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Ozometer by Play
The campaign was created to celebrate Foster's famous ‘No Worries’ attitude. In creating the campaign, Play searched for some of Britain’s most, and least, ‘No worries’ people, celebrities and places. More on Play's award winning campaign.The art of online conversations and the tools to help you
by Richard Pentin, Senior Strategist at Digitaltmw
There’s a plethora of ways for brands to engage consumers in social media but proactively engaging in direct online conversations is probably one of the least practiced. And for good reason. This has its fair share of booby traps, minefields and trip wires to deter even the most adventurous of marketers. Get it right however and you probably have one of the most purist forms of one-to-one marketing there is.
Whether you like it or not, consumers are probably talking about your brand in blogs, social networks, forums and chat rooms. Whilst some will be raving about you, others may be ranting about you in equal measure. Or worst case scenario, they may not be talking about your brand at all!
This presents the brands of today with a simple choice: ignore it and live with the consequences or learn to embrace it. In this chapter we will try to explain how a brand might try to embrace it, whilst mastering the art of online conversations. We provide a helpful framework on how to approach this whilst also highlighting some of the potential pitfalls to avoid.
The secret of a good conversationalist is to listen to your audience before blindly diving in head first. The same logic applies to any brand wishing to join a conversation in social media. Fortunately, there are a number of tools at your disposal to do this.
Technorati, Google Blog Search, Blogpulse, digg and reddit are just some of the free resources available to help you track social media. These tools can basically tell you when your brand - or your competitors for that matter - are being mentioned. There are also ways to track blog comments, such as co.mments.com which is useful if you want to see how a conversation unfolds.
But not all conversations happen on blogs. Forums and message boards can be brimming with discussions about your brand and you wouldn’t even know about it. Fortunately sites such as boardtracker.com will keep an eye out for you and even inform you by RSS whenever your brand crops up.
What about if people post a video about your brand? Well Google Video has that covered too - pretty useful if it happens to be a damaging or misleading review on your product or services and even better if it’s singing your praises as you might want to link some of these on your corporate website or blog.
Fee-based social media tracking tools
If you’re looking for something a little more involved you can buy a licence
from a press clippings provider. These companies have feeds from all the major publications in the UK, Europe, US or rest of the world and will issue a number of search agents with the licence so that you can track important keywords across the net and forward any relevant articles to key stakeholders.
If you want to listen at an aggregate level then you may want to consider hiring the services of a specialist buzz monitoring company. These companies have sophisticated proprietary tracking tools to monitor conversations as well as determine whether the threads are generally positive or negative. Some can even tell how influential a given blogger might be.
Having identified and listened to conversations about the brand you can then decide how best to respond. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie but there are occasions when you may want to respond to a negative or positive conversation. On a macro level you may need to refine your PR strategy, do a tactical campaign (e.g. ‘T5 is now working’ campaign for Terminal 5) or you might need to channel this feedback into new product development. On a micro level you might even participate directly in the original conversation itself.
If you want to adopt the latter approach it’s worthwhile considering recruiting and training professional members of staff about the brand, product or campaign. However, if the salary bill doesn’t quite stretch that far it’s possible to hire specialist moderators to act on your behalf. Provided they are fully briefed and given clear Rules of Engagement, they can provide a level of personal service to your target audience which is normally reserved for the shop floor or call centre. The numbers of brands who actually operate in this space are limited but there perhaps lies the opportunity.
Proactive engagement strategies involve creating opportunities to talk about your brand or sector when none exist already. If you look at discussion forums within your sector and find there are no opportunities to talk about your product category or brand, why not create one and kick start the conversation?
Case study: Infiniti
Infiniti, the luxury car brand of Nissan, recruited a network of moderators across Europe with the specific remit to participate in online conversations and field questions about the brand as it approached its official launch in Europe. Using a number of blog alerts and news feeds the moderators were able to identify Infiniti-related articles and blog posts and provide additional information or guidance about the brand’s arrival in Europe. They were completely transparent in their association with Infiniti and since Infiniti was a relatively unknown commodity the moderators’ presence was largely welcomed as a valuable source of information.
During 2 months of the campaign going live, the moderators engaged in more than 1000 conversations. In fact, 13% of Infiniti’s web traffic originated from these very sites alone.
Case study: Whitehall Counter Terrorist Unit
You wouldn’t normally associate the Whitehall Counter Terrorist Unit with the art of online conversations but if recent press reports are to be believed maybe brands should take note. According to a secret Home Office paper leaked to the Guardian, Whitehall counter-terrorism experts intend to exploit social media to ‘taint the al-Qaida brand’. They aim to do this by channelling certain ‘messages through volunteers in internet forums’ as part of their global propaganda campaign.
By law, commercial brands have to be much more transparent than this but it’s interesting that the CTU have recognised the power of conversation in social media in their quest to influence consumer opinion.
1. No spamming) - don’t bombard sites indiscriminately.
2. No astroturfing) - don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Not only is
it unethical, it’s now against the law!
3. Be transparent) – ensure your moderators clearly state their identity
in their profiles.
4. Add value) – brands are not normally welcome in these environments
so only participate if you have something of genuine value to say.
5. Act with humility) - always act with a degree of humility and don’t be
too pushy.
6. Don’t hit and run) – if you start a conversation be prepared to finish it. Sociological studies on conversation analysis reveal you need a series
of ‘turn-taking’ or ‘repair’ scenarios to hold a legitimate conversation,
so make sure you have enough new content or advice to provide
ongoing dialogue.
7. Rule with an iron fist) – don’t give your moderators free rein. Tight
Rules of Engagement are key to ensure you retain control and they work within clearly defined remits.
8. Reporting) – empower your moderators to report back to you as
it’s impossible to monitor every conversation in real time, particularly
if it’s in multiple languages. Also make sure escalation procedures
are in place to ensure you react to any potential problems quickly
and efficiently.
9. Spot check) – factor in several spot checks after the campaign has
finished.
In this day and age when you think you need the latest widget or viral asset to capture the consumer’s attention, it’s often easy to overlook the most basic of communication tools at our disposal - the art of making conversation.
After all, isn’t that what marketing is really all about?
Source
(1) Buzz monitoring - 'Buzz monitoring: 25 free social media tracking tools'
(2) Reactive engagement strategies - ‘Marketers’ stealth on the web will not pay for long’ by Ben Richards and Faris Yakob,
Financial Times, 26 May 2006,
(3) Proactive engagement strategies - Revealed: Britain’s secret propaganda war against al-Qaida by Alan Travis, home affairs editor, The Guardian, 26 Aug 2008
(4) 4. Do’s and don’ts - The value of online conversations by Brian Solis, PR 2.0 blog, 17 January 2008
There’s a plethora of ways for brands to engage consumers in social media but proactively engaging in direct online conversations is probably one of the least practiced. And for good reason. This has its fair share of booby traps, minefields and trip wires to deter even the most adventurous of marketers. Get it right however and you probably have one of the most purist forms of one-to-one marketing there is.
Whether you like it or not, consumers are probably talking about your brand in blogs, social networks, forums and chat rooms. Whilst some will be raving about you, others may be ranting about you in equal measure. Or worst case scenario, they may not be talking about your brand at all!
This presents the brands of today with a simple choice: ignore it and live with the consequences or learn to embrace it. In this chapter we will try to explain how a brand might try to embrace it, whilst mastering the art of online conversations. We provide a helpful framework on how to approach this whilst also highlighting some of the potential pitfalls to avoid.
1. Buzz monitoring
The secret of a good conversationalist is to listen to your audience before blindly diving in head first. The same logic applies to any brand wishing to join a conversation in social media. Fortunately, there are a number of tools at your disposal to do this.
Technorati, Google Blog Search, Blogpulse, digg and reddit are just some of the free resources available to help you track social media. These tools can basically tell you when your brand - or your competitors for that matter - are being mentioned. There are also ways to track blog comments, such as co.mments.com which is useful if you want to see how a conversation unfolds.
But not all conversations happen on blogs. Forums and message boards can be brimming with discussions about your brand and you wouldn’t even know about it. Fortunately sites such as boardtracker.com will keep an eye out for you and even inform you by RSS whenever your brand crops up.
What about if people post a video about your brand? Well Google Video has that covered too - pretty useful if it happens to be a damaging or misleading review on your product or services and even better if it’s singing your praises as you might want to link some of these on your corporate website or blog.
Fee-based social media tracking tools
If you’re looking for something a little more involved you can buy a licence
from a press clippings provider. These companies have feeds from all the major publications in the UK, Europe, US or rest of the world and will issue a number of search agents with the licence so that you can track important keywords across the net and forward any relevant articles to key stakeholders.
If you want to listen at an aggregate level then you may want to consider hiring the services of a specialist buzz monitoring company. These companies have sophisticated proprietary tracking tools to monitor conversations as well as determine whether the threads are generally positive or negative. Some can even tell how influential a given blogger might be.
2. Reactive engagement strategies
Having identified and listened to conversations about the brand you can then decide how best to respond. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie but there are occasions when you may want to respond to a negative or positive conversation. On a macro level you may need to refine your PR strategy, do a tactical campaign (e.g. ‘T5 is now working’ campaign for Terminal 5) or you might need to channel this feedback into new product development. On a micro level you might even participate directly in the original conversation itself.
If you want to adopt the latter approach it’s worthwhile considering recruiting and training professional members of staff about the brand, product or campaign. However, if the salary bill doesn’t quite stretch that far it’s possible to hire specialist moderators to act on your behalf. Provided they are fully briefed and given clear Rules of Engagement, they can provide a level of personal service to your target audience which is normally reserved for the shop floor or call centre. The numbers of brands who actually operate in this space are limited but there perhaps lies the opportunity.
3. Proactive engagement strategies
Proactive engagement strategies involve creating opportunities to talk about your brand or sector when none exist already. If you look at discussion forums within your sector and find there are no opportunities to talk about your product category or brand, why not create one and kick start the conversation?
Case study: Infiniti
Infiniti, the luxury car brand of Nissan, recruited a network of moderators across Europe with the specific remit to participate in online conversations and field questions about the brand as it approached its official launch in Europe. Using a number of blog alerts and news feeds the moderators were able to identify Infiniti-related articles and blog posts and provide additional information or guidance about the brand’s arrival in Europe. They were completely transparent in their association with Infiniti and since Infiniti was a relatively unknown commodity the moderators’ presence was largely welcomed as a valuable source of information.
During 2 months of the campaign going live, the moderators engaged in more than 1000 conversations. In fact, 13% of Infiniti’s web traffic originated from these very sites alone.
Case study: Whitehall Counter Terrorist Unit
You wouldn’t normally associate the Whitehall Counter Terrorist Unit with the art of online conversations but if recent press reports are to be believed maybe brands should take note. According to a secret Home Office paper leaked to the Guardian, Whitehall counter-terrorism experts intend to exploit social media to ‘taint the al-Qaida brand’. They aim to do this by channelling certain ‘messages through volunteers in internet forums’ as part of their global propaganda campaign.
By law, commercial brands have to be much more transparent than this but it’s interesting that the CTU have recognised the power of conversation in social media in their quest to influence consumer opinion.
4. Do’s and don’ts
1. No spamming) - don’t bombard sites indiscriminately.
2. No astroturfing) - don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Not only is
it unethical, it’s now against the law!
3. Be transparent) – ensure your moderators clearly state their identity
in their profiles.
4. Add value) – brands are not normally welcome in these environments
so only participate if you have something of genuine value to say.
5. Act with humility) - always act with a degree of humility and don’t be
too pushy.
6. Don’t hit and run) – if you start a conversation be prepared to finish it. Sociological studies on conversation analysis reveal you need a series
of ‘turn-taking’ or ‘repair’ scenarios to hold a legitimate conversation,
so make sure you have enough new content or advice to provide
ongoing dialogue.
7. Rule with an iron fist) – don’t give your moderators free rein. Tight
Rules of Engagement are key to ensure you retain control and they work within clearly defined remits.
8. Reporting) – empower your moderators to report back to you as
it’s impossible to monitor every conversation in real time, particularly
if it’s in multiple languages. Also make sure escalation procedures
are in place to ensure you react to any potential problems quickly
and efficiently.
9. Spot check) – factor in several spot checks after the campaign has
finished.
In this day and age when you think you need the latest widget or viral asset to capture the consumer’s attention, it’s often easy to overlook the most basic of communication tools at our disposal - the art of making conversation.
After all, isn’t that what marketing is really all about?
Next page
Source
(1) Buzz monitoring - 'Buzz monitoring: 25 free social media tracking tools'
(2) Reactive engagement strategies - ‘Marketers’ stealth on the web will not pay for long’ by Ben Richards and Faris Yakob,
Financial Times, 26 May 2006,
(3) Proactive engagement strategies - Revealed: Britain’s secret propaganda war against al-Qaida by Alan Travis, home affairs editor, The Guardian, 26 Aug 2008
(4) 4. Do’s and don’ts - The value of online conversations by Brian Solis, PR 2.0 blog, 17 January 2008
