Using Social Media To Create And Amplify Offline Influence

[Posted by Nate Elliott. Follow me on twitter.]

According to all the data I've collected in the past few years -- no matter what age group or country you study, and no matter how actively people use social media -- the huge majority of users influence each other face to face rather than through social online channels like blogs and social networks. And a huge body of research -- most recently including Razorfish's Fluent study -- has proven that recommendations from offline friends are more influential than recommendations from online friends. So I decided to have a closer look at how interactive marketers can create offline influence in my new report The Analog Groundswell: Using Social Media To Create And Amplify Offline Influence.

I found marketers using a range of strategies to create offline influence, but there are two in particular that are most promising:

1. Events. If you want to create a big splash for a new product or service, tweet-ups and house parties are a great strategy for reaching a lot of people quickly. For instance, the NHL worked with fans to run a series of 23 simulatenous tweet-ups to celebrate the opening of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs -- and attracted more than a thousand attendees, generated a potential Twitter reach of more than 200,000, and garnered press coverage that reached millions. And right now, Microsoft is working with a company called House Party to plan in-home launch parties for its new Windows 7 operating system.
2. Ambassador programs. If you want to build long-term relationships and ongoing influence, ambassador programs might be the right strategy for you. For instance, scissor maker Fiskars found a great way to turn members of its legendary Fisk-a-teers online community into offline ambassadors: they gave each member a special pair of scissors engraved with their member number. When the Fisk-a-teers go to crafting parties and pull out their special scissors, it invariably creates a conversation about the brand. Vendors like BzzAgent can drive offline sampling and evangelism for marketers. And even Facebook has used ambassador programs in some markets where it's been slow to grow.

Clients can learn more -- including lots more examples, and our best practices for offline influence programs -- by reading the full research report. And I'll also be speaking on this topic at both Forrester's 2009 Consumer Forum (in Chicago, October 27 and 28) and our 2009 EMEA Marketing Forum (in London, November 17 and 18).  I just finished writing a case study on the NHL's tweet-ups as well.

In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you: what are you favorite examples of brands driving offline word of mouth? Have you ever run an offline influence program - and if so, what vendors did you use and how did it work? Let me know in the comments below.

Video: What makes Cyworld? Communication, Collaboration, Self-Expression, and "Peeping"

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Thanks for the feedback from the first video we published, all the three comments suggested we do more.

Lars Schwenk, General Manager of Cyworld Europe shared with me what it takes to be a community, we were at Forrester's Consumer forum in Barcelona.

If you're not familiar with Cyworld that have heavy penetration in South Korea, (50% of Koreans is a member -- and that 95 percent of its target youth market is active -Marketwatch) where it was birthed.  Find out his four components of community:  Communication, Collaboration, Self-Expression and what he calls "Peeping".

I asked my Twitter network (over 1700 of them) what questions to ask Lars, and David Berkowitz wanted to know what North Americans could learn from Asia's deployment of Cyworld. 

Cyworld launched in North America yet adoption has been very low, I learned from my travels that social technographics vary by culture, so to simply re skin a website for regions doesn't work. 

Marketers must understand the people who they want to serve first, one size does not fit all.

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Video: MySpace’s Jay Stevens shares the value of Community

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Jay Stevens, an executive for MySpace EMEA, was one of the keynotes at Forrester's recent Consumer Forum conference.  He shared with me the value of community, (quoting Danah Boyd) his definition of community (find out what "peeping" is all about) and the opportunities afforded to marketers who use social networks to connect with customers.  He gives a few quick steps to get started, which is really a must-know for anyone getting ready, what's the recommendation?  Get a strategy.

I also was live blogging his presentation, read more from his presentation Marketing in a Networked Culture.

This is the first time I've posted video for the Forrester Marketing blog, give me your opinion would you like to see more of these type of videos?  All feedback welcome!

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Redefine your high value customers - add the social dimension.

Like my flights to and from Barcelona, this blog post is rather late...

On Friday morning, I spoke about the need for us to reconsider customers on a social level.  As marketers, we find ourselves relying more and more on consumers to impact others in their purchase decisions.  Evaluating customers based only on their business or financial value - such as my much-loved Life Time Value, or an operation's ROI - is *has been*. 

I called for marketers to integrate a second dimension - the social value - into their thinking.  What's social value?  I've simplified it into 3 components:

1) A customer's knowledge and involvement - in short, his level of expertise and interest in the category and brand. 

2)  How he participates, and the value of his connections - what social activities is he involved with (both on and offline) and where (on what networks is he active).  The value refers to the value of the connections themselves:  are the communities more tightly-knit or diffused, are they public or more intimite.

3) The number of contacts the customer has in each network. 

I'll soon publish the score card with examples.  The most important challenge for marketers:  understanding and mapping what customers are doing *socially* is still terribly hands on.  The best bet for marketers with an established customer base - ask them.  Your CRM or loyalty program members and active web users would be great starting points for social scoring. 

The new high-value customer is what I've called  *Ambassadors* - those customers with both high financial value AND high social value.  Ah yes, even in this new connected world, financial value should remain a key focus - with social value laid on top. 

Web Analytics In Action

[Guest post from Craig Menzies, Analyst, Customer Experience Design]

The first time I used Web analytics, I mean "really" used Web analytics, was to end an argument. I was running the technical and eCommerce department for an online retailer, a really amazing online gadgets Web site, and the creative director and managing director were near to shedding blood over the following business-critical issue: Should a button on the home page be blue or purple, or maybe it should blue plus purple (blurple), as opposed to purple + blue (purue)? Two hours had gone by, and eight people sat in the room while the two worked themselves further and further away from rational thought and principles of civilized behaviour. I feared for the health, safety and sanity of my work colleagues.

So, I think it's safe to say that I used Web analytics for the first time as an act of sheer desperation. I used to it end the argument once and for all -- I logged in to our new Web analytics software while the two fought, and was able to show them that not only did the customers not care what colour the button was, but in fact, not a single customer had used the button in 6 months.

That's when the penny dropped for me personally... that here was a technology that could unite the certitude of data with the creativity of design, a technology that could focus the design process on the customer's best experience, and not the whims of company Directors. And this was the subject of my speech today at the Forrester Finance Forum in Barcelona.

I presented some great examples of Web analytics in action, and what it can do to find overt errors, and optimize both the customer experience and the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns. But, then I pushed further into the subject further and proposed that a better approach to customer insight is to use a whole set of tools and information sources, being analysed and acted upon by strategic teams -- not just by single half-time Web analysts. I call it the "holistic approach to online optimization" -- not a new concept (it's been called "Web 2.0" and other things), but one that is long overdue for company's to start using or risk being left behind. Why? Because the top Web design agencies in Europe and America have now adopted this approach as a critical and mandatory part of their design process. They're using it now, and they're using it effectively, as I showed with amazing examples from three of the top Web design agencies in Europe -- who, not coincidentally, were all industry Leaders in my recent Wave on European interactive agencies' Web design capabilities.

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Are communities unifying people or simply providing a platform for them to express their differences?

If you've never been to Barcelona, you may not know that the local language here is actually not Spanish...it's Catalan, the native language of Barcelona's region: Catalunya.  Children here are taught in Catalan, and while many also learn Spanish and likely English, I've run into several locals who speak only Catalan.  And then of course, since the attendees at our event are from all over Europe, there are dozens of languages filling the air during networking breaks and one on one sessions.

I mention this because it struck me that as the world becomes a smaller place (easier to travel anywhere you like, similar businesses/foods in different regions around the world, even the same pop-culture icons and references), cultures are becoming fiercely proprietary about the things that do define their culture from another:  like language.  What a perfect thing to establish who is qualified to be a member of a given community?  If you speak our language, you must be similar enough to us, and proud enough of our heritage to be in our community.  Language then, isn't just a mode of communication; it is also an expression of identity.

Yesterday, Lars Schwenk the Managing Director of Cyworld touched on this during his presentation in my consumer forum track on "Sharing Brand." He mentioned that consumers want to identify themselves in Cyworld as members of certain communities.  So Cyworld sells digital icons to community members which they can then post on their profiles or share with friends.  In fact, the sale of these ions is Cyworld's primary business model.

I'm fascinated by the idea that as technology further eliminates boundaries between consumers across the world, consumers become all the prouder of the unique characteristics that describe them and the other members of their communities. 

Using Bank Branches To Differentiate Your Brand

[Guest post by Mary Pilecki, Senior Analyst, Financial Services]

This morning, Mats Torstendahl, CEO of Danske Bank Sweden spoke about the bank's efforts to stand out among many competitors and grow market share.  Over the past ten years the bank has redefined its branch strategy to focus it on advice, rather than transactions.  Over 65% of the bank's customers perform transactions through e-banking, and are turning to the branches for face to face advice on their finances.  Danske Bank is targeting entrepreneurial type people to manage their branches, and empower them to price products as needed -- as long as they meet overall financial goals.  They've also resized branches to be smaller and more boutique-like, placing them in less expensive real estate such as the second floor of buildings, and on the outskirts of cities, rather than in prime commercial space.  Customers have embraced the new approach, preferring the better parking facilities in outlying areas, and the VIP feeling when they have to be "buzzed through" the locked doors of branches.

With a complex multibranding strategy that offers local flavor in their branches throughout northern Europe, the bank has a lot to tackle to maintain low costs.  They've consolidated operations while leaving staff in branches to create more sales capacity, and worked towards common processes across lines of business and channels.  In the past two years they’ve reduced the number of branches operating in the red from 16 to fewer than 8 as a result.  Danske bank has grown their market share successfully by making branches the place to go for help on new products, rather than for transactions.

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Five questions for social computing strategy

  Can Paixano 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

I had "dinner" at Can Paixano last night - talk about being social!

 

During the day, there was a lot of talk about social computing initiatives and we tweeted quite a bit of it.  As I hear about different brands, industries, and technologies, some questions keep coming to mind:

1. Does it integrate with our existing marketing strategy?
2. Does it build our brand?
3. Does it drive profitable business results?
4. Can we measure it?
5. Will it scale?

There are probably more questions; these are the highest-level ones that keep coming to mind when I hear people speaking about what they're doing or recommending to clients.

Good case study examples should answer all of those questions - we're past social computing 101.  Brands still need 101-type information and there's still a lot of learning left out there.  What it means is that people who are put on stage these days as experts should be delivering the goods, better.

Using Social Technologies for the Next Generation of Customer Research

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Using Social Technologies for the Next Generation of Customer Research

Mathilde Beljaarts, a senior consulting at Metrix Lab discusses how the next generation of research could use social tools.  They’ve used innovative techniques such as deploying image based ‘mood boards’ that let individuals share their feelings using self-selecting images.  From 'Photo Diaries', a form of blogging allows consumers to share the intimate details about their consumption of products within their own house.  Using eye tracking tools, and online co-creation, there’s a variety of methods that can be deployed to track, and understand customer needs.  Communities like Hyves, MySpace, and Facebook, are actually user structured content.  How to get started?  Focused on key issues and objectives, then look at 'domain scouting' which will provide a full view of a product category. Which marketers does this not work for?  It can work for all marketers, and even financial industries.  This is intended to be a continuous process, not just before a new product launch.

Takeaway: Many new social technologies can dimensionalize customer research like never before

The Opportunity for a Billion People to Help Build Your Brand

Cross posted from the Web Strategy Blog.

Open Branding - The Opportunity for a Billion People to Help Build Your Brand by Gurval Caer, President and CEO, Blast Radius

American Idol teaches us a lot of things about how society, participation can create success, we also know that customers listen to their peers more than anyone else. Social Marketing needs three ingredients to be successful: A social platform, Social media, Social Data.  Nike Jordan had ‘breakfast clubs’ that engages customers.  These customers can create customized training programs for personal sports workouts, and peers can share and review. How to listen and learn? Explore how customers participate, by understating the social media profile of your target audience.  Recognize there there is a spectrum of users, where do yours fall and what are the corresponding tool and experiences we provide them with.  Map out how users will participate both today and tomorrow, the joiners of today will the creators of tomorrow.  Gave a case study of EA, a packaged product called “Need for Speed”, in the pre-launch encouraged a rivalry of sub-cultures of different racing classes.

Takeaway: Start with the customer, the lifestyle, and relate to the cultures before starting with the brand.