Originally published AOctober 20, 2008.
During the Dot Com Bust many new media and tech professionals in San Francisco had lost their jobs, including me, and were left to fend for ourselves, trapped in expensive mortgages or luxury apartment rentals. To the naked eye it looked like I still had a job, but I had to make a number of major adjustments, including ending my quarterly shoe shopping, stemming a daily Starbucks habit, and ending my trips to the local organic grocer. It was then that I decided to start shopping at Safeway and learned that there were plenty of quality products there, for which I paid a fraction of what I normally paid. Though I could hardly pay rent, I ate well.
We develop affinities with brands that help us through hard times. Even Starbucks is getting that now, with discounts offered to its most loyal customers during the current economic crisis. For this reason and others, I urge brands to consider, or continue, engaging with customers through social media--blogs and social networks--especially now.
When asked at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2008 whether brands should bother engaging with customers through largely unproven digital methods such as social media during the downturn, analyst Adam Sarner replied, "This is going to be a lifeline."
It would seem that social media publishers don't have to worry; we're getting the media dollars. Epsilon's latest survey indicates that Blue-Chip company CMOs are shifting dollars from traditional media (print, TV) to digital, interactive formats. And Jack Myers predicts that even within digital, the more "traditional" forms (banner ads) will slump compared to online video, widgets, and social networks, on which spending next year will increase by 70 percent. The more accountable the media, and the more targeted, the better. While there has yet to be found a magic formula for measuring the effectiveness of blogs and social networks beyond the clickthrough, there are metrics such as comment volume and inbound links that speak to the relevance of any publisher who may tout your brand.
In the immediate term, ads and online sponsorship validate bloggers' online addiction and defray our expenses. But it also invokes a halo effectaround your brand in the Blogosphere. Bloggers in our network have thanked, even blogged about, our advertisers for helping them cover groceries, or even just their monthly hosting fees. This recognition is the stuff that sparks relationships for life.
I just returned from a series of local conferences that my company held for women bloggers and had conversations with our sponsors about the downturn, notably General Motors. As have all the automakers, GM has been hit hard--we would have understood if they had reduced the number of cars they'd brought to our events to test drive, or weren't open to more conversations about additional ways to engage bloggers. But, to our delight, that wasn't the case.
GM was one of the first companies to engage the Blogosphere wholeheartedly, even developing an outreach department and protocol for working with bloggers and social media users. Back in 2006, when we first began working with GM, their marketing team never insisted on such things as a guaranteed number of resulting posts or car sales to justify their presence. This was a relief, because we would never have been able to keep promises of securing endorsements from bloggers or tracking their future purchasing activity.
Still, the response in the Blogosphere to GM's first sponsorship was exceedingly positive. Women wrote of their experiences driving the cars they brought to the conference. Some hadn't realized how "cool" GM cars had become; some thought GM was smart to engage; and many wrote their opinions on their blogs, or agreed to videotaped testimonials on YouTube. GM became our first undisputed sponsor success.
Then GM took it a step further. As the economy worsened GM continued to support independent blogger functions and offer up their cars for test drives or even temporary transportation. This summer GM provided hybrid cars to women who wanted to attend the BlogHer conference, but who were faced with outrageous airline fees.
They began to monitor opinions of women who drove their cars at various events and achieved some eye-popping results. In one survey conducted earlier this year with women bloggers 65.4% of those surveyed said they would not have considered purchasing a GM car prior to engaging with GM. Post-engagement, 73.1% said that their perception of GM had changed. A staggering 92.3% said that they now would consider purchasing a GM vehicle.
I believe that this dramatic shift in loyalty occurred not only because GM engaged in social media, but because they hit upon some real concerns of their female customer base and stuck it out beyond that initial connection. While user-generated writing or video-blogging contests are fun and make for immediate spikes in user engagement and recognition, in a downturn these activities become frivolous.
In the coming months, I predict the following tactics, coupled with prolonged outreach, will be most effective:
1. Couponing: Providing ways to access discounts via the Web will equate to quick engagement that will last long after hard times.
2. Cost covering: GM did this by providing carpooling bloggers with hybrid vehicles to get to our conference; imagine other ways you can help influentials online, especially during the holidays: gift cards, cash cards, gas cards, travel vouchers, hosting fees, you get the gist. And by supporting the costs of bloggers (which for women may include childcare), you are saying to these folks, what you do matters.
3. Validating: Give customers a place to talk about what matters to them, their concerns, fears, and desire to connect with others who can relate. Sponsor online conversations and events, spur some that are not about your product, read what others are dealing with and let them know you hear them. Incent them to provide useful information for the community.
4. Inspiring: Refrain from doom and gloom. This is a grand time to provide inspiration and be remembered for it.
By keeping a toe in social media, your brand can stay relevant, and weather the storm, however long it will be.