Developing A Social Media Content Strategy

by Matt Harty 

In an earlier post, I talked about the Holy Trinity of Social Media and User Generated Content (UGC). The first step in the responsible handling of UGC is Observation. An observation platform helps you see the UGC surrounding your brand. Without the right optics, you can’t see the threats or the opportunities in time to have a suitable effect on their outcome. 

When we observe UGC, we can see differing reactions to the stories posted. We need to make a decision whether the content is repeatable or not. Clearly some stories regardless of how big the buzz was you have no intention of rekindling. There are also a number of reasons that the content of the posts may not be repeatable, these range from vagueness to spreading the wrong message about the brand. 

If we feel that the content is repeatable then we next look to the reaction type to predict the value of the content to us. There are a number of differing types of social reactions that we can observe. These include blogs & articles linking to a piece of content, “Social Bookmarking” of the content or passing a URL in Twitter. 

The benefit to us varies based on the reaction type and our goals for the brand. This is partially where “Organic Search” (SEO) and UGC can co-exist. Where a link to your website URL has been passed in one of these social media transactions you see an SEO benefit in the form of a “Backlink”. 

Firstly, there are two types of posts we should focus on. One are our posts on your domain (press releases, blogs, etc) the other are stories written by others and not on your domain. The latter is less likely to create a direct backlink for SEO unless they carry a link to your domain. However links not contributing to SEO can still make up positive buzz around the brand. 

Where we have observed past positive social reactions to particular types of content and we feel it is repeatable, the next step is to produce content of our own in the same vein. 

The step after that is to distribute the content. I will cover distribution in a whole post of its own as it deserves to be treated as a topic in it own right. 

The final step is to monitor the reaction and see how your content was received in comparison to the similar content that you emulated. 

With an eye on what the mob will respond to, marketers can look for opportunities in the brand buzz to find areas of content that can be expanded on to further the objectives of their brand. I think this approach is far preferable to the random dissemination of brand information we often see now.

Social Media Brand Touch-Points

By Matt Harty

Most brands are coming to the conclusion that User Generated Content (UGC) and Social Media are with us for the long term. At the same time, understanding of the impact and effects of UGC are lost on many marketers. If this understanding was widespread you would see a great deal of panic manifesting on the faces of marketers and brand managers.

Brands historically have had a kind of stand-off with the mass media. Brands spend money on advertising and the media generally need advertisers to stay in business. I am not suggesting that media is inherently corrupt, just that there has been a long-standing co-operation between the two sides.

Then along comes Media 2.0…

Marketers need to understand the touch-points of their brands in this new world order. The first thing to understand is that the nature of the Internet lends itself to dialogue rather than broadcast. What I mean here is that unlike most TV and Print, the Internet is a two-way communication, a bit like talk-back Radio gone demented.

Given this two-way nature the touch-points are also best looked at as Outward and Inward.

Outwardly brands Astroturf or broadcast to the Internet. This is done in a variety of ways using a variety of methods. Currently marketers are setting up blogs, they are building Facebook groups and writing Facebook aps. They are also seeding the internet with digital press releases and also carrying out other PR functions.

Apart from the accessibility the brand is offering/projecting to the end-users there is also a huge Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefit being gained. This places competing companies who are not flexing their brand online at a disadvantage in the organic keyword arms-race.

Inwardly brands are at the mercy of the mob. Comments can be left in a variety of places online, sometimes very close to the point of transaction for companies doing ecommerce. According to an article I read in the New Straits Times this month Microsoft did a survey that claimed that 86% of people no longer believed the claims made by brands and 78% believed the recommendations of other consumers.

Even as I shake my head at this I realize I am just as guilty. with my habit of checking on TripAdvisor.com before I book any hotel room. I do like to read their user’s comments and look at the photos they have taken. It is often a stark contrast to the hotel’s website.

Also on the Inward side of things are discussion groups, comparison shoppers, review websites, press articles and blogs. Anything negative can easily turn up in the course of a user’s “research” prior to purchase. I wrote earlier about the approach brands need to take to deal with UGC.

Sanrio Digital (Hello Kitty to you non-fans) is a part of the Group of companies I work with. We have been monitoring the brand “Hello Kitty” for some months now and have noticed something interesting in the world of micro-blogging. Just as we have been monitoring the regular UGC from press and blogs we have also been tracking “tweets”.

What we have learned is that micro-blogging is a real-time brand barometer.

By looking back at the tweets over a few hours or days I can see the general mood surrounding a brand. Yes, brands have moods! A dip-stick into the hive mind of the mob. Thankfully the words surrounding Hello Kitty remain as “nice”, “cute” and the suchlike.

The comfortable stand-off between media and brands is over forever. Brands now find themselves surrounded. Just as in the early days of search an opportunity exists to take market share from your luddite, technophobe competitors. I think the words “break-out media strategy” are about to get a new meaning courtesy of UGC.

The Google Road-Block

By Matt Harty

There is no doubt that Google has revolutionized marketing for millions of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world. Many of them businesses that would not exist otherwise. These companies have been able to grow through an easy and action-related access to consumers searching for goods and services.

There is a downside to the dominance Google has taken in the search market. Google has formed an effective road-block for marketers. This is not because of a sinister plot by Google but rather some simple forces beyond Google’s control.

The first factor is that Google has become a default destination for many people to make inquires about goods and services on the internet. Marketers know this and they also know that the bulk of the results from search marketing for their company will also likely come from Google.

The next factor is time. Many of these marketers are only marketing part-time and the bulk of their time is otherwise spent on other crucial parts of the business. In fact, many of these marketers aren’t marketers at all but budding CEOs and Directors.

With all of the time they have spent setting up their Google Adwords account and the time they spend on it checking the spends and results pretty much rules out starting accounts and campaigns with the other search engines let alone using the other great options out there like Affiliate networks and Ad-exchanges.

For the marketers with limited time on their hands Google is the only thing that they have time for.

The result of this dominance by Google is a stifling of online marketing. The nature of the road-block is that Google becomes the only place marketers can turn to to get their results. Only marketers with a lot of time on their hands can enjoy the better rates on less contested keywords on some of the other search engines. Only people with time and online advertising savvy can take advantage of the Pay Per Action nature of the Affiliate networks. Leaving most SME marketer stuck with Google alone.

There has to be a better way forward. There has to be some kind of change so that SME marketers can get the time saving tools they need to market like the big boys and expand their marketing campaigns beyond Google Adwords.