Lets cut the fluff and get straight to the point - Brand redefinition is certainly a significant possibility, considering that marketers are no longer the only people capable of creating communication which reach the masses.
The more difficult question is when can it be termed as dangerous.
The way I see it, ultimately a brand exists in the mind of its consumers. Different segments take away different experiences from your brand and your brand could mean something unique to each of them. It could be positive or negative, but on the whole it is probably different from what you intended.
Social media only amplifies this existing opinion & brings it to light, so in that sense it is free market research.
With social media a crazy fan could end up portraying your brand in a different light. Similarly an angry consumer can really create havoc especially if his post appears on the first page of google.
The key task of a brand manager is to understand when to interfere and when to let your consumers ride you.
It is more than advisable to have a sense of humour as a brand at this stage, learn to laugh at yourself if the social media adventures of your consumers are not blatantly malilcious.
"There is no such thing as bad PR" still applies in the above case.
Of course, when consumers lash out online, you probably don't have a choice but to step in and address the issue to the best of your ability. Resolving issues publicly is better if you are confident that you can actually resolve the issue, otherwise try to take the conversation offline.
What do you think? Should you interfere in the social media adventures of your consumers or should you lie back and let them shout
As the markets tank the world over and the job market gets extremely competitive, it is still probably the best time for you as a brand. The rise of social media only adds several options to shape your brand online.
Your thoughts count more than you will ever know and that is a good thing. If you are looking for career advancement then leveraging social media can truly serve as Personal Branding tools to benefit individuals working in different niches.
So wake up and write some original content, make a video, participate in discussions and contribute to your community.
It is a little crazy for me to suggest that the power of Social Media could be nothing in India. Why crazy? It directly affects my value as a researcher in this space. Nonetheless let us adopt a long term approach on this one and move straight on to why I think so.
These views are a result of the iPhone launch. It was the most hyped product this year, and the product targeted the geeks, the social media users. They were certainly to be amongst the early adopters.
Yet Airtel felt the need to advertise to achieve sales in India. It is understandable if they felt the need to advertise the iPhone – Airtel tie up, but they went on to educate consumers about the product itself, and I wonder if that is not questionable. Either they are wasting good money or some research has shown that awareness is still low.
Though social media alone may not have reached the masses, it combined with Press coverage ensured that the iPhone news reached not just the tech geeks, but the rest of India too. So why advertise the product heavily? Or did they think that was the best route to advertise the tie up too.
Probably price is a deterrent, as the iPhone is priced at around double the price in international markets. Either that or the launch has been timed wrong. The hype is now dead. Those who were desperate for the iphone have picked it up in the grey market. The others have heard about the usability issues of basic mobile features on the iphone and are probably waiting for the next version.
But where did they hear about these issues, yet again review sites, blog posts and word of mouth. So has social media played 2 roles here? Building the brand and yet making people wait for the next version?
As a child, I grew up on Amar Chitra Katha and I must say I was hooked to the fascinating tales they spun. With a number of titles like Tenali Raman, Birbal, Ramayana and Tinkle, I used to eagerly wait for the next edition, and once received, would promptly consume each book within a half hour to one hour period.
At this stage, I have to confess that Diamond Comics was great too with tales like Phantom and Mandrake. Hmmmmmm, I am a little inclined to pick up a copy. Sorry, I stepped a into fantasy world for a moment (JD from scrubs would empathise).
Lets get back to Amar Chitra Katha and children of today
Nothing earth shattering about the fact that entertainment avenues for children are way more than you can ever count. Add to it competition from players like Virgin Comics, who have understood what kids relate to and have come up with a modern avatar of the traditional stories.
They even have an adult version of these stories. No!! Please don't let your mind wander. I didn't mean that
Additionally book libraries are increasingly getting wiped out in Metros and with that their B2B model will undoubtedly diminish in value.
Somewhere along the way I think Amar Chitra Katha relied too much on the content they created in the past and didn't focus on creating more contemporary stuff.
At this stage, they needed to do something contemporary to change perceptions of being the brand of yesterday. AmarChitraKatha.com is certainly a step in that direction. I was super happy to see them launch this site. When you see age old brands like Amar Chitra Katha suddenly wake up to the Internet and leverage Web 2.0, you realise social media might actually be getting bigger in India.
The site has been created for more than just selling their books. It enables their loyalists to participate in story creation and designing their book covers. In addition they are your one stop information on the cultural events in your city, right from photography exhibitions to salsa and jive classes. Not just that ACK wants to become a store house of authentic information on the Indian Culture with the launch of ACK Pedia.
Will ACK succeed in its efforts to become contemporary using the web? Do they need successful virals before they achieve what they have set out to do? What do you think?
I see so many marketers having nightmares about social media and its open coversation mode. Some fear it for the detrimental effect that it can have on their brand and others because they want to leverage Facebook, Orkut, Youtube, Twitter to get the whole world talking about their brand, but have no clue where to start.
Fear it if you must, but if you would like to leverage social media, then remember that a great social media plan will require traditional media. Just depending on social media might get you nowhere once the novelty effect of this world wears away. Eventually this will become an element of the media mix and will coexist with passive advertising.
The interactive nature of the internet and the mobile no doubt require a change in mindset of the tradional marketer, but it in no way should they be seen as a substitute for traditional media and one way conversation.
One way conversation is instrumental in reaching a lot of people and creating awareness about your brand, while social media helps you build a bond with your consumers.
This connect was erstwhile created using ground level consumer connect programs and BTL activities. This no doubt had a huge cost per contact, but the quality of contact left a huge impression on the consumer.
The same huge impression can now be left with Social media at a cost that is more than pocket friendly. So don't fear it but don't depend on it either to take your brand to stardom. Other media still exists and will continue to exist for sometime at least.
Samsung Instinct has been recently launched and following the iPhone, chose viral marketing campaign route to spread the word. Unlike run of the mill viral campaigns, Samsung created an interactive series of videos all linked to one another, so if you want to know what happens in the end you have to follow your instinct and click on the links within the above video and move to the next in the series.
Yes! the links are within the video, powered by Youtube Annotations. Right at the end of every video, you are fed two options and depending on what you would like to do the new video loads to guide you through the story. Judging by the number of views on successive videos, I am not sure if many people actually understand that they have to click on to move through the story.
Check it out quickly and let me know what you think of this. This is so brilliant that I wish I could stake claim to being the first one to do it.
Source - Speak Media Blog
More Indian companies are joining the social media bandwagon and engaging the consumer like never before. Kingfisher for one, has launched "Be the next official Kingfisher Ad Director". All you have to do is create your Good Times Commercial, upload it to any video sharing site and share the link on the Kingfisher site.
This is a fantastic attempt at consumer engagement & content co-creation through crowd sourcing (2 birds or rather kingfishers with one stone). The winning ad will be the official ad of Kingfisher and will be aired on TV with due credits to the creator, but no great moolah to attract the really creative guys. The hype they manage to create around this concept will be a key determinant for success.
Do you think that this can succeed without the moolah? Would you enter without a monetary gain at the end of it?
There is a thin line between relevant email, that adds value vs email that is treated as spam. Even well meant email can act as spam for many.
There are tons of us who hate spam of any sort and in turn refuse to adopt a non permission marketing technique to reach out to potential consumers. When you have a decent database of your own and a strategy to build on it, thats great.
But if you are a young startup, then you might just need the help of low cost email to tell people about your new launch. Don't hesitate in targeting groups which look like they might be interested. In my opinion, the key to avoid spam is to send valuable information just once to people.
For eg: I keep getting a message from a social network which says that a friend has invited me to join the network. That information is fine if it is sent once. Once I have declined to join the network, or just deleted the mail, I get a repeat mailer in exactly a week and once again a week after. Now that is painful.
So don't hesitate in sending out information once, but don't send the same/similar information out repeatedly.
Do share your experiences with email marketing or the world of spam.
Regular blogging with an article a week was a piece of cake for me until I hit upon a really bad stretch for the last 2-3 weeks. Staring at the screen for hours on end has become a reality.
So here is a request to my readers, please suggest any topic in the realm of marketing or social media that I can cover in the next few days.
I will do my best to do ample research on the topic, and come up with something really useful. Thanks people
Image Source: kandyjaxx's photostream
Well, I have been meaning to write about the Firefox Download Day and their grand record. One brand which used Social Media Marketing and an existing community to generate buzz like never before. Of course the Guinness Record helped too.
Guinness and Buzz Marketing
A Guinness World Record is an established buzz marketing strategy for a brand and it isn't like Firefox is doing a first. Typical record strategies include building the world's "largest" something and examples of these records can be seen here. The problem with these strategies is they involve a few of the company employees and the buzz generated is through a mention in a few news columns. These record attempts do not really involve the consumers of these brands.
Firefox & Its Guinness Record
Firefox could have also attempted a record like the World's fastest browser to generate buzz, but that would have meant the same problem. A few company emplyees are involved and happy with the coverage in a few news columns.
Firefox instead chose a strategy which was inclusive. It hyped the Download Day with its current community and gave them the badges which they can plonk on blogs to in turn spread the word. The guiness record was a function of how well the existing community sells the idea to the rest of the world. It was upto the community to spread word about D Day and this strategy paid off by integrating a viral marketing component to the classical buzz marketing approach.
To read more on the definitions of Buzz Marketing and Viral Marketing, please read this earlier post Want consumers to talk? Viral is in!!
What can Startups learn?
Now Firefox has a huge community of users, but there is also some take away for startups who have just a few 1000 users. What can you do to engage your community and make them spread the message about your product/website. I don't think your startup should be happy just acquiring users, when what you really need is an army of salesmen. How can you actually convert your existing community into salesmen?
Jennifer Leggio has a great post on the steps Firefox undertook to spread the message. The key take away is that Firefox relied on their community, involved them and empowered them to be salesmen.There is no single formula to replicate this but startups have no choice but to keep trying.
Appending relevant portions of Jennifer's post below to make it a convenient read
How did Firefox actually reach Out?
Spread Firefox
The Firefox community portal started out as the original gathering point for community members. Mozilla created a specific Download Day theme for the site where users could get badges to put on blogs as well as “pledge” to download the software on Download Day. Mozilla received 1.7 million pledges and the affiliate button distribution brought 43 million views to the site.
Facebook
The Firefox Facebook fan page has near 115K members. “We seeded the community with links of articles and other information that pointed to the Download Day site,” Kim said. Mozilla took a very similar approach with social networking sites Bebo and Mixi (Japan).
Twitter
Kim says that while Mozilla Firefox’s Twitter page was set up in 2007 it grew tremendously (now with close to 5K followers) and was a great complement to its other efforts. “We’re incredibly happy with the level of activity and response we received from our Twitter followers,” he said.
YouTube
Mozilla produced a series of feature overview videos that were narrated by some of the designers who worked on Firefox 3. From viewing the YouTube comments and ratings it does not appear that the videos gained much traction, however it was a low-cost alternative to doing traditional video advertising.
Mozilla Parties
Mozilla Party Central, a bit of a mashup of Google Maps and Upcoming, is where the company shares news about its launch parties and also gives users the tools to promote and host their own parties. As of last count there have been near 850 parties worldwide, attended by more than 6K people. Mozilla will receive its official Guinness World Record certificate at a party in London this Wednesday.
Mozilla also put energy into traditional public relations efforts, heading on press tour throughout the U.S., Europe, China and Japan. While this was successful as well, Kim says that its Mozilla’s community that truly helped drive Download Day success.
P.S - Firefox could take this bold approach of asking its users to set a record, because there was no record registered in this category before. So irrespective of how many downloads, Firefox and more importantly its community would have always emerged a winner.
Did you catch Firefox on D Day?
