online customer service marketing: a content strategy love affair

#LavaCon

Online Customer Service Marketing:

A Content Strategy Love AffairKirsten Gantenbein

Nikoletta Vecsei@nikschen @kirstengant

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Start with a joke they said…

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Our Story

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EMC Isilon

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Why we came together

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• Content collaboration efforts between marketing (pre-sales) and technical (post-sales) departments

• How marketing strategies can help solve challenges with technical content curation and distribution

• A social media case study with results to inspire others • Insight into social customer service as a new content platform

What we will talk about today

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Social media is changing the way we engage with content

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Social marketing

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Marketing owns all new communications channels

Social media platforms are standard communication channel by today’s expectations

• Time to pass on best practices to other communications teams

• That’s how we met (ECN – newest engagement platform for EMC Isilon)

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History of communities

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Internet BBS UseNet IRC Forums Blogs Social and Communities

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Reasons for alignment with social media

Broad range of audience

Social, forums, quick and intense

discussions

Transparency = marketing is forced to

be more realistic

Sales and communication platform changes from paper

to digital

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Don’t shy away from the dirty work

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• New customer community • Help customers throughout the

product/service lifecycle, not just until you buy

• Bridging gaps between marketing/sales promises and day-to-day experience

Why join forces?

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Demonstrate empathy for our customers

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Risks?

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The difference between…Pre-Sales Content Post-Sales Content

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The difference between…

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Post-Sales ContentPre-Sales Content

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How do we get the right type of content on the community?

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Align documentation

with social mediaProduct documentation platform changes from paper to digital

Broad range of devices

Social, forums, quick and intense

discussions

Transparency = consistent

communication about good and bad

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Technology has spoiled us

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I want to read this on my

commute.

I want content that only relates

to me.

I want content written by

people I know and trust.

Why is this not

rendering on my phone?

@kirstengant

Where the @&%$ is this help topic?

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What happens if customers can’t find help content?

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How do we get the right content onto the community?

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PDFs are dying

Not device friendly

Not SEO friendly

Hard to update

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Content strategy can lead the way

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“…the #1 thing I can recommend is to ask tough questions about content, over and over…Change the conversation not by telling, but by asking.”

-Kristina Halvorson, CEO and founder of Brain TrafficInterview excerpt from CreativeBloq, Feb 17, 2015

Content strategy can lead the way

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How do we get the right content onto the community?

What device do they prefer for

social and community?

What type of content do

they want on social media?

What topics do they want to read about?

Will our authoring and publishing

tools support the community

format?

Devices Customers Content types Publishing workflows

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Who are they?

@kirstengant

What do they

expect?

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Use Cases: Helping people find useful technical content

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Challenges

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• EMC has multiple platforms that feature support content

• Platforms have different authentication requirements

• Mix of content types• Limited customer feedback • Limited document usage

insights

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• Who are our users?• What do they want?• What social media channels and devices do they

use?

Content strategy questions

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User Research:• Personas• Polls/surveys• Identify top advocates (1% of community users) and email

them• Talk to them at live events @EMCWorld• “Ask the Expert” discussions on social media• Foster relationships for direct feedback

Who are our users?

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What do the users want?

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Topics to focus on

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What social media channels and devices do they use?

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“Hacker how-to” case study• Surveys• Two campaigns

• Campaign 1 = different content types and many topics• Campaign 2 = different content types about one topic

Goals• New curation ideas• Repeatable cycle

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Redistributing content on social media

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• 4-6 week campaigns• 1 tweet per week

• Featured 1 piece of content type per tweet• Special hashtags (ie: #HackerHowTo)• Engagements = retweet, favorites, or replies

#HackerHowTo method

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#HackerHowTo resultsTop performing content types:

• Community discussions• Technical blog articles

5.3

AVERAGE ENGAGEMENT

PER TWEET

250%

AVERAGE ENGAGEMENT PER TWEET INCREASED

BY

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Community “Info Hubs”• No login required to view

content• Index for content types

and topics• Link to support content

across many platforms• Comment and feedback

forms• Continuous updates

Curating topic-based content on the community

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On the right track: EMC Isilon Uptime Bulletin

InfoHub –

Issue 1 (PDF) –

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111 views

8,901 views

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Evolution of social content strategy

Social Media Marketing Social Re-Distribution Owned Social Channels (e.g., Communities)

Integrated Social Customer Service

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• Fast• Searchable• Build customer relationships• When people feel powerless, they

take it public

Why communities for customer support?

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• Customers who are social media savvy

• EMC sales and solution architects

Social target audience

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Missed support tweetsInclude “isilon,” “#isilon,” or “onefs”

Complaints 8Positive feedback/shout-outs

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Documentation/Community sharing

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Inquires 3

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• Defined social customer service (CS) program based on industry best practices

• Selected social savvy customer support engineers (volunteers)

• Chat and social media savviness were required•Phase 1: 3 support engineers based on their expertise •10+ hours of training

• Community management• No question left behind (reactive social CS)• High value content (proactive social CS)• Social media best practices

Scoping a social customer program

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Results of social CS phase I

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47% increase in daily creates

36% increase in daily page views

Depth of conversation#LavaCon@nikschen

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World domination won’t come in ONE night

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Nikoletta VecseiConnect with me about:• Social media and community management• Email marketing• Ecommerce

About the speakers

Kirsten GantenbeinConnect with me about: • Content strategy• UX• Product documentation

@nikschen

@kirstengant

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Are you joining us for coffee?

#LavaCon@nikschen @KirstenGant