Marketing Safari

The Value of the Trivial Tweet

At the 140 character conference many speakers criticised the trivial tweets, saying they wanted value out of twitter, and that's what they would share too. Links and quality stuff. Other's love the personal revelation that the trivial tweets include.

In my opinion, those trivial tweets are very important for the personal experience and the personal relationship building twitter has to offer. When blogs came they offered a personal insights into the lifes of ordinary people, as well as in the life of corporations and corporate people. The trivial tweet does the same thing, except in real time, which makes it much more powerful. It makes your brand, whether personal, or your corporate, easier to relate to, feel empathy with and support. Those personal tweets are actually very important for your branding.

Knowing what people are having for breakfast has no direct value as such and if that's the only thing you tweet, people will most likely not be interested. But mixing up tweets of "traditional value" and "trivial value" is a powerful way of building that personal relationship. Knowing how you like your cereal, what your habits are when you wake up, what your pet peeves are, what makes you tick, makes me feel like I know you a lot better. It strengthens the relationship and it builds up trust, because the better I feel I know you, the better I'm going to trust you.

And that is true value. We don't trust big corporations and brands like we used to. We don't trust the filtered and edited news we are getting from the networks. We trust people we can relate to, who we feel share some of the same passions, same views and same pet peeves. And that trust has an exceptional value.

I tweet links to good articles, interviews and intelligence. But I also tweet about my personal life, what excites me, what pisses me off and what's occupying my mind at the time. But that's just me. If you want to keep a more "professional" touch to your twitter account, that's fine by me. But we will probably not connect on the same level as those who do trivial tweets to. If you stick to only trivial tweets, your friends and family may love following it, but it probably won't go much further than that. And there's nothing that says it has to.

Tweet on
Hjörtur

The DIY Economy During Recession

Let’s skip the pro and save a few bucks. But we can’t really skip everything that needs to be done, so we try to do it our selves. That’s why DIY programs, tools and tutorials are really sought after these days. Whether people are renovating their home, fixing the car, making some clothes, baking a cake, designing a brochure or doing SEO on their website.

These are the days when people seek advice on how to solve it them selves and if you’re generous in giving advice, you’ll be building your brand as the expert to go to in the field and creating some valuable relationships. By applying this, you can still make a living. You teach people to do it themselves. And when they get into trouble, you can always help them out. All for a fee of course.

The DIY tendence during recession is not a threat unless you allow it to be. See it as an opportunity and make it your ally.

Let’s beat the recession.
Hjörtur

Ryan Air's Social Media Strategy - Insanely Brave or Incredibly Stupid?

I guess Ryan Air is the buzzing brand of the week, getting a lot of attention from bloggers and Twitters. It started when Jason Roe, a freelance programmer, blogged about an error in Ryan Air's booking engine (read the comments as well). He had discovered a way to book a flight for 0.00 pounds. The reaction he got from Ryan Air is what got the buzz started.

Travolution got it confirmed that this comment and others claimed to be from Ryan Air staff, indeed did trace back to the Ryan Air HQ in Ireland. And Kevin May did get a confirmation from Stephen McNamara of Ryan Air that said:

"Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.

It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.

Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel".

This really got the buzz going getting coverage in many major media outlets. And they didn't stop there. To follow up, they started a Twitter account on @ryanaironline where they kept going in the same voice, shocking people as a Travolution reader Paul Dawson commented:

Are you serious? Can't believe they'd go this far...

Agressive, sexist, offensive to customers... Some recent tweets from @ryanaironline:

"Just reminiscing about the time a guest had terrible, offensive, flatulence. You know that seat right by the loo? Sucks to be you idiots."

"About 2 weeks till the big guy's bday, yeah? It's time to boogie down. Short skirts at the office, ladies."

"Look... it isn't like we aren't meant to have fun here. This is a world we not only don't get, we simply don't care about it."

"that lady actually blackmailed my friend near the end of a flight. She was a tactless bird. Apologies to be sure."

 At first, people thought this was a fake, someone trying to get attention based on Ryan Air's reputation. Then Kevin May of Travolution got Dara Brady head of Marketing at Ryan Air to confirm it was their Twitter account. Later it was withdrawn and now the account has been suspended. It's hard to say if it was real or not, if they chickened out on their strategy.

But it is clear that shocking people is the PR strategy Ryan Air is following. Will Clement of the Bloggers Guide explains how it works for Ryan Air:

"That's the important point here - Ryanair have once again hammered the message home that "our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.

A few years ago I met a non executive director of Ryanair, an experienced and respected businessman who was also a non exec of many other companies. He told me that board meetings at Ryanair were colossally different to any other company he worked with. Other companies focus was entirely on customer satisfaction whereas at board level Ryanair's official strategy is "f*ck the customer, if we give them the flights cheap enough, they'll keep coming back no matter how bad we treat them."

All publicity is good publicity is sometimes said. For a noname - this is usually true. But as a continuous strategy, I doubt it. Surely enough, Ryan Air has it's branding clear - being the cheapest. The service people is complaining about is exactly what you're not paying for. But how good of a strategy is flaming your customers just to get publicity and word-of-mouth in the long run? What do you think?

Hjörtur

Certainty in Uncertain Times - Why Hyundai is Winning the US Automarket

Did you watch the Oscars last weekend? I didn't. Out of the 80 TV channels I've got, none was showing from the Oscars. But I always have Twitter :), so I followed the Oscars on Twitter.

And one thing I noticed is that the Hyundai commercial really got people talking, and most people loved them.



And their marketing is brilliant. They really get it!

It's a recession and it isn't easy for the car makers. In January sales dropped 37% in the US (which is pretty good compared to 88% here in Iceland). The American producers are leading the drop with 55% (Chrysler), 49% (GM) and 40% (Ford). But Hyundai didn't drop. They increased their sales 14%!

How comes? Why is Hyundai growing while everyone else is losing?
They are playing their cards according to the situation. These are uncertain times. People don't know how the economy will develop. More people are going to lose their jobs, and no one is safe. At times like that, people hesitate to make big commitments, like buying a new car. So to overcome that, Hyundai started their Assurance program, which you may have read about in my ebook on recession marketing. If you lose your job or income, you can just return your car. They've improved their offer even more, offering to pay for you up to three months if you can find another job within that time.



But it's Korean! Shouldn't people be buying American now?
People want to support their own. To keep the jobs in the US. Which means people should rather buy American cars than imported. They should buy "The North American Car of the Year 2009", shouldn't they? Guess what, that's a Hyundai Genesis. Not only that, but their factories are in Alabama and California. And Jeff Bridges does the voice over on the commercials. How American does it have to be?

They are living the American dream. Came to the US with "an empty brand" and are now beating all the competition.



So, not everyone is buying it. But nobody is expecting 100% market share. According to Twitter that night, the majority is loving Hyundai for what they're doing, and how they are presenting it.



Hyundai is obviously going after the opportunities the recession is offering them. They've got cheap but reliable cars with very low failure rate. They were already offering 10 years warranty, the best on the market. Now they've added Assurance and it really works, so they're increasing their advertising. They ran some ads during Super Bowl and again during the Oscars, and they had loads of them. According to Edmunds.com, they saw an increase of 27% for Hyundai the following day, so we might be seeing even more impressive sales numbers for Hyundai for February.

I've been a car enthusiast for as long as I remember and in my mind, Hyundai has stood for cheap, crappy cars. But I have to admit, they keep showing me numbers that contradict my prejudices. They really mean business and they're doing a great job. This is a brand to watch.

Hjörtur

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Hyundai or any of their agencies or partners and am not getting any payments or benefits for writing this.

ps. If you want to learn more about marketing in a recession, you can download my ebook "The Marketer's Magic Chest - Marketing tips, tricks and tools to unlock the chains of recession" for free!

Marketing Tactics and Strategies in Times of Recession

My first ebook has just been published!

As you know if you have been reading my blog (here and here), the Icelandic economy has crashed. We are looking at more people being laid off in the last 6 weeks than have ever been out of a job before. And Iceland isn’t alone, though thankfully, things have not gone as drastically bad in other countries. Not yet, at least and let’s hope it stays that way.

I’ve been involved in marketing for more than a decade now and picked up a trick or two along the way. Low budget marketing has always fascinated me and I love beating big marketing spenders with only a fraction of their buget. The best example is probably the “If The World Could Vote .com” website where we reached just about every single country in the world within a few weeks, without spending a single penny on advertising, PR or other promotions, beating world-wide publishers and websites with much larger advertising budgets.

It sadens me to see companies make fatal reactions to the changed circumstances. Those are uncertain times and yes, people do need to change their marketing strategies. But it is important to realize that the recession does not only bring bad options to the table, it actually brings some great opportunities too. The question is, how you can spot those opportunities and make the most of them.

“The Marketer’s Magic Chest – Marketing tips, tricks and tools to unchain the locks of recession” is the title of my new ebook – a book where I reveal the secrets to success in times of recession. In the book I describe in 30 pages several different marketing perspectives and strategies that have proven themselves when the economy is tough. Methods that have helped companies leave their competitors in the dust. I’ve collected real life cases and success stories that explain how it can be done.

If there’s only one book you will be able to read this year, this one should be it.

You can get the book for $25, probably the best marketing investment you can make all year.

You can now download the book for free! And you're welcome to share it on your blog or elsewhere.

Download The Marketer's Magic Chest

Get the book and become a winner!

Hjörtur

Are You a Community Organizer?

(This is not political propaganda - it's actually a post about social media)

There seem to be some mixed feelings about community organizers. Obama is proud to be a community organizer while Sarah Palin laughs at him. So to be sure what it meant to be a community organizer, I looked up on Wikipedia. And guess what, they have a list of famous community organizers like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Barack Obama (I'm not saying Jesus Christ and Barack Obama are equal. I mean, Jesus had only 12 ... oh, never mind ;).

According to Wikipedia

Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are democratic in governance, open and accessible to community members, and concerned with the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group.

So what's that got to do with Social Media Marketing? Everything. As I see it, this is pretty much what companies are dealing with today because of social media. They have to realize that the power is moving from them to their customers. The customers are organizing them selves, the power is being distributed more evenly to all. When companies try to organize a community, they have to be "concerned with the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group." In the case of the company, that specific interest group is the company. Those who succeed in organizing the consumer or customer community are those who will succeed in the market of tomorrow.

Three very different community organizers, Jesus, Obama and Shoemoney. (Before you go bananaz over the images, I just chose the first image that showed up under the name of each in Google's image search. Couldn't be more neutral)

How does it work?
Companies can build up brand communities using support forums, blogs and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Bloggers can do the same, build a community around their blog, add forums, and connect to readers on Facebook, Twitter and else where.

Jeremy Schoemaker, better known as Shoemoney, is a blogger, and an "online community organizer". He's got over 20.000 subscribers to his blog and over 5.000 followers on Twitter. Last week he announced a competition on his blog where the price is a trip to the ThinkTank 2008 in San Diego, a non-conference gathering with the top names in SEO and Internet Marketing. The event is "by invitation only" so not everybody can attend. He proofed the power of community organizing when he submitted his post to Sphinn - a digg-like bookmarking community of internet marketing professionals, owned by another powerful online community organizer, Danny Sullivan.

Shoemoney tweeted it asking people to sphinn his story and 14 of his followers retweeted it. Within 20 minutes it went hot and made the front page of Sphinn. But there was a clash of communities when several sphinn users objected and the post was removed from Sphinn. Some mean that Shoemoney is exploiting his community. But isn't this what social media marketing is all about? Building up a strong community, (which doesn't happen unless people think you or your brand are worth it) and then reaping the benefits? I'd say it is.

So, my conclusion is that being a community organizer is probably one of the best assets you can have today, both in marketing and elsewhere.

Update: Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi have both been removed from the Wikipedia list of famous community organizers. Hmm...

Hjörtur

ps. Talking about that competition, here are the reasons why you should invite me to the ThinkTank, Jeremy:

- I will not be teaching you any SEO programming secrets, but I should be able to tell you a lot about social media and branding.

- I'm an anthropologist and might share with you my vision on the future of the internet, the future of business and where our society is developing and put it all in context.

- I can share with you my link baiting and buzz making strategies.

- I'm working on a book on social media marketing (but it's still not public, so don't tell anyone) so other participants might get their case into the book.

- I'm a new, fresh breeze into the industry and no one is fed up with my speeches at conferences ;)

- I'm from Iceland and I bet there are not many who attend who actually met a real person from Iceland ;)

- I put you in the same category as Jesus Christ, Barack Obama and Mahatma Ghandi in the post above ;)

Why I want to go?
- Because winter is starting here in Iceland
- Because I bet I can learn a bunch
- And I finally get to meet some of my network in person

Building a Brand in Social Media

Brand building is a complex process where advertising, strategy, and image that the corporation tries to create meets the perception, views and experiences it’s customers have. Many companies deal with an identity gap, a difference in the image they try to create and the perception of their customers. Social media can actually help companies bridge that gap.

If we look at a corporate brand as the character or personality your brand has, social media comes the perfect medium to reflect your company’s personality. Social media is a conversation platform where you and your “subject” exchange views, ideas and thoughts, all reflecting on your personality, creating a relationship between your company and your customers or community. That relationship is based on your participation in social media, the value you bring to others and the character or personality you reflect.

What is your brand like?
First of all, when entering social media as a corporation you have to realize what your brand is. Not what you think or want it to be, but what it is. To realize that, you’ll have to start by listening. There are number of search engines you can use to find where your brand is mentioned, such as technorati, Google blogsearch, Summize etc. You can also subscribe to notifications on Google Alerts, Summize and other places which will send you a notification when your brand or keyword is mentioned. Search for the names of your company, products and services and listen to the word out there. Is the brand coherent with what you thought it was or wanted it to be? Though you may find different perception of your brand from what you hoped for, that doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Perhaps you will find out that your brand stands for something positive that you didn’t realize. Something you can actually build on in your future brand building efforts.

What do you want your brand to be like?
Secondly, know where you want to be. Based on your product, service and own character, mixed with your target group’s interest and character and what you found in your search for discussions on your brand online and perhaps surveys you’ve had made, you should make a brand strategy. What’s your mantra? What are your key characteristics? If your brand was a car, what car would it be? If your brand was a person, what kind of person would it be? Where would you live, what would you drive, what would your family status be, what would your interests be? When you have figured out where you want your brand to be, summit up in one sentence or three keywords that best describe your brand character. These are the keywords you will have to bear in mind at all time when communicating with your customers or your target community.

Anything you say can and will be used against you
in Social Media

But don’t despair. You are making your brand more human by participating in social media and it’s human to make mistakes. Everyone does (and if they don’t they’re either lying or not trying hard enough). So don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Just when you do, be honest about it. Apologize and admit that you were wrong and move on. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how forgiving people really are when they don’t feel they’ve been fooled, tricked or deceived.

One of the benefits of making mistakes is that it makes your brand more human. And being more human means that people find it easier to relate to you, they see you’re honest and they trust you better. You see, it’s not the mistakes that ruin brands. It’s the cover up and the lies that do. Be honest about your mistakes and it might even strengthen your brand.

Do you have a brand building strategy for social media? Please share your ideas and thoughts on the subject in the comments below.

Hjörtur

Like the article? There's more coming up, so feel free to subscribe to my feed or share via StumbleUpon, digg, Sphinn, del.icio.us or elsewhere.

Yes, Social Media Marketing Does Matter!

Peter Kim asks some interesting questions on his blog beingpeterkim. One of them is "Does Social Media Marketing Matter?"

To see if it matters, you can take the test and measure your score. In the test he has some excellent examples of social media success and fiasco. There is one problem with the whole thing though. It is a bit like asking if this ad that was published here or there got you to buy this or that to measure the impact of advertising. If you ask people, majority of them will reply that advertising does not affect their buying behaviour. Still, years of research have shown that ads really do affect our buying behaviour. Yes, we trust recommendations from friends the most, but ads still have influence (though it seems to be rapidly declining).

It doesn't work in the way that we buy a product after seeing a single ad or after single interaction with a brand in social media. That's the exception. You need to see ads repeatedly for them to sink in, and you need to interact repeatedly with a brand through social media channels to build up relationships and trust. And that's what social media is about, building relationships and trust and reinforcing the brand. Social media is the perfect medium for that. And you do that by listening more than anything else. When you have built trust, you come much closer to equal recommendations from a personal friend, as we have discussed in my post "Do You Trust a Blogger".

We can take a look at his test and I'll give my view on the questions:

+3 points:

• Switched cable, internet, or phone providers after Comcast Must Die or Sleeping Technician
No, but if I were to switch, this might very likely influence my decision
• Bought a brand other than Nikon after the blogger campaign
Don't know that one
• Bought shoes from Zappos after interacting on Twitter
I'm much more likely to take them to consideration, yes.
• Bought a Blendtec blender
Don't know this one.

+2 points:

• Stopped shopping at Target after the Times Square billboard
Nope, but their disrespect to me as a blogger results in less loyalty. I'm not willing to go through as much effort to shop at Target as before.
• Stopped shopping at Wal-Mart after the fake blog
Nope, but I probably won't trust any bloggers blogging about Wal-Mart for a long time.
• Switched laptops after reading about Dell Hell
I'm a Mac guy and don't expect that to change. But if I were to buy a PC, this would go into the evaluation of a Dell versus another brand.
• Purchased a Kodak product after reading posts from their chief blogger
Don't read their blog, but if I heard about something interesting there, sure.

+1 point:

• Subscribed to a magazine after joining its Facebook group
If I see that all my friends are in the group, I would probably wonder if it wasn't time I subscribed too.
• Eaten at McDonald's after reading their corporate social responsibility blog
It sure makes me feel that my money is better spent then I would otherwise feel, so it raises my price tolerance.




• Booked a flight on Southwest or Delta after reading their blogs
Nope, but it would get me to include them in my price checking.
• Booked a hotel stay at Starwood or Marriott after reading their blogs
Nope, but it would get me to include them in my price checking.

-2 points for any of the following:

• Became a regular viewer of Aqua Teen Hunger Force after the "bomb scare"
Nope, but it did make me curious so if I would have come across an episode, I would have checked it out.
• Bought Doritos after the consumer-generated Super Bowl ad
Nope, but if I would have been one of those generating the ads, I sure would have.
• Joined Facebook after hearing about it on your local evening news
Very unlikely.
• Bought a Sony PSP as a Christmas 2006 gift anyway
Sure.
• Have ever been Rickroll'd
Actually, I have never been Rickroll'd

So how'd you score? Check out BeingPeterKim to see what your score should tell you.

While Peter Kim's article does raise some interesting questions and discussions, it's not realistic, because it assumes that the success we should be measuring is direct sales. While I agree that increasing sales is the marketers end goal, I don't think that it means it should be the goal of social media marketing nor the meter to measure. In both the + points and the - points, it is not enough alone to make me decide whether to buy or not, but it is likely to influence my decision.

So the most important question it leaves us with is how we should measure success of social media marketing. Do we measure sales that links we share in social media generates? Number of subscribers or friends added? Customer service issues solved through social media? Or good tips on improving service and product development that we get?

What metrics do you use to measure your success of social media marketing?

Hjörtur

ps. remember to subscribe to my feed, if you haven't already. You are also welcome to share on Facebook, digg, StumbleUpon or your blog (just remember to link back).

Product Quality vs. Marketing

Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research wrote an interesting post where he asks the question if "your company is marketing driven or product driven". Can the one survive without the other? How does social media fit into this picture? Here's my theory.

If no one knows about your great product, no one will buy it. That hasn't change. But I believe it's become easier to get ahead today with a great product and bad marketing than it used to be. Before, you could pay your way forward with advertising and people wouldn't know that your product actually sucked and there where other products so much better. Today, people will tell. They will write reviews and others will read those reviews before buying a new product. And if another product has got better ratings, even though it's an un-advertised product and therefore previously unknown to us, we are likely to choose that product. Google is an excellent example of a product that rules the market not because of brilliant marketing but because it's a brilliant product.

At the same time it is no longer possible to build up a market for a "bad" product with advertising like it used to be. Imagine if there was no Coca Cola or any Cola drink for that matter. Imagine you would be tasting it for the first time. I think that even though a company had the same budget as Coca Cola has for advertising, it would be impossible to build up the same brand strength.

Since people are paying less attention to advertising and more attention to social media, product quality is going to weigh heavier at the cost of the message in marketing. So marketers have to watch out more carefully not to create an "image identity gap" between the user experience and the promise they deliver in their advertising.

Hjörtur

World's Most Valuable Brand Has Never Advertized

Most people agree about the value of a strong brand. But the debate today is more on how to build them. I've often said that advertising is dead, sometimes getting harsh reaction. I'll admit, these are strong words, maybe a bit too strong. Advertising still works (a little bit), if they're just loud enough (and annoying). But when you calculate what you get for your dollar, it's in no context to the influence they have today.

Brandz top 100 is a list over the top 100 most valuable brands in the world. When the list for 2008 is checked you can see that the world's most valuable brand today is Google with 30% growth from last year. The jumper on the top 10 list is Apple with 123% growth this year.
Here's the top 10 list for the world's most valuable brands:

Some of those brands have been spending fortunes for decades or even centuries on advertising all over the world to build up their brand. But what I find most interesting is that the brand that is valued the world's most valuable brand has never launched an advertising campaign in those less then 10 years they have existed (see this discussion on branding on Harvard Business Online)

What Google has built on is word-of-mouth in the world's biggest society, the internet society. The same goes for many of the others of the world's fastest growing brands. Those are companies that don't advertise but count on word-of-mouth and participation in social media. Apple, the fastest growing brand on the top 10, uses both. It has been proven over and over again in marketing research that the most powerful influence on buying behaviour is a recommendation from a friend, not an ad. That's why you have to focus on the quality of the product, the delivery and the service you provide. Google has got their amazing growth by daring to be different and delivering what they promise.

When Google started as a search engine there was nothing on the page but the search window. At the same time their competitors were adding all sorts of add-ons, features and modules growing the complexity in both running the business and the experience of the user. Google managed to keep their image simple and clean, people knew what they were expected to do and what they could expect to get. Search results. The quality of the results was one of the most important part of Google's success. They delivered what they promised in a more useful and effective way than any of the competitors. Google has still got this advantage as you can read about in this article from Brandchannel about Google (from 2006) and this article on ReadWriteWeb about Microsoft Live. I also had a great video here on the blog that showed the difference between Microsoft and Apple.

Word-of-mouth marketing on the internet is much cheaper than any traditional advertising, but it's also much harder. It sets much tougher demands on the quality and honesty of the company. You really need to excel in quality and service and make it easy for people to spread the word. But Google proves it can really pay off.

Hjörtur

Download the BrandZ-2008-Report.pdf.