Fragmented Customer Engagement Strategy

Social media strategy is a foundational component of the first level of Cisco’s training programme.
They have included this into their Employees’ Code of Conduct as well. Cisco is an aggressive player
on the social media front. It currently follows the philosophy of being SOCIAL: “Scalable, Open,
Consistent, Intuitive, Active, and Limitless.” Cisco reaches out to its customer through

In order to ensure continuous customer engagement, it is imperative that there is consistency in the
message conveyed through different communication channels. A particular target segment must
receive the same message across all media. This leads to greater brand stickiness in the customers’
mind. However, it has been observed that there is a lack of coherence in the content uploaded on
different social media platforms by Cisco, viz., LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Different
messages are conveyed on different platforms. Also, the content posted by their employees
sometimes differs from the one posted through the company handles. This leads to a sense of
confusion and ambiguity in the target segment, which is not an efficient utilisation of social media; it
is also detrimental for the company’s brand equity.

Fig. 1: Cisco’s SOCIAL Policy

It is important to mention here that Cisco invests great amount of time and effort into acquiring new
followers and expanding their social media audience. This helps Cisco increase their customer base,
ultimately leading to more business. But now it is important for Cisco to focus on the quality of their
social media conversations. Having a robust and coherent social media engagement strategy will
Cisco retain their large follower base through accurate and targeted communications.
Our Recommendation: 4 W’s of Engagement

In order to ensure continuous customer engagement and consistent communication, it is

recommended that Cisco follow the 4 W’s of Engagement: Why, Who, When and What. These 4 W’s
would be helpful in planning and implementation of a robust and consistent social media
engagement strategy

Why

What Who

When

1. Why

The question “Why” pertains to the objectives of the social media engagement strategy. Before
implementing the strategy, it is very important to have unambiguously defined objectives. For Cisco,
the following objectives are recommended:

I. To achieve the larger business goals and targets via social media
II. To break long-term goals into short-term milestones to expedite the customer acquisition
process

These objectives, if followed, would help Cisco stay on track, achieve rapid progress and quickly
adjust their tactics as required.

2. Who: The People

According to Michel Brito of Edelman Digital,

i. 41% people believe that company employees are the most credible source of specialist
information.
ii. 77% buyers say they are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media

Taking these statistics into consideration, it is recommended that Cisco engage Subject Matter
Experts (SMEs) from different domains in the company, whose main job may not be related to social
media content creation, to communicate with the customers through content shared on their
personal social media handles. This would increase the word-of-mouth publicity of the brand Cisco
and would help reduce the routing time for leads.
 3. When: Timing

As shown in the graph above, in the initial stages, the interest of the social media users in a brand or
a product increases gradually with the brand’s activity on social media and its marketing campaigns.
However, in the later stages, the content posted on social media decides whether the interest will
continue to rise or it will plummet. Hence, the content being posted on social media should be
timely. Any content posted in advance or delay could have a negative impact on the efficacy of the
social media strategy.

4. What: Content and Conversation

Content is the most important component of any successful social media strategy. The content
posted on social media should ideally be in a storytelling manner. Great Storytelling is the key to
effective social media engagement strategy. Any content shared on social media will be effective if it
is:

i. Relevant
ii. Original
iii. Simple to understand
iv. Easy to share
v. High on feelings and values
vi. Tied to a bigger story
vii. Accessible through all devices (mobile, PC, tablet)
viii. Appropriate for the target audience

In short, a great content is that which encourages people to like, share, retell, and ultimately buy the
product of the company. Hence, it is recommended that:

a. The content be timely, simple, reusable and short

b. Individual posts connect multiple content pieces to drive additional content discovery
c. The posts contain extensive use of images and videos, as posts with videos appear higher on
search results
d. The content be in regional languages to ensure deeper market penetration

Along with effective content, the manner in which the content is put forward has immense impact
on the success of any social media strategy. Monotonous or bland conversation would lead to the
content, howsoever strong and relevant, not having the intended impact. Hence, in order to make
the conversation effective, Cisco should:

a. Follow the “Would I want my mother to see this?” approach: Do online only what they will
do offline, thus, avoid posting indecent or controversial content
b. Balance conversations among brand-specific, industry, social and fun topics to keep the
viewers eternally excited
 c. Be in audience’s shoes: Post what they like the most or what matters for them the most
d. Learn from the community, and get to know them outside their social media life
e. Include community in the solution and make it easy for them to make the content viral

Mobile Content Strategy

Apart from following the above-mentioned recommendations it is becoming increasingly important

for companies to make their social media content mobile friendly. By 2022, mobile data traffic is
expected to reach 77.5 exabytes per month worldwide at a compound annual growth rate of 46
percent. By 2020, there will be almost a million minutes of video per second crossing the internet.
Hence, the following strategies are recommended for Cisco to increase customer engagement:

i. Go Glocal

Social media transcends nations, cultures and communities, but Cisco should keep a local view
through geo-targeting and local social networking sites and tolls.

ii. Integrate

Cisco should Integrate social media channels with other media like blogs, TV and Print. This will make
customer journey easier and also enable Cisco to gain deeper insights.

iii. Customise

Cisco should tailor the content and conversation to particular audience and also to specific
distribution vehicles.

iv. Promote Insights

Regular engagement opportunities should be developed, such as online events, humorous videos,
twitter chats and other mobile-specific content.

Success Measurement Metrics

The success of the recommended customer engagement strategy could be measured by the
following metrics:

i. Conversation Volume: It is an indicator of interest. It can be measured by the comments

received on the post
ii. Reach: It can be measured by analysing the spread and impressions from a post to
various social media channels
iii. Engagement: It measures how people participate in conversations and what are their
subsequent actions
iv. Influence: Inlfluence could be measured by assessing the total number of followers, likes
and shares
v. Share of Voice: It is the percentage of total conversations about us or our products in a
particular industry or segment.
vi. Sentiment: Tone or emotion underlining the overall conversation about the brand or
product. It could be analysed through various sentiment analytics tools and software.

Thus, the recommended strategy can be said to have succeeded if it scores high on all these
metrices.