Addressing Online Social Networks by Chris Trayhorn, Publisher of mThink Blue Book, March 27, 2009 Social networking has always been about people who trust one another coming together for support, reassurance and insight to provide and defend a common coveted space. Recently, new tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and local city sites have moved the speed, reach and enhanced trust of social networking to unparalleled levels. Social networking sites are emerging as an important online marketing channel. Marketing spending in the space is quickly growing, and 2007 projections are proving to be conservative. One in three Internet users say that their purchase decisions are swayed by sites with social content, according to a January 2007 survey conducted by Jupiter Research. They, in turn, influence people they know. It’s easy to see the tremendous impact community sites have on purchase decisions. The same study also shows 49% of Facebook users and 35% of MySpace users primarily seek networking opportunities. The younger the user, the more likely they are to visit and interact with a social networking site. Right now, your best and worst customers and prospects are digitally harnessing every valuable relationship they have. They are empowered to broadcast their opinion and ask for feedback on a large scale at a moment’s notice. Their dialog is taken at face value because recipients know them or of them. What does this mean for marketers? It means your best and worst customers now have a greater share of trusted voice than you can amass through conventional media. Your brand is quickly becoming what they deem it to be: hero, villain or otherwise. Thinking of e-communities in the most basic form, a digital construct of real-time relationships, past and present, makes it easy to understand that social networkers are not only linked to those they trust, but are also only a few connections away from everybody else. Group members cross over in multiple groups. One group’s opinion influences many other groups. 10 Truths You’ve decided online communities are an excellent forum to expand your awareness. You’re also attracted to the tremendous ROIs and concerned about some of the negative things currently be stated about your product on social sites. It’s hard to know where to begin. You are dealing with a medium that requires acceptance and permission. When you communicate, it is important you live up to your promises and meet the expectations of your audience, for they are the ones who elevate your message to the critical masses. They also have the ability to contort and edit your message in any way they deem appropriate. Without a good strategy and go-to-market plan, your efforts can quickly work against you. We adhere to 10 Truths when addressing online social networks. While not a perfect science, as social communication is organic and ever changing, these truths are solid guides for a clear and effective communication strategy. Sticking with the truths will lay the foundation for a successful social networking strategy. 1) Don’t Ignore Flames Online opinions range from praise to harsh criticism. We’re often asked about the best way to address harsh critics in online communities. If individuals or groups are flaming your product (speaking badly about it) and working to spread a negative message, the best way to minimize their impact is addressing them directly with the truth. Why address flames when you most likely won’t change the flamers’ mind? Think of their influence as a fire you are trying to contain. Many other influencers looking to form an opinion will encounter their messages. If you don’t provide a balanced response to their flame, it can be, and often is, accepted as the truth in its entirety. To balance opinions, you must address their posts, if appropriate, on the same sites they are flaming you on. Always acknowledge who you are, a representative from your company, and factually explain why you disagree with the posts. Or if you agree, explain how the issue has been addressed. Posting flames and your responses on your own forums is also important to stop the spread of the negative campaign. Being transparent and providing content that can be forwarded on by influencers to their communities will balance the flamers’ opinions. 2) Establish A Contact Strategy Your communication must have a contact strategy that advances the dialog up the trust ladder until permission is provided and sharing of your messages takes place. Without a focused touch point stream, trust is harder to earn and your message will not reach its potential. Attention communication focuses on standing out as a supporter of the community, making you a potential credible source for the community. Interest is a compelling community connection that attracts members to find out more, usually through a click reaction. Engage is the process of making a personal two-way connection that members find value from participating in. Endear occurs when the member finds an affinity toward your product. This occurs when they have been engaged long enough to need the most detailed information you have to formalize their opinion or decision. Share is the state where the member begins sharing their thoughts about your product with other people. The communication here enables them to easily propagate messages on your behalf. Each stage in the touch point stream coexists and is accessible at the same time. It is designed to enable the influencers to engage and move through the cycle at their own pace. 3) Be Honest At Every Touch Point Honestly define what your brand is and isn’t at every point in the customer buy and experience cycles, and bring that information to life as content that is accessible for social networks to embrace and repurpose as their own. Thought leaders in social networks bring information to their groups. Become a credible source with the thought leaders and your message will get out there. 4) Understand The Belief System It is easy to offend social networks. Remember the marketing stories about launching a product in another country, not realizing the product name was offensive? Certain topics, tone and content often are surprisingly offensive in similar ways for social networks. Every group has a common purpose and belief system that brought them together. Targeting the right groups with the right messages that shows you not only took the time to add value to their discussions and community, but you actually understand the particulars of their belief system is key to earning their trust. The belief system is what brings people together in a community. Understanding a community by observing it will help you will understand how to best communicate to that community. We ask four simple questions to establish parameters for our communication in social networks. Belief System Check List: Primary purpose of the community? Reason people participate? Reason they believe each other and in the community? What is unique about the community that has bearing on your product and message? To illustrate how this check list works, we will apply it to a real-world scenario using a marketing campaign targeting city online communities. City online communities are quickly becoming primary influencers to select goods and services, big and small. Let’s assume you’re launching a new vehicle for families by targeting 20 urban online communities based in large “influential” suburbs. To do this effectively, you must spend time in each online community observing. Completing a belief check list for each social network will assist and develop the most appropriate communication for each community. The first community you review is Friscoonline.com. After spending a little time on the site, you quickly learn Frisco is growing rapidly. There is no commuter rail at this time, but the city is working on getting two stops. Many streets and freeways are still under construction. New services, restaurants and retailers are being added, but aren’t keeping up with the growth. Friscoonline.com Belief Check List: Primary purpose of community? Stay in touch with a growing Frisco. Reason people participate? Participants want to know how city developments will affect them. They also struggle with services that aren’t keeping up with the demands of an exploding population. Reason people believe in their online community? The online community provides a forum to address public issues and seek advice about local services and products. What is unique about the community that has bearing on your product and message? The majority of participants have children at home. They want to know what developments are taking place in their city. They all are dealing with substantial road construction. The Belief System for Frisco Online – Frisco is Transitional City. It is important to stay connected to understand how the city is changing and what impact it will have on me. Based on this quick assessment, you can adjust your communication to fit the tone of the community. You might even consider publishing planning and zoning alerts prominently on a specific part of the site sponsored by your new SUV to garner attention – the first step in building trust. You won’t waste members’ time with an irrelevant message that doesn’t fit within the space. When you look at the other 19 online city communities you are targeting with your vehicle, they will all have their own belief systems. None of which will be exactly like Frisco. Each network serves as its own focus group. 5) Make A Network Connection Invading personal space without a “network connection” will get you ignored and often ostracized by the group. Approach members not as a marketer, but as a fellow participant on the site. An example network connection – We’re having discussions with members like yourself who enjoy gardening. Can we ask you a few questions and share the cumulative answers? Do you want to compare your answers with friends? Creating tools that enable comparisons with friends is a good way to add value to the community, spread your message virally and make you an invited guest. Or better yet, a viral message forwarded from a friend is the most credible network connection – John, your friend from work, thought you would find this gardening tip interesting. 6) Tie Banners To Experience When using banner ads, make sure they add value and leverage the power of the networking experience. A good direct sales banner: Save 20% from Dell when you order with two LinkedIn friends. Click here to find out how. A good community banner engages the community and propagates the use of the community to achieve a desired end result. It enables members to feel like they are doing more by activating their network. A not-so-good direct sales banner: Save 20% from Dell, exclusively for LinkedIn members! Click here. It’s human nature to find more trust in numbers. Inviting people to come together for a special offer indicates that it is something extra special for a few who work for it. More importantly, requiring the message to be forwarded to a friend if done appropriately, assures more people will see it and accept it. 7) No Blasting Don’t blast messages to community members who have not opted in. Instead, offer something of value to the community to get members to click for more information and provide a chance to share with a friend, leaving the trusted blasting to them. Once you’ve made a connection, make sure your ongoing communication doesn’t inundate members. Your outbound messages should have a logical value-add stream, including intuitive self-select profiling questions to further advance personalized communication and to forward to a friend. 8) Sticky Paybacks Offer something of value that helps with future needs and keeps them coming back when they click to visit you. “Bookmark our comparison engine that will enable you to compare product ratings. Use later when you’re ready to make a purchase.” “Opt-in here and we will send you specific alerts for special incentives for Frisco Online members.” 9) Optimize As you begin to track responses and engagement, it is important to adjust and optimize your messages. Ask for feedback from the community and react to it in your communication. Search Engine Optimization is also important to direct thought leaders toward appropriate postings for your product. We use a proprietary tool that helps monitor keyword usage and determine when and how to retrofit our search strategy. 10) Share Internally Your people can be your best advocates. Inform and educate them about your online social network strategy, where you are targeting and how they can appropriately participate in the process. Solicit internal feedback and assess the impact social media deployment will have internally, including sales, customer service, IT, product development and finance. It also goes without saying that executive sponsorship is vital for sustainable social media adoption. There’s always more We’re hopeful this paper provides more clarity for you in the online social network space. The dynamics of each situation warrants a unique approach for each particular situation. Filed under: White Papers Tagged under: Perform, Rodney Mason, White Papers About the Author Chris Trayhorn, Publisher of mThink Blue Book Chris Trayhorn is the Chairman of the Performance Marketing Industry Blue Ribbon Panel and the CEO of mThink.com, a leading online and content marketing agency. He has founded four successful marketing companies in London and San Francisco in the last 15 years, and is currently the founder and publisher of Revenue+Performance magazine, the magazine of the performance marketing industry since 2002.