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Processes: The Social Marketing Playbook
by Jessica Liu October 24, 2018
Social networks are a real-time media channel, yet marketers have trouble managing social content in real time. B2C marketers underestimate the volume and pace requirements of social marketing and experience competing attention between inbound inquiries and outbound messaging. As social marketing spend increases, marketers need to effectively and efficiently utilize those budgets by implementing specific processes. Strong processes allow social media to serve not only marketing goals but also goals across the entire enterprise.
This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and revises it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy.
Key Takeaways
Marketers Need Two Distinct, But Interdependent, Processes
Marketers should separate social marketing activity into two processes: always-on versus campaign. The two modes require different operations to achieve their respective outcomes, but they intersect at strategic process points.
Set Up Protocols In Advance To Serve Activities That Require Quick Turnarounds
To keep up with the speed of social media, marketers must implement anticipatory protocols to accommodate activities that require immediate approvals and speedier response times.
Processes Must Be In Lockstep To Serve The Greater Organization
The different processes cannot operate in silos. For companies to succeed, teams must work together and share information to better serve their end customers.
Processes: The Social Marketing Playbook
by Jessica Liu with Brigitte Majewski, Melissa Parrish, Caitlin Wall, and Christine Turley October 24, 2018
Table Of Contents
2
3
10 Marketers Struggle To Keep Up With The Speed And Scale Of Social Process Issues Plague Marketers When Tackling Social Marketing
Establish Distinct But Interdependent Processes For Social Demands Establish A Process To Master The AlwaysOn State
Set Up Protocols To Serve AlwaysOn Activities That Require Hyperquick Turnarounds
Establish A Separate Process To Master The Campaign State
Set Up Protocols To Serve Campaign Activities That Require Hyperquick Turnarounds
Processes Must Be In Lockstep And Serve The Broader Organization
Recommendations
12 Get Your Social Marketing Processes In Gear For Real Time
13 Supplemental Material
Related Research Documents
Three Staffing Models Help You Build A Socially Fluent Company
Vendor Landscape: Social Marketing Technology
You Don’t Need A “Social Marketing” Strategy
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For B2C Marketing Prof essionals
Real-Time Processes For Real-Time Social Marketing
Processes: The Social Marketing Playbook
Marketers know that social media is unlike any other marketing channel. When compared with traditional television and print, which allow for long lead times, social marketing planning and execution feels like racecar driving: fast speeds, quick turns, and lots of competition. Consider the extraordinary characteristics that make social media unique:
Prolific content creation and consumption. In late 2017, Twitter wrote that “hundreds of millions of tweets” were sent every day. 1 In its Q2 2018 earnings call, Snapchat touted more than 3 billion daily snaps created. 2 The astronomical volume, pace, and unpredictability of social content can overwhelm marketers. Brad Jakeman, president of the global beverage group at PepsiCo, told AdvertisingAge: “It was once sufficient for us to produce four pieces of content a year — mainly TV — and we could spend about six to eight months developing that one piece of content and spend $1 million on each piece of film. Now that four pieces has turned into 4,000; eight months has changed to eight days and 8 hours.” 3
Short content shelf life. Social networks publish immense content volumes via continuous news feeds, creating an ever-changing user experience. The consequences: shortened user attention spans and content that stales quickly. A debate over the color of a dress incited a Twitter frenzy, spiking mentions at 303,000 tweets per hour on the first day. By day two, #thedress usage plummeted. 4 Users expect brands in social media to keep pace. When musician Beyoncé namedropped Red Lobster in a new song, it created a surge in Red Lobster social discussion. But the restaurant chain tweeted a response 8 hours later, an unsatisfactory delay that social users vilified. 5
Impatient customers with high expectations. User expectations for brand interactions have grown on social networks. Sprout Social, a social media management solution (SMMS), found that 46% of people it surveyed have used social media to complain about a business. Lack of a brand response yielded 35% of consumers saying that they would never buy from the brand again and, worse, a bad or unhelpful brand response increased the chance of those people boycotting the brand by 43%. 6
Process Issues Plague Marketers When Tackling Social Marketing
Social marketing demands speed and timeliness, but marketers have trouble keeping up with its realtime nature. Mike Mothner, CE O of Wpromote, explains, “You can’t apply the same types of marketing workflows and approvals to social; those [traditional] workflows iterate too slowly.” While misaligned strategy, resourcing, and organization contribute to marketers’ troubles, process problems are core to the issue. These problems include:
Too many approvals. Companies, particularly regulated ones, often insert multiple approvers to minimize risk. However, this hierarchy creates bottlenecks, delays content creation, and causes missed opportunities. Social media allows a slim window to join a conversation before content becomes stale. Thanks to Wendy’s streamlined process, flat marketing structure, and empowered
For B2C Marketing Prof essionals
Real-Time Processes For Real-Time Social Marketing
Processes: The Social Marketing Playbook
employees, the brand was able to capitalize on a customer tweeting, “Yo @Wendys how many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?” 7 Wendy’s quick response: “18 million,” propelling #NuggsForCarter to most-retweeted-tweet-of-all-time status. 8
Unsuitably long lead times. Marketers who are accustomed to traditional media’s prolonged processes may have difficulty thinking in accelerated social time. Multiple approvers outside of marketing who can’t move at social marketing’s speed exacerbate the problem. One social media agency told us that stakeholders “who have not had their ‘gears greased’ don’t understand that social has to be up and running in a matter of days instead of weeks,” which creates bottlenecks and delays.
Divided attention. Social marketers find their priorities split between managing inbound communications versus planning for outbound content. Companies ill-equipped to handle a large volume of incoming messages default to reactive mode, pushing proactive mode to the back seat. “The inbound volume is daunting if you don’t have the right resources or right structures and processes in place to manage that day in and day out,” states Andrew Caravella, vice president of strategy and brand engagement at Sprout Social.
Marketers must implement workflows that can handle unpredictability and react quickly while still facilitating future planning. To achieve this balance, branch social marketing workflows into two separate but connected states: always-on versus campaign processes. We define these as such:
“Always-on” social marketing processes are a steady state of activities that are unpredictable and customer or industry initiated. Examples include customer inquiries, brand mentions, cultural moments, industry breaking news, and crisis management.
“Campaign” social marketing processes are time-bound efforts that are planned and brand initiated. Examples include integrated branding efforts, regularly scheduled social series, new product launches, contests/promotions, holiday/seasonal messaging, and live events.
Consider a fictional shoe brand, “Kicks,” that builds separate but related processes to handle both always-on and campaign social marketing needs fluidly (see Figure 1).
For B2C Marketing Prof essionals
Real-Time Processes For Real-Time Social Marketing
Processes: The Social Marketing Playbook
FIGURE 1 Always-On Versus Campaign Social Marketing Processes, Illustrated With Fictional Company “Kicks”
Cadence
Initiator
Examples and triggers Always-on
Unpredictable
Industry or customer
• Customer inquiries
Customer tweet: “@Kicks, where can
I nd the green in size 8?” • Brand mentions
Instagram photo and caption: “Loving my new @Kicks!” • Cultural moments
Fashion blogger Tumblr post: Star athlete spotted buying Kicks • Industry breaking news
Retail publisher Facebook post:
Sneaker technology reaches new heights • Crisis management
Global news outlet tweet: Kicks defect forces a recall
Campaign
Planned
Brand
• General brand messaging
Facebook ad: generic “Kicks means performance” brand platform • Social series “How to” video series: “How to care for your Kicks in 30 seconds” • New launches
Instagram photo: Sneak peek for the upcoming new Kicks co-lab line • Contests/promotions
Tweet incentive: 20% off with code • Holidays/seasons
Pinterest board: Gift ideas for December holiday shopping season • Live events
Facebook Live video: Kicks-sponsored athletes competing at the Olympics
Establish A Process To Master The Always-On State
Brands typically begin their social presences with always-on because they are compelled to respond to unexpected customer or industry prompts. After realizing demand for social customer service, Apple finally joined Twitter with an @AppleSupport account to assist. 9 Whether activities are customer initiated (e.g., inquiries, comments, brand mentions) or industry led (e.g., culturally relevant moments, industry breaking news), the always-on state is one encompassing process (see Figure 2):
Plan diligently to avoid social media stumbles. Social media’s unpredictable nature makes planning critical in the always-on state, but time pressures tempt marketers to rush this step. Do your due diligence by creating a master social marketing playbook that maps all of your always-on processes. Include key information such as people, workflows, timing, and templated responses. Digital transformation agency SapientRazorfish works with its clients to establish a red-yellowgreen customer response framework indicating an urgency level and dictates steps for how to react to each color state. For customer service activity specifically, apply Forrester’s recommendations on social customer care. 10
For B2C Marketing Prof essionals
Real-Time Processes For Real-Time Social Marketing
Processes: The Social Marketing Playbook
Monitor your social footprint. Fielding incoming customer messages is table stakes but also look for proactive opportunities to engage. According to Dan Moriarty, former director of digital strategy and activation at Hyatt, “Instead of responding only to those who @mention or tag our social channels, which often meant they had a problem that needed solving, the past few years have been about proactively responding to anyone who mentions our brands with or without our social channels included.” 11 Rely on your social listening platform to push relevant brand, competitive, industry, and cultural alerts so you can detect early brand crisis and join pertinent conversations. 12
Respond to deliver on your brand promise and manage your social reputation. For common issues covered in your playbook, use templated responses to deliver fast answers. For unique questions, cultural moments, or opportunities to avert crisis, loop in other departments and dictate a deadline for action and response. Safe Auto Insurance Company assembled lists of insurance FA Qs and bucketed common questions into three categories to allow for faster access to answers and improved response times internally and externally. It routes customer-specific questions to its claims or customer service groups to take the conversation into a private environment and replies within hours.
Measure to assess your always-on performance. Regularly track key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics established during the plan phase to get a pulse on how your process is working. For example, if your company measures customer satisfaction (CSA T) using a time-toresolution metric, customer service agents will focus on average speed of answer (ASA ). From 2010 to 2013, BNP Paribas increased its number of mentions and subsequently its brand visibility by 5,000% by alerting its services team of negative feedback in real time, allowing the company to quickly resolve those issues. 13
Optimize to improve process efficiency. An effective process requires adjustments and iterations. Assess your process against business objectives and KPIs. For example, has your streamlined process decreased ASA but failed to improve CSA T? Set up experiments: Isolate distinct stages of your process, change a variable, and track progress toward the goal. Additionally, audit employees and ask if any part of the process is cumbersome or unclear. Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC ) registered 800,000 new individuals in the Affordable Care Act’s first year but lost $800 million in that business line. HCSC looked to call center, survey, and social data to assess ASA but determined that it actually needed to decrease customer effort scores (how conveniently and easily customers could get information and answers). The company adjusted processes, like its call center’s automated prompts, and saw improved CSA
T. 14
Establish A Process To Master The Always-On State
Brands typically begin their social presences with always-on because they are compelled to respond to unexpected customer or industry prompts. After realizing demand for social customer service, Apple finally joined Twitter with an @AppleSupport account to assist. 9 Whether activities are customer initiated (e.g., inquiries, comments, brand mentions) or industry led (e.g., culturally relevant moments, industry breaking news), the always-on state is one encompassing process (see Figure 2):
› › Plan diligently to avoid social media stumbles. Social media’s unpredictable nature makes planning critical in the always-on state, but time pressures tempt marketers to rush this step. Do your due diligence by creating a master social marketing playbook that maps all of your always-on processes. Include key information such as people, workflows, timing, and templated responses. Digital transformation agency SapientRazorfish works with its clients to establish a red-yellowgreen customer response framework indicating an urgency level and dictates steps for how to react to each color state. For customer service activity specifically, apply Forrester’s recommendations on social customer care. 10
Monitor your social footprint. Fielding incoming customer messages is table stakes but also look for proactive opportunities to engage. According to Dan Moriarty, former director of digital strategy and activation at Hyatt, “Instead of responding only to those who @mention or tag our social channels, which often meant they had a problem that needed solving, the past few years have been about proactively responding to anyone who mentions our brands with or without our social channels included.” 11 Rely on your social listening platform to push relevant brand, competitive, industry, and cultural alerts so you can detect early brand crisis and join pertinent conversations. 12
Respond to deliver on your brand promise and manage your social reputation. For common issues covered in your playbook, use templated responses to deliver fast answers. For unique questions, cultural moments, or opportunities to avert crisis, loop in other departments and dictate a deadline for action and response. Safe Auto Insurance Company assembled lists of insurance FAQs and bucketed common questions into three categories to allow for faster access to answers and improved response times internally and externally. It routes customer-specific questions to its claims or customer service groups to take the conversation into a private environment and replies within hours.
Measure to assess your always-on performance. Regularly track key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics established during the plan phase to get a pulse on how your process is working. For example, if your company measures customer satisfaction (CSAT) using a time-toresolution metric, customer service agents will focus on average speed of answer (ASA). From 2010 to 2013, BNP Paribas increased its number of mentions and subsequently its brand visibility by 5,000% by alerting its services team of negative feedback in real time, allowing the company to quickly resolve those issues. 13
› › Optimize to improve process efficiency. An effective process requires adjustments and iterations. Assess your process against business objectives and KPIs. For example, has your streamlined process decreased ASA but failed to improve CSAT? Set up experiments: Isolate distinct stages of your process, change a variable, and track progress toward the goal. Additionally, audit employees and ask if any part of the process is cumbersome or unclear. Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) registered 800,000 new individuals in the Affordable Care Act’s first year but lost $800 million in that business line. HCSC looked to call center, survey, and social data to assess ASA but determined that it actually needed to decrease customer effort scores (how conveniently and easily customers could get information and answers). The company adjusted processes, like its call center’s automated prompts, and saw improved CSAT. 14
