Sink or Swim: The Best and Worst of Social Media Marketing

Moderator: Rohit Bhargava, Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence
Pete Spande, Federated Media
Josh Warner, Feed Company
Michael Nicholas, Carat

I am excited for this panel  - I like Rohit (note to self: pick up his new book.)
and picking apart sucky marketing is fun for everyone!

Here we go...

Rohit:
SINK - Google search for United Airlines Blog
own top results for your search terms!
SWIM - Google search for Delta Airlines Blog
have a blog weather it gets lots of traffic or not you can combat poor search by simply having one.
This is a great example - simple way to make a point about power of SM.

Peter:
SINK - Sprint puts CEOs email in a TV commercial. initially thought this was super cool so he writes to the CEO and gets a generic response. Boo.
SWIM - Dell's response to Dell Hel. Whipped up IdeaStorm website where users can make suggestions and vote on them and they responded in a rapidly with new products.

Josh:
SWIM - Cardosystems Popping Corn with cell phones video on YouTube.

Tapping into an existing dialog around their product. Yes it's a little irresponsible but they came in with the dialog quickly with the reveal so no one really got pissed. Once the video 'popped' they directed people to a microsite that explained their involvement.  I especially like the 'As Seen On YouTube'  - ha!
SINK - Sprint CEO campaign. Felt fake from the beginning.

Michael:
SINK - WALL-Mart on Facebook (and elsewhere) disingenuous. They disabled the commenting wall on the page so that there is no discourse. WALL Mart cant seem to be honest with the consumers because they are afraid and thus they miss a lot of opportunities to leverage the millions who do support their brand.
SWIM - Obama campaign online. They get group sharing. Everything they have built leverages what really works about social web.

It's not enough to just be authentic - you need to go out and create an experience that feels authentic.
Make sure you take full advantage of the platform you are using.

If you are going to engage in SM you must abide by a higher standard than journalists - you have to be more authentic and NYT. There is a percieved level of truth that is higher in SM is higher than MSM now.

We need to get people thinking about social media campaigns in the long term (again!). This is the ROI that keeps on giving if you are patient, think of it as a garden.

Comments

[Rohit]

Hi Mica,

Thanks for live blogging this session and for your kind words. I hope you let me know what you think of the book, and next time we make it to the same event definitely come and introduce yourself so at least I get to say hi face to face!

Rohit