Posts Tagged: Marketing

Presentations — 2 Comments
17
Apr 08

Social Media Optimization – Optimizing Your Brand

This is a presentation I did for a course called Technomadic Markets at UCT GSB on Social Media Optimization. Almost two years ago Rohit Bhargava introduced us to Social Media Optimization (SMO) and the 5 rules, which were also expanded on by others.

Now, while I agree and believe that the way SMO has been defined and the rules that have been expressed are all still valid and useful. However, I think they’re no longer the definition for SMO, specifically for marketing (and a South African market). The current definition, while being social to a degree, is generally based on generating traffic. Traffic is important, but when we’re creating a marketing campaign, sometimes we need to look at another way optimize our campaigns for social media. This is what I try and bring out in the presentation, my slides may not make complete sense as you have to hear what was being said. I will elaborate slightly by introducing you to my new definition of SMO and the additional rules.

Definition of SMO
A process of optimizing your brand to be more visible in social media searches and sites, allowing people to interact with your brand easily, encouraging conversation around your brand on blogs and other social media.

Additional Rules for SMO

  • Own Your Brand
    Register your brand on all and any new social media sites. Not owning your brand has several dangers, so making sure you own it across all social media platforms is essential. Take a look at the Coca-Cola slides, that blog is not owned by Coke, while the Nikon slides demonstrate how Nikon has successfully gained ownership of their brand on Flickr.
  • Train Employees
    School your employees on social media trends and technologies. Find the ones already using them and give them access to the material they need or can use to organically promote your brand when possible. Take a look at the Twitter slide about BMW, the potential customer had his best brand experience and it wasn’t even in-store, it was in a digital environment.
  • Build Communities
    Build your own niche target communities that consist of people who passionate about your brand, products and services or the industry it’s in and reward them. Find existing communities, penetrate them organically by finding influencers. Remember you never advertise in social media, you get involved in social media.
  • Be First / Respond Quick
    It’s all good and well to optimize your messages to spread, but when people start talking about you (and they use SMO too) then you need to make sure you respond too. Remember, it’s social media, you can’t expect to be one sided by constantly pushing out content and messages without ever responding or being actively involved (being social).


If you can’t see the presentation, please click here. You can also download the PDF version by clicking here.

Facebook / Marketing — 2 Comments
26
Feb 08

Youth Marketing – Facebook & MXit

In October last year, I asked a few youngsters why they use Facebook. It is a website, a social network, that has changed the way millions of people communicate around the world. Another service that does has done a similar job is our very own local MXit, a mobile instant messaging service.

There are two things that Facebook and MXit have in common, they are:

  1. Enchanced Communication
    Facebook allows users to keep up-to-date with what their friends are up to, send private messages, write on each others walls, share photos and videos. MXit on the other hand is slightly more instantaneous, users can chat to multiple friends at the same time and share certain content. They have both improved upon the way people can communicate with each other.
  2. Large Youth Audience
    In the last 30 days, Facebook has roughly 553 620 active South African users between the ages of 13 and 30. This is roughly 10% of South Africa’s internet population, all active on one site. MXit now has 7 million users, the majority being South African and predominantly between the ages of 13 – 24. It’s a global trend, the youth are into social networks, but only those that add value to their lives.

Engaging the youth where they feel comfortable can be a difficult task, but there are brands out there getting it right on both Facebook (see Apple and Skittles) and MXit (see Peugeot).

Sure ad spend on social networks is set to increase, but if not executed correctly all that money will go to waste. The challenge is taking the first step in understanding todays youth and how they want to interact with the brands they like and dislike.

Advertising / Facebook — 4 Comments
26
Nov 07

Facebook Pages – Early Adopting Brands

Yesterday I saw Scott’s tweet about the BMW Facebook page. It was created on the 7th of November and already has 162 fans. It’s not a phenomenal figure, but I am sure with time that number will soon reach into the thousands.

Think of the Facebook page as an interactive billboard. It’s accessible to all Facebook members, all 55+ million of them. The page allows for BMW SA to upload photos and video for all the relative car models. In the real world, a billboard has limited space, but not this one. There is also a discussion board and wall so users can post comments and engage with BMW SA. Although I am not surprised as BMW SA understand the importance of online and social media in their marketing mix.

Facebook Pages - BMW SA

There are other brands who have gotten it right using Facebook groups. However, Facebook pages is relatively new and there are a few other brands worth a mention who are using it. I went looking for some brands and found New Opel Corsa, BizCommunity, Toyota Auris and Nokia.

Presentations — 3 Comments
14
Nov 07

The 4 New P’s of Marketing

This is just a quick presentation I did on the The 4 New p’s of Marketing. It is quite an interesting and in depth topic. It is a topic I will be dedicating much more time towards researching and discussing with people.

The new 4Ps don’t replace the old, traditional 4Ps. The new 4Ps, for me, serve as insight and guidance for crafting Social Media strategies. It’s certainly not my only guideline, however it touches on so many aspects of the social web if one starts exploring and going into depth on each point. Some information for you, use it, don’t use it. It’s up to you.

If you cannot see the presentation, click here (or secondly, here). You can also download the PDF over here.

Marketing — 3 Comments
1
Nov 07

Vuka Scuta – Helmet Hair & Playing In Traffic

I met Esme, the Brand Manager, at Vuka Scuta when I spoke at the Brands Convention a few months ago. She made me aware of their new campaign, Hemlet Hair Is In, which I think is pretty cool. Along with the launch of the campaign they re-designed their site, which looks really good. It’s mostly Flash based, but it does it’s job well.

Vuka Scuta - Helmet Hair Is In

However, what really caught my attention was when she told me they were working on some sort of interactive campaign for Facebook. So, naturally I did some snooping around. All I could find was a profile of some fictional character, or he could be part real. However, I don’t think he would fit in with Facebook’s terms and conditions.

As I continued to investigate I found a group created by this character, I hate traffic. While I can’t say I am blown away by what I found on Facebook, I did stumble upon something really cool. Vuka Scuta ran a guerilla marketing campaign and uploaded the photos to the Facebook group. They played on the fact that traffic is bad in South Africa, as well as the ever increasing petrol price.

Vuka Scuta - Playing In Traffic

I thought the idea was quite a brilliant. I think this was only carried out in Cape Town, but I would love to see it on the N1 in Gauteng between 7 and 9am. Truly classic in my opinion. I have included a video they uploaded on Facebook Video below, enjoy the drive and the Kenny Loggins sound track. Good job.

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