The Socialization of Brands - Global Trends in Social Networks RT @askdebra & @UMWWtweets

Amazing & Comprehensive Data, Check out the Full Report

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Global Trends in Social Networks: The Socialization of Brands

Posted by: Debra Askanase In: Twitter|demographics|social networks

I’m always on the  lookout for good international data about the use of social media and social networks. Each year, I eagerly await the results of Universal McCann’s “Wave” study on social media. Since 2006, Universal McCann has been surveying active internet users worldwide about their use of the internet yearly. This year, 37,600 respondents from 53 countries told UM how they use the internet. The results, highlighting trends and changes from years past, show the domination and rise of both social networks and branded online social communities. So much so that this year’s report is entitled “Wave 5 – The Socialization of Brands.” The report, issued in October 2010, summarizes the latest Wave 5 survey data gathered in July 2010.

Here are some facts from the report that all organizations should take note of:

1. The Rise of the Social Network

According to the study, social network usage has risen from 52% to 70% by 25-34 year-olds worldwide. Three-quarters of active internet users worldwide have managed a social network profile. When asked the number of activities people use social networks for, that number has risen from 6.4 to eight activities since Wave 4 in 2009.

Wave 5 illustrates that social networks have broadened in the past several years to have effectively become the chosen online home of all your social media activities.

Looking at Figure 4 from the study, people prefer using a social network for almost every type of online experience. The one exception is that Message Boards top social networks when someone wants to “seek other people’s opinions.” This should serve to remind us of the power of a well-moderated, well-used message board, too!

All types of sharing are universally migrating to social networks. Looking more closely, uploading photos and videos to online sharing sites has leveled off but uploading photos and videos to social networking sits has grown over 200% in two years, as noted in Figure 11 from the study:

Additionally, while blogging has stabilized (or declined, in the case of reading personal blogs), writing a blog on a social network is the only form of blogging that has increased.

2. Twitter is not dead (at least not worldwide)

Ok, not actually a surprise. Though Twitter adoption has slowed in North America, it has jumped worldwide from 15% usage in July 2009 to almost 33% in July 2010. If you want to reach an international audience, use Twitter to reach new audiences and move people to care, and act.

3. Develop your branded online community

There is a BIG decline in the number of people who are visiting official brand websites. Contrary to that, Wave 5 notes the BIG rise in the number of people worldwide who have become an online fan of a brand. This would include a nonprofit organization’s Facebook Page, private online community, YouTube channel, etc. See Figure 21 from the Wave 5 study, below:

This study was not prepared with the nonprofit sector in mind, and was generalized across all segments of the population. That noted, over 50% of the respondents said that they affiliated with a branded online community in order to support a cause. I also found intriguing the other reasons listed for affiliating: to associate with something that is cool, to learn more about it, to get advance news on a product, and more. Think about these takeaways: If you run a youth-oriented nonprofit, how can you make it cool? If you offer nonprofit software, can you offer advance news about upcoming features and releases? Cross-apply Figure 24 with your organization’s audience to help focus your branded community.

4. When people join a brand community online, they feel more positive and loyal toward the brand

I’ve read this before, but it’s great to see it validated worldwide.

Clearly, online community supporters ARE your more loyal fans, they WILL visit the website from an online social network community, and they are a strong source for finding new online supporters. Treat them with respect, and grow your loyal fans into the online evangelists that they could become.

So much great data from Wave 5. What are your takeaways? Read more at www.communityorganizer20.com

 

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When Eyeballs and Dollars Don’t Match Up @eMarketer

Again, Quality over Quantity

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When Eyeballs and Dollars Don’t Match Up

Paul Verna, Senior Analyst

No one can be faulted for thinking that the size of someone’s Facebook friends list is a proxy for that person’s level of influence. After all, people who are influential are often also popular, and in a Facebook and Twitter world popularity is measured in friends and followers.

No one can be faulted for thinking that the size of someone’s Facebook friends list is a proxy for that person’s level of influence. After all, people who are influential are often also popular, and in a Facebook and Twitter world popularity is measured in friends and followers. But a new report from Vocus and FutureWorks principal Brian Solis throws a healthy dose of skepticism on the supposed correlation between popularity and influence. The report—provocatively titled “Influencer Grudge Match: Lady Gaga versus Bono”—surveyed 739 marketing and communications professionals who work with influencers to gauge their perceptions of what makes an influencer. A surprising 90% of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether there’s a big difference between popularity and influence. Nearly the same percentage, 84%, believed that there was a correlation between an influencer’s reach and his or her ability to drive action. This indicates that respondents made a clear distinction between popularity and reach, and regarded the latter as the key that determines a person’s influence. The survey did not define any of these terms, so it was up to the respondents to interpret them. From the results, it’s apparent that respondents regarded popularity as the sheer number of contacts on a social network and reach as the ability to actually communicate meaningfully with some number of those contacts. As one respondent put it, “A person can have only a few contacts and greatly influence just those few.” Asked which type of social network participant would have the most measurable effect on an outcome, 57% picked someone who has “a handful of fans/friends/followers that are tightly connected,” versus 8% who picked someone with “millions of fans/friends/followers with little or no connection.” Quality over quantity. Despite this data, many marketers are on a seemingly relentless quest to beef up their own social network profiles and reach users with lots of friends and followers. In the Vocus-Solis study, 57% of respondents said they’d be willing to pay for an influencer to help them “drive actions or outcomes.” Further, Twitter recently unveiled its Promoted Accounts platform, which allows marketers to essentially pay for access to users based on the sizes of those users’ networks. Quantity over quality. And an eROI study of social metrics tracked by US marketers found that two-thirds tracked changes in the numbers of friends, followers and fans. More qualitative measures such as reach of messaging were much lower on the scale. Again, quantity over quality. For more on the correlation, or lack thereof, between the size of a person’s social network contact list and that person’s level of influence, stay tuned for the upcoming eMarketer report “Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Leveraging Trust Online and Offline.”

But a new report from Vocus and FutureWorks principal Brian Solis throws a healthy dose of skepticism on the supposed correlation between popularity and influence. The report—provocatively titled “Influencer Grudge Match: Lady Gaga versus Bono”—surveyed 739 marketing and communications professionals who work with influencers to gauge their perceptions of what makes an influencer.

A surprising 90% of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether there’s a big difference between popularity and influence.

Nearly the same percentage, 84%, believed that there was a correlation between an influencer’s reach and his or her ability to drive action. This indicates that respondents made a clear distinction between popularity and reach, and regarded the latter as the key that determines a person’s influence.

The survey did not define any of these terms, so it was up to the respondents to interpret them. From the results, it’s apparent that respondents regarded popularity as the sheer number of contacts on a social network and reach as the ability to actually communicate meaningfully with some number of those contacts. As one respondent put it, “A person can have only a few contacts and greatly influence just those few.” Asked which type of social network participant would have the most measurable effect on an outcome, 57% picked someone who has “a handful of fans/friends/followers that are tightly connected,” versus 8% who picked someone with “millions of fans/friends/followers with little or no connection.” Quality over quantity.

Despite this data, many marketers are on a seemingly relentless quest to beef up their own social network profiles and reach users with lots of friends and followers. In the Vocus-Solis study, 57% of respondents said they’d be willing to pay for an influencer to help them “drive actions or outcomes.”

Further, Twitter recently unveiled its Promoted Accounts platform, which allows marketers to essentially pay for access to users based on the sizes of those users’ networks. Quantity over quality.

And an eROI study of social metrics tracked by US marketers found that two-thirds tracked changes in the numbers of friends, followers and fans. More qualitative measures such as reach of messaging were much lower on the scale. Again, quantity over quality.

See more at www.emarketer.com

 

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Numbers Don’t Lie: Why You Need to Use Social Media Marketing' @Growsmartbiz

The opportunities available using the Internet and Social Media to grow your Brand and become more visible to your target market, enabling you to reach more people interested in your products and services faster, more effectively without the huge marketing budget that traditional media requires.

Social Media + Lead Generation Opportunities = New Clients

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Numbers Don’t Lie: Why You Need to Use Social Media Marketing

The good folks over at HubSpot put together a great presentation on social media stats and sound bites that should convince you, once and for all, that you can’t afford to ignore social media marketing anymore.

Global Internet Users

The number of global internet users worldwide is, in a word, huge, making your potential audience very big no matter what industry you operate in, who your target market is, or whether you sell a product, service, or combination of both.

North America: 252,908,000

Latin American/Caribbean: 179,031,479

Europe: 418,029,796

Africa: 67,371,700

Asia: 738,257,230

Australian/Oceania: 20,970,490

Social Media Users

The volume of information being shared online is staggering.  In 2009, 90 trillion emails were sent.  The biggest, most popular social media platforms are not only generating a tremendous amount of information as well, but they’re also being used by tons of people.  Again, this translates into a lot of potential customers.

There are 550 million Facebook users and counting.

Blogs on the Internet number 126 million.

Since 2006, over 10 billion tweets have been distributed on Twitter.

Every day, 2 billion videos are streamed on YouTube.  Every. Day.

Even though I have the tendency to sound off on the fact that so much is written about social media at the expense of marketing in general, I happily acknowledge that social media is the future of marketing and advertising.  Not only is it where the people are, it’s an easy way to share information about your company to a targeted audience and track the return on your marketing investment in the form of new clients.

Social Media + Lead Generation Opportunities = New Clients Read more at growsmartbusiness.com

 

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smarter conversations: “how do i want to change the way i talk to people?” RT @gapingvoid

"Start today. It’s never too late to begin a Smarter Conversation."

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smarter conversations: “how do i want to change the way i talk to people?”

[The "Life Is Too Short" print...]

I first started playing with the idea of “Smarter-Conversations” way back in 2004, the same year gapingvoid really started getting traction in the blogopsphere.

Though not something I talk about day-in-day-out, it’s always been there somewhere in the background, informing everything I work on. Here are some notes:

1. In the seminal book, “The Cluetrain Manifesto”, the great Doc Searls famously declared, “Markets are conversations”. If you buy that premise (and I do, wholeheartedly), then quod erat demonstratum, if you want your marketing to be smarter (i.e. more effective), you need to be having a “Smarter Conversation”.

2. “Conversation” is a metaphor. Making your product sleek, elegant and graceful while all your other competitors make their product look cheap, plastic and clunky is a smarter conversation. Not all conversations need words.

3. It’s not just what you say, its how you say it. Calling it the “iPod” is a smarter conversation than say, the “MZT-2300-B Electronic Portable MP3 Digital Hand Device”.

4. Smarter Conversations scale. That’s what I really like about it. Anyone can have a smarter conversation- from a mom n’ pop pizza joint to a Fortune 500 company. It can happen in a Superbowl ad or on printed on the back of a paper napkin. You can start one on a blog today, for free. Or on Twitter or Facebook. The tools don’t necessarily have to change, the way you talk to people has to change.

5. Deciding to have a smarter conversation isn’t a business decision, it’s a moral decision. Like I said in the last point, the barriers to entry are zero. While your competition treats their customers like idiots, you treat your customers like intelligent human beings. You don’t do that because your accountant told you to, you do that because that’s who you are.

6. The Smarter Conversation’s value comes from, I believe, not by yet more increased business efficiencies, but by its humanity. For example, take two well-known airlines. They both perform a useful service. They both deliver value. They both cost about the same to fly to New York or Hong Kong. Both have nice Boeings and Airbuses. Both serve peanuts and drinks. Both serve “airline food”. Both use the same airports. But one airline has friendly people working for them, the other airline has surly people working for them. One airline has a sense of fun and adventure about it, one has a tired, jaded business-commuter vibe about it. Guess which one takes the human dimension of their business more seriously than the other? Guess which one still will be around in twenty years? Guess which one will lose billions of dollars worth of shareholder value over the next twenty years? What parallels do you see in your own industry? In your own company?

6. If Smarter Conversations work, it’s because they help humanize the company. I wrote about this years ago in an article I called “The Porous Membrane”. To paraphrase: Ideally, you want the conversation between customers [the external market] to be as identical as the conversation between yourselves [the internal market]. The things that your customer is passionate about, you should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool, and so do their customers. They are aligned. When you are no longer aligned with your customers is when the company starts getting into trouble. When you start saying your gizmo is great and your customers are telling everybody it sucks, then you have serious misalignment. So how do you keep misalignment from happening? The answer lies the cultural membrane that separates you from them. The more porous the membrane, the easier it is for conversations between you and them, the internal and external, to happen. The easier for the conversations on both sides to adjust to the other, to become like the other. And nothing pokes holes in the membrane better than blogging.

7. Social Media is not about reaching a mass audience. Social Media is not about creating yet another sales channel. Social Media is about allowing the Smarter Conversation to happen. That’s all. Why do some companies lose, while other companies win? Because the latter has a smarter “conversation” with its customers. Zappos had a smarter conversation about the power of customer service and the power of company culture. Peet’s Coffee came along 20 years ago and began a smarter conversation about coffee with millions of people within a very short space of time. Target’s recent massive success started from a smarter conversation about good design. Savile Row tailor, Thomas Mahon came along and, with his blog, had a smarter conversation about $4000 English bespoke suits. Lucky’s Juice Joint had a smarter conversation about fresh-squeezed. Big companies, medium companies and tiny companies, whatever- it was never about size, it was never about the choice of media (social or otherwise), it was all about language.

8. Social Media allows you to cheaply and quickly begin a smarter conversation. And once you get it going, that conversation starts bleeding out into all other areas of your business- including advertising, PR and corporate communications.

9. Ask not what tools you want to use, ask how you want to change how you talk to people. All evolutions in marketing are evolutions in language. Those who can raise the level of conversation in any market, win.

10. Start today. It’s never too late to begin a Smarter Conversation. Like I said, money or time is not the issue. Making the decision is the issue, and only you can do that. Read more at gapingvoid.com

 

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The Use of Social Marketing Tactics @MarketingSherpa http://amplify.com/u/8sk6

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The Use of Social Marketing Tactics @MarketingSherpa

"build and participate in a network populated by our targeted audience," not "build and participate in a Facebook fan page"

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The Use of Social Marketing Tactics

SUMMARY: What social marketing tactics are most often used by organizations for marketing purposes? From participating on social networks, blogs, microblogs and more, find out which tactics top the list as the most commonly used for marketing purposes in this week’s chart.

by Sergio Balegno, Research Director

Use of Social Media for Marketing Purposes

Click here to see a larger, printable version of this chart

Creating a tactical plan of action for social marketing purposes is the critical third step in MarketingSherpa’s Social Marketing ROAD Map methodology for mapping a successful social marketing strategy.

This chart shows the average percentage of organizations using each of the social platforms listed above for tactical purposes. Keeping in mind that your strategy must outlast the revolving door of leading social media technologies, tactics should be social brand agnostic when creating your organization’s plan.

In other words, an enduring tactic would be to "build and participate in a network populated by our targeted audience," not "build and participate in a Facebook fan page." Read more at www.marketingsherpa.com

 

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Feel Inspired @gapingvoid

Feel Inspired

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Feel Inspired

There's many ways to measure success. But how often one feels inspired, I think, is about as good a metric as any. Inspiration is totally addictive. I can't get enough of it. You?Read more at www.gapingvoidgallery.com

 

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25 "P"s of Social and New Media Marketing RT @KyEkinci & @socialmedia2day http://bit.ly/dkqa5W

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25 "P"s of Social and New Media Marketing RT @KyEkinci & @socialmedia2day

GREAT!!!

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25 "P"s of Social and New Media Marketing

August 1, 2010 by Ky Ekinci 7

You probably heard about the 5 "P"s of Marketing:

Product: The products or services offered to your customers/clients. Price: The pricing strategy for the desired profit margin. Place: Distribution --getting your product/service to your target market. Promotion: Communicating with your customers. People: The value of your people and people at large (i.e. influencers)

Now with the New Media the same list has been re-purposed for the social media channels such as twitter, facebook, linkedin, foursquare etc. etc.  Some folks talk about the 3 P's some talk about the 4 P's...  But if you think about it, Social Media is different; with Web 2.0 it is no longer a monologue, it's now a dialogue, so there really are more than just a handful P's in Social Media and Social Media Marketing. So let's take it up a notch, shall we?..  Here is the 25 P's of Social Media we can think of:

Provide: Something of value...

Petition: Demand innovation, make folks, platforms, messages better!

Productize:  Yes, new word!  Make your offer easy to understand!

Promote: Your product, service, business, events, news (don't overdo).

Personalize: Let them see the "real" you.

Participate: Interact and engage (your audience)

Play: Take it easy, it's not all strategy... :)

Pace: Take it easy, don't over do it.  Just don't!

Protect: Protect your brand, industry, service, peers

Plan: Yes, plan --don't just do it!

Propel: Initiate discussions, bring the best out in people.

Pamper: Recognize players, collaborate, give credit where credit is due.

Partake: Answer questions, participate in discussions/chats.

Peer: Do not underestimate players based on their followers, community

Penetrate: Cover all aspects

Patrol: Entire landspace --correct & clarify statements and behaviors

Perform: Do it!  Just do it!

Persist: Don't give up!

Predict: Think what's next...

Pioneer: Don't hold back, try different things (white hat rule though!)

Practice: Don't be afraid, practice makes perfect; learnings await you!

Propose: Propose ideas, solicit business (humbly), ask for collaboration.

Punctuate: Don't be afraid of repeating your point, though not bot-like.

Pursue: Follow up; be persistent to engage: to get answers, be heard.

Pay Attention: To influencers, trends, competition, customers.

Also pay attention to the fact there are are more letters in the alphabet! Why is the letter "P" significant?  The answer is, it is not!  We just wanted to expand on the existing discussion on Social Media and on Marketing based on our own thoughts and learnings, that's all... :) ..and you know what the biggest P is?

Be Positive!

Hey, speaking of 'P's, can you think of more Ps?.. Read more at socialmediatoday.com

 

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Three Steps to Social Media WIN RT @Econsultancy

Sound Advice !

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Three steps to social media win

You’ve formulated a strategy and set up tools and processes, and you’re proudly showing off your amazing product with a variety of exciting and innovative campaigns.

Not all social media campaigns will be successful, and the hardest part of any campaign is actual engagement. Creating long-term relationships with customers, creating brand evangelists for your business.

So, you’ve set up a Facebook page, you have a fully automated Twitter account, and your LinkedIn profile is a shining example of professional wonderment for all to behold.

True interaction is the biggest stumbling block on the path to social media success, but by instigating the right policy, it’s also one of the easiest to overcome...

One of the big problems for brands engaging in social media, or indeed any campaign, is the tendency to create campaign silos. To be effective, you need to reconsider your online approach.

For example, you aren’t here to engage existing Facebook users. You are here to make people fans of you and your product, the networks themselves are merely access points to your brand. In order to really succeed, you need to create your own brand community.

No one will sign up to twitter just to follow you, but if they are already there they’ll be excited that you are as well. “Hey – Acme Road Cleaning Machinery is one of my best friends on Facebook, I’m so happy to find they’re on Twitter as well!”

Take time to study any online community. Not the tool itself. As an example, let’s look briefly at Digg.

The tool is the site itself, a basic content sharing set-up. Users submit material they like, and other users up or down vote it accordingly. The most popular content makes Digg’s frontpage and receives a corresponding traffic boost.

The community however, is the interlinked groups of friends on Digg that support and share each other’s content. Your social media strategy should not be to engage these existing communities, but rather to make them part of your own community.

In order to do so, you’ll need to have a full understanding of each point of contact within a network, points that can be identified by following a simple three-step procedure.

Find a bigger audience.

If you post a tweet with a link to your page, or create a #hashtag for an event, you have left a mark. Every time you @reply you are seen by everyone that follows you and the person you are talking to.

The more often you talk to people, the greater your footprint on Twitter. Your search ranking will increase correspondingly, as will your traffic, and the number of users willing to join your community.  Monitor all of these. In order to succeed you need to be constantly working to increase the size of your digital footprint.

Take things further.

Once you have people responding to public conversations, you need to strengthen your relationship. By privately contacting a user (for example by messaging them on Facebook or DM on Twitter), you’ll accomplish two things

You’ll be able to work out mutually beneficial collaborations with that user.

You’ll make them feel special.

This sounds facetious but is actually an invaluable method of recruiting people to your cause.

Imagine that you are a fifteen year old music fan. Your favourite singer sends you a direct, private email. How special does that make you feel? Not to mention well-disposed towards that person. Use the fan effect.

You’ll also want to attract popular users, who may well ignore direct messages as they’ll be receiving a lot of spam.

Instead follow their digital trail; find their URL from their Twitter page, follow that to their blog and leave a comment there. If there’s an email available then use it.

Make individuals realize that you’ve gone to the effort of researching their background before you contacted them and they’ll be far more likely to listen to you and respond positively.

Study popular sections and past successful campaigns launched on the digital network.

Take time out as often as possible to check items like Twitter’s trending topics. Install an Alexa toolbar or similar so you can keep an eye on hot web topics on a daily basis and start your day by reading the Digg and reddit frontpages.

Study the most popular items and see if you can create or adapt your content to fit those criteria.

Study popular group interests and see what kind of promotions have been popular with those groups in the past. Use aspects of those campaigns as a basis for your own promotions.

Combine these with steps one and two to inform your nascent audience of your campaign.

Laid out this way, you can see that the theory behind creating a community is fairly straightforward.

Study the rules of engagement for each separate network you utilize and engage existing user groups accordingly, and you can develop your own community and give your campaign a massive, lasting boost. Read more at econsultancy.com

 

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Social Media's Critical Path: Relevance to Resonance to Significance RT @briansolis & @HarvardBiz

I agree with Brian ... "social media's critical path of RRS serves as a blueprint for companies to construct a successful social media legacy."

And you?

Would love to hear your take ... "Engage" ... Join the Conversation

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9:07 AM Monday July 19, 2010 by Brian Solis  | Comments (13)

If social media warranted a mantra, it would sound something like this, "Always pay it forward and never forget to pay it back...it's how you got here and it defines where you're going."

This intentional form of alternative giving is referred to as "generalized reciprocity" or "generalized exchange." The capital of this social economy is measured in these productive relationships and those relationships are earned through the acts of reciprocity, recognition, respect and benevolence.

So how can businesses, which, one could argue, typically represent a "pay it backward" approach (ie, "pay me for my goods and services"), thrive in this environment? In my experience as a longtime social media observer who advises companies on how to successfully navigate the new media landscape, the key lies in embracing the linear concept of Relevance, Resonance, and Significance. This approach begins with establishing relevance for your brand and messages, which can then achieve resonance, and finally, attain significance and help to build your company's social media legacy and augment your other, more traditional, brand-building efforts.

To understand this model, it's important we define the base unit for social media: the "social object." What are social objects? They take the form of our tweets, posts, updates, videos, pictures, etc. that are introduced into social streams. The social objects serve as the catalyst for conversations and engagement.

Relevance

The first (and perhaps most important) step on this path to social media success is to make sure your social objects are relevant to your constituencies. And how do you do that? Just as in any offline conversation, you have to listen. Listen to the conversations that are already taking place, either directly around your brand, or in other affiliated areas. Pay attention to the nuances of these conversations. Play the role of anthropologist here — what cultural components do you observe in these exchanges? What do you see the participants valuing in these exchanges? Until you understand what kinds of conversations are taking place, who is in them, and what they value, it will be hard for you to attain this first critical step of producing relevant, shareable social objects.

Once you feel you've done a good amount of initial "field studies" and are ready to engage, it's important to join the conversation as a person, not some platitude-spewing automaton. Your community will see right through that. Companies have attempted to humanize their brands and products over the decades through mediums and spokespersons, of course. The difference now is that the act of humanizing a brand through a static avatar, compelling bio, and pat participation in social networks is not enough to earn the attention and trust of desirable consumers, who themselves have become influential in these channels.

The good news? Online behavior already indicates that consumers willfully follow the brands they support and admire. And their responses are consistent when introduced to valuable opportunities that encourage sharing, response, and action. Like email marketing however, every update within social networks either maintains or strengthens the relationship or it breaks it.

Before creating or distributing any social object, ask yourself a few important questions:

"What value am I introducing into the mix?" "What makes this object worthy of attention?" "What action do I want to inspire?" "How does this contribute to our standing within each community?" "How can I make this shareable?"

Resonance

Sharing is an important element in any mutually beneficial relationship and it's a critical component of successful social objects. Successful sharing of these objects leads to the second step on the path, Resonance. Resonance is measured through the speed and degree at which social objects change hands. To increase the resonance of your social objects, you first have to insure their relevance to your communities. Naturally, the more relevant and compelling the social object is, the greater the likelihood for triggering reactions across the entire social graph, while also creating valuable touchpoints back to the source.

The popular concept of KISS, which once stood for Keep it Simple, Stupid, can be shifted here to Keep it Significant and Shareable. Social objects rich with recognition and reward resonate with individuals and encourage sharing from person to person. Each exchange increases the lifespan and reach of an object.

Sometimes strong resonance is referred to as something "going viral." It's a perfectly fine term, but not a good motivation for companies. In my experience, the social objects created solely with the goal of "going viral" will consistently underperform and reduce the likelihood for earning relevance and resonance. Those objects incentivized by thoughtfulness, value, and perhaps even empathy, will gain traction and encourage response and sharing, transitioning from relevance to resonance. And, the ingredients for resonance are readily available for those businesses that pay close attention to the recurring themes in customer conversations, actions, and reactions.

Starbucks has done a good job creating resonant social objects by identifying what communities it had in what channels, and crafting targeted, valuable objects for those respective communities. On Facebook, Starbucks saw an opportunity to reinforce service and personalization by sharing customer stories and experiences, providing personal control of loyalty programs, and introducing discounts in exchange for participation. On Twitter, Starbucks took a different approach, combining service, humor, incentives, customer recognition, and exclusive opportunities. Via Twitter's new Promoted Tweets, Starbucks offers free coffee for those who promote reusable tumblers to promote recycling. Promoted Tweets are a great way to see if you've crossed the bridge to resonance. As Twitter COO Dick Costolo recently emphasized, "Promoted Tweets that don't resonate with users will disappear."

Speaking at Mashable's Media Summit in New York, Starbucks's Vice President of Brand, Content and Online, Chris Bruzzo claimed that social media helped propel last year's Free Pastry Day, driving more than one million people locations nationwide.

It is intention and commitment that breathes relevance into social objects. When we intertwine individual focus with purpose, functionality and benefits we inspire the necessary resonance that prolongs the lifespan of an object.

Significance

If we were to break down the concept of RRS into a simple formula, Relevance + Resonance would equate to the overall significance of a brand in these digital communities (R+R=S). Online significance is the earned stature we merit as measured by our actions and words. It is the culmination of reputation, trust, influence, accessibility, value, and capital within each social network. Significance is not measured by size and shape, but instead by affinity and through the collective influence of the actions and reactions that follow every interaction.

Consistently demonstrating relevance over time and continually striving to earn resonance will contribute to the level of significance of any businesses in the long run. In the social economy, businesses that "pay it forward" and actively employ generalized reciprocity as part of baseline engagement and communication strategies increase the value and social capital of the brand in each network. Businesses can essentially mitigate their "pay it backward" approach by investing in the communities where conversations are commodities, but reward, insight and information are rare.

Loyalty, advocacy, and action inspire the online/offline behavior that serves as the hallmark of Significance. As such, social media's critical path of RRS serves as a blueprint for companies to construct a successful social media legacy.

Brian Solis is the Principal of FutureWorks and the author of Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web. He can be found on Twitter at @briansolis. Read more at blogs.hbr.org

 

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