Hasta La Creative!

The emergence of social media carried the promise of a new social contract between brands and marketers. A contract based on more reciprocal one-to-one communications. But brands remained self-centered. Brands scheduled the communications. Brands pushed the same content to everyone, with the vast majority of content irrelevant to a consumer at any given time. Worst of all, brands talked mostly about themselves, and always expected consumers to come over to their place. Their place was often a poorly optimized web page or an inconsistently managed fan page. If social media is a relationship, it is a largely unsatisfying one.

This failure is redeemable. Marketers now have the ability to understand the intent behind communications in social media — how a consumer actually feels about a particular product or a brand at a particular time. Yes, every conversation matters, especially from the perspective of customer care. Common sense suggests that if a more influential voice, a prominent blogger or a top customer posts about the brand, the brand should take extra care to listen.

However, we know that some conversations are even more valuable than others. If social media is to deliver on its promise, marketers must deliver ROI around what matters most to the brand, such as purchase intent and sales — not likes and follows. In this hour, there are more than 1 million conversations happening domestically in which consumers are expressing intent to buy a new car. This intent ranges from research to purchase. These are the conversations that matter most to marketers.

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