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Study: Put A Face On Those Social Sites

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Marketers struggling with their social media strategy may be having trouble because they haven't yet grasped how to move from being a faceless corporation to a "friend."

According to Firefly Millward Brown, which recently released research into successful strategies within the social media space, many marketers are struggling with translating their brand attributes into a personality that can engage consumers in a two-way dialogue.

"If you enter into the space as a brand, [consumers are] going to ask you to reveal yourself," Rob Hernandez, global brand director at Firefly Millward Brown, tells Marketing Daily. "[Marketers need to] be comfortable hearing about and talking about your flaws, and that's not something that's traditionally done by marketers."

Unlike the approaches of the past, these new "rules of engagement" for social media mean marketers need to adjust the way they approach consumers. Because they have not fully explored how to go about changing their approach, some companies are paralyzed between doing nothing at all and doing only the bare minimum and thinking they're done.

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"It has a huge opportunity and potential, but many don't know how to harness it yet," Hernandez says. "They put up a Facebook page and think that will be sufficient. [Consumers] sniff that out pretty quickly, [thinking] it's insincere at best and pandering at worst."

But social media, Hernandez says, are more relationship-based. Therefore, they need much more nurturing and personalization than other approaches. "You have to abandon the corporate mentality and approach and think of it as a person and interact with them as a person," Hernandez says. "You've got to be interesting and be relevant, with a personal connection with [consumers]."

Fostering relationships based on trust and relevance is important because consumers are wary of brands' encroachment into the social media arena, Hernandez says. "Their number one concern was that [marketers] are going to pretend they have figured it out and co-opt the experience," Hernandez says. "They would rather it's a relationship building tool."

To help, Firefly Millward Brown offers 10 rules of social media:

1. Don't recreate your home page in social media: don't rehash the same information people can get elsewhere.

2. Listen first, then talk: create a dialogue

3. Build trust by being open and honest: transparency is key.

4. Give your brand a face: give consumers someone or something accountable for the brand.

5. Offer something of value: give without wanting something in return.

6. Be relevant: don't be invasive without purpose.

7. Talk like a friend, not a corporate entity: speak in simple, casual language.

8. Give consumers some control: be comfortable with the fact that you can't dictate the message any more.

9. Let consumers find you/come to you: brands that seek consumers too fervently will be seen as intrusive and interruptive.

10. Let consumers talk for you: people will advocate for brands they care about.

"Essentially, all social media and social networking are built on inherent circles of trust," Hernandez concludes. "If you want to engender that level of trust, you're going to have to be transparent and be willing to accept the good with the bad."

2 comments about "Study: Put A Face On Those Social Sites".
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  1. Ric Dragon from DragonSearch, November 18, 2010 at 6:49 p.m.

    Would love to know more about this research mentioned here. Am speaking at the upcoming BrandsConf on Dec 2nd in NYC- perhaps something there that can be referenced?

  2. Christian Weichelt from CoreMedia, November 19, 2010 at 3:51 p.m.

    Great article. Gen X and Gen Y users are starting to expect personalized experiences from every online interaction, and that now includes social media. Web 2.0 has started to make corporations more accountable through increased transparency, creating a person-to-person interaction as opposed to a corporation-to-person interaction – a trend that we have been witnessing in web content management (WCM) with contextualization, or the personalization of a customer’s online experience based on their current circumstance. I’m curious to know if companies have started to devote proper resources to social media to make this experiences happen? Or are they still relying on a marketing manager to add this to his or her list of duties? And how do they tie the social initiatives back into their overall online strategies? While there are many technologies that can help marketing managers with their expanding list of duties, companies need to learn that personalized experiences are the best way to build brand loyalty and need to start making those investments today.

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