Get Serious About Social Networks #magnetsocial

The basics A little about me What is social The Audience The basics of social strategy What you need to be thinking about

I work here.

But lets start with this. If you need to hear a presentation that says “Get Serious about Social Networks” in order to get serious, you’re probably destined to dip a toe in, use most of the same techniques you’ve always used, have an unrealistic set of expectations and not enough investment. In short, if you need to hear about how you need to get serious about social networks, you’re not serious about social networks.

1,800,000 visitors per month

19,400,000 visitors per month

270,000 visitors per month (a 40% decrease in just one year)

22,500,000 visitors per month

That’s about 10 times more traffic. Um, yeah, so...it matters.

Success here isn’t about spending big dollars or how massive your brand is necessarily. It’s a measure of whether or not people care about you. For anyone spending decades paying for audiences, it’s hard to actually earn it.

The Difficulty of Doing

Just Act Natural Now that we know

messaging doesn’t work, we often get caught up

in trying to just be a part of the space.

Naturally Insignificant brands. Don’t be too natural. Understand the values, yes, but the goal should be to work in the extreme. To be decidedly unnatural. Difference kills indifference.

The First Mover Caveat The only potential caveat is when

you’re freshly moving into an unbranded space. In those rare

moments, acting natural is being different.

What do you mean by social strategy?

Facebook has 500,000,000 users YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine Twitter is a primary starting point for brand conversation

Water cooler talks have very little to do with what happens in and around

the water cooler. What do you mean by social?

Is CNN social media? Is CBC, NBC or CBS social media? Are you social media?

Lets get some stuff straight. Making a Facebook page isn’t a

strategy. Copying links to your own content on Twitter isn’t a strategy.

Hiring a community manager isn’t a strategy. Nor is adding like buttons to

your home page.

Human Resources

In-Store

Customer Service

Marketing

Public Relations

Products

What about the organization? Is it a marketing issue? Public relations? Human resources? Or a bit of all of it?

Just considering that has a huge effect on the organization itself. Not just who is managing it – but what are our legal

obligations? What role do employees play? What about their personal accounts?

The Networked Audience A shift from classic individual decision-making to group dynamics

There is no such thing as an unnetworked audience. Everyone is networked and has always been networked.

We just never really thought of them that way. What do you mean by networked audiences?

In the advertising world, we tend to speak in functions and stereotypes, neither of which are all that helpful when approaching these audiences. We always assume that decisions are individual and rational.

“Idioms are an anathema to innovation. They fuse organizations to assumptions, cultural mythologies and fossilized ways of seeing and talking about themselves, their business and, more importantly, their consumers.”

Morgan Gerard

“The insight.”

The Audience Or all the stuff we’re figuring out now – to get all psychological for a bit

“Our more instinctual selves are much more refined by time and

natural selection. It’s the rational that’s new. So while natural

selection is still working out how to make the rational bits work better, our emotional bits are

much more fine-tuned. Jonah Lehrer

We don’t know where instinctual stops and

rational begins.

The Argumentative Theory "We do all these irrational things, and despite

mounting results, people are not really changing their basic assumption. They are not challenging the basic

idea that reasoning is for individual purposes. The premise is that reasoning should help us make better decisions, get at better beliefs. And if you start from this premise, then it follows that reasoning should

help us deal with logical problems and it should help us understand statistics. But reasoning doesn't do all

these things, or it does all these things very, very poorly."

These increasingly transparent social dynamics are proving again and again that commonalities in values,

language and associations create connections. Being in the in-group matters most.

“Never put a period where God has put a comma.”

“Never put a period where God has put a comma.”

If one person became obese, the likelihood that

his friend would follow suit increased by 57%

Christakis & Fowler

Even weight can be a social phenomenon.

What does a Social Strategy look like? We have some core toolsets we use.

People The community management team, reporting structure and code for all employees.

Tools Social Media Guidelines, Tone and Manner documentation, listening and engagement tools and editorial calendars.

Content A content framework including content development, production and curation.

Spaces An approach to when and why a brand should create or dismiss spaces.

Coordinated Cross-functional team with central community manager to support. Pros Central group is aware of what each group is doing. Provides holistic customer experience to customers. Cons Executive support required, with program management, cross-departmental buy-in.

Sources: Jeremiah Owyang, Framework and Matrix: The Five Ways Companies Organize for Social Business Social Business Organizational Models, Altimeter Group, 2010

Centralized One department controls all social efforts. This is recommended as a first step in giving community management more freedom in engaging audiences. Pros Consistent customer experience. Cons Inauthentic if press releases rehashed on blog or videos by stiff executives.

Hub and Spoke Groups act autonomously from each other under a common brand. Pros Operating units are free to execute tactics as long as a common experience is shared amongst all units. Cons Constant communication from all teams to be coordinated, creating internal noise. Requires cultural and executive buy-in and dedicated staff.

Personality and Policy Documentation Conversation training, clear community guidelines and social policies keep the community active and the voice on brand.

Listening and Engagement An enterprise level platform for finding, following and responding to conversations related to your brand.

Coordination Calendars Editorial calendars can ensure consistency and coordination across spaces.

Measurement A measurement platform allows the Community Management to learn and optimize over time.

The Audience Framework

From here, the key focus is understanding where key audiences are and how to effectively involve them.

Model via Gabe Zickermann

All of this is a starter kit, just your basic infrastructure build.

We need less focus in social places and more on being social brands.

Being social in this space means being meaningful, interesting and in it for the

long term.

Social Brands

Experi-mentation

Culture

Purpose

Sharing

Platforms

Interesting-ness

Finding purpose. "I think many people assume, wrongly, that a

company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company's existence, we

have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being.”

David Packard

Finding purpose. “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you

do it. And if you talk about what you believe you will attract those who believe what you believe.”

Simon Sinek

Ask yourself this:

What cause are you a credible voice for?

What a brand feels is important

How a brand talks

How a brand acts

What a brand rallies the community around

Why a brand does it

Cultural Integration. Speaking the language of the audiences

we’re seeking to reach is the most important skill we need. It’s also the one

we’re haven’t really figured out.

Noah Kalina and NBA

OKGO and Nike+

Publishers often still own the niche audience, but should move beyond gatekeeper to a role of facilitator.

“Brands, especially those centered around lifestyle interests or luxury, are increasingly

becoming media companies.” Steve Rubel, Edelman Digital

This also means that those with the deepest knowledge of the audience should be able to fluidly create additional value beyond content.

“A company that provides entertaining, inspiring and informative content and allows consumers to more easily find and complete a transaction for the best products and services is providing a great service to

their reader.” Dave Chase, Entrepreneur

Actions not messages. Do things. Do lots of things. Explore and experiment. Create a culture of more yes. Think low cost, high return. •  focus the problem or opportunity •  encourage experiments •  measure and invite feedback •  build mutually beneficial partnerships

"You learn to like the excitement of mild, ongoing risk taking…Sometimes it works, sometimes it

doesn't, but it's the creation of possibility.” Brad Blanton, Founder of Radical Honesty

Focus the Problem or Opportunity

"We're pushed to take risks in everything we do as long as we're enabling the athlete to be better. Sure, we'll get some things wrong but you've just got to

go for it.” Simon Pestridge,

UK Marketing Chief of Nike

Encourage Experiments

Measure and Invite Feedback

Create Partnerships

Communities and Networks. It is not just about building a relationship between you and your audience. It’s far more important to build platforms that develop relationships within

your community.

Graph via Abhinav Singh

Communities Interest-driven Disposable Less stable Based upon weak ties Often more scalable Best for spreading messages

Networks Relationship-driven

High-audience investment Stable

More difficult to scale

Best for sustainability

Be decidedly and unnaturally original. The DIS Principle.

The conversation shouldn’t be about being better in social media but being more social brands.

Thanks. You can find me on the internet. Paul McEnany Director of Strategy at Twist Image. heehawmarketing.com // @paulmcenany Credit to: @min_0 Flickr: Katherine Squier, Alena Chendler, Lauryn Holmquist, Mr. TGT, Sannah Kvist Other photos: Mark Sloan, Hiroshi Sugimoto