Tutorial #7
Closing: 3.11.15
Problem : Impacts of social media on business
Learning objectives:
- Which social media platform is suitable for which purposes?
- Dependant on Industry?
- B2B vs. B2C
- What strategies can be implemented?
- B2B vs. B2C
- How to measure social media performance
- What tools can be used
- What to do with the information
- Case studies
Which social media platform is suitable for which purposes?
The first step is analyzing your own company. What resources do you have? With large companies that have a lot of resources it's possible to be present and successful on all platforms. This obviously gives the company a huge advantage. But if resources or capabilities are small then choosing a platform that most suits your needs is very effective. Levy, S. 2013. How to choose the right social media platform for your business.
B2B
Understanding what platforms your audience is currently using. These are the main ways DeMers believes will help companies find their audience.
The next step would be to look at content. What type of content do you want to be posting or what type of content most relates to what you do.
Based on these the company should be able to chose platforms that best meet their needs:
Pinterest: Image based, b2b infographics
Youtube/vine: Create videos that sell the brand
Linkdin: business social media site where people can network (self explanatory how it benefits b2b)
Twitter and facebook: show of your brand, get info out there, connect
niche networks: active small communities
google+: more productive community of users willing to discuss new technologies
location based networks: Showing other companies that you are present in the area through the use of foursquare can be beneficial to your presence in a certain area.
Theory
The four c's
Cognize: Understand where the business lies currently in relation to the Honeycomb framework.
Congruity: Develop strategies that suit each social media functionality. How to measure success, etc. The strategy also needs to include how the general public could find your platforms through other various sources.
Curate: Have an understanding of when is the right time to get involved. When to start discussions or maybe control them.
Chase: follow the information. See how conversations are going online and learn from what is being said. Also search for information about other social media platforms.
What strategies can be implemented?
In a study conducted by HBR, Over 1,100 companies spanning over different industries and countries were analysed to see what social media strategies were being utilized. They were categorized into 4 main different sections:
"The predictive practitioner" - skillful and weary, these companies want to use platforms as a place to interact/get answers. An example of this would be clorox's R&D setting up a web-platform to interact with different consumers to get answers to various questions. This setting is more controllable.
"The creative experimenter" - These companies embrace uncertainty using platforms such as facebook and twitter to interact with customers. Companies like EMC also used it as a platform to network within the company, with so many employees its a way to connect and source from within before having to look outside the company for help.
"The social media champion" - Companies using social media as a way to advertise or set up big campaigns. Ford launched their campgn for the Ford Fiesta via social media and invited people online to test the car to then talk about their experience via various SM sites.
"Social media transformer" - Large scale interactions in business. Cisco launched the "integrated workforce expeirence" that worked much like a FB wall where people could interact and find recommendations.
Foster gives applicable tips to creating a social media strategy:
1) Understand goals
2)create measurable objectives
3)Characterize customers
4)look at competition
5)Develop message
6)choose channels
7)content plan
How to measure social media performance
7% of companies say they know the "exact value at stake from digital"
62% of u.s adults say that social media has no influence over purchasing
5%say it does
so is people are not interested, isn't there still some value in knowing how much attention you and your competition are getting? sometimes. If you're playing clean then you can learn a lot by looking at analytical tools but maybe competition isn't. these days it's possible to purchase, likes, follows, etc. Companies either do this for viral purposes, etc but either way it doesn't depict a true analysis of how successful their online presence is.
In their article, Fournier and Rietveld discuss the validity of your consumers social media behaviour. They believe that all information gathered from social media should be subject to market research to see whether the opinions expressed are that of an entire group or just a select few with big mouths.
Focusing on ROI, companies overlook important sharing opportunities online. An example given was a toothbrush campaign via social media. They thought it was a failure because only existing customer responded. They didn't see the value in people talking positively about the products and the brand.
Samuel argues the point of poor use of analytical tools and their accuracy. In studies it was found that 90%of whats written on social media sites, comes from less than 30% of social media users. This is not by any means the dominating opinions, nor should companies cater only to these voices. If they do, they are excluding a major following of people that aren't active but still follow social media sites.
Tools
- google analytics
- facebook analytics
- twitter analytics
- tweetbinder, hootsuite
- Iconosquare(insta)
- Socialbakers
- Likealyzer
Case Studies
http://mavsocial.com/b2b-social-media-case-studies/
http://www.newbreedmarketing.com/blog/successful-social-media-campaigns-for-b2b
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