Measuring the ‘sociability’ of a company

There is a need for a professional measurement criteria to determine how “social” a company is – or isn’t.

Below I have begun thinking about an approach to this issue by identifying the numerous reasons, or strategic rationales, why a company would want to be connected to it’s customers, prospects and the wider community.

1. Listen

Various social media channels allow companies to set up “camp” online and listen to what people are saying about them. It may be a Facebook fan page, a blog, a specialist forum site, a YouTube channel, or a Twitter account. There are numerous listening posts and some of these should be a foundation of a social media strategy.

2. Converse

Actually saying something of value to the community of friends/fans/followers/etc. is the next tangible step a company can take when they’re “being social”. This can take many forms and requires qualified and intelligent company representatives to be responsible for online publishing (this seems obvious but its amazing how poor some company/brand communicators are).
3. React

One of the biggest areas of opportunity to constructively use social media is when a crisis or negative issue arises. The banks, telcos, airlines and other major service-based organisations are the prime suspects in this matter. How a company responds to the issue via public social networks is often as critical to the outcome as the actual compensation or redress they offer the aggrieved customer.

4. Crowd-sourcing

An increasingly popular form of “being social” is to reach out to the community via social networks to invite ideas and feedback about a specific topic. It might be to come up with a new product name, or a home-made advertising campaign, or to conduct a test marketing program. There are many opportunities to use social networks to reach out to the community with the promise of rewards and publicity for those who “win” or have their entry broadcast to a wider audience.

5. Integrate

An essential element of a successfully social media strategy is how well your conduct in social media networks aligns your company or brand with all other customer communications. It’s potentially disastrous to act online as a highly “social” organisation if this does not match up with behaviours in other areas such as customer service, product availability, price competitiveness, green and philanthropic credentials, etc.

Can you nominate other strategies or tactics that a company can be put into action using social media? What other ways can a company “be social” online?

Integrated Marketing – what does it really mean?

One of the buzz phrases that’s been around quite a while is “integrated marketing” (not spelt “intergrated” as too many lazy authors write it).  So what does this phrase really mean in the multi-faceted media landscape we have today?

Back before the Internet became such a powerful and ubiquitous medium, this approach generally meant that your TVC/print ad/outdoor poster/point-of-sale creative all used the same core visual and copy line. This made sense so potential customers received a consistent brand message.

However, “integrated marketing” now means so much more than simply consistency in your creative execution. There is integrated media that aims to reach an audience across numerous channels, at different times and using a wide range of creative techniques. And there are integrated sales techniques that tracks the audience through the sales cycle, from initial enquiry to after-sales service.

In the past 10 years or so, the term has taken on further meaning: synergistic marketing tactics across digital channels and all other media. Even this has evolved from the early days of designing complementary banner ads and offline ads, to more focus on cohesive ‘messages’ rather than the visual creative elements.

I am interested to document and blog about successful (and even unsuccessful) “integrated marketing” campaigns. Would love to hear from anyone who can share their experiences. Pls submit your Comments below and I hope to get a few good examples to write about in a future blog post.