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Should you advertise on social networks?

byLaura James

A WARC Best Practice guide January 2009

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Where are the advertisers?

Despite the huge growth and high profile of social mediausage relatively few advertisers invest in campaigns. We have summarised the latest thinking to be found on WARCOnline on the issue under the following headings.

• Weighing up the suitability and risks of social networks as advertising platforms

• Tips on planning and implementing social media campaigns• Measuring success • Examples of brands who have succeeded

If you have any queries or would like more information please contact me Laura.james@warc.com

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The attractions of advertising on social networks

There are three main advantages

• Users spend a relatively

long time on the sites

• Users are connected to a

large number of fellow users

• Users use the sites for content sharing thus offering potential opportunities for a brand to engage in two-way interactions.

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Source :Jan 2009 ComScore, Inc

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Social media continues to be a big part of many young and not so young lives…

Source : Comscore Jan 09/WARC/ US-based Pew Internet & American Life Project survey in December 2008

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Global visitors

Social media is no longer just lone teenagers in bedrooms

•Average age : • LinkedIn - 41• Twitter user - 31 • MySpace - 27 • Facebook - 26

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“Spaces are a true microcosm of society” Microsoft

Source: WARC Online: The anatomy of social networks (Microsoft research)

Research highlights common motivations for using the sites

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Although privacy fears still exist

• Fears regarding privacy are resulting in a move from open sites

• 71% of 14 to 21-year-olds would be worried about colleagues or employers doing a web search on them.

• Leading to growth in closed network and increased privacy functions

• However, 41% of children and 56% of adults had a profile that was visible to anyone

Source: WARC Online: The anatomy of social networks/The Information Commissioner's Office UK/Ofcom report

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There are no shortages of opportunities to get involved

A report by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and FutureFoundation grouped the available formats into five categories:

• Interruption (display advertising, banners, pre-roll video, tagging, email)

• Engagement (viral films, online programming, affiliate marketing, competitions, promotions, word of mouth)

• Participation (brand blogs, community sites, branded environments, bulletin boards, online surveys)

• Facilitation  (branded applications, third party blogs, widgets, fan campaigns)

• Conversation (brand conversations, defence of brand reputations by responding to criticism on blogs and online communities).

Source:WARC Online: Social media's emerging communications model

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But there are challenges

"Brand owners have to go beyond interruptive or distracting ad inventory to

find ways to become fully integrated in the reality of consumer behaviour, attitudes

and site interactions.“

  (Alistair Beattie, Head of Strategic Planning at AKQA)

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What are the risks involved? What are the risks involved?

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Is your brand “right” for social media?

• Research indicates success is more likely if brands are market leaders

• Nike and Apple created Running battle on Facebook, motivating students from 6 universities to compete and get kitted out with free Nike gear and win iTunes tickets.

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The “right” type of brand..

• Success is also more likely if brands are from high involvement categories such as leisure and entertainment.

• Warner Bros' successful promotion of its movie The Dark Knight

• UK TV station Channel 4 achieved record

viewing figures by using MySpace to market its

teen drama, Skins.

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Traditional brands can be successful

– The site brings together the best of New York and London

– Provides information across a vast range of portals, providing recommendations from local experts and bloggers etc.

• To reach new audiences and provide added-value to existing customers British Airways created www.metrotwin.com.

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But even cool brands get it wrong

• Entertaining or useful content and applications attracts users. If the app is difficult to use it will be avoided. 

For example• The Sony Snow Globe application on Facebook Christmas 2007

• A great idea but attracted few users because

it was too clumsy to set up.

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Achieving stand out is not easy

• Industry sources claim that

– 99% of branded widgets/applications are not used

– Almost half of sponsored groups have fewer than 1,000 members

Source:WARC Online

Woolworths Catapult Game - 5 users

Handbag. COM'sAre You In Fashion?- 68 users

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Cool brands getting it wrong 2

Sony again

• US website www.alliwantforxmasisapsp.com, was supposedly created by a PSP fan but in reality was a fake blog ('flog') from Sony.

• This was spotted and outed within hours.

Bad experiences will be shared, there are up to 1.3million blog posts per day

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Fakes will be spotted

• 2-8% new weblogs per day are fake or spam (flogs)

Further examples– Cillit Bang’s Barry Scott

contributed inappropriately

to blogs

– The Walmarting across

America blog. People believed it was genuine based on a couple travelling across the US via Wal-Mart carparks. It was flog from Wal-Marts PR agency

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It’s not who you are it’s how you behave…

“ If you deliver value, people will get involved...If you go over and above what people expect

and create super satisfaction amongst the right people, that's when you generate advocacy.”

(Faris Yakob, Naked UK)

Source:WARC Online: From Mythmaker to gardener:understanding the world of participatory brands

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You have no control of your message

• Are you prepared to allow your message to be manipulated?

For example

– The Burger King/Fox 24 MySpace pages (offering fans freecontent and the chance to chat) contained much, almostpornographic, comment on Jack Bauers daughter.

Source: WARC Online: The anatomy of social networks /Social media explained

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• Are you happy to cede control of the context in which your message will appear?

Source: WARC Online:The anatomy of social networks

You have no control of the environment.

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Some planning guidanceSome planning guidance

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Have a clear set of objectives

• Be clear what you want the campaign to achieve and the desired results.

Ask yourself:

– Is social media a relevant touchpoint for my consumer? • Which sites do they frequent?

– What is the role for SM in my campaign and what do I want it to achieve? CRM, a communications hub, direct response or a research channel?

– How does each element of the SM campaign contribute to my objectives?

– Is the campaign integrated into my other marketing?

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What conversations already exist?

• Understand what conversations already exist on SN about your brand and the competition.

– Coca Cola is the number one branded profile page on Facebook with 3.3m fans with a page created by fans not the corporation.

– There are 140,000 BMW videos on YouTube but only a small number are from the brand itself.

• Set up the technology and a process to identify where and what is being said and by who.

• Claim your brand before it’s claimed for you!

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Understand the target audience

• Avoid targeting assumptions based on traditional media planning.– Are you targeting by demographic, interest group or by

behaviour?– How is your message

going to spread?

 • Does a fan base already exist?

• Are you neutralising negative comment? 

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Getting it right – tips on execution

• Be original – offer something new

• People are incentivised by free stuff

• Offer a platform for creativity and interaction

• Be useful and or make people laugh

• Express yourself honestly and keep your promise

• Make it easy for usersSource: WARC Online:The anatomy of social networks

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Consider the resource needed

• Social media campaigns are different from traditional campaigns and should not be considered a “cheap” alternative

– The content must be maintained and kept fresh• This takes resource and investment to manage the process

– There is no definitive start and end date• What is your exit strategy?• Consider how you are going “sign-off”

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What are you measuring?

• There is no shortage of numbers to report but are they meaningful?

– Web page hits, YouTube views, blog posts, Facebook fans, games played, content downloads, Twitter posts etc etc etc

“engagement”.Over used and what does that actually mean

when it comes to the campaign objectives?

How did the results contribute to your business objectives?

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Some who got it right.

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Understanding the motivations of site users

• Burger King's "Sacrifice a Friend" campaign

• Based on the insight that most Facebook users have friends they have little or no reason to contact.

• Some 100,000 people sacrificed friends.

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Understanding the motivations of site users

• Fanta's Get Famous campaign on Bebo, offered the winner the chance to become a Bebo Star - this was based on the insight that teenage Bebo users have a real thirst for fame.

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E4 SKINS – How ‘Generation why should I care’ came to care about E4’s Skins programme

• E4 is UK digital television channel

• Objective: to launch a new home grown drama as a “lighthouse” programme

• Challenge: How to engage Generation Why Should I Care – ethnically diverse– spend more time consuming

media than sleeping– squeeze in 31 hrs activity a day.

Source:WARC Online:IPA case histories

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MySpace was used to engage with Skins target audience

• 10 weeks prior characters had their own

MySpace pages,

• Online invitations to style the cast produced UGC.

• Early adopters invited to filmed party with cast.

• Images posted on Flickr. 3 min party film on

MySpace plus gossip and soundtrack.

• Party video seeded with 100 key online sites

• Fans created own character pages and promoted

own Skins content.

• Competition with Kiss radio and MySpace –

chance to attend launch party (and exclusive

screening)

• The Preview of first episode on MySpace

• Ongoing basis – Unseen skins online weekly news

and competitions

• All this resulted in the first episode being an

unprecedented success in audience terms

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Understanding how the message will spread

• To encourage teenagers to stop smoking, the American Legacy Foundation's Infect Truth campaign used social networks to create advocates to share facts about cigarettes.

For example.• Chemicals found in

cigarettes are also found in hair removal cream. A "hair mail" widget was created that became a viral passed on from friend to friend.

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Understanding how the message will spread

• 'The O2 Unlimited Orgy of Fun' campaign promoted the Unlimited tariff amongst students

– 250 student brand ambassadors were identified and appointed to spread the word face-to-face, working alongside targeted social networking activity.

– Awareness of the tariff rose from 21% to 43%

– 88% of students questioned were either 'likely' or 'very likely' to recommend the brand. 

•

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Understanding the metrics

• Aquafresh Iso Active launch campaign aimed to create anticipation during the pre-advertising distribution period.

• 10,000 influencers were recruited via an Influencer Identification tool and were offered trial products. – Encouraged to share experiences via social media

sites. • Amongst the long list of results (page hits etc)

there are measures of:– Intention to purchase (five times higher amongst

influencers compared to the national average)– Loyalty (four times higher intention to repurchase)– Brand performance (+ 213% higher value share over

launch period, compared to non-WOM markets)– Volume share of +218% over the launch period

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For more information visit us at WARC

•Largest single source of marketing and advertising intelligence and insight

•Global and unique

•Established partnerships with the world’s leading industry bodies

•Dedicated in-house editorial team

•Case histories covering all product sectors and marketing disciplines

•For a free trial contact us at enquiries@warc.com or contact me at Laura.james@warc.com

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Appendix

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Social networking Reach of the online population

January 2009

Source :Jan 2009 ComScore, Inc

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Time spent on social network sitesJanuary 2009

Source :Jan 2009 ComScore, Inc