While marketers have flocked to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, consumers still don't view them as important ways to engage with a brand, since they don't meet their expectations. Most people still prefer to connect with brands through more traditional methods, such as email, company Web sites or word-of-mouth.
That's among the key findings from a new report from Razorfish titled "Liminal", based on its own primary research, customer data from a study for Virgin America and social network data compiled by online tracking company Rapleaf on 100,000 consumers. The goal was to look at customer-relationship management more from a consumer's standpoint than a marketer's to understand how people choose to interact with brands.
Across the board, consumers cited "feeling valued" as the most important element of brand engagement. "This demonstrates that both the hipster who DMs a company on Twitter and a boomer who sends a letter in the mail both ultimately want the same thing. Thus, companies should worry less about building out numerous channels and touchpoints and more about ensuring each customer interaction communicates value," advised Razorfish.
The study also found the "consumer in control" mantra of the last few years may not be as apt as assumed. Among the six qualities that define engagement:
- Feeling valued
- Trust
- Efficiency
- Consistency
- Relevance
- Control
Control ranked as the least significant among consumers. "Apparently, the consumer does not need to be in as much control as we thought, seeing other things as far more important," stated the report.
While social platforms like Facebook rate highly for delivering control and relevance, they aren't as successful in helping brands make users feel like valued customers. But companies can take steps to change that perception. The study points to a feature on the Facebook page of upscale shopping club Gilt Groupe, for instance, which gives fans advance notice on sales and is responsive to customer needs.
As part of its study, Razorfish also created the Consumer Influence Score, an equation that helps brands assess the lifetime value of a consumer based on their influence and reach, as well as purchase intent and buying power. It adds a person's number of Twitter followers and number of Twitter updates with the number of social networks he or she belongs to plus the total of unduplicated friends across all social networks to arrive at an influence score.
The equation relies heavily on Twitter, since the microblogging service "is the most public and trackable of all major social platforms," noted the report. The Consumer Influence Score is the flip side of the Social Influence Marketing score introduced by Razorfish in 2009 to help brands measure their own social media standing.
COMMENTARY: Trust me, brand's don't have influence over a consumer. You have to earn that influence over time. It's like clicking the "like" button on a brand's Facebook page. This does not necessarily translate into an interest in buying a product. In fact, research shows the latter to be the case. Individuals are influenced more by the opinions of a very small, close-knit network of friends and business associates. 80% of buying decisions are made at the point-of-sale, many of them made on impulse.
In my opinion, Razorfish's Consumer Influence Score is a bit too simplistic. Razorfish openly admits that measuring consumer influence is not perfect, but I don't know if there is really a sure fire method to measure consumer influence, because the factor's that go into measuring influence cannot be quantified.
Brand influence is predominantly about exceeding customer expectations--on the basis of product quality, selection, price, delivery, customer service before and after the sale and engaging with the customer on a one-to-one or personal basis. You can't do that with a wall post or Twitter update. This requires a more personalized integrated marketing approach. Social media is the culmination of all those efforts. It is the reward for satisfying all customers needs and wants, and exceeding them constantly. That's brand influence.
Courtesy of an articfle dated January 31, 2011 appearing in MediaPost Publications Online Media Daily
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