Sofie Leon is dedicated to Spredfast integrations with partners like Bazaarvoice and Kenshoo Social as the Business Development Manager.  With a nearly insatiable curiosity, Sofie is excited to scour the world of digital marketing to ensure Spredfast customers receive maximum value possible from the platform.  Back in Austin after ten years away, you can find Sofie savoring some homemade Mexican food or enjoying local shows in the Live Music Capital of the World.    

This is my first Friday at Spredfast. As a newcomer to the team I’ve been focused on getting up to speed job-wise while also participating in a scavenger hunt orientation game, remembering as many Spredfaster’s names as possible, and checking out some solid lunch options around our downtown office.  Here are a few things that caught my attention this week:

1.  NSA Spying Controversy Highlights Embrace Of Big Data
It would have been difficult to miss the NSA PRISM headlines this week so I include this timely skim of big data which shows the various industry applications for this automated analysis of massive datasets. As the article points out, there are numerous applications for this technology, “now it’s up to society to decide what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable.”

2.  Report: Corporations must join the Collaborative Economy (Slides, Video)
Would you agree with this Altimeter claim that the Collaborative Economy is the next phase of Social Business? Some established companies are getting onboard: Toyota rents cars from dealership lots. Patagonia partnered with eBay to encourage customers to buy and sell its used products. In considering customers who go around you to connect with each other, should you be trying to embrace a different business model?

3.  Facebook Finally Gets Hashtag Support
The title says it all.  Here’s to getting better insights from #Facebook #content.

4.   What’s Fueling Growth In The Fragmented World Of Messaging Apps? Immigrants. 
The stubbornly fragmented messaging category is spreading through immigrants. I found this global snapshot of the messaging app diaspora pretty interesting as I use WhatsApp daily to connect with my family abroad.

5.  Three Things I’ve Learned From Warren Buffett
Bill Gates recognizes the power of social as he becomes a LinkedIn influencer this week. Top tip from his first post: No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy more time. There are only 24 hours in everyone’s day so let’s make the most of that.

I’d love to hear from you. Please let me know if you’ve got something interesting to check out by tweeting me at @sofieleon

Social media has become an increasingly complex undertaking for large companies. Compared to two years ago — when social communications was often relegated to an intern or junior staffer — today’s social media commands significant budget, dedicated headcount, input from almost all areas of the business, and often a seat at the executive table.

To drive meaningful business outcomes, today’s brands are employing more social accounts — managed by more social users — than ever before: according to recent research, large companies now have an average of 99 social accounts via 53 social users.

This explosion of social has resulted in mind-bending complexity. Companies are desperately searching for efficiency as they grapple with distributing responsibility and empowering sometimes disparately located brand managers. Simultaneously, the right tone, personality and voice must be maintained across multiple accounts to uphold brand standards.

Smart brands realize that keeping their social house in order and efficiently managing social efforts fuels engagement and impacts multiple business areas. The end result is enabling more people to hold more relevant conversations with increasingly social customers.

Social can now be used to build issue awareness and constituent advocacy, as the California Milk Processor Board or Clinton Global Initiative does; target social activities to products and business outcomes by launching a multichannel campaign, as demonstrated by the latest Dove YouTube channel and Facebook page; or drive in-store visits by providing perks to customers who check in on FourSquare, as Walgreens has done.

The common thread of these socially successful approaches can be found in five key components.

1. Governance

Managing tens, if not hundreds, of accounts with hundreds of contributors is no small feat. To provide focus, companies must first and foremost define the goal(s) for social activity. Second, brands need to identify who, internally, should be active across social properties. This includes the core social team, but increasingly also includes subject matter experts, customer-facing roles and contributors who can be valuable additions to social communities. In addition, all activity must be led with strategic guidance so that team members who execute social communications do so in the ways deemed appropriate and effective by brand standards and social best practices.

2. Orchestration

If brand communications has taught companies one thing, it’s that orchestration of activity is mission critical to success. The need to assign and moderate conversation is imperative. Beyond determining who should be communicating where, successful social brands also need to establish responsibilities for planned activity. Moreover, outlining conversation priorities and developing escalation and approval paths for different types of responses separates the “social” from the “socially successful.” This internal coordination should address both corporate brand mandates while also upholding the expectations of community members.

3. Organizational enablement

Once social contributors are defined, mapping out different levels of access to accounts — from administrative rights to editorial content privileges — safeguards companies to ensure the right activity and permissions are given to the people participating in public conversations. Efficient social programs that create a path for success provide direction and guidelines on how team members access their focused accounts, what they are responsible for contributing, how they can assess timely content and messages, and how they can streamline the process of obtaining necessary approval.

4. Cultural and corporate buy-in

Success is in the eye of the beholder. And if company decision makers don’t value social media as a key brand communications channel, the highest level of success can’t be reached, and brands will not possess the ability to expand efforts as quickly as social customers need and expect. The entire C-suite does not need to be personally hyperactive on social. However, recognition from executives and other business units that social can be — and is — playing an increased role in impacting business through customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and sales results in an increased value being placed on social engagement. Ultimately, internal buy-in provides an additional opportunity to optimize and expand social efforts in ways that positively impact the entire business.

5. Technology and tools

Finally, as with any other business area, efficiently operating an expanding and successful social program is quickly becoming a reality with the aid of technology. Imagine big brands organizing and coordinating hundreds of social accounts and hundreds of users across thousands of daily conversations manually. The result would be social chaos — as it is still for many. Today’s social communications software is enabling social brands to centralize internal people, processes and permissions to help engagement thrive. What’s more, the right technology allows brands to assess, report and eventually enhance the impact of engagement, and more importantly, demonstrate business results — a long-term, and now attainable, vision of social business.

At Spredfast we help brands create compelling social marketing presences that drive results for the business and improve customer satisfaction. Most of the teams we work with rely on owned media as the primary vehicle to achieve their goals. But as social teams become savvier and the impact of social marketing becomes more tangible, marketing organizations are looking to paid media to amplify their message to market and reach new audiences.

Kenshoo Social helps brands create ads on social and across the web. From paid social promotions to search ad optimization, they bring a best-in-class solution to the market. Because of this, we’re excited to announce our partnership with Kenshoo that enables joint customers to use social insights to optimize ad spend, dissect campaign performance and attribution, and improve coordination among teams.

The Challenge At Hand

The world of paid, owned, and earned media has come into focus over the last 18 months.  While our friends at Altimeter created the defacto Venn diagram describing the relationship and overlap between these three types of media, businesses are still working to make this model a reality. The truth is, in many companies, these media are still silo-ed. With the real-time, fast paced nature of marketing today, Digital and Social Marketing teams already have a lot their plates. Finding time to go to extra lengths to share information and collaborate with each other on a daily basis is a significant challenge.

The Opportunity

Without visibility and coordination, brands miss out on the insights that can help them optimize their spend and yield better results.  For example, Spredfast posts content on Facebook every day.  This content may have links, images, or engaging questions.  By digging into analytics and performance data, we identify which content earns the most engagement from our audience.  We also use content targeting to test different audience segments, and run a comparative analysis on how they engage with our brand.  We depend on these insights to plan new content for our dynamic and ever-evolving owned strategy.

Making informed decisions around owned content is critical for the world of social. At the same time, there is a huge opportunity for brands that can take performance insights and apply them to the paid side of their business. At Spredfast, we don’t place paid promotion bets and then wait to see if they pay off. Daily performance insights from owned content help us make informed decisions on messaging, targeting, and timing for our paid programs.

Using shared insights to drive decisions around our paid and owned strategies yields better results for our programs. We believe that the partnership with Kenshoo Social allows joint customers to experience the same success. The integration enables teams to share insights and collaborate in real-time, making their cross-channel marketing initiatives more successful than ever.

Driving Conversion

The worlds of social marketing and paid advertising are very different, but the fundamental goal is the same: to drive conversion. ‘Conversion’ can mean something different to every company because it can refer to any point in the dynamic customer journey. It can mean turning an audience member into a fan, making them a customer, or taking them to different owned properties like your website. No matter how you define conversion at your company, with Spredfast and Kenshoo Social, measuring and maximizing conversions has never been easier.

• Measure impact: Get a holistic view of your content’s performance. Use comparative analytics to pinpoint effective messaging and topics that interest your target audience. These insights will help you adapt and create more successful campaigns over time.

• Make informed decisions: Use performance insights to identify high performing organic posts then create paid promotions of that post. The integration provides automatic Kenshoo link tracking across the Spredfast platform, bridging the longstanding gap between owned and paid media. This shared insight and ability to collaborate is unprecedented at companies where the Digital Marketing Team is separate from Social Media Team.

• Improve Performance: Compare conversions and sales from owned and paid content. Use those insights to improve future campaigns and improve conversion rates. Ensure that the balance of paid to owned content is optimal for your business, allowing you to optimize ad spend while effectively leveraging your owned content.

Key Takeaways

The Spredfast-Kenshoo Social integration brings new levels of visibility and coordination to the worlds of paid promotion and owned content. Whether the goal is driving sales, generating leads, or acquiring new fans, teams don’t have to make decisions in a vacuum any more. Attribution, performance, and comparative analysis allow teams to make informed decisions in real-time in order to drive conversions. So for teams who have yet to bring owned insights to the world of paid promotion it’s now easier than ever to maximize results and really make those ad dollars count.

We are pleased to announce that this integration is now available for all joint Spredfast and Kenshoo Social customers. For more information contact info@spredfast.com.

We envision a future where consumers expect to be delighted and well-served through social channels. A future where our customers feel confident they’re exceeding these expectations and making the best decisions to drive real business impact with social.

But where do things in the market stand right now?

First and foremost, social communication has become pervasive, and it is rapidly becoming the preferred interaction mechanism for consumers. And while having this kind of direct, immediate connection to consumers is ultimately a huge opportunity, it also introduces many more risks. The social conversation is public, so you’re handling potentially touchy customer conversations out in the open. How do you ensure you’re getting it right?

Just as importantly, social communication has become more complex as its adoption gains speed – companies are now managing social programs across dozens of brands, localities and countries. How do you manage these programs efficiently and consistently? And how does a social team connect this ever-expanding activity to business outcomes?

We believe success in social isn’t about tricks to get more followers or short-term solutions for a single big impact. It’s about organizations delivering consistent excellence in the small touch points that occur every day.

Social is 24/7, and consumer expectations for both speed and relevancy are rising. Brands need to start laying the foundation for successful social communications now or risk falling behind.

Throughout this summer, Spredfast will be delivering a set of new and innovative capabilities designed to enable our customers to deliver real business impact with social. Allow me to set the stage.

Engagement is the focus of our business.

It always will be. Engagement in social happens when conversations are relevant to the intended audience. We will be giving customers powerful new ways to understand the makeup of their social audience and deliver new, relevant social experiences.

Social never sleeps.

Your customers want you at a moment’s notice, and we are going to provide you with the ability to better meet and exceed their expectations.  We will be delivering a new mobile experience and new moderation capabilities so social teams can stay more connected – wherever they are.

Social produces an incredible volume of raw data.

Today, many social practitioners spend significant time assessing social data and transforming it to make sense of their efforts. We are going to give companies entirely new ways of organizing, visualizing, and communicating how social is impacting their business.

Customer relationships don’t exist in a vacuum.   

However, the data collected from these interactions often does, and the task of trying to connect disparate information sources is difficult. We’re going to make it easier. Through a series of upcoming technology integrations, the first of which we announced today, Spredfast will become the hub for executing your social programs. One platform, one place. Soon, a brand’s entire ecosystem of social information, interaction and insight will be centralized.