Tag / bbsdigmarket

by Natalie Dean

What Are The Successful Ways Companies Can Use Viral Campaigns To Increase Their Social Media Presence?

What are Viral Campaigns?

Viral marketing is an approach that involves harnessing the network effect of the internet, delivering a message to a wide spread of people, to create a ‘buzz’. Whether this be the Dove ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ campaign or the ‘GoPro Fireman Saves Kitten’. A viral marketing campaign has a much greater impact than using traditional advertising methods.

The top viral campaigns need to be original, memorable and encourage you to share.

Pilon (2017) lists the top Viral Campaigns of 2016

Apple Music: Drake vs Bench Press

John Lewis #BusterTheBoxer

Ghostbusters: Branded filters on Snapchat

Disney #ShareYourEars Supports Make-A-Wish

L’oreal #WorthSaying

Gregory (2015) suggests how campaigns are most likely to reach consumers who actively seek information, but to also bare in mind that campaigns will not always give you a positive response.. so be ready for the critique!

Why do companies use viral campaigns?

Companies want to increase their traffic and campaigns lead the way. The idea of thousands and millions of viewers watching or being involved in your campaign within a short space of time, is exciting. Exposing your brand to the world and giving them an insight to who you are and what you do, can be incredibly powerful. Some campaigns are absolutely hilarious, others heart-breaking, but all contain triggers which get people talking.

 

Social Media Marketing Channel

Defined as ‘Monitoring and facilitating customer-customer interaction and participation throughout the web to encourage positive engagement with a company and its brands. Interactions may occur on a company site, social networks and other online sites’.

This channel is highly significant as it encourages customer interaction with the company through various methods. Social media marketing can be used to improve the way a brand is perceived, to promote a product or a service and to learn more about their customers (Chaffey, 2016).

Ledford (2012) refers to the ‘Media Richness Model’ and also ‘Media Control’. The media richness model is used to measure interpersonal communication and media control is used for media strategy in PR. This model allows an analysis to various communication disciplines which can address multiple channels.

Media richness is determined by 4 questions according to Ledford (2012)

  1. Does the medium offer the receiver the ability to send feedback and how quickly?
  2. Can the medium communicate multiple cues?
  3. Does the medium offer language variety and the opportunity for a natural language?
  4. Does the medium have a focus?

What is an audit?

An audit is described as a systematic review or an assessment. A viral campaign audit provides a review of what works well, what doesn’t work so well, where can we improve and where are our strengths?

Step-by-Step Guide

All it really takes is a clever idea with a well planned execution

  1. Understanding who your audience is – Relate this to what you know about your consumers already, if you are targeting them specifically, use analytics to help you seek an advantage
  2. Evoke emotions – You want your viewer to feel something when they see your campaign, ask yourself how do you want your consumer to feel?
  3. Don’t overcomplicate your idea – You don’t want your message to get lost in the confusion of how your message is portrayed
  4. Learn from the best – Ask yourself why the top viral campaigns are so successful, what did you think was good about them, what made you want to share the content?
  5. Easy to share – Include links to social media streams and content sharing features, so the consumer can do it there and then
  6. Allow feedback – If you want to build your brand then you are going to have to encourage feedback and regular communication
  7. Determine your tonality – Are you going for comedy, political, sexy, controversial, cool, conservative?
  8. Distinctiveness – What sets your campaign apart, and how easy is this to see?
  9. Story – does your story fully engage your customer, is your chosen story going to allow you to achieve he outcome you want?
  10. Measure the effects of your campaign – Companies such as Webtrends provide software more measuring online campaign performance (Harris & Dennis, 2008)

Pentin (2012) discusses how there is no secret formula for viral success, otherwise we would all be going it and being very successful! But following these ten steps will provide you with guidance on how to successfully use a viral campaign to increase social media presence.

For a beginners guide to social media engagement and how to make the most of your metrics, check out the link below:

The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Metrics: Engagement

Additional Links

Useful blogs in relation to viral marketing campaigns:

7 Steps to Create a Viral Marketing Campaign

https://www.searchlaboratory.com/2017/02/going-viral-the-mathematics-behind-content-and-online-pr/

http://www.thirtyseven.agency/blog/7-viral-campaigns-that-went-wrong-for-all-the-wrong-reasons/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-most-impactful-marketing-campaigns-those-driven-purpose-koltsuk/?trackingId=rMqR2CuzCn4dyhw9vqw1rQ%3D%3D

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-ingredients-viral-social-media-campaign-chuck-murphy/?trackingId=9KL%2FsM%2Fn24s2pgwFAgwsWQ%3D%3D

References

Chaffey, D. & Chadwick, F.E. (2016) Digital Marketing Strategy, Implementation and Practice. 6th ed. Pearson: Harlow

Gregory, A. (2015) Planning and Managing Public Relations Campaigns. 4th ed. Kogan Page: London

Harris, L. & Dennis, C. (2008) Marketing the e-business. Routledge: New York

Pentin, R. (2012) Seven Top Tips for Improving Viral Campaign Success. E-Consultancy. Available online: https://econsultancy.com/blog/9497-top-tips-for-improving-viral-success [Accessed 25 Novemebr 2017]

Ledford, C.J.W. (2012) Changing Channels: A Theory-Based Guide to Selecting Traditional, New, and Social Media in Strategic Social Marketing. Social Marketing Quarterly., 09/2012, Volume 18, Issue 3

Pilon, A. (2017) These Were The Best Viral Campaigns of 2016. [Online] Available at: https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/12/best-viral-campaigns-of-2016.html [Accessed 27 November 2017]

by Natalie Dean

IKEA & The Socializers: Case Study Review

How do IKEA use Technology as a Tool for Change? 

Overview

IKEA is the world’s largest multinational furniture, appliance and home accessories retailer. With almost 160,000 employees, 365 stores spread across 45 countries. The IKEA concept is achieved by combining function, quality, design, value, with sustainability; with an aim to help more people live a better life at home (IKEA, 2017).

Embedding #Social across the Enterprise

IKEAs goal was to embark upon a programme to interlink their different business units together and to establish social media as a valuable channel throughout the companies regions, departments and applications. Discovering insights in real-time was said to be beneficial to the company and stated the importance of sharing this with their teams. IKEAs Digital Marketing team worked alongside The Socializers to outline a strategy for their socially intelligent operation.

IKEAs social media proved to be inconsistent and its usage varied dramatically between the different markets and departments. It is important to remember that IKEA have achieved tremendous business growth through their use of traditional business techniques; fostering a social media disruptive change is sometimes harder to achieve within a company that is performing well as opposed to a company that is in desperate need of change. Data often remained siloed and communication lacked across the global enterprises. A cultural shift was required around sharing and governance to ensure that the successful and innovative practices were being broadcasted internally to benefit all departments.

IKEA and The Socializers chose Brandwatch Vizia to power the proposed hub. The customisable platform enabled the team to build a social media command centre within the Listening Hub to create real space for sharing, detecting and distributing insights across the organisation. The Listening Hub would be a physical space, positioned into the Inter IKEA systems HQ where senior staff and other teams could engage with the centre.

The Listening Hub

The Listening Hub enabled key stakeholders to view what customers were saying. The work in which the Digital Development team and The Socializers undertook helped prove to the organisation that social data can have countless beneficial applications and encouraged positive change across the workforce. One insight was that US customer service complaints on Facebook took up 36.5%, whereas just 5% in the UK in 2014. Sharing these insights with the departments, enabled a greater understanding of where their customers are and which channels they use in certain circumstances. 

Key Results

  1. Engaged multiple departments in a wide program of sharing best practice in social
  2. Delivered 19 actionable reports to teams across the organisation
  3. Achieved senior management buy-in for further investment and implementation of social technologies and processes

The Future

  • Understanding of the value and importance of social media has improved
  • Information is being shared and directed to the appropriate department
  • A tangible culture of wisdom and experience sharing is emerging

Take Aways 

The three month programme has allowed IKEA to have a better understanding of their consumers and will allow them to take the necessary steps to implement future change. The insights have really filled the gap from IKEAs perspective and they are now prepared take even further action. Who knows what the future holds for IKEA, but we can be sure that sharing insights in invaluable to such a company and is sure to keep successfully strengthening their social intelligence. I learnt from this case study that even multinational companies are willing to become more social intelligent, even if they are well known for their traditional business techniques.

Find out more about IKEA, The Socialisers & Brandwatch 

www.ikea.com

www.thesocializers.com

www.brandwatch.com

 

First time blogger, student studying Digital Marketing at University of Brighton

 

References

Tregear. H (2014) IKEA & The Socializers: Building Social into the Heart of a Global Business [Blog]

https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/ikea-assembling-a-listening-hub/ [Accessed 18 October 2017]

 

IKEA (2017) IKEA About Us [Website] http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/this-is-ikea/the-ikea-concept/ [Accessed 18 October 2017]