Social Networking

Lecture 3
 Things we are going to learn here
• Social media and Social networking
• Popular Social Networks
• Capabilities of Social Media
• Tracking social media campaigns
• Using social media to solve business challenges
• When to talk (and when not to)
• Step-by-step guide for recovering from an online brand attack
• Social media risks and challenges
 Social Media

Social Media are media that are designed to be shared. Sharing

means that it easy to comment on, send and copy the media,
and that there are no high costs associated with this.

Social media are also referred to as Web 2.0, consumer-

generated media, citizen media and new media.

The realm of social media is about collaborating, creating

content, sharing and, most of all, connecting.
Difference between Traditional and Social Media
 Social networking

Social networking refers to forming and maintaining online social

networks for communities. The communities are people who
share real-world connections, interests and activities, or are
interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.

Social networking allow users to create personal profiles and then

interact with their connections by sharing media, sending
messages and blogging.

In addition, organizations – anything from businesses to bands

and charities – can also create and maintain profiles on many of
these networks.
 Social networking

Social networks can be general, such as Facebook, or niche,

such as LinkedIn.

Users of social networks reveal a great deal of information

about themselves, from basic demographics such as age,
gender and location, to detailed lists of likes and dislikes. They
are also divulging this information to the networks, and hence
to the networks’ advertisers to allow more relevant targeting.
 Facebook

Facebook has become the most dominant personal social

network in the world.

According to official figures, over 1 billion people are now

registered on the platform – that’s one in every seven
humans on earth – and more than half of them are active on
Facebook every day (Facebook, 2013).

Because people are spending so much time on Facebook,

advertisers and marketers naturally want to capitalize on this
audience.
 Facebook features
Page Applications Like button

Facebook competition and promotion

 Google+
• Google+ is Google’s answer to social networking giant Facebook, and is slowly but surely
being integrated into all of Google’s products.

Google+ profile

Google+ circles
 Twitter
Twitter was created in March 2006. As of July 2014, Twitter has more than 500 million
users, out of which more than 271 million are active users.

Twitter hashtags
 Blogging

A blog is a website where entries (blog posts) are typically displayed in reverse chronological
order.

Blogs usually allow readers to comment on blog posts. A typical blog will feature text, images
and links to other related blogs and websites.

Blogs can be about anything – from personal journeys to political commentary and everything
in between. They can be written by one person or by a group or company.
 Blogging

The basic elements of a blog post are:

Author: the person who wrote the blog post.
Title: the title of the blog post, which is usually used to create a unique URL, or permalink, for the
blog post.
Comment: the comments left by readers of the blog, usually shown below the blog post.
Categories: blog posts can be allocated to categories.
Archives: previous posts remain available for visitors to search through, and are usually categorized
by date.

Blogs can be very successful marketing tools. They’re an excellent way to communicate with staff,
investors, industry members, journalists and prospective

Microblogging
Microblogging is a form of blogging that allows a user to publish short text updates,
usually limited to 140 characters, that can be viewed by anyone or restricted to a
specific community. The most popular microblogging service is Twitter.
 Podcasting
• A podcast is a digital radio (or video) program downloadable from the Internet. It is possible
to subscribe to a podcast as one would to a blog.
• A podcast is similar to a radio program with key differences. Listeners can to tune into their
favorite shows at their convenience and listen to podcasts directly on their iPod or their
personal computer.
• ‘Podcatching’ software allows you to download the latest edition of any podcast you
subscribe to automatically.

Measurable

Boundary
Targetable
free
However, the content must be excellent, real and
Podcast
valuable.

Relatively
Controllable
inexpensive
 Capabilities of Social Media
Free content creation

Image sharing
Video sharing
Using social media to solve business challenges
 Using social media to solve business challenges

Communication and outreach: Unlike other options, social media offers brand an
effective two way communication and real-time broadcast channel. This bi-directional
communication is what makes social communities so exciting (and challenging).
Businesses, governments and other organizations use Twitter and Facebook to
broadcast timely messages, allowing interested parties to keep informed in real-time,
such as breaking news events such as elections, disasters and global sports.

Community management: This feature of social media can be used to build and
maintain a community around, or supported by, your organization. Creating, building
and nurturing a community means that organizations don’t just participate in
conversations that are happening around and about them, but also actively lead and
guide those conversations.

Reputation management: Brands can use social media in two ways to manage their
online reputations – first, by monitoring what customers and fans are saying to identify
issues proactively; and second, as a means of communicating and getting their side of the
story out.
 Using social media to solve business challenges

Search engine optimization (SEO): Social media plays an important role in SEO. It provides
additional assets that can be optimized so that a brand ‘owns’ the results page for searches for
their brand. A savvy SEO strategy will also make use of social media assets, links and likes for
strengthening the position of other web assets in the search engine results pages

Insight and research: ORM tools help you to track mentions and sentiment, giving you insight
into how you are perceived. Using social network ad planners, such as Facebook or YouTube’s
offerings, can give you rich information about the size of your market, and things that they like.
You can measure sentiment and the changing number of mentions to help you understand the
impact of other campaigns.

Advertising and awareness: Where there is an audience, there is advertising. Adverts can be
targeted based on the profile information that individuals provide, either directly or through
their actions on the social network.
This is a dynamic space, as the networks experiment with different formats and models.
Using social media to solve business challenges

Sales and lead generation: Adding a social layer to a commercial transaction can create a richer
experience for online consumers. Levi’s Friends Store (store.levi.com) is an example of the
former. Visiting the website while signed in to Facebook allows you to see which of your friends
like which styles. Levi’s can then present this information with data that includes your friends’
upcoming birthdays. This is useful feedback for you, as you can see which styles are more
popular among your friends, as well as users in general. This provides insight for Levi’s on which
styles are more popular than others.

Support and customer service: Social media is becoming an additional customer service
channel as it also respond to customer queries in the social space, as they would do through
a call centre or email.
Some customers have found that problems or questions on social media tend to be resolved
more quickly, as brands are wary of having unresolved issues left out in public.
Interestingly, customer service in social media channels starts to become collaborative, with
customers assisting each other and, in doing so, reducing the reliance on the organization for
support.
 Documents and processes
• Content plan:
• Successful social content must be interesting, relevant, shareable and remarkable.
• To start creating a conversation calendar, you should plot everything that is relevant to your
community. This could include public events, dates and anniversaries, or events and
communications already planned by your organization.
• You should also use your conversation calendar for reporting. Keeping track of interactions
and responses to your planned posts will help you to determine what kind of posts your
community responds to, what days are best for posting, and what frequency works best for
your community.
• However, it should not replace spontaneity – this is a conversation, after all!
 When to talk (and when not to)
When negative things are being said

Negative statements should be understood as broken brand promises. There is

underperformance on expectation, and it must be dealt with as a matter of high priority.
During this period, brands need to be very careful not to stir up any more conversation than
is absolutely necessary.

By complaining, this customer is, often unwittingly, giving the company the opportunity to
make things right, and is probably indicating where the company can improve.

If a complaint is online, the resolution should be there as well, although you can try to have
it taken offline first. Even though the customer service will likely take place either over email
or by phone, posting a personalized comment in a blog post, for example, will demonstrate
to the community that the company listens, responds, and serves the critical objective of
actually resolving the underlying issues.

If a criticism involves false information, it should be corrected. And if the criticism is true,
then it should be dealt with as such.
 Step-by-step guide for recovering from
an online brand attack
Step 1: Be prepared: No brand is immune from an online brand attack. The best brands have
strategies in place to identify a reputation crisis immediately and respond to it quickly enough to
stop the negative word of mouth spreading.
This can be done by making use of blogs, communicating with customers, and being as
open and honest as possible.

Step 2: Act immediately!

The easiest way to solve most brand attacks is to respond quickly. A brand that shows it is listening
and does indeed care will go far when it comes to ensuring a solid online reputation. Acknowledge
what has been said and react accordingly.

Step 3: If what they’re saying is false...

If the attack on your brand is factually incorrect, send the person evidence that they are wrong,
and in a friendly tone, ask them to remove or retract the entry, and offer to keep them informed
of future news. If the person doesn’t react or respond, add a comment.
Cultivating a loyal community of fans can help immensely when clearing up false information. You
will look much more credible if your fans back up your statements
 Step-by-step guide for recovering from
an online brand attack
Step 4: If what they’re saying is true...
If the mention is negative but true, send your side of the story and try as hard as you can to
take the conversation offline. If appropriate, apologise and offer to make amends.

Step 5: Keep the negative pages out of the search engines

Keeping more people from reading negative things about your brand is imperative. Knock
them off the first page of the results with basic SEO and some social media pages, such as
Facebook, Twitter or blog posts. Keep adding pages and links until you’ve forced the
offending pages out of sight.
Is Social Media can be use as a sales
Channel?

Answer
is ‘NO’

Social Media impact your sales, but its not as direct as you
think.
 How to engage to Social Media ?
People come to Facebook for socializing, to talk to engage not to
see more ads.

So give them the opportunity to engage with your brand and not
throw your products at their news feed.

Show the goodness of your brand and what they stand for
rather than a bunch of photos of your products.

Use 20% of your images on the text or else it won't be

appreciated by Facebook community
 How to engage to Social Media ?
1. A good content can always makes people engage.

So rather than making a sales post engage people with emotion or

information that gives them value.

2. Tell people stories about your brand.

Also, find external links that connect with your brand.

3. Check the insights of your page see when is the best time when your audience is online.

4. Compare your page with others and see how your page is doing.
How to engage to Social Media ?

5. Try to observe and collect information from them about

things that interests them.

6. Boost your own adverts rather than hiring others for it

initially because nobody knows your customer more than
you do.

7. Measure the results by yourself, see which one is

working and which one is not working.

8. key is to be consistent; consistent with contents.

Check the insights of your page see when is the best time when your audience is online.

Source : http://www.johnhaydon.com/13-ways-boost-your-facebook-reach-
without-spending-dime/
Check the insights of your page see when is the best time when your audience is online.
Compare your page with others and see how your page is doing.
The Psychology of Social Media