The Power Of Networks

In recent times, the Internet has profoundly altered business operations across the globe more than ever in the history of mankind, making the art of social networking the next gale that will blow us forward.

Today, a generation of online tribes, cliques, communities, social spheres, lists, groups and circles, amongst others, describe and define online networks of interest and following.

As people connect with one another on Instagram in South Africa, others are navigating Facebook in Nigeria. Daily, large numbers of Africans and, indeed, the world are logging into thousands and perhaps millions of social networking platforms.

Social networks are predominately redefining our personal and business relationships with the world around us. From music to marketing, consulting to fashion, creative to communications, and education to engineering, there are available networks for every individual and professional to establish, join and develop for personal influence and brand benefits.

Human beings do not exist in isolation; they operate in circles of interests and relationships which, when virtual, can be referred to as networks. Networks exist both in business and social interactions, thereby making possible new avenues for insight and information sharing.

A network affords individuals and brands the opportunity to maintain stronger relationship with other individuals and brands of connected interest. It sets you up on knowing your customers and competitors, gives you the foresight to think, plan and execute any network-focused agenda while leveraging virtual reality.

One more trend is obvious: more offline relationships and networks are now migrating online and brands, just like individuals should position themselves for these opportunities. As an Internet and social media user, building networks and harnessing their benefits should depend on the platform in consideration. For instance, a photographer may find Instagram a better platform to build more viable network due to the fact that photos are better appreciated on Instagram or Pinterest.

In the same vein, a writer may find Tumblr or Twitter more interesting due to the opportunity to create long- or short-form essay. While this sounds like good advice, the popularity, acceptance and prevalent use of a network in a particular country is to be considered. A photographer on Instagram in a country where Facebook records the highest users may make the best use of the platform but lose out on business opportunities because many potential clients and customers are on other platforms.

To build a network for your brand is, perhaps, one of the most productive ways to constantly create relevant market buzz about your products and services. Network building goes beyond executing a one-off marketing campaign to helping your brand through its life cycle. In order to achieve this, it is crucial to look before leaping.

This second check will help in carrying out quick checks on competing brands already playing in your network and desired platform. It also gives opportunity to map out individuals who will be interested in your brand and how best to reach them.

The best place to begin when building a network is among friends and family members. These individuals will support you and offer positive reviews (at no cost or need for incentive). Thereafter, tap into their networks to reach more people. Leveraging connections from these two groups is often a good way to strengthen connection ties for stronger penetration. With second-degree connections, the first hurdle is crossed successfully.

Creating a communication or engagement structure by being sociable is at the heart of building and maintaining a valuable online network. Think of the external activities of the organisation promoting the social being of the brand, where customers can get a shareable message on subscribing for a particular service, purchasing a product or enjoying a specific service as well as receiving shareable birthdays or wedding anniversary messages from the organisations you patronise. These random and often-ignored activities greatly expand visibility, reach and size of networks.

Most importantly, it is vital to remember at all times that advocates – and not members – grow networks. So, having over 2,000 new followers is not a guaranteed network builder. Focus should be on having a trusted, valued and engaging community of people. These advocates constitute the surest way to build a network.

According to a consumer peer-influence report by Nielsen Study, 90 per cent of consumers trust peer recommendations, while only 33 per cent trust online ads. As a network manager, it is essential to find advocates for your brand and recruit new members to your social community aggressively, yet manually. Every new member is a potential community advocate if well engaged.

In growing a network, the concept of advocacy, as against influence(r), holds much value as influencers are paid for a one-off buzz, while advocates are life-long conscious ambassadors of the network or brand which, most times, comes without much financial constraints.

Hosting conversations on your social network is a sure way to engage, sustain and maintain your community of followers and advocates. Social conversations increase your network statistics, while positioning you as a thought leader and influencer within your industry.

You can embed social network feed widgets on your website to help visitors track activities on your social network without exiting your website. Tools such as Spot IM, Buffer and some browser extensions can help monitor and manage conversations on your social networks.

Giving back while giving a voice to your network members and advocates is crucial in winning them as well as winning with them. Create avenues for them to express their concerns and give back to them as a way of encouraging loyalty, support and partnership.

As with offline network creation and building, online networks require originality, conscious effort and creativity to win the time and treasure of potential members and advocates towards developing an empire of valuable individuals and brands for mutual excellence.

Networks are the most powerful characteristics of social media branding and profiling; therefore, build your networks deliberately.

In marketing campaign, clout could be deceptive

The Internet and social media provide the most impressive statistics about users. It is easy to get carried away by the figures and to dream of likes, follows and clicks when you are a regular user. Every brand visionary or social strategist thinks of opportunity the minute large numbers are mentioned.

The first thing to note is that the social media space – across all platforms – is a large interconnected network of individuals. Hence, the ‘social’ in the phenomenon called social media.

Just as observed in real life, people congregate in places that reflect common interests, associate with those who have similar values and bond with those they like.

It may, therefore, be a no-brainer not to notice that on every social media platform there are clouts. A clout refers to a circle of influence wielded by a personality or, in the case of virtual life, a profile or account. Clichés abound on the relevance and importance of clout and following in life. Every adult is sufficiently schooled on the importance of network in relation to friendships and character.

Many brands have followed this dogma hook, line and sinker; forgetting that business strategy should also consider reversing those thoughts.

A critical look at this implies that the peripheral overview of the strategy is to align brands with influencers – mostly celebrities – and trust their clout or influence to deliver attention, engagement and awareness for specific campaigns. This is where clout deception is revealed.

The concept of clout deception refers to the façade created largely by social media influencers who only have relative clout influence over a closed circle of networks.

The concept of social networks (which will be treated in subsequent articles) demystifies the impression that an account’s following or influence rating is all that is required to deliver campaign success. Clout deception is seen with brands that have adopted social media influencers as PR consultants or campaign drivers in order to deliver campaigns that otherwise should be wider and more pervasive in reach.

Look at this: An influencer of 500,000 followers may belong to more than two or three networks, such as brands, news/media and sports. In each of the networks, the actual clout power may be just average or even below average. While the overall clout counts, which is a different assessment from engagement, may be impressive, the capacity of the influencer to deliver the campaign is hampered due to the relatively low influence in each network.

This relationship explains the reason why much-anticipated campaigns fall flat, despite efforts to promote them. Clout deception happens daily on social media, just as the brand ambassadors often fail to deliver the needed results.

It is advisable for brands to consider both offline and online ambassadors for campaigns, while including influencers – who often do not have commensurate ‘star power’ to match the required attention. A clear delineation between being an ambassador and an influencer who only promotes a campaign should be made.

Increasingly, brands engage influencers to promote but expect activities of an ambassador and vice-versa leading to results that are far below expectations.

Clout deception is most experienced when influencers and their close circles ‘close trend’ a campaign, thus making it a trending topic albeit within closed circles.

For instance, while #thedress, #askhermore and #JeSuisCharlie trended globally, there was a thousand and more campaigns that trended locally yet delivered great results, though they made rounds in very few circles.

Brands must attempt to follow through their strategies by pinpointing campaigns such that they permeate many circles such as students, sports and professionals, not just a few circles.

The question any professional would ask is that the campaign strategy should have clear targets. And if these targets have been reached, it is expected that it will achieve an ‘agenda-setting’ objective.

This is mostly not the case because many other factors influence the capacity of a campaign to go viral.

According to Tai Tran, Social Media Marketing Manager, UC Berkerly/Haas School of Business, “Nobody actually knows what issue or campaign will go viral”.

It is important for brands to seek out and permeate a sea of opportunities in first-timers or newcomers on social media. The longer people exist (and actively too) on social media, the better they prioritise their attention, sieve through interests and cultivate preferences. Hence, rather than going after influencers and clout deception, reaching for ‘laggards’ according to Malcom Gladwell’s hierarchy of social adoption, costs much less and delivers greater results.

Another case in point is Ndani TV. With the seeming success recorded online, one should interrogate the essence for making the show an offline on television about two seasons after it commenced. The sheer reason of relatively poor Internet quality and paradox of Internet penetration may be obvious reasons that informed the need to maximise the investments made in delivering unique audiovisual content.

Is this strategy sustainable? Would a brand constantly go after new comers on social media to influence brand awareness and deliver campaigns? What happens to word-of-mouth and the seemingly large influence of influencers and celebrities on social media?

Remember, influencers exist to swing popular opinion largely from new comers.

##
First published on iPunch