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Marketing Your Brand with a Social App

Should your brand build a custom social app? That’s the question Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media, tries to answer in an article he wrote for Advertising Age. Michael summed up his opinion quite succinctly when he wrote, “Applications need to bring value to people and should be social by design.”

It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of social apps, particularly when other brands experience great success with social apps that integrate directly into Facebook and puts the brand in front of a huge potential audience of over 800 million Facebook members. However, Michael warns us that the vast majority of social apps don’t work.

He reminds us that apps are not a social strategy. They’re a tool to help a brand connect with people. Your social strategy should be focused on offering those people something so you can interact with them and cultivate relationships with them. To support his view, he referred to a speech Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg delivered in 2011 and explained, “Facebook is not nearly as concerned with how many users they have, as much as how those users are interfacing with the platform and each other.”

With those tips in mind, Michael shared his suggestions for building a social app for a brand so it has a chance for success:

  • Useful: Your social app needs to be useful and actually do something for users by making their lives easier or helping them in some way.
  • Value-driven: Your social app needs to add value to the people’s lives who use it. Just as products need to benefit consumers, so must your social app or there is little reason to use it.
  • Social: Your social app should have built-in social functionality, so a user’s friends see them using it with no additional effort (e.g., on their Facebook News Feeds) and are intrigued enough to try it themselves.

You can read Michael’s complete article with more details about his tips for social app success and social strategy development here. What do you think of his view of social apps for brands? Will you re-strategize your brand’s social app plans? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on branded social app strategies.

Image: Babyben

DIY Trend Opens Opportunities for Brands

While the United States has been struggling through a recession, consumers have embraced the do-it-yourself (DIY) trend like never before. DIY has permeated all aspects of life and business. However, that doesn’t have to mean that brands end up losing business. In fact, the DIY trend can actually open new doors of opportunity for brands.

This week, JP Morgan’s Chase Card Services released the results of an online survey that revealed some interesting information about the DIY trend among American consumers. If the results of this survey are accurate, Americans have no plans to abandon the DIY trend anytime soon. Kate Rogers shares in her report for Fox Business that the DIY trend will stick around in many areas of consumers’ lives in the years to come.

For example, gym memberships and salon visits aren’t likely to pick up in 2012 as approximately one out of two survey respondents claimed they planned to skip paying for these types of experiences in the future. Beauty salon expenditures and tourism-related expenses will suffer similar fates in 2012 as respondents stated they would use DIY methods to keep up with beauty regimens and to enjoy time off from work.

For brands, this shift in consumer behavior means more than simply weathering the storm of the economic downturn. Instead, this shift means it’s time for brands to rethink their strategies and look for new opportunities to add value to consumers’ DIY lives. Launching a new product or service, rebranding with a new brand promise and focus, or modifying a brand’s message to communicate more relevant benefits and emotional triggers are all potential opportunities for brands to better connect with the DIY consumer mindset.

It’s a perfect time to conduct some research that gives you insight into the DIY consumer mind as it relates to your industry, so you can better align your goals and strategies with shifting audience preferences and behaviors. What do you think? Has your brand evolved to leverage the DIY trend? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the DIY trend and strategies to turn the trend into brand opportunities.

Image: Patrick Goossens

Social Media Marketing Gives Brands Measurable Long-Term Benefits

In a study by BzzAgent, the long-term effects of social media marketing were put into metrics that the numbers-hungry executives are sure to notice. At least, we hope they notice — and listen.

According to the study, social media marketing campaigns generate an immediate boost in the likelihood that consumer packaged goods brand advocates would recommend a brand to other people. Purchase intent also gets an immediate bump among brand advocates after exposure to a social media campaign.

However, those are results that brand managers have been showing to executives for some time now. The significant findings in this study come from the long-term effects that social media campaigns have on brand advocates.

First, let’s take a look at the data from the study related to the likelihood that U.S. brand advocates would recommend a consumer packaged goods brand before and after exposure to a social media campaign. Data was obtained between summer 2010 and summer 2011:

  • Pre-campaign = 39% likely to recommend the brand
  • Immediately post-campaign = 61% likely to recommend the brand
  • 3 months post-campaign = 57% likely to recommend the brand
  • 6 months post-campaign = 57% likely to recommend the brand
  • 9 months post-campaign = 56% likely to recommend the brand
  • 1 year post-campaign = 55% likely to recommend the brand

Next, you can see how the purchase intent of U.S. consumer packaged goods brand advocates was affected before and after exposure to a social media campaign during the same time period — summer 2010 to summer 2011:

  • Pre-campaign = 38% said they would purchase
  • Immediately post-campaign = 69% said they would purchase
  • 3 months post-campaign = 69% said they would purchase
  • 6 months post-campaign = 64% said they would purchase
  • 9 months post-campaign = 63% said they would purchase
  • 1 year post-campaign = 61% said they would purchase

As eMarketer points out, this data shouldn’t be used as a barometer for how all social media campaigns will perform. However, next time you’re trying to convince your leadership team to devote a portion of the marketing budget to social media marketing, this data can help you demonstrate the positive effects that social media campaigns can have.

The important thing to remember is just as not every television ad or print ad will deliver optimum results, neither will every social media campaign. However, if you’re not experimenting and trying to learn the best ways to connect with your audience, particularly brand advocates, and motivate them to recommend your brand and purchase it via social media marketing, you’re missing an opportunity that your competitors are happy to take from you. Is that an opportunity your executives are willing to miss by leaving social media out of the marketing budget?

Image: Brian Wilkins

Twitter’s Public Commitment to Brands

If you haven’t stopped by the Twitter home page lately, go visit now. Don’t just go directly to your profile, another profile, the advanced search page, or your account. Nope. Type “www.twitter.com” into your browser search bar and take a look at the Twitter home page.

It’s changed so much since Twitter started to get noticed in 2008. For example, Twitter’s current home page clearly communicates the company’s commitment to brands. Take a look at an image from the Twitter home page below and see for yourself.

Read the copy in the image above, and notice that the message makes a point of saying that Twitter helps you, “Find out what’s happening, right now, with the people and organizations you care about.”

If there was any doubt about how Twitter feels about brands, that welcome message clears things up. Brands are a priority for Twitter.

In 2011, Twitter rolled out Promoted Tweets, Promote Accounts, Promoted Trends, and Enhanced Profile Accounts. Each promoted product helps Twitter earn the revenue it needs to generate and gives brands the opportunity to connect with consumers in a variety of ways. More recently, Twitter rolled out a quiet launch of self-service ads, which could open the doors for small businesses to invest in Twitter advertising and promoted products, too.

It’s safe to assume that this is just the beginning of initiatives that Twitter will launch to partner with brands. The opportunities for Twitter to make money and for brands to connect with the audiences they want to find online are huge and ready for the taking. 2012 should be an exciting year for brands to leverage Twitter marketing and the new opportunities that are likely to come along.

What is your brand focusing on as it relates to Twitter marketing in 2012? What do you think will be the big Twitter marketing trend in 2012? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

It’s funny to think just a few years ago there was a debate over whether brands should be on Twitter at all! There is no doubt who won that debate.

Welcoming the New Year on your Corporate Website

It’s a brand new year: no doubt you have exciting new ideas for developing your corporate site in 2012. But have you taken care of calendar duties for the change of the year?

I spent yesterday reviewing various corporate websites, and was slightly surprised that they hadn’t all updated the copyright year in the footer. Many have, of course – but have you?

Some of the outdated dates I saw may have been due to caching; and today is still a holiday here in the UK – many people don’t go back to work until tomorrow, Tuesday 3 January. But the date can be automatically generated.

If it’s not automatically updated based on the system date on your site, ask your developers if they could sort this out for you – one less thing to think about next year!

Other things to consider:

  • adding in future dates for the new calendar year in your events calendar, and moving 2011 dates to the ‘historic’ section of the calendar, if you keep historic dates
  • making sure that you have a new tab—headed 2012, of course—for your news releases, RNS and any other time-specific sections, and that older material is moved out of the ‘current’ tab. Check your reports, presentations and webcasts pages too…
  • some of your content, inevitably, will refer to 2011 as the current year. It’s worth developing a spreadsheet with the URLs of pages that need to be updated on a calendar basis, so that you can find them quickly in the future. If you don’t have one yet, then likely pages to check quickly are landing pages across the site, and your strategy pages, including your CSR strategy page if that’s separate.
  • check the history/timeline page too. That might need to be updated…
  • do you have any text in the rotators on your landing pages or home page, that refers to 2011 as ‘this year’?
  • and while you’re having a tidy-up, are there job postings on-site that should be cleared out?

If you’re running a corporate blog, you may want to check that your archive page is working well, and think about your editorial calendar for 2012, making a note of any special company events that are coming up that could be or should be covered in the blog.

And here’s something that has caught me out in the past: if your blog software automatically creates new subdirectories for uploads, ensure that you have access to any new 2012 subdirectories. If your systems administrators keep tight control of access rights, you may find that they haven’t yet given you permission to update those subdirectories. It’s quickly sorted out, of course, but I expect you want to get a flying start on 2012.

What have I missed? Are there any New Year jobs that need doing on your corporate website that I haven’t mentioned here?

Branded Blogs to Debut on Huffington Post UK

In July 2011, the Huffington Post debuted a U.K.-specific website filled with local, regional, and global news as well as content targeted to the U.K. audience. Now, it’s time for brands to get in on the action.

On the Huffington Post U.S. site, partner brands can publish blog posts as a part of their social media and content marketing efforts. The brands get excellent exposure and the Huffington Post earns revenue, not just from the partner brands but also in the form of more page views, which boost ad rates and revenues overall.

This month, the Huffington Post U.K. announced that branded blogs are coming to the site very soon. While partner brands have yet to be revealed, the potential for brands to connect with consumers via this new opportunity could be very big. Branded blogs are expected to launch on the Huffington Post U.K. site during the first quarter of 2012.

Branded blogs and brands as media are trends that will surely dominate 2012 marketing strategies as more and more companies realize the importance of social media and content marketing to connect with and engage with consumers. On the flip side, publishers need to find new ways to generate income. Traditional online display advertising isn’t enough anymore, and with brands actively looking for opportunities to connect with consumers on the Web, the trend could deliver big rewards for publishers, too.

As long as branded blogs aren’t overtly promotional, audiences are likely not to mind them. If brands publish useful and meaningful content targeted to the site’s existing audience, branded blogs won’t be intrusive. Whether or not branded blogs will succeed on Huffington Post U.K. and beyond depends on the ability of participating brands to avoid self-promotion.

Any way you slice it, branded blogs on popular sites like the Huffington Post U.K. represent significant opportunities for brands. What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Flickr