Throwing in a hashtag doesn’t count as incorporating social into your traditional marketing. Incorporating social is about making content more engaging by letting it do what traditional ads can’t. Derek Schoen, MGM Resorts International’s social media and marketing manager for Aria, says you can do this even with a print ad that has already run.
In his presentation at SocialMedia.org‘s BlogWell conference in Los Angeles, Schoen shares how he made social media part of two traditional advertising campaigns: one that had already run and one that was made to be social.
Some key points from his presentation:
- Keep it consistent. It’s important to have a clear tie between traditional ads and social media marketing. Schoen says details make the difference between your audience being engaged or confused.
- Social can tell stories ads can’t. Schoen says social media allows fans to dig as deep into a story as they want.
When Raytheon wanted to cover one of its biggest events of the year, it faced a variety of challenges. Arms-export laws, diplomatic sensitivities and security fears were among the difficulties of covering the top-secret air show in real time. But according to Raytheon’s Chris Hawley, it was all worth it to get the brand’s biggest influencer group — civilians — talking.
He explains that marketing directly to the folks who could sign contracts with Raytheon — military generals — was the old way of doing things. Now, the company has to focus on the people who would be its brand advocates: military families, veterans, staffers and aviation enthusiasts. At SocialMedia.org’s BlogWell conference in Los Angeles, Hawley explains how Raytheon brought its stories to these influencers and spread a lot of word-of-mouth by doing live coverage of the Farnborough International Airshow.
Here are some big ideas from his BlogWell presentation.
- Tons of content doesn’t make up for mediocre content.
Social media is great for earning new fans and getting them to talk about you. But for Life Technologies, word-of-mouth was just the beginning of what the company could do with social media. The brand wanted to get enlightened.
In her presentation at SocialMedia.org‘s BlogWell conference in Los Angeles, Life Technologies’ global senior e-marketing manager for search and social, Robin Smith, explains how the deep relationships the company makes with its fans help influence the stuff the company makes and how it does business. This is about more than a crowdsourced marketing stunt — this is about a sustainable way to actively make your business better with social media.
Some key points from her BlogWell presentation:
- Customers relate to a person, not a company. Making real, human relationships with individuals, as individuals, is key to earning your fans’ trust and opinions. Smith says Life Technologies works hard to let employees have their own voice in social media.
While everyone loves video, there’s not a huge demand for perfect video. For Kaiser Permanente, this love of video content offered a great opportunity to show off the stories traditional advertising couldn’t tell and give people a great reason to check them out. So the company started a video blog.
In his presentation at SocialMedia.org‘s BlogWell conference in Los Angeles, Kaiser Permanente’s director of digital media and syndication, Vince Golla, talked about how the company brought its fans’ genuine, unscripted stories to a bigger audience without hiring an expensive production company.
Some key takeaways from his presentation:
- You can’t sample health care. Kaiser Permanente needed to show people in compelling, honest ways reasons customers love the brand. So the company turned to video testimonials and spotlighting the people who make it great: its staff.
- Your videos don’t have to be perfect. Golla says to keep the video blog sustainable, the company had to pull production off on its own.
Mattel had a clever, timely and inspirational campaign when it put Barbie in for the presidential race. The brand set up news conferences, sponsored events for the White House Project and got the designer who dressed Michelle Obama to make Barbie an outfit. But even with all of these cool details in place, the company faced a deadline that could potentially stop all of the word-of-mouth it had earned: Election Day.
In their presentation at SocialMedia.org‘s BlogWell conference in Los Angeles, Mattel’s social media managers, Travis Harding and Jessica Kimiabakhsh, explained how they used a variety of social media platforms to get fans interested and continue advocacy, even after Barbie’s presidential campaign was over.
Some key points from their BlogWell presentation:
- Find ways to stay relevant even after one-off campaigns. Harding and Kimiabakhsh decided to use Tumblr as the hub for all of Barbie’s presidential material, instead of building a microsite, so they could easily transition their content.
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