Case studies
Why Do Some Marketers Still Shy Away From Social Networks? |
It’s funny how things can take such a flip turn in just a few years. I have seen how marketing concepts have transitioned along with the evolving internet. The greatest difference in the emergence of social media as a marketing medium is that 5-10 years ago marketers would be the ones with the lists. Marketing would be a one-way communication of messages from companies to consumers. They would work off a database of customers to find ways of penetrating them. TVCs, Radio Ads, Publications, Direct mail, Cold calling etc were all a core part of all marketing activities. The impact of the Ads was difficult to gauge.
Google search engines have turned the hunted into the hunters. Consumers now work off a list of merchants or providers and through a substantial supply of information to choose from. They decide who to listen to, trust and buy from. They are more empowered and in many ways less gullible. More access to information makes them wiser and better decision-makers.
This information gets to them via search engines and community based platforms. Search engines run algorithms to parse through information and show it to the consumers. On the other hand, community based platforms are enabled by elements of social interaction. Humans (not machines) filter content based on preferences and popularity. It is we who sort the information to protect our networks from poor choices.
It’s the hunted who now have the power - the merchants must win over the prey if they want the prey to endorse whatever they are offering & invite their social network to embrace it. To some naive marketers these facts represent a nightmare, which it is not. If you use social media effectively and not for spamming, a marketer’s cost of sales can drop considerably. Not only that, we now also have the power to leverage mob-effects, community shifts, emotional linkages - all using simple social networking strategies.
If you are event marketers or promoters, you can now directly interact with your audiences and get a direct feel for their thoughts and opinions. You can get early feedback; involve them in planning the different dynamics of the event. You can create groups and communities around your event to help build hype and excitement, let evangelists and fans promote your event for you. You can allow your prospective audiences to blog about your event. You can enable live twittering at the event. You can allow them to share photos of the after it’s over to build lasting memories and nostalgia. You can do absolutely everything and anything to promote your event.
I find it amusing whenever I come across big healthy organizations being stingy when it comes to investing money in social media marketing through online social interaction. I guess, they fail to see it as an investment rather than a cost for their event branding strategies.
I came across one such company recently that has outsourced a project to a team for developing, conceptualizing and writing a corporate blog for their upcoming annual expo event. Their blog was conceptualized in a manner to invite thought leaders and industry experts to participate in it as a rich community. I visited their site and was happy to see lots of activities, regular postings, participatory comments, etc. These people informally told me their concerns about the fact that they have no real way to measure the impact on event branding quantitatively for this project. I was both shocked and amused to hear them say this. Shocked because, somehow it seemed like they didn’t care about the community that was being formed around the blog - or the enthusiasts that were being born. Amused because, I knew that they don’t know any better. Social media marketing is far different from traditional media, my friends.
If you find yourself in a similar situation where you want to measure the impact of all of the tools that you are using, then here is some honest advice.
Measuring the benefit to your brand via social interactions, communities and social networking is difficult to put down on numbers. However, it can be calculated based on a combination of both qualitative and quantitative measures such as: increase in your list numbers, increase in your ticket demands, increase in audience traffic, participation levels in your blog posts, increase in sharing and bookmarking of your sites, development of evangelists, increase in page rankings, increase in exposure to industry bloggers, increase in authority of the blog rankings, decrease in your involvement to keep your blogs afloat. These are all rich online social interactions. Some of these directly affect your bottom line figures, whereas others are going to be more subtle and may go unnoticed.
Please don’t start counting the number of times your event brand name has been written or talked about as a measure for the success of such social media marketing projects. Be realistic in how you factor in different elements of event branding when deciding whether or not your money is being well spent.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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Al Gore started a massive chain reaction |
With the stock markets seeing four year lows and the wallstreet mess - it’s interesting to see how it had little effect on the great movement triggered by AlGore a few years back. The movement of ‘awareness’, as I like to call it.
Last Saturday, hundreds and thousands of people gathered together at the same time in 50 states to attend 670 concurrent events to demand Green Jobs. Talk about a massive event roll.
Their message: “Hey Washington - It is time to repower America with clean and green jobs!”
This caught my attention for multiple reasons. First of all, it demonstrated how much of a snowball was unleashed with the release of “The inconvenient truth”. There are Facebook groups on the “WE” campaign with thousands of members from across the world, collaborating together to help make little changes.
Secondly, they knew this is the time for action; when highup officials are making strategic decisions on how to handle, restructure and re-stabalize the economy.
Thirdly, 670 collaborative simultaneous events in 50 states!!! Need I say more?
According to Cathy Zoi; “More people need to understand that our ticket to economic recovery is a transition to 100% clean energy — a transition that will not only create millions of new jobs for families across the country but will enhance national security and reduce global warming pollution.”
In the midst of unpredictability and chaos, the people who really believe in a cause don’t falter. Hats off to them!
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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The Final Countdown: Firefox 3.0 Launch evaluated |
Without discrediting any of Google Chrome’s efforts, I just wanted to talk about how Mozilla Firefox planned its v.3.0 launch mixing the perfect marketing elements.
The myth behind event marketing asks for a decent amount of finances for an effective marketing strategy to be executed. However, Mozilla launch of Firefox v.3.0 proves quite the contrary. By setting up a Guinness World record of the most amount of software downloaded in 24 hours, Mozilla has proved that a good marketing strategy can get you what money can not. The download of 8 million in 24 hours confirm to this theory.
The basic driving force behind the success of this strategy was the involvement of the users. By clearly outlining the objectives of the campaign and defining the key features of the new browser, they managed to create a lot of hype amongst the people. They created a good promotional website, spreadfirefox.com. Their key features provided attraction for the users and in fact prompted him to spread the word.
The seeds had been sown. The army of supporters had gathered. So how did these evangelists show their diligence? Mozilla encouraged the community members to paste Firefox buttons, wall papers and links on their personal websites or even on their blogs e.g. on myspace and twitter. The advantage outlined here for the user was the idea of earning the maximum points on the “Roll Call”, through which Mozilla would direct the traffic on to the websites of the “top 5 climbers” and the “top 5 affiliates”. See, how along with fulfilling their own purpose, they also catered to keeping their users satisfied.
Even though Mozilla made perfect use of the phenomenon of “global village”, the spread of firefox was not just confined to the web; they involved print media in the picture too. Flyers, posters, banners, stickers of firefox were provided to the evangelists for marketing amongst their own social circle. Organic marketing through the evangelists also helped to encourage non-firefox users to switch to firefox v.3.0 as their default browser and participate in the Download day.
Furthermore, word of mouth marketing was also applied as a credible technique, as Mozilla encouraged its enthusiasts to speak up in conferences and interviews. By involving the end-user in to their marketing campaign, Mozilla was able to secure the success of the latest version of firefox. The community marketing website was a prudent step taken by Mozilla to keep the user involved and informed about the on-going promotional campaigns.
The harvest is infront of us: Over 8 Million downloads in the first 24 hours and the rate does not seem to drop. Thus, it proves that your strategy and involvement of your end user is the pre requisite for success; and not just money. At this very moment the number has mounted up to 654300882! Success speaking for itself!
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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Coral Tree Wine Bar - you have to be kidding me |
When I read this in upcoming.yahoo.com I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“You see someone you are attracted to on the other side of the restaurant. You want to approach that person but what do you say? Now its all about a simple click and hello. At our mixer, EVERYONE will have a device with their personality embedded in it. You approach someone you want to meet, press a button and point it to each other. The next thing you know is you are talking! Great ice breaker.”
No, really!. They claim to have an audience comprising of late 20s to early 40s. A mature age. An age when starting conversations or breaking ice isn’t always such a big issue. Or is it?
Even if it is, two valid issues:
1- the idea of pointing devices at people at a real event in the real world, and waiting for them to quickly read your “profile” and then decide how to react to your introduction is rather silly. This can work in virtual worlds, but not in real life - not in this way atleast. Perhaps they could have built devices that track people of similar interest for you - that would’ve worked better.
2- “device with personality embedded in it.” - Um, your entire personality embedded on a tiny screen that people can read from afar? Are we really that shallow?
Its good to see that people are trying to bring technology and social media into their events, but its not always so interesting to see how they fail to bring the right value out of it.
No offence to any excited attendees.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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Have sites like WedDepot and MomentVille changed the wedding planners landscape? |
I was discussing with a colleague about how wedding planning has changed from what it used to be in the old days. Social media has changed the event planning landscape so much, that gone are the days when planning a wedding took months and arrangements were a headache with everybody on tenterhooks praying for everything to go without a hitch. Now all this can be done by a click; well a number of clicks to be exact but from the comfort of your home without you ever stepping out of it.
WedDepot:
I came across some interesting web 2.0 websites that were specifically designed for people who are planning their special days. WedDepot offers everything from pre-wedding events to honeymoon arrangements, in fact, even to a newly-wedded couple’s first home. It is a comprehensive website with a sassy interface and a large number of options to attract interest of even the most hardened bachelors. It is definitely a microcosm of the macrocosm as it brings together all wedding-related topics under the sun and presents them as a neatly wrapped up wedding present.
On one hand it discusses frivolous matters like: dove release, fireworks and ice sculpting, but it also means business as it offers tools like a wedding checklist and budget calculator.
WedDepot is a good way to get started with wedding management plans. It offers articles, photo galleries and info on bridal shows and wedding expos. It provides a list of vendor options for each subject, be it invitations, jewelry or the wedding dress. The portfolios of all these professionals are available and one can pick and choose to one’s own taste and convenience. It is also open to new entrepreneurs who are interested in getting their business listed.
This gives an opportunity to buy and sell stuff ranging from stationery to cake toppers. It even tells how to build a free wedding website.
MomentVille:
The topic of wedding websites brings me to another site called MomentVille. It provides a platform for building a wedding website in just three simple steps. It is attractive because not only is it free but also has no expiry date. It offers several different themes to choose from and a person can upload videos, slideshows and music along with photographs. The user can share the joy of his/her happy day with friends who can subscribe to the website and receive an email anytime the site is updated. It also lists several vendors for all sorts of wedding-related finery like invites, jewelry, shoes and even for cruises and hotels.
How Event Marketers can make the best of this trend:
All this bodes of a new world in which everything can be done if you have a computer and access to internet. You now have professionals who are willing to offer their expertise and skill to help you. Event marketers and event managers can use websites like WedDepot and MomentVille to maximum advantage. Marketing of wedding-related events like bridal fashion shows, jewelry exhibitions, opening of a new beauty salon, re-vamping of an accessories shop through such websites is sure to be a hit and is guaranteed to attract serious buyers. These two websites provide all the basic guidelines to any event marketer and manager on how to go about their business thoroughly. They show that everything needs to be well thought-out if they want to be taken seriously. All areas need to be covered and no stone is to be left unturned if an event is to go smoothly without any pre-wedding jitters.
It’s also a great way to get access to potential clients. If you can openly demonstrate your marketing services via these channels, then a lot of serious clientele can get access to you for planning their weddings. You can also get a chance to add these people up in your contact lists.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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Using social media to market Concerts |
I had heard about how using social media marketing tactics can massively increase the foot traffic to the concerts that we plan. We decided to give it a try for one of our concerts which turned into a raging success. We had people fly in from other cities and the event ended up with an active list of supporters who now want to turn it into a cult of concerts. I was able to compare the two approaches comprehensively and would like to share them with you.
Earlier, we spent only about 11-15% of the total budget on marketing our concerts, whereas the major chunk used to go to the artists and site preparations. Shows with multiple underground artists would end up with 40-50% budget allocated to getting the artists booked, accommodated and compensated. This left a measly 50% for everything else including ticketing, liaisons, production management, licensing and compliance to name a few. What we realized with social media is that we can greatly increase the outreach and promotions without increasing our budget at all. Online mediums like Facebook and other social groups allowed us to really get our targeted audience interested in the show and soon enough we had them marketing the concert to their friends for free.
It was great seeing the excitement and suspense building up all by itself, while we focused on conceptualizing and planning the event details. Another great thing that we managed to do was get immediate feedback on the preferences and choices on the music itself, and schedule the artist bands accordingly. This was great not only for attracting the right crowd, but also for making the audience feel like they were part of planning the concert. That itself was invaluable to us. We ran out of tickets to sell!
An important thing to remember is that we didn’t just go online and started to promote the concert. We had a pre-launch period in which we first built a network of targeted audience, through which we communicated, connected and built a level of trust. This was a very important step in understanding the audience and forming a relationship and rapport with them.
There are a number of great social networking sites that you can use for planning your concerts. Do keep in mind that they have to be planned meticulously and with tact to get the best results. I am going to keep sharing my thoughts and experiences in managing and marketing all sorts of events successfully. Keep tuned in and feel free to ask for specific advice.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
Today’s tip! To get search engine traffic you must own software that’s capable of showing you everything the search engine spiders see.
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