Used by hundreds of businesses, Position² Brand Monitor™ expands social media listening and engagement across marketing, customer service and competitive intelligence.

Palo Alto, CA, December 14, 2011: Position², a US based provider of Digital Marketing technology and services, has announced its free version of Position² Brand Monitor™, the company’s real-time social media listening and engagement platform. Companies and agencies can sign up at http://brandmonitor.position2.com. For the first time, companies and agencies will be able to harness the same enterprise-class social media monitoring platform used by hundreds of companies for a new value proposition – free.

“Just as social media forever changed the relationship of customers and brands, Position2 Brand Monitor expands how businesses harness the explosion brand conversations across multiple media,” states Rajiv Parikh, CEO of Position2. “Customers and key influencers are talking on Facebook, Twitter, news, forums and blog sites. With Brand Monitor, there’s no need to switch across multiple media tracking and engagement systems. You can get it all in one integrated platform – starting at free and scaling to the enterprise.”

New Capabilities, Multiple Editions, Easier To Use

• Available in 4 editions including a completely free ‘Basic Edition’, Position2 Brand Monitor™ is designed for enterprises and agencies. The Standard, Professional and Enterprise editions of Brand Monitor provide additional search topics, higher data limits, Twitter firehose access, more user accounts, workflow and in-depth reports.
• The free version of Position2 Brand Monitor™ offers higher data levels than enterprise social media monitoring products that costs over $7,000 per year. The Standard and Professional versions, priced at $49 and $149 per month, compare to competitors that cost in the tens of thousands per year.
• Brand Monitor™ is now super-easy to set up and use, with wizards, hints, live chat support and community help. There’s a new product tour that teaches user how to fully leverage the system. Data sources have been strengthened with the Twitter firehose, in addition to thousands of new discussion forums, blogs and news sites. Sentiment analysis and reporting has been revamped to include media analysis, demographics and data segmentation.

Key Features of Brand Monitor™

With Brand Monitor™, companies can:

• Monitor social media conversations in real-time
• Track brands across social media, blogs, news, discussion forums, video and photo sharing sites
• Engage directly via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Track all engagement in a single system
• Get daily and weekly conversation summaries across media channels
• Filter actionable, high priority conversations from the noise
• Identify influencers talking about brands/products/services
• Get detailed analytics and in-depth reports on the entire process

In addition to the platform, Position2 also offers “Actionable Engagement” add-on services packaged with the Brand Monitor™ Enterprise Edition. A team of analysts filter out actionable mentions from noise and categorize them. Mentions can be forwarded for action or responded to immediately.

“As the largest single price retailer in a hyper competitive market, it is critical for us to understand our customers and competitors,” says Curtis Corl, Vice President of Dollar Tree Stores. “With Position2 Brand Monitor, we listen to customer responses to in-store and on-line events, and segment them across key regions and demographics. We utilize the integrated engagement capabilities to build our social media presence. My team is impressed with Brand Monitor’s easy ability to listen to thousands of social media conversations and Position2’s highly responsive support team.”

Applications of Brand Monitor™

Position2 customers currently use Brand Monitor™ for marketing, customer service, competition tracking, research and brand reputation management.

For Marketing: Marketers can track conversations about their brands on social media, giving them a good understanding of how the market is reacting to their latest campaigns. Leads can be discovered by identifying intent in social media conversations. Social media conversations with negative sentiment can be easily identified and responded to, dramatically helping with brand reputation management. Most of Position2 customers use Brand Monitor™ for marketing applications.

For Customer Service: Companies can easily track what issues their customers are facing and complaining about on social media, respond to those customers using the built-in engagement tools and gauge their responses to public announcements.

For Competitive Intelligence: Companies can track their competition’s latest activities online easily, measure and analyze reactions to their products and services, and even identify business opportunities that can be tapped into.

Brand Monitor™ Editions – Comparison

Features
Pricing Per Month
Search Topics	2 search topics	4 search topics	6 search topics	20 search topics
Data Limits	12,000 posts per month	36,000 posts per month	108,000 posts per month	Unlimited posts per month
Data Sources				+ (Custom Sources)
No. of Users	1	2	5	10+
Social Profiles
Reports	Basic	Advanced, Export to CSV and Excel	Comprehensive, Export to CSV and Excel	Comprehensive, Export to CSV and Excel. Custom Reports.

To learn more about the differences in Brand Monitor™ Editions, see a detailed comparison of features.

About Position²

Position2 is an Accel-backed company that delivers continuous growth for its customers through high performance search & social media marketing. Position² was founded with a vision to leverage technology to offer search and social media marketing solutions that deliver performance with consistency and predictability.

The team includes over a 100 professionals across functions that include client management, marketing, creative services, technology development, search and social media marketing. Position² also provides expertise in online marketing solutions: SEO, PPC, Media and Advertising.

Position²’s flagship product is Position² Brand Monitor™, a platform that allows users to listen, discover and engage with social media conversations in real time. Brand Monitor™ is available in 4 editions, ranging from a free edition to a customizable Enterprise edition, from
http://brandmonitor.position2.com

Contact Information

Zubin Tavaria Director – Marketing Position², Inc. Email: mediarelations@position2.com Web: http://brandmonitor.position2.com Media Downloads

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• Managing Social Media Burnout (0)
• What Influences Buying Decisions in #Social Media? (0)
• The Influence of Social Media on Online Retail #SocialMedia #Retail (2)

Social Media Fatigue: the Challenge for Brands

With so much going on in social media these days, it is natural for both marketers as well as users to feel overwhelmed by the need to keep up. Social media is dynamic; while many companies are considering Google+, others are juggling between blogs, tweets and posts. It is not just about what social media platforms to use. For most brands, the bigger challenge is keeping content fresh and coming up with new ways to keep consumers engaged. The increasing pressure to be on top of everything and to keep ahead of the competition can sometimes lead to social media fatigue. From the consumer’s point of view, reading the same content on Facebook, blogs and other channels will only give them a reason to check out your competitor’s webpage. Gartner’s recent study on social media fatigue shows that:

• One in four young people is ‘bored’ with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
• 31% of the respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 said the fun of social media is wearing off.
• The study also indicates that social media exhaustion is something that was most commonly associated with the early adopters. For online marketers, this signals the need to keep branded content fresh and capture people’s attention instantly.

The proliferation of social media platforms can be exhausting for marketers. Yet, many brands believe that the more social media accounts they have, the more web-savvy they are. According to research by the Altimeter group, large corporations averaged a surprising number of social media accounts (178). So much choice and not as much content; what is the best approach? Do you focus or diversify? Do you jump onto every new social media channel that is launched? In our opinion, preventing social media overload is all about finding answers to the too much vs. too little dilemma. Here are some easy-to-follow suggestions:

• Define Precise Goals

  The key to staying fresh and avoiding a burn out is finding out exactly what you wish to achieve from your social media efforts. Defining precise social media marketing goals is the first step towards understanding what works best for your brand.

  • Creating a Social Media Footprint: For brands that are relatively new to social media, gaining visibility and establishing a solid online presence is imperative. If these are your objectives, then we recommend focusing on the big three (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) before considering the other options available. This will prevent your brand from getting lost in the social media blur and keep you from getting exhausted in the initial stages.

  

  • Knowing your Audience: If you have a target audience in mind, then the right approach will be to focus only on those channels where your prospective customers are most likely to be present. For instance, cosmetics brand L’Oreal launched its recent digital campaign on Facebook after research showed that women, who are the biggest consumers of their products, were highly active on the networking site. Posting the same content all over the social space, hoping it reaches your target market can be exhausting and time-consuming.
  • Improving Customer Satisfaction Rates: Our advice to brands looking to improve their customer satisfaction rates is ‘less focus on fancy campaigns and more focus on helping customers.‘ Although a well-thought out, creative campaign is sure to attract new customers, it may not exactly be what existing customers are looking for. Instead of launching one campaign after another, while simultaneously trying to keep up with the flood of queries from customers, it would be wiser to work towards being a customer-centric brand. Offer advice, demonstrate how you can be of service, and show your customers that you care. Satisfied customers mean your brand can now breathe easy, plan ahead and eventually launch those great campaigns. Dell, which lists customer-service as one of its top priorities, has an exclusive team that focuses on helping customers via the @DellCares twitter account.

  Defining precise goals will give you a great sense of direction, helping you plan ahead. The ‘let’s get on board and decide as we go along’ approach sounds tempting; however, like everything new, the novelty of social media can wear off, leaving all those fans and followers wondering about the unexpected dip in activity. Our advice? Fight social media fatigue by getting a S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed) plan.

• The Balancing Act

  As an online marketer, information overload can be overwhelming not only for you, but also for your customers. There is a fine line that divides too much content from too little; this can either convert customers to brand advocates, or will drive them to completely stop following your brand. Although achieving the right balance can be challenging, it is nevertheless, vital for long term success.

  • The Importance of Give & Take: Many companies use social media as a platform to talk about or promote corporate activity. Yes, it’s true that social media is a place for this kind of a thing, but not all the time. Uploading or posting promotional material incessantly will give your audience a case of editorial fatigue, giving them the impression that you are too self-absorbed. Welcome those who respond to your marketing messages, engage with them and listen to what they have to say. Keeping the ’social’ in social media is all about having a balanced brand-customer relationship.
  • To Tweet or not to Tweet: The plethora of networking channels out there can sometimes be confusing for marketers, who do not know if they should tweet, blog or constantly update their Facebook page. The pressure to be present everywhere or be left behind has seen many brands experiment with various channels. After a while, this can be overwhelming and tiresome. Here’s what we think: a) If you tweet more than 25 times a day, then it would be best to blog b) Try Groupon or Livingsocial instead of Twitter if ‘deal-of-the-day’ is your thing c) Not much to say? Then you should just tweet. As quoted by the Global Director of Digital and Social Media for PepsiCo, Bonin Boug, “Do only as much as your resources will allow. If you don’t have the means to have a person on Twitter 24/7, then don’t do it that way….Have [something like] Follow Fridays were you spend two hours talking to the community if that’s all you have to work with. There really are no set rules.“

  

  • Integrate Social Media with Traditional Marketing: For brands that prefer social media in small doses, integrating social media marketing with traditional advertising campaigns is a good way to get the best of both worlds. Many companies believe that a well-balanced mix of social and traditional media can avoid a marketing burnout. One of the companies to have successfully experimented with this approach is P&G. While continuing to advertise on TV, the personal care brand has also managed to create several memorable social media campaigns.

• Running Out of Ideas? Listen to Your Audience

  One of the most common indicators of fatigue creeping into your social media activity is when you don’t know what to do next. Marketers who are highly active on social media are on the constant search for fresh ideas and content in order to keep people interested in their brand. In a world where users are easily turned off by information that is dated and dull, this can be quite a challenge. To stand out in a highly competitive environment, brands need to create content that takes into account the real world environment and the day-to-day events that influence people. This is where social media monitoring tools prove to be highly useful. Here’s why we think media monitoring tools like Brand Monitor should be a ‘must have’ in every digital marketer’s tool kit:

  • It Pays to Listen: Refreshing content regularly is necessary for brands looking to keep people interested in their social media pages. However, delegating this responsibility solely to the marketing or creative department may not always be the best approach. The answer? Listen to your customers for content ideas. Media monitoring will help you sift through the conversations, pick out the most important ones and help sow the seed for some great content.

  

  • Creating a Campaign? Look Out for the Trends: Measuring the impact of an online campaign is one of the most important reasons why brands use social media monitoring tools. How about using the same monitoring tools to help generate ideas for a new campaign? Using these tools will not just save time and effort, but also identify the current trends. Brands can then design marketing messages accordingly and create a unique brand or company angle. According to Harvard Business Review Analytics Services Report, 55% effective users are using social media to monitor trends or look for new product ideas. Here’s what we suggest; monitor the buzz pertaining to trend, topic, or specific keywords before creating a campaign. You are less likely to burn out while learning new things that interest your consumers.
  • Testing the Waters: The best way to check if an idea is likely to work is by asking questions. Post that blog, ask your readers what they think, seek opinions, even opposing point of views. While some audiences jump into conversations willingly, others need to be prodded and asked for ideas and suggestions. This is a smart way to test the waters. Monitoring conversations, analyzing the sentiment associated with the topic of discussion etc, will help you alter your marketing messages and content accordingly, saving time as well as effort.

  The Starbucks formula for social media success is quite simple; monitor the trends and communicate with customers for new ideas. The caffeine-giant, through its social media pages, asks fans for suggestions, encourages discussions and requests for ideas on anything related to the company. Prior to launching a campaign for a new or an existing product, Starbucks picks out the most relevant conversations (mostly by listening to what the influencers are saying) and ideas, making users feel that they have some role in the decision making process of the company. By doing this, the company not only generates new ideas and fresh content at regular intervals, but also keeps social media fatigue at bay.

• Smart Solutions

  You have done your homework, equipped yourself with the required social media tools and have a great brand-customer relationship; yet, your efforts to go ’social’ are running out of steam. What you need are a few simple, yet smart-solutions to make certain you don’t run around in social media circles.

  • Automate Some of Your Posts: For marketers with profiles on multiple networking sites, updating them all the time for routine ‘broadcast’ messages can be a tiresome task. This is true, especially, in case of smaller brands that do not have the necessary resources to refresh their social media content frequently. Automating the posting of some content is a smart way of saving time and energy, at the same time keeping content up-to-date.

  

  • Linking Accounts: Linking key social media accounts saves time for marketers who want to post a common message across profiles without having to log in and out several times. For instance, tying your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts with Twitter, means every time you update something on Twitter it will appear on all three accounts.
  • Appoint a Dedicated Social Media Team: A large number of companies have their marketing or PR staff also overseeing their social media activities. This works fine for small to mid-size companies that have limited resources. However, for brands that consider social media an integral part of their marketing strategy, it is important to have a dedicated social media team to manage posts, tweet on behalf of the company and monitor the buzz surrounding the brand. This will not only reduce fatigue, but will also ensure the core marketing team has the time to focus on their content creation and campaign management tasks.

Conclusion

Marketers have moved beyond seeing social media as a fad and have started to include it as a crucial part of their overall marketing strategy. While this certainly has its benefits, it also means the possibility of getting caught in the social media vortex is high. After the initial excitement to post, blog, tweet or +1 wears off, brands are confronted with the question of ‘what next?’ Also, the fact that social media never stops means companies are increasingly pressurized to keep up. Our research shows that online marketers with an organized approach to social media have been more successful at beating the exhaustion that eventually follows.

Instead of the ‘do-it-yourself’ approach, brands are now looking at customers for inspiration by monitoring for trends and listening to conversations. It is also important to keep in mind that social media fatigue is not something that is restricted to marketers. With so much content and so many platforms to choose from, consumers are also susceptible to a burnout. Though it is not always possible to hold their attention all the time, innovating and diversifying can ensure that people are interested in your webpage. Easy-to-understand, fresh content has proven to be effective in preventing digital fatigue for both brands as well as consumers.

That said, for brands that are plugged in 24/7, instances of fatigue can occur occasionally. Take a deep breath…you don’t need to be a social media maven to avoid an overload; preventing a burnout is all about achieving that perfect balance, knowing what works for you and applying smart solutions.

• What Influences Buying Decisions in #Social Media? (0)
• Designing a Winning Social Media Campaign (1)
• Is Your Audience Truly Engaged via Social Media? (1)

Social media has revolutionized consumer purchasing behavior over the last few years, directly impacting the way they buy products and services. The fact that there are billions of opinions and reviews out there means marketers have to change their perception about social media from ‘fun to have’ to ‘must focus on’. The use of social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and Facebook among buyers has grown considerably over the last two years. Facebook, in fact, doubled in popularity from 2010 to 2011. Although Google search still leads the way in terms of influencing online shopping behavior, the steady growth of social media is opening up new opportunities for marketers to message and connect with customers. According to the 2011 Social Commerce Study:

• 58% of online consumers have ‘followed’ a retailer proactively through Facebook, Twitter or a retailer’s blog.
• Almost half (49%) of the respondents were keen on keeping a tab on product updates through social media.
• Over 1/3rd follow online retailers for information on contests and shopping events.
• 35% of shoppers are likely to directly purchase from Facebook, while 32% are willing to make a direct purchase through Twitter.
• Group-buying sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are being used to purchase non-traditional items.

Several studies show that consumers are now sharing opinions in unprecedented numbers on various social networking sites and blogs; for marketers, this growing hunger for information can easily be converted to actual purchases by understanding what factors influence buying behavior most. Here’s how marketers can influence online purchasing behavior:

By Understanding the Consumer Mind

Social media has changed the way marketing companies group their consumers. Online buyers can no longer be slotted into a ’stereotypical category’. If you’re looking to convert the ‘likes’ to purchases in social media, it is vital to understand the mind of the consumer first. A simple way to do this is by monitoring social media. Social media monitoring is an effective way of researching and learning about your customer’s age, geographic distribution, what social media channels they use, if they are highly-engaged in social media circles (the influencers) etc. By using monitoring tools such as Brand Monitor, marketers can get a clearer insight into consumers’ mindset and know what customer types they are targeting. The social media common customer types can be broadly classified into:

• The under-30s: Our research shows that younger buyers are more open to newer channels such as blogs, Facebook etc. This age group is therefore more likely to make purchases through social media channels. The good news for brands that heavily rely on blogs for marketing purposes is that the <30 age group is three times more likely to use blogs to select products and suppliers, when compared to the +30 age bracket.
• The coupon collectors and freebie seekers: Identifying the coupon collectors and the freebie seekers and offering deals to them is a great way to drive sales and increase ROI. Recent studies from Empathica reveal that offering discounts via social media presents marketers with an opportunity to connect with consumers, especially women. Empathica’s research shows that:
  
  • 47% of people using social media to find coupons and promotions are women.
  • Only 33% men look for offers on social media.
  • While 30% of the respondents said that they followed brands for information, 40% said that they look for promotions and coupons.
  • Although, promotion hunting is a primary driver of social behavior, the survey also found this habit was driving overall online behavior as well; 26% of respondents admitted to specifically look for more coupons online.

  Commenting on this, Gary Edwards, Empathica EVP of Client Services, said that brands should recognize consumer preferences and help them visit an establishment. For marketers this is also the perfect way to convert consumers into brand advocates.

  Walmart uses its recently added Facebook feature called Crowdsaver to offer discounts on products. The app, which is similar to Groupon, requires a certain number of users to ‘like’ a product for the retailer to apply the discount. For Walmart, this strategy helped boost its brand image, while customers benefitted from the discounts offered.

• The multicultural audience: Several studies have found Latinos and African-Americans to be the fastest growing and the most loyal brand advocates on the internet. According to a recent Ipsos U.S. Hispanic Omnibus study, U.S. Hispanics aged 35-54 are more likely to purchase products online (62%). One of the companies that clearly understood the mindset of the ‘multicultural customer’ was PepsiCo. The beverage giant launched its ‘We Inspire’ campaign in 2010, targeting African-American mothers. The home page on the company’s website featured the Facebook ‘Like’ Widget, encouraged users to blog about their experiences, and upload personal stories on YouTube. The campaign was a huge success, with PepsiCo winning the NAACP award for “advancing positive multicultural images in advertising and media.”

The Power of Creative Campaigns

How are marketers encouraging ongoing involvement once a consumer has ‘liked’ or ‘followed’ a brand? Instead of simply posting a banner ad on a social media site and waiting for the ‘likes’, companies should make full use of web’s unique properties like interactivity, community-building, and the ability to specialize local offers. Listed here are some examples that illustrate the power of creative social media campaigns and how they can increase conversion rates for brands:


• Steaz Doubles Sales through Social Media: Organic tea brand, Steaz, took to social media platforms to generate nation-wide awareness and drive sales at Target stores. The company’s social media campaign saw sales double after users downloaded and shared coupons on Facebook and Twitter. Discussions on the benefits of organic tea saw 2,830 tweets recorded in one hour and 250,000 coupons being downloaded. The company’s marketing team aimed the campaign at moms after conducting a geographic and demographic research. According to Steaz, mothers were the perfect audience to generate awareness and sales, as they usually looked for coupons and were involved in health related discussions in social media.



• Colgate Uses Social Media to Drive Engagement: Following extensive research, the marketing department at Colgate decided to promote its disposable toothpaste, Wisp, through social media channels including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The company’s ‘Are You Kissable’ campaign was aimed at the urban youth in the 18-25 age bracket. The campaign, which was a resounding success, achieved a reach of 10,000,000+ rivaling mass advertising at small fraction of the cost.

Companies that understand the potential of social media marketing are investing millions of dollars, launching some highly innovative campaigns in the process. We believe that imaginative social media campaigns are vital and highly effective in attracting customers and influencing buying decisions, resulting in increased traffic and sales.

The Impact of ‘Followers’ and ‘Friends’

Social networks now have a huge audience that spends a good amount of time posting reviews and recommendations related to various products and services. Besides making personal connections, Facebook, Twitter and other sites are places where buying decisions are influenced through group interactions. Trust in social recommendations has increased to such an extent that, currently, 1/3rd of social media users follow recommendations made by their friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter before deciding to buy. HubSpot’s research shows that social media conversations actively influence purchases. According to a study conducted by market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, in 2010:

• 60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend a brand after becoming a fan or follower.
• 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.

The above statistics indicate that online research is one of the key factors influencing buying behavior. As more and more people depend on social media research versus opinions from in-store sales associates, marketers can no longer ignore user-generated reviews. With ‘followers’ and’ fans’ having such an impact on people’s buying decisions, it is imperative for brands to:

• Not just have a social media presence, but listen to shoppers and find out what they are saying.
• Connect with shoppers in social media: If brands want to connect with shoppers and impact their purchasing decisions, they need to devise strategies to ‘influence the influencers’ by continuously engaging with them.
• Incorporate customer feedback into their marketing strategies: Customers do not always address a brand or a company directly; sometimes they choose to post reviews (either positive or negative) or blog about their experiences. Smart marketers will monitor such social media conversations and incorporate this feedback into their marketing strategies.

What marketers need to keep in mind is the fact that social media shoppers are not always ‘actively social’. While one in four social media shoppers contribute to a conversation about a brand or product, the others view these conversations and decide if they want to make a purchase. While the ‘influencer‘ group is small, the impact on those ‘influenced‘ is large.

Conclusion

With 95 million social-media shoppers in the US alone, the opportunity for online marketers is huge. According to Forrester Research, social media marketing budgets will see a 34% growth between 2009 and 2014, which is faster than any other form of online advertising. This data indicates that shopping via social media is poised for tremendous growth in the years to come, with product reviews and recommendations playing an important part. This is not to say that the role of traditional marketing channels in influencing buying decisions will decline; people watching and listening to marketing messages on TV and radio are more likely to consult their friends and followers before making a purchase.

While reviews can help marketers further improve products, freebies and discounts function as powerful tools in driving sales. The current trend of consumers scouting social media for coupons holds good not just today, but will also be one of the primary factors driving online shoppers in the future. That said, the smart approach for digital marketers looking to add value to their campaigns would be to understand their shoppers, study the impact of online reviews and design their campaigns accordingly. We believe this to be the perfect recipe for that ‘creative campaign’, which will ultimately translate into profitable returns.

Currently, Google is the first stop for online buyers; however, the increasing influence of social media on online shopping means the search giant could soon be looking at many ’social’ contenders.

• Designing a Winning Social Media Campaign (1)
• Managing Social Media Burnout (0)
• The Influence of Social Media on Online Retail #SocialMedia #Retail (2)

The influence of the internet, especially via social networking, on people’s purchasing behavior has grown over the years. Retailers, who depended on traditional stores to drive sales, have found that the reach of social media extends beyond generating visibility; it is also a channel to generate revenue. Social media being the next logical marketing arena has prompted retailers to shift a percentage of their marketing dollars to this space. According to Forrester Research:

• Online retail sales will grow to $250 billion by 2014, up from $155 billion in 2009.
• As estimated $917 billion worth of retail sales in 2010 were ‘web-influenced’.
• Online and web-influenced offline sales together accounted for 42% of total retail sales.
• This figure is expected to grow to 53% by 2014.

At the National Retail Federation’s Innovate 2011 conference in San Francisco, held in March, the growing importance of Facebook as a platform for online marketing was highlighted. Several retailers have incorporated Facebook’s ‘likes’ feature onto their pages, besides posting updates on new arrivals, competition posts and advertisements. While retailers are looking to turn conversations to conversions, for consumers, directly shopping through Facebook translates into a better shopping experience. When shoe retailer, Steve Madden, recently ran a campaign to acquire 100,000 fans on Facebook, the company not only offered fans a discount, but also designed an enticing promotional strategy. In addition to increasing the company’s Facebook fan page, the campaign also made $200,000 in sales in only 15 days.

It appears that most retailers are restricting their social presence to their Facebook fan pages and Twitter followers; and why not? The risks are manageable, the costs are low and your customers are already using these platforms. Supporting this was BDO’s Retail Compass Survey, which showed that:

• 75% of the retailers included social media in their marketing strategy in 2010, a 51% increase when compared to the year before.
• Facebook was the social media platform that was used the most, with 92% retail CMOs using the site.
• Twitter use was ranked second at 60%.
• YouTube and MySpace were used the least, at 20% and 8% respectively.

Social media is a lucrative marketing platform for retail CMOs because of its effectiveness to reach consumers across demographics. As a retailer, your social media marketing strategy should focus on 4 ‘how to’ areas:

Design Social Media Campaigns

One of the main reasons why customers interact with retailers on social media sites is to learn about products and promotions. As a marketer, designing online campaigns and promotions is all about:

1. Timing: Plan your social media campaigns after consulting the events calendar for the year. For instance, the 2010 holiday shopping season saw retailers and brand manufacturers gain higher conversion rates due to social media.
2. Offering discounts and coupons: Nothing lures customers more than the promise of freebies. Every social networker expects contests and giveaways. The UK page of Amazon has just 45,000 fans. When compared to the retailer’s US page, which boasts +700,000 fans, this number appears unimpressive. Why the large difference? In addition to the growing popularity of Amazon’s US page, the retailer is running weekly sweepstakes, giving away home theatre systems.
3. Using the right social media platform: Prior to designing a social media campaign, as an online retailer, you need to identify what social media platform is best suited to your needs. For example: -
   • A fashion retailer’s target demographic tends to be heavy social media users; therefore it would make more sense to target them via Facebook campaigns instead of Twitter.
   • Twitter can be used as a form for highly targeted permission marketing. Toys and baby products retailer ToysRUs uses Twitter to post special offers directly to their consumers.
   • Blogs function as a platform to publish all kinds of interesting content, thereby establishing a company as an authority in their field. eBuyer’s blog features company news as well as special offers for its customers.

Win and Retain Customers

By actively participating in their social media page, retailers can not only listen to what customers have to say, but also be a part of the conversation. In the online retail business this will ensure a) you identify who your customers are b) target your social media campaigns towards the right customer base c) respond to queries and complaints in real-time d) retain your customers.

The secret to attracting new customers is by giving them a reason to visit your website and keeping them engaged once they get there. What we know is that shoppers will not visit your website or Facebook page proactively. Forrester Research has outlined two key ways by which retailers can use social media for customer engagement:

• Through the retailer’s website.
• By leveraging third party social media tools like blogs, forums, Twitter and Facebook.

There is one question that comes to mind while taking about winning and retaining customers; how can a retailer win back unhappy customers? The Retail Consumer Report outlines how retailers are using social media to recapture unhappy customers and turning them into brand advocates. According to the survey conducted in January 2011:

• Following a poor holiday shopping experience, 68% of consumers who posted a negative review on a social networking site (Facebook, Twitter and Yelp) about their shopping experience got a response from the retailer.
• The retailers managed to convert 18% of those customers into brand advocates by listening and proactively responding to their complaints on the social web.
• Following a response from their retailer, 33% of the consumers re-posted a positive review.
• 34% deleted their original negative review.

Twitter and Facebook can be effective customer service channels, allowing for swift responses to customer queries. YouTube, however, does not garner as much retailer response because not much importance is placed on YouTube as a social media channel, despite its massive audience and functionality.

Drive Revenue

We believe that driving revenue should feature among the top three in the checklist of basic expectations from your social media strategy and campaigns. So what is causing the discrepancy between driving revenue and the social media buzz; and how can we generate traffic and sales?

• Simply being present on your social media page or having ‘x’ number of ‘likes’ on Facebook will not suffice. It is vital to offer customers the option of shopping from these accounts. Displaying your products on a social networking site and not adding links for people to make a purchase is a missed opportunity.
• Update your content and keep fans interested – Fashion retailer Topshop uses interactive content and exclusive deals to keep people interested and drive traffic to its e-commerce site from its Facebook page.
• A customer spending more time on your social media site is a good sign; it means they are more engaged with the brand and therefore are more likely to make a purchase.
• By focusing heavily on Twitter, retailers can use social communications to drive followers into their brick and mortar stores for promotional events and discount sales.
• If you are a retailer or a marketer who’s looking at Facebook to increase traffic and sales, then here’s some good news;
  • The social giant is turning purchasing into a social decision by allowing people to show what they like and what they have bought, both online as well as offline.
  • Retailers and marketers can create viral promotional offers and run deals on their Facebook page. Every time someone RSVPs, clicks, or checks-in, that action gets shared with all of their friends.
  • The word of mouth and customer engagement (at the point of purchase, either on your website or store) combination is proving to be very useful in driving traffic and sales.
  • The recent launch of Facebook’s new comment’s box plug-in makes it even easier for online retailers to drive business through social networking.

Monitor Web Traffic

Before investing additional resources into strengthening your social media presence, it is necessary to assess how well your current strategy is working, or if it needs to be improved further. Monitoring your social media activities is a good way to measure customer loyalty and interest in social engagement. By using social media monitoring tools such as Brand Monitor, retailers can:



• Measure inbound traffic from various social networking sites in real-time (Facebook Twitter etc).
• Keep track of how many customers are using Twitter or Facebook exclusive promotions.
• Keep a finger on the pulse of consumer sentiment towards your brand(s) or product(s).
• Track the impact of your campaign and the success of your marketing message(s).
• Identify and engage the top influencers who are most relevant to their brand, product or campaign.

Amazon was silent when unhappy twitterians (#amazonfail) protested on the networking site after the retailer censored gay and lesbian themed books. The retailer’s non-responsiveness was because it was not monitoring its brand on social media 24/7. Incidents like these throw light on what can go wrong when social media activities are not monitored, especially in the retail space.

Conclusion

While social media marketing is not unexplored, the area has seen exponential growth over the last few years and appears to be a promising marketing platform for retailers in the years to come. In fact, several social media experts are of the opinion that the retail industry is only scratching the surface of social media’s potential. Some have even gone so far as to rate F-commerce (F as in Facebook) to be the next big frontier in online marketing.

Currently, Facebook dominates the digital marketing space, followed closely by Twitter. As we have seen, retailers today are focusing their efforts of converting ‘likes’ into actual purchases. Blogs, YouTube and MySpace are less preferred, despite obvious benefits these platforms offer. We believe blogs are useful marketing platforms. A good blog can get readers hooked and have them coming back for more, thus increasing the likelihood of repeat purchases. With Facebook expanding as a social and e-commerce platform, what role will blogs play in retail marketing? Meanwhile, online retail sales are expected to grow significantly in the next 3 years, and we’re sure social media will have a large role to play in driving those revenue figures upwards.

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What Today’s Marketers Must Know.

Free, Live Webinar | March 30 2011 – 10:00 AM PDT.

If your company is one of the 82% without a clearly defined social media strategy, this webinar is for you.

Even five years ago, CMOs believed it was their job to manage their brands. Today’s smartest marketers understand that the landscape has changed dramatically. You can no longer control the conversation, you have to join it. And to do that, you have to know where it’s happening, when.

In this webinar, Position²’s CEO Rajiv Parikh will share the keys to social media success:

• Clearly define what success looks like and codify your KPIs
• Create a comprehensive list of keywords and search terms



• Adopt a proactive discover and engage strategy to put you at the heart of any conversation taking place about your brand-using the best algorithms and the best people
• Integrate social media into your multi-channel marketing strategy
• Accurately track the reach and results of your social marketing efforts

Finally, you’ll learn first hand how one major US B2C brand has leveraged social media to increase customer engagement and build market share. And bring your questions. This is an interactive event.

About the Presenter: Rajiv Parikh, CEO Position²

Rajiv founded Position² as a search and social media firm in 2006. His belief in the power of social media to change the relationship between consumers and brands led him to create the next generation social media engagement platform at Position².

About Position²
Position² is a Search and Social Media Marketing firm that delivers continuous growth for our clients using our proprietary “Surround and Intent” Marketing Methodology. Position² Brand Monitor™ is our flagship product, a real-time social media listening and engagement platform that powers actionable engagement for companies.	In Partnership with SearchEngineWatch.com

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• Brand Monitor – Product Updates – January 2011 (0)
• Brand Monitor Updates – December 2010 (0)

We’re delighted to announce a series of new updates to the Brand Monitor™ platform, and to give you a heads-up on some of the exciting features we’re working on!

Weekly Activity Email and Enhanced Downloadable Reports

In addition to your daily email alerts, you can opt-in for “Weekly Summary” email alerts. The email alert gives you an overview about your brand activity for the last 7 days. It includes:

• Weekly Buzz.
• No. of New Posts.
• Brand Sentiment.
• Traffic Breakup.
• Top 5 Tweets, Blogs posts, News stories and Forum Posts.

Enhanced Downloadable Reports

We have included few more graphs to the downloadable excel report:

• Top Country Breakup
• Gender Distribution Breakup
• Age Group Breakup

Advanced User Management System	Download Graphs as Image/PDF files
You now have more control over user access permissions. The enhanced user management system allows you to: Add/Remove and manage users. Add/Remove access to search buckets for each user. Add/Remove users from groups.	You can now save any of the graphs in Brand Monitor as JPEG, PNG or PDF files. This enables you to save each chart with the current data and date range selected. Now it’s much easier to use the Brand Monitor charts in your presentations and reports.
Miscellaneous Updates
UI Update for Date Range Selection It’s now much easier to select the data range you want – the date picker user interface has been replaced with an enhanced version. It has both pre-defined ranges and custom date range selector. Features We’re Working On [Coming Soon!] Stronger workflow integration An updated and refereshed Brand Monitor UI

We’re committed to updating Brand Monitor™ every month with new features and capabilities. Try out these new features and let us know if you have any suggestions for us!

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We’re delighted to announce a series of new updates to the Brand Monitor™ platform, and to give you a heads-up on some of the exciting features we’re working on!

Enhanced Daily Alerts, Reports and other Functionality Improvements

• Brand Monitor™ now has a new “Deep Dive” section under “Reports” which gives you a more detailed media breakup for each search bucket along with sentiment analysis. In phase two of our “Deep Dive” release, we will add advanced filtering functionality here.
• Daily email alerts will contain data with a “high relevance score”, which means more focused and useful data into your inbox.
• You can now set a default relevance score for each search topic.
• Brand Monitor now has a new Tag Cloud for each search topic, with new filters for discovering keywords for each media type.

Geographic and Demographic Reach

You can now discover the geographic and demographic reach of each search topic, via the dashboard and report pages.

The geographic breakup will show you the number of posts accumulated from each country. The demographic breakup has gender and age group graphs.

• The geographic data is further broken into individual states in USA.
• Demographics include an industry breakup for each gender.

In phase two, we’ll be adding in-depth state-wise geographic segregation for more countries and optimizing our charts.

LinkedIn Integration

Similar to Facebook integration now you can manage your LinkedIn profile via Brand Monitor™.

After adding your LinkedIn account you can see your connections’ status messages, application updates, profile changes, group activities and Q&A posts.

• Comment or like status messages
• Sentiment analysis on status message
• Use filters to view specific type of LinkedIn network updates: status message, connection, application, profile update, group activities or Q&A posts.

Features We’re Working On [Coming Soon!]

• Advanced LinkedIn and Facebook Integration
• Advanced Geographic and Demographic reports

We’re committed to updating Brand Monitor™ every month with new features and capabilities. Try out these new features and let us know if you have any suggestions for us!

• Brand Monitor Updates – December 2010 (0)
• Brand Monitor Product Updates (0)
• Brand Monitor™ v2.0.1 Released! (0)

We’re delighted to announce a series of new updates to the Brand Monitor™ platform, and to give you a heads-up on some of the exciting features we’re working on!

Post Relevance

Brand Monitor™ is now powered by an enhanced relvance scoring engine, that you can control. Available under “Filters”, you can choose varying levels of relevance; this changes the stream of posts accordingly.


We do this by giving each post a “score” for relevance when compared to a search keyword. By default, “High Relevance” is selected, and posts with “Low” or “Medium” relevance scores are not shown.

If you don’t see too many posts in the stream for a particular keyword, try changing the relevance filter to “Medium” or “Low”.

Salesforce Integration

See a potential lead talking about your product or service? Perhaps a competitor? You can now send this person’s contact information to Salesforce directly via Brand Monitor™.


It takes about 5 minutes of setting up – we need to integrate your “Organization ID” from Salesforce into Brand Monitor™, and you can choose which fields you want to capture and send to Salesforce.

Once set up, every post will have a “Salesforce” tab, from where you can submit leads. In the near future, we’ll automatically populate as many of the fields as possible.

Facebook Integration

Brand Monitor™ will shortly introduce an integrated Facebook client. You can manage your Facebook accounts, Facebook pages and interact with your fan base. Managing your company’s Facebook presence is easier, quicker and more effective.

You can manage multiple Facebook accounts and pages, use the built-in URL shorterner (bit.ly), schedule multiple status messages for future publishing, update status messages, add comments and also “Like” posts.

Features We’re Working On [Coming Soon!]

• More Facebook Integration Features
• LinkedIn Integration
• Geography and Demographic Reports

We’re committed to updating Brand Monitor™ every month with new features and capabilities. Try out these new features and let us know if you have any suggestions for us!

• Brand Monitor – Product Updates – January 2011 (0)
• Brand Monitor Product Updates (0)
• Brand Monitor™ v2.0.1 Released! (0)

We’re delighted to announce a new version of Brand Monitor™ with exciting new features and a whole lot of under-the-hood tweaks. Here are some of the highlights of this new version:

Integrated Twitter Client

You can now tweet, reply, retweet, follow and unfollow right from the Brand Monitor™ interface! Sharing posts and creating new conversations is now easier and more convenient.

• Multiple Twitter Accounts!: You can add all your Twitter accounts into Brand Monitor™. Each Twitter account added gets a separate search bucket with graphs that show volume, sentiment, top influencers and “most talked about” topics.
  
  
• Never miss a single tweet: All tweets are tracked in one place and tagged with sentiment and influencer scores, even when you are not logged in!
• Clearly demarcated read and unread tweets help keep the information stream manageable – you can easily identiy new tweets, and the system works better than your exising Twitter client as it works 24/7 and not just when you are logged in.

More Customization for Email Alerts

You now have more control over your email alerts – you can choose which search buckets you want to get emails for, and you see the top posts for the day in your alerts.



Aggregation of Similar Posts

Too many posts on the same topic clogging up your information stream? Not any more! Brand Monitor™ identifies duplicate posts and tags them as one – you can expand the post to see duplicate entries.



We’re committed to updating Brand Monitor™ every month with new features and capabilities. Try out these new features and let us know if you have any suggestions for us!

• Brand Monitor – Product Updates – January 2011 (0)
• Brand Monitor Updates – December 2010 (0)
• Brand Monitor™ v2.0.1 Released! (0)

We’re delighted to announce a new version of Brand Monitor™ with exciting new features and a whole lot of under-the-hood tweaks. Here are some of the highlights of this new version:

Twitter Influencer Analysis and Display

Now, next to each tweet, you will see an “Influencer Score” (out of 100) that our algorithm has rated for the author. Also, if you hover over the twitter author’s username, you get to see more information about the author: Full Name, Influencer Score, Bio, Location, Website, Total Tweets, Followers and Following.

• How do we arrive at an Influencer Score?
  
  We identify 10 key sets of information on each Twitter author, and apply a specific weight to each data point. We then run the factors through our machine-learning analysis and calculate the final score. The final score is a representation of how successful a person is at engaging his/her audience and how large the impact of their opinion is.
• New Tweet Display
  
  We have redesigned the way a tweet is displayed, for a closer resemblance to how it looks on Twitter.

Post Title and Summary Redesigned, Media Logos Added

Earlier, our system used to remove special characters from a post title; this would make “AT&T” look like “ATT”. Posts now display special characters, and summaries end in a complete sentence.

• Media Logos
  
  Based on the media source, each post has a logo associated to it. This enables you to quickly identify the source of a post. These logos are also in the “Filter” section for media.

Preview Search Bucket Results



While creating a search bucket you now have the option to preview a sample set of results.

This ensures that your search is getting the desired results before you actually submit it, saving you time and effort.

Date Range for Comparison Reports



You now have the option to compare data based on a time range in the comparison report section.

We’re committed to updating Brand Monitor™ every month with new features and capabilities. If you’d like to try out Brand Monitor™, let us know!

• Brand Monitor – Product Updates – January 2011 (0)
• Brand Monitor Updates – December 2010 (0)
• Brand Monitor Product Updates (0)