smw community building
DESCRIPTION
'How and why to build an effective online community' was presented by Joe Hughes, digital marketing manager at Morrison Bowmore Distillers Ltd.The presentation aimed to illustrate the benefits to a brand of building an effective online community, and touch on other key areas such as:- How to measure what your community can deliver- Content/strategy planning to keep your community active- Linking offline activity with your online community- Who should manage your community and communicate with them?- The role of the agencyThe presentation is available for download and sharing. For more information, we can be reached on Twitter (@YomegoSocial) and our event hashtag was #SMWYomegoTRANSCRIPT
Why and how to build online communities
Agenda
• Introduction
• Before you start building your community
• Defining a community
• Our communities
• The role of the agency in communities
• Summary
• Whisky education
Introduction
Introduction
Who I am
• Joe Hughes Digital Marketing Manager
• I oversee all online activity for all of brands including:
• Websites• Social media• Online advertising
• Prior to Joining MDB I was Strategy and Research Director for a social media agency
Introduction
Who are we
• Morrison Bowmore Distillers – One of Scotlands’ leading single malt whisky makers
• Main brands are Bowmore, Auchentoshan and GlenGarioch
• We also look after Midori in Europe
Midori
Before you start your community
The basics of social media
• Social media is vast, targeting is key, biggest doesn’t always mean best
• Think about your audience not your platform
• Go through all the content you organisation already produces and see if that fits – reduces costs and keeps the messages close to other marketing
• All content is useful somewhere
• Remember that social is multi country and multi lingual
Does my brand belong in social media?
• The obvious answer is yes – but think carefully.
• Whilst most brands will be able to gain a following of some description are these followers going to purchase your products? Do they already?
• who are my audience? Do they exist in social media? Are they influenced by it?
• Do audiences want or need educating about my brand(s)?
• Do I have or can I get the resources to manage social education properly
Setting KPI’s and objectives
Measurement
• We use objectives which are long term statements of intent as well as KPI’s
• Our objectives are very simple but underpin everything we do
• KPI’s are worked out on an individual project basis and link directly to the investment placed into that project
• Some form of KPI’s are essential for social media
• They must be meaningful to the business and measureable
Our Objectives
• Raise the profile of our brands with the 2 billion strong online audience.
• Build true brand loyalty by constantly communicating with consumers and fans
• Support and amplify our traditional marketing activities
Defining a community
What is a community?
• Before you can set objectives, KPI’s or goals for your community you need define what it is?
• A Facebook Fan page? • The subscribers to your YouTube channel? • The members of your custom social network?
• Your community shouldn’t be defined by a platform
• It should be defined by who the people are and who they want to interact with you
Multi platform communities
• Most brands won’t actually have one community they will have multiple communities often on the same platform
• It is vital to recognise the nature of your communities as this should inform both content and conversation
• It is important to try and not alienate one community at the expense of another
• Geographic boundaries can also play a part particularly if you are using competitions or events as part of your content strategy
Our communities
• Bowmore has Five main communities
• Hardcore whisky fans
• “Trade up whisky” people
• Foodies
• People with an interest in Scotland
• B2B on trade
MBD communities Bowmore
•Auchentoshan has Four main communities
• Hardcore whisky fans
• Cocktail drinkers
• The “Auchentoshan man”
• B2B on trade
MBD communities Auchentoshan
•Glengarioch has two main communities
• Hardcore whisky fans
• “Trading up”
• Specialist whisky retailers
MBD communities Glengarioch
Talking to our communities
Bowmore
• An exclusive community created for our Hardcore Fans
• Featuring exclusive content
• News, • Exclusive bottlings • Other benefits
• Talked about in other social media
• Deliberately high barrier to entry
• Next year we will be adding offline elements
MBD communities Bowmore Inner core
MBD communities Bowmore Inner core
Auchentoshan
MBD Auchentoshan Presents
• The size of audience we can now “hit” with these messages has increased by orders of magnitude
• Between, Facebook, Blog and Video coverage we have had over 50,000 people exposed to education around Auchentoshan by their peers
• We use Facebook events to help promote and our new converts are actively spreading these events with their friends
MBD brand B2B Switch
• The switch program is primarily aimed at bartenders
• All entrants have to upload videos to YouTube
• 19 finalist are selected by Judges the 20th gets in by having the most video views on YouTube encouraging them to act as education ambassadors
• We have received double the number of entries we were anticipating
Glengarioch
MBD communities Glengarioch Limited editions
Agency role
Things to consider
• What role does/should your agency play?
• We manage almost all day to day community interaction in house
• We also create the majority of content
• For us agency are about adding either adding extra hands or extra skills linked to specific projects this can include:
• Education• App build• Microsite/web build
Summary
Summary
• Prepare properly, Know what you want out of a community being setting the right KPI’s
• Remember you will almost certainly have multiple communities sometimes within one platform
• Identify these communities is important to understand future strategy
• Ensure content as much as possible doesn’t alienate one community over another
• Ultimately communities are only worth what you can measure
Questions
And now to the whisky
Bowmore Production
Malting
Kilning
Milling
Mashing
Fermentation
Distillation
Maturation