The Digital Lookout

I was alerted to a great resource today for examples of social media done well.  If you are anything like me you have spent a lot of time speaking to clients about how they can utilise social media, sometimes coming up with gems, and sometimes hitting a blank.  I have long held the opinion that social media isn’t for everyone but Peter Kim has come up with a great list for companies who have used it, and used it well.

This is a great resource for coming up with ideas for how social media and social networking can be used in different markets.  An once you get past all the Facebook pages and groups there are actually some good ideas in here as well!

Interestingly the YouTube wii fit video “Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit” is on the list under Nintendo suggesting that maybe it was viral which was produced by the gaming giant and not as innocent as they claimed.

List of Social Marketing Examples

Mars this week launched a Facebook application which allows users to send their friends the gift of a real life Mars bar.  The “gift” will be in the form of a message which, once opened, asks the recipient to enter their mobile number and from this they will be send an SMS voucher which can be redeemed in a participating store.  Twix, Galaxy, Malteser’s and Mars will all be able to be sent with the sender paying via a Paypal account.  This is a bold venture by the guys at Mars but I cant help but think it is a desperate attempt to get involved in social media by a brand which doesn’t necessarily fit.  I am seeing all to often recently companies who know of the buzz around social networking and decide that “we need to be part of that!”  No thought given to whether their brand or product fits or whether the audience they are trying to engage with is part of the social environment they are considering.

To me, social media, social marketing, social networking or however else you want to term it is about engaging with your audience on a personal level, listening to what they are saying and bringing those learnings back into the business.  Too many people are deciding they want to be part of the social phenomenon without thinking whether it suits them, their audience and their product.  The first questions they should be asking are, what am I looking to achieve? Who am I trying to engage? where are these people interacting? Mars is a border line case and they have probably just about pulled it off but in many cases people are missing the mark by a long way just to be involved in the current craze.

As part of its record breaking 2008 marketing budget Cadbury are planning a follow up to their much loved drumming gorilla advert. According to the latest edition of Marketing the new ad will also feature an animal playing an instrument. The original advert was a major viral success achieving numerous blog postings, massive word of mouth and many a parody on Youtube (you can see some of them here). So the follow up has a hard task following in its footsteps, as do he agency charged with creating the ad. The original one worked well due to the human like actions of a gorilla but I cant see many other animals having the same impact without looking too comical. Answers on a postcard what you think the new animal and instrument will be and heres the original again just for fun!

It was reported on the social networking weblog today that Facebook is finally bowing to user pressure and using the “is” from the Facebook status function.

I have been wondering how long this would take to occur since the massively popular pressure group was set up within Facebook’s own network campaigning for it to be removed.  It has not happened yet and there is no indication of when it will happen but it will be interesting to see what it will be replaced with.

An obvious option would be to remove the verb all together and allow the user to write whatever they want after their name.  But another option could be to have a drop down list of verbs to choose from when setting your status so that there is one for every occasion.  This way the Facebook traditionalists (if there are any!) can continue to use the “is” yet those wanting more flexibility should be able to construct whatevere status they wish.

Tags: facebook, social networking

It has been reported this week that the rise in traffic to social networking sites has coincided with a drop in traffic to web mail sites such as yahoo mail and hotmail. This has sparked discussion about the use of social networks for communication sparking of the demise of web based email. Obviously this is an overreaction, as tends to happen with the press, but it is an interesting point all the same. Where is the need for personal email accounts when you can be in touch with all your friends through myspace, facebook, or whichever else is the network of the moment. This led me to consider what are the limitations of social networks which could be the saving grace for web mail solutions? So I compiled the list below:

• Reach: although the social networks have huge user bases they are unlikely to cover everybody you know, yet most people will have a functioning email address. There is therefore likely to be at least a few people within your group of friends you cannot contact through your network of choice.
• Flexibility: you can write what you want in an email, and can attach any type of file you wish, making it a much more flexible solution than the networks. They are however catching up through the various plug ins and applications that are sprouting up daily.
• Privacy: emails are more private than wall post, although facebook has the facility to send private messages as well.
• Length of message: wall posts are more like the text messages with emails as the phone calls. more detail can be added and more information contained and explained, the phone call still isn’t dead despite the popularity of texts.

I’m sure there are more to add to the list but none that I can think of right now. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues though and what this means to the email portals. Falling usage must also results in a fall in advertising rates and available inventory??