by Christian Brucculeri

In today’s digital marketplace, I am always fascinated when I see major brands that do not pay close attention to their organic search results.  A quick Google search of IAMS pet food gives the following results:

This is not an attempt to criticize P&G, an incredible company with a huge portfolio of great brands (there are a number of other brands and companies for whom this example is relevant); but I can’t help but wonder if anyone at P&G is monitoring their brands’ organic search presence. 

The results above are the story that consumers are told when they search for Iams.  Right or wrong, justified or not, responsibility falls on the brand to address, or at least be a part of this conversation.  The biggest problem with the story above is that its only one side of the story.  Where is the response from Iams?  Inaction in social media is the same as responding to a journalist with “no comment”; it leaves you at the mercy of those who chose to publish and make heard their views.

Organic search results matter more now than ever.  With consumer Tweets, blog posts, message board comments and other social conversations showing up in search results, effectively protecting and promoting a brand’s reputation online is becoming a minefield of micro-interactions.

There are a number of ways to monitor and optimize your search presence to protect your brand value; the best of which involves giving your best customers a platform to express their affinity for your product.   Regardless of what your social media strategy is, not having one is no longer an option.

Community Management:  The New Frontier

As marketers, we spend so much time and energy trying to guess who our customers are.  We take surveys, we hold focus groups, we read the research and we paint a picture of the people who want to buy our product.  While traditional research methods are excellent tools for getting a read on our customers, social media is quickly reinventing our ability to listen, learn and act.  Through proven methods of what we call Community Management, brands now have the ability to collect relevant conversations, identify their key influencers, define their target demographic and create systems to enable two-way communication and measure the results.

Listen & Learn
A common misconception of marketing in social media is that it can be purchased in the same manner as traditional media. The problem with this approach is that Community Management is a process, not a flight.  This process of developing relationships begins with listening to existing conversations about your product, brand category and competitors, and applying these findings to quantitative benchmarks. The net result of creating this snapshot is a defined set of actionable insights and key performance indicators for your campaign. Too many marketers miss this step and end up questioning the ROI of social media campaigns without defining what they were trying to achieve in the first place. This is a crucial misstep in the process of creating a social media presence and can waste significant time, effort and money.

Act
Creating a platform is defining where you’d like to build and how you’d like to interact. There are a number of social media channels to consider; and some of these work better for certain brands than others.  Again, this step is built from listening to the space and deciding how you’d like to create impact.  For example, if you decide to create a Facebook page, you need to decide what you’re going to do to keep it active and interesting.  Generally, profiles aren’t Web sites.  Making a page and putting up product shots will not foster community;  you need to be engaging and you need to facilitate conversation. If you’re reaching out to a network of bloggers, you need to give them something.  Whether it’s great content, a product to review, or a way to cross-promote their space, bloggers are interested in creating and maintaining relationships;  they are not interested in being free advertising space.  All of your tactics in social media need to be centered around creating and strengthening relationships with your customer base.

Measure
Lastly, defining ROI on your campaigns is vital to effective marketing.  With clearly defined performance indicators and a benchmark of your presence, measuring ROI becomes a much simpler process. The problem marketers are having is figuring out which measurement unit to use.  I contend that you can measure social tactics with any metric you want, so long as you decide how to measure it before you begin. All success is measured on change:  what is the change in comments, conversations, inbound links, clicks to site, friends, impressions, conversions, sales, etc. Unless you are starting with a baseline, you’ll never get to the finish line.

Are you listening?