Social Media ResearchSummer 2010

1. Social Media Campaigns2. How Banks Are Using Social Media

3. Who Is Online?

Social Media CasesBurger King \ Old Spice \ Dell \ IBM \ Blendtec \

Grasshopper \ Dunkin Donuts \ Suns Microsystem \Starkbucks

Burger King: Sacrifice FB Friend

•Burger King developed an application called “sacrifice your friends”. Anyone who “unfriends” ten of his Facebook friends will receive one free Whopper. •Over 20,00 users added the application to the Facebook profiles within a very short period of time. •They dropped over 200,000 friends in total.•Facebook then blocked the application. However, this only led to more PR. The term “sacrifice your friends Facebook app” shows over 100,000 results in Google.

• Old spice started a campaign called “The man your man could smell like”. The original ad attracted 19 million views. However, now Old Spice has started a huge viral campaign in which the Old Spice Guy made personalized videos for fans, random people and prominent bloggers.

• They made 180 videos with about 6 millions views and over 22,500 comments. • Next came “The Return of The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” which premiered a few

weeks ago and already has 7 million views.

Old Spice: Viral Videos

Dell: Dell Community

• Dell spreads their activities over multiple platforms but has them all closely tied together. Their own community and their Facebook activities are at the core. Users can receive support and get assistance with their purchases. Twitter, YouTube, Flickr etc. are being used to provide additional information.

• Dell is also one of the few companies to publicly state that they created areturn on investment from Twitter. Apparently, Dell’s social media efforts help create “$1 million in revenue“.

IBM: Lots of Blogs

• When IBM decided they wanted to start using blogs, they didn’t just create one blog, they created an entire network. IBM created a way and allowed their employees to write about their experiences, what they’re working on, or any other topic of choice.

• IBM capitalizes on the intelligence of their employees to give consumers insight into what happens behind the scenes. By giving the industry experts they’ve hired a voice, IBM is able to highlight the people behind their products. Users get to see how IBM operates, and are given a direct connection with IBM employees.

Blendtec: Blends it on YouTube

• The company created a series of inexpensive videos using the main theme “will it blend?”. A number of very unlikely items, even an iPhone, were thrown into a blender to demonstrate its power.

• The top 20 BlendTec videos accounted for 50 million views.

• Sales increased by 700%. Annual sales were around $40 million annually prior to the video releases.

• Plenty of PR across the board: National TV shows plus extensive print, radio and online coverage.

• Prior to its launch the company mailed 5,00 bags to influencers in their line of business. The bags contained grasshoppers covered with chocolate. The bags were used to promote a video.

• Website traffic increased by 4,911% within a month. 144,843 video views with 162 comments. 1,500 messages on Twitter. 120 blog posts within a month. Mentioned on national TV 7 times.

http://grasshopper.com/5000

Grasshopper: Mailing Candy

• The company uses Facebook, applications, Twitter, etc. Dunkin Donuts is currently running a sweepstakes on their Facebook Fan Page where fans are being asked to upload a picture of themselves and a Dunkin’ Donut product.

• The company also released the “dunkinrun.com” application. Site visitors can announce their trip to Dunkin’ Donuts in advance and invite others to submit their orders so the ‘runner’ can get it for them.

• Over 800,000 fans on Facebook and over 7,000 links on Google to dunkinrun.com

Dunkin Donuts: Sweepstakes

Suns Microsystems: CEO Blog

• Want your blog to really make a splash? You could learn a lot from Sun Microsystem’s CEO blog. Jonathan Schwartz’s blog received about 400,000 hits a month (in 2006).

• It’s not the number of hits that make his blog a social media success, but the openness on it. Positive and negative comments are allowed, and even the most inane are approved. Transparency from the highest position in a company trickles down and increases trust from consumers.

• Sun Microsystems also has a network of blogs, friends on Facebook (Facebook reviews), friends on Twitter, and their own Twitter account as well.

Starbucks: Idea Providers

• Starbucks used mystarbucksidea.force.com to improve its image and to tie its customers closer to the brand. Everyone can post suggestions on what could be improved or done differently at Starbucks.

• Consumers can also submit wish lists for new products.• 70,000 suggestions from Starbucks clients. The top idea received 95,000 votes and over

1,000 comments. Starbucks has over 1.7 million fans on Facebook.

How Bank’s Are Using Social MediaMissouri Bank \ 1st Mariner Bank \ Bank of America \ Wachovia \

Wells Fargo \ Nicolet National Bank \ Citi \ First National Bank of Omaha \

Missouri Bank: Community Building

• Missouri Bank is not using social media to “sell” anything, but instead utilize social media as a way to build upon the community.

• Their Facebook page acts as an online neighborhood for their customers to interact with each other and the bank-much like their branches.

1st Mariner Bank: Product Research

• Social Media was a big part of formulating a new and popular type of checking account for this company.

• The company’s marketing department used social media tools to take a look at their customer’s needs and used that to build new products and services.

• The bank was able to use social communications tools and online surveys to develop a financial life cycle for their customers and identify that many people today establish a long lasting relationship with a bank in their late teens.

1st Mariner Bank also has facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, flickr and RSS feeds.

Bank of America: Customer Service

• Bank of America sees many of the same questions on Twitter that they get on typical channels like via phone or in person. They are starting to see social spaces as a potential channel of choice for customers to get the information they need.

Wachovia: Customer Service

• Wachovia has not only used social media to service Wachovia customers, but also to answer questions about the status of the merger between them and Wells Fargo.

• The bank held off for years on getting a Twitter account, but now they use it as a way to help customers with questions related to checking products and online banking.

Nicolet National Bank: Marketing

• Nicolet’s VP of marketing sat in a meeting and listened to the CEO of the bank explain something extremely complex in a matter of five minutes. He wondered how many people would want to be in that room to hear what he said.

• Nicolet National Bank then realized that ideas they talked about in meetings could be shared with others using social media channels and it would be a great way to create value for customers that required only a small investment.

• The bank shares ideas and information through its blogs and audio and video podcasts on a community hub called ‘The Vault’.

Citi Bank: Community Building

• Citi is using social media to build a community around its brand. Citi Credit Cards has launched a campaign that centers on the power of harnessing your Facebook Network.

• Their “Make a Difference, One Friend at a Time” program combines the friends in your networks and charitable giving by promising to donate $50 to the charity of your choice for every approved credit card application your refer through your social graph.

First National Bank of Omaha:Online Services

• First Natioanl Bank of Omaha, an online-only bank, encouraged customers to utilize the ease of transfering balances online to maximize the interest they earn on the money in their bank accounts via an innovative social media marketing campaign called the “Pay Yourself First Challenge”.

• The campaign helped customers develop a personalized saving plan and they utilized a number of different social media outlets: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, iTunes and blogs.

• The challegen involved five contestants to reach a savings goal. Contestants sumbitted videos via YouTube and they had them blog about their progress.

Wells Fargo: All Social Media

• Wells-Fargo has created a very easy and simple social media hub. On their social media site, they have lots of blogs and links to their Twitter, Facebook and YouTube channels.

• Wells-Fargo blogs target two audiences; one examines the companies history and the other is for students interested in getting their finances in order.

Who is online?

Facebook \ Twitter \ YouTube \ Blogs

*All sources are in a Word Doc.

Facebook

• Age: 18-24

• Gender: Female

• Education: Graduate School

• Children: No

• Browsing Location: School, home

Twitter

• Age: 25-44

• Gender: Female

• Education: College/Graduate School

• Children: No

• Browsing Location: Work

YouTube

• Age: 18-34 & 65+

• Gender: Male

• Education: College

• Children: No

• Browsing Location: School, home

Blogs

• Age: 21-35

• Gender: Female

• Education: No college

• Children: 2 or less

• Browsing Location: N/A