Beyond the Numbers : Interview with Yu Yu Din

In this week’s Beyond the Numbers, we catch up with Yu Yu Din the Head Digital Strategist at Genesis Burson-Marsteller. Yu Yu also joined us as a panelist for our #Unquiz event at Social Media Week Mumbai. Follow her on Twitter for more insights into the digital space.

 Read on as we find out how the folks at Genesis approach digital.

 This interview is part of an ongoing series; see other great interviews with industry experts in our Interview archive here.

How does your agency approach social media marketing on behalf of clients, and how does it fit into the larger digital marketing picture?

 Digital marketing is traditionally thought of as managing a brand’s activation or a launch campaign. Most of the conversations and engagement spikes happen during these campaigns and for the rest of the year; brands don’t know how to keep the conversation alive. Our role as digital strategists is to bridge this gap between brands and their communities by engaging in conversations on a continual basis.

In this new world of new media, speed of response when confronted with an issue or a crisis has taken on a new meaning thanks to new technologies and how they are being used as a medium of communication. In times of crisis, we help clients communicate proactively with confidence and transparency in order to minimize damage to corporate reputation. We do this in two different scenarios – in a best case scenario where we know something major is going to happen that might have an adverse effect on a brand like a product recall or a worst case scenario, where consumers are already criticizing the brand or an organization because something went wrong somewhere.   

 How have you seen social media greatly impact the business of your clients?

 Social media can either fuel brand love or brand hate. Once people start loving your brand because of the right social media engagement, more people will love your product and services and consumers start endorsing you by buying your product or services. With brand hate, it’s not always just an incident that you’re able to control and manage; sometimes the same rumours and incidents also get discussed in social circles, offline. When people are convinced, then they may stop using a product or a service, all together.

 When is social media data most critical to your efforts: During the planning process; while you’re executing a campaign, so you can change course or allocate more resources; or afterwards, to measure your success?

 I believe data is always important no matter what stage of the campaign you’re in. At Genesis Burson-Marsteller, we always practice evidence based communication so we naturally use data to gives us actionable insights, which guide us to get our strategy and tactics right. Of course if I had to pick a stage where data is most crucial, I’d say it’s in the planning stage because you’d rather know everything before you plan rather than do a course correction in the middle. But if there is data that tells you, you’re going the wrong way right after your campaign started, you need to put your hands up and say, we’re doing it wrong and adjust your tactics accordingly. That’s the most important thing any campaign manager should be able to do.

 What’s more valuable, competitive intelligence on brands within your client’s industry, or being able to look at the efforts from brands in other verticals?

 I think being able to look at efforts from brands across vertical is most valuable because if you’re handling a brand, you’d already be looking at competitors and even instinctively know who’s doing what. But if you’re looking at data across verticals you might find innovative and creative ways to plan campaigns that talk to a whole new set of audience who is relevant to your brand that you might not have thought of before.  

 

Click here to view more social media insights, thoughts and opinions from agency and brand experts.