Social Media Tools for Parents (Part 2 of 2)
August 19, 2010 @ 1:58am
Updated — August 22, 2010 @ 7:08pm
by Andrew Kim
Welcome to Part 2 of this week’s look into the significance of social media in hands of consumers. All it takes is one mother to take down Pampers’ new line of diapers overnight. Like I mentioned last week companies have used social media and networking intensively in their websites, packaging, and PR in all medias. There is a dark side to this when your premier relaunch of your product line goes into a downward spiral.
Proctor & Gamble’s strongest baby brand is Pampers’ with a line of baby diapers and wipes. Pampers’ earlier this year revised certain diapers with Dry Max Technology. Without a doubt a prestige brand like Pampers’ would test their products extensively before releasing it. Slowly individual mothers have been reaching out to the internet and social media in sharing stories. The product that came into question was Pampers Swaddlers or Cruisers with Dry Max. At some point several mothers in different markets started a new movement on Facebook. The controversy started with a mom noticing several diaper rashes and investigated it with her pediatrician. Diaper rash has been a common problem for newborns and young toddlers, and there are plenty of solutions in dealing with it. No matter what advices, diaper creams or old wives tales that she encountered it didn’t help her baby. I personally used the product as well and my own child would have similar symptoms. These mothers eventually concluded that these several rashes or in some cases chemical burns have originated from the Pampers’ diapers.
Proctor & Gamble responded with normal PR practices in showing proven tests from various sources that these diapers were clearly 100% safe. With social media mothers continued to unite with one voice and demanded a recall of these diapers. Since May 2010 several mothers in Ohio have gone into court filings against Proctor & Gamble. What we can learn are companies cannot be naive any longer where social mediums have given mothers the tools to take down a Goliath. Of course I’m not scaring future businesses in avoiding social media, but to use it to stay ahead or be on guard of the modern consumer. The public are forgiving people, until a company thinks they know better. Elative marketing’s approach with clients is to look into long-term strategies and anticipate for anything.
Recent Article #1: Social media empowering parents with complaints against Pampers
Recent Article #2: Procter & Gamble in Bind Over Moms’ Web Attack on Pampers Brand
Recent Article #3: Pampers Parents Irritated at P&G Push-Back
Recent Article #4: Parents upset over P&G’s Pampers diapers
Tags
baby, child care, Facebook, newborn, Pampers, Parenting, pediatrician, Proctor & Gamble, social media, Swaddlers, twitter, Yelp
Comments
Social Media Tools for Parents (Part 1 of 2)
August 9, 2010 @ 10:42am
by Andrew Kim
Part 1: Sooner or later parents of different generations and ethnics are getting involved with the basics of social media. Not as intensive as tweeting, but Facebook has strengthen family networks and rapid fire feedback. In this week’s blog is about the highlights of search engines and social media networks for parents. Next week I’ll give an example of a PR disaster companies need to be aware when their brands can be disseminated and easily tarnished overnight. 
Using Google, Bing, Yelp, and Wiki-Everything on the iPhone has given my wife, wealth of knowledge from the apple tree in a matter of seconds. As first time parents we are constantly seeking new methods and make split-second decisions as a family. What’s great is pulling information from several websites or batch of links from Google before getting it from the doctor’s office. Relying on the feedback of hundreds of other blogs has given us the second opinion we needed. Yelp has been the best in finding hopeful brick and mortar business where they have effective in seeking the right care for our child. Of course if something is obviously wrong and want more thorough information please consult with your pediatrician.
Facebook has been a great asset to get information, promotions and a structured way in giving back companies our feedback. How valuable is that? Companies not yet in online marketing must take advantage in these technologies, before spending critical funds elsewhere. Elative Marketing has the strong platforms for clients and companies can use to implement immediately.
Tune in next week.
Tags
baby, child care, Facebook, newborn, Parenting, pediatrician, social media, twitter, Yelp
Comments
Tweet Your Menus, Dine with Immediate Satisfaction
August 2, 2010 @ 12:39pm
Updated — August 2, 2010 @ 12:52pm
by Andrew Kim
Having that midnight craving or sick of fast food solutions at work? Give your local social media food trucks in your neighborhood a try. Out the door of the usual greasy, iced, and forgettable foods, say hello to the new tech buffet line. How can we say no to Twitter, Facebook, blogging and every other social media avenue? It’s the perfect vehicle for informing your customers instantly of your restaurant or event. You can actually enjoy something good and know when and
where to be back for more. Significant challenges for meals on wheels are telling their customers when and where to find them. Today’s iPhones and smartphones give businesses affordable way to mass market their brands overnight.
A combination of Elative Events and Social Media services can provide businesses with direct marketing and cost-effective feedback. Utilizing social media for events, product release dates, PR alerts, and limited promotions are great to put information out there. Setting up these services for your website or business can save you on traditional marketing and reinvest where its more important.
So do yourself a favor find your local food trucks and treat yourself.
Kogi BBQ Truck, Greater Los Angeles, California
Dessert Truck, Greater NYC, New York
General Bao Bun Truck, San Francisco Bay Area, California
Tags
dessert, Facebook, food network, food service, food trucks, restaurants, social media, social networking, twitter
Comments
The Last Wave?
November 5, 2009 @ 12:40pm
Updated — November 16, 2009 @ 3:25pm
by Austin Edgington
Every twenty five years or so, a really big communication wave comes along that sweeps innovation and change into our lives. The first one I remember occurred when network television replaced radio as a focus for info-tainment and created modern advertising; so nicely portrayed by the butt puffing men of Mad Man. Yes, I’m old enough to remember when a ‘Winston tasted good like a cigarette should,’ and other tobacco pedaling jingles. In the 80’s, cable TV launched and undermined the network’s dominance by decimating advertising revenues with lower costs and wider choice of programs, characterized by re-runs, ESPN, and faux news show.
Then Web 2.0 crashed on our shores a few years ago, washing in social media and revolutionary web platforms like Facebook and Hulu.com. What’s interesting about this shift is the audience social media created. Techies, artists, writers, housewives, students, innovative business leaders, anyone with an opinion and others looking for connections beyond their daily toil flocked to Vox, Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, Linked In, and more. They formed communities, groups, relationships, and trust arising from dialogue among one another in ways not imaginable by marketers in the past. It’s weird, it’s wonderful and it’s happening now.
The reality is that this new media, a term I use to describe the aggregate of social media and new web offerings, has disrupted marketing. For example, blogging news sites like the Huffington Post changed the way public relations is conducted. Social utilities like Facebook allow businesses to easily run ads and changes the way ad agencies can reach target audiences, while social media platforms like Vox, where people from tight, trusted neighborhoods converse about everything from their parents divorce to whether to purchase a VW or a BMW…changed web marketing as we knew it.
The traditional paradigm of engaging customers based on creating awareness, to create interest, which leads to a desire that prompts a consumer to purchase has been replaced by a new model that has more steps, but, paradoxically is more immediate and happens virtually 24/7.
In the new media model consumers take different steps purchasing. We call it the “Five R’s”;
- Referral – A potential customer can easily be referred to your product or service by a friend or neighbor from their social network, and often the customer has never met the friend or even know their real name.
- Research – Based on their online buddy’s referral (or not), they can research your brand on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Conversely, you must now research where they are, what sites they travel, and what they have to say about your brand to be effective in reaching them.
- Relationship – In doing so they may develop relationships with other brand users and further discuss brand attributes. They are developing a now have a relationship with your brand and are arriving at the purchase decision.
- Reliability – Now the ball is in your court, and you must easily, seamlessly capture the purchase, facilitate the delivery, and follow up with customer service. This is more and more becoming what is known as the annoying ‘pile-on’ method, which often erodes your credibility. Comcast will drive you nuts with this approach after a botched service implementation.
- Responsiveness – Being responsive to your customers needs in a reliable manner is most important. Drop the ball on this and immediately negative responses will begin to emerge on the very sites you are searching for customers. Two great examples of doing this right are Zappos and Amazon.
With the current wave washing away the way marketing has been conducted in the past, which is often last month in new media time, the question often posed by clients is: What’s a marketer to do? The answer is innovate. As the late great Hunter S. Thompson once quipped, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” Marketers need to look the weirdness of social media in the eye and turn social media pro. They need to think like those they wish to engage and go where they are; and do so with the credibility and authenticity the defines the trust that hinges the culture of the new media together. If you’re a CEO you will get much more mileage out your blog or tweets if you pen them yourself, even if you are not a witty communicator like Tony Hsieh of Zappos. The medium is the message, and authenticity rules the message.
The way to ride this wave is to embrace change, innovate, and partner with those who are riding it with knowledge of the waters they navigate and an eye on the future. After all, in new media time, it will soon be the last wave.
Tags
Bing, communications, Facebook, Google, marketing, social marketing, social media, twitter, web 2.0, Yahoo
Comments
To Tweet or Not to Tweet
September 10, 2009 @ 3:11pm
Updated — September 10, 2009 @ 3:14pm
by Mason Razavi
I’ve had a few people ask me about the frequency of tweets lately. Usually they’re wondering how often their business should tweet, and if they really need to let the world know that they like the sandwhich from Vinnies, but could have done without the pepperoncinis. Of course I tell them that would be ridiculous…the word ‘pepperoncini’ takes up far too much real estate in a tweet.
Poor humor aside, the question of how often you make contact on Twitter is a valid one, particularly for businesses who count each tweet as a marketing effort.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re unsure, play it safe and tweet less. People on the web are usually pretty sensitive to spam and information overload, so if you overdo it, you’ll find people quickly losing interest.
Let’s say you have a new promotion that runs for a few days. Let people know no more than 2-3 times a day. Make sure you phrase your messages a little differently each time. This is a subtle indicator that there is an actual human being on the other end, which is always well-perceived by consumers.
What if your promotion is one day only? I would recommend no more than once per 2 hours tops throughout the business day.
Then there are tweets that describe events in your personal dealings throughout the day. Depending on the size of your company, and whether or not your Twitter strategy focuses on your personal brand or the company brand, you may want to post tidbits from your personal daily life. When done judiciously, it adds a human element to your company and allows people to more closely identify with your brand. When done in excess, you look like an attention-starved teen without a prom date. Feel free to post a tweet about things like your business lunch, a conference you’re attending, your graduate level classes, or anything of the like. Suffice it to say, personal talk should be present, but kept to a minimum.
Of course, there are many other times you’ll want to communicate through Twitter, and there is just not enough space here to break it all down. If I were to summarize it is the most boneheaded way possible, I’d say to tweet when you have something interesting to say. Advice so simple, it’s frustrating. However, if some companies (and individuals for that matter) would keep that little nugget of wisdom tucked away in their noggins, Twitter would be a better place.
All that being said, it’s important to remember that there are no hard and fast rules. The best way to figure out the optimal rate of contact is to keep your finger on the pulse of activity, monitor how people respond to your messaging, then make adjustments on the fly.
Tags
Comments
Observations from Hearing Alan Cohen of Cisco Speak
July 16, 2009 @ 3:21pm
Updated — July 24, 2009 @ 3:22pm
by Mason Razavi
I recently attended an event in Mountain View in which Alan Cohen, VP of Enterprise and Mid-Market Solutions for Cisco, spoke his mind about the nature of contemporary business communications. The meetup was billed partly as a networking event and partly as an opportunity to learn about emerging social technologies in enterprises, so naturally I was compelled to go. Unfortunately, the event turned out to be little more than a recital of the obvious mashed up with some advertising and seed-planting for Cisco products.
Don’t get me wrong. Alan Cohen is a talented and charismatic speaker who seemed to have the audience in the palm of his hand. As I am someone who truly appreciates talented performers, watching him deliver his piece was in this sense a delight and an education in itself.
However the content was….shall I say, lacking? Allow me to summarize:
“Meetings are boring, and people fall asleep during them. Big companies are inefficient, as they spend too much time trying to get information from one place to the next. Email kinda sucks. Not important. Sorta annoys me. Human interaction is important. Face to face contact is important. That’s why Cisco makes this really neat video stuff that lets you do that, and in the near future we’re coming out with some more neat video stuff that lets you do that even better. Awesome, huh?”
Alright, I might be simplifying just a tad. Still, talking about the sloth-like path of information within giant corporations and how meetings are boring and inefficient is not exactly groundbreaking news.
I was lured to the event with advertising that teased potential attendees by asking if Twitter and Google Wave were the future of enterprise-level communications. My disappointment stems from the fact that I was expecting to actually hear what tools, specifically, were going to change things, and not just some stats and filler about how you only retain 10% of what you read and how 39% of people admit to falling asleep in meetings, and how Cisco is going to save Mother Earth and all its businesses.
In the end, I have to say that observing Alan Cohen’s delivery and the Thai food provided were the true highlights of the evening, even if the noodles were a bit cold.
Tags
Alan Cohen, Cisco, communications, Enterprise, Google Wave, twitter
Comments
NFL Says ‘No’ to In-Game Tweets
July 10, 2009 @ 4:59pm
by Mason Razavi
The NFL has banned its players from in-game Twittering, citing a rule they already have in place that prohibits cell phone usage during games. In doing so, they might be missing a golden opportunity.
On one hand, you have to side with the NFL. Giving a bunch of rowdy, adrenaline-pumped, larger-than-life professional athletes a forum to say whatever they want to the entire world during the heat of battle, with all the raw emotions that go with that – you can see how that might quickly turn into a PR nightmare.
Top that off with coaches who would likely not want their players diverting their attention from the game at hand, and you can see where this might start to make sense.
However, the NFL is missing out on a ton of fun. And really, isn’t that what sports is all about?
Imagine a player telling the world what he feels like as the final seconds tick off the clock to a superbowl victory. Or loss. Perhaps you could envision an injured player taken off the field letting the world know first hand that he’ll be ok. The possibilities are limitless.
My suggestion to the NFL would be to give a few key players the privilege of using Twitter during games. This could serve a similar function as an isolated camera that follows a single player during a game, and is similar to the “mic’d up” idea that some sports leagues (including my beloved NHL) have used to get prime audio clips from players during games.
In the end, it’s all about entertainment, and fans are increasingly searching for behind-the-scenes coverage on what players are doing and saying before, during, and after games. The occasional tweet would only be the next step in taking it to an online format.
Tags
Comments
Review: Seesmic Desktop
June 30, 2009 @ 2:46pm
by Mason Razavi
In the world of Twitter desktop applications, Seesmic Desktop has shown that it is perhaps the most valuable of them all for the novice Twitterer and the so-called power user alike.
The first thing that sets it apart is the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts. There are some others that do this as well, but just this one feature whiddles down the list of competitors significantly. Perfect for business users that have a personal and business account, as well as the split-personality sociopath who wants so bad for people to think they really are Brittney Spears, being able to manage multiple accounts in one place is a major plus. Additionally, you can also dedicate a pane to updates on Facebook, which is a nice touch.
It is a cinch to view, manage, and reply to responses in all of these accounts. For example, one smart feature automatically selects the current account with which to provide a response. User lists and searches can also be saved for future reference, a nice touch indeed.
A button to shrink text as well as the ability to add short links through bit.ly, digg, and is.gd round out a nice set of options for Seesmic.
One of my favorite things? The look. Perhaps not as important as the functionality of the application, it is none the less significant for the design of something that is meant to be stared at to be at least somewhat pleasing. Seesmic Desktop offers a slick and contemporary look that compliments my Mac desktop nicely.
If you’re looking for a feature-packed, easy to use Twitter application, I highly recommend giving Seesmic a try.
Tags
Comments
Where were you when….?
June 29, 2009 @ 2:07pm
by Mason Razavi
Where were you when you heard Michael Jackson had died? I was in my office, and found out when I switched tabs on my browser and saw a friend’s Facebook status. How did you find out about the passing of the world’s foremost pitchman Billy Mays? I found out through some Twitter posts, and learned more about it using Scoopler.
Though I could go on about paying homage to the tragic deaths of a handful of celebrities and TV personalities this week, I won’t. There are a million sites and a million blogs and a million groups on Facebook for that. So, I hope you don’t mind if I set the emotions aside and instead focus on the technology that empowered me to stay connected with these stunning current events, as well as a question to you: where were you?
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, social media has in many ways risen above traditional media in delivering up-to-the-minute information on a number of topics (Iran, anyone?). The past couple of weeks in particular have made for some tumultuous times and have provided incredible examples of how social media works in the context of our times.
So, where were you when David Carradine, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcet, Ed McMahon, or Billy Mays left us? How did you use social media to find out about it, communicate others, organize groups, etc? I’d love to know! Let’s see some comments about how we’ve used these incredible tools to talk to each other.
Tags
Billy Mays, David Carradine, ed mcmahon, Facebook, Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Scoopler, social media, twitter
Comments
Social Media Marketing and Business Results
June 23, 2009 @ 11:34am
Updated — June 26, 2009 @ 11:39am
by Mason Razavi
Despite the success and popularity of social media and networking sites, there are still plenty of objections, misconceptions, myths, and plain old concerns that I hear from people in small and large companies alike. Perhaps the most pressing question is one of metrics; can you really measure the results of a social marketing campaign?
Businesses are understandably concerned with how they invest their advertising dollars, especially in an economy where companies have cut costs by letting their marketing budgets shrivel like a salt-covered slug. As a result, marketing and advertising directors have to show that the money they do have is getting them real, measurable results and high ROI.
There are enough examples out there of businesses who have in fact come up with ways to measure the effectiveness in concrete, quantifiable terms. Perhaps the most prominent example is provided to us by Dell Computers, who reportedly have generated $3 millon in sales through Twitter. Dell has actually created proprietary software to measure very precisely the effectiveness of their Twitter presence, allowing them to confidently disclose such figures.
Of course, not everyone has the resources to build a proprietary analytic tool, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to throw in the towel. You might be able to measure the success of a well-implemented social media marketing campaign by tracking spikes in web traffic before, during, and after various points during the campaign. Also, you can offer promotions specifically through Twitter or Facebook and track the number of orders that come in that way.
Furthermore, even if you can’t asses the value of every click, the amount of brand equity built in every page view, or the likeliness that a Facebook fan will buy your product or service, you can take comfort in the fact that social media marketing is extremely cost-effective in nature. Some companies actually hire a full-time social marketing expert to drive such efforts, while others look to social media and web marketing specialists to create and monitor anything from a blog page to full-fledged, cross-channel online ad campaigns. If you play your cards right, you can get the right services for a great price, meaning you don’t necessarily need to plop down the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or more on your social marketing campaign. Yet, social marketing can reach as many if not more people, in a more meaningful and impactful way than many traditional marketing methods.
Finally, there is the copycat theory. As much as we strive to make business decisions that stress innovation, forward thinking, and unique strategy, it’s no secret that once one company does something to successfully improve itself, others will follow in its footsteps. Keeping that in mind, why not follow the footsteps of CNN, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coca Cola, The Cleveland Cavaliers, and many other major organizations by hopping on into the social media pool. The water is fine, jump right in! The web is chock full of articles discussing how companies large and small alike have found that using web 2.0 tools to create personal, meaningful and direct dialogue with their customers has improved their business and made them more recognizable. If that isn’t measurable proof, I don’t know what is!
Tags
Facebook, marketing strategy, MySpace, social media marketing, social networking, twitter, web 2.0, web marketing
