On October 8th, Bodyform, a U.K. maxipad maker, received a negative post on its Facebook wall. This post, which has now gotten more than 92,000 likes, called out the brand for false advertising.
Instead of ignoring the post or replying with an automated apology, Bodyform creatively one-upped the post, made by Richard Neill, with a video.
The video pretends to fess up about pathological lying. CEO Caroline Williams, actually played by an actress, says “I think it’s time we came clean. We lied to you, Richard, and I want to say sorry…Sorry.”
The video goes on to facetiously explain why Bodyform has used metaphorical images in advertising rather the focusing on the truth of menstrual cycles.
Not every brand would feel comfortable doing something like this, or would have the skill and creativity to pull it off, but this a great example of what social engagement looks like.
When recruiting through social media, think of these tools in the following ways:
1) Facebook – The Coffee Shop. Fans see updates in real time so you can post about job openings, trade shows, etc. You can also create pages for job listings.
2) Twitter – The Speed Date. Include links to job postings. Can post several times a day. You can get conversations started here very easily.
3) Your Blog – The Open House. Your blog shows off your business’ personality and is a great venue for posting job openings.
4) LinkedIn – The Networking Event. Users can follow your company page and you can post jobs inexpensively on your Career page.
5) YouTube – The Public Access Cable Channel. Videos can showcase your company so prospects can “meet” the people or place they will be working with/at. You can also create a recruiting “commercial”.
For more information on recruiting through social media, click here.
Over the past couple of years, we’ve been delving into the world of YouTube. With our clients, we use YouTube to post testimonials, demonstrations, tutorials and other informational clips. We are constantly brainstorming and discovering new ways to use this new and highly-effective social media tool, so this article by Mashable has been helpful to us.
When small businesses upload a video, they believe that in order for it to be successful, it must be viewed by millions.
“Remind yourself that having a video go viral is a notable success, not the norm,” says Matt Smith, director of strategy at digital agency The Viral Factory.
No matter how good the video content is, you can’t just upload it to YouTube and wait for viewers to watch it. Businesses need to have a strong and well thought out promotion and distribution plan.
We use other social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter, to share YouTube videos.
2. Thinking Small
Keeping realistic expectations is important, but don’t weigh out the possibility of your video going viral just because you’re a small business.
“There are plenty of small brands that think they need to be a Nike or an Adidas to be successful in social video,” says Sarah Wood, founder of social video distribution and engagement company Unruly Media. “This is simply not true! Any brand, large or small, can score a hit in social video.”
3. Treating a Viral Video as a Commercial
Don’t limit your video content to an ad on a limitless new media outlet.
“When you go into online video with the understanding that it can do more than just sell a product or service, you’re already ahead of the game,” says Justin Gonzalez, social media strategist for Bars+Tones, creative video agency.
YouTube is a social media site where people want to engage in fun content, so don’t limit your company to the old sales pitch style.
YouTube is one of the biggest social media platforms, but definitely not the only one! We try and use YouTube as much as it seems fit, but for some of our clients, YouTube is not the best social platform.
“Businesses that want to leverage the word of mouth potential of social video need to focus away from just YouTube and explore the world of social video that exists beyond YouTube, Twitter and Facebook,” says Wood.
5. Basing Success on View Counts Alone
Most businesses upload content on YouTube and anxiously watch the numbers increase and wish to get 1 million views. Although achieving 1 million views is impressive, you can’t base your success on the number of views; meaningful engagement is what matters. Of course we love seeing our number of views increase, we like to watch for comments for viewers, which can give much more feedback and be much more meaningful.
“Sometimes marketers get bogged down in looking at the metrics and trying to determine whether the number of video views really made a difference in the bottom line, or whether it was just enough to build buzz around the product or service,” says Gonzalez. “When you can clearly define why it’s necessary for your business to be on YouTube, you’re ready to move on to the next steps.”
Keep these YouTube mistakes in mind as you begin experimenting with it as a marketing tool.
Have you heard that the Old Spice Guy, aka Isaiah Mustafah, won an Emmy?! Mustafah took home the win for ‘Best Commercial: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like • Old Spice Body Wash.’ Take a look at his latest viral coup. (Article via MarketingProfs)
Old Spice Guy’s Viral Coup: How He Did It
From July 13 to 14, “Old Spice Guy” (towel-clad spokesman Isaiah Mustafah) responded to users’ Old Spice references at YouTube. Short YouTube video clips featured OSG charming users with witty repartee. Links to the videos appeared on Twitter like that.
The resulting user stats were impressive: Upload views at YouTube, over 83 million; subscribers to the YouTube channel. over 140,000; Twitter followers, 92,000; Facebook Likes, 686,000. Now, that’s a lot of listening fans!
How did Old Spice (and agency Wieden + Kennedy) score this multimedia coup? Here are the key ingredients that made this campaign a mega-winner:
A brave, playful strategy. Old Spice hails back to the 1930s. Observing the ironic attitude of modern man, it inversed its persona, creating a Manly Man so impossibly smug (yet so self-deprecating) that he was lovable.
Relinquishing of content. Appropriations (and imitations) of its “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ad appeared in droves (case in point). Users were inspired, having fun. Old Spice let them be—allowing word about its content to spread.
Acknowledging users while staying true to the original ad. Its decision to have Mustafa answer questions worked because people love acknowledgment. The material was also thoughtful and well-written without breaking the universe created around OSG; there he was, in the bathroom!
Clever use of media (Twitter, YouTube). Inspired media morphs made the content a medium in itself. Observe: a marriage proposal via OSG. (We’d totally say yes!)
Continuing the discussion. The effort couldn’t last forever, but the goodbye was epic and well-timed. To ease separation anxiety, Old Spice launched a second TV ad featuring Mustafa. And users who still want to play with OSG can do so on Facebook and Twitter.
The Po!nt: You, too, can enjoy the sweet smell of success. Brands still have the power to create beloved icons and spark crowd love. The key these days is to give folks the chance to build it with you.
Adopting social media as a communications tool is a huge leap for many companies. It takes vision to see the power of people connecting online. It takes innovation to embrace something new and different. It takes guts to empower and trust employees to participate in an online channel, with all the potential risks.
But, as they say, the proof is in the pudding…results are what count.
The attached report from Deloitte Australia on their social media success is impressive. They are using platforms like Yammer to test ideas, collaborate in large numbers on a global scale, and harness collective wisdom. They’re recruiting with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. They’re creating a corporate culture that embraces participation, communication, and transformation across the board.
So the choice is NOT ‘do we participate?’
The question is how.
To participate in social media you must unleash energy not try to control it. The process, technology and policy are easy. Getting the right attitude is hard.
This is a fantastic case study for anyone about to take the plunge…or anyone trying to convince their executive team to do so!
What do you get when you combine two great actors playing the most confident parents on the planet, the 2011 Toyota Sienna and a little rap music? A great ad campaign featuring how to bring cool back to the burbs.
Toyota’s series of commercials is aimed at Gen-X-ers who are transitioning from bar-hopping twenty-somethings into settled-down soccer moms and dads (and, frankly, ‘awesome parents’).
The videos are directed by Jody Hill and feature Brian Huskey and Rachael Drummond. We can’t get enough of this hilarious duo. Visit the Sienna YouTube Channel to view all the videos.
Jaylin Fleming, a fifth-grader at Beasley Academic Center in Chicago, is regarded by some as the most talented basketball player his age in the country.
This video is sure to inspire you…a wonderful lesson on life.
Our good friends at Hard Knox Pizzeria in Knoxville entered a video in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “Free Enterprise” contest. The top 25 most-viewed videos move on to the finals. That’s where you come in-Please watch this video, “Brick by Brick,” as many times as you can. Join us in supporting this local business!
Brett Erlich is a writer, producer and co-host of Current TV‘s pop culture show infoMania. Erlich hosts with Conor Knighton, Sarah Haskins, Ben Hoffman, Bryan Safi and Sergio Cilli.
(Current TV is a media company led by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt featuring “pods,” or short programs, many of which are user-generated.)
Erlich hosts several segments on the weekly infoMania series, including “Viral Video Film School.” The “Film School” segments air bi-weekly and feature Erlich giving comedic and satirical ‘lessons’ for online fame-seekers as he analyzes various categories of viral YouTube hits. (In turn, some of the videos he has created have gone viral. His video on YouTube’s Biggest Showoffs has 2,176,406 views to date.)
In the immediate aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, Twitter and other social media sites provided the means for some of the first information about the situation on the ground. Professor Sree Sreenivasan of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and contributing editor at dnainfo.com discusses the impact of new media with Daljit Dhaliwal.
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