On Monday, Wetpaint and Altimeter Group released a study that shows there is a connection between the level of a company's online engagement and its revenue. According to the study, which looked at engagement of the top 100 most valuable brands (according to the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking), the companies who were most engaged grew 18% in revenue on average over the last 12 months, compared to the least engaged companies who on average saw a decline of 6% in revenue during the same period.
So, while they were not able to show a direct cause and effect, there is definitely a connection between engagement and financial performance. In the words of the study, "Why do social media? Because it pays off."
Why does it pay off? I think it really goes back to the fact that social media is about people, and good companies are also about people. Companies that use social media the right way are probably more likely to be companies that do business as a whole the right way. The things you can do with social media--listen, engage and participate in conversations to provide excellent customer service and good content, build relationships and get ideas for new products--are probably things that great companies have done in other ways, too--and this is what makes them financially successful.
One of the best ways to fully engage your most passionate customers is by creating a community for them. Starbucks was mentioned in the study as having a thriving community and ranking as the most engaged brand. On their community (MyStarbucksidea.com) people can submit, comment on and vote on new ideas for ways to improve Starbucks.
One of the keys to the success of this initiative is that they didn't just build it and forget about it. Almost every department has someone responsible for monitoring their customers' ideas and putting them to use if it makes sense. They didn't just set it up and hope for results--they made sure the right processes were in place to take advantage of their community.
It's important that companies who are engaging with their customers online are doing it the right way--establishing a strategy and measuring results--instead of just investing a lot of time into a social network or community because it seems like a good thing to do. Whatever you do better be generating a good ROI.
A lot of times it is challenging to be able to measure results, especially on sites like Facebook and Twitter where brands don't own their data and really don't know what the true value of a fan or follower is. While there is definitely value in engaging on those sites and you can measure some things (individual campaign links or sales resulting from traffic from these sites), it may make sense to set up your own community, like Starbucks has done.
This enables you to get a good idea of who your best customers are and more easily identify brand advocates. You can still utilize other social networks to engage people but in some cases, it can make sense to drive people back to your own community, where you can really measure what is working and not working. Of course there are many aspects of engagement you may want to measure, but for most companies, it is really all about sales. If you're using a community platform such as the one we offer, which is tied in with our email platform, you can easily measure sales resulting from the community vs. sales from email subscribers and see the value of community members vs. email subscribers vs. general customers.
As this study shows, there is a link between engagement and financial success. While it may not be clear what this overall link is, there's no reason you can't measure your own results and see how they're affecting your revenue, especially if you have your own community.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
10 Tasks for Managers of Branded Communities
If you already have an online community for your customers, congratulations! (Shameless plug: if you don’t, feel free to get in touch with us so we can tell you more about our platform.)
But the truth is you can’t just build an online community and hope it will run completely on its own. Communities are about people. It’s important to designate a community manager to help grow the community and interact with customers there (and other places your audience frequents online). The community manager’s ultimate role is to be the human face of your organization—someone who will interact with your audience and help build trust. This requires some specific roles and skills. So here are 10 tasks that good community managers should be able to handle.
2) Content Creation
A community manager must be skilled at content creation geared towards helping the business promote what it wants to the community. This includes knowing enough about the company’s products and services to write intelligently about them. Community managers should be very familiar with blogging and know how to post video and pictures if necessary. This content should be relevant to the audience and engaging. Content is king—cliché, but true.
3) Feature Development
The community manager should work with the tech team on coming up with new features for the website, based on the company’s goals and what the community wants. This also includes ideas for new features that can help improve the company’s products and services, based on feedback from members of the community.
4) Moderation
Sometimes people don’t follow the rules. It is usually the community manager’s job to moderate user-generated content and remove things that are inappropriate. Eventually, the community may police itself (especially if you give people tools to flag inappropriate content), but some type of moderation is always necessary, especially at first.
5) Member Recruiting
Even if you give members all the tools they need to share your community with their friends, a community manager should be expected to help grow the site, especially at first. This includes hands-on actions such as identifying where the company’s audience is on other websites and reaching out to them there, as well as brainstorming ideas for promotions/contests that may provide an added incentive for people to invite their friends.
6) Customer Support
Social media and customer-centric communities enable companies to provide outstanding customer service, which is becoming more and more a key differentiator for many brands. A community manager should have enough knowledge to answer basic questions about a company’s products or services and can pass questions on to the appropriate department if necessary.
7) Company Enthusiasm
A community manager must love both the job and the company, and this enthusiasm should show in everything he or she does to build the community. The individual should be excited to tell community members about new products, promotions, services, events and upgrades. If the community manager doesn’t truly enjoy the job, people will notice. A community manager should truly be passionate about both the community and the company’s products or services.
8) Market Research
Customers often reveal things in a community about your company that might not show up in a survey or focus group. It is the community manager’s job to identify important insights and opinions, which can help improve a company’s products or services or lead to new ideas.
9) Metrics/Reporting
There are a variety of metrics that can be tracked in a community. While the metrics you want to track may vary based on your business objectives, a good community manager should track both quantitative and qualitative measures to see what is working and what isn’t working. It’s very important to track content and behavior, find out how these various metrics affect your goals and identify what this says about your community and company.
10) Listening
The most important thing a community manager can do is listen to the people who make up the community. What new features are they looking for? What improvements on products or services do they want? What do they like best (and least) about the company? Communities provide a great opportunity for companies to listen and hear what is really important to customers. There are more companies now than ever trying to shout at and promote their messages to customers, but companies that truly listen will enjoy greater levels of respect and trust than those who don’t make the effort.
These tasks need not take place only inside the community website. It is important for the community manager to find and go where the audience is and reach out to people on other social networking websites, blogs, and message boards—wherever the audience is located. This will help your company reach a wider audience, and you may even find that there’s a new market for your product or service.
Remember, online communities and social media are ultimately about people and conversations. A good community manager should be able to complete the tasks above to help you achieve your business objectives online.
But the truth is you can’t just build an online community and hope it will run completely on its own. Communities are about people. It’s important to designate a community manager to help grow the community and interact with customers there (and other places your audience frequents online). The community manager’s ultimate role is to be the human face of your organization—someone who will interact with your audience and help build trust. This requires some specific roles and skills. So here are 10 tasks that good community managers should be able to handle.
1) Community Facilitation
All communities need help in order to grow. As a facilitator, the community manager posts topics for discussion, responds and guides discussions along the way. Contributing thoughts and ideas that members of the community discuss is definitely important for the growth of any community.
2) Content Creation
A community manager must be skilled at content creation geared towards helping the business promote what it wants to the community. This includes knowing enough about the company’s products and services to write intelligently about them. Community managers should be very familiar with blogging and know how to post video and pictures if necessary. This content should be relevant to the audience and engaging. Content is king—cliché, but true.
3) Feature Development
The community manager should work with the tech team on coming up with new features for the website, based on the company’s goals and what the community wants. This also includes ideas for new features that can help improve the company’s products and services, based on feedback from members of the community.
4) Moderation
Sometimes people don’t follow the rules. It is usually the community manager’s job to moderate user-generated content and remove things that are inappropriate. Eventually, the community may police itself (especially if you give people tools to flag inappropriate content), but some type of moderation is always necessary, especially at first.
5) Member Recruiting
Even if you give members all the tools they need to share your community with their friends, a community manager should be expected to help grow the site, especially at first. This includes hands-on actions such as identifying where the company’s audience is on other websites and reaching out to them there, as well as brainstorming ideas for promotions/contests that may provide an added incentive for people to invite their friends.
6) Customer Support
Social media and customer-centric communities enable companies to provide outstanding customer service, which is becoming more and more a key differentiator for many brands. A community manager should have enough knowledge to answer basic questions about a company’s products or services and can pass questions on to the appropriate department if necessary.
7) Company Enthusiasm
A community manager must love both the job and the company, and this enthusiasm should show in everything he or she does to build the community. The individual should be excited to tell community members about new products, promotions, services, events and upgrades. If the community manager doesn’t truly enjoy the job, people will notice. A community manager should truly be passionate about both the community and the company’s products or services.
8) Market Research
Customers often reveal things in a community about your company that might not show up in a survey or focus group. It is the community manager’s job to identify important insights and opinions, which can help improve a company’s products or services or lead to new ideas.
9) Metrics/Reporting
There are a variety of metrics that can be tracked in a community. While the metrics you want to track may vary based on your business objectives, a good community manager should track both quantitative and qualitative measures to see what is working and what isn’t working. It’s very important to track content and behavior, find out how these various metrics affect your goals and identify what this says about your community and company.
10) Listening
The most important thing a community manager can do is listen to the people who make up the community. What new features are they looking for? What improvements on products or services do they want? What do they like best (and least) about the company? Communities provide a great opportunity for companies to listen and hear what is really important to customers. There are more companies now than ever trying to shout at and promote their messages to customers, but companies that truly listen will enjoy greater levels of respect and trust than those who don’t make the effort.
These tasks need not take place only inside the community website. It is important for the community manager to find and go where the audience is and reach out to people on other social networking websites, blogs, and message boards—wherever the audience is located. This will help your company reach a wider audience, and you may even find that there’s a new market for your product or service.
Remember, online communities and social media are ultimately about people and conversations. A good community manager should be able to complete the tasks above to help you achieve your business objectives online.
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