The Marketing Debate - Internet Marketing and Online Advertising » Social Media

Recommended kids’ lunch-packs: sandwiches, crisps and a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka!

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:11:19 +0000

Looking for new treats to spice up your child’s lunch pack? Looking for something a little more interesting then blackcurrant juice? How about a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka! Even in coldest Moscow I don’t think this recommendation would get much take-up no matter how daunting the afternoon’s lessons. However this was the recommended drink for lunch-packs by a leading online grocery retailer a little while ago according to Mark Stuart, Head of Research at CIM in his entertaining presentation at the CIM Digital Marketing conference in Cambridge this week.

It was obviously a coding mistake on the site. The interesting thing about this anecdote is that the retailer was able to quickly rectify it before it turned into a PR blunder. Apparently an online shopper updated her facebook profile to highlight the bizarre vodka recommendation for lunch-packs. Because the online retailer monitors their brand across social media they were able to immediately rectify the error stopping the story snowballing into the mainstream press.

There’s plenty of examples of brands making mistakes when using social media. It’s good to see how social media also helps brands with damage limitation. Cheers!

I’m so attached to Gmail

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:57:57 +0000

I’ve started using Gmail far more recently. It really is quite clever. One thing I really like is its intelligent suggestions on attachments.
The most common mistake I make with emails is forgetting to attach the document. Judging by the amount of emails I get with the sheepish phrase “and this time with attachment” I know I’m not alone.

In Gmail if you have text referring to an attachment and you send without an attachment a box pops up saying “Did you mean to attach files? You wrote “see attached” in your message but there are no files attached. Send anyway?”.

Simple but brilliant. And the best bit? I’m telling all my friends about this feature not because I work for Google but because it is so clever. And everyone loves it. I bet some of them will give it a go and also tell their friends. Just goes to show that little product features that solve a common problem can be word of mouth marketing gold.

Forget the Clegg effect – Conservatives most influential on Twitter

mattbrocklehurst — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:05:12 +0000

Clegg won the social media buzz war after the leadership debate. But the Conservatives are best placed to exert influence on Twitter. And Labour aren’t at the races.

The media fallout from last week’s leadership debate included much analysis on the ripple effect in social spaces such as Twitter and Facebook. Clegg was a clear winner here as well as in the polls but how much is this “a flash in the pan”? How effective as influencers are the Lib Dems based on their Twitter presence over time? Sorry to prick the Clegg bubble but it looks like the Conservatives are actually better placed, with the Lib Dems a little way behind and Labour playing catch-up.

Brand Republic reported last week that Starcom analysed one million plus online discussions to conclude that Nick Clegg was a clear winner in last week’s televised election debate.

The discussions occurred on UK blogs, websites, forums, and social networks, including Twitter and Facebook. The agency compared positive and negative discussions 24 hours prior to the broadcast as well as immediately prior to, during and post the debate.

Nick Clegg achieved the greatest increase in positive discussions – up 93%. Negative discussion rose 20%.

Gordon Brown arguably did well with a 74% a increase in positive discussion, albeit tempered considerably by a 54% increase in negative discussions.

Conservative supporters would presumably be disappointed with the fact that David Cameron had a 44% increase in both positive and negative opinion.

But let’s not get carried away with the immediate effect of the debate. Social media is a great barometer on public opinion, sure, but it is also an influencer itself. I thought I’d take a look at how well placed the respective parties are placed in terms of how well they are using Twitter and who is exerting the most influence.

For a fair comparison I went to the home pages of the official websites of the three parties to establish which Twitter account they recommend an interested visitor should follow. I then compared these accounts in one of the better Twitter tracker sites: Klout. In their own words:

“Klout allows you to track the impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph. We collect data about the content you create, how people interact with that content and the size and composition of your network. From there, we analyze the data to find indicators of influence and then provide you with innovative tools to interact with and interpret the data.”

Klout then allocates a K-score, the higher the K-score the more influence the Twitter account is having. The results are clear:

Conservatives (@Conservatives) 38
Liberal Democrats (@libdems) 31
Labour (@UKLabour) 21

This is more enlightening then a crude comparison of number of followers for example. The amount of followers obviously helps in terms of influence. The Conservatives do have over 27,000 followers which is nearly twice as much as Labour and the Lib Dems. But Labour actually have pretty much the same amount of followers (14,700) as the Lib Dems (14,676) but in terms of how they are using Twitter and how people are responding they trail quite badly as the above K-scores show. The Klout summaries are also telling.

Labour is a casual. The advice given by Klout could well be taken more widely by Brown and his party: “you have succeeded in building a strong audience but need to engage.”

Lib Dems is a connector. Again the summary echoes much current sentiment on Clegg and the LibDems: “Your taste and opinion is respected and your judgement is trusted”

Conservatives, however, stand tall as they are seen as a persona. Klout state that this means they “have built a personal brand around your identity…not just about having a ton of followers…make no mistake about it, when you (Conservatives) talk people listen.”

Clegg maybe getting all the buzz at the moment but a deeper look at who is best placed to use social media to exert influence shows that the Conservatives are a clear winner.

The wider point, however, is that none of the parties are really in that strong a position on Twitter compared to, say, Barack Obama (K-score 100) or even SarahBrown10 who has over 1.1 million followers and a K-score of 58. The official Labour Twitter account would have done well to have learnt a few lessons from Gordon’s better half.

Fact: Facebook and Twitter can work for B2B marketers

mattbrocklehurst — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:37:30 +0000

“Facebook won’t work for us. We’re B2B. We’re not selling fun products but products that need serious understanding. Don’t even mention Twitter!” This is the all too often knee-jerk response from many a MD and indeed marketer in the B2B world. A recent report from HubSpot in the US has highlighted that social media can work for B2B brands. Yes as you’d expect, LinkedIn but also Facebook and Twitter.

B2B companies are reporting higher levels of success on LinkedIn then B2C as you may expect with 45% of B2B companies who use it reporting leads compared to 26% for B2C – and we can probably assume that a B2B lead is worth more then a B2C lead.

Particularly interesting is the high levels of B2B companies who market on Facebook and Twitter enjoying leads – 33% and 38% respectively. I’m not surprised. The B2B decision maker is open to messages that engage in many different environments. He or she is not a Jekyll and Hide character: one person when on Facebook and another when reading a trade mag.

A B2B brand shouldn’t blindly jump into these social spaces on the back of this report or any other. A clear strategy with ongoing measurement into quality and quantity of leads, cost and time spent is essential. Findings like this from HubSpot are, though, useful nuggets to throw at the next B2B marketer screwing his face up at the mere mention of Facebook or Twitter.

What will work for brands on Twitter in 2010 – and what won’t

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:16:37 +0000

The most successful use of Twitter by marketers is not for driving sales but for monitoring negative PR and contacting negative tweeters. So says a recent Marketing Prof survey highlighted this week by E-marketer.

No great shocks here maybe but I wander what we will be seeing in a year or more from now?

Increasing sales via Twitter is a great line in anyone’s marketing plan (and would provide a useful building block for Twitter to develop a business model and actually start making some money itself.) But I doubt we’ll see real growth here with Twitter as it stands. The report shows approximately a quarter of B2B and B2C marketers having success in this area. I do wonder what exactly constitutes sales success. Let’s hope it is significant volume and profit set against cost and resources used. I fear much of this success could be down to proof of concept or, put less charitably, cheering from the bandwagon. The fact that Dell is still being paraded as the “Twitter sales” case study indicates there’s some way to go for Twitter to be a widespread sales channel. If Dell is still being quoted this time next year then let’s take a deep breath and think again on Twitter for sales.

Tracking negative PR, or more precisely, spotting it and understanding it early to implement reputation management tactics, is the real beauty of Twitter. Of the 50% of marketers who say they are currently doing this over 40% report success. Two things strike me here. The 60% who aren’t reporting success should learn from the 40% who are and the 50% who aren’t even using Twitter need to in 2010. If and when Twitter usage increases through 2010 the case for more brands to embrace reputation management on Twitter becomes more compelling. I predict a significant increase here.

Lastly, and distinct from reputation management, is contacting Twitter users who tweet negatively about a brand. Here, near 40% of marketers report success. Let’s put to one side those twittering discontent on an ongoing, almost crusade, like basis. Take the Twitterer that has a particular customer service problem with a brand, is contacted and made happy. This is a great use of Twitter surely? On the surface: yes. But at what cost and how commercially sustainable is this?

Let me share an anecdote. I’m not in the habit of listening in to coffee shop conversations but I couldn’t help but hear a middle-aged mum sharing tips with three other mums. She had her issue with Hotpoint resolved because she tweeted about it. She got a reaction where telephone calls and emails had failed abysmally, apparently. She was happy and I guess Hotpoint would put this down as a successful use of Twitter. But isn’t this just a temporary short-cut into customer services? If the three other Mums start using Twitter and they all tell their friends etc etc there will come a point, not very far away, that such customer service won’t work. It will surely fall victim to the same numbers game brands face on phone and email? Or am I missing something? If I’m not then this use of Twitter I predict will decline in the not too distant.

In summary, my prediction for 2010 will see similar levels of success in sales on Twitter, declining contact of negative Twitterers and tracking negative PR will increase. What do you think?

Emarketer chart on successful marketing uses of Twitter