Corporate communications professionals have good reason to wonder where social media should fit into their strategies. The platforms can advertise but perhaps not as effectively as a television commercial or a billboard ad. They can generate metrics but not necessarily the ROIs or the sales figures the top-level executives want (and if social media can produce those figures, it can’t always influence them as much social media’s supporters might claim.) They can enhance “branding,” “raise awareness” and improve “reputation” but it’s not always clear how much those things really affect the bottom line. For too many professional communicators, social media has become something that has to be done if only because their company’s competitors are doing it. It’s a box to be ticked rather than an effective channel that supports the company’s growth and development.
One major company, however, appears to have found the right place for social media — and it’s not in the marketing section but as an integral part of the corporate communications department.
When Scott Monty was asked to handle social media for Ford around five years ago, his team was placed under the Vice-President of Communications. It was a move that freed the car company’s posting, tweeting and updating strategies from the pressure of producing provable sales, and enabled it to become part of the firm’s overall outreach strategy. In a long interview with Rick Mulready, a social media podcaster, Monty explains how social media has become part of Ford’s strategic marketing, a vital element in the car company’s current set-up — and it’s done it all while being housed under corporate communications.
The interview provides plenty of good advice. Monty reminds business users of social media that they should be thinking of the different platforms in the same way that they treat different parties to which they might be invited. A frat party doesn’t have the same atmosphere, the same dress code or the same rules of behavior as a cocktail party at a country club. They require different ways of communicating and those differences are reflected across social media platforms. Twitter users have to be sharp, fast and witty; Facebook is more mainstream with networks of friends and family; Google Plus tends to be more cutting edge with geekier, more knowledgeable users.
Listening, we’re told, is at least as important as talking. Ford does measure activity and sentiment, checking to see whether users are saying good things about their cars and how often, but corporate social media users should also be paying attention to what people are saying in general. They need to produce topics of conversation that resonate with audiences if they’re going to inspire them to comment and share content, taking the company’s message and passing it to their friends.
Three points really stand out, though, and they have vital connotations for corporate communicators tasked with using social media.
- Social media is at the top of the sales funnel.
The ability of Internet advertising to track the number of clicks an ad generates and the number of sales those clicks produce has usually put it at the bottom of the sales process. A call to action on a website leads to a sale, and that sale can be measured and analyzed.
Although embedding a link to a sales page is as easy to do on Facebook as it is in a banner ad, for Scott Monty social media is at the top of the sales funnel. It’s a long-term project to build relationships with potential buyers so that when they’re ready to click the link, they already trust the company and its product.
When social media is thought of as a communications tool rather than a marketing tool, it can sit higher in a process that combines paid ads and PR work to create connections thay will later convert into sales. When Ford launched the new Explorer in 2011, for example, the company’s Facebook information was part of a campaign that included real-life releases and local media attention. All of the different parts of Ford’s marketing strategy were working together: social media built curiosity and conversations; marketing showed the car and let people touch it; PR made sure the message reached the press.
- Social media is about relationships.
Perhaps the most surprising detail to come out of the interview was the news that Scott Monty was a Classics major. That social media’s most important practitioner spent his college years learning how to communicate with Romans might seem odd but it does give him the knowledge to parse “relationship” to the Latin word relatio, a “bringing back.”
He then connects that idea of return to the notion of marketing returning to its roots as a handshake and a face-to-face sale.
That, he argues, is social media’s role: to build those human connections that generate the positive feelings that are essential to produce a willingness to buy. It’s not something that advertising can do and it doesn’t happen quickly.
- Collect numbers but don’t rely on them.
When it comes to collecting stats, Monty presents a mixed picture. On the one hand, he says that Ford is constantly assessing results, looking to see which posts provoke the most reactions and the highest numbers of views. On the other hand, he has little time for follower numbers and even fewer for “likes” which he says should be more accurately called “mehs.” Dismissing Facebook’s Insights and all of the third party tools available to help communicators track results, he states that no one has really cornered the market on metrics.
For communicators feeling the pressure from managers and directors who want to see numbers to justify their budgets that may be cold comfort. But it makes sense when social media is moved higher up the sales funnel to a place where it’s talking and building trust rather than pushing for sales. You can measure comments and shares but when the figure you really want measure is the depth of trust, you’re going to have do it without numbers.
Social media is sometimes placed in marketing departments and it’s sometimes housed in corporate communications. In Scott Monty, perhaps the business world’s most effective corporate social media user, professional communicators have an argument for keeping their control over the networks.
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