Why Blogs and Social Media Are Effective Marketing Tools

presents
Blogs and social media
Marketing for the 21st century

Case Studies
Who should’ve had a blog:
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.

Dell
• In 2005, Dell didn’t have a blog.
But one of their customers did…

Dell’s customer strikes back
• This customer was very upset with Dell’s
customer service.
• He wrote about his experience on his blog.
• So did another blogger, whose post was
so popular, it led to the creation of a new
term for Dell…

Dell Hell in Google
• If you search for Dell Hell in Google, that
guy’s post is the first result.
• As a result, Dell got negative press
coverage in the New York Times and Wall
Street Journal.

Dell couldn’t fight back
• Dell didn’t have a blog, so they were
unable to communicate with the angry
blogosphere.

• But there was a happy ending. Dell set up
their own blog.

Happy ending
• “In the age of customers empowered by
blogs and social media, Dell has leapt
from worst to first." –
Jeff Jarvis, Business Week
• First step: Dell dispatched technicians to
reach out to complaining bloggers and
solve their problems, earning pleasantly
surprised buzz in return.

Dell’s new blog
Measurable results
• Dell saw a 27 point decrease in negative
blog posts, from 49 percent at the peak
of Dell Hell to the current 22 percent.
• Cost would have been hundreds of
millions for similar ad campaign.

• Michael Dell: "A company this size is not
going to be about a couple of people
coming up with ideas. It's going to be
about millions of people and harnessing
the power of those ideas."

Apple lost billions
• At the hands of bloggers…

“Applegate”
• May 2007: “…earlier yesterday technology blog
Engadget published what it claimed was an
internal email from Apple that stated the iPhone
launch would be delayed until October and that
the Leopard operating system would be delayed
until January 2008.
Six minutes after the post, Apple's share value
had sunk to $103.42, cutting Apple's
company value by $4bn. - TechCrunch

“Applegate”
• “Apple has received formal government

approval to sell its much-anticipated
iPhone in the US, just a day after a bogus
email, dubbed "Applegate", wiped $4bn
from the company's stock market value.“ -
Guardian

Target’s not on target

Target PR Nightmare
• A rep from a non-profit concerned with
media and marketing’s impact on kids
writes to Target objecting to the ad on the
previous slide.

Target’s unfortunate response
• Target: “unfortunately we are unable to
respond to your inquiry because Target
does not participate with non-traditional
media outlets. This practice is in place to
allow us to focus on publications that
reach our core guest.”

uh oh…
= PR nightmare

Target PR Nightmare
• Target was publicly slammed for having
questionable advertising practices and
elitist public relations policies.
• Story was picked up and repeated
thoughout the blogosphere

Target PR Nightmare
• Shaping Youth is a small, grass-roots
organization - that has a blog.
• Target is #33 in the Fortune 50 - with
$59 Billion in revenue - but no blog.

Video takes down the big guys
Comcast couch guy
• From the blog: “A Comcast technician
came to replace a faulty modem. After
spending an hour on hold with Comcast's
central office, he fell asleep on my couch.
I've been in my apartment for three weeks
and my internet connection is still non-
functional. This is my tribute to Comcast,
their low quality technology and their poor
customer service.”
Comcast couch guy
• Number of views on YouTube: 1,181,809
• See the movie

AOL – cancel my account!
• Vincent Ferrari wanted to cancel his AOL
account. It took him 21 minutes of
frustration to succeed. At one point the
AOL rep asked 30 year old Ferrari to
speak to his dad.
• Unfortunately for AOL, Ferrari recorded
the conversation and published it on
YouTube.

AOL – cancel my account!
• Video covered on MSNBC and elsewhere
• Number of views on YouTube: 218,391
• See the movie

Blogs and social media have a
serious impact…
Why blog? Visualization of the blogosphere
Because you
are already
there.
And you have no control

Today’s leading brand
Source: Millward Brown’s Brandz

Nature of advantage is shifting
Google The big boys: Coke,
P&G
$0 on ads Decades and billions on
marketing, branding and
advertising

The corporate website is becoming
Irrelevant Corporate Website
• “But we’re tired of the corporate website and all
its happy marketing speak, stock photos of
smart looking dudes or minority women crowded
around the computer raving about your product,
the positive press release, the happy customer
testimonials, the row of executive portraits, the
donations your corporate made to disaster relief,
the one-sided view never ends.“ – Jeremiah
Owyang, Sr. Analyst at Forrester Research:
Social Computing
The new corporate website
• Websites are created with customers
• Unfiltered customer testimonials will
appear
• Content will have both negative and
positive views about your products
• Your website will be a Community
Resource

Outcome
• Customers will make your site the first
place to go for information, trust will
increase, you may be able to build better
products and services with real-time
customer feedback, and most importantly,
you’ll be a community resource that will
help you meet your customer needs
faster.
-
Web
© illuminea 2008. All Strategy:
rights reserved. How to evolve your irrelevan
What is social media?
Sites considered social media:
• Blogs • Picture sharing
• Message boards (Photobucket)
• Forums • Podcasts
• Social networks • Vidcasts
(MySpace or • Wikis
Facebook) • Groups
• Video sharing (You • Virtual words or
Tube) communities (Second
life)
Examples

Common traits:
• Editable
• Participative
• Connect people

The blogosphere is doubling in size
every 6 months
Growth of the blogosphere
• It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years
ago
• On average, a new weblog is created every
second of every day
• 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3
months after their blogs are created
• Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog
posts each day, about 50,000 per hour
• 34% of large corporations currently have a blog
solution, 70% plan one by the end of the year

“To blog or not to blog?
The answer, simply
enough, is to blog. No
better opportunity exists
to engage in an open
dialog and exchange of
ideas with customers and
potential customers.”
Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, General
Motors
"If you blog, you exist."
- Shai Agassi, former
Board Member, SAP
What is a blog?
Portmanteau of Written in
“weblog” chronological order
Displayed in A verb
reverse
chronological From Wikipedia entry for “Blog”
order http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Blog Characteristics
RSS Feeds

Trackbacks
Tells other blogs
you linked to
them, and then
an excerpt of your
post appears with
a link back to
your blog in the
comments
section of their
post that you
linked to

Pingbacks
You get a
notification that
other bloggers
linked to your
blog, and an
excerpt of their
post appears on
your blog with a
link to their blog
(opposite of
trackbacks)

Example of pingback

Comments

Pings
• Blogs set up to ping send an automatic
message to tens or hundreds of blog
directories, telling them you just published
something new.
• This not only spreads your blog further,
but Google is known to follow these blog
directories, and it helps Google pick up on
new blogs quickly.
• Pingomatic.com is an example of a
pinging service.
Tags
• Good for search
engines; gives them
more info on what the
post is about
• Good for Technorati
blog directory
• Good for finer
categorization of
posts

Social Bookmarks
• Make it easy for
people to submit
posts to bookmark
directories
• This helps spread the
word, and if enough
people “vote” for your
blog, you can get tons
of traffic

“It’s a new media world that really returns
us to old Main Street ethics. A shopkeeper
within the town builds great relationships
with his/her community members. There’s
an intrinsic understanding that they need
the community as much if not more so than
the community needs the shop. And so the
shopkeeper works hard for the community,
and treats it well.“
- The Participation Ethos
Isn’t it a waste of time?
Other wastes of time:
• “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military
value.” –Marechal Ferdinand Foch
• “The wireless music box has no imaginable
commercial value. Who would pay for a
message sent to nobody in particular?” –David
Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings
for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
• “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” -
-H.M. “Harry” Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

Benefits: General
• Low cost and fast to set up
• Transparent and authentic
• Information is always up-to-date
• Blogging is innovative = you are
innovative

Benefits: Reach
• Get the right information to the right
people at the right time.
• Broad reach via RSS and email
subscriptions
• Opening a new marketing channel for
products and services

Benefits: Financial
• Test out ideas on the blog before
development
• Forrester research: savings from customer
insights

Benefits: Search Engines
• Search engines like:
– Sites that publish fresh content
– Sites with inbound links
– Keywords

Benefits: Thought Leadership
• Position you and your company as thought
leaders in competitive markets
• Establish a true, credible voice in the
marketplace
• Tim Ferris launched
The 4 Hour Workweek to New York Times
bestseller list through blogging

Benefits: Branding
• Strengthen and promote your brand
• Give your company a human face
• Forrester research: increased brand
visibility
• Forrester research: reduced impact from
negative user-generated content, and
increased sales efficiency

Benefits: PR
• Free and controlled news desk
• Damage control!
• Rapid response tool
• Create buzz - give small hints abt. new
products, generate press interest
• Announce conferences/events
Benefits: Customer Relations
• Customer queries answered leading to
reduced customer service or technical
support calls
• Enhance customer loyalty
• Build sense of community
• Turn customers into your sales force
• Reach an active, passionate consumer
base
• Reach people on their own terms
Benefits: Lead Generation
• Better communication with prospects
• Leverage existing customer base to
spread your message
• Increased enquiries generated
• A living white paper
• Word of Mouth - 80% of online users
trust the opinion of a friend or
acquaintance more than any other
possible web source
Benefits: Intelligence
• GM's Fastlane Blog’s Bob Lutz, says he
receives better consumer intelligence from
reading the comments on his blog than
those from traditional market research
channels, like surveys and focus groups.
• Quickly and easily poll your customers
• Get feedback
• Build better products from 2-way
conversation
When blogs came to the
rescue…
vs.
• Johnson&Johnson sues Red Cross over

use of Red Cross!
• J&J uses their blog to take the dialogue
beyond the standard corporate PR, and
communicates on their blog.

vs.
• The result? A large number of comments

and stories generally providing broad
support for J&J's point of view. While there
are negative comments, the blog achieved
what no other crisis communication's
vehicle would have delivered.

GM leader in social media
• GM launched blog in 2005 – Fastlane
• Written by Vice Chairman
• 200 years: GM expanding social media
strategy to include GMNext
• Isn’t that a waste of time?

GM says yes to SM
• Forrester compared the results of GM’s
Fastlane blog to those of a focus group,
and since a focus group costs about
$15,000 a month, which works out to
$180,000 each year, GM has achieved
similar results via their blog, and saved
itself $180,000 in cash per year.

GM says yes to SM
• GM is trying to engage their customers one ca
.
• Transparency
• Increases chances of reaching younger
buyers
• Profit? Increase of 2.6% in sales
compared with January last year.

It ain’t all rosy…
Problems with social media
• Time
• Compliance issues
• Untrustworthy member data
• 50% of blogs abandoned within 90 days
• Loss in workplace productivity
• Hard to measure success
• Need for openness

Growing pains: Ford
• Ford recently released
their first social media release.
• Ford’s lawyers did a very unsocial thing
and stopped some of their most exuberant
fans from printing up a fan calendar with
photos of their own Ford cars in it.

Growing pains: Ford
• “The folks at BMC (Black Mustang Club) automotive forum wanted
to put together a calendar featuring members’ cars, and print it
through CafePress. Photos were submitted, the layout was set,
and… CafePress notifies the site admin that pictures of Ford cars
cannot be printed. Not just Ford logos, not just Mustang logos, the
car -as a whole- is a Ford trademark and its image can’t be
reproduced without permission. So even though Ford has a lineup
of enthusiasts who want to show off their Ford cars, the company is
bent on alienating them. ‘Them’ being some of the most loyal
owners and future buyers that they have. Or rather, that they had,
because many have decided that they will not be doing business
with Ford again if this matter isn’t resolved.” (From BoingBoing -
read more there)

• “Ford pulled the spark-plug right outta
their hearts.” – Todd Defren

How do I social?
How to social
• Have a personality
• Don’t be afraid of failure
• Pick the right social media for your
audience
• Make friends
• Add value to the community
• Don’t self-promote

How to social (cont)
• Be accurate
• Be transparent
• Be patient
• Increase your linkability
• Make tagging and bookmarking easy
• Help your content travel

Social Media Trends
Fatigue
• The average amount of time each user
spends on social networking sites has
fallen by 14% over the last four months
(ComScore)

Fads
• MySpace > Facebook > Twitter >
Friendfeed > ?

Microblogging/Lifestreams
Who’s on twitter
• Carnival Cruise lines
• Intel Software
• Adaptive Path
• PodTech Network
• Hillary Clinton
• Barack Obama

Ways to use twitter
• Personal Branding • Notify your customers
• Get feedback • Event updates
• Hire people • Find prospects
• Direct traffic • Provide live coverage
• Read news • Set up meetings
• Network • Support your social
• Company intranet media strategy – get
votes for articles, etc.

Reputation Management
What happens when you google

your name?
The web is the network
• To end off, I suggest you watch this video
on what the new web is all about – it is
about us, and we are creating it.
• The Machine is Us/ing Us

"To find something comparable, you
have to go back 500 years to the
printing press, the birth of mass
media...Technology is shifting power
away from the editors, the publishers,
the establishment, the media elite.
Now it's the people who are taking
control." Rupert Murdoch, quoted in
Wired, July 2006.
About illuminea
• illuminea provides online marketing services,
including website and blog design, development
and strategy; and social media strategy
development and consulting services.
• illuminea also gives courses on the subject of
blogging and social media, and other marketing
topics.
• Learn more on illuminea.com – and read our
blog at illuminea.com/blog.

Thank you!
www.illuminea.com
mschwab@illuminea.com
Also see us at:
WordPressGarage
israelplug
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facebook

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presents

Blogs and social media

Marketing for the 21st century

© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.

© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.

© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.

© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.

© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.

© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.

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• “Apple has received formal government

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Source: Millward Brown’s Brandz

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• Johnson&Johnson sues Red Cross over

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• The result? A large number of comments

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