It’s almost the end of May, which means it’s time to round up some of the more noteworthy social campaigns we’ve seen this month.
This time around it includes Quorn, a security guard from Arcadia, Reiss, Free Tibet, Bestival and a clever video from A1 Sauce.
For more of the same check out our social campaign round ups from April and the first few months of 2014…
One would hope that by now all businesses had mastered the basics of social marketing, but clearly that isn’t the case, particularly for small companies.
So to give a helping hand for any businesses with a fledgling or non-existent social presence, I’ve come up with a few basic rules that need to be in place for a social media campaign to work.
You may well be thinking that all marketing campaigns should involve some element of social media in this day and age, and you’d be right.
But the aim of this article is to provide some food for thought on the things that marketers should consider when creating a campaign that predominately uses social.
Furthermore, I haven’t addressed the tricky issue of coming up with shareable content, largely because that will be the subject of its own post at a later date.
There is nothing sadder than reflecting on the earlier days of a community or service and complaining about how much things have changed.
So let’s just take it for granted that there’s an element of that in this but not dwell too much.
Instead, I’d like to focus on something more important: how you shake things up when the timeline that used to delight and inform you begins to feel saggy and boring.
Think of it like marriage-counselling for a tool that many of us spend more time with than our significant others.
(If you have your own tips, let me know.)
Social media is a major part of Ford’s continued evolution in digital and in many cases features some of its most groundbreaking work.
Ford was the first automobile manufacturer to reveal a vehicle on Facebook, it was the first brand on Google+ and it runs perhaps one of the most uniquely enjoyable and surprising Vine accounts.
Last month I wrote about why Ford’s social media strategy is so good, in which I discussed Ford’s various social channels and how it expertly tailors its output and connects to each channel’s audience with the right content and tone of voice.
At the helm of this strategy is Scott Monty, Ford’s global digital & multimedia communications manager. Within just a few years Scott has transformed the 110 year old car manufacturer into one of the most successful brands in digital and social.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Scott Monty for the blog and he had the following to say about Ford’s social media strategy, the challenges the company faces and Ford’s overall digital transformation.
It’s arrived slightly late this month, but here is your regular round up of interesting, creative and inspiring social campaigns.
It includes Cristiano Ronaldo, a load of selfies, newsjacking, Spider-man, Manchester City, The Special One, and a brilliant campaign from Pharrell and Tipp-Ex.
And for more of the same, check out my social round ups from March and the first three months of 2014.
Enjoy!
Ryanair is a unique brand. It managed to become one of Europe’s most-successful airlines despite a reputation for poor service that occasionally bordered on contempt for its own customers.
The ‘no frills’, challenger brand ethos became such an important part of Ryanair’s image and tone of voice that it ended up antagonising consumers as well as the competition.
But changing consumer expectations and mass adoption of digital technology means that Ryanair risks being left behind if it doesn’t change its ways, so new CMO Kenny Jacobs has been tasked with overhauling the customer experience and improving people’s perceptions of the brand.
The airline’s appeal comes from its low prices and massive choice of routes, so that has to remain intact if the business is to continue growing. Therefore Jacobs is focusing much of his efforts on improving the digital experience.
Amazon has unveiled a new hashtag that allows shoppers to add items to their cart without leaving Twitter.
Known as #AmazonBasket in the UK and #AmazonCart in the US, it marks an interesting step forward in social commerce. But is it really that useful?
Before we answer that question, I thought I’d see how easy it was to setup and use the tool.
The first step is to register your Twitter account with Amazon, which is probably the fiddliest part of the process.
Once that is sorted users simply need to reply using the hashtag to any tweet that includes an Amazon product link.
The immediate and public nature of Twitter has helped the social network establish itself as the talking shop of choice for live TV viewers.
From time-to-time Facebook will try to claim that its useless hashtags are just as effective for real-time conversations, or new second-screen apps will crop up before their inevitable decline forces a forlorn rebrand, but as yet Twitter has yet to face any genuine challengers in this area.
However a new study claims that Tumblr is in fact Twitter’s main rival when it comes to TV engagement, with conversations among viewers spiking in the hours after a programme has aired and lasting for days afterwards.
This is partly due to the prevalence of DVRs, streaming, and other video on-demand services which mean that traditional viewing times have shifted and extended from the live broadcast window to the days and weeks after an episode airs.
Reddit is a veritable goldmine for useful, interesting or downright bizarre content, making it a perfect tool for procrastination.
And one need only take a look at the stories that crop up in the mainstream media in the days after they first appeared on Reddit to see the site’s influence on the news agenda.
But is it any use to publishers seeking to gain additional readers, or social managers looking to drive engagement with a new community?
According to data from SimilarWeb, the UK’s main newspapers get a large proportion of their social referrals from Reddit.
How does a 110 year old car manufacturer, the fifth largest in the world, remain relevant, engaging and remotely approachable in the digital age?
It seems like a fiction, but the venerable American corporation does some excellent work on many different social media channels, tailoring its output and connecting to each channel’s audience with the right content and tone of voice.
I’m writing this as someone who doesn’t have a particular interest in cars, either from a practical or aesthetic point of view.
However, as someone with a definite interest in great content, over the past few months Ford has definitely piqued my curiosity. Particularly when it comes to social video.
What’s the difference between a tweet and a blog post? What about a collection of tweets and a website?
You may start with a description of 140 characters, but while this famous limit still applies, it’s hardly the point anymore.
Twitter Cards (RIP ‘tweets’), are best thought of as ‘action+caption’ and may quickly become the smallest meaningful and shareable unit of the web.
Another month has passed, so it’s time to look back and reflect on some of the interesting social campaigns that we saw during March.
This time around the list includes Cancer Research’s #nomakeupselfie campaign, a competition to win World Cup tickets, a few viral videos, and several campaigns that reward users with personalised videos.
And if you’re still clamouring for more social campaigns, check out our round ups from the first few months of 2014 and the whole of 2012.