Facebook or Twitter… It’s All User Generated Content

User generated content allows brands to communicate in order to maintain relationships, attract and keep customers, strengthen brand value. When Gap realized it needed to revamp its branding and reconnect with their consumers, it chose Facebook. Why? Because it was the most effective way of being able to integrate its wide range of activities from advertising, public relations, promotions to gaining customer insight for product development. The Coca-Cola Company recently joined Twitter Fortune 100 clan with designated pages for each of its brands, the corporation has build its own virtual community to strengthen its branding image.

When it comes to consumer generated content, everyone loves Facebook and Twitter. Apart from its easy navigation and reconnecting with people, Facebook provides the opportunity for brands to share any type of content from any media.

The Gap Facebook Page allows its fans to develop their own Gap ads, complete with personal information and photos from individual Facebook albums, learn about upcoming events and promotions, and even get linked to and participate in varied Gap contests, such as their ‘Born to Fit’ campaign contest, featured on Polyvore, to design an inspirational outfit with your own ‘Born to’ message.

Twitter has allowed Coke to gain information related to customer’s satisfaction, brand loyalty, desired future products/services and product attributes. The brand’s identification of different customer segments, based on culture and traditions that the virtual brand community members share has become a tool for strategically targeting marketing activities in real life environment, as well as predict future market trends and activities based on changes in behavior.

When we look at advertising strategies and the best ways to reach customers, we instantly visualize creatives that fit broadcast and print media. With personal data collection, Facebook is a powerful advertising platform. Through social media, Gap ditched TV and promoted its 1969 line (Born to Fit) mainly through Facebook. Coke not only utilized Twitter to discover what interests their targets, but have also succeeded in discovering the most active brand consumers, based on the millions who participated in the ‘happiness ambassador’ competition.  

As such, brands succeed in conveying their messages through print, visual and audio techniques that facilitate consumer perceptions and interpretations of the brand and its products and services. At the end of the day, it is all about strategy, who is your target audience and what the brand is aiming to accomplish. Social networking is ultimately about communicating and maintaining relationships. And the best way to create this in order to strengthen your brand is by keeping your consumers updated, sharing images, inviting them to participate in events. In other words, displaying the human nature of your brand.

The Case of Content Marketing

Doug Kessler on Content Marketing

When you think about it, emerging media has provided us with limitless tools to attract consumers.  We may have been using them without fully understanding their extent.  Look at Content Marketing for example, as marketers we need to gather necessary information to be able to deliver information that is relevant to both our target audience and our overall business strategy.  Any good marketer does that without thought, but not all can take it a step further.

The beauty of Content Marketing is that You get to be your own media- no more low quality because of limited budgets, with the advantage of providing credible information that are essential to a customer’s buying decision. In turn, you get to reach you customer better because you have better and more in-depth information about them.

 Content Marketing can be provided offline and online.  But let’s focus on online as we become more customer-centric. I recently came across Bloomstein’s ‘The Case for Content Strategy-Motown Style’, which focuses on how to create effective content for measurable ROI. The article pays particular tribute to achieving communications objectives through the process of content strategy.

This cost effective approach primarily requires a clear understanding of what a company wants to communicate to its clients, and what clients are expecting from a company. A content strategist allows a company to bring together an effective website. By focusing on the three important factors of website creation, the process includes:

1- Reviewing all existing documents that have been prepared for the website. This ensures that the information the company is planning to upload is relevant to what their target is looking for. Additionally, it would also help assess what other tools (blogs, videos, testimonials, etc.) can be used to make the site more attractive. With the understanding of the brand goals, the qualitative content inventory audit characterizes each every piece of content based on the following: Will it be current and accurate upon launch? Will it be on brand for the client’s message hierarchy and evolving look and feel? Is the content useful and relevant for the context and audience goals at each point in the experience?

2- Knowing what’s out there about the brand. Researching brand traits and its audience through both the company’s marketing and existing search engines, then integrating them, allows a company to design a website that generates more traffic from the relevant target.

3- Understanding the company’s communication goals. This guarantees that the creative concept is on target in terms of key messages and overall design, tone and feel of the website.

4- Correlating content to communication goals and brand strategy. Assessing what exists and what needs to be generated in terms of content from an objective perspective strengthens reach to the target audience.

Bloomstein concludes that having a content strategist improves user experiences, as they contribute to design, brand development, information architecture, search engine marketing, and writing.

And Finally…. Power to the People

From digital media, the birth of social networks, blogs, forums, mobile and e-marketing, have revolutionalized our utilization of technology to share information and shape our views. Looking back, not so long ago, my perceptions towards certain services or products were limited to what I can see, and what corporations communicate. I often wondered if there are others out there that may feel the same or this is some mad vision that only I have. Then enlightenment dawned upon me, as the realization that this technology has empowered us to speak our minds, pulling together networks of people, eliminating time and distance, through tools that challenge us to speak out, share and make a difference, regardless of which generation we belong to.

We became the masters of mobilizing and disseminating information about anything and everything. Whether we are shopping, at home, commuting, or working, our technology- savy, multitasking skills have risen to the next level, taking advantage of emerging media. And with this power, we are now forcing corporations everywhere to reinvent their marketing techniques and strategies to capture our loyalty towards their brands.

The consumer is now empowered, interacting in fundamentally different ways with their brands. The stronger awareness and brand formation, involvement and interaction, and ultimately consumer actions related to purchasing has forced marketers to aggressively pursue their targets by effectively integrating new media tools to the more traditional ones in their campaigns. No more one-way communications. While corporations are still trying to measure the effectiveness of new media, consumers are becoming more interested in corporate values, culture and image. And what better way to share this, than the use of new media!