Research clearly indicates that organisations have accepted 2 facts-
1.Cultivating a respectable level of customer engagement is a strategic challenge.
2.The volumes and degree of consumer engagemnets will have long term implications for a firm.
Let's take a look at social media's role in this entire talk about consumer engagement.
Mario Sundar at the Linkedin Corporate Blog lists the top fifteen corporate blogs on the basis of their technorati authority.
Technorati authority is a measure of the number of blogs linking into the blog under discussion.In other words, technorati authority is indicative of-
1)Popularity of a blog as in terms of voulme of readers.
2)Volume of user generated content about a blog, with those many other users having generated content regarding that particular organisation, brand or product.
For the purpose of this discussion on corporate blogs, let us assume that a significant number of visitors to the blogs in question are customers-prospective and current.
Further, as per Ghuneim’s typology of engagement, a customer who comments on an online organisational initiative measures ‘medium’ on the degree of engagement continuum while a customer who creates content, as in blog about an organisation, brand, product, or service rates as 'highly engaged'.
Hence, the technorati authority can be safely assumed to be indicative of the volume of significantly ENGAGED consumers.The study of CRM could significantly benefit by taking into account the technorati authority of these corporate blogs, to track the volumes of consumer engagement.
Some observations-
1.There is a positive correlation between the reach(percentage of global internet users who visit the site) of a blog(source:Alexa.com) and the Technorati authority of the corporate blog.
2.There is a positive correlation between the Technorati authority of a corporate blog and the volume of Consumer Generated Media(source : Blogpulse).
Engagement refers to the creation of experiences that allow companies to build deeper, more meaningful and sustainable interactions between the company and its customers and appears to be the first step for any corporate towards building consumer loyalty, satisfaction, involvement and evangelism. Social media sure seems to provide a way.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Corporate Blogging Series III-Consumer Engagement,Technorati authority and CGM
Monday, March 24, 2008
From Dell to Starbucks:From Ideastorm to My Starbucks Idea
A lot of discussion on organisations using social media as a tool to manage customer relationships has moved around companies using the same for brand visibilty and giving the customers a platform to interact and share, but failing to actually engage customers-as in closing the loop by actually showing the consumer what the company did with those ideas.
Looks like Starbucks was listening-
My Starbucks idea is the response.
As Jeff Jarvis had once rightly said that customers would have conversations about a company, products and services. It hence made more sense for the company to become part of these conversations. A series of branded online communities and corporate blogs followed suite.Starbucks apparently has gone a step forward.By providing a space for consumers to share their thoughts, let others vote on those thoughts and create a point system to rate ideas, it has actually made a concious effort to work on the consumer relationship.
Social media non-believers have screamed in the past about the inability of the medium to clearly showcase what the companies were doing with the consumer feedback or how the same was being leveraged.
This is a case in point!!!!!
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Tagcrowd of my blog
TagCrowd is a web application for visualizing word frequencies in any user-supplied text by creating what is popularly known as a tag cloud or text cloud.Saw the same at Pete Blackshaw's blog and thought I should give it a try.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Branded Online Communities move to Television
Branded Online communities, set up by companies for Building brand equity are now tying up with the electronic media for greater visibility. As the interest of the youth increases in social networking, with humongous volumes of youngsters not only hanging around networking sites, but also eagerly participating in consumer communities,these branded online communities have found themselves most wanted on Television.
In a recent developmentin India, Hindustan Unilever's SUNSILK GANG OF GIRLS, an online community , and Zoom Television have come together to present a singing reality show called Sunsilk Gang of Girls - Spotlight Mein.
In response to online applications at the Sunsilk GOG site, this new television series will present four talented girls in the country who will be groomed and mentored by maestros from the music and entertainment fraternity, in preparation for a live finalé performance in front of a big audience.Reality TV, it's success, the impact generated and the huge volume of viewership it draws is not new to us.
As branded online communities embrace Television, the euphoria created by such shows will further increase traffic on the site-increased membership is a foregone conclusion.
Kelly Mooney's thoughts in an ADAGE article on For Relevance, Think Three-Way throw light on how corporates can leverage such situations.By looking at the Brand, the consumer and online communities as three components of a love triangle, she reiterates the need for brands to intersect with online communities, to be able to connect with their consumers.
An excerpt-
"There are no diminishing returns when brands think three-way, when they "triangulate" to communicate in a b-to-we world. Online communities are an infinite resource bringing not only preexisting participants within the brand's range, but new i-citizens formerly uninvolved until their passions are sparked by a marketing campaign or message that inspires them to spread the love."
In Sunsilk's case,the three sides of the triangle are aptly covered- the brand connects to each girl and the fan community; the girls connect to the brand and each other -- all tied to the community or the event as the center.While acting as excellent repositories for information, such communities help the brand marketers by providing information to validate their understanding of the market, while further bifurcating consumers with respect to preferences, expectations, and level of brand loyalty.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The age of Consumer Generated Media and the unhappy consumer
In an article on Comcast must die Bob Garfield on Ad Age, solicited ideas for a consumer jehad against digital and internet cable company Comcast!!! As a hapless consumer out to get back at an erring organisation, Bob's post garnered umpteen comments and suggestions. Some interesting ideas he received , specially from a Web 2.0 and CGM perspective ranged from posting on technorati, adding flickr photos or youtube videos of any damage done, choosing tags and suggesting that folks tag their own blog posts and videos with same to forming a Comcast service group on Facebook.
While other ideas included spreading good WOM for Comcast competitors, sending posts to equity analysts who follow Comcast, or calling up Comcast Corporate headquarters,
the most interesting comment however, was to buy the web domain ComcastMustDie.com, establish a blog and issue a press release(to drive traffic) so that all dissatisfied Comcast customers would have a forum to voice their opinions!!!!...sounds so much akin to a DELLHELL in the making...Comcast....are you listening???
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Consumer Reviews and the brand.
Effect of Consumer generated reviews on web site metrics, for a few selected companies , as per a Social commerce report, 2007, from e-consultancy and bazaarvoice, reiterates my earlier post on 'Peer reviews and consumer behaviour'.Consumer generated reviews are becoming an important source of consumer product adoption process.
As per the report, surveying retailers in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe, the findings were as follows-
77% reported site traffic increases
56% reported improved conversion rates
42% reported higher average order values
At least 73% respondents felt that these reviews resulted in Improved customer retention and loyalty, while Improved site conversion rates and Better search engine optimisation stood out as the other benefits accrued with these reviews.
Social media is decidely fast emerging as a tool for organisations to gain competitive advantage over others.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Product reviews and the collaborative web
As customer/consumer reviews gain importance,and become an intrinsic component of the product adoption process, by influencing consumer behaviour, a google trend graph on these key terms looks like this-
Customer Review is denoted in Blue while Consumer Review in Red and Product Review in Yellow. The regions included in this trend chart are U.S.A, U.K., India, Australia and Canada.
For market intelligence to collect and disseminate information across the organisation, finding relevant information on products strengths and weaknesses can be undertaken through the following ways-
Independent customer goods and reviews forums-Epinions.com, Consumerreview.com, Rateital.com, Bizrate.com.
Distributor or sales agent feedback sites-Amazon.com
Combo-sites offering customer reviews and expert opinions-
The advantage of this type of review site lies in the fact that a product supplier can compare opinions from the experts with those from consumers.A search for the 'iphone' yielded 1015 resources while the 'Apple iphone' yielded 655 results!!!
Customer-complaint sites-
Putting Customer-reviews on company websites-As per a social commerce report,2007,published by e-consultancy and Bazaarvoice, surveying retailers in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe, the findings were as follows-
77% reported site traffic increases
56% reported improved conversion rates
42% reported higher average order values
Consumer Generated media and it's impact on Brand visibility, product purchase and increasing customer-share is a foregone conclusion.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Building Brand Equity through Social Media
Paul Legutko's discussion at Customerthink
"......, but simply the fact that someone is staring at your company logo and creative for a certain period of time. This has an inherent branding value, and "branding" is something both marketers and management understand......high-volume sites can have significant brand-equity."
and Jim Sterne's response regarding brand impact, awareness and brand character attribution, can further be applied to the way major corporates are using the power of social media to garner brand dividends.
Coke, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Proctor and Gamble, Nike, Nissan, Pepsi are part of a trend where a large number of corporates are creating online communities and social networking sites, taking advantage of the interactivity that the internet as a digital medium provides, to capitalise on the huge number of cybersurfers.
With humongous volumes of visitors on these sites, organisations have successfully mingled customer engagement with increasing brand familiarity and distinction and focussing on solution importance, to try and create customer loyalty.
Hindustan Unilever's( India's biggest consumer goods company) brainchild Sunsilk Gang of Girls, promoting the shampoo brand Sunsilk, has a total of 579899 members in 34122 gangs. This has evolved into a huge medium where people participate, give their views and are really bonding with the brand. By discussing commonplace issues like hair care, shampooing and conditioning, hair tips, hair biology and hosting hair gurus by tying up with hairstylists like Javed, Sunsilk GOG has struck a chord with the readers. By tying up with leading magazines like NewWoman and Cosmopolitan,and Marjorrie Orr at Astrology.com, Sunsilk GOG has been able to delve into areas of interest for women ranging from beauty tips to love quizzes to astrology and with Monster.com to cater to their career aspirations. Typically catering to the youth interests of today, members can even watch funky music videos, download wallpapers and screensavers and participate in exciting contests, Sudoku and word search games.
With a traffic rank of 25,500 the Proctor and Gamble brainchild Beinggirl aims at engaging the female segment for P&G's products targetted for the female community. By giving females an opportunity to discuss issues close to their hearts, without giving up their identities, P&G has been able to provide a medium for interaction and developing relationships with its customers thereby facilitating brand loyalty. About 62% of the clientele of beinggirl is from China and 14% from the U.S.
Most of these sites, especially those catering to niche audiences, use the skills of online community managers to nudge the conversation, seed chat forums with threads, recruit others to take a lead in various topics, and monitor the dialogue
Nike's joga.com for football lovers, Coke's mycoke.com and Pepsi's pepsizone for young adventurers out to network, share photographs,videos,music and have fun, Nissan's community for car lovers discussing car models and their features......the list is endless......
Agreed that there are no ways to quantify brand loyalty as a result of such ventures, but as Paul said, as long as larger number of visitors can identify brands , logos and products, garnering brand dividends as a result of such ventures is a foregone conclusion.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Walmart-Embracing CGM for better Search Engine Rankings?
Another new addition to the world of Consumer Generated Media...Walmart allows it's consumers to post product ratings and reviews
'Real Opinions-Smart shopping-See what walmart customers from coast to coast are saying about our huge selection of products.'
Chief Marketing Officer Cathy Halligan was quoted in a Reuters report as saying the opportunity to review products is the No. 1 customer-requested feature. Being the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart has been putting up efforts in the last few weeks to integrate its Web site more closely with its stores.
According to the Wal-Mart estimates, roughly 130 million customers visit one of its stores or its Web site every week and 75 percent of those customers are active online.
So what are the benefits Walmart can hope to accrue from this move?
1.Better Search Engine RankingsAs per an adage article, the real outcome maybe an improved performance with respect to search engine rankings-a crucial factor in the performance of online retailers.
The reviews give Wal-Mart thousands of additional pages of content to be indexed by major search engines, which look favorably on unique content, such as reviews, compared with pages with basic product details that any retailer could have.
"Searches related to product reviews typically get a high volume of queries, so Wal-Mart could see a material increase in organic search traffic to its site," said Peter Hershberg, managing partner at the search-marketing firm Reprise Media.
2.Increased consumer loyalty
3.Encouragement to consumers to return to the website more often.
4.Incorporation of consumer feedback to facilitate product-decisions.
5.Influencing consumer purchase as large no. of consumers depend on peer reviews
The above endeavours usually lead to better consumer engagement which eventually leads to increased purchase intentions. How much these will impact sales, only time will tell.
Friday, July 20, 2007
The correlation between Consumer Generated Media and Sales
As the democratisation of consumer expression leads to a viral proliferation of information online, the newage communication ecosystem has prompted the need for a careful evaluation of the potential of CGM or buzz as it is called. With each passing day, consumers find innovative ways to express their satisfaction/dissatisfaction about a product or brand.
An investigation of the relationship between blog buzz, market promotion and sales in the Consumer Packaged Goods(CPG) industry, by Nielsen Buzzmatrix revealed the following-
1.CGM has the potential to influence and generate incremental publicity for products, enough to effect their commercial prospects, specially in the CPG category.
2.CPG Marketers should consider the role of Buzz in their Marketing Mix, with respect to New product communication plans.
3.Ad spend is a large factor involved in generating CPG buzz.
4.There is a strong correlation between buzz and sales.
5.Buzz helps in generating accurate forecasts.
6.Buzz Magnitude: Top 10 % of products were responsible for over 85% of total buzz generated. Buzz is higher
7.Buzz Timing: Buzz usually precedes product launch and sales and is usually highest in the initial stages
As the above reiterates the prime motivational factor for consumers to create and post CGM-To be on the forefront of something new, it is profoundly clear that CGM will need to be an intrinsic component of the new product communication plans for marketers.
Interesting way to express Consumer Dissatisfaction
Expressing dissatisfaction over the way cheese is inserted in a sandwich at Subway, this cartoon from Lefthandedtoons is an interesting way to use the power of Consumer Generated Media. Source:ADAGE
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
NDTV more courageous than IBN?
As discussed earlier, Consumer Generated media, the voice of the empowered consumer and what he feels about products procured from companies has another dimension to it. When the product under discussion is NEWS, MEDIA and INFORMATION, another form of CGM is being tracked...Termed as 'Citizen Journalism', this form of CGM allows people to share their views about common issues and participate by contributing their thoughts on a particular subject.
As per Wikipedia,
"Citizen journalism, also known as "participatory journalism," or "people journalism" is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," .....
Citizen journalism is a specific form of citizen media as well as user generated content."
Browsing to take a look at how Indian News Corporates had taken to this form of CGM, I came across the NDTV Blogs-NDTV allows users to host their blogs, upload content, videos, photos etc.From serious political analysis and literary criticism to frivolous personal chatter and over-the-top protestations, blogs allow you to create your own private niche in the big and not-too-bad world of the Internet." Interesting!!
With sections across business, health, education etc. etc. etc., NDTV appears to be hosting a multitude of bloggers. Haven't taken a look at the content, but this definitely appears to be a positive act of NDTV in the wake of rising criticism of bloggers, as a community and the quality of content they generate, by journalists per se.
The IBN blogs have contributions only from CNN-IBN employees. Is fairly impressive...but that's what the job of a journalist is-to be articulate and informed. However, as knowledgeable citizens from the elite qualified communities adopt this media, to share and voice their thoughts, journalists are no doubt sitting up, fearing a competitive tirade.
The quality of content as produced by a qualified/enlightened journalist and an ordinary citizen may or may not differ, however, it is the voice of the common masses which matters more when companies need to evaluate CGM from a strategical perspective.
Journalists have jobs that are bound to stay, but here is a breed of consumers of media who want to be heard and there is no way the echo of their voices can be submerged, considering the offerings of collaborationware leading to technology facilitated network building.The more condescending ones like NDTV simply embrace this voice. Maybe the other counterparts need to take note!!!
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Consumer Generated Media - How peer reviews highly influence consumer buying behaviour
Here is something which corroborates my thoughts on Opinion Leaders and CGM and The era of the empowered consumers-
A report published at ReportonBusiness.com about Online Buyers scouring for deals
The findings of the report include-
1. More and more online buyers are turning to peer-reviews for product related advice, before adopting a product.
"When asked to note their most trusted information source, sixty per cent of online buyers said consumer reviews compared to 31 per cent who said newspapers or magazines."
2.Large no. of online buyers indulge in comparison shopping and use social networking sites to do so.
3.Online buyers are early adopters of social networking such as writing or reading blogs, customer reviews, and community websites. They're more likely to share their opinions and give reviews online than people who shop the old-fashioned way.
4.As social netwroking sites abound with users, they will be areas of most potential for e-commerce.
5.Embracing advertising in the web's community sites appears to be very promising for marketers.
Hope the heads of the organisations (The customer was king....)hesitant to adopt CGM as a promotional tool are listening!!!!
Friday, July 06, 2007
Social media and the iphone
The Apple iphone has been an explicit example of how social media was used to create a buzz around a product, in the pre-launch phase, as a marketing strategy.
Blogpulse graphs are a clear indicator that the buzz about iphone at the time of launch was higher as compared to the one around the time of release. With as many as 244,626 blog posts about the iphone being tracked by technorati as per date, it will be important to monitor the for the same post-adoption by consumers, as CGM will come into play to showcase the positive as well as negative reactions as product-users.
Case study on buzz created through social media for iphone posted by Nielson Buzzmatrix,is a graphic account tracing the amount of impact of social media as a marketing tool for a product.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Consumers can make or break brands
In the words of Chris Ward, Commercial Director, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions,
"Social networking has changed the rules of the game and consumers now have the power to make or break a brand. This type of relationship provides a two way dialogue where the brand receives feedback and the social networker could be monetised for their efforts – positive or negative.”
It is common knowledge now that the huge traffic on social networks has made them very interesting marketspaces for marketers ineterested in brand building and product positioning. The changing attitudes to social communication and research figures hugely indicative of the potential of these networks has not only made these social networks important components of the value chain but also a complete market segment that needs to be targetted.
As advertisers move to understand the dynamics of this media,the consumer demographics and behavioural aspects, it is important to understand that groups of people interacting socially observe an etiquette and targetting them will need to be sensitively planned and executed.
Some recent usage trends of social media by corporates have been -
1. The Apple iphone has a myspace profile and as of date, already has 469 friends.It may be recalled that the Apple ipod pink nano which had a profile to promote the product, had amassed as many as 80,000 friends on myspace, before the site was removed. Nice promotional strategy by Apple
2.UK based Topshop by maintaining an online profile on Myspace through a participation in the community, special offers and discounts was able to generate a sizeable amount of visits, as per a report from Hitwise.
3.SouthWest Airlines has a group on myspace,having over 1000 members for those working/associated with southwest airleins. This includes the loyal southwest fyers.The idea is to form a community to share information, plan trips, share travel tips and network.
4.Creation of virtual spaces by VOLVO and MSN on windows live spaces.Consumers were invited to write about their exciting experiences and adventures in a Volvo-brande "What's your story" area.
Here Volvo was able to tap into the motivational factors behind an individual seeking to be an opinion leader feeling like anempowered consumer.
In view of the need to engage the online consumers,Microsoft has released the ‘Word of the Mouse’ Advertising Guidelines recommendations for usage of social networks for proliferation of their brands.
1. Understand consumer’s motivations for using social networks
- 75% of British users use the sites to keep in touch with friends and family
- Approximately half use it to express opinions and views on topics of interest
- 49% use social networks to deepen relationships with like-minded people.
2. Express themselves as a brand
People are using social networks to express their individuality. Networks can be used to express a side of a brand people don’t normally see and encourage them to interact with it – but it needs to remain authentic.
3. Create and maintain good conversations
Individuals are powerful in this environment – they are the content creators, conversation creators and community creators. Brands that are willing to have a dialogue could benefit.
4. Empower participants
You are entering a world of empowered participants who control their own content, are expressing their individuality and would welcome having this power over branded properties on their Space.
5. Identify online brand advocates
Advertisers need to identify relevant networking sites i.e. a site which includes people who already use/buy a company’s product and align to this audience and existing customer segmentation models.
By researching blogging habits or comments on a product in this environment, advertisers can reach out to influentials and begin a dialogue, for example by offering free samples or advanced product releases.
6. Behave like a social networker
A fundamental principle is that the best advertisers on Spaces will behave like the best Spaces owners by:
- Being creative
- Being honest and courteous (ask permission)
- Being individual
- Being conscious of the audience
- Updating regularly
As Advertisers understand that they need to gradually focus on the networked aspects of these communities and use them for spreading messages virally, these social networks provide profound relationship building opportunities with the consumers.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Opinion leaders and CGM
As a consumer's pre-purchase research finds more value and credibility in an informal source of information,rather than a company's advertising campaign or it's salespeople, CGM and opinion leaders are fast becoming forces to reckon with.
Opinion Leaders (Schiffman, Kanuk)have an informal influence over consumer behaviour and impact consumer acceptance of new products and services and Consumer Generated Media has provided a new source of communication for these opinion leaders.
The question is-
What drives an individual to be an opinion leader?
Desire for Self-Actualisation-
A feeling of superiority or status by demonstrating expertise by generating content and on being considered an authority on a subject.
Desire for Self-Projection-
Desire to build a credibility for himself. Research shows that individuals categorised as opinion leaders are four times more likely to be asked for advice/voice their opinion on any subject under discussion.
Need for Self-Confirmation-Try to reduce own post-purchase dissonance or self doubt regarding a purchase, by discussing the product features in a medium which will garner some comments, which if positive, will reassure the concerned individual regarding the appropriateness of his purchase.
Need for Social involvement-
Some people love sharing product related experiences and use these conversations as a means of being part of the community.
As the keen desire for knowledge and information drives an opinion leader to be an innovative consumer and share his experiences, his gregarious nature and access to the community coupled with the fertile opportunities provided by the collaborative web, can be utilised by organisations to generate favorable conversations about their products and services.
It is upto the consumer marketers to decide how to 'identify ' these opinion leaders or 'create ' 'CUSTOMER EVANGELISTS'
Thursday, June 28, 2007
The consumer was the king and we all seemed to know it.
According to the fifth annual PRWeek/Manning Selvage & Lee Marketing Management Survey, polling 279 U.S. chief marketing officers, VPs of marketing, and marketing directors and managers, and focussing on new media/CGM, integrated marketing and industry ethics, only about 12% respondents had CGM on their mind when considering marketing platforms.
Now why is this so?
CGM or consumer generated media is gaining imporatnce as the newly empowered consumers finds himself with a voice to express his opinions and post purchase emotions.
Organisations on one hand have a set of satisfied customers generating content about their positive experiences and influencing product adoptions by their friends and relatives, and on the other hand have to contend with unhappy customers sharing their woes with the threat of doing so in a technologically empowered digital environment capable of replicating the thoughts umpteen times, as people take to reading each others creations and linking to them.
As per the ADAGE article on the above subject, reasons for non-adoption of CGM as a promotion tool by several organisations stems from-
1. Fear of empowering a consumer to the point of no control.
2. No clear ROI on the subject yet.
However, the cost-effectiveness of this media over traditional media is bound to eventually let it get into vogue sooner or later.
Agreed that organisations are wary of embracing a medium where the echo of the consumer voice may be uncontrollable, but in an era where marketers are talking about
-Customer Relationship Management
-Customer Lifetime Values
-Increasing customer shares rather than market share
-Product Customisation
-Customer data warehousing and datamining and
-Using customers as brand evangelists,
will it not be contradictory to keep the consumer voice muffled?...After all, the consumer was the king...and we all seemed to know it.
