Who owns Social?

IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS & EFFICIENCY OF MARKETERS & THEIR AGENCIES

Nov, 2014

Who owns Social?

IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS & EFFICIENCY OF MARKETERS & THEIR AGENCIES 2

Building Teams for Social Media


Identifying Frameworks

The consultancy, Altimeter, assessed how companies organize for social media, observing that most businesses were initially characterized by some form of ‘social anarchy, siloed, uncoordinated social efforts.’ However, they concludedthat the majority had started to move towards adopting the ‘Hub and Spoke’ formation, partly with the goal of providing centralized resourcesto business units.

Most organizations are at an ‘intermediate’ stage, leaving behind reliance on interns to manage their social media activities, and have embarked upon recruiting the right resource across their business.


Learning from Social Networks Marketers have also turned to the major social networks to learn how they might prepare for and establish the right resource for engaging with social media. Twitter, in particular, has been assiduous in presenting to agencies and advertisers not only information about its proposition but also about the type of strategies that can be pursued effectively. This has been developed under the label of ‘Marketing in the Moment’ and encompasses the always on and real-time response nature of the micro social network; thus, they have helped marketers look at their social media strategy in the light of a set of key priorities:

• Plan for always-on marketing moments.• Create a winning content calendar. • Plan for the best scenarios.• Expect the worst scenarios. • Speed can be a key differentiator.


Key Principles for Making Businesses Social Social Media approaches developed in the Group Centres of large, global and complex organizations, ranging from FMCG brands to financial services, are useful guides to developing successful strategies for social media. These types of organizations tend to focus on and be proficient in a number of areas that have major implications for how they conduct their business – they can be divided into the following key principles:


Organisation Bring people together, especially in complex organizations with multi-business divisions, varied functions and different geographies, to collaborate, share best practice and pursue joint initiatives. Regular meetings, internal social communications and work streams can be important elements of achieving a collaborative approach to social media.

Key Principles for Making Businesses Social

Strategy Develop a coherent and concerted strategy that makes sense for the business and its desired consumers while ensuring that it is relevant to the individual characteristics of each social network. In fact, it is imperative to develop a specific strategy for each social network, for example, LinkedIn, that pays attention to its particular ecosystem.


ProcessEstablish processes and utilize the same type of rigor that would be applied to other media channels. This may encompass everything from a register of all the company’s social network presences to employee guidelines on what can and can’t be said in social media. Processes become more critical within highly regulated industries, such as financial services, where Compliance and Legal involvement is a requirement


Content

Devise an approach to content pertinent to your business requirements and brand personality while being compelling for consumers. This can be delineated and segmented according to the needs of a target audience, encompassing communications that range from sheer entertainment to thought leadership pieces; above all, it needs to match the characteristics of a given social network, whether the focus in on news feeds or images.


InsightsInstitute an approach to research and tools: metrics that are relevant to your business and the tools to help deliver it. Measurement, covered in more detail in the next chapter, is essential to providing insights into target audiences, the type of communications required and the success of any activity. Identifying the right tools – from social media listening to content publishing – will support the efficient and effective deployment of marketing initiatives.


Investment

Plan for committed investment since social media should no longer be viewed as an adjunct to PR activities or a footnote on a media schedule. Along with the right type of expertise in social teams to manage the tools and execute strategy, there is an increasing need for ad spends to boost activity within social networks such as Facebook.


CultureEnsure that the company is infused with the recognition that social media is an essential element of doing business and communicating with customers. Training, inspiration and often, simply having access to social networks, are all part of imbuing an organization with behaviors and attitudes that will help it thrive in social media.


Innovation

Focus on innovation and future development to keep in tune with the rapidly changing social media landscape: social networks are continually changing, new tools are being developed and, of course, new consumer behaviors are emerging. The major social networks will work closely with marketers and their agencies to help fashion relevant social media strategies through initiatives such as Facebook’s Publisher Garage and Twitter’s Live Studio


TalentIdentify people with the right specialist skills to build effective social media teams. The roles required in-house can be diverse and include experts in content management, customer service, technology and tools. Moreover, many companies see the merit in having a focal point and a leader for their social media involvement.


Partners

Select the right partners since not everything can be managed internally – nor would it be desirable or commercially viable to do so. These partners can be part of existing arrangements (e.g., the media agency) or specialists providing needed expertise or technology.


New Internal Structures for Social

Marketers have been innovating and building teams in order to match the behaviors of their consumers. Some notable examples are as follows:

Command Centre

Several brands have developed command centers or news rooms to exploit social media during large events, such as the World Cup or Super Bowl, where they assemble a social media team with the specific task of posting topical and tactical articles, photos and tweets.

Campaign Jaguar established a war room along with its agency, We Are Social, during the 2014 Super Bowl to post social content in keeping with its ongoing ‘Villains’ advertising campaign.

Sponsorship

Adidas sought to enhance its World Cup sponsorship and embarked on a three-stage process: first, Mobilization by setting up a team of 80 from Brand and Marketing along with agency personnel in Brazil; second, Anticipation through the creation of content via players and teams in readiness for any opportunity or likely scenario during the tournament; and finally, Reaction, which involved responding to events in real-time with the right tone and creativity.


Four companies leading the wayMondelez

Mondelez’s Oreo famously capitalised on the blackout during the Super Bowl in 2013 by tweeting an ad with the caption ‘You can still dunk in the dark’.

They had prepared for this initiative by having a 15-strong team (including agency 360i) in place and ready to respond to whatever happened online in relation to the Super Bowl. The ad was extensively shared on Twitter and Face- book and became a “1984 moment” as one commentator called it, referring to Apple’s famous spot.

The company is pushing the boundaries for FMCG companies through smart staffing, strong agency relationships, a number of key evangelists and through strong measurement and ROI.

In 2013, they were one of the first marketers to announce they were recruiting Twitter writers inhouse, within the marketing teams, to help bolster talent. In 2014, they also revealed a 52 country deal with Facebook, to drive out connections on a global basis. Finally, they hired Social Evangelist B. Bonin Bough from Pepsi and gave him the space and freedom to spread the word.


Four companies leading the waySamsung

As of 2014, Samsung had become the largest consumer goods company in the world, larger than Coca-Cola, Unilever and P&G combined, with $220b in sales. While a large part of this was due to outstanding products, it was the fresh approach they took to social that allowed the brand to truly grow.

Working with Cheil and Leo Burnett, Samsung built a global team of social experts across 60 markets, expanding their scope with these agencies to include local strategy, posting, monitoring and reporting. They supplemented this with an investment in some of the strongest digital agencies centrally to truly drive best practice.

The company was famous for “bringing down Twitter” in 2014 with its “Oscar Selfie,” a carefully constructed and planned moment by Samsung and its agency.

Looking toward the future, Samsung has recently concluded a global digital review, led by R3. In the process, Social is front and center of the new approach the company sees this as a competitive advantage for years to come.


Four companies leading the wayCoca-Cola

As in many areas, Coca-Cola started early in Social and has always been at the forefront. A 2006 promotion in China involving codes printed under bottle caps built a database of 20m contestants through local social media QQ. In 2010, they launched “Expedition 206”, an Amazing Race lived out on social media, as three lucky winners visited the 206 countries around the world where Coca-Cola is made and sold. This was a tour de force for social with daily updates of an ongoing website linked with offline appearances to keep the news fresh.

The company continues to be a leader in new areas – a recent global Fanta campaign was run almost entirely through Vine, and went viral very swiftly. Every two years, the World Cup and the Olympics continue to serve as global launch pads for new social trends from song sharing to other promotions.


Four companies leading the wayCoca-Cola

McDonald’s was in some ways late to social, but is now using it in ways that will determine the future for all retail. Mostly driven through their global partnership with Golin and Tribal, the fast food giant has been innovating on NFC (Near Field Communication) to get social messages to consumers at the right time in the right places.

Rick Wion, the Head of Social Media for McDonald’s worldwide, offered a number of key insights in this interview:

“Start with goals . . . not a quest for tweets and likes. Nothing worthwhile is successful unless it starts with goals. If your goals for social media start with gaining followers, likes, retweets and such, than you probably don’t have the right focus. Your goals should sound more like typical marketing goals . . . building awareness, driving trial, engaging with customers. Think orchestration . . . not control. If you are using social media for a brand, you already know that you cannot control the conversation with your customer. The way that we do that at McDonald’s is to develop content and engagement opportunities at both the national and local level.”


Key takeaways

Planning for Social is like Planning for MarketingBut it’s always on. Marketers should approach social with a strategic rather than a tactical intent – trying to build a framework in which creativity can flourish.

No two marketers have followed the same path While Coca-Cola was early to move, others like McDonald’s started later, but with real innovation.

Agencies are crucial partners in growth The breakthrough work from Mondelez and Samsung came about through close collaboration with agencies, not working independently of them. Agencies can bring fresh perspectives, disciplined processes and creativity.

All successful companies have measurement at the core of social You can’t move what you can’t measure and as the next chapter will cover, off–measurement is critical to driving growth and output


For more information about Social 40 , and profiles of innovative social agencies around the world go to :

Who owns Social?

Social Media

Transcript of Who owns Social?