Many of the clients I've been consulting for have interesting notions about social media. One common idea is that social media is an ongoing effort and doesn't conform to normal lifecycle rules.
The Social Media Lifecycle Framework
I would agree that social media initiatives are different than many other campaign models, but I do think most initiatives deliver a higher ROI when the following lifecycle framework is considered & followed.
Conversion Funnel
Monologue: A broadcast form of communication that works well for creating initial awareness. Before broadcasting your message, be sure to craft your message by listening to what people are already saying about you.
Conversion A: Converts users who have simply heard of you, to users who want to have a conversation with you.
Conversation: A participatory form of communication that works well after you've created a community. Not everyone in you're community will feel comfortable engaging in conversations, which means your community needs to be large enough to support multiple levels of participation.
Conversion B: Converts users who are participating in conversations, to those who will take your message & use it to influence others.
Influence: An extended form of conversation that works well when influential community members believe your message. Influential communication is effective at achieving perfect conversion.
Perfect Conversion
Conversion C: Fulfilment of the end objective. This is where the user is converted to customer.
Advocacy: Customer advocacy may occur if users expectations have consistently been met or exceeded. This refers to the entire customer experience; not just through social media. At this stage, customer advocacy can occur at any time.
Amplification Funnel
Customer Service/ Support: A system that ensures customers are satisfied with their purchase.
Conversion D: Converts users who are satisfied, to users who are engaged with your comity & are actively seeking further engagement.
Community Engagement: A system that allows users to interact & share information about being your customer. (i.e. A Burger King campaign connecting personal trainers with Burger King customers. This type of campaign could be used to connect frequent customers with the resources necessary to 'burn-off' their favourite Burger King meals.)
Conversion E: Converts engaged community members to participants within the conversion funnel of a product extension.
Extensions: This can be considered the beginning of a new conversion funnel or the end of the current amplification funnel. This is where customers learn about something else you sell. (i.e. A digital agency that also offers search strategy.)
You can now begin the life cycle again.
In an unrelated note, I've been engaged to write a handbook on various social media & enterprise 2.0 topics. I would like to encourage anyone who reads my blog to submit topic suggestions. I'm totally open to all ideas & if a submitted topic makes it to the book, I'll acknowledge your contribution within & will send you a complimentary copy. You can send ideas to me via Twitter (@thejordanrules) - or via email ([email protected]).
The ability to tell stories has always been one of the most powerful ways to connect with other people.
Social media has given us a unique way to to tell stories as a collective. Here's a roadmap for collective storytelling.
Stop #1 - Define Your Story
The process of discovering what you want to tell a story about is always different, but the most important step in storytelling. You need to be an expert on what your story is about.
Starting a story without knowing what it's about will likely cause confusion. If the collective is confused by a story, it's unlikely that they'll participate in telling it.
The collective will look to that person who started the story for reinforcement and reassurance that the story is still on track. Ensure you monitor your story and continue to participate in telling it, or risk the story ending.
Stop #2 - Spark a Conversation
In collective storytelling, stories are made up of wide-reaching conversations. Those conversations begin with a 'conversation spark'.
A conversation spark shouldn't be the entire story. It should provide enough information to be provocative, but leave the next chapter of the story open to be told by the collective.
Consider the Burger King "Subservient Chicken" campaign. The story begins: A human-sized chicken has decided to set-up a webcam. It's asking that you come to it's website and give it orders.
That's an example of a conversation spark.
Stop #3 - Participate in the Conversation
Conversations spread through social media like ripples across a pond. Consider the conversation spark as the pebble dropping into the water. The ripples dissipate as they move farther away from the center, just as the conversations have less impact the longer they continue without a new conversation spark.
Ok, consider this model:
The conversation spark could be the site created for the Burger King "Subservient Chicken". The longer the campaign runs, the greater the reach will be; however, the longer the campaign runs without a new conversation spark, the less impact the conversation will have. Eventually, the conversation will end.
Note: You can't control when the conversation ends. You can only control when, and how much you participate. Here's a great set of guidelines (PDF download) for responses to changes in your story.
This model shows the first two ripples as a conversation spark begins to propagate through a network:
Notice that each connection doesn't emanate directly from the conversation spark. Ideally, the originator of a conversation will encourage other storytellers to interact with each other. If you look at the "Subservient Chicken" example; Burger King actually provides customers with some tools to continue the conversation: a downloadable chicken mask, and a way to share the site with friends.
Of course they could have provided more tools. They could have allowed users to save a video of the chickens responses to a certain set of orders, and provide a link to send to friends. They could have created a gallery of user-generated video's of people responding to orders while wearing the downloadable chicken mask. These types of tools could help to extend the story.
Stop #4 - Extend the Story
A story could end after one conversation spark; but the best stories continue. As new conversation sparks are created and added to the story; the story grows, and reaches more people.
Innovative and provocative stories are often enough to inspire other storytellers to create their own conversation spark. Take the "Subservient Chicken" example again. It inspired this YouTube video, which reached over 2,000 people and got 7 comments. Not a huge conversation, but extending the story often includes conversations of many sizes.
Collective storytelling isn't necessarily about branding, or making money; it's about spreading a message and allowing that message to be malleable enough to be changed by its audience while maintaining its integrity. Link to original post