BarnRaisers

It’s been said we watch the Super Bowl as much for the commercials as the game. Maybe that helps explain why this year advertisers, on average, paid $3.5 million (+$500,000 versus last year) for a :30 commercial.

This year’s Super Bowl reached a record 111.3 million viewers; 300,000 more than last year, the previous record holder. Social media proved commercials were the most talked about topic according to Networked Insights.

Super Bowl commercials don’t sell products so much as entertain, often with great storytelling. Even considering the cost, a primary benchmark for success is the Water Cooler Factor, the brand buzz and many conversations that occur after the game that cause us to like the brand and keep it top-of-mind throughout the year.

Super Bowl commercials are measured mostly by media metrics – Reach, GRP’s and Nielsen Ratings.  But, because “Like,” “Buzz” and the Water Cooler Factor are success metrics, shouldn’t social media measurements play an important role?

Here are 7 social media measurements that matter for Super Bowl commercials.

1. USA TODAY/FACEBOOK AD METER: This year, for the first time, USA Today and Facebook teamed up to create a People’s Choice award for Super Bowl commercials. People rated commercials by logging into their Facebook account on a 1 to 5 scale. Here was the people’s top choices for 2012 and the commercial voted #1:

The image above is of one hand clapping. Perhaps it’s coming from the marketing plan that relies on only one type of media.

It makes sense social and traditional media would work better together but, as with any new form of marketing, social media has more to prove so the two are sometimes compared as if they were in competition.

Here are 12 case studies that prove social and traditional media were meant to work together.

1. CLEVELAND CLINIC: Was not the first in healthcare to experiment in social media, but it achieved success where others failed. By structuring a cross-functional team to enable education, collaboration, and smart governance, Cleveland Clinic deepened engagement with its consumers around the globe – both providers and patients. They used Facebook and Twitter for daily wellness tips; LinkedIn for professional recruitment and YouTube for content on diseases and patient stories. Since the Cleveland Clinic established social media as a cross-functional discipline, it has seen a noticeable increase in website traffic, attendance at health lectures and new patients making and keeping appointments.

2. CLOROX: Used traditional media to communicate the many uses for bleach in the home but supplemented with social media to encourage usage in places outside the house. Clorox launched an online community, CloroxClassrooms.com, with blog and Twitter effort on Labor Day weekend at the beginning of the school year.  The Twitter page was among the Top 10 trending topics over Labor Day weekend and the blog was recognized by the Marketing to Mom Coalition and mommy bloggers for excellence in terms of delivering sharable information.

2. COCA-COLA: Used social media strategically and achieved the strongest global marketing integration ever with Expedition 206, a social media promotion where a small group of travel ambassadors went to 206 countries over 365 days to “generate happiness” and published on social networks.  It enabled global promotion execution and integration among 3,500 Coca-Cola marketers around the world.

4. COLGATE WISP: Changed the target for the launch of a new, disposable toothbrush, from the traditional Moms to young, urban men and women 18-25 who were active daters. They supplemented the traditional media plan with 8 ”Be More Kissable” viral videos. They created a Facebook App called “Spin the Wisp” and partnered with 8 online publishers. The videos received over 4.1 million views and the App was downloaded over 40,000+ times. Colgate learned the value of engagement because Colgate’s U.S. market share in the toothbrush category increased 5.6 points to a record 35.6% driven largely by the Wisp.

5. FORD FIESTA: Gave 100 consumers a car for six months and asked them to complete a different mission every month. At the direction of Ford and their own imagination, “agents” used their Fiestas to deliver Meals On Wheels. They used them to take Harry And David treats to the National Guard. They went looking for adventure, some to wrestle alligators, others actually to elope. All of these stories were then lovingly documented on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter. Fiesta got 6.5 million YouTube views and 50,000 requests for information about the car—virtually none from people who already had a Ford in the garage. Ford sold 10,000 units in the first six days of sales. The results came at a relatively small cost. The Fiesta Movement is reputed to have cost a small fraction of the typical national TV campaign.

6. FRITO-LAY: Launched “What’s You Flavor” contest, as part of an integrated campaign, where social media was used as the vehicle for consumers to capture the diverse flavors and the diversity of people’s imagination in India. It leveraged the Frito Lays brand as a household name in India in a way that connected emotionally. The campaign attracted more than 500 press coverage worth 54 crores, the biggest in Frito Lay India’s history.

7. H&R BLOCK: Has learned in the weeks prior to April 15th, every question that is not answered immediately is a lost sales.  Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business.  H&R used Facebook and Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for Q&A in the “Get It Right” social media campaign.  The effort secured 1,500,000 unique visitors and answered 1,000,000 questions for a 15% lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media in the marketing mix.

8. HARLEY DAVIDSON: (HDTalking.com): Harley owners created a website and social community totally funded by users and user-generated content.  Here, Harley owners trades photos, jokes, where to find hard to find parts, advice on Harley models and ownership plus there are at least 7 mechanics on-call at all times.  HDtalking.com now has 56,000+ and cost to Harley is negligible.

9. HOULIHAN’S: Showed that social media drives ROI for small businesses. The restaurant showed that social technologies can be used in different ways to drive customers. Houlihan’s in the U.S.has around 100 restaurants, compared to their main competitor Applebees, which has over 2,000. With a small marketing budget, their marketing manager managed to drive sales directly from a private social network, run via Ning. The network was called ‘HQ’ and was launched in early 2008. By combining their social media campaign with email marketing, they managed to quickly build up 10,000 members and estimated that “7,000 to 13,000 people heard about our newest promotion because of an HQ member”. This shows the strength in running your own social network and how sometimes a private network may be the way to go, to offer people exclusivity and also encourage word of mouth.

10. JETBLUE: Started a Twitter account to have more direct relationship with customers and to listen and respond how they could serve them better and deal directly with any complaints.  They now have over 1.6 million followers.

11. MTV: Premiered Skins — an Americanized version of the acclaimed British teen drama. In addition to traditional media and Skins.tv, a central community regularly updated with content (including trailers and sneak peeks), a Tumblr blog – we are skins, Twitter handle –@skinsTV and a Facebook Fan Page, MTV used a number of innovative social apps to develop awareness and brand affinity for the show: Skins drew 3.26 million total viewers, outperforming the launches of competitive scripted shows across both cable and network in its core demo (12-34), including CW’s “Gossip Girl” and ABC Family’s “Pretty Little Liars.”

12. OLD SPICE: Managed to gather some pretty impressive stats that show the money where the buzz is. The reach of the Old Spice campaign is not in doubt, but did it actually impact sales? Since the original campaign launched with ‘Mustafa’, sales increased by 27% year on year. But in the 3 months after the height of the campaign, sales were up by 55%, reaching 107% in the final month of the social media campaign. And of course, Old Spice is now the #1 body wash brand for men. However you choose to look at the campaign, these figures stand up to show that a social media campaign, well executed and combined with traditional media, can drive significant ROI.

Do these case studies prove social and traditional media work better together to you?

If you think there are enough social networks already, Pinterest is proving there’s room for one more. It’s an “online pinboard” that lets us “organize and share the things we love” with others.  It was started in December 2009 and run in various beta formats until its launch in August 2011. Pinterest is managed by a team of noted entrepreneurs and investors from Palo Alto. It has been cited as one of the “50 Best Websites of 2011″ by Time magazine.

The idea is that users click on a bookmarklet in their browser when they find images they like on a web page, or they snap a photo with the Pinterest iPhone app, and then they are asked to categorize and describe the images. A collection of categorized images can be built by one person or can be opened up to contributions from other users.

Here are 12 reasons Pinterest is the social network to watch in 2012.

1. ADOPTION IS AT SAME RATE AS FACEBOOK. Since its launch in August, Pinterest is showing the classic “hockey stick” growth rate and is on the same trajectory as Facebook was at launch. It now attracts over 11,000,000 visitors per month.

2. COMPANY VALUATION HAS INCREASED 5X IN LESS THAN A YEAR. In October 2011, the company secured $27 million in funding from VC firm, Andreessen Horowitz. They valued the company at 200 million, up from $40 million earlier in the year.

3. SOCIAL RITUAL WE REALLY DO “LOVE” TO DO: The creation of a Pinboard around the topics we are passionate about is a a very simple idea. It is also something that reflects a fundamental aspect of our behavior with a very long tradition.

4. SHARING THROUGH A SHARED CONSCIOUSNESS:  When you participate in a pinboard discussion, you not share an interest in the same subject but the particular topic the rest of your group is talking about. The use of the word, “love,” is a company’s selling idea is a strong statement but it is something Pinterest delivers.

5. SENSE OF MUTUAL RESPECT AND RESPONSIBILITY TO OTHERS: Pinterest has Pin Etiquette. Although they merely reinforce responsible social behavior (e.g. Be Nice, Credit Your Source, Avoid Self Promotion, Report Objection Content and Tell Us How to Make Pinterest Better), they stand out as an admirable step other social networks haven’t taken. They also lead to some interesting topics and presentations you might not find on other social network.

6. VISUAL SOCIAL NETWORK: To describe Pinterest from the vantage point of other social networks, it’s like Flickr meets Facebook and bumps into Twitter. Pinboards have a “wall.” “Likes,” “comments,” “followers,” “pins” and “repins” but Pinterest is a visual medium at its foundation where pictures are the content for conversation.

7. WOMEN, WHO ARE MORE SOCIAL THAN MEN, HAVE EMBRACED PINTEREST: It’s clear from even a cursory glance, the majority of Pinterest users are women. This follows the trend of most social networks and, if you were trying to build a killer one, would be the profile you’d want to start.

7. ARTISANS ARE EARLY ADOPTERS: People from cooks, curators to designers have found Pinterest a place for personal and professional expressions just like so many mass appeal audiences that are built from a grass-roots appreciation of the arts.

8. CELEBRITIES ARE CREATING PINBOARDS: Although Kim Kardashian isn’t there yet, Paula Deen is. Maybe this says something about the values of tradition and moral responsibility mentioned earlier.

9. BUSINESSES EXPRESS THEIR PERSONALITY WHEN THEY PROMOTE: Unlike other social networks that offer a business page, Pinterest gives businesses a chance for a different and more personal type of expression. Look at Nordstrom.

10. PINTEREST HAS BEEN SMARTLY BROUGHT TO MARKET: The way Pinterest has been developed reflects smart and sophisticated thinking. Consumer adoption has happened quickly but at a pace where the user experience has been consistently maintained and investment have been secured with business milestones.

11. PINTEREST IS A TRUE BRAND COMMUNITY: A brand community is described as “a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand that exhibit three traditional markers of community: shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility.” Pinterest meets them all.

12. THERE IS A WAITING LIST TO JOIN: Like any desirable club that strives to maintain its appeal, to avoid simply becoming popular, it has to become exclusive. And that’s what Pinterest has done. To join, you can sign up and be placed on a waiting list or have someone who is already a member send you an invite. Like in life it’s not what you know but who you know, the latter will save time.

Have you heard of Pinterest? What do you think of it? Do you think it will be the social network to watch in 2012?

Digital and social media are held to highly accountable standards when it comes to return on investment (ROI). For the last two years, Social Media Examiner reports the #1 question marketers ask about social media is “How do I measure social media return on investment?”

On this blog, we’ve highlighted over 100 case studies (see related posts at the bottom) and believe digital and social media demonstrate the proven principles of relationship marketing better than any other communication channel, particularly when it comes to customer service.

If there are people in your company who still need convincing, here are 12 digital and social media case studies that prove Customer Service ROI.

1. ACCOR: has over 4000 hotels in 90 countries and has to manage over 5000 comments each month on sites such as TripAdvisor.com and Bookings.com. The company wants to listen, learn and engage with what customers are saying about the Accor brand and approximately 12,000 competitors’ hotels so it can then establish dashboards to act on the data. Accor has found this type of customer service not only improves the company’s online reputation, it results in double-digit sales increases for key brands like Novotel.

2. ALASKA AIR: Is the first carrier in the world to let customers check-in from the internet and at self-service kiosks. Traditionally, weather delays and cancellation cause airlines to pull agents off inbound sales calls and handle affected customers. The result is many customers are not handled effectively or in time plus new bookings are lost. The internet provided a more time sensitive way to personally handle affected passengers without tying up sales staff. The result: Revenue and ROI increased because each customer costs 54 cents to re-ticket over the internet versus $1.60 on a live call; live agents can handle only 500 calls/hour while their web site can handle 20,000 calls/hour; just as important, not one negative comment occurred when the company made this switch.

3. AT&T: Has over 1.6 million fans on their Facebook page and a staff of 20 to engage, manage conversations and, when appropriate, encourage sales. The company trains and educates this team. Surveys show AT&T’s Facebook staff gets some of their best customer service ratings while also delivering some of the company’s highest sales per employees.

4. BEST BUY (Twelp Force): Gives employees the opportunity to help consumers on Twitter. Participation is voluntary and the community grows to 2,200 employees within 3 months. They respond to over 13,000 customers on Twitter answering questions, concerns, and opinions. The Twitter feed @twelpforce now counts over 40,000 followers and the number of questions averages 100-125 per day. It is considered a key value-add by customers and the company.

5. CARE ONE DEBT RELIEF SERVICES: Opens an online community on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in 2009 to help consumers with questions about debt relief, consolidation and budgeting. By going directly to social networks, there is no registration process and the company’s staff is able to give them a faster response. Lead generation is 179% higher, forms are completed 6X faster, customers make their first payment at a rate that was 7X better than non-social media customers.

6. COMCAST: Much has been written about @ComcastCares and the way Frank Eliason helped the company better handle the 3 million customer service calls (most unhappy) the company gets each year through blogs and Twitter with 3 simple words: Can I help? The company reviews 6000 blog posts and about 2000 Tweets each day to service more customers in a better and faster way than traditional inbound service. Here’s Frank explaining just what Comcast did.

7. DIRECTV: Has problems with churn among its 18.5 U.S. customers as more cable service develop a presence in satellite-based television. The best way to reduce churn is to increase customer satisfaction and one way to do it is optimize field technician routes for the 600,000 service calls received each day. DIRECTV implements Oracle GoldenGate to consolidate disparate data marts into a central warehouse. This improves the timeliness, granularity, and accuracy of customer and service data. It enables managers and more than 15,000 call center agents to conduct real-time data queries and analysis throughout the day—using dashboards, e-mail delivery, and end-user reporting tools—eliminating the reliance on outdated weekly or monthly reports.

8. FORD: The way we buy cars is changing. A 2011 survey of 2,485 consumers found that 28% visit websites five times or more during their car-buying process but only 11% visit dealerships that many times. Ford, in the UK, designs a multi-channel contact and lead management system based on its intelligentContact (iContact) platform. It manages every customer contact and increases agent efficiency by 25%. Where some calls used to take a minute to answer, now they are answered within 20 seconds.

9. H&R BLOCK: Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business.  H&R uses Facebook and Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for Q&A in the “Get It Right” social media campaign.  The effort secures 1,500,000 unique visitors and answers 1,000,000 questions for a 15% lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media “Get It Right” program. Here’s how Amy Worley explains how the company got it right.

10. LENOVA: Sees customers are talking about its products in third-party forums and is worried about being left out of these important conversations. Using a peer-to-peer support community in social media, Lenovo listens to customer experiences and establishes ownership of any problem. The results: 20% reduction in laptop support call rates, an increase in agent productivity, a shortened problem resolution cycle, and an increase in Net Promoter Scores…plus ideas from the community result in new product innovations.

11. MACY’S: Handles 130 orders every minute online from over 1,000,000 unique visitors every day. Macys.com and Bloomingdales.com link production to online orders and give access to 100 employees to optimize customer flow. For the first time, Macy’s experiences no downtime during holiday peak period and increases online sales +40% for December and 29% for the year.

12. SETON HALL UNIVERSITY: relies on tuition for revenue. They discover incoming freshmen are forming lasting impressions about colleges by reading a university’s Facebook page before they go to university’s website. Seton Hall gets actively involved in Facebook conversations to answers questions, participate in discussions and guide potential incoming freshmen. They tag the web traffic coming from Facebook to the website. Tuitions coming from Facebook are +18% and deposits are +25% than those who do not consult Facebook.

We’ve produced results like these for our client and have case studies of our own to share on the website. We’re proud of the results and ROI achieved and the demonstration these business principles work. We’d be glad to share what we see working so effectively in the marketplace for your brand.

Do these digital and social media case studies prove Customer Service ROI to you?

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Peter Drucker said: “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.”  This succinctly stated truth is the essential requirement for every brand.

Although Peter left us in 2005, I think he would agree the spark that keeps the customer relationship going is relevant content. It’s a fundamental way to create trust by proving you understand what your audience values.

For some more revealing percentages, here are 42 reasons every brand needs a content marketing strategy in 2012.

1. 93% of CMO’s plan to use some form of user generated content in their marketing effort this year
2. 92% of shoppers have more confidence in information sought online versus a salesperson or some other source
3. 90% of all purchase decisions begin on the internet
4. 90% of CMO’s participate in an average of 3 or more social media activities
5. 84% of brand managers says they use online videos on their brand websites for marketing product and services
6. 81% of CMO’s say they plan to track social media activities to revenues in order to determine ROI. However, only 40% actually do.
7. 80% of traffic to a web site begins with search query
8. 78% of marketers believe content is key to the success of their organization but only 49 have a content strategy in place
9. 78% of B2B marketers say generating high quality leads is their top priority
10. 77% of search users choose organic over paid search listings
11. 74% of consumers rely on social networks to help them make a purchase decision
12. 73% of companies now use social media for marketing
13. 66% of companies report using online video for brand awareness; 21% for lead generation and 12% for ecommerce/sales
14. 66% of marketers says their greatest concern is lead generation; only 17% say it’s brand awareness
15. 65% of consumers report a digital brand experience changed their opinion about a product or service
16. 62% click a link on the first page of search engine results
17. 61% of marketers say they implement a social media strategy for lead generation
18. 60% of retailers use customer reviews as a form of content marketing
19. 60% of brand managers says they are going to increase spending for online videos in the next 12 months
20. 55% of the time people spend on the internet is directly related to content consumption
21. 55% of companies use case studies as part of their content marketing strategy
22. 51% use a blog for content marketing
23. 51% of marketers say they are going to increase content marketing spending within the next 12 months
24. 49% of shoppers have made a purchase based on a recommendation from a social network
25. 44% of all content shared on internet comes from Facebook
26. 43% of companies says they are writing “white papers” and sharing them online as part of their content marketing
27. 43%of companies report higher click-through on RSS feeds with reviews than without
28. 42% of consumers say, when shopping online, they prefer to look for an answer online
29. 40% or Republican and 38% of Democrats use social network sites to become more polictically involved
30. Only 38% of consumers say they watch an online video in its entirety
31. 32% of consumers now browse or research products at least once a month on mobile devices
32. 26% higher conversion results for products when they have product reviews
33. 26% of total marketing budgets are allocated to content marketing by B2B marketers
34. 25% of search results for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
35. Only 21% of branded mobile apps now contain videos. However, 70 of brand manager says they are going to add videos to their mobile apps within the next 12 months
36. 14% of B2B marketers say they send e-mails on an opt-out basis; down from 23% a year ago
37. Only 2.6% of all brands views occur through off-site embeds of branded videos
38. 300 other companies compete with Facebook for content sharing
39. 30 minutes is the average that people watch online videos every day
40. E-mail providers, such as Yahoo, AOL and Gmail, all use the number of time a consumers hits the “report spam” button as their #1 criteria for sending future e-mails to that consumer
41. Companies with over 1000 employees use an average of 9 content marketing tactics
42. Companies with under 10 employees use an average of 6 content marketing tactics

Laurence Peter, the educator who developed the Peter Principle said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up someplace else.” The numbers clearly state content marketing is on the rise but, before you jump in, have a content marketing strategy.

NOTE: The facts and statistics in this post all feature studies conducted within the last year. The sources include: Nielsen, eMarketer, comScore, Edelman Digital, BazaarVoice, MediaPost, Webbiquity among others with appreciation.

The number, 42, was deliberately chosen to acknowledge the great work Junta42 and Joe Pulizzi do in content marketing.

In the compilation of the stats, the best infographic I came across on content marketing comes from Marketo and was passed along by Wendy Emerson at business2community.com because a picture is worth 1000 words. It is below.

Will your brand have a content marketing strategy to create and keep customers in 2012?