Social media key to reaching top of the brand bunch

Meltwater executive director for Asia-Pacific, John Box, says it’s easy to see why Samsung, Apple and Sony are leaders in their industry when you review their social media presence.

Hearts & minds

As more and more brands establish a presence on social media channels, competition for attention has increased exponentially. In addition, social media has truly established itself as an important channel for happy (and unhappy) audiences to share their thoughts and experiences about brands. The social media presence of Samsung, Apple and Sony all have elements of audience-centricity, which impacts the level of positive sentiment on social media. Developing good products, solutions, and services - as well as a content strategy that resonates with target audiences - is key to building trust and loyalty for a brand. The result is personable and almost natural interactions that connect with the hearts and minds of the target audience. They might even forget that it's a tech giant they’re talking to, not a friend.

Positivity

The proliferation of online media channels adds a whole new level of complexity to measuring reputation of organisations – while at the same time, increasing the risk of reputational damage. These days, tracking reputation goes well beyond counting volume of coverage and company mentions. Sentiment analysis is one key metric. At Meltwater, we refer to the ratio of positive and neutral sentiment versus negative sentiment as ‘net tonality’. According to our analysis, the majority of coverage sentiment for Apple, Samsung and Sony is neutral to positive. That is influenced by many factors, such as quality products leading to customers expressing positive thoughts and experiences on social media. Another form of measurement is ‘conversation clouds’. This is a visual representation of keywords associated with a company or brand and it’s great for an at-a-glance view. The more keywords with negative connotations, the more the brand’s reputation is at risk.

Engagement

You’re likely familiar with the phrase ‘two-way conversation’ in social media land but you’d be surprised at the impact of focusing on creating dialogue with social media audiences has versus ‘one-way’ communication. Top brands like Sony, Samsung and Apple engage their audiences in ways that foster a connection and earn their attention (‘two-way’), rather trying like hell to sell you products or ideas (‘one-way’). They then interact with and learn about them and tailor the online experience. Instead of broadcasting and paying to interrupt your audience, top brands earn attention by engaging people through common interests and personalisation. Inspire followers to take action and spark the creativity that will ultimately drive them to become brand advocates.

The wrap

There is still huge opportunity for all brands, including Samsung, Apple and Sony to delve further into social media intelligence and extract insights that can help them strengthen and nurture influencers, encourage brand advocates, create cut-through messages that resonate with their audiences, be more responsive, and analyse their business, marketing and customer strategies to further engage audiences on social media.