Kerry Capell has written an interesting post over at businessweek.com providing an excellent case study for the usage of social media services in companies’ marketing strategy. In her post, Building European Brands through Social Media, Kerry is giving examples of some European brands – Cadbury, Vodafone, Unilever, Nestle and Volkswagen – and their innovative ideas of connecting the customers to the product and making conversation.
The concept of leveraging social (or new) media to reinvent the way companies engage with their customers isn’t new, but it’s always refreshing reading the new ideas and then looking in-house, at your company, and exploring what’s possible. In tough economical times, getting ad money isn’t easy (not to mention budget cuts), and social media campaigns are much cheaper, more effective (at times) and make a lot of noise.
Clay Shirky said in his recent TED lecture that twitter is making history and that the internet is changing the way people communicate and collaborate – “When a new consumer joins the conversation, a new producer joins as well”. The examples Kerry brings forth are a strong testimony to the power of social media and I hope Israeli companies will soon follow in those foot steps. I for one, will definitely do my best to make it a reality, soon.
Links:
Building European brands through social media – BusinessWeek.com
Clay Shirky: How twitter can make history
DellOutlet hits the $2M mark – Mashable
Vodafone LiveGuy
Cadbury Operation Goo
Volkswagen Twitter Analyzer
Nestle uses live tweets in ad campaign
Unilever – the rising star is social media?
The T-Mobile Dance – Youtube
