A methodical approach to social media

Method 

Description

Four Quadrant Assessment Model

A model to efficiently assess a market or customer base from a social point of view. The first strategic step in a social media engagement is to create an assessment, learning where (on what platforms) a respective ecosystem is engaged. Our four quadrant assessment methodology includes the following groups:

- Customer mapping and field assessment
- Brand analysis
- Partner and alliance analysis
- Competition analysis

The assessment concerns about where people are in the social web, sentiment analysis, key interests and reflections. Only once a team is clear about what's on top of the customer's mind, it is able to adequately respond.

The NCP Model

The NCP model is a foundation methodology to social media engagement: Network – Contribution – Participation
Network provides the reach
Contribution is the active engagement and content contribution over such networks
Participation is the positive or negative reflection of the contribution and the actual conversation. Conversation is the currency in social media.

Once the NCP model is implemented in a company's market engagement strategy, it provides a self adjusting mechanism to all social initiatives.

Cross Functional Corporate Social Media Framework

Social Media is primarily a state of mind – not a campaign
The cross functional social media framework provides the basis for a company wide social market engagement. It helps structure the social media leverage within a company so that the teams in sales, marketing, service & support, product management, HR, procurement and all other market facing departments are able to work in a concerted manner in the interest of the brand to the benefit of the customer. The ComStar model suggest a social media service team based organization structure.

Dual Presence Model

The Dual Presence Model is helping corporations to bridge the gap between brand focus and public social media groups. Businesses have to be where their customers and markets are, yet a business continues to be concerned about their brand identity and brand presence. The dual presence strategy resolves that issue.

Strategy Hexagon

The Social Media Academy Strategy Framework. Unlike the traditional top down corporate strategies, developed in a small group and then rolled out to the market – hoping it works out, the social strategy framework of the Social Media Academy suggests integrating key constituencies of a market into the strategy development. The strategy is based on six (hexagon) core elements:
- Goals
- Mission
- Benefits
- Actions
- Resources
- Reporting

The strategy is based on a previous assessment (see Four Quadrant Assessment Model) and geared towards a cross functional social market engagement.

Advocacy Model

There are many possible goals and objectives, a business may like to achieve with social media. The overarching objective however should be measurable customer advocacy. As the majority of purchase decisions are so called “recommendation based purchase decisions”. Advocacy is the core of a recommendation. Advocacy is driven by "customer experience" not loyalty or redemption programs.  Building a robust customer experience model that fuels advocacy is a key objective in social market engagement strategies.

Social media ROI calculation method

The SMACAD model is a financial ROI model vis-a-vis a marketing ROI model. The model calculating social media ROI is based on the above methods and principles. Given the holistic view and deep understanding of the networks, it is possible to calculate the financial ROI by taking contribution margin from social network based business over the investments made to manage those networks.