SOCIAL MEDIA UNLOCKS THE 'FORGOTTEN FAN BASE'

Millions of consumers are already engaging in their passions through Social Media. The opportunity to unlock these huge, untapped audiences is big, real and cost-effective..

Social Media gives brands the unprecedented to opportunity to drive the reach and engagement of their Sponsorship platform across often ‘forgotten’ consumer communities.  

These audiences are not only engaging with their passions, but are sharing content and consequently, growing in scale.  Their hunger for more access, information, knowledge, experience and discussion is insatiable, and to date very few organisations are finding, feeding or even leading them.  The opportunity for brands is staggering.

Fig. 1: Five Premiership football clubs and their unofficial / untapped fan base vs. official groups engaged through common social media platforms. 

Just take a look at the audience numbers surrounding five of the Premiership’s top clubs.  The official, ‘managed’ channels account for less than 25% of the total social media audience.  The vast majority are those engaged by other ‘unofficial’ fan pages, groups, forums and blogs.  

These unofficial fans are of massive value to brands.  Indeed, many of them would argue they are the truer fan – keeping clear of managed communities, choosing instead a more pure and democratic dialogue.

Unofficial does not mean inaccessible.  Through strong insights gleaned directly from these audiences, brands can easily deliver desired content that will turn forgotten fans into potential customers.

Brands should consider whether they need to create their own branded communities when dropping branded content into existing communities may well be a more effective option.

Read our post 'Where to start with Social Media'. 

josh@robinsonpincus.com

  

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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'?  

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