<div>It’s no secret that personal and professional online networks have drastically changed the dynamics of the brand-consumer relationship. This stems from the fundamental desire of today’s consumers to participate in a dialogue rather than just be spoken to. What this means is that there is a shift away from the traditional one-way, funnel marketing to a two-way non-linear/ decentralised marketing model. While this entails many changes for marketers in today’s world, I’d like to go back to the basics in this article and focus today on the transformation of one core concept – “know your audience”. <br /><br />In early years this took the form of purely geographic segmentation (e.g., running ads only in certain target metros) and then evolved to include demographic segmentation. Today’s online world allows marketers to take things to a whole new level with much more sophisticated levels of targeting and behavioral segmentation that leverages data from a consumer’s professional or personal graph and increasingly his / her social actions.<br /><br />Indian marketers are already using social media to help inform and influence the brand choice of consumers. However, the mistake several of them make stems from treating all websites and networks the same. Not only does context matter (since the fundamental purpose or utility is very different across social networks), but we’re now learning that the same user has different mindsets on the different networks.A recent primary research study titled The Mindset Divide conducted by TNS, in partnership with LinkedIn, helps underscore how consumers display two very different mindsets when they engage on different social platforms – they go to personal networks to “spend time” while going to professional networks to “invest time”.<br /><br />We would all agree that the best kind of marketing establishes an emotional connection. In fact, in a research study by IPA that compared 880 international case studies, emotional campaigns were found to be almost twice more likely to generate large profit gains than rational ones. But this difference in mindset means that the type of emotional connection marketers try to create must be different too – on social/personal networks, consumersshow emotions around entertainment and memories because the drivers that keep users on the site are their desires to socialise, stay in touch, be entertained or pass time. People on these sites are most often in a casual modewith conversations revolving around lighter discussions of life.On the other hand, the emotions of professional networkersrevolve around their goals, aspirations or ambition. This purposeful mindset is driven by their desire to stay updated and be more productive and successful. They do this by investing time in by maintainingtheir professional identity, making useful contacts,searching for newopportunities and staying in touch. <br /><br /><strong>Split Strategy for Consumer Mind Splits </strong><br />For marketers, staying on top of their game will mean taking these different mindsets into consideration when planning their brand engagement strategy. The greatest impact of this is on content. Analysing what network members consume when “spending time” and what gets their attention when “investing time” will determine the manner in which brand information is shaped and shared. On personal networks the content they are looking for is very much in line with the context of those networks – getting information on their family & friends, exploring personal interests, and getting entertainment updates. However, for professional networks, consumers expect content and insights to make them more successful (e.g., tips to improve themselves professionally, help them make better decisions etc.)<br /><br />A recent Nielsen global study highlighted the internet as a key influencer to their purchase decisions for a vast majority of consumers (electronics was highest at 81 per cent and for electronics and 60 per cent the lowest for personal hair-care products) with those in Asia Pacific. Moreover social and brand pages were listed as important influence sources. If you join this statistic with the recent McKinsey quarterly article which states that 67 per cent of all customer decisions, both B2B and B2C, are driven by experiences with brands and categories rather than purely price, then it comes as no surprise to learn that “updates from brands” surfaced as an important content stream folks expect from professional networks. What was surprising was the spread wherein –“updates from brands” was ranked at #2 by professional networkers and #9 for personal/social networkers.<br /><br />They expect to hear from brands 26 per cent more on their professional networks than they do on personal ones. But equally interesting is the fact that they don’t expect the brand to just talk about their product but rather focus on leveraging knowledge that brands have to help the consumer (e.g., a healthcare company helping people with expert tips on how to stay healthy).And while you can expect higher social engagement due to the greater relevance, there is impact for marketers even beyond this. <br /><br />For example, Citibank engaged professional women by choosing to focus on user-generated topics relevant to this audience (rather than highlighting their products) and was rewarded with 2.5x more engagement but on top of this, they also had an almost ~50 per cent higher unaided brand awareness. And the real prize for marketers comes from the fact that social media seamlessly enables a compounding effect on the impact their campaigns garner. Virality ensures that your message rapidly spreads from a few to many, while the inherent trust associated with a personal / professional connection helps make things even more relevant and increase chances of consideration and conversion. But this entire flywheel is contingent on ensuring an emotional connection which is based on relevant content.<br /><br />Publishers are recognising these trends and making investments in reducing the number of ads on the page and instead attempting to boost relevance of their content. However savvy marketers, also need to thread sensibly these insights to devise more targeted & relevant campaigns. Do you know your audience, and if so, do your campaigns appropriately leverage the mindset differences across the different social networks?<br /><br /><br />(<em>The author is Country Manager, LinkedIn India</em>)<br /> </div>
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