Microsites–New Social Media Branding Paradigm?
This month’s post of The Behind the Social Media Campaign Series on Mashable highlights a few good examples of how companies have used microsites to effectively engage consumers. Microsites are separate sites dedicated to one product (or set of products), specific promotions, a new release, and so on. The goal of such sites is primarily social engagement and interactive features that translate into Facebook activity and new customers. For instance, gum brand Juicy Fruit wanted to launch a campaign highlighting the sweetness of its product. The result: the Serenading Unicorn. In short, a fuzzy unicorn playing 80s ballad-style rock on a piano serenades your friends. Evolution Bureau, the agency behind the genius, made the Unicorn able to sing other popular music styles and created multiple song options users could choose from to say something like “your haircut is growing on me.” I did not make this up–a large company harnessed the creepy/seductive/adorable qualities of unicorn mythology to effectively brand their product via social media. The possibilities for creative content merchandising suddenly seem endless.
Check out other examples of microsites and the above-mentioned serenade video at mashable.com.
Product Recommendations on Facebook are Few but Powerful
Hot on the heels of our investigation into issues of consistency and (the lack of) branding guidelines on Facebook, we’d like to report on a survey conducted on AskMen about how men recommend products. An overwhelming number prefer to share purchase preferences face-to-face, while only 5 to 6 percent of respondents of the under-35 age group said they share purchase recommendations on Facebook or another social networking site. However, the real point here is that these posts are influential: in a separate survey, ROI found that roughly 60 percent of social network users were somewhat likely to take action in response to posts about products or brands from their friends. Are social network product recommendations the small but mighty force of the bunch?
Read the other stats at emarketer.com.
ContentMarketingBrandingMobile: A New Four-Headed Beast?
If Joanne Bradford has anything to say about it, yes. In a new turn of affairs in the budding marketing+content relationship, L’Oreal and Demand Media, a company trying to dig its way out of its content farm label (that was before Panda–we’re now in the after Panda era), joined up. The two companies shared the launch of a new site that sucks in Facebook user data and spits out personalized content based on a reader’s hair, skin, and body type. Bradford, Demand Media’s CEO, is focused on the opportunities for branded content with cross-platform momentum: “The single largest challenge that’s going to face brands is that content can go everywhere.” The latter part of her claim is pretty self-evident.
Read more at paidcontent.org.
