Social Branding: Is Social Marketing Right for My Brand?

This post was originally conceived and written by Derek Phillips when we worked together at The New Group. I subsequently edited some of the content. Derek is a seasoned content strategist whose opinions and work I highly respect. Derek is currently a Content Director at Critical Mass.

Originally published on The New Group blog.

Social branding: Is social marketing right for my brand? It's an important question. Fundamentally I believe there is opportunity for all brands to leverage social marketing, but it all depends on how broad your perspective is.

Many brands today think of social marketing as simply Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Others understand the power of monitoring and nurturing conversations in public online forums, and even fewer are yet to tap into the power of private online communities to spur innovation around their products, marketing and business model. The point here is that social marketing and social media are much bigger than just "likes" and "retweets." While those are aspects of social marketing, the bigger conversation is about social business and how to leverage social channels, technologies and human behaviors to build better, more responsive and ultimately more profitable brands.

As digital marketing strategists we're often asked how we can prove ROI on social marketing investments. Honestly there are a variety of answers to that question, but it often helps to consider other parallel investments that you probably already budget for today. Ask yourself what ROI metrics you and other companies apply to public relations, customer service, customer insights research and business innovation.

Too often people see social media as simply a marketing channel where the point is to gather as many "brand ambassadors" or "evangelists" as you can and the measure of success is how many people have liked your brand page on Facebook. While it's true that some brands can motivate legions of fans on their behalf, that's not necessarily true of all brands and misses huge opportunities that the social space offers outside of messaging and promotions. Below are some further thoughts on how you might think about social media as it relates to areas of your brand that you likely already invest in today.

Social Branding Through Public Relations
It used to be that companies hired PR professionals because those people had access to and relationships with the gatekeepers of media, thus providing access to audiences. While the value and need for PR professionals remains, the way these professionals do their jobs has changed and it's something we can all learn from.

1. Access to audiences is no longer gated by mass media (which doesn't mean that mass media doesn't have its place—it does, it's just not the ONLY way to access audiences).
2. Conversations about your brand are happening now and you can learn from them even if you decide not to engage.
3. It's easier to put out a small, smoldering fire than a raging blaze.

Even if it doesn't make sense (either from a legal or an organizational politics perspective) to directly engage users who speak ill of your brand, wouldn't you like to know what negative messages are resonating with real customers so you can prepare and take action before it becomes a much larger and more complicated issue?

Social Branding as Social Customer Service
One of the most overlooked opportunities in social marketing is what some are calling SCRM or Social Customer Relationship Management. In its simplest form it's applying a social layer to standard CRM practices and has value across each of the three phases of traditional CRM:

1. Acquire
2. Enhance
3. Retain

Acquisition can be achieved through a variety of social marketing promotions that encourage people to engage with your brand and are propelled by leveraging their social networks. We've all seen those campaigns:

* "Retweet this for a chance to win!"
* "Like our page and get 10% off your next purchase!"
* "The foursquare mayor of this establishment gets a free dessert with every meal!"

Enhancement can include access to exclusive content and events or direct interaction with people of interest. TV shows have leveraged these opportunities to keep viewers engaged beyond the 30- or 60-minute timeslot. From online chats ("Real Time with Bill Maher") to deleted scenes ("The Office") to extended interviews ("The Daily Show"), there are countless opportunities for creative brands to keep that audience engaged…and it's not just media companies.

The true genius of the notorious Old Spice campaign is that it took a TV commercial character who was resonating with fans and extended the campaign to a social sphere where those fans could directly interact with the character—and spread word of the campaign as a result. The millions of dollars in earned media are still being tallied.

Customer retention is a challenge for most companies, and a costly one at that. Most people, even the loudest and most obnoxious among us, just want to be heard. We want to feel good about our purchases and be acknowledged when we have issues. Social media allows savvy brands the opportunity to not only address the person who is directly affected, but show others that you're doing it. Most customer service complaints are related to common issues (that's why so many companies employ scripts). Address once and resolve for many. Even if you can't come to an immediate resolution, the fact that you're engaging and treating your customers with respect has resonating value.

Customer Insights from Social Brand Building
There are enormous opportunities to gather customer insights via social channels. The short story is that people are out there talking about your brands and your products and you can listen in to find out what they really think about your latest ad campaign or how they're actually using your products. Customers can be very clever in discovering new uses for products, and understanding that can lead to optimizing how you market and enhance those products.

Social Branding Through Business Innovation
An area that forward-looking social brands have already benefitted from is using social technologies to connect global internal teams as well as connect marketers and product developers with passionate customers to decrease time to market and unearth new directions to pursue.

This is a meaty topic deserving of a dedicated blog post, but for now let me just say that building internal social communities to connect employees around ideas and to connect customers with the people shaping your products is an area that many brands could benefit from.

So is it appropriate for all brands to have social outreach and engagement programs? No, probably not, but that doesn't mean there aren't real opportunities in social marketing, and the ROI on those activities can be substantial.