, a recent Pew study reveals that, on average, people have only two people they are comfortable confiding in.  While people may have very few confidants and sometimes may not have anyone to turn to in the physical world, many take solace online with social networks. 

According to the study:

“Internet users in general score 3 points higher in total support, 6 points higher in companionship, and 4 points higher in instrumental support. A Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day tends to score an additional 5 points higher in total support, 5 points higher in emotional support, and 5 points higher in companionship, than internet users of similar demographic characteristics. For Facebook users, the additional boost is equivalent to about half the total support that the average American receives as a result of being married or cohabitating with a partner.”

Along with companionship and emotional support the study makes a case for an increase in trust as a result of online social networking activities citing that heavier Facebook users are more than 3 times likely to feel that most people can be trusted.  If you combine these factors, you can start to get a much deeper sense of why people go online.  Whereas many like to dismiss social networks as a place to waste time and play senseless games, there is growing evidence that online social networks are as important within a person’s social graph as any other activities.  Understanding this consumer psyche as a Brand can bring a much different perspective to how to engage and approach building relationships through social networks.  If consumers are going to be more trusting online, one might also conclude they will be less forgiving if that trust is broken.

Are all social networks created equal?  According to the Pew study, Facebook users seem to be more supportive and trusting.  Other social networks that were mentioned included Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.  What was not included were networks related to health, fitness or other hobbies.  It seems these networks might even carry higher levels of focused companionship and trust.  Does this information affect how Brands should approach building online relationships?  Brands have different reasons for participating in social as some are looking to promote a new product, better manage customer service and even develop better relationships with their customers.  Are some social networks better for developing relationships than others? It probably depends on the type of Brand you represent and what you are trying to accomplish.  To help us work through the topic of building trust online through social networks, we got the most trustworthy person we know (at least online).  Chuck Hemann is currently VP of Digital Analytics for Edelman Digital. For the past six years, he has provided strategic counsel to clients on a variety of topics including online reputation, social media, digital analytics, investor relations and crisis communications.  For today’s chat, Chuck will cover the following topic and questions:

Topic:  Building Relationships: Choose Your Social Network Wisely

Q1:  A new study from Pew says Facebook users are more trusting than other people, Agree? Why/Why not? 

Q2:  Which social networks are best for brands to develop relationships on?

Q3:  Developing online relationships, do Brands have to message 1-to-1, Brand-to-1, Brand-to-many?

Please join us in this online chat on Tuesday, June 21 at noon ET.  Follow #sm116 from your favorite Twitter client or simply go to our LIVE page at www.hashtagsocialmedia.com/live.  The format will stay the same with the first question starting at noon and a new question coming every 20 minutes at 12:20 and 12:40.

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Characteristics of Highly Influencial Brands in Social Media

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

When you go out at night with friends, how do you decide who you go out with?  Sometimes you might like to hang out with the funny one, the quiet one or the friendly one, but whoever it is, there is some amount of trust and shared interest.  Whether in person or online, you have a choice of where to go and who you want to hang out with.  Understanding this simple perspective is easier said than done for companies who are jumping into the digital social space.

As the world has gone “social”, so too have companies.  In the past, a brand or company did not need a personality to be loved by entire generations only a good marketing department.  One of the biggest challenges with social media that companies have is transitioning their personalities from a prepared marketing push to an ad-hoc, two-way communication.  Some companies and brands are diving in and taking on the challenge of morphing their digital personality and some are not.  For those who are taking the leap, some are showing better results than others. 

Consider the results of a global corporation like Coca-Cola so loved on Facebook (with over 5 million friends and wall comments that PR firms can be proud of) while another global consumer goods company, Nestle, is having a bit of a time on Facebook to say the least.  The issue with Nestle in particular is very telling in many ways.  A small recap for the purposes of this post: Greanpeace puts up a video on YouTube mocking the Kit-Kat candy bar.  Many users took the mocked-up wrapper and used it on Facebook as their avatar to post messages.  A Nestle rep responded to not use altered versions of their logos or risk being deleted.  The rest….is, well, making history as we speak.  Grass-roots efforts build up and blow over for every company, look at Nike.  Remember in 1996 when the campaign against their use of sweatshops to produce their shoes was all the rage?  Guess what, it still is look here.  Back in 1996 Nike was forced to reconcile with the way their products were produced.  Their actions made enough people happier and for most it’s done and gone while for a few, they think Nike could still do more.  It’s not the grass-roots movement that set this tyrant off on Nestle, it was the tone and manner in which Nestle responded that set this off.  By the way, take a look at Nike’s Facebook page  now (1 of them), they have learned and in my opinion are using Facebook in a way that Nestle and every other conglomerate global brand should, by focusing on the experience of each Brand and not on a wide-open corporate catch-all experience (that’s probably a different topic though).

So what makes companies more likable than others in the digital or social media space?

This seems to be the million dollar question (or multi-billion in some cases).   How can companies convince consumers to be digital “friends” and hang-out on social media sites without causing virtual riots?  For this topic, Marc Meyer and I went to the top of the virtual food chain to get a moderator who could guide us through this subject and come out of it with helpful tidbits that any company can use.  Tamar Weinberg is a veteran of community management and released a book last summer on The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web that continues to do very well.  Her hands on experience with Mashable’s community along with dozens of other clients puts Tamar in a league of her own.  This week she will moderate 3 questions on the following topic:

Topic: Characteristics of Highly Influencial Brands in Social Media

Q1: Is there advantage to having Brand or a person be your SM “face”?
Q2: How do you choose to follow Brands on Twitter, Facebook, blog, et al?
Q3: Build a checklist for Brands on how to behave in SM for best results.

Join us Tuesday March 23 at noon EST for a 1 hour interactive chat.  Participate by following #sm52 on Twitter or simply go to our LIVE page to get to all the action.

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The Importance of a Content and Engagement Strategy in Social Media

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

We understand that having a blog or forum alone is not being social, it’s simply a tool set.  If you are a little overzealous and implement the tools first, you quickly understand that it is going to take more…a lot more than just tools to live up to the expectations that everyone has around social media.  So you sit in the middle of your corporate blog or new customer service forum and wonder what’s next.  Try a content and / or engagement strategy.

Without engagement there is no social and without content there is no engagement.  From this, it becomes apparent that developing a strategy around content and engagement can be very useful.  So where to start?

Content without engagement is a traditional approach to marketing like television or radio.  The content goes one way or is “pushed” at the audience.  While we could take an editorial approach to content development, let’s look at it a bit differently.  Whether you produce the content, your agency produces it, whether your content is available on external sites or your own sites, there is still a premise that I come back to.  Consumers buy products because they believe in the product, they relate to it, the product description fulfills a need or some other reason that stems from the fact that something about the content was relevant enough to make me purchase whether its ingredients, description, a jingle, ad copy, whatever, there was some form of trust around that content.  This is the key, your content has to instill trust with your participants.

With all the aggregation tools out there, it is easy to take the lazy way out of creating content for your corporate social initiatives.  Like a Twitter account that only re-tweets or a blog run on yahoo pipes, that content can be found anywhere so there is no reason to trust your company as a resource for content.  Like your content, your company becomes irrelevant quickly too.  Create content that sets your company apart, create a perspective that participants can have passion with and always do it under the premise that no matter what the content, your participants have to be able to trust it.  The first time they find a hole or blatant lie in your content, you will lose that trust for a very long time.

On the other hand, engagement without content feels empty and does not last long.  Like any guy at a bar without a good pick-up line, he can smile, approach and may smell good but after standing there for a while, you’re going to have to get past the “Hi, I’m Joe/Jeff/Bob/Mike, what’s your name?”.  There are many reasons for engagement and while most strategists will focus on what your company has to do to get ready to be engaging, don’t forget to think about why anyone would want to participate with your company.  A good, initial litmus test is whether you can answer the “So What?” question.  You arm the interns with conversational research data, you’ve been listening for months, you have tons of ideas for content and the executives are behind it.  If you are selling toilet paper, my response is “so what?”, why would a consumer care to participate around the product?  In this case, create a passion much like General Mills did with their Box Tops campaign to raise money for k-8 schools.

Does engagement or content come first?  If I create content and no one is listening, is it worth my time?  On the other side, if your customers are passionate around your Brand and want to participate, you better get some content so they have a reason to come back.  I’m not sure there is a right answer for everyone.  The right answer depends on every company’s unique situation, resources, time, talent and ability to execute.  Our moderator this week knows a lot about these answers and we are excited to have John Cass leading the way.  John has literally written the book on corporate blogging and has a wealth of experience to share with us.  The topic this week will be:

Topic: The Importance of a Content and Engagement Strategy in Social Media

Q1: What’s first, content marketing and/or engagement marketing as the lead strategy?

Q2: How should you handle disclosure of content origination whether employees or agency?

Q3: Charlene Li’s engagement 2009 report staked out most engaged brands, what’s key to implement a successful SM engagement strategy?

Please join us on Tuesday March 16 at noon EST to share your point of view.  Follow along on #sm51 or from our LIVE page.

Image: www.cartoonstock.com

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