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Social Relationship Strategies That Workby Nate Elliott, November 17, 2014

For: Marketing Leadership Professionals

Key TaKeaways

you Don’t Really Have a social Relationship with your CustomersMarketers use social networks like Facebook and Twitter to engage customers and prospects -- but it’s not working. Top brands’ Facebook and Twitter posts reach only about 2% of their fans and followers, and less than 0.1% of fans and followers interact with each post. Marketers need to rebuild their social relationship strategies around sites that work.

Option 1: add social Relationship Tools To your Own siteUS online adults who want to stay in touch with your company are almost three times more likely to visit your website than to engage you on Facebook. So smart marketing leaders are using their own brand sites as the center of their social relationship strategies. Branded communities, blogs, and social hubs all give fans a chance to engage.

Option 2: Use smaller social Networks That Offer Reach and engagementFacebook and Twitter may not offer the relationships marketing leaders crave, but they’re not the only game in town. For instance, savvy marketing leaders have found that Instagram-focused relationship programs offer outstanding reach and engagement. We believe brands will find relationship opportunities on other emerging social networks as well.

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For Marketing Leadership proFessionaLs

wHy ReaD THis RepORT

Marketing leaders use social networks like Facebook and Twitter to build stronger customer relationships. But few people see companies’ social posts, and even fewer engage with those posts. The result? Brands don’t actually have social relationships with their customers. It’s time for marketers to start building social relationship strategies around sites that can deliver value. This report will detail where brands can successfully reach and engage their customers, what social relationship strategies they should use, and what this means to the future of social marketing.

table of Contents

your social Relationship strategies aren’t working

Build your social Relationship strategy around sites That work

option 1: add social relationship tools to Your own site

option 2: Use smaller social networks that offer reach and engagement

What it Means

Facebook and Twitter are No Longer The Center Of The social Universe

supplemental Material

notes & resources

Forrester interviewed 13 vendor and user companies, including adobe, analog devices, Code and theory, Facebook, hootsuite, kenshoo, Livefyre, Life technologies, pinterest, rei, sapient, shoutlet, and tyler technologies.

related research documents

integrate social into the Marketing radarseptember 24, 2014

Why Facebook is Failing Marketersoctober 28, 2013

the post process drives social successoctober 1, 2013

social Relationship strategies That workhow to succeed in social as organic reach Falls toward Zeroby nate elliottwith Luca paderni and Collin Colburn

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social relationship strategies that Work 2

© 2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited November 17, 2014

yOUR sOCiaL ReLaTiONsHip sTRaTegies aReN’T wORKiNg

Marketers thought social networks would revolutionize their customer relationships — that’s why Twitter accounts and Facebook pages are, by far, brands’ most common social tactics (see Figure 1).

But if you’re like most marketing leaders, you’re still struggling to generate business value from social relationship marketing. Just 55% of marketers who maintain a Facebook page are satisfied with the results.1 Marketers who use Twitter say it doesn’t perform much better.2 What’s the problem?

■ Few people actually see your posts. Top brands’ Facebook posts reach just 2% of their fans — and Facebook has admitted the number is likely to fall further.3 Multiple industry sources have confirmed that organic reach on Twitter is just as low.

■ Even fewer engage with your posts. Facebook gave up on engagement, and little wonder: On average, only .073% of top brands’ Facebook fans interact with each of their posts.4 The numbers are even lower on Twitter and most other social networks.5




Figure 1 Branded Twitter Accounts And Facebook Pages Remain Marketers’ Favorite Social Tactics

Source: Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution prohibited.113002

“Of the following social marketing tactics, please indicate which you are currently using:”

Note: Not all responses are shown.Source: Forrester’s Q1 2014 Social Marketing Online Survey

Base: 66 interactive marketing professionals

YouTube account

Pinterest account

Instagram account

Tumblr blog

Vine account

Offer social sign-on to our website

Run paid social ads

Maintain a branded blog

76%Encourage advocates to spread word of mouth

82%LinkedIn account

82%

Twitter account

92%Facebook page

95%

67%

64%

Encourage in�uencers to spread word of mouth 61%

Google+ page 58%

Accept customer ratings and reviews on website

Pay to promote brand’s social posts

Host a branded community or forum

Collect social content about our brandfor bene�t of our customers

55%

52%

48%

36%

35%

29%

21%

20%

17%

BUiLD yOUR sOCiaL ReLaTiONsHip sTRaTegy aROUND siTes THaT wORK

It’s clear that Facebook and Twitter don’t offer the relationships that marketing leaders crave. Yet most brands still use these sites as the centerpiece of their social efforts — thereby wasting significant financial, technological, and human resources on social networks that don’t deliver value.




Marketers should update their social relationship strategies today to overcome the growing challenges of Facebook and Twitter as well as gain a vital advantage over competitors committed to outdated tactics. The stark reality is that brands that want to build valuable social relationships with their customers have only two options:

■ Add social relationship tools to their own site. Far more people engage with their favorite brands on company websites than on Facebook or Twitter.6 That’s why smart marketers are building relationships with branded blogs, branded communities, and social hubs.7

■ Use smaller social networks to build relationships. Facebook and Twitter may fail to deliver customer relationships, but they’re not the only social sites in town. Savvy marketers are increasingly focusing on Instagram and other social networks with higher engagement rates.8

Option 1: add social Relationship Tools To your Own site

Some social marketers believe the best tactic is to “fish where the fish are.” But your Facebook and Twitter posts don’t reach hundreds of millions of people; in fact, they don’t even reach the vast majority of your fans and followers. And US online adults who want to stay in touch with your company are almost three times as likely to visit your site as to engage you on Facebook (see Figure 2). That’s why smart marketing leaders have found success building social relationship programs into their own sites.

■ Sony built a social microsite to better engage PlayStation loyalists. Sony’s first job when launching the PlayStation 4 was engaging and upselling its existing customers. So the company worked with Livefyre to build a social-focused microsite. GreatnessAwaits.com featured official blog posts, hosted exclusive PlayStation 4 news and content, and aggregated social posts about the product from more than 75,000 loyalists.9 The result: Brand fans visited the microsite 4.5 million times, engaging for 4 minutes per visit, and PlayStation 4 outsold its biggest competitor by almost a two-to-one margin.10

■ Analog Devices uses a branded community to make its B2B customers more loyal. The semiconductor manufacturer launched its EngineerZone community to help customers get more value from their purchases. Thousands of people use the site to share ideas, answer each other’s questions, and read blog posts and FAQs from Analog executives.11 The company cross-posts some EngineerZone content onto Facebook, but the community offers a bigger audience: Many posts and threads collect more readers than the brand’s entire Facebook fan base.12 Better yet, 90% of EngineerZone users say the community is helpful to their design process, and 76% say the community makes them more likely to buy Analog’s products again in the future.13




Figure 2 Fans Prefer To Stay In Touch Using Brand Sites, Not Facebook Or Twitter


“In which of the following ways do you keep in touch with brands that you likeor that you purchase from regularly?”

Source: Forrester’s North American Consumer Technographics® Customer Life Cycle Survey 1, 2014

Base: 4,529 US online adults (ages 18+)

I visit or follow the brand on anothersocial site (e.g., Google+ or Instagram)

I visit their Twitter page or followthe brand on Twitter

I subscribe to the brand’s SMS or MMS list

I receive the brand’s emails

I go into the physical location (e.g.,store, shop, or branch of�ce)

45%I visit their website

35%

29%

I am a member of their loyalty/rewards program 24%

I visit their Facebook page or becomea Facebook fan of the brand

16%

I subscribe to the brand’s postal mailing list

I use the brand’s mobile app

I visit the brand’s online community

12%

11%

10%

8%

6%

5%

Option 2: Use smaller social Networks That Offer Reach and engagement

Sure, Facebook and Twitter don’t deliver most of your messages and fail to create engagement with your customers — but that’s not true of every social network. For instance, top brands’ Instagram posts generate a per-follower engagement rate 58 times higher than their Facebook posts and 120 times higher than their Twitter posts (see Figure 3).14 Marketing leaders can exploit smaller social networks to build strong relationships with their existing customers.

■ REI collects user-generated Instagram posts to keep its customers engaged. In 2013, the outdoor retailer realized that Facebook was generating far less engagement than Instagram. So REI developed the 1440 Project to serve as the centerpiece of its social relationship strategy. The brand encourages customers to spend as much time as possible outside and to post Instagram photos of their adventures with the #REI1440Project hashtag. So far, the program has generated more than 100,000 photos and more than 500,000 site visits.15 REI’s Instagram photos deliver




almost 3,000 times more engagement per follower than its Facebook posts.16 And yet, this strategy helps rather than harms the company’s Facebook efforts: When REI shares 1440 Project content on Facebook, it earns 42% more likes than the brand’s other Facebook posts.17

■ Brand opportunities will emerge on other social networks as well. Instagram works as the centerpiece of REI’s social relationship strategy, but other brands may choose to look elsewhere. For instance, Nordstrom has 55% more Pinterest followers than Facebook fans and tracks those Pinterest followers’ engagement to help design its merchandising strategy.18 And while we don’t expect Instagram’s phenomenal engagement rates to last, we believe other social networks will emerge to offer marketers similar relationship opportunities. The key for brands will be to quickly identify which emerging social networks offer greater engagement and which social networks are fading — and to just as quickly shift their efforts from one network to the next.

Figure 3 Smaller Social Networks Like Instagram Can Help Brands Build Relationships


Users interactions with brands’ posts as a percentage of brands’ fans or followers

Facebook

Source: Forrester’s Q1 2014 US Top 50 Brands Social WebTrack

Twitter

Base: 3,135,839 user interactions on 2,539 brand postsacross seven social networks

4.213%

.035%

Instagram

.073%

Pinterest

Google+

LinkedIn

YouTube

.097%

.069%

.054%

.041%

w h at i t m e a n s

FaCeBOOK aND TwiTTeR aRe NO LONgeR THe CeNTeR OF THe sOCiaL UNiveRse

For nearly a decade, Facebook and Twitter have been synonymous with social marketing. But while they’ll continue to collect billions in display ad revenues, they’re just not the most important sites for social marketers anymore. In the next two years:

■ Social marketers will finally stop obsessing over Facebook. Let’s be clear: We’re not predicting the demise of Facebook. After all, the site offers about one-third of all the display ad impressions online.19 But Facebook’s decade of dominance in social marketing is ending.




Smart brands like Analog Devices and REI are finally deprioritizing Facebook and shifting their social resources to sites that deliver real customer engagement.20 In the next 18 months, other social marketers will follow suit — and Facebook will become nothing but a repository for display ads.21

■ Cross-posting will save your social programs. Want to have fun? Tell your agency you plan to post the same content on every social network. They’ll go nuts and tell you each network has a unique audience and demands unique content. They couldn’t be more wrong; cross-posting is one of the best ways to improve your social efforts. Our data shows that brands that cross-post content between Facebook and Google+ generate about the same engagement rates as those who don’t.22 And good content can work anywhere: REI’s 1440 Project posts outperform its other content everywhere we looked — including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.23 So don’t slave over original content for social sites that don’t deliver value; dedicate your resources to the social sites that actually work and simply cross-post from those sites into Facebook, Twitter, and other low-engagement networks.

■ Marketers will use Facebook and Twitter ads as email companions. Many marketers felt cheated when Facebook started reducing brands’ organic reach. But the fact is, most brands’ Facebook fans are existing customers rather than new prospects.24 And just as a well-timed email to an existing customer can encourage them to buy again, so can a well-executed promoted social post. In the next few years, Facebook and Twitter ad spending won’t appear in the social line of marketers’ budgets; it’ll more commonly appear in the customer relationship management (CRM) line, next to loyalty programs and email marketing. For instance, Las Vegas casino operator MGM Resorts International uses CRM data to target users through both email and custom audience-targeted Facebook ads. The result: Facebook marketing that actually works.25

sUppLeMeNTaL MaTeRiaL

Methodology

Forrester’s North American Consumer Technographics® Customer Life Cycle Survey 1, 2014 was fielded in March 2014 of 4,541 US individuals ages 18 to 88. For results based on a randomly chosen sample of this size, there is 95% confidence that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 1.5% of what they would be if the entire population of US online adults (defined as those online weekly or more often) had been surveyed. Forrester weighted the data by age, gender, income, broadband adoption, and region to demographically represent the adult US online population. The survey sample size, when weighted, was 4,529. (Note: Weighted sample sizes can be different from the actual number of respondents to account for individuals generally underrepresented in online panels.) Please note that respondents who participate in online surveys generally have more experience with the Internet and feel more comfortable transacting online.




For Forrester’s Q1 2014 US Top 50 Brands Social WebTrack, we studied official social profiles for Interbrand’s top 50 global brands on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. We recorded the number of fans and followers each brand had collected on each site, how often each brand posted to each site over a one-week period, and how often fans and followers interacted with those brand posts. In total, we evaluated 284 branded social profiles across seven social networks, including 2,536 brand posts and 3,135,839 user interactions with those brand posts.

Companies interviewed For This Report

Adobe

Analog Devices

Code and Theory

Facebook

Hootsuite

Kenshoo

Life Technologies

Livefyre

Pinterest

REI

Sapient

Shoutlet

Tyler Technologies

eNDNOTes1 Facebook hasn’t revolutionized marketing; in fact, it now does little to support social experiences between

brands and customers. Instead, it has quietly become almost entirely reliant upon Web 1.0-style display ads and simplistic targeting — and marketers say those display ads just aren’t working. See the October 28, 2013,

“Why Facebook Is Failing Marketers” report.

2 This report examines the areas in which both Twitter and marketers must improve to create a successful partnership and evaluates Twitter’s prospects for becoming a more valuable marketing channel. See the November 5, 2013, “Twitter Marketers Are Still Looking For Answers” report.

3 Ogilvy reports that in February 2014, the organic reach of the large Facebook pages it manages stood at just 2.11%. And a Facebook sales presentation leaked to AdvertisingAge warned marketers, “We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time [. . .].” Source: “Facebook Zero: Considering Life After the Demise of Organic Reach, Social@Ogilvy, March 6, 2014 (http://social.ogilvy.com/facebook-zero-considering-life-after-the-demise-of-organic-reach/) and Cotton Delo, “Facebook Admits Organic Reach Is Falling Short, Urges Marketers to Buy Ads,” AdvertisingAge, December 5, 2013 (http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-admits-organic-reach-brand-posts-dipping/245530/).

4 In its presentations at the Facebook Fit small-business boot camp in Menlo Park, California, in August 2014, Facebook reminded attendees that 98% of users who bought products after seeing marketing messages on Facebook did not engage with those marketing messages in any way.

5 Source: Forrester’s Q1 2014 US Top 50 Brands Social WebTrack.






6 In fact, 45% of US online adults stay in touch with the brands they like by visiting those brands’ websites, while just 16% stay in touch by visiting those brands’ Facebook pages or becoming Facebook fans of those brands. Source: Forrester’s North American Consumer Technographics Customer Life Cycle Survey 1, 2014.

7 A social content hub is a branded web page that showcases user-generated and/or brand-generated content from external social networks, such as photos, videos, tweets, and updates. See the May 19, 2014, “Best Practices For Social Content Hubs” report.

8 How much higher are the engagement rates? Top brands find that 4.213% of their Instagram followers engage with each post, while just 0.071% of their Facebook fans engage with each post. Source: Forrester’s Q1 2014 US Top 50 Brands Social WebTrack.

9 In total, Sony curated 3.3 million pieces of social content for GreatnessAwaits.com. Source: “SonyPlaystation Uses Social Buzz about PS4 to Build More Sharing, Advocacy at GreatnessAwaits.com,” Shorty Awards for Brand, Agencies, and Organizations (http://industry.shortyawards.com/nominee/6th_annual/to/sonyplaystation-uses-social-buzz-about-ps4-to-build-more-sharing-advocacy-at-greatnessawaitscom).

10 Since launch, Sony has sold 9 million PlayStation 4 consoles, while Microsoft (its nearest competitor) has sold 5 million Xbox One consoles. And the gap is growing: In the quarter ending June 30, 2014, PS4 outsold Xbox by more than three to one. Source: Sebastian Anthony, “PS4 outselling the Xbox One 3-to-1 as total sales gap grows to 9 million vs. 5 million,” ExtremeTech, August 1, 2014 (http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/187371-ps4-outselling-the-xbox-one-3-to-1-as-total-sales-gap-grows-to-9-million-vs-5-million).

11 Source: Analog Devices (https://ez.analog.com/welcome).

12 For instance, the EngineerZone discussion on fast table lookups has generated 47 detailed replies and been viewed more than 38,000 times. By comparison, Analog Devices’ official Facebook page had fewer than 6,500 fans as we researched this report, and none of its Facebook posts from the previous two weeks had generated a single comment. Sources: “Fast Table lookup,” Analog Devices (https://ez.analog.com/thread/1492) and “Analog Devices, Inc.,” Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/AnalogDevicesInc).

13 Source: “My Forrester Groundswell Awards,” Analog Devices (https://ez.analog.com/groups/my-forrester-groundswell-awards).

14 This report examines why marketers from a range of categories find such strong interaction from Instagram users and reveals why the site will deliver engagement for a limited time only. See the April 29, 2014, “Use Instagram Now” report.

15 REI also collects users’ 1440 Project photos on a branded microsite, but the brand says about 80% of the photos it collects come from Instagram. Sources: “REI,” Instagram (http://instagram.com/rei) and REI 1440 Project (http://www.rei1440project.com/).

16 In September 2014, Forrester studied 150 recent REI posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The company’s 50 most recent Facebook posts earned an average of 1,756 likes from the brand’s 847,000 Facebook fans — a 0.21% like-per-fan rate. The company’s 50 most recent Instagram posts earned an average of 8,342 likes from the brand’s 136,000 Instagram followers — a 6.13% like-per-follower rate.








17 Source: Forrester’s September 2014 analysis of 150 recent REI posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

18 As we researched this report, Nordstrom had 4.41 million Pinterest followers and 2.85 million Facebook fans. Nordstrom features its “top pinned” items from Pinterest in its stores and catalogs and on its site. Source: “Nordstrom Success Story,” Pinterest (https://business.pinterest.com/en/success-stories/nordstrom).

19 ComScore reported in early 2011 that Facebook was delivering 3.8 billion ad impressions per day — and that was just in the US. Facebook reports that the number of ads it delivered grew 42% during 2011, another 32% during 2012, and another 39% by mid-2013. Based on this rate of growth, we estimated in 2013 that Facebook was delivering nearly 10 billion ads per day in the US. And with half of Facebook’s revenues coming from outside the US — and its ad rates higher in the US than elsewhere — we expect that Facebook was delivering approximately 20 billion ads per day worldwide. Source: “US Online Display Advertising Market Delivers 1.1 Trillion Impressions In Q1 2011,” comScore press release, May 4, 2011 (http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2011/5/U.S._Online_Display_Advertising_Market_Delivers_1.1_Trillion_Impressions_in_Q1_2011); Tim Peterson, “Facebook Served 39 Percent More Ad Impressions in Q1,” Adweek, May 1, 2013 (http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-served-39-percent-more-ad-impressions-q1-149081); and Facebook Annual Reports (http://investor.fb.com/annuals.cfm).

20 And about time, too. In 2013, we predicted: “Smart brands will realize, campaign by campaign, that there are better ways to spend their money. Only a few will put out splashy press releases announcing they’ve quit Facebook altogether, but many will earmark an increasingly small budget share for Facebook.” See the October 28, 2013, “Why Facebook Is Failing Marketers” report.

21 Last year we predicted that Facebook would drop its banner ads entirely in favor of newsfeed ads. But it appears that Facebook hasn’t acted fast enough. As brands follow the lead of REI and others, Facebook could well become a home only for acquisition ads from brands it’s never heard of. See the October 28, 2013,

“Why Facebook Is Failing Marketers” report.

22 Top brands that cross-post between Facebook and Google+ average 0.05% engagement-per-fan on Facebook and 0.08% engagement-per-fan on Google+. By comparison, the average engagement rates for top brands’ posts are 0.07% on Facebook and 0.06% on Google+. The result? Cross-posting generates pretty much average engagement results for leading brands. Source: Forrester’s Q1 2014 US Top 50 Brands Social WebTrack.

23 Source: Forrester’s September 2014 analysis of 150 recent REI posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

24 Depending on the category and brand, recent research found that anywhere from 51% to 75% of Facebook fans had bought from the brand in question during the past 12 months. Source: “Engaged Social Followers Are Your Best Customers,” SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net/etsarkov/engaged-social-followers-are-your-best-customers).

25 MGM Resorts reported at the Adobe Summit 2014 in March that this strategy had generated significant lift in its return on investment from both email and social ads.



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