Archive for the ‘Community’ Category

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Don’t let your Facebook page become bigger than the brand

December 2, 2011

Jayne Andrews

Sunny (as in the Egg) is my friend. Well, on Facebook anyway. He is also friends with 87,051 people, who skim their newsfeed once or twice a week to check out the egg pun yolks (sorry, couldn’t help myself).

This week I noticed the makers of the Sunny the Egg Facebook page had put together a rather elaborate Facebook promotion – called Sunny’s Gonski . The evil Eqqor (what you might call a bad egg) had hijacked the page and kidnapped Sunny. I call it a promotion – but it wasn’t even that, as it really had no call to action, other than to ‘like’ the page. Which, you most likely had already done, if you were seeing this eggstavagant (okay, last one, I promise) page activity.

A few of us in the office had a giggle about the page. It was kind of cute in a cheesy way. But as someone who has worked on a bit of web and Facebook stuff, it looked like it would have been time consuming to create and probably quite expensive too. Was it worth it?

This got me thinking. Have I ever bought Sunny the Eggs when I do my weekly shop? What brand is Sunny the Egg? I actually have no idea. Why are Sunny the Eggs better or different than other egg? Other than telling jokes, which has no relevance to the factors which affect my purchase decision: price, taste, size, free range.

So, I did a small experiment and actually took a closer look at the egg aisle when I last went in to Coles. Could I even find Sunny? Where was he? Even if I wanted to choose him, he didn’t stand out on the shelf.

We all know by now that ‘likes’ on a Facebook page are no indication of brand loyalty (as they can be stimulated by a one-off promotion). We’ve now started to talk about engagement on Facebook as a better measure. i.e. the number of comments back on status updates. But is this even enough?

If what is happening on the Facebook page doesn’t translate to the shelf, if there is no obvious integration, is there really going to be any discernable effect on sales?

Maybe sales of Sunny have gone up since the Facebook page. But my gut feel tells me that the Facebook Page has now become bigger than the brand. Another example of this (from the UK) is Compare the Meerkat – 785,630 fans, but surely not all of these are insurance purchasers. Who is the brand, by the way? I’m still not sure.

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Australia needs an Amazon

October 23, 2011

Ed Thornley

Being fairly new to these shores (I arrived in Australia just eight months ago from the UK), I am still in adjustment mode to the differences. Fair enough, the changes from the UK to Australia aren’t exactly massive, but it is in fact the little differences that you seem to notice more.

Don’t get me wrong the improvements in lifestyle in the land down under are there for all to see, however there is one thing that really bugs me and that is the nature of online shopping here.

As a mid 20s guy, I am a massive consumer of online shopping in the UK. I mean, how many guys my age like wasting their free time traipsing round the malls on a sunny Saturday afternoon, when you can just click online in your lunchbreak and get it delivered the next day?

Yes, there are a few general online shops around in Australia, such as http://www.oo.com.au/#, http://www.crazysales.com.au/, http://www.myshopping.com.au/ as well as specialised high-street stores also having an online site, such as JB HIFI and GAME etc and there is always an option to shop on US, or UK sites, but who really wants to pay more postage than they are paying for the product?

But what all these online shopping sites are missing is a form of community, a place where comments can be read and products can be reviewed. This provides visitors to the site information about a product that is independent, not directly from the manufacturer or a marketer and can therefore be trusted by the everyday consumer.

Back in the UK I would buy everything from blue tack to TVs online, partly due to convenience and partly due to price. As a typical male non savvy shopper a site like www.amazon.co.uk  has always helped me to choose the best and most suitable product on the market simply by reading the 1000s of honest reviews and seeing how highly the product has been rated on a simple scale.  Yes, this type of site exists here, such as http://www.productreview.com.au/ and without too much of a shameless plug http://www.thesoup.com.au/ but why not have an all-encompassing site that can deliver cheap prices, fast delivery times as well as trusted reviews. Working at Soup, has only confirmed just how important these reviews are; people trust other people not marketing spiel or ads.

Maybe living in the UK has made me a spoilt consumer with multiple easy options or maybe someone is missing a massive gap in the Australian online marketplace to deliver products and trusted reviews under the same umbrella.

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Posted in Authenticity, Community, Social media, User-generated content | Leave a Comment »

Word-of-mouth is easier said than done

October 10, 2011

Sharyn SmithSharyn Smith

Restaurants and pubs know they live and die by the word of mouth they create from the experiences their customers have with their establishments. Those that get it right build empires from their riches. Unlocking the secret to his success and, perhaps, the building of his empire Justin Hemmes tells us how he created word-of-mouth success for his latest venture.  Justin says there are four pillars to building word of mouth:

  1. Get the product right. Probably the most important part of any word-of-mouth campaign is having something that is worth talking about or creating something that is worth talking about
  2.  Know your audience and make them your advocates. Justin knew his audience was going to be the local people living in the area so he made them his VIPs and targeted them for the launch, not some media VIP launch that might get some column inches but few ongoing sales.
  3. Use social media to amplify their experience. Justin made time-lapse videos of his fit-out and invited his community to check it out and pass on.
  4. Finally, make it personal. For Justin this mean having himself and his staff out engaging with the community and bringing the brand to life. I think this means showing that you care that the management of the company cares about their customers and there is no better way to do this than to talk to them, directly.

Justin has lots of great points which could help brands be more innovative about how they build word of mouth. It’s not just restaurants and bars that live or die by word of mouth anymore, but all brands.

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Social media riot

August 9, 2011

  Jayne Andrews

I’m really interested to see how much flak Blackberry and social media is getting for fuelling the London riots. Apparently, the thugs have been using the free text messaging between Blackberries as a way of spreading the word to join the riot. To quote the UK Sun: ‘The trouble-making rabble used social networking to organise an orgy of violence and destruction across the capital.’  It seems a popular trend by tabloid media to blame “the net” or “social media” when really they need to be focused on the thugs, who prior to the internet, we all know would have found a different means to rally up their loutish friends.

But then, a few minutes after reading about the evils of Twitter, I get sent a link on Facebook to join Supporting the Met against the London riots. It has an incredible 300,000 likes, (already) including several of my friends in Australia, as well as London pals. There was a fair bit of talk in the office today about the riots (also due to a few Pommies working here), but due to real-time updates on social media, we didn’t feel that far from our friends and family back home who were caught in the chaos. To the point that I was even able to see footage of the view from my friend’s living room in Camden, with smoke and fire outside.

For a few years now we have talked about how social media has made citizen journalists and the ‘democratisation of media’. But this it is all the more evident when an event likes this takes place. The other additional component I noticed with the riots, is how the neighbourhood watch concept is also on steroids courtesy of naming and shaming rioters on Facebook and You tube, increasing the odds of the opportunistic looters/arsonists getting caught. And just as quickly as London streets turned to rubble, up sprang a Twitter feed dedicated to cleaning up the mess and getting back to normal.

It is actually quite reassuring to see how the majority of law abiding people in the world can rally together via social media, even faster than the thugs.

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Posted in Community, People power, Social media | 1 Comment »

Networking is not working any more

July 29, 2011

Scott TaylorScott Taylor

I put my irrational aversion to networking aside and went to The Research Club get together last night.

As much as I appreciated the company of the people there (all genuine, friendly, unpretentious folk), I found it a pretty underwhelming night for the industry.

From my highly scientific estimate, it consisted of 80% panel providers looking to spruik their wares to the 5% of people that were research suppliers. The other 15% were recruiters. I don’t think clients even bother contemplating coming to these events anymore.

This sad state of affairs for the research industry probably shouldn’t be that surprising. Five or 10 years ago it used to be 80% suppliers to 5% clients (the 15% recruiter ratio is constant). In the subsequent feeding frenzy, providers managed to scare off all clients completely and now panel providers are doing the exact same thing with researcher suppliers.

Is this the inevitable evolution (or devolution) of all industry events? Am I idealistic in thinking that understanding where the industry is going is important and worth talking about? What new techniques are people trialing? How about some recent results? Or simply keeping up with company moves and the like? Does anybody want to talk about this? Anyone at all?

Actually, I think I am idealistic. Let’s face it, nobody wants to share their “secrets”. Everyone wants to sell. So we trudge onwards to more and more events full of sellers with nobody to sell to and of no benefit whatsoever to the industry.

PS. Reading over this I realise it’s all critique, no solution. Give me the luxury of some thinking time and I’ll put together some suggestions next post.

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Posted in Community, marketing, word of mouth | Leave a Comment »

Approach Facebook fanpages with caution

July 28, 2011

Briony Kanard

While researching the changing needs for consumers who are part of a social media community, I stumbled across this great article on the WOMMA website about Facebook presence. The article talks about how a more focused presence on Facebook is “beneficial to help spread conversation about brand experiences in social media”. The presence of Facebook enables users to engage and connect with brands and products they love while also promoting their beliefs within their networks which proves to be a very effective way of word-of-mouth marketing. The need to continuously update and maintain communication between brand/products and consumers is vital in order to maintain a relationship that will continue to keep members interested as well as gaining more fans, therefore creating growth and exposure of the brand/company.

So why doesn’t Soup have a Facebook page yet? Simple – we have been developing a Facebook page for some time now and are not quite happy with it yet. Here at Soup we like to make everything stand out – we are guilty of being a bunch of perfectionists at times. Not to worry though, we will let you know when our fantastic Facebook fan page is up and running.

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Locating the talk trends

July 25, 2011

Dana IngsterDana Ingster

In a news-filled time – much like this weekend has been – a useful and quick way to measure public sentiment and see what people are talking about is to jump onto
trendsmap.com and see what the twitterverse has to say.

What’s Australia waking up to this morning?

 

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Using the force (unnecessarily)

July 14, 2011

Dana IngsterDana Ingster

I’m not a Star Wars fan by any stretch of the imagination (I haven’t even seen one movie from the franchise), but this story is bad news all round.

It seems George Lucas’s production company Lucasfilm sent a cease-and-desist letter to a group of Star Wars fans who had organised a (free, not for profit) Star Wars movie marathon at a bar in New York. As the comments point out, just because you can exercise a right, why would you if you risk losing good will?

Lesson Number One in community management (from one of the world’s biggest and most loyal communities): don’t piss off your fans, especially when there doesn’t seem to be any gain at all, but everything to lose.

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The mix tape is back, but not as you know it

June 17, 2011

 Ed Thornley

As I consume very little music media, it’s pretty hard to sample new bands to listen to all the time. You know the type of music you like, and you have a few favourite bands. But you’ve listened to their music to death and you want to find something with similar qualities, but by different, and not necessarily well-known artists.

In the UK over the last few years, a service called Spotify has been taking music lovers and music enthusiasts by storm. In short, it is a music streaming service that originated in Sweden and has a huge back catalogue of musicians and bands, both big and small. As of early 2011 it has amassed over 10 million users already despite its release being limited to sections of Europe only.

On top of this instant music streaming service, they are now planning on integrating Spotify with Facebook.

This will help spread the word even more effectively, as you can listen and post public playlists, spreading the music choices and playlists even further in this growing online social sphere.

Once launched in Australia (something which has been planned for late 2011), I think it will be just as popular as it has been in every country in which it’s already been released.

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Posted in Community, Social media, talkability, word of mouth | Leave a Comment »

Nike shoots and scores

June 16, 2011

 Emma Chow

This is a pretty great use of social media in engagement and sales.

During the NBA playoffs in the US, Nike employed the use of a social media data visualisation tool which shows which players received the most tweets over an hour. The Nike campaign site is aptly named Epic and is described this way:

“When you tweet about a player, you increase their tweets per hour, helping them to rise through the ranks of the Nike Family. Every mention counts. Only one stat matters.”

What I like about it is that it’s bringing the various forms of media (TV and online) together to produce one truly integrated experience for the end user. It’s relevant, timely and highly engaging. Oh, did I mention it also proves sales?
You can check out the full article on Mashable.

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Posted in brand advocacy, Community, Social media | Leave a Comment »

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