1. 1
#SMCustomer
The social
media customer
Social media success for brands that give it a go
“Social networking will overtake e-commerce
activity at a global level in 2012, highlighting the
importance that social holds for brands in 2012”
Global Web Index
Fishburn Hedges and Echo Research were keen to understand how brands and customers
feel about social media and how this affects their relationship with one another.
It’s an issue that affects every single one of our clients. Some are diving in. Some are dipping
their toes in the water. Others are naturally more cautious. Yet what links them is the unknown.
A lot is said about social media and much of it can either create panic, or mystify those trying
to build it into their businesses.
We wanted to provide something more practical, so what follows is a guide which includes six simple
pearls of wisdom that are borne from leading brands, and from their crucial audience: the public.
We conducted a detailed investigation analysing:
• 2,000 UK consumers’ views of social media and brand engagement*
• In-depth interviews with executives from leading brands – a mixture of communications,
social media and customer service heads
• Data from social media monitoring

2. 2
Executive Summary
Despite 18 million customers flooding social
networks to speak to brands, companies have
yet to experience the tipping point in social
media. In only eight months, the number
of British consumers who have dealt with
companies through social media has almost
doubled – from 19% in August 2011, to 36%
in April 2012. Most of them (68%) believe
that social media has given them greater
customer voice.
Interaction between brands and consumers through
social media is soaring. This seems to be fuelled by
the widespread belief amongst 40% of the public –
whether they embrace it or not – that social media
April 2012
improves customer service.
If over a third of us have already interacted with brands
online, the tipping point will come when the remaining
64% of the public starts to follow suit.
So how are brands and customers interacting?
• A fifth of respondents (19%) said they had dealt with
big companies through social media in August 2011,
rising to 36% in April 2012
• Two-fifths (40%) of them believe that communicating
More than a third of
through this medium leads to improvements in
customer service. This is some six times more
Brits have already
than the 7% of naysayers who fear social media will interacted with companies
harm service through social media
• Most of those (68%) that have used social media
channels to communicate with brands believe it gives
This number has
them greater customer “voice” almost doubled in
just eight months
• Most of them (65%) believe social media is a better (19% to 36%)
August 2011
way to communicate with companies than call centres,
some nine times more than the 7% who felt they had a
worse experience on social media

3. 3
Executive Summary
Of course, all brands are being talked about online, but Gwyn Burr, head of customer services at
the question they are asking themselves is whether or Sainsbury’s said:
not they wish to join the conversation. Brand leaders
are no longer blindly searching for ever more fans or “I wouldn’t say we’re wary of social media,
followers. Instead they are seeking to win genuine as I believe that the word ‘wary’ has negative
consumer trust and brand advocates. This race is seen connotations. We certainly respect it – as we
as the top priority. would with all direct customer contact in store.”
Hash Ladha, deputy MD of high street brand
Oasis, said:
“For me, in terms of numbers, it’s always about
quality rather than quantity. I would rather
have five highly engaged followers than 5,000
followers that are not engaged.”
68%
of those who have used social
media believe that it has
allowed them to find their voice

4. 4
How can brands deal with
social media change?
In spite of its startling success, social media – and our Kerryn Dinsdale, a senior PR manager at Barclaycard
understanding of it – is roughly where radio was in 1912 describes the issue:
or television in 1950 according to Sree Sreenivasan,
digital media professor at Columbia University. How can “We have a web relations email address.
you be expected to keep pace with these changes? If someone posts a message to us on the
Facebook wall, we will send them the team’s
The good news is that there are no hard and fast email address. The reason we do this is because
rules – companies are varying approaches depending of regulation and data protection issues. We
on a number of factors. Some businesses ensure that need to be careful not to hold these discussions
customer service conversations are maintained on one in open public spaces.”
channel, wherever possible:
Based on our conversations with leading social
Warren Buckley, managing director of customer service media pioneers, and their public, we’ve identified six
at BT, said: key insights to help companies to use social media
to engage with customers and manage corporate
“I do see companies that do it in a half-hearted reputation:
fashion. One of the things that I personally
hate is to look at a customer trying to engage 1. Don’t be paralysed by uncertainty
a company by Twitter, and they respond back
with a number to call. If I wanted to call you,
2. Don’t let social media define you – brands
I would have looked up your telephone number must define it
and called you.” 3. Make more of the emotional insight you have
That isn’t an option for everyone though. Financial 4. Pick your battles – but enter them fast
services companies, for example, have to read
5. Address structural barriers in the business,
carefully around security and privacy rules set by
the FSA (Financial Services Authority) when dealing
not headcount
with customers. Sometimes they are forced to move 6. Fear not the #fail
confidential conversations off Twitter or Facebook,
onto closed channels like phone or email. We will elaborate on each of these points overleaf.
It’s not just the young who are
engaging on social media
40%
49.5% 44.6% 37.5% 31.75% 27.4%
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+
% of people from different age groups who
have dealt with a brand through social media

5. How can brands deal with social media change? 5
1. Don’t be paralysed
by uncertainty
Warren Buckley, managing director of customer service So it’s clear you can’t ignore it, but how do you jump in?
at BT said:
No single model has yet emerged as a clear winner
“One person with no ‘followers’ as circumstances and the nature of interactions differ
can very quickly become 10,000 people” between businesses, brands and models – and many are
still experimenting.
Common logic dictates that when things are going
well this is wonderful news but what if things suddenly It is important to think clearly about what it is you want
go awry? to achieve, which channels are appropriate for your
brand, and where your customers are seeking to engage
As a new field of communication, this uncertainty has with you online. A clearly defined strategy is crucial, even
become a psychological straitjacket for many brands. though that may recognise that it may change.
Yet within this there is an opportunity: where call centres
have arguably put barriers between customers and
brands, social media can remove those barriers and bring
proximity.
Managers are increasingly aware of the power of social
media to generate both positive and negative feedback.
The one thing you should not do is ignore it.
A global brand development manager at a leading FMCG
brand said:
“You need to make sure you’re open, honest
and transparent as a company, that you build
relationships with your consumers where
relevant and that you ensure that they actually
want to build a relationship with you.”
Alex Pearmain, head of social media at O2, said:
“We have set out to have a clear two-way
communication strategy at O2.”

6. How can brands deal with social media change? 6
1. Don’t be paralysed
by uncertainty
Four common communications models
From our experience and conversations, the four
models below reflect four prevalent stages of social
media adoption.
1. Decentralised enthusiasm
Keen employees take on social media roles without
any co-ordinated leadership or centralised guidance,
leading to a plethora of social media accounts. The
sum of the activity is often less than that of its parts –
particularly when much of this initial activity is started
excitedly, but then left dormant.
2. Centralised command and control
The approach is rarely effective: enthusiasts have
control taken away from them and the resource
implications can be significant.
3. Hub and spoke: decentralised and a centre
of excellence
The majority of organisations (over 80% according to
US-based Altimeter research), tend to organise into a
cross-functional “Hub and Spoke” team.
This builds around a social media centre of excellence
acting as a central resource, typically managed within
corporate communications.
This team which typically manages the corporate social
media channels:
• creates and delivers an editorial calendar across those
channels
• acts as a support resource for others within the busi-
ness, and are empowered to use social media in their
own channels (usually well-established bloggers and
LinkedIn Group moderators).
4. Dandelion: multiple hubs
Individuals and teams who are increasingly comfortable
with social media are given the freedom to establish (or
in some cases re-establish) their own channels. Thus
enabling them to amplify their business unit’s objectives,
alongside content led by and distributed centrally.

7. How can brands deal with social media change? 7
2. Don’t let social media define
you – brands must define it
Too often brands feel the need to jump onto the social To do this you have to understand more about the
media bandwagon and simply sign up to all the current lives, aspirations and needs of the individuals you are
popular channels. Social media should not just be a targeting. The benefit is you can develop a strong
collection of tools, but a way of being – an attitude or link with some customers using social media, who
continuation of the brand. increasingly see this as a very personal service.
Such is the explosion of social media that needs become Hash Ladha, deputy MD of Oasis recalls an
more emotional and decisions can be made in a knee- experience from its sister brand, Warehouse:
jerk way. Just because “Brand X” uses Facebook or
Pinterest, “Brand Y” wants to follow suit, even if it’s “We did a campaign called ‘Random Acts of
more appropriate that LinkedIn or a bespoke Kindness’ where if someone was having a bad
collaboration is used. day we’d send them some flowers, or if they
were having IT issues we would send them
Content is just as important as appropriate channels an iPad. For me it’s about quality rather than
to defining your social media approach – or letting it quantity.”
define you. Whilst some well loved brands can easily
find a following on social media channels, few, if any, can
maintain an active group of brand advocates without
keeping them interested with carefully tailored content.
According to one senior communications manager,
“it’s an extremely important medium if you
are relying on recommendations and word of
mouth. The challenge is to use it effectively
and to have a regular stream of content that is
interesting enough for people to engage with
you. I think you’ve got to work extremely hard
to be relevant, absorbing and timely.”

8. How can brands deal with social media change? 8
2. Don’t let social media define
you – brands must define it
Social media may be the biggest change in customer
relations since the rise of call centres in the 1990s,
suggests BT’s Warren Buckley. However, the big
difference is that this new medium gives much more
say to the customer, says Buckley. “What I love about
social media is that it opens up completely differently,
so the customer is very much in charge.” This can give
rise to concerns about consumers or activists posting
complaints or launching a negative online campaign
against a brand. This will always be a risk that companies
will need to prepare for. But the big upside is that
they can engage in quite powerful conversations with
customers on a more equal level if they can establish the
right tone and level of trust.
A brand manager at a global consumer goods company
stresses that you need to be very aware of this enhanced
customer voice gained through social media.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m ‘wary’ of the customer
voice. But I do think it presents you with
ever-increasing challenges as a company.
You need to make sure you’re open, honest
and transparent as a company, that you build
40%
relationships with your consumers where
relevant and that you ensure that they actually
want to build a relationship with you.”
This is some six times
more than the
believe social
media improves
customer service
of naysayers who
7% fear social media
will harm service

9. How can brands deal with social media change? 9
3. Make more of the
emotional insight you have
Customer data has given brands huge insights into Alex Pearmain, head of social media in the UK for
behaviour from the point of sale and from market O2, said:
research. Now social media takes that to a new level:
understanding emotions of consumers. “We make sure we feed back any information
we get to other teams. At O2 we have witnessed
It creates an unprecedented opportunity for brands an explosion of people using social networks
which the early pioneers are leaping on. The challenge and as an organisation we need to make sure
is how to effectively tap into this information, sort the that the opportunity is capitalised on and all
fluff from fact and usefully feed it back into the business. the customers’ needs are met.”
John Hartley, Communications Planning Manager at the The head of marketing of one multinational brand, said:
banking group, HSBC, said:
“Being able to hear customer responses,
“These huge communities that are building up understand how they feel and engage in fast
across the globe, offer vast sources of knowledge, paced dialogue are clear benefits of using
insight and emotion. One of the benefits of social social media. However, social media shouldn’t
media is that you get very immediate and visible be mistaken as the silver bullet for every kind
feedback. There is a missed opportunity if you of marketing challenge, and should, like other
don’t do anything with it”. disciplines, be used in the context of an
overall strategy.”
Hash Ladha, deputy MD of Oasis, said:
There are many effective monitoring tools available
“You can learn things about your customers that today which can help you decipher customer trends and
you wouldn’t otherwise have known.” other useful insights.
The sheer volume and scale of the customer data
available to brands is clear to see when you take a peek
at some quick insights for a selection of the 2012 top
Consumer Superbrands. This data was current as of 30
April 2012 and was analysed over a six month period.

10. How can brands deal with social media change? 10
4. Pick your battles – but
enter them fast
“In the ‘old days’ of traditional media it But you should not always feel you have to respond.
was about pushing [information] to people
Kerryn Dinsdale, senior PR manager at Barclaycard said:
[influencing and informing] what they might
think, whereas today it’s all about dialogue – “We don’t respond to all comments, though we
about them telling you what they think. In that reply to those where we feel we could provide
sense the consumer is king. When people post answers and advice,”
a message on a social media site, they expect
a response in real time. This puts a tremendous Sarah Schofield, head of corporate communications at
amount of pressure on us as a business to be PepsiCo agrees:
responsive.”
“Some people have knee-jerk reactions when
These words from a leading director in external affairs at they see something online and think they must
a multinational consumer goods company, encapsulates react immediately. 10 people discussing online
the broad conclusion of the pioneers. People expect isn’t really an issue, and if 10 people were in a
fast communications be that on Twitter, Facebook or pub discussing something similar, you wouldn’t
any other social networking site. If you fail to respond take any notice. Obviously it needs to be
quickly they will lose the opportunity to connect with a monitored but kept in perspective.”
customer at best and at worst might create a negative
Hash Ladha, deputy MD at Oasis said:.
reaction that could escalate into something worse.
“If a consumer puts something on a social media
site criticising us, generally we wouldn’t respond
straight away. We monitor such comments and
any subsequent debate with other customers, but
would only interject if we felt it was appropriate
and there was value in doing so. We’d never
remove negative comments – it’s important we let
customers air their views,”
65%
think social
media is better
than call
centres
nine times more
think call
than those who felt centres are
worse off using better than
social media 7% social media

11. How can brands deal with social media change? 11
4. Pick your battles –
but enter them fast
BT’s Warren Buckley points out that sometimes people
won’t be expecting any further responses.
“Sometimes a customer might complain about
their broadband, and we might say, ‘We’re sorry
to hear about that. Can we help?’. If they don’t
respond, we respect that because they may just
be ‘blowing off’ a bit of steam.”
It goes without saying that to enable quick and effective
resolution of online customer issues, it is essential that
the team doing the online monitoring is closely aligned
with the customer service team who would ultimately
resolve the issue.
At Fishburn Hedges we have helped clients set up fast
customer service channels for online queries – reducing
response times down from a traditional three days to
a number of hours. This need not be difficult and can
often simply be an new email address which is regularly
monitored by the call centre staff.
Jo Causon, CEO at the Institute for Customer
Service said:
“How organisations integrate their channels
to market is really important. As a consumer,
if I purchase an item online and need to take
it back, I might want to take it back to a shop
rather than sending it back.
Understanding my behaviour and shopping
habits and how these change is really important
– critically you need to make it easy for me.’’

12. How can brands deal with social media change? 12
5. Address structural barriers in
the business, not headcount
The brands we have spoken to have all resourced social At BT, the new focus is on creating the need for a
in different ways. Some have appointed dedicated social dedicated team.
media teams. Others have divided responsibilities across
“My customer service team co-ordinates all of
corporate communications and customer service and
our social media responsibility, but it is fair to
some outsource a lot of the work to PR/digital agencies.
say that there is a virtual team,”
There is no right answer. Headcount may work for some, says Warren Buckley, managing director of customer
but throwing staff at a problem is futile if structural service at BT.
barriers are in place.
“We look to respond to tweets within an hour.
By sharing expertise amongst the business and removing This means we need our teams to be able to
structural barriers, you may surprise yourself at the level do this within an hour. We’ve had to work with
of expertise already existing within your company. all teams across the business to try and make
these new types of relationships work.”
Sainsbury’s digital media manager, Thomas Knorpp told
us that social media is a business-wide responsibility:
“There is a huge amount of interaction between
different areas of the business, with respect to
social media.”
Sarah Schofield, PepsiCo head of corporate
communications, said:
“We resource social media with a mixture of
in-house individuals and digital agencies”.
At O2 an analytics expert has been appointed to get the
most out of the information that pours in.
279 heads of 1,062 social media 134,974 have social media in 511 ‘social media’
social media consultants their job title or job description related jobs advertised
A snapshot look at UK job titles and advertised jobs on LinkedIn. Data collected in April 2012.

13. How can brands deal with social media change? 13
6. Fear not the #fail
There have been numerous public brand mishaps played Transparent trouble-shooting
out on social media in recent years, and this has been
In fact, being able to quickly identify and resolve
a concern to most businesses out there worrying if they
negative issues that bubble up on social media channels
might be next. Nobody is perfect on social media and
can be a significant reputational opportunity for brands.
such is the volume of dissatisfied voices, the social media
leaders know from experience that there is a difference Increasingly, companies are learning how to manage
between a genuine crisis and flash of negative chatter crises that come through this medium. BT’s Buckley
that quickly dies down. recalls one incident.
It’s important to remember that conversations are “Several months ago we had a series of
already happening about your brand online and if you network outages in Scotland, and we actually
do not have a presence then your half of the story resolved the issue by inviting everyone who
cannot be effectively told. had participated in that particular thread to
a web chat session which I hosted. We had a
very open and honest conversation about that.
As long as you are willing to be transparent
and respond to the feedback to those groups,
then, generally speaking, people accept what
you are trying to do.”
In one global consumer goods company, they have
integrated social media into all discussions relating
to crisis management, according to a senior brand
manager there.
“I work with a number of people across the
communications department, and we have a
monthly editorial board meeting to discuss
issues circulating around social media.”

14. 14
Please do visit www.fishburn-hedges.co.uk/social-media-customer to find out further information
and hear more opinions on this subject.
Fishburn Hedges helps leading organisations promote and defend corporate reputations, in an
uncertain world
www.fishburn-hedges.co.uk/social-media-customer
For more information about Fishburn Hedges, do call Clare Anderson on +44(0)20 7839 4321
or email newbusiness@fishburn-hedges.co.uk
Echo Research is the premier global specialist in reputation analysis and stakeholder research.
For 23 years, we have enabled clients to measure how they are viewed and to protect the
integrity of their brands and reputation. Echo’s digital platform, Echo Sonar, helps clients to
understand in real-time what’s being said about their organisation in the news, broadcast and
social media. www.echoresearch.com/en
For more information about Echo Research, contact Matt Painter on +44(0) 1483 413 652 or
MattP@echoresearch.com
* OnePoll Research is a division of the SWNS Group and conducted both customer polls. There were two bursts of nationally representative online
research (August 2011 and April 2012), each one polling 2,000 UK adults.