By M. Isi Eromosele

Recommendations are a critical component of social campaigns. In fact, recommendations are social campaigns.

When you analyze a traditional campaign, you find at its core a message crafted by a professional PR firm or agency creative team. You find a message that is aspirational with regard to the brand.

It’s what the brand manager and agency account executives hope consumers will think, which will then carry them all the way through the purchase funnel to the cash register.

This stands in contrast to a recommendation. Recommendations, whether in the form of a conversation or a video clip, power the Social Web. A recommendation, often appearing along with a review or a rating is an expression by one person of what might be useful or helpful to another. It is a powerful and influential endorsement of a brand.

Ratings quantify the strength of the recommendations. Unlike the aspirational or persuasive marketer-generated message, a consumer-generated recommendation is often a purely informational component in the purchase process.

Consumer-generated messages are both positive and negative and they are generally first-person, adding authenticity and urgency to the message. Think of a social feedback cycle: the conversation however it is expressed enters the purchase process in the consideration phase, between awareness and purchase.

Social media covers the range of emotions and views that are raised in the post-purchase experience. Consumer-generated content can sway, convert or dissuade, depending on its polarity (positive or negative).

By comparison, marketer-generated messages nearly always attempt to positively persuade. “You’ll love our product because….” so much of what happens in advertising is positive (that is, encouraging and supporting a purchase).

The general response from consumers has become “Nice, but you’re really only giving us part of the story. What about the negative? What happens after we buy?” Of course, that question leads directly onto the Social Web where it gets answered.

Influence on the social Web, expressed through the diverse set of social media components is indeed powerful. Trust is a big part of the driver. It is for this reason that being open and honest is critical.

Any indication that integrity is in question causes an otherwise well-intentioned social campaign to weaken. At its extreme, it will wreak havoc on your brand. It is influence, not control that you are really after in your social media campaigns.

It is influence that can be applied tactically at the point of consideration in the purchase process. This is the exact point where a purchase decision is being formulated and validated.

Understanding who is likely to recommend you (or who will not) and to what degree along with why (or why not) is critical in assessing your readiness for a social media campaign.

The Social Web ought to be reasonably receptive to your efforts, provided you follow the basic rules of etiquette and conduct as established: disclosure, transparency and participation versus interruption.

If you are having problems with your brand, then engaging the social Web directly, in other words, using social media as an outreach tool is risky. Fortunately, even in this case you can still use the Social Web and social media.

Using social media for outreach is just one of the two available modes: the other is listening and feedback. Particularly for brands, products, or services with a low (or negative) ratings with consumers, the Social Web can be a great place to quickly and at low cost discover the kinds of things that, if addressed will prove themselves valuable in positively turning things around.

What your customers have to say about your brand is where the implementation of your social media campaigns needs to start. By talking with a small set of customers, you can see how to begin a systematic and ongoing evaluation of all customers, current and prospective and how to use what you have learned or will learn to refine your marketing.

The measurement of influence is critical to successfully implementing social media. Influence, rather than control is the central element you have at your disposal on the social Web.

Taking the time to gather and distill quantitative metrics is essential. Develop a comprehensive dashboard and report card that includes potential social measures. Integrate blog indexing services and any relevant online data that you have access to into your measurement platform.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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