News & Blog - Page 13 of 21 - Spinnaker Marketing

July 17, 2012

Reinventing Customer Service Harnessing Social Media

Social media leveled the playing field on which brands and consumers face off. Where brands controlled the means of broadcast (through PR, advertising and news coverage), consumers now have a megaphone of their own in the form of social media to voice their opinion and force companies to rethink customer service

Social sharing and viral content means an angry mob has never been easier to assemble, and brands behaving badly can now find their reputation in tatters in a matter of hours. Just ask Addison Lee’s cyclist-bashing chairman John Griffin, who turned the company into a virtual punching bag for the denizens of Twitter and Facebook overnight. Griffin sparked anger by claiming the majority of cyclist road deaths in London are the result of inexperience on the part of the cyclist.

This is just one example from recent times when the consumer’s megaphone has become louder than that of the brand. Not only does social media amplify complaints, but with criticism out in the open it allows media outlets to offer coverage of the discourse, amplifying the criticism further How many news stories have you read which cite “Twitter outrage” or a “Facebook campaign”?

This reshuffling of power has forced many companies – both large and small – to rethink their customer service and marketing. Having suddenly had power wrested from them, many are now fighting back and employing some experimental and interesting methods to get back in the driving seat.

July 16, 2012July 16, 2012

Brands Ignore Negative Social Buzz at Their Peril

“In a world of social sites that allow consumers to post photos, videos and opinions about companies and brands, disparaging comments and other content detrimental to brands are bound to bubble up,” said a new eMarketer report “Dealing with Negative Buzz on Social Media.” “And that content can stay online forever.”

In February, American Express found that 46% of US internet users it surveyed had turned to companies’ social media sites to vent their frustrations about poor experiences.

“This buildup of negative buzz on social media can have a significant impact on brands because social media is more public and moves faster than customer complaints via traditional channels,” said eMarketer.

Moreover, companies now have accounts and brand pages on so many different social networks that it is hard to keep up. “Having a plan in place for dealing specifically with negative buzz and then constantly monitoring, tracking and responding to comments on social media are two important ways to deal with negative situations on social media,” said eMarketer. But implementing these precautions requires integration between teams within a company, expanded thinking about what words and issues to track, and, in some cases, tasking outside companies and vendors to provide monitoring services.

July 13, 2012

How to Determine Facebook and Twitter ROI

Source

July 5, 2012

Forget Engagement, Consumers Want Simplicity

In a world where brands are constantly fighting for attention, many marketers are asking themselves a key question: What is the best way to impact purchase decision and brand loyalty?

The IBM Institute for Business Value found that 60-65% of business leaders who believe that consumers follow their brands on social media sites because they want to be a part of a community. Only 25-30% of consumers agree. The top reason consumers follow a brand? To get discounts – not exactly ideal for a company’s bottom line.

On top of trying too hard to engage with consumers via social media, marketers are generally pushing out too much information, causing people to over-think purchase decisions and making them more likely to change their minds about a product, be less confident in their choice and less likely remain loyal to the brand.

So what should marketers do? Here at Corporate Executive Board, we surveyed more than 7,000 consumers and interviewed 200 marketing executives across consumer brands and industries to find out. The answer: Simplify the decision-making process, so much so that consumers actually think less about the decision. Marketers can do that in three easy ways by helping consumers:

Trust the information they receive
Learn effectively without distraction
Weigh options confidently

When used together, this approach is known as Decision Simplicity.

Download the full report

July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

Aston Martin Vanquish Social Campaign a Huge Success

British automaker Aston Martin chose digital to market its new Vanquish model and saw a more than 100 percent increase in visitors to its Web site from social media channels among users in Germany, the United States and its home country.

The digital campaign that spanned Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the Aston Martin Web site began June 20 and centered on a digital car configurator, images and a video. The automaker saw the highest traffic on its Web site ever

recorded during the first three days of the campaign.

“Luxury automotive brands have communities of people that are incredibly passionate about their product,” said Jenn Heinen, associate director of social strategies at Morpheus Media, New York.

“Leveraging any kind of community-driven platform makes perfect sense to distribute content to a group of people who are already engaged with a product and lifestyle,” she said.

“Especially with more niche communities, the excitement and eagerness to interact with this kind of content makes social platforms all the more impactful for content syndication.”

Aston Martin recorded June 20-22 as its three highest traffic days on its global Web site at http://www.astonmartin.com. It saw the average number of daily visitors to the site double in the first seven days of the Vanquish campaign, per the brand.

As compared with the same period seven days earlier, the automaker saw a 216 percent increase in visitors to the site from the German market. There were also 162 percent, 102 percent and 81 percent increases in visits from consumers in Britain, the U.S. and China, respectively.

“Luxury automotive brands have communities of people that are incredibly passionate about their product,” said Jenn Heinen, associate director of social strategies at Morpheus Media, New York.

“Leveraging any kind of community-driven platform makes perfect sense to distribute content to a group of people who are already engaged with a product and lifestyle,” she said.

Especially with more niche communities, the excitement and eagerness to interact with this kind of content makes social platforms all the more impactful for content syndication.”

July 2, 2012

Leveraging Social Media in Food Marketing

When it comes to learning about food, nearly half of consumers use social networking sites, and 40% use Web sites, apps or blogs, according to a new study from The Hartman Group and Publicis Consultants USA.

“Consumers used to rely on mom and family traditions for meal planning, but now search online for what to cook, without ever tasting or smelling,” said Hartman Group president and COO Laurie Demeritt.

In addition, nearly a third of Americans overall — and 47% of Millennials — use social networking sites while eating at home.

So how can food makers and retailers best leverage this social media power?

June 27, 2012September 3, 2021

CMOs challenged to reach connected consumers

A survey released Thursday by IBM found that chief marketing officers (CMO)and chief information officers (CIO)must join forces in order to connect with today’s consumer across new channels including mobile devices and social networks.

More than half (60%) of marketers pointed to their lack of alignment with the company’s IT department as the biggest obstacle to reaching today’s consumers. One key new finding of the survey showed that with mobile marketing working well, marketers are now preparing to go beyond coupons and deliver mobile advertising that reaches customers on their smart phone and tablets.

According to the study, 34% of respondents stated that in less than 12 months, they intend to deliver mobile ads, the highest rate of new marketing tactic adoption in the five-year history of the study. Overall, 46% of respondents are currently using mobile web sites followed by 45% mobile applications, up from 40% and 44% respectively since last year.

While the mobile channel is thriving, marketers lack this same clear consensus on how to best utilize social media which will result in ongoing experimentation with these channels. For example, when looking toward the remainder of the year, 26% intend to launch applications on 3rd party social network sites, 24% plan to incorporate user-generated content into their social media efforts and 23% are looking to launch social media ads or share links in email and web offers.

IBM’s “State of Marketing 2012” surveyed more than 350 marketing professionals. In the study, 51% of respondents who identified their companies as high-performing indicated they have good relationships between marketing and IT, 10% higher than other companies.

June 20, 2012June 20, 2012

Farmers Insurance Journey to Social Media ROI

Very informative presentation by Farmers Insurance Group’s Director of Social Media, Ryon Harms. Ryon shares how they help their agent engage on social media, insure compliance and measuring social media ROI.

Ryon talks about how their Facebook engagement strategy is focused on their people instead of their product and gives examples of how their local agents are connecting daily with customers.

Take out from the presentation:

Social media is about relationships, not product or services, relationships generate ROI
The best social media ideas will probably come from the field
Your employees are valuable resources in your social media programs, don’t cut them off social media, empower them
Don’t write off social media as a business generator
I regulated environments you need to have a system to monitor social media conversations, the same way you need to monitor websites and emails for compliance.

June 19, 2012June 19, 2012

LinkedIn Adds New Targeting Options

Last October LinkedIn announced marketers would be able to post status updates to their company pages. Now the business-minded social network is adding the ability for marketers to pinpoint those posts at specific groups of followers.

Companies can target status updates based on seniority, job title, geography, company size, industry and employee tenure. “To now go out and be able to target vice-presidents of IT at companies with 500 employees and larger and send them a very specific message about enterprise software, that is a very specific message that those people have a high interest in receiving,” explained Jonathan Lister, LinkedIn’s vp of North America sales and marketing solutions.

LinkedIn has been beta-testing targeted status updates since April with 50 companies, and Lister said these posts have been broadly shared and commented upon to date, delivering more followers to the participating marketers. For instance, one of the beta customers, Salesforce, used the targeted updates to drive participation in offline events and saw a 30 percent increase in participation, Lister said.