Last year, American consumers posted more than a billion opinions about products and services online, so it’s no surprise that marketers are trying to tap into that influence, writes Forrester Research VP and Principal Analyst Nate Elliott for Mashable. The problem, he says, is that using social data to measure brand impact isn’t very effective. As an example, he writes about discovering that a global sporting goods company with great brand awareness was only getting a few hundred mentions on social networks every week.
So instead of using social data to gauge brand awareness, he says you should use it to:
Develop Your Messaging. If you want to create messages that resonate with your audience, you need to know what it cares about. To find out, companies are increasingly using private listening communities and data from public social media.
Source Your Creative. Consumers trust what they hear from other consumers more than any other source of information. So why not use listening platforms to identify positive social content that can be included in campaign creative?
Improve Your Media Plan. Social data can help you find new sites on which to advertise. For instance, when Microsoft found that people were talking about its computers in forums dedicated to fishing and cars, it quickly added those sites to its online media plan.
Identify Your Key Influencers. Social data can help you identify the most vocal and influential consumers and forums through which your brand will have the most influence. Once you find them, connect with them.
React to Your Consumers. To fuel a positive conversation about your products you need to find positive and negative conversations online. Listening platforms can help you quickly find both so you’re in a position to react.
Read more at Mashable.
