Practical Strategies in Social Media
Brand Exposure: Practical Strategies in Social Media (June 2nd Event) - Part 2/2
By Alexandra Polier, NY-based magazine writer and media consultant
Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, elaborated a bit more on this idea of engaging consumers. He spoke about the evolution of storytelling; how advertising has changed from brands influencing consumers to consumers influencing each other through message boards, social networks and blogs. "People are doing your advertising for you. You have to tell a story that consumers can interact with, that people can pass on to other people." Schafer was advocating for online advertising, just a newer, hipper, friendlier, inventive, more strategic, web-savvy version of it. "We want people to go out and love your brand enough to communicate about it, not just buy it."
What Schafer calls Fan-Fiction, creating fans and brand ambassadors out of consumers resonated with the audience who are trying to involve their loyal consumer base in the evolution of their brands. "We want our consumers not only to identify with our brand but to feel like the know us and that they are part of the brand. We want them to feel like part of the family," said Alvina Patel, Director of Public Relations for Van Cleef & Arpels.
Seth Goldstein, CEO of SocialMedia.com reinforced these messages with his five point system for maximizing social advertising ROI.
1. Create content that is meant to be shared not consumed.
2. Make it easy to pass along.
3. Ask questions.
4. Recognize that there are many formats.
5. Focus on accuracy not precision.
"You have to acknowledge that you are no longer in control," said Goldstein which is a very scary message, especially for luxury brands that have so long fought to preserve image and appearances. Now the message is different - don't sue the guy who takes your idea and embellishes it, reward him, acknowledge the time and interest he has taken with your brand and the thousands of people he has shared it with. These online consumers, particularly the aspirational ones (the ones at home on their computers 24-7 waiting for the day they can afford their very own luxury hand bag) need to be nurtured and engaged and treated as if they had just walked into your store.
GE made up the second of the day's panels discussing their experiment, GEadventure.com. This corporate blog was built by The Barbarian Group who describe the site as: "This is a blog about a project we are doing for GE. We are from The Barbarian Group, an online marketing company, and GE hired us to help them with their internet behavior, so this is our marketing journal where we will show you what we find and talk about what we might do next."
Over 300,000 people have checked out the site, many of them GE employees, all wanting to understand exactly what the companies does in a personal and in depth way. "We make technology tangible and science digestible," said Noah Brier of Barbarian Group. "With a
company this size, this campaign allowed us to cut through and cover all the many divisions within GE."
"It's about transparency and pulling the veil back on a gigantic company and looking at how products get made, where, how and by whom," said Linda Boff who spearheaded the project for GE. "We all have GE home appliances, now those appliances have a story and feel even more at home." Boff was asked by the audience if she met resistance on such an experimental project to which she answered, "We were taking a risk, but you have to take risks to push things forward," said Boff. With 500 people a day visit the site and many leaving comments, Boff and the Barbarian Group feel that true interaction has a unique value. "Working in this industry (social media) everyone is taking a risk. You have to have faith in the idea and take a leap."
Paul Worthington, Head of Strategy at Wolff Olins, took the attendees through: A Control Freak's Guide to Social Media Influence. His core message was: "Stop thinking about how to control the conversation, you never had control, start thinking about how you can influence people." His most striking remark to the companies in the room was to figure out who you are and be that. "If market research comes back and says blue and red are all the rage don't go out to the public saying you're blue and red when actually you are green and yellow. Be green and yellow because people see through things so quickly online, and once you lie to a consumer you've lost them."
Worthington also makes the point of being flexible and accepting what is being highlighted about your company online even if it isn't what you wanted the consumer to focus on. Any positive conversation is positive. He also made the point, in this time of a million widgets, not to let the tools drive your strategy, know what you want to say first and then figure out how to communicate it.
The final talk of the day was given by founder and president of charity: water, Scott Harrison. In just under three year's charity: water raised nearly $10m by leveraging the power of social media to activate donors and supporters at a grassroots level.
In his presentation Scott spoke of one specific project that used social media to successfully reach donors and raise essential funds. The first, 'Born in September' was conceived when charity: water was turning two years old and Scott was turning 32. He came up with the idea as sentiment that we have so much stuff these days. He felt that in America we’re really blessed and in the rest of the developed world, we basically have enough crap. The idea was to give up his birthday and ask for low level donations of $32 from his friends and family. It worked so well that they opened it up to a wider audience, other people born in September, because they wanted to make it unique. To manage the process they partnered with a company called Birthday Alarm which is a social media tool for reminding people about birthdays. They also used Twitter and Facebook Causes to reach potential donors. In total they had about 900 people from around the world come together, give up their birthdays and actively engage and raise just shy of a million dollars in the space of 10 weeks.
Brand Exposure 2009 took a very upfront, honest and informative look at the realities of social marketing and what companies must do to compete, even exist, in this space. Online marketing is very different from traditional marketing - from different players to different strategies to different rules of engagement. But the message was clear, there are people out there that can help you. Brands need to be willing to "take the leap" and in this unsettling economy that isn't the best selling strategy. But the industry continues to move ahead at a lightening pace and you are either in or you are out. A common sense approach is what is going to guide companies through this transition, so everyone dismount and start talking to your neighbors.
Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, elaborated a bit more on this idea of engaging consumers. He spoke about the evolution of storytelling; how advertising has changed from brands influencing consumers to consumers influencing each other through message boards, social networks and blogs. "People are doing your advertising for you. You have to tell a story that consumers can interact with, that people can pass on to other people." Schafer was advocating for online advertising, just a newer, hipper, friendlier, inventive, more strategic, web-savvy version of it. "We want people to go out and love your brand enough to communicate about it, not just buy it."
What Schafer calls Fan-Fiction, creating fans and brand ambassadors out of consumers resonated with the audience who are trying to involve their loyal consumer base in the evolution of their brands. "We want our consumers not only to identify with our brand but to feel like the know us and that they are part of the brand. We want them to feel like part of the family," said Alvina Patel, Director of Public Relations for Van Cleef & Arpels.
Seth Goldstein, CEO of SocialMedia.com reinforced these messages with his five point system for maximizing social advertising ROI.
1. Create content that is meant to be shared not consumed.
2. Make it easy to pass along.
3. Ask questions.
4. Recognize that there are many formats.
5. Focus on accuracy not precision.
"You have to acknowledge that you are no longer in control," said Goldstein which is a very scary message, especially for luxury brands that have so long fought to preserve image and appearances. Now the message is different - don't sue the guy who takes your idea and embellishes it, reward him, acknowledge the time and interest he has taken with your brand and the thousands of people he has shared it with. These online consumers, particularly the aspirational ones (the ones at home on their computers 24-7 waiting for the day they can afford their very own luxury hand bag) need to be nurtured and engaged and treated as if they had just walked into your store.
GE made up the second of the day's panels discussing their experiment, GEadventure.com. This corporate blog was built by The Barbarian Group who describe the site as: "This is a blog about a project we are doing for GE. We are from The Barbarian Group, an online marketing company, and GE hired us to help them with their internet behavior, so this is our marketing journal where we will show you what we find and talk about what we might do next."
Over 300,000 people have checked out the site, many of them GE employees, all wanting to understand exactly what the companies does in a personal and in depth way. "We make technology tangible and science digestible," said Noah Brier of Barbarian Group. "With a
company this size, this campaign allowed us to cut through and cover all the many divisions within GE."
"It's about transparency and pulling the veil back on a gigantic company and looking at how products get made, where, how and by whom," said Linda Boff who spearheaded the project for GE. "We all have GE home appliances, now those appliances have a story and feel even more at home." Boff was asked by the audience if she met resistance on such an experimental project to which she answered, "We were taking a risk, but you have to take risks to push things forward," said Boff. With 500 people a day visit the site and many leaving comments, Boff and the Barbarian Group feel that true interaction has a unique value. "Working in this industry (social media) everyone is taking a risk. You have to have faith in the idea and take a leap."
Paul Worthington, Head of Strategy at Wolff Olins, took the attendees through: A Control Freak's Guide to Social Media Influence. His core message was: "Stop thinking about how to control the conversation, you never had control, start thinking about how you can influence people." His most striking remark to the companies in the room was to figure out who you are and be that. "If market research comes back and says blue and red are all the rage don't go out to the public saying you're blue and red when actually you are green and yellow. Be green and yellow because people see through things so quickly online, and once you lie to a consumer you've lost them."
Worthington also makes the point of being flexible and accepting what is being highlighted about your company online even if it isn't what you wanted the consumer to focus on. Any positive conversation is positive. He also made the point, in this time of a million widgets, not to let the tools drive your strategy, know what you want to say first and then figure out how to communicate it.
The final talk of the day was given by founder and president of charity: water, Scott Harrison. In just under three year's charity: water raised nearly $10m by leveraging the power of social media to activate donors and supporters at a grassroots level.
In his presentation Scott spoke of one specific project that used social media to successfully reach donors and raise essential funds. The first, 'Born in September' was conceived when charity: water was turning two years old and Scott was turning 32. He came up with the idea as sentiment that we have so much stuff these days. He felt that in America we’re really blessed and in the rest of the developed world, we basically have enough crap. The idea was to give up his birthday and ask for low level donations of $32 from his friends and family. It worked so well that they opened it up to a wider audience, other people born in September, because they wanted to make it unique. To manage the process they partnered with a company called Birthday Alarm which is a social media tool for reminding people about birthdays. They also used Twitter and Facebook Causes to reach potential donors. In total they had about 900 people from around the world come together, give up their birthdays and actively engage and raise just shy of a million dollars in the space of 10 weeks.
Brand Exposure 2009 took a very upfront, honest and informative look at the realities of social marketing and what companies must do to compete, even exist, in this space. Online marketing is very different from traditional marketing - from different players to different strategies to different rules of engagement. But the message was clear, there are people out there that can help you. Brands need to be willing to "take the leap" and in this unsettling economy that isn't the best selling strategy. But the industry continues to move ahead at a lightening pace and you are either in or you are out. A common sense approach is what is going to guide companies through this transition, so everyone dismount and start talking to your neighbors.
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