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SOCIAL MEDIA BASICS
FOR CONSUMER BRANDS
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How Brands Won Yesterday
Traditional
Communications
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How Brands Win Today
enable & support
“Active Feedback
Loop”Traditional
Communications
Social
Media
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Social Media Can Be Powerful
Social Media
Direct Dialog with Customers
Active Branding
Campaign Support
Improved Search
Crowd Sourced Insights
Crisis Manage-
ment
Customer Service
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Social Media Landscape
• Like conventional communications channels,
marketers have hundreds of social media properties
on which to engage with consumers
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The Social-Industrial Complex
• Unlike conventional communications, social media
tools for marketers are complex and intimidating
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Popular Social Media Outlets
• Even social properties which are most popular with
consumers can seem overwhelming to brand
marketers
• How’s a brand to know what path to take?
Google+
Tumblr
Flickr
YouTube
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Social Impact
• So, you have a facebook page?
• You’ve opened the door to consumers engaging
with you directly. Ready?
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Social Impact
• People are talking about your brand without your
knowledge, input or control
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Four Key Activities
① Listen
• Foundation for SM strategy
• ID communities of interest
• Capture sentiment real time
• Track marketing performance
② Engage
• Create a social media “Playbook”
• Be both proactive and reactive
• Support Brand Story
③ Analyze
• Consumer Insights
• Shopper Marketing Insight
• Competitive Intelligence
• Trends Analysis
④ Promote
• Integrate with offline
• Creativity inspires
• Multiple objectives
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Initial Metrics Thoughts
• Social Media offers new opportunities to gauge the performance of your investments
• Research methodologies have yet to solidify that empirically correlate social media engagement to CPG sales activity
• Primary SM metrics are designed to track engagement
• Remains a proxy for sales impact
• “Likes” and # of followers less important than quality of engagement
• Direct marketing measurements can be leveraged
• eCoupons, Contests, Promotions
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A Path Forward
① Align objectives and metrics for Social Media activities with overall brand communications objectives and activities
② Create an “active feedback loop” with broader listening to know where and how consumers want to engage with you
③ Respond as if you were being engaged with in-person
④ Develop a brand story and voice as the basis for a successful communications strategy
⑤ Create an engagement strategy/brand playbook as a foundation for your social efforts
⑥ Consider proactive promotion strategies using all communications channels, proven and yet-to-be-tested
⑦ Optimize activities relentlessly
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Key Considerations for Social Media
• Social Media best practices have begun to emerge– Developing a consistent brand “voice” drives familiarity and engagement
– “likes” and # of followers less important than quality of engagement
• Integrated communications across channels is important– consumers don’t differentiate where their information comes from,
just that it’s from a trusted source
• Foundational vs Campaign strategies– Social is a “way” of doing business that requires regular, ongoing stewardship
to be effective
– Campaign activity is only as effective as the foundation that’s been established
• Test and Learn approach is imperative to success– What approach will best resonate in which social channels
– Evaluate results of activities through the lens of specific measurement goals.
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For More Information, please contact:
Bill Hewson
203-610-4649
@billhewson