Here is my top 6…

1.  Coca- Cola

Objective: Customer engagement

Coca-cola is one of the leaders in SMM – they make social media work!

Deciding that customer engagement was their main objective, Coke created a ‘fans first’ approach in social communities. Their social media marketing strategy was developed to engage their customers via social networks, photo sharing and video sharing. Not only a great strategy but they even share it! Its worth a couple of minutes to read it on Simply Zest.

2.  Dominos

Objective: Customer Feedback

A fantastic example of listening to customers and reacting to what is being said.

Dominos position in the market place had been declining for a while, one of the reasons cited was that it had the same pizza recipe since they launched 50 years ago!  In an attempt to regain market share as well as hoping to reinvent its brand and change its reputation for taste, Dominos decided to completely change its pizza recipe.  Instead of leaving the decision making to the management team they put it instead to the customers and asked for feedback on their pizzas.  A compelling video on BlogSpot shows the whole Dominos process.  Its worth the few minutes to get a better understanding on the positive impact social media can have on a business.

3.  Dell

Objective: Crowd sourcing

Dell know that social media in business is becoming more and more important.  To address this issue they created a Social Media for Small Business Facebook fan page.  Here they offer free downloads and giveaways on how to implement social media.

However this particular strategy is about crowd sourcing. Dell decided to create a community called The Ideas Storm, where people could come and share their ideas on how to improve Dell products.  They know that the people who understand the products the greatest are their customers.  By improving models and reacting to customers ideas they can create products people actually want to buy and there is a demand for.

4.  Starbucks

Objective: Crowd sourcing

Another social media success story comes from Starbucks.  They have several elements to their Starbucks strategy which are outlined in a great articles by The Next Web and Directory Journal.

They too wanted to use crowd sourcing as a way of improving their products, shops and service so they created a social network site, My Starbucks, for people to congregate and share their “Starbucks experience”

The site gives users the ability to see what others are suggesting, vote on ideas and check out the results. This site is a brilliant and important aspect of Starbucks social media strategy. Users who are part of this network feel that they have some role in the decision making process of the company and it makes them feel a part of it.

Starbucks successfully managed to create a community that people actually wanted to hang out in, just like their shops.

5.  Ikea

Objective: Viral marketing

Definitely one of my favourites, just for its sheer simplicity.  A blog post by Ikea Fans shows how a Facebook profile was created for IKEA Malmo store manager Gordon Gustavsson. Over the course of 2 weeks, 12 pictures of IKEA showrooms were uploaded to his profile. Facebook friends of Gustavsson could ‘tag’ the items in the photos with their name and then win the product.  As you can imagine the campaign went viral!! A genius idea yet oh so simple!

6.  Ford Fiesta

Objective: Generating Buzz

Ford held a competition called the Fiesta Movement where 4,000 people applied with a video to win the chance to drive a Fiesta for six months. The winners then created content around their experience with the car.  Not sounding too strategic is it?  Well what if the winners where are social media personalities in the making? The reach was phenomenal in just six months..

- 4.3 million YouTube views
– 500,000+ Flickr views
– 3 million+ Twitter impression
– 50,000 interested potential customers, 97% of which don’t own a Ford currently

Supercollider and Mashable deliver great detailed breakdown on the Ford Fiesta Movement.

Summary

I hope these case studies help you understand the true value of social media.  Many of you want to know immediately how social media will impact your bottom line, but this is no longer the big sales push via traditional marketing and PR.  It is about companies recognising: that the power now lies with the consumer; and we fortunately have the ability and resources to tap into this wealth of knowledge.

Everyone likes to feel valued!  Involving your customer so they feel like their opinion counts can go a long way in building customer loyalty and repeat business, not to mention positive word of mouth.  It’s time to see the bigger picture!

This is only a list according to little oul me! If you have any other social media examples that you think should be in here then please leave a comment below…

Lo and behold two weeks later I got a lovely apologetic email from Smirnoff.  Now the cynic in me thinks “well they know I work in social media and will therefore write this great piece about them” but then the other optimistic part of me is ecstatic to see social media working in full flow.

Social Media Monitoring

So for those who don’t know how the system works Smirnoff will be paying someone in-house or an agency to monitor their brand.  These monitoring tools such as Radian6 and Meltwater Buzz track all Smirnoff’s mentions in blog posts, forums, networks and so on.  They are also clever enough to pick up if the blogs (and sentiments) are negative or positive.  Positive will be used as a pat on the back, testimonials etc and the negatives are sent to customer service/PR department to deal with.  They now have the opportunity to turn this negative comment into a positive.

Smirnoff are implementing the social media model effectively. Interacting with the conversation, listening to what is being said and reacting accordingly.

Smirnoff’s Response

Hi Katrina,

I hope you are well? I am contacting you on behalf of Smirnoff regarding your article on the recent advert and the direction message to Facebook.
It’s really important to us that we work with our consumers on matters like this, so we have looked into your problem, and the reason you have been unable to access the page is as follows:

The SmirnoffGB Facebook page has until now been set so that it is only available to UK IP addresses. This was originally put in place because our competitions are only open to a GB audience. Unfortunately Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man were not included under ‘GB’ in this restriction. Based on this and your feedback we have lifted this restriction and the page is now open to all markets. Competitions will still only be open to GB residents however, but you will now be able to see all our content and find out about all our events.

We apologise for this oversight and hope that you’ll still be happy to engage with us and get involved in some of our activities and content. It is never our intention to annoy any of our consumers, which is why we looked into this and have made the correction.

We’d really like to make sure you remain happy with Smirnoff and keep following the brand, so if you’d like to send me your address we will send you some product by way of apology.

Cynic or Optimistic?

I’ll go with the optimistic!  It’s great to see companies using social media proactively.  The fact that a small blog can impact on a top brands campaign is fantastic. Over 200,000 extra people can now access the Smirnoff fan page that were previously excluded…just a shame we cant enter, even though we are part of GB!

Naturally a free product by way of apology is also a bonus…although Im thinking I should’ve started with Chanel or Versace

What’s your take on Smirnoff’s response or do you know of any other good case studies you would like to share?

Anyone in the social media industry follows and learns from leaders such as Chris Brogan (the holy grail), who have lead the way in building communities and relationships both off and online.  (If you haven’t heard of Chris go online and set up an RSS feed for his blog). He’s popular, not only because of his astounding knowledge in the field, but because he shares his knowledge freely. The era of Web 2.0 is about transparency, contributing information and building stronger relationships and communities. Some people form great business partners online, others acquaintances.  Although it is not possible to befriend everyone online it is possible to focus on what you want out of social media.

Case Study

Im going to show you, for you doubting Thomas’ out there, just how a simple RT of a fellow Twitterer led to a job in a leading social media conference AND  lunch with thee one and only Chris Brogan….

Back in January 2010 I stumbled across a guy called Scott Gould.  His tweets were insightful and informative around the subject of social media marketing so I followed and retweeted one of his tweets (which is a very good case study for SMM)

We then started some  non work related banter…

Like Minds Conference

Almost a month later a job opportunity was posted for Like Minds (via @brandguardian) and as we had already met online I didn’t have to cold call.  Luckily I got the job and helped Scott with the website on the lead up to the fabulous Like Minds event.

Scott kindly made me a guest of Like Minds which meant that I got to attend all the private events of the Key Note speakers and have dinner with these industry leaders in social media!  When would I ever have got an opportunity like this before?

Lunch with Chris Brogan

The highlight, personally, was getting to spend so much time with Chris Brogan. I was fortunate to have lunch with him and nine other great people in the industry such as @chrish10, @banksy6 and @gemmawent.  I also got to hang out with Chris for about an hour throughout the day, walking through the streets of Exeter, priceless time that I loved every minute of!

Time investment in return for great relationships, advice and insight… Priceless!

Social media builds relationships, it works! Question is, are you willing to spend the time?

As we know the States are leading the way with social media, with most of the case studies coming from that side of the world.  So you can imagine my excitement when I seen my first UK social media campaign at the weekend!!

With many companies starting to realise the benefits of social media marketing, Smirnoff’s brief was obviously to use traditional media to drive traffic to their Facebook Fan Pages.  The 30 second TV ad was followed by a 10 second clip specifically directing people to their Facebook page.

Here is the 30 second ad.

In my excited state I naturally went to the Facebook page www.facebook.com/smirnoffgb which re-routed to my Facebook home page.  Confused at this I proceeded to type it in another five times.  Assuming that I had the URL wrong I watched the TV ad again and paused it at the end. It was the correct address.

Disbelieving that Smirnoff could make such a fundamental error I blamed my own inabilities on not finding it…so I did what everyone does in this type of situation…I Googled it!

I even used the search on Facebook…nothing; interesting that Smirnoff Ireland is shown but not Great Britain.

So Smirnoff, what is going on?  You spent all that money on a TV ad and airtime and you don’t have a Facebook Page? Even if you have taken the Fan Page down for privacy or violation reasons surely you would stop the campaign?

If you need someone who can deliver a proper strategy then my number is on the website

FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT WHEN SMIRNOFF GOT IN TOUCH!