Consumer Goods: The Next Social Channels

There’s no denying it. Social Media has taken center stage in the day-to-day activities of our lives – From tweeting on the morning commute, to sharing photos of life’s precious moments with your Facebook friends. The social media extension to mobile devices has only escalated our omnipresent connection to our online profiles.

Will we be able to check our feeds from our coffee mugs?

Which begs us to ask the question…what’s next?

In a world of seemingly endless connectivity to our social networks we can expect to see even deeper social media exposure and integration into many of the common products we use everyday.

Products such as a coffee mug, bicycles, or televisions have the potential of becoming viable channels for reaching out to our social networks. This concept may reach far beyond the usage in expensive goods such as cars and down to something as simple as a travel coffee mug. The rouge wave of social innovation seems to have endless possibilities in the ways we interact with our social media networks.

So we want to know – What do you think will be the next consumer good to have a social media feature?

We will take the most creative idea or concept submitted and create a prototype!

All entries will be shared at http://goodsgoingsocial.tumblr.com/

Submit your ideas to goodsgoingsocial@criticalmass.com to enter!

• In your submission please include:
• Your Name
• Email
• A brief description of your submission
• And any mock-ups, designs, or sketches of your brilliant idea for us to feature!

Check out our SxSW panel submission and give us a vote if you love it! http://bit.ly/pQ8SfW

Social Media Miscues and the Aftermath

In light of the recent Chrysler Twitter nightmare (Jalopnik), it’s a good reminder to always have a crisis response ready in your social media toolbox.  There have been plenty of social media screw-ups where tweets or status updates that weren’t meant to be posted made their way out into the social stratosphere. So the question is, if this happens to your brand, what are you supposed to do?

The gut notion would be to delete the post, but that may be the worst thing for a moderator to do.  Once the post is made, its bound to be noticed, captured, and possibly passed along by followers.  The best strategy is to combat the mistake head on and fess up to the fault.  Let your community know it was an error and move on.

Social media content has a short shelf life and once it is pushed down the feed, its long and forgotten…unless of course you have some digging community members.

So remember, ALWAYS double check posts. That’s the first tactic to not getting into a PR mess on a one of your social sites.  Other than that, be human behind the brand.

Using Good Mainstream Music to Sell…

This week Stephen Colbert had the bands Vampire Weekend and The Black Keys on to vie for his Grammy vote for ‘Best Alternative Rock Album.’  The vote came down to a commercial music “sell-out contest” (or, who could whore out their music commercially the most, ha!).  In my opinion these are two of the best bands out there right now and I think its a great brand move to use fresh current music in TV spots.

What better way to get consumers to remember your brand the more times they hear a song as it picks up radio play? Eh, I’m not complaining either way since they are two of my top bands right now.

Check out the video from ‘The Colbert Report’ on Comedy Central (1/11/2011).

Here is a link to the video via Billboard.com (sorry embed links weren’t working…fixed soon).

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/370725/january-11-2011/metunes—grammy-vote—dan-auerbach–patrick-carney—ezra-koenig

More Offline Social Media Promotion

We’re seeing restaurants and bars go offline to promote their social media sites.  It’s a good way to get people going to your pages rather that resorting to patrons finding your Facebook/Twitter pages organically through search.

Restaurants are starting to promote their social sites within on things like coasters and table signs.

Its another creative way to quietly promote your presence in the social space.  This would be helpful for places to post coupons and deals on their social media sites.  I would think this is just the beginning of some more smaller offline social media promotion.

Have you seen any unique offline promotions for brand social media sites?

Ditch the .com in Traditional Ads?

Maybe it’s an inevitable trend or it’s playing to the new social driven mindset in the ad world today.  But the more you see big brand TV spots, the more you are seeing the call-to-action end slate driving consumers to social media sites rather than a company website.

I like tactic, because lets be honest.  Every consumer knows they have the option to check out a company’s site where they can find endless information on the product.  But the social media approach lets viewers take an alternate path where they will get a different perspective.

Toyota leads consumers to facebook.com/toyota

For example, a consumer product TV spot leading viewers to their Facebook page is allowing shoppers the chance to get real-time reviews or sentiment from others (aka fans writing on the Facebook wall).

Whether it’s positive or not speaks to the products real self and its up to the brand to manage that by delivering a quality product.  So, if you have a quality product and are confident enough to grow your presence in the social world, why not direct consumers to your Facebook page instead?

Smirnoff takes a similar approach

Give the people a brand that has a personality and a community built around it rather than standard copy we all expect from a products website.

Let it be said that this shouldn’t be a permanent tactic, because a company site will can offer so much more than Facebook.  A site is going to provide a consumer everything they need to know about a product, and even more if you have a good site.  Using a social site instead of your URL might restrict you to Facebook users, but it’s a good resource for in market shoppers to use in the buying process.

Coke’s Snow Globes Going Social & Mobile

[UPDATE]

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Coke’s new Holiday 2010 campaign that puts a more modern spin on their classic Christmas spots.  Now Coke is going digital with the campaign.  Coca-Cola recently released the ‘Christmas Snow Globes’ mobile app for iPhone.

The app lets you create a virtual snow globe on your phone, connecting you and your friends via Facebook.  It looks like Coke is making that extra push during the Holidays, using social media to push the “Happiness” factor.

Along with creating your personalized snow globe, you can share it with friends and family, as well as post it to the Coca-Cola Christmas site.  I like the integration between mobile and social for this project.  Coke seems to be getting how consumers are always tied to the digital world.

Its interesting that Coke isn’t pushing the product, rather they are pushing the heartfelt holiday sentiment, with their messaging “Shake Up the Happiness.”

Social Marketing in 2010

Found this great infographic from The Social Media Examiner about how marketers have used social media in 2010. It serves as a nice little ‘State of the Social Media Union’ address for marketers.  Pay attention to the chart talking about the upside of social media marketing…the #1 upside?  Brand Awareness, and for the cost of social media thats a pretty good bargain.

Another good section gives you the Top 10 questions marketers have about social media.  Next time you’re drafting your strategy ask yourself these questions to get you off on the right foot.

Social media marketing in 2010 and moving forward.

Your B2B Social Media Rundown

Check out some of the facts and figures when it comes to the business-to-business social media world.  Some of these numbers might make you think twice about social media being all about the consumers now, won’t it?

 

Source: Infographic from @InsideView (Nielson, SocialMediaRockstar, Mashable, Flow Town, Penn-Olson)

Coke’s ‘Snow Globes’ Holiday Spots

Coke recently debuted their new holiday 2010 spots with a fresh new twist on their classic sentimental holiday ads.

The one-minute version is spot on with a great photography and Coke’s synonymous connection with the holidays.  The song used in the ad is ‘Shake Up Christmas’ written/performed by Train.  The song has gotten some criticism from ad folks, but that means nothing when it comes to the consumer. Check out the comments posted on YouTube, all of them love the spot…and in the end, isn’t that all that matters?

What’s your take on the Coke ‘Snow Globes?’

 

Social Media: Do I belong here?

Why jumping into social media without a plan or objective is a recipe for mediocrity.

We’ve all heard it before “social media is the new thing.” This may be true, but you only hear about the success stories like the Old Spice campaign and the Pepsi Refresh project.

When deciding your brand needs to be in social media, take a step back and think….”Do I belong here? Does this help solve by overall marketing goals?”

There is a social media and digital niche for every industry. The key is going out and finding what’s best for you and your brand. Every company CEO can go and create a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and get a couple hundred fans in a week. But what’s next?

A great example I like to talk about is, Comcast. Some would think, “why would a cable company have a Twitter account?” Comcast saw this as an opportunity to battle their stigma of less than spectacular customer service and created @ComcastCares. Of course, this won’t serve as the be all end all solution for their customer service issues, but it’s a great example of using the space for what it is to connect with consumers in a personal, helpful way.

So…It’s not about just being there. It’s about what you’re doing while you’re there that counts.