With social media reaching 77% of the online population it is by far becoming one of the most important advertising and promotional mediums that businesses can utilise. In the UK over 23 million people are using Facebook making it the second most visited website after Google.co.uk.
But what makes a good or bad social media campaign? In recent times we have seen examples of how it can be used to improve a brands image or have an adverse effect if poorly managed, both of which we will now look at.
British Airways
Following the latest setbacks for the national airline carrier with the walk out of cabin crew, British Airways and Willie Walsh utilised YouTube in an attempt to reduce the negative impact that the strikes would have on the brand. At the beginning of April the company had uploaded seven videos updating customers and those with an interest in the events of the airline which have been viewed by almost 100,000 people.
As to whether this is a successful campaign or not is still yet unknown, however the speed that the videos were released and the interest that the videos have drawn means that British Airways have been given the opportunity to convey their message to the masses in an attempt to stabilise any negative perceptions of the brand.
Compare the Market
ComparetheMarket.com, ComparetheMeerkat.com… simples!
We all know the strap line and this is a good example to show how a national television campaign can use social media and the internet to reinforce a brand and keep it fresh in potential customer’s minds. The success of VCCP’s campaign has drawn in many fans, predominantly because of its key character, Aleksander Orlov, a fictitious meerkat. The overspill from the television campaign to the internet has resulted in over 7 million Facebook fans, 37,000 Twitter followers, an iPhone application (iSimples), a monthly audio podcast (Meerchat), a Flickr gallery and of course the infamous microsite.
But what success has the company seen? The combined effects of the television and online marketing campaigns had seen an 80% increase in traffic to their website after just 8 months.
Barack Obama
During his infamous campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama and his team utilised social media and the internet like no politician had ever before in order to spread his message of hope and change in order to persuade millions to vote for him. For one man to communicate with in excess of 300 million people is impossible; however with social media it allowed Barack Obama to communicate with the masses which is why he used in excess of 10 social media platforms. From the mainstream websites such as Facebook (8 million fans), MySpace (2 million friends), Twitter (3.5 million followers), LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr he also used social networks that targeted specific demographics such as Black Planet (African Americans) and MiGente (Latinos). The end result of this campaign is well known, with Barack Obama taking 54% of the votes and winning the presidential election.
Nestle and Greenpeace
March 2010 was a bad month for Nestle as it came under attack from Greenpeace regarding the use of palm oil in their products from unsustainable sources. This primarily came in the form of a micro site which put the organisations argument across as to why people should contact the brand to stop destroying the rainforests.
Initially Greenpeace’s campaign was centred around a micro site and a video which was put onto You Tube. However, recognising the damage that the video would cause to the brand, Nestle had it removed on the grounds that it infringed on copyright laws but Greenpeace used an alternative video sharing website to host the short film and consequently it received over 70,000 views within a space of hours. As a result of the video, Nestle’s Facebook Fan Page become inundated with people leaving questions seeking answers and comments to provoke a response, which is what they eventually got. The person that was responsible for running the brands Fan page took the defensive and left sarcastic replies which enraged the situation further and caused Greenpeace’s campaign to spread like wildfire across the social networks, especially Twitter.
From Greenpeace’s perspective social media got their message across to thousands of people and they succeeded in gaining support for their campaign. Conversely for Nestle it was a bad experience and where damage limitation could have been taken the company had the wrong person in control of their Facebook account which only caused the campaign to escalate further.
The moral of the story is that having a social networking platform to use is one thing, managing it is another.
Sony
Back in Christmas 2008, Sony attempted to break into social networking and promote itself within the Facebook community. This was done through the release of a personalised snow globe application that users could add to their Facebook page and customise. In theory this was a great idea as it was seasonal and something fun that could compete with the overwhelming success of apps like Elf Yourself.
The problem that Sony had however was with their execution of the application. It was severely limited and lacked many important features such as the ability to be shared (or recommended amongst friends) which would help it grow in popularity and spread across Facebook. In addition the applications wall where users were able to leave comments was not monitored as messages were left but ignored. The end result of this SMM campaign for Sony was that it didn’t have a negative effect on the brand but what could have been a great campaign that spread their brand across Facebook failed, probably at a great cost, because there wasn’t the function for this social media viral to be shared.
These are just five examples to demonstrate the influence that social media can have on any business. Its enormity can either help spread marketing communication messages across the internet and develop brand awareness or it can be tool that if it is not understood then could cause harm to the brand either through the loss of money or by attracting bad publicity.
