An ever increasing number of companies are convinced that participating in online conversations is a must. Unfortunately most companies focus only on dealing with complaints (webcare). By doing so, a lot of unused potential is left. The challenge is to formulate an approach which deals with both negative and positive reactions.
Many recent brand efforts are designed to end up in user streams, whether on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network. Campaigns should be ‘worth sharing’, ‘conversation worthy’ or ‘retweetable’. Aim is to being conversation worthy on every brand level, so that people will talk about you, whether it is offline or online.
Often these ‘conversation-worthy’ ambitions are translated into short term social media campaigns. Success is measured in views, clicks and likes. In effect, the reach of Facebook social media campaigns and “success” is often guestimated by counting the number of people that shared a campaign elements, multiplied by the average number of Facebook friends (e.g. 2000 likes times 130 friends is a campaign reach of 260.000). That means that campaigns are deliberately designed to collect likes and shares. In result, some digital agencies and brands do the weirdest things to have a high number of likes: people who like a brand page are offered a bag, people are promised non-exisiting ‘fan’-only content and can win pretty much everything by liking, retweeting, sharing or subscribing.
Read more »I have been working on the concept of gradual engagement for the last few weeks. It starts from the idea that true engagement isn’t in campaigns, but in small interactions between brands and consumers. Interactions, to engage consumers by little baby steps. Small steps that, all together, make a giant leap. But more importantly, steps that engage people 24/7/365, not just during campaigning season.
Read more »
Companies are constantly looking for new ways of connecting with their customers. Facebook has become so popular that the social network site is the place to be for online dialogue with consumers.
In Malaysia, retail store chain 7-eleven recently launched a real-time game show. The programme is broadcast on the brand’s fan page. The concept is similar to the famous ‘The price is right’ format. The show is broadcast twice a week at previously announced times.
Read more »How to engage in conversations? How are we managing consumer expectations as soon as we’re start answering questions on social media? Many companies just do social media campaigns and fail to have a follow up on their social media efforts. In other words: they do a great campaign to attract people to their Facebook fanpage, but fail to answer the questions and solve the problems of this new crowd. In a conversation era, there is no marketing without service.
On top of that, there’s the dilemma of managing expectations: many don’t wan’t to open ‘the floodgates’ on consumers reacting on their online efforts, just because they have the perception (or self-knowledge) that they won’t be able to handle that. They adopt a more reactive approach on what’s happening online, maybe to, someday, change into a more proactive conversations company.
That’s why we usually plot conversations efforts on proactive versus reactive axes and service versus marketing axes.
Read more »
Looking for an inspirational speech for your next event? Book Steven Van Belleghem today or download our speakerfile and get inspired!