In a space as dynamic as digital marketing where things change rapidly (Google, for example, updates its search algorithm 500 to 600 times a year), it is fairly difficult to predict with certainty how things will turn out in a year. Nevertheless, digital marketing is all about catching the best trends early and leveraging them. Here are eight key trends that we think would be ones to watch out for in 2016:
The mobile web will continue to grow rapidly
Mobile has already seen massive growth in 2014 and 2015. With Google announcing this year that mobile traffic has surpassed desktop traffic and also releasing its mobile-friendly update (Mobilegeddon), mobile-first has already gone from being a “nice to have” to an absolutely “must-have”. Also, despite the mobile web accounting for only 20% of the time spent on mobile (80% of the time spent is in apps), mobile browser traffic is twice the traffic from mobile apps. With mobile apps facing a massive challenge on the user retention front and the mobile web growing rapidly, mobile marketing strategy is where marketers are going to be strongly focused in 2016.
Newer channels like Instagram will continue to gain rapid ground
With a large number of marketers swarming the three most popular social media marketing channels - Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (93% of marketers use Facebook!), there’s a great deal of competition for any audience you would want to target. Relatively new and upcoming channels like Instagram (only 36% of marketers currently use Instagram), Snapchat (a meagre 2% of marketers currently use Snapchat) and Periscope, on the other hand, are fairly untapped and unlike Facebook, have seen a growth in organic reach over the last few years, as illustrated below. Early adopters to these channels are already seeing results and adoption will continue gain ground in the year to come.
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Influencer marketing will become mainstream
With organic reach of brand pages dropping across most channels, customers trusting social influencers more than brands and the growing use of ad blockers, influencer marketing seems to one of the most viable options for brands to reach out to their target consumers. The savvy early-adopter brands have already started adopting influencer marketing in 2015 and 2016 is when mass adoption will begin.
Spends on Programmatic buying and Real-Time-Bidding will rise
Programmatic buying uses the power of data to ensure the right kind of ads are served to the right kind of people in the most meaningful way, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the ads and the return on ad spends. An increasing number of advertisers are expected to allocate larger spends to programmatic in the next few years.
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Video will explode:
Video is no newcomer to the digital space but its consumption trends have seen a massive bump in 2015, especially with Facebook allowing auto-play of videos in the newsfeed. An increasing number of brands will direct a larger percentage of their marketing spends towards creation and promotion of video content. If you haven’t embraced video as a marketer yet, the time is now!
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Follower counts are dead, focus will be on ROI-driven marketing
With most social media channels cutting down on their organic reach, the concept of building a fan or follower base which a brand can reach out to for free is almost dead. Fan and follower counts have turned into pure vanity metrics with little business value. The focus in 2015 has already been on marketing that can drive direct return-on-investment in terms of measurable metrics like traffic and sales growth and this focus is only going to be stronger in 2016.
The popularity of Native Ads will increase
The popularity of ad blockers has seen a substantial increase in 2015 and Apple announced this year that its new mobile operating system, iOS 9 will allow ad blocking as well. In this scenario, native advertising, where ads merge into the platform on which they are displayed and do not seem outrightly promotional, is bound to see a huge spike in popularity. If you haven’t explored native advertising channels yet, now is the time to get started.
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10X Content will be the new SEO
The focus of SEO has shifted from just keyword optimization and link building to not only producing quality content that addresses users’ needs but also delivering that content to the user with the best experience possible. Content is now the new SEO. But, with large swathes of content being generated every day, only content that is not just the best content out there, but 10 times the best, will stand out. Creating this 10X content is going to be the way forward in 2016.
What are the other trends that you think brands and marketers must pay close attention to in 2016? Do share them with us in the comments section below!
Social Web 3.0, a digital marketing conclave was organised by Madras Management Association on 23rd November at Hotel My Fortune, Chennai. The event was attended by industry bigwigs such as Maneesha Khanna, Director of Marketing, PepsiCo and Bhaskar Ramesh, Head of Industries – FMCG, Google India amongst the other notable ones.
The event started with an insightful keynote address by Hari Menon, CO-Founder & CEO, Big Basket on digital influence and analytics-driven future, which set the stage for the rest of the day. Vikas Chawla, Co-Founder & CEO of Social Beat spoke about how content & influencer marketing is changing the social media game. It was an interactive session with a series of questions on how brands can leverage content marketing to achieve business goals and what would be the ideal advertising-marketing mix.
Here are some insights on Content and Influencer Marketing discussed during the session:
If Content is king, there are too many kings out there.
Here are some tips to stand-out and leverage on relevant content to achieve business goals.
Influencer marketing is becoming an integral part of marketing budgets and here's why:
Digital media endorsement by an influencer can work wonders for your brand, only if you pick the right one.
Here are some metrics you need to consider before choosing the influencers for your campaign.
The next session was a case study by Maneesha Khanna, on #CrashTheIPL campaign that involved consumer generated video content. The idea behind this talk was to understand how videos have become the way forward for FMCG brands to easily connect with the audience. The success of #CrashTheIPL campaign could be contributed to the strong cross channel promotion - yet another game changer in the advertising space. Hence, brand managers should also explore highly integrated digital + TV campaigns, as both of these channels are here to stay.
Apart from these expert sessions and case studies, there were also discussions on various trending topics in the digital & social space. Social Media 3.0 also witnessed a bunch of digital enthusiasts who actively participated in Twitter & Instagram contests conducted during the event.
Were you a part of this digital media conclave and have more stories to tell?
Write to us about your experience in the ‘Comments’ section.
Every marketing expert knows the importance of content marketing. It is a great way to engage with customers and to provide them with knowledge. Creating content that is both relevant and valuable to its target audience is at the very heart of effective content marketing. With the growth of mobile and internet in India, every town and village in India has access to Internet. Thanks to this internet revolution, most of the target audience can be found speaking another language apart from English. So how are you going to address this problem? Our solution is a multi-lingual content strategy.
English is, of course, most commonly used language online not just in the world but also in India. However, Google data shows 94% growth rate for Hindi content consumption. Keeping this in mind global brands has started focusing on regional language as art of their strategy. A year ago, Facebook users were flabbergasted to see the login page in Hindi script. This was followed by US based visual discovery tool Pinterest launching a Hindi version, allowing users in India to use the translated version.Today, Google supports languages such as Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, and Tamil among others.With 127 million Internet users in India consuming content in local language, all global social media sites have realized the fact that they if they don’t go local in India they might soon lose relevance. Catering to the internet users in tier II and III towns, Google is now focusing to expand usage of its products like Google maps in vernacular languages, especially Hindi.
Of the literate 74%, only 10% read English while the rest consume content in the vernacular medium. Remaining 66% are literate in their local languages. According to a latest study conducted by Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB International, regional content availability can boost the growth of Internet in India by 24%. There are more than 70,000 newspapers printed in India and around 90% are either printed in Hindi or other vernacular languages. Realizing the importance of regional content, Indian app developers are also recognizing the need for local app distribution platforms. International app stores do not lend themselves to the easy discovery of highly India-specific regional content.
Yourstory.com, one of India’s leading platform for entrepreneurs and promoting the entrepreneurial ecosystem, recently included separate sections for regional content.
The website also offers content in 10 other languages including Marathi, Telugu and Bengali.
Their regional content strategy has taken off well and has received positive response from the audience. As you can see, the Hindi article has 650 shares and the Tamil content has over 200 shares. The website is updating their regional language pages everyday with interesting articles.
So if you are convinced that regional content marketing is important, here are a few things to consider.
It’s easy to ignore other languages if one dominant language makes up the majority. While English does make for the majority, there is a section that only consumes content in a regional language and this section could be your most important target audience. An English creative gets 0.1% to 0.15% Click Through Ratio (CTR), while a language creative can get 0.4-0.5% CTR. So if a language content and creative has a change to drive more traffic to your product or website, why not concentrate more on it?
When you market your brand in a regional language, it appeals to the emotional quotient of the audience. So localization of content should be an integral part of the creation process. For instance, McDonald’s involves its international teams at an early stage of product development, ensuring it can adapt their most effective marketing strategies to each individual culture where its campaigns are rolled out. Its in-country translation and localization teams ensure that the content strikes the right note in each country.
Your ultimate goal of participating in social media is likely to drive traffic back to your website so you can convert those visitors into leads. Without pitching brands directly, content marketing looks at generating relevant content that educates and creates awareness among customers. It has become an important marketing avenue for the fund-crunched startups to compete with the bigger brands. But it is very important that your content is unique and engaging for your customers. Duplicate or low-quality content can prove to be counter-productive. Once your regional content is up and running, the next step is to ensure that it reaches your target audience. There are many content amplification techniques that can help you promote your content to a large audience. The content strategy needs to be integrated with your social media marketing. It can be key to engaging consumers and many brands are successfully adopting this for their overseas marketing efforts. This video tells you why adopting a multilingual strategy is the only way to connect with the next billion Internet users in India.
What happens when eminent personalities from various industries come together to share their expertise on social media and its aspects? Yes, it is that time of the year! The much awaited Social Media Week is scheduled to happen next week in Mumbai (November 16th to 20th).
Social Media Week hosts conferences across Europe, Australia, North America, South America, Asia & Africa which aim at connecting more than 1 million people and stands to be a powerful source of information that can be instrumental in shaping the future of human connectivity.
Image Courtesy - brandwatch
The Mumbai edition of SMW conference this year will witness an entire week of all things social media. This time it is bigger than ever. Over 73 speakers from different verticals will be there to address and advice the audience on various aspects of social media. Celebrities from the media and communication world like Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-chief, Times Now will be there to deliver their thoughts on how social media is commanding the industry at present. SMW will also have successful marketing professionals like Neha Ahuja, Peter Claridge Eric Edge and many more. Entrepreneurs like Sachin Bhatia, Founder, Truly Madly will also be in the panel of speakers.
As of today, not many events that are focused on digital media/social media take place in India. SMW, one of its kind, does not only help build a platform where there are opportunities to learn and share ideas but also network with fellow social media enthusiasts. Overall, it is going to be a social-media filled week with a lot of idea sharing!
We are looking forward to it. Are you?
You can follow live updates from the SMW Mumbai here.
As a brand, you might be confused on whether Twitter Ads can provide a good ROI for your marketing budget or pushing more money on Facebook Ads can deliver better business results.
Before kick-starting Twitter Marketing, it would be great if you can set clear the goals you need to achieve from the ads. Any marketing strategy implemented without a clear objective would fail to deliver results, and Twitter is no exception.
Facebook & Google Ads are undoubtedly quite popular among marketers. So, it’s important to know the reasons why brands should leverage Twitter Ads:
Facebook has a very powerful targeting back-end but the text limit of 20% sometimes can be a hassle. Communicating the message with call-to-action & brand logo might seem difficult sometimes. Twitter doesn’t have this limitation & this is a major advantage for running detailed offer ads.
Twitter Lead Generation Ads have a great advantage that it generates lead with one-click on Twitter, without the need for the interested audience to click & go to the landing page or a website. This reduction in the funnel length increases the conversion rate for your lead generation. Recently, Facebook has also launched its Lead Generation Ads on similar lines (currently this feature is only available through the Power Editor).
The Twitter Ads dashboard is simpler in comparison to the more complex Ads interface of Google. It requires practice & time before the Ads creation can be mastered. Facebook Ads interface can fall in between Google & Twitter.
Twitter allows you to accurately target the followers of a particular account. This can be a great way to target the fans/customers of your competitors. Facebook allows you to target the fans of a page only if you are the page admin.
Keyword targeting feature is similar to Google Adwords where you can target people who have tweeted using certain keywords or have interacted with tweets containing those keywords. Broad, Phrase & Negative keyword targeting is allowed.
Twitter has 140 characters restriction for tweets but you can leverage the Twitter Cards that allow you to add more text content along with links, quite similar to Facebook ads. We shall look at the different Ad types in the late section.
Twitter offers many different type of Ads such as Promoted Account, Promoted Tweet, Website Click/Conversion, App Install, Lead Generation, Promoted Trends and Video View ads. Let us have a look at each of these types below:
Promoted Account / Follower Ads:
When someone follows you on Twitter, you get the chance to engage with them over time. Studies show that followers just don’t follow you, the interactions with them benefit your business over a period of time. As per the Small Businesses Customer Insights Survey conducted by DBS, 70% users who follow SMBs provide free advertising via retweets & 43% will make purchases from them. This percentage can vary based on the quality of the follower you have & hence, it is important to acquire followers who can become your potential customers.
Before creating the ad, you should create a strong short description that focuses on why potential fans should follow your account. If you are an ecommerce player, you can showcases shopping deals. These ads will appear in the following places:
Lead Generation Ads
The Lead Generation Ads are ads implement using the Lead Generation Cards. These Lead Generation Cards can be used to collect email addresses and qualified leads. It’s designed in a way that the user doesn’t have to click on the ad and go to an external website or a landing page. If interested in the offer description, the user can submit his information with one-click from within the Twitter App itself. His Twitter handle & email address is directly sent to you as soon as a user submits the lead. The Leads can be downloaded from the Twitter Cards dashboard.
Promoted Tweet Ads
The Promoted Tweet ads help amplify the reach of your tweets to a wider audience. This can help you get more engagement on your tweets & at the same time showcase your content to your target audience. These appear in the home timeline of the targeted users. The setup process of these ads are similar to the Promoted Account ads.
Website Clicks / Conversion Ads
The Website Click Ads are implement using Website Cards. The Website Cards are ad units which allow users to preview horizontal creative image, descriptive text, website Url & a big call-to-action in their timeline. You can also link the preview of your website in these website cards.
App Install Ads
With more than 75% users accessing Twitter from a mobile device, brands have a huge opportunity to tap & drive downloads for the mobile apps. An App card is to be created – it has title, description, app icon and the option to highlight features such as your App’s rating. It requires your App ID to submit the card. Once the card is ready, it can be linked to the app install ad. Users can install or open the App directly from the tweet.
Promoted Hashtag Ads
Trends that appear on the left side of your Twitter page is one of the most watched sections on Twitter. It’s a great way to keep a tab on current hot topics. Hence, promoted hashtag ads allow you to be in the right place & a perfect trigger to grab eyeballs, trigger conversations and launch new products/brands.
The Twitter Ads allow you to select the location of the display of the ads to the targeted users. You can select to show the ads in their timelines or search results (in case of promoted tweets / app install ads alone). The platform selection is limited to iOS devices, Android devices, Blackberry phones, Desktops, Laptops & Mobile Web on other devices.
Targeting is undoubtedly an important part of the ad creation. Targeting the wrong audience can waste your marketing budget while proper targeting can help you have a great ROI and help you reach your objectives. The available targeting options on Twitter are discussed below:
Keyword Targeting
The Keyword Targeting Ads are used to target users who have either used the keywords in their tweets, engaged with tweets around those keywords or have searched for those keywords on Twitter. The matching options for each keyword are as follows:
When typing the keywords, Twitter will allow you to choose between the above options. You can also import a matching keyword or a phrase from another document. On the selection of the keyword & modifier type, Twitter gives an estimate of the audience size for that keyword.
Interest & Follower Targeting
This option allows you to target the users based on their interests and the accounts they follow. Interest targeting on Twitter is very wide hence, it is advisable to use only the popular interest that are recommended by Twitter. Follower Targeting is very accurate and is recommended. You can manually type the Handles you want to target (for example - @MurugappaGroup) or import the list of usernames from a document. You are not required to be a follower of the account you are targeting. On selection of the handles, Twitter provides you an estimate of the reach as well as the other suggested handles in the same reach. There is also an option of Lookalike Audiences through which you can allow Twitter to target users similar to the followers of handles you want to target.
Television
In recent times, leading Television Shows & News Channels have leveraged Twitter to engage with their audience. Twitter allows you to target users who engage with such TV Shows on Twitter. This is an option currently limited to few countries like US, UK, Italy, Spain, etc.
Tailored Audiences
From the ROI point of view, this is one of the best form of advertising on Twitter that allows you to target fans who have already interacted with your brand. This interaction includes visitors to your website and are more likely to convert. You can also use an existing customer database & import the Twitter-ids or mail-ids.
Location Targeting
The Location targeting feature allows you to select the geographical location of the users who you want to target. You can target a country or state or a city.
Now, the last but an important part of any ad campaign - measuring the performance and results of the campaign. The summary of your campaigns are displayed on immediately logging into your Twitter Ads account.
Some metrics that are important in terms of performance measurement are:
Impressions: The number of times a tweet or an ad has been displayed
Engagement: Action taken by users such as a follow, click or an install
Follows: The number of users who have followed your handle based on the ad
Spend: The total spend for the campaign (the cost per action would vary based on the campaign types and campaign goals)
Conversions: This shows the number of users converted (if you have used conversion tracking for your campaign). This is an important metric for Offer campaigns or for ecommerce players. For Follower campaigns, the conversions would show the number of followers gained for the promoted account.
Audience Interests, Demographics & Locations: This is an important metric to check the accuracy of your targeting. It shows the topics your acquired followers are interested in, their geographical locations, tweets they engage with (based on Interest cluster) and the demographics. The demographics data would be of real interest to brands that go after a niche audience say, only females or youth.
Twitter is not radically different from other ad platforms in its basics – you have got to be prepared with the details, run the ads & test to see what works for you. Deep dive into the reports and see whether your campaigns are delivering and what needs to be optimized. Keep a track on all campaigns regularly.
Instagram allows companies to tell a visual story, to develop brands and to be engaged with customers. But just 28% of marketers currently use Instagram for their businesses. Popularity of Instagram in Google Trends shows a really fast growth for the last years.
So it’s time to start with Instagram marketing. Here is a list of top 10 tools to help your business to build, manage and grow a strong presence on Instagram.
Iconosquare is one of the leading analytical tools for Instagram. It allows you to manage your Instagram activity, analyze your performance and engage your customers. With this tool, you can track which top hashtags are being used on Instagram, get detailed dashboards with graphics on engagement with users and use comprehensive tools including functionality to create contests.
Is Instagram a part of your social media marketing? Schedugram, a startup in Australia, is an excellent tool for Instagram users and social media managers to manage multiple Instagram accounts. Instagram was designed as a mobile tool, but Schedugram gives the opportunity to post pics from your desktop or laptop. It allows you to schedule your posts and post photos as well as videos. You can also edit your pictures, including cropping, adding filters, adding light and saturation properties and other cool effects before posting.
Repost app is a good tool to make customers feel involved and appreciated. This application allows brands to demonstrate their user-generated content. Search a photo you like and easily repost it. You can find your customers by hashtags and follow them. Appreciate your customers by mentioning them on your page, to earn customer loyalty.
Like2buy is “Instagram's missing link”, a tool to sell products on Instagram. This app gives an opportunity to drive traffic and revenue from Instagram. Like2buy transform images into gallery of products, available for purchase with a click. User should clicks on the link and it will take them to a page of the brand’s featured products.
Tapshop also helps your Instagram followers in shopping. With Tapshop, you can make any image in your brand gallery shoppable by adding a product or category page link. Once your fans find a custom page of their desirable products, they will get an email with direct links to your product pages.
Wispond is Instagram Hashtag Contest App. Gather Instagram photos and showcase them in a voting gallery on your Facebook page, website or mobile. Invite followers to submit their photos from Instagram and vote on their favourite ones. Add Instagram contests into your marketing plan to give your channels a viral impulse.
Create, share and discover fun photo-video stories along with your favourite music! Flipagram allows you to make slideshows, musical videos, stop-motion effects and more, with millions of free music clips for your Instagram page. You can demonstrate how one of your products can be used in different ways or create a slideshow with interesting photos with your team. The more pictures you have, the better the effect.
Piclab is a tool that allows you to add text to your pictures. If you want to have written information on our images this is a perfect programm to do it. Choose from different fonts, shapes, put stunning filters and photo effects, and add a collection of textures, borders, patterns, and more to your photos.
Hyperlapse is owned by Instagram and creates beautiful time lapse movies. Capture video, choose the acceleration (from 2 to 12 times) and the program will do the rest for you. The video helps in making a nice video that is easy to share with your followers.
Instagram for Business is one of the best places for businesses to find tools to grow their brands. The Instagram for Business blog has tips, brand spotlights, case studies, and news from Instagram. Use Instagram's visual language to create your visual story and drive business growth.
Instagram is a powerful tool to connect with consumers and build a community. The key is to stay authentic to your brand and create content and engage with your customers. This will ensure that users not only “follow you” on Instagram, but also become your brand advocates.
This presentation on the topic "Digital Media & Entrepreneurship" is from the talk for students of Department of Media & Communication at MOP Vaishnav College in Chennai, India. It was conducted on 3rd September, 2015. The talk evolved around questions such as
Check out this presentation that to get answers to the above questions & many more!
If you are a social media marketer and trying to leverage social media for your business, then you need to use multiple tools for improving your efficiency and creativity. Here are our top 10 tools and services that will facilitate or enhance the effectiveness of social media. Try them out for yourself and see its benefits:
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management system, which will be useful for those who have several accounts across platforms. It helps you manage social network channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, MySpace and Foursquare, blogging on WordPress, and allows you to update pages of numerous social networks or reply directly. Hootsuite has become popular and used by many companies today. It has started supporting Instagram too but there is a better tool for Instagram. (Check point 7 for this)
2. Fanpagekarma
This is an interesting tool for page analysis of brands in social networks. The free version allows you to analyze the effectiveness of the content, subscriber’s activities, track pages of competitors and make monthly reports. In general, Fanpagekarma can help optimize your social media marketing strategy.
3. Befunky
Befunky is an easy and useful photo editor and collage maker. It has all functions you need for editing photos for your social media channels from the simple edits like crop, option of changing colors, beautify and more advanced edits like fill light, exposure, and straighten. Many interesting fonts are available that can be used to make posts with tips, quotes and facts.
4. Piktochart
A Malaysian startup based in Penang, Piktochart is service for creating elementary infographics or graphic image using ready templates or creating something on your own. An important feature of Piktochart is its HTML publishing capability, which generates infographics that are readable by search engines, with multiple clickable elements for users.
5. Photoshop online
Photoshop online or Photoshop Express Editor makes your snapshots look great with easy options for quick fixes and creative enhancements. You can experiment with filters and fonts "liven up" your graphics with simple actions.
6. Flikr
Flickr lets you upload, access, organize, edit, and share your photos from any device, from anywhere in the world.
7. Schedugram
Is Instagram a part of your social media marketing? Then Schedugram is an excellent tool for you. It lets you manage multiple Instagram accounts. Instagram was designed as a mobile tool, but Schedugram gives opportunity to post from your desktop or laptop. It allows you to schedule your posts and post photos as well as videos. It also has tools that allow you to do things like crop, add filters, light and saturation properties and other cool effects before posting.
8. Gratisography
Gratisography is a fresh service with free high-resolution pictures you can use for your personal and commercial projects. All pictures were photographed by Ryan McGuire. The choice is large and if you are tired of Google images and want some variety, you are welcome to use Gratisography. It is weekly updated with new pictures.
9. Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service, offered by Google. With Google Alerts, you can monitor your topics and regularly receive mails of the most recent mention of it on the Internet. Secondly, it allows you to track mentions of your company or even a person.
10. Google URL Shortener
The most important aspect is that you to track, in real-time, the clicks and referrers on any shortened URL - a perfect tool to help you understand what appeals to your audience.
Businesses across the globe leverage Twitter for marketing their business. And, India has not been a mute spectator to the rapid rise of Twitter as a micro-blogging tool. This presentation can help you learn about important aspects to be considered for marketing your brand on Twitter.
Brands have achieved a considerable amount of success on Twitter, marketing their products and services to people. But, it has also created uneasy spots for brands which have been at the receiving end of consumer's ire. On one hand, you have businesses who taken to Twitter to connect and engage with the fast-growing audience and on the other hand, you have the Influencers right from Bollywood stars and sportstars to leading bloggers. Building a brand on Twitter requires commitment and you cannot expect a big return on investment overnight. Of late, it has also emerged as a customer service & a market research tool. It is helping brands to understand what their consumers say about their products and at the same time service any concern raised by them.
Social media is two-way communication
Social media is a powerful tool for businesses and helps them stay connected to, and build a strong relationship with, their target audience. The best part of social media is that it's not just limited to one-way brand communication – it allows customers to get in touch with and interact with brands as well, giving brands (who are active listeners on social media) invaluable customer feedback, which they can plug back into their products and services to build better consumer experiences.
However, this two-way communication, if not managed properly can be more of a bane than a boon and can end up causing considerable damage to the brand's reputation.
The guide to social media response management
Research shows that 74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions. Also, BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2014 says that 85% of consumers read up to 10 online reviews before they can trust a brand. Hence the effectiveness with which you manage your comments could have a great impact on your business.
Here’s a detailed guide to social media comments management – monitoring, responding and managing comments on your social media profiles. Since the guide is a little over 3000-word beast, we’ve split it into sections to make it easier for you to navigate and read through.
Infographic – Social media response management
Google alerts is a free tool to monitor mentions of your brand anywhere on the web. You can setup alerts for various queries – your brand name, competitors, industry specific keywords etc. and Google Alerts will send you emails notifying you whenever any of these keywords you specified was mentioned online.
You can even set the frequency of notifications to get notifications for every mention, or as a daily or weekly digest.
Mid-level tools
These are paid tools and are best suited for SMEs and mid-sized businesses.
Mention allows you to monitor in real-time any mentions of your brand not just on social networks but anywhere on the web. Like Hootsuite, it also allows you to connect your social accounts (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to your alerts and react instantly from within the application itself.
Mention has some interesting setup features which allow you to include specific keyword matches and also exclude keywords that may be irrelevant to your brand. This helps get rid of the noise coming from homonyms and spam. Another interesting feature is that it also flags comments from Twitter or Facebook users who are influential so you can take them up on priority.
Pricing starts at 29 Euros/month
Brandwatch is a social media listening and analytics solution that helps you discover the conversations around your brand on the web and turn data insights into actionable business decisions.
Brandwatch has a pro package for small and medium brands and an enterprise package for larger brands
High-end tools
These are enterprise level solutions and would work best for big brands with a well-established brand presence
Meltwater is a media monitoring and media intelligence platform used by big global companies like HSBC, HP and Nike. It monitors your media content from all over the web, scans billions of conversations and helps you filter out what’s relevant and important, with meaningful metrics.
It also helps you get to the right audience by finding and building relationships with key influencers.
Managing Negative Comments on Social Media
Managing negative comments is one of the most critical parts of social media comment management as it involves responding to customers who are at best unhappy and at worst frustrated or livid with your product or service.Here are twelve steps to effectively deal with and respond to negative comments and reviews on social media:
Do not ignore/delete
Deleting a genuine negative comment (trolls are an exception) is never a good thing to do on social media as it straightaway raises questions on the brand’s integrity. It may also stoke the customer’s anger and frustration and cause him to post a flurry of negative comments on various platforms, which may eventually boil over into an uncontrollable crisis-like situation. There are also good chances that the comment may have already been seen and possibly even saved as a screenshot by other customers.
Below is an example of what could happen if a you ignore a comment on your social media pages:
Respond ASAP
It is best to respond as quickly as possible to negative comments. Irate customers generally lack patience and expect quick resolution of issues. Undue delays could only make matters worse. The ideal time could vary from up to 24 hours for sectors such as real estate to 30 minutes for sectors such as ecommerce.
Here’s an example of a quick reply from Flipkart within an hour of the comment being posted:
Apologize first & acknowledge the error
Always begin the comment with a polite and courteous apology. This gives the brand a human face and also shows any other readers that the brand does not shy away from accepting errors when they do happen that once in a while.
Here’s another example from Flipkart:
Ask for more info, where required
Sometimes, frustrated customers may not give all the info that may be required to help sort out the issue. In such cases, it is best to politely request them for the info and, where possible, also tell them why this info is required to help quickly resolve the issue.
Here’s an example of Amazon asking for more info:
Be transparent
As a brand, it is important to be absolutely transparent and not make it seem to the customer that the brand is trying to cover up for the error
Give an explanation, where required
If there is a genuine reason for the issue, do not hesitate to communicate the same to the customer. However, ensure that the explanation is succinct and to the point. Irate customers are definitely not in the frame of mind to read stories. Also, ensure that the tone doesn’t seem like the brand is giving an excuse for the error.
Be absolutely honest – it pays
Lying about a fact or trying to hide facts is the worst mistake a brand can make. In the social world, lies get caught quickly and can cause the issue to snowball into a bigger one. Being honest on the other hand strengthens the brand reputation and builds trust, especially when the comment thread is viewed by other users.
Make it fun and interactive
Sometimes, making the conversation fun and interactive can go a long way in not only resolving the issue but also ensuring customer delight. Here's an excellent example:
Reassure them
For issues that might take a while to get resolved, it is best to notify them of action being taken as well as be proactive in giving them constant updates of the progress. This would help reassure them that their issue is being looked into and will definitely get resolved in due course
Offer an incentive, where applicable
One of the best ways to quickly turn an unhappy customer to a happy one is to offer an incentive. For ecommerce businesses, for example, this could be a coupon code for their next purchase, a reduction in price on the current one or even a complete waiver of the cost, where the situation seems appropriate.
Go private, if necessary
It may be prudent to take the conversation private in some cases. This could be either because of platform limitations, such as the 140 character limit on twitter or cases where the situation demands that the issue be taken out of the spotlight.
Here’s a good example of Hilton hotels taking the matter offline:
However, in such cases, once the issue is resolved in private, it is a best practice to close the issue on the social media comment thread as well, so other users know that the brand has responded and sorted out the issue.
Keep your cool – Be polite at all times
Irritated customers may get emotional and be downright rude, but it is imperative that you, as a brand representative, must keep your cool, not take things personally and reply with an absolutely calm state of mind.
Update and close
Always ensure that the comment thread has been updated once the issue is resolved, so that the same is visible to other customers glancing through the thread, while in the process of making a purchase decision.
On a closing note, each case of a negative comment would be different and would require a different handling of the situation. It is important that the team handling social media response management is trained to be able to judge correctly and rightly use their discretion in dealing with customer issues.
Managing Positive Comments on social media
Thankfully the two-way communication on social media is not only about negative comments. There are happy customers out there as well who are so overjoyed by your product or service that they revert with positive feedback of their experience.It is just as important, if not more, to reply to these positive comments, as it is to reply to negative comments. This could help turn those fans into loyal brand evangelists which could work wonders for your business.
Here are some key points to keep in mind while responding to positive comments and reviews:
Thank them
The bare minimum that is required while responding to a positive social media comment or review is to thank the customer for the feedback to acknowledge and appreciate the effort
Avoid canned, template-like responses
Canned template-like responses, like a standard “Thank you for feedback. We really appreciate your effort”, take away the brand’s human side and do not build a relationship with the customer. These are best avoided.
Personalize
The response to every positive review must be personalized – addressing the customer by their name is a bare minimum. The more personalized the response is the more elated the customer would feel and this increases the chances of not only turning them into loyal customers but also evangelists for the brand.
Encourage them to visit again
Always encourage your customers to come back and bring their friends along as well. This helps build a long-term relationship with them.
Here’s an example of Raintree hotels, a popular hotel chain, interacting with a fan, who had left a comment on their post on Mangalorean cuisine:
Relay the feedback
If the comment or review mentions names of staff the customer was particularly impressed with, do mention that you will relay the feedback to staff member concerned. And do actually relay the feedback – you will make the staff member’s day as well!
Request reviews on other platforms
Where applicable, it might make sense to request the customer to leave a review on other platforms as well. For example, for the hospitality sector this could be Zomato or TripAdvisor while for local businesses, it could be a review on the Google Local Business page.
Leverage the feedback
Positive customer feedback can be showcased as testimonials on your website as well as promoted across your social media channels. This is the best way to leverage these reviews and make the most of them to help build consumer trust in your brand.
Here's an excellent example:
Managing inappropriate comments and trolls
The world is filled with different kinds of people and so is the social universe. You will invariably come across that one-off customer who just wants to create an issue where none honestly exists, or who is plain interested in causing trouble.It is best to verify their claims first and once it is confirmed that they are baseless, the best response strategy would be to ignore the troll, as engaging in conversation with them would only encourage them to troll further – these are people who generally enjoy the attention they get this way. The comment could be deleted at a later point in time, once the troll has moved elsewhere to seek attention.
On occasions though, at the discretion of the team in charge of managing social media comments, it may be appropriate to craft a tactical response to silence the troll and put him in place by stating the inaccuracies in his facts. This helps maintain transparency and may deter other trolls as well.
The perils of automated social media responses
Although auto-responders can help manage social media comments at scale and reduce the response time by a huge margin, when they go wrong they can go wrong terribly. Though automated response management tools are getting better at analyzing comments and responding appropriately, they still can’t make sense of things the way humans do. They can’t add a human touch to the response either.
Here are some examples of automated social media response bloopers:
Social media response management metrics
You can’t manage what you cannot measure. Here are three key metrics to help you figure out how you’re faring when it comes to managing comments on your social media channels.Average First Response Time
The average response time can be calculated by taking the average of all the individual response times for each post. These can be calculated as the time difference between the first response to the customer comment and the time the comment was posted
The ideal response time would vary from industry to industry - ranging from about 24 hours for industries like real estate to 15-30 minutes for sectors such as ecommerce.
Average Time to Resolution
The average time to resolution is the time taken from the opening of a comment thread to the time the issue is resolved and the thread is closed. This will depend on the type and gravity of the issue and may vary from a few hours to a few days or even weeks in some cases. In these cases, it is important to keep the customer constantly updated on the progress.
Average number of replies to resolution
This is the total number of interactions it takes to resolve the issue. This number should ideally be one. However, this is seldom the case and the average tends to be a lot of higher.
Outsourcing social media response management:
If you do not have an in-house team for managing comments and you don’t want to take the trouble of hiring and training, you can always explore the option of outsourcing this to an agency specialized in social media or in customer response management. The agency would normally listen for mentions and respond to comments and consult you for any customer response information they may need from your end. They would also normally send you reports covering response metrics to evaluate your performance as well as sentiment metrics to evaluate how people feel about your brand.
Tools for managing social media comments at scale
For big brands, especially in sectors such as ecommerce, where customer engagement is high, the number of mentions, comments and reviews across channels and platforms may become difficult to keep track of, and reply to, without a software solution in place.Thankfully, there are quite a few online customer support softwares and help-desk solutions to help you streamline your social media response management process and keep your customers happy.
Here’s a list of the 5 best customer support softwares you could choose from. All of them offer a free trial - so you can try a couple of them that you think would work best for you and evaluate which one you could go ahead with.
Desk.com is Salesforce’s customer support software solution. It is mainly targeted to small and medium businesses but is also powerful and comprehensive for large enterprises. It can be integrated with over 50 applications including Mailchimp, Cyfe, Shopify and Trello
Pricing:
The cheapest paid plan starts at USD 30/month, billed annually.
Founded in 2007, Zendesk is probably the largest cloud-based customer service platform available with over 50,000 companies as clients. It can be integrated with most content management systems, customer relationship management tools, and web apps – the number of apps that can be integrated with its API exceeds 300.
Pricing:
Its base plan starts at USD 1 per agent per month (billed annually), while the regular plan costs USD 25/month (billed annually),
Founded in 2010, Freshdesk has scaled up quickly to become a major player in the space, with over 40,000 customers.
Apart from being able to be integrated with 70+ popular applications, Freshdesk is also tightly integrated with Google Apps including Analytics, Contacts, Calendar, Hangouts, Drive, and Gmail. These enable a slew of additional capabilities including the ability to schedule customer calls, attach large files to tickets, and much more.
Pricing:
Freshdesk is the only tool on this list that offers a freemium solution – with a free forever plan for up to 3 agents.
Founded back in 2001, Kayako was one of the original pioneers of the multichannel helpdesk and the first to bring the helpdesk to the cloud. Apart from its cloud-based customer support solution, Kayako also offers a downloadable on-premise, self-hosted solution for Windows users.
Pricing:
The base plan starts at USD 24/month, billed annually.
Happyfox is not as big a company as the ones listed above, but it is quite popular for its absolute ease of setup and no-nonsense user interface.
Pricing:
The cheapest paid plan starts at USD 19/agent/month, billed annually.
Is there anything else about managing comments on social media that you'd like to know or have any questions on? Do reach out to us in the comments below. Have any experiences to share? We'd love to hear from you!
