Humanizing Business and BrandsMichael Brito Vice PresidentEdelman Digital

Photo by agent3012http://www.flickr.com/photos/agent3012/

Humanizing Business Operations

2008 Study 2009 Study

59% of Americans use Social Media to interact with brands

78% of Americans use Social Media to interact with brands

93% believe a company should have a presence in social media

37% of users engaging companies or brands via new media at least once per week

43% of consumers say that companies should use social networks to solve the consumers' problems

New media users overwhelmingly believe companies or brands should not only have a presence in new media (95%) but also interact with their consumers (89%).

41% believe that companies should use social media tools to solicit feedback on products and services

http://www.coneinc.com/content1182 http://www.coneinc.com/content2601

Growing Consumer Expectations

Trust is Important

Regular employee

Government official

CEO

Person like yourself

NGO representative

A financial or industry analyst

An academic or expert

32%

29%

31%

47%

41%

49%

62%

32%

35%

40%

44%

45%

52%

64%

Advocacy

Advocates talk about the brand, even when the brand isn’t listening

Advocates are trusted among their peers and within their micro communities

Advocates are aiding and influencing others down the purchase funnel

The reach of one advocate is minimal; as an aggregate, the total reach can make a strong business impact

Ok, so now what?

Brands Need to be Market Omnipresent

A customer journey is dynamic; they live in the their streams (Twitter, News feed)

People need to hear things up to 5 times before they actually believe it- Edelman Trust Barometer

Due to the high degree of noise in the market, it’s imperative that a brand has multiple communication channels in order to get their message heard

Operationalize Social Media Internally

Culture

Governance

Technology

Culture Executive Support Transparency Employee Activation Collaboration

Governance Policies & Procedures Training Technology Global considerations

Technology Collaboration Software Social CRM Social Publishing

Identify Brand “Spokespersons”

Corporate Versus Personal Profiles

Corporate profiles are more one-way focused; less conversational

Company news, reports, acquisitions, earnings, press releases

Managed by more than one person Usually owned/managed by Corporate

Communications Company branded with logo, colors Some corporate profiles are specific to products

(i.e. @photoshop) and customer care (i.e. @comcastcares)

Links to company home page, blog Company owned

Personal, conversational Content shared is more about the person and

when they do for a company, not the company in general

Personal brand 80/20 rule Links to personal blog or LinkedIn account Employee owned

Hybrid Profiles

From Transparency to Believability

Change you can Believe in …

Authentic & Real-time Community Engagement

People Buy From Engaged Brands

Engagement Correlates to financial Performance

From Social Brand to Social Business