Digital is transforming the way brands are communicating with their customers. The most recent Nielsen's Trust in Advertising report confirms that branded web sites are now the second most trusted format, a jump from fourth place in 2007. As communications and marketing professionals, how do we seize this opportunity without mucking it up?
About 18 months ago MasterCard set out on a mission to become the most socially connected and engaged brand in the payments space. We wanted to better understand how to earn our way into a conversation; evolve our skillset as content creator and brand publisher; better connect with our stakeholders; and importantly, ignite a public dialogue around a world beyond cash.
As I look back, here's a look at almost ten hard lessons we learned:
1. Do things differently. This is why I chose to share nine lessons, not ten. You need to be ready to take thoughtful risks, and to test and learn. Digital is dynamic and ever-changing. You need to be nimble and flexible to operate in this space.
2. Earn your way by listening. You've no doubt heard it before but listen, listen and then listen some more. We learned the hard way that millions of people were talking about our brand each month but we were nowhere to be found in the conversation, and worse yet, no one was advocating on our behalf. The insights and analysis we derive from The MasterCard Conversation Suite helps us better understand consumer sentiment, who the influencers are, and where those conversations are taking place. Valuable insights that help inform our content creation strategy.
3. Make a cultural statement. If you're serious about social, then don't be afraid to show it. Our team used to sit in cubicles and offices, and there was a lot of hallway whispering when we set out to design our command center. Moving the team together in an open work space designed for collaboration was not something our 45 year-old company was used to. Not to mention, it's pretty tough to ignore the 40 foot LED screen that visually displays real-time conversations aggregated by geography, sentiment, influence and topic. Today, the Conversation Suite is a sought out destination. More than 1500 people have visited us - from partners to neighboring corporations, to key customers from around the world -- even our Board of Directors!
4. Find great technology partners that can help you to scale your resources and content. Digital teams need to be able to monitor and engage in real-time. We worked closely with PRIME Research to build the MasterCard Conversation Suite, it's powerful as we track 43 markets and 26 languages in real-time, but nimble enough to move monitoring from simple reporting and analysis to predictive intelligence all within a simple interface designed to allow us to engage with media, bloggers and people on social channels. Percolateis another great technology partner. We couldn't have achieved the growth we've experienced without understanding how to create global content to scale.
5. Be bigger than yourself. It's easy to fall into the mindset that you can simply shout messages and expect engagement. But in today's world this isn't true. Stories, news and conversations are living entities that require two-way engagement, listening and active participation. Only then can you begin to share story lines and narratives that promote the value of your company to stakeholders. MasterCard's Digital Communications team focuses our publishing efforts on creating a dialogue around the cashless society. Our Cashless Pioneers blog is where we not only share our views, but invite others to do so via contributor posts or curated content around the topics we care about.
6. Know the 3C's: Creation, Curation and Code. If you look closely at our Cashless Pioneers blog you will see that we have adopted a content creation and curation strategy around the stock and flow model (thank you Percolate). We employ both "stock or feature" content like our featured Pioneers stories or Morning Brew segments, and "real-time flow" with trending curated content. All of our content is optimized to help ensure discoverability. After all no matter how great the content, if you don't consider SEO, it won't be discoverable and will go MIA.
7. Take advantage of multiple platforms. That may seem overwhelming, however, by creating a publishing ecosystem you will be able to scale and amplify content. And you don't need to create new content for each platform. We created a content hub in our Engagement Bureau and Cashless Pioneers blog, and we amplify our content across our social channels like Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr, using different headlines, captions or sound bites based on the channel.
8. Collaboration is key to a digital native culture. No matter where social and digital sit within your company, aligning with peers is key to creating value. At MasterCard we are working with our colleagues in customer service to facilitate social support, with digital marketing to streamline our social channels to provide one face of MasterCard, and with product teams to provide real-time insights that help inform business decisions. None of this happened overnight, and our journey here continues. It takes time, relationship building and collaboration.
9. Lesson #9? Let's hear from you. What was the toughest lesson you learned on the journey to becoming an engaged brand?
Here's one final thought. Don't get caught up in corporate conversations that happen within your four walls. Be simple and authentic when communicating. After all, remember, consumers trust what we have to say, and we have a responsibility to deliver in a meaningful way.