ENGAGING CUSTOMERS WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

Lecture: E-Marketing

Ass. Prof. Dr. Aykan Candemir

Omer Shabani

Burak Yavuz

Omer Yilmaz Ozdemir

Muzaffer Ozturk

HOW BIG IS SOCIAL MEDIA

POPULAR PLATFORMS

WHAT ARE LEADERS DOING?

There are number of companies leading the way with social media initiatives that achieve positive results in customer engagement.These businesses have either deliberately or organically invested in platforms that are aligned with their strategies and assets. Brands with a great deal of media content (such as Disney and BMW) tend to invest in YouTube more than those for whom community and functionality are paramount (such as Starbucks and Coca-Cola). Facebook is, in almost every case, the platform that attracts the greatest investment, while Twitter is a close second (and in some industries, first; 65% of financial services firms use Twitter)

STARBUCKS

Starbucks are actively engaging in

social media and are talking with

their customers through a number of

different channels. With their 700,000

followers on Twitter they are answering

questions, retweeting what people are

saying about the brand and engaging in

real conversations. To their 18 million

Facebook fans they upload content

to their fan page but also engage

with their customers by allowing

management of the customer’s

Starbucks card (e.g. checking balance,

reloading) and even allowing users to

upload credit to other customers’ cards.

Coffee giant Starbucks Coffee Co. is running the Frappuccino Happy Hour promotion, a location-based multichannel campaign offering discounts to consumers who express brand loyalty on social networks.

The Frappuccino Happy Hour promotion is being highlighted across all of Starbucks’ channels, including Twitter, Facebook, Brightkite, foursquare, YouTube, MyStarbucksIdea.com 

COCA-COLA

As a traditional top 5 brand Coca-Cola

would be expected to have a strong

presence in social media, and with

nearly 20 million fans it is one of the

most popular in the world. The page

was originally created by fans and

then adopted by Coca-Cola and used

to create the official site. Although on

first look it seems a normal fan page,

Coca-Cola have engaged customers by

allowing user generated content on the

site including photos and posts.

Coca-Cola Australia wanted to reach the half of the teenage market that hadn't had a Coke in the past year. Working with its agency Wunderman, the beverage company created a guerilla social marketing campaign. They printed 150 of the most popular names of people in Australia on Coke bottles and cans and invited Australians to 'Share a Coke' virtually through Facebook and mobile. Fans could add new names to cans. Coca-Cola Australia saw its Facebook traffic increase 870%, and earned 121 million impressions on the social network. In addition, the campaign had 76,000 virtual 'Coke' cans shared and 1,001 unique names on the interactive billboard in 17 hours.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For a growing number of consumers, social media is the preferred

means of gathering product information and interacting with

companies. Therefore, it is critical that organizations implement

effective social media programs as soon as possible. This paper

explores the impact of social media on the marketplace and

customer behaviors, and provides a six-step “road map” that

guides organizations through the process of implementing a

social media program. This paper also encourages companies

to carefully consider which department in their organization is

best suited to lead their social media efforts, and shares best

practices organizations can leverage to help develop and sustain a

comprehensive social media program.

STEP 1: FRAMEWORK

Implementing a successful social media program begins with a strategy to make social media a priority and a commitment of the resources necessary to launch and sustain such a program. Today’s technology savvy consumers expect organizations to engage with them in the sphere of social media.

STEP 2: CONNECT

Connecting is taking a genuine interest in people and building meaningful and enduring relationships that are grounded in trust and mutual benefit. It is listening to customers to better understand how they use products, actively participating in the conversation and adding value whenever possible.

STEP 3: ANALYZE

VOC data captured from social media listening posts contain valuable nuggets of customer information that, when isolated from the surrounding “noise,” can yield insights that organizations can leverage to improve processes, products and customer service.

STEP 3: INTEGRATE

While customer insights gleaned from social media exchanges are valuable in their own right, their full potential is unlocked when they are integrated with an organization’s Customer Service infrastructure. Sync’ing up social data with structured customer data stored in an organization’s Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) extracts maximum benefit from both sources.

STEP 5: ROUTING CUSTOMER FEEDBACK INTELLIGENTLY

To respond effectively to customer feedback and requests, companies must be able to quickly route inquiries to those agents in the organization that are most qualified to address the specific content areas.

STEP 6: REPORT

Not all departments in an organization are equally impacted or involved in the company’s social media program. Nonetheless, social media programs are an enterprise-wide endeavor, and many departments across the organization benefit by having access to social media data. Thus, reporting is an essential component of the social media strategy.