Tag Archives: Social media marketing

March 24, 2014 · 9:55 am

What Oreo Has Wrought

Let’s begin the week with another entry in the book of social media marketing stupidity.

English: Two regular Oreo cookies. Please chec...

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One trend of which you might be aware is real-time content marketing – brands responding to events as they happen. It’s rapid response content creation and the best-known example is Oreo tweeting out a clever marketing message in response to the blackout at last year’s Super Bowl.  This wasn’t the result of a smart intern winging it.  There were ad agency and brand people at Oreo’s social media command center during the game.

The success Oreo had inspired many copy cats.  In fact, a study done around that time found that over half the brand folks surveyed thought they’d be making greater use of real-time data in their marketing.  Fair enough.  Now let’s see what Oreo has wrought.

Yesterday during the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, CBS showed a shot of a young Kansas fan who was crying as his team lost.  Some marketing genius at KFC thought it would be clever to tweet out a screengrab of the teary child along with a marketing message to the 500,000 people following their Twitter account.  After all, what better way to sell fried chicken then on the back of an upset kid! It was such a good idea that KFC pulled the tweet down shortly thereafter as someone woke up and realized that finding a sales message in a crying kid’s unhappiness is way over the offensive line.  Credit them for moving fast to pull it down (although it would have been nice if they’d have issued an apology as well).

Contrast this with something I saw this morning in an online golf publication I read.  The former head of the USGA passed away yesterday – the announcement came late in the day.  Less than 12 hours later, the USGA has a tasteful ad in the publication saluting the man.  Real-time?  Not exactly but certainly quickly after the event.  Different from social media?  Yes, although they certainly could have used this in all of their social channels and they did, in fact, do other things in those channels.

Real time doesn’t mean “speak before you think.”  It means coming across as authentic and relevant (and really funny never hurts either).  That’s not as easy as giving a kid the keys to your social account and a TV to watch what’s going on.  It may not take a lot of planning to be good in real-time – that would kind of negate the purpose.  It does take managing, however, which is clearly what someone did after the KFC tweet went out.  Do you see the difference?

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February 10, 2014 · 11:21 am

Is Social Commerce For Real?

It’s Monday and it’s time to get our brains revved up for the week.  Let’s start with some thinking about Social Commerce.  This is a term used to describe marketing strategies that incorporate social media to make online buying and selling of products and services happen.  It’s actually what I write about a fair amount here on the screed since it’s separate and apart from the click to buy marketing (Free shipping this hour only!  50% off mukluks!) we see so often.  It’s really the more “conversational” part of marketing.   If you check in here from time to time you know that I’m a big advocate of that sort of stuff.  Then again, I could be terribly wrong and it might all be a waste of time.

Turns out that the good folks at UMass Dartmouth looked into it.  As they said:

This study, conducted by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, is an in-depth look at current purchasing habits and trends of Millennials using three of the most widely used social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest).  In an effort to discern what turns a like, follow or pin into a sale, this study explores and analyzes lead conversion tactics as identified by Millennials themselves.  Also included is a look at mobile technology and its role in online purchasing by measuring percentage of sales conducted through smart phones versus tablets.

So what did they find?  They focused on Millennials.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are defined as the folks born between 1980 and 2000.  Not surprisingly, they found that social media did drive purchase.  62% of respondents currently like at least one brand on Facebook.  Twitter has 23% of respondents following a brand and Pinterest has 11% of Millennials pinning a brand (Nike is the most liked/followed brand).  But those actions can lead to revenue and not just online.

  • Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest contribute to both online and in-store purchasing.  Seventy-seven percent of Facebook users, 66% of Twitter users and 63% of Pinterest users are multi-channel shoppers.
  • Of those who reported they had never purchased something after liking, following or pinning it online, offering a coupon or discount was the most frequently cited lead conversion tactic for Millennials.  Respondents indicated this is the top motivator leading to a sale.  Similarly, Millennials indicated that companies giving exclusive offers or appealing to their interests were more likely to see an increase in sales as a result of online interaction.

You can read more about this study here but the “news” is this:

Millennials are leading the social commerce movement.  They are more likely than any other group to like/follow/pin companies and brands.  They are enticed by coupons and discounts, purchase hair/beauty products and apparel, often using mobile phones and tablets.  They are multi-channel shoppers, buying both online and in-store.  This cohort is active online in ways that allow them to connect, organize, stay informed and shop.  They spend more money on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest than other groups making them the ones to watch as social commerce surges forward.

In other words, engaging your audience, particularly your younger audience, is a valuable antecedent to making a sale.  So yes, Social Commerce does exist.  Aren’t you relieved?

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January 27, 2014 · 9:33 am

Small Guys, Big Voices

I spent part of the weekend getting caught up on everything going on across the various social networks to which I belong.

Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Fr...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s an impossible task, by the way.  It’s really the epitome of living in the moment because one can’t ever really get “caught up” – a post from a week ago is so…last week, I guess.  In any event, it got me thinking about how social media keeps changing and how what I tell clients about optimizing their use of that channel needs to change as well.

Sometimes I think the Internet should be called “The Great Equalizer,” since it puts the small guys on an even footing with the big guys.  It may seem to you as if every company/brand/retailer you know is on Facebook and you’re right: 92% of them use it.  The majority of them are on YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and publish some sort of blog.  Unlike regular advertising, a bigger budget doesn’t assure you of bigger visibility.  If as a smaller business you’re going to be good at social media and conduct what some term “social commerce” it’s pretty obvious that you can’t outspend the big guys in your category.  You need to outsmart them with great content, and make wise choices about where to devote resources, both human and financial.

I’ll admit to have hardly ever clicked on an ad on a social site.  I do, however, read posts from brands all the time and once in a while I’ll click-through those to find something that’s piqued my interest.  I’ve even bought something as a result.  I’m not alone.  According to Internet Retailer 2014 Social Media 500, which ranks online merchants on the percentage of site traffic they receive from social networks:

  • Monthly referral traffic to e-commerce sites from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube increased 42% in 2013 to 51.5 million monthly unique visitors from 36.3 million.
  • Social commerce sales retailers raked in, that is, revenue derived from those visitors, jumped nearly 63% to $2.69 billion from $1.65 billion.
  • Spending on social ads by 40 retailers that supplied data increased 400% from 2012 to 2013.

It’s the small guys driving those numbers.  The challenge for them – and maybe for you – is to overcome the clutter in every user’s social landscape. That clutter in not the only issue. The fact that only a tiny fraction of what you post appears in your fans’ news feeds means that you must get the user to seek you out and to do so often enough that the algorithms see you as a close enough “friend” to put your news in those “top news” feeds.  You up to the task?

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