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Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Mission: Seek and Target

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

There’s no magic formula to successful food marketing in today’s world of social media. The strategy is the same as it was 20 years ago…keep your brand visible and relevant where your consumers are actively engaged. Certainly the avenues have radically changed and consumers have adopted and embraced mediums where they have a voice and influence.

Some food brands have done a decent job at engaging and marketing to consumers on social networks, but few have it down to a measurable, effective science. Here are two tools that can take your social network marketing to the next level.

First, you have to seek out and find those who are already enjoying your brand or would be likely to purchase it. As well as those who already have an affinity and are sharing with others the wonderful attributes of your product.

One of the tools you can utilize to gather this intelligence is a software called All Access™. It’s the next-generation of social media monitoring and analysis. All Access finds, aggregates, and interprets conversations taking place in ALL social media outlets, by category and brand.

All Access gives you the ability to:

  • Search and analyze web-based conversations around unlimited topics:
    • Product, service, and brand names or categories
    • Pre and post marketing campaign and product launch initiatives
    • Customer service and investor relation discussions
  • All Access has the ability to take a specific topic or category of interest and find EVERY credible two-way conversation on the web.

Now that you know who is consuming your product and who would be likely to, you have to target them with marketing communications. Working hand-in-hand with All Access is a program called AdSlider™.

AdSlider™ has the ability to:

  • INSERT associated content – static or animated banner ads, coupons, videos, blog entries, posts, and sweepstakes entries – into relevant conversations about your brand or category.
  • CONTENT can be part of the actual conversation or in a promotional format.
  • DELIVER content based on consumer sentiment and specific conversations about your brand, category, or competitors.
  • ANALYZE the content, format, number of views, actions performed, etc., allowing you to track success in real time.

Today’s consumers have adopted and embraced these new mediums where they have a voice–where they have influence within an affinity group of peers. This type of marketing approach will allow you to measure your share of voice, know what consumers are saying, join the conversations, effectively target consumers and potential consumer, and much more.

Social media is an incredible avenue available for you to build your food brand–as long as you use a strategic approach with measurable results.

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Posted in Food Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The First 500 Billion Impressions

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Posted by Kelly, Senior Copywriter

We’ve all heard it at one time or another from our mother, “If your friend jumped off a bridge would you?” Of course not. That is unless your friend happens to be in the 6.2% of online adults who generates 80% of the influence impressions on social networking sites, or among the 13.8% of online adults who generate influence posts via a blog or a blog comment. Add all these impressions together and they reach the remarkable total of 500 billion impressions made yearly regarding products and services by influential online users.* Then, yes, you may just find yourself jumping off a bridge. Or trying a new product that you just can’t live without.

Now, let’s couple these impressions with the fact that women, who control 73% of household spending, make up 55%** of active users on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs. These figures reflect two key points for food marketers: one, your most influential consumers are online, they are blogging, they are Facebooking, they are tweeting. They are waiting to be engaged. Two, your influential consumers are actually easier to find and begin a dialogue with in order to gain your share of the 275 billion impressions women make yearly. You just have to reach out.

However, just as you shouldn’t jump off a bridge, you best watch your tone when engaging with these women. Simply put, it isn’t nice to fool Mother Nature and if you try and fool the Real Mom with false promises and a false, disingenuous tone, you’ll be the fool. Dubbed the Real Mom, by marketers, these women range in age from 24-45 and act as the emotional and operational core of her family’s life. These women plan the majority of meals, they do the grocery shopping, and they prepare the meals. All on top of working, very often, a full-time job and having the overwhelming feeling that personal time must be sacrificed for a clean and organized home.

Thus, when the real mom goes to unwind and relax in the evening, they do so, very often, online while chatting with friends or visiting social networking sites and blogs. And, because she is the core of her family’s values, very often she is connecting with friends regarding products that make an impact on her: what foods make her life easier at meal time; what healthy, all natural snack does she feel good about giving her kids; what yummy treat is she craving for a pick-me-up; what are her diet secrets. She is a real person, providing her real opinion, and she expects, in return, from her friends and her brands, Real Engagement. A community.

In recognition that her life is a series of trade offs, the Real Mom is willing to seek a sense of community online. Furthermore, she is seeking out brands that offer a community where she can be both engaged and entertained, as well as have a voice, and she knows her friends and other moms are looking for those brands who get what it means to be a Real Mom. As a food marketer you need to ask yourself: are you targeting the Real Mom? To meet the real mom on her terms, you have to first listen and then act. Respond to her comments, appreciate her ideas, and offer her support – these are actions that speak directly to her needs. These are the actions that will make a real impression - She and her friends will make the other 274 billion.

*Forrester Research, Inc., World Wide Research Center, 2010
** The Rise of the Real Mom, Ad Age White Paper

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Posted in Advertising, Food Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Facebook 2.0 for Brands

Monday, December 7th, 2009

By Jamie Allebach

If you’re not personally on Facebook or using it to market your brand—you’re either living in a cave or suffering from some type of technophobia. Facebook now has 350 million users and is a hotbed for marketing (Quick fact: if Facebook were a country, it’s population would rank it as the 4th largest in the world).

For the rest of you, by now you’ve most likely mastered the basics of Facebook and set up Facebook fan pages for your brand or business. It’s now time to take your Facebook marketing to the next level. Here are some practical tips:

  1. Grow your fan base by promoting your brand to your fans and friends, and ask them to pass along information.
  2. Utilize your fans and friends to gather valuable consumer feedback. You can create surveys, quizzes, or questionnaires about your brand or even new product development ideation. Now you’ve gathered valuable consumer data, intelligence, and opinions…for FREE.
  3. Send our special promotions or incentives to your friends and fans, and watch the viral effect of Facebook. There are many ways to get creative with this–think outside the box of traditional promotions.
  4. Utilize behavior-targeted ads to get in front of people who are likely to relate with your brand. (http://alleblog.com/?m=200905)
  5. Join and contribute to the conversations about your brand.
  6. Develop a Facebook App or game for your brand.
  7. Use postings to drive friends and fans to your website or other social mediums.

Why are these tactics so effective on Facebook? One of the primary reasons is what I call the “Sticky Factor” of Facebook. One of the major challenges with blogs, websites, microsites, and other online mediums is driving traffic. Brands spend millions to drive unique visitors and then strive to return incentives. With Facebook, they’re already there, every day, sometimes for hours at a time.

These are just some basic, effective ways to invest your marketing dollars on Facebook. Dive in and give it a try.

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Posted in Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »

To Compete: Tweet

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

On April 17, 2009, Oprah sent out her first tweet on Twitter.com. For interested parties the Tweet said: “HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY.” My first thought, as a marketer, was that the tipping point was just televised. Even better, if I required concrete confirmation it came a day later in numbers: Twitter saw a whopping 37% increase in visits to the Twitter.com homepage. All new visitors. Each one signing up for a Twitter account.

Impressive numbers, indeed. Now let me continue by saying all of us at Allebach are big believers in social media as a vehicle for brands to get their message out to the public – and let’s face it, Oprah is a pretty big brand. As strategic, forward thinkers, we clearly see how powerful the word of mouth potential is on sites like Twitter and Facebook. However, more often than not, we also find our clients asking why social media is important to their brand. Isn’t social media just a passing fad? Does it really matter? Isn’t it something for kids – “not something my customers are using?”

Valid questions. Ones, I think, we have all asked ourselves at one point or another when trying to understand the concept of social media. Especially Twitter. At only 140 characters for sharing thoughts and no other applications to entertain users, Twitter is pretty much the social media equivalent of a billboard.

However, upon Oprah joining the social frenzy, all my questions regarding why people were grabbing hold of Facebook, Twitter and the like so tightly where answered. My theories, as an amateur social scientist (aren’t all marketers amateur social scientists), where confirmed. Not because Oprah provided the answers, but because the strength of Oprah’s brand is built upon a strong sense of community and belonging. With just 140 characters, everyone can Twit. Everyone can be a member of the community. Everyone can see what Ashton Kutcher is up to and what snack, Skinny Cow by the by, Oprah is noshing on. And, it’s free.

Being on a social networking site is not only inexpensive (an especially appealing entertainment during down economic times), but social networking builds upon something the disenfranchised in our fast paced society have discovered they’re missing: community. In fact, if you track the numbers, the worse the economy got this past fall, the more members Facebook and Twitter gained. And now that Oprah, the woman, and the brand, has started Twitting and sharing her life with the masses of people who hang on her every tweet, I don’t think we’ll be seeing the end of the craze anytime soon. If ever. Kind of like email.

Remember when we didn’t have email?

Published by Kelly

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »