Everybody but who’s anybody is talking about it: every baggy-panted tween and every power tie/power suit CEO. I have a Facebook page. I have a Twitter account (which is underutilized, I must admit). I even belong to a few Ning networks. What’s a marketer to make of all this noise? Where are the hard numbers and ROI stats?
Ick.
Gen Ys aren’t moved by hard numbers and data. And only God can save your brand if you approach your marketing as such
Mashable, a social networking news site, recently posted a 22 Step Social Media Marketing Plan. Here is their list, including examples.
1. Blogs (Johnson & Johnson, Delta Air Lines)
2. Bookmarking/Tagging (Adobe, Kodak)
3. Brand monitoring (Dell, MINI)
4. Content aggregation (Alltop, EMC)
5. Crowdsourcing/Voting (Oracle, Starbucks)
6. Discussion boards and forums (IBM, Mountain Dew)
7. Events and meetups (Molson, Pampers)
8. Mashups (Fidelity Investments, Nike)
9. Microblogging (method, Whole Foods)
10. Online video (Eukanuba, Home Depot)
11. Organization and staffing (Ford, Pepsi)
12. Outreach programs (Nokia, Yum Brands)
13. Photosharing (Rubbermaid, UK Government)
14. Podcasting (Ericsson, McDonalds)
15. Presentation sharing (CapGemini, Daimler AG)
16. Public Relations - social media releases (Avon, Intel)
17. Ratings and reviews (Loblaws, TurboTax)
18. Social networks: applications, fan pages, groups, and personalities (British Airways, Saturn)
19. Sponsorships (Coca-Cola, Whirlpool)
20. Virtual worlds (National Geographic, Toyota)
21. Widgets (Southwest Airlines, Target)
22. Wikis (Second Life, T-Mobile Sidekick)
The beauty of social marketing is that it’s completely customizable. Pick one or two or twenty. And go. Give your fans content. Make contests. Give them the down-low. Tease them with videos. Start conversations with them. Ask questions. Answer questions.
A great example of a strong social media usage are the efforts of NBC’s “Late Night” with Jimmy Fallon campaign. In prepping for Fallon’s takeover of “Late Night,” they have been building hype primarily via a vlog (video blog). He announced his house band, The Roots—a severe, welcome, departure from the norm—on the site only days ago.
At the bottom of his vlog are 18 (count ‘em—18!) different social media outlets, ranging from the usual suspects (MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube) to several niche entities, like MyYearbook, imeem, and Last.fm.
NBC is simply giving fans a chance to connect and share the NEW “Late Night” brand. It’s not astrophysics, it’s common sense.
Twitter, the foremost microblogging site, has an incidentally famous “system error” screen. When too many people tweet (post), which causes an overload, an inconspicuous illustration of a whale, being hoisted from the water by birds, appears. This terms has organically been branded the “Fail Whale.” It has become synonymous with failing—at anything.
So don’t be a Fail Whale. Get in. Get gritty. Try something. Tweet. Blog. Post videos. Write down your thoughts. It doesn’t have to be sharply refined, it just has to BE.
Be honest and transparent and authentic, and you will be a major part of your consumers’ lives. And that is certainly no Fail Whale.