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Here is a neat story about the activity now on Facebook. It is getting over 1 trillion hits per month. Go to: http://fbupdates.com/2011/11/facebook-hits-a-trillion-pageviews-per-month/ for the story.

Coke saw a marketing opportunity and they seized it. Soon after that You Tube videos involving Diet Coke started to float on the Internet.

Two scientists, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, were experimenting with Diet Coke and Mentos chewable candy. They found that when you dropped 5 Mentos into a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke a dramatic chemical reaction occurs. Word got out about the experiment and You Tube videos started to surface with various people performing the “experiment”. The reaction caused spewing that could be interpreted a dangerous by You Tube viewers. And that presented a situation that Coke had to deal with.

Coke Hires Grobe and Voltz

Coke could have taken the legal trail or left the situation to brew on it’s own. But, they saw an opportunity and they seized it. They hired Grobe and Voltz as spokesmen. And they in turn created an elaborate video that has played over 10 million times on You Tube. The exposure has been incredible and the cost has been minimal.

You can view the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKoB0MHVBvM

Grobe and Voltz Go Into Business

Go to You Tube and search “Diet Coke and Mentos” and you will come upon an incredible number of related videos. It is full of remakes, some that have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. So the 13 million views on the primary video is an understatement as to the popularity of the saga. Grobe and Voltz are now in the entertainment business performing the “experiment”. You can go here to see an interview where they tell their story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPxEqZc57eY

Social Media Will Create Many More Opportunities!

Buick’s “Quest for the Keys”

Buick is using social media in their coming promotion of their new car lineup, called “Quest For The Keys”. They will push Regal, Enclave, LaCrosse and Verano in a scavenger hunt that offers clues on Facebook and Twitter for the first three weeks on the hunt then concludes with a day of offline scavenger hunting.

What makes this promotion unusual is that Buick will incorporate the use of multiple location based services for the campaign. People will be able to use Facebook Places, Forsquare, or Gowalla in their hunt.

The program will begin in the next few months in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, and Austin, Texas.

GM’s Social Media Marketing

General Motors has recently hired “Big Fuel” to do it’s social media marketing. “Big Fuel” is a New York based marketing agency. That means they are about to make a major push in social media promotion. Keep and eye out for it and let us know when you come in contact with it.

Businesses need to develop a plan for their social media.

Plan A Dialogue

You need to create a long term strategy for you social media dialogue. What are you going to say and when are you going to say it? This dialogue can focus on special events or seasons. Different businesses have different seasons. A jewelry store needs to focus most of its effort on seasonal events, like Valentines Day and Christmas, and also focus on special events, like promotional event put on by a diamond vendor. Then something like a monthly newsletter can keep visitors coming back on a regular basis.

Make Regular Responses

Once your social media tools are in place, make sure they are being monitored. This can happen with someone checking for responses to your Web 2.0 resources like Facebook and Twitter. The ideal way to keep these monitored is to do it through a smart phone that will be with someone 24/7. Otherwise, make sure the social media tools are checked on a regular basis.

Encourage Two Way Communications

The key reason for using interactive social media is to get information from your clientele. Encourage them to participate. One neat example is what Clorox did at Christmas time. The offered a $1 donation to the Red Cross for each click through to the Red Cross website.

Here’s their message:

Clorox Last chance to give the gift that saves the day. For every click-thru to the American Red Cross Holiday Gift Catalog, Clorox will donate $1 to the Red Cross, up to $10,000. Find a link to the Red Cross Holiday Gift Catalog on the “Clorox Home” tab of our Facebook page. Then, simply click on the “Start Helping” button.

There are many other ways to get participation on your social media. What methods do you use?

The Times, They Are Changing

We in the early stages of a communication revolution like the world has never scene before. It is becoming one of the greatest things to happen for the world as a whole. And it will be an incredible opportunity for businesses interested in providing customers with what they want.

Take a look at the blog you are reading right now. You can agree with what I say or disagree with it. And you can respond immediately. I receive your input in a matter of moments. And I can respond to that input in several different ways.

Web 2.0

In the recent past you would only see this text  in a piece of static communication. You could respond to it via an email, a letter, a phone call or other relatively slow communication. But, with this blog and other Web 2.0 tools, you can respond immediately. That fact alone makes it more likely that someone will respond. And that response will carry the “first impression” thoughts with it. And that is just what most businesses need to hear.

A Two Way Street

Another opportunity individuals have today is to initiate the communication themselves. And some individuals are doing just that. Disgruntled customers and employees have set up blog sites to tell the world about their bad experiences. The Social Media Bible (© 2009, Safko and Brake, p5) notes an example where an employee was fired for trying to unionize Starbucks Coffee. But after the company got bad exposure on starbuckgossip.typepad.com the employee got his job back.

The Positive Opportunities

While the example above carries negative connotations, there is an opportunity for businesses to use this communication method to their advantage. They can use it to ask customers and potential customers for their wants, needs and opinions. The communication back can provide the business with ideas that will benefit them and their customers. And the simple asking of the opinion creates the image of a company that wants to satisfy it’s customers.

Facebook Members Now Exceed US Population

Did you know there are more users on Facebook than there are citizens in the United States? Well, you know it now.

The Social Media Revolution shows no sign of stopping. This is the greatest paradigm shift since the industrial revolution. It may be even greater.

Internet Marketing Changes

Internet marketing started off as a one way communication. Marketing has been that way for generations. With the advent of social media and Web 2.0 Internet marketing has become a two way flow of information. Customers now tell businesses what they want. Businesses that know what their customers want have a great advantage over those that don’t.

As with any paradigm shift, major changes are taking place in business and industry due to social media. Businesses that have reacted quickly to the changes are gaining market share. Those that are not participating will probably not be around much longer.

Take A Look at The Socialnomics Video

Ask and Listen

Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and other Web 2.0 tools enable you to ask your customers what they want. And when you ask, they will tell. What they tell you can be used in the direction you grow your company. Businesses now focus on listening and learning from their target markets.

What have you learned from your customers lately?

Contact us if you need help incorporating social media into your marketing.

Go look at the story at Business And YouTube about a wonderful Christmas video.

The success of most companies is dependent on their reputation in the market place. So who should control the “company name”?

Company Control

Years ago “the good name of the company” was under the control of the higher up corporate individuals. Radio, television, print and other advertising promoted their products. The marketing information flow was primarily in one direction, from the company to the consumer. Whoever controlled the outflow of information, controlled the image of the company, or the “Company Name.”

Consumer Control

As communication technology has improved, consumers have become better able to communicate with each other about the brands they buy and the companies they buy from. The more they communicate, the more they learn from each other. This has shifted control of the “company name” into the hands of the consumer. This loss of control has presented a problem for the company that does not have happy customers.

Two Way Communication

Today, with social media, consumers are better able then ever before to share experiences, good and bad, about the products and services they buy. But the company can use this two way communication to it’s advantage. Through social media the company is better able to monitor and participate in these communications. The key information a company needs is knowledge of what it’s customer wants. And who better to get that from than the customer.

Learn What The Customer Wants

Blogs, Facebook and other social media allow companies to find out what their customers want. Tools are available that tell you when your company’s name has been mentioned. Programs like TweetDeck allow me to see when and where someone mentions my name or my company name.

As companies respond to customer needs, they make changes to the items they provide. As their goods and services change, so changes their company and their company name, and all for the better.

A. G. Lafley, CEO of Proctor and Gamble in a keynote address at an advertising industry conference stated:

…consumers are beginning in a very real sense to own our brands and participate in their creation. We need to learn to begin to let go.

Consumer control of the company name, if managed properly, is a good thing! The keys to gaining this control is to find out what the customer wants and then to provide the customer more than is expected.

Businesses More Inundated With Email

I build and manage several websites for small businesses. More and more of them are getting inundated with email messages that they don’t want to receive. But, these are not necessarily coming from “spam” sources. They are coming from vendors and other business contacts. At some point businesses are going to give up on their email because the benefits received are not worth the cost of the time required to receive and review all their messages.

by Huck Huckabee

What They Want to Receive

Better filter systems are being developed everyday. But hackers and email “experts” are able to overcome most of these over time. At some point business owners and managers are going to find a way to receive what they want to receive. Facebook, and other “approved contact” services, can do just that.

A New Frame of Mind

Internet contacts are starting to be viewed from a different perspective.

If you are my business associate, I will approve you as a friend on Facebook. If you send me a bunch of stuff that I don’t want, then I will remove you.

This frame of mind will make the message sender think twice about the value he puts in his message and how much “junk” he is sending out. That would save money and time.

Remember your first economics classes? Those were the ones that explained how systematically the price and production level of a product are set at that precise point where supply meets demand. Once students gain an understanding of that theory early in their economic studies, they spend the rest of their economics education learning the flaws and fallacies that keep the theory from working. I know. I majored in economics at Florida Southern College.

Knowledge in the Market Place

There are many factors that keep that theory from becoming reality. The primary fallacy in economic theory is the assumption that consumers have perfect knowledge in the market place.

Many of us have walked into a store and purchased a soft drink, then left the store, arrived at another location and found the same soft drink available for a lower price. And nearly everyone has purchased a product that they were incredibly disappointed with it once they used it. If they had known before the purchase what they knew after the purchase, they would have never made the purchase!

These mistakes are made constantly on a grander scale throughout the business world. We make these mistakes because of things we don’t know.

Social Media = Knowledge

Social media is moving us closer to having that “perfect knowledge”. It’s not hard to go to a search engine and type in the name of a product you are interested in and find some opinions written on it. Today, people set up blogs focused on venting their frustrations about products or companies they are unhappy with. And others are quick to post their praises for products they are very happy with. For a good example of both sides just go to Facebook, search “Walmart” and see the array of pages that are available.

Businesses Must Satisfy Their Customers

In the past businesses focused on how their products were perceived prior to purchase. Customers made the purchases based on what they expected to receive. Today businesses must focus on how their products are perceived after the purchase. If the customer isn’t happy then the customer will tell the world about it in great detail.

We still have a long way to go to reach that point of perfect knowledge in the market place. And I doubt we will ever get there. But, thanks to social media, we are able to avoid many of the mistakes we have made in the past. Customers know what they can expect. And businesses that use social media know what their customers want. Those that don’t, well, they will lag behind their competitors who do and some of them won’t be around much longer.

How has social media impacted your business decisions?