3 Vital Steps in Developing Your Brand Community
Posted on Mar 20, 2012 by valeriemorini
March Madness hype is no longer media generated, or contained within the bracket pools of close friends and coworkers. The madness has gone viral through social media, and is being driven by fans and a few teams and departments at the forefront of social media campaign innovation. Kentucky, once again, has risen to the challenge and leads the social media scene for collegiate athletics departments, training and encouraging student athletes to engage appropriately on social media platforms, and providing fans with a more complete and transparent view of their brand.
Several BuzzMgr clients are leveraging this height of social media engagement and are preparing to launch new innovative campaigns during their spring football games to keep their brand in fans minds, and begin to turn the focus onto the upcoming fall football seasons.In addition to major branding and publicity campaigns that our clients are expanding upon, BuzzMgr also works with many organizations that are just beginning to build their online brand presence. While there are many moving parts to building an online community, there are three necessary steps for successfully establishing your brand identity with your target audience.
Listen. Monitoring what is being said about your brand, or even the silence around it, is critical. Identifying who your audience currently is, and what they are saying about your brand, is not only helpful during a time of mass publicity, but often times is even more helpful prior to building your branding or engagement strategy. Knowing what is being said, and who is saying it, allows you to drill down and see if you’re connecting to your target audience. By asking and identifying who your target audience is, if you are connecting with them, who the community influencers are, and what content do they like to share and discuss, you are collecting invaluable market research, and eliminating the majority of the guessing game. Getting to know the influencers in your target audience is critical for developing and engaging your brand strategically, with more streamlined and effective campaigns.
Strategize. Once you know who you’re targeting, what communities they are a part of, and what kind of content and discussions they engage in, you can answer strategic questions to build your community from a more informed position. What content will your audience connect with, and what are they things they want to know about? What types of content and topics do they most respond to or share with their audiences? How can you and your brand best support them and compliment their strategic needs? There is a huge focus on community support and network development on online platforms, and being aware of the power in partnerships through mutually benefiting efforts is essential for connecting to key influencers. If you listen to the buzz, and pay attention to your audience, answers to all the strategic questions will become second nature and you may begin to understand your target market more than they understand themselves, which is invaluable.
Engage. This has become a major buzz word for the social media and online communities, but despite the overuse of the term, when understood, it is the most important part of online branding. While numbers and analytics are great to track and share in reports, they can mean absolutely nothing if your followers are not connecting to you.
Listening and strategically aligning efforts will build the foundation for engagement with your community, but it will be how you engage that gives power to the whole process.
Audiences are groups of individuals that want to engage and connect to other humans, and not brands. When engaging and building your online ‘voice,’ be sure to come from an authentic place that encourages trust, feelings of personal connection to your brand, and ultimately feelings of shared support and interests. As you are exploring your audiences and influencers, their likes and tendencies, read their content and engage with them. Follow them first, and nurture the relationship with personal connection. Relationship developement is a two way street, so reach out, connect, and show your interest in what they have going on and avoid bombarding them with your own content. Strong relationships can lead to revenue and sales, not the other way around.
Monitoring Brand Trends: ‘Tebowing’ Your Image
Posted on Jan 14, 2012 by valeriemorini
Recently, widespread refocusing of brand strategies and social media policies have been rooted in the fear of negative press and potential brand crises. Too often brands and industries adopt defensive campaigns too late, waiting for a crisis to roll out before beginning to monitor their digital legacies. As brands grow their social media presence, and more agents of the brand become active users, it becomes harder and harder to control the digital footprint that is being created. The main danger for sports teams in the growing social media world is how vulnerable the reputations of the teams and brands become when factoring in the growing numbers of players, coaches, and departments actively sharing on social media platforms. Conversely, greater numbers of brand representatives on social media can increase the opportunities to generate positive buzz, and take it viral.
Monitoring social media is of course critical during a crisis to know what is being said about your brand, and to identify and engage active influencers of your market, but it ‘s equally as important and possibly even more powerful to do both in times of good brand standing. Knowing what your audience is saying, and how your brand’s digital shadow is being shaped is vital, as is knowing how your brand is being represented by all those affiliated with it.
Infamous examples of social media disasters are fueling the defensive stances of many brands, but tracking your full digital legacy and identifying which of your representatives are positively representing the brand, engaging with your audience, and ranking high in influence is perhaps more important for your brand’s reputation management overall. Being proactive allows you to leverage the online reputation to benefit the whole. Last year CNBC released a list of athletes names and twitter handles, ranking as top influencers in the industry on social media. The article highlights the top influencer, Chad Ochocinco (Cincinnati Bengals Wide Receiver and former DWTS contestant), and the very strategic move by the NFL commissioner in reaching out to him during the labor battle. By reaching out to one of the league’s top influencers, the commissioner was guaranteeing publicity for himself and the League during a sensitive time for both.
Recently the social media world has seen an explosion of positive trending in sports, gaining unbelievable momentum for the league, and the image of one team’s quarterback. For once, neither Tom Brady nor Brett Favre are the quarterbacks in the spotlight. Tim Tebow is a household name. The tag of #Tebow has been trending through twitter just as ‘Tebowing’ has become one of the most frequently mimicked gestures in the country.
While technically Tim Tebow represents the National Football League, and the Denver Bronco’s, he has developed a brand image of his own, transcending many previous boundaries among fans, teams, and the public. This trend is developing positive images and buzz for all that he represents, and undoubtedly raising him to the top of current influencers. During ESPN’s SportsCenter this past Thursday, ‘Tebow’ was said over 88 times during the hour segment, and was mockingly renamed ‘TebowCenter’ by Deadspin.
So, what are we learning from this example? While social media can be an added risk for a brand if the operators and implementers do not have a clear strategy, it can have power to benefit and build up a brand when executed well. Developing an offensive approach to social media strategy by auditing web conversations, involving the brand and select topics, goes beyond crisis prevention. By knowing what the strengths and gaps are in your social media strategy, and identifying what is being said about your brand, and by whom, you are creating a valuable opportunity. Proactively highlighting positive buzz and engaging with brand influencers is another major benefit of having an offensive monitoring strategy, cultivating the power to more positively shape and exponentially increase your buzz. One thing is for certain, when your brand has positive buzz it’s important to be aware of it, and more important to make your audience aware. You can’t amplify what you don’t know about.
Don’t wait for a crisis to hit or a campaign to flop to find out what’s being said about your brand. Actively create and track your digital legacy with BuzzMgr’s brand audits and monitoring. Tebow it by creating your own offensive line and the chance to score some points for your brand. For a free demo of the BuzzMgr monitoring tool and services, email info@buzzmgr.com or call 1.704-541-5942
Social Media and Sports: How 2011 Set the Foundation for Social Sports
Posted on Dec 31, 2011 by valeriemorini
The social media landscape has transformed significantly over the last year, expanding across platforms old and new. Twitter and Facebook have not only experienced wide user expansion in consumer markets, but have also grown deep through brand enrollment and campaigns to engage their markets. BuzzMgr client the Big Ten Network for instance grew it’s social media mentions by 400% in Sept 2011 over Sept 2010 in part to organic social media growth and the network’s aggressive social media strategy. Television networks, broadcasters and shows are among the groups increasingly incorporating social media into their marketing strategy to enhance brand messaging and launch campaigns.
Another client and global digital golf network startup, the Back9 Network is building a culture of social at its foundation before ever broadcasting a single program and launch a #Back9Christmas Giveaway of cool gifts introducing its new talent and exciting developments while engaging fans at the network’s Facebook page and official Twitter account. Television personalities actively use social media networks to increase their fan engagement, extending conversations past the shows air time and parameters. Ellen Degeneres and Anderson Cooper are among those who actively use their accounts to interact with fans, share news, and bring awareness to causes they’re invested in.
Twitter is especially appealing to public figures who want to share more of their lives with fans, having the ability to share their own images. Talk show hosts and newscasters are among some of the top social media users, finally having a forum to develop and actively engage their community of followers in two-way dialogue. Real time updates of news allow for greater control over personal information sharing and reputation management. This has also triggered a raging debate over who owns their social media followers- the network or the talent and this one has already landed in court with the outcome not yet clear.
In addition to TV personalities and broadcasters, professional sports teams are also adopting social media into their daily routines. By becoming more visible and engaged with fans, athletes and teams contribute more effectively to brand promotion, ticket sales, and sponsorship draw. The NFL is a great example of this with a number of standout players and campaigns leading the way. BuzzManager and SportsMedia Challenge CEO, Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert on Twitter, Google+, GetGlue, Facebook & LinkedIn) will be speaking along with the sports journalists from ESPN, & the NYT, at South By SouthWest in March about how social media is changing the way sports events are covered.
Pro Bowl running back, and Philadelphia Eagle, LeSean McCoy has gone above and beyond the standard social media practices, to really engage fans through a number of social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook. In addition to LeSean’s active presence on his social media accounts, he has also developed an app for android and iOS phones that shares and consolidates his tweets, Facebook posts, and other interactive features onto one dashboard.
The New York Giants have established a hotline and Twitter hashtag (#GiantsChat) encouraging fans to join the conversation about matchups and game coverage, before during and following games to extend the buzz throughout the week.
In support of social media efforts, organizations are adding ‘follow us’ buttons or badges to websites and promotional items to encourage fan engagement and support on social media platforms.
The Eagles and Redskins are hosting a ‘Social Showdown’ on January 1st, using social media to engage fans and create buzz for each team during the match up. The official showdown campaign announcement asks fans of the two teams to ‘battle it out off the field’ during the game by engaging in two fan competitions.
On Sunday fans are encouraged to ‘Like’ their team logo on the ‘Showdown’ site to determine which team ‘wins’ with the most number of Likes, while also keeping up with the live conversation on Twitter by adding #BeatPhilly or #BeatRedskins to their tweets and following along with other fans.
In addition to league-wide implementation of social media campaigns and engagement, the NFL pays close attention to social media and web conversations surrounding major match ups, decisions, and changes. Recently BuzzMgr monitored web content and conversations for NFL Canada for the third season surrounding its Bills in Canada series providing full analysis on the trends, topics and sentiment being discussed in Canada compared with the US. The analysis included all conversations on the web with specific breakdowns of reactions from fans, bloggers, journalists and forums. BuzzMgr analyzed and rated the buzz for the event, designating a Buzz score from 1-10 that represents the volume of conversations and the traffic and engagement that determine overall influence. The analysis shared buzz and statistics for selected time periods, included graphs and breakdown comparisons for previous years, months, and specific past dates. Again, the social media growth regarding the NFL series over the past three years has been phenomenal which clearly isn’t lost on corporate brands wanting to tap the Canadian market.
In addition to post content and sentiment, BuzzMgr was able to share the location, geographically, that many of the posts originated from. By breaking down the media coverage sources, overall buzz trends, and platforms used, BuzzMgr was able to provide specific examples for each breakdown category using very specific data and figures, assisting the NFL in bettering overall strategy and campaign development. While measurement and analysis are critical for any organization or brand, especially those implementing social media, it is absolutely critical for organizations with as many components and operators as the NFL and is the best way to fully understand current strengths and areas for improvement. Comparative audits and analyses are often even more beneficial for corporate brands to understand how their efforts and brand image is stacking up compared to competitors.
As your brand heads into 2012, and the new quarter, it’s a great time to audit and analyze what is being said about your brand, and by whom. Smart monitoring is not just important during a crisis, but is the best way to avoid major crises by catching any negative media or conversations before it has time to impact your brand. Take action, analyze buzz, identify influencers and reach out to better engage advocates to better affect your messaging and engage your audience. Contact BuzzMgr for a live demo: email info@buzzmgr.com or call 1.704-541-5942
NORAD Santa Social Media and Trend Tracking on BuzzMgr
Posted on Dec 22, 2011 by valeriemorini
Just two days away from Santa’s big trip, and buzz about NORAD’s Santa tracking is coming in from all over the world. As we shared in a post last week, many family traditions and memories of Santa’s journey have links to NORAD, and is more apparent than ever with the amount of discussion BuzzMgr is tracking across the web and social media platforms.
Throughout December, BuzzMgr has been monitoring the nearly 11,000 posts about NORAD’s Santa tracking, and holiday games, flooding in from news stories, blog posts, tweets, and social media platforms. As we draw nearer to the magical night, the buzz has increased, with 41.5% of the total buzz being generated over the last week.
As could be expected, Twitter and Facebook have been the platforms of choice for the majority of shares, accounting for over 9,500 of the related posts in December. The posts ranged from nostalgic recounts of personal NORAD memories from Christmas’ past, to simple links for the NORAD tracker, encouraging others to join in the fun at NORAD’s Countdown Village with daily free games and activities.
Trending through the large number of tweets, and retweets, are tags for #santa, #santaclaus, #santacountdown, #navidad and of course #NORAD. The additional tags of #spreadjoy, #believe, and #trackjoy on related posts are what have been generating and contributing to the nearly 60% positive sentiment of conversations about NORAD’s Santa Tracking, with 90% ranging from neutral through very positive.
A number of videos from Santa’s flights in years past are circulating, sharing the tracking experience with followers old and new, both from personal accounts and NORAD’s own video from 2010.
ABC and CBS national news, as well as many other local news sources, have been counting down the days with NORAD as their viewers and the world prepare for Santa’s 2011 flight, contributing to the hundreds of news stories and blog posts circulating.
BuzzMgr will continue to track and share the great buzz around NORAD and Santa’s 2011 campaign to #spreadjoy across the world, through each recollection and post of memories old and new.
Whatever your beliefs, the BuzzMgr team wishes you safe and happy holidays and a prosperous new year.
PS. Why would BuzzMgr monitor Norad Stanta Tracking?Frankly because we like to #spreadjoy but there’s also a good business reason for monitoring something like this. Organizations should understand that valuable business intelligence comes from both good and bad content. It can be valuable to know that a domestic effort resonates internationally and where specifically it gains traction home and abroad. Additionally, it’s vital to understand how the public or other vertical audiences view and/or interact with your brand. If things turn sour for one reason or another, smart monitoring can help catch the negativity before it hits the tipping point and since it’s real time, be calculated into decision making to take ACTION. Identify influencers; reachout to advocates; focus messaging on what matters to your audience; provide timely customer care… you name it. Social media monitoring makes sense.
Curious? Ask for a live BuzzMgr demo from info@buzzmgr.com or call 1.704-541-5942.
Tracking Social Media Campaigns with BuzzMgr Brand Audits
Posted on Dec 21, 2011 by valeriemorini
It can be difficult to know exactly how effective social media campaigns are without taking an aggregate look at all social media accounts and platforms associated with a brand. Having a presence is different from having an impact, and knowing your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities is the best way to tailor your social media plan to be as strategic and effective as possible.
Evaluating brand presence and activity is not just something to do during the beginning stages of enrollment, in fact, it can be most helpful for brands that are already operating on all cylinders. When an organization has multiple accounts and users it can be difficult to know how effectively they are being used, and how the approach and implementation can be improved.
Recently, a major D1A athletics department that already monitors its brand via BuzzMgr™ requested a Social Media Audit for themselves and included a major competitor as well. The audit analyzed, evaluated and ranked their social media prowess as: Novice, Transition or Strategic, with strategic being most advanced.
While the organization is present on all appropriate social media platforms and has a proven record of followers and social media use, the audit drilled deeper into what we call the digital shadow and effectiveness of their current strategy.
Digital Footprint refers to content that is created and shared, while Digital Shadow refers to public references about brand buzz. Digital Legacy is a combination of both the brand’s Digital Footprint and Digital Shadow.
Case studies also look into what platforms are being used, how they’re used, and how the strategy and approach can be improved. Using BuzzMgr as a tool our analysts were able to drill down further, evaluating each social media account was aggregated and analyzed based on five criteria: internal framework, online presence, content, tactics, and monetization. This analysis broke down the current levels of effectiveness for each department, laying out the strengths, weaknesses, and areas of opportunity for each. The results were then placed into sections providing overviews and comparisons of all sections and an in depth analysis with recommendations for how to improve and deepen social media impact overall.
This analysis determined that the client was active and effective in its social media approach(es), but inconsistent over several target areas. Despite being very effective at driving merchandise and ticket sales, their ability to fully monetize the social media efforts in regards to sponsorships was lacking. The report also showed that their general execution of social media tools and campaigns was good but deeper relationship development with external partners and influencers needed major attention. These are just two, broad, examples from the mini audit which detailed the many specific categories and will be integral developing the most powerful and complete plan to maximize return on social media efforts.
Many brands have been in the social media game for while, having long established accounts and brand strategies, which makes it even more critical to pause and audit approaches. The deeper a brand gets into social media practices, the deeper it needs to be drilled down to identify the areas needing improvement, and make sure that they stay strong in the game by anticipating and evolving with new trends.
Is your organization ripe for a Social Media Audit? Would you like a live demo of our BuzzMgr™ social media brand listening tool? Contact BuzzMgr™ at 704.541.5942 info@buzzmgr.com or @BuzzMgr on Twitter
