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Brand

How to Leverage Brand Conversations

brand conversationsConsumers talk about brands. They talk about brands to friends, family, and even strangers both online and offline, but how can marketers leverage those conversations to build brands?

That’s one of the questions inTV and InSites Consulting tried to answer in a recent online survey of 1,600 people in the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. According to the results presentation, which you can see below, 90% of conversations about brands happen offline.

The good news is that brand sentiment is usually positive among people discussing brands and those discussions typically boost opinions about the brand among the wider audience in a positive direction.

Specifically, consumers indicated that brand conversations teach them new things about a brand or product and often motivate them to seek out additional information about the brand or product and to share information about the brand or product with other people. Moving down the purchase funnel, consumers also reported that brand conversations make them consider, choose, or buy a specific brand, and these conversations reassure them that they’ve made the right brand purchase decisions.

While the report clearly shows that brand conversations drive awareness, purchases, and word-of-mouth marketing, the intangible gains in terms of positive brand sentiment and developing an emotional connection between consumers and a brand are equally important. By leveraging brand conversations to not only share information and increase sales but also using conversations to reassure consumers and connect with them on an emotional level, brand marketers will build brand loyalty that will keep brand conversations and brand purchases going. It’s this perpetual marketing driving by brand conversations that brand marketers should leverage, fuel, and reward.

You can view the complete report by following the link above, which breaks results up into six categories: automotive, smartphones and tablets, banking, watches, travel destinations, and airlines.

What do you think are the best ways to leverage brand conversations? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Flavio Takemoto

Brands, Pinterest, and Facebook

pins colorfulShould your brand be on Pinterest or Facebook? Of course, the best answer is to be on both, but it’s important to understand how people use each of these sites before you prioritize them as part of your brand marketing plan.

Wishpond put together a great infographic that highlights the key growth trends, usage trends, and user demographics of both Pinterest and Facebook to give you an overview of how people interact with each site.

You can see the full infographic at the end of this article, but first, here are some key highlights from the data:

  • 80% of Pinterest users are women.
  • 50% of Pinterest users have children.
  • Most Pinterest users are between the ages of 25 and 34.
  • The #1 content category on Pinterest is food-related content.
  • 57% of Pinterest users interact with food-related content.
  • Over 80% of pins on Pinterest are repins.
  • Pinterest users divide their time with three main activities: pinning (84% of their time), liking (16% of their time), and commenting (less than 1% of their time).
  • Pinterest pins with prices get 36% more likes than those without.
  • Of the 17 million brand engagements on Pinterest, 15% occur on brand boards while 85% occur elsewhere.
  • Pinterest referrals spend 70% more money than visitors referred from non-social channels.
  • 9% of people have participated in contests or promotions via Pinterest vs. 30% on Facebook.
  • 43% of people prefer to associate with retailers or brands on Pinterest vs. 24% for Facebook.
  • 69% of online consumers have found an item they wanted to buy or actually bought on Pinterest vs. 40% on Facebook.

Based on those statistics, is your target audience for your brand on Pinterest? Do the activities people do on Pinterest and the ways they interact with brands on Pinterest work better for your brand than Facebook?

Pinterest is the fastest growing social site in history, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best one for your brand. Similarly, Facebook might be the most popular social network in the world by far, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best one for your brand. Consider who is using the tool, how they’re using it, and what they want from brands when they use the tool. Do those things match your brand? Can you deliver those additional things people are looking for (or don’t know they want yet)? Choose the tool to match your brand rather than trying to make your brand fit the tool.

You can click on the image below to view the infographic at full size.

Infographic pinterest users

Image: Irum Shahid

2012 Brand Social Media Marketing Wins and Fails [Infographic]

sephoraIn 2012, 92% of internet users between the ages of 18-29 visited social networking sites. Compare that figure to 73% for internet users between the ages of 30-49 and 57% for internet users between the ages of 50-64, and it’s clear that the big drop off in social media usage that used to exist as age increases no longer exists. Even 38% of internet users over the age of 64 use social networking sites.

Naturally, brands want to connect with those consumers through social media, and 2012 was filled with more social media marketing initiatives than ever. Some of those initiatives performed very well and brought the brands that launched them positive buzz and sales. On the flip side, many brands experienced huge failures in social media marketing during 2012.

Marketers can learn a lot from both the social media marketing successes and failures of 2012 to improve their own campaigns in 2013. The infographic below highlights some of the biggest social media marketing wins and failures from the past year that can help you with your brand marketing creative thinking and help you identify measures to ensure things don’t go terribly wrong.

Some of the positive social media marketing stories include:

  • Nike: A campaign tied to the London Olympics honored everyday athletes with both offline and online components. Positive feedback was higher for Nike than it was for the official sponsor of the Olympic Games, Adidas. The social media aspect of the campaign targeted Facebook and Twitter and delivered over 16,000 tweets and a 77% increase in Facebook Page interaction during the Olympic Games.
  • Honda: A campaign to promote its new CRV model offered $500 to the most active pinners on Pinterest to take a 24-hour break from the site, which they branded as a Pintermission. Winners created pinboards about everything they did during their day away from Pinterest. As a result, Honda reached in excess of 5.5 million followers of those very active pinners.
  • Sephora: The “15 Days of Beauty” campaign on Facebook also included a mobile element. Both iPads and iPod touches were placed in brick-and-mortar Sephora stores in an effort to drive mobile traffic. As a result, there were over 2 million downloads of the Sephora mobile app.

You can see the complete infographic below, which includes additional social media marketing wins and several failures.

Biggest Moments in Social Media 2012
Image compliments of MBA in Marketing Degree Guide

Image: Justin Tung

The Significance of Facebook Card for Brands

facebook cardJanuary 31, 2013 marked an important milestone in Facebook history when Facebook Card was launched to Facebook members in the United States. Suddenly, brands have a new way to marry Facebook marketing, ecommerce, and brick-and-mortar sales into one little piece of plastic.

According to the announcement of Facebook Card, Facebook members can give Facebook friends monetary gifts to shop at specific retailers (online or offline) via a plastic card that they’ll receive in the mail a few days after it is purchased. They’ll also receive a notification that the card is on its way to them at the time it is purchased.

When the card is used, a notification is sent to the cardholder letting them know that the balance has changed. They can also look up this information in the account settings of their Facebook Profile.

People who get a Facebook Card need to hang onto it though, because if another person sends them a Facebook Card gift, that money will be added to the existing card. The money associated with each retailer is tracked separately on the card, so a cardholder could have balances with several retailers at the same time on a single card.

According to AdWeek, Facebook has no plans to offer digital Facebook Cards, so the plastic is here to stay. Also, there are no current plans to link Facebook Offers with Facebook Card. In other words, retailers won’t be able to promote Offers to users with cards that have balances for their stores.

It’s probably safe to assume that such integrations will come in the future if Facebook Cards gains some traction among Facebook members. For example, if retailers had the ability to target cardholders with balances for their stores and serve ads to specific segments, they should be able to get the right offers in front of more of the right members of the one billion Facebook community and increase Facebook marketing ROI significantly. That’s just one reason why it’s so important for Facebook to find a solution that successfully marries Facebook marketing spending, ecommerce, and offline sales.

The question at this point is how Facebook members will react to physical gift cards, something that the younger demographic calls “retro” (check out the comments in this Mashable article to see for yourself). Of course, this is just Phase 1 of Facebook Card, and enhancements and changes are likely to come quickly and frequently. Again, Facebook needs this to work. Brands hope it will work. But do consumers care? Only time will tell.

What do you think about Facebook Card?

Image: Facebook Newsroom

Research Finds Social Media Marketing Campaigns Are Too Short-Sighted

facebook iphoneAccording to the “Seriously Social” research report from Warc, social media marketing campaigns are too short, too siloed, and too hard to track. This determination came from a study of 800 marketing campaigns that included a social media tactic, which won significant industry awards. Brands like American Express, Walmart, Virgin Mobile, and AT&T were represented in the study.

The “Seriously Social” report found that social media marketing is being included in more campaigns, but those campaigns typically had lower budgets than campaigns without social elements. Furthermore, the social media part of those campaigns was often focused on short-term goals where results could not be accurately quantified. It’s this inability to calculate true return on investment that the report writers believe will ultimately separate great marketers from their peers.

The report identified several challenges that brand marketers need to address if they want to succeed with social media marketing campaigns in the future. Some of those challenges won’t be new to you. For example, Warc identifies the need to adopt a social media mindset as a significant challenge, but there is no doubt that success in social media marketing requires knowing what the target audience wants and giving it to them. The more realistic challenge is getting executive buy-in, so you can deliver the content that your audience wants, not the content that the powers-that-be think the audience wants. A second challenge identified in the report is the clear social articulation of your brand idea. In other words, let the audience engage with the brand experience on the social web and make it their own. Again, this isn’t a new concept.

More interesting to brand marketers are the second challenges identified in the report. The writers indicate that marketers need to “scale up ambition,” meaning they need to review the problem areas of social media campaigns, which Warc identified as being too focused on the short-term and limiting budgets. Finally, the Warc report warns brand marketers to avoid looking for a specific creative formula for social media campaigns, and instead, focus on learning what your target audience wants and delivering it in the way they’ll respond to. It’s not revolutionary advice, but it’s good advice.

You can subscribe and download the full report from the Warc website and get all of the details.

Image: Miki Yoshihito

The Battle for Mobile Advertising Standards

iphone mobile adsThere is no doubt that mobile advertising is a critical component of a brand’s integrated marketing plan, but developing mobile ads isn’t easy. With the proliferation of devices and multiple operating systems, mobile ads that look great to one consumer might look terrible to the next. As a result, mobile ad unit inventory is a jumbled mix that keeps growing, mobile ad CPM rates are very low, and mobile marketers aren’t happy.

Making matters worse is the inability to collect effective metrics for tracking the effectiveness of mobile ads. If an ad looks different from one device to another, performance data isn’t reliable because results will be skewed.

These are problems that the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are trying to change with new mobile ad standards. Together, the groups released the “Mobile Phone Creative Guidelines” for public comment today, which would supplement the Universal Mobile Ad Package and make it easier and more effective to buy and sell mobile ads.

The new Mobile Phone Creative Guidelines address multiple devices, mobile web and in-app ads, and specifications for both basic and rich media mobile ad units. The Mobile Phone Creative Guidelines include information related to:

  • The creative unit name
  • The maximum allowable expanded dimensions
  • The maximum allowable initial file load size
  • The maximum allowable animation length
  • The maximum allowable video length
  • The maximum percentage of CPU use
  • The minimum required controls
  • The labeling requirements, font sizes, etc.
  • The required submission lead time
  • The best practices for implementation
  • The supported creative types

You can download the complete Mobile Phone Creative Guidelines in Excel format. If you’d like to submit feedback on the guidelines, you can email your comments to mobile@iab.net. This is your chance to weigh in on mobile ad standards that could affect your brand for years to come, so be sure to speak up if you have input. Both mobile advertisers and publishers who display ads should review the guidelines and provide comments, so the final guidelines are the best that they can be.

Image: Matthew Pearce