How to design your social media marketing campaign

You know how it goes...you pick up the paper, surprised by it's weight. When you open it up, out tumbles a huge wad of advertising leaflets. We've all been there! The problem for businesses who still use this form of advertising is that hardly anybody reads them. The recycling bins are full of Pizza take-away menus, supermarket deals leaflets, furniture store sales flyers... etc etc. Is your business still advertising using the print medium? If so, you are probably wasting your money, and this sort of advertising doesn't come cheap by any means.. And in this day and age,it's becoming increasingly irrelevant...

                                                               (photo from hloom.com)

Social media has worked its way into every part of our lives.It is ubiquitous, and more to the ppoint, it is where people go to find things they want to buy and services they need. They just don't want to plough through all of the bits of paper cluttering up the house. If your marketing campaign is to reach people who want your services or products, then social media is where you just have to be. And more to the point, you need to pick your platforms very carefully according to your target audience. There is no point taking time to participate on a social space which is not the home of your target market. This is where good advice is essential. There is always a cost to social media, be it time or outsourcing it to somebody to do.

                                                         (image from library.ohiou.edu)

Take expert advice on the design of your marketing campaign on social media. This should include design, inception, integration with your website, creating conversations, management, detailed monthly analytics on line reputation management and brand protection. 

Whilst expert advice is never cheap, it could save you money in the long run if you get your social media activity right first time and managed for you effectively and efficiently. Many web design and digital media consultancies claim to be able to advise on social media, but you wouldn't ask an orthopedic surgeon to deliver your baby would you? Pick a specialist social media consultancy to advise you. It will be money well spent...they can advise you on every aspect of your marketing campaign and provide you with a real return on your investment (ROI). This is important because there is lots of available data which will help you with the direction and fine-tuning of your marketing and put you right at the heart of where you need to be - on your potential customers' social media feeds..

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How *Not* to use Social Media

KFC is a big brand. Its known all over the world for fried chicken done to perfection using the Colonel's secret recipe of eleven spices and herbs. Except in South Africa, where they appear to have a problem with the concept of ..cooking... the chicken. Raw chicken is not good, even when coated in eleven herbs and spices. This is a photo of a recent purchase we made... Not at all appetising and more to the point, dangerous to health. Their facebook page is inundated with pics of substandard products and tales of poor service.

The problem with KFC South Africa is that they appear to have contracted out their complaints handling operation to the most cack-handed and inept operation we've ever come across (and there are lots of them in the world of digital media management, believe me! ). This company is called DSG but they don't handle the actual social media itself  - this is done 'in house' so there is an immediate disconnect in their customer service operation there. very poor!

Now, To recap the story so far. KFC South Africa are struggling with customer service and quality of their food. They have subcontracted their complaints operation to a so-called specialist in this field, DSG.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS SUPPOSED TO BE SOCIAL STUPID

We started posting comments and pictures on their Facebook page two days ago. We also started engaging in conversation with other disgruntled customers on both Facebook and Twitter, as well as blogging about the standard of food and service we've received from KFC over the years. But instead of heading us off at the pass by answering our comments and getting in touch with us by private message or Twitter DM, they simply posted their standard reply over and over again. From what we can see, they have three responses which they cut and paste onto Facebook in answer to complaints and comments. Apart from this, their entire Social Media strategy (if you can call it that) is to 'broadcast' KFC news. There is no real meaningful engagement with their customers. In fact, its not a social media strategy at all, its simply a digital media advertising strategy.

KFC South Africa (and DSG) have missed the point entirely. Its not called *social* media for nothing guys!
A real missed opportunity to build brand loyalty by true engagement with consumers, and to deal with complaints effectively, turning them around into satisfied customers. Just standard replies and broadcasting. Boring and ineffective.

BLOCKED FROM THEIR FACEBOOK

But there's worse... When we continued to engage with Facebook users who had made complaints, they blocked us from their facebook !! How stupid is that? Not only do they have a complete lack of understanding of how social media is supposed to work, but they send out the message (which we continue to spread on Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, Google+, Trip Advisor, FourSquare etc etc) that if you complain too much about their food or service, they'll try to silence you by blocking you from their page. Problem with this folks is that there are simply too many other social media channels on which to create the conversation about their poor quality food and indifferent customer service.

DSG DOES NOT UNDERSTAND SOCIAL MEDIA USE

They must be worried because no less than the Executive Director (restaurants) from KFC South Africa, Peter Horne, phoned me up to ask what it would take for us to stop attacking their brand! They just don't get it do they? Its their abusive use of social media both themselves and via DSG which is the problem. DSG just don't get how to use it properly, and thats whats attacking their brand, not us...Daryl Shapiro from DSG who also called me yesterday needs to take a long hard look at his company social media operation because he's letting his clients down - big time. They advertise social media management on their website but they just don't deliver (see the last blog post on here about using a specialist social media consultant).

And so to prove the point, we made up our own facebook page, Finger Lickin Gross which has had hundreds of views in a few short hours. We've blogged about this as well. Again, thousands of hits. The twitter amplification has topped 250K views.  Please go visit, and comment, because it is supposed to be social media after all. And help us prove a point !

And to KFC South Africa... you might want to rethink and refashion your complaints handling process, because it's not working to protect your brand from the terrible service and poor quality food your restaurants serve up here in South Africa. Social media is about creating conversations. So go online and talk *with* your customers and stop talking *at* them.

Oh yes...and remember, blocking customers won't stop them talking on social media, it just encourages them to talk more...

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So, Why does my business need to be using Social media?

We get asked this question a lot! Prospective clients often feel confused and even scared of being active on the web, and think that having a website is enough... well, its not.

Not any more. Websites are static and difficult to use for conversations. They are the 'Shop Window' for your business, but nowadays, a good website will be integrated with social media. Here are a few reasons why you can't afford not to be using social media for your business..

• Answer and address complaints quickly. Increasingly, businesses are using Twitter and Facebook to handle complaints. Just check out KLM, Vodacom, and Virgin for good examples.If you want to see badly used social media,look at the KFC South Africa FaceBook page!
• Get feed back on your business activity. If you want to gauge the possible reaction of consumers or customers to something you're planning, Social Media is almost like an instant polling station! Just ask your questions on Twitter or Facebook for almost instant answers.
• Share photo's and video of your business activity and products. Its a vibrant community out there and with the right images, you get wonderful free exposure. 
• Word of mouth marketing is a powerful way to boost your sales. And without the cost of radio or television campaigns either. Its quick and effective, and all about making connections.
• Increase loyalty. Your social media activity will make your connections feel a strong sense of loyalty to you. After all, you're not just broadcasting to them...you're engaging with them
• Market research. You can easily search your business area or market and see what's happening. People will be talking about it, that's virtually guaranteed on social media. 
• Your competitors will be on it. So you don't want to be left out and lose business. If they're not already on social media, they soon will be!
• Statistics tell a story. You get tons of useful information from the data provided by social media activity. Web analytics and traffic reports tell you where your activity is coming from and allow you to position yourself vetu clinically to where you need to be.
• Become the expert in your field. Using content curation (collection and aggregation) positions you as the expert to ask questions from in your field. People will come to your sites for information and advice. before they even get near your competitors.
• Brand protection. You don't want people to criticise you on line, but if they do, you need to be able to talk with them instantly.Just look at HMV in the UK - they ignored social media and were driven into bankruptcy by a barrage of negative social media commentary they failed to answer.

                                                           creating conversation...

Social media is how you can engage with your customers and business contacts in real time and almost instantly. Increasingly, its how we do business, search for purchases and perhaps most importantly, make complaints about poor service or products. 

Social Media is growing and is a powerful force in marketing and brand protection. Nobody wants folks out there saying bad things about them on Twitter, facebook, Pinterest and all the other platforms which give people a genuine voice. That voice is affecting the way we buy products and services. Social Media sites are replacing traditional search engines (YouTube is second to Google for the number of searches recorded).

But you need to be positioned on the right Social Media platforms for your business. Thats where we can help. The advice of a good social media consultant is vital. A good consultant will live and breathe social media. They won't design websites, or do advertising. They'll just know exactly where you need to be on the many platforms that exist out there. 

This is our business. Social media is what we're all about. So we can help you with your website...from a social media integration perspective. But Social media is our speciality here at Nomsindo. 

We Create Conversation for your business...

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Social Media - What we do

We've been asked a lot recently just what is it we do for our Social Media clients. So here it is..

• We carry out a full review of a client's existing social media and web activity.
• We ask lots of questions about their business.Its important we 'get' their vision and mission to be able to understand just where they need to be on social media and what their market is.
• We would seek to understand where and how the client feels they should be using social media.Contrary to popular belief,its not for everyone!
• We'd want to talk about possible budgets. Its important to us to know how much they think it might cost to have a social media presence managed for them.
• Following this, we'd make a series of recommendations based upon our analysis of their needs. Some social media channels are a 'must have' for most clients. Others are more sector-specialist. Others are more related to the demographic of their potential markets/clients. For example, Pinterest has 65% of its hits coming from young women, whereas Google+ is more male oriented.
• We'd then offer a setup package which would include social media integration with their website, setting up of a blog and other social media platforms as necessary.
• A monthly management contract sets out the level of activity we'd undertake, as a minimum. For example,number of daily tweets, facebook posts etc. This is always flexible to suit changing business needs. We'll do the work and then talk with you later!
• We provide a detailed monthly report including web analytics and social media activity so that you can see where your traffic is coming from and how your social media presence is growing and effective. After all, you need to know what the return on your investment is.

And there it is....in a nutshell.

Nomsindo - We Create Conversations. 

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Why using Social Media for CRM is a priceless tool

I must start by emphasising that social media is by no means the only CRM (customer relationship management) tool a company should use and certainly in certain circumstances there are are other CRM tools that are more effective.

It has however become clearly obvious that with the implementation of social media as a grass roots CRM instrument by medium and large enterprises, the cost effectiveness of these tools and overall resulting customer experience of the engagement, interaction and when necessary also the intervention often provides an almost immediate ROI.

A number of examples immediately come to mind. The most recent was only yesterday when we were attending a conference at a venue that is part of one of the largest global hotel and hospitality chains. My other half was rather displeased with the service and sent a single tweet and hash tagged it.

The response was almost immediate and came from pretty high up. This company got it right in both of the most important ways this should be approached. Implementation of their actual CRM strategy using social media and their culture regarding how to approach the problem using the relevant instrument - in this case Twitter.

It is very clear that not only do they have an engaging monitoring policy, but they also go out of their way to ensure that when tweets are not directed at them personally they can pick up hash tagged and unhashtagged conversations, enabling quick intervention when required.

Brand and reputation development and protection should come hand in hand with any online engagement strategy and policy for any business regardless of its size. We all knows that rumours (even when untrue) can cause stocks to crash and can ruin a healthy corporate virtually overnight.

A company strengthens its armour when it's digital presence policies encompass brand protection and it has the strategy to be able to turn negative customer experience around so that the outside world watching this unfold, (and trust me it's a very big glass house out there) can witness a positive outcome - every time.

The online world leaves digital footprints that remain for years and even decades. If there has been a bad customer experience linking it to a positive outcome this, has enormous long term value. Consumer forums often discuss customer experience and the footprint they leave is enormous and lasting. When the forums actually show a positive outcome it can have a domino effect.

Customers will discover how others have reached satisfactory resolution, enhancing brand image and also driving new customers not only to the company's web presence be it interactive social media, e-commerce or the company website, but also their b&m (bricks and mortar) premises.

Happy and satisfied customers breed an air of confidence about certain brands which has the effect that the brand becomes the prevalent choice.

I remain astonished at how many large corporate enterprises still use social media for promotion only and do not have it integrated into customer service, logistics, sales and sales support, in fact any department that engages with customers at all. Those that use it for monitoring remain even fewer and yet the obvious advantage that offers over the competition isn't rocket science.

This is where analysis of ROI becomes tricky. If analysis is only going to include the financial return particularly when looking at CPA, a true picture can never be determined. True social media effectiveness is not only visible by growth in online sales, but also by the willingness of the customer to return to the B&M (bricks and mortar) presence on the street as a result of the social media strategy that enhances their spending experience.

In closing, I would recommend that any company recruiting or contracting a social media Strategist look beyond their technical knowledge of markup languages and GAIQ, but also investigate the candidates ability and outlook at directing and if necessary redirecting their digital strategy to the ever changing needs and demands of the customer. After all the needs of the client/company are irrevocably entwined with the needs of their customer base, and it would be a huge mistake not to recognise that as the customer base grows, so will the need to diversify the social media strategy.

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