Thematic Research - Corporate Adoption of Social Media (Draft) December 12, 2011
Contents 1. Overview of Social Media ......................................................................................................................... 3 2. Enterprise Uses of Social Media................................................................................................................ 8 2.1
Industry-wise relevance of Social Media .................................................................................... 14
2.2
Key Social Media adoption by Fortune 100 & 500 companies ................................................... 15
3. Pros and Cons of using Social Media ...................................................................................................... 17 4. Developing a social media strategy (for internal social networking, or external) .................................. 21 5. Social Media in Insurance Industry ......................................................................................................... 26 6. Companies leveraging social media in insurance – Case Examples ........................................................ 33 7. Annexure ................................................................................................................................................. 35 7.1
Overview of Top 20 vendors of Social Media Monitoring applications ...................................... 35
8. References .............................................................................................................................................. 40
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1. Overview of Social Media Some Indicators about the growing importance of Social Media in customer experience
•
By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for at least 20% of business users (Source: Gartner, November 2010)
•
76% of consumers believe companies are untruthful in their advertising. (Source: Bold Mouth’s “Perceptions, Practices, and Ethics” report 2006)
•
78% of global consumers say recommendations from other consumers are the most credible form of advertising. (Source: Nielsen’s “Truth in Advertising” report 2007)
•
The typical American takes part in 125 person-to-person/voice-to-voice conversations per week that discuss products and services. (Source: Keller Fay Talk Track study)
•
Ford already is spending about 25 percent of its mammoth marketing budget to leverage its early auto-industry leadership in social media (Article: CEOs and Social Media by Dale Buss, September 2011)
•
"It isn't a marketing initiative. It isn't a PR initiative. It's cultivating and creating great consumer value and great customer relationships" (Digital Strategy Director, Starbucks)
How social media is changing the way customers interact
Social media refers to the information and communication technology platforms designed for real-time social interaction, such as wikis, discussion forums and blogs. These platforms are available on public sites such as Facebook and private sites such as Jive and Yammer. Some sites are more specialized in their objectives than others – for example, Linkedin’s objective is to enable professionals to create and share profiles and to enable HR professionals to interact with them, while Facebook’s objective is to enable information creation and interaction for more general audiences. Hence, Facebook uses a large number of platforms, such as instant messaging, event planning and image-uploading. In general, more narrow objectives usually result in the use of fewer platforms - for instance, Twitter only contains a microblog platform and YouTube contains platforms for image sharing and comments, while enterprise social network Yammer contains wikis, discussion forums, blogs, text and multi-media content sharing and more. The Social Media Universe comprises of the following: Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
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Social Media Universe Blogs/ Conversations
Customers Service Networks
Blog Communities
Location
Comment Reputation
Pictures
Video
Micromedia
Events
SMS/Voice
Social Bookmarks
Video Aggregation
Lifestreams Blog Platforms
Documents
Specific to Twitter
Crowdsourced Content
Livecasting – Video and Audio
Social Networks
Music
Niche Networks
Wiki
Social Media emerged as and continues to be a cultural phenomenon, and is quickly becoming a business phenomenon too. Increasingly, current and prospective customers are using Social Media to communicate about the products and services they buy or intend to buy. These peer-to-peer or customer-to-customer communications are sometimes happening instead of contacting the companies who offer the products and services. Leading enterprises have recognized the importance of tapping into these customer-to-customer communications. They are following a number of paths to learn from, participate, support their customers and ultimately find ways to leverage these social conversations for their business benefits. In a constant cycle of listen-analyze-engage-evolve, organizations can optimize their social media programs to continually enhance their business The benefits of using social media to interact with customers are real and deep. • First, there is the social interaction itself, which can provide direct value to the business through revenue from social commerce and cost savings when used for customer care or research, for example. •
Plus, social networking enables rapid, viral distribution of offers and content that may reach beyond what could be done in traditional channels – all with endorsement from connections people trust.
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•
Companies also can use social platforms to mine data for brand monitoring and valuable customer insights, which can spark innovations for improved services, products and customer experiences.
As marketers begin to allocate a higher percentage of their advertising budget to social networking sites, service providers in the analysis market are transitioning from Web Analytics to Social Analytics. Growth & Potential of Social Media
Social media users across the world have been increasing, and they are expected to grow at a minimum CAGR of 9% from 2010 through 2015. This makes it a very important and promising communication and feedback medium for corporations. 2010
2011
862,995
952,843
1,038,967
1,124,488
1,217,646
1,324,239
10%
9%
8%
8%
9%
1,970,702
2,198,868
2,385,775
2,588,750
2,724,802
2,913,325
44%
43%
44%
43%
45%
45%
Total Social Media Users Year on Year Growth Worldwide Internet Users Social Media Penetration of Internet User Base
2012
2013
2014
2015
CAGR 2010-2015 9%
8%
Source: Gartner (September 2011)
Key Executives are understanding the growing importance and potential of Social Media in their Customer Experience and Retention strategy, and showing increasing interest in adopting it: •
“We were just named the number one brand in a new social media engagement report. The key here is that we are connecting directly with our loyal customers who will be driving our future growth” – Howard Schultz, Starbucks Q3 2009 Earnings Call
•
“We use it to get our brand out there and for any promotions, announcements of new service areas—anything new and different. And then we watch how it spreads compared with what we’d have to pay for print or radio to get the same kinds of demographics. That would be hundreds of thousands of dollars each time, compared with very little for social media.” - Dale Moser, CEO of Coach USA
•
“Best Buy’s message has to be where people are, and today, that means being on social networks. Otherwise, a company “risks not being in the conversation at all. Over time, I believe that can be fatal to a business.” - Brian Dunn, CEO, Best Buy
•
Linda Hudson, CEO of BAE Systems Inc., supported her communications department’s full-on launch into social media last year as a way to engage with a community of thousands each day, including the users of our products. She did so even though information in her business “often is heavily restricted or nuanced, and a poor choice of words or a misplaced decimal can hurt shareholders or even endanger customers.”
Generation Y still accounts for the lion’s share of activity, but Generation X isn’t far behind and Baby Boomers are quickly catching up, particularly in the use of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
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LinkedIn, etc. In 2009, 50%of Baby Boomers were using social networking sites, and that number had swelled to 72% by 2010 Percentage of consumers with accounts on social sites Social networking sites
72%
Media sharing sites Microblogging sites
37%
24%
Blogging sites
24%
12%
Wikis
22%
14%
Social review sites
10%
Social bookmarking sites
7% 6%
No accounts 0%
42%
30%
27%
20% 16% 19%
12%
10%
89%
67%
42%
33%
79%
13%
20%
20%
30%
Gen Y
40%
Gen X
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Baby Boomer
Notes: 1 Sample size N=1056. 2 Generation Y: People born between 1975 and 1992 (18 to 35 years olds); Generation X: People born between 1965 and 1974 (36 to 45 year olds); Baby Boomers: People born in or before 1964 (46 years olds and older). Source: IBM Institute for Business Value analysis. CRM Study 2011.
While connecting with friends & families is still the biggest draw for social media websites, a lot of consumers are increasingly using it as a platform to share opinions, access reviews, connect with companies, and more. Reasons consumers go to social media or social networking sites Connect with friends and family
70%
Access news
49%
Access entertainment
46%
Share opinion
42%
Access reviews
39%
Meet people
38%
Share media
36%
Research for work
28%
Get deals
26%
Interact with brands
23%
Network for work
22%
Write blog
22%
Access education
22%
Search jobs
20%
Other
0% 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Social Media channels relevant to customer interactions broadly fall under two categories:
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•
Customer community/forum on the company’s own website
•
External Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, customer community/forums, etc.
While Social Media customer engagement for most companies began on external Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc, very quickly companies discovered the various benefits of supporting customer communities on their own website. Some prominent examples of companies with successful online customer communities are Verizon, Intel, AT&T, Cisco, etc. Companies essentially use community forums for: •
Reducing customer service management costs
•
Creating database for First time resolution (again this HAS multiple benefits from cost, to customer loyalty, etc.)
•
Creating a more private & direct feedback loop, as against a public feedback loop (through the likes of Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
•
SEO/SEM
Today, most companies that engage with customers in Social Media do so in both of these avenues, and more importantly monitor and extract market intelligence from Social Media customer activity and interactions using various monitoring and listening tools Percentage of companies with a profile on a social site Social networking sites
79%
Media sharing sites
18%
55%
Microblogging sites
37%
52%
Wikis
10%
10%
52%
31% 0%
7%
45%
36%
Social bookmarking sites
7%
45%
45%
Social review sites
8%
41%
48%
Blogging sites
12%
55% 20%
Have a profile/presence
3%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Do not have a profile/presence
14% 70%
80%
90%
100%
Don't Know
Note: Numbers rounded to equal 100 percent. Source: IBM Institute for Business Value analysis. CRM Study 2011.
Businesses want to be where their customers are, and executives are feeling significant pressure to get engaged and get it right. Social media has become a priority so quickly, that: • Nearly 70% say their companies will be perceived as “out of touch” if they aren’t using it •
Two thirds (67%) say they need a social media presence to attract top employees, and
•
More than half (58%) believe their competition is successfully reaching customers through social sites.
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2. Enterprise Uses of Social Media Companies cite using social media to communicate with customers as the most prominent reason for using social media. Other prominent usages include responding to customer questions, and promoting events with social media. However, businesses still appear to be lesser inclined to use social media to capture customer insights, monitor the brand, conduct research, or solicit ideas for new products or services, despite these being some of the most fruitful opportunities for this channel. Data about customer perspectives, desires and habits can be captured very quickly and for far less cost than traditional methods. With time, this is anticipated to change significantly. Social Media has evolved to have multiple uses in an Enterprise. The most prominent uses are:
1. Customer Service & Support: Typical types of social media posts for customer support/service largely come in these forms: • Suggestions • Issues/Complaints/Negative Feedback • Positive feedback • Service/Product Offerings inquiries • Other queries There is an increasing trend of companies providing solutions to customer problems over social media itself (predominantly Twitter, Blogs, Facebook). This could be on the company’s Twitter/Facebook page or blog itself, or customer service representatives can listen to conversations over other external social media sources throughout the web, using specific applications.
2. Public Relations, Corporate Communications: Companies use their own Twitter/Facebook/etc. pages to post latest information about the company, like new offerings, achievements, awards, etc. Companies also use other general forums (like Youtube, industry forums, Scribd, etc.) to showcase their companies/ products/ services, to create goodwill and establish a presence. Companies also use this platform for product pre-launch, to gather consumer reviews so that necessary changes to the product and its strategy can be made before the actual launch. Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
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3. Sales – Customer Acquisition, Growth, Retention: The role of social media has evolved to assist companies in Lead Generation, along with customer penetration & retention. For example, this is done by tapping: • Consumers who have visited the company’s website or social networking page • Consumers who are a part of the company’s/product’s/industry’s ‘Fan Page’ on Facebook • Consumers who have enquired on the company’s social networking page • Consumers who are seeking opinions of people for the company’s products/services, over social networking forums (like Facebook, Twitter, Q&A forums, etc.) • Dissatisfied customers of competitors, who are giving their opinions on public forums • Potential consumer names and profiles from social media sites (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.) and approach them • Many more…
4. Marketing – Branding, Positioning, Promotions (covered in detail later): Companies use social media to build and promote their brands through a combination of proactive and reactive steps • Advertise on popular social media forums (Using SEO & SEM effectively) • Explain features of products/services on social media • Tie-up with opinion leaders to help promote the brand • Participate in discussion forums, Q&A forums, surveys, etc. • Give webinars, and upload presentations on websites like Docstoc, Scribd • Informatory and promotional videos on video streaming websites • Giving out discount coupons, deals through social media • Listening to customer/user opinions/feedback on social media, and provide positive response and solution • Many more…
5. Employee Collaboration, Product Development, Recruitment: This is more of an inward looking usage of Social Media. Companies are slowly deploying private social networks, where employees from different departments across the world can know each other, and collaborate. This gives rise to new ideas for - product/service development, process streamlining, employee retention, etc. Capabilities of different employees can be leveraged to deliver high quality outputs efficiently. Social Media sites like Linkedin, Facebook, etc. also give recruiters more insight into candidate profiles and backgrounds, and help in making a better recruitment decision. (Covered in detail later) And companies are accordingly using this information to improve their interaction with customers/ others over social media
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What is your company doing with social media today?
Communicate with customers Respond to customer questions Promote events Generate sales leads Sell products/services Solicit customer reviews Capture customer data Brand monitoring Customer research Recruit employees Employee-to-employee interactions Solicit customer ideas Provide support Expert insights/thought leadership Training/education Customer-to-customer interactions Vendor or partner communication
74% 66% 60% 52% 50% 48% 46% 46% 43% 43% 41% 40% 40% 38% 37% 36% 27% 0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Information gleaned from Social Media Interactions Notes: N=351. Not shown in figure: “I don’t know” = 9 percent and “Others”= 2 percent Source: IBM Institute for Business Value analysis. CRM Study 2011
How are companies adopting Social Media Is Social Media on Your CEO’s Agenda? (% of respodents) Don't Know 19% Yes 38%
Does Your Company Have a Senior Executive Who is Reponsible for Socail Media Company-Wide (% of respondents) Yes 35%
No 65% No 43% Source: Booz & Company/Buddy Media Campaigns to Capabilities Social Media & Marketing 2011 Survey results
Though social is not on the agenda of many CEOs, nearly 40% of respondents reported that is it a CEOlevel agenda item. This suggests that social media has moved beyond being a “fad” for many of these companies, and it is viewed more as a high potential business tool Today, the social media strategy is primarily led and managed by marketing / digital / PR functions Which functions are responsible for managing and implementing a social media strategy Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
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Marketing Marketing communications Public relations Information technology Sales Web/e-commerce Social media General management Customer service/call center Human resources Customer service/other Customer insights Research and development Operations Risk Management Product/service development Finance Supply chain management
52% 45% 42% 41% 32% 29% 25% 22% 20% 20% 17% 17% 17% 17% 15% 15% 14% 10% 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
To gear up for developing and managing social media presence, companies are investing significantly in hiring full-time employees and partnering with other service providers
60% 50%
Investments in Social – Type (% of respodents)
57% 48%
39%
40%
38%
30%
25% 16%
20%
14%
10% 0% Hiring Services full-time provided employees by partners
Creating more content
Media buys
Consulting/ IT systems/ Hiring other partnerships contractors professional freelancers, services or part-time employees
Companies use a mix of internal and external mediums for supporting customers through social media (Refer figure below). For instance, in Communications and Healthcare, more companies are monitoring customer conversations on Facebook and Twitter than directly supporting these channels. In Retail and Consumer, and Financial Services verticals, more companies are supporting multiple social channels, but fewer are actually monitoring and extracting market intelligence from these interactions today. Support social media customer activity and interactions Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
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Total Market
Retail and Consumer
Financial Services
Communication
45%
42%
Yes, on our website/customer forums
30%
33%
Yes, on external social media sites such as facbook, twitter, etc.
29%
32%
18%
Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
33%
Healthcare
17%
20%
Others
34%
21%
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Monitor and extract intelligence from social media customer activity and interactions Total Market
Yes, on our website/custo mer forums
25%
Yes, on external social media sites such as facbook, twitter, etc.
29%
Financial Services
Retail and Consumer
27%
29%
Communication
37%
28%
16%
Healthcare
Others
17%
42%
20%
26%
31%
Companies feel that Social Media platforms such as Ratings & Reviews, forming Company/Brand communities, and blogs provide the highest return on investment. However, platforms like Facebook have started getting more recognition in terms of ROI in the corporate world. What social marketing activity brings you the highest return on investment? 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Ratings and reviews
Your Company/ Your company/ Participation in brand brand blog industry community blog/forum Average to Significant, 2010
Don’t know or none, 2010
Although there has been a lot of hype around Social CRM tools in the contact center, only around Âźth of BPOs have implemented Social Media Monitoring or Community Platforms to support customer interactions. The use of social technologies is likely to rise dramatically over the coming years as BPO buyers look to companies that can monitor the social happenings of their customers and create more community based self help platforms.
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% of survey Resodents that use Specific Technologies to support customer Interactions 91.2%
87.7%
84.2%
84.2%
80%
66.7% 54.4%
50.0%
40%
28.1%
26.3%
Community Platforms
56.1%
60%
Social/ Media Monitoring
100%
22.8%
20%
2.1
Other
BPM Tools
CTI Platform
Web Self Service
Peredictive Dialer
IVR
CRM
Agent Desktop
In-House/ Custom Apps
0%
Industry-wise relevance of Social Media
Contrary to popular opinion that Social Media is largely relevant only in select industries, business interest in Social Media customer support is high across a number of industry verticals, as shown in the Figure below, with Retail being the most prominent Benefits from supporting and tracking social media customer interactions Total Market
Provide better customer service
75%
Retail and Consumer
Financial Services
82%
71%
Healthcare
71%
75%
Others
74%
Drive more sales
58%
76%
Drive customer loyalty
54%
71%
43%
Use customer feedback for product improvements
50%
64%
37%
47%
Protect and enhance your brand
47%
64%
51%
36%
51%
38%
Reduce customer support costs via call avoidance
41%
45%
44%
37%
34%
55%
59%
Communications
64%
43%
51%
56%
51%
49%
69%
45%
Note: Others includes Travel & Hospitality, Hi-Tech, Govt. & Education, Outsourcing, Utilities, Industrial, etc. Source: Frost & Sullivan 2010 Contact Center Survey
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2.2
Key Social Media adoption by Fortune 100 & 500 companies
Corporates & Blogs F500 F500 F500 F500 Companies with Companies with Companies with Companies with a Blog (2011) a Blog (2010) a Blog (2009) a Blog (2008)
100%
8
11
11
8
80%
7
9
6
5
7 5 5 4 4 2
7 6 6 6 3 3
6 5 5 4 5 4
5 4 4 4 4 3
60% 40% 20%
10% 18% 16% 14%
4
16% 11% 13% 14%
7
11% 13% 17% 16%
8
25% 19% 21% 23%
9
38% 39% 32% 35%
Specialty Retail Computer Software, Peripherals, Office Equipment Food Production, Services and Drug Stores Telecommunications Commercial Banks Semiconductors Motor Vehicle Insurance Information Technology
Fortune 500 Companies with corporate blogs by rank (2008 vs. 2009 vs. 2010 vs. 2011)
201-300
301-400
401-500
0% 1-100
101-200 2008
2009
2010
2011
Corporates & Twitter
23
80%
Food production, services, drug stores and consumer products
23
22
60%
Insurance
21
20
Utilities
16
16
Computer software, peripherals, office equipment
10
14
Telecommunications
11
12
39% 25% 25%
40%
18% 16% 17%
25
11% 17% 17%
Specialty Retail
Fortune 500 Companies with Twitter accounts by rank (2009 vs. 2010 vs. 2011)
100%
13% 17% 17%
No of 2010 F500 companies with a Twitter Account
19% 25% 24%
No of 2011 F500 companies with a Twitter Account
Industry
101-200 2009
201-300 2010
301-400 2011
401-500
20% 0% 1-100
Majority of corporate Twitter accounts focus on providing company news, updates and announcements to stakeholders. Around one-quarter of the corporate accounts tweet to consumers about deals or contests specifically related to their products and/or services Corporates & Facebook Industry
No of 2011 F500 companies with a Facebook Account
No of 2010 F500 companies with a Facebook Account
Insurance
27
28
Specialty Retail
24
26
Food production, services, drug stores and consumer products
24
21
Commercial banks
13
11
Telecommunications
11
12
Computer software, peripherals, office equipment
10
12
General Merchandisers
10
10
Utilities
8
11
Facebook Fans in the 2011 F500
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Company Name
Company Rank
No of 2011 F500 Facebook Fans
Coca-Cola
70
32,303,342
Starbucks
229
24,102,790
McDonald’s
111
9,426,335
Wal-Mart
1
7,105,159
Levi Strauss
496
6,841,938
Kohl’s
142
5,290,702
Target
33
4,919,647
Nike
135
4,757,335
Source: Center for Marketing Research, UMass Dartmouth
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3. Pros and Cons of using Social Media Social Media has provided corporations with a whole new means of engaging with consumers, and creating & maintaining a more direct bond with them. Some of the key Benefits of using Social Media • Reach customers that traditional marketing misses: Companies will never know who will direct a customer / consumer to their blog, Facebook page or social bookmark post, thus, potential for reeling in new leads is unlimited. The viral marketing effect of social media can spread company’s offers and messages amongst 1000s of people very quickly. Moreover, this is where your customers are – Facebook isn’t merely a domain filled with teenagers and 20 something’s. It now attracts all demographics and ages. In fact, Facebook’s fastest growing segment is the over 55s •
Build brand loyalty: Not only companies can use social media to build their brand; companies can use it to interact with customers and show them that the company cares which, in turn, breeds loyalty. The one-to-one dialogue companies have in social media makes it a very powerful platform for building a closer affinity with customers and brand loyalty
•
Learn how to improve your products and services: By encouraging open communication through public comments, companies can learn what they can do to make their products and pitch more palatable
•
Learn more about your target audience: Customers comments and visitor analytics can prove invaluable when planning other marketing campaigns such as direct-mail postcards
•
Customer service: Customers don’t rely on email and the phone to get their questions answered anymore. They’re now posting messages in blogs and forums to get them resolved. Engaging with social media enables companies to respond to the evolving nature of customer service, and also reduces the number of calls/queries coming to their customer service department
•
Crisis marketing: When something goes wrong, customers want to know how the company is going to put it right. Many aren’t going to wait for a press release or newspaper article before they start forming a negative opinion about company’s lethargic response. Twitter can be used to get apologies out fast and to answer concerned customers’ questions
•
Cost efficiency: Social media marketing is cost-efficient in comparison with other marketing methods, even if a company hires a dedicated team or outsources its social media content needs
•
Track competition: Companies can learn what their competitors are doing, and what do consumers think about them – What do customers like/hate about them, how are they implementing their online marketing efforts, new product development, etc
While corporations are very optimistic about the future of Social Media in business, there are certain challenges and pitfalls in implementing a good and successful social media strategy. These are: Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
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Potential issues/challenges with external usage of Social Media • Time consuming: Social media content must be created, edited, approved and published; comments must be responded to and sites and pages must be maintained. However, one can alleviate these time consuming demands by outsourcing for a fee •
Content Creativity: Social media marketing places high demands on talent. It can be difficult to constantly come up with innovative exciting content that interests a variety of readers
•
Loss of Control: Companies lose some control of their marketing efforts. Anything they publish is up for grabs, and others can easily criticize it. Without the ability to control comments or even what their own team is publishing, company can open itself up for potential negatives. Moreover, all this information becomes readily available to competitors as well
•
Possible dilution of brand voice: If the company has more than one person posting messages on social media sites then this can lead to inconsistency of phrases and tone
•
Long time before ROI: Social media marketing can work to build relationships and brand loyalty, but it takes time and dedication. Social media marketing efforts are not likely to earn immense popularity overnight, so companies must be willing to be in it for the long haul
Potential issues/challenges with internal implementation of Social Media • Inaction due to unclear ownership and accountability: It is still extremely hard to define and measure the return on investment (ROI) from Social Media customer initiatives. As a result, in spite of strong interest in these initiatives, when the time comes for departmental leaders to take ownership and accountability and sign off on the investment required, oftentimes these executives are not willing to do so - One department waits for the other to take action, and in the process no action is taken. •
Focus on capability building instead of business value creation: For example, IT department goes ahead and implements a Social Media application such as say a customer community/forum, but there is not adequate supporting effort planned or executed. There are several scenarios where this kind of initiative could fail to create business value – –
–
–
–
Customers start posting negative reviews and comments on the company’s products and services, and the contact centre is not adequately equipped or trained to reach out to these customers and handle their complaints Marketing has not created enough content to keep customers engaged on the website; soon the novelty fades away and along with it customer activity on the community/forum website Accustomed to handling calls for technical support, the company has not created sufficient and the right kind of tech support content such as instructional video clips, etc. for the forum website The company’s customers are largely using other Social Media sites/forums for the same purposes and see no particular reason to switch or use the company’s customer community/forum website
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•
Misalignment / disconnect between various departmental Social Media initiatives: For example, sales, marketing, customer service, corporate communications, etc. implement their own applications, resulting in - Applications not talking to each other, Redundant or conflicting customer data is gathered, Fragmented customer experience across channels
•
Lack of an integrated project plan for implementation, support and continuous improvements: Many companies implement several departmental Social Media customer initiatives at the same time. Many times, these projects compete for the same limited pool of IT resources and lack an integrated project plan to ensure capabilities are built in a sequence and timeframe that makes sense to the organization at large
One major error that enterprises make when implementing a social media strategy is that they have a lot of misperceptions regarding why consumers interact with them via social sites. This results in wrong or irrelevant message being conveyed to the customer, which can only result in building more bad-will. Following figure illustrates this. Consumers rank tangible benefits from social media (like discounts, coupons, etc.) as main reason to interact with companies on social media platforms, while enterprises believe that customers are mainly interested in learning about new products, etc. Consumers’ Ranking The reasons they interact with companies via social sites
Perception Gap
Businesses’ Ranking: Why they think consumers follow them via social sites
(61%) Discount
Learn about new products (73%)
(66%) Purchase
General information (71%)
(53%) Reviews and product rankings (53%) General information (52%) Exclusive information (51%) Learn about new products (49%) Submit opinion on current products/services (37%) Customer service (34%) Event participation (33%) Feel connected
Submit opinion on current products/services (69%) Exclusive information (68%) Reviews and product rankings (67%) Feel connected (64%) Customer service (63%) Submit ideas for new products/services (63%) Be part of a community (615) Event participation (61%)
(30%) Submit ideas for new products/services
Purchase (60%)
(22%) Be part of a community
Discount (60%)
Note: Consumer: N=1056; Business: Learn N=333, General info N=336, Submit opinion N=334, Exclusive info N=333, Reviews/rankings N=333, Feel connected N=331, Customer service N=331, Submit ideas N=332, Purchase N=334, Discounts N=331. Source: IBM Institute for Business Value analysis. CRM Study 2011.
Some Metrics Used by Enterprises: While companies are still thriving hard to put a system in place that successfully measures the ROI for corporate social media initiatives, there are certain other metrics which companies are already using to gauge the success of these initiatives.
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Metrics used for social media (% of respondents) Reach (uniques, PVs, video views, time spent)
88%
Buzz (trending topics, blog mentions, influentials)
66%
Engagement (forwards, shares, re-tweets, posts, likes)
93%
Participation (fans, followers, check-ins, sign-ups)
92%
Transaction (sales, leads generated)
38%
Advocacy (comments, feedback, participation in polls)
81% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Source: Booz & Company/Buddy Media Campaigns to Capabilities Social Media & Marketing 2011 Survey results
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4. Developing a social media strategy (for internal social networking, or external) Companies need to follow a very systematic approach to create and execute a social media strategy Social media strategy
Social media delivery Implementation plan
Evaluation
Execution
Monitoring
Determine contributions of social media to organizational goals and target audience
Develop a roadmap and business case for embedding social media
Deliver social media projects and execute the plan
Manage the social media initiative and develop a growth strategy
• Assess your overall business goals to determine social media objectives
• Determine existing (social) media activities
• Determine functional requirements of social media projects
• Monitor and measure social media activity
• Creative awareness and understanding of social media and its opportunities and challenges • Assess strategic alignment with your social media goals • Develop segmentation/ characteristics of your target audience
• Develop possible scenarios for social media use • Develop a business case of social media projects, including risks, goals and metrics
• Develop interaction and graphic design • Select vendor-based tools • Build or configure tools
• Prioritize social media projects
• Identify and gather relevant content
• Design a roadmap
• Implement organizational structure to manage social media projects
• Research the target audience’s use of social media
• Analyze and learn from the successes of the initiative • Perform community management and coach clients on the successful use of social media initiatives • Wrap up the project and launch the next social media initiative
• Build awareness and train users
• Assess the organization’s
• Test and deliver projects
current social media While there are many enablers for executing a social media strategy, executive-level support and clear activities demarcation of roles & responsibilities become critical enablers
Social media success factors (% of respondents who “strongly agree” or “agree”) 93%
90%
90%
88%
86%
83%
80%
79%
80%
62%
60%
53%
50%
Head of social medica companywide
94%
Dedicated budget not shared with other digital…
100%
40%
Ability to coordinate & manage multiple service providers
Unique content that is exclusive to the audience…
Strong PR capability
Supporting initiatives with an integrated marketing plan
A culture that encourages experimentation
Education on what can be achieved via social media
Clearly communicated support from…
Having a clear champion, owner
Ability to adapt & react quickly
0%
Training of staff who are not accustomed to…
20%
Source: Booz & Company/Buddy Media Campaigns to Capabilities Social Media & Marketing 2011 Survey results
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Implementing a successful social media strategy comes with its own set of challenges, which enterprises should be aware of, should monitor, and should try to resolve. Some of these challenges are highlighted below: Establishing ROI strategy
36%
Monitoring employees' social media use
30%
Negative brand exposure
28%
Lack of strategy
27%
Public concern over privacy
23%
Not realizing ROI
20%
Lack of support
19%
Lack of skills
19%
Industry regulation
16%
Tracking cross-channel interaction
16%
Lack of analytics
16%
Lack of employee participation
14%
Employee concern over privacy
10% 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
Notes: N=351. Not shown in figure: “Other� = 3 percent. Source: IBM Institute for Business Value analysis. CRM Study 2011
There are a lot of capabilities, competencies and policies that need to be developed or enhanced for delivering a successful strategy. Having clear and definitive social media policies is the most crucuial. Organizational Elements (% of respondents) 100% 90% 80%
7%
3%
29%
34%
70%
9%
4%
32%
37%
16%
4%
16%
16%
9% 25% 41%
28%
47%
60%
35%
46%
56% 40%
50% 40% 30%
65%
63%
44% 59%
59%
56%
20%
50%
49%
38%
35%
35%
10%
15%
Have today
Building or will build soon
Revenue-generating platforms built from social media
Social media-driven customer service channels
Consumer insights generation via social media
Platforms/forums to share results /best practices
Social media creative/content capability
KPIs & dashboards for social media
Social media agency partnerships
Overall strategy for social media
Monitoring & rapid response capability in social media
Integration of social media into marketing plans overall
Social media policies
0%
Do not havde, not looking to build
Note: Numbers may not add up due to rounding. Source: Booz & Company/Buddy Media Campaigns to Capabilities Social Media & Marketing 2011 Survey results
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Social media teams will evolve over time, with increasing importance being given to content and system development This role is on our social media team today (% of those with dedicated resources) 63%
70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
49% 36%
30% 10%
Community managers
Creative talent (editors, content creation)
Analysts/strategy Senior management Product/software resources (not including head developers of social media if applicable)
Source: Booz & Company/Buddy Media Campaigns to Capabilities Social Media & Marketing 2011 Survey results
Type of full-time roles we are planning to invest in the near future (% of respondents investing in FTEs) 72%
80% 59%
60%
43%
40%
28%
24%
20% 0% Community managers
Creative talent (editors, content creation)
Analysts/strategy Senior management Product/software resources (not including head developers of social media if applicable)
Source: Booz & Company/Buddy Media Campaigns to Capabilities Social Media & Marketing 2011 Survey results
Indicative Pricing for setting up Social Media presence in 2012: •
BLOG: – Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource all content creation (including customer interaction, handling responses to comments, etc) – $1,000-$5,000 a month Most Probable Charge – $1,000-$3,000 a month –
Writing/Editing Content for the blog plus ongoing training (Assume 1-2 posts a week at this rate) – $500-$4,000 a month
–
Most Probable Charge – $1,000-$3,500 a month
Ghostwriting blog posts – $50-$500 per
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•
TWITTER: – Launch a new presence on Twitter and outsource all content creation and customer interaction – $500-$2,500 a month Most Probable Charge – $500-$1,000 a month –
•
Ongoing Account Management and Training – $500-$3,000 a month (For this service, the more content you need provided for you, the higher the fees) Most Probable Charge – $500-$1,500 a month
FACEBOOK: – Launch a Facebook Page from the ground-up, outsourcing all content creation and customer interactions – $500-$2,500 a month Most Probable Charge – $500-$1,500 a month –
Monthly Content Management and Curation – $500-$3,000 a month Most Probable Charge – $1,000-$2,000 a month
–
Facebook Promotion Creation include Short-Term (1-3 months) Contest, including branding for the app, limited promotion on other channels such as Facebook and Twitter to promote the contest - $1,500-$2,000 Long-Term (3-6 months) Contest, including above, more elaborate promotion based on client’s needs – $25,000-$75,000
– •
Most Probable Charge – $75-$200 per
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY: – Setup – $500-$5,000 a month Most Probable Charge – $1,000-$2,000 a month –
Ongoing Reports and Advisement – $500-$7,500 a month Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000 a month
–
Comprehensive Social Media Strategy Creation and Integration with Existing Marketing Efforts –$10,000-$30,000 a month Most Probable Charge – $10,000-$15,000 a month
–
Audit of existing Social Media Strategy Including Recommendations for Improvement – $2,000-$25,000 Most Probable Charge – $5,000-$10,000
•
SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTING: – Hourly rates – $50-$500/Hr (prices may reduce if multiple hours are bought) – Most Probable Charge – $100-$250/Hr
•
ON-SITE TRAINING/WORKSHOPS: (All fees excluding travel expenses) – Half-Day (4 hours) – $500-$7,500 Most Probable Charge – $2,000-$3,500 –
Full-Day (6-8 hours) – $1,000-$15,000 Most Probable Charge – $4,000-$6,000
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•
Social Media Speaker – Individual session (Up to 90 minutes, usually 1 hour): $1,000-$5,000 Most Charge: $2,000-$3,000 –
Keynote: $1,000-$15,000 Most Charge: $5,000-$10,000
Source: Mackcollier
An overview of Top 20 vendors of Social Media Monitoring applications has been provided in the Annexure.
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5. Social Media in Insurance Industry The insurance companies are no different than any other business listening and engaging in social media/community. Insurance companies are looking for what is being said about them and where they can immediately engage in relevant conversations. Increasing Consumer Influence in Insurance Value Chain
As society increasingly interacts online, the rise of social media platforms is accelerating the shift of power and influence away from the insurer to the customer. The table below illustrates the paradigm shift in insurance industry. Shift of Influence Value Chain
Traditional • Transactional • Risk Based
Customer Insight
• Basic consumer details
Emerging
Insurer
Customer
• Lifestyle and lifecycle perspective
• Behavioural and emotional insights
• Connection, community & affinity based
• Conservative, limited
• Crowd sourced ideation &
choice range Product Development
• Mass market appeal and
co-development
• Mass market forecasting
offers
• Focus group, small sample
and direction
• Niche, more targeted
size driven
• Mass market, analytical
offerings
• Customer controlled –
approach - big budget Marketing
• Above and below the line
Curate content
• Seeding & influencing vs.
/ Direct Vs Indirect
• Branded controlled
controlling message
• Higher returns due to
message and content
• Individual research,
peer recommendation
• Validation of
criteria selection
• Decision based on fact Sales
rather than emotion
• Lengthy process and decision
recommendations not research
• More emotional and less price sensitive
• Accelerated process lower cost of sales
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Shift of Influence Value Chain
Traditional
Emerging
• Reactive – problem
Customer
• Pro-active - part of the
focussed
longer term story
• Resource intensive
Service
Insurer
• More peer to peer based, hence lower cost
• Low touch with little
• More touch points –
relationship opportunity
customer experience
• Heavily discount focussed
• Part of holistic engagement with customer
• Higher drop out due to lack of touch points
Renewal
• Higher engagement and
• throughout year
perceived value
• Less need to discount • Phone/F2F channels for
• Another channel for claim
claims lodgement
investigation
• Partial picture for claims
• Smart-phone applications
investigation
Claims
to lodge claims
• Limited ability to
• Mass market
communicate pre-event info
announcements (e.g. QLD 2010)
Influence Level •
•
Insurer
Customer
Insurers need to acknowledge this social media shift and change the way they operate in order to retain some level of control in their interactions. Failure to recognize that the ‘rules have changed’ will soon begin to impact insurers bottom lines. Social Media - The Customer Perspective
Social media platforms are shifting power and influence away from insurers and on to customers.
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Provide Access through Customers’ Channel of Choice •
Customers should be able to use the web site, phone, mobile app, Facebook wall, Twitter, e-mail or mail the Insurer and receive appropriate service levels through each medium
Informational Advantages in Researching Products •
Consumers use social media to acquire information that they use in making their own insurance decisions and to provide information to other consumers considering insurance choices
– The insurer must support
– Most often, consumers use
all of these to meet the customers’ requirements but bear in mind the appropriateness of the channel to the business transaction
social media to share information about insurance companies and producers on Internet sites that allow anyone with a web browser to post notes for others to read
Reporting Claims during Catastrophes
•
Insurance consumers have turned to social media following catastrophic events in order to quickly contact and obtain information regarding their next steps vis-à-vis reporting a claim
– In some situations, displaced insurance consumers (or insurance consumers affected by a catastrophe) could be without their usual infrastructure and support, making social media accessed from a mobile device their primary source of information and communication
Social Media - The Insurers Perspective
Social media has become a vitally important component of human resources, marketing, customer services, and public relations. For insurers, social media can provide a continuous, interactive relationship with the customer, with multiple opportunities to listen and to engage with individuals and communities in a highly personalized dialogue. The potential benefits of social media for insurers are compelling, and include: Enhancing the Brand •
Social media can enable insurers to recognize and empower influential brand advocates; to demonstrate that the organization listens to, and answers, customer questions and complaints; and to react in a timely fashion to issues that, if left unaddressed, could otherwise lead to significant reputational damage.
Reducing Costs •
Social media can lower call center costs of insurers’ by letting consumers help each other and by avoiding having to answer the same questions over and over
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•
Similarly, effective use of social media can redirect efforts and resources within customer service to more critical issues, while using this virtually free medium for customer acquisition can help realize savings, as well –
Close supervision is needed, however, to make sure that customers receive the right information
Influencing Customer Behavior •
Social media helps insurers strengthen relationships by building trust. Through amplification of word-of-mouth marketing from satisfied customers, insurers using social media can increase their ability to change customers’ perceptions.
Increasing Customer Satisfaction •
Insurers can monitor social media to quickly identify negative sentiment and can take proactive measures to address emerging issues. Over time, social media can help build customer loyalty through prolonged interaction and ‘presence’, increasing the Net Promoter Score (NPS), that is, the percentage of customers who would actively recommend the brand to others.
Increasing Sales •
Through the addition of product ratings and reviews, and the introduction of viral campaigns designed to spread through sharing, insurers can use social media to acquire new customers. Peer reviews, ratings and recommendations can be leveraged to generate feedback and help identify potential new customers, as well.
Supporting Innovation •
Social networks can be a valuable source of customer insight for insurers with the ability to listen to customers and crowd-source innovations. Insurers can gain real-time competitor intelligence and identify partnership opportunities that can be useful in launching new initiatives.
Introducing New Insurance Products •
Some insurers have started to propose a new customer service based on social media to protect users’ public information. The insurer would guarantee a clean public life on the Internet and removal of fake accounts, defamation and other online concerns.
Social Media Strategies for Insurance Companies
Social media is a platform that insurers cannot afford to ignore. Insurers that have adopted the Internet as a complementary channel have gained immense advantages over late-arriving player. Social media create significant opportunities for insurers and some of the areas on which insurers can focus their social media strategies include:
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Prospecting Lead Generation and Efficient on Boarding
Channels and Customer Service
Strategy
Underwriting, Claims and Fraud Detection
Analytics and Feedback Strategy
Prospecting Lead Generation and Efficient on Boarding •
Insurance agents can use social media for community involvement, lead generation and sales. Connecting with today’s consumer in the digital age can be facilitated using social media. Oneto-one meetings between agents and prospects can be conducted through online chats, and product details can be explained and highlighted in forums, thereby reducing the time required for meaningful interactions, discussions and clarifications, which can lead to quick and efficient customer on boarding. –
A recent Fiserv survey of 3,000 U.S. consumers found that most respondents want to connect with their financial institutions via social media.
Underwriting, Claims and Fraud Detection •
Insurance carriers can leverage social media for more effective underwriting, claims handling and fraud detection. Insurers can analyze data from the profile of customers’ social networking sites for better decision-making during underwriting, as well as while processing claims. They can also study data generated by customer searches and purchase decisions to deliver better service and ensure loyalty. –
For example, public data gathered from social profiles can be used to verify claim requirements of customers and their status in case of a disability claim.
Analytics and Feedback Strategy •
Social media can help companies identify areas with which customers are dissatisfied and can be used by carriers as an effective feedback mechanism to improve performance and invest in
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areas for instant customer satisfaction. The comments generated in the social media space can be captured to understand customer sentiment and can help insurers distinguish meaningful signals from general noise. –
•
A recent study by MarketTools highlights that 94% of companies do not use social media channels like Facebook and Twitter to gather customer feedback despite consumers’ growing use of these media, thus missing out on vital customer feedback.
Companies can use focus groups and analyze competitor strategies to tailor products based on the needs of potential customers. –
For instance, insurers might think of reducing the cost associated with a particular term insurance plan during a recession if social media indicates that people like the plan but feel it’s unaffordable at the current price.
Channels and Customer Service •
Insurers can actually deliver services to customers through social media channels. Social media channels can provide insurance companies with an opportunity to proactively identify potential issues and warn customers in advance, thereby avoiding last-minute glitches. –
•
For instance, new regulations or compliance requirements can be broadcast via social media channels, guiding customers to contact customer service with details. A potential warning of a hurricane or a broadcast specifying details for first notice of claims can help customers connect directly, as well as avoid unnecessary calls to the customer service department.
Insurers can also embrace multiple channels that connect and complement each other, thereby empowering customers with choice and the flexibility to communicate via numerous channels. –
According to Gartner, by 2013, at least 35% of customer service centers will integrate some form of community/ social capabilities as a part of the contact center solution.
Social Media Risk and Opportunity for Insurance Company
The speed of social media and its lack of accountability make it more difficult to manage the risk of online attacks. This has created opportunities for insurance companies for new and innovative products in social media space. Consumer side Opportunity Social media-savvy young people could represent an emerging market for online risk insurance cover. The biggest concern to younger internet users is the ability to control the commercial use of their name, image or other aspects of their identity. A survey of 2,000 consumers by Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), showed that the Generation Y is more conscious of the inherent risks associated with using social media than its Baby Boomer and Generation X counterparts. Some of the key findings of the survey include:
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•
56% expressed an interest in protecting personal image rights through insurance cover, while only 23% of those aged 55 and above would like to purchase social media insurance to control publicity rights
•
Damage limitation in the event of a social networking account being hacked or parodied by a third party scored similarly highly among 18 to 24 year-olds
•
Almost one in five 18 to 24 year-olds stated that they would be interested in insurance covers for divorce hearings following revelations from social media, while 18% would consider insuring against such revelations leading to job loss versus just 2% and 3% respectively of respondents aged 55 plus
There’s a growing awareness of the dangers of posting the wrong kinds of information on social networking sites, which relate not only to potential financial exposure but also to reputational harm, and with it there’s an appetite for social media insurance from young consumers. Small- and medium-size business side Opportunities Small- and medium-size companies are incorporating social media into their businesses; insurance professionals believe their clients’ risk exposure will grow in the coming year. A survey of 105 insurance professionals by specialty-insurer Torus, found that small- and medium-size companies lack the resources to deal with the risk associated with social media Some of the key findings of the survey include: •
58% expect to see an increase in requests for media-liability policies to mitigate social-media risk, while 36% don’t think there will be a change in the number of requests, and 6% believed requests will decrease
•
The primary concern for 37% of respondents was data leakage, which included dissemination of company secrets and company information
•
27% are concerned about lack of control over potentially damaging content posted by employees, that can damage a company’s brand
While the exposures for small-and medium-size companies are the same as they are for large businesses, the difference lies in the support and training. Smaller firms usually do not have the resources to train employees, monitor postings and have legal advice on hand. This in turn would increase the demand for insurance covers from these businesses.
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6. Companies leveraging social media in insurance – Case Examples All key players (big or small) across insurance segments are using social media as a potent tool to reach customers, resolve their queries, market their products etc. Below mentioned examples/ cases clearly outlines that all major businesses in different verticals have taken a liking towards social media and see them as important business tool worth investing. American Family Insurance: •
•
Facebook –
The U.S. life insurer American Family Insurance is piloting a Facebook application that allows Facebook users to earn free merchandise from their favorite sports team, simply by becoming Facebook fans of both their team and American Family. The application links fans of two different Facebook pages.
–
The insurance company is partnering in a FanFare pilot with teams and organizations across the U.S. As an added benefit, American Family Insurance is donating one dollar to the American Red Cross for each of its first 5,000 Facebook fans.
–
The program was launched in August 2009 and has been successful in increasing American Family’s exposure to new customers while helping with customer acquisition and retention.
Twitter –
•
Company has more than 10,000 followers and a wide range of promotional activities tweeted about, which allows the Company to take good advantage of new potential customers.
YouTube –
American Family is utilizing YouTube’s promoted videos (a facility very similar to Google’s AdWords) to increase their viewer base and subscribers to their YouTube channel.
–
Between October 2010 and January 2011 the number of video views the insurance firm’s channel received catapulted from 5,967 to 44,467.
–
American Family Insurance were able to reach potential customers earlier in the decision making stage – vital considering the size and market share of some of their competition.
Allstate •
Facebook –
Allstate’s Facebook page maximizes the visibility of its various applications, from those that are Facebook native to multiple mobile applications. Front and center is the Allstate
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Championship Challenge Facebook application, which is featured on the landing page so that new users can’t miss it.
•
•
–
The page menu (found in the lefthand column) features all of Allstate’s mobile apps, which is a great way to attract attention to this platform via Facebook.
–
General Facebook content is pleasantly diversified with talk of insurance, holidays and football among other topics. Plus, the variation of sharing formats keeps things interesting; instead of a flood of constant text, they alternate between statuses, polls and pictures.
Twitter –
For large companies that rely on effective customer service, a responsive community management team is essential, especially on Twitter. Customers turn to this platform to be heard and have their insurance issues expedited to the right people. Allstate gets points for having an active team of responders. Plus, the “Meet the Team” column on the left hand side of their Twitter page personifies the response team so that users feel like they are talking to an actual human rather than a robot. Team members then sign tweets with their initials to let people know exactly who they are talking to. Talk about an effective use of social media for insurance brands!
–
The company uses tweets (accompanied by a shortened link) to drive followers to its Facebook-based Championship Challenge game. This encourages likes and further engagement on a variety of platforms.
–
Allstate also wisely placed its social media links in the left sidebar so users can find them on other platforms.
YouTube –
The biggest of appeal of Allstate’s YouTube channel may be the Mayhem commercials, but the platform is also full of other quality content.
–
In addition to Mayhem videos, Allstate provides an entire category of how-to and safety videos that relate directly to the types of insurance they sell. Need to learn how to fuel a boat? Check your oil? Change a headlight? Allstate has the answers in convenient video format on their YouTube channel.
–
Again, the social links at the top of this platform drive viewers to other social outlets – which is key because with 21,839,206 upload views (as of January 4th)
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7. Annexure 7.1 #
1
2
3
4
Overview of Top 20 vendors of Social Media Monitoring applications Company Name
Description
Cost
Clients
Starts at $600/month
Radian6
Canada-based Radian 6 works with brands to help them listen more intelligently to your consumers, competitors and influencers with the goal of growing your business via detailed, real-time insights. Beyond their monitoring dashboard, which tracks mentions on more than 100 million social media sites, they offer an engagement console that allows you to coordinate your internal responses to external activity by immediately updating your blog and Twitter and Facebook accounts all in one spot. Fully automated.
Red Cross, Adobe, AAA, Cirque du Soleil, H&R Block, March of Dimes, Microsoft, Pepsi, Southwest Airlines -- a wide range of clients
Starts at $300/month
Collective Intellect
Using a combination of self-serve client dashboards and human analysis, Colorado based Collective Intellect offers a robust monitoring and measurement tool suited to mid-size to large companies with its Social CRM Insights platform. It applies spam management techniques and text analysis to clean data sets, delivering customers rich intelligence.
General Mills, Pepsi, Walmart, Unilever, CBS, Dole, MTV, Paramount, Verizon Wireless, Viacom, Siemens
Base plan of $249/month for five users and five searches
Lithium
Lithium monitors your search-specific mentions and sentiment in social media outlets and outputs them into easy-to-read graphs and numbers resembling the stock market. Lithium will aggregate information from a variety of platforms including blog posts and comments, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and many others, and assess emotions surrounding your brand pre-, mid- and post campaign so you can adjust your strategies accordingly.
Best Buy, BT, Barnes & Noble, FICO, Disney Online, Stubhub, Motorola, Coca Cola, Focus Features, Netflix.
Entry-level price of $500/month
Sysomos
Sysomos's Heartbeat is a real-time monitoring and measurement tool that provides constantly updated snapshots of social media conversations delivered using a variety of userfriendly graphics. Heartbeat organizes conversations, manages workflow, facilitates collaboration and provides ways to engage with key influencers.
IBM, HSBC, Roche, Sony Ericsson, Philips, ConAgra, Shell Oil, Nokia, Sapient, Citi, Interbrand
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#
Company Name
Description
Cost
Clients
$399/month for one license
Attensity360
Attensity360 helps monitor trending topics, influencers and the reach of your brand while recommending ways to join the conversation. Attensity Analyze applies text analytics to unstructured text to extract meaning and uncover trends. Attensity Respond helps automate the routing of incoming social media mentions into user-defined queues.
Whirlpool, Vodofone, Versatel, TMobile, Oracle, Wiley
Ranges from $500/month to $15,000/month
Rosetta, MDAnderson, Pursuit, YouCast
Alterian SM2
Alterian SM2 tracks mentions on blogs, forums, social networks like Facebook, microblogs like Twitter, wikis, video and photo sharing sites, Craigslist and ePinions. SM2 monitors the daily volume, demographics, location, tone and emotion of conversations surrounding a brand and aggregates results into positive and negative categories for quick review by anyone on staff.
Crimson Hexagon
Cambridge, Mass.-based Crimson Hexagon taps into billions of conversations taking place in online media and turns them into actionable data for better brand understanding and improvement. Based on a technology licensed from Harvard, its VoxTrot Opinion is able to analyze vast amounts of qualitative information and determine quantitative proportion of opinion.
Pricing based on number of seats or number of searches
CNN, Hanes, AT&T, HP, J&J, Mashable, Microsoft, Monster, Thomson Reuters, Rubbermaid, Sybase, A&E, WSJ
Starts at $500 for five queries or Internet searches
Toyota, Lee, Cadbury
Spiral16
Spiral16 takes an in-depth look at who is saying what about a brand and compares results with those of top competitors. The goal is to help you monitor the effectiveness of your social media strategy, understand the sentiment behind conversations online and mine large amounts of data. It uses impressive 3D displays and a standard dashboard.
9
Webtrends
Webtrends offers services geared toward monitoring, measuring, analyzing, profiling and targeting audiences for a brand. The partnerbased platform allows for crowd-sourced improvements and problem solving, creating transparency of their products and services.
packages start at $15,000/yr, app packages start at $1,500 to $12,000/yr
CBS, NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox, AOL, Electronic Arts, Lifetime, AA, Glam, Nestle, the City of Calgary
10
Spredfast
Begins at $250/month
AOL, Nokia, IBM, Sierra Club
5
6
7
8
Spredfast is not only a monitoring service but a social media management, measurement and campaign tool -- in other words, a full-on social
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#
Company Name
Description
Cost
Clients
Five figures is typical
Toyota, ConAgra, Intel, Sony, Nokia, AOL, HBO, Barclays, Whirlpool, GE, Discovery, CocaCola
Pricey. Cost varies according to which suite is used.
Dow, Amway, Graco, other major brands. Converseon has more than 200,000 customers and 10,000 channel partners in 100 countries
media dashboard and integrated communications client. With Spredfast, you can pull relevant conversations from multiple networks into your dashboard, track referrals and conversions, summon up analytics and jump straight to analysis and reports. See our recent full review.
11
12
13
14
NM Incite
Global brands look to NM Incite's expertise across marketing, sales, product development, customer service, business strategy development and in deep verticals for monitoring and social media intelligence. This is a service geared to multinationals rather than nonprofits or mid-size companies.
Converseon
New York-based social-media consulting firm Converseon, named a leader in the social media monitoring sector by Forrester Research, builds tailored dashboards for its enterprise installations and offers professional services around every step of the social business intelligence process. Converseon starts with the technology and adds human analysis, resulting in high-quality data and impressive functionality.
Start at $560/month
Wachovia, Miami Heat
dna13
Ottawa-based dna13's MediaVantage will monitor all of your media coverage and present it in an easy-to-read format allowing you to respond from one platform. dna13 provides ondemand software solutions for brand and reputation management, including a PR and corporate communications software suite and a monitoring service for real-time insight into brand, reputation, competitors and industry issues.
Starts at ÂŁ500 ($775 US) per month
Johnson & Johnson, Skype, Microsoft, Disney
Attentio
Belgium-based Attentio tracks global conversations taking place across social media (blogs, forums, social networks, Twitter, YouTube) and online news sites. The multilingual service offers brand reputation management, campaign/product release impact, sales opportunity tracking and sentiment analysis along with a dashboard to track media in real time.
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#
15
16
17
18
Company Name
Description
Cost Typically $25,000 to $45,000
Visible Technologies
In the fall 2010 Visible Technologies replaced its truCAST technology with Visible Intelligence, its new enterprise social intelligence platform and services. The new platform helps clients monitor, analyze and participate in social media conversations as well as protect their executive and corporate brands online. Visible adds analyst support to their client servicing to help you understand the landscape and determine which intelligence to act on.
Pricey but competitive with other deep monitoring and analytics firms
Fortune 2000 clients. (A lack of transparency may be telling.)
Cymfony
Cymfony provides market influence analytics by scanning and interpreting the millions of voices at the intersection of social and traditional media. It offers a listening and influence platform, Maestro, which integrates distinctive technology with input from expert analysts to identify the people, issues and trends impacting a business. All the standard metrics are included: posts/conversations, tonality, influencers, share of voice and so on.
Price range is EU10,000 to EU70,000 ($13,000 to $91,000 US)
TNT, Vodofone, ING, Nissan, BMW, Microsoft, AstraZeneca
Buzzcapture
Amsterdam-based Buzzcapture provides insight to organizations on the buzz in their market. Buzzcapture can track companies, products, product families, business lines, difficult or complex brands, topics, competitors, influencers, evangelists, critics and campaigns. All the information collected is analyzed and presented into understandable reports and entered into your dashboard.
Unknown
Starbucks, American Express, HBO, HP, Microsoft. Focus on advertisers.
BuzzLogic
BuzzLogic uses its technology platform to identify and organize the conversation universe, combining both conversation topic and audience to help brands reach audiences who are passionate on everything from the latest tech craze and cloud computing to parenthood and politics. However, the social media monitoring tool is no longer available as a standalone product. It now comes as part of BuzzLogic’s ad platform, requiring a media buy to connect to unique audiences through BuzzLogic.
Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
Clients Microsoft, Vail Resorts, Xerox, Boost
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Company Name
Description
Meltwater Buzz
Released in April 2009, Meltwater Buzz monitors, tracks and analyzes user-generated content on more than 200 million social media sites to help a brand understand its user sentiment and gauge competition. All data is stored in one intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard and a customer support representative is provided for the duration of the subscription.
Brandwatch
UK-based Brandwatch trawls the Internet looking at news, blogs, forums, wikis and social networking sites and finding mentions of brands, companies, products and people. Clients define keywords (brands, topics, people names, products) and receive reports and brand summaries that they can take action on.
Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
Cost
Clients
Standard subscription of one year for $13,000 gets you access for three to five users.
Porsche Automotive North America, Vita-Mix, Bausch & Lomb, Pabst Blue Ribbon and other corporations, nonprofits, government agencies
Starts at about $300/month
Aviva, Activision, CheapFlights, The Body Shop
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8. References -
Campaigns to Capabilities: Social Media & Marketing 2011 - Booz & Co
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Social CRM How Companies Can Link into the Social Web of Consumers - Booz & Co
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2011 Social Recruiting Survey Results - Jobvite
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Your Passport To The Future Of Customer Care – Emerging Trends, Technologies, and Business Models - Frost & Sullivan
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Forecast: Social Media Revenue, Worldwide, 2010-2015 - Gartner
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IBM Institute for Business Value - From social media to Social CRM (Part 1 & 2)
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The Global Social Media Check-up 2011- Burson Marsteller
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CMOs on Social Marketing Plans for 2011 - Bazaarvoice, Inc.
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The New Human Resources Department - Achievers, Inc.
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2011 RiverStar Contact Center BPO Survey Results - Riverstar
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The 2011 Fortune 500 and Social Media Adoption: Have America's Largest Companies Reached a Social Media Plateau? - Center for Marketing Research, Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
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Social Media Customer Engagement - Frost & Sullivan (For Sitel)
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Geeky Introverts No More: How Tech Companies Can Engage with Customers Using Social CRM Cognizant Insights 20:20
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How much does Social Media cost companies in 2011? - Mack Collier (www.mackcollier.com)
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The state of corporate social media in 2011 - Useful Social Media
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Recruitment Through Social Media Report 2011 - Achieve Group
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Enterprise social media: Exposed and down to earth - How to generate real business value with Web 2.0 technologies – Deloitte
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Press Releases, online articles, blogs, news articles
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File Sharing portals like Scribd and Slideshare
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Other desk research
Thematic Research - Corporate Social Media
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