In April, Ford tapped 100 top bloggers and gave them a Fiesta for six months. The catch: Once a month, they`re required to upload a video on YouTube about the car, and they`re encouraged to talk — no holds barred — about the Fiesta on their blogs, Facebook and Twitter.
"It`s extremely important to this company`s history," says Scott Monty, whose job as head of social media at Ford was created about a year ago to take advantage of the growing social-networking wave. "It`s about culture change and adapting to this ongoing way of communicating. The bloggers are fully free to say what they want."
Social-media services, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and countless other websites, have had a profound effect on how millions of Americans — especially those under 35 — interact with others (or don`t), shop and view brands. It`s a real-time digital lifestyle, powered by smartphones and netbooks, that often colors what products they purchase, how they view brands and where they spend most of their waking hours.
Marketers have noticed. Social-networking services increasingly are indispensable business tools, says Forrester Research. According to its survey of 1,217 business decision makers worldwide late last year, 95% use social networks to some extent.
And 53% of more than 300 marketers planned to increase social-media marketing spending this year, according to a Forrester presentation in April.
Some of the biggest companies — Ford, Levi Strauss and Chevron, to name a few — are reengineering marketing operations to embrace digital tools to more nimbly brand products, support customers and cash in on the social-media wave. In doing so, they are creating online communities and aggressive outreach programs, and being brutally honest in talking directly to their customers/followers/fans/friends.
"It was an easy call. This is where our customers are," says Megan O`Connor, director of digital marketing at Levi`s. The more-than-150-year-old company last month launched a social-media program on Facebook and Twitter along with a larger "Go Forth" traditional marketing campaign. Its goal is to burnish its brand name among young men.
Most corporations are still wedded to a traditional marketing approach, based on TV, radio and print ads, says Charlene Li, partner at technology consulting firm Altimeter Group. "Ford and Levi`s are at the avant-garde of social-media use, but they are not typical," she says.
A social-media plan is hardly a guarantee of success, Li and others say. While some companies — especially market leaders such as Starbucks and Nike with consumer products — are predisposed to the medium, others aren`t. Tightly regulated health care providers, for example, may think twice about making the public`s comments readily available on Facebook or Twitter.
"Social media is not the messiah," says Michael Brito, social-media strategist at Intel. "It is one of several tools."
Still, a growing number of marketers can`t afford to ignore millions of potential customers who are consuming media in new ways.
Three-fourths of men ages 18 to 34 say they spend most of their time in front of a computer screen vs. 18% in front of a TV screen, according to a survey of 50,000 by AskMen.com, a lifestyle website. Those who don`t have a social-media plan don`t at their own risk, say marketing experts.
"Companies have no choice. This is where their customers are going," says Shel Israel, author of the forthcoming Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods. "Companies have no choice. This is where their customers are going."
Source: usatoday.com
