Archive for the ‘Social Media Case Study’ Category
Attend BlogWell Seattle Series, Get 20% off with the SCG Coupon Code
Monday, April 26th, 2010
The BlogWell series, presented by GasPedal and the Social Media Business Council, is coming to the Microsoft Headquarters on May 5th. The event will feature corporate social media case study presentations from major brands including Microsoft, Starbucks, Xerox, Nokia, PEMCO, ExOfficio, Boeing and Intel.
The conference will focus on practical, how-to advice on creating great content, getting management buy-in, educating employees, keeping lawyers and regulators happy, simple and ethical disclosure, and engaging fans.
Learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal — in one afternoon.
For more details visit: http://www.gaspedal.com/blogwell/seattle. Apply the coupon code SCGSENTME to get 20% off registration.
Supporting the Chase Community Giving Campaign
Friday, January 15th, 2010It’s been rewarding to see Social Media put to good use in the race to get support and resources to Haiti. However, whenever we see a corporation dipping their toe into Social Media to raise funds and awareness for smaller, non-catastrophic causes, we want to make sure they get credit too.
We learned about Chase’s Community Giving contest on Facebook a while back, and were impressed with the effort. However, when a friend of ours from Seattle tech startup Mixpo told us that his sister’s charity, the East Harlem Tutorial Program, had made it to the final 100, well we had to do our part to help. By making it to the finals, they’ve already qualified for $25,000. Now they’re shooting to win the whole thing and take home a prize of $1 Million. That’s some serious money.
Cleverly, the contest allows you to vote for 5 charities, which maximizes the impressions voters are providing for Chase across Facebook. Thus, if you follow our lead and support our friends from Mixpo, you still have 4 more votes in which to help the 3 Washington charities. Regardless of who you vote for (did we mention we are voting for EHTP), it’s a good case study for Cause Marketing. Kudos to Chase on this one (though if they all gave their tax-payer paid bonues to the charities as well, they’d get way more positive press…I’m just saying…)
Case Study: A Social Media Problem Child
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
As much as we would like to start a new regular feature in this space focusing on social media snafus called “Hey, Stupid!” this would be far too negative and depressing of an affair. We are not in the snark business here– we’d rather look at some of the rather regrettable decisions that others have made in the space and use their bad examples to help try and raise the overall level discourse, letting us share ideas and techniques that will help improve the quality of as many other social media interactions as we can.
That being said, it’s only Tuesday and we’ve already seen a huge example of epic social media obtuseness this week. Let’s discuss what they did wrong and what they could have done better:
Weathering the Snarkstorm: How and When Do You Censor Comments?
Thursday, May 7th, 2009Recently, I read a blog post about the misfire between social media and PR-types. Being of that PR world (for three years) I thought that I’d drop a line supporting the story and give a bit of an opinion at the same time. The opinion, which wasn’t all that abrasive, was that perhaps PR-types aren’t best-suited for taking the social media reigns. Yes, before you ask, I did drop @SpringCreekGrp into my comment. However, it wasn’t in a “OMG, look at us!” way, but rather in talking about how social media marketing agencies partner with and compliment traditional PR and advertising.
I hit submit, waited a bit and noticed that my comment wasn’t showing up. A colleague posted their thoughts and their comment quickly moved through moderation and is on the page.
While we can’t be exactly sure why my comment was taken down (perhaps it was the view that PR people are simply missing the social media point), we (the SCG Blog Squad) can take this to school and learn a bit of a lesson.
We here on the SCG Blog Squad believe that communication and collaboration make the world go round. So, if one of you out there doesn’t agree with one of our stances, let us know. We won’t simply delete your comment just because you have a differing view, in fact, we’ll probably dialog with you more.
Of course, in today’s Web, it is necessary to sometimes censor comments. We here at Spring Creek Group World Headquarters try to stick to the “would you say it in front of your boss, mother, and the Queen of England” rule. This guideline rules out the profane, discriminatory, and just plain inappropriate. If you want to tell us how absolutely off our rockers we are, go at it – just try and do it without the four-letter words.
We Are Not Saying We Told You So
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
We here at Spring Creek Group may have occasionally mentioned that enlisting the assistance of an experienced team of social media experts prior to jumping into a social media marketing campaign is unquestionably a good idea. However, at the risk of seeming redundant, this latest article from Marketing Sherpa is certainly a must-read for those companies thinking of taking the social media plunge without proper experience in the space.
In the Marketing Sherpa piece, they discuss their recent survey findings which show that two-thirds of marketers who have not used any form of social media marketing consider themselves to be “very knowledgeable” or “somewhat knowledgeable” about social media.
A blind assumption like this is most certainly not a recipe for success in social media. This line of thinking is analogous to thinking that having watched several football games means that you are now a Pro Bowl quarterback. Simply being aware of the space and having the skills and experience to successfully navigate the space are two different things. (more…)
Wait Wait. . .Don’t Tweet Me (or Actually, Please Do)
Monday, March 23rd, 2009 
We heard a great NPR segment today about a new eatery that has taken Los Angeles by storm. At first, it seems like a simple and straightforward enough story, but of course there’s was a clever little social media catch that we at SCG found particularly interesting.
This eatery, Kogi, is completely mobile, operating out of a large truck, with a bevy of differing locations each day. Ten (or even five) years ago, this probably would have been a bad idea, but thanks to Kogi’s embrace of various forms of social media, the concept has come on the hip dining scene like Gangbusters. By using social media to interact directly with its customers through real-time location updates and daily menu changes, diners can remain in the loop and stay constantly connected, knowing that their Korean BBQ fix is only a tweet away.
Sure, there have been some obstacles in the process, but by addressing these issues as they arise, Kogi has been able to avoid major gaffes while still actively driving their brand presence in the social media sphere through open and direct communication with their customers.
On that note, Spring Creek Group would like to remind @kogibbq that citizens of the Pacific Northwest also love Korean BBQ. As a matter of fact, there is a particularly large parking lot directly outside of SCG Global World Headquarters that would suit the spatial needs associated with the truck quite wonderfully.
Skittles Tastes the Social Media Rainbow
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Ok, Skittles. So you’ve successfully gotten online users to spend an inordinate amount of time in the past few days talking about Skittles. The interest of fruit-flavored candy lovers, as well as that of various social media mavens has officially been piqued, and all eyes are now focused intently on the conversation surrounding your brand. Some have even started calling your new campaign the “end of the homepage (as we know it).”
The best laid plans of candy makers and social media marketers couldn’t possibly go awry, right?
A Case Study About Social Media and Controversial Uses of the Word “All”
Monday, November 10th, 2008At Spring Creek Group, we love case studies. They are the easiest way to explain to clients (and future clients) why social media is important and such an influential way to start actual online conversations. So imagine our pleasure when we were able to turn the case study microscope upon ourselves, after an unexpected opportunity was thrust upon us by someone we have never met.
The situation: As a leading Social Media agency, Spring Creek Group is sometimes asked to comment on industry events or trends. Our CEO, Clay McDaniel, is our appointed spokesperson. It’s usually a good opportunity for him to comment in an established media publication, part of the “mainstream media” if you will.
Clay’s recent post at DMNews included the phrase, “We’re all spending plenty of time in our social network accounts,” a fairly innocuous phrase that nevertheless set the social media wildfires ablaze. Over at Bly.com, professional copywriter Bob Bly took particular offense with the word “all” and provided the following response,
“I for one spend NO time on the social network sites — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn — where I have accounts. So Clay is wrong….There are very few instances where “all” — which in Clay’s statement is synonymous with “everyone” — can be safely used.”
Now Bob Bly is an established copywriter, and technically he is right. In a strictly literal sense, the use of extreme words such as “all,” “never,” or “no time” should rarely be used. But instead of arguing semantics, let’s follow the social media train, which is far much more interesting.
Unlike a read-only advertisement, this conversation doesn’t end with Bly’s criticism on his blog. And if there’s any form of online media more conversational than the actual blog post, it’s the post’s comment thread, where Clay gets criticized once again, from a poster named Brian who complains,
“That’s the general problem with the Social Networking crowd. They surround themselves with each other, so it appears to them that everyone is doing it. And once you think that everyone is doing something that thing suddenly seems to be really important.”
The complainer has taken Bly’s specific technical argument and taken a broader brush to slam social media professionals in general. This is the fear of big corporations, who are scared of social media because of what a random blogger or commenter might say about their product. Advertising is positive, while social media invites criticism. And that rightly frightens people who are managing marketing campaigns for lousy products. But marketers sometimes forget that when someone who doesn’t fully understand your product criticizes it, you are just as likely to have an evangelist come to defend you with a much stronger and relevant argument.
Such is the case here, where a champion of Social Media pops up and politely criticizes Bob Bly for being out of touch with today’s environment. Michael Foreman writes on his blog (which includes a trackback to Bly.com),
…If you follow (Bly’s) blog, you know he hails from a time before web 2.0. He’s skeptical of social media trends…So why have accounts on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn if you never check them?… I think a little old school bias shows through his statement. Even big business and law enforcement are turning to sites like Twitter for feedback and communications. And the last election demonstrates the raw power of social networking. (See MoveOn.org, and more recently Change.gov, Obama’s new transition site.) No, you don’t need to be plugged-in 24/7, or get a Facebook account because it’s ‘cool’ as one comment on the post suggested. But we live in an age of paperless newspapers, iPhone apps, viral marketing, cloud computing and an increasingly mobile workforce. It’s good to log in every now and then.”
So let’s track this:
- Clay McDaniel contributes to an article on DMNews.com.
- Bob Bly criticizes the article and writes disparagingly about Clay Daniel (sic).
- Clay is then both attacked and defended by Bly.com readers.
- A thoughtful response is posted at ByMichaelForeman.com, who judging by his blog, may be the most interesting read out of all of us.
- And then of course the story comes full circle back to the Spring Creek Group blog.
The Conclusion: We think this is a pretty interesting example of how social media really is a conversation that leads to other conversations, and much more powerful than a “read-only” piece that you view once and then forget. We can’t put an ROI number on it, but at least eight people engaged in the conversation, across at least four pieces of online real estate, and many more people had opinions that they didn’t bother to write down. Can you say the same thing about a brochure?
Epilogue: For the record, Clay McDaniel apologizes for his use of the word “ALL,” and to prove his apology is genuine, refuses to say it will “NEVER” happen again.
Experience Wii Uses YouTube In a Clever Way
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008Here at Spring Creek Group, one role we play for clients is to make sure their videos and other assets are easily findable across all the major video syndication channels. On a future post, we’ll detail out why it’s so important to manage this channel yourself, as part of your overall media strategy.
Everyone is well aware that YouTube is a great place to post this video. But while most people are merely re-purposing content, YouTube also lends itself to the marketer’s imagination, especially if the right client finds the right creative partner. And with that as an introduction, we invite you to check out the channel developed by Experience Wii, to promote the new game Wario Land: Shake It.
Editor’s Note (October 20, 2008) – At the Federated Media Summit, we actually heard from Hashem Bajwa, the Digital Strategy Director at Goody Silverstein, who I believe led the team who created this page. Hasem said that there is no ‘rate card” for something like this. You basically go tell YouTube what you want to do, and how much you have to spend, and then you negotiate from there. I think you’ll see more of this “arbitrary pricing” form of advertising investment based on shifting budgets, unclear metrics and a flexible inventory of real estate.
