Interacting with Your Customers

In the last five years, the popularity of social media marketing has exploded. Most likely you already know what social media is – you use it every day when you connect to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or any number of other online sites that allow you to communicate with others, network, and bookmark and share your opinions, ideas, photos, and videos. So what is social media marketing? Quite simply social media marketing is the practice of including social media as part of a company's marketing program.

Why do businesses use social media marketing? Before responding, ask yourself these questions: How much time do I spend watching TV? When I watch TV, do I sit through the ads? Do I read the newspaper? What about magazines – when was the last time I sat for hours reading a magazine, including the ads? How do I spend my spare time? Now, put yourself in the place of Annie Young-Scrivner, global chief marketing officer of Starbucks. Does it make sense for her to spend millions of dollars to place an ad for Starbucks on TV or in a newspaper or magazine? Or should she instead spend the money on social media marketing initiatives that have a high probability of connecting to Starbucks's market?

For companies like Starbucks, the answer is clear. The days of trying to reach customers through ads on TV, in newspapers, or in magazines are over. Most television watchers skip over commercials (or avoid the ads by using TiVo), and few Starbucks's customers read newspapers or magazines, and even if they do, they don't focus on the ads. Social media marketing provides a number of advantages to companies, including enabling them to: 

• create brand awareness;
• connect with customers and potential customers by engaging them in two-way communication;
• build brand loyalty by providing opportunities for a targeted audience to participate in company-sponsored activities, such as a contest;
• offer and publicize incentives, such as special discounts or coupons, which increase sales;
• gather feedback and ideas on how to improve products and marketing initiatives;
• allow customers to interact with each other and spread the word about a company's products or marketing initiatives; and
• take advantage of low-cost marketing opportunities by being active on free social sites, such as Facebook.

To get a flavor of the power of social media marketing, let's look at social media campaigns of two leaders in this field: PepsiCo (Mountain Dew) and Starbucks.

Mountain Dew (PepsiCo)

When PepsiCo announced it wouldn't show a television commercial during the 2010 Super Bowl game, it came as a surprise (probably a pleasant one to its competitor, Coca-Cola, who had already signed on to show several Super Bowl commercials). What PepsiCo planned to do instead was invest $20 million into social media marketing campaigns. One of PepsiCo's most successful social media initiatives was to extend the DEWmocracy campaign, which two years earlier, resulted in the launch of product – Voltage – created by Mountain Dew fans. DEWmocracy 2 was a yearlong marketing campaign designed to create another Mountain Dew drink. The campaign was rolled out nationally in seven stages and engaged a number of social media outlets, including an online community of enthusiastic fans of Mountain Dew, Twitter, USTREAM (a live video streaming website), a 12secondTV.com video contest, and a dedicated YouTube channel. According to Mountain Dew's director of marketing, the goal of the campaign was "to engage in a direct dialogue with our consumers. And through this dialogue really start what we like to call a social movement in order to create this innovation". The flavors created through fan input are Whiteout (a citrus flavor that is white), Typhoon (a punch flavor), and Distortion (a hint of lime). All three flavors were launched in the spring of 2010, and it was up to the fans to select the best flavor, which would become a permanent member of Mountain Dew's offerings. And the winner was Whiteout". In addition to using fans to select the best flavors, the campaign used forums and live chats to allow fans to create the packaging, graphics, and social marketing for the products using viral videos, Twitter, and professional commercials.

Speaking of professional commercials, all you Super Bowl fans and followers of Super Bowl ads will be glad to hear that PepsiCo reversed its position, and its ads were showcased in the 2011 Super Bowl. It was likely a little jealous of its competitor, Coca-Cola, who was very effective at combining its Super Bowl ads with a social media campaign. Facebook fans who went online and donated $1 to the Boys & Girls Club of America received an image of a Coca-Cola bottle to post on their Facebook page and a twenty-second sneak preview of one of Coca-Cola's Super Bowl ads".

Starbucks

One of most enthusiastic users of social media marketing is Starbucks. Let's looks at a few of their recent promotions: discount for "Foursquare" mayors, free coffee on Tax Day via Twitter's promoted tweets, and a free pastry day promoted through Twitter and Facebook.

Discount for "Foursquare" Mayors of Starbucks

This promotion was a joint effort of Foursquare and Starbucks. Foursquare is a mobile social network, and in addition to the handy "friend finder" feature, you can use it to find new and interesting places around your neighborhood to do whatever you and your friends like to do. It even rewards you for doing business with sponsor companies, such as Starbucks. The individual with the most "check in's" at a particular Starbucks holds the title of mayor. For a period of time, the mayor of each store got $1 off a Frappuccino. Those who used Foursquare were particularly excited about Starbucks's nationwide mayor rewards program because it brought attention to the marketing possibilities of the location-sharing app.

Free Coffee on Tax Day (via Twitter's Promoted Tweets)

Starbucks was not the only company to give away freebies on Tax Day, April 15, 2010. Lots of others did. For example, Cinnabon gave away free cupcake bites, Dairy Queen gave free mini blizzards, and Maggie Moo's offered a free slice of their new Maggie Moo ice cream pizza. But it was the only company to spread the message of their giveaway on the then-new Twitter's Promoted Tweets platform (which went into operation on April 13, 2010). Promoted Tweets are Twitter's means of making money by selling sponsored links to companies. Keeping with Twitter's 140 characters per tweet rule, Starbucks's Promoted Tweet read, "On 4/15 bring a reusable tumbler and we'll fill it with brewed coffee for free. Let's all switch from paper cups". The tweet also linked to a page that detailed Starbucks's environmental initiatives.

Free Pastry Day (Promoted through Twitter and Facebook)

Starbucks's "free pastry day" was promoted on Facebook and Twitter". As the word spread from person to person in digital form, the wave of social media activity drove more than a million people to Starbucks's stores around the country in search of free food.

As word of the freebie offering spread, Starbucks became the star of Twitter, with about 1 percent of total tweets commenting on the brand. That's almost ten times the number of mentions on an average day. It performed equally well on Facebook's event page where almost 600,000 people joined their friends and signed up as "attendees". This is not surprising given that Starbucks is the most popular brand on Facebook and the first to reach the 10-million fan mark.

How did Starbucks achieve this notoriety on Facebook? According to social media marketing experts, Starbucks earned this notoriety by making social media a central part of its marketing mix, distributing special offers, discounts, and coupons to Facebook users and placing ads on Facebook to drive traffic to its page. As explained by the CEO of Buddy Media, which oversees the brand's social media efforts, "Starbucks has provided Facebook users a reason to become a fan".