Grazia recently launched its own ecommerce store, which came complete with its own social network.
This got me thinking about what brands might gain from running their own social network.
Owning the user data and tailoring the experience to suit your brand are the most obvious examples, alongside the potential for increasing brand affinity and driving up that customer lifetime value.
It’s nearly November so it’s time to go on a whistle stop tour of the best social campaigns we’ve seen in the past month.
Before you ask, there is zero proof of ROI in this post. That’s not what we’re here for.
I’m merely trying to highlight cool and interesting social campaigns that have emerged in the month of October.
Read on to find out what we’ve seen, or for more on this topic check out my similar posts from August and September…
Everyone loves a heartwarming tale of brands spinning potentially negative news into a huge PR win.
We saw it earlier this year when TrekAmerica jumped on the hashtag #GiveGregAHoliday and scored a huge amount of press coverage for zero investment.
And now this week Waterstones and Airbnb have given us all a lesson in agile marketing after seeing an opportunity for PR gold when a Texan man got locked inside one of the former’s London bookshops.
Read on to find out what happened, or for more on this topic read our post on 23 nimble examples of agile marketing from ecommerce brands.
And to hear more from Airbnb come along to Econsultancy’s Festival of Marketing in November. It’s a two-day celebration of the modern marketing industry, featuring speakers from brands including Airbnb, LEGO, Tesco, Barclays, FT.com and more.
Sports and fitness are innately social activities, so health brands have reaped huge rewards from the rise of social media.
Two great examples of this can be found in the massive popularity of Tough Mudder and Cross Fit, which emphasise team building and camaraderie alongside physical exercise.
Another business built around a fitness community is Sweaty Betty. It sells sports gear for women online and in more than 30 stores across the UK.
These boutiques offer a drastically different shopping experience to the giant soulless warehouses from the likes of Sports Direct. In fact Sweaty Betty even hosts regular yoga classes and other fitness events.
With so much emphasis on building a community, I thought it would be useful to take a closer look at some of Sweaty Betty’s social activity.
Read on for a whirlwind tour of its various social profiles, or for more on this topic read our post on how Nike uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.
Over the past 18 months I’ve hosted over 30 events on social customer service, featuring brands such as eBay, Citibank and British Gas.
While it’s popular to examine the public failures of brands on social media, best practices are also emerging.
Here are 15 of the most useful best practice tips I’ve learned from some of the world’s leading brands.
Lidl surprised consumers in the UK recently with its new TV campaign that aimed to alter perceptions of the brand.
Popular opinion suggests that you get what you pay for at Lidl, so the products match the low, low prices.
However the #LidlSurprises ads play on that image by showing consumers who are pleasantly surprised at the quality of the retailer’s various produce.
The campaign comes as the grocery chain is plotting a £220m UK expansion that will help it to further capitalise on its already soaring sales figures, with revenue expected to reach £4bn in 2014 up from £2bn in 2010.
It’s rival for the crown of the people’s favourite budget retailer comes in the form of Aldi, which achieved sales growth of 35.3% in Q1 2014.
Both retailers have been trying to reinvigorate their marketing with a focus on digital and social media, so I thought it would be interesting to see what Lidl and Aldi are up to on Facebook and Twitter…
Scaling a successful social media brand campaign to reach (and be relevant to) millions of people across the world is no mean feat.
A truly international campaign will be relevant across different countries, cultures, languages and timezones.
The campaign might have a great creative idea at its heart, but the structure, process, management and team behind the implementation of that idea are what will define its success.
Here are my top three things to consider when scaling a social media campaign:
If you’ve ever seen the BBC TV show Dragon’s Den, you’ll know that most entrepreneurs come away with zero investment or end up giving away more of their company than they had initially hoped.
However the founders of Lost My Name came away with £100,000 of investment for just 4% equity.
Lost My Name is a personalised children’s book with two different versions – The Little Boy Who Lost His Name and The Little Girl Who Lost Her Name.
The animals and creatures that the child meets on their journey correspond to the letters that spell their name.
So a girl called Jess might meet a jester, an elf, a snail and a sheep.
The brand’s website allows users to preview the entire book by entering the name and gender of a child, which has proven to be a popular tool for prospective buyers.
We spoke to co-founder Asi Sharabi to find out more about the company and how the appearance on Dragon’s Den has impacted their fortunes…
With almost 400m active users and a growing global audience, Tencent’s WeChat app is the new king of Chinese social media.
Often touted as the Chinese alternative to WhatsApp, WeChat actually offers a far broader range of features and tools.
Alongside text, video and voice messaging, users in China can make mobile payments, browse ecommerce stores, play games, or book a taxi. It even offers access to an online investment fund.
All this, coupled with the fact that the messaging app offers a veil of privacy cherished by young Chinese, makes it easy to see why WeChat has become central to its users’ lives.
Which in turn made it inevitable that marketers would seek to get in on the act, with official brand accounts first being made available around September 2012.
It’s been another busy month in the world of social media, with several great new campaigns launched and big developments afoot in Zuckerberg’s domain.
Alongside trialling a new ‘buy’ button, Facebook announced second-quarter revenue of $2.91bn, an increase of 61%. Not bad.
And what of these campaigns? Well I’ve detailed several of them below, so go ahead and give them a read.
But just before you do, please note that these examples do not include any information on ROI. I’ve chosen them purely because I find them to be innovative, interesting, or inspiring.
Thanks, you may continue… (or check out these social campaigns from June.)
Reality is an illusion. Ask 100 people to describe the same event, and each one will tell you a slightly different story based on their perception of what has transpired, much like the metaphorical tale of the blind men describing an elephant.
But if changing reality is as simple as changing perception, where does this lead us? Could reality be altered retrospectively? Can we change the past?
In short. Yes we can, and social media is the key.
“Social media can help us alter the past.” That’s quite a claim, so let me explain myself.
Social media is a very powerful tool for charities and NGOs as people naturally like to share their support for good causes.
It’s also an easy way for supporters to share fundraising initiatives and raise extra money.
We’ve previously blogged about five charities with excellent Twitter feeds as well as our own tips for how these organisations can improve their social presence, and now I thought it would be useful to highlight the ways in which charities are making the most of Twitter’s new header images.
There appears to be a trend among charitable organisations and NGOs to use the header as a way of promoting various causes and campaigns, which leads to the images becoming clogged up with text and phone numbers.
Personally I’m dubious that many people are going to spend time reading an appeal within the header image, so it’s perhaps better to opt for an impactful visual instead. A picture is worth 1,000 words after all.
So with that in mind, here are 10 examples of charities and NGOs with inspirational header images…