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"We don't have a PR campaign that doesn't include Social Media," says Edelman senior VP for consumer brands social media,
Danielle Wiley. Ad Age had a great podcast interview with this VP and I wanted to share some of the interview with you as you integrate social media into your own agency.
Wiley discusses how everyone on her team is required to have a Blog and are able to identify trends as they are developing and recommend best practices to their clients. They only recommend engaging outside Bloggers that they have read for a minimum of 3 months and that they have corresponded with outside a client relationship.
Wiley also spoke about getting Bloggers to write for your clients, "If we can help our Bloggers make a social difference with their audience that can be a very successful tactic to engage Bloggers by allowing them to help others with their influence."
Edelman has identified that readers of Blogs are much more influencial than readers of print publications, even if the numbers are much less than the print readers. "That's just as valuable as pure numbers," Wiley states.
It's a huge amount of work to do that research but and she only has a team of four people. Everyone in Marketing needs to understand that things change all the time. We have reverse mentors who train our senior staff on how to use these social media tools.
“Today you are the media, it is your duty to report and keep the hope alive”, reads a recent Facebook update from Iranian opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Not to belittle the Iran Election into a social media or marketing case study but this event does showcase a shift from passive viewing to viewer participation.
If anybody has ever questioned the power of citizen marketers, the power of prosumers or the need to be responsive and timely... the Iran Election is a perfect example of a cultural shift which will impact our marketing and media jobs. People have shown a hunger for simultaneous broadcast viewing and digital participation over the last few years. Where people might have raced to the phone after the broadcast transmission to talk to a close friend (one to one), they can now access and influence a much broader range of perspectives by going online (one to many).
The Iran Election has shown how people are using Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to enlarge a community of like-minded people. Using these Propagation Tools, people can quickly mobilize grassroot efforts to help achieve thier objectives. As marketers we need to not only understand this, but know how to leverage the power of Brand Advocates and cultivate fans that want to help spread the word about an experience, purpose or belief system.
In the future Program Directors and Brand Managers will be replaced by Community and Content Managers that listen and cultivate the wishes of a participatory culture.
I got an email from Famous Footwear that sparked my interest with a Father's Day Video. Now being a Father myself the actor in the video honestly gave me the chills, similar to Michael Jackson hanging his baby over the balcony sort of feeling.
Never the less, it's nice to see branded content being used to promote a sales event. They also have sharable buttons for Facebook and Twitter on the landing page.
Last year Famous Footwear tapped Campbell Mithun, who may be a part of this:
