Customer Engagement Rebooted: Sustaining Your Markets in an Age of Social Networks

1. Customer Engagement Rebooted: Sustaining Your Markets in an Age of Social Networks CAUCEConference - June 6, 2011 Hosted by: University of St. Michael’s College Presenter: Anu Varsava

2. Overview • What is social media marketing? • Who are on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin? • Why bother? Should we wait or jump in? • Social media marketing goal examples for our units • Monitoring • How are universities using social media today? • Do’s and Don’ts • Some tips for generating content • Your comments and discussion

3. What is social media marketing? • Prospect and customer engagement. • Starting and maintaining conversations online. • People sharing information about your product. • People motivating each other to act. • People learning from each other. • People building relationships and loyalty. • Open to anyone to join, listen, comment. • Collapse of walls between public and private.

4. Who are those people on Facebook? • Average age is 38. • 40% of them are married; 60% are women. • News, travel, exercise, events, home. 55 mins. per day. • Average person has 130 “friends.” • Average income: $61,000. • Average user becomes a fan of 4 pages each month. • Average user is invited to 3 events per month. • Average user is a member of 13 groups. • 500+ Million – now exceeds Google’s weekly traffic!

5. Reasons those people go to Facebook • Connecting with people they know. • Promoting a particular cause or event. • Finding out about local news and events. • Soliciting help or feedback on an issue. • Sharing photos, videos, images. • Establishing and promoting a personal brand. • Giving reviews, reading reviews. • Lurking. • Stalking.

6. Who are those people on Twitter? • Average age 39; 64% are over 35. • 100+ Million. But 80% produce 20% of the tweets. • Average person has 28 followers. • Average income: $58,000. • They follow tweets about news, politics, restaurant offers, personal finance tips, sports results. • 10 billion tweets were posted in 2010!

7. Reasons for people to use Twitter • Announce breaking news: “You heard it here first.” • Discover something from other people. • Promote an idea, event, product, service. • Drive readers and comments to a blog. • Create and maintain business connections. • Solicit immediate opinions from others. • Find opportunities for business, work, special offers. • Follow experts’ opinions. • Issue warnings, alerts, reminders. • Entertainment. Today’s chuckle. • Share valuable information.

8. Who are those people on Linkedin? • Average user age is 44. • Average user income: $89,000. • Business professionals. • Have more post-secondary education than the other social media users. • Half of membership is international. • Users seek employment networks, news, politics, self-promotion opportunities.

9. Reasons people use Linkedin • Increase one’s public profile among business and professional communities. • Increase the Google page rank of a web site. • Perform reference checks on job candidates. • Search for jobs, business partners, free-lance work. • Ask business-related questions. Polling. • Post resumes. Post jobs. • Establish themselves or their projects/organizations as experts by answering questions. • Fundraising.

10. Should we wait or jump in? • Forrester’s research: More than 50% of adults in North America have joined a social network and 50% of them log on each day. • Average visitor spends 66% more on these sites now than a year ago. Membership and usage still growing. • Platforms create macro-communication that occurs with micro-interactions. • Strong influencing power increases prospect pool and customer loyalty. • Conversation will happen with or without you!

11. More reasons to jump in • New links are created free, and that can increase your search-engine success almost immediately. • Social media can be used to complement many business practices: product development, customer service, consumer research, competitor assessment, polling, lead generation, conversion. • Your posts can increase the strength of your positioning in the marketplace as subject experts. • Your comments can build awareness, buzz, interest, interaction, purchase decisions. • Low cost.

12. Social media marketing goal examples • Create word-of-mouth advertising (# of recommendations, referrals, sign-ups). • Increase customer loyalty (repeat business). • Improve conversion ratios (from inquiries to registrants). • Increase learner engagement, satisfaction, retention. • Increase enrolments and tuition revenue. • Increase search rankings. • Recruit donors and raise funds.

13. Metrics for monitoring success Align your monitoring metrics with your goals. • Google Analytics – track traffic levels on your sites, traffic sources, key search terms, shopping cart and check-out activity, e-commerce customer profiles. • Tweetburner – tracks the # of clicks on the links that you send out in tweets. • Number of your Facebook “fans” and post “likes.” • Number of your tweet “re-tweets” and tweet “likes.” • Facebook advertising click-throughs, visitor profiles.

14. How are universities using sm today? CASE / SloverLinett social media survey 2011: 9951 institutional responses of which 76% were U’s. • 96% of universities use Facebook. • 75% use Twitter. 2/3 use Linkedin and YouTube. • 43% have blogs; 40% use Flickr. • 73% believe social media provide “great potential.” • 45% feel that they have institutional buy-in/support. • 62% rate their use as “moderately successful.”

15. What do they use social media for? • 90% Sustaining brand awareness. • 84% Alumni engagement. • 66% Student engagement. • 56% Prospective student engagement and student recruitment. • 61% Donor relations. • 43% Media relations. • 37% Employer influencing.

16. What are they not using sm for? • Faculty and staff recruitment. • Audience research, listening. • Surveys, opinion polling, reviews. • Engaging the media; spreading news. • Social-responsibility awareness, positioning. • Establishing experts, opinion leaders. • Advocacy. • Crisis management. • Government relations.

17. Org. structure for sm in universities • Most typically managed by marketing and communications staff at departmental level. • Dispersed rather than centralized. • Less than desired levels of coordination. • Led and implemented by in-house resources, motivation, and expertise. • Lack of strategic support from above. • No turf battles.

18. Some tips – social media Do’s • Have a plan. Start with small goals. • Incorporate Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, Flickr. • Listen. • Target multiple audiences. • Select and monitor a small number of measures. • Find and assign in-house expertise; don’t out-source. • Give attention to get attention. Humanize your unit/program/service. • Ask for participation in discussion, reviews, polls, re-tweets.

19. More Do’s • Use real names and real photos. Be authentic. • Post comments on other people’s content. • Have guidelines for your staff contributors; manage your online reputation. • Accept negative feedback. • Check out who follow you. (We are judged by the company we keep.) • Adhere to your institution’s communications ethics guidelines. • Check for grammar and spelling before posting.

20. Social media “Don’ts” • Do not interact anonymously. • Don’t censor comments. • Don’t become a “time-waster.” • Don’t sell courses, but connect and engage. • BTW, Avoid txt spk. • Don’t let your profiles grow stale. • Don’t ignore negative signals. • Don’t overload, over-recycle, over-share, over-fan. • Don’t assume sm is a silver bullet to fill courses.

21. Tips for managing content • Start by observing and study what gets attention. • Have a personality. Be interesting and even funny. • Share “insider” information. Break news. • Reward your followers. • Pass along links to good blogs. (StumbleUpon) • Post often but not always. Participate in arguments. • Automate where appropriate. • Use videos, photos, lists, charts. • Ask questions; answer questions.

22. More tips • Sponsor a contest. • Mention your sm in print promotional materials. • Put icons on your web pages (“contact us”). • Add your Facebook and Twitter addresses to your email signature, business cards. • Tell prospective followers “what’s in it for them.” • Follow disclosure best practices: Check WOMMA code of ethics (womma.com). • SM marketing is not a campaign. It doesn’t have an end-date. Concluding remark >

23. Social networks are not Generation Y playgrounds but spaces where your prospective, present, and past students converse .

24. Thank you! Comments, Discussion

25. Resources http://adage.com/article/digital/social-media-anderson-analytics-reveals-users-habits/137792/ www.readwriteweb.com/archives/who_uses_social_networks_and_what_are_they_like_part_2. Zarrella, Dan. The social media marketing book. Sebastopol, CA O’Reilly Media, 2010. SloverLinett Strategies, Inc., mStoner Smart Sustainable Solutions In collaboration with the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Best Practices in Social Media Summary of Findings from Second Comprehensive Study of Social Media Use by Universities April 13, 2011.