Increase of Social Media Campaigns Arrives With the Holidays

Post by Erica Rodriguez

With Thanksgiving just hours away and the infamous Black Friday following short after, the holiday jingles have taken over the airwaves and Christmas trees are found in all department stores. With the change of spirit, weather and shopping habits, are PR campaigns changing for the season as well? PR Fuel had an interesting top five PR trends in campaigns that consumers most likely will be seeing during this holiday season. The list of five included: 1. moving online 2. free shipping offers 3. gift cards 4. toys 5. social media.

Naturally the one that stood out to me was #5- Social Media. With holiday shopping on the minds of everyone these days, businesses have began a heavy push on informing shoppers of incredible deals and free shipping via social media. With stores like Staples, who announced their deals early on Twitter, and Lowe's, who announced their deals early on Facebook, many followers on various will be reaping the benefits of social media.

According to a study done by marketing research company comScore after the 2009 holiday shopping season, 28 percent of consumers of surveyed said that social media impacted their holiday shopping. According to the same survey the largest web influences included reading expert and other consumers' product reviews, following a product's Facebook fan page or Twitter page, and seeing a friend's tweet or Facebook status about a company or product.

Social media is the quickest way to reach out to shoppers, not to mention, it's also the cheapest way as well.

Are any of your clients changing the way they use social media during the rest of November and December? Is there a larger push to reach out to consumers and followers?

How do you feel as a consumer using social media? Does it influence your spending?

Happy Thanksgiving and happy shopping from ASU PRSSA!

Virtual engagement proves to raise follower loyalty

Post by Erica Rodriguez

With the ever-shifting world of social media spinning below the feet of public relations students, it may be intimidating to delve into social media. Because of how new the use of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare (and the list of sites goes on and on), the application of social media to garner clients page views and customers is on a trial and error basis. However, a few companies have risen above the competition when it comes to engaging customers and followers.

With companies such as Wal-Mart, Goodwill, TripAdvisor and Bank of America topping the list, a few commonalities stood out among the social media strategies stood out.

One point of success for all the companies and organizations mentioned was the use of virtual means to engage consumers across the nation. Goodwill held a virtual fashion show and online auction in September. With promotion done by a trusted blogger (The DC Goodwill Fashionista), both the Goodwill blog and Ebay store took off. After six weeks the blog averaged over 600 readers a week and retained more than 25 percent of its readers.

Another virtual engagement was done by Lion Brand Yarn, who used virtual knitting classes to build a community of knitter from across the world. The YarnCraft podcast was not only just posted to the blog, but also was available on iTunes and given out as a CD in stores for consumers not on the Internet. As a result, a passionate community of knitters was formed, the podcast has seen over 15,000 downloads in a month, the blog has tens of thousands of readers each month, and the customers have proved loyal. In a survey given to 30,000 consumers, those who interacted with the yarn brand through social media were 83 percent more likely to identify as "very brand loyal" than those who didn't interact via social media.

Jeep used video as well to reach out to consumers... through consumers. According to Organic Inc., 87 percent of consumers trust the opinion of friends over the opinion of critics. Jeep harnessed this idea and found 160,000 Flickr photos and 31,000 Youtube videos that were tagged as Jeep and created a community on the Jeep website. Consumers created the content. Results showed that potential buyers who browse the Jeep community have been proven twice as likely to compare specifications, 22 percent more likely to search inventory, twice as likely to schedule a test drive, and 31 percent more likely to request a quote, according to Organic Inc.'s portfolio.

Consumers want to feel like they are a part of the brand that they use everyday. What better way than to include a consumer in these virtual days, than through virtual media?

To read more social media case studies, check out this collection of studies and research papers.