Social Media & Online Marketing in Practice Part One
Social media gets everywhere these days. Only last week The Ryder Golf Cup Teams were warned about using Twitter. Campaign groups appear on Facebook to save X-Factor contestants. And businesses are repeatedly told not to ignore these growing communication channels. But is this just hype? Does your organisation really need to engage with social media marketing? Does it only matter for certain sectors? And what are the benefits? Over the next few months we’re going to help you find your way through the hype and find out what is really going on. We’ll look at the movers and shakers of the social media world. We’ll give you concrete examples of what they’re doing and we’ll look at what they’re getting out of it. As you read these articles, ask yourself:
- How might this work for my organisation?
- What would be the benefits?
- What would be the potential costs/risks?
- And is it worth integrating into my overall marketing strategy?
We’ll start by looking at a sector we all know something about, even if it is only as consumers, the fast food giants and FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) suppliers.
Fast food and FMCG suppliers
So let us now focus on some of the initiatives three well known companies in the UK – Domino’s Pizza, Starbucks UK and McCain – have introduced using social media and online marketing.
Domino’s Pizza – Affiliate schemes and link-ups
In March 2010 Domino’s launched a pilot for their Affiliate widget – http://dominos.oosocial.com/. This tool allows fans to host an advert for the pizza company on places such as blogs and Facebook pages. For each click of the advert that generates an order, the fan earns 1% commission. According to a press release on PRWeb UK, up to and including the beginning of August 2010, over £29,482 was generated from orders for pizza and other sundries after clicking on a Domino’s widget.
Also in May 2010 Domino’s Pizza linked up to foursquare and offered free pizza and discounts if users visited their stores. These, and other, offers and tools are promoted via the Domino’s Pizza UK and Ireland Facebook page.
Starbucks UK – Gaining customer insight and developing loyalty via Facebook
Starbucks UK has adopted a different strategy. Their aim is to use online media to develop conversations with customers, gaining a greater understanding of the background and needs of their customers. They use Facebook to promote events at the local Starbucks and encourage fans to come along. The Starbucks UK Facebook page has over 349,000 fans (October 2010).
McCain – Rewarding customers and building a loyal community
In September 2010 McCain foods launched an online campaign to reward customers. An article in Marketing Week explains that McCain’s strategy is designed to develop brand loyalty by creating an online community for customers. The campaign website www.mccainitsallgood.co.uk offers video recipes, information about local events and money-off coupons. Once registered, you can earn ‘Spud Shillings’. Every time you visit you earn more and 100 points = £1. The points can be redeemed at a number of high street retailers. At this point, early October 2010, it is too early to say what the actual benefits of the campaign to McCain will be. It will certainly be an interesting one to watch.
So…
We’ve looked at three big companies, in the fast food and FMCG sector, and their approach to using social media and online marketing. Take some time to have a look at the various sites and tools they’ve set up. Go back to the questions we posed earlier and think about your own online strategy. What do you think? Is it all hype? Or could your organisation benefit from doing something similar? Next time we’ll be looking at how social media has affected the charity sector. So subscribe to our RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss out! http://bit.ly/aHK6qQ
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The cornerstone of your social media strategy
A blog is the cornerstone of your social media strategy. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all play their part but the blog should be what the other social media outlets are pointing towards. A simple analogy, used by one of the many blogging thought leaders on the internet, likens micro-blogging and social media sites to “coffee shops”. People go to these sites to get a taste of you and what you’re offering. Then if they like what they consume, they’ll be back for more from your blog.
Having a blog allows you to communicate clearly and quickly with your customers and stakeholders. Blogs give your business a voice, allowing you to self-publish material on the web, including: specialist knowledge relating to industry developments, trends, legislative changes, or technical information about your products and services. As a result your business becomes immediately open and accessible to your customers, adding value to your customer proposition.
Your popularity and success can be measured by adding analytics plug-ins and tracking posts via social media dashboards such as HootSuite http://www.hootsuite.com This type of monitoring can provide you with valuable insights about your audience, allowing you to make future adjustments to the topics you post, tone of voice and posting schedules.
Here’s a few top blogs you may want to check out. They’ve been ranked by Technorati, which gives a value between 0–1000 on authority. The higher the value the better the authority http://www.technorati.com
Mashable (Social Media News & Web Tips) – Ranked 2 in the Business Authority Category
http://www.mashable.com
Small Business Trends – Ranked 1 in the Small Business Authority Category
http://www.smallbiztrends.com
Where do I start?
No matter what your budget, blogging is within reach and has many advantages. Obviously your blog needs to occupy some space on the internet and there are a few ways to get your hosting space. You may decide to add a blog to your website, use a free hosting service such as Blogger or pay for hosting via your web developer or organisations like 1&1 or Go Daddy.
Building your blog couldn’t be easier. You can build and obtain free hosting yourself using Blogger or, for a nominal fee per year, use packages such as Squarespace http://www.squarespace.com Alternatively you may decide to employ the services of a professional to do this for you using WordPress.
But be prepared! Blogging takes up a considerable amount of time. Researching and writing fresh material to post is a challenge, even for the most experienced. So to ensure your success, set out a strategy and plan that reflects the amount of time, resource and budget you have available.
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Social Nation Launches New Blog Building Service
September 15th, 2010 
jackieaPRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 14/09/2010
Social Nation UK Launches New Blog Building Service
Social Nation UK has joined forces with an experienced technical partner to deliver a range of off-the-shelf blog building packages at http://bit.ly/cnttt2
As the UK emerges from recession companies are looking to solidify their marketing strategies for the foreseeable future. A prominent trend this year has been the increased reliance on social media, blogs and micro-blogging. But not everyone has the time or know-how to get to grips with such a new and constantly advancing technology.
Social Nation UK has this month unveiled a new blog building service. The company has joined forces with an experienced technical partner to offer a superb range of off-the-shelf blog building options that can be personalised to reflect the customer’s brand identity. And for those who want extra pulling appeal, Social Nation also offers a bespoke service guaranteed to WOW the audience. A typical basic package includes: template, choice of banner, copy, domain and hosting. There are also a range of optional extras. For further details and demo templates, please visit http://bit.ly/cnttt2
Blogging is an excellent way for businesses to interact with their customers, keep them informed and demonstrate their depth of knowledge, adding value to their proposition. Indications from the market suggest rises in social media spend and an increase in the amount of people employed in social media based roles. In fact according to Strategy Analytics, fourth quarter online advertising revenue in 2009 was up 12.8 per cent from the previous quarter (to £11.4 billion), and AMR International predicted that B2B digital marketing spend will increase by 8 per cent in 2010.
‘As markets became crowded and work dried up last year, many SMEs left traditional marketing channels behind. Heading off towards the greener pastures of social media, they hoped that this would provide them with greater exposure. We believe that with our combined marketing, communication and technical expertise, we can assist SMEs in their quest by offering a high quality all round off-the-shelf blog building service.’ Jackie Eade, Director Social Nation UK
For further information please contact:
Jackie Eade, Director of Social Nation UK Telephone: 0844 669 6984 Email: Jackie.eade@socialnationuk.co.uk
Blogging beneath the surface
July 19th, 2010 jackieaWhen starting out in the world of social media and blogging, it is common for businesses to jump in head first without giving any thought to: setting realistic objectives; the strategy fit; how to manage day-to-day status updates and article posts; content regeneration; people resource; and budget to deliver the blogging strategy.
Need some direction? Simply follow the step-by-step checklist below on what to consider when defining your social media strategy.
1 Define your objectives and strategy
Treat this like any other marketing or business plan. First set your objectives. Next examine possible strategies that fit and select the best. For example, if you are a leading expert in a specialist field your strategy may involve the use of media and content to raise your profile and position yourself accordingly. This could include the use of social media, public speaking, workshops and offline PR.
2 Decide on the social media, and possibly offline, marketing communication channels you plan to use. Consider how to use these channels in an integrated manner to strengthen message.
Your objectives and strategy will help you to determine the channels that are the best fit for your industry and purpose. Integration is important. Consider the role that each media communication will fulfil for you. For example, Twitter www.twitter.com is excellent for posting teaser messages; Facebook www.facebook.com is fantastic for discussion. The trick is to build a link between them, i.e. Tweet on Twitter ‘Join the big discussion’ and include a link to the discussion on your Facebook page Toby Carvery is a large pub food brand that successfully integrates Twitter and Facebook in this way http://twitter.com/tobycarvery
3 Consider whether you will generate your own articles from scratch, share those of other authors via links to sites of interest or do a mix of the two.
If you do decide to prepare articles yourself, who will do this in the organisation? Of course, if you are the expert you will be knowledgeable and experienced, and decide to draft the articles yourself. However from time to time you may need to research the blogs of other experts and associations on the internet. If you use the content
from other blogs, please bear in mind the risk of copyright infringement. I recently came across a fantastic article posted on Social Media Today by Matthew Peters http://bit.ly/9qvYKs. Although a few years old, this article is still very relevant, if not more relevant today. Matthew talks about the growing problems of plagiarism and the ethical implications of using someone else’s work. He also suggests ways you can address plagiarism if it happens to you. Some publishers are seriously looking at systems to catch “copy thieves” and prosecute, so please be careful. See the article posted by Declan Butler on Nature News http://bit.ly/atfsJm
4 Consider who will manage the day-to-day management of your blog postings
This will depend on how much resource and time you have available in-house, the number of networks you need to keep updated and how much money (if any) there is available to outsource this service.
5 Establish a budget
Social media is attractive to businesses because it is simple and cost effective compared to many other offline mediums. However for a strong message, integration with offline mediums may still be necessary to reach your target audience. Plus if you really don’t have anybody with the expertise in-house to manage your social media strategy, you may need to outsource.
6 Consider how you are going to monitor all of this activity
There are many networks that will allow you to do this, including Chatterscope http://www.chatterscope.com, HootSuite http://www.hootsuite.com and Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics.
7 Monitor activity, learn, feedback and amend your future startegy if appropriate
A note from the editor about our strategy relating to sharing content
I have no problem sharing content from this, or any other article I write, with fellow bloggers and authors. All I ask is that if you do use any of the content posted here, you mention me as the original author. Copyright@Energise Marketing Solutions Ltd 2010
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