A new must-read study is out about engagement marketing among the world’s most valuable brands. The engagementdb report, developed by wetpaint and Altimeter (of Charlene Li fame), draws the following conclusion:
“The most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement. The relationship is apparent and significant: socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful.”
A few months back, we were thinking about how we submit our company press releases to the media. Our main channel was to use a wire service such as PR Newswire or Market Wire to push out our release. This method served as the backbone to our one-to-one outreach amongst key influencers. We also promoted our releases through internally controlled channels such as our company blog, Facebook fan page, and twitter stream. While this method works for the most part, it needs some assistance. So I decided to use our very own Sprout Builder to create an interactive rich media component that will supplement our releases.
Due to its very nature, I am able to embed it right here in our blog to show you a living example. Here is what I am calling the PR 2.0 sprout:
I just finished reading Razorfish’s report on Social Influence Marketing and I wanted to share my 5 key takeaways.
1. “Consumers do not always realize how much influencing they are doing and how much they are being influenced when they have conversations about brands across social platforms.” I mentioned this idea in an article I wrote about Skittles’ strategy when they relaunched their Web site to feature their Twitter page – Consumers are now playing a big role in shaping brand messages. For this reason, solutions, such as Sprout, that let consumers share personalized brand messages with friends in an authentic way should prove to be increasingly popular with companies looking to capitalize on peer to peer recommendations.
When brands and agencies come up with campaigns, there are major discussions of the current trends, hot topics and what’s relevant to consumers RIGHT NOW. The challenge arises when you want to create something that is engaging yet simple enough to actually produce within a reasonable time frame relative to the trending topic.
Forrester’s 5 year forecast is live. While marketing budgets have decreased overall, social media spending is on the rise. This pattern makes sense to me. Trust in advertisers is at an all-time low and all research indicates that people get the majority of their product advice and information from their friends. So what better way to make marketing dollars stretch than use the power of social media to spread brand messages among friends.
Looking back at my first tweet as a Sprout employee,
Sproutbuilder: #SWAT Summit was great. A lot of exciting fervor around the companies who build apps and social media marketing tools. 9:07 PM Jul 18th 2008
I have realized that we’ve come a long way in the Twittersphere. As of June 23rd, 2009, we have reached 1800 followers and are at the tipping point where our followers will soon exceed the number of people we are following. I have constantly tried to keep my tweets conversational and representative of Sprout as a personable start-up, sophisticated software company and a business with clear goals. There have been customers who’ve raised concerns, given praise and started conversations with us on Twitter. I have always been there to answer their questions and respond in a timely manner. It is this transparency and willingness to openly communicate that separates us from many organizations out there who aren’t embracing social media.
Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang’s post, I checked out http://www.prototype-experience.com/. Activision has created a great video trailor that, thanks to Facebook Connect, includes photos and information from your Facebook profile. Would I normally sit through an entire video game trailor? No. Did I sit through this one? Absolutely. Why? We, as humans, love when things are personalized and tailored just for us. We’re egomaniacs. Personalization makes us more attentive and more apt to share with our friends. And it’s cool to be mentioned in a video game and see your friend’s photos in this context. And the beauty of it is Sprout will have this same functionality in just weeks. Stay tuned.
