And any meaningful social media strategy has to be informed by the overall narrative of an integrated marketing framework. It is a good practice to recognize that customers commence their discovery of brands at the most unlikely places and the best one can hope for is to intercept this discovery at a place where the brand can control the message in one way or another.
The customer acquisition model I have been using in my planning sessions aims to map out the range of branded touch points online. It is based on following assumptions:
- Search is the single most powerful force behind content discovery, and by search I mean the broader behaviour of discovering content online (so that includes Google results as well as your Facebook News Stream). From bought media perspective, the branded communication in search can be augmented by the variety of paid-for vehicles that media agencies are simply amazing at selling. The quality of resulting engagement is however virtually non-existent.
- Broadcasting media, blogs and your friends on Facebook are equally important in introducing new content and one could argue that are more effective in creating a more compelling association that the audiences make with the content (symbolic capital, etc.). In earned media terms, this is a field of PR-driven communication with a heavy emphasis on relationship building and investment into people and relevancy rather than media budgets.
- Brand’s own media channels (websites, blogs, Facebook pages, etc) gain audience’s attention only once a user has embarked on the journey of discovery initiated by the previous two categories. The ambition of every communication campaign is to make the beginning of that journey as cost and time effective as possible. Once delivered to the owned media, audiences are then entertained and parsed through the good old acquisition funnel.
Every campaign requires a different mix of all of the media types, but having failed many times, omission of any of the three elements listed above usually leads to decreased quality and volume of engagement. The definition of engagement I leave with you – where do you draw the line between ‘I know this brand’ to ‘I can relate to this brand’?
About the author
Tomas Gonsorcik has a background in web development and online+print publishing in his native Slovakia. Following research into open source product development at the London School of Economics, Tomas joined Interaction London in early 2008 to focus on new ways of managing digital brand communication. As Head of Strategy he’s the guy who ensures maximum return from both social media Insight and Execution. He consults clients such as Microsoft, Amdocs and BBC to maximize their social media impact and align their social media presence with wider marketing models. Tomas is also the Ambassador for Strategic Insight with Internet Advertising Bureau UK and a regular contributor to International Herald Tribune, the BBC and CNN.