We have had the opportunity to work with a number of Australian companies, helping them to understand the true potential of social media. From our surveys we know consumers are migrating fast, many companies are slow to follow. Standing back, many of the players we have engaged with recently had two common issues. First, they felt in their gut there was unharnessed potential in social media, and second they did not know what that leverage point might be. We would also observe, quite often the business leaders we were engaging with were not themselves very active social media users. So we initially immersed them in social, including customer comments from our research.
Our approach boiled down to starting by uncovering what objective the business has – or should have – for their social media. More than half thought it was no more than a brand or marketing channel (and indeed commonly they were frustrated with their presence and saw it as a necessary evil, rather than an opportunity). We then moved the conversation on to explore how both sales and service could be impacted via social, and demonstrated that rather than being a side issue, it had the potential to be integrated into overall strategy and business process. To be clear, social is more than just a communication or marketing tool. Platforms like Twitter offer the potential for customised – perhaps one to one conversations with customers, and are ideally placed for customer service and fulfillment as well as marketing and brand awareness.
There are some good examples of leveraging social right, and DFA likes Twitters case study pages as a way to stimulate ideas. The financial services examples can be found here. From startup Acorns, to Paypal, Visa, ING and Money Supermarket, each has a detailed description of what they did, and how they did it. Here are a few extracts. You should read the extended case studies on their site.
@Acorns wanted to reach a mobile-first audience and drive downloads of its new app. The @Acorns app connects to your credit and/or debit cards and automatically rounds up the change from everyday purchases into any one of five investment portfolios, depending on risk. Leveraging Twitter’s mobile app promotion and a focused targeting strategy helped the brand surpass its acquisition goals within the first 90 days of the campaign launching. @Acorns was able to monitor performance in real time and optimize creative instantly to connect the messaging with the right audience at the right time.
@INGBankTurkiye advertises weekly special loan offers through ‘Survivor Turkey’ TV broadcast sponsorships. The bank wanted to use this partnership to generate mass engagement, increase loan consideration and acquire more customers. @INGBankTurkiye created an integrated marketing campaign around the ‘Survivor Turkey’ sponsorship. During the May 26 broadcast, it announced on TV and Twitter that consumers could tweet their way to lower interest rates. The announcement was followed by the Promoted Trend #Uptomytweet, giving consumers the opportunity to reduce the interest rate on loans from 0.88% to 0.48% by tweeting with the hashtag during an episode of ‘Survivor Turkey.’
With mobile phones playing an ever-increasing role in Australian life, @PayPalAU wanted to raise awareness of its digital wallet app. With it, users can order ahead at cafes, pay for a taxi or send money to a friend anywhere in Australia. To increase app downloads, @PayPalAU wanted to engage savvy smartphone users with an offer they couldn’t resist: free coffee. @PayPalAU offered to buy Sydneysiders a free coffee when they used the PayPal app on Monday 19 May. The offer was valid at over 200 cafes across Sydney. @PayPalAU targeted inner-city trendsetters who Tweeted about coffee, using Twitter as its direct response mechanism. Promoted Tweets with links to the PayPal app download raised awareness of the ‘Free Coffee’ event, which was further amplified across radio, email, outdoor advertising, direct mail, SMS marketing and online platforms.
@MoneySupermkt was planning the launch of a new TV ad in which satisfied customer Dave shows off his ‘epic strut’ after saving money on his car insurance, and celebrity Sharon Osbourne (@MrsSOsbourne) appears impressed by his moves. The brand aimed to maximise interest and conversation around the ad and its @MrsSOsbourne connection. To support the launch of its #EpicStrut ad, and then to maintain the ad’s momentum, @MoneySupermkt planned a four-phase campaign on Twitter. A ‘teaser phase’ sparked intrigue across a wide audience in the 24 hours pre-launch, as Promoted Video of reactions from extras in the ad drove reach and engagement.
Canadians tend to use credit to pay for more established categories like Travel and Dining. Visa Canada (@VisaCA) wanted to encourage cardholders to use their Visa cards more often on Everyday Spend categories (groceries, gas or quick service restaurants) and grow its core business. @VisaCA made up the name “smallenfreuden” to mean using your Visa card for everyday purchases and started a conversation on Twitter around this behavior in three phases. To build curiosity, the brand launched the @smallenfreuden Twitter account and an unbranded teaser campaign centered around the hashtag #smallenfreuden. Billboards around Canada popped up with the question ‘Do you #smallenfreuden?” Similarly mysterious ads across digital sparked online buzz. They pointed to a YouTube video explaining smallenfreuden combines the English word ‘small’ and the German word ‘freuden,’ which translates into ‘joy of the small.’ A week later, the brand launched the @VisaCA handle and revealed its role behind the mysterious teasers with the Promoted Trend #smallenfreuden. Promoted Tweets associated with the Promoted Trend featured embedded rich media. The video content showed the benefits of paying for small purchases like a drink at a hockey game with a Visa card.
