Social Media Marketing and Communication (Original blog post 3)

There is no doubt that advertisement in one way or the other is a means of communication so its no surprise that the social media technologies in turn have revolutionized marketing and advertisement in general.
Today, any business that is not on at least one of the social media platforms is simply a joke and isn't a business to be taken seriously.. I for one will tell you i can not purchase any product or service from any company with out a social media presence. I know a statement like that sounds arrogant but truth be told, todays world is one of reviews and feedback. How is any company with out a social media presence able to avail its customers with these services. Reviews in a way hold any business to a certain standard and feedback enables the companies know what their clients want.
Your average business or company for that matter in todays' world is like a person with a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account. This might seem a little much to many people but the average.

Time spent on social media sites and the demographics.

As you can probably imagine when social media technologies had just come out to every one they simply felt like kids play. but as you have it today even the crept keepers (the old) are all getting online. In fact for the most part the younger generation is getting off Facebook because their grand parents and parents have Facebook accounts. I mean who would want that crazy shot of you throwing up on the side walk seen by your grand dad?

Given the large numbers of people on social media networks many business, organizations etc have joined the different social media sites. Now their biggest challenge is being human.
It is one thing to have social media presence and it's another to have you customers or your audience constantly engaged..

Customers want to relate, be accepted and noticed. Many businesses are catching on, some restaurants now accept "tweet ahead seating". Businesses are infusing their social media presence with life and acknowledging the need of their customers.

AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY

The American cancer society is a good example of an organization that has humanized their social media presence.  They feature everyday people on social media and in their youtube videos in their quest to raise money to cure cancer

They actively reach out in many ways and connect with people through active involvement. An example is hosting a Google HOA with GE Healthcare to talk about cancer prevention. They also reach out and feature actual survivors in much of their content.

SOCIAL MEDIA COULD DESTROY YOUR BRAND... Final Presentation.

Domino's Pizza.. faced one of the biggest fears any brand could face. In April 2009 social media fostered a sudden and wide spread attack on Domino's pizza after two of their rogue employees came up with a rather unpleasant idea of a prank.

The  employees who were  regular Joe's in Conover N.C soon known to the world people..

As you can can imagine the Dominos was going suffering a PR night mare and thats to say the least. the groundswell had gained momentum. 

The disgusting youtube clip of one employee making pizza that is to be delivered with  cheese that they had just stuck up their nose had hit a 250,000views.

on the first day it was posted on consumerist.com

  

THE RESPONSE: 

Domino's VP of communications at the time Tim Mclntyre, quickly convened a response team to address the crisis.

First , Mclntyre's response team addressed the consumer safety issues, targeting mainstream media,blogs and employees; firing the employees in question; and notifying the local health department and police. 

Next the response team targeted a wider audience on Twitter  to address consumer questions; posted a public apology by the president  of Dominos on youtube ; and took legal action to have the original video removed from youtube.

The Results:

Mr Mclntyre's seemed to be effective. within the first 24 hours it had addressed  the key health issues, the videos and postings and with in another 48, Domino's started to engage a wider public audience in a dialogue and released a video from the CEO directly addressing the crisis.

Despite the effectiveness of Domino's response video , which garnered almost as may views as the remaining copy of the prank video within one week,mainstream media and blogs cited Domino's response as "Sluggish."

While the CEO's response video hit 300,000 views on you tube Domino's  image was still tainted and it still had a lot to do before it could regain the publics trust 

The Take away:

Every brand should establish a crisis response plan and social media infrastructure before a crisis happens, ensure employees at any level know that online misbehavior can result in offline consequences. As a brand ensure your legal team is prepared to communicate with digital platforms if unsavory copyrighted material needs to be removed.. 

Helping the Ground Swell Support Its Self... (Reading reflection blog post # 3 Chapters 7 and 8)

Two Birds With One Stone

In chapter seven the text talks about energizing the groundswell and later in chapter eight we talk about how brands and companies at large can help support the groundswell. Bud light in its recent marketing and PR efforts has done both.

Tomorrow world # up for what ever campaign

This video got up to six million views over the last month and is mention all over social media at least once every minute which is a lot considering the campaign started last month

This campaign for example creates word of mouth for the Bud light bear product. unlike your everyday advertisements,this a group of people out having a good time at groundswell event organized by Bud light. Apart from energizing the groundswell of course there is a feeling that comes with this sort of thing.... The idea that the Bud light drink is synonymous with having fun. Plus the word of mouth that happens due to events such as these promotes the product and eventually gives the product more reach and awarenes.

Why word of mouth is very important;

Its More Believable: People generally believe or tend to trust the word of a friend as opposed a company thats trying to increase sales on their product.

Its Self-Enforcing: People tend to believe some thing if its spoken of by enough people even if they were strangers.. for example the video above basically shows a group of people having a good time. how much are you willing to bet every one of them is probably going to talk about it with a friend.

Its Self Spreading: Word of mouth literally spreads its self all people just have to approve of the product and the spread starts from there... Campaigns like the one above in the video get people to a prove of a product and the reset is left to word of mouth.  

# UP For What ever USA..

Above is the same campaign but at another location whereas the first video was based on events that happened in Georgia the send one was in Denver.. Events like these a good way for a company  to help the groundswell support its self. They give your customers something to chat about on social media and be proud of and so on. That is the campaign has a a hash tag on tweeter and under this tag people correspond filling their friends in on whats going on. People go ahead and take pictures post them.The campaign its self has a youtube channel "WHAT EVER USA" which is also another way the  campaign has enabled the groundswell to support its self.

Further more people invite friends to come and join. As seen in the above video you can see for example in Denver its like the whole town turned up for the campaign which as you can see is a good way for the bear company to market its Bud light drink...

Social Media Project PART TWO..

TACO BELL...

       

Taco Bell: Social Media Campaigns
Inorder to analyze the curve of social media campaigns that Taco bell has gone through might take a while but concentrating on a few enable the change to see the process over time.
over the years of course Taco Bell like most other companies has changed it social media elements as an effort to keep up with the ground swell..
These changes have increased it popularity and buzz over almost all social media plat forms

for example the campaign Yo Quiero Taco Bell of 2007
when Taco Bell was making the  sale of 2 taco's for 99cents

Taco bell Yo Quiero Taco Bell (1997)

The two campaigns that are very resent include: 

Taco Bell Instagram Campaign

Taco bell noticed that most of the food shots taken on Instagram where taken from the eaters vantage point..
in most shots even the spoon or fork is placed in a certain way and it also decided to follow that approach..

Taco bell also avoided professional looking shot which would be jarring in a users Instagram feed

The campaigns Mention on social media as shown by social mention














Taco Bell App Campaign 2014.

Watched Progress Over time 

2007

2014

Notice the trend in 2014 Taco Bell has more social media buzz the same year as both the Instagram and app campaigns

Tapping into the Ground swell (Reading Reflect Post # 2 Chapters 5 and 6)

Tapping into the Groundswell:

why companies want to tap into the groundswell

Well for starters as established in the reading text "Your Brand is what your customers say it is" so simply put it does make sense to at least have a clue into what your customers are like.

Apart from the fact that its is common sense, gone are the days when companies have to wait until they have to prepare and carry out a survey to find out what their customers thought of their products and services in general.

In today's world thanks to Facebook, twitter and alike companies or businesses for that matter can get feed back on their products and services right away.

what objectives do they have in mind while in their pursuit to tap into the groundswell?

Listening: This is such a useful tool. Instead of the extensive and tedious market research especially if the goal is customer insight for use in marketing  and development.

one of the ways of doing this is through brand monitoring.

Talking: This is also one way of using the groundswell to get your company known especially in the digital world. This is a very helpful strategy if your company is ready to extend its current digital marketing initiatives.

Energizing:  If you company has brand enthusiasts a good example can be MINI USA as referred to in chapter four of the reading text. In which MRS Trudy then CEO of MINI USA energizes the group of mini owners who intern empower the company with awareness by way of word of mouth.

Supporting  this is simply setting up the groundswell with tools to help your customers support each other. this works well for companies like Facebook, google and so on.

basically companies that provide updates on software or something of the sort. For example Microsoft supports the ground swell when ever it provides its customers with free software updates to help fix bugs in application software.

Embracing: This in-fact is getting your customers more involved in the every day running of your business basically giving customers a chance to may be design the products.

Talking to the Groundswell: This is i think is by far the most difficult part as you can just mess up if the timing isn't right...
For example  when Digiornos pizza company just messed up with the #why i stayed on twitter.

Video on how companies use story book apps for marketing and PR

How ever there are some companies that have been doing this quite well for example the companies that use Storybook apps to create deeper and more meaningful connections with their consumers all while keeping the conversations focused on their brands. This enables people (consumers) to share their personal experiences with a product or brand directly with the company that made those experiences possible.

Story Panda (Another example of a story book app)

Social Media Monitoring Project TACO BELL

TACO BELL...

About The Company:

Taco Bell is an American chain of fast foods restaurant based in Irvine California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands Inc...They serve a variety of TEX-MEX foods including tacos,burritos, quesadillas, nachos other specialty items, and a variety of "value menu"items. Taco Bell serves more than 2 billion customers each year in more than 6,500 restaurants mostly in the U.S., more than 80 percent of which are owned and operated by independent franchisees.

Taco Bell was founded by Glen Bell, who first opened a hot dog stand called Bell’s Drive-In in San  Bernardino, California in 1946 when he was 23 years old. In 1950, he opened Bell's Hamburgers and Hot Dogs in San Bernardino's West Side barrio. According to Gustavo Arellano, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, Bell watched long lines of customers at a Mexican restaurant called the Mitla Cafe, located across the street, which attracted a dedicated customer base for its hard-shelled tacos.Bell began eating there regularly, attempting to reverse-engineer the recipe, and eventually won the confidence of the proprietors such that they allowed him to see how the tacos and other foods were prepared. In late 1951 or early 1952, he took what he had learned and opened a new stand, this time selling tacos under the name of Taco-Tia.

Over the next few years Bell owned and operated a number of restaurants in southern California including four called El Taco. Bell sold the El Tacos to his partner and built the first Taco Bell in Downey in 1962. In 1962, he sold Taco-Tia. Kermit Becky, a former Los Angeles police officer officer, bought the first Taco Bell franchise from Glen Bell in 1964, and located it in Torrance. The company grew rapidly, and by 1967, the 100th restaurant opened at 400 South Brookhurst in Anaheim. In 1970, Taco Bell went public with 325 restaurants. In 1978, PepsiCo purchased Taco Bell from Glen Bell.

Several locations in the Midwestern United states were converted from Zantigo, a chain Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Mexican chain which PepsiCo acquired in 1986.

Taco Bell and social media marketing.

Up until recently, Taco Bell’s marketing efforts were rather rocky. The popular food chain pushed the mantras of “food-as-fuel” and, of course, “Think outside the bun.” Despite many consumers’ addiction to bean burritos, these tactics did not work. What’s more, the company was hit in 2011 with a lawsuit alleging that TacoBeall's "seasoned beef" did not consist of meat.

All these issues combined resulted in three years of flat sales and a 1.4 percent sales decline at the end of 2011.

“We were letting [the brand] become too much of a punchline,” said Brian Niccol, Taco Bell President.

However, Taco Bell has turned itself around and credits a variety of factors including social media. In fact, the company is making such an impression that it was named Ad Age 's 2013 Marketer of the year.

The company created a new tagline of “Live mas,” introduced the Cantina menu in conjunction with Chef Lorena Garcia to promote healthier options, and is testing a Power Protein menu and breakfast.

The biggest driver for the company’s 8 percent increase in same-store sales in 2012 was the launch of Doritos Locos Tacos . Although it took three years to produce the right product, Taco Bell sold 100 million Doritos Locos Tacos within its first 10 weeks. The jackpot idea continues to grow as Taco Bell introduced the Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos earlier this year along with the Fiery Doritos Locos Tacos just last month. As long as Doritos are around, could the possibilities for Taco Bell be endless?

On the backend, the company also refined its marketing message. Taco Bell now strives to reach the “millennial” customer. Social media really became critical with this shift as well since the company did not simply run to Facebook and Twitter. Instead, they utilized social networks such as Vine, Pheed, and Snapchat first. This, in addition to offering exclusive peeks and deals to social media followers, only helped Taco Bell connect with the target market it wanted to reach.

Mexican food and social media may not seem like the most natural of bedfellows, but, in recent years, Mexican fast food restaurant brand Taco Bell has dedicated time, energy and resources to developing the popularity of its social media channels, with impressive results. In 2013, Taco Bell ranked as No. 1 on DigitalCoCo’s Restaurant Social Media Index, trumping key competitors such as Wendy’s, McDonalds and Starbucks.

Back in 2007, realising the growing importance of social platforms, Taco Bell’s Marketing Managers decided to take their first steps into the world of social media. In those early days, however, like many other brands, Taco Bell initially treated social merely as an announcement board for company news and to amplify the reach of its other media campaigns.

In a recent interview with CMO.com, Taco Bell’s Head of Social Media, Nick Tran, explained:

“We were taking content and commercials from other channels and repurposing them for social media.”

Today, by contrast, Taco Bell creates (and curates from UGC – user generated content) content specifically for social media and tailors each post to the particular social platform being used.

Between 2007 and 2012, Taco Bell gradually clocked up 7 million Facebook follows largely through organic growth.  At the time of writing, Taco Bell currently has 10.4 million Facebook fans and 1.18 million Twitter followers.  Taco Bell also manages accounts on several other social platforms including YouTube, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Pintrest, Tumblr and keeps a close eye on emerging social platforms.

TacoBells Pintrest page with about two thousand followers;

Analytical data observation:

Google trends:

 Social Mention:

"Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from all over the world into a single stream of information".

Social Mention measures four metrics:

Ø  Strength: what are the chances that your brand is being discussed on social media

Ø  Sentiment: The ratio of negative mentions to positive ones

Ø  Passion: what are the chances that individuals talking about your brand will do so repeatedly

Reach: Measure of the range of influence

Ice Rocket

This website is also one way of monitoring how a brand is doing on social media.

The graph above is from ice rocket which shows the daily Blogs Citation trend for Taco Bell from the week of september 28th through the week of October 26th.Its tough to determine where the different spikes and declines originated from.
My guess is that the spikes happen after a successful ad campaign on social media for example that recent campaign of september on Instagram.

Instagram:

Instagram made another pitch advertisers,trotting out some success metrics for instagram ads for recent campaigns from Taco Bell.
Taco bell reported 12.5million 18-44 year old in the united states over a four week period with recent Instagram ad buy

The campaign which took place from March 26 to August 30, gave the brand a 29 point incremental lift in ad recall for those who were repeatedly exposed to the campaign. That's four more times higher than control group, and almost five times higher than Nielsens average for online ads. 

Engaging from the day one

While rewarding followers with incentives such as coupons and discounts is not a new idea, Taco Bell has been extremely shrewd in how it has employed this tactic. Aware of building customer anticipation for the launch of its new Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos, Taco Bell offered its loyal social fans an opportunity to taste the new tacos one day prior to the national launch.

The offer generated 20,000 responses, including nearly 4,000 shares, and ultimately led to the most successful product launch in the company’s 50-year history selling 100 million units in its the first 10 weeks.

In an example of successfully utilising user-generated content, Taco Bell challenged YouTubers to create unique videos to introduce the name of the latest Doritos Locos Tacos flavor, Fiery, in August of last year, leading to more than 65 videos being created and shared by social followers.

Taco Bells facebook page showing the number of likes and how the websites popularity has grown therefore increasing its awareness and thus a way of marketing. Taco Bell also has a very interesting way of engaging its followers with funny tweets. By doing this it also shows that its is listening and talking to the groundswell.

Taco Bell's presence on yelp and peoples review in general

Taco Bell has a good number of reviews on yelp which means that people are talking about it and this is another way of listening to the groundswell.

Recommendations:

Taco Bell has done a very good job of listening and engaging the ground swell but as well i would have loved to see more engagement  or may be decide to get customers or people of the groundswell to design their own menus and more..