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| Chief Strategic Officer - FullSIX Group |
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| There's something ironic in today's situation. On the one hand brands are at last re-thinking their communication strategies, profiting from the array of new digital tools and channels that have proven to be agile, effective and measurable. But on the other hand, official brand-communications are gradually losing their effectiveness and credibility – and that affects their ability to influence consumers'choices. |
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 o make the best possible purchasing decisions, today's consumers have enthusiastically embraced new tools to search for information (email, messenger, search engines, social networks, price comparison sites...). |
| Thanks to these tools, consumers can now access a wide number of sources they see as more trustworthy than traditional corporate communications: first of all, their network of friends (both physical and digital) and their opinions. |
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| Secondly, the opinions of other consumers, which can be found on blogs, forums and e-commerce sites, all easily accessible via search engines. |
| Thirdly the opinion of experts, appearing in the press, both on and off line. |
| Of course, word of mouth has always existed – long before the birth of advertising. |
| But in the new digital age it has been strengthened a thousand-fold, in terms of accessibility, long-term effectiveness and organization. |
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| The facts speak for themselves: 82% of internet users use search engines to find out information about products – and 44% of them use instant messaging to express their opinion about a brand. |
| Furthermore, research from the London Business School shows that if positive recommendations increase by 7% and negative ones drop by 2%, the brand concerned grows by 1%. |
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| he traditional mass media system (where the share of voice was always the most important element), has today been substituted by a totally new digital marketing environment: the "echo-system". |
| Consumers are no longer just an audience to be convinced: they are a real source of communication, organized in networks. |
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| Therefore the main objective of brands is to maximize the echo of their messages, leveraging on these consumer networks. |
| The economic crisis has accelerated this phenomenon: companies depend more and more on third parties who now, more than ever, have the power to create or destroy a brand, through a multiplicity of conversations, both private (with friends) and public (on the internet). |
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| These third parties are thus a key part of this echo-system: they form the brand network of influence that can be more or less extensive, active and positive – in short: influential. |
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 s soon as brands realise they cannot control or buy their influence network, they have to either identify where it is, or build it and, then mobilise and activate it. |
| We've named this approach "Brand Networking", a methodology comprising all the actions necessary to manage and activate a brand's influence network, with the aim of maximizing the positive echo of the brand and its sales. |
| Brand Networking is a strategic approach allowing brands to understand how to increase their influence in areas where they cannot control it. |
| It is also a complete methodology for identifying, strengthening and activating the entire influence network. |
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| This approach enables the brand to follow, influence and push B2N and C2C communications. |
| In practice, Brand Networking needs a host of different skills, tools and processes that only a leading digital group, such as FullSIX, can have: they include analysis of web trends, conversation audits, strategic planning, creativity, search, CRM, influencer and community management, brand content and social media planning. |
| Through this action plan, brands can define an online presence that has at its core all the main sources of influence, such as personal networks and search engines. |
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| Incidentally, brands can also manage their reputation both within search engines and online conversations, as well as activating viral campaigns and creating and mobilising a network of supporters or a brand community. |
| Above all, Brand Networking allows us to orchestrate all the most appropriate channels and communication tools, and use them effectively in either an independent or integrated way. |
| It also helps avoid the typical loss of time and money often incurred by previous tactical approaches, where brands risked shifting from focusing on blogger operations in 2008, to being on Facebook in 2009 and on Twitter on 2010, without building a solid or long-lasting base. |
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