Social buzz is an inseparable element of social media. However, this is not a new thing. We have and we still deal with it in the press or when using television or radio. However, its scale has changed – the spread of the internet and the astronomical mass of information generated in social media is a big challenge for each of us. Some try to fight it and cut off from chaotic stimuli, others on the contrary – stand eye to eye seeing the potential for an effective way of promoting and collecting information about their brand or service.
This is what Buzz Marketing is. Thoughtful marketing campaign generating the above-mentioned buzz, i.e. a voice on a specific topic. But what if we want to analyze this online hustle and bustle of seemingly chaotic words created by the Internet users themselves? What to do with this huge database and recipients that publish infinite amounts of comments and opinions about you every day? We will try to suggest ways and tools that will help you find order in this noise.
Before starting the appropriate actions, it is important to gather a solid dose of knowledge about the discussion found on the Internet, because without a proper reference point you will not be able to properly assess your work after all.
Where do they write, how often, on what topic, what is important to them? It’s free knowledge that is valuable in itself. You will probably ask how to reach and search for discussion sources? Modern tools offer many possibilities and facilities. One of them is media monitoring, which after proper calibration and selection of keywords will show you specific places, authors and topics took up in social media. It is also a good solution for those who want to meet opinion leaders, see competitors or even the entire industry.
There is nothing better than knowing how your market rivals are perceived. Learn from their mistakes, use communication gaps, check if your brands are often mentioned side by side. Opinions on products, the most frequently mentioned advantages and disadvantages, emotional attitude of comments – all this will create a predominance to be used in the next steps of communication activities.
A good practice is to have a broader view of the industry and the most common topics covered in discussions. The campaign may also reach this most general conversation zone, where the use of base industry terms may prove to be the key to success.
Ready, aim…
Once you know your base noise, you won’t have to set goals. It is thanks to these two planes that you will be able to measure your final campaign, optimize it and, above all, draw conclusions for subsequent projects.
Define your priorities. Do you want to collect leads, launch a new product, or maybe you prefer to focus on PR activities by increasing brand awareness, improving your image or fighting a crisis? There are plenty of possibilities, setting specific numbers will help you implement them.
… fire!
Different goals require a different approach to the campaign, otherwise you will have to look at numbers and results. Assuming that we want to focus on acquiring valuable sales leads, we must precisely define the places where the sparks are to cause a hot flame of discussion. Post high-quality content in places where you know you have a good chance of meeting your matched audience. Tracking data such as demography or geolocation will help determine whether we hit our target group or not. The whole is worth upgrading with call-to-action and landing pages. Here is the place where marketing slogans and hashtags will show their value. Using them is a good move towards easier monitoring and filtering of media noise.
#ALLREDALLEQUAL is a hashtag of the English football club social campaign focusing on equality and tolerance in sport.
Creating social trust, building the image of an expert, striving to become an opinion leader – here the advantage is not the quantity but the quality of the comments. Remember this when you come across the dominant content of larger players. Reaching discussions, building relationships with customers through direct dialogue, surrounding yourself with influential people – all these factors can affect subsequent comments about you. Not all of them are positive? Such comments generate a discussion. After all, social media is a huge mix of opposites and diverse experiences.
Brand awareness is a priceless feature. Without it, all the hype can actually only be a cluster of chaotic sentences whose presence will not be of any use. Its sentiment is also important. After all, we want our product or services to generate positive feedback. Buzz will give you direct and honest opinions about your business. This will open the way to familiarize yourself with the behavior of recipients and their reactions in the context of your messages – what they do with them, where they lead them. Think about your target audience all the time. Let the messages go wherever you want. Is the situation different? Time for correction.
The hardest task here is probably to change the opinion of the Internet user. However, media buzz tracking for crisis management is a real showcase and a place where you can easily see possible changes and improvements. Here, once again, an external tool will be useful, thanks to which the text analysis will determine the tone of the publication. Creating two word clouds: before and after will give a direct comparison of the changes that have taken place among the public opinion of selected social media.
The revealed truth, written in the headline, is not so obvious. Noise analysis will let you notice how many factors can indicate potential success or failure. So what if post is extra popular when a real social media war breaks out below it. What if you just broke the coverage record while your messages are being mocked on popular newsgroups? Do not fall into the trap of the hurray optimistic marketer and remember that the key to success is to examine the publicity you have created. Especially if unsatisfactory results came out, you can always make adjustments to direct social buzz to the right track. However, there are still examples based on controversies, which turned out to be super effective. However, this topic is a material for another article…
Is this the end?
The end of the campaign is only apparent. Now it’s time to thoroughly examine and summarize the results of your work. Any correctly read information will be the best help when creating subsequent marketing campaigns.
This is the time to answer the most important questions. Only now you will hear the resound of your assumptions. You will find out where your target group is, which stimulates it, where is your competition and where are undeveloped places to focus on.