Walter Adamson

Evolving brand management in social media

Dan Neely is founder and CEO of Networked Insights and writes in iMedia How to evolve brand management for social media.

What I particularly liked are these two observations of Dan's as to why brands would want to engage:

• "When you navigate conversations instead of only placing messages, then reach, frequency, and impressions become secondary to understanding and influencing a high level of engagement with your brand. Done right, it is ultimately a more effective investment of resources." 
• And "When you uncover consumer learning based on engagement, sometimes you find activity you didn't know about or think to look for. Discovery-based insights can be valuable for tapping new revenue streams, unmet customer needs, and competitive advantage. Insights based on patterns of data that your organization didn't think to look for can inform short- and long-term actions in not only marketing, but innovation." 

Those two are part of the essence of WHY and how you would want to bring "brand" and social media into an integrated strategy. 

I might add that it goes a lot further than "not only marketing, but innovation". It goes to brand (not marketing/branding), to support, to distribution, to partner management, to competitor analysis etc.

That's why it is quite a stretch for an agency to know how to help a client even think about all the ramifications and organisational changes necessary.

More about brands and branding: From my brand or your brand to everyone’s brand

Australia June Internet stats social media wakeup call for marketers

Comscore released its June 2009 analysis of Australian Internet users, with a heavy lean towards understanding social network usage. It's a very useful insight, and especially the factual finding that visitors to the top sites in Australia displayed a "strong skew towards also visiting social networking sites".

Though "less than 72 percent" of the total Internet audience in Australia visited social networking sites in June, approximately 90 percent of visitors to the top 20 most popular properties were among this group.

3 out of 4 Australians Visited a Social Networking Site in June - meaning nearly 9 million Australians visited a social networking site in June, making it one of the most popular content categories on the Web. 

Here's the big message

"Knowing that the vast majority of a site's visitors are social networking users should be a wakeup call to any marketer trying to understand its audience," said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for the Asia-Pacific region. 

"Engaging your audience is not only about how you interact with them when they are on your site, but also about how you reach out and interact with them through other online channels, including social networks. As social networking sites increasingly become one of the Internet’s most popular destinations, it is especially critical for media companies to engage their audience where they are spending the majority of their time online."

Site Popularity

Google Sites ranked as the most visited property in Australia in June with 10.7 million visitors, 78 percent of whom were visitors to social networking sites and 16 percent of whom were heavy social networkers. Microsoft Sites ranked as the second largest property with 9.5 million visitors, followed by Facebook.com at #3 with 6.1 million visitors. 

Social networking users made up 83 percent of Telstra Corporation visitors, while other local sites also saw their audience base favor social networking, including Fairfax Media (88 percent social networkers) and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (85 percent social networkers). Glam Media and WordPress had the highest composition of heavy social networkers at 35.4 percent each, followed by New York Times Digital (33.4 percent), Viacom Digital (32.0 percent), Amazon Sites (31.3 percent) and AOL LLC (31.1 percent). 

How to build social media department in Agency

iMedia Connection had an post How to create a social media department by Meghann Ackerman (August 04, 2009) which caught my attention.

To tell you the truth I thought that the headline referred to building a social media department within a corporation, but it was focused on Agencies. At the Social Media Academy we have a very well defined process for building a Social Media Team as a service department to the operating departments, much like an IT department as a service function.

I think those same ideas can translate into how an Agency can run not only its own social media activities, but how to organise to service clients. Here's what I wrote:

I think that there are parallels in what is needed in an agency with our methodology for social media strategy with the companies (clients) themselves. Firstly, to put this in context, I don't define a "social media department" as the people who build Facebook pages and blogs. As your article mentioned these denizens are web designers and technicians.

Sure, if you want to outsource to them it may well be a good idea but in fact it is neither here nor there with respect to a business social media capability. 

1. Serious Agencies need to have a central Social Media Team as a service function - who provide business methods, thought leadership and tools assessment and advice.

2. The various segments and divisions and operating teams themselves would apply these methodologies in dealing with their clients and briefs. They would make and retain the customer relationships and do the creative, and hopefully also understand how the business case for social media was developed by the client.

3. The Social Media Team would provide cross-functional support, coordination and audit - across the firm.

4. The Social Media Team would also have another important role - they would be build as part of the Agency's own social media strategy and execution. As someone said in the article - it's hard to teach someone how to ride a bike if you have never ridden one yourself. Although remarkably that's what we see many PR and other agencies tying to do. 

There are defined business methods and processes and Agencies who understand and deploy these will be in a superior position to have value-rich conversations with their clients.

What do you think? Would this work for you as an Agency?