Latest Social Media content from Econsultancy

Walgreens launches new Foursquare and Twitter campaign

2012-02-08T23:50:00+00:00

This type of tweet is perfect if the person who checked in was looking for cold products. It is the flu season after all. For those who get it, and don't need Halls, they may disregard or unfollow. Those who are fervent about true engagement may dislike this approach. The only worry may be for those looking to follow Walgreens as they may be turned off if they stumble upon the Twitter feed.

As you can see from Walgreens Twitter page, it has been overtaken by two versions of an ad for Halls Warm-ups cough drops.

Twitter hides @ replies unless you follow both parties. So if you follow Walgreens, you won't see these replies in your stream unless you have that option set on Tweetdeck or are on Walgreen's page itself. For most, they'd never see the multiple tweets above.

Michael Muse, Co-Founder and VP of Product & Operations for LocalReponse, had reservations at first about this type of approach on Twitter but it sooned changed as his company tested its model.

For local businesses, they have a very different voice then nationals so it works for them and can be quite personal. What's interesting is that over time is that we looked at bigger brands and thought this could work for them if it was done right.

So we customise for clients. The first step is you can't reply to people not talking to you. If the client wants to reach out to people who are shopping for certain things or only on Tuesdays, we cater to that. There is a selection bias and it focuses on people who are interested and engaged.

Every single campaign we've run has less than 2% opt-out rate. Also we provide frequency caps, rate limits, and a 2 level opt out to better serve users who do not wish to receive replies to their check-ins. No one receives more than one tweet per day from companies on the platform, one tweet per week from the same campaign and no more than one tweet a month from an advertiser.

It's all about experimenting. Advisors Muse met with told him this happens in every medium. There are potential pitfalls, you develop best practise and then you have specific guidelines you can follow.

LocalResponse has its own guidelines companies have to meet to use their service. As Muse outlines

If a campaign's goals in targeting do not meet all of our guidelines for context, we offer another product that can go broader: retargeting with banner ads as an alternative to response. This allows for broader targeting, but with banners instead of responses. The majority of our clients use this product, often in conjunction with the response product.

It is refreshing to see Walgreens take a chance on a start up in conjunction with a large social media campaign. Not many large companies do.

With no background on how this campaign is being run, the efforts could be misconstrued or seen as “spammy”. By taking the whole picture into account, this may be another way brands can reach the customers interested in them.

It will be interesting to see the results of this campaign, and if they are as successful as the other campaigns run by LocalResponse so far, it may be one we may be seeing a lot of.

Marketer versus machine discussions dominate OMS 2012

2012-02-08T19:38:00+00:00

The session began with a preview of the findings of our upcoming study of marketing attribution, in partnership with Google Analytics. Attribution is a hot topic at OMS and any other marketing conference you're likely to attend, with good reason. Done properly, attribution can greatly expand marketers' knowledge of how channels work, how they work together and how different customer segments interact with marketing.

Key takeaways from the research show that organizations need to:

Prepare for changeOrganizations have to be prepared for the changes that attribution should cause to media mix and budget. If compensation packages are still tied to siloed spending, there will be resistance to adopting an attribution-based model.
Be aware of the effect of change on customersMarketing automation is another set of practices and technologies that can have a profound effect on the customer relationship. At its best it decreases the sales cycle, increases lead quality and boosts retention. It also saves marketers from busy-work.
Successful automation takes people, ironically. It requires the technical resources at the front end to ensure that the technology fits with and talks to existing systems, as well as the people with the creativity and commitment to making automation work. The strongest play is to attach compensation elements to automation goals; with so many priorities, marketers have an easy time prioritizing against their personal bottom lines.
Commit to the customer experienceCustomer experience is an exploding area of interest for marketers and the many vendors serving the space. There are many facets to the 'customer experience' and marketers can choose from a wide set of methods and technologies for observing, collecting data and evaluating how customers interact with marketing assets.
The big question for organizations is how far they're committed to going in their orientation around the customer. Are they willing to reorganize around customer segments, or are they looking at measures like cross-disciplinary teams to spread the lessons of customer analysis? For those that commit deeply, the benefits include higher dollar values per customer, easier retention, and improved products/services.

We also touched on a few specific channels where we have recently conducted research including:

Mobile
The key takeaway is simple; no company has the luxury of ignoring their mobile visitors. The growth rate of visits from mobile devices is through the roof, regardless of sector. One place where companies are failing to capitalize on this growth is mobile behavior. Only 27% of companies have some awareness of how mobile visitors' behavior differs from web visitors. They're ignoring vital information that should be informing their mobile strategy, sites and/or apps.
Email
Recently, we completed a study of email practice in conjunction with the Email Experience Council of the DMA. The interplay between social and email is on everyone's mind, but few are trying to cross pollinate between the channels. Even though a channel like Twitter delivers a very different value and experience from email, companies aren't trying to use the content that's unique to each channel to encourage multi-channel opt-in from their subscribers. Nor are they likely to have a strategy for how social and email programs work in tandem.
Social
Social engagement ranks as the top priority for marketers responding to our Quarterly Digital Intelligence Survey conducted in partnership with Adobe. Yet, social measurement lags far behind on the list. This is especially ironic because marketers are likely to agree with the statement that social has produced more goals and programs, without generating the revenue to support them. Our conversations with attribution marketers often turned up insight on how social was a 'helping' tactic for the sale, but without measurement, social will remain caught in a limbo between promise and performance.

Users see 15% increase in revenue when using Ecwid Facebook app

2012-02-08T13:59:00+00:00

Ecwid’s widget, which is fully customisable and created entirely in Ajax, can be installed in minutes – and is the second biggest e-commerce platform on Facebook. It’s second only to Payvment, which is based in the US.

Total orders made through Ecwid’s stores on Facebook increased by tenfold in 2011 and total revenue through Facebook increased by 40% year on year. Additionally, the number of fans that like Facebook pages which use Ecwid is now over 10.5m.

Overall revenue through Ecwid Stores across all channels (including blogs and websites) has grown 300% in the last 12 months, with users jumping to 140,000 – a figures that’s currently growing at over 10,000 a month.

Today the company also released an update that allows website owners to ask customers for additional information during checkout to be added to an order (such as a gift note, preferred delivery time or specific delivery instructions). Plus, they can select product options such as sizing or colour, and have greater visibility over pending PayPal orders.

The software is free to use with all of the features above for up to 100 products, and a paid version at $17 a month allows users to add affiliate tracking codes to the conversion page, view unfinished sales and show up to 20,000 products.

Ecwid founder and CEO Ruslan Fazlvev said that the tool makes it easy for people to start monetising their sites and pages with varying levels of technical expertise.

Traditionally, users would be required to build and maintain a separate e-commerce site; pay for a hosted e-commerce solution; or add additional code to add individual 'Buy Now' buttons to their site, all of which can be a time consuming and costly exercise.”

Ecwid recently upgraded its Facebook application, allowing users who manage multiple pages to view them from a single dashboard - and integrating 'Fan Gate' functionality that shows different content to users dependent on whether they 'like' a page or not.

Russian-based Ecwid received $1.5m of funding in December 2011, which it used to open a new office in the US that serves its largely American client base.

Now the company is entering the UK, with further developments on the horizon that take their lead from the Guardian’s Facebook app, meaning that Ecwid purchases will soon show up in a customer’s newsfeed.

Sky's sound social media advice hijacked by brand police

2012-02-08T10:59:00+00:00

Yet the point made below, regarding editorial verification, seems all too fair.

Do not retweet information posted by other journalists or people on Twitter. Such information could be wrong and has not been through the Sky News editorial process."

Sadly, what probably started as an entirely valid exercise to lay out guidelines around fact-checking and the like, seems to have been taken over by the brand police. The clamp down on personal use of Twitter seems far too restrictive, putting the profile of the brand above that of the individual.

Where a story has been Tweeted by a Sky News journalist who is assigned to the story it is fine, desirable in fact, that it is retweeted by other Sky News staff.”

One the best ways to develop influence is to talk and interact with your peers, but when you leave a role - you take that with you. At least some of the theory here seems to be that if journalists don't talk to others, the influence remains tied to the Sky brand.

The email also apparently warns Sky News journalists to "stick to your own beat" and not to tweet about non-work subjects from their professional accounts.

So, to reiterate, don't tweet when it is not a story to which you have been assigned or a beat which you work."

Again, if an individual choses to separate work and personal accounts – this is actually fair. It isn't exactly best practice, but for some reporters it’s preferred.

Last year when ITV News snapped up one of the rising stars of the BBC, political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg, to take the newly created role of business editor, debate circulated around what was to become of her Twitter feed.

She was - and still is - one of the most high profile UK journalists on Twitter, using the site to deliver breaking news. In the end, she simply changed the name of her feed from @bbclaura to @itvlaurak, taking over 75,000 followers as she did so.

As Twitter is used more and more regularly by journalists, feeds in some cases become valid sources with huge followings.

Though the argument over who owns this depends on the circumstances, it’s understandable as to why Sky would want to introduce guidelines around use – protecting itself in the process.

It’s just a shame that this email, if accurate, seems to have been hijacked by those with other ideas.

Klout moves into mobile with Blockboard acquisition

2012-02-08T10:45:00+00:00

On its blog, Klout founder and CEO Joe Fernandez says that Blockboard’s: “simple, well-designed tool gives people a way to communicate with their neighbours about everything from local news and tips to lost pets and broken streetlights.”

He goes on to say that the acquisition will help Klout in its mission to unlock every person’s influence. Blockboard provides an awareness of how social media can be meaningfully woven into the fabric of a local community, as well as a "killer mobile app development team".

Blockboard says in its own post on the acquisition that Klout wants to expand its influence measurement into local communities, mobile devices, and other new contexts.

Last week we covered Net Promoter’s entrance into social media analytics, with the launch of SparkScore for brands. At the time, Klout rival Peer Index’s CEO Azeem Azhar highlighted the importance of taking influence within the context of an individual's network into account.

The acquisition will see the Blockboard team of four join the company, and bring with them an additional chunk of understanding in relation to community influence – and how that works from a mobile perspective.

It’s not a huge move, but it’s a start. As people turn to mobile more and more to share, recommend and connect, any influence measurement needs to take this into account in order to be comprehensive enough to survive. Especially as the credibility of such a metric comes under constant critcism.

Social media for the healthcare industry: examples from MENA

2012-02-08T08:34:00+00:00

The most challenging part of implementing a successful social media campaign is pulling in the relevant audience. Like in any other website, social media is driven by content.

It is common to find Twitter accounts without followers and Facebook pages without fans. You have to provide value to get value. Below are a few pointers on how to effectively do so.

Provide useful medical information

The internet is filled with medical advice from quacks. Consumers of such information can end up complicating their conditions further. Healthcare institutions can help bridge this gap by providing those in need with proper information and advice through social media.

You can provide simple solutions to common ailments and later follow up to determine the level of success. For complicated medical conditions, you can simply refer them to specialists in that field even though they do not belong to your organization.

This helps build trust and validates your noble intentions. You should never indulge in self promotion in the social media space. Users find it repulsive.

Social media enables you to have a one on one conversation with those seeking information. This builds your reputation and positions your institution as the go to source of reliable healthcare information.

This is the most effective way of marketing your products and services at almost no cost.

Social media can also bo effectively used to raise awareness about healthcare issues and be used to promote a health lifestyle.

For example, GE Healthcare's Get Fit social media competition on Twitter aimed to raise awarenss about cancer prevention and healthy living. The campaign elicited a strong response from the Middle East, with residents in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the UAE actively taking part to endorse a healthy lifestyle.

The GE global campaign took place as competition between different continents, where Twitter users simply tweeted what they were doing to to strive for a healthier lifestyle, with each tweet including a country-specific Get Fit hash tag.

The Get Fit website showed a map showing which continent generated the most 'healthy tweets'. The winning country in that continent (as determined by open vote) received a $20,000 donation to the Red Cross or Red Crescent society operating in that country.

Listen

Whether you like it or not, your clients are on social media and are talking about you. You can either choose to engage them or ignore them at your peril.

To successfully engage them, you first need to listen to what is being said about your organization and others in the industry.

This does not have to take too much time as there are apps that help you do this without too much of a hustle. There are many tools and specialists that can help you to track and analyze what is being said on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Listening allows you to fashion your communication with your audience according to their needs. Most healthcare providers make the mistake of throwing information at people yet they are unaware of their needs.

Initiate conversation

Instead of waiting for your audience to initiate conversation it is most often prudent to do so yourself. Although your audience may have ideas and suggestions on how to improve your products and services they may not voice them unless prompted.

You can leverage the power of social media to get feedback on any new products, payment procedures, doctor reviews and any other issues.

During large scale disasters that require emergency medical response, a hospital can use social media to give the public updates on the status of the crisis. You can give hotlines for the public to call in case they are stranded, survival tips, number of casualties and any other relevant information.

You can also help people find their loved ones who may have been admitted at your facility. A pharmaceutical company can share information on new drugs to fight epidemics and tips on avoiding infection.

This will grow your influence among members of the online community as more people seek out and share the information you provide.

A good example of a healthcare brand actively engaging in conversation on social networks is skincare services company, Kaya Skin Clinic. The skin speclalist actively replies to queries on Facebook, resolving issues and there-by building strong relationships with customers.

Take action

The most important thing on social media is reputation. You should guard it at all costs. Be truthful always. If an issue is raised, make sure that you respond to it and act accordingly. Failure to keep your word can damage the reputation of any healthcare institution irreparably.

Check your social media accounts regularly for any requests or comments that may need immediate response. Hiring a dedicated resource to do so can be a good idea.

Involve employees

To make your foray into social media successful you have to involve all the employees. Make it a team sport and they will gladly contribute to the growth of your influence in the social media space.

At the end of the day, employees are people who relate with others on social media. By recruiting them as evangelists you can increase the likelihood of success in your social media campaign.

Econsultancy's next Social Media Marketing training course takes place in Dubai on 22nd February 2012.This one-day workshop looks at the effect of social media and web 2.0 on marketing communications and public relations and provides valuable hands-on techniques and tools to understand and harness the opportunities of User Generated Content. Book your place now.

Image credit: GE Healthcare's Get Fit campaign website, Kaya Skin Clinic on Facebook

Path caught storing users' unencrypted data

2012-02-08T00:53:00+00:00

Path is a 16 month old social network that acts as a personal journal and allows you to share photo, video, music, people, places, and text to a select network of 150 people. Since version 2 was released, Path has surged to just over 2 million users.

In the last few hours since Thampi posted his discovery online, Path users have been up in arms. They were never asked permission for Path to access their address book. The bigger worry? Though with most apps collected data is encrypted, it appears Path is storing the actual information so all of your contacts are now online.

Dave Morin, Co-Founder and CEO of Path, was quick to respond in the comments of Thampi's post.

We believe that this type of friend finding & matching is important to the industry and that it is important that users clearly understand it, so we proactively rolled out an opt-in for this on our Android client a few weeks ago and are rolling out the opt-in for this in 2.0.6 of our iOS Client, pending App Store approval.

When asked why an opt-in for them to collect your data wasn't included from the very beginning, Morin responded that it was industry best practice.

The App Store guidelines do not specifically discuss contact information. However we believe users need further transparency on how this works, so we've been proactively addressing this...We fundamentally believe that you as a user should always have control over your information and data and you can always email our service team and we will remove anything you'd like from our servers.

It is good to see such openness in response but it's a naive one. Apple's app store guidelines states "Apps cannot transmit data about a user without obtaining the user's prior permission." To further believe that this will all be solved in the reply section of a blog means thousands of people's details may continue to be collected before the new app roles out. The only cravat is you can email Path on service@path.com and have your data (as well as your entire account) deleted.

Path may have always been a bit tricky when it comes to 'contacts.' The last version's UX made Facebook friends look like they were on Path so you would share. If this latest finding is any indication, they weren't and ghost profiles may have been created when you signed up.

Users have already been requesting their accounts to be deleted and data purged with proof but have yet to have a reply.

Ilicco Elia, Head of Mobile at LBi, doesn't think this is good enough.

I think they should delete all the data immediately but they will try to play it down. I shouldn't have to email to ask them to delete data they took without my knowledge.

I can understand companies innocently trying to make things easy for users, but what would happen if they were hacked and someone got access to my complete address book. People store personal notes in there.

I read "they are planning to hash the data" i.e. encrypt it which leads me to believe it is currently unencrypted on their server. And that to me is unacceptable. On my phone my information is protected behind a pin. On their server it is not.

Google’s use of private data has been under scrutiny in the US for years and Facebook, with their "run fast and break things" model, has equally played fast and loose with users data. But both have been brought to task in the past and the US and Europe is already looking to tighten laws around tracking users online. With such big players being called out over privacy issues, why did Path not protect itself and its users from this?

With the rise of mobile and m-commerce, what are the lessons for marketers and developers when considering future projects?

"Just because you know that you wouldn't 'do anything bad' with the data doesn't mean you are free to use it," continued Elia. "And if you must store my data on your server it had better be securely stored & encrypted because no matter how slowly you drive your car, there are always other people on the road who are reckless drivers i.e. you could get hacked and lose my info, through no fault of my own."

What do you think Path should do? Will they lose their growing user base due to this gaff so early in the game?

We have emailed Path with further questions but are still waiting for a reply or an official press release. Perhaps they are too busy deleting accounts.

*This image is entirely from the imagination of Kosso K

How brands lost the Super Bowl race for the second screen

2012-02-07T20:16:00+00:00

Monday’s industry blogs have been suggesting that brands should be praised for not ‘drinking the social media cool-aid.’ Hashtags represent a waste of time said Drew Olandoff from The Next Web; “…there’s absolutely no way I’m going to ask millions of people to use a hashtag. There’s just no context to be had there and nothing to be gained”

But what the commentators are missing is that a successful social media strategy does not begin and end with Facebook and Twitter. Rather it manifests itself most effectively when embedded in the behaviour that the brand exhibits. When used effectively as part of a well integrated plan it’s about being useful or entertaining. They need to create a compelling reason why people absolutely have to right now this minute reach over their chicken wings and beers and reach for their second screen to call up or act on that ad they’ve just seen.

According to research done by the Altimeter Group, although most ads promoted an online destination of some sort- only 16% of them promoted a call to action in what could be described as a social media space and a third had no online call to action whatsoever.

The real point here is not whether or not the TV spots drove people online –it’s about what value proposition did or didn’t await them there. Most of the TV ads that featured any online call to action at all simply encouraged people to go to the corporate website, but what would be in it for the viewers if they did? There’s been plenty of debate over who had the best or worst ad, but the point is why go out and splash $3.5 million on your 30 second spot without using social media to amplify its effect?

One of the best examples of a wasted opportunity came in the form of Budweiser commercial from Anomaly – an agency usually vaunted for its clever thinking. The ad featured a mashup of the Cult’s 1985 rock classic She Sells Sanctuary with Flo Rida’s track Good Feeling. Unfortunately the agency failed to score as there was no meaningful integration with an online strategy. Of the hundreds of millions watching, you can bet a fair few would’ve head to Google to locate the song, feet still tapping. Yet what they would have found was digital tumbleweed.

Apart from a few Cult fanzine sites, several weeks old, that announced that the ad was going to be aired, there appeared to be no strategy for using the creative assets to their full potential. What came as a big surprise was there was no corporate presence against any of the relevant searches from Budweiser – no ‘official version’ of the song or even a teaser announcing its forthcoming release. There was no iTunes link and not so much as a mention of the remixer who’s thought to combine these two tracks. They could have created something that had further reach and would drive consumers back to their own online space. As of today, they still haven't capitalised on that.

As a contrast, look at Sony’s Bravia TV launch in 2005. Their campaign went beyond their colourful ‘bouncing balls’ commercial. It featured a fully integrated microsite which had the Jose Gonzalez track freely available for download as well as a host of other goodies such as a screensaver and behind-the-scenes footage of the ad’s filming. So effective was this approach that it generated a vast amount of online buzz and huge volume of inbound links to the site which contributed to them ranking number 1 in Google for the term “advert”. The only shame is that they didn’t keep the microsite live or even better create it on a subdomain of the main Sony site, so only the wayback machine can show us a hint of what they did.

Above all, what this lack of integration shows is that there’s still a divide between Madison Avenue and Mountain View. Both agencies and advertisers were too cautious to try and mix things up, or more likely too stuck in their old planning models. This is bizarre because despite the fact that the event itself broke a new record for the number of tweets per second, very few brands actually capitalized on the second screen opportunity that presented itself better than Eli Manning’s pass to his wide receiver in the fourth quarter.

Perhaps like the New England Patriots’ quarterback, Tom Brady, the brand managers and CMOs will come to rue missed opportunities to get the most from this uniquely old fashioned spend-fest. In hindsight we can all see ways things can be improved and as the old adage goes it’s certainly easier to critique than create, but surely it wouldn’t have taken much to link a well designed digital experience to the TV spots?

Econsultancy’s JUMP (Joined Up Marketing Perspectives) conference launches in New York on May 23, 2012. If you want to learn how to create more integrated campaigns and build connected brands, come join us at JUMP. We might even buy you a Budweiser...

Experience an augmented Valentine's Day with Starbucks

2012-02-07T17:29:00+00:00

While in the app, you can create a virtual AR valentine which can only be seen if the recipient scans the Valentine's Day Starbucks cup. On top of that you can send an Starbucks Card eGift through the app and schedule it to arrive on Valentine's.

This limited campaign goes beyond Starbuck's own app and integrates other social platforms including Twitter and Instagram. It all revolves around the cup itself so either way, Starbucks could see an increase in purchase during February 6 - 16 when the campaign is being run.

This is Starbucks latest offering as it further expands into mobile. Their first experiment with the Starbucks Cup Magic app came during the 2011 holiday season. In 2011, Starbucks expanded its mobile payment program to more than 9,000 US locations and rolled out the ability to send Starbucks Card eGifts.

It is a small wonder Starbucks are continuing to push into the mobile and interactive space. Last year, there were 26 million mobile transactions with $110.5 million reloaded onto Starbucks Cards directly through the mobile app. There has also been increased adoption in the mobile space by Starbuck’s customers. Mobile transactions have doubled when comparing the first 9 weeks of January when they launched and a 9 week period only 9 months later. The first quarter of 2012 also saw an increase of 11% in the US over Q1 in 2011. This is primarily due to a 9% increase in comparable store sales. Though Starbucks haven't detailed how much of that is due to mobile, it is easy to assume it is a contributing factor.

Of course, this type of campaign only works for those customers who notice they can interact with the cup itself. As this is still new territory for consumers in the US, it will take time for them to expect this interactivity with packaging. In any case, Starbucks is ahead of the game in the mobile retail space and will only gain to benefit when other retailers follow suit.

Do sponsored messages ever work online?

2012-02-07T14:53:40+00:00

A deeper investigation in to the feedback reveals that:

Almost all of the feedback comes from four accounts.
Many accounts that left feedback have no avatar image or bio.
Most feedback is a single word like “Great!” repeated across multiple items.

Here’s an example snapshot of feedback:

The negative reviews are damning as well:

Taking all of this in to consideration it’s easy to see that this particular “paid tweets” service is poor. That’s just one example from Fiverr but you can see the same pattern of spam feedback and extreme negative comments here.

Although my personal favourite is this one:

Because who doesn’t want to be spammed with the same message for the rest of time?

It’s not just Fiverr.com, Ad.ly has an equally bad review from Ian Lurie with the great line:

Sponsored tweets rank in profitability somewhere below hiring alchemists to try to turn lead into gold.

What’s the risk?

Part of the problem is that it’s very easy to amass a large Twitter following very quickly through spammy tactics, such as following a lot of people, then un-following those that don’t follow back.

So one account with 40,000 followers could be rubbish if it’s been made in this way. The followers won’t trust what is said on the account, which means it would very rarely lead to sales.

If you compare this to a natural account that was grown slowly with only a thousand followers, this could be a far better option if the fans are engaged and actually care about and believe what the person says.

The other thing to consider is that to be legal, any message that is made to promote your product must be labelled as sponsored (such as by writing #spon).

The Office of Fair Trading has begun a crackdown in this area to ensure the rules are being followed. Which begs the question: if people know someone has been paid to post a sponsored message, will they believe it?

Let’s take two examples:

The first example is paid, the second is a beauty blogger who tried the product. Whilst the first one is very clearly a corporate plug, the second could have occurred naturally by someone who liked and enjoyed the product.

It’s likely that seeing “spon” on messages will become the equivalent of “I’ll just pop out for a cuppah” or using Sky+ to fast forward adverts.

This type of advert blindness is going to make people less receptive to sponsored tweets and more sceptical of these types of endorsements, especially when crammed in to 140 characters.

So do sponsored messages ever work?

If you don’t get sponsored messages absolutely right you also face investigation from legal bodies. The Katie Price snickers campaign is one such campaign being investigated as it had a leading series of messages, only that last of which was labelled as sponsored.

This means that people who saw the early messages in isolation (via retweets or missing the feed) didn’t get the whole picture.

Sponsored messages can work, but they do carry a lot of risk. For all the fallout from the Snickers campaign it got a lot of people talking about the brand. It was a great PR stunt, and if you don’t take it too seriously, actually funny too.

Yes, Katie Price was temporarily intelligent and eating a snickers did make her return back in to an “idiot”, but at the same time it played around with media perceptions and was an interesting enough campaign to get picked up in a lot of places.

Organising a campaign with a celebrity isn’t as hard as you’d think either. Sponsored Tweets list celebrities and you can take your pick.

As for whether or not they’re worth it, well unless you create something viral like Snickers did, most campaigns will only ever stick with the original celebrity so you get a one hit of coverage and views and that’s your lot.

There must be a better way

The Apple Approach

Apple is the most extreme brand for customer love. People like to post genuine messages of affection for the brand’s products, they do it for free, and they do it because they love the brand.

There’s no trickery here, and those honest messages help to encourage more people to get involved with the brand.

If people don’t naturally say nice things about your brand then you can get them involved in your brand instead. Cadbury’s are the kings at this. They recently launched a new Wispa pack via Facebook and got a “super-fan” to reveal it.

The over 270 comments that resulted from this are then helping to spread the word for free.

Want more examples?

The TOM’s shoes philosophy of giving away a pair of shoes to the third world whenever a pair is sold, makes them a brand people like to talk about.
Gucci has 6.3m Facebook fans. The quality of the product is what gets people talking about them.
Like our beauty blogger earlier, you can send products out to get them reviewed (More detail on this here).
When one of our employees had a bad experience with AutoGlass, he tweeted the company and it was fixed within days. He then wrote an article praising the service.
Equally, bad service can get you noticed in the wrong way, such as the McDStories hashtag or the same for Quantas that became flooded with bad experiences.
Creating fun shareable content will get your brand noticed. A page about Hydraulic Fracturing should not have 7,000 Facebook shares but it does because it’s well designed content.

So yes, you could pay for coverage, or you could get lifelong coverage by being a fun brand, with likeable content and good customer service. Your choice.