Much has been discussed about return on investment in the social media space. Some commentators say ROI needs to focus on areas like brand perception and customer satisfaction – but these can be hard to measure accurately. While I agree that these areas need to be taken into consideration, not having well defined metrics and ignoring conversion goals simply makes no sense. In short, there needs to be alignment with the business objectives.

The great thing about social media is it allows you to capture vast quantities of demographic and psychometric data. This data can, and should, be used for targeted messaging. The segments you market to will be fairly broad to start with, but will become increasingly granular over time. After testing the waters, it will be possible to economically communicate to individuals with tailored messaging – messaging that understands the individual on a personal level.

You don’t always need a ‘hard sell’ approach to move potential customers down a sales conversion path. Sometimes it’s enough to show them that you know and care, and are prepared to communicate on a personal level. In this ultra-personalised digital world, your market – particularly younger demographics – now expect everything to be personalised. In fact it is often the only way to get noticed.

A research report published in October this year from the Australian Centre of Retail Studies concluded that the more channels in which a consumer encounters a particular brand, the more likely they are to purchase, and the higher their overall spend will be. The lesson here is not rocket science. Once you have used social media to develop your contact list, find out how to communicate with them via email, mobile, social media and your website. Get all the channels working together.

The final step on the conversion journey is the execution. Communicating in a customised way via multiple channels can be expensive if there is not a strong system sitting in the background. What’s more, these interactions in social media mean that you are never sure when someone will take the first step in the conversion cycle. Platforms like ExactTarget allow you to not only automate communications through many different channels, but also provide the necessary tools to refine the sales strategy as additional customer data flows in.

So it is possible to create an effective social media conversion strategy. Just remember to keep things simple, and stay focused on what the customer wants.

But don’t be confused by the apparent meaninglessness of some interactions in the social web. What is happening may seem like a waste of time but the communications can also be profound – and you need to be a part of them.

The social web, and more specifically platforms like Facebook and Twitter, allow brands to develop relationships with their customers in ways that have never existed before. Customer loyalty has always been recognised as incredibly important, but developing metrics that measure things other than swiping a card at the point of purchase has been difficult.

Now it’s not. With a well designed and executed social media strategy, companies can identify and reward the most loyal and vocal customers. The brand evangelists who actively encourage others to purchase from their favourite brand.

The companies doing this the best are the ones who understand that they need to create a relationship with each customer – they need to recognise that each customer is unique, and reward people for interacting with the brand. Customers now have more power to voice an opinion than ever before, and they will do it whether you are participating or not. It is no longer good enough to simply treat customers as something to convert into a sale then move on. ‘Speed dating’ marketing is out, romancing is in.

The brilliant people who work for Facebook understand this better than most. In fact, they have recently changed the way that advertising works within Facebook to incentivise brands to be more active and engaging. Facebook knows that the real value from their platform comes from the engagement that creates longer term relationships. And they are now changing the game within Facebook so everybody else gets that too. It is likely that the recent changes to the Facebook platform will be game-changers for some brands. Others, particularly brands who have been looking at social media as just a broadcast channel, are going to struggle. What is certain is that Facebook’s advertising revenue is set to make another giant leap as brands are incentivised to engage with customers more – and use Facebook even more as a result.

As a marketer you have many choices about how you treat your audience. You can develop techniques that let you know who they are and how they wish to be communicated with and you can engage them in creative interesting ways – creating long term relationships. Or you can look at the customers as numbers to be churned through quickly. We all know that being treated as an individual is more effective – and now it seems there is going to be an additional financial benefit to it.

So you can view the social web as a place where people waste time and generate low value. But it is up to you, as a marketer, to change the way your customers interact with you. Social media is fast paced and there can be a lot of distractions. To really stand out you need to create meaningful experiences – that can turn into happy long term relationships.

If an individual spent a lot of time trying to control every message they heard about themselves, and responding to everything that everybody else said about them, we would, quite rightly, think that person insecure or, worse, a narcissist. But there are a number of brands which think this kind of control to be normal. From the perspective of the general population there is nothing normal about it at all.

A brand that is confronted by negative comments on the social web needs to learn a simple two-step reaction: first, see the comment as valuable feedback; and second, view that feedback as an opportunity to improve and build its relationship with customers. This is the way the the best relationships among individuals work. As anyone who has gone through a personal relationship break-up will know, relationships break down when one party believes they are not being heard.

Recently I moved house. Before I moved I bought new furniture from a very well know Australian retailer. On the day the furniture was due to be delivered the delivery team arrived and got down to work. It turned out that one piece of furniture did not fit into the lift of my new apartment building. When I called to ask how to rectify this situation the immediate response from the store was “This is your fault; you should have measured the size of your lift; there’s nothing we can do.”. Needless to say I thought this was pretty poor customer service. So I jumped onto Twitter and said as much. Of course my experience with the local service rep was not indicative of the company as a whole but it did taint my view of the brand. But that wasn’t the end of the story. The company was monitoring Twitter and used my comment as an opportunity to contact me and offer to send around a new team the next day to carry the piece furniture up the stairs. Naturally I then went back onto Twitter and gave them high praise. Our ‘conversation’ started testily but ended up well.

My case highlights the way brands should be thinking about negative comments. It’s not about your ‘mistakes’ as viewed by others. We all make them. What matters is whether you really listen and how you respond. And this is the real opportunity. I’m not suggesting that every negative comment needs a ‘fix’ – sometimes it’s enough to simply tell the customer that they have been heard. But if a comment identifies a problem you can fix then a potential brand ‘enemy’ can be turned into a brand ‘lover’ very quickly.

So don’t try to bubble-wrap your brand in entirely positive messages. Embrace the diversity of your market and realise every contact point is an opportunity to stand apart from your competition.

This idea has become increasingly important as more firms participate in social media. Companies that have used the ‘customers own the brand’ principle as a useful intellectual exercise and little more are being forced to rethink, and very quickly. In the social web you can direct, participate and engage in conversations about your brand. But so can your customers. It is a level playing field. Social media has given your customers more control of your brand than ever before. Customers that believe that their needs are not being met will let you know, along with everyone else.

Customers’ relationship with a brand is an emotional one. Every touchpoint your customers’ interact with will shape that relationship. Understanding how your market interacts with your brand, and the personality your brand conveys at each of those interactions is vitally important. Think of a time you rang a utility provider and encountered someone on the end of the phone who was rude. For most of us the emotional response to this is “I don’t like this company”. We look for other information to support this view. We talk to friends and share experiences. The emotional connection with the brand has been assigned. Changing this type of entrenched negative view is no easy task.

But social media as a touchpoint is different because your customers’ views are visible. And you can respond. Social media platforms allow customers to interact with your brand in much the same way that they do with their friends. They treat it as a person. If your social media strategy recognises that, you can make sure your brand has a personality with clear emotional cues. If you don’t then your customers will assign a personality for you. And it may be not be the personality that you want.

So remember, a brand is more than a just a logo. Take the time to build a brand strategy that incorporates interaction in the social web. Define the personality and make sure your business understands it and can express it – particularly online. Opting out is much more risky than participating in social media. Get it right the rewards will be easy to see.

What’s actually happening is quite profound. There is a cultural shift happening at the moment that every retailer needs to come to grips with – or risk fading into obscurity.

During the late eighties, through the nineties and into the new millennium, the progression of technologies touted as ‘bringing everyone together’ have actually had the reverse effect. This, partnered with the increasing pace of globalisation, has resulted in a decline in local community sentiment. Many social sub-groups have begun to feel disenfranchised.

By the time social media platforms like MySpace and Facebook entered the scene, there was already a groundswell focussing on our the human desire to feel more socially connected. The technology that underpinned social platforms had already been around for a very long time. Facebook and the like did not create the ‘social’ craze, they essentially capitalised on a social movement that was well under way.

This new connectivity has evolved quickly, driven in the most part by innovation meeting demand. The space is now beginning to mature. Many of the social interactions are somewhat superficial, but this too will evolve.

By contrast, traditional retail has become dominated by chain stores with highly impersonal brand experiences – exactly what people have been moving away from.

Online stores can gather data about users and demonstrate an understanding of them as people. Your name is displayed, your preferences can be stored, and you can connect and communicate with people directly from the online store – people you know, or even people you don’t know but share similar interests with.

The offline retail industry needs to learn how to provide this level of connectivity. There is a need to blend social media and mobile technology into everything the retailer does. The data generated by the customers should be viewed as the most valuable asset retailers have, as the best online brands do. Online sales and offline sales need to be viewed as a single brand experience – because this is how your customers see it.

Social media is not going away. The brands, platforms and tools will change, but the culture of online connectivity and social sharing is here to stay – and is only going to gather momentum. The time to understand social media, and utilise it as a strategic growth tool, is right now. Your customers are looking for a connection with your brand, and it is possible to make that connection more meaningful both online and in-store.

In this new world order, where experience is everything, not changing means the end. The evolution of retail is not about foot traffic – it’s about social traffic.

Before you can begin a thought leadership strategy there are a few things to consider: who are your companies thought leaders, who are the influencers in your network, how often can you create content and how will you distribute it? It is necessary to start to document each of these points. They will evolve over time but let’s look at the starting points.

Every professional service company has at least one thought leader. If you are a small consultancy you may be the one and only. If the company is bigger then it is best to try and get more than one person being a thought leader. This will put less pressure on one person and will exponentially grow the network you have influence over.

You then need to think about who the influencers in your network are. If you use LinkedIn it can be relatively easy to do this. The ones that have the most connections and are most active tend to be the most influential. It can get more complicated than this but in general that’s a great place to start.

It is important to try and plan regular updates to the thought leadership strategy. The first place most companies start is writing short pieces for their own blog. Creating a content roster for this activity is one way to make sure that everybody is participating in the thought leadership process. Try and avoid a flurry of activity followed by a long silence. If you develop a following and then simply stop because you get too busy then you run the risk of disappointing your market.

If you do develop a strategy around your blog you then need to think about distributing your content so it gets in front of more people. One mistake that is easy to make is assuming that people will keep coming back to your site or blog. Chances are they won’t as most of them are as busy as you are. Make sure you employ tools and techniques that automatically send your intent to various social platforms while also making sure you content is easy to share.

The ex CEO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz, is a great example of a business leader who developed a thought leadership strategy. He had a blog where he openly discussed what was on his mind. And he invited comments from the public. Importantly, he tried to answer as many of those comments as possible, especially the negative ones. Over time this created a culture of honesty and a focus around customer service.

This is what being a thought leader is all about. You know a lot about your particular speciality – that covers the thought. How you express that, and
how you communicate with your market as you do so is where the leadership part come into play. If your up to the job your market is looking for a leader.

Like most aspects of running a business, rather than focusing on products or prices, it is best to focus on outcomes and objectives. In this article we will explore how social media monitoring works, and discuss what to look for when making choices.

Social media monitoring tools are similar to search engines in that they look through vast quantities of data and serve up relevant results. At a basic level the results show mentions of your company or brand name. There are many free tools that do this simple task well. But to obtain real intelligence, much deeper insights are needed. This is where more sophisticated tools shine. Each one has it’s strengths and weaknesses, so knowing how to ask the right questions becomes very important.

The ‘social web’ consists of social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but it also covers blogs, special interest forums, wikis and any website that has an area where people can leave comments. Some of these platforms allow anonymous interaction, others ask for more detailed personal information. Understanding where your market is, is important. A basic search with a good monitoring tool should be able to give you this information quickly.

From this point you can start to dive into the data to obtain more meaningful insights. Basic demographic information – such as age and gender – can help you define segments quickly, and start to define the culture and language of the different groups. Many tools allow you to see how ‘important’ different users are – meaning you can pinpoint the influencers – positive and negative – very quickly, and develop strategies to manage them.

Geo-location information is being shared via smart phones with GPS functionality at an ever increasing rate. This allows you to know where people were when a certain comment was made. If you are looking at your own brand or product category, this can be helpful when thinking about where to focus resources. However, it can be far more powerful when you are monitoring your competitors. Knowing where your competitors are performing poorly can allow you to direct marketing spend to that area, and pick up the ‘low hanging fruit’.

Better social monitoring platforms also have a dictionary you can program, allowing you to apply context or meaning to words and sentences. The phrase ‘fully sick’ may be very negative for one demographic group and very positive for another. Once the meaning is developed, it then becomes reasonably straight forward to understand the sentiment, what people think about your brand, your competitor or anything else you choose to monitor.

In the end, listening to social media is about developing a business intelligence strategy. Your people in your market are having conversations every day. These conversations can provide valuable insights. If you get it right, it can be like running a never ending focus group. But, much like real life, it’s important to know ‘how’ to listen.

Before the communication revolution ushered in by platforms like Twitter and Facebook, companies were very much in control of the messages surrounding their brand. Marketing was a one way street where the brand developed a strategy and told the customer what to think. Customer service was relegated to call centres and market research happened behind closed doors with small focus groups. All of that has now changed. Customers now have more power to voice an opinion than they ever have had, and they are wielding that power ever more rapidly and with greater impact. Ignore this development at your brand’s peril.

The reality is that people are not always going to be happy with your brand. They will occasionally complain. And they will do it publicly. You can try to persuade yourself that if you do not get involved in social media then it won’t happen. But you’d be wrong because it will. Ignoring it just means that you won’t be able to do anything about it, and that may do irreversible damage to your brand.

The good news is if you recognise and respect the relationship you have with your customers, social media can be a very powerful tool. Your customers deserve to be valued and heard. Work out how to do this well, and do it out in the open, and your reputation will grow. People can accept mistakes. It’s how you handle them that determines whether the outcome is disaster or an opportunity.

Being open and honest is healthy for a brand. It tells your market “we can be trusted” – and trust is what your customers are looking for. All it takes is a bit of planning. Develop a strategy. Know what you are trying to achieve, who you are going to be talking to and how you are going to handle difficult situations. Make sure that staff who are involved in the “customer conversation” are all properly trained and on board. If you need help at the planning stage then go and get it. This is a strategic exercise that will enhance and possibly determine your competitive advantage. Getting it right from the outset will save you a lot of time and expense.

So don’t be afraid of negative comments. Embrace them. They are part of the texture of the marketplace you compete in. You cannot control social media any more than you can people’s thoughts. But you can manage it by being involved.

In the world of social media it is safer to step into the light than hide in the shadows.

One of the business staples that is undergoing a transformation, and one that lends itself to the two way nature of social media, is customer service. Large and small companies alike are experimenting with innovative ways to use use social media to connect with customers to get feedback and provide pre and post sales service – all the while collecting valuable information as they do. As may of these tools have very low barriers to entry to set up all companies are essentially on a level playing ground. The only thing dividing one from another is the approach they take, or to put it another way, how much time they have spent on developing a strategy.

One stand out is the Best Buy in America which sells technology and entertainment products. They have developed a distributed system using Twitter. It works like this: A member of the public send in a question like “What is the best 3D TV?” or “Which headphones have the best bass?” and a team of Best Buys employees, known as the Twelp Force (a combination of Twitter and Help) respond with expert advice. What’s more they are actively searching Twitter for questions about the products they sell – even if they are not directed at Best Buy. The brilliant thing about this is that they have had the insight that customer service and customer acquisition are one in the same. To find out more click here.

There are many other cases of companies using Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms well for customer service. Take a look at what the big Australian banks are up to for example. There are also many examples of companies that are not doing it well. The difference between success and failure, as with most projects, is management buy in and a well developed and focused plan.

A big part of any social media customer service plan needs to be around measurement. Thankfully sentiment is reasonably straight forward to measure in the social media space so building a realistic set of goals for the team on the front lines can be quick to implement and simple to evaluate.

Whether your company is a major brand or you are a sole trader, customer service is a vital component of continued growth. Constantly fielding the same questions on the phone can be a drain on resources. So it make sense to direct a significant portion of customer service enquiries towards a public social media space. In doing so your customers may be able to find what they are looking for before they have to ask.

Most importantly, taking this approach shows that your company puts a high value customers as people. Just spend a bit of time thinking about how you will do it.