MARKETER’S FIELD GUIDE

QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE

INTEGRATING SOCIAL INTO YOUR

BRAND’S MARKETING CAMPAIGN

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MARKETERS’ FIELD GUIDE

©2013 SpredfastTM

We live in a digital world, surrounded by the most powerful innovations in human communication since the invention of the printing press. We document our daily lives on a global scale. With Twitter, Face-book, Instagram, and other social media sites, we are always plugged in, consuming and producing content every minute of every day.

How is this social content useful for your brand?

Consumers use social media for their own personal needs. They record their day-to-day activities, which includes what media, brands, and products they are using in their everyday lives. In fact, 75% of people use social media to talk about brands. For 18-34 year olds, that number is 91%. That’s a lot of brand talk — and a huge opportunity for brands to get more from their marketing and advertising by incorporating social conversations in their campaigns and brand marketing.

Not only are consumers constantly posting about brands, but they are biased towards brands that display social content. In fact, 59% of consumers are more likely to trust brands that integrate social media in their media campaigns and marketing materials, and 62% of consumers are more likely to engage with social brands. Many of these brands, such as Patagonia, Target, or Pepsi, integrate social across their digital touch-points, from broadcast to online to in-venue.

Since social content is increasingly influencing brand affinity, brand loyalty, and buying behavior, it is critical to consider how you integrate social into your marketing campaigns at the start of any plan-ning. Choosing the right social experience platform is the next step…

Understanding the power of social integration is half the battle; finding the right tools and strategies to help you do this easily and effectively is equally important. Knowing what to look for and what to get out of a social experience platform is extremely important in creating a successful campaign, prod-uct launch, or dynamic brand experience.

To determine which platform is right for you, ask yourself the following five questions...

Will I be able to capture content from a variety of social networks in real-time?1

MARKETERS’ FIELD GUIDE

©2013 SpredfastTM

People are talking about your brand in a number of different places today. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine, and Google+ all provide rich and authentic content and have large, active communities. Each social media platform has a unique purpose and value. Vine (and now Instagram Video) allows for quick, mobile videos. Facebook focuses on the newsfeed and Twitter’s strength lays in short, real- time updates. Your consumers are participating in all of these networks, sharing and digesting content at a rapid pace. Is your campaign taking advantage of their strengths, integrating the right social content that best fits your marketing goals?

How good is your media without real-time content?

‘Real-time’ capabilities ensure that content stays fresh, which means your audience will stay engaged. Good media should be formatted like the Internet, constantly pushing relevant, valuable content and continuously updating. Without real-time updates online, media gets stale and you lose your audi-ence’s attention. Real-time content promotes con-versation both between the brand and their audi-ence, as well as among audience members. Brands who utilize real-time public content improve the traffic to their website and the quality and quantity of earned media related to their brand. When fo-cusing a campaign around real-time, you’ll want the ability to turn the right content into a relevant digital experience in a matter of seconds. When evaluating

a partner for your brand, ask whether you will have access to content from all major social platforms in real-time and if you’ll have the ability to filter and display that content in less than 10 seconds. This will allow you to be proactive when building marketing campaigns that will resonate with your audience.

Is your technology partner trusted by major social networks?

Make sure you select a partner who is trusted and has strong relationships with the major social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. Twitter’s Certified Products Program is based on three com-mon business needs: engagement products, analytic products and data reseller products. Platforms that are certified by Twitter are allowed access to all the content generated on Twitter. Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developer Program consists of technolo-gy companies at the forefront of social integration. Companies listed as PMDs are able to innovate on the Facebook platform to develop effective market-ing strategies. A social experience platform that has partnered with both Facebook and Twitter is one that is trusted and reputable across the industry.

The next step in finding the right social experience platform for your brand is looking at their ability to display social media experiences across various channels. How will you reach your entire audience?

This leads to the second question...

Where will my social experiences live? Can my technology partner support a seamless integration across various digital touch-points?

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MARKETERS’ FIELD GUIDE

©2013 SpredfastTM

Mobile phones, television, in-venue jumbotrons, laptops, and tablets - screens are everywhere and are demanding more and more of our attention. Indicative of our fragmented attention, Nielsen reported that 80% of U.S. tablet and smartphone owners use their devices while watching TV. Your brand needs to be where your fans are, no matter the device or location. And, you need a platform capable of deploying across all of those devices.

Can I create campaigns that cross the media divide?

When choosing a social experience platform, make sure that you have the ability to pull conversations from popular social media sites and re-display that social content on any digital touch-point. It should be possible for Tweets to be used in a real-time Q&A with a celebrity online or featured during an intense political debate on-air. There should be no limit to where your visualizations can live.

Recently, HSN created an omni-channel experience, utilizing all forms of media to spark engagement and drive relevancy of their merchandise and products. By dynamically weaving authentic consumer content into on-air, online, mobile, and social properties, HSN drove social participation, consumer advocacy, brand awareness, and customer loyalty.HSN’s omni-channel integration conquered the media divide. By leveraging all marketing channels,

HSN expanded their reach and tapped into a new audience while driving traffic and sales. As a result of their multi-channel integration, HSN saw a 17% increase of total social stories, a 21% increase of Twitter followers, and 320X growth in impressions since the first socially integrated show. Because of increased awareness, engagement, and conversion, HSN extended their Beauty Report program from a one-hour show to two hours in June 2013.

More than just redisplaying content, HSN integrated creative ways to visualize their social content. With leaderboards, polls, counters, maps, and fill-in-the-blanks, it’s important to keep your audience engaged with interesting and interactive integrations. Then you can track and measure your success, providing further information to help drive content generation and amplification.

Not all consumer content is campaign-worthy and it’s important to find a platform that allows you to have command over that data, thus giving you the abil-ity to choose which content you want to showcase across channels.

This leads to question three...

How much quality control do I have over what content is displayed?3

MARKETERS’ FIELD GUIDE

©2013 SpredfastTM

Brand reputation is important. Bringing social media content into a brand campaign can be scary because you don’t know if the content will uphold brand standards or align with your campaign objectives. The level of openness and flexibility you are com-fortable with should be evaluated before integrating social media into your owned properties. As a result, the ability to filter, moderate and control the content that is displayed is an important factor when choos-ing a technology partner.

How can I mitigate the risks associated with social data?

Different scenarios call for different levels of con-trol. For example, when President Obama wanted to connect with the public in a forum-style question and answer session, the White House needed a so-cial experience platform that displayed only safe, rel-evant content. When Pepsi showcased Tweets about the Superbowl to millions of viewers, and when ABC Family wanted to ensure child-friendly content would be displayed on-air, these brands and media companies needed a platform that they could trust to display only the best content from consumers.

Creating safe, brand relevant campaigns centered around social media content is important in driving brand reputation and consumer interaction, but are you getting all the monetary value that you can out of the brand experience you are building?

As you look for the best social experience partner for your business, keep question four in mind…

Can I monetize my social media experiences through sponsorships?4

MARKETERS’ FIELD GUIDE

©2013 SpredfastTM

You are integrating social media experiences into your marketing and advertising campaigns. Great! Now, is there an opportunity for you to sell those experiences as a sponsorship in order to drive great-er revenue? If so, you’ll need to make sure that you work with a technology partner that is licensed by Twitter to monetize social content. If you work with a Twitter Certified partner, you will have the ability to create new revenue streams with integrated social media experiences.

How is this beneficial for my brand?

Intersport broadcasted live their Fifth Judge #CollegeSlam experience this year, which was sponsored by Denny’s Diner. The #CollegeSlam experience allowed fans to vote on their favorite player in the dunk contest via Twitter. The project was a win-win for all - Intersport was able to sell the social experience to Denny’s, while also engag-ing fans worldwide with their brand. Social chatter around the dunk contest garnered 24 U.S. and glob-al trending topics on Twitter, generating a potential social reach of over 54 million Twitter users. In addi-tion, the effect of Denny’s sponsorship was felt for days. During the week of the event, @DennysDiner gained 54% more followers than the week prior to the event.

Now you’ve considered what sources you need for your campaign or brand experience and you’ve determined where those experiences will live as well as how much control over the content you will need. You’ve also evaluated if there is an opportunity to monetize those experiences further.

The last question you need to ask yourself is...

Do I know that I’m in trusted hands?5

MARKETERS’ FIELD GUIDE

Five addtional questions to ask a potential social technology provider:

©2013 SpredfastTM

Experience matters

You want to make sure that your social experience platform provider has worked with the top brands and companies in your industry. You want a team who has experience exceeding expectations and who actively works with brands, media, and agencies to source the world’s social content, filter that con-tent, and then display it in real-time to any digital surface. Although you’re investing in a technology platform, a reliable, proven, and experienced service and support team will help you get the most out of your investment. As you look for the right platform for your company, it’s important to actively research their previous projects and follow-up on their role in executing them.

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Describe another client with objectives similar to ours. What did you do to specifically help them meet their goals?

Explain paid, earned, and owned media and describe how I can integrate them into my social strategy.

How long have you been in business and how long have you worked officially with your content source partners (i.e. Twitter, Face- book, Google+, etc.)?

Who is the largest client you’ve supported? How did your project with them go?

How many clients do you have and who are they? How do you measure client success?

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©2013 SpredfastTM

MARKETERS’ FIELD GUIDE

Your consumers are already on social media sites, creating a lot of content and marketing potential for your brand.

To create engaging content, marketers are working with social media curation and integration platforms to increase and amplify earned media by integrat-ing that content into their owned media properties. Combining real-time content with brand and adver-tising experiences increases ROI and boosts SEO by revolutionizing owned media channels and creating more amplifiable assets.

Visually interesting products, creative design, compelling analytics, and a strong source of real-time content make for a social technology platform capable of fulfilling your social integration needs.

The best social experience platform will do all these things, enhancing your marketing goals and monetary gains in the process.

©2013 SpredfastTM

MARKETERS’ FIELD GUIDE

Spredfast helps brands, media, and agencies get more from their social media efforts by building social experiences into their marketing strategy. More than 300 brands, agencies, and media companies leverage the Spredfast SaaS platform to create real-time consumer engagement by aggregating, filtering, and re-displaying social content from any social network to any digital property — TV, web, mobile, or jumbotron.

Let us help you integrate these social experiences into your brand’s campaigns. Request more information here:

@spredfastspredfast.com(512) 538-0460200 W Cesar Chavez StSuite 600 Austin, TX 78701

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