We’ve just received an update from the Hewlett Packard ProLiant team after two months with their new Facebook Public Profile and Twitter account. Below is a summary of the process we went through in creating their strategy and implementation and how they’re doing so far:
What HP Wanted
The ProLiant team had previously created a Facebook Group as an attempt to get into the social media space. However, there wasn't an overall strategy for how this Group would fit in to their marketing plan and it wasn't being maintained. They had also noticed activity on Twitter related to their brand, but had not yet created an account to respond. The team wanted an overall strategy detailing which social media outlets they should be involved in, how they should be interacting with their customers, and how to integrate the huge amount of content they produced for their web site.
What We Found
Facebook Public Profiles offered companies an opportunity to deliver information and engage their customers. Twitter offers real-time updates well suited to covering events and responding to feedback. Many of ProLiant's customers have both Facebook and Twitter accounts. By enabling communication between Facebook and Twitter, it would ensure the customer, whichever platform they are using, receives the most current information. Additionally, the ProLiant team's interactions had to be more than just re-broadcasting information. They needed to provide specific content for each platform that would engage their audience and attract new ones.
How We Executed
We created a Facebook Public Profile for ProLiant that showed off their brand and a Twitter account that enabled them to respond to their customers. In order to deliver relevant content to all the platforms, there has to be a seamless flow of information. Implementing a web 2.0 content syndication model allows communication across all the social media outlets. The blogs on the HP website are fed into their Facebook Public Profile, and enable Facebook users to read the posts, play the podcasts, and watch the videos. The Facebook status updates are automatically fed into Twitter, and any Twitter update is automatically fed to the Facebook Public Profile. This allows information to be updated from either account, and to be displayed on both. The Twitter feed was also shown on HP.com. This now allows a single user to contribute to the same interaction via Facebook, Twitter, a blog post, or text message.
Results
By implementing the above techniques, ProLiant was able to streamline their updating process, and offer more frequently-refreshed content, which resulted in an rapid increase in Fans on Facebook, with spikes in page views corresponding with posting new material. Currently, the number of interactions per post is growing, and post quality is improving. This indicates that fans are becoming more involved and are staying active and interested. Their Twitter account also has attracted many followers and has become a key part of their launch events, with team members and company vice-presidents taking turns to comment and respond.
