Recently I am crazy about searching good deals from websites such as Groupon, SocialShoppers and Dealfind. You can always be surprised about those super good deals which make you think ‘’I can’t miss that!’’ I am an example of this! HAHA
You may ask, companies are offering all these good deals and discounts, how do they make money? That curious me too. But I know the answer after I redeemed my very first coupon purchased from one of these websites. It is a $19 for one-month unlimited times for 1.5 hours yoga lesson. Good deal right? When I got to the yoga place, I realized people who brought that same coupon were all in different age group. There were a lot of males (this really surprised me) and even old people!
Then, I know companies that offering these discounts are not really aim to increase the sales but the brand awareness! By attracting new members to the yoga club using discounts as promotion tactic, customer base is expected to increase even the deals are over!
I am planning to go on a vacation with my friends after the final exams. To search for the lowest price for the travel package, I visited this website – TripAdvisor. It seems to be the largest travel site(at least they claim they are the largest).
For companies that related to travel industry, maybe it is one of the best ways to promote and build brand recognition through TripAdvisor. People can simply click on the photos and website link to check out if they are interested in it. It sounds awesome, doesn’t it? But, be aware of the risk! If you are confident enough or even proud of your company products or services that offer to your customers, of course TripAdvisor is like a bonus for you. What if you are not very qualified company? You probably want to keep an eye on the reviews and try to improve your products and services that meet the expectation of your customers. Never look down the power of reviews. Too many negative reviews will definitely harm your business. Just like me, I would never pick a hotel that has many negative reviews from past users.
Sometimes, social media helps to boost sales. Sometimes, it can be toxic. To enjoy the benefits of online marketing, keep up the products and services with the expectations of your customers first!
When you are asked to name some businesses which have great success in social media marketing, what company first comes up in your mind? To me, the first business that I can think of is Starbucks. Starbucks has over 2,200,000 followers on twitter and over 29,400,000 fans on Facebook up to date. You could say that they’re doing something right on the Web. What is it about Starbucks’s social media strategy that makes it so successful?
Here are some of my analyses of Starbucks’s social media success:
1) Starbucks on Facebook & Twitter
Starbucks updates their Facebook page very often. From their page, you can easily see a lot of videos, blog posts, photos. The company also invites people to events and contests. Fans are welcomed to have open discussions and commends posted on the Wall.
Starbucks engages with customers on Twitter by answering questions and retweets their followers. People can follow Starbucks’ latest products or promotion on twitter without spending time to search from the search engineers such as Google or Yahoo. It creates a perfect open communication channel to speak with the public.
2) Starbucks on YouTube
Over 13,000 people have subscribed to Starbucks YouTube Channel. They regularly upload videos of commercials as well as informational videos explaning the origins of the different coffee blends and some of their charity work videos. They also upload videos showing their history thus enabling people to relate more to the brand. This strategy has proven to increase the positive exposure for the brand.
On the Starbucks website, you can see that the company connected with its customers by asking them to share their ideas on anything related to Starbucks. The site gives users the ability to see what others are suggesting, vote on ideas and check out the results. 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. This is a brilliant social media strategy to interact with customers.
To prepare for my job interview, I did some research for the company Target. One of the interesting things that I read about this company is the excellent social media presence among retailer in U.S. According to the study by L.E.K. Consulting, 8.5% of the 2,000 U.S. consumers surveyed said Target has the best social media presence, followed by Amazon.com Inc. (8.0%), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (5.4%), Best Buy Co. (4.0%) and Macy’s Inc. (4.0%).
Social media just like an ecosystem with a variety of users who have different motivations. Understanding what customers want is not easy. The biggest challenge for these retailers to succeed is how to align its social media offerings with its customers’ interests. Consumers like to be engaged whether on a social network like Facebook or Twitter or on the more social aspects such as the customer review pages on a retailer’s website. 51% of respondents said that they appreciated Target, which asks shoppers to Like its posts and post their own personal photos and stories.
The most socially adept retailers do share a few basic ideas about how their social media operations Feature of large amounts of user content, such as reviews and product images; offer exclusive deals; and quickly respond to users’ comments and needs seem to be some of the things that ensure what a retailer is doing is interesting to users.
What interested me the most is the different approach on Facebook page for Target and Wal-Mart. While Target set up a discussion board on its Facebook page, Wal-Mart, instead, restrict comments and feedback on its Facebook page to “Wall Posts”. This limits the interaction between users. Furthermore, the target market for Wal-Mart is mainly the older people. I am curious if the approach of publishing content in such a media that the users are younger would help attracting their general target audience.
I think…not every social marketing strategy is successful to every nature of the business, just like the example of Wal-Mart.
Recently, my email inbox is flooded with invitations from my friends, asking me to join Pinterest. I know about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…But what is Pinterest? Pinterest is like a blog, but mainly for sharing photos and images. You can “pin” an image for your followers to view. They can like it, comment on it, and re-pin it on their own boards. An image or photo can then be circulated between people, between networks, or even between countries very easily without spending any money. How genius is this online bulletin board thing!
That gives me an idea of how do companies utilize Pinterest to help with their online marketing strategies. Visual images is always more powerful than words! Businesses can simply use Pinterest to post their product images and share them with their users. Then, when people see the images and interested in the products, they will visit the company websites or blogs. This is definitely a great way to increase brand awareness. Also, Pinterest can serve as a channel for businesses to interact with their customers. Somehow, companies can categorize their customers by seeing the variety of photos and images that customers post on their own boards.
