Tag Archives: Social Marketing
October 7, 2011
The way to find the value of likes and followers is to break the mold
This week Social Media Today picked up an earlier article from Harvard Business Review. Titled “Social Media’s Impending Flood of Customer Unlikes and Unfollows” it’s a call-to-action for brands to change their social media mindsets. Think it’s too early in the world of social marketing for brands to be set in their ways? Think again. Many brands are following an already tired formula.
As quoted in the article, straight from a Facebook sales rep: “Don’t over-think any of this. …Do four things every week…ask a question, run a poll, share links, and engage with your fans. Oh, and have fun!” When he heard this, Brian Solis, thought leader on new media and the article’s author, was skeptical. So are we.
Posted in Social Marketing
July 28, 2011
Should Brands be Chicken When It Comes to Facebook?
Does sentiment drive openness or does openness drive sentiment?
There is no easy answer to this “chicken or egg” question. But there is no question social media is opening up (a quite public) window on the relationship between top retail brands and their customers. And though it is not necessary for retailers to prioritize openness – say, by defaulting likers to a “Top Posts” Facebook wall – not doing so (or being unable to do so), particularly when key competitors can, says something about a brand and offers clues as to how that brand operates in social space.
Media Logic has just completed a quick analysis of the relationship between brand sentiment/passion and the willingness of brands to prioritize customer posts on an open Facebook wall. We examined brands in three retail sectors – Department stores, Discount and Value stores and Hobby stores.
June 6, 2011
In Praise of the New Oracle of Social Marketing … Billboard Magazine?
Over the last several months, I’ve found myself turning to Billboard Magazine — in its old-school, dead-tree form — as one of my preferred curators of contemporary media and marketing information. From Twitter to the cloud and a dozen social and tech topics in between, Billboard’s editorial content has, for me anyway, helped move thinking from the theoretical to the applied.
Posted in Social Marketing
Tagged Billboard Magazine, Social Marketing
May 26, 2011
Revving Up Social Marketing For Cabela’s
Cabela’s just added Media Logic to their roster of marketing partners to amplify their social efforts. With all the hikers, anglers and hunters on our team, we couldn’t wait to get started!
Posted in Social Marketing, Social Promotions
Tagged Cabela's, customer engagement, Facebook, Social Marketing, Social Promotions, sweepstakes
May 5, 2011
A Metaphor for the Sales Pitch in Social Media (a.k.a. I’ll find any excuse to flatter Doug, the orange hand puppet)
Social media is part of my day job. At night and on weekends, I am a poet, which means I am always on the lookout for good metaphors. Just between you and me, I will confess I even embrace cheesy metaphors from time-to-time. And since I have confided in you now, and that makes us friends, I will warn you I cannot vouch for the metaphor I am about to impose on you. I do, however, stand behind the idea it represents.
While reading news from my RSS feeds recently on my Dell flat-screen monitor and listening to the Lynyrd Skynyrd channel via the Pandora radio app on my iPhone, I found a brandchannel article on product placement in a children’s show. Product placement. It can be blatant, like a logo plastered across a character’s costume in the cartoon referenced in that article. It can be slightly sneaky, like the first sentence of this paragraph. Or it can be ingenious and well-received, as it is in the popular TV show “Mad Men” (also mentioned in the brandchannel article).
I spend a lot of time reading about social media and how brands struggle with when and how to make sales pitches. Those without conscience (and those bound to get voted off the island) bombard fans and followers with advertisements. The only thing they know how to say is, “Buy this now!” Most companies understand how inappropriate that is in the social space and genuinely want to mix the sales pitch with the right amount of engaging content.
Posted in Social Marketing
Tagged brandchannel, branded content, Dell, Ford, iPhone, Mad Men, Social Marketing, social media
March 22, 2011
Keep the Meaning Behind Social Media Buzz Words
If you spend any time at all on social media marketing, you notice that what’s desirable in real life (IRL) – relationships, conversation and engagement – is also pursued in social media marketing. These results are so prized they have become buzz words…
How do we keep the meaning behind the hype?
March 15, 2011
Even When People are to Blame, the Brand is Responsible
Preventing mistakes like the infamous Chrysler F-bomb
When an individual representing Chrysler tweeted a derogatory remark about Detroit, a city Chrysler is invested in promoting, there was someone to fire, and there was an agency to let go.
Still, at the end of the day, the public holds the brand itself responsible for its social media streams. Chrysler will take the brunt of the impact.
As a result of the controversy, social media marketing takes a bit of a beating, as well.
February 17, 2011
Cost Plus World Market: A Study in Zen and the Art of Conversation Management
Cost Plus World Market, a retail and online marketplace for international gifts, home accents and foods launched its Facebook presence in November and already boasts more than 258,000 fans.
In an environment where 9 out of 10 companies feel that they are doing a poor job using social media, what has World Market tapped into that others may be missing?
Here’s our analysis.
Posted in Branding, Social Marketing, Social Promotions
Tagged brand engagement, brand experiences, brand value, branding, Cost Plus World Market, customer engagement, customer remarketing, Facebook, Facebook Likers, online shopping, owned media, Social Marketing, Social Promotions, user-generated content