Five of the top social fails of 2013 so far. In 2012 some of the world’s biggest brands treated us to some truly spectacular blunders on social media. My personal favourite was KitchenAid’s attack on President Obama’s dead grandmother, though the Swedish Tourist Board also deserves an honourable mention for its potty-mouthed, anti-Semitic tweets. Thankfully brands haven’t learned from other’s mistakes so the social fails have continued apace in 2013. Obviously it’s wrong to make fun of people’s mistakes and revel in their failures, but it’s also important to document social fails as a warning to others (sort of)...
Tesco The horsemeat scandal has been one of the biggest stories to hit the UK this year, and grocery giant Tesco was one of the most prominent villains/victims. Food investigators found that horsemeat accounted for almost a third of its Everyday Value burgers, though to its credit Tesco did immediately take action to remove the products from its shelves. The Onion Burger King and Jeep Starbucks. How McDonald's uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ In the latest instalment of our blog series looking at how brands make use of the four major social networks, I’ve decided to take a closer look at McDonald’s. McDonald’s is one of the most recognisable brands in the world, yet also has to battle a fair amount of negative publicity, so one would assume that its social accounts would be extremely active.
This blog follows on from similar posts looking at the social strategies of ASOS, Walmart, Starbucks and Red Bull, among others. And without further ado, here is a quick look at how McDonald’s uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+... Facebook For a company that has had its fair share of bad press over the years, McDonald’s remains one of the biggest brands in the world and this is reflected in its social media communities. The McDonald’s US page has more than 27m fans, and its local market pages have all attracted several hundred thousand ‘likes’. Twitter Pinterest Google+ Inbox (24) - pjm.hanlon - Gmail. Digital crisis management, horsemeat style. It can happen to anyone. One day you are happily providing tasty prepared meals to devoted consumers, and the next you are accused of serving up horsemeat, committing fraud and conspiracy against the public, and somehow being linked to convicted arms traffickers via the intermediaries that transport meat through the seedy underworld of the European food chain!
Who knew that a humble lasagne could cause so much trouble for so many goliaths of the food industry? The answer is that someone should have. Because in today’s world of instant global exposure the vast majority of your digital crisis management needs to be in place before a crisis occurs, scenarios practised, scripts written, influencers on-side and communication channels identified. It should be someone’s role to ensure that this has been done. In the days before social media it could take hours or even days for a story to break. Here is our five step guide to digital crisis management: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. How Starbucks uses Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ Starbucks is often touted as having an excellent social strategy, so it’s an excellent subject for our series of posts looking at how brands use the four main social networks.
Having previously evaluated a number of brands including Red Bull, ASOS, Walmart and Ikea, it appeared that the brands that were doing well in social all followed the same basic blueprint – they post updates several times a day and are excellent at responding to consumers. But as this post shows, Starbucks has managed to outperform nearly all other consumer brands in terms of community engagement despite taking the exact opposite approach. And there is a special mention for Starbucks’ Instagram feed at the end as well... Facebook Aside from Facebook itself which has almost 90m fans, Starbucks is one of the most ‘liked’ consumer brands on Facebook with a massive 33m fans.
This in the same ballpark as Walmart, which has 27m, however the two companies operate vastly different social strategies. Twitter Pinterest Google+ ORM | ORM Insights: How to optimise your LinkedIn company page. When it comes to B2B networking there’s no better social media channel than LinkedIn. As you may know they recently hit 200 million users, which underlines their market dominance. Avoiding LinkedIn is just not an option anymore. Recently the company pages layout and content were updated.
The new features allow you to: • Showcase Products/Services in a more effective way • Promote your industry knowledge • Target your ideal audience • Get recommendations from your clients So it’s time to make the most of it. Six Shared Features of Social Media and Email Marketing. Social media specialists tend to advise about marketing with social media; while email specialists tend to advise about email marketing. That’s natural, it’s what they know best. However, it’s not necessarily most effective if, as marketers, we’re looking to deliver integrated communications.
Although the two are not often considered together, as someone who used to specialise in advising companies on email marketing strategy and now also advises on social media strategy, to me the two seem similar in many ways. Of course, there are other aspects of managing social media around outreach and crisis communications that are quite different, but here I’m looking at using both for customer communications. Let’s take a look at some of the similarities: 1.
Dan Zarrella, of Hubspot, ‘The Social Media Scientist’, has said that he sees Twitter more as a broadcast medium. Of course there has to be a balance with questions blended into these and response to comments, but the focus is on broadcast. 2. 5 Steps to Delivering a Successful Social Media Strategy | Target Internet. Getting to grips with social media can be a daunting task if you’re unfamiliar and it’s easy to slip up if you don’t have a framework in place. Developing your social media strategy doesn’t need to be taxing, and as a responsive medium there needs to be flexibility. Getting the basics right and having a plan in place will give you a great starting point from which to create fun, interesting and relevant content that will keep your audience coming back for more. Know your audience It’s easy to get carried away with a fun concept for your brand that may appear good on paper but fails to engage. Knowing your audience is your first step to creating a social media strategy that delivers.
Take the time to study your followers, why do they follow you, who else do they follow, what content do they already engage with? Knowing what your audience expects from you and what will interest them gives you the steer you need to create content they will love. What’s your brand personality Plan your content.
Slideshare. Campaign Examples. Facebook. Facebook B2B marketing. There is a growing premise in business marketing that whilst your website is your shop window to the world, you increasingly need to promote yourself and engage with your audience where your audience congregates. AKA “Swim with the Fishes“. So, with well over 600 million users, where better than Facebook? The case for using Facebook for B2B marketing 1. 2. 3. Source: ChrisVoss 4. 5. 6. Source Pagemodo. LinkedIn. Infographic: Building a lead nurturing funnel. Social Media Crisis Management. How to Effectively Spread Content with Social Media Channels. Content Marketing Ideas for a Year of SlideShare Presentations.
B2B Video marketing. How can B2B companies use video to attract, engage and improve conversion without falling into the gimmick trap? Integrating video into a website and sharing through video sites has great potential to build awareness and establish trust before a transaction. We’re now seeing many more marketers using video as discussed in my previous post on inbound B2B marketing. In this post I’ll use examples to review different approaches B2B companies can use video to really bring their offering to life. Using video to help with visibility in search At the last check, it was estimated that approximately 48 hours of video were being uploaded to YouTube every minute.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how valuable is a video when video search dominates internet search? This data from YouTube is further supported by a recent survey which confirmed that B2B marketers need to focus on videos and images as part of their SEO strategy. You can’t create a “viral video” Tell a story worth telling 1. 2. 3. 4.