Sunday 14 November 2010

SOCIAL MEDIA GETS YOUR SPONSORSHIP ASSETS WORKING MUCH HARDER


Brands often find themselves in the position where their Sponsorship assets no longer deliver for their business. Whether your business has grown tired of a particular Sponsorship, your objectives have changed, or the contract of rights you signed for X years no longer appears to be relevant, Social Media offers a compelling opportunity to strengthen your Sponsorship strategy.  
Over 70% of Social Media usage is driven by people’s interests (Source: November 2010 Robinson Pincus with 2CV - 501 respondents) with likeminded individuals coming together in tribes for shared experiences around shared passions. These tribes are not elusive clouds of faceless followers but physical networks of content-hungry consumers that are of huge value to brands: a hotbed of raw data, inspirational insight and creative energy.
We access these tribes and draw out their insights.  We pinpoint passionate, vocal leaders and new potential audiences that watch from the outskirts of passion-powered communities.  We explore their behaviour and answer valuable questions that inform better Sponsorship platforms: how do they like to consume content? What do they like to share?  Where would they appreciate help in getting more of their passions? etc.
Combine this insight with a brand’s desire to engage and grow a bigger consumer base (through content that is shared) and you have a very powerful new approach to Sponsorship.  An approach that reconnects your brand with your assets and opens up a richer brand-consumer relationship with a big, targeted audience.


Thursday 4 November 2010

IT'S NOT 'HOW MANY YOU KNOW'. IT'S 'WHO YOU KNOW'. NEW QUALITY IN SOCIAL NETWORKING IS GOOD NEWS FOR BRANDS.





Soon after rumours surfaced of facebook reaching saturation at 500m members, the company introduced a new dimension to 'groups'.  

Now users can create very specific groups of friends within their total network.  

This is about driving QUALITY back into a social experience that up until now has been more about QUANTITY.

It makes perfect sense that within your network you would want sub-groups who are together for different reasons.  Family, workmates and old school friends are obvious choices, but take a closer look and you'll see something unsurprising and intriguing.

COMMON PASSIONS ARE A BIG PART OF HOW THESE GROUPS ARE BONDING.

They're the glue that draws and keeps a big percentage of sub-groups together.

Inevitably, groups will join with other groups and people will find themselves part of bigger networks of more likeminded others.  Just like in 'the real world' where groups of friends come together as one bigger group around a shared passion. 

This is Social Networking 'catching up' with what happens in the real world, by enabling a more natural experience (or in geek speak, more intuitive and elegant).

This rise of quality has 3 hugely valuable implications for brands looking to engage with consumers and customers through Social Media:

1. The more consumers are grouped by common bonds, the more easily and COST-EFFECTIVELY they can be engaged.  
2. This then has massive value for the QUALITY OF INSIGHT that can be drawn from these 'expert groups' and used to build comms platforms that really connect.
3. Ultimately, good branded content will be shared by members with a HIGHER QUALITY OF CONNECTION - exceptionally likeminded others who are more actively interested.

We're shifting from, 'HOW MANY I'VE GOT' to 'WHO I KNOW' as a better articulation of 'WHO I AM'.

Personality and Identity are being driven into Social Networking.  This opens up great space for brands to do what they do best: feed people's desire for ways to express who they are.

How long before all brands create their own version of Nike Run, 'the world's biggest running club'?