Buzz Marketing

Yesterday I was contacted by Kirsty Stephenson from Childsifoundation via Twitter asking if I could give them some quick advice on their social media activities.  

Childsifoundation is a charity aiming to build a home for abandoned children in Uganda and their business strategy is purely collaboration which is the perfect fit for Web 2.0 harnessing the power of the community and crowdsourcing.  They already use Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and have a great blog.  Their strategy at the moment is outreach and increasing word of mouth marketing for the charity before they move onto asking for money donations.

I immediately replied to their request to give some advice on the use of widgets as part of their social media activity for the first step.  Below is the e-mail I sent:

Hi Kirsty,

With regard to your Facebook group the first thing you should really look to do is create a ‘widget’ and place it on your profile page.

Widgets simply allow consumers to grab and share your social ad at the same time promoting your charity and encourages word of mouth marketing.

This can not only be shared amongst your Facebook group but can also be shared with other major social networking sites increasing your reach and seeding content further.

Earlier this year I interviewed Ted Hunt from innocent drinks who used this form of social advertising to promote their buy 1 grow 1 tree campaign: http://grow.innocentdrinks.co.uk/

A widget is essentially a ‘pin badge’ for your supporters web pages, profiles, blogs etc… and increases the virality of the campaign.  This is a perfect fit not only for your charity’s business strategy as it is focussed on word of mouth marketing as you want to spreading the word via communities, but it also continues engagement simply by updating the content within the widget such as week by week progress reports of your charity’s activities.

Because you already have video content you can make this immediately into a widget, but ensure that the video gets its message across in 20 secs max as attention span of consumers will not go beyond this.

You can also create a variety of widgets for example another widget would include a the list of charitable things that you want users to do, so they can quickly view this list and click on what needs to be donated - as a result you increase your reach.

Take a look at the following ‘In Widget’ example at http://www.clearspring.com/services/widgetmedia/gallery

You can transform your ‘Get Involved’ list into a dynamic list that users can click on and find out more.  Your ‘Get Involved’ page is a really engaging page as consumers can interact as see if there is anything they can help with or contact their friends if they know someone else with the skills to assist. Engagement is the key to social media.

Place this widget on your blog too as your blog is the launch pad for all other social media activity and visitors will be able to grab and share this application at any time.  You can also track where your widget has been shared so you can monitor your campaign performance and reach.

You can then use this widget as a donating tool later on when you move onto the next stage of your strategy.

Set up an account and create your social widgets over at http://www.clearspring.com/ it is very simple to use and effective.

Hope this helps you out at this stage.

Best regards,

Tom.

Tagged as: charity, childsifoundation, clearspring, Collaboration, Crowdsourcing, facebook, Flickr, Social Advertising, social media strategy, Tom Chapman, Twitter, Widgets, YouTube

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Twilight is a Vampire movie based on the bestseller novel of the same name and series by Stephenie Meyer.  The film makers ‘Summit Entertainment’ expected at the most for Twilight to be a cult movie, but based on the film’s opening night in London’s Leicester Square last night, which saw scores of fans camping out overnight just to see the cast, this movie it set to become a blockbuster.

What we have witnessed here is a great example of word of mouth marketing.  This film has experienced what Malcolm Gladwell would call ‘The Tipping Point’ whereby the consumers have created buzz far beyond any pre-designed marketing hype. 

The buzz surrounding the film has been helped through online user generated content such as YouTube videos, photos, etc… as well as the gap in the market left by Harry Potter. 
When a community such as the Twilight example, takes control and creates folklore around the brand it is magical and what social media buzz marketing is all about.

However, what Summit Entertainment need to do is engage more with this community immediately as to ignore this buzz would be a sin and one hell of a wasted opportunity.  
 

Engage with the community and continue the buzz marketing
Summit Entertainment should look to get involved with the community and its devoted fans, they need to engage in conversation with them, listen to what tools they want and play in the sandpit alongside their consumers, not only to support the momentum of the buzz but also to build trust and ultimately brand loyalty.

The film company could offer to include some of the best user generated videos and content to be included on the DVD release – how cool would that be!  Why not create a virtual world where consumers can create their own characters within the Vampire world and interact with one another including the brand.  Within this virtual world the film company could set up an online shop selling merchandise such as T-shirts that have been designed by members and chosen by the community via rankings, ratings or polls - think the Threadless model.

Looking to the future, Summit Entertainment is already planning a sequel so they will have an already engaged social graph yearning for more and there is great potential for the film company to generate social capital.  The community surrounding the brand should be invited by the film company to preview the sequel online and online mini films should be created to continue community engagement leading up to the new release.

There are hundreds of opportunities to support engagement and continue the buzz through social media with the ultimate payoff being brand loyalty.

Tagged as: Buzz Marketing, movie, SoCap&Brand, social media marketing, Tom Chapman, twilight, WOMMA, word of mouth

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