According to Converse’s chief marketing officer, Geoff Cottrill, the secret of successful Facebook marketing is to do nothing.
Well, that may not be verbatim, but Cottrill does admit that on the day he learnt that Converse had 8 million fans and was asked what the brand should do, he did indeed reply: “Nothing”.
Converse now has more than 15 million fans on Facebook, which is almost four times more than its parent company, Nike and about eight times as many as Adidas.
Having achieved this with a smaller advertising budget than many of its competitors, Converse has proven that abundant ad dollars are not essential for an effective social media strategy.
When Cottrill refers to doing nothing, he specifically means doing more listening than talking, like a good dinner party guest.
“By showing respect and trusting your consumers, I believe your brand benefits via strong advocacy –- having millions of advocates can be a powerful thing. You just have to let go and trust your consumers, ” he said. More »
The majority of marketers plan to increase their spend on social media marketing this year, with a focus on Facebook marketing to drive ‘Likes’.
So found a poll of marketers from companies such as Bank of America and Colgate-Palmolive and advertising agency executives conducted by Effie Worldwide and Mashable this February.
Of those surveyed, a striking 70% plan to boost their social media budgets by more than 10% this year. Speaking on behalf of themselves and their clients, respondents forecast spending 11.9% of their overall marketing budgets on social networking, compared with 13% for television. These predictions do not necessarily tally with last year’s ad spend figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau, which showed that $68.7 billion was ploughed into TV advertising last year, compared with just $26 billion spent on online.
Interestingly, Twitter did not take centre stage in the findings, as Facebook marketing was a focus looking forwards. Much of the forecast budget increases will be allocated to attracting Facebook fans, which 35% of those polled cited as their main goal in 2011.
The study also revealed some other interesting findings. When asked to name those brands ‘effectively getting their message across via social media’, the big winners were Old Spice (cited by 15%), Pepsi (8%), Starbucks (7%) and Ford (6%). More »
As online recommendations now stand among the most trusted forms of advertising, according to Nielsen, Facebook’s new tool offers up exciting opportunities for brands looking to maximise their Facebook marketing plans.
Following a year of beta testing, Facebook Questions finally rolled out globally on Facebook on March 24. The market research and crowdsourcing potential is vast, as companies can tap into real-time feedback from known fans in a trusted setting.
Brands should now ponder whether to leverage the tool similarly to other Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers, Quora and LocalMind, or to create a novel social media strategy.
Over at Mashable.com, Ben Grossman, communication strategist for Oxford Communications broke down the key differences between the sites’ functionality.
While Facebook Questions falls into roughly the same category as the aforementioned sites, there are two major differences; answers to questions are not free-form; users are limited to multiple-choice responses; questions (and their answers) are not yet catalogued by search engines, he explained.
The upshot is that for now, public Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers and Quora will remain important for public-facing customer support and inquiries. More »
Your social media marketing strategy seems to be going well; your Facebook brand profile has attracted plenty of likes, your intelligent, timely tweets have won you an army of Twitter followers, but then, quite suddenly, things start to go wrong. Your Facebook fans have started to de-friend you, while on Twitter, your core followers are nowhere to be seen – and it’s happening at an alarming pace. But why do people break their relationships with brands in the social media space?
Interactive marketing services company ExactTarget has researched the issue, and here we present some of the foremost stats and tips to encourage your online relationships to thrive.
Of the 73% of Facebook users surveyed, a majority of 64% claim to be ‘fans’ of, or have ‘liked’ a company or brand.
Despite this, 55% of those fans find they no longer want to view your posts, and 51% rarely, if ever, visit your business page on Facebook after liking it.
Excessive posting accounts for 44% of the decisions to ‘unlike’, while 43% of Facebook users feel that their account is too crowded with brands.
38% say marketers aren’t offering fresh content, while 26% say claim that all they were interested in were offers and discounts. More »
Over the past six months there has been a dramatic increase of fan numbers on the Sony Ericsson Facebook page, now showing at 3,078,716 fans. Statistics show that fan numbers have in fact doubled since mid-October.
Q. What is driving fan loyalty and what social media activities does the company use to build such a following?
A. Give-away contests, a strategy which has been popular amongst consumers long-term, both online and off. Sony has been giving away prizes ranging from phones to World Cup tickets in exchange for fan loyalty and participation.
Competitions have ranged from giving fans the chance to win one of the latest Sony Ericsson handsets via a weekly trivia question, or the opportunity to win tickets to last summer’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
The latest giveaway contest from Sony launched on Facebook, celebrates its Xperia X10 mini phone launch, challenging fans to compete for a free handset. More »
Vero Moda is an international fashion brand with outlets across Europe, Scandinavia, China and the Middle East. The brand is targeted at young women, selling quality clothing reflecting the latest trends at an affordable price.
The Challenge
Vero Moda face fierce competition for the attention of young consumers in the Middle East region. The company wanted to develop a regional online strategy to help interact with their customers and build a following using social media.
The Solution
Working with Jordan based online marketing company, The Online Project, the company launched a basic Facebook Page, to build a community around their brand, and enabling the company to connect to consumers and help them to find out more about their products and clothes lines. More »
In our daily noodling on Facebook, we don’t have the sense that we’re writing our personal history – but think ahead fifty years and our Facebook profile may end up as the ultimate story of our lives – as depicted in this excellent film from Maxime Luere of Akama Studio.
Ahead of all the pop videos in the last 7 days, this goal celebration is the number one viral video worldwide, 10+ million views and 125K Facebook shares.
Facebook had a ‘do’ on the roof of their Palo Alto offices last week, specifically for PR people, imparting useful information such as how to “like” any article online, use a Firefox plug-in and tips on live-streaming.
They’ve set up a PR page too (of course) which now has 3000+ fans and perhaps have started to take PRs seriously as future partners. There’s no doubt the interest is reciprocated, though most big brands are proceeding with caution.
Ford has just made a bold move however in eschewing the traditional auto show and advertising biltz, to launch their new Explorer model on Facebook.
They’ve used it a a kind of hyprid press room/consumer information hub, containing several video interviews, pre and post ‘reveal’ photos, a competition to win a new Explorer and a schedule of live city events.
Facebook revenue may have neared $800m in 2009, almost double previously estimates, according to a report from Reuters.
Last July, Facebook board member Marc Andreessen told Reuters the company was on track to surpass $500 million in annual revenue for 2009. In September, Facebook said that it had become free cash flow positive, meaning that the company was generating enough cash to cover its operating expenses as well as its capital spending needs.
Estimates in various media reports had previously pegged the company’s 2009 revenue at $550 million to $700 million.
The two sources said revenue in 2009 was in fact $700 million to $800 million.
“They are downplaying their performance,” one source told Reuters, adding that 2009 revenue was more than double the previous year’s total. “There’s no upside in getting people’s expectations high, it’s always better to go low.”
If Facebook eventually seeks to go public, unveiling financial figures above expectations could help bolster investor interest. More »
According to Converse’s chief marketing officer, Geoff Cottrill, the secret of successful Facebook marketing is to do nothing.
The majority of marketers plan to increase their spend on
Over the past six months there has been a dramatic increase of fan numbers on the Sony Ericsson Facebook page, now showing at 3,078,716 fans. Statistics show that fan numbers have in fact doubled since mid-October.
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