DIGITAL & SOCIALMEDIA MARKETING

O nly a few years agodigital marketersmight have thoughtall was plain-sailing.

After a decade of disruptionwreaked by the emergence ofthe popular web, companies andadvertising agencies had finallyunderstood the intricacies ofplacing online display andsearch ads.

Yet in the past few years, anew generation of technologieshas come along to disrupt onceagain the way advertisers oper-ate. Led by Facebook and Twit-ter, and joined by behemothssuch as Google and a bevy ofstart-ups, these Silicon Valleymisfits have muscled into the adbusiness and upended tradi-tional assumptions about howcompanies should allocate mar-keting budgets.

In addition to search and dis-play advertising, big companiesmust now factor in social media,video advertising, mobile mar-keting and daily deals.

“We’ve gone from display andsearch to this much longer list,”says Nick Law, chief creativeofficer in North America for

R/GA, the digital agency.“These things are connected,and you can’t do one withoutthe other.”

The promise of these plat-forms is tremendous. The newworld of digital and social mediamarketing can give companiesincreased access to their cus-tomers, fresh insights into theirpreferences, a broader creativepalette to work with, andadditional data and metrics tostudy.

Yet there are unsolved ques-tions over how best to organiseand execute digital and socialcampaigns. No single formula

has emerged, leaving most com-panies and ad agencies in astate of constant experimenta-tion. There is also lingering con-fusion over how best to measurethe effectiveness of a campaign,and a company’s return oninvestment.

Ann Lewnes, chief marketingofficer of Adobe, the softwarecompany, says she pushed thecompany into digital and socialmarketing early on. “We sawthe insights we could glean

from customers, the iterationswe could do on a campaign,”she says. “We saw the ability toreally, really measure results.”Adobe now spends 74 per cent ofits more than $100m marketingbudget on digital.

Even for a digital-first com-pany such as Adobe, each cam-paign is a fresh start of sorts.Ms Lewnes says 20 per cent ofher budget is going towardsexperimental campaigns, andthat each product launchrequires a different mix of paid,earned and owned media.

Perhaps the largest shift inrecent years has been the transi-tion from the one-way, broad-cast messaging of television,print and outdoor, to the two-way conversation that socialoptions now allow companies tohave with their consumers.

“It requires a shift in yourperception,” says Maryam Ban-ikarim, chief marketing officerof Gannett, the media company.“People find it hard to realisemarketing is a two-way conver-sation rather than a one-waypushing out.”

Yet quantifying the effective-ness, and return on investment,of digital and social campaigns,remains a challenge. Ratherthan tracking click-through andconversion rates as with searchand display advertising, market-ers are trying to count follow-ers, measure sentiment and ana-lyse purchase intent.

“A lot of people are just meas-

uring their fans and followers,”says Ms Lewnes. “But what’simportant are the insights youcan glean from the data. Under-standing if someone is happy orunhappy with something.”

Social signals obtained fromTwitter and Facebook can alsogive companies real timeinsight. When MTV saw therewas a spike in online

conversations around the newsthat Beyoncé was pregnant, itadded more pictures and storiesabout the story to its website.

Yet many markers remain dis-satisfied with the state of onlinemeasurement.

Keith Weed, chief marketingofficer of Unilever, the

Advertisers rushto master freshset of skillsThere are greatopportunities,says David Gelles,but companiesare still largelyfeeling their way

Continued on Page 2

Inside this issueCautionary talesDavidGellesfindsreasons tobe carefulwhencompaniestakeadvertisingonline Page 2

B2BPaul Taylor sees a chancefor business to gain tractionwith customers Page 2

OwnershipAjay Makan looks at thewide variety of corporateresponses Page 2

Viral campaignsApril Dembosky looksbehind the success ofinternet sensations Page 3

Marketing budgetsTim Bradshaw sayscampaigns via social mediaare still often unpredictablePage 3

A life in the dayDavid Gelles follows thechief marketing officerof Gannett Page 3

Advertising Predictions ofthe display ad’s demise arepremature, writes Jane BirdPage 3

Mobile Tim Bradshawexplains why the promisedland is not quite with usPage 4

On FT.comApril Dembovsky explainseverything you need toknow aboutPinterest

FINANCIAL TIMES SPECIAL REPORT | Wednesday March 7 2012www.ft.com/digital­social­media­marketing­2012 | twitter.com/ftreports

‘People find it hard torealise marketing is atwo­way conversationrather than aone­way pushing­out’

2 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY MARCH 7 2012

Advertisers rush to master fresh set of skillsconsumer products groupthat is the second-largestadvertiser in the world,says: “Digital is in theorymore measurable than any-thing else, in theory and inpractice, but it’s not broadenough yet. What we’ll seeis a significant maturationof ROI in digital.”

More insights and crea-tive opportunities meanmore work for marketingteams, and can meanincreased costs for market-ers.

In-house and at agencies,marketers are scramblingto acquire new skills, andadd staff to monitor theexponential growth ofonline dialogue about com-panies.

“You have to throw bod-ies at that,” says MsLewnes. “There are peoplewho have to monitor it allday.”

Myriad options are alsoforcing companies and

agencies to change the waythey work.

“Twenty years ago therewere templates,” says MrLaw at R/GA. “Now, wedon’t have a typical clientengagement. Because mediaare so flexible, we can getvery specific.”

One brand may need arobust Facebook page,while another may call for astrategy of engaging withconsumers on messageboards, blogs and elsewhereon the web. Suchapproaches are forcingdepartments within organi-sations to collaborate innew ways.

“It’s brought the market-ing teams much closertogether,” says Ms Lewnes.“They all used to be in theirsilos. PR was off operatingby itself, advertising wasoperating by itself. Nowthey’re working together.”

At its best, this can resultin truly integrated market-ing campaigns, with a uni-fied message being pushed

out across television, print,radio, and the web.

“Things really are gettingjoined up,” says Mr Weed.“The same creative is goingto flow across multiplescreens.”

Growing access to theweb in emerging markets isalso allowing for truly glo-bal campaigns.

“A few years ago I wouldbe engaging much more ofa national base on cam-paigns,” says Mr Weed.“But Google and Facebookare truly global media com-panies in a way the worldhas never seen.”

The amount of moneybeing committed to digitalmarketing varies widely,with more developed coun-tries seeing a higher digitalspend.

Unilever, for example,spends about 35 per cent ofits US budget on digital,compared with 25 per centin Europe, and just 4 percent in India.

Yet emerging markets

could rapidly catch up, asthey adopt digital media.

“In emerging marketsthey’re going to go throughthese cycles much morequickly than us,” says MrLaw.

And digital advertising isstill a small portion of glo-bal advertising, accountingfor 16 per cent of totalspend in 2011, according toZenithOptimedia.

That figure is growingfast, but television is set toremain the biggest advertis-ing platform, accounting for40 per cent of total spendthrough at least 2013.

Managing the growingarray of digital and socialinitiatives has forced com-panies to revise their rela-tionships with ad agencies,as well.

Unilever reduced its ros-ter of more than 400 digitalagencies to fewer than 100,with just 12 lead globalagencies, including Razor-fish, AKQA and R/GA.

“We’re already fragment-

ing our spend across differ-ent media,” says Mr Weed.“If you fragment, the mes-sage you’re making it lesscohesive and joined up.”

Technologies are chang-ing fast, and few marketerswould claim to know whatnew social platform mightdemand their attention ayear from now.

Pinterest, the online pin-board and sharing site, isthe latest to draw a legionof users – and the interestof marketers – without hav-ing proved its businessmodel or staying power.

How this shift in the mar-keting world plays out will

help determine the winnersand losers in the years tocome. At stake are the valu-ations of companies such asFacebook, which earned$3.7bn last year, mostlyfrom advertising, and ispreparing to go public at avalue of up to $100bn.

Yet some basic trends areemerging, with mobileaccess to the web leadingthe pack.

“If the first 1bn users con-nected to the internetthrough PCs, the next 1bnwill be through mobile,”says Mr Weed, who recentlyvisited a family in theslums of Mumbai who none-theless had two mobilephones.

Unilever was the first andlargest customer for Apple’smobile iAd marketingplatform, and has renewedits contract for a secondyear.

“I want to get to thefuture first,” Mr Weed says.“I don’t want to be follow-ing my competitors.”

If marketers continue toflock to new digital andsocial options, Facebookand its social media peersmay prove their worth.

Yet if a proliferation ofonline options fragmentsadvertisers’ spend, or if thepromise of social mediagoes unfulfilled, thismoment could one day beseen as another bubble.

Regardless of that, itseems certain that newtechnologies are destined tochange the way consumersinteract with brands.

Just as the web reshapedthe advertising world a dec-ade ago, the new world ofdigital and social mediamarketing is forcing compa-nies and ad agencies to re-evaluate where, how andwhen they engage withpotential customers.

“Ultimately, this conceptof digital will disappear,”says Mr Weed.

“My 20 year old sonlaughs at me when I talkabout online and offline.”

‘Google andFacebook are trulyglobal mediacompanies ina way the worldhas never seen’

Is it aboutsellingor service?

There is still a great deal ofuncertainty within the cor-porate world about whatsocial media are for, andthis is reflected in the lackof consensus about whichdepartment should takeresponsibility.

A recent PR Week surveyfound just 4 per cent of UScompanies have a separatesocial media team, while ITdepartments are almost aslikely to manage budgets asare PR teams. While nearlyall large companies engagewith social media in someway, the variety ofresponses is huge.

“The whole question ofwho ‘owns’ social mediawithin companies is prob-lematic,” says Jim Tobin,president of Ignite, a socialmedia agency based inNorth Carolina. “It toucheson everything from cus-tomer service to marketing,and companies need to inte-grate it across everythingthey do.”

Many businesses haveturned to agencies todevelop a comprehensiveapproach. In a relativelynew medium, agencies areoften thought to have a cut-ting edge in designing andexecuting social mediastrategies. But the trade-offis that agencies can neverbe as embedded in the cul-ture and message of a com-pany as employees.

Some see a model of thefuture emerging in a Chi-cago skyscraper. There, inthe offices of Gatorade, thesports drink brand, five in-house marketing and com-munication specialists sit infront of a battery of screensprogrammed to track onlinementions of the brand, andto respond.

The idea is to marry in-house staff’s knowledge ofthe brand with the best oftechnology. A media agencyis represented in Gatorade’ssocial media “commandcentre”, but the effort is ledby, and directed towards,the company’s own staff.

“The room has glassdoors to remind everyone inthe company of the factthat social media arealways on and affect every-thing they do,” says JoshuaKarpf, director of digitaland social media forPepsiCo, which owns Gato-rade.

PepsiCo set up a “centreof excellence” in 2008, andholds meetings among exec-utives to share best socialmedia practice, such asGatorade’s command cen-tre, among brands.

But such a high level ofresource commitment isunusual. In one of the fewacademic studies of socialmedia activity, the centrefor marketing research atthe University of Massachu-setts, Dartmouth, foundthat in 2011 take-up amongFortune 500 companies lev-elled off, while there wasretrenchment among fastgrowing, privately ownedUS companies.

“The shine has worn offsocial media,” says Dr NoraGanim Barnes, the centredirector. “If companies can-not find a metric to showsocial media are generatinga return on investment,they may no longer feelobliged to throw resourcesat, say, Facebook and Twit-ter, in the way they didwhen they were new.”

But measuring resultsleads back to the thornyquestion of ownership, andwhether a social mediastrategy is primarily aboutkeeping existing customershappy, brand management,or sales and marketing.

For all Mr Tobin’s talk ofbreaking down silos andintegrating approaches, hisagency’s approach is nar-rowly focused on communi-cations.

His company staffs Twit-ter feeds and Facebookpages round the clock topush the messages of clientcompanies, but complaintsabout a product are given asurprisingly old-fashionedresponse: a 1-800 number oremail address to contact theclient company’s customerservices.

Ignite is a marketing-focused agency, so clientsknow they are paying for afocused service, but it isnoticeable that there arefew, if any, social mediaagencies focused on cus-tomer service strategies.

Even in a set-up such as

Gatorade’s command cen-tre, there are limits to inte-gration. Communicationsand marketing teams arestill king. Customer serv-ices specialists may begiven access to PepsiCo’ssocial media applications torespond to specific com-plaints or queries, but theydo not shape strategy.

One exception to the biastowards marketing is thehotel industry. Hyatt offersa Twitter-based conciergeservice that has 20,000 fol-lowers, and answers ques-tions from guests or pro-spective guests at any ofthe company’s hotels.

Starwood Hotels, whichoperates brands such asSheraton, blazed a trail incorporate social media adecade ago by creating the“lurker,” an online personathat trawled websites forcustomer complaints andsought to address themdirectly.

Whatever the focus of asocial media strategy, ana-lysts say companies willneed to change the waythey manage campaigns.

Dallas Lawrence, chiefglobal digital media strate-gist at the Burson-Marstel-ler agency, says: “Conven-tional media campaignsinvolved intense work dur-ing the commissioningperiod, but once they werelaunched, clients could stepback.

“Social media work isconstant and ongoing, andso it needs more attention.”

’Campaigns areconstant andongoing, and soneed moreattention’

‘Ownership’There is a widevariety of corporateresponses, explainsAjay Makan

The role of social media inbusiness-to-business mar-keting is much less talkedabout or understood thanits counterpart in business-to-consumer marketing.

However social media dohave a role, and an impor-tant one, within business.

“From my point of view,all social media are highlyrelevant to B2B,” says JohnBell, who heads the interac-tive, broadcast and printdesign team at Ogilvy PR.

“There’s this mythologythat it’s first and foremost aB2C environment or set ofbehaviours more appropri-ate to B2C than B2B, but wefound that’s not true.

“In fact, one of the fastestgrowing social behavioursfor senior decision-makers

in a B2B environment ismanaging their social net-work profile, and I thinkthat’s a testament to thefact that we now liveblended lives.”

He adds: “I think thenotion that ‘social media’ isa description of a technol-ogy is not accurate. It isabout human behaviour.

“What’s changed is thatmore of us are using allsorts of social media plat-forms to take care of thingsin our lives, from makingdecisions on business, tocommunicating, to network-ing, and so forth.”

In addition, he says, B2Bsocial media are growingbecause our attention isfractured.

“There’s a lot of stuff topay attention to and, from aprofessional point of view,there is not a momentwhere I feel like I am on topof everything I need to beon top of.

“So I think that we’re allexperimenting with ways insocial media to make senseof this onslaught, of this

fire hose of information,make it actually be of useto us.

“You can’t ignore it. I feelinundated every day and sothere’s a pressure to makesense of it and turn all thatinformation into actionableinsight.”

Jonathan Lister, whoheads marketing solutionsfor LinkedIn in NorthAmerica, agrees.

“We have this aspirationat LinkedIn to connect tal-ent with opportunity on ahuge scale,” he says.

So how does that trans-late to B2B marketing?

“Well, some of the peoplewe’re mapping are findingthat perfect article of newsor connecting with that per-fect person, or connectingwith that perfect brand.And we’re seeing that moreand more. It’s all about rele-vance.”

Mr Bell adds: “Socialmedia’s value is instrengthening relationships– that’s what it does.”

But, surprisingly in B2Brelationships, he says it has

not been leveraged enough,even though he notes thatan estimated two-thirds ofincidents of switching sup-pliers is down to B2B rela-tionship problems.

Ethan McCarty, who isthe senior manager, digitaland social strategy for IBM,which works with OgilvyPR, says he believes thisissue reflects “an overall

shift, in trust in organisa-tions to trust in networks”.

Mr Bell asks: “If you canextend the sales relation-ship from the oral andmeeting space into the vir-tual space, why not do it?”

He says many brands aredoing just that. Hisresearch suggests that 60per cent of buyers in theB2B space say word ofmouth from peers influ-

ences purchase decisions.What is more, 51 per cent ofpeople using search aredoing it to find a recom-mendation from someoneelse, preferably with experi-ence of a product or service.

“Yet we still don’t putenough emphasis in termsof what shows up in thosefirst two pages of searchresults in relation to a B2Bbuyer journey,” he says.

He also believes that,with a few notable excep-tions, companies are oftentoo slow to develop any-thing akin to brand advo-cacy or expert programmeswhere they are putting peo-ple within the company indirect contact with buyers.

There are exceptions how-ever including IBM. InIndia, it was trying to buildrelationships with custom-ers at the highest levelwithin companies.

So Robert Parker, thegroup’s chief financialofficer in India, began tohost a social media commu-nity that was a combinationof a blog connected into

LinkedIn with a Twittercomponent. Mr Bellexplains: “It was almostlike a support group forCFOs, so they could talkabout their challenges withother CFOs.”

Ultimately, the virtualnetworking group led toreal world events and whatboth Mr Bell and Mr Mcartysay was considerable valuein terms of sales leads.

“I think this is a greatexample, and it’s one we’vebeen replicating around theworld because it was soeffective,” says Mr McCarty,whose role involves educat-ing senior IBMers in the useof social media tools, and inusing social media to high-light their areas of exper-tise.

“We learnt a couple of thethings from that experi-ence,” he says.

Most importantly, IBMdiscovered that if it usedsocial media to create acommunity of practice, par-ticularly where IBM hasbrand credibility: “We get alot of traction.”

B2BThere have beensome successfulexperiments,says Paul Taylor

A chance for business to gain traction

What to dowhen goodsalesmanshipgoes bad

When McDonald’sbought advertisingon Twitter this year,it was hoping to

drum up some goodwill for itsburgers and fries. By promotingthe “#McDStories” hashtag, itexpected to users to share favour-ite memories from the world’slargest restaurant chain.

Instead, critics of the fast-foodchain hijacked the hashtag andused it to pillory McDonald’s,accusing it of peddling unhealthy,unappetising food.

The incident was the latestexample of how well-intentionedsocial media marketing can back-fire, putting a company on thedefensive. While sites such asFacebook and Twitter provideunparalleled access to customers,allowing companies to interactwith fans, they also provide aforum for dissenters.

McDonald’s was monitoring theconversation on Twitter, andquickly took down its promotedtweets. “With all social mediacampaigns, we include contin-gency plans, should the conversa-tion not go as planned,” RickWion, social media director forMcDonald’s USA, told the FT.“The ability to change midstreamhelped this small blip frombecoming something larger.”

Yet the damage was alreadydone, and the episode became acautionary tale for companies.

McDonald’s scored points forbeing quick to respond. “Youneed to be on it 24/7,” says

Ann Lewnes, chief marketingofficer at Adobe, the softwarecompany. “That’s one of the big-gest changes to marketing today.You don’t just put a campaign outthere. At any given moment,someone is saying somethingabout your company and product,and you have to be listening.”

Because McDonald’s was listen-ing, it says the damage was lim-ited, with the #McDStories paro-dies accounting for only 2 percent of conversation about thebrand that day. “The response toany type of complaint has to bealmost immediate,” says MsLewnes, adding that Adobe alsostrives to remain vigilant. “Wehave a policy that within minuteswe have to respond in a meaning-ful manner.”

Other brands can simply betone-deaf in their promotions,drawing the wrath of online crit-ics quick to pounce on the slight-est whiff of inappropriatenessfrom a big brand. When CaseyAnthony, the mother suspected ofmurdering her daughter, wasacquitted last year, the “#not-guilty” hashtag began trending onTwitter.

That prompted Entenmann’s,the snack maker, to tweet: “Who’s#notguilty about eating all thetasty treats they want?!” Custom-ers called Entenmann’s out, andthe social media agency repre-senting the company apologisedin a blog post.

“The mis-steps happen whenmarketing departments aren’taligned with the brand’s values,”says Nick Law, chief creativeofficer in North America forR/GA, a digital agency. “There areall these steps in the processwhere marketers take shortcutsto get some news out in the mar-ketplace.”

Social media gaffes are not lim-ited to Twitter, however. Last

year Olla, the condom maker,devised a campaign to attract cus-tomers. It created a programmethat sent men a friend requestfrom their supposedly unbornbabies. So a Facebook user namedDaniel Ogawa got a friend requestfrom “Daniel Ogawa Jr”, with apicture of a baby and a messagethat said “Avoid surprises likethis one. Use Olla Condoms.”

Another ill-fated tactic involvestrying to engage with the socialmedia community on false pre-tences.

Last year, ConAgra, a maker ofpackaged foods, invited bloggersto a four-course meal at an exclu-sive restaurant in New York.Instead of haute cuisine, the blog-gers were served frozen lasagne.

The reactions on the

blogosphere were swift and fierce.“Our entire meal was a SHAM!”wrote one participant. “We wereunwilling participants in a bait-and-switch.” The story went viral,and ConAgra was soon on thedefensive.

“Social media brings bothopportunity and threat. Enteringthe market with a siloed mindsetcan be extremely dangerous,”says Laurence Buchanan, DigitalTransformation Lead at Cap-gemini Consulting.

“Having a mechanism in placeto filter through the vast amountof noise generated on social mediasites is a pre-requisite,” he says.“But this is a complete waste ofinvestment without the ability toact fast on opportunities andthreats as they come up.”

Cautionary talesDavid Gelles findsreasons to be carefulwhen companies takeadvertising online

Tweets: critics of the fast­food chain hijacked the hashtag and used it to pillory McDonald’s

‘Social media bringboth opportunity andthreat. Entering themarket with a siloedmindset can beextremely dangerous’

‘Extend therelationshipinto thevirtual space’– EthanMcCarty

ContributorsDavid GellesUS Media and MarketingCorrespondent

Tim BradshawDigital MediaCorrespondent

Paul TaylorEditor, The ConnectedBusiness

April DemboskySan FranciscoCorrespondent

Ajay MakanUS Reporter

Jane BirdSarah MurrayFT Contributors

Martin BriceCommissioning Editor

Andy MearsPicture Editor

Greg MeesonFront page illustration

For advertising details,contact:James Aylott+44 (0)20 7873 3392Email: james.aylott@ft.com

Continued from Page 1

Digital & Social Media Marketing

FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY MARCH 7 2012 ★ 3

Digital & Social Media Marketing

Lights, camera, blender! How to create a hit

Food blenders do not make thesexiest marketing material. ButBlendtec found a way roundthat by having its chief execu-tive, Tom Dickson, drop aniPhone into its home blender,push the smoothie button, andgrind it to a black dust.

“I’m going to put this onEbay,” he tells the camera, hold-ing up a cocktail glass full ofsmoking iPhone dust and flash-ing an earnest smile.

The video was viewed 10.5mtimes on YouTube. To date,Blendtec has made 130 Will itBlend? videos, featuring thedestruction of lightbulbs, golfballs, even a Nike running shoe.Almost all have gone viral.

Since the company started the“meme” in 2006, sales of itsretail blender have shot upalmost 800 per cent, says KelsGoodman, Blendtec’s video pro-ducer. “It was entertainment,not selling,” he says. “That’swhy people loved it.”

These days, practically everymarketer is salivating for a sim-ilar internet sensation. With theextensive reach of Facebook andTwitter, and the speed of shar-ing that comes with them, ashort video can be distributed atalmost no cost on the web, usu-ally with the recommendationof a trusted friend behind it.The value to companies over theanonymous, multimillion dollarplacement on television is huge.

But coming up with a videothat taps into the cultural zeit-geist is an elusive task.

“Everyone wants every cam-paign to be viral, just like every-body wants every movie to be ahit,” says Rebecca Lieb, an ana-lyst with the Altimeter Group.

“But it’s not something you canplan for. There’s no formula forsaying ‘this will strike a chordand get millions of views’.”

There are some key elementsto a viral video, she says, suchas being very funny, very topi-cal, or using cutting-edge tech-nology, like Burger King’sonline “subservient chicken”.

Building on a television com-mercial, the 2004 online cam-paign featured a man dressed ina chicken suit with a garter beltand stockings who performedwhatever action a user typedinto a dialogue box on thescreen, from touching its toes todoing Michael Jackson’s moon-walk. The gimmick promotedthe chain’s fried chicken sand-wich and “Have it your way”campaign slogan.

More recently, Old Spice hashad raging success online, find-ing multiple ways to exploit itsiconic “the your man couldsmell like” character, who spoketo potential customers in 2010,

half-naked, from a beachsideshower: “Hello ladies. How areyou? Fantastic. Does your manlook like me? No. Can he smelllike me? Yes. Should he use OldSpice body wash?”

Two weeks after that commer-cial aired, the company’s adver-tising team at Wieden+Kennedypushed social media to a new

level, when it took questionsfrom fans on Facebook andTwitter, then wrote, produced,and posted video spots online oftheir Old Spice guy answeringthem, in less than 10 minuteseach. Many thousands wrote in.

Sales of Old Spice body wash

doubled after the social cam-paign, compared with the sametime period the year before, thecompany said.

“It was so far off the chartcompared with what we haddreamed about,” says Mike Nor-ton of Old Spice. “Also, you getthis instant feedback and senti-ment analysis from people whoput their trust in the brand andwant to be part of it.”

“It’s almost unfair to ownwhat we did – it’s so basic,” saysJason Bagley, a creative directorwith Wieden. But the experienceconfirms to him: “Social mediacampaigns are going to exist fora long time.”

In some cases, companieshave come up with such suc-cessful “memes” that they builda secondary marketing businessaround it.

Just three months into theWill it Blend? series, Blendtecstarted receiving calls fromother companies, including Fordand Google, begging them to

destroy their product in theblender. Blendtec charged any-where from $5,000 to $35,000 foreach video, with the price goingup if the company wanted thevideo posted to Blendtec’sunique YouTube channel.

But this made Mr Goodmanwary, as the more promotionalvideos were posted, the more hefelt it hurt the entertainmentvalue of the series.

Ms Lieb confirms there is abalancing act marketers mustperform. “The most viral cam-paign is the least branded,” shesays. “People don’t pass on com-mercials. They pass along jokesand stories, things that reallyresonate with them, not ‘30 daysto whiter teeth and fresherbreath’.”

“That has led to a wave ofhomemade videos starringordinary people that are in factcompany-backed ads made byprofessional producers and paidactors.”

But there are two dangers

here as well. One is that peoplemay never connect the ad withthe brand, laughing and talkingabout a funny beer commercial,but not remembering whatbrand it was for.

The other danger is not reach-ing the right audience for theproduct. Blendtec’s videos werehugely popular with young boyswho enjoyed watching thingscrash and explode – not thedemographic that buys $400blenders. But over time, middle-aged women bought a BlendtecTotal Blender, saying their sonssaw it on YouTube.

As always, with a hit, there ispressure to produce another:this puts makers of accidentalsuccesses in a tough spot.

“The good days of Will itBlend? were when we were justfooling around,” Mr Goodmansays. “Once you have to startconcentrating, once you startputting dollar signs and a time-frame to creativity, it’s reallyhard.”

Viral campaignsApril Dembosky looksbehind the success ofinternet sensations

‘People don’t pass oncommercials. Theypass along jokes andstories, things thatresonate with them’

Dangers of afast­movingbandwagon

First Google and Yahoo,then Facebook and Twitter,now Tumblr, Instagram andPinterest. For digital mar-keters, there is always thelatest “new thing” – usuallywith an odd spelling.

“Advertisers don’t wantto miss out. They worrythat if they don’t jump onthe bandwagon and itbecomes a Eurostar, theymight look ridiculous,” saysChristophe Cauvy, Euro-pean head of digital andinnovation at JWT and along-time digital marketingpractitioner.

Burberry, the Britishfashion brand, has emergedin the past year as a digitalmarketing pioneer, withhundreds of thousands offollowers on Twitter andGoogle+, and nearly 11mFacebook fans.

It has also been an earlyadopter of new social net-works, using photo-sharingservice Instagram to showbehind-the-scenes picturesfrom fashion shows and vir-tual clipboard Pinterest tocapture London FashionWeek, although Burberry isyet to use microbloggingplatform Tumblr.

A “strategic innovationcouncil” of Burberryemployees aged under 30guides which new digitalplatforms the fashion brandshould adopt, based largelyon intuition and what theypersonally enjoy using –although Burberry admitsthat calculating the returnsis not an exact science.

But for every Burberry,there is an ArenaFlowers.com, the online florist, thatinitially struggled withsocial media.

“The average person buysflowers two or three times ayear,” says Will Wynne,chief executive of Arena-Flowers. “So how do we getpeople to keep following uswithout shoving flowersdown their throat?”

Two years ago, Arenatook to Twitter to postphotos of bouquets andshare coupons, and foundthat these fell flat.

“It wasn’t measurable,”says Mr Wynne. “The mainways we spend our time areon pay per click, searchengine optimisation andaffiliate marketing, becauseyou build big databases tocrunch numbers and bevery analytical. The socialside is a bit wishy-washy,but you can get a soarawaysuccess – which you can’tdo by being analytical.”

ArenaFlowers thereforechanged its social strategy,employing an externalagency of comedy writers topepper its Twitter feedswith offbeat jokes and one-liners. Followers, repliesand re-tweets rocketed.

As Arena found, the con-tent that is widely sharedonline is not always thatwhich the brands expect.

Yorkshire Tea, a brand ofBettys & Taylors of Harro-gate, made some televisioncommercials showing one ofits vans travelling acrossthe US, but fans on its Face-

book page were more ener-gised by simple questionssuch as whether milk or teashould go into a cup first.

Despite the excitementsurrounding social plat-forms, paid advertisingremains relatively low, at20 per cent of display spend-ing, but 5 per cent of totaldigital media.

“The challenge remainsfully to prove the return oninvestment in what is avery fast-moving environ-ment,” says Richard Mar-shall, managing partner ofTMW, a creative communi-cations agency.

Nonetheless, money con-tinues to flow into digital.Guy Phillipson, chief execu-tive of the Internet Adver-tising Bureau, says newmoney is moving onlinefrom classified, press anddirect marketing budgets.

For consumer goodsbrands such as drinks, dig-ital can be a substitute forphysical promotional prod-ucts, he says. Smirnoff’s“Nightlife Exchange” cam-paign on Facebook, whichran an online talent showto find a new backingdancer for Madonna, mightpreviously have been runon beermats, for instance.

Of all the major digitalformats, Mr Phillipson saysonline video is among thefastest growing, with spend-

ing doubling year-on-year inthe UK. Video helps to tell astory, he says.

Other key themes the IABhas identified for 2012include integration acrossmedia, online and off, andensuring better attributionof value across the lifetimeof a campaign.

But data are fast becom-ing the “black gold” of theindustry, Mr Phillipsonsays. Data are constantlybeing gathered from con-sumers online and can cap-ture browsing behaviour,indicating purchase intent,audience demographics andeven past transactions.

The sophisticated target-ing of consumers that thesedata allow has prompted aresurgence in display adver-tising in the past two years.Banner ads, once cheap andcommoditised, have beengiven new life by the abilityto buy ad slots throughautomated exchanges.

“It’s more efficient andthe principle behind it isthat you are able to lookbefore you buy,” saysMarco Bertozzi, managingdirector for Europe, theMiddle East and Africa atthe Vivaki Nerve Centre, adivision of Publicis Groupe.

The move towards real-time exchanges also under-lines another trend in dig-ital marketing.

“We are seeing a muchmore global approach inhow advertisers are lookingat the world,” says Mr Ber-tozzi. “Big media companiessuch as Facebook, Googleand Yahoo are able to workwith advertisers acrossmarkets and regions todeliver campaigns at scale.”

Marketing budgetsCampaigns viasocial media are stilloften unpredictable,says Tim Bradshaw

New money ismoving onlinefrom classified,press and directmarketing budgets

Banners set to become ‘smart and sexier’

Website display advertise-ments are so pervasive thatmany industry commenta-tors believe they have losttheir effectiveness.

So-called banner ads areincreasingly ignored, theysay, and will gradually dis-appear. They expect searchads, which already accountfor about 60 per cent ofonline advertising, to takeover completely. Text-basedsearch ads appear as thefirst few results of tapping arequest into a searchengine, and in a columndown the right hand side.

However, Sonali Fenner,joint head of account man-agement at JWT London,thinks banners will thrive.

They account for most of

Facebook’s revenue. Thecompany is preparing for a$100bn flotation, and MsFenner says: “There’splenty of life in the bannerformat yet.” Her view issupported by eMarketer, aUS-based digital researchcompany, which expectsonline display to overtakesearch ads by 2015.

Ben Gibson, managingdirector of The SearchAgency, says: “Althoughsearch advertising is stillcore, display is enjoying arenaissance, because it cannow be targeted for greaterrelevance.”

Also, its effectiveness canbe accurately measured andoptimised for better returnon investment. Banner adstypically come in threeshapes: the leaderboard atthe top, the sky scraper sidecolumn, and the multiplepurpose unit box that canbe various sizes.

At first, banners werestatic graphics, but increas-ingly they include audio,video and animation.

There are now also non-standard formats, such ashomepage takeovers, orinterstitials, that changeshape when the cursor isrolled over them. Theymight expand to fill a largerproportion of the screen,then disappear, or revealsomething underneath.

“These richer, heavier for-mats are much more inter-

ruptive, they make peoplestop and notice,” says MsFenner. They also tend tobe more complicated andexpensive to build. The factthey are non-standard usu-ally involves extensive col-laboration and testing.

A financial services com-pany might place a genericbanner on the homepage ofan online newspaper. This

could link to property, per-sonal finance or lifestylesections, where there mightbe more specific banners forrelevant products such asmortgages, investmentaccounts, or credit cards.

JWT used this techniquefor HSBC’s annual salecampaign. Ms Fenner says:“We needed some signifi-cant awareness-building, sowe developed interruptivehomepage takeovers andspecial builds to tie in withthe offline advertising andcreate a splash.”

To plan this sort of cam-paign and decide where toplace the banner ads, crea-tive agencies work withmedia agencies such asMindShare, OMD and Medi-aCom. The agencies ensurethe banners appear at theright time and place.Increasingly powerful anal-ysis techniques are used totarget banners at those whowill find them relevant.

Struq, a London-basedagency, says it can improvetargeting so that customers

are 74 per cent more likelyto buy. It uses anonymiseddata gathered by cookies todiscover which websitesindividual customers havepreviously visited, and tounderstand their personalpreferences.

Sam Barrett, Struq’s chiefexecutive, recognises thatnot everyone welcomessuch surveillance. Peoplecan opt out or select likeand dislike options for spe-cific products. “We want togive users control of whatthey see,” Mr Barrett says.

Buying specific locationsis relatively expensive,whereas identifying genericcustomer characteristics ischeaper. On LinkedIn, anadvertiser might ask forbanners to be displayed touniversity-educated peopleaged under 35 in London.

Spotting when a bannerhas worked is fairly easy byusing metrics such as thenumber of clicks or pageviews. Getting bannersright first time is not anexact science, Ms Fenner

says. “We might launch asingle set of banners andrefine them, or launch mul-tiple ads in parallel andwatch which performs bet-ter. JWT typically reviewsbanner performance weeklyduring a six-week cam-paign, to check it is gener-ating the traffic and sales.

Although people mightnot click on banners, JWTbelieves the evidence sup-ports their continued role.“In the words of Google,banner is set to becomesmart and sexier,” MsFenner says.

AdvertisingPredictions of thedisplay ad’s demiseare premature,writes Jane Bird

A dedicated follower of fashion

Maryam Banika-rim, the chiefm a r k e t i n gofficer of Gan-

nett, eschews the blacktown cars that shuttlemany business leaders towork in New York City.

Instead, each morning shetakes the subway from herhome in the Chelsea neigh-bourhood to Gannett’soffices in midtown Manhat-tan, where she oversees themarketing efforts of the 100-year-old media company.

“I really love the sub-way,” she says. “It’s thefastest way to get around,and I’m curious by nature.The mix of people is some-thing that has long mesmer-ised me.”

Her commuting habits arepart of Ms Banikarim’s pol-icy of being “externallyfocused.”

Indeed, Ms Banikarimworks from New York, 200

miles from Gannett’s head-quarters outside Washing-ton, DC. “My goal is tobring the outside in,” shesays.

Instead of spending allday in team meetings, por-ing over details of market-ing plans, Ms Banikarimprefers to be out in the city,holding meetings, attendingpresentations from othercompanies, and learningwhat some of Gannett’smedia properties are doingto use technology to engagetheir audience.

At a time when the mar-keting world is changingrapidly, thanks to advancesin digital and social media,Ms Banikarim finds herselfalways looking out for thenewest thing, while still try-ing to learn lessons fromother big companies.

“The marketing land-scape has become muchmore complicated,” shesays. “Ten years ago, youwere looking to buy printand radio and TV and out-door. Today, you’re con-stantly getting pitched newthings.”

Once arrived at her office,Ms Banikarim might meetsome of the start-ups dis-rupting the marketing

world. “When someoneemails me and says, ‘Thereis this company I thinkyou’ll be interested in,’ I tryto take the meeting,” shesays.

During these meet-and-greets, she is on the look-out for young digital com-panies that Gannett mightpartner with, or evenacquire. Now Ms Banikarimregularly schedules meet-ings where start-upspresent their wares to herand Gracia Martore, Gan-nett chief executive, andTom Cox, deals head.

“There’s an incrediblepace of innovation in thedigital space,” she says.“First, there was Facebookand Twitter, now there’sPinterest [an online pin-board service].”

Each platform serves itsown role, and Gannettchooses sites according toits goals.

“Social is not just onebucket,” she says. “Thesites all have different audi-ences and purposes.”

Ms Banikarim says shetries to take a hands-onapproach, using socialmedia actively herself.“Everybody today needs tobe digital,” she says. “You

have to develop the musclememory yourself.”

Ms Banikarim alsorequired everyone on herteam to have a social mediapresence, even if it was notan official Gannett account.She then brought in an out-side agency to train themon best practice.

“Once I got to Gannett, Imade a commitment toreally tackle this socialmedia thing,” she says.

An early test came whenthe company had to decidewhether to use the bit.lylink-shortening service, orwhether to insist readersshare longer links. In a votefor brevity, Ms Banikarimwent with bit.ly.

Yet she cautions that forall the excitement arounddigital and social mediamarketing, it remains asmall fraction of most com-

panies’ total advertisingspend.

“While people are spend-ing serious money on dig-ital, it’s usually not morethan 10 per cent of thespend,” she says.

She also sets aside part ofeach day for learning aboutsubjects that are not neces-sarily part of the chief mar-keting officer’s role.

“Going into those areasthat aren’t like marketing isimportant,” she says. “Youhave to be open to thingslike design and music thatare not part of traditionalmarketing.”

This recently took her toa presentation by JC Pen-ney, the US retailer, as itunveiled its new corporateidentity and discussed plansto win back the US con-sumer.

She knew Michael Fran-cis, JC Penney’s chief mar-keting officer, from her pre-vious job, when she headedmarketing at Univision, theSpanish-language televisionstation.

“It was really fascinatingto hear Penney lay out itstransformation plan,” shesays. “There are a lot ofparallels with Gannett. ITtoo is a 100 year old com-

pany that is trying to rein-vent itself.”

She also participates inthe M50, a twice-annualgathering of marketingheads from companiesaround the US. To shareher observations, she writesa company-wide monthlynewsletter, called “On theRoad,” a homage to JackKerouac.

Being externally focusedcan leave her strapped fortime. “When you’re in themidst of a transformation,it’s so busy,” she says.

“It takes a concertedeffort to make the time,even though it would beeasy to work through thosehours. Which means that“it’s only at 6 o’clock whenyou start to get to work,”she says.

Upon returning to herChelsea home, she oftenfinds that there is yet moreto do.

“Mine is your multimediamulti-device household, I’mon my iPad looking atblogs, my husband is play-ing a game on his iPhone,”she says.

“It’s usually after every-one goes to bed that I startscrolling through articles tosee what I missed.”

A life in the dayDavid Gellesfollows the chiefmarketing officerof Gannett

‘There’s anincredible paceof innovation.First Facebookand Twitter, nowthere’s Pinterest’

Maryam Banikarim: ‘Once I got to Gannett, I made a commitment to really tackle this social media thing’ Pascal Perich

Sonali Fenner‘Search advertisingis still core butdisplay is havinga renaissance’

4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY MARCH 7 2012

Nirvana is tantalisingly close

For a decade or so,someone has pro-claimed every yearas the “year of

mobile advertising”.The promise of marketing

directly to a device in some-one’s hand, material tai-lored and targeted to theirindividual needs, has been along-awaited nirvana.

But a combination ofsmall screens, a fragmentedmedia market and concernsthat mobiles may be justtoo personal for advertisingheld back the explosion.

However, after the aggres-sive entries into the marketof Google and Apple in 2010and with smartphones tak-ing almost half the marketin the US and Europe, lastyear finally saw a turningpoint.

“2011 was the first realyear of mobile,” says BrianWieser of Pivotal Research,an independent equity ana-lyst firm. “After manyyears of expectation, mobileat last arrived as a rela-tively mainstream market-ing channel.”

A barrage of big numbersexplains why the technol-ogy has finally brokenthrough. The mobile inter-net now has a scale of audi-ence that has demandedbrands’ attention.

A study by Nielsen andNM Incite, the marketresearcher’s joint venturewith McKinsey, found thereare nearly as many mobileinternet users today asthere were internet users in2000, with 44 per cent of USmobile subscribers using asmartphone.

ComScore found that bythe end of 2011, 127.6mmobile users in the US and108m users in Europe wereregularly consuming somekind of mobile media,whether through apps orthe browser – a 30 per centrise on the previous year.

Google announced itsmobile revenues hit $2.5bnduring 2011, includingsearches on tablets such asthe iPad, and Facebookannounced it has 425mmobile users.

Blyk, a mobile media net-work that works with oper-ators in India and the UK,said the number of peopleopting in to view ads leaptfrom 1m to 4m during 2011,with response rates among

its subscribers of between20 and 65 per cent, a levelunheard of with traditionalonline marketing.

Mobile adspend in the UKis estimated to have morethan doubled in 2011,according to the InternetAdvertising Bureau. AnIAB study last year foundsmartphone owners goonline an average of 18times a day.

Despite the slow build-up,many companies have beencaught off-guard by thearrival of mobile as a seri-ous media and marketingchannel.

Only 15 per cent of FTSE100 companies have amobile-formatted home-page, says the IAB. Manyhave leapt with gusto intoapp development, which tal-lies with consumers’greater preference for con-suming content in that for-mat.

However, maintaining amobile web presence isimportant for simple butoften overlooked tasks suchas email or search queries.As a result, the “bouncerate” for visitors who leavea site on mobile after view-ing a single page is almostnine in 10.

However, despite Googleand Apple lowering theupfront costs of their dis-play advertising in Febru-ary to encourage more intothe market, price has notbeen the main barrier tobrands’ use of mobile.

Nielsen found that adsshown on mobile rankedlowest among any kind ofmedia when judged by con-sumers’ trust. Just 26 percent trusted text-messageads and 27 per cent mobile

display ads, lower eventhan regular banners on theweb (29 per cent) and wellbelow adverts in searchresults (36 per cent) or onTV (46 per cent).

Similarly, a poll of morethan 4,000 adults in the UKand US by YouGov onbehalf of Upstream foundthat two-thirds would findit unacceptable to receive“unwanted advertising” ontheir mobiles.

“The main problem isthat ads on such an inti-mate device are perceiveddifferently from when seenon a TV screen or outdoor

advertising screen,” saysChristophe Cauvy, Euro-pean head of digital andinnovation at JWT, a WPPagency. “The screen sizedoes not allow much nice,non-intrusive advertising.”

So, as more brands moveinto mobile marketing,retailers face perhaps thegreatest challenge.

Armed with smartphonecameras and barcode-scanning apps such asEbay’s Red Laser, shoppersare comparing prices in-store but buying onlineinstead. “We are now seeingone item purchased everysecond via mobile devicesin Britain, double the ratewe saw at the beginning oflast year,” says AngusMcCarey, UK retail directorat Ebay. “Apps such as RedLaser are blurring the linesbetween online and offlineshopping.”

ComScore found morethan half of US smartphoneowners used their mobilefor purchasing in a shop,with one in five scanning abarcode and one in 10

searching for online dis-counts.

ComScore, a supplier ofdigital marketing intelli-gence, says: “The retailindustry, which experi-enced an upheaval with theadvent of online shopping,is poised for further disrup-tion, as smartphones enterbricks-and-mortar stores,bringing the internet righton to retailers’ home turfand further complicatingconsumer conversion.”

It notes: “Smartphoneshave become consumers’most valued shopping com-panion.”

In such a situation, retail-ers are being strong-armedinto the mobile worldwhether they like it or not.

However, despite the sig-nificant growth of the past18 months, one element ofmobile marketing remainslargely out of reach: theholy grail of location-basedtargeting.

Facebook’s attempt toharness “check-ins” to spe-cific spots via its smart-phone app for localised

deals did not generateenough revenue to warranta mention in its filing to gopublic.

Other check-in apps suchas Gowalla and Rummblefailed to break through tothe mainstream and folded,and though their lastremaining big rival Four-square has notched upsome 15m users globally, itremains a specialist ratherthan a mass-market propo-sition.

As such, Mr Wieser ofPivotal Research believes

that “geo-targeting remainsahead of its time”.

“While some marketerswill place value on informa-tion associated with loca-tion, we believe that mostlarge marketers are notorganised in a manner thataffords effective manage-ment of campaigns targetedon the basis of a narrowgeographic location,” hesays.

“Narrow geo-targetingwill be generally inefficientin terms of costs and bene-fits for most brands.”

MobileTim Bradshawexplains why thepromised land isnot quite with us

‘The size of thescreen does notallow much nice,non­intrusiveadvertising’

The iPhone4: ‘Mobile [has] at last arrived as a relatively mainstream marketing channel’ Brian Wieser Getty

Adele being cut off in fullflow may have been themost memorable momentof this year’s Brit awards,but the real story of themusic industry’s annualjamboree was thecontinuing conveyor belt ofBritish talent.

This represents acreative success story thatsees the UK punch wellabove its weight in theglobal market.

Successfully exploitingthe English language andour music heritage, Britishartists accounted for some12 per cent of global salesof recorded music during2011, and no fewer thansix of the year’s top 20best-selling albumsworldwide.

All this takesinvestment, and withoutthis investment there canbe neither growth nor thenew talent fans rightlyexpect.

The days when recordcompanies physicallymanufactured vinyl arelong gone but A&R –Artists & Repertoire, thealmost mythical process ofdivining new talent – is asvital as ever.

Finding talent, providinginvestment to supportrecording, production and,most importantly,marketing are even morecrucial, now that theroutes to market for newartists are so diverse.

However, a key part ofour growth will come fromexternal investment in newdigital services.

In 2011, 32 per cent of

recorded music sales werein a digital format, with 98per cent of all singles soldin this way. Some 95 percent of these revenuescame from digital-onlyretailers, with many of theworld’s traditional retailershaving failed to move todigital.

Music has always beenpart of people’s everydayactivities, whether those beexercising, eating, drivingor going to a bar.

Now the same applies toonline experiences such asbrowsing, blogging andtweeting, with digitalmusic services increasinglyintegrated to everyday lifeand users streaming manyhours of music each day.

For the music industry,this has meant a bigchange, with an increasingnumber of people no longerworried about owningmusic.

They just want to beable to access it and listento their favourite songswhenever they want and,crucially, on whateverdevice they have withthem at the time.

The phenomenaldevelopment rate oftechnology, particularly ofhandheld devices, has ledto a change of musicplayer from hi-fi to PC, tomobile phone and tablet –and now increasingly toconnected TV and gamingconsoles.

Many digital servicesare now available as adownloadable app that canbe controlled via TVremote.

In Europe, there aremore than 300 legal digitalmusic services operating(67 of them in the UKalone), offering a vast

choice of songs andcatalogues containingmillions of tracks.

Models vary from thehugely successfuldownload-to-own modelled by iTunes, to videostreaming by Vevo andon-demand subscriptionservices by Spotify, Deezerand Napster.

The key success factorfor this new breed ofservices is that, for thefirst time, they offer abetter experience thanpiracy.

Although this providesincredible choice, itarguably sends a confusingmessage to consumers.

Users new to servicesrequire time to understandthe experience, and it isclear that many serviceswill take time to settle in.

Retailers, with thesupport of rights owners,need to offer consumerslong-term trials, so theycan assess what model isright for them.

Spotify has proved this,by converting millions ofits free open service usersto paying subscribers.

By developing ideas thatcapture consumer interest,the technology innovatorsare encouraging contentowners to work closelywith them and make themusic licensing process fareasier to navigate.

Only by working inconjunction withtechnology can we, the

music creators, beat thepirates at their own game.

As the late, great SteveJobs would haverecognised, the key tosuccess is elegantsimplicity.

Radio is the ultimateexample of simplicity, withjust one button to play. Inthe US, Pandora – anautomated musicrecommendation servicethat creates personalisedradio “stations” – hasamassed millions of usersthanks to its simplicity.

In Europe, however, newdigital services havefocused on providingon-demand music and theability to search and listento anything, on any device.

The divide between push(sit back and listen) andpull (search and discover)services creates anopportunity crying out forsomething to fill the gap.

In future, we expect theright service to provide acombination of wellcurated radio stations anduser-generated playlists,which can be sharedamong friends.

Above all, it must beable to make good musicrecommendations –whether based on mood,sentiment, genre or simplywhat someone is hearingat that moment.

As well as pressinggovernments to implementlegislation to combatpiracy, the music industryis doing all it can tolicense more legal servicesand to educate consumers.Now is the perfect time forinvestors to target music.

The writer is Global Headof Digital Business atUniversal Music Group

Now’s the perfect time forinvestors to target musicGuest ColumnFRANCIS KEELING

Digital & Social Media Marketing

Non­profits Turning to webto snare philanthropistsA New York­basednon­profit called “charity:water”, which has morethan 137,000 Twitterfollowers, uses social mediato link supporters tophotographs and videos ofits work. Meanwhile, itsFacebook friends can seehighlights of the fundraisingball or send in pictures ofthemselves wearing tswristbands, hats, T­shirts ortemporary tattoos.

This and other non­profitsfind social media sites offeran unparalleled way ofconnecting with supporters.In the private sector, socialmedia have merely shiftedthe way companies allocatemarketing budgets, butcommunication andmarketing in the non­profitsector have beentransformed, givingorganisations the ability torun previously unthinkableglobal marketing campaigns.

Once, global campaignsmeant spending large sumson print or televisionadvertising, billboards ordirect mail, channels thatfew non­profits could afford.

“Social media are acritical means of getting themessage out in a cost­efficient way,” says JamesWu, at Acumen Fund, aNew York­based non­profitventure fund.

The change coincideswith a shift in the profile ofdonors. Philanthropy is nolonger the preserve ofwealthy individuals andfoundations but isincreasingly being taken upby large numbers of youngpeople wanting to givesmall amounts of moneyand track how theirdonations are used.

“The onset of socialmedia and the change inthe philanthropic landscapeare not mutually exclusive,and it’s no surprise thatthey came of age at thesame time,” says Mr Wu,who is responsible forAcumen Fund’s onlinecommunications andfundraising.

Acumen Fund usesFacebook, Twitter and blogs

to communicate withsupporters. The content itputs out is designed notjust to attract more fundingbut to engage a communityinterested in eradicatingpoverty.

In 2010, the organisationran a social mediacampaign called On theGround in response to weakcoverage of the Pakistanfloods in US media.

“The mainstream mediaweren’t really going there,”says Mr Wu. “So we builtan entire micro­site wherepeople could share stories,photos and videos of whatthey were seeing, and wemade it easy to share thatcontent through Twitter andFacebook.

It wasn’t necessarilyabout our work at Acumenbut it was topical to ouraudience.”

Similarly, for Oxfam, theUK­based charity, directfundraising is only a part ofwhy the organisation usessocial media. “It’s more toraise awareness of whatwe’re doing so as toincrease the opportunityfor fundraising,” saysSarah Jordan, Oxfam’shead of digitalcommunications.

Social media sites allownon­profits to communicatemore directly withsupporters than a pressrelease. “Updating snippetsof information from the fieldhas immediacy and feelsmore genuine when ourhumanitarian teams areexplaining what’s going on,”says Ms Jordan.

But social media sitespresent non­profits withaudiences that are too big.

“With a small team, thequestion is how to keeptrack of it,” says MsJordan.

“You have to providecontent and haveconversations, but howdo you manage that whenthere are so many ofthem taking place on somany platforms andchannels?”

Sarah Murray

New breed ofservicesoffers abetterexperiencethan piracy