Jack Carpenter

Power of positivity: How a positive and persistent social media can increase brand

presence, recognition and business.

Abstract

Social media has become a crucial aspect of modern marketing in the

business world. The cost-saving audience interaction tool has opened doors for

businesses to connect with their consumers in many ways. Social media provides

businesses with the power and influence to change their company, for better or for

worse.

A hidden power found within social media is what is known as social CRM

(customer relationship management). Social CRM provides the ability to

communicate clearly with clients and “improve the ability to win business”; social

CRM allows the audience (fans, followers, readers) to become familiar with the

brand, which consequently causes familiarity and trust with the brand, which can

lead to higher closing rates and generating faster revenue (Erffmeyer & Johnson).

Social media deems a difficult task especially for B2B businesses, as their social

media isn’t for directly advertising to consumers, but it can be used to generate a

greater brand presence. Many companies assume social media is not worth

investing in because there isn’t a visible R-O-I (return on investment) directly from

its posts. However, the effect of social media goes far beyond ROI, as social CRM can

be powerful enough to influence customers that the company may not need to

invest in meetings with that client to win them over in ways their social media

already has.

As of March 2014, Shadow Productions had a social media following of 129

Facebook followers and 3 YouTube subscribers. YouTube and Facebook are the

primary platforms that Shadow will be focusing on regarding their social media

efforts. This paper discusses how positive and persistent social media posts from

Shadow Productions can increase brand recognition, fan count, and most

importantly, business.

Keywords: Social Media (SM), small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs),

content marketing, social marketing, media content distribution

An Argument that active social media uses will lead to better customer

engagement, brand presence, and business.

The power of social media

Social media is an incredible tool that has been booming since the beginning

of the century. Apart from personal updates and interactions, social media has

become an effective marketing tool for large corporations as well as small

businesses. Social media, through proper handling, acts as a facilitator to involve

“fans” by offering them a virtual space to manifest themselves in company-related

issues and updates. Social media in a wider perspective is a pool of various two-way

communication platforms that enables the free flow of ideas, information and values

on the Internet (Csordas). Social media networks provide a perfect opportunity for

businesses to investigate the usefulness of social capital. Sharing, rather than selling

your audience, is the principal to successful social media. When businesses adhere

to a “build a network before you need it” premise, they create relationships with

potential customers which may lead to easier tractions when they become clients, as

opposed to references or cold calling. In essence, the prior social connectivity

between buyers and sellers can potentially affect outcomes based on networked

familiarity and trust, all created through a simple social media presence of a

business (Baehr & Brown 2010).

Handling that power

Facebook currently averages approximately 10,000 posts per second, which

means it is going to take strategical efforts to make sure posts are not buried in the

virtual world (Thompson). With that ease and fluidity comes responsibility to

properly manage a company’s image. For example, SONY capitalized on social media

when one of its clients, Chris Brown, went viral in a video of a wedding dancing to

his song. This happy-go-lucky video created positive reviews of the company and

the artist, despite the surrounding bad press at the time regarding domestic abuse

charges. SONY plugged the stint on all of its platforms and it logged over 4 million

views in just two days (Mills). On the contrary, companies like United Airlines have

damaged their reputations from their social media use. One incident of the company

sprang up when they argued with an amateur artist whose guitar was damaged

while being handled by the airline. The debate sparked outrage and went viral,

eventually costing the company’s shareholders $180 million as United’s stock

dropped 10 percent due to the bad publicity (Freeman).

Misunderstandings

Many companies underestimate the power of social media, and spend little to

no time cultivating a presence for their brand. One mistake made by companies is

their search for R-O-I in social media. What they don’t understand is social media

usage is not to generate sales, but more to support other aspects of their business.

“It’s not how much you sell in social media, it’s how much you engage your

customers. The R-O-I is in the information that’s out there – that leads to change and

process improvement. Most companies use Twitter to quiet people down; instead

you should take the information customers are providing and bring tangible

improvements from that to your business” (Weiguo).

Shift from traditional marketing to social marketing

When it comes to marketing, traditional advertising (emails, advertisements,

mail, etc) is often a one-way communication flow of material. This prevents the

opportunity for businesses to engage with their consumers and get the response or

feedback they’re looking for. With social media, that one-way barrier opens into a

two-way communication flow. Social media turns businesses into a broadcaster,

with their fans being the audience who can weigh in with their opinions and engage

with the brand. Social media can help firms who are on the long tail end of the

advertising industry as traditional methods may bear too many barriers of entry

such as lack of capital, patent and license requirements, or lack of distribution

channels. Small businesses are therefore left with social media to creatively and

cost-effectively communicate with their target audience (Csordas).

Common goals with social media

As stated many times in this paper social media is a powerful tool, but what

exactly can it do? Studies of B2B businesses surveyed that the top incentives for

social media are to build brand awareness (claimed by 81percent), increasing traffic

to a website (claimed by 77 percent), generating leads (claimed by 67 percent),

providing deeper engagement with customers (claimed by 66 percent), and

improving search results (claimed by 57 percent) (Maddox).

In this study conducted by Maddox, when asked how social media efforts

have affected their business in said categories, 44 percent claimed it has had

positive impacts, 28 percent claimed neutral impact, 27 percent claimed they could

not tell, and only 1 percent said it had a negative impact.

A positive persona approach to social media

B2B businesses have a tougher time with social media, as they are not

marketing a single product or service to a wide range of customers. Therefore, they

cannot track conversion rates from clicks to purchases. However, with proper

execution of even the simplest social media campaigns, a company’s image can be

redefined and improved through posts containing positive information and positive

feedback. For example, the company Maersk Line, a vessel shipping company,

decided to engage in social media to “get closer to customers.” The company’s

management originally had doubt in the plan, as they saw their business as “boring”

and, in perspective, posts about giants cargo ships don’t seem all that appealing. But,

the small social media team developed areas of emphasis to connect with their

customers. The four areas were communication, customer service, sales and

internal usage. At the beginning of their campaign, they launched Facebook photo

albums of their ships, separated by specific categories. They had current ships, old

black and white photos, and often posted about their subtle accomplishments.

Despite the seemingly boring persona, after the campaign’s first 11 months, Maersk

Line attracted over 400,000 likes to their Facebook page. They noticed an incredible

increase in customer engagement as well as employee interaction with the site and

each other. After one year, over 67 percent of Maersk Line’s following claimed they

had an improved perception of the company due to their social media presence

alone (Katona).

What works

The process of beginning a social media campaign can seem overwhelming,

but with simple observations of a company’s strengths it can easily be executed into

a powerful campaign. One of the greatest strengths of social media is making the

invisible process quasi-visible. This means posting the behind-the-scenes of the

business, whether it’s a chef in the kitchen, a designer in the lab, an artist writing,

etc. For Shadow Productions, mentioned earlier, this could include pictures of actual

production scenes, staff around the office, or personal updates on projects and other

endeavors related to the business. This allows the company to open its arms to

those following; it also gives the audience an inside look on the business which will

create a greater bond in the community. Studies have shown that content posted not

directly related to the firm, but filled with positive or unique messages, has left a

positive impact on the firm (Csordas).

Another genre of content often implemented is humor. A humorous post can

be a graphic, picture, quote or short video poking fun at a light hearted topic. This

type of social media, again, creates a bond within the community and is a fresh mix-

up from posting prosaic information about the company. Another positive non-

related post is media content created specifically for holidays and events. This could

be a branded Valentine’s Day message or a post celebrating the changing of seasons.

Although completely irrelevant to the company, it has been proven that these posts

generate buzz, as many followers will simply share a post created by a company as

opposed to creating one themselves. In fact, the non-informative posts are often the

posts creating the most likes, comments and shares from an audience.

SPIN Method

To obtain the best results, the SPIN method should be followed while

creating content. The SPIN method suggests these four key factors to make an ideal

campaign: Spreadability, Propagativity, Integration, and Nexus. These sum up the

spreadibility of the content based on personal factors, the propagativity of content

based on media type, the integration of multiple media platforms and the successive

reinforcement of messaging (Mills). The SPIN method is a conceptual model to

design viral-prone content on social media. In today’s digitally magnified world of

advertising having a campaign “go viral” is one of the highest level of achievements

any marketer can attain.

The social media operator is in full creative control when constructing the

content, however, no feedback can be received until the post is released. Once it’s

released, it comes down to the SPIN factors to determine how effective the post will

be.

The goal of releasing content is for it to be spread beyond the first circle. The

first circle is your immediate following who will automatically see the post because

it will show up on their timeline. However, in order to expand your community,

content must be released that is likeable enough for the first circle to share it with

their first circles, which is considered your second circle. To reach outer circles,

though, content must be created in accordance to the SPIN method to make sure

each post is viral prone.

Spreadability: In order for a post to be passed around and receive attention, it

must have a high level of likeability and stimulation. The message needs to appeal to

the customer and be something they, too, would be willing to share. This is why

boring analytics or pressing advertisements do not do well. A customer will be much

more willing to “share” a happy irrelevant post, which will not directly benefit the

business, but it will spread the brand and build the audience.

Propagativity: This refers to the ease in which the consumers are able to

redistribute content. The reason social media exists is because it is difficult for

humans to walk around person to person trying to promote the same product that

can be promoted to thousands in a single click. Now, despite the ease of social

media, the platforms and methods of releasing content may be the reason the post

does or does not get shared to your second circles. For example, re-tweeting can be

done with one click, while sharing a YouTube video takes 4-5 clicks, which may

discourage the audience from doing so.

Other important factors

It is important to make sure once a social media campaign begins, it

continues for a long period of time. Generating an audience base takes time and the

best way to generate an audience is by releasing material periodically over time. If a

campaign includes video clips, which it will for Shadow Productions, it is more

valuable to release the series over a given period of time rather than all at once

(Mills).

Most importantly, it is noted to make sure the brand’s social media channels

are not strictly marketing. Research shows that people are twice as likely to interact

with companies over social media for customer support than response to marketing

(Thompson). As stated earlier in the paper, there should be a small variety of posts

coming through the feed. A good rule of thumb, according to Thompson, is

generating 90 percent of posts about relevant audience needs, regardless of

whether they promote your service or not. The other 10 percent can be self-

promotional, but be careful not to be too boastful, as the audience will often have a

negative reaction that will hinder the company’s presence.

Metrics

Many companies using social media do not understand which metrics are

valuable. Between page likes, comments, shares and impressions, it is difficult to

determine if the page is successful or not. To start, it is very important to determine

the quality of your followers. Right now, Shadow Productions is at 127 followers,;

however, even if it changed to 10,000, it doesn’t mean the followers are actually

helping your business. It is important to connect with an audience that is in your

demographics such as location, age, or class. For the average business audience, 98

percent of their followers are spectators, 75 percent are critics, and 56 percent are

creators who post and heavily interact with the page (KATONA). When it comes to

consistency, the top brands with strong social media presences post an average of

17 times per month, or essentially every-other day. See picture below. Metrics

important for Shadow’s social media plan will be covered later in this paper.

What should be tracked are visits to a website, the number of fans, followers

and likes, the number of mentions about the company on such platforms. Diving

deeper into analytics, other metrics that should be tracked are organic search

rankings, number of inbound links, search volume for brand or keyword phrases,

and search marketing conversion rates. This can be tracked using Google Analytics.

And a majority of companies monitoring their social media use software such as

Hootsuite, SocialMention or Radion6 (Maddox).

Shadow Production’s Social Media Process

As stated earlier in this paper, Shadow Production currently tolls 129

Facebook followers and three YouTube subscribers. Facebook and YouTube will be

Shadow Productions’ primary platforms to focus on, as Facebook allows the greatest

reach to an existing and a new audience of clientele, local businesses, and fans.

YouTube is the best platform to display Shadow’s multi-media work, which can

easily be intertwined with Facebook posts.

Small businesses have fewer resources, including financial and human

resources, which is why expanding and adjusting their customers bases are key

factors to long-term survival. (Toombs) suggest that small businesses will benefit

from long-term, strategic use of social CRM in which there is genuine customer and

fan involvement rather than customer manipulation. Social media can give a small

business with a modest marketing budget an active community of potential

customers, making the business more competitive in a local, regional, or global

market (Baird, C & G. Parasnis). However, social media must be properly produced

and delivered to both captivate the audience without using too many resources from

a business as small as Shadow Productions. (Fischer, E. 2011) suggest the following

conditions for a company to produce their social media:

Access: Allow for each employee to gain access to the platforms. This means

providing a company-wide username and password and following the social media

plan that will be explained later in this paper. Also, an essential part is discussing

social media posts in a group discussion, which for Shadow Productions could easily

be a short topic in the bi-weekly Wednesday Skype meetings.

Acknowledgement of expertise and interest: During these discussions, it is

good to clarify who is good at what topics. Also, a company must be cautious not to

force unenthusiastic employees to be enthusiastic, as their posts may lack the

energy or positivity that their colleagues may be presenting. For example, Doug who

is more behind the scenes, may project a different voice than Leah who is constantly

in the playing field, so it may be good to balance posts more towards Leah.

Create a voice: With that said, one unique voice should be decided on to

implement throughout all social media. For Shadow Productions, it seems a satirical,

upbeat voice would best fit what the company already represents through their

voicemails and other niches that shows the company is fun and takes everything

with a grain of salt. This is a contagious way to engage fans and create buzz.

Reassure participants of their security: This is simply to inform staff members

of the security and expectations of their online behaviors. Shadow Productions is a

very tech-savvy company, so most members probably understand the logistics of

online posting, but it would be smart to dive into it just to clear any questions or

concerns that may be in the air.

Balance social media roles: At Shadow Productions, here is the breakdown of

employee expertise:

Leah: gatekeeper, informant to rest of staff

Matt: historian and strategist

Alex: frequent poster of online material, knows creative aspects of company

Doug: behind the scenes technical advisor, less likely to be posting

It is important for these roles to be noted and taken into consideration when

dividing up the social media plan so the certain members do not get unfitting levels

of responsible when it comes to contribution.

Develop a content schedule: This is a very important aspect, especially since

Shadow Productions does not have the resources to waste on aimlessly wandering

social media. This paper will construct a plan for the next year of social media use

for Shadow Productions. Shadow Productions will have an intern until the end of

April, and then again in the summer or fall. This plan with incorporate interns as

much as possible; labor is free and will not hinder the business by using up other

human capital.

Content Schedule

Shadow Productions is currently in its 25th year of business, which is

essentially an excuse to re-launch their social media and reconnect with all of their

clients, inevitably expanding their social media presence in pursuit of all the goals

this paper has discussed.

In retrospect, 129 likes and 3 subscribers is not going to mean any valuable

business for Shadow Productions through social media, which is why the following

plan is slow and steady, aiming to increase Shadow Productions’s presence long-

term with minimal resources used.

Starting April 1st, Jack the intern will do the following to re-launch Shadow

Productions’s social media. Using new 25th anniversary graphics, Shadow

Productions will add all previous clients on Facebook and request a “like” in return.

The same methods will be used for all associated businesses in Burlington, including

media outlets such as The Burlington FreePress, WCAX, 7Days, etc. A small email

newsletter will also be released to Shadow’s contacts, with a primary goal of getting

the receivers to “like” Shadow Production’s Facebook page.

Shadow’s Facebook page will also begin pumping content on a regular basis.

The goals will be engaging the audience, informing the audience of current projects

happening at Shadow Productions and presenting their own version of the

phenomenon, “Throwback Thursday,” which will feature an old piece produced by

Shadow that will be embed from their YouTube page.

An intern, or a chosen staff member, should be responsible for posting a

minimum of three posts per week in the voice established by the company. The

three posts should fall into one of the following categories (one of each every week):

1. Throwback Thursday: Every Thursday, one archive should be posted to

Facebook with a caption that states the title, year, client, and one fact or

thought about the project. These pieces will be picked from a bank of

material from Shadow’s YouTube page. Jack will prepare this bank of

material. After Jack leaves, this can be easily be managed by Leah or Matt,

who know most about the history and facts about each project. This post

should not take more than five minutes to complete.

2. On the site update: Once per week, a staff member should upload a picture of

a piece being produced whether it is a talent in the booth doing a voiceover,

an on-site video project, or even a staff member editing a piece. This will give

a lot of personality to the company and give the audience valuable insight to

what Shadow Productions really does and keep them interested in the

company’s work.

3. Topical post: This post should be a link, picture, meme, or just a simple status

regarding a topical issue not related to Shadow Productions. As stated in this

paper, humor is often a way to connect with audiences, maybe weighing in on

current issues (without giving too biased opinions, a company should always

stay neutral). This can be beneficial to connect with your audiences and

create buzz on the account. Any staff member who decides to weigh in when

they come up with an idea can accomplish this post. There should be a

minimum of one of these posts per week, but there should be no more than

three because although they are easy to produce, you do not want the page to

become too irrelevant. This post can really capitalize when it comes to

holidays and special events. It is easy to create a Shadow Production’s

“Happy 4th of July!” picture, which will easily be spread around by the fans

who do not want to create a picture themselves.

This frequency should be continued for the next year (April 2015 – April 2016).

This frequency requires minimal maintenance while it should have positive effects

on the brand and goals that this paper has discussed. If successful, this plan should

continue beyond April 2016. However, determining “success” is the next challenge

which we will break down here.

Metrics

At this point, Shadow’s 129 followers will not be bringing in “big” numbers in

regards to analytics. However, it is still important to track analytics to see what sort

of impact the new social media strategy is having on the audience, and if and at what

rate the company’s online presence is growing.

There are six key metrics for tracking Facebook analytics:

1. Fan reach: Fan reach simply corresponds to the number of fans of your Page

who have seen any given post. This is “organic” reach, which means that it

only records the views that occurred directly, and not through an action of a

friend of a fan (such as a like, share or comment). The views that result from

a friend’s actions are recorded in “viral” views. The fan reach metric is

available for Excel file download via Facebook Insight.

2. Organic reach: Organic reach corresponds with the number of people, fans

and non-fans, who have seen a given post. As with fan reach, organic reach

only records views that are not the result of a friend of a fan’s action (which

is counted in the viral reach). The main difference between organic and fan

reach is that organic reach includes views from people that are not

(currently) fans of Shadow Productions on Facebook. These stats can easily

be found right in Shadow’s Insight interface.

3. Engagement: Engagement is the number of people who clicked anywhere in

your post. Which simply means, they interacted with your post, liked or

commented on the picture you posted, watched the video you embedded, etc.

You can find your engagement rate right next to your organic reach.

4. People talking about this: This is data also referred to as “storytellers.” This

metric is based off of people who “like,” “comment,” or “share” your post.

This is different from engagement as these fans did something to show your

post to their friends. This metric can be found right with Engagement and

organic reach in your Facebook Insight.

5. Click-Through Rate: This is important for Shadow’s content to measure those

who clicked through the posts to end up on your YouTube or website. This

can also be found in Page Insights in Facebook Insights. This is an important

number to track, although it can also be tracked by Doug on the other end

from the website.

6. Negative Feedback: Shadow will not be exposed to out-loud negative

feedback, as you are not promoting a product or service directly to

customers who may only have Facebook to express their opinion. However,

Facebook still tracks negative feedback through the likes of your fans hiding

certain posts, hiding future posts from your page, unliking Shadow’s

Facebook page, or reporting it as spam. This is important to track as the more

negative feedback you receive, the more Facebook’s internal metric system,

“Edgerank,” will hide your posts from future fans. When you receive negative

feedback, it will become clear which types of posts fans like, and which types

of posts fans don’t like.

Discussion

The literature collected for this paper revealed the power of a consistent

social media presence for even small business like Shadow Productions. A lot of trial

and error tactics by companies in social media’s relatively short lifespan have

provided us with enough information to curate an effective plan to boast a

business’s online presence. (Csordas) made clear how social media is the bridge for

communication between consumers and business. Also covered is the power of

positivity and how even irrelevant posts can benefit a company. (Mills) was the

driving force behind the power of viral marketing, and how it can affect companies

for better or for worse all while elaborating the SPIN method which is essential for

creating powerful content to make a campaign successful.

This paper gives a broad outline of the route a company could take to revamp

its social media presence and take advantage of the opportunity the platform offers.

Through careful execution, Shadow Productions will be able to boost their presence

and make better connections with their surrounding areas that will benefit business

in more ways than just sales. The greater purpose of this paper is to make sure

social media operators are not seeking immediate R-O-Is, but that social media is

used to connect with consumers, receive feedback, and reach circles beyond their

current contacts.

References:

1) Baehr, Craig, and Konstanze Alex-Brown (2010), “Assessing the Value of Corporate Blogs: A Social Capital Perspective,” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 53 (4), 358–369

2) Baird, C. & G. Parasnis (2011). From social media to social customer relationship management. Strategy & Leadership, 39(5), 30-37.

3) CSORDÁS, Tamás, and Mirkó GÁTI. "The New (Marketing) Role Of Firms As Media Content Providers - The Case Of Sme's Strategic Social Media Presence." Vezetéstudomány / Budapest Management Review 45.2 (2014): 22-32. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

4) Crumpton, Michael A. "Accounting For The Cost Of Social Media." Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances 27.3 (2014): 96-100. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

5) Erffmeyer, Robert C., and Dale A. Johnson (2001), “An Exploratory Study of Sales Force Automation Practices: Expectations and Realities,” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 21 (2), 167–175

6) Fischer, E. A & R. Reuber (2011). “Social interaction via new social media: How can interactions affect thinking and behavior?” Journal of Business Venturing 26, 1-18

7) Freeman, Becky, et al. "Digital Junk: Food And Beverage Marketing On Facebook." American Journal Of Public Health 104.12 (2014): e56-e64. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

8) Katona, Zsolt. “Maersk Line: B2B SOCIAL MEDIA It’s Communication, not marketing.” California Management Review (2014) Business Source Complete. Web 19 Deb. 2015

9) Maddox, Kate, “Marketers working toward social, search integration” (2010) Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2015

10) Mills, Adam J. "Virality In Social Media: The SPIN Framework." Journal Of Public Affairs (14723891) 12.2 (2012): 162-169. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

11) Ramsaran-Fowdar, Rooma Roshnee, and Sooraj Fowdar. "The Implications Of Facebook Marketing For Organizations." Contemporary Management Research 9.1 (2013): 73-83. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

12) Rodriguez, Michael, Robert M. Peterson, and Vijaykumar Krishnan. "Social Media's Influence On Business-To-Business Sales Performance." Journal Of Personal Selling & Sales Management 32.3 (2012): 365-378. Business Source Complete. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

13) Toombs, Leslie A., and Rachel Martin Harlow. "More Than Just "Like": An Entrepreneurial Approach To Creating A Social Media Ethos In Small Firms." Academy Of Marketing Studies Journal 18.2 (2014): 275-286. Business Source Complete. Web. 11 Mar. 2015

14) Thompson, Mike. “The Definitive Of Do’s And Don’t’s Social Media Marketing. (Cover Story). Econtent 36.7 (2013): 18-22. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb 2015

15) WEIGUO, FAN, and MICHAEL D. GORDON. "The Power Of Social Media Analytics." Communications Of The ACM 57.6 (2014): 74-81. Business Source Complete. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.