Defining Social Media Marketing by Joe
Marchese, Tuesday
July 27, 2010
What does it mean to do "social media marketing"?
In talking with various brands and agencies, there are extremely wide-ranging
thoughts on what tactics, goals and, most important, resources should be
allocated to social media. Let's settle the debate: All marketing is social
media marketing.
Most people agree
that all media is meant to be social, and that sooner or later all effective
media will incorporate more social elements into its creation and distribution.
The same logic applies even more so to marketing. All effective marketing activities,
from advertising to PR to CRM, will incorporate social
media functionality, and the performance of all marketing will be better
tracked through social media monitoring. Perhaps that's why there's so much
confusion from one company to the next on the role of social media in their
organization. Social media is
not its own discipline in marketing, as much as a new skill set required for
every other marketing discipline.
So when the debate
comes up on whether social media is bought, earned or owned media, the answer
is simply "yes." While it seems easy for most brands to understand
how social media augments and extends their CRM, PR and communications
practices, most struggle with properly incorporating the benefits of social
technologies into their paid advertising efforts. Too often money is wasted
when marketers buy advertising without incorporating social elements and
without monitoring the social activities resulting from a paid campaign. Even
more often, marketers miss opportunities to execute compelling campaigns by isolating
"social media" with its own initiative rather than focusing on how
social the larger paid media effort should be.
The first step is
to realize that all digital advertising is already social
media advertising. Every digital advertising campaign should be designed and
trafficked to maximize consumer interaction and can be measured by resulting
social activities (liking, sharing, commenting), because these are metrics that
extend campaign ROI and can indicate how impactful the actual campaign was.
A media company
could build a digital presence without social media elements, but it would be a
terrible digital presence. In the same vein, a digital marketing campaign can
be executed without social media elements, but it would be a terrible digital
marketing campaign. Even television ads are ending in calls to connect on
Facebook -- but I think you can expect your digital dollars to do a little
better.
It was to address
the challenge of understanding exactly how to standardize social media
advertising practices that I agreed to join the board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium (if your
company does any marketing, I highly recommend getting involved). The question
of how to best incorporate social elements, practices and technologies into
paid advertising efforts will define winners and losers in digital marketing
for the next two years and the entire marketing industry over the next decade.
Seems like a subject worth discussing to me.
Ford
Makes New Friends the Right
Way, Revealing Explorer On
Facebook by Erik Sass, Monday July 26, 2010
With everyone
struggling to figure out how to use social media for marketing and advertising,
it's obviously helpful to look at examples where a big company gets its right,
demonstrating what can be done with an appropriate investment of time and money
(and planning). Today, Ford hit the nail on the head with its "2011 Ford
Explorer Reveal" on the Ford Explorer Facebook page. Let's take a quick
tour of the multifaceted project.
First of all, Ford
isn't treating the Facebook push as a mere adjunct to an official unveiling
elsewhere -- this is the big "reveal," which usually takes place at
the Detroit auto shows. Of course most
people don't attend the Detroit auto shows, and press
reports about the unveilings always tend to be a bit humdrum, at least in my
opinion. They also don't do justice to individual models, lumping all the new
vehicles together with scarcely a paragraph each.
While clearly
unsatisfactory from the carmakers' perspective, in the days of broadcast media
that was about all they could hope for. But Ford is using social media to give
users an interactive, multimedia tour with videos, text and images on the
Explorer's Facebook page, all anchored by live video of the "reveal"
in New York City (taking place on an elaborate set recreating some wilderness
getaway in the middle of the urban landscape -- very weird). These include
celebratory mini-events with live music, etc. At the top of the page is a timeline,
showing all the different real and virtual events taking place over the course
of the day as part of the unveiling. Users can click on any of the previous
times to see events that already happened.
Below that are a
series of videos, some filmed ahead of time, some filmed live at unveiling
events. The live events are hosted by Mike Rowe, the host of Discovery's
"Dirty Jobs," who pokes around the new 2011 Ford Explorer with Ford
CEO Alan Mulally. Mulally also appears in a pre-filmed Q&A. That's a gold
star for Ford: recognizing that social media is supposed to feel
"real," there are no anonymous actors or B-list celebrities taking a
prominent role in the launch, but rather the guy who is responsible for the new
model (facilitated by Rowe as the rugged media personality).
Meanwhile the
pre-filmed video also includes a tour of the new Explorer with Mark Fields,
president of Ford Americas, and Julie Levine, the Ford Explorer product
manager, and a Q&A about the Explorer's "green" aspects with Sue
Cischke, vice-president for sustainability environment and safety engineering
(more gold stars for hitting hot-button issues, again with the actual executive
in charge leading the discussion).
Tweeters
Star In Wheat Thins TV Ads by Karlene Lukovitz, Monday July 26, 2010
Kraft
Foods/Nabisco Wheat Thins will take social media marketing integration to a new
level this week, when it debuts the first of at least two 30-second national TV
commercials featuring consumers who have tweeted positively about the brand.
The TV spots
employ two of three videos already posted on Wheat Thins' "The Crunch is
Calling" YouTube channel and in a tab on its Facebook page, which have
collectively drawn more than 623,000 views since being posted just over three
weeks ago.
The videos show a
team of brand representatives, in a van prominently displaying Wheat Thins'
"The Crunch Is Calling" theme, tracking down and surprising tweeters
who have indicated their attachment to the crackers. Each tweeter is presented
with a Wheat Thins gift that ties into the content of his/her tweet.
Each video starts
with a close-up of a screenshot showing an actual brand-related tweet (the tweeter's
"handle" is visible), with the mobile team discussing the tweet's
content as they arrive to have a close encounter with a fan.
The first video to
be aired as a TV spot (for two weeks, starting July 26) shows a tweet from
Tabitha, a young woman who had lamented: "AAAHHHH ... I'm outta Wheat
Thins ... Mi [sic] life is officially over!" As she opens her front door
to the Crunch team and verifies that she indeed tweeted that message, an entire
pallet of Wheat Thins boxes is being deposited in her driveway -- the brand's
gift to ensure that she has plenty on hand for the foreseeable future. As the
team zooms away, the stunned but smiling fan gives them the thumbs-up as she
stands beside the pallet, with a dumbfounded neighbor looking on.
The second video/TV
ad captures the team presenting a set of custom-made "Crunch is
Calling" headphones to Timmy (on a restaurant deck among
friends/onlookers), who had tweeted: "Does anyone else have to turn up the
volume when they eat Wheat Thins? Someone needs to invent crunch-proof
headphones." After testing the headphones (a brand rep crunches a Wheat
Thin, amplifying it through a megaphone), Timmy is left eating a cracker as he
wonders aloud: "Don't I have to sign anything?" This ad will begin
airing Aug. 30.
A third video --
which may or may not be used for a TV ad -- shows the team surprising Dan, who
had tweeted that he was using a Wheat Thin to pick his air guitar, with a Wheat
Thins-branded guitar case containing ... nothing. Dan demos his cracker-pick
air-guitar moves, and also receives a custom Wheat Thins box bearing his photo
and tweet.
The brand is being
mysterious in responding to social media queries from fans wondering how Wheat
Thins located the folks shown in the videos ("The videos are the real deal,
but, unfortunately, we can't reveal our intervention secrets!"), but a
spokesperson confirms that the subjects were tracked down with the help of
their Facebook friends and family members.
Interestingly, to
enhance the surprise factor, Wheat Thins chose to video consumers who were
selected based on "random" tweets picked up about the brand, rather
than approaching Wheat Thins Twitter followers/Facebook fans.
The TV spots will
be aired on a variety of network prime-time shows and cable outlets with high
viewership among the recently repositioned brand's new core target audience,
women and men age 25 to 45, reports Jim Low, director of wheat snack crackers
for Kraft Foods.
The videos will
also be employed in new online advertising, as pre-rolls for Web-posted
episodes of targeted TV shows. Adjacent ad blocks will encourage viewers to
click into the brand's Facebook page/Twitter presence.
The social
media-driven videos and their use as TV spots and pre-rolls represent a natural
next step in the evolution of the brand and its marketing, Low tells Marketing
Daily.
The brand's
repositioning process began over a year ago, when Wheat Thins used consumer
research to identify the cracker's crunch, flavor and texture as its key
attractions to a younger and more gender-balanced demographic group.
Last summer, the
brand introduced product changes to further enhance its appeal to this group
(adding more whole-grain content to many varieties and eliminating high-fructose
corn syrup); unveiled a more contemporary package design; and launched its
"Crunch is Calling" tagline and an integrated campaign that included
crunch-focused TV spots featuring young adults.
Low reports that
efforts in this year's first half focused on in-person engagement with the
target audience through event sponsorships -- including high-visibility
sponsorships during March's NCAA tournament and June's Bonnaroo Music and Arts
Festival (where Conan O'Brien serendipitously mentioned the brand from stage).
The TV campaign
and events helped drive engagement with Wheat Thins' new, app-heavy Facebook
fan page (which has drawn nearly 111,000 fans since its launch in December
'09), as well as its new Twitter. com/crunchiscalling presence (about 900
followers to date) and its revamped wheatthins.com site.
The tweeter
videos/TV spots/pre-rolls are designed to build on that engagement. "The
social media conversations about Wheat Thins and viral effect are really
underway now, and the enthusiasm for the brand is very clear," says Low,
noting that celebrities (including "American Idol"'s Kris Allen and
R&B singer Chris Brown) have tweeted about the brand.
"These
conversations continue to become increasingly important, and we're actively
engaged in them on an ongoing basis" -- taking care to engage as a
meaningful participant, rather than come off as promotional or intrusive, Low
adds.
To date, all signs
point to substantial success in engaging the new target audience via social
media and the other "Crunch" marketing efforts, according to Low.
Importantly, these younger fans view Wheat Thins as a snack product to be
enjoyed on an everyday basis, in contrast to the brand's traditional consumer
base of women 45 and older, who viewed it "just as a traditional
cracker," he points out.
Escape Pod
developed the new videos, and AKQA implemented social media/online elements.
Edelman handles the brand's public relations.
