The Power of Community in Building Brand Awareness and Driving Thought Leadership

1. Developing Social Media Strategies
The Power of Community
07.22.09

2. Let’s add a little context to this conversation…

3. What is Social Media?
How people discover, read and share news,
information and content
Mixture of sociology and technology
Shift from content readers into publishers
User Generated Content
Consumer Generated Media (CGM)
Source: adapted from Wikipedia
2

4. Your Audiences are Surrounded by Noise
Confronted with clutter,
consumers gravitate to
messages from trusted
sources. That trust
comes from their
relationships.
Leveraging the right
relationships is the key
to delivering messages
they want to receive.
3
3

5. Navigating the New Multilogue
Communication has
shifted from a
monologue, past a
simple dialogue, and into
an emerging multilogue -
multiple conversations
and participants, shifting
in various directions,
creating communities.
This digital discourse has
increased impact on
4
brands and consumers
alike.
4

6. Platforms & Proof of Adoption
Platforms Proof of Adoption
67 percent of Internet users engage with
Social Media (comScore)
Facebook had 87.3 million unique visitors
in June ’09 (Nielson); 250 million active
users
72.8 percent of Internet users read blogs
and globally, one new blog is created
every second of every day; (comScore)
Twitter grew 1,928 percent in the US from
June ’08 – June ’09; estimated at 21
million monthly unique visitors (Nielson)
LinkedIn gains 1 new user per second
(ZDnet)
51% of journalists read blogs for story
ideas (Juniper research)
28% of top search engine results are
social media sites (Juniper)
5

7. The Big Question: Why Leverage Social Media ?
The answer is any one or more of these three things:
1.Share of Voice
(fusing your POV into the conversation)
2.Engagement
(multilogue, listening, testing, etc)
3.Activation
(moving people to do something)
6

8. Now that we have that out of the way, what next?

9. Don’t Start With Technology
While there IS an app for that, don’t think that way.
Think strategy first; technology and platforms later, much later.
8

10. Developing a Social Media Strategy: Start with the Four D’s
9
9

11. Building Social Media Strategies: Discover
Begin with discovery and answer:
Who is your audience?
What are their perceptions of your brand?
Where can you enter the conversation?
What do we have to say that’s of value?
What does success look like?
10

12. Building Social Media Strategies: Define
Take your findings and define key insights:
Audience demographics and habits
Perception of brand against competitive set
Potential hurdles and crisis situations
Key messages, content and a call to action
11

13. Building Social Media Strategies: Develop
Develop and activate on several fronts:
Select platforms best suited for your target audience
On-board teams (technical/creative, management, editorial)
Finalize key message points and process for content delivery
Refine and hone key influencer list for relationship building
12

14. Building Social Media Strategies: Deliver
Upon delivering content and engaging in the conversation:
Ask questions and continue to listen and learn
Extend your contacts, drive intellectual property and sell
products or services
Continually measure, analyze and encourage community
feedback
13

15. Summary
Social media is about conversations and relationships
Customers are in control, but not total control because
you CAN participate
People do not want to be marketed to; they want to be
heard and can relate more to another human than a
banner ad
It’s not just about great content, it’s about relationships
Chances are there is a conversation going on online
about your products or services, or even the business
itself. Are you going to participate, or let someone else?
14

16. Thank You!