INSPIRE MANY LIGHTWEIGHT INTERACTIONS OVER TIME

Paul Adams, the Global Head of Brand Design for Facebook, has articulated his insights about his process into a phrase: “many lightweight interactions over time.” Witnessing the best (and worst) practices on Facebook, Adams has discovered that the companies who invest in deepening relationships with fans one interaction at a time are far more effective than overwhelming fans with overly-promotional asks that require deep commitment and investment from the outset.

Brands have 50 chances to make an impression with each fan each year.

A little math tells us why. On average, fans will see 50 posts and 50 tweets per year from a brand (based on 1-2 Facebook posts per day with a 8-10% attention rate on Facebook and 4-5 tweets per day with a 3% attention rate). In other words, brands have 50 chances to make an impression with each fan each year. 

If the first five times you talk to a fan, you ask them to BUY, BUY, BUY or DOWNLOAD, INSTALL, MARRY ME, fans will be turned off and turned away. You need to earn their trust over time, by mixing lightweight content about the issues they care about with brand and product-specific information. That way, when you go for the big ask, they are ready to say YES! 

As engagement with the brand increases over time and attention, the depth of the emotional engagement increases as well. As you take fans through the social sales funnel, from awareness through mass media to engagement in social media, through consideration and to purchase, this approach will help to ensure that more people stay engaged, becoming not just customers, but advocates for the brand.

FOSTER ONE-TO-ONE SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT

But the most important part of the Big Data story isn’t about data, it’s about people.
By combining databases and overlaying social profiles against such data, brands (and campaigns) are able to connect with people as people, not unique identifiers.
Knowing who they really are enables brands to turn the data into prescriptive actions, syncing online with people in the real world. Brands are moving beyond simple demographic and psychographic data to ever-more sophisticated ways to understand, target and engage customers.

 SOURCE: http://www.edelmandigital.com/