Killer Content: Kmart #ShipMyPants
Posted: April 15, 2013 Filed under: Content, Content Marketing | Tags: advertising, business, facebook, kmart, multichannel content, ship my pants, social media, social media marketing, underdog, youtube 2 Comments »
There are amazing businesses and brands producing absolutely killer content every day. This post will highlight the awesome video, ‘Ship My Pants’, created by Kmart to raise awareness of their free online shipping, what makes it so amazing, and present a few strategies and tactics that can be applied to your business.
What they did
Kmart found an entertaining way to introduce a relatively dry offering – free online shipping – with video content that will play well on traditional media and online.
Why it’s killer
Whether you find this video humourous, crass, smart, or just downright stupid, you can’t deny that it has injected Kmart into the consciousness of consumers who probably didn’t even realize they were still in existence.
With the onslaught of noise that advertisers and marketers spew out each and every day, Kmart found a way to get noticed and generate conversations on social media in the meantime. As of now, the official ‘Ship my pants’ video has reached over 6.7 million views in just five days on YouTube, which is pretty killer.
What can be applied to your business?
Try something new
Opportunities in social media and content marketing are abundant, but if you’re not ever willing to try something new, you’ll never know how just how effective your efforts could be. A beautiful thing about social media and content marketing is that even if you try something new and it flops, you can cut it, learn from it, and move on. This is the worst-case scenario. Best-case scenario is that you try something new and your audience loves you for it. So, why not try something new?
Behave like an underdog
A funny thing happens to many businesses when they’re leaders in their category. They get complacent. They stop pushing themselves. They stop reinventing themselves. They leave themselves open to the competition changing the game on them. You should do everything possible to push your business to behave like an underdog, even if you’re on top. If you can gain a leadership position within your category but you keep pushing yourself to be better, your competition will always be playing catch-up.
Don’t let greatness be a one-off
It’s easy to get high on success, even if it just strikes once. When you’ve done something amazing, it’s important to enjoy your success, but you can’t stop pushing. You need to figure out how to continue adding value to your consumers, or the effects of your success will quickly subside, and you’ll be right back where you started.
Create multi-channel content
Maximize your investment in both time and resources when creating content, and consider all of the channels on which that content can add value to your audience. If you’re creating video content, consider how it will work for your YouTube, Facebook, digital advertising, and mass media advertising audiences. With a bit of forethought you can more efficiently produce your content, feed your content pipeline, and fill your paid media.
What do you think of Kmart’s ‘Ship your pants’ video content?
Have you seen any killer content recently that you’d like to share?
It would be great to chat with you about this more in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial
3 Links (#5): Blog Posts Worth Checking Out
Posted: February 7, 2013 Filed under: Blogging, Links, Social Media Marketing, Twitter | Tags: business, oreo, real time marketing, social media marketing, top blogs, twitter 7 Comments »
This is the fifth installment of 3 Links. Day-to-day I spend a fair bit of time reading other people’s blog content. These are 3 blog posts that I’ve read in the last week or so, that I recommend you read as well:
TOP 10 SOCIAL MEDIA BLOGS: THE 2013 WINNERS
The title is pretty self-explanatory. Social Media Examiner selected a list of the top 10 blogs from over 750 nominations. The list, as you might expect, is comprised of impressive, highly successful blogs, all of which are worthy of following if you don’t already.
THAT OREO TWEET WAS COOL, BUT IS REAL TIME MARKETING WORTH THE HYPE?
In this article, Alex Kantrowitz uses Oreo’s now famous Super Bowl blackout tweet as the focus for his post offering a perspective on the value of real time marketing. It’s an interesting piece that compares Oreo’s 14,000+ retweets with the incredible number of impressions and exposure that mass media can easily generate. Alex makes it clear that while there is certainly great value that can be had through real time marketing, there is still an important role for more traditional forms of advertising.
3 REASONS THAT AVOIDING SOCIAL MEDIA WILL HURT YOUR BUSINESS
Brad Smith, in an article published on Social Media Today, details reasons why avoiding social media will hurt your business including that consumers are talking about your business on social media with or without you, it’s key to increasing conversion rates, and it fuels your other marketing tactics. All of these are valid points, and anyone with interest in results-driven marketing should definitely give this a read.
Take a read and let me know what you think. If you find these posts to be interesting, valuable or entertaining, I encourage you to leave these bloggers a comment with your thoughts as well.
Have you read anything great that you’d like to share? Let me know in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial
How to Effectively Use Facebook Pinned Posts
Posted: August 27, 2012 Filed under: Facebook, Social Media | Tags: business, content, engage, facebook, pinned post, promotions, small business, social media, social media marketing 1 Comment »
Pinning a post on your Facebook Page keeps an update at the top of your Timeline for 7 days which keeps it visible to your community, encourages engagement, and allows you to increase impressions for the pinned content amongst other benefits. In my experience, there are 3 main types of posts that work particularly well as a Pinned Post; 1) Time-sensitive posts, 2) High-engagement posts, and 3) Timeless posts.
TIME-SENSITIVE POSTS
Some posts are only relevant for a given period of time such as the date of an event or the duration of a promotional period.
HIGH-ENGAGEMENT POSTS
There are certain posts that you might be able to predict are going to drive high levels of engagement such as a culturally relevant video or incredible photo. Alternatively, there may be some posts that drive engagement beyond what you expected and by pinning the post, you can make it visible to an even greater number of people, driving further engagement.
TIMELESS POSTS
Whether it’s a FAQ or company or brand information, there is some content that won’t grow old and will continue to be highly relevant to community members now, and in the future.
HOW DO YOU PIN A POST IN FACEBOOK?
Step 1: Create an update as you typically would.
Step 2: Post your update.
Step 3: Click the ‘Edit or Remove’ button in the top right corner of your post and click ‘Pin to Top’.
Later this week I’ll provide a few creative thought-starters for Facebook updates that are ‘pin-worthy’.
Feel free to contact me in any of these places:
Email: matthew@rgbsocial.com
Twitter: @RGBSocial
Facebook: facebook.com/RGBSocial
The Positive Effect of Negative Reviews
Posted: August 23, 2012 Filed under: Community Management, Social Media Marketing | Tags: branding, business, community management, consumer reviews, continuous improvement, negativity, reviews, rgb social, small business, social media, social media marketing 1 Comment »
Consumer reviews are incredibly important. I reported in a previous post that over 70% of consumers trust the reviews of others more than any form of advertising. Further to this, in a comScore survey, over 75% of review users reported that reviews have a significant influence on their purchase, and depending on the category, that number can be as large as 87%.
It is clear that reviews are important, but what if you receive negative reviews?
In my experience, I’ve had clients respond in a number of very different ways to negativity. Some want negative reviews pulled from their social media properties immediately. Some view negative comments as constructive criticism. No matter how you view the receipt of negative comments, don’t panic when you see them inevitably appear.
There are actually a number of reasons why the receipt of negative reviews can be very positive:
MITIGATE SKEPTICISM
Consumers have been trained though experience, advertising, media, education, and many other external influences, to be skeptics of anything that appears to be ‘too good’. While I certainly won’t argue against the obvious value of receiving mainly positive reviews, the odd negative review can actually mitigate consumer skepticism by pointing out the flaws that exist in every product, service or anything they might be making a decision on. That’s right, you’re not perfect, and neither am I – gasp! The end result is that consumers will be able to formulate what they feel is a more complete picture of your product or service, and will make their purchase decision with increased confidence.
OPPORTUNITY FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
The pursuit of continuous improvement in today’s hyper-competitive business landscape is not a competitive advantage, it is a necessity. Negative reviews can function as a modern day comment box and provide you with valuable information and insight on how you can improve. Even negative comments that come across as spam or trolling can provide valuable insight if time is taken to understand their context. For instance, if comments that come across as trolling were posted by individuals that fall dramatically outside of your target demographic, it could solidify that you’re targeting strategy is correct, or save you from an ill-informed attempt to broaden the appeal of your brand.
CREATE BRAND EVANGELISTS
Receiving a negative review can be a huge opportunity to convert those individuals into brand evangelists. Because of the inherent consumer skepticism that exists, if you are able to over-deliver on how you address a negative review, you have an opportunity to parlay that negativity into a huge emotional swing for the consumer and shift them toward becoming a brand evangelist. Additionally, a similar transformation can occur as a result of instilling a sense of ownership in the brand to consumers whose negative comments are properly addressed.
TRANSPARENCY
As a community manager, it is important to leave negative reviews visible for all to see. This demonstrates a willingness of your business or brand to be transparent with consumers, which will result in increased consumer trust, greater value given to positive reviews, and a perception of increased legitimacy of brand or corporate communications.
Despite the positive effect that negative reviews can have for your business or brand, this is like anything good in life; it’s all about balance. In the case of reviews, you will certainly want them to primarily be positive. The purpose of this post, however, is simply to point out that the receipt of a negative review here and there isn’t the end of the world, but instead should be embraced as opportunity and even as being positive.
How do you handle negative reviews? Do you view them as being opportunities or a shot in the arm? Do you find constructive ways to utilize this information? It would be awesome to hear from you in the comments.
If you’d like to contact me directly, you can do it here:
Email: matthew@rgbsocial.com
Twitter: @RGBSocial
Facebook: facebook.com/RGBSocial
To Blog, or Not to Blog
Posted: August 20, 2012 Filed under: Blogging, Social Media | Tags: blogging, business, promotions, rgb social, SEO, small business, social media, social media marketing, thought leadership Leave a comment »
To many, the thought of maintaining a blog for business can be daunting. Contributing to a blog, keeping a regular posting schedule, ensuring content is relevant and topical, and figuring out how a blog can fit into your social media marketing strategy are just a few of the many perceived barriers.
Despite the barriers, in this post I will outline 7 of the benefits a blog affords, and how it can work to support your business or brand’s broader social media marketing strategy.
1. THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Contributing to your blog is a perfect place to demonstrate thought leadership in your industry or area of expertise.
2. HOUSING CONTENT
Blogs are able to house all types of content. Whether you are producing traditional written posts, lists, videos, video blogs, audio, podcasts, pictures, inforgraphics, or anything not listed, a blog can serve as a central hub for all of your content.
3. SEO
Dominating the first page of search results can be critical for maximizing your digital exposure to prospective clients. A blog that is properly optimized and is regularly maintained can contribute to this first page domination.
4. SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT
Everything you post on your blog can serve as valuable and incredibly relevant content to link to and share with your social media communities.
5. ESTABLISH CREDIBILITY
For new brands, businesses, or businesses looking to enter new markets, a blog can assist with establishing credibility with new consumers or business partners. Your blog serves as an archive of your brand’s activity, authority in your industry, and history of thought-leadership to name a few ways in which it can help to establish credibility.
6. RECRUITMENT
Your blog gives prospective employees a more complete view of your organization, the way it operates, the way it thinks, your expertise and experience, and anything else they might want to know about that wouldn’t otherwise be accessible. This can position your organization as one that is desirable to work at for any number of reasons, which will ultimately assist with recruitment.
7. PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS
As mentioned in one of my previous posts, most social media platforms have strict regulations about how they can be used for promotional or contesting efforts. In fact, there are some social media platforms such as Google+, that don’t allow promotions or contests at all. Because a blog is essentially an independently operated web site, you have free reign to run promotions or contests however you see fit, so long as they operate within the respective promotional, contesting and lottery rules and laws in your region.
While these are just a few of the many benefits of blogging for businesses and brands, hopefully you have either gained a greater appreciation for the value of blogs for business, can see how to better integrate a blog into your social media marketing strategy, or you have picked up an idea or two about how you can use your blog more effectively or more creatively.
How do you use your corporate or business blog? What are the major benefits you have experienced from blogging for your business? Is your blog integrated with your social media marketing strategy? It would be great to hear from you in the comments.
As always, if you’d like to contact me for any reason, please feel free to do so in any of the following places:
Email: matthew@rgbsocial.com
Twitter: @RGBSocial
Facebook: facebook.com/RGBSocial
