Social Media Marketing Library

[Social Media Today, 5/2/12]

On February 15th, 2012 Shell launched its first globally integrated Facebook page, representing a significant milestone for the company and its commitment to open communication and community engagement.

Shell was not the first energy company to embrace social media, but they have proven to be the fastest growing. Don Bulmer is Vice President of Communication Strategy at Royal Dutuch Shell says, “As we enter the tenth week with our Facebook effort, we have surpassed 900,000 followers and are on track to reach 1 million in the first three months.”

With the implementation of social media Shell has been able to engage with citizens and stakeholders in local communities on a more personable level.  Read more… 

Some of the lessons Shell uses to guide their social media strategy are:

• Understand and acknowledge the difference between audiences, influencers and stakeholders and how to communicate with each.
• Seek to understand what your general or specific stakeholder audience cares about and adapt your message to relate to them.
• Invest the time and human resources to support constant, active engagement.
• Create shareable moments, experiences, view points and insights associated with your brand (products and services) that allow people to engage and develop informed viewpoints.

What do you think of Shell’s social media strategies? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Filed under: Facebook, Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »

In a blog post by Wendy Kenney, best practices of e-mail marketing are discussed. She states that the number one objective for e-mail marketing is growth and subscriber retention. E-mail marketing builds better relationships with more prospects.
In order to be most effective, Wendy says to follow the 5 B’s. The first is be customized which means, don’t treat every prospect as if they are the same. The second is be choosy. This means to choose the right content and start conversation. The third is be strategic: set goals and develop plans. Fourth, be tactical, means know which tactics you audience responds to. Finally, the fifth B is be clear: don’t assume anything.

If these 5 B’s are followed, a company will have a successful e-mail marketing campaign. 

Filed under: Email Marketing | 1 Comment »

[eMarkerter, 4/25/12]

Filed under: Facebook, Integrated Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing Trends, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing | 1 Comment »

These recent statistics caught our eye. What do these numbers mean to you?

Among three of the leading social networking platforms, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn is the clear winner as the most effective source of leads for B2B companies, according to data from HubSpot.*

LinkedIn generated a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of 2.60%, on average. That’s four times higher than the average visitor-to-lead rate for Twitter (0.67%) and seven time higher than the average rate for Facebook (0.39%).

LinkedIn is also enjoying a better growth rate than Twitter or Facebook, according to research firm Compete. However, LinkedIn ranks behind Twitter and Facebook in monthly user activity. According to LinkedIn’s recent report, it has surpassed the 150-million-user mark and has credited much of its growth to the addition of “LinkedIn forums”. These forums allow businesses and professionals from all industries to communicate with other experts to solicit advice and discuss best practices.

LinkedIn attracted 28.1 million visitors in March 2012, up 7.3% from 26.2 million in February, and up to 60.7% from 17.5 million one year earlier.

By contrast, Twitter saw a growth rate of 31.9% in 2012 and dropped this year to a 20.7% growth rate.

Facebook’s growth has declined from 13.4% in 2011 to 6.6% growth in 2012, likely due to the massive saturation of Facebook and the proliferation of new networks popping up.

How does your B2B business use social media to reach its clients? Share your success stories with us!

Filed under: Facebook, Internet Marketing, LInkedIn, Social Media Marketing, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Have you ever bought something on your smart phone? A new app? Perhaps a Groupon. How about that girl you’ve been crushing on, have you ever bought her a drink, on your phone?!

The social media and mobile app world is growing by leaps and bounds, and now, opportunities are popping up around every corner for discounted social experiences.

The app “Tweet-a-Beer” allows users to send beer money in $5 increments via Twitter using Paypal. You can personalize the tweet with a message and it allows you at add a location to drink the beer you purchased together (a clever first date idea if if you ask me).

Another similar mobile app, Bartab, founded in September of 2009, allows users to buy a drink for a friend for $1, and allows the friend to pay the remaining $1 at the bar when the purchase occurs. Bars must opt-in to participate in the app, and many are jumping on board to expand their brand’s awareness both personally and through social media.

Another new App called Joynln (currently only available in San Francisco) combines group couponing and check-ins. It offers deals to social gathering places such as bars, clubs, coffee shops and restaurants, and gives you perks for checking in on the app! Basically, you plan the dinner for you and your friends using the mobile coupon, and you receive the benefits (when has being the host ever been better). It combines other social media tools such as Facebook (for the invitation confirmations) and Yelp (for the reviews). This is a much more business friendly application, and combines all people involved. They reward customers for checking in with points and deals, employees get to build customer bases, and owners get to leverage the social network of their employees to their advantage.

All of these apps really join in on one main focus. They reward people for being social, and the rewards are greatly appreciated.

Want to learn more?

http://mashable.com/2012/03/08/tweet-a-beer-app-paypal/

http://mashable.com/2012/03/26/joynin-app-startup/

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/bartab

Filed under: Mobile Marketing, Twitter | No Comments »

[Forbes, December 1st, 2011]

Keith Smith, co-founder and CEO of Big Door, in a recent Forbes article outlined in what ways a company can keep its customers faithful in the increasingly promiscuous Internet. Due to extremely low or even in existent switching costs, the Internet has killed brand loyalty, or as Smith summarizes it: “online customers are just as happy to get in bed with you as they are with another brand or website.”

To quantitatively solidify this concept, Smith conducted research on the top 15,000 US visited websites and found the following:

• Users visit these sites less than 2 times each month
• Users spend less than 8 minutes viewing only 7 pages per site
• These sites receive a median Loyalty Score (% of daily active users ÷ monthly active users) of less than 6% (Industry leaders: Facebook (72%), Google (68%)).

In order to reverse the trend and start retaining more of those viewers, Smith goes on to say that five components to your website are critical:

1. Publish valuable content
2. Improve your site’s usability
3. Provide excellent customer service
4. Foster online communities
5. Add gamification to your site

Why is this newsworthy?

For years marketers have focused on acquiring new customers. They saw the low switching barriers as an opportunity to always attract new individuals to their website. A shift is occurring though; marketers now have to think more about how they are going to keep the customers they have. The five listed components will be key in any efforts to do so.

Filed under: CRM, Customer Experience Management, Internet Marketing, Loyalty Marketing, Marketing Trends, Online Marketing | No Comments »

What would the honey badger do? He wouldn’t give a @%&*, right? So I asked myself how much I should care about memes as a business professional who wants to increase enrollment in the Executive Education programs at Daniels College of Business. A “meme” is just a fancy word for all those videos and catch phrases and trendy things we share with each other – technically “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.” We mostly think of these as hilarious videos of dogs or kittens or babies or the latest craze such as planking or Tebowing, but they can also be a powerful marketing tool for a company. Take Tebowing as an example – it gave exposure to the Broncos on a global scale (check out this picture of someone in India) has given them some unintentional brand support and in general increased the fans engagement with the organization because it fulfills two of our basic human desires – to fit in (high schoolers Tebowing with friends) and to be unique (Tebowing at the South Pole).

Of course there can also be some significant challenges in using memes in a business context:

• The popularity of a meme can be very short lived and a company may need to keep reinventing things that they hope will go viral to maintain interest in their brand
• Often the whole thing can be out of a companies control – consider Pop Tart Cat . Is Kellogg happy or annoyed with this video? Can they leverage this to their advantage or should they just ignore it?
• To become viral – a meme clearly has to be extraordinary – extreme – hilarious, but to whom? Can be very difficult to find something that can go viral that still aligns with your brand.

Fortunately, Mike Lewis has provided some great suggestions in his blog How to Use Memes to Create Social Media Engagement:

1. Speak to their audience: Marketers always need to know their audience, but it’s particularly true for this genre. Know your audience’s tastes, language (or keywords) and sense of humor.
2. Are highly relevant: Related to tip #1, memes must resonate with their intended audience. Memes are a great example of the ‘It’s so funny because it’s true’ humor style.
3. Are memorable & highly viral: Good memes beg to be shared. You share it because you know the piece of content (be it video, still frame, animated gif or otherwise) made you react, and your friend will have a similar reaction.
4. Often have a short-self life. Memes are only a component of marketing. It’s an additional resource in your arsenal, and should be used sparingly. Memes aren’t for everyone. They grow tiresome quickly. Don’t over-rely on them for marketing success.
5. Take off on one platform. While memes should be seeded on multiple platforms, they often see success in one particular platform.
6. Are easily re-imagined: Part of the fun of memes is the re-imaginings applied with various lenses. The ‘Sh*t girls say’ video is a great example of this; it spurred an incredibly wide array of new treatments, everything from ‘Sh*t Nobody Says’ to ‘Sh*t People Say about Sh*t People Say Videos.’
7. Rarely have an overt marketing message. Memes catch people’s interest and spread quickly, but rarely seem like traditional marketing.

 So…I guess I will care and try to think creatively about ways we can get something to go viral here at Daniels Executive Education – maybe I can get one of the faculty to do something crazy!

Filed under: Integrated Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing Trends, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

These recent statistics caught our eye. What do these numbers mean to you?

Age, Not Gender, Drives Most Social Media Usage

Facebook’s penetration among socially networked US adults is 90%, and the site enjoys roughly the same appeal among women age 18-34 (92%) and age 35+ (92%), but Facebook is not the norm.

By contrast, YouTube reaches 56% of socially networked adults, but is far more popular among younger social women (66%) and men (83%)

And, Twitter reaches 20% of socially networked adults, but is far more popular with men age18-34 (34%) and women age 18-34 (24%)

On average, younger Facebook users have two times more friends than older users with virtually no difference between men and women. Women, age 18-24 averaged 305 Facebook friends, while Women age 35+ averaged 133 friends.

[Source: NetPop Research, Social Media in the US]

62% of Grocery Shoppers Save With a Loyalty Card

Shoppers are more cost-conscious than they were a year ago and their search for value is changing the way they approach the shopping experience. To save money, respondents said:

For Some, Work Never Ends

The lines between work and home look distinctly blurred for executives, according to a study by gyro and Forbes Insight. Among senior decision-makers:

52% say they receive information related to business around the clock, including weekends

63% check work email every 1-2 hours during non-work hours

53% step away from dinner to deal with work issues

98% send work emails during the weekend or at night

On the flip side… 98% said that they dealt with personal matters in the office

[Source: Forbes Insights, The @Work State of Mind Project]

Americans Are Watching More Online Video Than Ever

Breaking all previous records, Americans viewed more than 8.3 billion video ads in March according to new data from comScore.

Hulu recorded more than 1.7 billion video ad views in March, while Google Sites, i.e.- YouTube, ranked second with more than 1.2 billion video ads.

Time spent watching video ads totaled a whopping 3.5 billion minutes. Who knew we had so much time to watch videos online?!

Filed under: Facebook, Marketing Trends, Social Media Marketing, Twitter | 1 Comment »

[InternetRetailing, 4/17/12]

Fashion retailer Burberry shows the continued importance of social media to its fast-growing business as it revealed that its Facebook following topped 12 million during its latest financial half-year.

Updating the markets on its trading in the second half of the year, Burberry said its social media had shown momentum over the period. During the six months to March 31 its Facebook following doubled to more than 12 million. At the same time its retail sales, which include ecommerce, grew to 72% of its turnover during the period, compared to the same time last year. Read more…

Social media pays off for Burberry, as profits rise:

• Total sales are up 18%.
• Retail sales were up 23%.
• Store sales rose by 12%.

The retailer said its markets in the UK, France and Greater China drove growth, which was balanced across its four product divisions. Wholesale revenue rose by 7%, with double digital growth in the US, emerging markets and Asia while licensing revenues grew by 5%.

What do you think of Burberry’s use of Social Media to drive sales?

Filed under: Facebook, Integrated Marketing, Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing | 6 Comments »

If you’re a big fan of the upcoming Olympic games, then you will find the newly launched Olympic Athletes’ Hub a must-visit stop. With just under a 100 days left before the Games begin in London, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) launched its very own social network/ athletes’ headquarters designed to serve as a social media platform enhancing the connection between fans and athletes.

The Olympic Athletes’ Hub combines the social media feeds of more than 1,000 current and former Olympians. It will post content directly from their Facebook and Twitter accounts and incorporate an interactive layer that will encourage fans to interact with the site. Users will be able to access exclusive training-tip videos and gain virtual and real-world prizes according to how many athletes they like and follow online.

During the Games in July and August, real-time social updates from competitors will be incorporated into the site, which will also host exclusive chat sessions with athletes. The London Games are being branded as the world’s “first social Olympics,” although some have expressed surprise at regulations restricting social media use in some cases.

IOC Social Media Head Alex Huot believes, “the social media portal should be a powerful tool for bridging the gap between athlete and fan.”

Filed under: Customer Experience Management, Facebook, Integrated Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Twitter | 1 Comment »