I’ve noticed a surge in discussion on the topic of engagement lately. And a flood of invitations to my inbox asking me to attend webinars or download white papers claiming to offer best practices on how to better interact with stakeholders and several new tools that allow you to respond to tweets in near real-time.
But engagement is nothing new in PR—public relations has always been about engaging with key audiences and establishing relationships, about distributing information and analyzing responses, and about building a dialogue with constituents. What is new is all the opportunities that social media now provides for this type of interaction.
Forrester estimates that the total number of online user-generated impressions about products and services exceeded 500 billion in 2009.
Companies that capitalize on these opportunities to engage can see high returns on those efforts. A study conducted by the Altimeter Group and Wetpaint found a direct correlation between financial performance and social media engagement. Companies that go deep and wide into social media are more successful financially than their peers in both revenue and profit performance.
The data also supports the notion that focusing on depth over breadth is the key driver. In practice, this makes sense: it’s almost impossible to keep up with the flow of information and engage with every Facebook post or tweet. Also, companies need to realize that once they start a conversation, they have to finish it—you can’t jump off mid-thread if the conversation starts to go in a direction you’d rather it didn’t.
The real challenge is in determining which comments warrant a response. Who is this person? How influential are they? Do others look to them for guidance and advice? In other words, should they be on your “A-list” for targeted outreach? Clearly, focusing on these people would yield a more efficient engagement model.
It should come as no surprise that the vast majority of online comments are made from a minority of heavy users, but it’s even more skewed than the 80/20 rule. In fact, what Forrester calls “Mass Influencers” make up 16% of online adults or 11m people and are responsible for 80% of all the influence impressions in social networks. These are the people who create impressions about brands on Twitter and Facebook and who create and share content via YouTube, blogs, forums, and review/ratings sites. They are more likely to read others’ Tweets, ask for opinions from other users, and say that other users seek their opinion.
Analysis tools exist that provide a more advanced way of looking at engagement by focusing on the key influencers for a particular company, product, or issue. The algorithms employed may differ but most utilize some combination of reach (the size of their audience), resonance (their ability to drive conversations), and relevance (how closely what they write matches your search terms).
Use of influence analysis can enhance the simple filtering capabilities of traditional media contact databases. As a result, large CRM players like Salesforce.com and SAP have started to include social media metrics into their datasets so companies can identify influential clients and create brand advocates.
So, you can try to respond to every tweet and be prepared to carry those conversations to the end or you can spend time identifying the key influencers for your brand and focus on cultivating those relationships.
What’s your approach to engagement—shotgun or laser?
Greg,
Good points. When brands begin to engage with consumers online there is a tendency at first to want to reach out to as many people as possible unless a strong ‘response criteria” is put in place right from the start.
At Visible, we often work with our clients, whether they are in customer service, marketing, public relations, etc., about the need for “Disciplined Engagement.” That is the need for brands to understand who and why they are engaging before doing so.
While every voice on the Web is important to listen to – that is not always the case when it comes to actionable response.
Mike Spataro
Enterprise Client Strategy
Visible Technologies
Greg,
Exactly right.
The search engines of today will have to evolve to the laser focus engines of tomorrow,……or we’re all in great danger of drowning in our best-intentioned data gathering.
And, how do we continue to understand that we are constantly “competing” for the eyeballs and gray matter of our influencers. Traditional comms tactics and strategies are fast becoming a waste of time and budget. Going through the motions of communicating the expected way will not get us required results.
In the end, relationships will become the ultimate “filter” and determinant of value.
Hi Greg,
The tweets and posts that matter most are not from ANY 16% slice of the online population. The tweet or post that truly matters most is the one that just praised or derided your company, product or brand this morning.
While tracking Mass Influencers has value for aggregate research purposes (disclosure: I ran an online research firm), listening and responding to individual consumers is far more powerful.
The hotel guest posting complaints about an unclean bathroom creates an immediate opportunity for the hotelier to discover and appease the disgruntled guest. The hotel may then choose to publish the problem and solution on their own blog, to show how responsive (and social media savvy) they are. Or a competing hotel can pounce on the same disgruntled guest offering a free (fill in the blank) or other discount to lure them away – maybe even offering to check in across the street tonight!
New social media applications now allow us to find and engage the single voice that matters most in the moment, not in aggregate. That’s using social media to solve business problems – and save or create customer revenue. And isn’t revenue the ultimate business metric?
Jack Serpa
Executive Vice President
Engage121