When I was doing my 10 Twitter Strategies for Australian Brands post, I found a cracker of brand and promotion campaign on Twitter called iSpyLevis. The premise is very simple: the person running the Twitter account goes out to an inner city location every day, posting pictures of where they are. When a Twitter follower recognises her/him, they get free jeans. About 8 pairs of jeans are given away every day, in different styles, men’s and women’s. I notice that its been building followers steadily, and now the Sydney tweeters are noticing and interacting
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10 Twitter strategies for Australian brands
With all the mentions of Twitter in mainstream media, one could be turned off by the hype but Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networks in Australia. Twitter is also very adaptable to long term strategies in social media marketing and there are some brands that use it well, and others who are virtually invisible.
I’ve identified 10 Twitter strategies now being used by Australian brands. I’ve divided them up arbitrarily into “Talking” and “Listening” and low interaction (one way) and higher engagement (two way interaction) and plotted some of the types (and the examples) in a matrix diagram.
Apple customer service nerdvana
BBeen thinking a lot about customer service since the last post, and the newest “I’m a Mac” ads sum it up really well. Anyone who ever goes to an Apple store Genius bar is an instant convert to the genuine customer service they experience. Formula includes getting passionate people to work for you, then putting them in a store environment where customers and potential customers alike can ask them absolutely anything Mac related, iPhone related & iPod related. And it’s free. Apple have the “giving it away for free to build customer brand advocacy” down pat. They have millions of brand evangelists telling everyone how fantastic Apple is. Go and check out the Genius bar for yourself. Don’t just take my word for it.
Is it customer service if you’re not a customer?
When you’re interacting with brands using social media marketing: is it customer service if you’re not a customer?
With all the brands using social media to outreach and build up relationships, there are many paths to becoming a customer beyond the traditional one to many, company to customer “traditional” marketing model. Social media is causing a major rethink of the one way conversation. I found this great summary of the degrees of relationships in social media marketing…
Jetstar’s 5 cent fail sale
Like all Jetstar members who’d opted in to their communications, I was sent 2 eDMs hyping up a sale which started at 10pm tonight. Here’s the web version of the eDM promising 5 c seats from Melbourne to Hobart and Brisbane to Newcastle and Gold Coast to Sydney.
So what was the catch? The only way you could book was clicking on the link from the eDM or the webpage version. And of course thousands of people were trying to book in the hour or so the offer was available. Of those thousands who tried to access the site, they were presented with a website fail screen, prompting very vocal negative responses on Twitter.
Too many agencies spoil the brand
I find the most successful campaigns or brand strategies has the idea owners (usually the strategic, brand or above the line agency) run the idea through the relevant channels. That’s not to say that they need to do everything, more that they need to be hands on where the the rubber hits the road, the point at which the creative concept (the big idea) becomes a tactical execution. It’s in the clients interest to give this responsibility to the lead agency, and hold them accountable for the execution. So many times, the way the “big idea” is executed becomes about cutting corners because of “saving money”, or its “death by a thousand cuts” the slow, slicing and removing of functionality because of a lack of understanding how it is an essential part of the bigger, strategic picture.