2. Key Lessons
1. Use the right channels to support
brand strategy
2. Develop innovative applications
3. Develop influence strategies that
create mutual benefit
4. Make recommendations easy to
make and find
5. Offer special incentives to social
followers and influencers
6. Ask for ideas…and use them
7. Consider social channels that are
not mainstream
2
3. Brands Reviewed
Whole Foods PAM
ShoeDazzle Aaron’s
BlendTec Threadless
Oreo Papa John’s
Body by Milk / Got Milk Gilt
State Farm Joie de Vivre
Aflac Einstein Bros. Bagels
Burger King Jenny Craig
Domino’s Pizza Starbucks
Dial for Men Bacon Salt
Nestle Dreyer’s Ice Cream
Dell
Mazda 3
Vitamin Water
Ford Fiesta
Walmart
Splenda
Kohl’s
Microsoft MVP
Fiskars
Southwest
Bing
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4. Lesson #1:
Use the right channels to support brand strategy
Choose channels that represent your customers and prospects:
Invest time in social media platforms where your customers
and target audience already go and engage them with
content and applications that support your brand strategy
4
5. Whole Foods
Facebook:
Central Facebook page (450K fans)
Individual pages for each store
Promoted via FB hub page on WF site
Blog: Relevant expert content
Flickr: Photographic look at local stores & events
YouTube: Emphasize the local message
Twitter:
@WholeFoods for news, updates, special
events, customer feedback
@WFMCheese - global cheese specialist
@WFMWineGuys - wine & beer experts
@WholeRecipes - automated recipe feed
Various Metro areas and individual stores
Community: Get Satisfaction platform with
employees actively and transparently
communicating with customers
6. ShoeDazzle: Content, commerce and conversation
Facebook
Asks fans for their opinions on various style or
brand-related subjects. Recently, a question asking
fans what they thought of the fashion television series
Project Runway generated more than 100 likes
A post featuring a cryptic picture of an upcoming
"Dazzle Deal" asked fans what they thought it was;
more than 70 people offered their guesses, with
several eager fans claiming they "couldn't wait to find
out”
UGC spurred further brand enthusiasm as fans began
to respond to each other's guesses
Twitter (over 22K followers) many of
ShoeDazzle’s posts are @ replies to its followers.
This strategy taps into consumers' increasing desire
for a little more Twitter conversation from brands
On both channels, ShoeDazzle also offers fans
and followers exclusive discounts and the chance
to enter contests for free merchandise.
The campaigns also rewards active brand
advocates, telling users they can get free shoes
for inviting friends to join ShoeDazzle
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7. Blendtec: The proof is in the video
Blendtec quintupled sales with YouTube videos
Over 149MM video views and 6.3MM channel
views
356,000 subscribers
Quirky, fun game show format that actually
successfully depicts efficacy of the product
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8. Lesson #2: Develop innovative applications
Be willing to innovate: Develop engaging applications that may not
directly drive commerce but instead drive engagement and develop
brand loyalty and interest
Don’t rule out “fun” as a social media objective
Align with a cause that people care about and commit to supporting it
in a meaningful way
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9. Whole Foods:
Innovative Applications that meet consumer needs
iPhone
Whole Foods Market Missions (rated 4+)
Whole Foods Market Recipes (rated 4+)
Facebook: This is my year to _______.
Fans were able to choose an intention to
support a worthy cause
Each cause received a $10,000 donation
from Whole Foods, with the winning
cause receiving a double donation
Fans were able to vote everyday and
share their vote with their friends
10. Oreo: Don’t underestimate the value of fun
Oreo launched an interactive game on its
Facebook page in September 2010
8.5 million fans in August to 15.2 million in
November 2010
The campaign continues and was also
recently extended offline, with in-person
events
10
15. Dial for Men: Targeted addictive application with a viral component
15
16. Nestle Dreyer’s Ice cream:
Mobile app as part of a multichannel strategy
Share the Love mobile game used characters that
were part of a larger integrated campaign including
print, consumer promotions materials, billboards and
online video ads on Hulu
Program goals:
Create brand awareness
Engage consumers
Product education
Trial through coupons and high score
competition giveaways
Sharing is integral to the application:
Players invited to join the Skinny Cow Spread
the Love community network, where they can
post directly to Twitter or to Facebook and
interact with fellow gamers to Spread the Love
even further.
Players can also post scores to the Skinny Cow
high score leader boards and compare their all
time high-score with friends
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17. Mazda: Viral Game Branding
Mazda’s Mazda2 is the star of the
company’s Facebook game called
DriverVille.
Supported product launch in July 2010
Sweepstakes on Facebook page
Built-in subtle advertising
Complete missions to level up and earn
Driver Bucks and a Mazda2
Driver Bucks earned can be used to
buy accent items for your car, your
home garage or your DriverVille avatar
All the activities in the game can be
broadcast through your newsfeed to
share with friends
Several of the trophies that can be
earned in the game center around
bringing more people into the game,
adding to the viral element
17
18. Lesson #3:
Develop influence strategies that create mutual benefit
“Benefits” may take the form of free product, financial benefits, or
simply acknowledging and recognizing influencers and brand
evangelists publicly
18
19. Ford Fiesta Movement: Social Influence depends on mutual benefit
Mutual Benefit
Free Fiesta & gas for 6 months in return for one
video posted per month
Symbiotic relationship
Results
100 Ford Fiesta Agents
6.5 million YouTube views
3.4 million impressions on Twitter
670,000 photo views on Flickr
50,000 requests for info from non-Ford owners
Sold 10,000 units in the first six days of sales
Fraction of the cost of typical national TV campaign
20. Splenda: Video contest supports brand “healthy” message
20
21. Microsoft MVP Award
Recognizing community leaders Reaping the reward
Microsoft’s MVP program nominates
helpful customers and professionals
once a year
MVPs support other customers and
act as community advocates using
community forums, a blog, Facebook,
Twitter and other channels
23. Lesson #4:
Make recommendations easy to make and find
Make it easy: Customers will recommend a product more readily when
they are provided an easy mechanism to do so – and are asked directly
to pass your brand message along
23
24. Best Buy: Consumers make decisions based on friends’ recommendations
25. Threadless: Integrated recommendations and commerce
Threadless.com is a t-shirt social
network that is completely directed by
its members
Members submit designs, users vote on
them and highest rankings go to print
By integrating voting and commerce
on Facebook they are able to extend
their reach to their fans’ social graphs
25
26. Lesson #5:
Offer special incentives to social followers and influencers
Give them a reason: One of the top reasons people follow a brand in
social media is for access to special offers
26
27. Papa John’s: Event-based discounts build loyalty
Papa John's is offering a free pizza to
everyone in America if the Super Bowl
goes into overtime
The catch:You have to register for the
chain's customer loyalty program,
"Papa Points," before 11:59 p.m. EST
on February 5
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28. Gilt: Exclusive deals and new content every day draw thousands of fans
Access is invite-only
Sales are announced by email, Facebook,
Twitter and iphone app a week ahead of
time with most of them lasting 36 hours or
until everything is sold
During the hour after its weekday sales
begin, the site is visited by an average of
100,000 shoppers
Referral through users’ personal networks
Offers incentives (e.g. $25 credit) to
current members to invite their friends to
join their community
Result: more than 2 million members (as of
April 2010) and growing rapidly
Similar models include ideeli, RueLaLa,
HauteLook
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29. Joie De Vivre
Special Deals on Twitter & Facebook Not just deals…
Operates 33 luxury hotels in California This summer, Joie De Vivre encouraged
Deals and coupons to followers and fans on consumers to enter its Road Trippin’ California
Facebook and Twitter contest which asked people to submit videos on
YouTube that share why they love California
Twitter Tuesdays: exclusive deal to its nearly
11,000 followers Three winners, out of 270 videos that were
submitted, were selected to win all-expense
Followers have only hours to book the steeply California road trips with stays in the company’s
discounted room rate hotels
The company also operates similar deals for
its 7,500+ Facebook fans on Fridays
In less than a year, Joie De Vivre booked over
1,000 excess inventory room nights through
these types of deals
Partnership with Foursquare offer deals for check-
ins at its various restaurants
JoireDe Vivre has done a number of deals with
travel sites like Gilt’s Jetsetter as well as RueLaLa
for flash sales
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30. Einstein Bros. Bagels
Einstein Bros. Bagels set out to:
Significantly grow its fan base
Encourage retail visits and product purchase
Establish a long-term communication channel
to new and existing customers
Einstein Bros. created a coupon for fans on a
branded Facebook page tab
Free bagel and schmear offer promoted via
targeted Facebook adverting
Page configured to display promotional
information to non-fans first
Visitors required to become fans of the page
prior to accessing offer
All visitors were able to share the promotion
with friends, widening the social net
Quickly gained over 400,000 fans, including more
than 250,000 in a single day (now over 624,000)
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31. Jenny Craig
“Like us for a discount” Clicking “Like” replaces page with offer
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32. Threadless
Discounts with a sense of humor And an inside look at photoshoots
Threadless uses Twitter and Facebook to
give away codes for discounts leading to
viral sharing of a call to action
Fans initially grew from 0 to 37k in 4
months (Facebook) and over 7k followers in
3 weeks (Twitter)
Now Threadless has over 238,000 fans on
Facebook and over 421,000 followers on
Twitter
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33. Lesson #6:
Ask for ideas…and use them
Customers: Thinking of ways to build your company are great, but
directly asking your consumers what they want is better. Plus asking for
feedback and ideas is a great way to engage fans. Acting on that
information and doing it publicly is key to the success of this
campaign.
Employees: Many of your raving fans are employees. Empower them
to share information and participate socially in evangelizing the
brand.
33
34. Starbucks
My Starbucks Idea
To get a better handle on consumer
feedback, Starbucks launched “My
Starbucks Idea”
The site allows users to submit suggestions
to be voted on by Starbucks consumers,
and the most popular suggestions are
highlighted and reviewed
By empowering their exceptionally web
savvy consumer, Starbucks strengthens
their campaign to add a personal touch to
coffee .
35. BaconSalt
New BaconSalt Products
Makers of BaconSalt reached out to fans of
bacon on MySpace to gauge interest in
their new product
Baconaisse and bacon-flavored sunflower
seeds were later created after listening to
customer requests
35
36. Dell Hell > IdeaStorm
Dell Hell IdeaStorm
Turned around by “IdeaStorm” – a place to
vent, share ideas, vote
14k ideas 720k votes 89k comments
“I can’t find anyone to help me. Dell lies.
Dell sucks.”
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37. Dell Employee Storm
Use new listening platforms, identify in-house and external experts, and know and
influence key people
37
38. Vitamin Water flavorcreator
Vitamin water on FB flavor creator lab
environment within the fan page
7 minutes of engagement per app session
Tens of thousands of total votes
40K unique label designers
Black Cherry-Lime Caffeine + 8 key
ingredients made by fans for fans
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39. Lesson #7:
Consider social channels that are not mainstream
Nonstandard channels have powerful impact: Women in particular
tend to trust women’s communities more than social networks and rely on
them more for purchase influence
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40. Women’s Communities
A recent report from eMarketer.com shows
that women tend to trust Women’s
communities like iVillage, CafeMom and
Baby Center for information on brands and
products
They rely on social networks more for
keeping up with friends and family
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42. Mom-oriented Programs and Portals
Cheerios Mommy Bloggers on Facebook CafeMom diet-oriented groups
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43. Kohl’s: Inspire Mom-to-Mom Conversation
In spring 2008, Kohl’s wanted to stimulate There were tens of thousands of visits to
conversation among its target customers, the CafeMom Kohl’s Brand Profile page
women between the ages of 25-54 Member comments across the site were
Kohl’s partnered with CafeMom, the also peppered with Kohl’s and color-
leading social-networking/community site oriented shopping discussion – a true
for Moms indicator of engagement
CafeMom identified top influencers and A market research study, comparing moms
offered them a gift card to participate exposed to the program versus a control
Participants were asked to blog about their group, showed that this program moved
“color driven” shopping experience and the needle (at a 90% confidence level) on
share photos to support the “Connect brand awareness, brand association, and
with Color” campaign purchase intent
Co-branded media featuring the influencer
moms appeared on cafemom during this
campaign
Source: http://www.womma.org/casestudy/examples/work-with-social-networks/kohls-inspires-colorful-momtom/
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44. Fiskars Fiskateers
Fiskars builds community of avid crafters
An over 300-year-old company, Fiskars was
looking for way to take its message to the under-
utilized channel of small retailers
Reaching these merchants would have been
prohibitively expensive if done by a core
marketing team
Fiskars let its customers do the talking through
its Fiskateers program
Members have to apply
Meetings are craft “parties”with Fiskars
employees on hand to observe, get feedback and
provide product advice
Customer feedback infuses the entire Fiskars
culture
Resulted in 3x increase in year-over-year sales
Now there are more than 6,000 Fiskateers
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45. Lesson Summary
1. Use the right channels to support your brand strategy (not ALL channels
are appropriate)
2. Develop innovative applications – fun and cause-based applications are
most sharable and engaging; humor is also effective regardless of industry
3. Develop influence strategies that create mutual benefit
4. Consumers make decisions based on friends’ recommendations
5. Offer special incentives to social followers and influencers
6. Ask for ideas…and use them (from both customers and employees)
7. Consider social channels that are not mainstream
45
46. Twitter | @carisultanik
Email | csultanik@gmail.com
Web | www.carisultanik.com
Cari Sultanik
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