Content Opening Case: Häagen-Dazs Viral Video Creates a Buzz 5.1 Earned Media 5.2 Social Media Engagement Levels 5.3 Engaging Consumers to Produce Earned Media 5.4 Engagement Techniques 5.5 Reputation Management in Social Media 5.6 Search Engine Optimization 5.7 Monitor, Measure, and Refine: SM Metrics Learning Objectives Upon completion of this chapter, you will be able to: 1. Describe the five levels of user engagement (5 Cs). 2. Describe the major engagement techniques in social commerce and implementation issues. 3. Express the role of trust in social commerce. 4. Provide examples of collaborative content creation by consumers. 5. Describe how a company can build, maintain, monitor, and repair its reputation in social media. 6. Identify several ways companies can improve their brand positions on search engine results pages. 7. Define performance metrics used to monitor, measure, and refine social commerce goals and tactics. REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. List the five levels of user engagement (5 Cs). consume connect collect creators collaborate 2. Describe viral videos and viral blogging. Viral video is any clip of animation or film that is spread rapidly through online sharing. These videos become popular when they get circulated via e-mail, texting, blogs, Facebook, discussion forums, and so forth. This way, people share videos that receive more attention, sometimes drawing millions of viewers in a short time. Popular sites that are used for sharing viral videos include YouTube (youtube.com) and Vimeo (vimeo.com). Viral blogging is when bloggers conduct viral marketing activities by leveraging the power of the blog community to spread content. Viral blogging can be very effective with the use of tools such as trends on Twitter. Many retailers entice WOM marketing by bloggers. 3. How do ratings and reviews affect social commerce? According to Gartner Inc., the majority of consumers rely on social networks to guide them in purchase decisions (per Gartner, Inc. 2010). In the social commerce environment, shoppers look to their friends, fans, followers, and experienced customers for their opinions and advice. With peer-topeer engagement through social media and high consumer trust in friends, family, and acquaintances, retailers recognize that their customers voices can be an extremely strong marketing tool for building sales and improving products. Therefore, retailers want to hear what the customers have to say. 4. Identify several social recommendation tactics. Social bookmarking. Recommended products, deals, and tips are bookmarked and shared with friends, fans, and followers, using social bookmarking sites such as Delicious.com. Referral programs. These involve financial rewards for customers and partners who refer new customers (e.g., Groupon, Gilt). Social recommendations. Personal shopping recommendations are based on profile similarities to other customers (e.g., Amazon Recommendations).
Other innovative methods. Companies such as Netflix and StyleFeeder automate personal recommendations based on algorithms, comparing similarities between customer purchasing histories and profiles and movie similarities. 5. What are seven ways to create content that entices consumer engagement? 1) Uploads 2) Comments 3) Bookmarking 4) Tagging 5) Reviews 6) Recommendations 7) More (other methods) 6. Why does collaborative content help companies? As previously mentioned, the most engaged customers help the company improve products and promotions because they either care deeply about the brand or are enticed by a successful engagement technique, such as posting product improvement suggestions. 7. What creates a solid social media reputation? Quality, transparency, and trust principally influence company and brand reputations. 8. Which entities should be concerned about their reputations? Brands and companies have lost a great deal of control over their images and reputations and must now monitor, engage, and participate in social media conversations or pay the consequences. 9. How can a company repair its reputation online? Companies must display quality, transparency and worthiness of trust. Company actions must match stated values. 10. Define SEO. This is the process of improving the visibility of a company or a brand on the results page displayed by a search engine. 11. List six important awareness/exposure metrics. Unique visitors Page views
Impressions Number of searches Search engine ranking Number of followers, registrations, or subscribers 12. List three important brand health metrics. Share of voice (SOV) Sentiment Brand influence 13. List four important engagement metrics. Content viewership Tagging, bookmarking Membership/follower Number of shares 14. List four important action metrics. Click through Contact form completion or registration Branded mobile apps QR codes 15. List two important innovation metrics. Number of ideas Trend spotting TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND DEBATES 1. Do you think that marketers are losing control of brand images due to the social media? What should marketers do to gain more control, or should they give up the cause? Student perceptions and opinions will vary. 2. How can marketers use social networks for viral marketing? Student experiences and opinions will vary.
3. Do you think that user engagement in social media can result in product sales? Explain your answer. Responses will vary. 4. Which level of engagement best describes your online behavior? How could your favorite brand move you to a higher level using the principles in this chapter? Student perceptions and opinions will vary. 5. If you wrote a blog about your experiences at the university you attend in order to help high school students understand what college is like, which metrics would you use to measure the blog s success, and why? Responses will vary. 6. Scan a QR code that you find in a print publication and visit the site. Do you think the additional material was worth the effort to find? Why or why not? How could the landing page be improved? Student research and opinion will vary. 7. Pretend that you are a consultant to your university. Based on the material in this chapter and Chapter 4, what do you think are the best owned and paid media for generating positive earned media about the university? Student research and opinion will vary. 8. Read Merriman (2011) on handling negative feedback. Discuss the methods described there. How can the feedback be used for improvement? INTERNET EXERCISES 1. Enter comblu.com. Explore its products and discuss the role of a social marketing dashboard.
2. Google the president of your university. Review the top ten links in the SERP and see how his/her reputation is online. Make recommendations for improving it, using SEO and other techniques discussed in this chapter. 3. Create an account at delicious.com. Tag an article you like online and then follow the links to others who have also tagged it, seeing what else they have tagged. Write a report about your findings. 4. Enter usocial.com and softcity.com. Identify all the methods/tools they offer to increase social engagement/marketing communication. Write a report. 5. Imagine you are planning a vacation to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Visit tripadvisor.com and search for hotels on Copacabana beach. Examine the reviews of five hotels that seem right for you. Do you trust all of these reviewers? Why or why not? Based on the reviews, which hotel would you select, and why? Student opinions and reports will vary. 6. Check out your personal reputation online by searching for your name on Google ( egosurfing ). f you were a job recruiter, would you hire yourself based on what you find? Why or why not? What can you do online to improve your chances in the job market? Student opinions and responses will vary. 7. earch oogle images for social media dashboards. Look at the dashboards and follow their links to the companies that created them. Which one do you think best for a large consumer goods company, such as Coca-Cola? Why do you recommend the one you do? Student opinions and responses will vary. 8. Visit doritoscrashthesuperbowl.thismoment.com and view the top videos in the current contest. hen review the article about hevy ahoe s negative consumer generated content and write five guidelines companies should use while creating strategies involving consumer generated ads (watch the video rew eisser on hevy ahoe dvertising at youtube.com/watch?v=1nmrs24q4oq). Reports will vary.
9. Read the story about how Mattel used social media to reconcile the relationship between Ken and Barbie (see blog.bazaarvoice.com/2012/01/03/a-social-love-story-how-ken-wonbarbie-and-customers-through-paid-owned-and-earned-media). Write a report on how Mattel used owned, paid, and earned media to promote the Ken doll and which performance metrics they used to measure the campaign s success. onclude with your insights: why was this campaign successful? Student reports and opinions will vary. TEAM ASSIGNMENTS AND PROJECTS 1. Review the opening case and answer the following questions: a. Which principle(s) for enticing consumer engagement did Haagen-Dazs use for the honey bee campaign? The company hoped that their efforts to better understand bees would be seen as altruistic and would garner support of individuals concerned about bee populations. b. Watch the Bee-Boy ance rew video at youtube.com/watch?v=wa0db-7bsao. Why do you think it was good enough to go viral? Suggest ways for improving the video or tactics that would create more viewership. Student opinions and suggestions will vary. c. After watching the Bee-Boy video, review the comments. How would you evaluate this earned media for enhancing the brand reputation of ӓagen-dazs? Student perceptions will vary. d. Select three techniques discussed in this chapter that were not used in the honeybee campaign but which might increase engagement and earn media discussion. Defend your choices. Student perceptions will vary. 2. Each member of the team will register with a social bookmarking site, such as delicious.com, then research viral marketing and bookmark at least five high quality online articles. Follow the links to others who have bookmarked the same articles and see what they have found. Share your findings and report on the usefulness of social bookmarking for researching this topic.
Student debates will vary. 3. Search for more online videos and discussion about the Greenpeace palm oil/nestle issue, discussed in this chapter (such as Kit Kat Greenpeace 2: Go to youtube.com, and search for estle Kit Kat reenpeace ). ocument all the earned media you discover and write a report on this attack against estlé s reputation, including your recommendations for actions Nestlé could take to recover from this negative conversation using social media. 4. Develop a reputation management plan for building your own personal brand online so you are attractive to recruiters in the job market. With your team, share your plans and devise a common plan that uses the best from each. Explain why yours is the perfect plan. For more resources, review the personal branding worksheet at personalbrandingblog.com/yourpersonal-branding-worksheet. lso see hris Brogan s 100 ersonal Branding actics sing ocial edia, at chrisbrogan.com/100-personal-branding-tactics-using-social-media. Student research will vary.