Social Media: The Double Edged Sword

     In this world, there are many things that can be both a blessing and a curse, and social media happens to be one of those things.  Prior to the advent and widespread acceptance of social media, marketing was conducted largely through more expensive and onerous means.  Social media marketing is certainly not void of cost however, as developing an effective social media marketing strategy and successfully executing it requires employees or consultants with a special skill set.  Once the creative talent has been secured, using the various social media platforms for marketing is very affordable compared to traditional marketing mediums.

    This affordability is advantageous to businesses as it can lead to lower marketing cost, and it is particularly valuable to small and mid-sized businesses that have trouble adequately funding their marketing efforts.  While social media marketing can be a godsend to many businesses and help them interact with consumers in a revolutionary way, it is important to remember that careless handling and management of your company's social media pages can adversely impact your company and possibly lead to a dilution of your brand value.

The family audience wasn't crazy about this tweet

    At this point you might be wondering exactly what I am talking about, but there are myriad examples in the news of social media blunders that have cost companies consumers, and resulted in brand damage.  One of the most recent examples would have to be the Los Angeles Kings decision to allow a local morning show host to take over its twitter feed during a playoff game.  This radio show host apparently has a love it or hate it brand of humor, which while amusing to some, has the potential to alienate many customers.  Lo and behold, this host made a twitter comment that compared the game play to sexual assault at one point.  Many fans were upset by that post, and the Kings ended up having to make a public apology for the comments made by the host.

     While the tweet from the LA Kings account offended some, the next social media crisis had many up in arms.  When one hears KitchenAid, images of various handy and helpful kitchen appliances normally comes to mind, but careless handling of the company's twitter page resulted in what I would call, very bad publicity. As has happened many times in the past, an employee with access to their company's twitter feed mistakenly sent a tweet thinking it was from their own account.  This same scenario played out for KitchenAid when an employee tweeted the tasteless comment below.  

Probably not the best way to win over consumers...

     Once a company decides to engage is social media marketing, it has to be understood that this model allows them to interact with consumers on a more personal level.  This makes social media a prized asset that companies must protect accordingly.

     In order for companies to avoid committing a serious social media blunder, it's wise to take a few precautions.  Account passwords should be given to as few individuals as possible.  With less people accessing your company's page, the less chance there is for a mistake to occur.  It is also crucial to remember that your company will accept money from people of all walks of life, so be sure to avoid any post or tweets that are political in nature.  Now no one is perfect, so if a company does commit a social media blunder, it is essential that it quickly apologize in an attempt to diffuse the situation.  Remember, social media can be a great asset to a company, as long as it is used responsibly.

I'm interested in hearing if any of you have ideas for mitigating the risk of committing a social media blunder!

KitchenAid quickly apologized for the previous remark made from its account

Can Crowd Sourcing Help Your Business?

     Social media provides businesses with an array of mediums they can use to communicate with consumers.  Many of these medium are largely used as conduits for business to convey information to consumers rather than the other way around. Now this one way conduit can provide consumers will valuable information and appealing deals, but it fails to truly engage consumers.  Businesses often time fail to remember or even acknowledge that engaging consumers can reveal new ideas and creative expressions that never would have been realized otherwise.  

     Crowd sourcing usually begins with companies directly reaching out to customers via their websites or social media sites.  Companies looking for ways to increase their customer satisfaction through service improvements, or product modifications and creations have found crowd sourcing to be especially useful. The extremely popular coffee chain Starbucks is a avid user of crowd.  They have a tab on their page that allows consumers to post various ideas.  Community users in turn are allowed to vote on these ideas, which in turn helps Starbucks sift through the suggestions.  

     In addition to receiving product and business operation suggestions, consumers can be engaged in an even more direct manner through which they design new products objects for specific companies.  As of last week, Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks asked fans to design new uniforms for his team and upload them o his blog.  He will in turn review the submissions and possibly choice one of them to be the team's future uniform.  Known for being very sharp, Mark Cuban has posted on many sites, including his blog, that the Dallas Mavericks automatically receive rights to every design submitted.  So, when devising a crowd sourcing project, think about what legal implications the contest might have

Maverick's Owner Mark Cuban

    As you look at your company's social media presence, consider the ways in which crowd sourcing could help your company.

Social Media: To be Sexy or not to be, That is the Question

      It's no secret that sex can certainly sell when it comes to advertising.  While the sex appeal angle can often times be controversial when used in traditional marketing campaigns, it nonetheless creates quite a buzz.  Myriad sexually charged television advertisements have been pulled in the past after a public outcry, but these ads often times continue to live on in the real of social media, mostly thanks to YouTube.  In addition to television ads that have been relocated to YouTube, you can find numerous other provocative videos on YouTube that were made specifically for that platform.  Considering the fact that many people point out the fact that sex sells, you have to ask yourself if sex will create a buzz and favorably increase awareness for your own product or service.  Still not convinced, then take a look at the sexually provocative Radio Shack commercial below.  It has been available for only a few days, and has already generated over 857,000 YouTube views.

                       The beats pill commercial was released by Radio Shack on April 29, 2013; and already has over 857,000 views on YouTube.

     As you ask yourself if a sexually charged social media marketing scheme that relies on provocative YouTube video's is right for you, you must first look at your audience. Are you trying to sell a product or service to an audience that is easily offended?  If you're looking to market your family cleaning service for instance, sexy would probably not be the way to go.  Likewise, if you have opened a family restaurant and are trying to get customers in the door, it would be wise to avoid sexually charged social media videos and advertising.  In stark contrast, a restaurant such as hooters could very successfully advertise its business by making sexy videos available on social media sites.

Kate Upon made this new Hardee's burger look sexy on tv, but the ad was soon pulled after a public outcry.  Nonetheless, it lives on in social media.

     What you need to consider when contemplating the use of sexually charged advertising is the nature of your target audience.  If you offer a product primarily aimed at men, then sexually charged videos featuring females would probably generate a positive buzz amongst the target audience.  Be careful though because possible female customers might be turned off by such marketing gimmicks, so be sure that the gain outweighs the risk when contemplating this marketing plan.  While many sexually charged videos and commercials are aimed at men, it is likely that this same strategy could be used to appeal to female customers if used correctly.

This video of an attractive woman riding in a Ford Raptor has garnered almost 6.9 million views, begging the question, can sex help sell your product?

     I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this matter, should companies ever use sexually charged videos when marketing their products or services on social media platforms?  When is such a strategy appropriate, and when is it not?

Aligning Social Media Platforms with Business Needs

Aligning Social Media Platforms with Business Needs

     With the litany of social media platforms available in this day and age, many businesses make the mistake of focusing on quantity over quality.  They preoccupy themselves with establishing a presence on multiple platforms, which leads to a loss of efficiency and actually causes diminishing social media marketing returns.  In order to maximize the effectiveness of your social media marketing campaign, it is imperative that your company carefully evaluate the social media platforms available, and determine which ones best suit it’s needs. 

     Prior to evaluating the ideal platforms for your businesses social media marketing project, it is essential that the target audience be identified.  For a deeper look on identifying the applicable target audience, please see my earlier blog.   Identifying the target audience is pivotal to the evaluation process because certain audiences tend to gravitate towards specific social media platforms.  For instance, if the target audience for a product was 18-25 year old college students and young adults, an extensive marketing campaign focused on the social media platform Linkedin would produce less benefit because it has a rather low usage rate amongst the target audience.

                                      What platforms would be popular with an audience like this?

     
     Once the target audience has been identified, your business can begin evaluating which social media platforms are most aligned with its goal of reaching the target audience. If your business operates on a business to consumer model, you will want to carefully evaluate the characteristics of the target audience.  Some of these characteristics would include age, socio-economic status, and sex.  The aforementioned characteristics in no way constitute a complete list of evaluation criteria, but they give you a general idea of what to look for when analyzing your target audience.  After breaking down the target audience, you can begin piecing together which social media platforms they are more likely to use, and just as importantly, which ones they will use on a regular basis. 

     A company that operates on a business to business model would approach platform selection differently than a business to consumer model company.  If you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense for a b2b company to create a Facebook fan page, and use Pinterest because its clients will not likely be using these platforms when making purchasing decisions.  Since b2b transactions take place in a more professional setting, it is likely however that potential customers could be reached on Linkedin.

                                     What platforms would attract an audience of business professionals?

     Going back to my previous example of a target audience of 18-25 year old college students and young adults, one can conclude with a high degree of certainty that individuals in this audience tend to frequently use platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and even Pinterest.  By concentrating social media marketing efforts on these platforms, a wide range of individuals within the target audience will be exposed to the marketing campaign, thus increasing the likelihood of a successful marketing plan.  As you can see, the effectiveness of a social media marketing campaign can be greatly increased by using information about the target audience to select the most appropriate platforms for your campaign.