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)