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Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category
Friday, March 12th, 2010
We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of requests for social influence marketing proposals, which is a great thing. I, personally, think that social media as a marketing tool affords companies an opportunity to position themselves as brands of choice among their prospects and customers. It can compliment (notice I didn’t say replace) many of the other marketing tactics and channels that organizations are employing quite nicely. Before diving into online conversations, companies need to prepare themselves to listen and participate transparently, and to do that effectively they need a social media monitoring tool.
With a social media monitoring tool, you’ll be able to hear what’s being said about your company, brand, employees, and competition. You’ll be better armed to participate in the conversation and you’ll be able to react to negative publicity before it snowballs out of control and damages your brand. One additional (and very important) feature of a social media monitoring tool is the ability to identify trends and hot topics, allowing you to create content (blog posting, Fan Page update, Tweet) that matches consumer interest.
We’ve explored a number of these monitoring tools and have listed them below (in no particular order) with some images that link to each company’s respective site. These tools all have different features, benefits, and price tags making them a good choice for some companies and not for others. Got a question on how to select a monitoring tool? Give us a shout! Use one of these tools? We’d love hearing your thoughts on what you like or don’t like about it.
Tags: social influence marketing, Social Media, Social Media Monitoring, Social Media Tools
Posted in Social Media Monitoring | No Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Many of you may have seen the Facebook promotion that T.G.I. Friday’s began last year. They created a character named Woody. Become a fan of Woody and when he gets 500,000 fans, every one of them gets a free hamburger. It was a terrific hit and soon Woody had over 900,000 fans, as well as their email address and a heck of a marketing database. I personally thought it was a great idea. Woody traveled across the country visiting restaurants and snapping photos with fans, who posted them on the site. There was video, discussions, and a tremendous opportunity to build community.
That is until Woody’s girlfriend took him back? What?!? That’s it? T.G.I. Friday’s and all their genius decided they should stop the promotion and retire Woody? Okay so maybe the actor playing Woody wasn’t available anymore or it was getting too costly to ship him around the country. I get it. Why not evolve the site? Give Woody a make-over? If your company acts with this type of short-sighted and short-term thinking then you should probably NOT look to social media as a promotional tool.
T.G.I. Friday’s decision to stop the campaign will ultimately do more brand damage than it did positive promotion, and evidence of that is already on display. Many of the “discussions” in the discussion section are negative in nature and rail against the restaurant chain for betrayal. The comments after Woody’s announcement are more negative than positive (click on the image to the right to see for yourself). How is this helping their brand? What started as a great idea – a large community of interested followers – is now a forum for bashing Friday’s. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so drop a comment. I’m no longer a fan of Woody’s so you won’t find me there.
Tags: facebook promotion, poor facebook promotion, social influence marketing, woody facebook promotion
Posted in Social Impact, Social Influence Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Social media is creating huge opportunity for marketers! Don’t believe me? All you need to do is look at some of the statistics being tossed around. 51% of people use social media and that same number has posted original content somewhere in the social sphere. 73% of people have posted a product review. 97% have searched for a brand online. Facebook alone has over 350 million global users with half of them logging on daily. That’s a market that is hard to resist for many marketers. What’s even scarier is that by the time you finish reading these statistics they’ll be out of date.
Also, according to Razorfish, these social media users are not averse to advertising; 66% of them friended or followed a brand, 65% have had their mind changed about a brand perception, and 97% say that social media has influenced a purchasing decision.
Are you ready to dive in? Great! But ask yourself these 3 questions first… and be sure to answer them honestly:
1. Do you have the ability to monitor your brand? It’s one thing to participate in the massive conversation that is social media, but if you have no mechanism for seeing what’s being said about you, your competition, your products or your employees, then it’s pretty difficult to add any real value to the conversation. Invest in a social media monitoring solution. There are great third party tools out there such as Radian6 or Techrigy (now Alterian), or you can build your own using Google Reader. Don’t know how? Contact me and I’ll show you. Or you can work with a company (like OnFlow) to help you track your brand online.
2. Are you prepared to be transparent in your communications? Social media has created a forum for people to voice their opinions like never before, and if they feel that they’re being sold something that may be too good to be true, they are sure to talk about it. Admit your short-comings and mistakes as quickly as you would your triumphs and successes and you’ll earn people’s trust – the best currency there is in the social sphere.
3. Do you have something of value to share? This question may seem obvious, but just take a look at all the Twitter accounts that provide worthless content. Companies that Tweet their About Us website page in 140 characters over the course of a week are adding nothing of value, and likely creating detrimental brand exposure. Create original content that would be of value to prospects and clients and then expose it to relevant social media channels, while spreading other people’s content as well.
There’s a ton more that you’ll need to consider, but if you answer “NO” to any of the above questions, then it’s not worth discussing as yet. Social media affords huge opportunity, so get your wheels in motion!
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Tags: ready for social media, Social Impact, social influence marketing, Social Media, social media marketing
Posted in Social Impact, Social Influence Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
We’ve seen it in many industries for years, White Labeling, or Private Labeling, of goods and services in order to offer something that is not easily manufactured or produced without significant costs. For instance, auto manufacturers will design cars that you will see produced under multiple alternative brands, each one with its own spin on the original (usually upgraded or downgraded for different market segments). So what does this mean to an agency? Let’s discuss five reasons an agency should be considering white labeling services to augment or enhance its service offering, especially in today’s environment.
- Focus on Customer Relationships – One of the highest priorities, if not the highest, of an agency is to cultivate the client relationship. Without it the relationship falls apart. Nothing takes more time away from the client than an agency staff mired in production, or figuring out how to do something new. They forget to listen, interact, and spend time with the client. The next thing out of the client’s mouth is “We’re switching agencies.”
- Productivity without Increasing Overhead – Efficiency is a huge focus for an agency. Produce more with less and increase profits, go over on hours or realize poor productivity and profits disappear. White labeling services will shift the burden to the company providing the white label service and allow the agency to accurately and easily measure ROI.
- Diversificationof Products and Services – Let’s face it, outside of brand stewardship (creative and strategy), an agency can’t, and shouldn’t, do everything in-house. From video and webdev production, email marketing to search marketing, a white label solution can remove the cost of entry barrier to adding crucial services your clients need and expect.
- Fixing Costs to Ensure Profitability – In an agency world there is always a battle to manage cost overruns, balance resources, and increase profitability. White labeling a service offering can keep the agency in control of brand integrity while fixing costs with each project or campaign. Result – increased and predictable cash flow.
- Scalable Resources means Bigger Opportunities – The ability to respond to larger opportunities is often limited by an agency’s own internal resources. Using a white label service offering creates a quickly scalable, on-demand team making it feasible to expand and contract as the work flows.
An agency’s primary focus is to create value for clients by connecting people to brands. What an agency doesn’t want to do is get so mired in the production details that they lose the ability to achieve this mission. This doesn’t mean that an agency shouldn’t work hard on internal efficiencies, but it does mean that they need to be smart about how they get the work done. This type of out-of-the-box strategy builds longevity through unpredictable times.
This blog post was written by Jason Nuss and originally printed in Media Inc. magazine’s Issue Two 2009.
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Tags: Agencies, White Label
Posted in Search Marketing, Social Media, White Label | No Comments »
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