Social Media and the 2009 Christmas Rush
This year is one of recovery for the retail industry as we enter “Black Friday” in the US, named as such because this is typically the day retailers generate enough revenue to get into the black or so I’ve heard. Anyway, I thought I would supply a quick list of examples on how some major brands are investing heavily into social media this Christmas season as opposed to 2008. There is a distinct increase in social media activity ahead and here are three examples.
First up is Starbucks:
Here’s a post from Econsultancy.com that outlines what Starbucks is up to. Below is an excerpt. According to Starbucks VP Chris Bruzzo, Holiday 2009 is all about scaling up Starbucks’ Holiday 2008:
It’s like we’ve taken the version 1.0 of last year and now we’re really doing it at scale and going to a lot more places where our customers already are. People are saying this is going to be a big year for social media and we’re a microcosm of that. Whereas last year it was a curiosity, this year it’s a core part of the program.
Some of Starbucks’ specific online efforts worth noting include:
- Facebook holiday photo uploads and branded virtual goods.
- A Flickr page encouraging consumers to upload holiday pictures of themselves.
- A branded playlist on Pandora, additional integration in Pandora’s iPhone app and traditional ad placements on the Pandora website.
Coca Cola:
In an article by Mediabiznet, an explanation is given as to what the beverage company is describing as their “largest social media campaign ever.” 206 countries, 365 days, 1 mission
Expedition 206, as it will be called, will send three 20-somethings to 206 countries and territories where Coca-Cola is sold. The trio set off on their 275,000 mile tour from Madrid on 1st January 2010, stocked with laptops, video cameras, smartphones and other gadgetry, in order to document their search for happiness to the masses.
Their journey will be tracked online via www.expedition206.com as well as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter. Fans following the trio will be able to weigh in on what the trio should do and who they should see at each destination.
BestBuy:
It’s no secret that BestBuy has been pushing further into the social web than probably any other electronics retailer to date with their Blue Shirt Nation experiment at the core.
They’ve decked out their Facebook page with a Christmas theme as a start, offering gift advice, a “hint helper” to let friends and family know what you want for Christmas, a Secret Santa area, and a smattering of “Christmas carol videos.”
The New York Times reports that BestBuy is building a large TV commercial campaign around their “Twelpforce” Twitter account, said to be manned by 2500 BestBuy blue shirts with the claim that “no knows more about electronics than BestBuy employees.”
Social media vs traditional advertising
- Image by Will Lion via Flickr
When was the last time the number of “impressions” your ad campaign generated also told you how many conversations about your brand were happening in real-time?
When was the last time “frequency” explained how many times a customer mentioned your brand, product or service to others and the sentiment of that comment?
When was the last time the above information actually told you “why” people were buying your stuff? Or why they didn’t buy?
The truth is, most organizations despite the decline are still spending large dollars in the traditional advertising space and are justifying these expenditures on metrics that are estimates in many cases. Then those same executives look at social media investments with risk in their eyes, a lack of understanding and claiming there’s no way to measure.
Top executives claim there’s no budget for social media.
What they’re really saying is “we don’t understand.” Then they provide a media buyer with $250,000.00 or more to go fire away at the big three, print, television, radio for a 90 day campaign. Why? Not because it’s necessarily the right answer but because it’s what they understand and the safe move. Now in this recovering economy there are shifts in these patterns to be sure. Much of the traditional ad industry is feeling the effects.
Every once and a while, I come across an executive who has thought the above questions through and has realized that the ability to hold conversations, build rapport, inspire action directly on a mass scale or one on one and track all of those activities is definitely appealing. “Welcome to the social web.”
Social media metrics do exist, they’re just different.
Social media is word-of-mouth advertising ON FIRE! You have to change how you look at measuring things. Measuring conversations is a hands on job. You can’t just tally up the traffic numbers and say we won. You have to dig deeper than that and it is possible to do so.
A strong online campaign will demonstrate “engagement” levels that will include a number of things.
My definition of social media “impressions” would constitute the number of times elements of your campaign get mentioned across blogs, articles, comments, video, images, mass-media, micro-sharing platforms, social networks. This information would also include, “sentiment and influence within micro-tribes.”
- Image via Wikipedia
Beyond just eyes seeing the message, many other things can be identified. Did your message move or inspire further actions or discussion publicly online? If it did, this can almost certainly be tracked.
What was the sentiment of action taken? Are citizens blogging about your message, brand, product or service positively or negatively? If they explain their position and why they feel the way they do that can be identified. Did they spoof your television ad on Youtube? Did they create a twitter hashtag and engage others on Twitter?
The interaction and what can learned within the social dynamics identified can help your organization understand your customer and their relationships or “social networks” better. That understanding can lead to emotional engagements, emotional engagements can lead to influence and influence leads to action. The social web is where you need to commit your resources long-term and you need to do it, yesterday.
Where’s the value?
The value is in the human connections and relationships generated between your brand and your customer. Those connections properly nurtured will build loyalty and loyalty means repeat business and influencing new business. The social web is the perfect environment for this. That’s where the value is. This doesn’t happen overnight and it isn’t easy. However, the ability to amplify a message is immense and shouldn’t be ignored. The problem isn’t with the social web, the problem is with current organizational mind-sets and it’s time for a change. If you truly understood the social web, you’d never call it a fad.
- The Social Web Isn’t Just for the Young Anymore (gigaom.com)
- Forrester: Social networking grows up (infoworld.com)
Social Media for Edmonton Companies, Indeed ALL Companies!
Every once and awhile I come across something really cool, like today. I was followed by Nadia Aly or @digitalkvan on Twitter and her most recent tweet was this.
Still think Social Media is a fad? WATCH THIS: http://bit.ly/4DLpNK #socialmedia #revolution
Now I certainly don’t think social media is a fad, however, curious I still clicked to read or in this case “watch” the content on the other end of the link.
Below is what I found and I loved it. Love the information, pace, structure and delivery of the work by Erik Qualman of socialnomics fame…enjoy! Qualman has put a lot of work into this video and I just felt compelled to share it with everyone.
Of course, the social media numbers in the video are in a constant state of flux. However, this fast paced piece of work captures the key points that people and businesses who don’t believe social media is a serious opportunity should come to grips with. One of the wonderful things about social media is the ability to share and Erik Qualman has put considerable effort into this video. We all get to observe, learn and participate in the social web and this is evidence of that. Any business that doesn’t see value here is crazy, plain and simple. ”Keep learning my friends.”
Edmonton Social Media promotes the Fringe once more…
Wow, what a day today at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. First, it was a great on camera interview with street performer Billy Kidd, watch for that to be uploaded soon to the Showyouours Youtube channel. We talked about Edmonton, social media, of course the Fringe and her experiences abroad, such as living in Bath, U.K. Billy also does a great trick with my $20.00 dollar bill and yes I do get it back…
This Edmonton social media project is designed to generate awareness.
Awareness for Edmonton and our Fringe festival in other parts of the world. We’re doing a number of things to accomplish this goal, one such activity is the live streaming video. Tonight we finished broadcasting our 3rd Fringe related show. First was the Edmonton Fringe VIP reception, second was last night’s live webcast of a show out of Seoul, South Korea – Choon-Hyang: True Love. Tonight the excitement continued as we worked with actor Eric Davis from New York City who plays the entertaining and engaging Red Bastard, once again watch for these clips to be uploaded.
Broadcasting a live theatre act is a unique experience for all sorts of reasons.
You’re not really sure of the challenges associated with the venue until you get there and assess the situation, which in this case, has to be done in-between productions and with next to no time before going live. Tonight we were really packed into Venue #3 or ACACIA Hall for example. Heat was a problem and caused a brief shut down right at the beginning of our live broadcast, fortunately not much longer than a 5 minute outage was experienced as we switched computers. Not something that’s ever happened to us before but once again going live on-location means anything can happen. Thankfully we have an experienced crew.
Other things that we have to address on the fly are the nuances with the show itself, doing one off broadcasts means we rarely have any prep time. So for example, we have little to no idea where to position the camera in anticipation of the next shot, that unpredictability can be troublesome, dark venues, no space, lighting apparatus in the way, you name it. In order to do this well the fusedlogic team just needs to be really good at their craft.
With that in mind, I’m proud of our team, they’ve done a tremendous job of dealing with these little details and I believe with the exception of the one unexpected heat related shut-down which could have been far worse, everyone and everything has performed really well. Certainly, this social media work has been great for Edmonton’s Fringe festival, giving it the recognition it deserves as a leader in many ways and no I’m not just saying that because they’re our client or because I live in the region. If you like the fact that Edmonton is known for great festivals and you attend the Fringe, then this benefits you. If you’ve participated directly in these social media efforts in some way then it has hopefully enriched your Fringe experience this year. If not, I’d like to hear about it so that we can make it better. Post a comment, send us an email or a DM, let the Fringe know directly if that’s better. We are constantly looking to learn and gain experience, we never stop looking to innovate.
By the way, I simply cannot bear it any longer, I’ve got to let the cat peak its head out of the bag. Just for fun and because we have absolutely nothing else to do (dripping with sarcasm), we’re going to be launching an iPhone application “very” soon, as well as, a Twitter app. This will be under our custom application division fusedlogic Labs. Just thought I’d throw that out there…
Edmonton Fringe Festival Social Media Links
Just wanted to quickly update everyone on some of the key sites you should be aware of. First, if you like being in pictures and you’ve been to this year’s Edmonton International Fringe Festival, it’s quite possible that someone has taken your picture and posted it here at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival group on Flickr. All Fringe related pictures are welcome, this group started with the Fringe at zero and now has 16 members and nearly 400 pictures, great job Edmonton photographers, let’s keep the shutters smoking!
Also, for those staying in touch on Facebook regarding Edmonton Fringe shows, food, street performers and reviews. You should be aware of the main Fringe related Facebook group.
We are excited to have performers and Fringers blogging about their experiences at Edmonton’s Fringe Festival. Much of the daily action regarding social media and specifically blogging activity is happening on ShowYouOurBlog.com.
Many on Twitter are following the Twitter account @EdmontonFringe which notifies everyone of a new blog post on the aforementioned blog, as well as, other interesting Edmonton Fringe tidbits that come along.
Many like watching video and we don’t disappoint. Here is the ShowYouOurs Youtube channel. You’ll also be interested to know that we’ll be live streaming a couple of shows from the Edmonton International Fringe Festival this year. This first of which is tonight at 8:45pm from Venue #1 – Choon-Hyang: True Love The live feed will be broadcast from the ShowYouOurBlog site listed above and the archived content will be posted on this Youtube channel. The Edmonton International Fringe Festival continues towards breaking new social media ground as this will be our 2nd of 3 live webcasts from the festival.
We have been working with the production staff from Seoul, South Korea and we expect a good turnout online from that Internet savvy country, despite the time zone difference being 16 hours ahead, which in this case works in our favor as it should be early Tuesday afternoon in Seoul.
