People and Platforms: Creating Emotional Connections for Brands with Resonate Social

By Marc Johnson, CMO

Social media is ubiquitous.  This year alone, 77% of U.S. marketers plan to spend more money on social channels, according to a recent report from Forrester.

However, with the growth of social and the competition for social advertising, something important has been forgotten: a true understanding of the people who are using social media and what really makes them who they are.

There are critical differences among users of different social media platforms.

And there are critical differences among users of the same social media platforms, even though they may ‘look’ alike to advertisers using traditional targeting.

This gap in understanding of the individual is central to the debate over Facebook’s push into brand advertising.  People are more than just demographics and behaviors on a social site.  Whether someone is an 18+ female LinkedIn user or ‘liked’ or ‘shared’ a brand’s page says very little about them. The whole person can only be understood when their motivations, values, and beliefs – the reasons why they act – are taken into account.

For marketers, finding consumers who already care about the attributes a brand seeks to differentiate on is critical.  Matching people who are motivated by safety, innovation, and durability – or higher order values like happiness, closeness to family, and learning – to the products and brands that emphasize those same values leads to emotional engagement, brand preference, and loyalty.

Resonate’s understanding of people means that Volvo, for example, can find and reach only those social media audiences who already care about safety. Or GE can specifically target those who highly value innovation and save wasted media dollars trying to convince those who don’t.

Resonate Social ties social media usage to web and mobile targeting. It provides advertisers and their agencies with a depth of social media activation unavailable anywhere – even from social media platforms directly.

For example: A recent campaign wanted to focus on Moms who were concerned about healthy food choices for their kids. When creating the campaign for display advertising and Facebook Exchange, audience targeting not only included demographics but also the important values of “Taking Care of Family” and the relevant product preferences “Healthy” and “Safe.” 

More broadly, recent branding and persuasion campaigns have delivered 15-20% lifts in behavior intent vs. third party controls.

Learn more about Resonate Social here.

For further information contact an account representative.