Not sure how it has started but May the Fourth, I mean the date May 4th is Star Wars Day. That time of the year when you go about wishing people ‘May the Fourth be with you!’

Hahah its so mundanely hilarious! This is why I love Twitter, there are always jobless folks and people with jobs who take out the time to celebrate a Star Wars Day or Towel Day (HHGG — Arthur — Towel, get it? If not just search)

Lately there have been couple of brands doing something that I find very interesting in the India social media space.

Puma – you probably have seen their FAAS contests around Twitter at some point in the last few weeks. They have connected with social media influencers and have sponsored giveaways for them if they had a #FAAS contest. The contest can be about anything depending on the influencers field of interest. So I saw atleast 3 such contests,
by @beeayeanoowhy on F1, @mulchand on photography and @thebigbhookad on mumbai local foods. All these contest were associated to a #FAAS and #Puma tags on Twitter.
They were all very popular and at one point there was also a world wide Puma trending topic.

Pepsi – Pepsi has been following a similar format with #pepsiT20Football. They have sponsored giveaways for contests on other communities like Zapak and Sportskeeda.

This is very similar to something I had done many years back with @inkfruit. Initially I tried connecting with bloggers to review the website, but that didn’t get such a good response so we sponsored Inkfruit Tee giveaways for their contests – and this approach worked much better and we were able to run various contests on many popular blogs.

Sometime back I came across a Travel campaign #GoJordan
Again in this campaign social media travel influencers have been brought in to evangelize the destination. The difference here is that all these influencers are paid for their effort.

I do not have exact stats but by taking a good look at the content and buzz generated by the various above mentioned campaigns then I think that the Puma contest was more or atleast as popular as the #GoJordan one.  So while one brand sponsored giveaways for contests, the other brand had actually paid or hired the influencers involved.

Now the question is: Would each of the models for buzz generation have worked for the other brand?

There are many factors involved but one of the thoughts I have: India being a relatively newer social media space we find the influencers most of whom have atleast a few thousand large community evangelize a brand in a big way without really looking to be compensated. I do not think the same model that Puma followed would work in GoJordan’s case because the travel bloggers are a lot more serious influencers many of whom live/travel off the income made from their online presence. Hence, if they were to be roped in for a social media campaign then it would have to be an official paid campaign.

Along with social media comes daily content generation for brands! For traditional media, brands can ideate for weeks, make creatives, reject them, re-think, re-make until they were satisfied and only then release the TV ad or print ad out to the world! With social media – there is the social media team that makes the updates, LOTs of updates to be published daily and puts it out on the communities. Sure there is some approval process etc.. but the sheer number of updates required, brands can hardly find enough backend structure to manage it all and fine tune each update!

Every now and then however we see brands that have put in one extra mile in making the updates, they have added a special something! Some examples,

Lovely picture with an adorable message! Also note the Flickr credit - its admirable!

Flipkart makes a series of 'Guess the Detective'! Note the good graphics & the clue for each detective!

Note the graphic and finding out about 'National Submarine Day' it all clicks with the brand!

Why should you go the extra mile to make an update?

1. Breaks the clutter – Social media is getting more and more cluttered with brands, its these kind of updates that gain the higher traction!

2. Brand – Every status update reinforces a particular brand image. How do you want to portray your brand?

I must say that of all Facebook features, amidst the copying and controversies, the Timeline for Brands (not individuals) is my favorite! The visual appeal of the huge banners and ability for a brand to create a history is pretty kickass stuff!

A lot of brands have created visual grandeur by appealing to the emotions and/or other salient aspects of the facebook user but I saw two very cool brand pages doing something a little bit different!

Check them out….

An in-house designation for social media marketing – how many companies really have it? The client wants to hand their social media work over to someone and yet they want to control everything that goes out on the social channels. This major clash with keeping it hassle free and yet controlled for the client can be allayed just be hiring a dedicated social media manager! Some clear advantages of having an in-house social media manager,

1. keeps the company well ready to strategize and implement social media ideas on the Go!
Brands often have quickly planned events, launches, celebrity presence – these can’t always have a planned out social media campaign around it. There is a need for quick and impromptu updates from people present at the event. A lot of times there are in-house activities going on which are very interesting and can be published on social channels.

2. it brings about a seamless transfer of all relevant company information/updates to the social channels at the right time
Often my clients send me brand updates in the form of the press releases that have been sent to the newspapers and other traditional media! As a result most of the exciting social media possibilities for the news are gone and a typical update would be informative and usually boring. The inhouse person would know of the news before hand and would be able to sense social potential and think about how to create buzz around it in advance.

3. it ensures that social media activities are well integrated within the company’s different processes
Social media includes customer service, sales, behind-the-scenes and so much from many different aspects of the business. Co-ordinating all this would be best done by someone within the office!

4. this person would encourage the other company employees to actively engage on social media
Employees are an invaluable asset to the company. Often when we launch client social media profiles we get the first few hundred followers from the company employees and their network! In India especially not a lot of people are active on social networks other than Facebook, but having a social media wiz around just sparks the other folks to take interest in these networks. You can arrange social media 101 camps and do other fun stuff which would eventually make your employees so much more social media savvy, which can be an asset for your companies social visibility.

Where do I come in? While the social media person can take care of day-to-day updates and management. Most companies need to have a detailed strategy with long term direction. They also need help with short term buzz generating campaigns. This is where we like to come in. We help companies with their strategy, gauge potential social possibilities for the business and build short term campaigns. The best part is – the social media manager would become the point of contact for us! And the advantages of that are,

Time
This person would have the time to be a part of the social media activities on a daily basis by either an executive role or at least where he/she can overlook the activities. Provide necessary brand support when needed. Often we end up talking to the CEO or some of the top management who just don’t have the time needed!

Control
Social media being long-term and daily, companies always want to control it. With them being strapped for time it often limits social media activities as the necessary approval or information is not given quickly. The whole process can be speeded up greatly with the in-house wiz!

Know-How
This person would be someone who understands social media, so we can talk to him/her in detail of technicalities. Otherwise often the top people don’t get what we would be doing. Often they suggest ideas which are really not socially workable or they fail to grasp possiblities which are very potent!

Collaboration v/s Outsource
It allows collaboration between a social media company and the client, as opposed to a complete outsource situation where there is hardly any integration of the company and its social media activities managed by the agency.

Everything Online becomes our job
Another problem that arises is, every small task online gets pushed to the social media company because there is no one with the client who can manage it. Which basically means that the community manager in our company is actually working like the in-house resource for client company. Which hardly makes any sense!

There are still some more ground realities which really makes me want to work with more in-house social media managers! I hope that a lot more companies open up a social media manager designation!

Last post I reviewed a campaign where for every Facebook fan the brand gave out some donation to an NGO. A mix of CSR and marketing for the company. This campaign I found to be a bit lacking. Just a few days ago I came across a similar campaign by a fitness brand, Equinox. They are donating $1 for every Facebook fan.

I actually liked what they are doing on their social media. There are certain reasons why I find the Equinox campaign thought provoking and interesting..

1. Equinox has a lot going on in their social media. So their marketing is not solely dependant on the donations given to NGO.

2. Equinox is already a very popular brand on social media. Their endorsing this NGO not only brings the NGO money but also publicity which is very important for any non-profit.

3. They are donating to Cycle for Limbs which is connected to Fitness. So there is a brand sync. This is important because it allows the community to rally around it in a way that is harmonious to the brands content strategy.

Most Importantly,

4. They are donating $1 for every fan. If they put Facebook ads they would be spending less than $1 for every fan. So they are actually donating more to the NGO than they would if they did the usual marketing!

That is why I feel at the end of the day the NGO really gains from this association and it adds a good touch to the whole Equinox social media campaign. It is a cool idea where part of the marketing budgets of corporates flows into non-profits.