The extent to which your brand is able to create connections and expand its network is determined by the extent to which it creates active social signals. An active signal is a two-way connection based on an exchange of value.
Creating active social signals not only builds connectivity with your brand community but enables your organization to gain valuable insight from its business ecosystem. This insight enables you to understand your audience needs and earn their attention by providing relevance and value.
Overview - Building Connections & Attention
"In the digital world, where abundance is key it is a customer's attention that has become scarce. This means that the customer now holds the value not the company." [1]
Chris Saad
Becoming a more connected brand is impossible unless you can engage your audience in a way that gets and maintains their attention. However, confronted with information overload and attention scarcity the audience you're trying to reach is becoming increasingly selective regarding who they will give their attention and trust to.
Many Brands Are Struggling to Earn Audience Attention Online
The attention challenge arises from the fact that many investor awareness and/or marketing efforts online are geared toward one-way messaging, link building, keyword building, content building, banner ads, paid search, etc. These efforts very often fail to create actual connections. These are considered passive signals. Brands are signaling but nobody's listening.
Overview - Building A Framework For Attention
In order to create the active Social Signals that connect with investors, IR departments need to move from passive signals (i.e. passive media, isolated links, one-way messages) to active signals (i.e. person to person, two-way signals). For example a press release is a passive signal. A status update on Twitter or a Wall Post on Facebook are considered active signals that appear in the active media streams your audience is using on a daily basis to garner the latest insight from their social graph.
Social Signals Earn Attention
The easiest way to earn attention is to create signals that have relevance to the audience you're trying to reach. The greater the relevance the greater the attention. Engaging in two-way dialogue with your audience enables you to discover what's relevant by simply asking them.
"A social currency is the reputation score an individual or entity acquires in a particular social network that credibly reflects their value in that network. " [2]
John H. Clippinger
Create Connections That Build Value in Your Network
Many brands are failing to grasp the dynamics of online interaction and trust building and are consequently losing touch with their core constituencies and prospective customers. Social signals will reveal an intent to participate and give value. Mutual value exchange is the glue that holds your social network together.
Build Your Reputation and Social Currency
Value driven Social Signals and consistent interaction with your community builds social currency for your brand. Social currency is the reputation score an individual or entity acquires in a particular social network that credibly reflects their value in that network.
Prepare Your Company for the Attention Economy
Faced with exponential growth of information and data consumers are becoming more selective about the information they choose to consume and will increasingly come to depend on recommendations from their peer network and social graph. Building your network of connections enables you to become part of that recommendation system.
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