Let’s jump right in: With all this push for brands to “engage” in the social media space these past few years, the endless brouhaha of so-called Engagement strategies, bizarre measurement schemes like Return On Engagement and even the creation of new roles like Chief Engagement Officers and Engagement Strategists, you would think that engagement would be pretty high on every brand’s priority list by now.
More to the point, you would think that after 3 (and in many cases 4) years of building social media programs and managing online communities on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc., most companies would have this stuff kind of figured out.
We aren’t talking about really complicated stuff here. Being on Facebook isn’t exactly as demanding as conceptualizing then producing a great superbowl ad. There isn’t really a whole lot of complicated R&D involved. All you have to do is keep people interested and… engage them, whatever the hell that means. How hard is it to just listen to people and talk with them? That is what we’re talking about, right? Engagement? Listening, replying, being helpful and interesting? Being relevant? But mostly, it’s about having conversations with people? Helping them find stuff, do stuff, share stuff that matters to them and ultimately benefits both them and the brand? Isn’t engagement about fueling both interest and that precious exchange of attention that is the substance of social interactions?
“Monitor, engage, and be transparent; these have always been the keys to success in the digital space.” – Dallas Lawrence
“Build it, and they will come” only works in the movies. Social Media is a “build it, nurture it, engage them, and they may come and stay.” – Seth Godin
Right? We know this, don’t we? Or is there some confusion still about what engagement actually is, how it works, what it looks like?
AdAge this week published this follow-up piece by Matthew Creamer in which data from a study released last month by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute identifies a gap between engagement theory and engagement execution, primarily on Facebook. Evidently, it is easier to strategize about engaging with customers than it is to actually… do it.
Here is the punchline: According to the study, less than 1% of fans of the biggest brands on Facebook actually engage with these brands online.
How can this be? Don’t these brands have qualified social media directors and SVPs? Don’t the world’s biggest brands have brilliant social media strategies, content strategies and engagement strategies? Don’t they work with digital agencies that specialize in this sort of thing?
You can’t throw a cat on Facebook without hitting some kind of webinar or certification program promising to teach you how to engage with customers via social media. There is a social media #conference somewhere in the world almost every day. Have you looked at how many presentations about engagement and Facebook have been uploaded to Slideshare recently? Have you seen the change in people’s resumes in the last year? Everyone has 5-10 years of social media management experience now. (Yeah… time sure flies when you’re having fun. Magic!)
Again, I have to ask: How hard is it to just listen to people and talk with them? The content piece should be pretty easy: Copy, creative, slap a little photo or video, edit, publish, done. Everything else that isn’t back-of-house (monitoring, measuring, analyzing, correlating activity to outcomes) essentially amounts to the most basic social skills available to human beings: Saying hello. Asking questions. Answering questions. Talking about what people might be interested in. Paying attention. Making people feel like they matter, because in the end, they do.
Only 1% fan engagement. That’s it. Actually… maybe less than that:
To get to these findings, the researchers used one of Facebook’s own metrics, People Talking About This, the awkwardly-named running count of likes, posts, comments, tags, shares and other ways a user of the social network can interact with branded pages. It was unveiled last fall as a way of giving advertisers a sharper look at at the level of activity on their pages.
Researchers for the institute looked at this metric as a proportion of overall fan growth of the top 200 brands on Facebook over a six-week period back in October and they found the percentage of People Talking About This to overall fans to be 1.3%. If you subtract new likes, which only requires a click and in the minds of the researchers are akin to TV ratings, and isolate for more engaged forms of interaction, you’re left within an even smaller number: 0.45%. That means less than half a percent of people who identify themselves as like a brand actually bother to create any content around it.
Once the “click like for a chance to win a free iPad” campaign is over (or the agency you hired has just out and out purchased your fans from Chinese or Russian fan/follower mills) it’s more like 0.45%.
This begs the question: With Facebook inching towards a billion users worldwide and people spending an obscene amount of time there, billions of dollars of marketing spent to engage them on Facebook is only yielding 0.45% engagement? What the hell is going on?
My first reflex was to look for flaws in the study, and there may be ways of picking apart its findings. Fine. But then it occurred to me that I myself have very little engagement with my favorite brands on Facebook. Let’s go through the list: Apple, Sony, Starbucks, RayBan, G-Shock, Panerai, H&M, VW, BMW, Hyundai (don’t laugh), Nike, Delta Airlines, HBO, Ikea, Moleskine, Smalto, Brooks Brothers, Nestle, Menthos, Trader Joe’s, Pilot, Rudy Project, Specialized, Cervelo, Mizuno, Nutella… Okay, I’ll stop. You get the idea. When was the last time I interacted with any of them on Facebook? I can’t remember. How often am I completely blown off by that “brand” when I do bother to comment on their posts or share their content? Almost 100% of the time.
That sucks.
So I started asking around. Everyone I talked to responded in the same way. In fact, one of the human beings I regularly engage with on Facebook (when I am naturally not engaging with a brand) put it to me in as clear a manner as I could have hoped for. His name is Vincent Ammirato, and this is what he said:
I simply don’t interact with brands through social media. I interact with people. Not one of those top 10 passion brands does anything for me. So sure I’ll buy from them when, for example, I want to surprise the wife with a little blue box. But they aren’t my idols or friends. Their “news feeds” aren’t about issues that I care about. I could easily stop purchasing from any of them and be just fine.
The solution to brands struggling to establish a meaningful, valuable connection through social media channels (Facebook or otherwise) is contained entirely in this reply. Any SVP, Global Digital Engagement Strategery can reverse-engineer this short reply into a model for success in the space. It won’t take five minutes. You won’t even need to waste your time working with $20,000/hr social media experts. It’s all right there.
Simple problem, simple fix:
1. Own your relationships.
I have said it a hundred hundred zillion times: You cannot effectively outsource relationships. Of all the things brands can outsource to digital agencies and analytics firms, the one thing that cannot be effectively outsourced is the relationship they have with their customers. Social media are not the same as other forms of media. You can send a spokesperson or PR professional to hang out with journalists in your place and no one will find that weird or disingenuous. You cannot ask an agency AE to pretend to be you at a pig roast that you were invited to by your customers. Two different contexts entirely. Expectations of engagement in Social Media fall into the pig roast category. Your agency can hold your hand and stand with you, but you’re going to have to show up to the party yourself or people simply will stop inviting you.
Outsource everything else if you must, but own your relationships. No one can do this for you.
2. Engagement and Marketing aren’t the same thing.
Engagement on social media channels is not just a marketing communications function. Every single brand who has treated it as if it were is now finding out that treating engagement like marketing is yielding – yes, you guessed it: 0.45% actual engagement. Why? Because there is no natural impulse in human beings to interact with marketing day after day after day. As Vincent aptly puts it: I interact with people.
Do you see people hanging out at Starbucks with their favorite coupons? Do you think that changes because you repackaged your marketing to be “social” and pushed it out to Facebook?
Here’s something I need you to think about, uninterrupted, for maybe 90 seconds: Marketing on Facebook is fine. It’s great. But don’t confuse marketing with engagement. The two can go hand in hand when managed properly, but they are not the same thing. We all know that you have a marketing strategy in place for Facebook, but do you actually have an engagement strategy? 0.45% actual engagement means you thought you did but really didn’t. Back to the drawing board.
3. Stop thinking that content is the heart and soul of the attention economy.
In spite of what has been drilled into our collective brains by people who make a living creating content, content is not king.
“By creating compelling content, you can become a celebrity.” Paul Gillin
“Think like a publisher, not a marketer.” David Meerman Scott
No. First, the objective is not to become a celebrity. If becoming a celebrity is your objective, maybe managing a business or a Social Media/Business program for a brand isn’t for you. So cut the personal branding shit. It was already old 4 years ago.
Second, don’t think like a publisher. Or a Marketer, even. Think like a human being. Brands have been focusing on filling their Facebook properties with content and marketing for the last 4 years. What’s the result? 0.45% actual engagement. Think about it for a minute: Do you really think that the answer to the problem is more content or marketing? More publishing, even?
Reminder:
I simply don’t interact with brands through social media. I interact with people.
You aren’t going to out-content your competitors. You aren’t going to create “viral campaigns” every other week. And let’s be honest: You can’t compete against the endless flood of funny memes that drive most of the shares on Facebook unless you fire your entire marketing department and hire weird, slightly insane, socially irreverent interns whose jet fuel is a blend of pop-culure infused sarcasm and… Oh wait… their CVs would never make it past your HR department. They don’t have the requisite social media management experience. Never mind.
An easier way to fix the problem is simply to focus on the missing piece: How human is your brand, really?
4. Stop hiding your humans.
If I don’t know the name and face of the person managing your Facebook page, I am not going to interact with that page on a daily basis. Or maybe ever.
This may be the most important bit of insight I am sharing here today.
Let me illustrate my point: I know that Ford’s Social Media guy is Scott Monty. I know what Scott Monty looks like. Whenever I see his smiling, blue-eyed, bow-tie wearing profile picture in my stream, I look at what he is sharing. A picture of his sandwich? That looks delicious. I’m going to click on that. A picture of him at the Detroit auto show? Cool. I’m going to click on that too. An article about the Ford Mustang winning an award somewhere? Clicked. Read. Commented. Engaged.
The same content published/posted by a faceless account with the Ford logo as its avatar/identity? Ignored.
I have no idea who handles Nutella’s Facebook page. VW? Levi’s? Sony? BMW? Trader Joe’s? H&M? Not a clue. The result: Zero interaction. Why? Because people come to Facebook to interact with people, not brands or marketing or content or logos. It’s FACEbook. Give people some face, already. You actually need humans to humanize your brand. You can’t engage from behind a digital billboard with faceless account managers who never see the light of day.
You want to know who else is doing it right on Facebook? Mashable. How do I interact with Mashable’s content? Through Pete Cashmore. Same feed. The difference: Peter Cashmore is a human being. With a face and a name I know. With a pretty unique voice too, which I appreciate for its human quality.When Mashable’s content comes to me through him, I pay attention and interact with it. It’s that simple. Who else does this pretty well? Edelman Digital (Armano, Brito, Rubel). Dell (Binhammer). CNN. MSNBC. (Probably Fox News too.) At one time, Comcast (Eliason). Seesmic (Lemeur, for starters). Learn from them.
It bears repeating: If your customers don’t know who your social media “person” (the person they are interacting with) is, if they don’t know his or her name, if they don’t know what they look like, if they can’t see a face on that profile photo, they simply are not going to interact with that account, no matter how many iPads you promise to give away.
Going back to item number 1 on this list: if you outsource your account management, you have no chance of accomplishing this. None. Zero. 0.45% actual engagement is what you can continue to expect moving forward. No amount of marketing spend will change that. 0.45% Engagement is right on par with the level of engagement people have with a wall. If that’s all your Facebook account is – a wall – then don’t be surprised that nobody gives a shit. Invest in a human.
5. Either give a shit or don’t, but you need to decide.
Nobody minds that you are there to sell stuff. It’s understood. Hell, we want to be sold to. Have you seen what people willingly pay for an iPhone or a latte at Starbucks? Our cash is yours if you give us a good reason to part with it. We wouldn’t be clicking that like button if we didn’t acknowledge that we accept that you have something to sell. It’s what that initial handshake is for.
But if all you do is push PR content and marketing offers down our throats all day and don’t actually give a shit about who we are, what we do, what matters to us outside of the next transaction, you’re wasting your time measuring engagement. Just turn your Facebook presence into a store and stop wasting your time pretending to be “social.” You might actually increase conversions going that route. In fact, if that’s what you really want to do, stop wasting time creating boring content nobody cares about and just give us 20% off coupons. If all you are going to do is use Facebook as a marketing channel, you might as well save yourself the trouble and just cut to the chase.
Just remember that being “social” (meaning being genuinely interested in the engagement piece as a relationship-building process) can’t be faked. Don’t even try. It’s insulting and ultimately works against you in the social space. Either commit to it 100% or don’t even try. Nobody just half-cares about their customers or friends. Either be in or out. Either give a shit or don’t.
I can pretty-much guarantee though that if you show that you do truly care every single day, it will pay off in spades: Positive recommendations, customer retention, customer loyalty, more frequent engagement, deeper engagement, increased mindshare, increased wallet share… If you want these things, you can have them. It’s up to you to make it happen.
6. Be helpful.
Do something helpful for someone every day and you’ll have engagement. Publish boring marketing content to fill empty spaces because you probably ought to and you will be hanging out with crickets. Who does your content strategy serve again? Your marketing department or your fans? Real question. What’s the most helpful thing you’ve done on Facebook today? This week? This month? In the last year?
Yeah… That’s what I thought. You can do better than that.
7. Have a purpose.
A strategy without a purpose is kind of like an essay without a topic. Why are you on Facebook again? What’s the value of that to you? What’s the value of that to people you want to engage with there? Give that some thought. The clearer your purpose, the higher the degree of engagement. It’s that simple. 0.45% actual engagement screams “pointless” to me. Like content for the sake of content. Like marketing spend for the sake of not losing your budget next year. Like being on Facebook because… “everyone else is, so we thought we should be there too. We’re still figuring out what we want to do though.”
8. Don’t buy fans, followers, likes and subscribers. Ever.
And don’t encourage your CMO, Social Media Directors and agencies to do so by rewarding them for meeting fan acquisition quotas. We have talked about this. The profit margins on fake fans aren’t rocket science for providers of said “fans”. The horrible mess it causes for brands who end up with tens of thousands of fake followers and fans is terribly costly and in most cases irreversible from a measurement standpoint. These people will never buy from you. They will never recommend you to their friends. They will never contribute in any way to the success of your brand. The only two things they will actually do is guarantee zero engagement and screw up your conversion metrics for the next ten years. Don’t do it. Don’t allow yourself to step into that giant pile of digital marketing poop.
9. If nobody cares about your product, your digital content won’t magically fix that.
This one is kind of self-explanatory. Talk is cheap. Focus on creating real value. If people love your products, they will share that with each other. The SEO magic behind your content is irrelevant if nobody cares about your product. You can publish stuff all day long on Facebook and no one will care.
10. Don’t just think about vertical engagement. Think about lateral engagement.
If your engagement strategy involves responding to every query and mention yourself, you’re missing the point. (Though if only ten people say hi to you every day, you ought to be able to manage that.) A vibrant, healthy community doesn’t depend on the brand’s community manager to drive conversations. The fans should be handling 80% of the comments. They should be talking to each other more than they talk to your brand’s representative. That’s what supports scale in the social space. Think about how you can make that happen. You can’t have significant engagement or drive long-term momentum in the social space without a mechanism in place to support that conversation engine. The platform + content equation alone won’t do it.
This stuff really isn’t that hard. It’s as simple as walking into a crowded room and making friends, then coming back the next day and meeting their friends, and doing it again the next day. If you just listen to them today, you’ll know what to talk to them about tomorrow. Once they start sharing stuff with you, you’ll know what they want you to share with them. Relationship-building 101. Pretty much everything else you need to know is right here.
It has been all along.
Realistically, you are never going to see 100% engagement. Not even 50%. Shoot for 20% though. The 80/20 rule: 80% of your fans won’t comment. They’ll just watch and listen quietly. But 20% of them should naturally comment, share and participate. That’s what you want.
1% is embarrassing. Find a way to fix that.
* * *
If the Brandbuilder blog isn’t enough, Social Media ROI provides a simple, carry-everywhere real-world framework with which businesses of all sizes can develop, build and manage social media programs in partnership with digital agencies or all on their own. Do yourself a favor and check it out at www.smroi.net. Now available at fine bookstores everywhere. Also available in German, Japanese and Korean.
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Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
Someone suggested I hire a copywriter, as my style is kinda sketch. Negative,i spat. Praps and editor, but never would I presume to lead our tribe so lightly. Its the shamefully low ‘ give a shit’ level thats killing most business. Thats tragic.
Never employ copywriters. What you do is… what you do is you hire copywriters and promote them to editor. As long as they don’t drink more than a fifth of Scotch before 5pm, you’re probably okay.
I agree, but there’s also one other little thing.
How can I word this in a professional manner…Facebook is starting to suck.
The newsfeed is working against you whether you have a personal account or (heaven forbid) a page. If people and their friends are not interacting with whatever you put up, they will stop seeing it. Even if people do interact (or engage) with what you put up, it might get covered over because of all of the tying together of subjects (hi Pinterest, Santorum, SXSW, and Oscars). So, even if you do *everything* right on your page, you still might only hear crickets because of all of these danged edgerank doohickies.
Oh, also, I think pages dedicated to one person are daft and should be destroyed by a consortium of ewoks and euglena. But that’s a different story.
Yeah, what Marjorie said!! Great post as usual Olivier!
Agreed.
Totally agree, Facebook is definitely pushing for a pay-to-play model, where if you want to reach a significant amount of your audience, you’re going to need to advertise.
Excellent points all around though, Olivier!
Think Marjorie kinda nailed a big part of it – like you, I don’t do hardly anything with any brand after the like, even if they ARE doing everything ‘right.’ By sheer whimsy of the gods there was ONE time that a couple ads-disguised-as-helpful-content posts caught my eye and my mouse did some clicking. Now the posts and feeds and timelines are all changing, and soon we’ll have some new advertising to find ways for our brains to ignore.
It all boils down to why ‘social’ – what do you really want to gain from that? If it’s just about the marketing, then yes send me my 20% coupons (though of course Disney, Apple… I should just dream on). FB pages have become all about the marketing and I know no one who just sits around, waiting for the next sales pitch.
If you have a blog, use networks like FB and Twitter because you really want to be SOCIAL then #4 and #10 are where the rubber meets the road. Read something the other day addressed to the so-called ‘community’ managers reminding them that if their fans and followers don’t talk to each other, they’re an audience not a community. The problem for brands is that communities are made of people, humans make mistakes or worse, have opinions and personalities that aren’t ‘controlled’ by the brand machine.
‘Fans’ will get in bickering matches, have to be moderated; the ‘human face’ of the brand will send an errant personal tweet on the ‘official’ account; or they’ll post something a little ‘different’ that no one gets b/c it’s not boring, sanitized, homogenized for the buying masses and the fit hits the shan, the pundits call FAIL, blah blah.
People engage with people, not logos. Putting a person out there to speak for a brand – human, fallible, with their snarky humor, questionable spelling, and most dangerous of all, honest opinions they’ll actually share? I’m all for not hiding the humans as the few brand engagements I’ve had have been via humans (like an @Charter service tweeter). I just don’t know how many brands have the backbone, the stomach for what real engagement actually looks like. FWIW.
“if their fans and followers don’t talk to each other, they’re an audience not a community.” That’s genius. So true.
Just yesterday I saw an incident of a social media consultant building Facebook pages for companies then getting all of her daughter’s 900 friends to go like the pages. This is just like buying followers when your target demographic is 50-65 year old women and your page is full of teenagers.
Thanks for putting this all in perspective. Let’s hope enough people read this.
Seriously? Do her clients know?
Well said, Olivier!
I’ve been reviewing EMPLOYEE engagement strategies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_engagement
over the past few weeks, and believe there is some overlap in the Best Practices and strategies that you review here.
Granted that traditional corporate management types are troglodytes of social methods, but if they had social intranet venues – could these methods be used to drive employee engagement?
Example:
STOP HIDING HUMANS: – Memos drafted and anonymously signed “HR Department” are likely disregarded on sight – consider designating a face and a name to accompany relevant correspondence
OWN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS: an employee HR initiative perpetrated by consultants from Dewey, Cheatem & Howe will likely have zero long lasting impact, compared to one conducted by indigenous (genuine) organization leaders.
That just depresses me. Unfortunately, you’re right.
Great comments so far… My 0.02$:
I think “Community Manager” is a totally wrong term itself. A bunch of people in one room, who don’t know s**** about each other isn’t a community. It’s a bunch of people. And it’s up to you – the suave shmoozer, the entertainer, the showmaster – to BUILD a community out of these guys and girls not to manage some loosely connected people.
Before you need community manager you need community builder. And that’s a tought job. It’s also the reason, why the team of meme-nerds won’t help you in the beginning. Of course you need some up to date, tech savvy people who know about something the instant it gets famous. But you also need the guys who can rock a party in real life. Who stroll into a room of people they’ve never met before and walk home with a pocket full of numbers and new contacts.
Agreed 100%.
Spot on. This is why the name of one of my Twitter lists is called “social builders” and not “community managers” or “social media managers.” They’re building social movements. That’s how I identify them.
Awesome as usual, sir. What do you think about dumping business pages on Facebook, or Twitter accounts, in favor of just using personal accounts to share what the organization is up to?
I’m thinking #trending #topic trumps follower/friend counts any day of the week.
Dumping them? No. I wouldn’t. Keep them. Just make them work.
Think of it all as a hierarchy (or an ecosystem) of channels and pages. You don’t want to overcomplicate it by having a page for every product in your portfolio and then subsequent layers of human touchpoints for each one. You would need an org chart for your audience and that isn’t good. You have to keep it kind of tight and fluid at the same time.
Every business is different, so I can’t give you too specific a recommendation, BUT shoot for a balance of corporate accounts that serve as newsfeeds and meeting places, and employee accounts where the human touches will take place on a more human scale. 😉
Loved it. This needs to be posted on every agency and marketing soft-board. ‘Engagement’ has become just another overused word thrown into the marketing lingo smorgasbord these days. We’ve become so technical about using social media for profit, that we forgot what it’s main purpose was all along – to connect “people”. This article needs to be spread far and wide – will do my bit.
Thank you. 🙂
I cannot agree with you more Olivier. I’m always fascinated with your point of view. Also, I’ve been reading the comments on this post, as well as others, and I’m always impressed with the community you have on here. Many smart marketers engaging in quality discussion and cutting through the bs. I think this post can also tie nicely in with one of your other blog posts, the one about assholes. It would be mighty difficult to fix the engagement gap if you do not have the right people, with the right social skills, on the front lines.
Great post all around..this is one of the few blogs that I stop whatever I’m doing during my day to take time to read and comprehend what you are trying to say. I also thoroughly enjoy reading the comments your readers have post, as I use a lot of the same terminology talking to my superiors about social media and engagement.
I have the smartest readers on the interwebz, i think. 😀
Quite insightful and makes perfect sense. I’m guilty of neglecting pages myself once I’ve ‘liked’ them because there is no conversation.
What do you think of Alexandra Cousteau’s page? She’s a person and fans love to leave comments.
It’s clear now. As a newbie in the community management world, I see some of the mistakes I’m making. Metaphorically, it’s like freezing out in front of a camera when your picture is being taken. You don’t know how to act, or how to ‘be’ at that moment. Learning in the process and will apply this stuff. Thank you sir.
Oliver, one of the best posts that the team here @iGo2 have read over the last few months! Well done!
To us a Social Business starts within and then looks to engage its customers, partners and vendors. This idea is similar to the “old” idea of the Service-Profit-Chain whereby satisfied employees led to satisfied customers which led to satisfying profits. The Social Business has engaged employees which leads to engaged customers which leads to engaging profits.
Social business is one of the various sets of business strategies which enterprises must now build in to their overall business planning – aligned with their higher level Objectives and Goals. It’s not a goal in itself, but an enabler of other business outcomes. How important it is relative to other strategies depends on all the usual business planning considerations – industry, environment, competitors, customers, suppliers, substitutes, barriers to entry, barriers to exit etc etc.
Keep them posts coming – we’re listening and engaging mate!
Agreed. 🙂
Great post as always Olivier, really down to earth. In my local market I’ve heard so many noise about “increase engagement” and “connect with fans” but at the end, the same entities (agencies usually) that preach these concepts, are the ones demanding the big bucks for social media campaigns. What about conversations? What about the simple things in life that push us to spend dead hours on Facebook?
For some reason I’ll always prefer a simple, effective interaction mode with my brand’s fans vs. a really expensive app that will never get the same attention as the main wall / timeline.
There is another point in which I don’t agree with you (#4). For me, Pete Cashmore is that great guy who created Mashable, but right now is just the avatar of the twitter account. I don’t remember reading one of his articles nor his recommendations in the site. I guess this topic deserves its own discussion ;).
Again, thanks for sharing this, I haven’t seen so many bloggers with the guts to write this kind of stuff.
I’ve gotten similar comments about Pete Cashmore’s accounts. On Twitter, I agree. His Facebook account is different though. He accompanies a lot of his posts with personal little comments, shares pics of his girlfriend, etc. That’s what initially caught my eye, and for me it makes a difference. 🙂
Would you mind helping me better understand the distinction between the “personal branding shit” and humanizing the brand? My first reaction is that the latter encourages the former.
I’ve seen people with branded Twitter accounts (ala RichardAtDell) change companies, change the brand part of their handle (if Richard theoretically became RichardAtLenovo), and take their follower base with them. Even the phonedog/noah kravitz thing could be in this category.
That’s actually a really big question (or set of questions all rolled into one). I’ll try to keep it short.
1. Brands need to have an account continuity process in place when they do stuff like this. As much as I hope that Richard remains happily employed at Dell for years to come, there is always a chance that he will leave eventually. Better offer, taking a year off, big promotion, etc. What happens to that account, or more specifically to the followers of that account if/when that happens is a pertinent question.
“We’ll cross that bridge when it gets there” is not the correct answer. Companies need to have a specific plan in place to ensure continuity so that the next person who takes on his role can slip into it with as little friction as possible.
First: Establish rules regarding who the account belongs to. It doesn’t matter if the account belongs to the employee or the company. Both models work. Just be clear about it though.
Second, agree on who the followers belong to. Ideally, they belong to both. When the employee and the company part ways, they both get to keep that list. It’s up to the company to figure out how they want to make sure they don’t lose them if the account belongs to the employee.
Third, have a simple communications plan in place to announce the departure of employee x and his replacement (employee y). Get employee y online asap. Don’t lose momentum. Pick up where employee x left off. Make it seamless.
The more employees you have on Twitter, the less this matters. Consider the difference between a company that has one major “social media guy” and a company who engages with its audience and community through a dozen people. That first company has put all of its eggs in one basket. That’s not very smart.
Planning matters. 😉
2. The personal branding thing: Personal branding = turning a human being into a product. Humanizing the brand = putting a human face and voice between corporate communications and the public. Visually speaking: Personal branding = turning a face into a figurative logo. Humanizing a brand = replacing a logo with a human being’s face.
A lot of it goes to intent. That intent is conveyed through cues, some visual, some contextual.
Now I am going to confuse you: The two can happen simultaneously. An example of that is CNN’s Anderson Cooper. CNN has done a kick-ass job of creating a brand around Anderson. He’s a product now. He’s Anderson Cooper. He’s the A360 guy. The haircut, the clothes, the whole thing: The guy you see on TV is 100% a product now, with a logo, trade dress, brand attributes, etc. You could make an AC action figure and sell it. You could put his face on T-shirts, and they would sell. Having said that, his natural and candid style also helps humanize the CNN brand. Not in the way that CNN’s CEO could, but to some extent.
All of this to say that although creating a brand around an individual and humanizing a brand are very different processes, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
Excellent post, Olivier – like sharp, snappy dialogue from a classic Cary Grant vehicle (as all your finest work is).
I do agree that most clunky “engagement” attempts made by brands, both big and small, does stem from that awkward conflict between the sales and social minds.
Salut!
“Stop Hiding Your Humans” <–favorite header and section of this whole post! Loved the message too. (not that there wasn't other good content).
Something else worth musing about:
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"most basic social skills available to human beings: Saying hello. Asking questions. Answering questions. Talking about what people might be interested in. Paying attention. Making people feel like they matter, because in the end, they do.
"Nobody just half-cares about their customers or friends."
"This stuff really isn’t that hard. It’s as simple as walking into a crowded room and making friends, then coming back the next day and meeting their friends, and doing it again the next day. If you just listen to them today, you’ll know what to talk to them about tomorrow. Once they start sharing stuff with you, you’ll know what they want you to share with them. Relationship-building 101."
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I've learned (much to my surprise) that LOTS of people struggle with these things. Some people lack social epitude. Others lack social morals. Others don't know that valuing people is important, or don't care about people, or only half care. I have had many friends that only half cared about me. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that are relationship-challenged people making the decisions in companies with poor social engagement.
Great post, as usual. What makes this particularly interesting, imho, is how FB’s new offering of “reach generator” flies directly in the face of this. All those brands you listed above (surprised you didn’t put Nutella down three times) now can pay to be guaranteed to show up in your News Feed whenever you log in.
So, instead of seeing “what are my friends doing” when you log in, you’re going to be seeing (most likely) pretty irrelevant and impersonal content from these brands.
The first time it happens…no big deal, but when it is 30 brands, it is a tragedy of the commons scenario and the value of your News Feed just plummets.
There’s GOT to be a better way than interrupting people, right Mr. Godin?
I basically wrote that in this post, if you are interested. Of course, gave you a shout out.
http://jer979.com/igniting-the-revolution/fbinterruption/
Good points.
I just don’t think that interruption is necessarily the ideal model anymore. At least not when it comes to social. You want to embed yourself into the frame, not interrupt the flow of what was going on there. The interruption can work as a call to action, but the mindshare piece has to fit, click, and flow. It has to feel like it belongs there. It needs to become so much a part of the natural flow of information and discovery that you have to notice when it’s gone.
Very different model.
I would like to thank Geoff Livingston for Tweeting this post, which I might have otherwise missed.
I don’t work in the marketing/communications profession, so much of this is new to me. But Vincent Ammirato’s comment… it just makes so much sense to me. And you’ve done an excellent job building on that thought, Olivier.
So, thanks! Merci bien!
I abandoned my own business FB page for this reason. It felt pointless to have one if I did not have the time it would take for my engagement with fans to be meaningful. To me, having a faceless/engagementless FB account is tantamount to having a Twitter account that is connected to one of those automated doohickies that simply spits out adages but where there’s no interaction with followers, etc. Who are you? Why are you here really? I just tweeted that tonight. What’s “social” about that? What’s the point?
Reblogged this on Waving, not drowning.
I’d be interested to know from those people that have run their own Facebook pages, the types of content that really engaged people and provoked a response or action – and also how regularly you should post. I am a “fan” of Duane Reade chemist on Facebook and their updates are way too frequent and very mundane (at least half of them just talk about the weather)….
The best way to find out is to ask your community and see what they say. Super easy. You don’t need to guess or hire someone to tell you what it should be. Statistics won’t tell you either. Just ask. 🙂
Exactly.
Cracking post as always but one wee thing: while Scott Monty may catch your attention, it’s a bit unfair to praise Ford when their own Facebook page doesn’t ID who does the individual posts and the FB pic is the logo.
OK, so we know I love your posts but this is one rockin’. I just had this conversation yesterday with a client. I’ve been testing a couple of brands’ response (read: engagement) rates and yes, they suck. A couple are good. But the majority are so self-involved and too busy slapping themselves on the back at how “good they are at social media” it’s downright nauseating.
Also, most brands have forgotten the whole “social” part. This is true on FB or Twitter. They are still in broadcast mode. They better smarten up and stop paying these bunk gurus and agencies scads of money to inflate likes, follows, and spin creative BS about how much their fans love them.
I will be piggybacking on this post for my blog if you don’t mind. You got me fired up! Merci, Olivier.
I understand that 100% engagement on a Facebook Page is unrealistic… glad to see you put an actual target out there. I just looked at about 10 Facebook Pages from well known brands and I can’t imagine they’re anywhere near 20% — or even 10% for that matter.
Who is getting 20%? Who is doing it right?
I’m not privy to that kind of info. Certainly no one I have worked with, but I don’t manage their communities or pages, so I’m not sure what’s going on there.
At the end of your post, you say, “But 20% of them should naturally comment, share and participate.” Are there no examples of this? Where does this number come from?
(Not trying to be picky here… I’m curious to see if this is happening.)
Hi Olivier…really appreciate your post here.
I get what you are saying on “being human” and not “thinking like a publisher” or “marketer” for that matter. That said, going from a traditional marketing organization to writing truly authentic and remarkable content is a divide larger than the Grand Canyon for most companies (at least at this point).
Talking to senior-level marketers about “thinking like a publisher” (which I do often) is a necessary progression in moving them from a paid mindset to an owned, and hopefully earned media mindset. Ford is a great example of that. They took a lot of lumps over the years creating a number of renditions of MyFord magazines, newsletters and what not to get to the level they are at right now. If you talk to Scott I’m sure he’ll say it’s still a work in progress. Once they start understanding the power of authentic communications that are truly helpful and do not interrupt, then the possibility exists for your call on “being human”.
Regardless, it’s a process. Some companies get their quickly. Some people need a map and multiple shovels.
Thanks for the amount of time you took on this quality piece.
Best
Joe
Content Marketing Institute
Thanks, Joe.
I have such a busy Facebook personal page, I should start applying it to my work facebook. I guess we all get a little worried about offending or alienating a client or customer, we keep it quiet and tame. You gave me something to think about. if I can hold the attention and interaction of my personal facebook, I can do it on a business facebook. Thank you for the article, I will be putting your points to the test!
I couldn’t agree with this blog more. For a long time now I have heard nothing but regurgitated metrics and marketing theory about how to work the ‘social’ media for business. It all seemed strange to me, though I admit, I did try to put it into practice…and I got nowhere, until I learned to be social. I agree with brewer about having an audience versus a community of followers, people who will participate in INTERESTING dialogue and those who wont. I never figured out how to get more likes on Facebook and eventually deemed it as a meaningless concept. I eventually refocused my efforts on dialogue with others, rather than marketing, and have seen my interaction level increase.
Social media is not just a means to an an end. It is just something that you do. Something that you actively participate in. It’s kind of like a particular culture. It’s not something that you can create on your own, it’s something you are an active part of. Something that requires a particular level of participation and engagement. Something, just like social relationships, that requires a bit of respect for the listener. For example, if you choose to speak above your listener, you lose them, and you lose others (hence the reference to crickets). Cater to the level of your audience in language and content and more folks will arrive to listen and take part in the conversation. It’s natural human behavior.
Thanks for the great post!
Enjoyed your edgy clarity distinguishing engagement from sales messages, and the way you spelled out how you can’t outsource a relationship. I wonder how the CEO’s of the biggest companies will want to play though — or are they simply going to find someone in their firm to be the “face”; isn’t that just like outsourcing all over again? And then again, should they bother, when what really drives big business are other forms of communication?
I always wondered why people would engage with a big brand anyway (why even visit the Tide website — maybe for stain removal ideas?), except to get a deal or to complain (I’ve been complaining about the new Musketeers bar on Facebook for months with no answer from the company).
I also took a look at Mashable’s page, one of your examples. It seems that on their page, you really have no idea who’s doing the posting. The subscribe tab is the only clue as to who’s behind the page. So I’m still wondering about the relationship between the personal and the fan page, and how to make them work according to your ideals? Is the page really just a company placeholder on Facebook — the building if you will, while the personal page is where the real engagement should be happening (while keeping certain communications private)?
One of the things that always makes me smile when I read many posts like this is the way in which the author completely blows themselves out of the water because they never reply to the comments.
It was refreshing to see someone that replies instead Oliver – in fact walking the walk rather than just talking the talk. As you rightly say there are too many people who are purporting to be ‘social media experts’ who talk about ‘metrics’ and ‘engagement’ as if they are something you can just buy in.
Social media is about personality and if you have no personality and no way of communicating that then you have no engagement. Be natural, be real, be you and above all be interested in other people.
To be successful in this area you need to all the things you have said and I’d add one more ‘be curious and nosey’ – it is this that enables us to start conversations and maintain them because it requires you to actually like other people and want to find out more about them. I’d also remind people (and brands) that ‘it’s not about you’ 🙂
Thanks for refreshing my perspective 🙂
Well, some of us are here to share ideas and have a discussion, and others are here to boost their SEO so they can sell ad space, push affiliate links, and jack up their clout (properly spelled) in order to get more media exposure. While I don’t necessarily find the latter model all that awful, it’s a self serving box of crap if you don’t mix in the first model as well. 😉
Cheers, Linda.
You’re welcome Olivier – as you say self serve/or serve others – I know which I prefer and I love it when I come across someone else that does it too, like you 🙂
On the money with this article Oliver – I’m always harping on about these points and it’s refreshing to see it all in print. LOVE your stuff
Thank you, Richard.