Developing a Social Network Engagement Strategy: Step 1
May 12, 2008
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Hi all! I figured it was about time I emerged from my client work and share some lessons learned in the area of social network engagement, so I will attempt to chunk it up into sections…
I’d first like to start off by saying that for many marketers the concept of engagement within social networks is limited to starting a Facebook group or developing a profile page. I’m assuming this is due in part to instant gratification (after all, a quick group and profile can be developed in less than an hour), and in part to a misunderstanding of social networks themselves.
So, I’ll start with the first step to developing a social network engagement strategy: and that is a social network analysis. This should be tailored for each client, because it provides research and rationale that then determines the strategy for engagement. This analysis should answer the following main questions:
1) What networks are my target audiences interacting within?
2) What is the level of interaction my target audience is having within these networks?
3) What conversations already exist about our company? Within which networks?
4) What type of interactions do users have within each network?
5) What are other brands doing?
While these are just 5 of the many types of questions that should be answered in an engagement analysis, they are perhaps the most important ones because they rule out a cookie-cutter approach to social network engagement and will force you to think more strategic about the appropriate networks to choose for engagement.
For instance, for one client with a target audience of women, this type of analysis found a valuable, and very engaged audience within lesser-known niche networks. Even more interesting, was that our analysis revealed the interaction of our target audience within these networks was stronger than the interaction of our target audience within Facebook and MySpace; while the majority of this audience weren’t quite content creators in the blogosphere, they were within these networks by frequently writing articles, commenting in groups regularly, publishing polls, and even microblogging on a daily basis.
In my opinion, I would argue that this engagement strategy determines the success of your involvement within social networks by helping understand and determine the particular networks of the most value to your target audience and your company.
If you’ve conducted this type of research, what have you found? Were you surprised at the value of particular niche networks, or overwhelmed by the amount of networks to research? Feel free to share your thoughts , we can certainly learn from all of our experiences.
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4 Responses to “Developing a Social Network Engagement Strategy: Step 1”
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Here are my thoughts. I will add that since I last wrote this. My team and I are learning that social media campaigns might be better considered a branding effort than a lead gen effort.
You can measure a social media campaign only after you determine the objective for the social media campaign. Influence and interaction and results are the ways in which a social media campaign can be measured. Each has quantitative and qualitative elements. Below are my initial thoughts on this subject. Please bear in mind that there are probably more to add to each category. (Help, advice, and collaboration is appreciated)
INFLUENCE
Quantitative - 1. the number of people in the network 2. the number of networks/social communities/platforms 3. the growth rate of your network
Qualitative - 1. who is in the network? 2. what is the motivation for people joining the network? 3. what ideas are discussed in the networks
INTERACTION
Quantitative - 1. the number of communication methods within a platform 2. the number of scheduled tasks(eg. messages, replies, comments, bulletins, blogs, etc)
Qualitative - 1. the types of communication being sent out 2. who are you targeting with a particular message?
RESULTS
Quantitative - 1. number of leads generated 2. number of sales generated 3. number of new contacts made 4. revenue generated
Qualitative - 1. types of leads generated 2. types of contacts made
“My team and I are learning that social media campaigns might be better considered a branding effort than a lead gen effort.”
Is the absolute truth. As time goes on people will start coming to this realization.
Instantaneous gratification is not something you will see when engaging.
There is a fine line between engaging with a customer base and blatantly marketing to them. Take Twitter for example…I know a local NC company that will post Twitter specials each week that are just for Twitter users.
I also know of a company that had sent out Tweets daily about a number of specials. I was interested at first, but it became overwhelming.
I do agree that many companies think all they need to do is make a FaceBook/MySPace page and people will flock to them…so wrong….
You are so right!
Many clients come to me and they want either a Myspace or Facebook (or Gaia/Zaadz or Tribe.net) account - and I quickly find out their goals and show them the value of finding their niche audience. The big social sites are so overpopulated and it’s definitely quality, not quantity, that works with most brands.
While it takes a bit of researching, not only to find the right online space, but to understand that space and learn how to relate to it in the best way possible, it is well worth it.
Great blog post. Thanks!