March 7, 2011
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Social Media Case Study

I thought it might be helpful from time to time to post examples of social media campaigns so we can observe and learn how to better run our own campaigns.

Recently, I saw a designer run a contest where the designer gave away a free dress on the designer’s Facebook page. Let’s call her Fran (we’ll change names to protect the “innocent.”)

Here’s how Fran ran the contest. She posted a photo of a dress on her Facebook page. The caption of the photo was something to the effect of “comment below by (date) to win a free Fran dress!” Fran then went out on Twitter and and posted about the contest. She got a lot of responses (30 +) and one person won a free dress. From that, the winner posted about the win on Twitter as well.

Was it a success?

If I was to analyze it, here’s what I would suggest.
1. If you’re going to run a Facebook contest, I think you should think through the contest and design a landing page tab on your Facebook page for it. Look, Fran got a lot of fans commenting on her Facebook page, but what did it gain her in the end? Was it worth a $300 dress? Fans she already had commented, but how many NEW Likes to her page did she get? How many emails did she capture? With a dedicated contest page, you can list the contest rules, present supporting information, request that a Fan take an action (like, and then click the “share” link before entering, for example), upsell a product (by entering, you can print a $5 coupon – or whatever), etc.
2. If you’re going to promote a contest on Twitter, use a # Hashtag and ask for ReTweets. Perhaps a good way to get your contest to go viral is to say that someone can earn an extra entry if they RT a promotion (which you can do automatically if you take a person to a Facebook landing page, see number 1.) You probably want to attract new fans, and the only way to do that on any ROI scale is to get your friend’s friends to take notice.

These are just two suggestions. There are many more, but we’ve hit two biggies here.

Was Fran’s contest successful? She probably thought it was. But with the right planning, and with the right social media guidance, it could’ve been worth the price of the dress that she gave away. As it stands, I would say she got about $20 worth of advertising.

What do you think of this case? What would you do differently?

February 17, 2011
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Facebook: Brand or Human

On Facebook, businesses and brands use Fan Pages (not a personal profile page) to interact with customers. Last week, Facebook rolled out some changes to those pages.

One of the biggest challenges with this new rollout, I believe, is the change that allows a Fan Page to post on Facebook AS THE FAN PAGE. For example, I can comment on another Fan Page as the Social Media Butterfly, rather than Carmen, the administrator of the Social Media Butterfly. (Although, to post on a personal page, I still need to post as Carmen, the person.)

This opens a big ol’ can of worms for social media enthusiasts. I have always held the opinion that social media serves to humanize a brand. A brand shouldn’t have a “poker face” (insert a Lady GaGa song here.) A brand should be up front and honest about who is posting.

So now, Facebook changes the game, and the players have to decide if they’re going to ante up. With the option to now post on other pages as a brand, rather than as a human, should social media managers stick to being human, or become the brand?

So here’s my suggestion to social media marketers. Go all in. Embrace this new feature on Facebook pages, but mold it into what you think it should be. If I post on another page as the Social Media Butterfly, I’m going to also sign my post “~Carmen.” This way, my post comes from both my brand, AND a person.

This works for me, since I am a bit schizo – there’s Carmen with the personal profile on Facebook and there’s Carmen with the Social Media Butterfly page on Facebook. There’s also Carmen with a page called “The List Book” for fans of my novel. There used to be Carmen who maintained the Facebook page for her company. So, just posting as plain old “Carmen” doesn’t add context – it doesn’t tell which hat I’m wearing when I post.

If I want to discuss social media as a social media professional, I will navigate through Facebook as the Social Media Butterfly, signing my posts as ~Carmen. If I want to talk to a publisher or another author as a self-published novelist, I will post as The List Book and sign my post as ~Carmen.

I don’t think this new Facebook deal changes what game we’re playing. I think it changes our strategy, but not the goal of winning in social media.

What do you think of my strategy? Do you agree? Disagree? Have another strategy? Let’s learn from each other!

February 15, 2011
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What is a Twitter hashtag?

Today is another “back to basics” post for the newbies among us.

If you’ve spent any time on Twitter at all, you’ve probably seen Tweets that have words preceded by a number sign (#) and wondered what the heck that was all about.

On Twitter, that’s called a hashtag. I love hashtags on Twitter, because they help you follow the conversation about a specific subject or event in a much easier way.

A hashtag is a way to add context to a Tweet – think of it like a “tag” that you add to a photo to identify the subject so when people search, they find your photo. Or, for you bloggers out there – when you blog, you add tags as well (In Blogger, they’re called “Labels”) so people can search your blog for topics. Or, if you’re using Google Ad words for advertising, think of hashtags in terms of “keywords.”

Now that you have a better idea of what a hashtag is, you’re probably wondering how to use them. 🙂

Let’s say that you LURVE American Idol. You just can’t get enough about it. You talk about it at the watercooler. You talk about it on Facebook. If you want to talk about it on Twitter with other fans, you could use either the hashtags #Idol or #AI. For example:

“@SocialMedBtrfly I think JLo makes a great judge on #Idol #AI. She’s so sparkly, she distracts you when the singing stinks”

How did I know that those were the hash tags for American Idol? I simply did a search on Twitter (search.twitter.com) for the full name “American Idol” and saw that the majority of the Tweets had those hashtags. Also, just follow the people that talk about what you’re interested in on Twitter, and note the hashtags they use.

More examples, if you’re a fan of “Glee” like me, we could chat using #GLEE or #Gleeks so other fans of the show could more easily follow our conversation. If you wanted to talk to me about my TV obsession of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” you could use #Buffy and #BTVS.

There are also chats on Twitter that use hashtags to organize comments from chat participants. For example, on Tuesday’s there’s a Career chat. So when the time comes, everyone joins in the discussion using the hashtag #careerchat. This allows Tweeters to “follow” a certain hashtag to stay in the conversation. If you reply to a question or comment in the chat, you would also include #careerchat in your Tweet.

Sometimes, if you look on the right-hand side of the Twitter client, you’ll notice “trends.” You’ll probably see random hashtags like #februarywish or #traveltuesday. These are “memes” – or games that allow people on Twitter to get to know the Twitterverse better around a certain topic. For example “My #februarywish is that I get a new job so I can travel again and talk about it on #traveltuesday.”

Do you have to use a hashtag when you talk about a subject? Not really, but it sometimes helps include you in conversations that are already happening (especially around news events, like the #Egypt uprising, etc.)

There are also etiquette rules around using hashtags. You want to use them sparingly. For example, this would be an obnoxious Tweet:

“Have you been to #Italy? I #traveled there and I #love it. I #flew to #Rome and ate lots of #pizza and #spaghetti.”

That’s just too many conversation tags in one place. 🙂

Questions? Comments?

February 7, 2011
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5 Lessons from Super Bowl Social Media

There were times during last night’s Super Bowl (SB45) that I thought that without the promoted (read: paid for) trend of #superbowl that the actual game might not have been trending at all. That’s because the ads took over and dominated the conversation. Eminem trended, Vader trended, as did Detroit, Doritos and more. The hash tag conversation about the ads – #BrandBowl – stayed in the top Twitter trends from about the second quarter on. It really was the “Social Bowl”

After the Lombardi Trophy is resting safely in Wisconsin, here are some of the learnings that brands can take with them, from the Social Media Butterfly.

1. Your Twitter name, or handle, should be well thought out, and you should own all of the instances of your name. Doritos learned this the hard way. There were a lot of Tweets addressed to @Doritos talking about the company’s Super Bowl commercials. The trouble is, the @Doritos handle belongs to some guy in Bali who hasn’t Tweeted in months and only has about 72 followers. The company uses (among others) @DoritosUSA. Doritos lost a lot of traffic and exposure to Indonesia last night.
2. The brands themselves got lost in the social conversation. I’ll be honest, I didn’t see any brand participation during #BrandBowl last night. I’m sure they spoke, because I went to the individual company pages and saw the Tweets, but the feed from that conversation moved so fast that the normal human could only, maybe, catch one out of eight Tweets. There was so much conversation that the brands got drowned out. Additionally, none of the brands that I saw were addressing critiques of the ads. They were just promoting the ads. Bad, bad, bad. A few years ago when I participated in the ad Tweeting, the companies were addressing the specifics about their ads. The audience felt listened to. I liked the idea from some of the car companies to have their own hashtag where you could discuss that ad. The trouble is, in the rush to keep up with the overall discussion, did anyone participate? The brands that win out of this will be the ones that can harness next year’s discussion.
3. The old adage that “any PR is good PR” may have backfired on a few companies last night – specifically Groupon. They need a new agency, because all of their commercials were really bad, and one even made fun of – and capitalized on – the conditions in Tibet. That might have been worse than the Kenneth Cole Tweet that blamed the uprising in Egypt on his new spring line. Cole’s Tweet was born of ignorance and stupidity, Groupon knew exactly what they were doing and didn’t care. The Living Social ad was slightly amusing, and didn’t offend anyone, and may have added customer share after last night’s Groupon debacle. I saw several Tweets where customers said they would never use Groupon again. That remains to be seen. The “test baby” commercial also drew a lot of ire – is it ever okay to slam a baby against a glass wall, even if it is subtitled as a test baby?
4. Being a copycat may get you attention, but does it sell products? Xoom did a 1984 commercial as a dig to Apple and their iPad. Here’s the thing, though. Apple’s 1984 commercial is so iconic, and so big in the pop culture consciousness, their attempt at an Apple dig came off like a sorry imitation. I think the ad may have helped Apple more than hurt it. And last night was the night of the elderly and washed up celebrities. Just because Snickers had a hit last year with Betty White doesn’t mean every brand should adopt an older B-list star. Cloris Leachman was “Go Granny” – an entirely social campaign by Network Solutions (Yay! for all social, boo! for the copycat.) GoDaddy – aside from their offensive ads – enlisted Joan Rivers. Neither of which are Betty White. Even Snickers couldn’t top their own commercial. Roseanne Barr and Richard White certainly are not Betty White. They should’ve quit that campaign while they were ahead.
5. Extended cuts were all the rage last night. The company shelled out the $3M for the 30 second spot, and then had extended cuts online. Good idea, bad execution. How would you know that the extended cut was online? Perhaps in the commercial, you might want to TELL PEOPLE. I mean, we know now, because it’s been reported in the media (and some of us went to the sites last night). Dear companies, customers don’t have ESP! And then VW went the opposite direction. They leaked the 60-second cut in advance, and then aired the 30 second. Weird marketing move. However, in either length, VW clearly won with the Wee Vader angle.

Did you have a favorite Super Bowl ad? Did you have a social media learning that I missed?

February 1, 2011
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Social Media Give and Take

Social media is about giving

I read an article recently talking about how social media is about giving, not receiving. It really struck me as a great analogy, and one worthy of a blog post.

The book called it “reciprocity” – in a marketing sense, it means if you give something, you’re likely to get something in return. Especially in sales. If you give your customers something of value to them, they are more likely to interact with you and even buy your product. Even better, they become someone that tells OTHER people to buy your product.

How do you start your morning with coworkers? I’m sure you say at least “hello” or “hi.” After that, I’m sure you ask about each other’s weekends, the kids, the dogs, whatever. All I know is this, if I saw you first thing in the morning before the coffee and you immediately launched into a project rundown or a Powerpoint presentation without so much as a “how de do?” to me first, I would immediately tune you out. I would also find you rude and be less inclined to put forth 100% effort with your projects than I would with another coworker who asked how I was and showed some interest in my life outside of the office.

It’s the same way with social media. Why would you jump into a Tweet, or a Facebook post without so much as a “Hey, how’s it going?” I know sometimes we all get tired of the repeated mundane posts about the fact that you just brushed your teeth, or you just got a donut, but a few personal updates – even when you’re posting for a business – let people know that an actual human is behind the social media wheel.

What you don’t want to do is post all the time about you, you and you. You have followers, friends, fans, etc. Ask about them. What do they want? What are their favorites? Maybe even ask them about a product or a service you offer – what constructive recommendations can they make so that you can improve things? Let them know when you hear their advice.

It doesn’t always have to be about giving promotions or discounts to social media followers, though that certainly helps too.

Are you a social media giver, or a social media taker?

January 27, 2011
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Social Media is Just Like a Buffy Episode

There is no life situation that can’t be solved by an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not even social media! For those of you unfamiliar, Buffy is the greatest television show ever and now a pop culture phenom.

Possibly one of the best episodes is the fourth season’s “Hush.” Don’t believe me? Ask the people who nominated it for an Emmy.

Basically, one night as the town of Sunnydale sleeps, the fairy-tale demons “The Gentlemen” come to town and steal everyone’s voice, because it is the scream that can kill them. The Gentlemen then proceed to try and kill others. Oh no! Buffy and her new hunky college crush must try to stop them. But how? Once they figure out that Buffy needs to get her voice back to kill The Gentlemen, wackiness ensues, as does a plan. She battles The Gentlemen, finds the box where the stolen voices were kept, gets said hunky boyfriend to open the box, gets her voice back, screams, and The Gentlemen literally lose their heads over it.

The moral of the story here, little boys and girls, is that sometimes, there are things that can be said, even if there is silence.

“How is this remotely like social meda?” you ask. Let me ‘splain. For traditional marketers, social media is like The Gentlemen, someone came and stole their marketing speak.

Suddenly, traditional marketers find that their traditional marketing pitches don’t work in the new social media space. They must learn to communicate in a new way. Additionally, they must learn to participate without actually speaking at all. They have to learn to listen! (Gasp! I know!) Marketers aren’t particularly good listeners. They’d rather you listen to them.

After the marketers have their marketing speak stripped away, and they’re forced to listen to what their customers say, when they break the box and get their marketing speak back, they’re better able to communicate with their customers!

So the moral of my story is, dear marketers, to embrace your marketing laryngitis. If you keep trying to communicate on social media with traditional marketing push messages, that’s exactly what you’re going to do – push your customers away. Social media is a “pull” medium. It requires you to listen and find out what your customers are asking of you. After you’ve developed a relationship with them, you can then customize your marketing message so that it’s accepted.

Thank you Buffy, for teaching us another important life lesson. 🙂

January 25, 2011
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Social Media Means We’re Only Human

Human League “Human” Cover

As a child of the 80s, my taste in music involves a little more synth and big hair. There’s no situation on earth that can’t be addressed in either an 80s song, or an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know there’s a Buffy/social media post in me, I just haven’t found it yet.

Back to the 80’s reference, though. I’m reminded of a song by Human League called “We’re Only Human”.

Aren’t we all only human? “Of flesh and blood” we’re made? I don’t care if you’re a car salesman, a developer, a marketer or a project manager. We’re all human. We all have the same basic needs and wants.

Companies sometimes forget this. What is a company, if not a group of humans? Even the dictionary defines it as “a business enterprise, a group of humans.”

So when you’re posting on social media sites on behalf of a company, it’s important to remember that a company is run by humans, and promoting itself to humans. So it’s important to humanize your company on social media.

Take Twitter, for instance. You can start with an avatar on Twitter. Why not show a face along with a corporate logo? Or, use the background to post pictures of the folks that Tweet on behalf of the company. Sign each Tweet with a signature, so followers know who they’re talking to if there is more that one person posting.

Ask questions. Make conversation. We all have a basic human need to connect. We do not have a basic human need to have impersonal marketing messages shoved into our timelines or news feeds at every opportunity. Then, your social media becomes noise, and people tend to tune out noise over time.

Don’t use bots. Automatic follow-backs mean that no actual person is looking at the follower list to see who is interested in their page. Automatic messages when someone follows your Twitter account have the same coldness, the same impersonal feeling. Do you want someone to ignore you with an autobot?

Be authentic. It’s important to answer questions honestly. If someone asks you a question you can’t answer, tell them you can’t answer and why. Or, say “I don’t know, but I’m working on it.”

Being human goes a long way to social media success over time.

January 21, 2011
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What is Twitter?

Sometimes we social media marketers get so caught up in how to effectively market with Twitter, we forget that there are still people that don’t understand Twitter.

My friend asked me yesterday, “Carmen, Ms. Social Media Butterfly, what the heck is this Twitter stuff all about?”

I hadn’t had to explain Twitter in quite some time, so it threw me off. I’ve since had time to compose myself, and here is my explanation to her.

Twitter is a form of instant communication, but is restricted to 140 characters. Which I think is good. It teaches you to be concise!
You can “follow” a particular person, a particular brand, or a particular subject. A Twitter “name” is represented by an “@” symbol. For instance, on Twitter, should you want to follow me (please please please!) you would address any posts directly to me with @socialmedbtrfly. Or, if you were a fan of say, Starbucks, you would address any posts to them with @Starbucks, and so on and so forth.
When you follow someone, whatever they post, or “Tweet” (remember, these are in 140 characters) shows up in your Timeline. Think of a timeline as similar to the News Feed on Facebook.
Over time, you may decide that there are just too many Tweets in your Timeline to keep up with. Consider then using “lists” – this is where you can organize Twitterers into categories. As you get more advanced, you may want to consider using a third-party tool that helps you organize your Tweets as well. I like a tool called Tweet Deck, which you can download for free.
These Tweets can also be organized by subject using something called a Hashtag, represented by a number sign “#”. Let’s say, for example, that you are a huge American Idol fan. If you wanted to join in the conversation, you would do a Twitter search (search.twitter.com) for “#Idol” and then you could see all of the Tweets that have been posted recently on American Idol. How did I know what hashtag to use? You can also just search for words without the hashtag, and see what people are posting, and what hashtags they are using. Then, you know, when you Tweet, which hashtag to use in your post so other people following that subject will see it. For example “I think that Steven Tyler was awesome on #Idol last night, and JLo was gorgeous!” I think I’ll write a whole post on hash tags soon.
These Tweets all happen in real time. It’s a great way to keep up with news events. You can see what people are talking about by seeing the Trends on Twitter. These trends are posted on WhatTheTrend.com, as well as on Twitter’s own client.

Have I confused more than I’ve helped? Did I leave anything out? Comment below! Also, check out Mashable.com’s explanation as well. http://mashable.com/what-is-twitter/