1) I think that before we look at the best way for a company to use social media we need to know what they hope to gain from social media. Are they trying to boost sales or maintain a positive image? Are they trying to promote interaction and create a dialog among consumers? Is their product something they can get through a local retailer or is it a commodity that we use, but cannot buy through traditional retail channels? Examples of these differences in goals of social media might be Chevron and Target.
Specifically focusing on Facebook and Twitter, Chevron’s Facebook page shows a presentation about how oil and gas companies should be more socially responsible. It is centered on their PR campaign and exists in case something happens that may be damaging to the company image. It’s not set up for consumers to comment or interact with. They only have around 52,000 “likes”—yet they have many more customers than that. Their Twitter presence is the same. With only 8,770 followers, it reads like news updates on happenings of Chevron throughout the world. For example, they tweet about new acquisitions, new business deals, and new technology. These are things that the average consumer is not interested in. Rather than promoting interaction, they have used social media as a platform for how they would like consumers to view their company. They are still tying to create relationships, but it is more of a “just in case” relationship proposition. They are not actually trying to create customer experiences or gain insight though. Because let’s face it, how many of us would really have positive feelings about an oil and gas company anyway? They know that consumers will never love Chevron like they love Coca Cola or Starbucks. Therefore, their social media strategy should be different. So, in case we decide one day that instead of feeling indifferent about Chevron, we have negative feelings about them, Chevron has a strategy to tilt the scale back to neutral.
Target on the other hand has used social media to promote products and discounts at local retail shops. However, they started out by promoting conversations and gaining trust from the Facebook community. According to an AdWeek article, Target started out by keeping the sales pitches and pushing discounts to a minimum in order to draw in more people. They didn’t want to seem like they were all about pushing sales. Then later, after gaining consumer trust and buzz, they moved toward more sales and traffic increasing approaches. Currently, they have over 4.1 million “likes” on Facebook and over 125,000 followers on Twitter. Their Facebook page reads more like a sales pitch now, but at least they sprinkle in a human quality to the dialog. For example, a recent post on Twitter and Facebook reads, “Love spring weather! Feel like going all crazy this weekend and breaking out the red tank and khaki shorts.” In this comment, there is no mention of a product or discount—no sales pitch. But it generated 145 comments. They are simply putting a humanistic voice behind the Target name. Another post about a new product, The Michael Jackson Experience game, only generated 42 comments. And yet another post, “You know it’s spring when you go to Target for a _____________”, generated over 2,100 comments, which created dialog with Target’s Facebook community. This strategy of mixing in sales and conversation generating posts is Target’s strategy. They sound less corporate and can create dialog within their community. Thus, their approach is more about creating customer experiences with their products.
2.) I consider myself a Spectator, according to the Groundswell chapters. I read blogs about celebrity gossip (Superficial, Socialite Life) and Spanish telenovelas (just finished watching Eva Luna), I read online forums and customer reviews about products before I buy them (this is especially true for electronics), and I visit some websites frequently for information about topics I’m interested in (Mashable, AdAge, etc.) I suppose I am also a little bit of a Creator too since I have posted some YouTube videos, and have a website portfolio in the works.
Since I consider myself a Spectator at heart, I think I am especially good at research and finding out information. For example, I recently have been fascinated with Charlie Sheen, how he has managed to carry his brand (himself) positively past his show Two and a Half Men, and his success with social media…then his tour completely failed. I wondered what exactly had gone wrong. Maybe he just got popular too fast and no one stopped to think if they should even like this guy, and only realized it when he was right in front of them. It’s like the class clown that no one really gets a chance to know except for the comical one-liners they hear everyday. Maybe we already got to see the best parts of Charlie Sheen, and when it came time for his tour, there was nothing left to give people. Thus, this led me to search for information about what people thought about Charlie Sheen now after his tour. What was the consensus within the tabloid blogosphere? Twitter? The marketing world?
I used zeitgeist and blogsearch tools, but found more success with blogsearch. I used ‘Charlie Sheen’ as the only search word initially, and then added ‘tour’. I found 2.3 million articles about Charlie Sheen, how many cities his tour failed in, that he was booed off stage in some cases, and that most people think he will never act again in Hollywood. Most of the gossip blogs say the same thing, but note his shabby appearance, and rant about how we were all fooled by his witty commentary on Twitter. The most interesting article though, was from Forbes.com titled, Why Charlie Sheen Bombed: 3 Errors Entrepreneurs Should Avoid at All Cost. It was interesting to read that there is actually a good business explanation as to why Charlie Sheen failed in promoting himself as a brand—its not necessarily that the public is so fickle, although we are.
The problem is that what he relied on to propel his business forward after he was fired from his show was based on “His antisocial excesses with porn stars, cocaine, bottles of expensive liquor…Sheen fails to understand that tabloid writers and talking heads who glorified those escapades gave him infinitely more stature than he deserved.” But with all of this against him, the article goes on to say that Sheen still made some fatal errors, and the major one was that he didn’t truly understand his consumer base. He thought consumers wanted to hear his improv, but really they just wanted more crazy antics, and Charlie Sheen couldn’t deliver. Peter Drucker said, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” But his disconnect with what the customer wanted was what caused his business venture to be an epic fail.
