10 Social Best Practices from the Best Social Brands of 2013
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You see the biggest brands in the world winning the social media war and are left wondering: How can my business get the most out of social? This presentation explores how to leverage best practices from the biggest and best social brands in the world for your company (that may not have a big budget). This 2013 round-up of social media anecdotes offers 10 actionable recommendations to help your business go to the next level. It was originally presented at Hubspot's INBOUND 2013.
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10 Social Best Practices from the Best Social Brands of 2013
- 1. #inbound13 FROM THE BEST SOCIAL BRANDS OF 2013 BEN GROSSMAN | Senior Strategist | Jack Morton Worldwide | SOCIAL BEST PRACTICES
- 3. Does it ever feel like big brands are the only ones winning the social media war?
- 4. Or like the promise of social media as “earned media” is dead?
- 5. Or that, just because your brand doesn’t have to do with cats, you can’t compete?
- 6. Or, more simply, that it just isn’t clear where social media fits into inbound marketing?
- 8. #inbound13 SO THE QUESTION BECOMES: WHAT CAN I LEARN FROM THE BIGGEST BRANDS, WHILE STILL ACTING LIKE A CHALLENGER?
- 9. 1. Why Social Matters 2. Integrating Social With Inbound Marketing 3. 10 Social Best Practices LET’S CHAT:
- 10. 1. Why Social Matters 2. Integrating Social With Inbound Marketing 3. 10 Social Best Practices LET’S CHAT:
- 11. 92%of consumers trust recommendations from family and friends. Nielsen
- 12. 70%of consumers trust opinions of online strangers who they may never meet. Nielsen
- 13. +18%increase in trust of earned media since 2007 Nielsen
- 14. #inbound13 WELCOME TO THE Attention Economy.
- 15. #inbound13 “The continued proliferation of media messages may be impacting how well they resonate with their intended audiences on various platforms.” Randall Beard Global Head Nielsen Advertiser Solutions
- 16. #inbound13 IN OTHER WORDS, PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF BRANDS THAT JUST TALK THE TALK.
- 17. #inbound13 PEOPLE EXPECT BRANDS TO WALK THE WALK. DAILY.
- 18. SOCIAL MEDIA is where the rubber meets the road. It’s where your brand lives as a verb.
- 19. 1. Why Social Matters 2. Integrating Social With Inbound Marketing 3. 10 Social Best Practices LET’S CHAT:
- 20. Social can play across the inbound equation, but is especially important at the attract and delight stages. INBOUND METHODOLOGY
- 22. INTEGRATING SOCIAL WITH INBOUND: A. GROW AUDIENCES B. ENGAGE AUDIENCES
- 23. INTEGRATING SOCIAL WITH INBOUND: A. GROW AUDIENCES B. ENGAGE AUDIENCES C. DEMONSTRATE VALUE
- 24. 1. Why Social Matters 2. Integrating Social With Inbound Marketing 3. 10 Social Best Practices LET’S CHAT:
- 25. #inbound13 10 BIG BRAND STORIES 10 REMARKABLE ACTIONS
- 29. MANCHESTER UNITED For a long time, Man Utd fans were only able to follow their favorite team on Facebook (and to some degree, Twitter). When the brand doubled down with profiles on Twitter, Google+ and Instagram, it didn’t just assume fans would find the new profiles organically. Instead, it launched the “WE ALL FOLLOW UNITED” campaign, activating all channels (not just social) to build its followings. Today, it boasts followings of well over 35 million fans.
- 30. AUDIENCE ACQUISITION REQUIRES ACTION LESSON #1 Stop posting without a meaningful audience! Put a plan into place to acquire followings on social media presences. Leverage email upload tools to audience match and follow. Use other channels to communicate a value proposition to contacts that makes it worth their time to follow you. Hope is not a strategy.
- 31. PARTNER UP FOR EXPANDED REACH LESSON #2
- 33. KITKAT & OREO If you’re truly going to be a social brand, wouldn’t it make sense to socialize with like-minded brands? By listening to a fan bemoaning the fact that she follows both @KITKAT and @Oreo, KITKAT saw an opportunity. The brand initiated a battle for @Laura_elllenxx’s affection with a tongue in cheek game of tic-tac-toe. The team behind Oreo saw an opportunity to be playful in return, allowing both brands to tap into each other’s followings and expand reach for the two iconic sweet brands.
- 34. PARTNER UP FOR EXPANDED REACH LESSON #2 Identify “parallel brands” for your company -- that is, like-minded, non-competitive brands who share your audience. Reach out to that brand’s community manager in order to consider a co-promotional partnership as casual as exchanging a couple tweets or as complex as a content distribution partnership.
- 35. SOCIAL MEDIA WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA LESSON #3
- 37. JETBLUE A lot of brands spent a long time thinking about what April’s Fool joke they could post on their social media presences to trick users. JetBlue spent more time thinking about what they could do for their customers that was worth customers posting themselves. The brand came up with “April’s No Fool.” Anyone named April flying on April 1st was given a JetBlue credit for the amount of her fare. Did it end up all over social? Yes. Did it start as social media? No. It’s just a great idea.
- 38. SOCIAL MEDIA WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA LESSON #3 Don’t get so focused on the next post that you lose sight of what really matters: brilliant ideas. What’s the last one you had? To be effective in a world of social media, brands shouldn’t think it’s just about posting to profiles. Think about what you can do for consumers that they think is worth talking about.
- 40. THE POWER OF AUDIENCE INSIGHT LESSON #4
- 42. DOVE In an exceedingly low interest category, Dove has dug deep to understand the mindset of its audience. Along the way, Dove learned that only 4% of women globally describe themselves as beautiful. Based on that insight, the brand launched the Real Beauty campaign, which has been running for over 7 years. This year, Dove struck an intense cord with its audience around the world with its Real Beauty Sketches video. It became the most viewed online ad of all time and was translated globally.
- 43. THE POWER OF AUDIENCE INSIGHT LESSON #4 Understanding your consumer shouldn’t begin and end with buyer personas. Audience insight that goes beyond how and why people buy can connect brands and consumers deeply and viscerally. Find an issue connected to your brand and create content so meaningful your audience can’t help but share it.
- 46. EATON In an industry that completely lacks differentiation, Eaton’s Power Quality division has created unique value for its customers. An active member of the popular IT professional community Spiceworks, Eaton has built relationships by putting its product experts forward as helpful ambassadors within the community. In order to drive further familiarity with the brand, Eaton launched Claw O’Matic, a promotion that engaged players around Eaton’s brand endlessly and paid off its community connections.
- 47. COMMUNITY FIRST, THEN BUSINESS LESSON #5 The worst time to build relationships with new prospects is when you’re asking them to buy. Instead, focus on becoming an active member of key communities to build a bank of trust with audiences. When it’s time to move people down the funnel, those communities can become your biggest supporters.
- 50. MINI USA While most brands understand the importance of data when it comes to selling products and services, few have created a sense of community by releasing data about their consumers. Prior to the Royal Baby being born, MINI USA asked its fans to predict whether it would be a boy or a girl. Beyond that initial engagement, the brand then followed it up -- releasing the MINI fan prediction results. It make for compelling content, but it also created a hyper-relevant sense of community among MINI fans.
- 51. REAL DATA RESONATES LESSON #6 In an era all about transparency, real data (even if it’s playful) resonates with consumers. What new information can you reveal about the use of your product or service that your customers didn’t know before? The right data point can increase use, drive new use occasions or even be the final sell-in.
- 54. PAULA DEEN The Paula Deen brand may not be doing too well these days, but what it has done right is understand its Pinterest Audience. Wired reports that Deen’s Aunt Peggy’s Cucumber, Tomato and Onion Salad recipe is a perfect example of knowing the perfect type of content for Pinterest: no human faces, little background, multiple colors (including red) and portrait orientation. It’s been repinned 363,000 times, liked 8,000 times, and commented upon 300 times.
- 55. KNOW THY PLATFORM LESSON #7 Whether it’s a salad recipe or a slideshow, understanding intimately the functionality of the social media platform you are using makes a big difference. Optimize your posts to perform based on platform best practices -- posting times, image sizes, CTA positioning and embed options make a difference.
- 59. COTTON When it came time to plan Cotton’s annual 24 Hour Runway Show, the brand wanted to extend the event well beyond the 24 hours it would be taking place. Cotton engaged 6 fashion influencers well in advance of the show in order to conduct a nationwide search for styles that represented each of the influencers’ regions. The influencers not only engaged themselves, but also guided the content of the show so that it would best engage their followers.
- 60. INVITE INFLUENCERS IN LESSON #8 Increasingly, influencers cannot be an afterthought. By building your brand around influencers and inviting them into the process early, brands can ensure that with a brand launch, they’re surrounded by advocates. Consider an advisory board, content partnership or crowd-funding as a first step.
- 63. LOWE’S One of the things consumers love about Lowe’s is the level of support the brand provides through its staff in-store. But with a dispersed sales force, the brand can’t always distribute its best expertise evenly across all its locations. When Vine launched, Lowe’s was one of the first brands to hop on board, offering an entire series of 6-second video tips for basic household problems (#lowesfixinsix). Not only did customers appreciate the advice, but they shared the tips generously with their followers.
- 64. SHARE YOUR EXPERTISE LESSON #9 Sharing your expertise means finding great ways to showcase it to current customers, but also publishing your expertise in a shareable way. In doing so, your brand stands to benefit from increased credibility and the added reach of your current audience sharing with their own spheres of influence.
- 65. BE ON THE WAY, NOT IN THE WAY LESSON #10
- 67. COCA-COLA For a brand that has historically been all about top-of-the-funnel awareness, Coca-Cola’s Open Happiness campaign has given the brand a rare chance to begin adding value to its consumers’ lives. Instead of dispensing soda, the brand created an airport installation that dispenses Danish flags to passengers arriving in Denmark (and their loved ones). A perfect tie to the brand, given that Denmark is ranked as “the happiest country in the world,” Coca-Cola found it in its heart (and logo) to give people a warm Danish welcome.
- 68. BE ON THE WAY, NOT IN THE WAY LESSON #10 Consider how your brand can provide a moment of positivity, productivity or other form of value in consumers’ lives... beyond your core product or service offering. By being on customers’ way, instead of in their way with marketing, spend efficiency increases and people begin to want your brand’s messages.
- 69. 1. Why Social Matters 2. Integrating Social With Inbound Marketing 3. 10 Social Best Practices LET’S CHAT:
- 71. #inbound13 FROM THE BEST SOCIAL BRANDS OF 2013 BEN GROSSMAN | Senior Strategist | Jack Morton Worldwide | SOCIAL BEST PRACTICES