YOUTUBE CHOIR!

We have seen a lot of Social media used by singer such as the success of JDC, Jayesslee, etc. But we never seen choir that made by Youtube video. Here is a breath taking video by Eric Whitaker who uses Youtube as a platform to assemble Youtube user to sing a song.

BREATHTAKING?

Not only that, Youtube can also be a successful MATH teacher, can you imagine having a teacher teach you math in Youtube? You can Play or stop whenever you want. I guess this post really express how breathtaking it is a social media platform can be.

Should a bad reputation company uses SM?

Looking at how company could maintain their good reputation with SM and how SM can change a good reputation into a bad reputation company, SM is a pretty powerful platform to be played with. A company should have SM as part as their marketing communication plan as we have listed the advantages and disadvantages. However, that is only worked when a company still in a healthy condition - means having a good reputation. What about bad reputation company? Should they use SM if basically saying is that they just open a platform for people to mock them?

Looking at the brighter side, I believe SM can also help the company to change their brand image among the consumer. Start with better understanding of what the consumer wants/need as it can be a platform where people say things that they want to say. Well, start from there, SM could build up the image that the company care of what the consumer says. A company that listen and provide what's needed by giving customer services. With these kind of experiences, I believe people will change their mind up about the company.

However, the knowledge of how to use SM still needed for the SM manager. As the example of GASP jeans and Brown Brothers, how can it be really crucial damage to the company when the person in charge of the company SM do not know how to use SM properly. Therefore, I would say that though SM is a pretty powerful/risky platform to be played with, with a proper trained manager, SM could be a really good platform to change the company brand image.

What do you think guys?

What if???

Last Thursday, there was a guest lecture on one of my subject. He is from Forethought research. The food for thought that he presented is all about to measure the 9 prophecy/feeling that consumer get when they watch an ads. There are anxiety, sad, excited, happy, love, etc. I just wondering how great it is if social media is embedded with some detector machine that can detect the feelings. According to these machine, marketer then create objectives out of the ads that they are going to create. What do you want the audience to feel? because the fact that I felt some of the brand/company has no clear understanding of what social media can do and what they want to achieve by using the Facebook profile/ twitter/ etc.

What if there is a machine that can detect feelings in the social media? everything become clearer. Due to the fact that many people change their feelings while they are in the social media networking. People can "like" something they don't like just because he/she saw a lot of "like" from their friends. Maybe, they write status that they don't meant to. Do you think my words true to you?

Well, I just thought that this implications might greatly affect the brand. They can't really tell who likes their brand, and who don't. Do you "like" a brand that you know you don't like? and you just "like" the brand so you can write complaint on their wall?

Share a Coke

I was thrilled to hear about this. Coke has put a Facebook profile for its share a coke campaign. How cool it is to have your name on a coke can? I think it is very cool, and what is clever about this campaign is it engages the user to invite their friends to share their names on the can as well ( share this to as many as your friends ) . Therefore, it engages people to share how cool is this campaign is. Attention : they are going to generate eWOM!!

As their target market is teenager and young adults, they even made a special website in their Facebook page and not a standalone website. Why? because standalone website does not engage the consumer as much as Facebook page and they know that teenagers spend a lot of time at Facebook, they want this to spread as fast as it could. That's the best advantages for using SM. VIRALLY FAST, but not to forget UNCONTROLLED!

I believe this campaign is quite successful, because now i want to get one. =]

What do you think about this campaign? Why it doesn't use standalone website as others do?

Effects of Social Media Towards the Brand Loyalty

After reading the blog post from Craig about the GASP issue make me questioning whether social media increasing or decreasing brand loyalty?

Social media can be a platform for opinions and reflection of the consumer towards the brand, which sometimes can be negative or positive. So to whom will you trust? the negative or positive? In many cases, experience is the most significant factor that could lead us towards the behaviour. However, what if we happened to haven't experienced the brand on our own? Which side are you on?

Well, you could never know. Like GASP case, I think that brand does really need to apology. That issue is out of the moral values. So, definitely I'm on negative side. What do you think? So does this case and viral news make GASP brand loyalty decreasing? on the other hand it may creates an awareness so that people will curious about this brand and might try to experience it ( e.g : Lindsay Lohan is getting famous because of her bad lifestyle, or maybe Paris hilton )- which can lead to brand loyalty if they like the brand.

A brand could push their PR ( controlled message ) through social media, but still consumer who will drive the WOM. Even though the social media could work so perfectly online, consumer can have different perspective online and offline - depending on their own experience or other factors. However, I would say that if the social media work perfectly, it will somehow change people behaviour towards the brand. Additionally, I would also say that a good brand could establish longer and intimate relationship with the customer rather than the bad one. Therefore, quality ( true brand loyalty ) is better than quantity ( really drives a lot of attention from the consumer ), because love towards the brand does not derives from negative feelings, attitude , and behaviour.

What do you think ?

Evian baby = Success on campaign as well as sales??

Looking back on the lecture yesterday, we have discussed the stuffs about how company gives a big incentives to the consumer who win the video competition. I found it quite true, when a company wants to engage a lot customer to its video competition somewhat the incentives must be big. However, Evian quite make an extraordinary moves with its baby dancing campaign, though it does not give any incentives, but it still engage a lot of consumer.

This is the first video which hits millions of viewers and then they engage the customer with the second video which tells that every people could join the evian baby video.

http://www.letsbabydance.evian.com/ <-- link to the Evian baby campaign.

Well, come to think of it, many social media does a unique campaign and engaging a large number of consumer. However, do they purchase the product? may be yes, may be no. Then, how to link the social media marketing with sales?

Therefore, I think in order to make a successful social media campaign, a company must endure the successful campaign to ensure it still stick in the consumer mind and create a brand community ( represents the consumer - brand loyalty, rather than mere "fan" ) rather than mere a campaign. Then, while the company has a strong community, the people inside that community will do all the Word of mouth thing.

What do you think?

Does this evian campaign makes you want to buy Evian water? For me, I don't feel like it, but it kind of attached to your memory so whenever you want to buy water, then evian babies come into your mind.

Old ways advertising VS. New social media

Looking back on how the marketers did advertising, got me thinking what really differentiate the old advertising and the new social media.

Old marketing communication used to give all information about the brand, product, company through many media to the audience. Is it only about pitching the information? Do marketers listen after they pitch all the information to the consumer? How do they listen? No. Yes. They listen in a hard way. Marketers need to analyse the data of people viewing, assume all the possibilities that can be thought by the audience, summarise the findings and take an action for it. How on earth could a man possibly knows what other man thought by using data? I most certainly could not. Therefore, marketers can only assume and sometimes assumptions are wrong- and that costs a lot of money. ( Coca Cola's taste case ) That's the biggie issues for doing the old marketing communication.

On the other hand, new social media offers what we all need, the platform to communicate. In the case of Obama campaign, they used social media to create its brand buzz and also as a platform to listen to its audience input. I sort of think that the really standing out features that social media offers is the consumer-centric communication. Consumer-centric communication means that a communication which are driven by the consumer participation ( where consumer can show their expression for the brand, two way communication emphasising on consumers ) whereas in the old kind of marketing communication, the marketing communication emphasises on the company rather than the consumers. Therefore, in social media, it creates the brand advocacy which made from the buzzes that derived from consumer discussion and drives the marketers to listen and do the action according to what the consumer said.

While the old marketing communication enforces the information that the brand want to pitch to the people ( company likes to exaggerate which sometimes made people hard to believe-too good to be true ), social media gives the WOM which are derived from real experience from consumers themselves. Therefore, social media have the advantages as it could enforces a brand advocacy that serves as WOM which suits all kind of users ( all kinds of consumers buyer readiness level )

Having said that, a brand could just pitch all the good information and gives the best buying experience to their loyal customers, and they will automatically made a good WOM statement and encouragement to the other users to buy the brand. That's the WANTED achievements.

Talking about social media as the marketing communication, according to MerchantCircle , social networking is the most used tool for a small business marketing communication strategy. Do you agree that small business should have the Facebook fan page or other social networking profile?