Company Profile:

Introduction to Unilever
Bangladesh
Unilever Bangladesh (UBL) is the leading Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company in
Bangladesh with a heritage of 50 years and products that are present in 98% of
Bangladeshi household.
UBL started its journey in Bangladesh with the production of soaps in its factory in Kalurghat, Chittagong. Over the
years the company introduced many affordable brands which won the hearts of Bangladeshis all across the country.
Today we are present with our brands in almost every household of the country.
UBL is the market leader in 7 of the 8 categories it operates in, with 20 brands spanning across Home and Personal
Care and Foods.
Its operations provide employment to over 10,000 people directly and indirectly through its dedicated suppliers,
distributors and service providers. 99.8% of UBL employees are locals with a large number of local UBL employees now
working abroad in other Unilever companies as expatriates.

Doing Well by Doing Good

Unilever believes in ambitious growth of the business while at the same time fostering a sustainable environment. We
believe the two must be related and hence sustainability is placed at the heart of everything we do. Our philosophy of
Doing Well by Doing Good is captured in the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP).
Some of the initiatives under USLP in Bangladesh are:

Lifebuoy Lifesaver Program a Lifebuoy initiative to reduce child mortality through Handwashing.
Oral Heath & Hygiene Awareness Programme led by Pepsodent, this school-based activation program aims
to reach 4,00,000 children with its dental checkups and awareness.

Lifebuoy Friendship Hospital - Launched in March 2002 in association with the humanitarian organization
"Friendship, the hospital is situated on a boat with a dedicated medical team and reaches out to people who do not
have access to proper medical facilities.

PureIt: Launched in 2010, PureIt is a water purifier which aims to provide safe drinking water to 2 million
people by 2015. It has already reached a million people by 2013.

Pollydut: these are young, unemployed youth of the villages of Bangladesh whom UBL has incorporated into
their distribution network to provide them with a livelihood.

Aporajita In association with CARE Bangladesh, UBL has created a sustainable business opportunity for rural
women in the form of Aporajita. Aporajitas are recruited to sell UBL and other company products, door-to-door. Over
2,500 Aparajitas earn their living by selling UBL products.

Project Laser Beam (PLB) PLB started in 2010 a pilot project between (Global) Unilever Foundation and WFP,
targeted towards eradicating child hunger and malnutrition. Today the project includes multiple partners such as
WaterAid, Friendship, Care and Brac and works across four pillars Nutrition, Water, Health and Hygiene and
Livelihood.

UBL is a Joint Venture of the Government of Bangladesh and Unilever, one of the worlds leading suppliers of fast
moving consumer goods with strong local roots in more than 100 countries across the globe. Unilever holds 60.4%
share in UBL.

Unilever Bangladesh at a
glance
We aim to give everybody a little something to celebrate about themselves everyday.

Unilever Bangladesh
Over the the last four decades, Unilever Bangladesh has been constantly bringing new and world-class products for the
Bangladeshi people to remove the daily drudgery of life. Over 90% of the countrys households use one or more of our
products.

Type of business
Fast Moving Consumer Goods company with local manufacturing facilities, reporting to regional business groups for innovation
and business results.

Operations
Home and Personal Care, Foods

Constitution
Unilever - 60.75% shares, Government of Bangladesh - 39.25%

Product categories
Household Care, Fabric Cleaning, Skin Cleansing, Skin Care, Oral Care, Hair Care, Personal Grooming, Tea based Beverages.

Our brands
Wheel, Lux, Lifebuoy, Fair & Lovely, Pond's, Close Up, Sunsilk, Taaza, Pepsodent, Clear, Vim, Surf Excel, Rexona, Axe, Dove, &
Vaseline.

Manufacturing facilities
The company has a Soap Manufacturing factory and a Personal Products Factory located in Chittagong. Besides these, there is a
tea packaging operation in Chittagong and three manufacturing units in Dhaka, which are owned and run by third parties
exclusively dedicated to Unilever Bangladesh.

Employees
Unilever Operations in Bangladesh provide employment to over 10,000 people directly and through its dedicated suppliers,
distributors and service providers. 99.5% of UBL employees are locals and we have equal number of Bangladeshis working
abroad in other Unilever companies as expatriates.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is a participatory online media where news, photos, videos and podcasts are
made available via social media web sites via submission and are normally accompanied by
a voting process to make via media items become more popular. Social media are thus
characterized by the content trail they leave on social media sites and also by the voting
process that represents the perceptions of the users of particular content.
Social media are unique in that they are media rich and empower users to share their
opinions,

insights, experiences, content and contacts with their friends and family through multiple
content forms. Similar to multimedia, social media allow for multiple content forms such as
text, audio, still images, animation, video and other interactivity content forms (see Table 1).
At the same time, users are able to learn more about favourite products and brands. Social
media further focus on messaging while having huge potential to distribute content to a large
number of people.
Social media are not a new phenomenon, but popular social network sites such as
Facebook,
MySpace and Twitter have made social networking more accessible to the masses.
Currently,
Thousands of sites are related to social media. According to the social comparison theory
developed by Festinger (1954), human beings compare their opinions and abilities with
others because of a drive to evaluate themselves. This theory reinforces the perception that
people in general enjoy social networking because of a need to look externally to assess and
judge their own opinions and to see how they compare to the online group. Later work on the
social comparison theory includes the suggestion that people search for other people with
whom to compare themselves in order to validate themselves. In the absence of real
comparison, for instance, in a virtual reality context, people are tempted to construct a social
reality in which they are the star players (Suls & Wheeler, 2000:34).
Thousands of social media sites are available online. The following grouping of types of
social
media sites has been suggested by a well-known social-media strategist (Cosme, 2008):
Social networking sites
Social bookmarking sites
Social news sites
Video-sharing communities
Photo-sharing sites
Professional networking
Web-based encyclopaedia
Community answer sites
Blog-networking communities
Social media aggregators
Microblogging
Blog publishing
Social web-content discovery
Social media search
Social event calendar

 Mobile-phone platforms
THE NATURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Traditional marketing messages alone are no longer enough to build an organizations brand
and Organizations therefore now also consider using social media. There are numerous
definitions of social marketing. According to Evans (2008:13), social media marketing is an
application of social media in that it uses natural conversation strategically to benefit the
Organization. Cosme (2008) explains social media marketing as establishing relationships
between companies and current and/or potential customers, and tapping into the power of
peer-to-peer influence. The nature of social media provides a unique opportunity to
complement an Organizations traditional marketing activities along with other new media
opportunities. It is therefore an extension of online marketing but focuses more on social
media content and communities (Cosme, 2008).
Social media marketing provides new ways for Organizations to interact with their target
audience and to encourage customers to spread the message for the brand (Charton, 2007).
It furthermore creates a richer understanding of customers needs by tapping into
customers intelligence through having access to their conversations (Mullins, 2008).
According to Suliman (2008), social media have an important place in the Organizations
marketing communication mix, but consumers play an important role because of their
nature. Social media marketing does not entail targeted advertising but rather the
recognising of opportunities that will lead to meaningful engagement and sustained
relationships between the brands and communities (Universal Mcann, 2008).
However, social media marketing communication also poses a risk in that it can tarnish an
organizations online reputation by means of negative viral marketing over which it has little
or no control. Another risk is that no one might participate in its social network sites because
of a lack of appropriate encouragement (Evans, 2008:158).
Social media marketing communication uses social media to reach the target audience by
means of numerous tools. Some of these tools engage consumers with an Organizations
brand as indicated in Table 1 below:
Table 1: Examples of social media marketing communication tools and their uses
Tool
Blog
Product blog

Explanation

Use by Organizations

Theoretical Foundations
This section reviews major theoretical frameworks and understanding of social media. These
theories can be separated into three schools: micro-theories dealing with studying the

dynamics of the contribution of information online and communication of individual social

actors; macro-theories looking at the structure and dynamics of social actors and social
media content through global or abstract views and pseudo-theories which include the
recent conceptual frameworks in marketing and social media proposed mostly by nonacademics. Pseudo-theories may make sense intuitively, but have yet to be tested
empirically. All these schools of thought and frameworks might contribute to our
understanding of the nature of social media, why people contribute, how they form
relationships, and how one can find opinion leaders and valuable social media content.
Micro-theories
Word of Mouth/Psychological Ownership Theory and Perceived Control
Historically, tourism researchers have found that advice from friends and relatives is the
most frequently obtained and influential source of information used by consumers in their
travel decision making (Crotts 1999; Perdue 1993). The information communicated by
friends and relatives is construed as more credible, honest, and trustworthy than that
generated by marketers, since the communicators are not compensated for the referral.
Advances in the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies now allow consumers to access
personally meaningful critiques not only from friends and relatives but also from strangers
(e.g. travel blogs, which continue to grow in popularity). As an illustration, TripAdvisor
currently purports to have over 40 million reviews attracting over 50 million unique users
each month (Dpches 2010).
Asatryan and Oh (2008) applied Psychological Ownership Theory to explain why
former guests are motivated to offer Word-of-mouth feedback. On one level, some
customers develop feelings of connections with firms they are loyal to that manifest into a
sense of ownership, as evidenced by the mine, my, our language they use in their
reviews. In such circumstances, one would assume that a loyal guest would provide positive
feedback to others, directing their negative feedback to management (Mattila 2001).
However, where no such loyalty exists, the motive to write either a negative or positive
review may be a desire to control or influence the business indirectly by communicating with
its future potential customers. Loyal consumers motives in posting positive reviews on travel
blogs are attempts to reward firms; the motives of non-loyal customers are purportedly
based on the satisfaction of being helpful to other consumers. According to Pierce, Kostova,
and Dirks (2003), the desire by the consumer to control through such communications may
result in feelings of efficacy, intrinsic pleasure, and extrinsic satisfaction in providing such
advice to others.
These propositions point to strategies in which a firm can leverage customer
feedback and social media for its own strategic benefit. On one hand, firms should enhance
the perception of psychological ownership and control among their customer base through

loyalty and guest feedback and service recovery programs; they should keep more negative
evaluations internal and positive feedback external. On the other hand, firms that do not
emphasize customer loyalty or guest feedback should expect customers to both reward and
punish their performance through social media.
Social exchange theory
Given that all social media are dependent on users providing content, an understanding of
their motives appears to be fundamental. Social exchange theory originated from sociology
studies exploring exchange between individuals or small groups (Emerson 1976). The theory
mainly uses a cost-benefit framework and comparison of alternatives to explain how human
beings communicate with each other, how they form relationships and bonds, and how
communities are formed through communication exchanges (Homans 1958). The theory
states that individuals engage in behaviors they find rewarding and avoid behaviors that
have too high a cost. In other words, all social behavior is based on each actors subjective
assessment of the cost-benefit of contributing to a social exchange. They communicate or
exchange with each other contingent on reciprocal actions from the other communicating
party (Emerson 1976). The mutual reinforcement could be analyzed through a
microeconomic framework, though the rewards are often not monetary but social, such as
opportunity, prestige, conformity, or acceptance (Emerson 1976). The theory was arguably
best summarized by Homans (1958, p. 606) when he wrote:
Social behavior is an exchange of goods, material goods but also non-material ones,
such as the symbols of approval or prestige. Persons that give much to others try to
get much from them, and persons that get much from others are under pressure to
give much to them. This process of influence tends to work out at equilibrium to a
balance in the exchanges. For a person in an exchange, what he gives may be a
cost to him, just as what he gets may be a reward, and his behavior changes less as
the difference of the two, profit, tends to a maximum.
Hence, the reasons why people engage in a social exchange have been posited as a) an
expected gain in reputation and influence on others; b) an anticipated reciprocity on the part
of others; c) altruism; and d) direct reward. Given that participation in the social media is not
compensated, the first three reasons appear to have particular relevance to why people
participate in social media.
Travel blogs and social media sites have long recognized that there are far more
people consuming information than generating it. On YouTube, for example, though
subscribers have uploaded over 2 billion videos and audio tracks to the site since its
founding in 2005, it is accessed by more than 10 million unique visitors daily, indicating that
there are far more viewers than contributors. The Global Web Index (2009) (Li 2010;
TrendsStream Limited 2010), which tracks this phenomenon, suggests that users of social

media can be segmented into four main groups. These are: (1) watchers (79.8% of US
social media users), who consume content only to help with their decision making; (2)
sharers (61.2%), who upload and forward information to others in order to help others and
demonstrate knowledge; (3) commenters (36.2%), who both review and rate products and
comment on those who do in an effort to participate and contribute; and (4) producers
(24.2%), who create their own content in an effort to express their identity and garner
recognition. Framed in social exchange theory, watchers take but do not reciprocate from the
exchange suggesting that they consider the cost of posting or commenting too high, or fear
offering their opinion or raising their profile.
Though far more research is needed to test the validity of such groupings,
segmenting users as to their exchange behaviors has a certain level of face-value validity.
Given such a hierarchy of users based on their active exchanges, firms attempting to
leverage social media to their advantage should attempt to engage consumers of all four
segments. For watchers, the task is to first identify the specific social media they use, what
information they seek, and what makes it engaging, in an effort to develop and position
content that is relevant. The same strategy and content should be useful for sharers as well.
However, the tendencies of sharers should be facilitated by marketers by simplifying the
process of forwarding content (e.g., Retweet and Facebook forward links) as well as
recognizing and rewarding the desired behavior. Facebooks OpenGraph has allowed a user
to like or comment on any content on the web (Zukerberg 2010). Firms may find
advantages in getting ahead of this trend by proactively adding a commenting feature to
each of their webpages. By doing so, they can directly manage the content of such
comments which in effect will discourage spammers and trolls. Lastly, with regard to
producers, attempts by firms to engage with their customers or to create unique platforms for
their customers may produce dividends at the brand or chain level. Publicly recognizing sites
that are helpful to the firm and increasing their visibility through search engine marketing are
options.
Social penetration theory
Similar to social exchange theory, social penetration theory explains how human exchange
forms relationships (Altman and Taylor 1973). However, social penetration theory focuses
more on the individual and dyadic levels while social exchange theory could explain behavior
at aggregated and organizational levels. Social exchange theory states that human beings
form close relationships through self-disclosure. Using an analogy of peeling off the layers in
an onion, one must disclose him or herself through the continuing process of exposing ones
inner self and identity. It starts with public, visible, and superficial information, such as
gender, clothing preferences, and ethnicity; slowly, as the relationship progresses, one starts

to share feelings; at the deepest level, one will expose his or her goals, ambitions, and
beliefs (Altman, Vinsel and Brown 1981).
In the online social world, we may be able to design social networks in a way which
separates these different layers of information. By default, certain information will be
disclosed to the public, while private and semi-private information could be confidential.
There might be ways to determine the levels of relationships from the mode and frequency
of communications, which could easily be tracked online through social media sites. A recent
privacy lawsuit against Facebook highlighted the importance of following the layered
intimacy levels of social penetration when disclosing one's information (Gaudin 2010).
Macro-theories
Social network analysis
Social network theory views the community of individuals as connected actors, and uses
mathematical models to study its structure, development, and evolution (Wasserman and
Faust 1994). Social network analysis treats individual actors in a community as nodes; the
communications between those actors are deemed to be ties, edges, links, or connections.
Social networks can form at many levels, from individual people, to families, communities,
and nations. Those ties could be communication frequency, friendship, kinship, financial
exchange, sexual relationships, or common interests or beliefs. Together they form a
complex graph structure.
Mathematical calculation on many indices could be performed on this complex graph,
including the following:
Betweenness: the extent of a node lying between other nodes;
Centrality: how connected is a node to the network;
Closeness: how one node is near all other nodes in the network;
Density: all the ties in a network in proportion to all the possible ties;
Structural hole: the node which connects other nodes. Those nodes are
disconnected without the first node.
These measurements determine the importance and structural positions of individual actors,
and the characteristics of the partial or whole networks. The measurements could be used to
study the social network, improve the network structure, and help increase the efficiency of
information flows within the network. Network analysis software such as UCINET could be
used to measure those indices (Borgatti, Everett & Freeman 1992).
Traditional social network analysis views individuals or organizations as nodes in the
network, and the communication between them as edges. However, social media content is
exactly the materialization and solidification of the chatter, comments, or reviews. The recent
emergence of a multi-dimensional social network framework is crucial when studying the
interaction between social actors and information artifacts (Contractor 2009). By treating

social media content as nodes one can perform mathematical calculations on those
information artifacts, such as what are the important pieces shared by many people, how
one can connect users through artifacts, where are the structure holes of social media by
connecting which the network could be more tightly integrated?
Buckners (1965) theory on rumor transmission indicates that the accuracy and
speed of rumor passing were affected by the structure of the network and the mental sets of
individual actors in the network. Connecting this line of research with social network analysis
of online social network sites could inform businesses of the best methods for promoting
themselves through organic word-of-mouth. Recent applications of multidimensional social
network analysis to web 2.0 has generated some fruitful results (Kajdanowicz et al. In Press;
Kazienko, Musial & Kajdanowicz 2010).
McLuhans Media Theory
McLuhan is a Canadian philosopher and educator, the author of the famous quote the
media is the message(McLuhan 1995). He argued that the media itself, rather than its
actual content, will transform people and society. The actual messages people are
communicating wont be any different on the new media; the interactivity and frequency of
new communication patterns will change our behavior forever. Thus, the medias effects on
society are much greater than their content. He separates media into cool and hot media.
The former requires a viewer to exert effort and participation in understanding the content,
e.g. television, seminars, or cartoons; the latter enhance one sense, so the viewers do not
need to exert much effort, e.g. films, radio, and photography (McLuhan 1995).
If we use McLuhans arguments, social media will transform the users not as a result
of it content but because of the mode of communication it entails. For example, Twitter is just
a micro-blogging service with a limit of 140 characters. Theoretically one can perform all the
Twitter functions through a blog service. However, it is precisely this limiting factor that made
Twitter more nimble and real-time. Many breaking news stories have been spread via
Twitter, such as Chinas Sichuan earthquake and the terrorist attack in Mumbai in 2008 (Parr
2009). As business managers and consumers, we need to realize the changes in behavior
caused by the usage of new social media services and adopt an attitude of acceptance
toward those technologies and behavior.
Pseudo-theories
The social media landscape is fast changing due to the low cost of innovation in an era of
open-source movement. The long distance between academia and the industry and the slow
process of the formal publishing cycle pose a challenge to researchers in academic
institutions. Many social media and online marketing agencies are actually more innovative
and ahead of the curve regarding social media for marketing purposes. This section views
two frameworks trying to make sense of the social media landscape.

Carlene Li and Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter Group are the major contributors to
the socialgraphics framework (Jowyang 2010). They argued that instead of studying the
demographic, geographic, or psychographic profiles of your customers, businesses also
need to develop a social strategy termed socialgraphics. Marketers and managers need to
ask the following questions: which websites are my customers on? What are my customers
social behaviors online? What social information or people do my customers rely on? What
is my customers social influence? The answers to these questions could separate your
customers into layers of engagement: from curating, producing, commenting, sharing, to
watching. Businesses need to separate their customers into these layers and provide tools
and platforms to facilitate their particular social interactions.
Another line of framework, Social Feedback Loop, links consumer purchase funnel
with social media. Dave Evans (2008) has argued that traditional purchase funnel has three
stages (awareness, consideration, and purchases) during which a marketer could influence
a consumers decision-making. However, the purchase funnel concept treats customers as
though they are living in a vacuum. A customer, after purchase, will use the product, form
opinions, and talk about it at a later stage. Some of the experience after purchase will be
materialized and posted online, this will loop back to other customers purchase decisionmaking processes. This social feedback cycle is driven mostly by word-of-mouth which is
further driven by actual use, trial, or sampling experience. Harnessing this feedback loop
might be even more important than marketing on the mass media through the first three
stages of consumer decision-making. `
These two frameworks make intuitive sense: marketers should switch focus from
effects of mass media on pre-purchase decision-making to post-purchase word-of-mouth;
one needs to study the different levels of engagement by customers in order to adopt
different strategies for encouraging the spread of social media and influence the direction of
consumer conversation. However, the frameworks dont specify the exact methods for
segmenting engagement groups and the behaviours to adopt in order to differentiate stages
of pre-purchase decision-making and post-consumption and the ways to influence them.
could be the general framework for investigating social networks, information artifact
networks, and the dynamic evolution between the two. On one hand, the behavioral
frameworks could inform the development and directions of multidimensional networks; on
the other hand, the methodologies of multidimensional social network could be used to
inform and validate other general theories and frameworks; more importantly, the
quantifiable nature of the methodology and the ease of capturing behavioral data online
could finally validate the socialgraphic framework and quantify different stages of the
decision-making process and inform marketers of ways to influence their customers through
social feedback loop.

For future research efforts, more specifically, we need more studies combining data
mining and data modeling on the web with behavioral frameworks. For example, we need to
capture the social generated media and metadata existing on current social media websites,
such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Adopting multidimensional social network analysis
in studying online social networks and knowledge networks could result in more in-depth
understanding of the phenomenon and inform social media marketing practices for
hospitality and tourism businesses (Contractor 2009).
Define the Social Media Strategy
1.Outline Your Objectives
- 100% sales growth
2.Product Profile:
Close Up:
Closeup is the number 1 toothpaste of Bangladesh and the first gel toothpaste of the world. It gives you the
freshest breath and dazzling smile which ignites a mouth to mind confidence. Closeup has been serving the oral
care needs of this country since 1984. The brand with its exciting product line and advertising quickly became the
number 1 choice of Bangladeshi consumers.
Closeup has a range of highly awesome toothpastes that offer all manner of results for stronger, whiter, healthier
teeth and extra fresh breath. It is currently available in 3 flavors in Bangladesh: Menthol Fresh, Red Hot &
Peppermint Splash.
In 2012, Closeup introduced the first locally made bi-colored toothpaste in Bangladesh: Closeup Fire Freeze. It is
a combination of a warm red gel and a cool blue gel that gives you a dual sensation so that you can really feel
the long lasting freshness.
Confidence counts for a lot. Its crucial when youre out to get what you want. Whether that be landing your
dream job, being popular in class, or even becoming a crime fighting super hero who saves the city. So go ahead
and use your smile as a weapon.

Pepsodent:

Pepsodent is developed by Unilever's oral care experts, bringing families around the world a range of
scientifically advanced toothpastes to keep tooth decay at bay. If your smile is not healthy, you are not healthy.
Pepsodent is committed to bringing the best oral care to families.
Pepsodent is the only toothpaste to be endorsed by FDI World Dental Federation and recommended by
Bangladesh Dental Society. The brand has always partnered with dentists to bring the best oral care solutions for
the country.
Currently, Pepsodent has 5 variants in the Bangladesh market, addressing the specific need of all the members
of a family:
Pepsodent Germicheck: The unique combination of Germicheck and Fluoride to keep germs at bay. The
ideal toothpaste for the little ones in the family so that they can avoid cavities from an early age.
Pepsodent Herbal: Combines 5 natural ingredients in your toothpaste - Basil Leaf, Mint Leaf,
Cardamom, Natural Calcium and Salt to cater for your oral care needs using natural ingredients.
Pepsodent Whitening: The toothpaste contains the whitening agent Perlite, to give you whiter teeth in
just 2 weeks.
Pepsodent GumCare: The only toothpaste available in Bangladesh to cater for gum related problems
such as gum bleeding and gum swelling. The unique combination of Zinc and Triclosan prevent bacterial growth
in the mouth, ensuring you dont have to worry when you brush.
Pepsodent Sensitive Expert: The toothpaste that delivers relief from tooth sensitivity in just 30 seconds!
The advanced formulation contains the revolutionary HAP mineral that protects your dentin to give you instant
relief from sensitive teeth.

Social Media Plans:

This plan includes the tactical objectives to be used to accomplish the following
social media goals:
1. Increase inbound leads at a low cost
2. Expand reach of thought leadership content
3. Engage and excite influencers
4. Better understand, identify, and engage potential buyers
5. Improve customer service and satisfaction
6. Enhance outbound campaign program effectiveness

Blog -

X hours daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:

Increase recognition

Insert actions to be taken here

Example: X number of posts
Blog publication schedule
Add RSS button
Include social share buttons

Increase engagement
Insert actions to be taken here
Encourage comments, forum pages,
etc.
Add social share buttons

Key Metrics:

Number of posts
Number of social shares
Audience growth- unique and
returns
Conversation rate
Conversions
Subscribers
Inbound links
SEO Improvements
Technorati, Alltop, and other
directory listings

Social Networks -

X hours daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:

Facebook Fan Page
Insert strategic objective
Share a mix of relevant links, engaging content,
videos, and polls
Make sure you promote upcoming events and
create them in the events tab
X posts per day
Engage with influencers

LinkedIn

Insert strategic objective

Create a group
Add something about posting content to the
LinkedIn company page
Identify other groups to follow and participate
Encourage employee participation
Monitor and participate in Q&A
X posts daily

Google+

Optimize for SEO

X posts per day
Share engaging content, videos, images, and
relevant links
Comment on posts
Utilize Google Hangouts
Create and promote upcoming events

Pinterest
Create boards leveraging both content and
company culture
Follow other businesses, thought leaders,
customers, and partners

Key Metrics:

Facebook Likes and posts

Linkedin Followers
Referring traffic
Linkedin Group members
Linkedin Discussions
Google+ Circle adds/followers
Google+ mentions
Pinterest pins and follows
Kred and Klout scores

Microblogging (Twitter) daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:

Promote content through Twitter

X hours

 Segment influencers and create lists

Utilize promoted Tweets
Communicate support issues from Social
Media to support team, ensure follow-up
Listen to relevant conversations
Build reputation

Short term objectives:

Update bloggers on a regular basis about all
new thought leadership and new products
Interact with (plus interview, video, etc) at
all relevant marketing conferences and local
events

Key Metrics:

Followers
Mentions
Retweets
Retweet Reach
Replies Reach
Number of lists
Social Capital--influence of Twitter followers
Number of potential prospects sent to sales
Posts

Social pr (bloggers) daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:
Update bloggers on a regular basis about all
new thought leadership and new products
Interact with (plus interview, video, etc) at
all relevant marketing conferences and local
events

Key Metrics:

Followers
Mentions
Retweets
Retweet Reach
Replies Reach
Number of lists
Social Capital--influence of Twitter followers
Number of potential prospects sent to sales
Posts

Key Metrics:
Posts by social press
Referrals from social press

X hours

widgets -

X hours daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:

Update bloggers on a regular basis about all
new thought leadership and new products
Interact with (plus interview, video, etc) at
all relevant marketing conferences and local
events

Key Metrics:

usage of widgets (by count)

Posts/mentions about social widgets offsite
Referrals from offsite widgets (if any)

peer to Peer Social sharing apps -

X hours

daily/weekly/monthly
Short term objectives:
Add a social element to every campaign to
expand reach and increase engagement
Share videos, reviews, ratings, and polls
Use promotions and contests to spread your
message like refer-a-friend and flash deals.

Key Metrics:

Referrals from bookmarking/tagging sites

Pages ranking on key terms from
bookmarking/tagging sites
Views and submissions

Key Metrics:

Social profile data capture

Social reach
Impressions
Social activity and conversions
Influencers and fans
Campaign performance and ROI
Trends over time

Blog commenting/Q&A Sites daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:

Participate on relevant message boards,

blogs, and Q&A platforms
Provide insight and thought leadership within
your comments
Only include a link-back when relevant

X hours

 Work positive comments into your posts and

then follow-up with a more detailed planation
Focus on building relationships

Key Metrics:
Increased brand awareness on influential
blogs
Link-backs and referring traffic
Influencer mentions

online video -

X hours daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:

Update videos on social video sites and link to

core site
YouTube
Facebook

Create video series for YouTube

Key Metrics:
Referrals from social video sites
Views of videos on social sites
Pages ranking on key terms from YouTube

Photo sharing -

X hours daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:

Encourage employees to share any interesting

and marketing relevant photos from social
marketing or sales events
Take pictures of any relevant marketing events
Utilize photo sharing sites to share images
with links back to blog and core site
Flickr
Facebook Photo Gallery
Our Blog
Google Plus Photo Albums

Key Metrics:

Referrals from social video sites

Views of videos on social sites
Pages ranking on key terms from YouTube

Key Metrics:

Referrals from photo sharing sites

Views of photos on social sites
Pages ranking on key terms from photo sharing sites

Podcasting -

X hours daily/weekly/monthly

Short term objectives:

Create list of podcast directories
Repurpose webinar content when applicable

for resource section, promote through podcast

directories and iTunes
Record relevant phone conferences for use
as podcasts, promote through podcast
directories

Key Metrics:
Referrals from podcast directories
Views of podcasts if hosted on podcast sites

Presentation sharing -

X hours

daily/weekly/monthly
Short term objectives:

Create X Slideshare presentations per quarter

Post webinars, slide decks, infographics
Optimize for SEO
Generate views and leads
Match Buyer Personas to Social Media sites, adjust strategy above to better fit personas
Train sales about better use of social media
Create company social media policy
Discuss social media policy with SEO and SEM vendors
Encourage employees to be active participants in social media--dont be afraid to
incentivize!

Key Metrics:

Followers
Presentations
Presentation views
Number of leads generated
Total views
Downloads
Favorites
Tweets
Facebook likes

Additional notes & objectives

Match Buyer Personas to Social Media sites, adjust strategy above to better fit personas
Train sales about better use of social media
Create company social media policy
Discuss social media policy with SEO and SEM vendors
Encourage employees to be active participants in social media--dont be afraid to

incentivize!

Forces That Drove Social Media Initiatives Before ROI

There are a number of forces that drive a brands involvement in social media. Some
brands had executives ask, So what are we doing about Facebook and Twitter? Often
times the leadership wasnt sure what they wanted, but they knew their competitors were
doing something, so they had to join the party. This meant that there wasnt any real
business analysis; it just happened because the boss said so.
Then there are the companies that had to react to unplanned social media PR disasters.
The immediate, negative public attention drove the decisionsso the need for a shortterm business case or to calculate the ROI was averted by knowing an untamed disaster
could cost much more. But once the disaster has been averted, these types of brands are
looking beyond crisis management to justify their expenditures in social media. Here are
some examples:
Dominos Pizza Employees Handling of Food
Dominos Pizza employees posted a video of poor food handling on YouTube (see Figure 6).
The video quickly went viral on social media channels and was seen by millions of people.
The story was picked up by major media outlets. This hurt Dominos reputation and sales
decreased significantly after the crisis.

The Gap Logo Change

The Gap launched a new logo. The social media response was negative, fast and furious.
After less than two weeks the Gap changes back to the old logo. The company is then
roundly criticized for being indecisive and out of touch.
United Airlines Breaks Guitars
Dave Carrolls guitar was damaged on a United Airlines flight. Dave posted a YouTube video
about his customer service
experience with United Airlines. That
resulted in the media, including CNN,
picking up the story.
Some brands are proactive and
coordinated about social media,
meaning they actively pursued social
as a part of their cultural DNA. Brands
Zappos, Intuit, iRobot and American

media
like

Express fall into the category of proactive types of early adopters and innovators. They
didnt have the business case, but forged new ground in social media regardless. When the
leaders of Zappos started the company, they didnt have money for marketing and sales.
They adopted social media proactively because the leadership based the growth of the
company on great Customer Service. The leadership intuitively knew that social media
could be used to gain customer and press advocacy. They used positive word of mouth to
go from a $0 to a $1 billion company in ten years. But this is not the norm.
Others had people who, without permission or budgets, lead the charge for social media as
individuals. In this case, most of the company had not bought into social media. Brands
like Comcast and JetBlue had individual employee innovators and early adopters, who took
it upon themselves to initiate social media programs. These types of people did so before
they got permission from upper management or a formal budget.

Consider if your brand is more on the proactive or reactive

side of social media. This will help you understand what the
driving forces are within your organization and within
individual functional departments. Realizing that some groups
are approaching social media without measurement and
others are dead set on it, can help you traverse the political
waters and lead your organization to better social media
outcomes.
Also note that there are interdepartmental struggles for who
should lead the social customer interactions. Each
department, whether its PR, Marketing or Customer Service
all have good reasons why they might feel they should lead an
organizations social media initiatives. The truth is that all
departments have key roles to play in this burgeoning field.
Try to foster a collaborative point of view on working with
other departments. It may not be easy at first, but it does
affect the customer experience. Heres a video on how social
media benefits the whole company, which could be the
beginning of a discussion around a collaborative approach. 11
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO CALCULATE THE ROI OF
SOCIAL MEDIA
Set Your Social Media Strategy, Business Goals and Objectives
In business you are responsible for some expected outcomes, as well as for determining
the strategy for driving those outcomes. This is also true for social media initiatives. Heres
a video on building a business case for social media.

The metrics you need to evaluate the success of social media are specific to your
organization. Thats part of the reason why there isnt just one answer for how and what to
measure in social media. Each organization has specific, measurable goals and objectives
they have to hit. Example business goals are typically:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Increase brand awareness

Drive leads in the pipeline
Drive traffic to website
Reduce customer service cost
Improve customer satisfaction
Improve customer retention and loyalty
Increase sales

You can apply the SMART Methodology (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and
Timed) to social media objectives. If your organization doesnt usually measure objectives,
then thats the place to start. Then you can develop a plan to measure social media
objectives. Solid measurement programs require testing and evaluating the same data
over time. Sharing those results with other departments is also helpful. Most companies
are just starting down this path.
Typical social media business goals:
1
Determine what customers and prospects are saying about your company via social
media monitoring
2
Gather competitive intelligence
3
Engage with customers and prospects online
4
Build thought leadership through sharing relevant content
5
Maximize reach of content and messaging in social channels
6
Support existing sales and marketing campaigns
7
Support recruiting and retention efforts
8
Build a customer community to provide support and advocacy

To be successful at social media you have to determine why you are doing it.
What strategic goals and objectives are you trying to reach? Often people
are at a loss for what objectives social media can help with, so they are not
sure how to align their regular business goals with social media initiatives.
To begin thinking about how social media can help you reach your
objectives, consider:
1
2
3
4

What you could do with direct, continuous feedback from customers?

How could you use increased online advocacy, traffic, word-of-mouth?
How would customers helping other customers be advantageous?
If you could reach more of your targeted audiences, how would that be helpful?

Collect Social Media Data, Metrics and KPIs

Many people mistake social media data, metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for
ROI. Well go through ROI in the next section. Metrics and data are not ROI. Metrics are
how you show a positive or negative change in your business. Some things go up, some

things go down. Metrics are numbers that describe which business indicators go up or
down.
But metrics alone wont show your companys return on its investment. To get to ROI, you
have to take the metrics and turn them into business benefits. To see the type of metrics
we mean, see the Social Media Measurement ebook for more detailed information. Youll
need a combination of tracked data and outcome data that is not directly linked to your
social media program (such as total sales).
For Marketers
Lead and customer data is stored in a companys Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) System. To get at the data, its helpful to get the help of a business analyst and
maybe your friends in the IT department. They can help with the technology that allows
one software system to send data to another one. Youll also need website analytics data
and marketing automation data to get a complete picture of your marketing efforts.
Use tools that can help you:
1
Segment website traffic by referral source
2
Set cookies on a customers web browser
3
Store leads and customer data
For PR Professionals
Look at communications measures that describe the quantity, quality, impact, cost and
efficiency of communications programs. The impact of your PR program metrics are
comprised of the business results you achieved including increased awareness, reputation,
engagement, leads, sales, loyalty or advocacy. These metrics might be:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Online engagement
Website registrations/downloads
Average engagement time
Online sales/donation volume
Sales/revenue growth
Market share
Earned Media Value vs. PR Spend
Lead Value vs. PR Spend

For Customer Service Professionals

Customer Service Professionals might look at reducing call center costs. They would look
at the cost of an agent, the number of calls per hour and then how many calls can an
online community deflects.
Heres a video to take a deeper look at this calculation. Metrics youd need:
1
2
3
4
5

Average Handle Time

First Call Resolution Rate
Agent salary
Number of agents
Number of posts in your community

Collect data before and after the social media initiative. Many people conduct social
media programs not realizing that they need to have an idea of what the data looked

like before they implemented social media. Its sometimes possible to go backwards
and figure out the before metrics. It is preferable to start by benchmarking with the
business metrics and then measure the changes to the business based on adding
social media to the mix.
Also when you are reporting metrics or data, make sure you know your audience.
Executives at the CEO, CFO or C-level want to know strategic, bottom-line business
results, such as increased sales or decreased costs. People in positions like managers
or directors want to know more tactically driven metrics like the number of posts,
number of retweets, etc.14

Know What ROI Is and Isnt

ROI is not metrics, but you need metrics to measure business value of an initiative,
whether its driven by social media or not. The equation goes like this:
ROI = Benefits - Costs x 100 = Percentage Return on the Investment Costs
ROI calculations are based on coming up with numbers for the benefit that the social
media program brought to the company and the costs or investment associated with that
program.
In the example at the beginning of the ebook, people said things like, ROI for an online
community is that their customer service satisfaction scores went up 15 points. The
change in customer service satisfaction of 15 points is a metric.
ROI in this case would look at the benefits of the online community with a higher customer
satisfaction rating provided to the business. Those benefits could be a reduction in the
amount spent on customer service agents. That number can be calculated by looking at
the number of calls, the cost per call times, or the number of deflected calls. The costs
would be determined by calculating the cost of the social media program. This would
include the people involved, the money spent on processes like marketing and the cost of
the technology, meaning the software and implementation.

Know How to Calculate the ROI of Social Media

Heres an example of how social media ROI can be calculated. The Journey to Atlantis ride
at Sea World San Antonio developed a social media campaign that led to a large increase
in revenueevery marketers dream! Sea World wanted to launch its new Journey to
Atlantis roller coaster with the help of online buzz from influential people in the roller
coaster community. Did you even know there was a roller coaster community? The key to
making that happen was to identify the top roller coaster enthusiast bloggers and forum
participants. The strategy was to treat the roller coaster bloggers as VIPs.
With the audience firmly in mind, the team created content based on the social graph of
this groupmeaning their interests, attitudes, basis, motivations, etc. As the roller coaster
was being built, the team documented the construction from start to finish with 11 videos
and a 45-photo portfolio. These were posted on YouTube and Flickr. The bloggers could
easily view this content, and if so motivated, could use it in their own posts. They were
also used on Sea Worlds Coaster site, complete with multiple social media sharing
options.

The American Coaster Enthusiasts Group was invited to attend the media launch, and be
among the first to get to ride the new coaster (see Figure 8). The riders left positive
comments on the YouTube videos. The results? The campaign received 50 links from
unique websites, 30 of which were from roller coaster enthusiast sites.
The ROI? To calculate ROI we need two things: the benefit of the campaign and the costs of
the campaign:
ROI = Benefits - Costs x 100 = Percentage Return on the Investment Costs
Benefit
The Sea World team conducted a survey over two weekends to understand the effect of
the online content. They asked two questions:
1) Did you come today to ride the Journey to Atlantis? 2) Where did you hear about the
Journey to Atlantis?
Using a formula that applies a value to each visitor to the park (per person), they were
able to determine that the group that said they heard about the ride from the Internet
resulted in more than $2.6 million in revenue.
Costs
Now lets look at the costs. The estimate of the costs falls typically into three categories:
people, process and technology:
1
People: Number of people who worked on the campaign x amount of time they
spent x their hourly rate
2
Process: Costs for the creative, setting up the media day decorations, marketing
materials
3
Technology: Costs for the marketing system used for the campaign, costs for the
cameras
The total costs for the campaign, for people, process and technology was $44,000.
ROI = 2,600,00 44,000 x 100 = 5809% ROI 44,000
Which means that for each dollar spent, $58.09 if value was added to the bottom line. All
from encouraging the right people to ride a new roller coaster. 16

HOW DO I USE SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTIVELY?

Social Etiquette
Before you start to look at the social networks, think about online etiquette. It will help you
to make your experience even more successful. For starters, we probably all remember
that big poster board from elementary school listing the rules for proper etiquette in the
classroom:
We say please and thank you. We use our indoor voices. We treat others the way we
would like to be treated.

These were posted as reminders and were referenced whenever we fell off track. In terms
of etiquette, not much changes over the course of our lives. Being polite and respectful to
others is still Social Etiquette 101. Having proper etiquette on the social web means being
aware of your audience, understanding how they communicate, and being a valuable,
welcoming contributor to the community.
There are three main points to keep in mind to exhibit proper etiquette. They are:
1
Reciprocation - Go beyond give and take. A good rule of thumb is to promote
others more than you promote yourself, such as Chris Brogans 12:1 ratio.
2
Respect - Add value, be helpful, and show appreciation. People want to interact
with and buy from companies that treat them with respect.
3
Reliability - Since social networks, for the most part, are public, always put
reliability in the forefront, whether youre an individual or a business. Identify the people
behind the handle and/or include what days and times your account is active so your
customers know who theyre talking to and when they can expect a response.
Now that you have the three points, how do you execute them? Think back to those
elementary roots.
1
Join conversations because youre interested in the subject and have something
to add, not because you have an agenda to advertise your CPG brand.
2
Saying hello and goodbye when you jump online and off is a nice way to alert
your connections when youre available to chat. No one likes to be left hanging in the
middle of a conversation. If you do this consistently, your community will come to know
when they can expect you to be available.
3
Introduce yourself and others. Anytime you friend, follow or engage with people
who may not know you, it is always a good idea to introduce yourself and share basic
information about who you are and where you are from. You can also make introductions
between other members in your community.
4
Say please and thank you. If you want to share someones content, ask politely. If
someone has shared yours, thank them. Though you may not be able to respond to every
comment on your blog or Facebook page, you can take a moment to respond to a few and
perhaps make a general statement thanking everyone who shared your content.
5
If your social circle is large, there are probably people in it who you dont know as
well as others. Set some time aside each week to expand your connections and manage
your following/follower ratio. Its okay to step outside your comfort zone and expand your
horizons when it comes to connecting. Not everyone you connect with has to be likeminded. Diversity breeds inspiration.
The Three Ds
Whether you are using social media for personal or professional purposes, take some time
to familiarize yourself with The Three Ds. Remembering what they stand for should help
you steer clear of potentially disastrous situations.
1
Disclosure - Steer clear of disclosing trade secrets or intellectual property. This
could cost you your job and give your competitors an unfair advantage.
2
Defamation - Do not make false statements about someone that could potentially
cause economic consequences.
3
Discrimination - It should go without saying not to discriminate. Remember, the
social web is a public place so your voice is amplified.

HOW DO I START ENGAGING?

Engagement usually means talking directly with your target audience, but the method and
depth of engagement is individual for each company. If you get someone engaged with the
messages youre putting out there, theyll buy what youre selling, and, if youve done it
right, come back for more.
Engagement: The Ws
The social web has made it easy for people to share their opinions about everything to
everybody, making it harder for brands to break through those opinions. In the best cases
of online sharing, brands are being stewarded by their loyal fans and long-time customers;
in the worst cases, CPG brands are losing business because people are sharing negative
opinions that are deterring possible prospects from taking that next step to buy.
Most of those negative cases can be turned positive if the CPG brand takes steps to show
they care about their customers and prospects experiences with them. That can be done
through direct interaction, acting on customer feedback collected either passively or
actively, or making sure the purchasing cycle for people is as easy and positive as
possible.
What to Say:
What do we say? is often the hardest question to answer, largely due to the fear that
letting people speak on behalf of your brand could create problems like mixed messages,
the spreading of inaccurate information, or even legal issues.
There are basic comments you can make to reassure people youre listening to them
without causing problems for your brand, including:
1
2
3
4

Were sorry.
Thank you.
How can we help?
Were listening and we hear you.

20

Despite common fears about responding to negative comments, addressing those

mentions openly with an eye to calming the issue can turn a potentially sour situation into
an opportunity to create a loyal brand fan, much like what your support team members do
on a daily basis, but via social channels.
Where to Engage:
Figuring out where you should be engaging starts with looking at where your audience
currently exists. Whether your audience is active in only a few places or very social in
many, youll be able to identify exactly where that audience is through your listening
strategy.
Keep in mind that you shouldnt put effort or resources into interacting on big social
networks if thats not where your audience happens to be. Software companies, for
example, are often mentioned on support forums or communities, thus showing a much
larger portion of customer activity than, say, Facebook. Just because certain social
networks are more popular than others or even more popular than other types of media
doesnt mean your market is there. Do your research before you commit to engaging on a
particular network. The audience of one CPG brand may, in fact, not be frequenting all of
the same social networks as the fans from another CPG brand, for example.

Who (Internally) Should Engage and Who You Should Engage With:
Theres a good chance some of your workforce is already out there on the social web
talking with your customers. Identify these folks, not to make examples of their behavior,
but to bring them into the fold and gain an understanding of how and why they choose to
interact online. Embrace their passion, feedback, and buy-in, and work with them to create
a more structured and effective engagement strategy.
Depending on your goals for social media involvement, you might want to engage with a
few different types of people, including:
1
2
3
4

Customers with inquiries in need of support

Brand evangelists
Brand detractors
CPG industry veterans and influencers

Interact first with just one group to gauge what kind of time and resources your
engagement strategy will require to succeed. Add more groups when you feel youre ready
and able.
Engagement: The How
So, how do we build a solid engagement strategy? How do we start talking? 21
Brand:
When it comes to speaking on behalf of your brand, the possibilities for engagement are
seemingly endless. From saying thank you for a positive mention to calming down an
angry customer whos thinking of switching to your rival, the one thing to remember is
there is no right, industry-standard way to engage the right engagement for you is
defined by the goals you set for your social media program.
Dont leave your team hanging. Establish guidelines for engagement that give those
engaging on the frontlines the freedom to be themselves while still properly representing
your CPG brand.
Industry:
Getting involved in the conversation surrounding the CPG industry is essential for
establishing your brand as not only a thought leader but also as a helpful CPG brand that
truly cares about its community. At the end of the day, youre providing a service that
solves a deep human problem. Sharing your knowledge about how to solve that problem
without a focus on selling will engender trust among your customers.
Youll want to spend a certain amount of time being reactive to your community first,
catching up with their direct mentions of you before delving into industry discussions. But
when youre ready, creating and adding to conversation threads will provide a wealth of
perspective to both your CPG brand and community. Some conversations you might want
to get involved in include:
1
General questions about the services and special campaigns your CPG brand
offers.
2
Requests for opinions on a subject matter your CPG brand can share expertise in.
3
Detracting commentary about why a service you provide is not useful.

4
Conversations about specific professional roles, where team members can grow
their own educations.
Competitors:
Competitive engagement isnt about interjecting yourself into conversations about your
competitors carte blanche. However, it can be useful to help you highlight points of
differentiation and allows you to reach out to people interested in products when it
naturally makes sense.
Competitive engagement can also be used to stay on top of industry happenings like
mergers and acquisitions, as well as help protect and build your CPG brand through
ongoing interaction with people who mention you as well as your competitors.
Many would say that engagement is the most important aspect of a social media strategy
it gives you the chance to get involved with your customers, potential customers, 22
and greater industry community in ways that werent previously available via traditional
business communication channels. From market research to community assistance,
engagement gets you tuned into what your market really needs from a CPG brand like
yours and allows you to build relationships that carry into repeat business and referrals.
Those are the ultimate successes.
Now that youre listening and engaging in conversations on the social web, youre probably
becoming interested in really tracking whats being said. Maybe youre even ready to work
some of your results into your social media strategy. Although the idea of tracking millions
of conversations can be daunting, the next chapter is here to help.

HOW DO I START TO MEASURE, ANALYZE AND REPORT?

Measurement: The Ws
Measuring the progress of your social media program isnt an option its a business
necessity. Social media is a business channel, just like direct mail and other traditional
communication and marketing channels, but unlike many traditional methods, social
media unlocks the door to instantaneous, two-way dialog, creating a new level of
necessary measurement.
While traditional metrics still matter, its essential that you select highly relevant and
measurable objectives specific to your social media program to make sure your efforts are
indeed providing strategic and financial value.
What to Measure:
Are you familiar with the phrase, You are what you eat? This principle holds true with
social media. Define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) carefully, because you will
become what you measure. Understand what your brand wants to accomplish and what
market you want to target to determine the metrics that are relevant to your brand. Its
important you establish both qualitative and quantitative measurements for your goals
because both matter in providing a holistic view of the progress of your social media
program.

And while youre at it, dont settle for measuring only outputs and outtakes, either. Impact,
especially in terms of ROI, is determined by measuring outcomes (the quantifiable changes
in attitude, behavior and opinion). If you only measure superficial results such as number
of followers or fans, your social media and engagement strategy will also remain at that
level.24

February 2012 / Social Media Strategy for the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry
www.radian6.com / 1 888 6RADIAN 1 888 672-3426 / community@radian6.com / Copyright 2012 Radian6 Technologies

Here are some metrics to help you brainstorm what you might want to measure and why:
Revenue and Business Development
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

% Repeat Business
% Customer Retention
Transaction Value
Referrals
Net New Leads
Cost Per Lead
Conversions from Community

Activity and Engagement

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Members
Posts/Threads
Comments or Ideas
Inbound Links
Tags, Votes, Bookmarks
Active Profiles
Referrals
Post Frequency/Density

Cost Savings
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Issue Resolution Time

% of Issues Resolved Online
Account Turnover
Employee Turnover
Hiring/Recruiting
Training Costs
New Product Ideas
Development Cycle Time
Product/Service Adoption Rate

Value Awareness and Influence

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
25

Brand Loyalty/Affinity
Media Placements
Share of Conversation
Sentiment of Posts
Net Promoter Score
Interaction with Content
Employee Social Graphs

February 2012 / Social Media Strategy for the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry
www.radian6.com / 1 888 6RADIAN 1 888 672-3426 / community@radian6.com / Copyright 2012 Radian6 Technologies

How to Measure:
Go beyond measuring traditional web analytics that provide data about channel use and
begin layering on metrics that explore audience behavior and engagement found within
social media analytics. Having a hypothesis to start from will help you pinpoint which nontraditional metrics you should be tracking. For instance, We think that an increase in blog
subscribers over six months will correlate with an increase in online purchases, or, Post
activity on our help forum will decrease call center costs are strong hypotheses to get
started measuring and benchmarking.
Build your goals and objectives based on these hypotheses, and measure against them to
see if youre on the right track. The beauty about setting a baseline with your hypothesis is
that you have a roadmap to keep you on track; youll know exactly where you stand at all
times and course correct in real-time as you track changes in the level of content and
customer engagement.
Brand:
Measuring engagement around your brand can help you understand if your messages are
resonating with your intended community or whether theres a disconnect between how
your CPG brand is presenting itself and how your community perceives you.
To gain insight on just how well your brand is perceived on the social web, begin
measuring:
1
Reverberation: The total volume of inbound linking and generations of retweeting
of a post.
2
Repetition: The average times per month a source inbound links/retweets your
content.
3
Activation: The monthly total of new sources that have shared your positive
content.
4
Engagement: The amount of repeat commenting and length of those comments.
Industry:
Keep your finger on the pulse of your industry to spot emerging trends and topics of
interest that can help you drive content creation or product and service improvements and
ideas. By tracking the trends of your industry, youll also be able to find out who the key
players are and get early insights into the new voices in the industry, and you can apply all
these insights to help mold your outreach, engagement, and future business strategies.
To see which sorts of topics and issues are gaining traction in the CPG industry, begin
measuring:
1
Exuberance: The monthly count of testimonials and positive posts.
2
Attention Span: The average span of time a post is commented on and retweeted,
or shared on Twitter.
1
Resonance: The total volume of in sync conversation around an idea.
2
Potential: The monthly comparison of declared need and estimated revenue from
successful referrals.

Competitors:
Competitive intelligence can clue you into rumors and insights about your competitors
business moves, how their customers perceive them, and help you identify unmet needs of
the crowds. This information will also help you establish if youre ahead of the social media
game, behind the curve, or somewhere in the middle. Benchmarking your competition on
the social web can help you clarify how your social strategy should emerge and evolve,
too.
To get a handle on how youre comparing in the competitive landscape, begin measuring:
1
Conversation: The total monthly relative share of conversation versus
competitors.
2
Infatuation: The score of the relative direction of inbound and outbound
links/tweets between sources.
3
Bucket Volume: The monthly count comparison of post types (i.e., complaints,
referrals, etc.).
Measurement, as a practice, should already be wired into your organization if its not,
take the time to figure out why thats the case and how you can remedy that situation
before embarking on your journey into social media.
The most important truth to keep in mind about measuring any business initiative, be it
social media or a traditional marketing/customer service/sales program, is that the metrics
you select to track your progress must relate directly to your goals. There is no template or
best way to measure anything, but the information weve shared here should get you
started brainstorming which metrics make the most sense for tracking your social media
program.

Analysis
Defining the measurement that you are going to use for your social media program can be
different from the stage where you are analyzing those results against your business
objectives. The thing to keep in mind is that analysis takes time and youll need to benefit
from some others who are already doing great work in the space.
Share the Knowledge
Were not talking about exposing internally sensitive or trademarked information here, but
rather methods and metrics that have been found to work well in the social space. If we
are sharing this information, we can start to learn from each other in a collaborative

Social Sites
Once you feel comfortable with how you will be speaking on social sites, youll need to
know a little more about the sites themselves and how to use each one. Lets cover some
of the major sites youll encounter and how to use them.
Twitter

If youre already on Twitter, you know its more than just talking about what you had for
breakfast. It can be used as a form of conference call IM, facilitating the exchange of
news, ideas and information to supplement in-person, industry-related conversations. In
many ways, it has become the equivalent to having another phone on your desk.
If youre just getting started on Twitter, youre probably a bit overwhelmed. Here are a few
pointers to simplify your experience:
1
When setting up your profile, use your real name and a profile picture, or include
the real names of the people who are tweeting on behalf of your CPG brand. It lets your
followers know that theres a real person(s) behind the profile. Craft a bio as a way to
introduce yourself or your CPG brand the same way you would in person.
2
Search Twitter for people you know or topics that interest you to see what people
are saying. Follow accounts related to your industry. As you get more followers, check out
the people theyre following. Thats the most organic way to build your network.
3
Treat Twitter like a conversation. Start with 30 minutes, twice a day. The best way
to build relationships and a community on Twitter is to participate. Spend some time sitting
back and listening, then join the conversation.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the virtualized and interactive version of that pile of business cards on your
desk. True, its home to your online resume, but its also a mechanism to demonstrate
your expertise and share in the expertise of others, make business connections, and help
connect others in your network with each other. So heres our down-and-dirty guidebook
for LinkedIn:
1
Use a real photo. The real you.
2
Share your goals more than your daily tasks. Focus on what makes you and your
abilities different from the next person with the same title.
3
Are you a blogger by night? A passionate public speaker? Share that too!
4
Connect! Find connections, request them and watch your network grow.
5
Ask for recommendations from those who know your work and display them on
your profile. Offer to write recommendations for those whose work youre familiar with.
6
Join the conversation! Check the LinkedIn Answers section for opportunities to
lend your expertise. Join relevant groups and contribute content and questions.
Facebook
Often more of a personal social network than a business one, theres no denying
Facebooks reach and popularity, and it can be a comfortable way to get acquainted with
what it means to participate in social networks.
1
Remember: Social networks are searchable, and you never know who might come
knocking at your virtual door. Use a picture that youd be proud to show off in public. Set
privacy settings to ensure the public sees only what you want shared publicly.
2
You can choose who youd like to connect to. Some people prefer to keep their
connections to people they know personally. Check in once a day or so to catch up with
friend requests and peek at the people you may know sidebar, just to see who you could
say hello to.
3
Facebook has a lot of applications. Choose wisely as they are a reflection of you
and how you spend your time.
4
If youre thinking of starting a group, this is where a business can make good use
of Facebook. However, Facebook groups need to be nurtured and tended to by the people
who build them. Group members are looking for dialogue, interaction, and discussion. As a

CPG brand, consider taking your group discussion a level above your brand, and give your
fans, friends and loyal customers some meaty topics to digest and discuss.
Blogging

Blogging is such a ubiquitous form of media today, but people are still intimidated by
starting a blog. Do you have something to say? Do you want to share your thoughts,
interests, and ideas? Are you keen on others weighing in on what you have to say? If so,
starting a blog may be a great idea.
Our getting-started philosophy: learn on the job.
1
The very best way to learn about blogging is to read. Read lots of blogs, both
inside and outside your interest area. Pay special attention to things like tone, writing
style, and how writers organize information. Try Google Reader to aggregate your blogs
and make it easier to organize them.
2
Share your voice by commenting on blogs. The authors want to know that theyre
writing something of interest to their community.
Ready to start writing?
1
Set a goal, such as three posts a week. They dont have to be mammoth. Focus
on getting comfortable with the medium. Talk about what you know. Get feedback and
ideas from across your organization.
1
Scribble down post ideas when you have them. Start post drafts and save them
unfinished. You can always come back to them later when inspiration strikes. If you get a
burst of writing done, schedule your posts in advance.
2
Share. Ask questions. Get people talking. Youre a conversation catalyst.
3
Staying plugged into the comments on your blog is important. Commentors like to
know that youre listening and paying attention to their contributions. How often and how
deeply you respond is up to you, but its polite to respond when someone take the time to
provide feedback.
4
Link to the posts that have inspired your writing. Point your readers to more
resources relevant to your topic. Disclose relationships you have that may have bearing on
the opinions you write about (especially if youre being paid to do so; its the law now). If
youre including other peoples work, make sure to attribute it.
Once youve got a handle on the different sites, you may be wondering how you can start
training your staff to use social media both for personal use and for your CPG brand. Lets
dive into training!

Social Media + Path to Purchase

Social Media Tactics

Answer common customer questions
Share insight and opinion
Pass on interesting links/posts
Tweet links showing your company featured on other Web sites or mainstream
media
Tweet often to keep your brand in customers top of mind
Share high quality content that is relevant to your customers needs
Share information about your organization that customers, colleagues and
others may be interested to know
Promote competitors when they deserve it
Tweet links to Slideshare presentations or videos of speaking engagements.
Promote upcoming speaking engagements
Mention awards youve won or accreditations youve earned

Be the one to break the news in your industry

Livetweet events
Do free market research to see what people want/dont want
Conduct Twitter polls to quiz consumer opinion
Learn about whats working/not working for your competitors
See how your competitors are interacting with customers

Offer discounts, coupons or special offers to customers who find you via
social media
Offer discounts on conferences for folks who come to hear you speak
Show your human face
Talk about what youre doing
Talk about who you are
Talk about why you do what you do
To get blog subscribers
Direct traffic to your site
Find referrals
Offer referrals
Connect vendors to one another
Hold contests
Highlight employees
Publish your Twitter handle on all direct mailings, email newsletters, on your
Web site and all other marketing channels. Put it everywhere
Promote your latest blog posts and newsletters
Admit and apologize for flubs to help neutralize the impact
Ask for votes on social media sites (use sparingly)

3.Define Your Audience(s)

4.Social Media Content
5.Determine Integration Points
6.Culture Change and Adaptation?
7.Enterprise Social Media Assessment
8.Policy / Protocols
9.Choose Social Channels (Tools & Tactics)
10.Capacity and Commitment
11.Social Media Systems
12.Measurement

SWOT Analysis

SWOT structure is a helpful strategic analysis instrument that assists in the

classification of strengths that could be employed for the abolition of
weaknesses, capitalization of openings and reducing the effect of risks (Kotler
and Armstrong, 2008).

3.1 PEPSODENT
Pepsodent
Parent Company

HUL

Category

FMCG

Sector

Personal Care Toothpaste

Dss nahi to bas nahi; My toothpaste fights 10; Protection

Tagline/ Slogan

Outside Freshness Inside; Gets Your Teeth Their Whitest

Pepsodent is a 15 year old brand that offers various oral

USP

care solutions to specific need based solutions.

STP
Personal Care -Toothpastes Range of variants for
Segment

different needs

Target Group

Urban Households for Oral Hygiene Care

Brand that offers various oral care solutions to specific

Positioning

need based solutions

SWOT Analysis
Strength

1. Endorsed by FDI ( the largest dental association

globally)
2. Among the most trusted brands having celebrities like
Shahrukh Khan as brand ambassadors
3. Pepsodent toothpaste fights germs to protect teeth
against cavities and gives strong teeth, fresh breath and
healthy gums

4. Pepsodent as an oral care expert offers solution to

specific problems like bleeding gums and sensitive teeth
5. Pepsodent also includes a range of toothbrushes
1. Colgate is the top-of-the-mind toothpaste brand
hance intense competition
Weakness

2. Low penetration in the rural areas

1.innovative marketing like Pepsodent packs included a
Germ Indicator in February-May 2002, which allowed
consumers to see the efficacy in fighting germs
2.Pepsodent campaigns which aims at educating
consumers on the need for germ protection through the
night
3. Smaller packaging for rural markets, tie-ups with

Opportunity

hotel chains, schools

1. Competition from internal brand like Close Up

in the same segment and external brand like
Colgate
2.Oral hygiene still lacks in the rural parts of
the country
3.The emerging economic climate in the UK
affecting the disposable income also, deregulations
of the sector leading to further loss of market share
pose a threat to the product line. Another threat is
competition from internal and external brand Close
Up and Colgate respectively. Lastly, change in way
of life and a complex organizational structure.

Threats
Competition
1. Colgate
2.Anchor
Competitors

3.2 CLOSE-UP:

3. Oral B

Close Up
Parent Company

HUL (Unilever)

Category

Personal Care Toothpaste

Sector

FMCG

Tagline/ Slogan

Taazgi Jo Paas Laye

Close Up is synonymous with 'Freshness'
that gives a confidence to get close to

USP

someone you love.

STP
Gel Toothpaste Alternative to White
Segment

Toothpaste

Target Group

Urban population specially the youth

Toothpaste that is also a mouthwash for

Positioning

fresh breath

SWOT Analysis
1. First gel toothpaste in India launched in
1980
2. The dual benefits (shiny white teeth &
fresh breath) and a modern ingredient
(Mouthwash) makes it very appealing
3. Market leader in the gel-segment for
almost 3 decades
Strength

4. Excellent advertising and branding

1. Popular only in Urban Areas

2. Range contains only gel based
toothpastes, no option like 2 in 1 or cream
Weakness

based
1.India's 1st singing contest 'CloseUpSangeetMuqabala' on Radio and 'CloseUp Antakshari' on TV.
2. First mover of the gel paste segment
3. Strong positioning in the segment of 2 in

Opportunity

1 toothpaste
1. Many variants of toothpaste can be
confusing for the consumer
2.Many people in rural India still clean their
teeth with traditional products (neem twigs,
salt, ash)

Threats

3. New entrants in the segment

Competition
1.Colgate
2.Pepsodent
3.Aquafresh
Competitors

4.Sach

3.3 COLGATE TOOTHPASTE:

Colgate Dental Cream

Parent Company

Colgate-Palmolive

Category

FMCG

Sector

Personal Care - Toothpastes

Tagline/ Slogan

All Around Decay Protection

USP

No. 1 Brand Recommended by Dentists

STP
Segment

Personal Care Oral Hygiene - Toothpaste

Target Group

All Indian Households

Toothpaste with calcium and minerals to get

Positioning

an all round cavity protection

SWOT Analysis
1. Colgate Dental Cream offers all-around
cavity protection, even where a toothbrush
cannot reach
2. Its great mint taste freshens breath
3. It protects against root caries
4. It cleans & makes teeth whiter
and repairs early decay spots
5. Extremely popular brand and high brand
Strength

awareness due to advertising

Weakness

1. High dependence of the company on a

single category i.e. Oral Care
2. Reduction in advertisement expenditure

in order to maintain growth

1. Leverage on fact that Colgate has been
ranked as the most trusted brand in India
from 2003 - 2007
2. Focus on innovation and new product
launches by deploying advanced
technologies
3. Growth in emerging markets rural and
Opportunity

semi-urban
1. High competition from competitive
brands like Pepsodent from HUL
2. Increasing commodity prices for

Threats

manufacturing

Competition
1. Pepsodent
2. Oral B
Competitors

3. Anchor