| Wieden + Kennedy’s Old Spice campaign used two-way social media on YouTube and Twitter as well as traditional advertising. The campaign was an instant success, beginning as a clever professional marketing campaign and transforming into a viral web phenomenon. Its star, Isaiah Mustafa, has signed movie deals and appeared on Oprah and the Late Show with David Letterman.
Old Spice body wash sales reportedly increased 107 per cent following the campaign. Marketers are viewing it as a case study on how to manufacture a viral hit, but so far the copycats have fallen short.
Twitter, facebook and YouTube have all been a significant part of the media arena for the federal election, often creating forums and views that have never been available before. People who usually would not have a voice in the election are reaching people who normally would not listen.
BuzzElection, an online election monitor created by online media monitoring and intelligence service BuzzNumbers, ranks children’s author and Perth grandmother Lesley Dewar as the most influential individual tweeter on the election. She is second overall behind ABC News and has outranked Annabel Crabb (ABC Online's chief political writer), Latika Bourke (a Canberra-based political journalist) and even Sky News Australia. On any given day, Lesley tweets more than 50 times, reaching out to her 11,000+ followers.
After announcing the election, Prime Minister Julia Gillard quickly signed up for a Twitter account. (Opposition Leader Tony Abbott already had one.) Both candidates and parties have facebook accounts. Simply having a presence is not necessarily a good thing or enough to make a difference. A key factor in making an impression online is essentially the same as offline – participate in meaningful conversations and engage with your audience.
Australia’s main political parties probably still have much to learn about using social media effectively, judging by the level of activity on their facebook and Twitter accounts. Using compelling content that engages your audience and perpetuates the interaction is key to influencing people. That content can then be re-tweeted; such activities engage more users, which often leads to greater reach and influence. Social media is a platform for engagement, building communities and support networks that should be in the media arsenal for any political campaign – or a marketing campaign.
US President Barack Obama is the prime example of effective use of social media in a political campaign. Some commentators believe that then presidential candidate Obama won his party’s nomination and then the presidency on the back of a strategy that included thorough and impressive use of social media. On election day, Obama had more than three million fans, whereas Republican candidate John McCain had only 600,000. The Obama campaign’s expert use of social media to engage voters appeared to give him a huge advantage. It engaged not only US voters, but people around the world.
Traditional media now acknowledges and includes social networking sites such as Twitter and facebook in its coverage. The ABC has made use of a type of dashboard called Campaign Pulse, described as giving “ways of assessing Australia's electoral mood – from the tried and true opinion poll to experimental social media sentiment analysis”. It presents statistics, polls and Twitter trend topics all in a dashboard-style format.
For marketers, social media is an important new tool to influence and engage with prospects, customers and target markets. New social media monitoring tools also help marketers to measure the impact and effectiveness of their campaigns in this space, a necessary prerequisite if it is to win a permanent place in the marketer’s arsenal.
BuzzElection was launched by BuzzNumbers, Australia's first social media intelligence and monitoring company. Its web software enables organisations to track online media, news, blogs, forums, social media and video and provides powerful intelligence and analysis capabilities. BuzzNumbers will be exhibiting at the Australian Marketing Institute’s Government Marketing and Communications Conference from 1-3 September on the Gold Coast.
Website: http://www.buzznumbershq.com/
Election monitoring of Twitter: http://www.buzzelection.com/
Back to Marketing Update home page
Go to:
Institute news page | Event review: Brand Finance Forum | CPM profile: Christopher Roberts | Emerging Marketer profile: James Peereboom | Social media: What can marketers learn from the election?
|
