Juan Luis Polo
Managing Director/Partner at Territorio creativo
Madrid, Spain

"In the next five years, one in five dollars will be invested in the social media."

This is one of the conclusions confidently put forward in last year's CMO Survey report. The study, which polled 400 marketing managers in the US, reveals a definite trend: social media are a key element of businesses' marketing and communication strategies. And they will continue to grow, and grow.

But how to handle all the effort and not get lost along the way? Fear of failing to convert decisions into profits and unease about throwing money into an area that many in the corporate world still view as "murky" is stopping a good number of businesses from using the social media to their advantage, even in the face of the opportunities they have already opened up. Opportunities to understand our clients in ways that had never before been possible. But, most importantly, opportunities to make businesses more profitable and competitive at the worst period in recent economic history.

Social media have already been among us for enough time to reveal what the best practices are. A review of these practices may shed light on some issues and, most importantly, plant the seed that will make your business stand out while others wither.

Which laws have proved to be immutable since the social media have been in existence?

1. From target to community
   

   The notion of customers as targets for our messages, ready to receive the ammo put together by the marketing and communications department, is giving way to a relationship-based model: the community.

   For the very first time, people and their genuine interests are being given the central role that is legitimately theirs. There is no other choice. Businesses are taking key ideas on board: network communication can not be forced on people; it can not be bought. It is all about gaining people's attention. Each one of us decides whether we want to become involved and engage with the things we are interested in.

   This changes brand marketing and working strategies to the core. Understanding the concept of community and people's motivation is your starting point. Building on what you learn is the challenge ahead.

2. Fans of your fans
   

   Putting people first, right at the centre of corporate communications, should be the watchwords of any business that is set on gaining a competitive edge. At an economically difficult time, your capacity to attract attention to your products and convert sales hinges directly on how your business is perceived.

   Today's world is overflown with communication and products. People have never before had so many opportunities for choice. So quite often it is not price that makes a difference but brand. Brands that make you feel different and accord recognition. Brands that successfully place people at the centre of their strategy.

   On one side, commitment, engagement, excitement; on the other, a passive audience bombarded with messages that are all indistinguishable from one another.

3. Businesses are media
   

   Until now we had been unaware of the power organisations inherently possess. The power to become a media outlet, with the ability to create interesting contents and the skills to disseminate them. Capturing the attention of the people who are interested in your products and services.

   Today's disintermediation means building your own means to connect and engage with people had never been so easy. Every business has its own digital publishing media, enabling it to manage its communications in a fully autonomous way. And reaching an audience hungry for contents. The same audience that will talk about your business and help you build your digital identity. It cannot exist without conversation among people.

   What about external media? They are necessary too, but you should use them alongside your own media. Advertising helps achieve prominence and visibility but engagement is born of your own media, the place where you anchor interesting contents for people to see them.

4. Building and nurturing
   Managing your community is crucial. Your relationship with the people who talk to you, who make it clear that they like what you give them, who defend you and stand up for you against others, needs to be looked after and cemented. Community management encompasses two basic tasks. Firstly, building, ie the day-to-day work of talking, listening and providing support. Secondly, nurturing your community with concrete initiatives, campaigns and activities designed to boost people's engagement and sense of belonging to your brand. As well as the number of followers.
5. Proactive listening
   

   Possibly the greatest single barrier for a brand entering the social media for the first time comes from failing to understand the context. Listening before taking any initiative is of the essence. Identify what is working well, what is being said and, accordingly, what your contribution should be. Do not impose conversation or conversation topics, under any circumstances. People will refuse to be drawn in.

   In addition to maintaining a listening attitude, it is important to ask for feedback. This will enrich your vision of people's motivations in talking about your brand, products or services. By definition, your goal as a brand is to create customer experiences that make people choose you above your competitors. Proactive listening is your best ally in understanding your customers and would-be customers.

6. Usefulness
   

   All your efforts should be guided by one basic principle: usefulness for your followers. If it's not useful, it will be passed over. It will not be talked about or liked. In one word, it will not serve the purpose it was created for. So when it comes to designing your network platforms, sites, contents and activities, put yourself in the shoes of the people who are going to read, listen or comment.

   Contents must be exciting, entertaining, amusing, educational – but usefulness is the crucial element. It is true that "content is king", but only when it has the quality to merit kingship. It follows that your communication sites should never be used as an outlet for bragging about your brand in the traditional way. As consumers we are increasingly able to distinguish what we want to read, watch or listen to from what we do not, which is making it very difficult for brands that do not have the patience to produce useful contents for their users.

7. Fail often, fail fast and fail cheap
   

   Spanish society is extremely quick to attach blame to error. Perhaps this stems from having been tagged the "spiritual reserve of the West" in times gone by. In truth, failure is a blessing. It provides a chance to learn and improve in any endeavour. But in order to seize it, one maxim must always be borne in mind: fail often, quick and – most importantly – cheap. Where the social media are concerned, the story of what works and what does not remains to be written. In fact, by contrast to traditional advertising and its established industry standards, the social media are the greatest idea- and results-laboratory we could ever have imagined.

   What we have before us we might call "scrum marketing": an approach that enables handling a campaign nimbly enough to change what is not working while keeping and adding to what does work.

8. On/Off/On
   

   The familiar online-offline divide has its origin in the first internet wave, when marketing managers set out to understand the new medium but in many cases failed to do so on account of its complexity. This set the stage for the creation of online marketing departments. Today, however, the division is fictitious. Physical experience feeds off the online world and vice-versa. You can physically walk into a shop to buy a product and at the same time browse the internet for more information about that product, to the extent that the search determines whether you actually buy it. Is this an online or an offline experience?

   The arrival of smartphones and the increasing pervasiveness of the social experience are changing the rules of the game in online and offline shopping to a degree previously not even thought possible.

9. Social recommendation and user-generated content
   

   66% of the content we look at to make shopping decisions reflects other people's opinions. Only 33% of that information is posted by the company concerned. Being talked about should be a key goal of your social media strategy.

   It is a clear indicator of success. There is a direct link between your brand's prominence and – most significantly – credibility and what others are saying about you. What they say about your services and products, how they see you and make others see you are far more important in social terms than anything you can say about your business. Understanding this point and using it to your advantage should be a key aspect of your social media strategy.

   Hence, you should encourage your customers and followers to post their views and opinions on your products, and also – and this is an important step – include space in your media for them to do so. The value of a recommendation is well known to all. Do not miss any opportunities to get people to talk about your products when they are set on doing so. Their friends will read and appreciate it. And your business will gain from the experience.

10. The holy grail of social media
    When going about devising a social media strategy for your business, you will be presented with two fantastic opportunities to completely miss the mark. First, to think that social media are the answer to all your problems. Second, to think they are just a passing fashion and that traditional marketing will come back in the end.

Once social functionality became available on the internet, consumers finally took control. While "the customer is king" may seem a trite slogan, the truth is it is now becoming a reality. We are looking at the beginning of a game played according to new rules.

So it is not a question of using social networks as a means of communication because that would be viewing them as just another channel. On the contrary, successful brands integrate processes all the benefits social networks have to offer into their businesses. And there are many boons: from better connected, faster decision-making teams to a shift in your communication philosophy that will help you gain more followers.

Your business is facing a transformation. The effort this transformation demands is so huge only a few organisations are ready to drink from the grail social media are holding out to them. The rest will compromise and use these tools to pursue unaspiring marketing and communications objectives.

It is time to understand that consumers, ie your customers and the people they trust, are the most valuable asset to your business and brand. Putting them at the centre is the most innovative move you can possibly make. And you will have given them good cause for concern in the process.

Juan Luis Polo
Co-author of Sociaholic (2012).

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