Matt referred to the Forrester POST approach to social media. Forrester has been coming up a bit in our conversations since we attended their conference a few weeks ago. I have been meaning to post my top line out takes from the confeernce by way of thanks, reference and just verification; its real if its not blogged.
Bar image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/glennharper/ under CC License
Conference insights: Introduction, Jaap Favier
The event opened with Jaap Favier’s advice that in a recession the best business strategy is to run a bar; do something that has a social element to it. He shared a number of examples of companies that have successfully employed social media to gain market success including the striking example of the Obama presidential win which was fresh in all of our minds. He also introduced the four basic consumer needs that were to reappear throughout the conference; uniqueness, connection, variety and comfort. More after the jump from analysts Nate Elliot, Mary Beth Kemp and Rebecca Jennings…
‘The Future of Influence’, Nate Elliot
In his lecture, Nate, a Research Director form the recently acquired Jupiter Research, reminded us that word of mouth and influence marketing is nothing new. His research has shown, however, that what is new is the group that Nate dubbed the ‘New Influentials’. In contrast to the ‘Classic Influentials’ who wait to be asked for their opinions, these people are using social media such as blogs, social network profiles, message boards and forums to proactively go out and tell audiences about the brands they like.
Nate’s advice was to:
- Identify these ’New Influencers’
- Give them the products and services that they like
- Encourage them to tell others
‘Marketing From Now On’, Mary Beth Kemp
Mary Beth outlined the ways in which consumers’ expectations are changing to demand more customer service, a better customer experience and how they are rewarding those brands that deliver this with their loyalty. The gratifying insight for me during this presentation was that these increasingly selective consumers are filtering their purchasing decisions by referring to their communities and that her advice was to listen to these communities and learn from them, understand how to engage with them and to “avoid becoming the lipstick on the pig”.
She advised doing this by:
- Embracing your online communities
- Defining your value proposition and
- Identifying and nurturing your high (social) value consumers – the ones who will talk about and recommend your brand.
‘Where is Social Technology Going’, Rebecca Jennings
Finally Rebecca Jennings gave us some highlights from Forrester’s annual Technographics survey revealing that some 57% of adults in Western Europe regularly use social media and that 74% of 16 – 24 year olds regularly use social media. You can see more on this here.
Based on this uptake and her predictions that it will increase to match US figures where 75% of all adults regularly use social media it was her view that “Social media is uniquely positioned to address consumers needs”. (Cheering from the back)
She then expanded on this by showing the relevance of social media against Forrester’s for key audience needs;
- Comfort: Through the use of ratings and reviews. The reassurance of another’s opinion assuages our fears of making large or complex purchases. Consumers seek support from others sharing the same experience (for example an illness or a frustrating product experience) though forums and online groups.
- Connection: people are connecting to friends and to other like-minded individuals through social networks
- Variety: They are able to find an extraordinary range of content from amateur video on YouTube to the slick offerings of the networks and studios on platforms such as Hulu. And they are able to access it through customised media options such as RSS feeds and personalised portals such as My.Yahoo.
- Uniqueness: The ability to express one’s self has never been easier than through the proliferation of personal publishing platforms that social media provides.
Rebecca finished by saying that it is because of this that P&G regards a £1 spent in social media at four times the value of a £1 spent in other media.
Leveraging the insights
Which brings us full circle back to where we started with Matt’s blog; How are you going to take advantage of these insights? In the first instance you should use Forrester’s POST approach to determine;
- People: What are your customers’ social needs?
- Objectives: What do you want to accomplish?
- Strategy: How will your relationship to your customers change?
- Technology: What social technologies will you use?
But once you have decided on your technology you are going to need help planning how you use that technology; what content are you going to create, how are you going to distribute it, measure and optimise it? And that’s where we would humbly submit that another acronym close to our hearts which would be enormously helpful: KUDOS.
