News & Blog - Page 15 of 21 - Spinnaker Marketing

May 3, 2012September 3, 2021

Savvy Social Media Users Influence Peer Purchases

For consumers, the golden rule is “buyer beware.” For marketers, it should perhaps be: “beware of socially adept consumers.” New research indicates that consumers who are savvy social media users wield far greater influence among their peers.

Specifically, they tell significantly more people about their service experiences, and say they’ would spend 21% more with companies that deliver great service — compared to 13% on average, according to the 2012 American Express “Global Customer Service Barometer.”

This relatively small group of consumers is extremely engaged and vocal, according to Jim Bush, EVP of World Service at American Express.

“They … tell three times as many people about positive service experiences compared to the general population,” he said of social media users. “Ultimately, getting service right with these social media-savvy consumers can help a business grow.”

Unfortunately for many marketers, the survey — conducted in the U.S. and 10 other countries — also reveals a sorry state of service in general.

May 1, 2012

For Brands, Social Media Shows Returns but Measurement Hurdles Remain

Executives see improvements in marketing and sales efforts, and market share gains as a result of well-planned campaigns

C-suite executives are increasingly convinced of the benefits of engaging with their customers on social media platforms. A February 2012 survey of 329 senior executives in North America by management and digital consulting firm PulsePoint Group and the Economist Intelligence Unit found that the vast majority of companies who had invested in social media saw a positive shift in their bottom line as a result.

Executives who said their companies had established an extensive social media presence reported a return on investment that was more than four times that of companies with little or no social network engagement activity

Companies should use social media to create spaces for consumers to have meaningful conversations with employees and other stakeholders. Almost seven in 10 respondents said they had seen a spike in their sales by letting customers talk about their brands on social media platforms, even if some of that dialogue was negative. This kind of approach builds trust and credibility with consumers, potentially transforming them into brand advocates whose value is immense, if difficult to measure.

April 30, 2012

Demystifying social media

As the marketing power of social media grows, it no longer makes sense to treat it as an experiment. Here’s how senior leaders can harness social media to shape consumer decision making in predictable ways.

Executives certainly know what social media is. After all, if Facebook users constituted a country, it would be the world’s third largest, behind China and India. Executives can even claim to know what makes social media so potent: its ability to amplify word-of-mouth effects. Yet the vast majority of executives have no idea how to harness social media’s power. Companies diligently establish Twitter feeds and branded Facebook pages, but few have a deep understanding of exactly how social media interacts with consumers to expand product and brand recognition, drive sales and profitability, and engender loyalty.

We believe there are two interrelated reasons why social media remains an enigma wrapped in a riddle for many executives, particularly nonmarketers. The first is its seemingly nebulous nature. It’s no secret that consumers increasingly go online to discuss products and brands, seek advice, and offer guidance. Yet it’s often difficult to see where and how to influence these conversations, which take place across an ever-growing variety of platforms, among diverse and dispersed communities, and may occur either with lightning speed or over the course of months. Second, there’s no single measure of social media’s financial impact, and many companies find that it’s difficult to justify devoting significant resources—financial or human—to an activity whose precise effect remains unclear.

What we hope to do here is to demystify social media. We have identified its four primary functions—to monitor, respond, amplify, and lead consumer behavior—and linked them to the journey consumers undertake when making purchasing decisions. Being able to identify exactly how, when, and where social media influences consumers helps executives to craft marketing strategies that take advantage of social media’s unique ability to engage with customers. It should also help leaders develop, launch, and demonstrate the financial impact of social-media campaigns

April 23, 2012April 23, 2012

3 PR lessons from Heineken’s crisis

Photos of a dogfight with prominent Heineken branding went viral. The beer maker has denied knowledge of the event, but that hasn’t stopped the criticism.

There’s crisis control, and then there’s the ordeal that Heineken is facing.

The beer maker has been slammed in traditional and social media since photos of a dogfight with prominent Heineken branding went viral.

Heineken has denied knowledge of the event, which apparently occurred at a Mongolian nightclub in 2011. Any sane person would realize right away that Heineken is probably not sponsoring dog fighting. But it wouldn’t be the Internet if everyone were of sound mind.

Naturally, the masses took to Heineken’s Facebook page to berate the company. What could it do? Blindsided by the photo, Heineken launched into action.

On Tuesday, Heineken posted twice to its Facebook page—first at 2:00 a.m. Central Time and again at 5:44 a.m. The company moved quickly to investigate and craft a response, which can be found on its website and its Facebook page.

Here are few lessons we can take from Heineken’s misfortune:

April 17, 2012

Facebook CPMs Climb Despite Falling Clicks

Click-through rates on Facebook are going down even as the cost of advertising on the dominant social network continues to rise. Average CPM rates for non-premium display ads on Facebook in the first quarter are up 41% from a year ago, and up 15% from the fourth quarter of 2011. At the same time, click-through rates dropped 8% from the prior quarter.

The new findings from social media marketing firm TBG Digital are based on an analysis of 268 billion Marketplace ad impressions served on Facebook across five major markets: the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Canada. (The firm did not disclose the actual value of ad rates.) Cost-per-click rates on Facebook rose even faster than CPMs, increasing 25% over the last quarter.

Underscoring that point, WPP CEO Martin Sorrell that client spending on Facebook advertising would double to about $400 million this year.

A separate forecast by Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research Group released last week takes a more measured view, estimating that Facebook’s ad revenue will increase about 30% overall in 2012 from $3.1 billion last year.

Still, how does TBG explain ad rates continuing to climb on Facebook while click rates slip?

April 17, 2012

How Customers Can Rally Your Troops

How did a five-minute meeting motivate university fundraisers to increase their weekly productivity by 400%? How did a photograph drive radiologists to improve the accuracy of their diagnostic findings by 46%?

Was it managers who inspired such enormous results? Perhaps they gave an amazing speech or set clearer goals or tracked performance more carefully. In fact, in both situations, managers were not the catalysts. They did not assume that they alone had to bear the burden of motivating employees with inspiring messages. Instead, they tapped in to a powerful force that encouraged workers to go the extra mile. They outsourced inspiration to those who were better suited to the job.

A growing body of research shows that end users—customers, clients, patients, and others who benefit from a company’s products and services—are surprisingly effective in motivating people to work harder, smarter, and more productively.

A brief visit from a student who had received a scholarship motivated the fundraisers to increase their efforts. A photograph of a patient they had never met inspired the radiologists to read X-rays more accurately. By serving as tangible proof of the consequences and value of employees’ efforts, end users such as these can be important allies for leaders in motivating and inspiring their workforces.

Outsourcing inspiration to end users focuses employees’ attention squarely on the ultimate impact of their products and services.

April 11, 2012

Consumer Trust In Traditional Media Ads Fall, Confidence In Mobile, Social And Online Rise

Word-of-mouth recommendations and reviews, either from someone they know or a stranger’s opinions online, are the most trusted sources of information for buying decisions, according to the latest Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising report, The findings speak highly for information gathered through social media or other forms of user-generated content.

Meanwhile, though traditional paid media still are trusted by a great number of consumers, their influence is on the decline. Nearly half of consumers around the world say the trust ads on TV (47%), in magazines (47%) and in newspapers (46%), but those numbers dropped by 24%, 20% and 25% respectively, in a relatively short period of time — between 2009 and 2011.

April 11, 2012

Google + Gets a Facelift and New Features

With over 170 Million registered users but dismal usage stats, Google + was in need of CPR

Google just announced a major redesign of Google+ “to make the social network “more functional and flexible.”

According to the official Google blog, the redesign is part of its plan to make Google+ easier to use.

“By focusing on you, the people you care about and the stuff you’re into, we’re going to continue upgrading all the features you already know and love—from Search and Maps to Gmail and YouTube,” says Senior Vice President Vic Gundotra in the blog post. “With today’s foundational changes, we can move even faster—toward a simpler, more beautiful Google.”

It looks like Google took a hint from critics and finally recognized that they did not need to reinvent the wheel just make it better. Did they succeed, it’s a little early to say since the new look and features are being deployed as we speak but we can already see that the home page looks pretty familiar, actually, a lot like a mix of the pre “Timeline” Facebook and the new Facebook interface.

Every Facebook redesign draws a lot of criticism and discontent, but will that be enough to breathe life in Google + and increase time spent on the site, which has been seriously lagging ( a few minutes a month, versus Facebook 7+ hours) and recent CNet statistics showing that March time spent increase 27% over February do little to close the gap.

The redesign does not seem to address the botched integration of Google’s other services particularly when it comes to YouTube, and Picasa

April 11, 2012

LinkedIn Rolls Out New Targeted Follower Tools For Marketers

LinkedIn will launch two new functions for companies who have followers on LinkedIn, both of which will be of interest to marketers and advertisers: “Targeted Updates” and “Follower Statistics.”

Targeted Updates will allow companies to segment their followers by a range of variables such as industry, seniority, job function, company size, non-company employees, and geography. Companies will be able to send different status updates to different groups of followers,

Follower Statistics will essentially be an analytics dashboard that will allow companies to see how effective their updates have been.

March 30, 2012March 30, 2012

Top B2B Firms Gaining 230% More Leads via Social Media Than Peers

Best-in-Class B2B companies generate on average 17% of their leads from social media channels, roughly 230% more marketing-generated leads than other companies (5%), according to a new report by Aberdeen Group, which examines the social marketing strategies of top-performing B2B companies.

In the new report, titled “B2B Social Meeting Marketing: Are We There Yet,” Aberdeen uses four key performance criteria to distinguish the Best-in-Class (top 20% of aggregate performers) from the Industry Average (middle 50%) and Laggard (bottom 30%) organizations.

The top 20% of companies (i.e., Best-in-Class) have achieved the following performance metrics:

Average annual company revenue growth of 20%, compared with 8% for Industry Average and -3% for Laggard firms.
10% average year-over-year improvement of marketing leads resulting in closed business, compared with 3% for the Industry Average and -1% for Laggard firms.
44% of sales-forecasted pipeline generated by marketing, compared with 10% for Industry Average and 5% for Laggard firms.
73% annual customer retention rate, compared with 27% for Industry Average and 7% for Laggard firms.

Overall, 84% of all surveyed B2B companies are using social marketing in some form.

However, Best-in-Class companies are more likely to use social media primarily for lead-generation purposes, and more likely to integrate social marketing with other core channels and processes, the study found.