Our client presentation for Church & State Winery was a positive experience – the client was engaged, despite the length and detail of our presentation, and took away useful insights on to potential of a digital media marketing plan. We were able to give them useful insights into how customers are searching their products, how to improve engagement, and what levels of activity and spending on some platforms could be. Overall, this project was a very positive experience.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Client Selection was Crucial: Our project was successful because we found a client early, and the client was very open to giving us access to their digital media platform. Their Marketing Manager had a comfort level with social media, but not necessarily a clear direction, and allowed us complete control over their digital plan. Their social media presence was already established at a low level, but did have enough reach to provide meaningful data from our testing and planning.
2. Project was too Brief: The timeline for this project really only gave us an insight into how one might operate a social media campaign. Our campaign only ran from Nov 14 to 30, giving us just over two weeks to gain data and provide insights. Had this course been offered in a traditional 13 week period, we could have provided a much more in-depth analysis of the data and tried a greater variety of techniques and message structures. As it stands, our presentation to the client was tempered by the disclaimers our data comes from a very small sample, and while we could observe some interesting insights, we could not provide definitive information. This meant many of our recommendations awere contingent on the client continuing to operate the campaigns we initiated.
3. Project was too Individual: Because of the number of components of the campaign and the short time frame, the project elements rarely met to share their insights and findings, or communicate how their project elements worked. While I have a solid understanding now about the use and structure of an effective content calendar, I feel I gained very little insight into how to use the other campaign tools. The presentation to the client helped me understand what the elements do and what the analytics tools look like, but I will need to do some self-directed study to better understand what the process is like for using these tools.
4. Social Media is a Very Cost-Effective Marketing Tool: The costs associated with much of the marketing we utilized were low. Facebook and Twitter, for example, had no cost and allowed us targeted reach for expanding the brand’s presence. During the campaign, our client learned John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) had asked for their Merlot specifically on a Vancouver visit. As a result, the client related their intent to try to contact Mr. Cleese’s management by email to arrange some type of contact. Instead, our group recommended reaching our on social media, specifically Twitter. We found Mr. Cleese has 2.5M followers and is very active on Twitter, so we tried a Tweet referencing pairing the Church & State Merlot with a Camembert from the National Cheese Factory (a reference to a 1970’s Monty Python sketch involving Mr. Cleese as a frustrated cheese buyer). Though we did not get direct engagement, this represented an opportunity to engage with a major influencer, with no cost for marketing.
5. Media is the Message: This campaign reiterated the importance of what kind of media you are creating. Our posts with video had significantly greater reach than information articles, and promotional posts had far less reach than the information articles. People seem to engage visually, and want to be delighted and entertained. The message was not very relevant; as long as the post or Tweet had even a tenuous content to wine, as long as it was fun, it got great engagement.

In the November 2014 issue of Wired magazine, Clive Thompson discusses the link between critical or negative Tweets and posts and their likelihood of being retweeted, shared, or otherwise disseminated (http://www.wired.com/2014/11/be-mean-online/). Thompson observes, “When I post an acerbic or cranky tweet, it gets recirculated far more widely than do my cheerier notes” (50). Through the idea of “hypercriticism”, Thompson claims readers view critical or negative comments or reviews to be intellectually superior, and thus are given greater credence. His article references a pair of studies which appear to confirm this observation, the second of which (conducted by Brian Gibson of Central Michigan University) also indicates we turn to negativity when we try to impress people or show our intelligence.

What does this mean for social media marketing? A number of things, which good marketers should consider.

First, Thompson’s article indicates negative comments will circulate more quickly and more readily than positive comments. This suggests that the information to which a casual consumer is most likely to be exposed will be negative. Monitoring your corporate identity in social media and having an active presence that engages with the on-line community is one manner to address potentially damaging comments before they spin beyond the company’s ability to engage and control. Even then, the virtual world can disseminate information with a rapidity beyond any organization’s ability to control. In this case, the company’s best strategies are to engage the comment and issue damage control. Recently, Cabella’s (an outdoor sporting goods company) made news in Edmonton, AB because the manager turned away a group of Cadets selling poppies in support of Canadian Veterans’ Groups in advance of Remembrance Day. The story reported in Canadian news agencies triggered a firestorm of negative criticism and was repeated across social media platforms. In response, Cabella’s president of Canadian Operations released a statement explaining the incident as a “misunderstanding”, and provided a $10,000 donation to the Royal Canadian Legion’s Poppy Fund. To communicate its message, Cabela’s took to social media and made their statement on Facebook. The response comments to Cabela’s apology still reflect the venom felt from the initial incident, many posters still requesting disciplinary action including firing or various forms of public shaming for the manager involved in the incident. The apology was shared 3,000 times as of Nov. 9, whereas the original story from the Edmonton Sun was shared 56,000 times and reached a much broader audience. As Douglas Adams wrote, “Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws”. It seems that special law is social media.

Second, those who want to develop reputations as influencers on social media would be well served to focus on critical posts and reviews. As the Cabela’s example shows, people respond to negativity and critical posts. It seems apparent that the fastest way to have one’s posts retweeted and shared is to be critical. Further to this, the studies cited in Thompson’s article indicate we tend to view negative, critical, or mean posts as being more intelligent than positive posters. Neither study explains why we feel this way, but the results are significant. Perhaps society has become skeptical of effusive support posts, suspecting unabashed product-honks of being corporate shills, or unenlightened neophytes enthralled by any shiny object crossing their paths. The cynical comment may trigger feelings of investment – this poster must have taken the time to learn something about this product, or have some expert knowledge better qualifying them to evaluate trends, ideas, products, or anything else they post.

Be cautious, would be influencers! Before rushing out to lambaste everything around you, note that Theresa Amabile’s (director of research for Harvard Business School) study indicated even though we may view the poster as more intelligent, and the post is more likely to be shared, readers tended to view the poster as “less warm and more cruel, not as nice” (50).

Thompson’s article, though not explaining why we so readily share acerbic comments and critical posts, may give us context on why we accept the content of the posts more readily than we do Oprah’s effusive, “Amazing!”s.

Who decides to leave the industry leader in big box retail after 20 years (7 in management) to pursue a new career as an MBA?  How do you come to that decision?