I love the ‘social’ in social media. The Creative Director at 3H says: Social Media is the new way of networking… and she is absolutely right. Just think, every time you post a comment to a group discussion on Linkedin, or stumble upon a peer’s blog, when you have something to say… it starts the social networking process. We aren’t going to an event nor do we have a glass of wine in our hands (or maybe we do!), but the premise is the same. Meeting people (peers, or contacts) connecting in a way that adds value. As we evolve in our own social media worlds, it’s nice to see that online social behavior is pretty much the same as it is in real life settings. People help people, share secrets, share stories, complain, compliment…
Recently, we started a discussion within a peer group on Linkedin which lead to one of my colleagues, Miriam Hara, to participate and comment on a post, outside of our blog… outside of any of our usual social media circles. Unknown to us, Miriam’s image did not appear beside her post. We were pleasantly surprised to be notified by Andrew, the voice behind SteinVox, the blog where we had participated in a discussion. He notified Miriam that her image was not beside her post and took the time to write Miriam an email, advising her of the issue and providing her the information to fix the issue. We had already set up and created an account with Gravatar but I guess something was amiss… so we simply updated the image and it appeared. What left a smile on our face was the gesture from Andrew, that he took the time to explain this to us, someone we had only online interaction with. Just before the holidays I wrote a post about random acts of kindness that spoke to human interaction…This is in the same league.
So what is Gravatar? Gravatar is associated with WordPress and it is brilliant. Your “Gravatar” is an image of you that appears beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. This image helps identify your posts on blogs and web forums. It is very simple to do, and it’s free!
Simple features such as a Gravatar add to our overall virtual experience and make social media seem more real. Furthermore, social media is continuously finding ways to help bridge the gap between online and offline communication by discovering ways to make social networking more “social.” No matter where we are or what we do, we are able to stay connected with friends and family through the virtual world and this is something that was not available prior to the introduction of social networking. We now have the ability to have multiple conversations on-the-go. We can form new relationships and strengthen existing ones regardless of location and even time zones.
Humans have an innate drive for interpersonal communication and the need to form relationships. We are social creatures and new technology such as social media helps to fulfill our social need and ultimately brings us closer together. On a professional level, it is simply awesome. It has never been easier to interact with people that have like-minded interests within the business community…worldwide…instantly.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the number of “likes”a Facebook page has or doesn’t have… Businesses should ask themselves is the number of “likes” they have really all there is? Is it even possible to over value the worth of a “like”? We all know that utilizing Social Media for business and brands is more than just Twitter and Facebook. It’s about having a good social media strategy, listening to the online conversation, engaging in and setting objectives with measurable results… and having a next step.
Last week the marketing world learned of a Facebook marketing strategy that had gone seriously wrong. For simply “liking” their Facebook page, the company had promised a free gift that was worth about $17.95. For some reason the company forgot the basic marketing premise of never disappointing their customer base. Just a simple disclaimer: “while supplies last” or “for the first 100 people” is what it would have taken to make this promotion a success. Three days later this company realized their blunder, achieving their forecast number of “likes”. They compounded their lack of accurate forecast by waiting about 3 weeks before they initiated dialogue to customers that had liked the page but wouldn’t get the freebie; far too long a response time. The damage was done… twice they had not delivered on their marketing promise to their potential customer.
It’s a known tactic that offering consumers free stuff engages response and trial… and in today’s world, the word gets out fast on contest-aggregating websites! A lack of understanding of the media and how the audience engages is sure way of failing. Success of any marketing initiative, social media, print, TV or radio…still remains in the planning, execution and details.
A marketing plan is fundamental and the social media plan needs to be folded into that. Freebies, giveaways, free stuff…. it’s great to see how many people are listening to you, and dive in! Yes! But at what cost? What price? Premiums, giveaways….they’re investments in building a relationship to further promote customer engagement and customer’s experience towards your brand.
What is your USP? Who is your target market? What is your budget? Setting objectives is mandatory for long term vision. Set sharp, clearly defined goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound (trackable)… just as you would in traditional marketing.
Five years ago social media was 3% of our total media spend. Today it’s more than 20% and growing fast. ~ Muhtar Kent (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Coca-Cola Company)
Kudos to Coca-Cola‘s ability to integrate the new while keeping their heritage and brand positioning. Here are just a couple of examples of how Coca-Cola is harnessing social media to it’s advantage The Coca-Cola campaign titled “The happiness machine” was a video short, never intended to be aired on traditional broadcast media. It was created over a year ago utilizing the virility of social networks such as YouTube to convey its message of communal caring and assistance for one another. The strength and appeal of the videos are on the impromptu reaction to the people being filmed and by judging by the number of views of the videos, resonates with their consumer base. Coca-Cola again reinforces it’s basic positioning: It’s the real thing! Consumers want to be engaged by the brands they choose and Coca-Cola has demonstrated that real reactions rather then staged, appeal to the social media audience.
This video has been viewed 4,069,045 times since January of last year and has been liked 13,368 likes on YouTube.
Another example is the campaign that was followed by the “The Coca-Cola Happiness Truck” video which resulted in an international overall good feeling.
This video has been viewed 1,136,192 times since February this year and has been liked 3,159 likes on YouTube.
When is enough too much? When is constant change too radical for the average visitor. I have witnessed in the past when the hype machine steers the masses to decide they’ve been jostled and exposed and had their privacy settings changed enough, that the tide washes out and the visitors along with them.
I am not predicting the demise for the largest social network (roughly 800 million users). I am waving the saturation flag. I think that the way companies use this social network need to be creative in a sense to offer a distinct offering to its audience and not load it with the same content that is being provided elsewhere. Early adopters and technology advocates and tech geeks together love the ‘new’ thing and Facebook is far from that but used in a fresh and exciting way, can be made interesting again.
There are numerous changes being integrated into the platform. The features, appearance and behavior. Lesson – Don’t offer so much that your audience can’t keep track of or know what to do with all the enhancements. This is starting to resemble the Microsoft Office model of feature on top of feature.
Facebook is mentioned and used in a variety of marketing and advertising channels by numerous companies. The important thing to remember, so as not to perpetuate the saturation is to ensure that you offer value to the visitor that visits your brand space within this social network and keep the offerings focused.
