Social Media Marketing Mix - Videos

I recently read an article about social media marketing and how videos can be a powerful asset to selling the company's product. It said that to have a successful video it must be:

1. Engaging - In addition to being informational, often want to leverage humor, or do something to make the viewer smile (if not outright laugh).
2. Memorable - If the viewer does not remember it, what's the point?
3. On-brand - Must be consistent with the product's brand attributes and brand marketing messages

The article goes on to say that to be effective at all you need to know your audience and have a clear approach for each target groups. With the above guidelines (and with knowledge of your audience in hand), successful video types for social media might include: an interview from a client, a clever stunt, staged interactions between the product and a consumer, humorous traditional commercials, or musical spoofs. 

This article was clearly focusing on the consumer market (B2C). Because I work at Hallmark, a retail card store, I know that commercials and videos really bring in a customer to purchase a specific item. Bug 'Em is a lady bug that has a zipper pouch that parents or grandparents can fill to surprise a child. We had this item in the store before the Christmas holidays and we didn't sell any. When the commercial for this product came our right before Valentines day we could not keep them on the shelves. At Hallmark there is definitely a correlation between the commercials they air and how much product we sell.

What types of videos/ commercials make you want to buy?

In Response to John DeMunda ...

John talks about how when customers go into a store and they see a red sale sign there are automatically drawn to that section. Customers automatically think that they are getting a better deal and do not feel as guilty about making a purchase they otherwise didn't necessarily need. John bring us the issue of mismarked items and how employees should deal with the mess-up. I think that you need to keep the customer happy, but make sure that the issue is resolved right away. Where I work there is a section where everything is 50% off, but nothing is marked. So if you are an employee that only works 2 days a week and things get moved around you can have some angry customers when you enter something in wrong. I think the best solution is to politely ask the customer where they got the item and then proceed from there. If it is actually 50% off normally they are happy because 1. they got the item for cheap and 2. they were right.

Do you get annoyed when a cashier messes up your transaction?

In Response to Taylor Griffin...

Taylor makes statement that I think many people can agree with. He says that "Sometimes when i fill out surveys, I think one of two things. I am going to fill this survey out with giving my honest opinion or I will fill out this survey just to get it done with and out of my way." I can't argue with that logic. 

Recently there was a survey on my KSC account that continued to pop-up every time I logged in. I knew that it would not go away unless I filled it out, so I took as little time as I could to fill it out. The survey was for campus housing - the problem: I have never lived on campus. I couldn't answer anything honestly because it did not have the option for students who have not lived on campus. The creators of surveys need to be careful about how they word questions and who they have them out. 

How do you think Keene State should have administered the survey?

A Clearer Image: Supermarket

For our 331 Principle of Marketing class we were asked to critique the methods of a study including what questions I would ask if I was a hired consultant, providing alternatives. Study: A supermarket was interested in determining its image.  It dropped a short questionnaire into the grocery bag of each customer before putting in the groceries. 

I immediately though of a bunch of questions.

         1. Did you inform the customer that there was a survey in their grocery bag.

I would ask this because customers might throw the survey away without even looking at the paper.

         2. Was there any incentives to filling out this survey in an alloted amount of time?

I would ask this because some people don't go out of their way to fill out a survey that doesn't help them. An incentive might create a higher answering rate. 

        3. What questions were asked? How are they graded?

I would ask this because there are many definitions of image. It could mean physical image like how clean there store is. Or social image like what people thought of their company. Also, was they survey yes no answers or range of 1 - 5 or comments. All these factors could change the outcome of the survey. 

Some alternative ways to get feedback:

• Have them fill out the questionnaire while the teller is ringing out the groceries.
• Have a wider range people (customers and non-customers) by placing the questionnaire in the local newspaper.
• Have the survey table right before the exit to generate data. 

Do you have any other suggestions?

Marketing Research = Money in My Pocket!

According to our textbook marketing research is the systematic design, collection, interpretation, and reporting of information to help marketers solve specific marketing problems or take advantage of marketing opportunities. This can take forms such as polls, surveys, and focus groups. Today I want to tell you about E-Rewards, an online opinion panel.

E-Rewards is free to join and they give you a small incentive to try to qualify for surveys and you collect your awards in the form of gift cards or discounts. The surveys are not very long taking my 20 minutes max and with all the points I receive I am able to cash them in for American Eagle or Borders gift-cards along with other great promotions. 

Do you feel as if you need a promotion in order to fill out surveys?

In Response to Chris Kurylo . . .

As an owner of Mac I was interested in Chris's blog post. He wrote about an article on CNN wrote about an Apple employee that tells about his experiences working for Apple. You too can find the article at http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/18/an-apple-store-employee-tells-all/. After reading the article I have a very different look then my peer. Chris asked, "Do you think employees should change who they are just to do well at there place of work?" 

I found the article to be more about how one works hard at a job he enjoys. The anonymous worker said, "I wanna work my way up, get promoted and eventually get to the Genius Bar—which is where you want to be. Who doesn't want to be a genius?" The worker did say that he changed his personality when we was working to "sell, sell, sell." Apple pushing their employees to sell is nothing new, they are in the retail industry. If you don't think that every company trying to sell products do not push a particular item or promotion on the customer, then you are naive. 

Do you think that pushing products on customers is an effective way of selling a product?

Ethics and WikiLeaks

This week in our marketing class we have been talking about ethics. The textbook definition of ethical issue is "An identifiable problem, situation, or opportunity requiring a choice among several actions that must be evaluated as right or wrong, ethical or unethical." One of the ethical issues that I am passionate about is WikiLeaks and the impact they are having on the United States' security. 

One of the largest government leaks in history was on November 28 posting more than 250,000 diplomatic documents on WikiLeaks. These documents strained relations with some countries, influencing international relations. Dallas news posted that "Most of them [documents] are from the past three years, provide an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats." Some documents named diplomats and their sources. This put the United States government in a panic. 

In a poll done by NPR, 55% of Americans agreed that the public has a right to the knowledge leaked, while 45% thought that what was posted was wrong and put lives at risk. I think that the government needs to be able to keep secrets. They are what is keeping us safe. What did the knowledge leaked gain us? After 9/11, the showdown of terrorism still dominates the US as seen through Obama's struggle with Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran.

Do you think that having government secrets is worth the risk of putting people in danger?