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What network do you think has the most untapped potential for marketers and why?

Here at Social Media Today we are committed to bringing our readers fresh ideas from the greatest minds in Social Media. The Ask SMT series brings our influencers together to explore the questions that are on the minds of our readers.

Question: What network do you think has the most untapped potential for marketers and why?

I think it’s time to turn our attention towards Twitter again. During the first round of Presidential debates, Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) livestreamed the entire 90 minutes from their handle. You could also view the debates live from debates.twitter.com. While livestreaming events and shows online is not exactly a revolutionary concept, livestreaming it from a social platform like Twitter allowed for a fully interactive experience. In addition to providing the livestream, Bloomberg also included special political programming before and after the stream, allowing users to tweet along for the entirety. But the most innovative aspect was that if you didn’t have a Twitter account, you could still watch without creating one or even logging in. In today’s world that offers the ability to livestream from most mobile devices — but typically only if you have an account or login — this made the debates truly accessible to one and all. Right alongside the livestreaming capabilities, real-time commentary and hashtag visibility, and endless Twitter chats to join in discussions to reach a wider consumer base, Twitter is still an unflappable bird to beat in the social media landscape. 

- Deborah Sweeney, CEO, MyCorporation

 

Instagram. Many marketers have stayed away because its model does not allow for including links. But now, with 500-million+ users and an advertising platform, it's hard to ignore Instagram's insane ascent. Gen Y devours Instagram. Users enjoy it. Engagement is ridiculously high. Ads appear to be laser-targeted. 

 

Tap Instagram now. The majority of content on it is user-generated, which means trust levels are higher.  

 

- Barry Feldman, Director at Feldman Creative

 

 

 

Without a doubt. . . SlideShare. It’s one of the most underutilized lead generation tools we marketers have in our quiver. It’s also the most efficient lead driver of any social network by far. 

Since 2012, visitors to our website from SlideShare have converted at a whopping 27.9% rate. To put that in perspective, Facebook converted at 1.1%, Twitter at 1.2%, and LinkedIn at 1.7% in that same time frame.  

We’ve even had individual decks send traffic to our site that converted at over 78%! I’m not a rock scientist or anything, but these numbers are screaming that SlideShare is definitely worth using in your social media mix.

The key to making it work is by placing a top to mid-funnel CTA slide at the end of the deck organically. This slide should link directly to a landing page with a content offer and form. Why this works so well and how we do it is outlined in detail on Inbound.org.

-  Chad Pollitt, VP of Audience, Relevance

Again, this depends on your audience, Instagram has received the highest levels of engagement for brands in the last 6 months, but not all brands need to be on Insta. Test, test, test. If your Facebook ads are generating a low CPC and a high conversion rate compared to Twitter, then stick to that. However, a broader answer would be worth noting that most marketers have yet to jump on Snapchat filters. Hint hint.

- Chris Kyriacou, Managing Director, iSocial UK

Facebook Messenger is growing really quickly and offers consumers a fast and easy way to engage with brands. Its private nature can be a blessing for brands experiencing high levels of complaints on social media, and indeed the most responsive brands on Messenger are seeing fewer negative public posts. Chatbots – if used correctly as a complement to, not a replacement for, human interaction – will become valuable for both marketers and customer service professionals to handle orders, returns, questions, and basic account information. Messenger’s big advantage is that it is part of Facebook, which like it or not has the largest number of users of any social channel by far, and the most sophisticated ad targeting. 

- Dan Gingiss, Co-Host of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast

I still think its data driven content marketing. Both sides of that coin. Using data to drive all aspects of content development and targeting. Clarifying audience and personas, and then generating topics that are of interest to those personas. Taking it a step further mining interactions for great content topics. Then the other side, from our perspective, is incorporating great data into your content. Data from your own community or elsewhere on the web. Including real data makes abstract concepts concrete and connects marketing ideas to real scenarios and results.

- Bob Carver, Principal Consultant, Carver Technology Consulting LLC

I’m going to cheat a little and say live broadcasting. Users are quickly adapting to using live streaming across platforms, from Facebook to Twitter, but I see very few businesses with actual strategies around live content. Going live is very easy to adopt into your marketing strategy, with limited costs or tech required.

Just make sure you have a strategy in place first. Now is the time to gain mindshare in this space. You don’t have to get on all networks - just the network your customers use the most.

Putting in the time now will yield huge influence gains in the future.

- A.J. Ghergich, Founder & CEO, Ghergich & Co.

The network that has the most untapped potential for marketers is the niche private network that relates to their product or service. It is the place where fans,  practitioners, and enthusiasts gather to discuss the brand, the experience or the details of practice. It is the community that already has members, vibrant exchanges and a peer-comradery that yields influence. Examples can be found everywhere – from travel groups, car brand fans to professional gatherings of project managers to CFOs. Many of them use older technology – but marketers shouldn’t be skeptical just because they don’t have a modern interface. They are often mighty, powerful and often bootstrapped.  However, marketers shouldn’t barrel in and try to market to these groups as that behavior is not welcome there. Just as you wouldn’t walk into someone’s Livingroom and try to sell them something, the same decorum applies to the virtual world. Instead, marketers should bring something to the party – idea exchange, thought leadership, early access invitations in order to be welcomed into the group. Trust building is essential in these spaces and it takes time to grow.  Once the marketer has established as part of the group, then there are numerous opportunities serve as a channel between the fans and the firm. For example, such communities can be a direct channel to listen and to learn what the community wants from their organization; to gather early feedback on new products or services; to learn about problems before the press does. They can serve as living focus groups and be invaluable to an organization – as long as the rules of the road are respected and ample time is given to relationship building.  It all starts (and ends) with trust. 

- Vanessa DiMauro, CEO, Leader Networks, LLC

As crazy as it may seem, I think Facebook has the most untapped potential. Of course, everyone's aware of Facebook and their hugely powerful ad targeting, but The Social Network's access to in-depth personal data on each of its 1.71 billion users is truly unmatched - no one fully understands the extent to which that data source can be utilized to maximum effect.

 

For example, through Facebook data and correlations, you can map almost anything. Given enough time and access, you could identify all the common processes that people who've made a purchase from your business have shared. From that, you could trace it even further, down to what traits and habits have lead to those people taking those actions. In this way, you could actually, feasibly, determine the people who are most likely to become your customers before they even know what they want - and you could reach them at the exact right time in that cycle to maximize your ad impact.

 

Given the rapid rate at which social data has increased, there's no way to fully understand the possibilities of it. This is why Microsoft bought LinkedIn, why Salesforce was interested in Twitter - those who have the data stand to benefit in the long term as we evolve and understand how it can be used to best effect. And Facebook has the most data and insight of them all, and the most potential for growth in international markets. Given this, I think there's still a lot to Zuckerberg's social network we haven't even begun to fully utilize. 

 

- Andrew Hutchinson, Moderator, Social Media Today

 

What do you think of our influencer's responses? Do you feel they left out a network that you see a lot of potential in going forward? Or maybe you have another question you would like to see our influencers tackle. Let us know in the comments!

Author:  Patrick Sutton
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The Top 5 Innovations from Clinton's Social Media Campaign

In a sense, the success of a presidential campaign’s social media team is easy to measure. It can be counted in votes.

What that's meant for the Clinton campaign is a focus on essential tactics such as “capturing email addresses to raise money over time, and targeting persuadable voters in battleground states with the right message,” according to Mashable.

Jenna Lowenstein, digital director for the Clinton campaign, told Mashable, “We don’t get points for innovation and creativity.”

And yet, the Clinton campaign has been very innovative and creative across social platforms. Since the 2012 presidential election, many Americans have transitioned from getting their news directly from the home pages of major new sources to instead getting it via links on social sources, so a multi-platform campaign has never been more necessary.

Lowenstein manages a team of more than 100 people who develop content and strategy for social media, video, email outreach, audience development, digital organizing, advertising and The Briefing blog.

“Her team has what may seem like an impossible task: alternately playing offense and defense while channeling Clinton's message, competing for users’ fickle attention online and translating that into donations, volunteers and voter turnout,” writes Rebecca Ruiz on Mashable.

The Trump campaign has a presence on Facebook and Instagram, but relies heavily on Twitter. The Clinton campaign has branched out to less conventional platforms, including Quora and Pinterest.

For those purpose-driven organizations that are looking for little inspiration for connecting meaningfully with their audiences via social media, here’s a list of the Clinton campaign’s top 5 social media innovations:

Five:

Using Instagram and Snapchat to chronicle day-to-day life in both the Brooklyn campaign headquarters in New York as well as state campaign offices.

Four:

Emotional videos on YouTube. “A YouTube video from the primary season shows Clinton comforting a crying girl who is afraid that her parents will be deported,” according to Mashable. “It’s since been viewed 829,000 times across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, according to the campaign.” The video of girls looking in the mirror while the soundtrack plays clips of Trump's statements about women is very affecting. 

Three:

Showing humanizing glimpses of Clinton’s life. Photographs of Clinton holding her granddaughter or with her head bowed in prayer show that she’s a real person with a personal life not unlike those of other Americans. Also: Sharing old images of Clinton on Instagram and Facebook has evokes a lot of good feelings. It allows her audience to connect to Clinton’s history of public service and the journey she has made.

Author:  Jeff Rum
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How to Help Your Customers Who Are Using Non-Owned Social Channels [Podcast]

Intuit, long known for its community help forums for TurboTax, noticed that its small business clients were seeking help in a new place.

“There was a lot of conversation happening on non-owned channels,” says Mark Obee, Group Manager of Social and Community Care for Intuit on the QuickBooks brand. “The accountants were out there having those conversations without us.”

Non-owned channels included private Facebook and LinkedIn groups, which caused a dilemma for a big company like Intuit. Obee knew that these sorts of groups were private for a reason – they didn’t want big brands infiltrating with unwanted marketing messages.

Obee and his team reached out to influencers within these groups and asked how they could help. His goal was to “participate in those conversations to drive better outcomes”. He quickly honed in on the answer: “listen, engage, and answer questions” with “honesty and transparency” – and no marketing.

“We learned that coming in as a participant versus an advocate, we were able to actually gain the trust of the groups,” Obee says. The Social Evangelism Program at Intuit’s QuickBooks was born, and it has allowed the company to connect with some of its most engaged users and deliver feedback to the product and customer service teams.

Discussions certainly revolved around QuickBooks, but they also extended to general questions about running a small business. Unpaid users eagerly engage with answers to both, and the QuickBooks team jumps in when necessary. It’s important to “meet [customers] where they want to have those conversations,” says Obee. “They won’t always come to owned channels.”

The private groups have evolved into a complementary piece of the customer service ecosystem; QuickBooks still receives plenty of inquiries in social media, but they also use social channels to highlight the groups, leverage answers, and create additional engagement. Incidentally, QuickBooks is currently sporting a sub-10-minute response time in social media for customers who choose that channel for service.

“’What’s in it for the customer’ really is a big part of the Intuit way and making sure we put the customer benefit above everything else and that’s what’s really paid off,” says Obee. “Our strategy is being open and transparent” in all channels.

When asked about the growing use of “chat bots” in both Facebook Messenger and Twitter direct messages, Obee says they are good for companies for which operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is not practical.

“It gives them the benefit of reaching those customers during those times that you just can’t be there,” he says, adding that with all new technology, companies need to ask: “What is the customer benefit? What are you trying to solve for with your customers?”

Obee was the guest for Episode 43 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast, where he described the Intuit philosophy and the QuickBooks strategy in detail.

Here are some key points of the episode and where to find them:

0:52 A quick look at Intuit’s products and Mark’s background

2:53 Mark discusses the QuickBooks “Social Evangelism” Program

5:04 How the brand gains the trust of a private group

7:18 Intuit’s culture of community-based solutions and how it’s evolved

9:48 How communities affect customer service staffing needs

11:11 Comparing owned communities, private groups, and social media channels

15:07 Dan talks about re-using help content

16:25 How direct messaging is playing into the QuickBooks customer service strategy

19:35 Mark shares a memorable interaction with a customer

21:44 Mark’s key learnings from his time working in social care

Intuit and QuickBooks were chosen for the podcast because of readers and listeners like you suggesting great brands who are changing the game in social media customer service. Please send a tweet to @dgingiss using hashtag #FOCS and we will try to get your favorite brand on a future episode! Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Soundcloud.

Author: Dan Gingiss
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Tony Robbins discusses the "invisible forces" that make us do what we do -- and high-fives Al Gore in the front row.

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5 Actionable Social Media Takeaways from the Customer Service Summit

The Incite Group held its 6th annual Customer Service Summit in New York last week, and as is my custom at conferences, I live-tweeted (using hashtag #INCITECS) as a form of note-taking. This makes it much easier to share my learnings later.

Much of the discussion was about customer service social media, with great case studies from brands about being proactive, handling a crisis, leveraging messaging apps (and yes, bots), and being willing to experiment.

Conversocial CEO Joshua March explained that people turn to social media for customer service because it’s easy, convenient, and mobile.But they have clear expectations of the brands they engage:

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Dan Gingiss @dgingiss

"If you take hours to respond to someone, that's not an effortless experience." @joshuamarch #INCITECS #custserv

3:46 PM - 9 Nov 2016

 
•  33 Retweets
 
•  88 likes

Jeff Lesser, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Twitter, added that 63% of complainers on Twitter just want to be acknowledged and shown some empathy (which happens less than half the time, he said).

And while social began as a channel of last resort for frustrated customers, the tide may be turning. "Customers are realizing this is actually a channel they can come to first," said Dallen McKee, Social Care Team Leader at eBay.

Here are 5 themes that emerged from listening to two day’s worth of great presenters:

1. Follow the customer

Start with the question of “Where are your customers having conversations about your brand?” said Kriti Kapoor, Global Director of Social Customer Care at HP. Brands must discover where customers are and then provide customer service there, rather than waiting at owned channels, she added.

Sasha Lucas, Head of Digital Customer Engagement Strategy at Verizon, concurred: “People are going to stop coming to brands,” she said. “Brands are going to need to come to them."

David Tull, Customer Engagement Manager of Jack Threads, summarized his company’s simple customer service philosophy this way: “Where is the customer? That's where they want to be. Let's answer them there.”

2. Be proactive

Several companies noted that they are shifting to a more proactive strategy on social media, which has benefits for both the customer and the brand:

• HP has been consistently developing proactive solutions in social media to help customers self-serve, Kapoor explained. For example, the company creates FAQs that can be consumed by many customers in order to scale a channel where it sees hundreds of thousands of inquiries a year.
• Dell introduced a Back to School blog to proactively address the “same questions” the company sees about its products every year, said Head of Social Media Outreach Amy Bivin. Dell also listens carefully to online forums, which Bivin called an "early warning system" for Dell to hear about issues with products.
• Jack Threads searches for references to "prom suits" in social media during prom season to find people who might want to try on a new brand.
• Customers of Frontier Communications may soon get proactive tweets alerting them to service outages, according to Vice President Hillary Hahn.

Sara Grace McCandless of Sykes Enterprises suggested that new product releases are an excellent time to be proactive. "Don't wait for the questions to come in," she advised, saying that a "preparedness kit" with FAQs can help head off customer service inquiries. Reactive customer service, she added, is "a good place to start, but it's not a place to finish".

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Dan Gingiss @dgingiss

"It's a good place to start, but it's not a place to finish." @SarahDisgraced on companies doing reactive social #customerservice #INCITECS

3:36 PM - 10 Nov 2016

 
•  33 Retweets
 
•  77 likes

The good news is that all of this doesn’t necessarily mean more work for the social media or customer service teams. “Being proactive reduces the need to be reactive,” says Mark Grigg, Director of Cargo Customer Service at Southwest Airlines, so “it doesn't inhibit standard customer service”.

3. Messaging is here to stay

Both Facebook and Twitter have invested heavily in their direct messaging platforms, correctly identifying them as ideal locations for customer service. Brands love that private messages are not subject to public critique, and customers love the ability to explain issues in more detail and have a more natural back-and-forth with a service agent.

When messaging a brand, customers expect: Convenience, Simplicity, Communication, Personalization, and Genuine Conversations, said Frank Chevallier, Vice President of Software Products for LiveWorld.

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Dan Gingiss @dgingiss

When messaging a brand, customers expect:
* Convenience
* Simplicity
* Proactive Communication
* Personalization
* Conversations#INCITECS

11:11 PM - 9 Nov 2016

 
•  55 Retweets
 
•  1212 likes

Citing a Nielsen study, Chevallier added that there are many potential use cases for customer service in messaging apps, including asking questions or seeking information, making or confirming an appointment, making a purchase, inquiring about product inventory or store hours, and giving feedback to a brand.

The best news? One of LiveWorld’s clients is seeing 11x more engagement in messaging apps vs. “traditional” social media platforms.

4. Don’t fear the Bots

A discussion of messaging apps wouldn’t be complete without bringing up bots, and that subject was frequently debated during the conference.

“If you integrate bots and humans into a customer service interaction, you play to both of their strengths,” LiveWorld Chevallier said.

Twitter's Lesser demonstrated how the social media platform’s new Welcome Messages and Quick Replies can augment human customer service by making basic back-and-forth interactions fast and simple while ensuring that a human agent is only a click away.

So far, customers don’t seem to be afraid of using bots as some predicted. LiveWorld’s Chevallier  explained that top use cases are already being discovered, including “quick product/service answers”, locating the appropriate human agent, ordering basic items, resolving complaints, and booking reservations.

5. Try new things

“Good things come to those who try," said Tull from Jack Threads, which seems like good advice for more than just fashion.

After listening to its customers in social media and observing how they shop, Jack Threads changed its entire model to what it calls the “Tryouts” program. Customers can now order anything they want on the site without paying, try everything on at home, decide what to keep and what to return in the free return box, and only pay for what they keep.

"It created a lot of work for us and took away a lot of work for the customer," Tull explained, adding that the program has been successful in increasing sales.

Author:  Dan Gingiss
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