In case you missed last week's Building a Brand on the Coattails of a Dynasty: Part 1 you can find it by clicking here. For those who did you can find Part 2 below, kicking off with the second example of an individual involved in recent social media stories!
Katherine Webb, a former Miss Alabama, an aspiring model and girlfriend of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, gained instant fame on television during the BCS National Championship game. As a result her Twitter following grew, within a week, from 2,200 to over 250,000...that’s 100,000 more than her superstar boyfriend. Miss Webb’s Kred Influence rose to 914 (a good score is 700). Comparing social mentions for Miss Webb one day after the game to Johnny Manziel one day after winning the Heisman Trophy finds her with nearly 60% of Manziel’s volume and on day three the two were nearly even. As a result of the publicity, Miss Webb landed a job with “Inside Edition” and numerous modeling offers, serving as a great example to last week's statement on our ability to influence people we don’t even know through the use of social media.
In today’s environment 95% of businesses market online and 65% use Twitter, so just being there offers no competitive advantage. In late 2012, I attended the Forrester Customer Experience Forum, where I listened to one expert say “relationships” are the foundation to online success, as one seeks to rally their strongest relationships at an intense level and leverage them through online communities to develop the larger base of weak relationships.
Now, let’s take a business look at Katherine Webb’s modeling career. For now Miss Webb appears to be focused more on her new job and less with social outreach, but there may come a time when her brand targets the “connected” customer. When that time comes, she’ll need to thoroughly think through her approach to establish, build and maintain relationships through social networks and communities without overextending. In the book “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't”, the author (Jim Collins) makes a great point about technology…use it as an accelerator, but “never use technology as the primary means of igniting a transformation”.
For those of us in more traditional lines of work, building online communities to grow weaker relationships and foster active participation amongst our fan base is a building block to higher levels of engagement and advocacy. Another is user groups focused directly on those who want to have a deeper relationship with the brand, or a particular product offering.
Finally, leverage social networks for real-time engagement with customers, prospects and influencers. Maintaining a presence across every social network is next to impossible, therefore, master a few social networks that are relevant to your business and look to a software platform providing real-time listening, insight and engagement across all networks. NICE Social Media Analytics not only provides real-time monitoring and analysis of brand, products, industry topics, top sites and authors, but it can provide filtering of relevant social mentions and real-time engagement with opinion leaders and influencers.
Steven T. Strickland, PMP
For more info on NICE Fizzback please click here.