Disruptive CMO Marketing

Have you seen these Twitter marketing video case studies?

Mercedes-Benz Tweet Race Case Study

The world’s first Twitter-fueled race. Four teams were recruited, each of whom had large Twitter followings. During the week prior to the big game, each team took possession of a specially configured Mercedes and made their way to Dallas. This race, however, wasn’t about how fast each team could get there — instead, the goal was to rally support through social media.

The competition comprised two basic components: driving and challenges. In order to drive, the teams required tweets as “fuel.” Each tweet in support of a team was worth a quarter-mile. For the special challenges, the teams had to recruit their followers and networks to support them.
 

Best Buy Twelpforce Case Study

 

New Innovative Media Companies You Need to Know

It is sometimes difficult to keep up with all the innovative new companies that help you with marketing your brand. Here are a few that I have come across that are worthwhile collaborating with.

 

SpotXchange

SpotXchange is a top global video marketplace, and they operate a bit differently than some of the other video ad networks in the marketplace. They run a "wired" network, which means that all of their pub partners are integrated into their backbone, thereby giving their advertisers greater inventory control, more precise targeting, and more efficient media.

Poptent

Poptent is an innovative resource that connects creative people from all around the world via a social network and brands that have a need for quality video assets. Video is the most relevant and innovative way to set your brand apart. By leveraging technology and an expertise in crowdsourcing, Poptent is able to deliver incredible results in a reduced timeframe and at a fraction of the cost of the traditional channels. In fact, we have done assignments for some of the biggest brands in the marketplace today.

Zooppa

Zooppa is the world's leading crowdsourced advertising platform

Optaros

They offer customer portal, private event retailing, online community and commerce offerings. Optaros has brought these solutions to companies such as Rue La La, Wal-Mart, Bloomingdales, Macy's.

Junaio

They are a global leader in augmented reality technology. Over the past ten years, they have worked with world's most recognized brands.

Focus

Think “Twitter for Business.” That pretty much sums it up.

Fullscreen

Fullscreen is a digital media company powered by the creativity and distribution of people. They create and distribute original content and brand activations with online influencers.

Zuberance

Zuberance's mission is to enable companies to harness the power of Word of Mouth (WOM) and social media to drive measurable increases in advocacy and sales. We do this by providing an award-winning WOM/social media marketing platform - the Zuberance Advocate Platform - that makes it easy for marketers to systematically identify and energize authentic Brand Advocates at scale plus track advocacy results in real time.

Jovoto

A global platform to enable creative excellence through mass collaboration. Their creative technology platform and community organizing processes, enable their unique collaborative approach yielding valuable ideas, insights and communications. It is what makes jovoto unique enabling them to work with talented creatives to take on the most challenging creative briefs.

How to organize social media within an organization?

There are three basic models that I've seen within marketing departments.

1. The Individual Brand approach: Each brand group may create its own social media programs without a centralized approach.

2. The Centralized Marketing approach: a standalone group within the marketing department responsible for all brand's social media programs. The head reports to the CMO. The digital / social media department takes care of everything to leverage synergies across brands.

3.The Cross-functional Centralized approach: An internal team (could be with different levels of formality) is responsible for social media strategy and programs and includes representatives from many different departments. The functional head sits within the marketing department and reports to the CMO.

What is the best approach?
I have seen all 3 work but it depends on the level of development and sophistication. If you are just starting out and want to pilot with one brand an Individual Brand approach might work to support the lead brand and get beyond the basics. If a few brands are up and running, a more centralized way is more appropriate. In a more advanced situation, the Cross-Functional Centralized approach is best. When channel, field and customers are savvy about social marketing and want to see an integrated approach then it is the only way to go. With this model, the business units still have the freedom and flexibility to dialog with the market –and should be in alignment with what other departments are doing.  Social doesn’t impact one department –but impacts marketing, pr, product, services, support, and development –every customer touchpoint.

Find the right balance between Strategy (35%), Execution (40%), Experiment and Learn (10%) and Measurement (15%)

I deliberately did not include technology as that needs to be in function of the strategy and it is interwoven in all the buckets. Social media is much more about process and change management. If you put people at the center than that is a bigger change than just doing conversations on Facebook. Think what it would mean if you put more emphasis on "social as operational efficiency" or "social as product design" or "social as engaged employees"?

Strategy: It is crucial to have a fully integrated vision that is routed in the company vision

Execution: Execution is a reflection of the strategy. Execution is so important. The right graph, word, video should be so sharp that it relfects A Social Insight and An Engagement Insight.

Experiment and Learn: The space is moving so fast and you need to keep up. Test and Roll is the model. Test and see if it works. If it works repeat but now bigger and with impact. Test and Roll.

Measurement: Metrics are critical. Still lot's of work needed in this area but it needs to be high on the agenda

What Makes for Success in Social Media?

1. Understand the Social Media Platforms relevant for you

There are so many choices: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Last.FM, Spotify, Linkedin, Flickr, MySpace, Foursquare, Goldrun, Yelp, company blogs, brand communities, etc ...

It takes a lot of effort to know what works with each platform. My advise is pick a select few and develop a deep partnership with the platform directly to truely understand the media and integrate it in your overarching digital strategy. It is usually worthwhile to also partner with a select few support technologies as that will make you leapfrog ahead. A good example is Unruly Media to support your YouTube efforts.

2. Start with a strong effort behind the big 4: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube

Learn from the best in each of these platform. Here are the top brands for Facebook and Twitter:

Facebook Fans: Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Disney, MTV, Orea, Red Bull, Skittles and Converse

Twitter Followers: Martha Stewart, Whole Foods Market, Zappos.com, JetBlue Airways, Starbucks, MTV and Southwest Airlines

Youtube Subscribed Channels: Universal Music, Orabrush

3. Apply one of these social media best practices

- Offer live events: Periodically conduct live chat sessions or webinars or events with celebrities.

- Connect with others: become a fan of others, retweet interesting links, promote the community

- Don't overfocus on selling or marketing: Don't jam marketing messages down your followers throats

- Listen to what your community is saying and jump in the conversation

- Integrate product ratings and reviews across the different platforms

- Integrate social media with more traditional media and make them work together with a balanced mix

4. Leverage the best of Facebook

- Facebook is well organized to manage a global / local strategy. You can post by country, by state or by city and even select in which language you want to post. Twitter or Youtube don't have these capabilities.

- Establish a fan page acquisition plan. This could include discounts or deals for those that like a page.

- Establish a conversation calendar

- Plan bought media to support the efforts

5 Leverage the best of Twitter

- Unlike Facebook, Twitter can not geo-target. That means it just broadcast the same message to anybody in the world.

- Twitter is first and foremost a newsfeed or a news broadcaster. So no surprise that the top twitter brands are media focused brands like CNN, NYTimes, Eonline, etc ...

- Brands have found their own way to play into that newsfeed as well. Plentiful coupons, deals, product updates, and news items have led some brands to equally large followings.

- Brands need to have a compelling reason to be on twitter and a concrete plan to use it to enhance their consumers experience

6. Leverage the best of YouTube

- A great best practice is Orabrush.

Here is some of their advise:

Create a customized YouTube page

Standard YouTube channel-pages have a basic template with videos, comments and profile information. Orabrush's page has a customized look that includes:
o Image-based background
o Image-based navigation buttons to video categories
o A second video player below the primary player
o A "try it now" button to order a free Orabrush
o Twitter sharing button

- Create more than one type of video: Conversion video, Engagement video & Customer reviews

- Commit to a consistent weekly video release program.

- Make use of the social side of YouTube.
YouTube is a social network that includes profiles, comments and updates. The network's users expect interaction. Here are three ways Orabrush connects with its audience:
- Responding and moderating
- Use ideas and give "shout-out"s
- Interact with fellow publishers


7. Measure your succuess
KPIs are very important but this is still a big maze. You can really divide the KPIs in a number categories.

Overall hard business metrics: 
These are the real metrics that your CMO or CEO want to know: brand equity lift (often measured by Nielsen after a substantial initiative), sales conversion, revenue increase

Here are some specific KPIs by platform:

- Facebook: # of Likes, engagement rate (# likes + # comments) on your posts, # user generated content, Foot traffice (for geo-targeted efforts)

- Twitter: # Followers, # tweets & retweets

- YouTube: # Subscribers, # videos viewed, # Friends

- Traffic from social network sites to your other digital ecosystem

- To measure the quality of your content companies monitor engagement. This includes neg / pos comments or mentions, forward-to-a-friend, ratings & reviews, retweets, likes, tagging, etc ...

How to make your blog popular?

Here are things you can do to get more traffic for your blog:

• Improve your content. Post frequently and be original. Do not copy from other websites.
• Include the Technorati code in your website with the right tags to it. Also ping them regularly
• Review your stats and see what posts people find more interesting. Expand those themes.
• Have a clear theme that people will find valuable so you get readers that want to come back
• Be timely with your posts. Topics are hot for a little while. Post on them while they are still in the news.
• Make Blog Friends. (Link to other people's blogs and they will probably link back to you.)
• Don't be too bland. It is ok to ruffle some feathers sometimes
• Do some search engine optimization on your blog.
• Actively comment and use trackbacks on other blogs
• Put your blog on your website and business card
• Use specific names, brands and words. People search on these.

Feel free to add to this list in the comments area. What works for you?