Building Communities: 5 Takeaways from Frito Lay

The Challenge: Research from Forrester has found that 90% of consumers distrust brand messaging, including social media. However 70% of consumers believe in recommendations from friends or family. The opportunity for brands: build loyal social communities willing to share useful information with friends.

This trend of mistrust is increasing. Getting consumers to believe your messaging is becoming more challenging all the time. However, companies can break through the trust barrier by building social communities and sharing useful information with their followers. Switching the focus from sales promotions to posting shareable content will increase reach and trust when content is shared with 2nd tier circles.

Innovative Examples

Frito Lay is doing an effective job in building a community of followers that not only like their Facebook page, but are buzzing about the “Do Us a Flavor” contest. The campaign encourages shares and likes while building a community around those who are passionate about their favorite flavor.

They first invited people to send in new potato chip flavor nominations. Three winners were chosen, produced, and made available in grocery stores. Now you can taste the chips and vote for your favorite. Lay’s Facebook page is just shy of 6 million fans and over 40,000 people are talking about Lay’s on Facebook. In addition to the buzz that this contest has created, it is also forming sub-communities on Facebook and shows which of your friends are on each of the three flavor finalist “teams”.

MedtronicDiabetes.com, provider of diabetes supplies is blazing a trail in uncharted territory for medical companies where it is very rare to build a community of followers in social media due to the sensitive nature of the topic. Yet, in an industry that is highly regulated and monitored for privacy, Medtronics has still been able to gain almost 150,000 Facebook fans willing to share personal stories. They have accomplished this by providing information about diabetes care and creating a platform for patients with diabetes to come together and help each other.

Takeaways:

1. Don't preach to the choir, fans and followers already know about your brand; convert them into brand ambassadors.  Communications should have the goal of having your message shared with others.
2. Make your message about the consumer, not your brand.  (Frito Lay let consumers choose flavors.)
3. Listen to fans and followers and monitor comments and sentiment.

40% of Customers Buy More with Personalized Messaging

The Challenge: If you are not creating a personalized preference-driven experience for your customers, they’ll go looking for that type of experience--with your competitors.

According to a study by MyBuys , an e-tailing group, 40% of respondents stated that they buy more from retailers that personalize their shopping experience across channels. Addtitonally:

  41% buy more from retailers that send them personalized emails

  39% buy more from retailers that personalize Web recommendations.

The study noted that the practice of tailoring offers and promotions to consumers based on their past shopping or browsing experiences appears to increase buyer readiness, engagement, and sales activity. These findings are reinforced by sales data from MyBuys' database of some 250 million shoppers: Customer-centric marketing delivers a 25% increase in total online sales and a 300% improvement in customer lifetime value, according to the company.

Guitar Center, the world's largest retailer of musical instruments, not only understands the value of personalized customer service and engagement marketing, they’ve actually won the “Customer Engagement Award” from Retail TouchPoints, for embracing customer engagement and implementing solutions and services that are actively getting customers involved in their own experience and buying process, while improving their bottom line.

In addition to allowing customers total access to all instruments in the store, the ability to interact with industry professionals, and a chance to take their amateur talents to the next level, to the company also endeavored to improve the in-store customer experience even more by introducing, the “Find an Expert” profile pages. On these web pages customers can search for employee/experts online by location and store to develop dialogs and working relationships with these Guitar Center, (GC), experts based on similar musical tastes and interests. Customers can regularly engage with GC experts via email, through their blogs, and in-store. Additionally, in 2012 the company introduced a Music Mentor Series, an unprecedented company-wide platform that gives customers the ability to advance and enhance their musical pursuits, right in their own communities. Activities for the Music Mentor series included free music lessons.

Key Takeaways:

•	Differentiate your company by providing personalized experiences, communications, and offers.
•	Provide clear ways of showing customers that you're listening to their feedback and creating personalized experiences. This will reinforce ongoing participation by customers.
•	Personalized follow-up emails that detail items or events specific to the customers’ interests and buying history are value-added triggers that are welcomed by customers.

Twitter: Using News to Connect with Your Audience

The Challenge: News and events provide powerful opportunities to connect with your audience. Twitter makes this easy. Following are 7 tips.

While not all companies can have a social media “touchdown” like Oreo’s now famous Superbowl blackout tweet, real time marketing is accessible to any size company. It only took 3 minutes to Tweet “Power Out? No Problem” with a captioned Oreo image “You Can Still Dunk in the Dark”.

Oreo is a great example of the discipline of Real Time Marketing. To see how important this has become, consider the Oscars and all the companies making attempts to become the next social media sweetheart. The marketing industry was even monitoring Twitter with #OscarsRTM documenting real time successes and failures.

Cleverly connecting with the audience is not reserved for big brands. Any size company can leverage news or events to make relevant connections through Twitter.

7 Takeaways for Marketers Using Twitter:

1. Knowing your audience provides an essential understanding of how they will react to your approach to a topic. Voice of Customer research by our firm reminds us to focus on the customer’s experience at all times across all channels. Evaluate using some of the many social media monitoring tools to keep up with what the public is saying.

2. Become a news resource for your industry. Announce newsworthy topics on Twitter ahead of the trend.

3. Real time response and empowered staff are essential. The social and content accelerators at ConvinceandConvert.com tell us “That’s why it’s so critically important to staff your social media front lines with people who not only have extraordinary passion for your company, but who also have the experience and judgment to minimize response delay”. Know what to look for when hiring a social media manager.

4. The media event and your company do not have to be related. However, you must add relevant value to the conversation. That value must tie back to your brand.

5. Communicate messages with the intent to interact. It’s not about selling. Richard Robins advises, “Customers want to be engaged, not targeted. With the exception of a few "passion" brands whose customers wait for any bit of product news, customers largely don't care about products. (If we cared, brands wouldn't have to pay $4 million for ads to reach us.) “

6. Learn from some significant mistakes committed during the past year. Stay on top of current events and understand why a topic is trending. The last thing you want is to gain attention for a social media #fail.

7. Do not expect every venture into real time marketing to work. Like other disciplines in marketing, this is all about testing and measurement.

Disney: Smart & Fun Shareable Content to Build Buzz

The Challenge: Creating content that is conducive to social sharing can be tricky. Here's how Disney used smart and creative magic to crack the code.

Disney is using a mock university website and a promotional video spoof to promote the new Pixar movie "Monsters University." At first glance, both look like the real deal. The Monsters University (MU) website, for example, gives visitors a chance to apply for admission, learn about life on the make-believe campus or even purchase college gear like hoodies and travel mugs. The YouTube video, "Imagine You at MU," looks a lot like your typical college promotional video, as well -- until you realize that most of the students have neon-colored fur!

So, what's the value to marketers? When done properly, shareable content can take off and build remarkable momentum. Case in point: Since Disney released the MU video on Jan. 1, it has received more than 610,000 hits. Additionally, many of the people who viewed the promotional video will likely be among those who head to theaters when Monsters University opens on June 21.

In a column written for Marketing Land, Courtney Seiter shares nine rules for creating quality shareable content. Among Seiter's tips: Focus on content that is useful, funny, encourages sharing, and strikes a positive chord with your audience.

A successful video like "Imagine You at MU" is a marketer's dream.
Even better? The ability to create a steady stream of shareable content can make a definite impact on your bottom line. Jennifer Burnham, director of social and content strategy at Salesforce.com, says there are concrete ways to demonstrate measurable results. "If what you are doing every day on social channels is reaching new audiences that convert to customers, and you can measure that conversion through leads collected from your content shared on social, you are truly connecting social to pipeline and demonstrating ROI."

Key Takeaways for Marketers:

Make Sharing Easy. Create neatly-packaged content. Videos and images work well, but they certainly aren't the only options. Infographics, for example, can be especially successful in the B2B sphere. In fact, Stew Langille, former VP of marketing at Mint, says blog posts that incorporate infographics on Mint's corporate blog generate 30 to 40 times more page views than text-based content.

Ignite the fire. Include links in as many different forms of communication as possible (digital newsletters, email signatures, etc.). Additionally, Allyson Locke, an internet marketer for Union Street Media, says it's important to make sharing easy by adding follow and share buttons. "If people have to hunt for a Facebook or Twitter share button, chances are your content will never be shared," Locke said.

Encourage engagement. Contests, giveaways and other interactive content can be a great way to encourage social sharing. If done well, your fans and followers will want to spread the word and encourage their personal network of followers to participate, as well -- and that's social sharing at its best.