Budget time for social media

Adolf Ogi's legendary New Year's speech on January 1, 2000 on Swiss television live from Kandersteg was the subject of much discussion. Who remembers? Today, 14 years later, TV appeals by Federal Councillors no longer make waves. What happened? While the Federal Council has stuck with SRG broadcasters as the primary mouthpiece for video messages, media consumers have turned to other sources. Wouldn't it be time to use the Federal Council's messages for new distribution channels? This is a question that we should all be addressing this fall at budget time. It's not as if nothing has happened in media land since last fall ...

Federal Councillor Leuthard's appeal against the single health insurance fund was viewed 311 times on the SRF web portal, shared twice on Facebook and once on Google+. The article was not shared on social media. No wonder: you won't find the video on the SRF News Facebook page, and it seems that the Federal Council doesn't even have a Facebook page. This is extremely surprising when you consider that over three million of his "flock" use the Facebook channel at least once a month.

The way Mrs. Federal Councillor's video contribution ended up in the quasi-anonymity of the SRF web player is exemplary. In my opinion, both the Federal Council and SRF lack a social media strategy!

There is currently hardly any mention of social media in the SRG guidelines on public service. It states: "Numerous broadcasts can be viewed as delayed streams via the websites of the individual SRG television channels." There is no question that every resident of the country theoretically has the opportunity to access the messages of the Federal Councillors. SRG also takes the technical aspect of its distribution mandate seriously by having, as it writes, "a complex infrastructure". However, the number of just over 300 views after seven days in the above example shows that the strategy of having its own complex infrastructure is increasingly reaching its limits in practice with regard to the public service mandate. An infrastructure that SRG also uses via Publisuisse to sell advertising space for companies. The problem of making it increasingly difficult to reach broad sections of the population - foreign-language immigrants are also part of the "public" - cannot be solved by focusing on its own infrastructure.

The New York Times Innovation Report gets to the heart of the problem with a phenomenon. More and more visits to media news sites are coming from social media streams, search engines or newsletters. The result: homepage visits are declining, while site views remain constant. The classic homepage, especially the navigation, is losing importance. Instead, the social teasing of individual posts is gaining in importance. This refers to posts from news pages, websites or blogs that are posted or tweeted via backlinks in your own social media feed. Responsible for this development are two trends that have been running in parallel for some time and have now suddenly coincided: the social media and mobile boom. All major social media networks are now recording more hits via smartphones and tablets than via desktop devices. As of December 2013, the figure for Facebook in the USA was 68%. On Facebook alone, the number of monthly active users via mobile services has increased from 751 million to over 1 billion. There is no doubt that mobile use is also intensifying the use of social media networks - especially the undisputed king Facebook. This is because use is possible at any time via smartphone app.

Overnight, the Federal Council, the SRG and all advertisers have been given the opportunity to counteract the impending loss of importance of their own homepage and the dormant content therein by posting teasers in the social media news feeds. In order to really take advantage of this opportunity, the use of social media must be immediately incorporated into the overall advertising strategy. In concrete terms, this means that Facebook, for example, as a mass medium with real-time measurable targeting options, belongs in every intermedia comparison. The days of Facebook as an experimental field for junior assistants are over. Facebook for companies now has to be paid for. The change from a free to a paid advertising medium has been taking place in secret over the last few months. Although posts are still delivered free of charge, the opaque Facebook algorithm alone decides who gets to see the video of Mrs. Federal Councillor in their own newsfeed.

There are two payment methods and one free method, which is still open, to securely reach the Facebook newsfeed of certain target groups. Firstly, by advertising your own fan page with paid ads. In this case, you buy a certain number of likes. The price is based on the bidding process. It therefore depends on the demand for a certain target group at a certain point in time. We know this from Google Adwords. The price elasticity is enormous. With a daily budget of 19 francs, there are 17 to 67 likes per day. 75 centimes per click is a guideline for budgeting at the beginning. You can invest a maximum of 19 francs per day. Secondly, by promoting your own posts. Here again, you buy views according to the bidding process. Here, too, there are restrictions per post.

Thirdly, ask existing fans to activate the "Receive notifications" function. This is an insider tip. Fans who have activated this function for a specific page will then receive notifications as soon as something is posted. In a recently published study by the University of Zurich, coUNDco, Lithium and SAP, among others, 60 percent of all companies surveyed stated that they had set themselves clear social media goals. Social media has therefore found its way into the strategic setting. But where is the will to implement it? This will be reflected in the willingness of advertising managers to invest significantly in social media for 2015. First with Facebook as a mass medium on a par with TV. So that on January 1, President Sommaruga's New Year's address will go beyond the usual distribution framework and her words will also inspire the numerous immigrant residents via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram feed to follow our country's common path. Perhaps, like Adolf Ogi back then, she will come up with something original. Because that's particularly effective on the social web ;)

Beat Hürlimann

You can find out more about social media strategy at Storify.com/beathuerlimann/social-media-strategy.