Major brands may not be talking to as many people as they thought, according, to a new report.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has said Twitter is generating more advertising revenue from its mobile platform than from its website on many days in the last quarter.

Useful infographic here from Tnooz.com looking at how airlines use Twitter to communicate with customers.

We blogged a little while ago another infographic on how airlines across the world are dedicating resources to social media,this one features a lot of international airline brands, but it also has some UK and European ones in there too with British Airways, KLM and EasyJet. Read More »

Airlines and social media it is such a natural fit, but how well are they really doing? This infographic and accompanying video give a really good take on what’s really going on. It gives an idea of how the number of fans/followers and how that translates into actual reach.

It also shows the different kinds or resource that airlines are putting into social media. For instance KLM has 23 social media staff, JetBlue has 34 and Virgin America only two. That surely has to translate into service.

Read More »

Along with Kate Warwick, the founder of PR Savvy, we are developing a social media public relations plan, and workshops, to help a number of the agency’s B2B clients prepare for how they will approach this emerging medium.

While social media for B2C companies is better defined, with terrific case studies to look at such as what Comcast, Skittles and JetBlue have achieved, we are finding that it is harder to find a lot of examples of many relevant and successful B2B social media PR campaigns. Read More »

If there is one thing worse than so called “blood-sucking social media gurus” it’s ranting journalists. A perfect example of which is on display at the Telegraph today.

Milo Yiannopoulos argues that “social media consultants are an inexcusable waste of money”. Maybe. Maybe not, but what is really inexcusable is if you are going to say such things give us some examples of the work these people who are apparently beyond parody. Read More »

George Parker started it. He could not hold it in any longer and let rip at social media. If you know him then you know his opinions. He’s not interested in your social media poop scoop. And there is no such thing as social media strategy.

“Yes, I know, every Tom, Dick and fu**ing Harry now has to have a “Social Media Strategy” which is best summed up by Mike Phillips here. But, these things will pass… Just look at the news yesterday that the Wizened of Oz has engaged the services of hot shop, Pereira & Dell to drag MySpace back from the brink of extinction. Read More »

Steven Slater the JetBlue flight attendant, who answered that question that all air passengers must have wondered at one time (what would it be like to ride the emergency escape slide?), has gone from zero to hero in a day and has acquired 125,00 plus Facebook fans along the way. JetBlue on the other hand is tight lipped in this storm of social media buzz. So what should it be doing? Read More »

Last night, as a guest speaker at The Future Laboratory’s idea networking event, I had the opportunity to chat about who is doing what in social media, and the pros and cons of big brand’s moves into the social media space.

Love it or hate it, with Facebook fast approaching 200 million users worldwide and Twitter adding thousands of new members daily, not to mention the popularity already established with platforms such as Linkedin, YouTube, Flickr and MySpace, the social media channel of influence can make or break a brand. Discussed was the fear factor that big brands have now toward the social media monster, and the question of whether to enter the arena, or stay out, for fear of losing control of a brand. As The Future Laboratory’s mission is to look ahead and keep ahead of the curve, my counsel last night was that big brands need to define social media strategy now, rather than wait for a point in time when they may have to be re-active rather than pro-active toward the medium. 

Whether it is a comprehensive strategic plan to making a brand’s presence known among social media channels, or a short-term experiment into the space, such as a contest or other promotional campaign, brand’s need be bold and step into this brave new world where consumers are hanging out and, in some cases, stirring their own little revolutions. In considering a few examples we discussed:

Mars recent campaign for its Skittles candy, a courageous approach that saw the website homepage transformed to showcase the brand’s live streaming Twitter feed along with its Facebook, Flickr and YouTube pages. Usage triggered was so high for this campaign that at one point Twitter crashed, and the brand discovered that turning things over to consumers opens up to a challenge when not everyone played nice with the Tweets they sent along. In the end, the fantastic publicity received around the experiment, has made Skittles top of mind and won new enthusiasts for the brand, even if there has been a bit of brusing.

 

Comcast, an American cable and broadband provider, has been using Twitter to supplement customer service responses. They’ve posted a guy named Frank Eliason to man the Twitter customer service site, positively giving a corporate brand a real human being to interact with in real time. Customers simply Tweet their queries to @Comcastcares and quickly receive response.

 

Other big brands that are stepping into social media with a variety of approaches include: Dell, Starbucks, JetBlue, TheHomeDepot, Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods Market, HRBlock, Best Buy, Popeyes, Forrester Research, Ford, Samsung and Kodak, to name a few.

Here’s a few quick tips I shared with folks last night in thinking about approaching social media for a brand:

Be Seen: What do you look like to your social media audience? Are you human, or are you something off a shelf? People want to see other people in the world of social networking so in reaching out to your audiences pay attention to showing them what you and your team look like. Upload images to your Facebook group of your brand in action — people at events, people using your products, people in your office. Use Flickr to build an image trail of both products and people. Use YouTube to seed videos, integrating several visual tools to showcase the human side of your brand.

Be Real: Don’t piss off your audiences by engaging in blatant heavy promotional use of Twitter, Facebook or other social networking sites. Show a personality and offer up a variety of information to your audience, pointing them to helpful or quirky items.

Be Brave: This is new territory for brand building, and it takes an adventurous sort to take some risks in approaching social media. Think out common sense approaches to using social networking for your brand, and don’t be afraid to experiment out there. 

Be On It: Assign a member of your team, or several, to be monitoring and watching for responses that come back via Tweets, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr comments, and blogs. Response to people’s comments should be swift and effective, helping those with complaints and thanking those with praise. 

Be Interactive: It isn’t enough to hang up a billboard in Second Life or set up a Facebook group or Twitter account, unless you think out how your approach should interact with people. Think about what you can offer up to your audience that will be of interest and relevance to your brand. Can you host a virtual conference in Second Life with prominent speakers? Can you run a contest through Twitter? One company called Going.com created one of the most popular Facebook applications called Naughty Gifts, a slightly cheeky way to give adult gifts to your friends, that has produced millions of exchanges. To promote Going.com, they took the popularity offline and held adult-themed parties throughout America, promoting the events through the Naughty Gifts Facebook application.

For more about future branding trends, sign up for The Future Laboratory’s Lifestyle News Network (LSN). 

Thinking about social media branding,

-Lisa

Brave Brands With Social Media Strategy: