As most of us recognize by now, the Social Web can be extremely beneficial to business owners who have a loyal customer base.  In this chapter, Dave Evans talks about the importance of being able to measure how influential your brand is to your customers.  By understanding how willing your customers are to evangelize or spread the good word about your brand, you can begin to evaluate how successful your business will be in the future.

Additionally, Evans notes that any profits that a business earns through any form of coercion, trickery, or misleading advice are at best short term and will-if left unchecked- ultimately destroy the business.   At the heart of everything is the customer.  The role of the customer recommendation is central to the rise or fall of your brand. Evans goes on to point out the following:

On the Social Web- made up of social media applications such as blogs, photo and video sharing, collaborative event planning tools, ratings and reviews, and more- the conversations that stem from actual, delightful experiences with products and services are the key to driving and sustaining evangelism and hence long-term growth.

One of the main things to remember about influence and measurement regarding your business and the Social Web is that you want to increase the number of people who are willing to promote your brand while decreasing the number of people who detract from your business model.  Provide a great experience, and the conversation will take care of itself.

The Main Points According to Dave

• The measurement of influence is critical to successfully implementing social media.  The Net Promoter score works very well for capturing and tracking this.
• Influence- rather than control- is the central element you have at your disposal on the Social Web.
• Taking the time to gather and distill quantitative metrics is essential: Speak with IT, your webmaster, media group, and your CFO to develop a comprehensive dashboard and report card that includes potential social measures.
• Integrate blog indexing services and any relevant online data that you have access to into your measurement platform.

Social media is all about being an active participant in a conversation on the web.  By increasing the amount in which you participate in an online discussion whether it be in Twitter or some other forum, you are actually helping to create your very own social reputation.  To take it a step further, when the context involves marketing, your social reputation becomes an expression of the brand you’re trying to sell.  For example, if several people on Twitter become involved in a conversation about how the iced mochas at Starbucks have tasted really bad over the past few weeks and suddenly Starbucks responds with an explanation, then they become a part of that conversation with the consumer.

Because they are measurable, online communities foster participation.  According to Evans, these communities maintain the collective reputation of a brand, based on which an individual may develop or attest personal loyalty.  Increasing numbers of marketers (and rightly so) are getting involved with the Social Web, with particular interest centering on the collective.  You see, by influencing the collective, you can then reach the individual!

Evans points out that traditional forms of media take a “push and tell” approach to marketing whereby the marketer is in control of the message and dictates that message to the consumer (who is in a subservient role).  Social media throws this balance off, making the consumer and the marketer equal partners- both with the opportunity to voice their opinions.

Consumer Generated Media

Over time, the Internet has grown to have a significant impact on how people view their own ability to hunt and gather information on a wide range of products and services.  Consumer generated media is all over the Internet in the form of photos, blogs, videos, comments, ratings and reviews, and guess what?  It is CONTROLLED BY THE CONSUMER.  You may have wanted to buy that brand name blender, but after having spoken to a few other people online prior to your purchase, you realized that it was a piece of junk with a label.  One of the biggest things that marketers can take away from all of this online chatter is that consumers talk about the things that interest them the most.  As Evans stated,

Consumer-generated media is a reflection of the generational norms: as Millenials move into the center of the marketing power brand, their online behaviors become increasingly significant.

So, what does this mean for modern day marketing gurus?  Marketers need to identify what it is they want to look at when it comes to studying consumer behavior.  After that, create a list of the things that you’re doing (or have already done) to generate some sort of awareness about your product and/or service.  Join social networking groups such as Twitter, and find out what people are talking about, and then start talking back.  And don’t downplay the little things such as blog commenting because every little bit counts when it comes to solidifying your online reputation as someone your consumers can trust!

The Main Points According to Dave:

• Social media plays a significant role in marketing:  The conversations that take place on the Social Web determine how easy-or difficult- your task in driving conversion will be.
• The social feedback cycle is built on the post-purchase feedback and conversational loop that augments your traditional purchase funnel activities.
• Consumer-generated media, and in particular photos, audio, and video that supplement text (blogs), are in mainstream use now, even if concentrated in the Millenial and Gen X segments.
• The determined detractor is an individual who plays an important role in the evolution of markets but nonetheless will not (normally) be “won over” and therefore is generally best viewed as a participant with whom you will “respectfully  agree to disagree.”  Your best response is to simply ensure that your story is also being told.
• Your social feedback cycle, developed and maintained over time, is a key planning tool as you develop your social media plan.

Word-of-mouth, from a consumer, is generally considered trustworthy.  But what about when the source is a marketer?  How can you use word-of-mouth in your own campaigns? There is a basic, healthy human skepticism present whenever someone is making the case for why you need what he or she is selling. -Dave Evans

The other night, I was in bed watching a television program.  As soon as the program broke to commercials, I got up and went to get a snack before returning.  When I saw that the program still hadn’t returned, I busied myself with other things.   What I was doing was what Evans refers to as filtering.  Filtering, or separating what we need to know from what we don’t care to know- is something that is ingrained in us as humans.  So, are the commercials a waste of marketing dollars? No.  Chances are that there is someone out there who LOVES to sit through commercials.  However, if you think about it, the number of people who cannot stand to be interrupted with ads is numerous and growing each day.  After all, that’s why the DVR was invented, right?  You cannot discuss marketing, advertising or commercials without mentioning the “A” word: Avoidance.  As human beings and consumers in a free market, we are growing less tolerant of what we deem to be an encroachment upon our personal lives at the hands of marketers, ad agencies and general salespeople.

Building Trust & Getting the “Word” Out

Remember that saying, “honesty is the best policy”?  Well, it still holds true today- the thing is that many “marketing experts” fail to realize this.  They think that if they tell consumers what they’re up to that the consumer won’t want to consume anything that they have to offer. Tsk Tsk! On the contrary, transparency is of the utmost importance because it helps you to build a valuable relationship with other people.  And as we all know, you can’t build a solid relationship with anyone if you don’t trust them.

In marketing, one of the most powerful things you can do is establish trust with the consumer by disclosing exactly what you’re about.  As Evans stated:

If I am willing to disclose my own self-interest, then there is good reason to consider ‘truthful’ the balance of what I might say.

Being Transparent

According to Evans, part of the main reason that there has been a backlash against traditional advertising (giving way to the rise of the Social Web) is because people are sick of the intrustions, falsehoods and the general lack of respect for the individual.  The Social Web takes media and advertising in a whole new direction because the consumers control the conversations.  For example, if you buy a vacuum cleaner from a certain store and then it breaks down, there’s a good chance that you’re going to head straight for the Internet to write a review about it.  Similarly, when consumers are preparing to buy products, more of them are reading each others online reviews before making a decision.

As a marketer, being transparent is incredibly important.  You can’t stop consumers from talking about you or your product (whether good or bad), so why not embrace it and make the most out of the situation? Evans suggests that it’s when the advertising and marketing is low-key or quiet that the “trust” factor is the highest.  For example, according to Evans, a company might say:

Here, I made this.  It’s for sale.  Buy it and try it out.  If you like it, great.  If not, you can give it back and I will refund 100 percent of your money.

Some examples of companies who have done quite well with these types of word-of-mouth campaigns include the likes of: Starbucks, Red Bull, Hotmail and Amazon.

According to Evans:

• Marketers are facing a dilemma: Giving up control in order to gain a presence in the conversations that matter.
• It is the interruption that is driving the backlash that advertisers are feeling.
• The importance of disclosure as a means to establish trust cannot be overstated.
• Trust is essential to any form of conversation on the Social Web.
• Robust metrics and measurement are available that can be used to track and prove the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of social campaigns