Ten years ago the world was split into people who thought that ecommerce was a fad and those that thought eventually people would only buy things online. Today the world is split between those that think social media is the domain of sad people with no lives who have no value to brands or businesses, and those that think it is the panacea for marketing to consumers or business buyers. In both cases, both groups are wrong and the truth lies somewhere on the scale between both extremes – depending on your business and who you are trying to reach.

Everywhere I look I see extreme views when it comes to social media. Brands that have built likes through competitions are told that this is a waste because most will be non-prospects. But this overlooks the connection potential of the personal network of these contest takers. It also overlooks the fact that the competition could provide the foundation for a productive emarketing campaign or affiliate marketing opportunities.

The counter view is to be very targeted so only those people who are the perfect demographic should be attracted to engage. Logical I know, but it pre-supposes that you really understand the true potential of your brand or product. Is its appeal genuinely limited to a tight demographic, or will consumers see it differently if given the chance? A few years ago we were asked to launch a product that was thought to have very niche appeal. We gave it to consumers ahead of launch and they felt it had value for almost everyone. The result? The brand changed its retail strategy and secured mainstream listings and the launch was the most successful in the 50 year history of our client.

If you want a healthy lifestyle, all the gurus talk about moderation in all things. So if you want a healthy social media presence, would moderation in all things be similarly good advice? In my view engaging with consumers on social media has a number of powerful benefits if you avoid these don’ts:

• Don’t be too narrow with your demographic. We recently organised a social sampling exercise on Facebook. One consumer said: ‘Thanks for the sample. They weren’t ideal for me so I gave them to my mother. She absolutely loves what they have done for her hair!’.
•  Don’t underestimate the value of social media feedback.  Because consumers will tell you how it is, the context they provide will help you to switch off people you could never satisfy and attract those that you can. A hotel review that says: ‘Fabulous service but 40 minutes from the nearest night life’; will deter the clubbers and attract those who want to chill out and relax.
•  Don’t miss out on the potential for more targeted messages. By capturing a broad community of followers, you have created the opportunity for more targeted messages using email marketing and other techniques
• Don’t forget consumers come together on social media to discuss topics where they have a common interest. You will build an active following who will genuinely ‘like’ you (and not just like your page) if you add value to the topic they care about
• Don’t miss out on the reach of friend networks. Social media is built on benevolence ie the desire to do dome good for others. As a result people will share things they think are right for their contacts. All you have to do is make sure you make it easy to share everything you say or offer by adding share buttons
• Don’t forget to monetise your social media activities. This may seem obvious but I rarely see good examples of where social media interaction includes the direct opportunity to convert to a purchase. This doesn’t mean you have to be dominated by offers, but it should mean that if people are showing interest by consuming relevant content, you provide them with the opportunity to buy.

If you avoid these six don’ts, I think you will increase the likelihood that your social media presence will pay off. But I’m sure you have some more don’ts we could add to the list. Please share them here.

Whether it’s Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Linked In, Google+, Instagram, Flickr, or Vine, social media is now offering businesses and brands more commercial and not just creative and campaign opportunities.

Take the recent shift by Facebook into the realm of money transfer for instance. Whilst many may believe that Facebook is simply reserved for commenting on friend’s walls and liking pages, the social networking site has moved to incorporate brand pages, host competitions and surveys, and now offers users the ability to transfer money to other Facebook friends at a competitively low fee.

The service uses online service provider, Azimo, and demonstrates that Facebook – like other social media platforms – is rapidly adding a more commercial component.

Online sampling is another example of businesses using social media for commercial activity. These can be in the form of physical products trialled by a brand creatively such as on Instagram, as was done by Rimmel for the launch of its Scandaleyes mascara where participants received a Rimmel gift pack if their photo received the most likes.

To make your social media activity more commercial, why not ask yourself the following?

• How could I use the functionality of each social media platform to my advantage? For example, by monitoring tweets you could identify potential triggers for purchase and respond accordingly
• Will my target audience engage with my content? And if so, how can I use that to trigger the opportunity to buy?
• Could a social network help me capture data for use in more traditional marketing campaigns? The reality is that, set up the right way, activity on a social network can provide invaluable data as the foundation for wider marketing. With so many platforms available for people to use at any point throughout the day, the data opportunities for your business could be significant.

New developments in technology teamed with innovation and creativity, are leading to new ways for businesses to be present on social media. In fact, last year Kaizo proved via its Unilever VIP project on Facebook that people are very happy to have a direct relationship with brands that can have commerce at its heart.

In addition to adding a new platform with which to reach consumers, businesses can also gain valuable data about their target using social media.

A business can use:

• Facebook to gauge sentiment of an experience a consumer is having to feed in to product development
• Twitter to see trends about consumers having the same experience
• Instagram to monitor how many consumers are sharing photos of the experience
• Youtube to gain shareable video content of the experience
• Google Places to record how many people are going to a place for an experience
• Tumblr to target key bloggers writing about the experience

Communities are becoming more commercial, this could be a real opportunity for your brand.

Kaizo has been shortlisted for TWO Golden Hedgehogs!

The nominations are for Best Use of Research with Elsevier and Best Media Relations with House of Marley. The awards  take place in London on 21 March 2013. Fingers and toes crossed.

http://www.goldenhedgehogprawards.com/shortlist_south.htm

Kaizo recently commissioned independent research with OnePoll into consumer attitudes to ever increasing health messaging by brands, showing that many are failing to truly involve consumers or integrate consistent messaging across channels.

We shared the research with brands via a series of free breakfast sessions and had some lively debate about the results! The results are summarised below:

• The number and frequency of products claiming health benefits continues to rise dramatically but rather than help drive consumer awareness and education about the benefits, 25% of consumers have been left feeling confused by the different health messages.
• 21% of consumers feel bombarded with health message information – clearly brands need to be smarter with how they convey their messages in a clear, concise manner, utilising the right channels.
• Many brands are failing to integrate traditional PR with social and ensure messaging is ‘joined up’ on and offline; in fact 40% of people found that messages projected by TV advertising are completely different to the experience found online.
• Consumers, initially attracted to money offers and free products on fan pages, are put off by the lack of good content or opportunities to contribute – a third never go back!

Get in touch if you’d like to discuss the results of the research in more detail or find out how to get the most out of your social media strategy through joined up communications and consumer involvement.

The need to prove their value has compelled PR practitioners to hone their skills to a point where those following the correct ideology can have a demonstrable positive effect on clients’ business.

It is undeniable that marketing and PR spend is under more scrutiny than ever before. Clients are under pressure to prove tangible value to the business, and historically this has been a challenge for PR and earned media. However, it has actually been a force for good, compelling agencies and clients to question how activity is actually having an impact on the business.

It’s created even more valued partnerships, and helped move PR away from being a ‘nice to have’ budget-line item to a ‘must have’ activity.

Of course, it isn’t simple and different brands in different sectors will measure and monitor in different ways. A consumer electronics brand selling through Amazon is different from a B2B brand selling complex IT systems. The sales cycles, channels, cause and effect and timeframes are quite different.

However, there are four mantras that we believe help to deliver.

Sales cycles start and end through compelling stories and conversations

We start at the very beginning of the customer journey. What conversations do we need to be stimulating; what questions do we need to answer; how do we position the brand; and how best do we promote the product? When do we need to surprise; and when do we need to sell?

For Truvia sweetener, our Voyage of Discovery event on the roof of Selfridges told the story of the brand and its main ingredient, stevia, to consumers, retailers and partners. It created a potential customer base for well-executed ATL advertising to exploit when the product hit the shelf.

Communities are sales generators, not just ‘likes’ on a page

Although there continues to be a, perhaps unhealthy, fascination with the number of likes and followers a brand has, many are starting to see their social-media fans as more than just numbers. Conversations with these communities are starting to be valued as ways to increase propensity to purchase.

An example is Unilever VIP, a Facebook community that invited opinion, asked for ideas and actively looked to increase customer loyalty. Through a custom-built Facebook application, VIP encouraged consumers to engage more closely with 11 of the company’s most recognisable brands, including PG Tips, Carte D’Or, Persil, Domestos, Magnum and cleaning range Cif.

For this and any community, consistent research into sales behaviour and brand favourability is vital to measure, justify and amplify the role of earned media.

Great coverage still earns its keep – and it can be proved

Editorial coverage for coverage’s sake just doesn’t cut it anymore. A namecheck against an issue unrelated to a brand might satisfy an ‘opportunities to see’ target, but not a business objective. The impact of these sought-after, third-party recommendations, whether by traditional media or the ever-growing (but still less influential) blogger community, is clear if the right measurements are used.

Launching the Visa Prepaid CitizenCard solely through PR was a great example of how we can have a direct impact on business.

With a focus on national media to drive volume of application, we generated 112 pieces of coverage that resulted in a significant uplift in purchases.

Commercial value, not just creative outputs, make the campaign

Pounds (or euros) mean more that print and pixels, but commercial value can come in many different shapes and sizes. For some, it’s sales; for others, it’s changing perception or building awareness.

Our integrated campaign for digital security brand Gemalto created stand-out in the contactless mobile payments arena. It included: a French free-running video (illustrating touchpoints and the convenience of mobile payments) that generated 100,000 views; and brand-building coverage on Sky News and in The Times and Financial Times – all supported by consumer insights. However, the real value was in the collateral package that the sales team took into boardrooms – changing perceptions of Gemalto’s capabilities and increasing deal flow.
These four mantras help us develop campaigns that go beyond the ‘thud factor’ and deliver real value for businesses and brands, be it through changing behaviour, driving awareness, increasing sales or engaging communities. That’s what PR and earned media should be doing, and is what will ensure a mutually beneficial, effective and longstanding client/agency relationship.

The original article appeared in Marketing Magazine.

Social Media Week London is back (for the second time in a year!) and a big challenge for most brands is still the age-old question of “what exactly is social media doing for our brand & business objectives?”

It is therefore heartening to see that many brands are (finally) dropping their obsession with vanity social media metrics such as counting number of followers and focusing instead on real engagement, creating value for fans and providing clear examples of ROI.

Whilst attending a couple of SMW events this week it has been great chatting to people about how their brand is measuring engagement and the different ways they’re trying to demonstrate ROI. For example, a simple but effective approach is to use the social reporting tool in Google Analytics to track where your visitors arrive from (i.e. Twitter, Google+ etc) and then identify whether they convert into a customer. This way you can see which social platforms are sending the most traffic to your website and what they do when they get there. Here’s a great article from Social Media Examiner that explains how to do it yourself.

Kaizo has been shortlisted for this year’s DADI Awards in the ‘Best Use of Social Media’ category for its work on Unilever VIP, an online community that encouraged consumers to engage more closely with 11 of the company’s iconic brands, including PG Tips, Carte D’Or, Persil, Domestos, Magnum and Cif.

The DADI Awards recognise and reward digital excellence. The awards will be announced in London on 8th November 2012.

For brief details of the campaign please visit www.kaizo.co.uk/experience.

Kaizo has been shortlisted at this year’s prestigious Digital Impact Awards, organised by Communicate Magazine in the UK.

The nomination is in the ‘Best Community Development’ category for Unilever VIP, an online community that encouraged consumers to engage more closely with 11 of the company’s iconic brands, including PG Tips, Carte D’Or, Persil, Domestos, Magnum and Cif.

The Digital Impact Awards recognise, benchmark and celebrate excellence in digital stakeholder communications.

The awards will be announced in London on 16 October 2012.

For brief details of the campaign please visit www.kaizo.co.uk/experience

[Sung choirboy style] On the first day of Christmas…..!

“Hold on!” you may be screaming with a perplexed look on your face, “we’re barely in August!”

Of course, you’d be right, look out of the window and there are no Christmas decorations, no dodgy looking Santas trying to appease small children and certainly no snow… so, why are we singing? For many brands, especially those that sell consumer products, Christmas is the single most important time of the calendar year. It’s a time to gain some share of the cash which people seem so reluctant to spend in the current climate, a time to showcase its product/s above the many competitors, a time to claim superiority in the market and ultimately, a time to sell more!

“Ok! I understand what you’re saying but we’re still nowhere near to the Christmas sales period!”

And that is where you’d be wrong. Many brands have already had their Christmas in July events but, if you haven’t done so already, then now is the time to donne your favourite Christmas hat and really get to thinking, planning and activating your communications approach to the festive period for 2012.

Here at Kaizo we pride ourselves on creating stand-out campaigns for brands and products small and large, we did it for Flip Video, the handheld pocket camcorders causing them to sell-out over the Christmas period, with MARLEY headphones as they launched moving into the Christmas period and with Truvia, the first natural sweetener in the UK to hit the market just in time for a spot of Christmas cooking.

…and we’d love to do it for your brand.

So, if Christmas has come earlier than you may have thought, then fear not, it’s not too late to sprinkle some Christmas magic on those long-lead monthly consumer titles and build some brand advocates through social media ….the singing, of course, is optional!

Kaizo has been hired by CitizenCard to launch the first combined photo ID proof of age and Prepaid Visa card, available to 12 year olds and above, within the UK.  The Visa Prepaid CitizenCard will now enable users to prove their identity and age, as well as pay for purchases online and in store, all via one simple card.

 Andrew Chevis, CEO of CitizenCard, said:

“Kaizo’s experience at bringing new products to market alongside their integrated approach made them the right fit for us as we need to reach parents and young people with our messages. They are an agency that has proven experience at helping bring commercial success without above the line support in very competitive marketplaces – exactly what we needed.”

The card carries the Government PASS mark (proof of age standard scheme) recognised as valid ID by the Home Office, the Scottish Government, the Police and Trading Standards and is approved by Visa. CitizenCard has issued over 2 million proof of age cards in the last 13 years.

Rhodri Harries, Managing Director of Kaizo, said:

“It’s quite a coup to be launching this innovation in the financial services market, something that 12 to 21 year olds and older genuinely are asking for and will use. And it’s good news for parents as well, so generating media and social media recommendations which engage with both these groups is the key objective for us. Our programme is insights led with the views of cardholders playing a fundamental role in our campaign.”

 The card displays the owner’s date of birth, but also an ageband (12-15; 16-17; 18+; and 21+ cards)  so it’s easy to prove that users are young or old enough to access age-restricted goods and services.  The actual card number also identifies whether a cardholder is over or under 18, giving it a new added level of security for retailers online, and provides reassurance to parents, with the under-18s card not working at age-restricted retailers, e.g. retailers serving alcohol or providing gambling services.

Under 16s need parental consent to apply for the card – and they can then manage their child’s account directly, providing further peace of mind and safety, whilst enabling more childhood independence and developing positive financial education. The perfect tool for providing pocket money, parents can set up a standing order to fund a child’s card and because it is easy to top up, parents know that their child can instantly have access to funds in an emergency, whether that’s transport home or if stranded while on a gap year.  And, whilst young teens  can make purchases online (e.g. cinema tickets), they do not work for retailers selling  age-restricted items.

For those over 18, Visa Prepaid CitizenCard offers the perfect all-in-one card solution – providing photographic proof of age at retailers and in pubs and clubs, with the card having unrestricted use for online and offline payments.  The card also allows greater financial stringency, helping young people avoid spending more than intended on a shopping trip or night out.

The Visa Prepaid CitizenCard costs a one-off application fee of £15 for delivery within one month or £30 for delivery within one week. For more details visit www.citizencard.com

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