The truth about socialising the enterprise

Challenges facing marketers include the curse of the channel mindset, understanding what to value, uncontrolled growth, what do I do with my website and assigning the right roles, said New York-based John Bell, global MD of Ogilvy's 360° Digital Influence.

Bell, who was speaking late last week at a roundtable media discussion at the headquarters of Ogilvy South Africa in Bryanston, added that other challenges include building knowledge and capacity, and checking who else is doing social media to drive value.

Overcome these challenges

To overcome these challenges, he suggested the following solutions:

• Plan around owned, earned and paid 'engagement'
  
• Adopt a new model that values behaviour
  
• Use social brand engagement
  
• Develop a content strategy
  
• Form a 'centre of excellence'
  
• Train, train and train.

"What is happening currently is that either we don't want to talk about value, or we care more about winning an award or coming second. But the truth is there is a lot of negligible work going on around here," Bell said.

Has to be translucent

"Social media is forcing brands to be open about their business practices and it undermines any product that doesn't perform," he insisted, adding that if one is making claims about a certain product displayed in the market, he or she has to be translucent.

Walter Pike concurred: "If there is a gap between what the brand delivers and what it purports to deliver - the purpose on which it has been built on - then there will be a backlash. But if a brand delivers effectively, it will explode."

As many brands now have a direct relationship with customers which they never had before, that puts pressure on businesses to change, Bell stressed, adding that the ball now lies in CMOs' courts to deliver changes that really matter.

As consumers become more and more sceptic about the official word, Bell urges brands to consider the following word-of-mouth drivers:

• Do we have a good story?
  
• Can people show their involvement in a visible way?
  
• Do we offer them something new to talk about?
  
• Do we let our supporters be creative?
  
• Do we invite people to participate?
  
• Do we offer them some value?

Warned against

Bell, whose mission in SA includes training staff as Ogilvy SA plans to launch a 360 degrees digital influence in the 'near future', also warned brands against moving into social media for the sake of moving. He said brands need to also take account of market conditions, and ask themselves whether customers and influencers use social media in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile.

He elaborated: "Despite the global steamroller known as Facebook, every market has different conditions. It helps if you know your willingness to get into something early.

"That helps you decide if an installed base of 30% of total population as Internet users is good enough to get going (chances are this 30% have some type of influencer profile making it worthwhile anyhow)."