Today we are pleased to announce that Dhiren Shingadia has joined Market Sentinel as Head of Product Marketing.

The new role is part of Market Sentinel’s strategic approach to becoming a more influential presence in the social analytics space. Shingadia will work closely with Market Sentinel’s CEO, analysts, developers and partners to discover opportunities, prioritise development and facilitate conversations about the company’s product portfolio both online and off.

“We’re developing exciting new technologies for analysing the social web and I can’t think of anyone better to propel our services to the marketplace than Dhiren Shingadia,” said Mark Rogers, CEO of Market Sentinel. “Dhiren’s unparalleled breadth of experience and insight will focus the development process and facilitate smooth but speedy growth of the company.”

Shingadia’s expertise is grounded on years of experience in web analytics, SEO, media software design and product management. Prior to joining Market Sentinel, Shingadia was manager of Mindshare UK’s Invention department where he designed and developed social analytics and buzz monitoring tools and processes for clients such as Jaguar, Volvo and Nestlé. Shingadia is also active in the social media marketing community as research and measurement ambassador on IAB UK’s Social Media Council.

“Social analytics makes it possible to adapt to the constantly evolving new media landscape,” said Shingadia. “Market Sentinel is an industry leader and I’m excited to have a role in defining and driving the vision of social analytics in our products. “

For the last twenty-four months, or so, storytelling has become more important to Account Planners and Brand Strategists alike. Stories are memorable; stories get shared; stories deliver meaning and answer the innate why and how questions: How did you come to be? Why are you talking to me? Why should I buy your product?

Our analysis team has been working to understand product anecdotes for some of our clients recently. This has involved reading some of the everyday product stories that are embedded within social media.

Their findings have been fascinating and they have stimulated conversations that question the direction of the brand, its segmentation preferences and marketing activities. The key takeaway for us: Before you start to tell your story, read the stories that have already been written about your brand and understand their contexts and implications.

Understanding what’s already out there will better place us, brand people, to define our  own stories, make them culturally relevant and ensure they effectively answer the aforementioned, innate questions.

Pic credit

“What’s clear, is that in social networks, information is not only democratized, it is deafening. For brands hoping to connect value with demand, rising above the noise is critical, but in order to see the effects of a rising tide, it must have a fleet of boats in the water.” – Brian Solis, briansolis.com

Brian Solis’ recent post on Influencing the Influencer points to an all too often ignored fact about social media marketing: connecting with authorities is not enough – you also need to engage those authorities in their language, around topics that interest them, on an ongoing basis.

This concept of engaging the influencers is nothing new, and is quickly becoming a popular way for brands to market to relevant authorities.

Starbucks did this last March using Klout’s influence metric (called “Klout score”) to identify influential coffee tweeters and offer them a free cup of Pike Place Roast.

Old Spice did this during its recent Old Spice Man ad campaign by posting amusing YouTube shout-outs to big names like Ellen DeGeneres, George Stephanopoulos, gossip blogger Perez Hilton, tech gadget blog Gizmodo, and Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.com whose tweet “Holy sh*t, best get well video ever from Old Spice” was seen by his million plus followers and helped the campaign go viral.

We’ve done this ourselves using our own influence metrics for brands such as Volkswagen, who recently used our tools to find influential speakers on “hot hatchbacks” to invite to an exclusive track day for the new Golf GTi.

However, finding the influencers and offering free stuff (be it coupons, test drives or entertainment) is only the beginning. As Brian Solis puts it, “Recognition is a start. Reward is a gesture. Engagement and reciprocity is how we christen relationships.”

“Engagment and reciprocity.” What exactly does that mean?

Identify contexts that resonate with the audience

Many brands struggle with this the most, which is why there are so many tools on the market designed to help companies identify prominent topics around particular issues or brands. All of these services offer their share of insights, but don’t overlook the simplest tool of all: listening.

Read blogs and forums, follow the influencers on Twitter, friend them on Facebook. Listen to the influencers, but be critical. Look out for trends, find out what people value, and observe which topics people like to share. What inspires people? And what can you add to the mix?

Use your audience’s preferred media platforms to engage with them

We’ve been talking a lot about Twitter, but before you go all gung-ho with the tweets, think first about where your audience is. They might be bloggers, or YouTube fans, or forum regulars, or Facebook fanatics.

Volkswagen found its hatchback fans in automotive forums. Old Spice found its fans on YouTube. It’s all about where your audience is hanging. Find their space and stay focused on that.

Keep giving back

Not only do you have to start with something relevant and shareable, but you need to maintain your relevance through sustained engagement. And the more personal the engagement, the better.

Starbucks has done this very well by sharing customer stories on Facebook, offering service and incentives on Twitter and maintaining its personalised approach across all of these channels. Old Spice has sustained engagement through coupon promotions, continued posts to its YouTube channel and ongoing humorous tweets from the Old Spice Man.

Any kind of web content, be it tweets, blog entries, or Facebook posts, will disappear if they don’t resonate with your audience. However, by connecting with influencers and sustaining interaction through relevant, shareable content, you can help your message stay above water and reach the masses.

“I’ve seen businesses do this: engage influencer audiences with something smart, get positive reactions, and end it there. This is a missed opportunity as the most desirable outcome is for this audience to help you become a referential source your brand. And the forgotten thing is the influencer audience knows they have influence and wants to use it to help others rise as this helps their own sphere of influence grow. They didn’t carve out a digital reputation to do nothing with it.” Adam Singer, thefuturebuzz.com

Related links:

• Social Media’s Critical Path: Relevance to Resonance to Significance [Harvard Business Review]
• Influencing the Influencer [Brian Solis]
• Klout & Starbucks Team Up On Influential Twitterer Marketing [Legends of Aerocles]
• Marketing lessons from Old Spice Man [Entrepreneur.com]
• Thoughts on the Influencer Audience [The Future Buzz]
• Unpacking Klout: True measure of influence? [ConversationAgent]
• Companies that Measure Social Media, Influence and Brand [Jeremiah Owyang]

People always ask us what the “best” social media channel is for their particular marketing strategy.  If you play it by the numbers, Facebook rocks them all: last January, Compete.com reported that Facebook had over 133 million unique visitors (UVs), compared to YouTube’s 97.7 million and Twitter’s paltry 23.5 million.  How many Facebook fans do you have?

Then again, the percentage of Americans who are aware of Twitter (87%) is almost equal to those who are aware of Facebook (88%) according to Edison Research.  Wait, let’s not all sign up for Twitter now.

So what is the best social media channel for online marketing?  Like most questions of its ilk, there’s no one definitive answer – it totally depends on your business, your brand, and your customers.  So before you sign up for a Twitter account just because it seems like everyone else has one, ask yourself this

• What am I trying to accomplish? “Get involved with social media” is not an acceptable answer.  Are you trying to get hits to your website?  Understand what consumers say about your brand?  Connect with other industry leaders?  Think about what you really want to get out of your efforts. Then ask yourself…
• Who am I trying to reach? Chances are you’re trying to reach your customers – existing and/or potential.  But who they “are” goes deeper than age, sex and location.  What are they talking about?  Where do they talk about it?  Do they like YouTube?  Are they heavy tweeters?  Forum posters?  Blog fans?  Find out who your customers are, where they’re talking, and what they’re talking about, and you’ll better understand how they use social media and which social media channels are worth your time.
• Which channel will bring the most value to your audience? Probably the toughest question to answer, but also the most important. Fact: deliver value to your audience and your social media campaign will flourish.  It’s not important enough to just be “in it”, you have to give something back if you expect anything in return.  Useful content, customer support, entertaining videos, whatever it is, it better be good for your audience.

Got it sorted?  Now here’s a few options:

Twitter

Examples: @Zappos, @americanapparel, @ScottMonty (Ford), and more

What you can do with it: network with industry members, exchange news with other users, engage with customers.

Who it’s best for: B2B brands looking to interact with other industry professionals.  Can also be used by B2C brands to engage with customers and offer customer service (see Zappos).

Company blog

Examples: Signal vs. Noise (37 Signals), FastLane

What you can do with it: Establish expertise in your industry by providing  content such as analyses, how-to guides, interviews with experts and other high-value posts.

Who it’s best for: B2B brands as blogs typically require prior knowledge and interest in the industry.

Read more:  How to create a successful company blog [Mashable]

Facebook

Examples: Heinz, BMW, and more

What you can do with it: Gain new fans through existing fans who introduce your brand to friends in their network.  Post interesting links, videos, images, promotions, and pretty much anything that you think your fans would like.  Also good for getting feedback and comments from customers and “fans” of your brand.

Who it’s best for: B2C brands with a large enough customer base to have “fans”.  People have to know you know to want to keep up with you along with their other friends.

Video sharing

Examples:  Barrack Obama (YouTube), Old Spice

What you can do with it:  Gain link popularity by posting entertaining videos and adverts.

Who it’s best for: Small and large businesses, both B2C and B2B, can build buzz for their brand by creating a popular video.  Even if the video doesn’t “go viral”, it can be great support to existing campaigns.

Social Bookmarking

Examples:  Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon

What you can do with it: Drive traffic to your content by posting and sharing links.  Easy to integrate into existing campaigns.

Who it’s best for: Anyone can benefit from social bookmarking, but don’t expect it to be your one stop social media shop.  Social bookmarks work best alongside other efforts such as blogging or Facebook.

Read more: Leveraging delicious and social bookmarking for B2B marketing [socialmediab2b.com]

The list goes on

I’ve listed the major channels for social media marketing, but there are some less obvious channels that might also be worth exploring depending on your business:  image sharing (e.g. Flickr), podcasts, wikis, Foursquare, LinkedIn, the list goes on. It might seem daunting, but if you can answer the questions at the beginning of the post, you should be able to narrow your options considerably.

Related links:

• Top Social Medial Channels for B2B Marketing [jeffbullas.com]
• Young entrepreneurs favor Facebook and Twitter [youngentrepreneur.com]
• Infographic: who’s using which sites [flowtown.com]
• B2B and B2C engagement by the numbers [briansolis.com]