How to converge media

HOW TO

CONVERGE MEDIA

3 Steps to Bring Together Paid, Owned and Earned

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The new world order of media and advertising demands that brands experiment and search for new ways to drive consumer

Today, brands aren’t utilizing earned media to its full potential.

engagement. As marketing and media strategy becomes ever more important, brands must look for ways to optimize paid,

In fact, only 17% of Chief Marketing Officers believe that social

owned and earned media. Paid media is everything that you

content is truly integrated across their marketing programs and

spend advertising dollars on such as TV, radio, print, digital

channels. So, there is a huge opportunity for marketers to drive

advertising, and sponsorships. Owned media includes your

their brand and their business through social integration and

website and other “owned” assets, and earned media is defined by

engagement to ultimately create the perfect paid/earned/owned

the social amplification and interaction you “earn” through active

media combination.

participation with your customers.

How do you create the perfect “owned media” experience for

Marketers today face the biggest challenge when trying to generate earned media, simply because this is the medium you can’t pay for or control.

Brands must cultivate content that inspires consumers to participate with the brand, thus generating actual expressions opinions, stories, photos, Tweets, and video that the brand earned out of authentic appreciation and engagement with the consumer.

your customers, and what is the right formula for paid media to maximize your earned media opportunity?

Let’s outline the plans here to help you and your brand drive a social experience that is best of breed…

STEP 1.

Compose Experiences That Inspire Participation

“ Converged media will happen and is happening; if marketers do not take action, the effectiveness of marketing efforts will suffer.”

— Altimeter Report “The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned, and Earned Media”

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Your owned media properties are a huge asset — here your brand controls the content, brings focus to key messages, and ensures you have a branded presence across channels.

In today’s fragmented media landscape, every digital touch point that you own is an opportunity for consumer engagement.

Are you making the most of all the possibilities that your owned media space has to offer?

62% of consumers are more likely to engage with brands that integrate social media.

Managing Your Social “Destinations” Consumers are everywhere, and they want to engage with social brands. In fact, according to a study, 62% of consumers are more likely to engage with brands that integrate social media. So, make sure you have a strong and inspiring presence there. Figure out which networks are most important to your brand and prioritize your time and budgets accordingly. These “destinations” (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and others) require that you manage your brand and customer experience on those sites, but there is a new way to engage with customers and maximize your “owned media” experience. Let’s call this the “social engagement experience” that you provide on your own site or any digital surface you have access to.

Your Social Engagement Experiences (Taking Social Out of Social Networks) Beyond managing your brand experience on various social networks and destinations, the next big frontier is bringing every public social conversation from every network possible back into your own website and owned media experiences and not only doing it all in real-time, but also ensuring that the content is relevant and safe.

We’ve outlined great case studies and examples of how some innovative brands are already “taking social out of social” and building owned media experiences that are driving strong earned media results.

CASE STUDY

In an innovative move, Victoria’s Secret seamlessly cross integrated popular social media platforms to create a dynamic owned destination fueled with earned media.

In order to engage their current audience while increasing reach to new consumers, Victoria’s Secret built a social experience for their Summer Breeze Campaign. Knowing that a lot of their passionate fans were already on Facebook, they decided to integrate a social hub around Twitter content from their Facebook campaign page. The page hosted several social media prompts such as a Mad-Lib and a Twitter poll where visitors could choose the hottest summer lipstick shades and Tweet their favorite summer destinations. By tapping into their existing fan base on Facebook, Victoria’s Secret drove participation on both social platforms — compounding the amplification and overall engagement with their brand and their summer campaign.

To generate momentum around their annual Fashion Show, Victoria’s Secret again applied a cross-integration strategy.

This time, they built a customized Facebook tab that included a dynamic grid of content curating pictures and fan photos sourced from Instagram.

CASE STUDY

Pepsi wanted to align their brand with all things pop-culture and generate relevant content to engage consumers year round, beyond one off campaigns. In partnership with Spredfast’s Social Engagement Platform, Pepsi followed a three-step process to do this.

First, they pulled all customer comments and conversations about Pepsi from social media platforms - Tweets from Twitter, photographs from Instagram, and comments from Facebook. After capturing the conversation, Pepsi then filtered out the noise. They set rules within the platform to get rid of irrelevant conversations and filter in compelling content.

With their customers’ aggregated social voice, the third step was to showcase the remaining content onto an inspiring experience that could be distributed on any digital platform one that not only displayed that content, but also encouraged customer engagement and amplification. The outcome - Pepsi successfully leveraged owned media alongside earned media in order to reach their consumers and amplify buzz around topics and events they knew were important to their target customer segments.

Through the integration of paid, owned, and curated earned media, the brand is reaching an average of 1.5 million consumers a day by discovering and re-displaying social content in real-time.

STEP 2.

Integrate Social Into All Marketing Channels & Events

Be a Hero Most marketing executives are trying to find ways to integrate and build social experiences everywhere they can. If they can do this successfully, they will provide a mutually beneficial relationship to the brand and the brand’s consumers. As Spredfast CEO Sam Decker noted, “When you integrate social content (earned media) into your owned media… you are giving customers the social proof they need to be engaged and interested, because what they are watching is a reflection of themselves.” Once customers see that they are recognized and valued by the brand, they are more likely to participate — benefiting both the consumer experience with the brand and the brand’s reputation as well.

Every brand has an annual marketing calendar and there is a lot on that calendar. As a marketing and/or social media leader, what opportunities should you be thinking about for integration?

Let’s take a look at key marketing activities that are crying out for social integration…

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SOCIAL INTEGRATION CHECKLIST Marketing Campaigns

Key Holidays

What are your brand’s major marketing campaigns? Usually

On holidays, brands have the unique opportunity to engage

there are at least three or four big campaigns every year.

with existing customers and build relationships with new

What is your “social layer” on top of these campaigns?

demographics through impactful marketing initiatives. How will

Product Launches What new and innovative products is your company launching

you utilize social content during the holidays to propel sales?

Deals & Promotions

this year? How can you integrate social media and social

Everyone loves a sale, a deal, or a promotion, so what better

content onto these launches to generate and amplify consumer

way to optimize word-of-mouth content than through social

awareness, buzz, and excitement?

media? Utilize this valuable asset with immersive social

Store Openings

experiences that allow customers to interact, connect, and share brand affinity and gratitude for your promotion.

If your brand plans to open any stores in 2013, how will you publicize this event? Using social media to garner the consumer

Everyday Conversations

voice not only gives you the opportunity to reach widespread

This one is key. Every week is an event or an opportunity

audiences, but it also allows customers to interact with

to engage with customers on topics they are passionate

your brand, your media experience, and your new store

about. Whether you build a Tweet powered Q&A, throw out

in numerous ways.

an interactive Mad-Lib, or launch a simple photo wall, if you create ways for your customers to engage with you, they

Special Events

will do just that.

Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. The Masters. MTV’s People’s Choice Awards. Think of the big events that are important

Start at any one of these points, and once you begin to share

to your audience and therefore, your brand. How are you

the experiences that you’ve built inside your organization, your

leveraging social engagement before, during, and after

colleagues will quickly want to leverage this new technology

your special events?

for their own initiatives as well.

Let’s check out some brands that have done a fantastic job of leveraging social across a variety of platforms…

CASE STUDY

Across HSN’s owned digital properties, such as their eCommerce website, mobile site, Facebook page, and televised studio sets, they have integrated social media in order to drive content discovery and higher consumer participation.

Real-time social integration on these channels enhances the customer experience and re-defines digital shopping with immersive social eCommerce at every step of the purchase path.

Driving deeper engagement with their brand, HSN also displayed Tweets on air during a Michael Bolton concert.

This multichannel integration effort successfully encouraged customer engagement, participation, and loyalty.

CASE STUDY

Patagonia implemented a multidimensional campaign to inspire brand affinity, drive participation, and promote environmental activism.

Partnering with the popular band Wilco, Patagonia launched the I Vote the Environment campaign, encouraging participants to Tweet why they love the environment, which then appeared onto screens flanking both sides of Wilco’s concert tour stage. Additionally, Tweets with the hashtag “#BecauseILove� appeared on digital screens in Patagonia retail stores, encouraging in-store shoppers to Tweet and engage with the brand. Reaching across digital, social, and physical destinations, Patagonia empowered consumers to rally around a common cause. As a result, Patagonia drove immense amounts of traffic to their earned media, generating more than 10 million impressions of user-generated, brand relevant content. Additionally, they saw an extremely high engagement rate of over 8,000 Tweets and over 3,000 Tweets with photos shared through their hashtag.

STEP 3.

Pay to Fuel Your Owned/Earned Engine

Utilizing paid media to drive participation and traffic back to your website or other integrated social experiences completes the owned, earned, and paid media trifecta. Whether it’s your existing media or external marketing efforts, promoting your social experience ensures traffic and success.

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LEVERAGE YOUR OWN MEDIA FIRST Before you start spending outside advertising dollars,

Spokespersons

go through the assets that your brand has at its disposal and

Does your brand work with any athletes, celebrities, or other

see how much you can leverage. Here are some examples:

types of spokesmen who would be willing to leverage their

Broadcast Media

social reach to promote your experience?

Add a simple Twitter hashtag to the bottom of a TV spot to

Partners

encourage customers to Tweet. Or, mention a hashtag or a URL

What partners do you have that would be willing to promote

on radio spots where customers can go to join the conversation

your experience for you? If you are a manufacturer, what

related to a campaign or special event.

retailers do you work with that you could lean on to give you

Print Media

free advertising to their audiences?

As with broadcast, get some space on any printed advertising

Now Add Targeted Marketing and Advertising

to promote a URL and/or hashtag.

After leveraging your existing assets, it’s time to gain your

Digital Media

customers’ attention with paid media, such as Twitter Promoted Products or Facebook advertisements. This native

Make sure you leverage your email database and your website

advertising inside social platforms is particularly successful

to promote your social experience. In addition to this, use your

because rather than acting as a disruptive banner or pop-up

own company employee email signatures and add a link to

ad, it is complementary to the user experience. More so, it

your social experience if possible.

is actually a part of the user experience — it fits, organically

Social Media Channels Of course, leverage your own Twitter account and Facebook page to promote your new social owned media experience.

belongs, and does not interrupt the consumer’s flow.

Several brands have successfully integrated paid media in order to gain their customers’ attention in the social sphere and drive traffic and participation…

CASE STUDY

In conjunction with their Olympics sponsorship, GE implemented several innovative social experiences to immerse viewers into the Games.

With a “Constellation” showcasing lighting technology that visualized the social pulse of Twitter activity and with the NBC Twitter Tracker initiative, GE built a meaningful brand experience that was both fun and participatory. In addition, GE launched the HealthyShare campaign to encourage participants to pledge and promote active health. In order to draw an audience to their microsite, GE purchased a variety of Twitter’s Promoted Products, successfully driving fans to the movement.

CASE STUDY

The Big Ten Network created the BTN Connect, a second screen experience for Big Ten fans, in order to provide a social hub that allowed fans to interact with the stats, buzz, and social chatter surrounding their favorite schools and sports teams.

Capturing social conversation using multistreams, polls, trends, spotlight Tweets, Twitter Q&A, an activity map, and photo walls, BTN Connect was the ultimate interactive destination.

By leveraging Twitter’s Promoted Products, BTN ensured a high participatory rate and a large amount of traffic.

IN SUMMARY

Because your consumers are already on social media sites, utilizing targeted marketing efforts such as Twitter’s Promoted Products or Facebook’s advertisements are a sure way to amplify your social experience, connect with your customers, and drive unprecedented traffic.

Integrating real-time, social content within the brand and advertising experiences increases ROI by transforming the “owned” destinations into more participative and amplifiable assets. As social integration becomes a more necessary component of marketing, integrated media strategies that drive content, customer conversations, and engagement will come out on top, and those that combine owned, earned, and paid media will be the winners.

The ultimate end game is to integrate real-time earned media surrounding your brand across paid and owned platforms.

Successful brands will find ways to capture and maximize the most valuable asset they have — the customer voice.

POWERING SOCIAL EXPERIENCES FOR BRANDS Spredfast is the leader in social media curation and integration.

Brands in virtually every sector from entertainment to media to retail are partnering with Spredfast to drive real-time engagement. Using our platform and products, brands create visually compelling social experiences that can

REQUEST A DEMO See how you can make your earned media work harder

be displayed anywhere.

Whether it is on a brand’s website, on a stadium screen, Times Square or on a television show, the Spredfast platform and products get brands results.

Spredfast played an integral part in providing social media curation and integration during the 2012 Olympics and the recent presidential elections. Partnering with hundreds of brands including GE, Patagonia, Victoria’s Secret, and Major League Baseball, Spredfast continues to make sure brands are on the cutting edge.

@spredfast spredfast.com (512) 538-0460 200 W Cesar Chavez St Suite 600 Austin, TX 78701