TOYOTA and Social Media

Moving on from the feel good factor of Virgin America and Rage Against The Machine, we bring you a case from the almighty Toyota. Now they haven't had the best of times recently and were probably hoping that their recent social media campaign could offer some light at the end of the tunnel. However, their terrible run of form continued after they recruited Saatchi & Saatchi to manage a Facebook competition for users to submit video ad ideas for the Toyota Yaris.

Saatchi & Saatchi are a global PR powerhouse, but chose to dip their toe into the pool of social media on Toyota's time with, what was considered by many, an impotent effort to engage consumers. The positioning of the campaign was misjudged and the general message was this: 'Make an effort at a rather cliched campaign and maybe win an extremely small sum of money'.

Needless to say the response rate was low and, faced with embarrassment, they abandoned the campaign. The irony is that Toyota passed up the opportunity to run the campaign with its long term partner 'Oddfellows' because it didn't have the experience to run a social media campaign. Todays mini lesson: judge your partners carefully.

VIRGIN AMERICA on Twitter

No set of marketing success stories would be be complete without a case from Virgin. In a sector where customers are experiencing poor service due to soaring costs, Virgin America have sought to buck the trend and deliver all the trimmings we have come to expect of Mr Branson. However, what makes this even more unusual is that Twitter's at the core of this new service delivery.

Firstly, Sir Richard Branson has been using live Twittering via Virgin's in-flight WiFi to communicate directly with passengers on certain flights. This interaction has been 2-way, allowing the man himself to receive feedback about Virgin's service direct from the consumer. Secondly, the airline are using Twitter as a component in their customer service offering, meaning they can handle enquiries and complaints direct to each user. For example:

Customer "I flew on flight 110 yesterday. One of my checked bags was damaged. Didn't report at the time due to tight schedule. Suggestions"

Virgin America "Hey XXX what's the status of your luggage? I'll loop guest care in if the issue is still outstanding"

So in order to pay homage to the brilliance of the Virgin group, below is the full length television advert celebrating 25 years of Virgin Atlantic. It's pure genius. Not only is it a classic case of segmentation, targeting and positioning but it also confirms Virgin's place as the sexiest airline. Enjoy...

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

So who would have thought it? Rage Against The Machine getting 'Christmas Number 1' with their hit single 'Killing In The Name', years after it's original release date. Whilst this was deemed a major victory for the anti-establishment (or more like anti-Simon Cowell) members of the public, the real success story lay in the methods by which it was achieved. This is a first class example of how social media marketing has risen in prominence within today's society. The original campaign started as a Facebook group which grew virally across the internet and then, subsequently, in the mainstream media. So todays mini social media lesson is this: get your campaign right and the possibilities are almost limitless.

NESTLE: Social Media Disaster

Much is said about the power of social media and its role within the marketing mix. However, Nestle appear to have gone all out to prove its significant role in building (and destroying in Nestle's case!) relationships with consumers. Nestle have never been a brand that is synonymous with ethical consumerism, but their latest PR disaster became big news as a Facebook campaign led to a sharp fall in its share price on friday.

Greenpeace launched a scathing attack on Nestle via Facebook and Twitter, based on their continued use of palm oil in confectionary products like Kit Kat. The use of this oil is linked to deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and endangering the livelihood of orangutans. Greenpeace encouraged Facebook and Twitter users to change their profile photos to an adapted Nestle logo depicting the word 'Killer'. The campaign was so successful, that Nestle withdrew the use of palm oil with immediate effect.

What is LinkedIn?

So, are you using LinkedIn? This is a rapidly expanding network of professionals that has multifaceted benefits to all users. Check out the video below and start making connections:

ROI on Social Media Marketing

Been reading an article in Mashable.com (http://mashable.com/2009/10/27/social-media-roi/) about the issues relating to measuring ROI via social media marketing campaigns. According to research by Mzinga and Babson (2009), 86% of marketing professionals are now adopting social media as part of the overall marketing strategy. However, of that percentage only 16% of respondents actually had mechanisms in place to measure return on investment. In addition to this statistic, only 40% of the total respondents actually knew of methods by which ROI could be measured.