Case Study 2: Gap and Vine

Every since Vine was released, I have heard of companies using it as a promotional platform and using social media to get the content out there.  I have to admit, I went looking for brands that have been using vine, because it is and interesting concept to me.  Making a 6 second video powerful, relevant, and worth the time it takes the companies to create it seems to me like it could be tricky.

When I saw the Gap Vine account, I immediately understood how Vine is supposed to be used in a business setting and just how effective it can be.

The Vine that I particularly liked was a video with a shot of each label from their jeans line since 1969.  It begins with vintage jeans and continues the show the back pocket and label until the most recent Gap jeans.

Though Gap’s use of Vine is not really a campaign, I still think it speaks to their social media abilities. Gap as a brand is always on the forefront of trends, while still maintaining a comfortable and even vintage look in their clothing and branding.  This video is a perfect representation of that mixture in my opinion. Not only did Gap use Vine (which is an up and coming technology) before other brands, but it also appealed to the vintage side of their brand by showing the different vintage jeans that the brand has produced over the years.

In my opinion, Gap’s didn’t post this Vine with a strategy in mind, but they certainly were successful in using the app well and making themselves look cool.  If their strategy had been, “Make a Vine that people watch and makes us look cool so everyone likes us more,” they definitely would’ve succeeded in my opinion.

The main thing that I learn from Gap’s use of Vine and why it was successful is that brands should try to keep up with technology, but also make sure not to lose their personality in the process.  As attention spans get shorter and shorter, Vine could become the new Youtube viral video. The best part about it is that people don’t even need to be at a computer to view the content, because the Vine app is right there on the phone that they carry around all day.  It’s genius, making a 6 second engaging video for short attention spans that is at people’s disposal 24/7.

Case Study 1: Dove – Empowering Women

Everyone knows that the Dove brand is all about empowering women and using the social awareness content to promote their brand.  Surprisingly, this tactic has worked quite well for them.  The advertisements in their “Real Beauty” campaign are powerful and effective.

Recently Dove released a Youtube video, “Dove Real Beauty Sketches.” The video is consistent with their current campaign and was VERY successful.

The brand has a major following, which is probably mostly attributed to their real beauty campaign. They have 78,471 Twitter followers, 14,473,830 likes on Facebook and their “Real Beauty Sketches” video has an astonishing 47,147,393 views.  Considering it was only uploaded about two weeks ago, that is pretty impressive.  Though they have a good social media following on a regular basis, this newest video was a major success for the brand’s social media efforts.

In the past they have used commercials and traditional advertising to promote their brand and their cause, but this viral video (which didn’t air on television) is by far their most impressive effort to date.

Perhaps the most interesting part about the video’s success is how under-promoted the video was.  That’s not to say that Dove did a poor job of promoting the video, but it does speak to just how viral the video was.  The brand only posted one promotional tweet on both their Facebook and their Twitter, which did not receive nearly as much attention as the video itself received. The Facebook post containing the video only received 17,716 likes and the tweet only received 269 retweets.  Due to the brand’s previous success and the powerful message in the video went viral quickly.

The objective of the video was to promote their brand while at the same time, promoting the social cause that Dove strives to promote with their brand. By using a viral video, Dove was able to not only real their followers on Twitter, but they were able to give their followers a way to share the video quickly and easily.  There was not attaching images or trying to explain what happened in a tweet, all the followers had to do to share the video was copy and paste the link to share it with their friends.

This particular successful social media campaign is interesting to me because it is able to reach so many different demographics, especially those people who may not have seen something that Dove posted on Facebook or Twitter.  Because they used something that had a link that was easily shareable, their social media not only found it’s way to all of their followers, but it also made its way to grandmothers without any social media presence and everyone in between.

Moral of the story: if you do viral right, it can reach more than just your target.

Turn Social Media Into Social Strategy

As I’ve learned throughout the semester in ADPR4300, social strategy and social media are very different concepts.  Anyone can utilize social media, but in order for social media to be used at its full potential, there must be a social strategy involved.  There are a few aspects to developing a social strategy that are crucial in order to use social media efficiently.

Know Who You Are Talking To

When writing any kind of content for the internet or the media, it is important to know who your audience is.  Social media is no different. Unless you know who your target audience is and how to best get their attention, social media is useless.  It is important to remember that in order to have a successful social media campaign, people need to be engaged in the social conversation and that’s impossible unless you know exactly what audience you want to engage.

Have A Unified Voice

It is important for social media and all other aspects of the marketing communications efforts to have a unified voice. To use social media to it’s full potential, many companies tie it into their marketing and advertising campaigns, which is a good way to bring together social media and marketing efforts.  For instance, Budweiser’s superbowl commercial campaign included a hashtag to help engage their followers in their campaign.

Be Relevant

It’s no surprise that relevant made my list of aspects of social media strategy.  In order for social media to produce the intended results, it must be relevant to the audience and to the real world.  First of all, it is important for social media to be relevant and interesting to the intended audience in order to keep the content engaging.  In addition, the content should also be relevant to the issues going on in the real world.  For instance, if there is some sort of tragedy going on, it is important that social media does not make the company look out-of-touch or unsympathetic. 

Update 

Building off of the need for relevance to the real world and to the social audience, it is important that social media is monitored and kept up to date, which also includes making sure to respond to current events. If social media is just constantly pushed out by a preprogrammed system, it will not seem as personal or relevant to the audience and engagement will decrease.

 

Social = Credible

As a midterm assignment for ADPR 4300, my group did a social media assessment on the Milwaukee Public Market. Part of the assignment was understanding what being a social business means and assessing whether or not the Milwaukee Public Market could improve their social business image.  For me, the biggest takeaway from this assignment was the link between becoming a social business and creating brand value.

When I think about creating brand value, usually I think about creating loyal customers and making sure to keep a brand credible and relevant to its customers.  Being a social business adds a whole new element to creating value. Being a social brand, in my opinion,  creates a whole new level of credibility and value that cannot be created by brands that do not engage socially.

I am a personal fan of the Milwaukee Public Market and after I researching their social media presence (or lack there of), I am sad to say that their brand has lost some credibility in my opinion.  It is not that I will enjoy their food any less, or that I will go to the public market less, but I have lost some respect for their brand and promotions as a whole.

In the age of social media, the up and coming consumer market is completely emerged in social media, it is important that companies create value for their brand through social media.  In order for the social customer to respect a brand, they need to feel that the brand is present and active in the social world.  It is about time that brands, small and large, begin to engage themselves in social media so they can stay current when social media takes over as the main form of communication with consumers. 

In my opinion, in the next few years, social brands will move to the top and other brands that are not on the social map will be left behind.  It will be interesting to see who moves up and who falls to the wayside.

DSW Shares Their Love of Shoes On Social Media

Sometimes social media is more about a connection made with the right consumer, than the amount of hype a hashtag gets on Twitter.  This is exactly how I feel about DSW and their use of social media.  As an avid shoe lover and DSW rewards member, the brand continuously delivers relevant and interesting information to me through Twitter and Facebook.  

There are four main things that DSW is doing right when it comes to social media and connecting with people like me.

The “SHU LUV”Never Stops

DSW continuously uses social media to connect with their consumers and social media followers.  DSW tweets and posts on Facebook between 2-5 times a day, just enough to have a presence on their followers’ news feeds.  Though they post a lot and sometimes retweet, it isn’t too much and I’ve never once considered unfollowing them.  

How active a brand is on social media directly correlates to the presence of the brand in the mind of the consumer.  In my opinion, not enough activity makes social media a waste of time and too much can negatively affect the brand.  Finding the middle ground for an individual brand is tricky and DSW has got it down.

Relevant

They may not have any catchy hashtags or huge Twitter/Facebook campaigns, but they do make sure that all of their content is relevant and interesting for the needs and wants of their customers.  They tweet links to newly added shoes and advertise when sales are happening.  They Facebook pictures from their corporate headquarters and upload pictures of real people wearing their shoes in their everyday lives.  

Most importantly, they don’t try to make their brand more than it is, they simply show their customers what they have to offer and what kind of good deal they can provide.

Relatable

People who shop at DSW are shoe lovers who are looking for a good deal on designer shoes.  That being said, their customers are looking for a company that delivers high end shoes at a low price.  In addition, they are looking for a brand that they can relate to, a shoe company with expensive taste but a down to earth personality.  Not only does DSW offer low prices on good shoes, but they also have friendly employees and an open corporate culture.

Most of the photos they upload of new or seasonal shoes are taken at their corporate headquarters and many of them are modeled by corporate employees.  They also take the time to upload and tweet pictures of employees wearing stylish outfits and shoes sold in their stores.  To me, this shows that they really are the fun and friendly brand that they try to portray to their customers.  

In addition, I personally enjoy the pictures they upload that show of their corporate culture because DSW is a place that I would LOVE to work.  Every time they upload a photo of a holiday party they have at corporate headquarters or they upload a photo of an employee wearing cute shoes at work, it makes makes me want to work at DSW corporate.  Not only do I continue to purchase shoes from DSW, but I also want to be a part of the DSW brand myself.

FUN

Understanding that their main consumer is female, DSW does a great job of making their social media fun and female friendly.  They have free shoe flash contests on both Twitter and Facebook which help them engage their customers and show off the fun side of their brand.  Every girl loves free shoes and DSW gives their followers plenty of opportunity to try and win some!

Overall, DSW uses social media to show off their fun and friendly brand in order to engage their customers and keep their brand image consistent.

Twitter and the #Superbowl

When it comes to the Superbowl, unless the Green Bay Packers are playing, I’m normally watching for the commercials. This year was no exception, my volume went down during the game and up during the commercial breaks.

There were a lot of great commercials this year and most of the companies not only presented viewers with a commercial, but also with an opportunity to extend the conversation through social media.  Though many people may say that Oreo made the biggest impact with their Twitter ad during the blackout, Budweiser also did a great job starting a conversation with their “Brotherhood” Clydesdale commercial.

In my opinion, one of the most important parts of making a good Superbowl commercial is making sure to build that strong emotional connection with the viewer, whether that be humor, nostalgia, or any other emotion.  Budweiser certainly sparked the emotions of many viewers and even made me cry with their Clydesdale commercial.  The emotional ties to the commercial made the ad itself effective, but the Twitter conversation that went along with it made the Budweiser campaign a double whammy.

After the commercial aired, Budweiser encouraged it’s fans to name the Clydesdale in the commercial by submitting names to the company via Twitter. The conversation started on Twitter when Budweiser tweeted a picture of the Clydesdale foal and a prompt for followers to help pick a name.  In 24 hours, Budweiser got over 60,000 name suggestions that was linked to the #clydesdales Twitter conversation starter from their commercial.

Overall, Budweiser brought a lot of traffic to their Twitter page through the #Clydesdales hashtag from their commercial, but also from the conversation they prompted once followers visited their Twitter feed.  In my opinion, their social media efforts were overlooked 

In addition, the newest #Clydesdale foal is named Hope, which Budweiser used as another opportunity to show their social responsibility.

 

 

What Makes a Good Social Media Manager?

After reading Cathryn Sloane’s article on NetGen Journal, I began to really think about whether the age of a social media manager matters, and if so, what is the best age.

Being roughly the same age as Sloane, I understand what she is getting at by saying that our generation grew up with social media and would make the best choice for social media professionals.  I agree to an extent, I feel that social media has become like a second language for the younger generation, which makes it easy for younger people to understand social media.  That’s not to say that people over the age of 25 can’t learn social media and become experts at it.

The part that Sloane touched on that I really connect with is the fact that they require social media managers to have 5-10 years of professional experience.  This is what really seems silly to me.  In my opinion, young people who are active on Twitter and Facebook have 5-10 years of experience already and they gained it by creating their own personal brand through social media.  Hiring managers are no doubt looking at social media sites to see how well we present ourselves, and in my opinion, how well we represent ourselves and our brand is the best way to see what kind of social media experience a young person has.

Similar to a corporation using social media, most young people have things they want to hide and have a certain way they want to say things on social media in order to make people think one way or another about them.  If a younger person shows that they can do this with their personal brand, this shows direct social media experience, in my opinion. On the other hand, if a person clearly does not care about protecting their brand on social media and or fails miserably in trying to protect their reputation, then it is clear that they have minimal experience that would assist them in using social media in a professional setting.

As I stated earlier, just because a young person may have grown up with social media and it is second nature to them, that does not mean that it cannot be learned.  With time and advice from people who may have grown up with it or may know more about it, older generations can learn and understand social media just as much as my generation.

The unfortunate thing for the younger generations is that this would make the older generation a double threat and would put them a step ahead.  Not only would they have knowledge and expertise about social media, but they would also have years of experience in communications and public relations.  Having both of those things is what would make a social media job candidate truly a perfect fit.