Many marketers are obsessed with this younger generation, aged 18-35. They watch their every move on social, hoping to find what truly makes them tick – and, more importantly, what triggers them into making purchase decisions.   Marketers know this is not an easy task. Digital natives are a finicky bunch. They demand instant-gratification-like service and attention from brands at every twist and turn. Growing up in an era when practically every transaction is now automated by digital media in some way has taught the younger generation to be impatient consumers. And, for better or worse, this trend will only continue to grow as this generation of consumers matures.   So marketers need to get ahead of the curve before they are thrown another generational curve ball. Here are a few tips to help win over the much coveted digital consumer.   Be everywhere (or, be everywhere that matters) This generation bounce from computers to mobile devices to connected TVs to wearables (and more) multiple times along their path to purchase. Single channel marketing strategies can’t break through all this noise.   Brands need to be present in all the right places in order to capture and keep the attention of digital consumers at the very moment they’re ready to purchase. As Google puts it, people today live in micro-moments. Brands now must play a part in those moments to stay relevant.   Be authentic Just as important as it is for brands to stay top-of-mind by diversifying their channel strategy, they also have to walk the fine line of not going overboard with non-stop promotions. Generation X want companies to engage with them and make them feel like they are a valued part of your brand.   A promotional message holds a lot value when, for example, you reach a shopper in-store with a strong mobile ad, but turning a younger consumer into a brand loyalist requires a lot more than that. They want to mean more to you than just a simple purchase. A lot of brands are vying for their attention.   Those that reach and engage them on a more personal and meaningful level will win the battle for their long-term loyalty.   Be service-oriented 18-35 year olds will avoid contacting customer service at any cost. They’ve been raised with technology and expect brands to use technology to make it easier for them to find solutions on their own.   Their mindset is this: why waste time on the phone with someone who may or may not be able to help when they can easily find the information they need by themselves? Brands need to take this insight to heart.   If a company’s website, social channels, or mobile app isn’t up to snuff, there’s no better time than now to invest in retooling every digital customer interaction a brand has, with a focus on self-service.   Be responsive Because Gen X consumers tend to be connected to a device (or two) at all times, it’s pretty safe to say that they’ll be quick to reach out to a brand to praise, complain, ask a question, and everything in between – all the while requiring an almost immediate response when theydo. Digital natives are “real-time consumers.”   Patience is not their greatest virtue. On-demand expectations have become the norm for them. Technology is both their greatest ally and most divisive crutch. The message is clear: be ready and resourced to respond, fast.   Every minute sans response is an opportunity to visit a competitor.   Be community-focused If a brand is host to an online community, this is a great way to crowdsource feedback and suggestions.   Around 42% of 18-35 year olds say they are interested in helping companies develop future products and services. Brands should welcome this, and figure out how to harness the voice of the customer. This is a great way to turn a simple fan into a long-term loyalist.   But an online community is also a space where consumers can talk to each other, answer each other’s questions, and collaborate on content or solutions. In fact, 84% of Gen X say user-generated content has some influence on what they buy.   So while taking the time to ensure the brand is ready to meet the ever-changing wants, needs, and expectations of savvy and sometimes skeptical digital native consumers, brands shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that their peers can oftentimes be their greatest source of influence.   An online community is fertile ground for this kind of valuable engagement.   This article originally appeared in Marketing Tech. ... View more

At the Lithium Network Conference (LiNC) in June, Nate Elliott, in a breakout session, said something that really struck a nerve within me: “The rise of social has fundamentally changed marketing and advertising as we know it. The problem here is that brands aren’t really sure if their social marketing efforts are effective.”   Let’s quickly take a step back to fully understand what that means. As marketers, we instinctively know that social media must be a part of our daily lives. It’s not an option; it’s table stakes. Brands that succeed in today’s rapidly evolving consumer marketplace are those that harness the power of social media – and do so in real-time.   The only problem is that being on or a part of the social media ecosystem doesn’t actually equate to success for a brand. In fact, just posting a blog, tweeting a tweet, or pinning a pin doesn’t do much in isolation. Sure, doing so gives brands a presence on social media; however, what good comes from all that posting, tweeting, and pinning if marketers don’t truly understand how to extract value from all this effort? And let’s be honest, having a presence on social media takes a lot of time, effort, and resources – so why waste all of that on “post and pray” tactics when there’s data and tools at our fingertips to help us make sense of it all?   The answer is simple: there’s no excuse. We’ve lived, breathed, and ridden the rollercoaster of social media for too long now to not understand how, when, where and why our social marketing efforts are effective (or not).   Social media marketing does not – and absolutely should not – fall short any longer. We must resolve to do better. We must avoid perpetuating the endless cycle of “not really knowing,” now and well into the future. We have to make social media work harder for our brands over the long haul.   How? We have to be more accountable to results and make the following commitments to ourselves:   “I won’t use social for social sake.” Social is a tool for solving business problems. “I must talk and respond. ” Social is a two-way dialogue. “I have to be more compelling.” Organic performs better, but is getting harder. “I will own my customer relationship.” Social deepens the customer relationship, so I won’t outsource this to an agency or a partner. “I won’t just keep growing the team; I will work smarter.” A bigger team doesn’t mean better results.   I’ll be heading deeper into each of these in the coming weeks, shedding light on what this actually means for brands as well as how embracing them can lead to real business results. I’ll also share some companies that are role models for the right behavior. In the meantime, feel free to learn more about our “manifesto” and, while you’re at it, don’t hesitate to share your own stories of how you have overcome the challenges of social media marketing in the face of ever-changing (and ever-growing) consumer expectations.   Social media marketing can work hard for our brands again. This is our answer for “how.”       ... View more

Everyone always hears me tout how brands must engage, connect and understand customers in order to reap the benefits of social.   So, imagine my surprise when I read the results of our new study of 85 brands across 8 verticals that found most brands are failing to truly engage.   We found that most brands are stuck in broadcast mode, leaving customer posts unanswered, and are not engaging customers across all the right digital channels.   In fact, the State of Social Engagement 2016 study found that: 95% of brands’ social strategies are stuck in antiquated “broadcast” mode Only 2% of brands consistently respond to their customers’ online posts Less than 40% of brands ever ask questions of their followers or engage with follower content   The good news is that the study helped us identify 6 Key Findings on what brands need to do now to stay ahead.   Download The State of Social Engagement study to read the 6 key findings and see how you stack up against competitors and your industry.       Related Blogs Enough is Enough: A Manifesto for Social Media Marketing 6 Steps to Achieve a Data-Driven Social Marketing Strategy The 3 A's Behind Your Social Marketing Strategy ... View more

There was a time not so long ago when the entire concept of social was so shiny and new that many marketers just jumped at the opportunity to get in on it in some way. Even if they had no idea what kind of return on investment would be associated with it – or much less by which metrics and benchmarks they could effectively and accurately deem a social success vs. failure.   But as tends to be the case, what once is shiny and new eventually loses its “of the moment” luster and, essentially, has to grow up or come into its own. That’s precisely what I’m seeing happening across all things social today. We’ve reached a saturation point whereby brands can no longer just say “We do social,” and be done with it. Now, those responsible for the social media strategy within their business are finding themselves on the proverbial hot seat, being asked specific questions, from everyone from the C-suite down, about what success looks like.   At Lithium, our clients have expressed to us over the years a very clear need to better and more consistently quantify what success looks like in terms of engagement, customer satisfaction, community experience, cost savings, and so on.   They also need to know how they’re doing relative to their industry peers to ensure they’re always maintaining a competitive advantage.   For too long, the industry has had a lack of clarity around social, making it harder and harder for marketers to justify making investments in their communities. In fact, many brands continue to struggle with directly tying social media ROI to business results, making it that much more of an uphill battle to build a business case around social media marketing programs.   That being said, I still firmly believe most business leaders understand that there is value in social. Though, ever so slowly, they are starting to lose faith because they haven’t received quantifiable measures of success that make it easier for them to get on board. For example, less than a third of marketing executives are actually satisfied in the value that branded social accounts bring to the business. And even more startling, in many cases, less than 50 percent of social media practitioners – those who manage a brand’s day-to-day social efforts – see this value as well. This should be a wake-up call.   The question for everyone involved in anything to do with social, especially as budgets get tight and marketing programs become increasingly scrutinized, is about clearly understanding what (potential) impact a community can have on both the top and bottom line of a business. Business leaders want and need hard data, real metrics, and rich insights that show when a strategy is working – and they want this information to resonate across all parts of the business (hint, hint: not just marketing!).   A recent study by Forrester further proves that this question around measurement has been the top challenge for social marketers for over a decade – with 53 percent of respondents surveyed agreeing that measuring the performance of social profiles is what keeps them up at night.   What this tells me is one thing: social needs to grow up. The days of “fluff” metrics are over. We need to measure marketing benefits, like brand awareness and engagement, just as much as we need to quantify key performance indicators such as customer satisfaction, lifetime value, and share of voice as well as sales metrics (tied to social) like conversion rate, leads generated, and cost per acquisition. The social ecosystem is basically one big, growing puzzle. Now, it’s up to all of us to finally bring all the pieces together and make some sense of it.   When that happens, I think we’ll see a fundamental shift in how businesses perceive and support social efforts moving forward. But first, we’ve got to make sure social plays by the same rules as other parts of the business. Once we level the playing field, social will finally have its rightful (and essential) seat at the table.   This article originally appeared in SocialTimes.  ... View more

Over a year ago, Lithium fielded research around the topic of extreme customer expectations – uncovering some very real “truths” about consumer culture, online influence, and customer loyalty that have continued to prove themselves many times over.   This popped back into my head recently while I was reading about Amazon’s battle with fake online reviews. Metrics supporting the power and impact of “word of mouth” on influencing purchase decisions really stood out to me from the research. In fact, among those surveyed, the vast majority of respondents – well above 60% across a number of countries – confirm that they would not even consider purchasing something that wasn’t accompanied by positive online reviews.   It wasn’t surprising, then, to understand why a small group of sellers on Amazon would apparently pay people to post positive reviews about their products, whether or not those pseudo-reviewers had actually ever used them. Obviously, all brands want a good review. But at what cost?   What makes word-of-mouth influence so unique is the trust  – or perceived trust that’s automatically built into it. When someone reads a review, the assumption is that the reviewer did so with good intentions. In other words, to help others make decisions about products or services that they are contemplating purchasing.   But that bubble of good intentions bursts when it becomes clear that those reviews we’ve grown to rely on are completely false. It actually changes the entire dynamic of the role that reviews play within the broader purchasing journey. It has the potential to create a serious domino effect. After all, if a review can’t be trusted, what’s the point of having reviews in the first place? Even more, what kind of negative halo effect does it create for the vast majority of honest, genuine, and trustworthy reviews that fill our communities?   So how can brands overcome this? For me, it’s an easy answer: a trusted reputation. At Lithium, we have a tremendous amount of data from our 450+ branded communities and of course, the Klout Score, which together help us determine who is real online, and more importantly, identify what real expertise they have in the areas where they are providing reviews or social commentary.   This is a big deal, especially in today’s digitally-saturated world where many relationships and transactions are happening anonymously. Both the Lithium Profile and the Klout Score are powerful tools for how we engage with customers. This in turn helps instill a greater degree of confidence in those conversations that are happening online. As an industry, brands need to continuously strive to collect and curate more quality data around this word-of-mouth ecosystem, so we can provide both consumers and our business customers who sell to them with the most reliable and trustworthy content possible.   For example, at Lithium, we do this via our Rank and Reputation Engine – where we can dynamically recognize user contributions within a community and help brands regularly provide incentives to keep those active users participating. The idea is simple: the more a user contributes to a community, the more rewards they receive for their helpful contributions, which in turn not only raises their “rank” within the community, but also their “reputation” as a trusted contributor as a result of their elevated rank. It’s the engine that makes our user generated content (UGC) a trusted content source.   Trust is priceless. As a brand, you either have it or you don’t. If you are paying people to leave positive reviews in an attempt to make your brand look better or more favorable in consumers’ eyes, you’re already on shaky ground. The cost of that fake online review could be fairly significant in the long-term.   Volkswagen’s recent scandal around installing defective devices to avoid issues related to emissions testing is a perfect example of how challenging the power of consumer  trust can easily translate into a brand’s speedy demise. The automaker lost around 30% of its market value – and likely an even greater amount of consumer trust within minutes of the news breaking. This will take years and millions of dollars to rebuild.   Long story short. Word-of-mouth is powerful, but only when it’s honest and real. Brands must be the best stewards of authenticity and credibility in their communities to keep the conversation alive and thriving. ... View more