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Reaching the tipping point - when should a brand build their own social community? The concept of online community -- brands engaging directly with customers, prospects, stakeholders and even critics -- is still relatively new. Many brands understand the importance of online communities, but are nervous about relinquishing control of their customers to third party networks such as Twitter and Facebook. This presentation will examine the tipping point for brands who are understanding the importance of social media engagement, but who want more control over their communities. It will present case studies of brands that built their own online communities to address business needs such as customer service, or branded social networks for consumers.
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Reaching the tipping point, when should a brand build their own social community?
Graeme HarveyManaging DirectorHuzuTech
The next 30 minutes?
Quick orientation on the big social network trends
Case study 1 TUI TrekAmericaLive.com
Case study 2 eircom soccerrepublic.ie
Checklist - when a brand should consider its own social community site or not
Questions and Answers
Ups of Social Networking – July 2010
Facebook reaches
500 million users – July 2010
World's biggest social network in just six years
July 2010 Guardian
Ups of Social Networking – June 2010
Twitter is seeing 6 billion API calls per day, or 70,000 per second.
That’s 90 million Tweets per day!
September 2010 TechCrunch
Ups of Social Networking
Facebook now the mainstream social network and platform
Brands use Facebook as a quick and easy way to reach millions of people
Twitter is the new dimension in messaging
Technology constantly developing and improving
Facebook Top 5 Fan Pages
Fan Page Name # of Fans
1. Texas Hold'em Poker 23,957,745
2. Michael Jackson 20,050,739
3. Facebook 18,816,570
4. Lady Gaga 18,141,161
5. Family Guy 17,349,265
Downs of Social Networking
Hype cycle and fads
Friends, connections, moving to another platform – peer pressure
Social network operators not listening their audience needs
Overuse of or ‘in your face’ advertising
Spam (false friends request etc) and profile hacking
Key learning's
Facebook is a great channel with a wide / deep user reach
Twitter is essential to send quick notifications to your customers / followers
Social media is here to stay, it’s now mainstream
Essential to feed fan’s, followers with new and exciting content and ideas frequently
Listen to your audience and act upon it!
Warning! Third party networks come and go – future proof your strategies
Reaching the tipping point, own social community - case studies
TrekAmericaLive.com
Social Hub that brings past, present and potential trekkers together to share their experiences.
Not in competition with Facebook, must be linked.
TrekAmericaLive.com
Already have more than 15,000 trekkers on Official Facebook Page
Integration with Facebook essential – must be easy to share content between networks
Fan’s are interacting and connecting via Facebook
More later ....
Tipping point ....Enhanced community experience
Personal profile pageInteractive map of tourInvites friends and familyEncourages connections
Upload content on the road• Pics• Video• Comment• Blogs
Own community contd.Branding very important
Control of messages and content important to improve conversion rate
Data to build better CRM
Social analytics to dig deep and understand needs better
Introduce bespoke rating functionally to promote best experiences to homepage
Facebook is importantImprove registrations via FBConnect
Content population upload and download FB
FB Share button to user wall
Reaching potential new trekkers
Inviting friends to join with FB friends importer
Migrate users to a more fulfilling experience
Twitter is important tooRetweet button linking back to community site content
Followers (trekkers) engage present, past, and during the trip
Great to get announcements to trekkers quickly and simply – ash cloud
TrekAmerica.com rationale• Increase sales
• Better customer experience
• Control content and messages
• Trek branding not third party
• Discover the good and bad -communicate back to customers officially
• Understand the customer better (social analytics)
• Build a solid CRM
• Future proof the community and database for when peers move to the next big network ...
Soccerrepublic.ie
Social Hub that brings Republic of Ireland soccer fans together
Provides fans with latest content on the national team and relevant English Premiership matches.
Provided by team sponsor eircom
Tipping point ....
No official community site for Republic of Ireland national team
100’s of fans online already and using eircom broadband services
eircom has access to content (news, pics and match videos)
Customers moving to other broadband service providers!
Soccerrepublic.ie rationale Increase customer retention Increase customer acquisition
Better customer experience
Deliver content
eircom branding not third party
Discover the good and bad -communicate back to customers officially
Deliver in-house advertising
Build CRM database of potential new customers
Integrate into eircom central portal – using SSO
Monetise rights further – Setanta sports
Match day results ...
Over 5m unique visits (by IP) from standing start in first 12 months
30,000 registered users with profiles
50,000 unique visits per week around qualifying matches
Checklist of when a brand should consider their own social community site
Checklist
Do you already have an existing audience?
Do you want to control the look n feel, data and advertising slots?
Would a community site fit with my brand?
Do you want to engage your customers directly online / listen to them?
Can I afford to fund the running costs of a community site?
* Not for you? then consider using the large networks, be mindful of MySpace, Bebo etc.
