Olivier Blanchard about social media and its ROI #fusionmex [BLOG]

The Fusion Marketing Experince takes place in Brussels, here are the key take-aways from Olivier Blanchard’s talks:


Social media is a lot about talking or selling. It should go beyond marketing! Keep in mind that it isn’t free or cheap.

The right questions?

Start with asking the right question…. Some of the common questions: who owns social media in my company? We are doing email marketing, should we than also do social media?

Social media is not just a marketing channel, so don’t treat it like one. Most of the time it’s part of marketing, but that’s wrong, it’s time to create a new role in the company, VP level. It’s influencing every process within the customer lifecycle, not just the marketing cycle. Most of the time we just focus on the acquisition part, we want more clicks, likes etc. But it’s about building relationships, like you do in your retail stores.

If it’s just a marketing function, we just keep on adding water into a bucket, with a whole in the bottom. You keep on filling up, but don’t notice it’s having a whole in the bottom.

If you go the extra mile within your industry, you’ll having a winning strategy. In fact you don’t need a special price or promotion, if you do a better social job than your competitor, you will win! Create a refreshing value! Don’t imitate, innovate….

Keep in mind the cultural differences… one size fits all, won’t work.


How not to do it: search for Wachovia on Facebook ;-)

 

You can’t only push out messages, you need to get involved in what other tell about you and your brand. You can’t fake being nice, so be real in what you proclaim. Social media is there to serve your business.

Strategy questions?

• more mindshare ?
• more marketshare ?
• more sales ?
• more loyalty ?
• etc etc

ask those questions before you start! Transfer it afterwards into targets. This allows you to give you focus. Social media is about becoming a better company.

B2B and B2C:


In a B2C environment, you’ll have a large “breath” (reach) but the in-depth conversations will be with a limited amount of people. With B2B, you’ll have a real impact on sales, you won’t have the “breath” but rather have an in-depth relationship. This way it works for both B2B and B2C. It’s about shifting the focus

How to deal with large communities:

Let is foster for themselves. You will have 5% super engaged people in your list and they’ll keep it alive. So you can have a huge fan base!

ROI:

“spectacular results = planning!”

Don’t only focus on sales, could give a wrong image. So you need to combine figures. A funnel can help. Keep in mind that investing in social media means that you need to transfer budgets from other budgets, which means that you need a good case to go forward. Or you save money, or you bring more money into the bucket.

ROI is a business metric, not a media metric.

Cost reduction = customer service.
Assign 1 customer service employee to twitter. You can handle several customers at the same time, which you can’t with a phone.

Cost reduction = business intelligence
Cost reduction= increase reach: cost per impression is lower on Facebook

Take a look as well on activity in your stores when you post on social media. Correlation could already be present.

Comments

[aiza@mobilemarketing]

Hey there! You mentioned that: "Social media is not just a marketing channel, so don’t treat it like one."

I agree. Social media has conquered our lives in so many aspect. But primarily,social media is for communication with our loved ones.Mobile Marketing

[Mathias]

This is a very good post. Hope to read more next time! Thank you very much, Mathias