Passionate about digital marketing, Catalina Pons has been marketing and communication director for ESADE. With a long career as a marketing professional, he has worked with brands such as CAMPER, PEPSI or Mercedes Benz among others. She is a contributing professor at ESADE Executive Education
Pons, who will act as one of the main speakers in the first forum for Digital Managers to be organized on October 23 at Esade Madrid, plunges us into the world of digitization of brands and the new generation of consumers who have in the Social media a new meeting place.
How would you define the ‘new world’ of Digitization?
The change we are experiencing is more than a new context of communication and a set of new technologies. It is a profound mutation in the behavior of people, which is born as a result of the awareness of its new centrality. If I had to look for a historical comparison, I would think about the French Revolution. With the advent of web 2.0, at the heart of marketing, marketing speech, people have been located and marketing professionals have to go after them. The digitization of the relationships, the behaviors, and the importance that the opinions of any user acquire are the keys to understanding the digital economy, which is not only about technology, but about people.
Has Digitization changed the attitude of the consumer?
Definitely. Now they all feel protagonists of their own world. In social networks mark the limits of their universe of consumer, fan, friend and, ultimately, person. Consumers choose which companies to link to, what advertising they want to receive, the content that interests them and seek the opinions of other consumers they trust. It is becoming less important what the brand says and more the opinion of consumers, people who trust other people.
What would you say are the advantages or benefits of Digital Marketing for the whole company?
There are several benefits, but I would highlight one: meet the customer live and live.
The dream of marketing is to know each client and social networks offer us the opportunity to interact with each person. Now, sleep can become a nightmare if we do not have the right tools to process all the available information.
What does Social Media Intelligence add to traditional market research?
We now have real information, concrete results from our target audience. We are no longer exposed to the statistical failure of classical market research, or the interpretations of the focus groups, nor are we immersed in the noise of the tsunamiof information impossible to catalog of the first approaches to the digital world. Now we begin to have tools that help us to classify the received data and to focus on what can really be useful: analyze conversations, identify motivations, brakes, the best valued brand attributes, competitors’ reputation. The combination of social data (age, occupation, gender …) with real behavioral processes (purchases, hobbies, complaints, praise …) of clients offers a mixture of information essential for the development of effective strategies.
The Social Media Intelligence works in real time and uses powerful technology to provide a coherent view of the outside world. Now there is no excuse for self-referentiality . We have our ‘window to the world’.
How can we manage the millions of inputs / reports we receive? What importance do you give to control, measurement, optimization of digital performance?
It is obvious that in order to transform all available information into networks, specific tools are required. There are multiple monitoring programs, many of which are free, but generally provide fragmented data that requires a lot of effort and dedication to turn it into valuable information useful for decision making.
The Social Media Intelligence is booming, marketing managers to develop successful strategies we need to have methodologies for analysis of consumer behavior in networks, involving precision and time savings. It is a new way of analyzing consumer behavior, few companies use it … Personally, I have incorporated into my marketing plans the tool developed by Eps ilon Technologies, SAIO, an excellent information aggregator. Data on customer perceptions of the brand provide valuable information for developing strategies more accurately.
How to involve Social Media Marketing teams?
Marketing managers must understand that the brand image is no longer exclusively in the hands of the marketing, communications and public relations department. Consumers through the power of socializing their opinions in networks are influencing the public image of brands. We must adapt to the new situation and make the necessary changes so that the organization learns how to manage its socialization. It is a change full of opportunities and a challenge because it is a profound change and affects the entire company, not just the marketing team or social media specialists. Marketing people are curious people and the news must motivate us, not scare us.
How to measure success in social media? What is your point of view?
Success is achieving a better commitment to the client. Getting engagement with communities and groups really involved with the brand is the main objective of most companies in their social activity.
We have already passed the era of just counting followers … Companies are beginning to become more and more producers and publishers of online content. Better to have fewer followers, but more differentiated and loyal, as these will become customers, who will act as ambassadors of the brand and generate more followers. Social networks do sell, but you have to know how to listen.