Social Media ROI

One of the main things businesses struggle with is not knowing how to determine the value of their social media strategy, or ROI. The return on investment can sometimes be difficult to measure however, it is essential to do so before moving forward with your social media marketing campaign. In this day and age, investing in social media is a must but the costs should still be weighed against the benefits.

Source: Turner, J. (2013, December 6). An In-Depth Guide on How to Calculate the ROI of a Social Media Campaign.

The following are ways to measure ROI:

Customer Lifetime Value– This measures how much a regular customer will spend and, therefore, generate for your company. By determining how much your customer spends each month on your products and services and the length of time they would presumably stay with your company, on average, will tell you how much each customer is worth to the business. For example, if customers spend $100 a month and will continue to shop your brand for 5 years, the customers’ life time value would then be $6000, meaning every new customer is worth $6000 to the company. If your cost in implementing social media per new customer is less than this number then your company’s social media ROI would be positive and this would definitely be worth pursuing.

In order to find out if your investment was successful, it is important to work with some numbers and evaluate, based on your marketing budget how many new customers your business will expect to bring in on a yearly basis.

Hub and Spoke Model– This method includes your ‘landing page’ which is your company website and what it does is “places your landing page at the hub of a wheel” (Turner, 2013). This wheel is connected to your social media channels. The goal of this is to connect your Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and any other form of social media used to drive customers to your company page. Not every person visiting your page will become a customer, however a certain percentage of page visitors will. This conversion rate will allow your business to determine how many customer visits have turned into profits for your company. This system is a form of website analytics and will allow a company to see if they have produced a positive ROI. Website Analytics is a good way to look at how many of your new customers have been driven from your social media strategies. Every social media page that directs customers should be monitored and looking at the analytics for each page will tell you how many customers visited and were referred to your site from each social media platform as well as the extent of their interaction.

Source: Turner, J. (2013, December 6). An In-Depth Guide on How to Calculate the ROI of a Social Media Campaign.

Metric tools– By using a conversion measurement, businesses that advertise online through social media can record how many customers click on their ads. This measure allows them to determine customer behaviours and whether a purchase was made as a result of clicking on that ad. Essentially, this provides your company with proof that these social media methods were in fact successful.

Interactions- Reach can also be identified through comments and likes on photos, videos and posts. The amount of likes a company receives can be viewed by the friends of all the individuals who liked the page, therefore, reach can be a huge factor. By being able to share things and interact with your followers, they will be driven to share your social media content with their friends and followers which extends your reach.

Companies can use a variety of different software to monitor the history of visitors which enables efficient tracking of potential customers. Whatever your social media goal and measure, your return on investment should directly tie into it.

Sources:

Burg, N. (2013, April 25). Forbes. Retrieved from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/capitalonespark/2013/04/25/how-to-measure-your-social-media-return-on-investment/

Turner, J. (2013, December 6). An In-Depth Guide on How to Calculate the ROI of a Social Media Campaign.

The Groundswell Inside your Company

The groundswell is a powerful weapon and when used strategically can do wonderful things for your business.

Implementing the groundswell inside your company may sound like a tough job but it is definitely worth the effort. Internal groundswell systems can make people feel “empowered, connected, and more committed” (Li & Bernoff, 2011) and can also create support networks. The groundswell is not only for connecting with your customers but also for connecting with employees which is just as important.

Collaboration between employees in an organization can bring value to a company. Internalizing the groundswell allows idea contribution and exchanges, this time between people who know the back end of your business and can share ideas for improvement with one another more efficiently.

There are 3 kinds of internal groundswell applications:

• Communities
• Wikis
• Idea exchange

The main determinant of a working community is participation. By being able to connect your staff, you can improve the connection with your customers. Communities help to solve company problems more quickly and prevent these problems from occurring to other people within the organization. This permits greater communication and connection with each other.

The previous 5 objectives I covered also related to employees in an organization. Whereas choosing a groundswell objective for customers is usually limited to a specific one, internally they are interrelated and can all be accomplished.

To recap:

1. Listening– Not only can management listen to its employees but by listening they can also solve internal problems
2. Talking– Speaking to employees on a company-wide level is much more efficient for corporate
3.  Energizing– Employees energize other employees allowing them to motivate and spread positive messages across all stores. Similar to having an enthusiastic customer talk about your brand, there are employees with the same enthusiasm who can have a strong impact on the rest of the organization
4. Supporting– This is essential in any new organization that is internalizing their social applications  and permits employees to find support from anyone in the organization
5. Embracing– Interchanging of ideas are motivated by embracing your employees

The second internal application is wikis. Wikis are excellent for all around collaboration and they allow people to connect to executives that are higher up in the business. A wiki is comprised of blogs and collaboration spaces where employees can post and share their thoughts and ideas. This makes sharing of information between employees more efficient which enables people to learn new things at a faster rate. Among the collaboration benefits that wikis bring, they also create a channel of communication for employees.

Lastly, a social application that can promote the sharing and exchanging of ideas can be very beneficial for an organization. By making employees feel more connected and a part of the business culture, they are encouraged to make a difference as well as contribute to innovation.

Within these applications, an important thing to remember is that it is about the relationships in this internal organization rather than the actual technologies that matter.

Dominion Lending does not currently incorporate any collaboration applications within their organization. Given the nature of their business, I feel this is not as necessary for them as it otherwise would be for a company such as Best Buy or Intel. A lot of the information that they receive from banks are normally sent over email as they are in reference to particular clients and this information is confidential. Therefore, an open collaborative environment would not work for Dominion. Other information about interest rates and market trends for example can be found on their website and is available for everyone to view.

Internalizing social applications may not be for every organization however, if it is, it should be carefully implemented with management involvement at the core.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Energizing the Groundswell

The groundswell has many components to it that makes it work, most of which I’ve talked about in my previous posts. When I say energizing the groundswell, I mean energizing your best customers to spread word about your brand. An important part of energizing customers is listening to their problems and making an effort to do something about them. The chapter describes energizing as “finding enthusiast customers and turning them into word of mouth machines” (Li & Bernoff, 2011).

How does a company energize its customers and get them to talk about its business? By providing value to customers, loyalty is created which in turn encourages people to talk about a company’s products. Word of mouth is a power form of marketing because it is believable, self-reinforcing, and self-spreading.

Credibility is important and consumers are more likely to believe other customers rather than the company itself, therefore, it’s essential for a company to energize those customers who talk about their brand. The power of creators and critics on the web has exponential effects because not only do they talk about brands that they like, comment and provide reviews, but the rest of the people online read about it all.

One person can reach many others which is why word of mouth has viral ability and is also costless to a company.

In order to connect with your best customers and encourage them to spread word about your product or company, there are 3 techniques that should be followed.

• Tap into customers enthusiasm with ratings and reviews
• Create a community to energize your customers
• Participate in and energize online communities of your brand enthusiasts

For one, because customers trust opinions and reviews from other customers, implementing ratings and reviews go a long way. In this sense, companies should be tapping into the critics which will then influence the spectators who read those reviews.

The ROI of social media strategies is important and should be measured and weighed against the costs. In terms of ratings and reviews, the buy rate for a company’s products is increased. Surveys have shown that ratings and reviews are a major part of a customer’s decision to make a purchase and have been very effective. People are more likely to buy from a business who provides reviews as opposed to one that doesn’t. The ROI of reviews has been tremendous, potentially yielding a return of double the investment.

There are clear benefits to having ratings and reviews for a business. Doing a cost versus profit analysis will measure the ROI which will show the additional sales that can be made from this investment. Also, ratings/reviews are good for the company because they are getting real feedback from customers which they can use to improve their products which will further increase their sales. If customers see that their comments and complaints are not only being read but acted on, customers will increase their loyalty for a company.

Lastly, any problems customers may have are learned about through these reviews and the organization is then able to solve the problem much quicker and avoid losing any sales where it otherwise might if they didn’t have reviews in place.

The following are 5 steps that should be taken to implement the 3 energizing techniques I mentioned earlier.

1. Figure out if you want to energize the groundswell– energizing works if your customer base can be enthusiastic about your company
2. Check the Social Technographics of your customers– figure out which customers and how many are participating in the groundswell
3. Ask yourself, “What’s my customer’s problem?- communities usually form around common customer problems and not the actual products
4. Pick a strategy that fits your customers Social Technographics Profile and problems– ratings/reviews and communities will work for some businesses and not for others, it will depend on what your customers are doing online and what their problems are
5. Don’t start unless you can stick around for a long time– energizing the groundswell takes a lot of effort and is a long term process. Putting a halt to these techniques could cause a company to suffer in sales and lose its customers

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Looking back at the Social Technographics Profile, 24% of consumers are creators and 37% are critics. It’s obvious a big chunk of Dominion Lending’s target market is already online and more than likely talking about them.

Since Dominion’s products are intangible, they cannot be reviewed in the way customers provide reviews for products of retail companies. Instead, they have ratings and reviews of the mortgage brokers actually providing those services. On their websites, clients can provide testimonials about the mortgage broker and the valuable services they received from them. Other potential clients will be interested to read these reviews when choosing their mortgage broker.

For a Mortgage broker, a large portion of new clients comes from referrals. Usually, their existing clients will tell their friends and family about the agent who did their mortgage and this word of mouth is used to spread messages about the professionals providing the services. A person is more likely to choose a broker recommended to them the same way a customer bases a purchase decision on the reviews of the product from other customers.

At no cost to Dominion, people are talking about them online without them having to do anything or pay for extra advertising which brings them clients and in turn a positive ROI. Being able to measure this success however, is critical. Energizing your best customers enables those customers to help each other solve problems which results in the groundswell supporting itself.

Source:

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Tapping the Groundswell with Twitter

The groundswell presents a huge base for various forms of social media. One of particular interest is Twitter. Twitter is another social media platform that businesses use to listen and communicate to its customers and where users can follow others and post short and simple updates within 140 characters. Twitter has a huge potential to spread messages and business can use this to their advantage.

A company that tweets not only reaches its own followers but those posts get retweeted and are seen by consumer’s followers as well. Its free and open nature connects people and spreads messages immediately. Twitter can be a useful platform for businesses because Twitter users are among the most influential as can be seen in the following Social Technographics Profile. They dominate the creator group by more than 3 times the average U.S. adult which is huge.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Just like with any other form of social media, a company’s objective must be outlined. As mentioned in another one of my blog posts, there are 5 objectives of the groundswell. To recap, they are:

1)      Listening

2)      Talking

3)      Energizing

4)      Supporting

5)      Embracing

All of these objectives can be integrated with Twitter. Listening to what’s happening on Twitter allows a company to get ahead of the game by taking note of what people are saying about their brand and what is trending. Listening and talking helps to find those customers that can energize and promote your brand. A company following any of the five objectives through Twitter can use it as a competitive advantage.

Dominion Lending has also embraced Twitter using @DLCCanadaInc as their Twitter handle. Dominion posts tweets and updates about what is going on in the company as well as retweeting tweets from customers when they are mentioned. They have focused on the hockey pool that they sponsor and consistently keep customers interested  through this incentive.

Despite the variety of benefits, using Twitter loses all those attributes if and only when a company does not have a distinct objective and strategy. There are many forms of social media, Twitter is just one of them however, and the important thing to remember is integrating the different media forms.

Helping the Groundswell Support Itself

The online world can be complex and intimidating but there’s one thing we know for sure: it can’t stand on its own. As powerful as the groundswell is, it too needs support. With a platform that enables communication, the individuals making up the groundswell do the rest.

Traditional support for businesses involve customer call centers that receive phone calls from customers needing help with their products. However, these were quite costly so the support shifted to web-based help through company websites and finally to outsourcing overseas. Despite the cost savings, even these methods were not so popular with customers that they eventually began to support each other.

Support from other people online is massive if you think about all the inquiries that get made online by regular customers and how many ‘strangers’ respond to help them out. Luckily for many companies, this network of support has resulted in huge cost savings. On top of that, it’s not just the one person who asked the question that benefits; there are tons of other people with the same problem who have the solution right there in front of them and don’t have to stay on hold for an hour with customer support.

Having a support forum could be beneficial in many ways. Not only does it create an element in the groundswell that allows for discussion between thousands of people but companies can take it one step further by actually being a part of the conversation and answering consumer questions themselves. This is one of the most important steps in starting a community. If company participation isn’t apparent at the start, the community will more than likely fail as a result.

Another form of support lies in wikis. Wikis are an excellent way for a business to engage others in a collaboration effort. This collaboration makes customers and clients feel supported. The main requirements in starting a wiki are:

1) People– those with a common interest in contributing

2) Content– wikis require a lot more information than forums

3) Patience and policy– rules need to be made to ensure integrity of information

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

As a company that provides financial services, Dominion Lending does not face many of the problems technology companies such as Dell face, therefore, having a support forum isn’t quite as necessary for them. However, while they don’t currently have a wiki, this is something that would be a good idea to pursue. Creating a wiki that provides information and gives mortgage advice I feel would be beneficial for clients as a lot of general questions that people may have could already be answered on the wiki which in turn would save the client and the mortgage broker from having a telephone conversation.

Every individual has an interest in the financial services industry and would at the very least read discussion forums if not contribute to them. Dominion could go either way in creating a community or a wiki, depending on where it feels it would be most valuable. Pieces of advice Li and Bernoff feel are essential to starting a community include:

• Start small but plan for a large presence
• Reach out to your most active customers
• Plan to drive traffic to your community
• Build in a reputation system
• Let your customers lead you

If Dominion takes the community direction, it can start out by building a community around residential mortgages and then branching out into the commercial aspect. They should drive traffic to their community from their website, blog, or Facebook page. Or even create another commercial with Don Cherry and have him mention the community. Community participants can discuss how the rates Dominion provides clients compares to other service providers among many other things. Overall, both a wiki and community can serve a valuable purpose.

Talking With the Groundswell

I’ve already discussed the first out of the 5 important objectives for a company in the groundswell and now I’ll talk about yet another important objective; talking.

Talking involves using the groundswell to spread information and messages about a company. The groundswell has a huge viral potential and knowing just how to speak to consumers through the groundswell is essential. The traditional way of marketing has long since changed and marketers no longer control how people react; it is the interactions between all these people in the groundswell that does. Therefore, exploiting these opportunities within the groundswell is key to increasing word of mouth about a company.

Talking with the groundswell through social networking sites, blogs, or discussion forums is useful because the customers who participate in these make up the middle stages of the marketing funnel and this is where the groundswell is the most substantial. The reason some companies are more successful in their marketing techniques than others is because they don’t just talk to their customers but they communicate WITH them.

There are 4 main ways in which a company can talk with the groundswell:

1) Post a viral video– Post a video online that people can share with each other
2) Engage in social networks and user-generated content sites– this will extend brand reach and enable a platform for conversations
3) Join the blogosphere– Get staff to write blogs and listen and respond to other blogs
4) Create a community– communities allow a company to engage with customers and deliver value to them

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Creating a video allows consumers to become aware of the brand and once people are aware it is what the company does with that awareness that makes a difference. The goal is to create relationships with customers because relationships create loyalty. Essentially, these relationships should be further evolved through interaction with the use of communities and social networking sites.

Although utilizing social networking sites is an important aspect of building relationships and talking with the groundswell, social network branding is not appropriate for every company. To find out if your company should be using social networking sites, consider the following:

• Use the Social Technographics Profile to make sure your customers are actually using social networks– if half are joiners, then social networking should definitely work

• Move forward if people like your brand-your brand will have loyal followers who will friend it on Facebook

• See what’s out there already– with a popular brand, it’s more than likely to exist on people’s pages and within networks before the company themselves is there

• Create a presence that encourages interaction– figure out how you will communicate and respond to consumers and how you’ll enable them to spread word about your brand

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

By speaking with just a few customers, a company reaches many other people. Other alternatives to talking with the groundswell includes blogging and talking with communities. Reaching consumers in the middle of the marketing funnel is the most difficult and the strategy employed to do so will depend on your consumers. Before a blog is implemented however, a company should examine if they should be blogging by looking at its ROI. If the reward trumps the risk, blogging is definitely a method the organization should invest in. The main considerations in starting a blog is to understand who you want to reach as well as having defined goals and objectives, and following that, a strategy and technology must be implemented.

As for communities, companies will use them when appropriate by determining if their market is a community, usually when there are a huge amount of joiners. The way in which a company talks with the groundswell will depend on the communication problem and what your customers are doing in the middle of the marketing funnel.

For Dominion Lending, while they may not be as well-known as major companies such as HP and P&G, as a financial services company, they have done a great job of positioning themselves in the groundswell. When it comes to the groundswell and getting their name heard, Dominion has done an excellent job in making a mark in social media. While their TV commercial sponsored by Don Cherry on YouTube, may not be ‘viral’ and have millions of views in comparison to other videos, they have gotten over 17,000 views which is still significant for a company in financial services. Nonetheless, they have gotten exposure in terms of posting videos on user generated sites.

They have also engaged in social networking sites such as Facebook where they post updates about Dominion and market news as well as information about their Mortgage Brokers. This platform allows their target market to comment and get a response from Dominion. In a sense, they have also created a community for Canadians by reaching them through Canada’s favorite sport, hockey. Dominion utilized something of interest to Canadians to spread their brand, similar to what P&G did with their social community for young girls.

Among their current initiatives, Dominion Lending also has a mortgage blog. As Li and Bernoff explain, maintaining a blog takes time and dedication as well as listening and responding to comments from consumers. While they’ve taken the step to create a blog to communicate with their market and keep them informed, they do not allow comments on their blog. Given the nature of their business, this approach may work better for them as clients can message them by email through the blog in regards to their personal needs rather than posting publicly. This personal interaction allows them to build trust and develop relationships.

Based on Li and Bernoff’s description of ‘When Brands Should Use Social Networks,’ Dominion’s presence online and on social networks is warranted. According to their Social Technographics Profile, more them half of their market is joiners so their customers are all already there. Their company involves many different and complex options; therefore, I feel both, social networking sites as well as a blog are most appropriate for Dominion.

Strategies for Tapping the Groundswell

The groundswell has become such a major part of businesses, some wonder how they cannot be involved with it and others know they should be. The one problem organization’s face however, is the answer to the question of why?

While there are companies that don’t understand why they need to tap into the groundswell, they at least recognize the importance of getting there and are now asking how? These firms may be a little slower in adopting the groundswell because they are afraid of moving forward into something they don’t know anything about. This is mainly because their approach to the groundswell is reversed.

The solution to this problem is to start off small before jumping into unknown territory by examining objectives. To deal with this, there is a 4 step planning process called the ‘POST Method’, which can help an organization with its groundswell strategy. The POST method is:

• People– It’s important to know what your customers are ready for. Depending on what your customers are doing online will give a better idea about what strategy will work best in engaging them. For example, if your customers have a huge presence on social networking sites, then your strategy should incorporate this form of social media.
• Objectives– Look at your goals and what you want to achieve from the groundswell
• Strategy– The strategy will depend on what kind of relationships you will want to have with your customers which will then also allow you to measure these changes.
• Technology– Technologies can only be picked once you have the previous steps completed

The following are the 5 objectives of the groundswell:

1. Listening– If a company is looking for customer insights to help with research, and marketing and development this is a good objective to pursue
2. Talking– The groundswell can be used for talking about your company with customers. This approach is more interactive than traditional media
3. Energizing– Find the most enthusiastic customers who can spread the word about your company
4. Supporting– Allow your customers to support each other through groundswell tools
5. Embracing– Integrate customers in how your business works

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

We’ve examined Dominion Lending in the social media context several times but now let’s apply this 4 step POST process to this financial services company.

Step 1: People: As I mentioned in my Social Technographics blog post, Dominion Lending’s target market is current and potential home buyers, specifically focusing on males and females ages 25-34. Clearly, home buyer ages will also be different, older or younger but we will focus on this particular range where majority of the people in this group are buying their first home at this age.  Looking back to the Forrester’s Social Technographics tool, the illustration represents what Dominion’s customers are doing online.

Clearly a very active market among the groundswell, we can see that participants are mainly active in the joiners and spectators group. Dominion customers are mainly active on social networking sites such as Facebook for example, which Dominion has already recognized and created their own fan page on Facebook to take advantage of the market.

http://empowered.forrester.com/tool_consumer.html

Step 2: Objectives: When looking at Dominion and their objectives, I feel that they would not be suited to an objective such as listening to the groundswell for marketing purposes because they are not trying to generate profits by selling their products but they are helping people with their home purchase. That being said, an objective such as talking would be better matched to Dominion Lending’s needs because this will enable them to talk to people who are looking to buy a home about their company and what it can do for them. Dominion has done a great job with this objective already by allowing customers to speak with a mortgage broker and ask them any questions by sending an email on their site. This allows them to have a one on one conversation with the mortgage broker.

Step 3: Strategy: Within the strategy, a company must decide what kind of relationship they would like to have with their customers. As a financial services company, Dominion would want to build a relationship with the customer by getting to know them and their own personal needs. Dominion’s main goal isn’t to help spread word about their company but they want to become more interactive and personal with their clients. This in turn makes people feel more comfortable with the company when there is a relationship foundation built on trust. By building these relationships, Dominion Lending’s clients will then gladly recommend them to family and friends and indirectly spread the word about the company giving them a positive reputation.

Step 4: Technology: Without technology, the first three steps would not be possible. In picking the technology that would most benefit Dominion Lending, I chose social networks. I felt this was the most appropriate for them since a huge portion of their target market participates in social networking sites.

Picking the objective most suited for your company will result in greater success in the groundswell. Without an objective, entering the groundswell probably won’t be so smooth. The most critical thing to note is that no matter who a company’s customers are and no matter what their strategies and objectives are, the only way for them to move is towards the groundswell.

How the Groundswell Can Transform Companies

How can a concept such as the groundswell be powerful enough to change a company? Well, first of all, that lies in the company’s ability to accept the groundswell. It is thus essential for a business to accept the groundswell as a part of its marketing and give up control of their brands so consumers can be a part of it. After all, the customers are the ones that define the brand.

Marketers need to recognize the importance of positioning products and ideas into the groundswell. They seem to think that the way to reach consumers is to spend millions on advertising while others who were smart enough to tap into the groundswell have found the key to success. Within the groundswell, a simple marketing technique such as posting a video to YouTube, could cost the company absolutely nothing yet help them become one of the biggest advertising successes. Everything nowadays runs viral so unless you’ve moved on from traditional advertising and into the groundswell your company will more than likely be left behind the groundswell movement.

By engaging with the groundswell, companies can transform themselves which better enables them to satisfy consumers’ needs and wants. For this transformation to happen, 3 steps must be taken:

1)      Taking it step by step– Obviously, this transformation doesn’t happen overnight and the organization must work together to make this happen. By going step by step, an organization can provide their employees with the opportunity to get used to the change and hop on board with the groundswell.

2)      Each step stems and progresses from the previous step- an organization can reach its goals step by step as long as it has a solid foundation.

3)      There must be executive support-Without this support, company ideas will get nowhere fast so it’s important to be able to sell upper management on the groundswell.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Once these three steps have been accomplished, the way in which a company works with customers will change.  Change doesn’t have to have a negative connotation as it does to some however, having a different perspective can yield unimaginable results that may surprise many people.

As a company that wants to see results, it’s important to take smaller steps rather than rush in because you won’t get anywhere that way. The groundswell will be more welcoming if small successes can be made that have a large impact. Embracing the groundswell as an organization is not as simple as having a vision; it takes a lot of time and patience.

Preparing for a Transformation

The following are critical steps to engage in a successful transformation:

• Start small– Again, the change won’t happen overnight so take small steps to get there
• Educate your executives– An idea won’t get executive support if it is foreign to them; they must be familiar with the groundswell
• Get the right people to run the strategy– Someone who has the passion for it or a person with a unique perspective should be running it
• Get agency and technology partners in sync- Make sure people understand the groundswell
• Plan for the next step and the long term– Always have goals and a plan so you know where the strategy is going

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Most people are familiar with Dominion Lending and the company is known through its good reputation. Since hockey is huge in Canada and I’m sure almost all Canadians are hockey fans, Dominion Lending uses hockey to reach more of the market that way. They have created a free hockey pool giving people the chance to win a grand prize as well as weekly cash prizes. By positioning themselves in a hockey world with Don Cherry endorsing them, Dominion has generated a lot of buzz. They were smart to position themselves this way because this is a great way to reach a lot of Canadians. Even those not ready or not looking to buy homes at the moment will remember Dominion Lending because of this marketing strategy they used when they do become home buyers. It is all about the repetition of the brand and the more they hear and see Dominion Lending, the greater share of market they are attracting. They definitely got the right person involved with Don Cherry as Dominion’s spokesperson. Overall, Dominion Lending has gone above providing only financial services.

Listening to the Groundswell

Listening to the Groundswell

We’ve talked about the groundswell, technologies of the groundswell, knowing where your customers are online and what it all means. What we haven’t discussed yet is actually ‘listening’ to the groundswell. Listening is a big part of figuring out who your customers are and what they want and value out of your brand.

According to Li and Bernoff, “your brand is whatever your customers say it is” (Li & Bernoff, 2011) and the customers are said to own the brand, not the company itself. Marketers seem to think that they own the brand because they paid millions for it, but what is a brand really, without its customers? Nothing. Customers define the value of a brand and listening to them is of great importance. Businesses should be familiar with the groundswell technologies because it is within these forms of media that consumers discuss their opinions and thoughts about a brand or product. By knowing where your customer’s are and gaining insight on how they view your brand, a company can gain an advantage.

Most people have this perspective that companies don’t listen to them but in fact they spend large amounts of money to hire market researchers to do just that. Companies pay over $15 billion annually for market research to get their questions answered (Li & Bernoff, 2011). While questions are answered, this does not actually tell them what the customers are thinking. For example, using surveys can tell you a lot about what consumers are thinking about the questions you ask them, however they can’t tell you what you never thought to ask (Li & Bernoff, 2011). Another method for conducting research is through focus groups. Each of these methods are designed to answer questions, not tap into consumer insights which is what companies should be doing.

The groundswell is what provides this insight. A businesses goal is to watch consumer behaviour to learn what their target markets are thinking.  Consumers are online communicating with one another—on discussion forums for example. These forums provide a great deal of information and insight into how consumers perceive a brand or product and what they like and don’t like. It is like a rating system more or less, and businesses can learn to improve their products and services by listening in on these opinions.

How can we listen?

There are numerous ways to listen to the groundswell but the most effective are working with vendors who have professional tools. The following are two ways to listen:

• Set up your own private community– This is like a huge engaged focus group where people participate and interact as they would naturally while the firm observes and listens. It also enables the management of information, thereby, eliminating the massive volume of information from the groundswell.

• Begin brand monitoring– Monitoring would include hiring a company to listen to the internet for a business and provide summary reports on what is happening in the groundswell

Simply listening to the groundswell is of no use if a company does not act on this flow of information. The best thing for an organization to do is to have an internet strategy and tie it into their research methods as this provides the greatest amount of insight. It is essential to find out where consumers get their information from and what keywords they are searching. By taking note of this, a business has the ability to find out what it is their customers really want and then deliver on it.

Dominion Lending

As a financial services provider, Dominion Lending’s goal is to listen to its customers’ needs and goals and help them meet their objectives. In this particular industry, it is difficult to define one specific goal and goals will vary from one person to another, but essentially customers want to be able to finance their home at the best possible rates. The great thing about Dominion Lending is that they work for their customers, and not the lenders, so everything they do is in their customer’s best interests.

One thing that Dominion Lending does is allow people to fill out a form on one of their websites, where they can ask any questions that they would like answered or provide any comments in which a mortgage expert will answer all of their inquiries. This makes the process much easier for customers as they can ask questions from the comfort of their home or work without having to go in and speak to someone directly. This provides customers with quality service at their own convenience. Aside from providing them with the best rates, Dominion also provides home buyers with education and use it to build relationships.

Dominion Lending also have a Facebook and Twitter page and anyone can like their Facebook page as well as make comments. I think using this as a media platform was great for them because their target market spends most of their time online. Dominion Lending should be listening to find out whether the quality of their services are valued and how they can improve if they are not. Aside from providing high quality service by listening to their customers, Dominion Lending I think has provided their customers with more than just services but with value of their ‘brand’.

Through Facebook and its groups, Dominion exhibits somewhat of a private community which I think is a more appropriate approach for them. On another note, a company such as Dominion Lending may use brand monitoring since the amount of creators and critics in their target market is large enough to justify it. However, that type of approach, I feel is better suited and more relevant to a company in a different industry such as the automotive business. Either way, we can see the importance of listening in the groundswell and the benefits that can be reaped.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Social Technographics Profile

What is Social Technographics?

Everyone contributes to the online world differently, and what the Social Technographic profile does is it groups people according to the groundswell activities that they participate in.  Individuals have different roles in the online world and it is important to know what those roles are. The reason people are grouped is because each group has unique characteristics and each of these groups will respond differently. Marketers for instance need to know how their target markets will respond and what roles they play in order to select the most appropriate social media platform.

There are seven groups on the social technographics ladder and it’s vital to know where a target market is on that ladder. Each group is classified in terms of their involvement online and each group has more involvement than the last. The following groups are part of the Social Technographics ladder:   

Creators– This group includes blog enthusiasts, people who have webpages, write articles, and upload videos and audio to YouTube. To be part of this group, people must take part in these activities at least once a month.

Conversationalists– People who post statuses on Facebook or Twitter and communicate with one another usually at least once a week.

Critics– This group is reactive. They react to what other people create by commenting on other peoples blogs, posting ratings and reviews, and editing wikis.

Collectors– People who are collectors of information that save URLS and tags and frequently use RSS feeds. The information produced by creators and critics is organized through the actions of collectors for other users.

Joiners– Participate in and have profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook.

Spectators– Account for the largest group of online users and they consume the content that the other groups create through reading blogs, watching videos and podcasts, as well as reading online forums and reviews.

Inactives– The part of the online population that does not participate in social technologies.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Publishing.

To understand how to build a social strategy for a target market, one must first understand how this group of people uses social technologies. We can do this by building a Social Technographics Profile for the target market. The market I am looking at is home buyers, this would include current and first time home buyers. As the ages in my target market can vary, let’s look at an age group that would include first time home buyers, males and females, aged 25-34 in Canada. This would be the most common age range at which people will first start to buy homes. Using the Forrester’s Social Technographics tool I came up with the following profile:

http://empowered.forrester.com/tool_consumer.html

These participants are clearly active in the groundswell and participate in social technologies on average more than all adults in each category. The largest groups are the joiners and spectators with 75% and 76% participation, respectively. However, the creators and critics are quite apparent and should be reached through appropriate strategies because they have the greatest potential to influence other users. We can see that creators account for 24%, critics for 37%, collectors for 25%, and inactives for 8% which is way below the average.

In order to reach home buyers, Dominion Lending would need to invest in social strategies such as those that include the creation of blogs and forums since quite a decent chunk of this age group are creators and critics. By creating a mortgage blog such as the one they currently have, Dominion Lending provides important information to potential home buyers such as information on choosing a mortgage term, market updates, types of mortgages and much more. Since 75% of the target market are joiners, Dominion Lending would benefit from having a Facebook page where users can like the page and invite their friends to like the page as well. This way, online users share information and pass it along through the online community widening Dominion’s reach. Also, their strategies should incorporate a mix of videos and forums where users can comment because 76% of their target market in this age range are spectators and they read blogs, watch videos online, read discussion forums as well as reviews. Dominion Lending has many YouTube videos online made by different mortgage brokers as well as their own commercial. It would be beneficial for them to put all of their efforts into social media as the percentage of inactive users is very small.

For comparison purposes, if we change the age of consumers to 35-44 we get some differences in numbers.

http://empowered.forrester.com/tool_consumer.html

Clearly, all of the numbers have dropped but there is still a huge presence of users online that participate in these social technologies. Based on these two categories, Dominion Lending should be observant of the Social Technographic profile of their target market, and use the social media platforms that are relevant.

Before you can begin to construct a Social Technographic profile to determine what parts of the groundswell people are participating in, you must first know who the target market is. To figure out your target market, you can use a valuable tool called Alexa. I used this tool to find the demographics of the visitors to the Dominion Lending website. Looking at the statistics I found that more males than females visited the site with graduate school education. While still a small number, these individuals viewed this site from work. Given that males are usually the primary income earners in the family, this makes sense. The social media initiatives should therefore be targeted to mainly males that utilize these technologies.

Here is an illustration from the website:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/dominionlending.ca

Alexa can be used to determine statistics from any website and it definitely gives a good overview of where social strategies should be targeted.