Tag Archives: engagement
Even though Super Bowls can be a bit of a let down, advertisers and brands swarm to get spots for the big game. Case in point, all of the Super Bowl ad spots were sold out before Thanksgiving this year. This is mainly due to brands wanting to get in front of one of the largest audiences to view television programs. It is predicted this year there will have been 100 million people watching (REUTERS) the Super Bowl; and at a price tag of $3.5 million dollars for a 30 second spot, it may seem like a deal. However, I’m not sure that the brands truly recognize the value of the spots or the return they may, or may not get from them.
The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association states that 73% of consumers who watch the Super Bowl ads, watch them for entertainment; entertainment, not for purchase. Only 8.4% of all consumers who watch the ads, say the ads influence their intent to purchase. Now that number is quite scary. Brands invest $3.5 million dollars for 15-30 seconds of the consumers’ attention and only 8.4% see that spot and think, “purchase.” I won’t even go into my concern that the brands aren’t even doing their market research on the audience. How many brands that advertise during the Super Bowl know they are advertising to their target demographic?
While money-saving promotions are effective for increasing fans or followers on social networking sites, many companies don’t go beyond this. They offer promotions to increase their number of fans, see their numbers growing, and throw a massive party. Unfortunately, by the time their hangover wears off, they realize their ‘fans’ aren’t really fans at all, but rather coupon zombies with a singular goal: to save money on stuff they would buy anyway.
So how do you build a social networking presence which goes beyond coupons? Curious asked members of its research community, ShopTalk, why they were fans of companies and we found they liked companies that acted as ‘brand butlers’. A brand butler is a Trendwatching term for companies that assist consumers in making the most out of their lives, rather than try to sell them a lifestyle. When it comes to social networking sites, it’s all about providing value to your fans/followers through content that is unique, relevant, and useful. To become an effective brand butler on social networking websites, consider the following traits: Personality, Share-ability, Brevity, Channel Integration, Responsiveness.
Lindsay Renwick | Critical Mass Toronto
The good folks at Facebook caused quite a flap last week when they announced a major change to the custom Landing Tabs feature on Facebook Pages. The upshot was that Pages would have required a minimum of 10,000 fans or an existing relationship with a Facebook advertising representative in order to qualify for a custom tab.
Mere days later, the policy has been rescinded due to the overwhelming outcry. Claiming that the change would stack the deck against companies trying to use Facebook to deftly and inexpensively build a social following, marketers, developers and small businesses persuaded the world’s largest social network to reconsider. The furore is dying down, but it remains a sobering reminder to businesses and to the agencies who recommend and maintain Facebook Pages for their clients, that carefully-crafted plans can come tumbling down at the flick of a digital switch.
Would it really have been that bad?
With the potential crisis averted, let’s explore the question of whether this would have been as huge a disaster as predicted.
At no point did Facebook threaten the wholesale removal of brand pages from the network. Brands would have been permitted to maintain their Wall feeds as usual which means that the social activity the Pages feature was designed to host and foster was never under threat. Brands with active and engaged community managers would have been free to continue building their followings by posting links to their Wall pages, generating discussions and hosting contests.
What would have been limited are the static Landing Tabs, which provide good SEO, allow a quick hit of brand messaging, and provide ongoing work for developers. While brands that can afford the investment have engaging and interactive Landing Tabs, smaller businesses tend to use them as a one-stop spam page that users bounce from nearly immediately.
This is about engagement, not spam. Read More
Scott Shamberg | Critical Mass Executive
Recently I attended an event that was classified as a “marketing forum” designed to match marketers with vendors for two days of one-on-one networking. We met with 38 marketers representing brands from all over the world.
The biggest take away for me was pretty clear – everyone and their mother want to know how to “do” social media. Literally everyone we talked to asked us about social–from Visa to Trump, Western Union to Scotts Lawn Care. Here were the top 3 questions we heard at the event and that we are hearing on a recurring basis from marketers.
1. My executive team doesn’t understand it. How can I convince them?
2. How can I do social media on a local level?
3. Can you tell me how to measure social media?
Clearly brands big and small know they need to participate but are not sure how just yet. But I’m seeing the irony in these brands wanting to understand a new channel built on authentic conversations in a business environment built almost exclusively on short, relatively shallow conversations. Nevertheless, let’s look at those three questions.
Convincing Executives
This is no easy solve. Many CMOs would still rather shoot a commercial than develop a Facebook page. Try the 3 E’s.
EXPERIMENT: Get your execs to play with Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. Let them see for themselves how influential they are.
ENGAGE: Get your agencies involved with your executives when you can and let them do the heavy lifting.
EDUCATE: You know your executives better than anyone. Find ways to get them educated through articles, conferences, examples and stats. The more they know they more involved they will get.
Keep Reading for my Recommendations on Local Social and Social Measurement
By Nicole Armstrong | Critical Mass Calgary
Last year, the ENGAGEMENTdb Report came out proving the more socially engaged a brand is the better it performs in both conversations (building consistent brand perceptions) and financial performance. And last month, eMarketer came out with a report finding that people who follow brands on social platforms have an increased intent to purchase that brand. In addition, 60% of respondents claim their Facebook fandom for brands increases their chance of recommending that brand to a friend–this is almost 80% for people following brands on Twitter.
So, this makes it very clear that online brand engagement leads to positive business results: increased purchase intent, positive word of mouth & brand affinity. However, if not approached from the appropriate angle, things can turn very sour, as bad news travels faster than ever because of social platforms. More importantly, if a brand is not being honest & genuine in its actions, consumers will discover its falsities just as fast.
So, when a brand engages with its customers, it must do so genuinely and with purpose.
The other day, one of my colleagues mentioned that his dentist sent him a Happy Birthday email. He explained how out of place it felt, as it was a generic, insert-name-here kind of email, plus he doesn’t have that kind of relationship with his dentist – a person he sees once, maybe twice, a year. Now, if he sent a Happy Anniversary: Thank you for being a valued patient for ‘X’ number of years, that would have made more sense, because it would have been in context with his brand relationship.
This got me thinking: if engaging with customers can lead to such fantastic results, yet becoming too buddy-buddy can sour that relationship, where is the line for appropriate brand engagement? Because, really, there is a fine line between treating customers like revenue generating units and going too far in trying to “friend” customers.
So, I began looking into how customers want to engage with brands online. What I found was 4 key things customers want from an online brand relationship – they want to:
- Ask questions / make suggestions and be answered / heard
- Be “in the know” with exclusive content about new products, features, services, etc.
- Be rewarded for showing their support with exclusive offers & promotions
- Be introduced to others who are associated with the brand as well
In essence, customers don’t want to become friends with their favorite brands; rather, they want to form a utilitarian relationship with brands. This helps them get the most out of their brand experience, whether it be insider tips & tricks, deals on the next hot thing, recognition for being a valued customer, etc.
So, in the end, social media should be leveraged to enable brands to reach the middle ground, between treating customers like numbers and close friends, and, instead, treating them like people, who want to get the most out of their brand experience, beyond the product and/or service.
Nicole is an associate planner from our Calgary office.
I always find myself under the spell of the charismatic, in real life and online.
The power of charisma shines through in a person’s online activity, making them, quite simply, really likeable. They listen, are positive and authentic and as a community manager, I actively try to eke out any ounce of my charisma that I have naturally as well as trying to learn from the insanely likeable.
The effect of charisma became glaringly clear after I read an article published by Psychology Today that detailed and quantified its impact on business communication. The article was based on a study that followed an executive education course that culminated in a presentation. The presentations were given in teams and the study highlighted the traits of the team that communicated its final presentation most successfully. I’ll give one guess on a trait that led to success: Charismatic team members. Or what the study called “energetic but focused listeners.” This type of team member helped lead a team to success by enabling higher quality brainstorm sessions, and as a result these teams had “high levels of engagement, trust, and cooperation.” Insert light bulb moment here.
