While many leading companies have the building blocks in place to participate in and leverage social media, many are pausing and asking deeper questions around how they can best evolve and transform their technology systems and operating processes in order to maximize the benefits social media offers.

1. Leading Social Media
Technology and Management Practices
For Improving Insights and Execution

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Table of Contents
01 Introduction
02 Mission, Vision and Focus
03 Social Media Technology Applications
04 System Integration and Architectures
05 Performance Analytics and Data Science
06 Social Media Metrics and Reporting
07 Consumer Engagement and Marketing
08 Organization, Operations and Governance
09 Moving Forward and Parting Thoughts
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4. 4
Introduction
Companies overwhelmingly report
that social media is an important and
growing priority. A recent survey found
that 98% of companies reported
presence on at least one major social
network and more than half reported
plans to expand to other platforms
within the next year. Most management
teams now believe in the overall value
of social and senior-level executives
are the ones being charged with
leading social media departments
and engagement initiatives in most
organizations.
The vast majority of companies plan to
increase their investment in social in a
meaningful way going forward. Almost
70% plan to increase their internal
staffing and 65%+ plan to increase their
social media marketing budget.
While most companies are primarily
using social media to drive brand
awareness and preference, many are
moving towards using social media
as a mechanism for directly driving
sales, loyalty and service. Some
are using it for their broader public
relations initiatives and crisis and
risk management efforts, as well as
exploring it as an input for research
and development and/or a source for
competitive intelligence.
Social media has become particularly
important along these lines for large
consumer and retail companies, where
competition is increasingly fierce given
the rise of e-commerce, and the global
competition it has allowed, and mobile,
which has empowered consumers to
instantly compare product features and
prices anytime, anywhere. Because of
these (and other) competitive factors,
many consumer and retail companies
are experiencing significant brand,
revenue and margin pressure.
While the importance of having a social
media presence has now been widely
accepted, the rapid rise of the
associated technology has created
multiple challenges for organizations
and the senior executives charged with
leading them. There is an overwhelming
landscape of applications and systems,
integration and architectural structures
and organizational models and
processes.
Although a lot of companies have the
building blocks in place to participate
in and leverage social media, many
leading companies are pausing and
asking deeper questions around how
they can best evolve and transform
their technology systems and operating
processes in order to maximize the
benefits social media offers.
In the absence of doing this, leaders
face the daunting task of trying to
harness the flood of data being
generated and effectively initiating and
managing the organizational change
needed to take advantage of it.
The primary questions now are what
are the salient components of a
company’s social media ecosystem
that need to be evaluated and improved
and what are the key considerations in
doing so?
Through our work helping companies
with these questions, we have found
there are many steps leaders can take
-- regardless of how evolved their social
media program is - to improve the
execution and the quantity (and value)
of the insights they can generate. If
issues and opportunities are addressed
in a holistic, cohesive and coordinated
way, organizations can make significant
progress in their efforts to evolve – and
do so quickly.
In this paper, we offer existing and
future clients a sample of our point-
of-view across the state of social
media today and steps marketing and
technology executes can take to move
towards digital mastery.
01
Social media offers organizations an
excellent mechanism and exciting
opportunity to improve performance
and more effectively compete in today’s
digital economy. Our hope is that our
perspective and experience will provide
senior executives with useful context
and practical direction for harnessing
social media within their organization.
Principal, Strategy & Digital Customer Experience
Capgemini Consulting | North America
Todd Redmon
Ray Stetter
Vice President, Applications & Integration Services
Capgemini | North America
Suhail Ahmad
Senior Consultant, Business Technology & Innovation
Capgemini Consulting | North America

5. 5
Mission, Vision and Focus
02
Many marketing teams were cautious
to adopt social media marketing
methods when social media started to
gain wide recognition as a new channel
five or six years ago. Since then, most
large consumer and retail companies
have embraced a social media
mandate and duly taken on some
social media personnel, or a full team,
in order to maintain an active social
media footprint. At the very least, firms
outsource some aspect of their social
media management to their marketing
agency partners.
This new enthusiasm is not without
challenges. The social media space
is still in a significant state of flux,
resulting in a patchwork of applications
to understand, a slew of systems
to integrate and many new roles
and responsibilities to clarify. This is
particularly visible when considering
how social media marketing should be
integrated with traditional marketing
efforts, often resulting in marketing
veterans and social media marketers
finding it difficult to coordinate their
efforts.
In order to deal with these challenges,
many companies can benefit from a
holistic review of their social media
efforts – starting with their mission,
vision and focus.
Taking the time to assess, formally
define and align around these core
concepts can help companies “reboot”
their efforts, resulting in a renewed
sense of direction and accelerated--
rate of progress. In order to effectively
do this, social media teams should
organize their thinking around the
following “must haves” and key
considerations:
Mission:
Organizations need to determine
what the mission of their social media
program is: what is the strategic
objective it is intended
to achieve? What set of broad
objectives is the social media marketing
team expected to meet? What is the
purpose of social media? These could
include, for example:
General marketing: Driving brand
awareness and preference
Integrated marketing: Integration
with loyalty programs and/or other
promotions
Reputation management: Public
relations or customer service efforts
Business intelligence: Monitoring
social media “chatter” for industry or
competitor trends
Identifying emerging threats:
Watching for anti-brand activism,
regulatory and/or supply chain issues
The answer may be different for
every company, depending on their--
industry and market position (and there
could be multiple answers), however
clarity around the team’s mission
will help allocate resources, manage
expectations and plan for successful
execution.
As it stands, given how rapidly the
social media space has evolved, most
teams have not organized around a
well-defined mission and are not well-
positioned to respond to consumer and
market changes.
Vision:
Next, organizations need to determine
their vision for social – both from
an internal, as well as an external
perspective (vis-a-vis the market).
Internally: Is the vision for social
media to be the leading marketing
channel or public relations initiative
to achieve an organization’s defined
business objectives, or just one
of several components of varying
importance?
Externally: Is the company trying
to use social media to gain an edge
over competitors, or is it just trying to
keep pace with the pack and have a
presence?
In our experience, a social media
program should be one component of
a much wider strategy. Social media
insights can be powerful, but the
space is changing too rapidly to yield
well- defined, consistent results that
can serve as a stand-alone service. We
recommend that social media efforts
should be integrated with classical
business initiatives and marketing
campaigns.
At the same time, it should be
recognized that social media is more
likely to draw on innovation resources
that pull executives (and the company)
beyond “business as usual”. Social
media marketing needs all the wisdom
and support of classical marketing, but
should also be seen as the vanguard of
new marketing efforts -- the sharp (and
agile) point of the spear. Regardless of
where it fits into a company’s overall
vision, we have found that in today’s
digital economy investing in social – in a
meaningful way – is required.

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Focus:
The third consideration is focus - which
includes determining which brands
and businesses to put social media
investments towards; which networks
and communities to participate in; and
which technology applications and
systems to include in the company’s
technology ecosystem.
Here is a closer look at some of the
components of each:
Brands and Businesses:
Core and/or Cash Cows: In order to
remain relevant and modern, core
brands do need some sort of social
media footprint. However, since the
brand is likely to already be well
established the social media marketing
team should be relatively conservative
and risk-averse in order to project a
brand vision consistent with the specific
brand legacy without taking any
unnecessary risks or over investing.
New and/or Challenger Brands: The
promise of new brands is they can drive
significant growth for the business.
New, up-and-coming consumers may
be particularly drawn to these brands if
a company can develop a brand image
that speaks to the consumer. In today’s
digital economy, this necessitates a
strong social media strategy. Here,
social media marketing teams can
afford to take some risks to gain market
prominence here. The rapid rise of
TOMS Shoes and Warby Parker are
good examples.
Mature and/or Declining Brands: These
brands are likely to require minimal
allocation of social media investment.
That being said, if there is potential
to revamp a brand to reach--new
attractive consumer segments it could
be approached in the same way as
a company would for a new and/
or challenger brand, and social is an
excellent marketing medium to use
for this effect (e.g., Old Spice’s 2010
“The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
campaign).
Social Networks:
One of the main benefits of digital
in general (social in particular) is the
ability to deeply segment and target
specific markets. This being the case,
companies should formally assess
the networks and communities that
exist; map them to the brands and
businesses they are focused on; and
then architect a marketing model and
strategy they can execute against
(for each). For companies looking to
move beyond mainstream networks
like Facebook and Twitter there are
additional options:
Country/region specific
networks: For multi-national
companies, social media marketers will
have to use regional social networks
to reach local audiences. For example,
China has a fully developed social
media--landscape independent of the
rest of the world (platforms like Weibo,
QQ, etc.). Similarly, Russia and the
former Soviet Republics make frequent
use of VKontakte, a Russian language
social networking site.
Fringe networks: Within a market,
some networks do not reach mass
audiences, like Reddit or Pinterest,
however they often reach tastemakers
or influencers that can significantly help
a company achieve its goal.
Technology:
Once a company has a sense for the
brands and businesses it wants to
focus on, and the networks it should
participate in, executives can then
turn a critical eye towards optimizing
their technology to develop leading
“listening, analysis and engagement”
capabilities.
For this, we recommend awareness
of the following categories – many
of which will be discussed further in
subsequent sections:
Social media platform: Specific
social media analysis platforms that
are leveraged to support social media
listening.
Technical infrastructure: Systems
used to tie together the different
components of the platform, including
both software and physical/cloud
storage.
Data science tools: Tools that can
support a data science team in their
efforts to yield differentiated insights.
Data providers:External vendors
that supply the data needed for key
analyses.
Case and knowledge
management: Systems that
help coordinate efforts across the
organization and codify internal best
practices.
Content management: Systems
that manage digital assets so these can
be stored and rapidly accessed.

7. 7
Social Media Technology Applications
03
The evolution of social has resulted
in the availability of a wide range of
applications to support analysis,
ranging from basic free tools -to- more
expensive and sophisticated enterprise
solutions.
The overall space is highly
fragmented and characterized by
rapid development times - resulting
in high obsolescence - and a lack of
universal coverage of all channels. Most
consumer and retail companies operate
at scales where an enterprise solution
is necessary, but these tools should be
understood alongside the wide-range
of other available tools:
Commercial tools:
The social media platforms themselves
offer a range of tools to support the
analysis of their content. For example,
Twitter offers Twitter Analytics and
Facebook offers integration with
Google Analytics to analyze their ad
content.
Free applications:
Publicly available tools that can be
used without licenses or fees, like
WhereTweeting, HowSocialable and
Trendsmap. Social media analysts
can use these types of tools to get
quick, simple answers during discrete
investigations.
Academic tools:
There is a large and vibrant ecosystem
of academic tools. The Social Media
Research Foundation is worth watching
since they often pilot new features
which are eventually mimicked by
the large commercial tools providers.
Academic tools are powerful, but
require a high level of technical
expertise and are usually not released
with considerations for commercial use.
Enterprise solutions:
This core part of the technology
industry has a vast number of players
and a high degree of churn. The rapid
emergence of the industry and the race
to introduce new features and integrate
with an increasing array of channels
means that only a handful of these
solutions have been brought up to
enterprise scale and stability.
There is currently a race to develop a
true turnkey solution and no firm can
truly claim to have one. That being said,
a sample of quality platforms includes:
Salesforce Marketing Cloud:
Salesforce has aggressively
consolidated a number of smaller
social media analytics tools, including
popular marketing applications like
Radian6. Their tools are undergoing
rapid development, and integration with
the Salesforce ecosystem could result
in significant ease of use -- especially
when considering the potential for
case management and knowledge
management across the social media
analysis process.
Clarabridge: Clarabridge has held
onto the vision of representing a
turnkey solution. They see themselves
as a full-service Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) suite and offer
a wide range of related functionality,
including integration with call center
data. They offer varied integration
with other social media analysis tools,
including Brandwatch and Sysomos.
However, they add value to these
platforms through deeper language
support and sentiment analysis
Brandwatch: Brandwatch’s emphasis
has been on ease of use. Interaction
with the platform is intuitive and visually
appealing. The tools available are well
considered and well developed. The
user friendliness of the Brandwatch
suite makes it an ideal out-of-the-box
solution for brands that need a highly
practical solution.
Sysomos: Sysomos is very forward
thinking in terms of adopting new
functionality. They are currently one of
only a few tools that offer a network
analysis solution. Their three levels of
service include:
Heartbeat: A basic real-time
monitoring product.
• Heartbeat Pro: Real-time monitoring
with sophisticated metrics.
• Map: Full-service monitoring tool,
with historical analysis capabilities.
The above list is not exhaustive, there
are other solid tools available, and
companies should thoroughly evaluate
their needs and the options available.

8. 8
Network coverage:
When thinking about their company’s
application needs and comparing the
options available, executives should
evaluate their network’s “coverage”.
Key considerations should include:
Established networks (e.g.,
Facebook, Twitter): Every serious
application option has good coverage
of these networks in English. They offer
relatively open data access (usually
through vendors), and there is wide
enough demand for analytics coverage
to justify development -- so almost all
social media tools cover them well with
a comparable level of sophistication.
Peripheral networks
(e.g., Reddit, forums): These channels
are less structured and attract a more
of a fringe audience. As a result, they
are harder to understand and monitor
effectively. However, this is also where
it is increasingly likely that interesting
conversations will originate.
Few social media tools cover these
platforms well so this can present
a challenge, but options should be
investigated and pursued.
Foreign languages: Even on the
mainstream social networks, foreign
languages can represent barriers to
analysis. A number of social media
tools offer sentiment analysis across
a wide range of languages and these
should be explored and included, but
companies need to be sure to keep
these applications up-to-date so they
can stay current with cultural ‘slang’.
Given the state of the technology
landscape, enterprises should expect
they will need specialized local tools
if operating abroad. As a general rule,
executives should not expect the
mainstream analysis tools to cover
every channel. Applications are evolving
and improving on these fronts, but there
is no dominant tools suite available yet.
Depending on the scale of a company’s
social media effort, the best way to deal
with this type of uncertainty is to run
two or three systems in parallel and
internalize a wide range of analysis
approaches -- verifying outputs
between different suites and hedging
against obsolescence risks.
Some of the tools available offer
publishing support, but in most cases
social media teams should be given
the versatility to manage publishing
directly through the standard social
media interfaces -- through marketing
publishing solutions already being
used in the organization’s conventional
marketing effort.

9. 9
System Integration and Architectures
04
As the volume of social media content
continues to expand, enterprises must
invest in system architectures that allow
them to store the relevant data and
conduct the necessary analyses. This
seems relatively straightforward, but our
work with clients has shown that three
critical needs are almost universally
overlooked:
Centralized storage for cross-
temporal analysis: Social media
analytics platforms generate highly
static reports with high immediacy, but
minimal insight about how an event
evolves over time. This data is usually
not stored by the social media analytics
tools and when most organizations
try to conduct analysis of trends they
usually have to re-submit their queries
for previous time periods -- resulting
in repeat charges for the same data.
Centrally storing this information would
resolve these issues.
In addition, in practice, a global social
media effort involves multiple teams
analyzing data for multiple locales in
parallel. A centralized storage solution
allows for local autonomy, while
supporting high-level data aggregation
and analysis and minimizing duplicate
effort.
Distributed computing for
sophisticated customized
analysis: Internal analytics groups
and/or formal data science functions
rely on vast amounts of data in order to
conduct analysis projects, both in real-
time and in order to back test predictive
models. This requires access to a
distributed computing environment.
Enterprise integration for better
insights and better execution:
Organizing unstructured social media
data and analyzing it alongside other
enterprise data requires sophisticated
categorization and storage -- at a
similar level of sophistication with other
enterprise data. As social media data
becomes increasingly important to the
enterprise, this shift will gain urgency
and companies will need to make
sure their systems are thoroughly and
properly integrated.
In order to meet these three important
needs outlined above we suggest the
following conceptual architecture:

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A system architecture built around the
Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS),
which will allow for both a sophisticated
computational environment and
integration with “data lake”, a central
repository for the original social media
source data.
The benefit of this structure is that
queries will automate the delivery of
content into the data lake; data can be
stored and extracted for incremental
analysis; and various analytics solutions
can be run.
Other advantages of this architecture
include:
Scalability: This can quickly be scaled
to accommodate vast amounts of data
and a wide range of tools and functions.
Modular structure: The structure
is not built around any specific
functionality beyond the basic HDFS
ecosystem, thereby allowing for the
interchangeability of any specific tools or
solutions as the social media application
market evolves.
Data Sources Storage Analytics
Engine
Aggregation
Outputs
Data Science Data Science
Output
Distribution
to Org
Replicable
Analysis
Bespoke
Analysis
Data
Science
Methods
Visualization
Dashboards
Analytics
Engine
Data
Lake
Queries
From
Markets
Data Science
Internal
Enterprise Data
Third-Party
Data Sources
Market CM
Publication with Escalation
Reports
Publishing
Global CM/
KM
Alerts/
Escalation to
Engagement
Figure 1: Integration
Data science integration: The
HDFS environment lends itself to
the deployment of a data science
computation environment and
integrates with a wide-range of data
science tools.
Organizational integration: This
type of system can quickly be
integrated with case management,
knowledge management and/or
alerts systems – systems designed
to escalate opportunities or a crisis to
the marketing, public relations and/or
executive team.

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Performance Analytics and Data Science 05
Performance analytics:
Many of the core social media analysis
platforms offer out-of-the-box analytics
and reporting solutions, however
enterprises should supplement this
technology with social media analysts
who can provide critical context in
real-time and subsequent performance
review analyses.
Most social media tools are able to
generate basic sentiment measures, but
even the most sophisticated sentiment
tools are essentially blunt instruments.
They cannot match human operators to
identify nuanced sentiment and slang.
This is especially true when dealing with
multiple geographies, since not every
tool has effective language coverage for
every market. This effectively results in
the need for two parallel systems (one
human, one digital):
Social media analysts: Analysts are
the first line of engagement for any
social media effort. Their function
is to pick-up on any social media
traffic through any channel, and
provide context to help understand
the significance. Their ability to follow
audiences where they are, and identify
emerging issues when they start, can
give a social media team a critical edge.
This is especially true when dealing with
global social media analysis, where local
content may be oriented around local
brands, language, culture, context and/
or events. The key weakness with this
as a sole solution is that it cannot scale
effectively with large volumes of social
media data. You can only add so many
analysts in a cost effective way.
Social media analytical tools and
applications: Social media tools and
applications add value with higher
volumes of data and can offer large-
scale metrics on aggregated data
-- like counts and basic sentiment.
Analysis is driven by pre-defined queries
which need to be adjusted in order
to target newly identified situations.
These capabilities are ‘must haves’
in this regard - key components of a
company’s social media ecosystem.
The weakness of having just an
automated system is that it cannot
always provide critical context and the
sentiment tools cannot always keep
pace with rapidly evolving slang and/
or unorthodox hash tags. They are also
not always able to follow social media
chatter across all platforms.
All this being the case, a successful
social media effort relies on a balanced
deployment of both social media
analysts and standardized analytics
tools. Understanding the relative merits
of social media analysts and social
media analytics - and having a realistic
approach to balancing their use - will
put most companies a full length ahead
of their peers.
Data science:
Ultimately, regardless of the
combination of analysts and systems
a company uses, social media insights
must be internalized within the wider
organization to generate “ROI”. This
requires integration with the wider data
environment, like finance data and
traditional marketing metrics – and is
where data science can help.
A robust data science function can
quickly act as a significant multiplier on
the value of a social media analytics
function in the following ways:
Cross-functional analysis: Data can
be aggregated from a wide-range of
sources, both from within the enterprise
and from third-parties, to conduct highly
targeted analysis.
Predictive insights: Data science
methods can be leveraged to develop
powerful predictive analysis around well-
defined business problems.
Data science methods are particularly
valuable for social media data because
they are adaptable and can keep pace
with the large and expanding volume
of low-latency data to generate deeper
consumer insights.
Data science differs from traditional
analytics in several ways:

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Traditional Analytics Data Science
Analysis
Oriented towards standardized
analysis of traditional metrics
Oriented towards tailored analysis around a
specific outcome and/or business problem
Investigation
Investigations center around
validating a hypothesis
Investigations focus more on determining
interrelations, even with the absence of a
hypothesis
Technique
Treatment of data may be sophisticated, but
can be broken down to relatively conventional
mathematical techniques
Mathematical and computational techniques
can range from simple, to incredibly complex
Scalability
Methodologies tend not scale
with huge volumes of data
Approach is built around scalable computation
techniques for large data sets
Data
Methods rely on clean
structured data
Can accommodate structured, unstructured
and semi-structured data and, potentially,
corrupted/incomplete data
Responsiveness
Output responds to changes in underlying data in
predictable ways
Output can respond to changes in underlying
data in dynamic, unpredictable ways (e.g.,
machine learning)
Equipment
Can mostly be performed on conventional
database and computational systems
Relies on sophisticated distributed computing
platforms
Personnel
Strong focus on manipulating
and presenting data
Functions range from computation
techniques, ingesting data, manipulating data,
presenting data and performing analysis with
specific business context
Purview
Minimal direct decision support,
mostly retrospective
Emphasis of methods and analyses is forward
looking
Success
Success is simplifying
a complex problem
Success is understanding a complex problem
in a nuanced and sophisticated way—ideally
informing a decision

13. 13
Social Media Metrics and Reporting
06
Social Media Metrics
Social media marketing is both an art
and a science. Metrics can be powerful
tools in the right context, but that
context needs to be well understood.
Many companies hold their social media
marketing teams to rigid metrics; a
certain threshold of engagement that is
expected on a weekly or monthly basis.
In contrast, many sophisticated
companies have no, or only provisional
benchmarks. They correctly understand
that metrics measure quantity, but
have trouble measuring quality (caveat:
some metrics, like shares or retweets,
do provide some indication on quality
as an engagement measure). Over
emphasis on metrics is a holdover from
prior waves of marketing media where
engagement was passive. With active
engagement, where audiences have to
opt-in to marketing campaigns, these
metrics can fail to reflect varying levels
of quality.
We offer several considerations for
executives when it comes to driving
performance metrics and interpreting
results:
Cost: Engagement can be bought
through promotions and advertising.
If a social media marketing team tries
to accelerate engagement through
advertisements and promotions any
benchmark can potentially be reached
- but at quickly escalating costs -
negating the practical benefits. This is
especially true as some social media
content is driven by “bots” (automated
fake accounts) that are deployed to
skim promotions and inflate metrics.
Authenticity: Expecting audiences
to engage at a consistent level of
intensity can erode brand authenticity,
since organic audience development is
likely to occur via fits and starts around
specific new content or marketing
efforts. This is normal and desirable.
Saturation: Over time, market
saturation is natural. The addressable
audience is finite for almost every brand
and audiences have varied
attitudes regarding how they choose to
engage with brands on social media.
Aggressively forcing engagement to hit
social media engagement metrics can
exhaust the community and dilute the
brand. Audiences value being in the “in
group” and expanding the audience
base too rapidly or far can erode a
sense of exclusivity.
None of this is to say that metrics
should be ignored. They are extremely
important, but need to be incorporated
into a holistic social media strategy - not
all of which can be tied to well-defined
measurements. Brands should focus on
the quality of content they can deliver
for their marketing audiences as much,
or more than, what they are getting from
their audiences in terms of raw metrics.
Good metrics are a result of good
engagement, which is a result of good
content and authenticity – shared at the
right time and rate.

14. 14
Reporting
Social media interaction among
consumers is largely unstructured -- this
is both the promise and the appeal of
the medium, but also the bane of any
social media management team. To
combat this, social media reporting
programs need to balance the need for
standardized reporting, particularly for
quantitative outputs, against the lack of
structure necessary to report specific
nuances from social media analysts
and/or members of the data science
team.
In order to move towards digital mastery
in the social domain, an organization
must accept the absorption of
social media insights at some level
of abstraction. To this end, we offer
guidelines for helping social media
executives and organizations develop
and operate a functional and fruitful
management reporting system:
• Guidance: Functional teams, like
marketing or public relations, may
need to know details about user
behavior or specific actions on social
media, but they need support from
the social media team to determine
exactly what they should be paying
attention to and including in their
analysis and reporting.
• Clarity: Tools can work somewhat
differently with data from different
social networks, but there is rough
equivalence (i.e., between Facebook
and Twitter, a ‘share’ is roughly
equivalent to a ‘retweet’ and a ‘like’
is roughly equivalent to a ‘favorite’).
This needs to be accounted for and
clarified during the measurement and
reporting process.
• Simplicity: Social media data is
remarkable for both its volume and
velocity—both of which can quickly
overwhelm. Reporting must be able
to distill knowledge into simple,
relevant units.
• Communication: As a report
is generated and escalated to
management, the details and
distinctions between social networks
should be secondary to the distilled
insights. The aggregate reaction is
likely to be more important than the
information on the different platforms
used.
If these above principles and tenants
can be kept in mind, organizations
should be able to structure and maintain
a fruitful metrics and reporting approach
– one that provides the right balance
of consumer and marketing insights
and performance measurement and
management oversight.

15. 15
Consumer Engagement and Marketing
07
Consumers are committing an ever
increasing proportion of their time
to online media, whether through
computers, tablets or mobile devices.
Data from eMarketer suggests the
proportion of their time consumers
spent online has increased from just
under 30% in 2010, to almost 50% in
2014 – making consumer engagement
and marketing via social all the more
important.
While social media marketing entails
a number of fascinating and new
challenges, marketing best practices
are much the same. Brands are seeking
to inform consumers and build a
relationship with them that speaks to
a common experience and cultivates
trust.
Good marketing still thrives on honest,
engaged storytelling and human
connection; social media just provides
a faster, more interactive and direct
means.
A few case studies should help illustrate
how these basic principles translate into
social media marketing successes (and
an opportunity):
Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches”
Dove released a video series featuring
a professional sketch artist drawing
women based on their own descriptions
of themselves and then again based on
a stranger’s description. In every case,
the stranger’s description resulted in a
prettier picture. This really resonated
with Dove’s audience, as it spoke to
concerns around body image that many
have.
The intent was less to advertise
a specific product and more to
demonstrate that Dove understands
and empathizes with the everyday
struggles of their consumers. It built
significant brand equity and was
perfectly tailored to social media since
each video was a manageable length
that could be viewed and shared on
various social platforms. (SUCCESS)
Oreo “2013 Super Bowl” Tweet
Brands’ most avid consumers expect
to engage with their chosen brand
properties in real time, and expect
a response. Traditional marketing
campaigns have life cycles spanning
a quarter, a season or a year. During
the 2013 Super Bowl there was an
unanticipated blackout. Oreo quickly
tweeted out the following image:
This has universally been lauded as a
social media marketing success story–
and often the benchmark for agile
marketing and relevant in the moment
content. The message was quick, pithy
and contemporary, while remaining on
message with the entire legacy of the
wider brand. (SUCCESS)

16. 16
Kimpton’s “Easter Egg Hunt”
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants
executed a fun and simple strategy for
engagement by posting hidden codes
and promotional passwords in their
social media pages and pictures.
Patrons could find and use these codes
to earn free upgrades or extra perks
during their visits. This not only engaged
their customers, but encouraged them
to continue visiting the social media
pages and following Kimpton online.
(SUCCESS)
BK’s “Whopper Sacrifice”
In 2009, Burger King ran a much-
publicized Facebook campaign called
“Whopper Sacrifice”. In exchange for
deleting ten friends, a user would be
granted a coupon for a free Whopper
Burger (limit one per customer, of
course). There was a “cost” associated
with the transaction since each
“sacrifice” was well publicized on
the Facebook news feed. This was a
fascinating exercise in brand authenticity
from two perspectives:
Out-Group Audience: The campaign
drew a great deal of attention to
Burger King, even among people who
did not participate in the promotion.
The “Whopper Sacrifice” was highly
authentic with Burger King’s efforts to
develop an irreverent brand persona.
Burger King followed the mantra
and belief that “any publicity is good
publicity”.
In-Group Audience: The target
audience was a younger social media-
savvy demographic. The “Whopper
Sacrifice” resonated with them because
it poked fun at the superficiality of
social media “friendships” and drove a
surprising degree of self-examination. In
a certain way the campaign was brilliant
because it dealt with the ennui of social
media in the awkward teething phase of
social media adoption.
Something specifically like the
“Whopper Sacrifice” is likely to be
difficult to replicate since it is also
costly for social media platforms (in
this case Facebook), as it erodes their
credibility, however the general lesson
is that a certain amount of self-aware
irreverence by a brand can resonate
with audiences, especially younger,
more “in” audiences. (SUCCESS)
US Airways “Customer Service”
On April 14th 2014, a US Airways
customer complained about her
flight on Twitter. US Airways quickly
responded with an apology, which led
the customer to respond with another
irritated tweet. US Airways then posted
a highly sexual image on Twitter,
presumably as a means of putting down
and quieting the customer. US Airways
received heavy criticism, and has since
apologized extensively.
What went right? What went wrong?
The Oreo and US Airways incidents are
two extreme cases among thousands
of similar incidents, however, these
incidents are two sides of the same coin
(or question): how much autonomy to
offer a social media marketing team.
Traditional marketing staffs are often
resistant to giving social media
marketing teams full autonomy, correctly
pointing out the potential for brand
damage (i.e., US Airways). However,
they neglect to consider the significant
brand equity that a well-orchestrated
social media response can yield, as
Oreo so well demonstrated.
A related issue when comparing and
contrasting these case studies is their
frame of contact: Oreo sent out a mass-
audience tweet, while US Airways was
publicly communicating with a single
consumer. Interacting directly with
individual consumers is increasingly
expected, and is important, but requires
a high degree of comfort with the
brand, the wider marketing effort and
engagement “SOPs”.
To help with all of this, we suggest a
“Goldilocks” framework (just the right
amount of integration and oversight --
not too much and not too little):
A social media marketing team needs
the autonomy to react quickly, as Oreo
did, but this is not an excuse for the
traditional marketing team to ignore
the social media analysts. It is the
responsibility of the senior leadership
team to envision an integrated
marketing approach that brings social
media marketing into the fold and get
them “on message” with the wider
brand personality and culture. Once
aligned, the “Goldilocks” threshold

17. 17
can then include flexibility: tightening
during most of the year (i.e., more direct
marketing oversight), but loosening
strategically around key events (e.g., the
Super Bowl).
Oreo clearly appears to have done
this well. In contrast, US Airways’
social media reaction is likely to be
the result of both insufficient oversight
and poor integration with US Airways’
wider marketing efforts. An effective
social media team needs both the
autonomy to respond to key events in
real time (and/or have an integrated
communication framework, where they
can loop in brand managers effectively),
while also being positioned within the
wider marketing effort.
Lessons learned:
Consumers are willing to be
engaged by companies:
Customers value being engaged in
unique and interesting ways – and
social offers significant opportunity
for brands to do so. Digital marketing
in this respect is fascinating because
consumers “opt in” to consume it. They
have a much better sense of their time,
and will reward brands for using their
time well.
The Dove Real Beauty Sketches is
three minutes and has garnered over
65 million views on YouTube as of early
2015 (an average of over 100,000
views per day since launch). Similarly,
Kimpton’s strategy necessitates real
customer engagement and was a good
success.
Social media lets commoditized
brands differentiate themselves:
A product like soap is relatively
commoditized, however Dove took
the opportunity to share an emotional
connection with potential consumers
which helped set them apart. In
this sense, social media marketing
gives brands an opportunity to take
appropriate risks that can increase
brand preference and ultimately sales.
Traditional marketing values are
important within social as well:
US Airways likely lost meaningful brand
equity with some of their consumers
because of their social media gaffe.
Consumers expect marketing to meet
some combination of the same needs it
always has: acknowledgement, respect,
emotional connection, information and
entertainment. Now they just want it
faster, and more targeted to them as
individuals.

18. 18
Organization, Operations and Governance 08
For companies that have been trying to
evolve their social capabilities over the
last few years, many of the challenges
that exist revolve around organization,
operations and governance.
Like many new initiatives, resources are
often leveraged from different groups
within the company to help a new social
media program scale (e.g., marketing,
public relations and various technology
functions) and then augmented with
additional external resources (e.g.,
agencies). This often leads to a situation
with many stakeholders, minimal
structure and little wide-spread clarity.
While the challenges this creates are
not new (this often happens when new
products or businesses are launched
within an existing company as well),
social media is a unique discipline with
many complexities.
There are three initial things companies
can do to minimize this complexity and
improve the execution of their social
media function:
Establish Governance Standards
Executives should develop and
implement formal governance
standards for both the technology
aspects of the system, as well as the
business management processes.
This is particularly crucial for large
global organizations that have very
large social media teams, resources
across multiple geographies and/or
are heavily leveraging agencies – all
situations where day-to-day visibility
and management control can be a
challenge.
On the technology side, while there
does need to be some autonomy for
local markets, particularly as it relates to
listening tools (given the language and
sentiment requirements), technology
executives need to have an overarching
set of standards that provide structure
and direction to the field around
the technology applications and
architectures they can employ.
Beyond business requirements, the
key drivers for these standards should
include system stability, security
and costs. Stability and security are
particularly important given the fluidity
of the market and possibility of data
breaches.
For companies operating in multiple
geographies – that are each operating
at various levels of sophistication
- organizations should still have
technology governance standards
in place. This can be accomplished
through a tiered system, along a
maturity curve, whereby individual
markets migrate to different technology
applications and architectures over
time.
On the business side, companies
should also have formal governance
mechanisms in place for strategy and
business process changes, as well as
to manage the on-going performance
and evolution of the program. This
should take the form of quarterly (or at
least bi-annual) planning sessions for
larger strategic decisions and process
changes, as well as weekly or monthly
meetings for on-going performance and
tactics management.
In all of these cases, executives need to
be mindful of who needs to be involved
within the company (and who does
not), as well as those that need to be
involved from outside the organization
(e.g., marketing agencies). Even in
companies that are in the early stages
of their social program, leaders should
at least establish an executive steering
committee to review, establish and
manage governance standards -- and
make decisions.
Clarify Roles and
Responsibilities
There are several sets of roles and
responsibilities that need to be clarified
within a social ecosystem. The first
is related to the role of corporate
stakeholders vs. those in the ‘field’. The
field meaning the professionals on the
front lines dealing with specific markets
and consumers. In this case, markets
could be geographic markets or a unique
product or specific brands – depending
on how a company has organized itself.
One of the keys to a successful program
is to be able to appropriately ‘listen’ to
and engage with local markets in a quick
and agile way. In order to do this, those
responsible (i.e., the field) need autonomy
and flexibility in what they can do. On the
other hand, those in “corporate” need
the operating leverage, data capture
and analysis capabilities a centralized
reporting structure brings – as well as
control over large, global brands and
broad-based marketing initiatives.
As illustrated previously in the Consumer
Engagement and Marketing section,
without clarity and communication
between groups, efforts can be
duplicated, excess cost incurred and/or
opportunities squandered. This includes
misalignment of marketing messages,
the mishandling of public relations issues
and/or missed opportunities for product
and service enhancements.
The second set of roles and
responsibilities that need to be clarified
(and managed on an on-going basis)
is the role of internal resources vs.
external marketing agencies. Here again,
driving clarity between groups can help
minimize costs, challenges and missed
opportunities. Clarifying the expectations
between these parties is particularly
important for those companies that
plan on growing their social media
organizations and/or bringing more of the
work in-house.
In this case, clarity needs to cover the
geographies, brands and/or social
platforms the agencies will be responsible
for, as well as additional delineation
related to what they are each listening
for; how they are analyzing and reporting;
and what they are and are not supposed
to be publishing.

19. 19
The final set of relationships important
for a leading social program to clarify
- perhaps most important - are the
roles and responsibilities between the
business and technology stakeholders
within the company.
Like many other functions and /or
initiatives within an organization in
today’s digital economy, the lines
between traditional business functions
(e.g., marketing, sales, supply
chain, etc.) and technology groups
(e.g., application development and
management, enterprise architecture,
data management, etc.) are blurring.
Within the social media function,
having resources that understand
both the business and technology
aspects of social media is important
(and nice to have, if possible), but
delineating a formal structure in terms
of which groups and individuals are
responsible for the various aspects of
the ecosystem is key.
This should be done, at a minimum,
via the creation of a RACI matrix
whereby the roles and responsibilities
needed to successfully operate and
evolve a top-notch social program
are identified, documented and
assigned. As organizations begin to
have a meaningful social program, they
should move towards a more robust
and formalized Center-of-Excellence
structure.
Create a Social Center-of-
Excellence
The final thing companies can do to
minimize complexity and improve
performance is to institute a formal
Social Center-of-Excellence (S-CoE) –
be it a physical location or virtual model
–from which their social program can be
led and managed.
In order to establish and maintain
a robust S-CoE, companies need
to address both the technology
components of the ecosystem, as
well as the business processes and
systems. On the technology front, this
means ensuring there are dedicated
resources charged with maintaining
systems, managing technology vendors
and ensuring there is proper data
integration and management, as well
as staying up-to-date on the latest
technology developments in social
– be it new applications, competitive
dynamics and/or other technology-
related topics that could affect the
company’s program.
On the business side, an S-CoE
should have individuals focused on
SOP development and best practices
(for listening and engagement); hiring,
training and development (including
the cultural differences that can be
different for a social function vis-à-vis
other functions within a company); and
reporting, analytics and data science,
among other things.
In addition, there needs to be
individuals accountable for managing
the marketing agencies, as well as
interfacing with the other aspects of
the company (the overall marketing
organization, public relations, investor
relations, etc.), including the field/front-
line staff.
Social Media | Center of Excellence
Business Management
Governance Standards
Field Support
StandardOperating
Procedures
Hiring,Trainingand
Certification
DataScience
MarketingandPR
BestPractices
Leadership
andCulture
TechnologyManagement
Maintain Systems
EvolveArchitectures
A B C D E
Emerging Maturing Established
Manage Vendors
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Product Knowledge
…1 2 4 5 6

20. 20
Moving Forward and Parting Thoughts
09
Social media allows consumers to reset the ‘marketing’ clock at any time. Many consumer and retail companies have found it
difficult to embrace this transition and the speed now required. Traditional marketing teams and technology groups are finding
their old processes, systems and tools cannot keep pace with the brave new world of social media. Consequently, these practical
challenges are affecting the ability of many companies to optimize their investment in social media and achieve the business impact
they are seeking.
The decline of Myspace and rise of Facebook, Twitter and many other notable platforms, shows the dramatic ways the social
media landscape can shift rapidly over short periods of time. At this pace, there is a very real possibility the ecosystem will look
meaningfully different 3-5 years from now. With that, brands should not think of themselves as tied to a specific social media
platform, but should instead see themselves as following their consumers wherever they choose to migrate – and making sure their
internal technology and business practices are agile enough to do so.
To do this, companies and their executives need to have clarity around the mission, vision and focus of their social media program.
They need to routinely evaluate the applications, infrastructure and integration architectures they are using, as well as employ robust
data analytics capabilities and data science functions to make sense of all the information generated.
Along the way, they need to make sure their operating procedures and governance practices are sufficient, and their metrics and
reporting approaches make sense.
Most importantly, from a marketing perspective, they need to keep in mind that good marketing still thrives on honesty, engaged
storytelling and human connection -- and that social media just provides a faster, more interactive and more direct means to engage
consumers.
If they can do all this, insights and execution will improve – as well as their ROI.

21. Recognition
A special thank you goes to the following Capgemini professionals for their contributions to “Leading Social Media” and for
significantly expanding the firm’s expertise and project delivery capabilities in the social media domain:
• Ashwin John, Senior Manager, Enterprise Applications & Integration Services
• Thomas Dornis, Manager, Business Information Management
• Reed Dailey, Senior Consultant, Capgemini Consulting
• Nick Pahountis, Consultant, Capgemini Consulting
The team would also like to thank Chetan Nikam, Madhan Dhandayutham and Akshay Tyagi from Capgemini’s Strategic
Research and Creative Services Group for their assistance and support in publishing “Leading Social Media”.

22. Rightshore®
is a trademark belonging to Capgemini
Capgemini Consulting is the global strategy and
transformationconsulting organization of the Capgemini Group,
specializing in advising and supporting enterprises in significant
transformation - from innovative strategy to execution - and with
an unstinting focus on results. With the new digital economy
creating significant disruptions and opportunities, our global
team of over 3,600 professionals work with leading companies
and governments to master Digital Transformation, drawing on
our understanding of the digital economy and our leadership in
business transformation and organizational change.
Find out more at:
http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/
With more than 140,000 people in 44 countries, Capgemini
is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting,
technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2014
global revenues of over $13 billion. Together with its clients,
Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology
solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A
deeply multicultural organization, Capgemini has developed its
own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM,
and draws on Rightshore®
, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more at:
http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/
About Capgemini and the
Collaborative Business Experience
Capgemini Consulting is the strategy and transformation consulting brand of Capgemini Group. The information contained in this document is proprietary.
© 2015 Capgemini. All rights reserved.
Todd Redmon
Principal, Strategy & Digital Customer Experience
Capgemini Consulting | Consumer, Retail and Distribution Practice
todd.redmon@capgemini.com
+1.404.569.5689
Suhail Ahmad
Senior Consultant, Business Technology & Innovation
Capgemini Consulting | North America
suhail.ahmad@capgemini.com
+1.917.370.3988
Ray Stetter
Vice President, Enterprise Applications & Integration Services
Capgemini | Consumer, Retail and Distribution Practice
ray.stetter@capgemini.com
+1.404.953.9810
For more information, please contact: