Social Tuesday: old school/new school marketing mix

If you see a lot of kids wearing pink today it’s because of “Pink in School.” Pink in School is an anti-bullying initiative run through Facebook. On the initiative’s Facebook page, Pink in School encourages its fans to wear pink on Tuesday, March 22, and to upload a profile picture of them wearing pink or, better yet, the official Pink in School T-shirt to take a stand against bullying and to increase awareness of the issue.

The Pink in School T-shirts are free and provided by Shirts in School, a marketing services company that pays high school and college students to wear T-shirts imprinted with other companies’ messages. Shirts in School started and organizes the initiative as a non-profit version of its services. The concept of Shirts in School is simple and effective. Students sign up on Facebook to receive their free T-shirts; to get paid, they must wear them in school for at least one day. In addition to wearing the shirt, the students must post their photo wearing the shirt on Facebook and other social media outlets, as well as a link to or a post about the advertiser. This way, companies not only get publicity value, but can easily monitor reactions to a campaign based on the posts of the participants and the comments by their friends. The students get paid $ 10 a day and can keep the shirt. Their schools receive an additional $2 as an incentive to support the concept.

Shirts in School’s marketing method successfully combines traditional word of mouth marketing with social media efforts. After the first participants had signed up, the concept “went viral,” says president of Shirts in School Richard Whitney. Now, an average of about 200 students signs up every day. It’s a win-win situation: students get free clothing and Shirts in School gives advertisers access to a highly desirable but hard to reach target group of 14-to-21 year-olds.

Social Tuesday: Social media boosts fame, helps in crisis

Social media and fashion are apparently a match made in heaven. Social media devices like live streaming, Facebook pages, blogs and videos fuel online discussions on brands and designers and result in thousands of new fans and followers. Curve ID jeans, for instance, “cheekily” uses YouTube to demonstrate their product’s effectiveness. Result: Nearly seven million views. Bebe’s new blog earned the fashion brand 66,428 new fans and a sixth-place ranking on fans and followers-surveying famecount.com. Victoria’s Secret invites brides to view – and purchase – the new collection of whites at an online shop, resulting in 69,000 new fans. And Burberry’s fashion show live stream attracted more than 100,000 fans. First place on Famecount goes to Converse, with more than 175,000 new fans. Converse.com not only lets visitors watch videos or shop online, they can also create their own sneakers. Together with its All Star sneaker line, Converse to date has 23 million + fans.

Finding lost persons is the idea behind Google’s Person Finder. Originally created with the U.S. Department of State to find lost persons in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, the website is presently used to help victims of the Christchurch Earthquake. The Person Finder can be found on a website launched by New Zealand’s Earthquake Commission. The site further features reports, videos and information on accommodation, alerts and volunteers. Its users can easily submit important information via Twitter.

Social Tuesday: It takes two – combining social media for success

Hotels in Myrtle Beach, SC are joining social media with a website to compete with travel sites for last-minute offers. On the Myrtle Beach Facebook page, the tab “This Friday” features hotels’ last-minute specials for the upcoming Friday. The “This Friday” tab also links directly to MyrtleBeachHotels.net, a website for last-minute hotel deals in Myrtle Beach. Using social media and their own websites, hotels avoid the 30 percent commission they would otherwise have to pay at a travel site.

Shopping hub Hubzi blends online shopping with social media. While the website serves a similar purpose to Craigslist, Hubzi lets vendors create a profile listing contact information, contact person, ads, and products links or videos to boost the buyers’ trust in them. Customers can post comments and reviews on vendor profiles.

Kraft Foods uses a combination of tweets to promote one of their products. Whenever two people tweet the phrase “mac & cheese” at the same time, both get a link leading to the “Mac & Jinx” promotion, where they are asked to give Kraft their address. The person to submit their info first gets five free boxes of Kraft’s Mac & Cheese and a T-shirt.

Social Tuesday: To like is to share – Facebook promotions

Recently, Facebook’s Like button has become more of a promotion tool. “Liking” something now results in a full wall post complete with story, blurb and thumbnail that won’t be easily overlooked.

However, there are more sophisticated – and fun – ways to use Facebook as a promotional tool.

NBC, for instance, rewards everyone who watches the trailer for its new show “America’s Next Great Restaurant” on the show’s Facebook page – to date liked by 215,378 users – with a free Chipotle meal. Concurrently, Chipotle is conducting an in-store texting promotion that offers customers the chance to win a catered burrito party.

But carnal instincts are not the only motivation to Facebook users’ attention. The Facebook application FrontierVille serves as a promotion tool for the animated movie “Rango,” which will be released this weekend. Rango, a chameleon voiced by Johnny Depp, appears as a character in the online game, and players must watch the movie trailer in order to add a Rango statue to their homestead. Active FrontierVille users: about 19 million.

 

Social Tuesday: Tag the dog – Facebook, Twitter, social media campaign

Social media connects friends, coworkers…and pets. To find a home for the cats and dogs that needed it the most, the Oregon Humane Society featured them on Facebook and Twitter. Employing social media yet again turned out to be the right strategy. The pets found a new home, and the OHS Facebook page has presently nearly 13,000 fans.

More than puppy love was shared this Valentine’s Day by the world’s most famous dolls Barbie and Ken. After their divorce in 2004, the couple was “voted back together” in a genius social media campaign by Mattel including Barbie on Twitter (presently 34,227 followers), a Barbie and Ken website and (back then) individual Facebook pages (since their reunion, Barbie and Ken are “on the same page” again, and share 1,738,557 fans!) Least surprised by the revived romance is Mattel. With the Valentine’s Day reunion, the Barbie and Ken Gift Set went on sale, and Barbie’s (and Ken’s) Facebook page turned into an online store. Can’t buy me love?

Social Tuesday: Super social Sunday, super social week

This year’s Super Bowl Sunday showed how social media tie-ins keep brands and products on the consumer’s mind long after the commercials – or the Super Bowl – are over. Ranging from free pizza to winning a Mercedes Benz, in their Super Bowl social media campaigns companies rewarded consumer engagement with goodies. For instance, Budweiser let fans guess the storylines to their three Super Bowl ads on Facebook. Once all three storylines were guessed correctly, an exclusive, internet-only fourth ad was revealed. As a result, online discussions about this year’s Super Bowl commercials increased by 9 percent from last year.

Posting Super Bowl ads on YouTube before airing them also turned out to be a winning strategy for creating a social media buzz: Volkswagen’s “The Force” commercial went viral and got 1.5 million views in the first two days. Another Super Bowl social media winner was Foursquare. The location-based social networking website went global for its first promoted venue and attracted 200,000 football fans, making Super Bowl Sunday their most popular venue so far.

Following the Super Bowl, Social Media Week kicked-off this week in nine cities around the globe. In the U.S., New York City and San Francisco are hosting the global conference that features panel discussions and workshops and connects social media professionals to discuss emerging trends. Read up on the event’s local and global blogs or follow it on twitter to keep up with the latest developments.

Social Tuesday: Social media for the people, by the people

President Barrack Obama successfully used social media as part of his election campaign in 2008. Consequently, the White House is now using social media for political interactions with the public. Last night’s State of the Union Address was live streamed on several online portals. After the address, a series of live online events took place to answer questions submitted via Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

 

Along with the White House, the U.S State Department increasingly uses social media to reach out to the public and is using Twitter to communicate and announce U.S. policy decisions.

 

And last but not least, New York City proudly presents its first Chief Digital Officer. In an effort to boost transparency and communication with the public and businesses, Digital Officer Rachel Sterne is working with Twitter and Facebook to reach out to residents and to make the city’s website NYC.gov more user-friendly.

Social Tuesday: Twitter, meme, social enterprise

Today we discuss “social” social media.

Social media sometimes has a life of its own – and from time to time, it even has the power to begin a new one: Twitter followers of this year’s Golden Globe Awards witnessed the birth of both a mini-meme and a social media star when CNN’s Piers Morgan started a hashtag around the Globes’ shrinking screen time for host Ricky Gervais. It didn’t hurt that Morgan made magic just ahead of the launch of his new Piers Morgan Tonight.

Social media is not only beneficial when it comes to creating a fan base; it enables you to mobilize support for your good cause. After the flooding in Brisbane, Australia, Facebook and Twitter networks successfully rallied volunteers to help the community recover. According to a local social media expert, social media was “invaluable” to inform and connect the residents during and after the disaster.

A great example of target group specific social media use for educational purposes: The British health information provider NHS Choice uses the accessibility of social media to by using an interactive YouTube video to encourage teenagers to use condoms.

Social media is a great tool for reaching out to hard-to-reach groups or communities. Read more on how to use social media for social enterprises.

Social Tuesday: web video, blogs, e-mail

In Castle’s last newsletter, our in-house creative partner MK3 discussed the importance and growing popularity of web video. Video allows you to show customers what they want and why. Check out how 12 CEOs and founders are utilizing videos as a great marketing tool.

If you have a blog, great. Take a closer look and ask yourself if you are using your blog to its fullest potential. Is your header taking up a large space at the top? Does your crowded sidebar encourage people to immediately click on links and leave your site? Chris Brogan offers blog tips.

We’re not pointing fingers, but many companies are just not good at social media immersion. It’s not always their fault: according to Lee Odden’s blog posting, part of the problem is that most companies are not inherently “social” to begin with and struggle with the idea of having individual employees becoming company personality reps, joining in and starting conversations on the web.

Who doesn’t love Target? Great deals, flashy commercials, that adorable dog with the bull’s-eye…but somehow, Target has continued to struggle when it comes to social media. After a social media campaign controversy in 2007, it seems as though Target is finally receiving sound advice, but may still be a bit hard of hearing. Read B.L. Ochman’s thoughts.

One of the reasons Twitter has become so popular is because in a fast-paced world, people like and respond to short bursts of information. So it would make sense to apply this same theory to your email. Make your email stand out in an inbox inundated with messages by “tweetifying” the lead of your emails.

Social Tuesday: iPad, viral, Brightkite, Klout, Facebird

Yes, the iPad is cool and makes you the envy of all your laptop-using friends, but can you work on it as effectively as you would on a traditional laptop? Chris Brogan tests it out.

It seems that these days the ultimate goal of campaigns is to make everything, and we mean everything, “viral.” Like most popular terms, “viral” has been overused, and over time its definition has become skewed. So how do we define this term, and what type of creative is most likely to go viral? B.L. Ochman helps clear up confusion.

Your company likely uses a style guide to help ensure its marketing and other messaging are consistent with the brand. Be careful not to forget to extend these guidelines to your social media efforts as well.

A picture is worth a thousand words. If you often consult Yelp and other consumer review sites, you might be interested in Brightkite. With Brightkite, reviewers can add pictures and text to their tips to bring the item, location or service to life. Find out more.

Klout launches new Facebook app Facebird. Facebird’s goal is to help you understand the overlaps in influence between your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Interested? Check out a demo video.