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SPN AUG 2011 Pool&SpaIndustry


www.swimmingpoolnews.co.uk


WHERE THE REAL POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA LIES


Paul Sutton, Head of Social Communications at BOTTLE PR, gives his view on the tangible business benefits of operating on social networking sites


uring March I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to talk to some really interesting people at the SPATA seminar about social media marketing. I was invited to take part to present my thoughts on how an active social communications programme can benefit SPATA members, and to answer questions from sceptics and converts alike. In May I spoke at the UK’s largest digital marketing exhibition, Internet World, presenting ideas on how social media marketing can impact the decision making process. But of the two, the SPATA seminar was more interesting, challenging and, perhaps, more valuable to me as a social communications professional.


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At the start of the two hour session, it’s fair to say that the audience comprised largely of people dubious as to whether the likes of Facebook and Twitter could offer them any tangible return from a business perspective. Indeed, many didn’t even understand how such platforms could possibly be used to promote business effectively or to garner customer loyalty. And that is not a criticism; social media is such a new area that the vast majority of business owners and many marketers are not yet tuned into it. By the end of the session, however, the vast majority left excited by the opportunities that the social web can offer them and motivated to find out more. The growth of social media has impacted hugely on the way that we interact with brands and organisations. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and numerous other platforms have enabled companies to have ‘personal’ relationships with their customers, making it possible to generate word-of-mouth through brand advocates like never before. Get it right on the social web and your customers do a lot of your marketing for you. It’s extremely powerful. The old mantra that ‘people do business with people’ applies now more than ever. The impact of social media is on human behaviour; attitudes, opinions and beliefs. And the true value of social communications is in engaging with and influencing customers effectively throughout the decision-making process. It’s all about building relationships with key online influencers to spread positive messages throughout their networks and across the web. It’s about building and maintaining online communities. Now that’s easy to write down in an article like this, but you need to see it in practice to really get to grips with what’s going on. During the seminar, one of the delegates asked me for proof of what I was talking about and threw at me, out of the blue, Rolls Royce. “If this is so great, let’s see what they’re doing”, I was challenged. Now this is a brand that, I have to admit, I’d never tracked before. But there and then I looked them up on Facebook. You can do so yourself: www.facebook.com/rollsroycemotorcars


Paul Sutton will be holding social media training days for BISHTA and SPATA members on 15 November in Loughborough and 22 November in Andover.


The first thing you’ll see is a branded welcome page: it’s a form of advertising, unmistakably Rolls Royce. Within the page you can see pictures of their cars, you can watch videos, you can link to the Apple iStore to download an app for your mobile... and all without leaving the confines of Facebook, now the most popular website in the entire world with approaching 700 million members. More people visit and spend time on Facebook than they do on Google. While traffic to the Fortune 100 websites is down 27% in the last 12 months, Facebook’s traffic and time on site is going through the roof. It doesn’t take a genius to draw conclusions from that.


The most interesting part of the Rolls Royce Facebook page, however, is the Wall. On this piece of prime internet real estate, the brand presents new photos of their cars to 188,000 ‘fans’ – people who love those cars. It talks about what the company is up to, about new developments and it asks questions. Any given post gains around 500 to 1,200 ‘Likes’ and 50 to 100 comments. And every single time someone acts on a post, all of their Facebook friends will see that they’ve engaged with the brand. That’s where the real power of social media lies.


Conversations about brands and organisations take place on blogs, forums, Facebook and Twitter every day whether or not those brands and organisations are listening. And so if you’re not engaging, you’re missing a huge opportunity to get involved in those conversations with potentially powerful brand advocates. If you’d like more information on how to get switched in to Facebook and Twitter as communications tools, I’ll be talking again at the SPATA and BISHTA annual meeting on Friday 23 September.


Paul Sutton is Head of Social Communications at BOTTLE PR (www.bottlepr.co.uk). He blogs at www.thesocialweb.co.uk and can be found as @ThePaulSutton.


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