Hitachi Data Systems is a large, conservative, business-to-business brand that sells to C-level executives through 18-month sales cycles, often through partners. So, when Hitachi’s Sharon Crost shared a case study at our BlogWell conference, she was candid in saying the company wasn’t sure social media were right for it.
But Hitachi was willing to give it a shot if it could keep the budget low and use tracking to closely monitor results.
In her presentation, Crost shared five shortcuts learned along the way and how the test project more than doubled Hitachi’s goals for Web traffic, social engagement and live sales leads.
Her shortcuts:
- Test early and often. You’re not going to know which content is socially engaging until you start testing and trying things out.
- Segment. Provide different levels of engagement for your audience, and let it self-select.
- Amplify. You don’t need a big budget to amplify what you’re doing.
During the past year, Yahoo! has focused on building its footprint in social media. Even though it reaches 700 million people a month with its online properties, this huge traffic and attention weren’t being reflected in the numbers of social media fans.
So to build up communities around Yahoo!’s brands, the company launched a series of campaigns designed to attract and engage specific audiences. At our recent BlogWell conference in San Francisco, Yahoo!’s Robin Zucker walked us through one of the projects for Yahoo! Movies.
Her case study covered the strategy behind the project, how it was done and how it all resulted in a million Facebook fans.
A few of her big ideas:
- Focus on earning the right fans. Zucker and her team targeted moviegoers for this entire project because they wanted to build a fan base of people who love movies and love going to them. These are the people they want to build a relationship with at Yahoo!
National Geographic is one of the most beloved brands of all time. So it’s no surprise that on Facebook and Twitter, this passion is reflected in its huge fan numbers.
But how does National Geographic manage it all? How does it find content that fans want to share? What is the voice of the brand? At our last Word of Mouth event, National Geographic’s Brendan Hart shared a bunch of the secrets about how it is done.
A few of his big ideas:
- Define your voice and the team behind it. When National Geographic first launched on Twitter, Hart ran the account — but over time, he weaned himself off because he didn’t think it would scale with him alone. So, he turned the reins over to a core team, and, with a laugh, he said growth has been exponential since making the change.
- Who are you, and what are you trying to do?
Dell has become legendary for the way it engages with fans and customers. Though its initial introduction to online word of mouth was a little rough, only us marketing folks really talk about that anymore. What most people think of is how responsive and proactive the company is when it comes to talking with customers.
At our last Word of Mouth event, former Dell executive Caroline Dietz talked about how the company developed its engagement program, launched its IdeaStorm community and started identifying and supporting online fans.
A few of her big points:
- Not all customers and conversations are the same. At Dell, conversations are separated into three buckets: customers who need support, people with suggestions and brand reputation (happy fans and customers).
- Ask influencers and fans for feedback. A great way to start and engage in a conversation is to ask for feedback. Before Dell launched IdeaStorm, it reached out to 25 key online influencers and asked them to play around with the community and provide feedback.
In 2006, Kira Wampler became Intuit’s first word-of-mouth marketing manager. While at Intuit, Wampler, who’s now at Lytro, performed duties including launching branded social media channels, running integrated marketing campaigns and leading the company’s online customer community.
And throughout it all, Wampler faced a question that many marketers face: How do you measure this stuff?
At our last Word of Mouth event, Wampler described how she was able to measure word-of-mouth and social media efforts and how she communicated results to senior leadership.
A few of her key tips:
- Do the basics to measure direct product adoption. Wampler said so many of us forget the basics: including social media URLs in existing dashboards, using coupon codes and putting ads in our communities (if they’re big enough and you do it right). Even if you have a small fan base, this will help you get started.
- Always tie what you’re measuring to what matters.
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