Lithium social software helps the world’s most iconic brands increase loyalty, reduce support costs, drive word-of-mouth marketing and accelerate innovation. The leader in social customer experience, our SaaS platform turns social customer knowledge into support at scale and customer passion into competitive edge.

Sephora community superfans

spend 10x more than average

customers

communities of interest (e.g., YouTube, Instagram, etc.) generate lots of content that pulls audience to the community

social networks amplify content visibility by pushing it through people’s personal networks

social networks and communities work together to drive awareness/interest

there are only two categories of social media

public social networks are great channels for amplification because they offer:

1. volume 2. visibility 3. velocity

your starter gear, the mechanism that enables you to attract and capture new consumerskey challenge: the social web is huge, complex and getting more so every day

there are only 24 hours in a day

the trick is to move customers from passive to active engagement

strong relationships are built on 4 pillars

� consume

� share

� curate

� create

� co-create

sustained engagement requires strong relationships

� consume

� share

� curate

� create

� co-create

enlistment turns customers into advocates and then influencers (superfans), which complement each other

enlistment is the deepest form

of engagement, where brands and

customers co-create value for everyone

gamification helps deepen engagement by getting players into flow

but gamification is hard

only gamification done right to leads to sustainable co-creation

the direct impact of community on

monetization is purchase influence

the Best Buy community generates $5M in

support savings and sales advocacy annually

The National Instruments support community saves

$7.5M per year in call deflection

30 Lenovo superfans have created 1,200

knowledge base articles and 44% of accepted solutions

the indirect impact of community on monetization is:

marketing effectiveness

increased innovation

moving directly from acquisition to monetization is a poor strategy

Facebook is great for awareness; communities are best for conversion

your turbo gear, the gear that invites your

customers to participate in the business in a whole new way

key challenge: securing, motivating and sustaining

participation.

your starter gear, the mechanism that enables you to attract and capture new consumers

key challenge: the social web is huge, complex and getting more so every day

your power gear, the gear that nurtures prospects and customers and cultivates long term loyalty.

key challenge: sustaining interest and attention in a crowded, noisy, competitive social marketplace

your performance gear, the part of the machine that

helps you convert, deliver, satisfy and upsell.

key challenge: it’s easy in the

short term, but impossible in the long term without

all the other gears

is your acquisition gear spinning?• Can you sift through the noise and find the signals in social

media—the conversations relevant to your brand?

• Are you involved in a two-way dialog with your social customers?

• Is your content compelling? Is it relevant? Is it timely?

• Can customers find your content and brand on popular communities of interest (e.g., YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest)?

• Can they find your brand on popular social networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google+)?

you don’t own anything acquired on a public social network— and they are poor at deeper engagement

your most passionate customers can be enlisted to co-create with you

your power gear, the gear that nurtures prospects and customers and cultivates long term loyalty. key challenge: sustaining interest and attention in a crowded, noisy, competitive social marketplace

is your engagement gear spinning?• Where are you having conversations with your customers?

• Do you actively bring your customers from off-domain social channels to your on-domain community?

• Are your customers coming back, helping you share, curate, create and co-create?

• Can your customers interact with each other?

• What are your strategies for strengthening customer relationships?

but acquisition channels aren’t good for sustained engagement

Facebook irony: in the presence of strong ties (friends and families) weak ties (customer relationships) are harder to develop into strong ones

your performance gear, the part of the machine that helps you convert, deliver, satisfy and upsell. key challenge: it’s easy in the short term, but impossible in the long term without all of the other gears

is your monetization gear spinning?• Are your social strategies fully integrated with your

monetization engines (e.g., your e-commerce and CRM system)?

• Do you have strategies to innovate the social customer experience in your customer community (i.e., do you focus on the point of transaction or the customer journey to that point)?

• Do you engage your potential customers before monetization?

• Do you continue to engage your customers after monetization and enlist your most passionate customers?

• Are your business KPIs well-aligned with the type of community you have developed (e.g., are you looking to deflect calls with a support community or increase SEO with a marketing community?)

strong customer relationships increase loyalty and enable repeat monetization

reduced support costs

skipped or weak engagement/enlistment gears: • generates churn

• devalues the brand

• restricts growth

• increases cost of lead gen

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enlisting superfans increases scale and effectiveness— and they help acquire more potential customers

is your enlistment gear spinning?• Are you actively co-creating with your customers?

• Do you adapt to your customer community? Do you learn from your customers and implement their ideas?

• Do you make it easy for your customers to adapt to your company? Do you engage your customers and provide them with information about your business?

• Do you have a long-term gamification strategy? Do you have a wide array of available rewards and reinforcement mechanisms at different timescales? Do you level up your customers constantly to match their skills and ability?

• Do you guard against the unintended consequences of gamification? How do you mitigate cheating, addiction and overjustification?

• Do you have strategies for moving customers from extrinsic rewards to intrinsic motivation?

social strategies for long term business advantage—and the science behind how they workbased on the research and writings of Dr. Michael Wu and Geoffrey Moore’s Four Gear Model

the science of social 2your turbo gear, the gear that invites your customers to participate in the business in a whole new way key challenge: securing, motivating and sustaining participation.