Month: December 2010

WOMMA Summit 2010: Global word of mouth differences

It’s hard to believe it’s a week since I was in Vegas at the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) Summit, which brought together over 600 marketers, agencies, brands, academics and researchers over three days to share thought leadership, case studies, best practice and provocative debate. Over the next few weeks running up to Christmas I’ll be showcasing some of the best keynotes and insights from the event, and I thought I’d kick off with a personal perspective.

As President of WOMMA UK, this year I was heading up an international panel examining the global differences in word of mouth.

via WOMMA@Flickr; L-R: me, Barak, Craig, Jo, Shige


The idea for the session came from my experiences last year – I saw several excellent case studies from the likes of Tropicana and Mom Central but also realised that the very ‘American’ approach just would not wash with many European consumers.

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How to Win with Social Media by Running Your Own Race

Laura Click & Kyla Cofer - Nashville Women's Half MarathonIn September, I ran my second half marathon with my friend, Kyla. As we trained for the race, it became clear that Kyla was a bit faster than me. And, on race day, she decided to run ahead of me about half-way through the race.

Although it was incredibly lonely to run the last seven miles by myself, I knew it was the right thing to do for Kyla, and for me. She had to run her own race, and so did I. And, in the end, we both accomplished personal records.

In life, and in business, it’s way too easy to worry about keeping up with the infamous Jones’. You know the ones…they have the fancy car, the perfect house and the incredibly gorgeous children. In business, the Jones’ are the ones who seem to have endless amounts of success, seemingly without any effort.

Social media has made it so much easier to keep up with the Jones’. Now, we can see people’s social media efforts in full display. We see how the business down the street uses Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and we constantly read stories about how businesses are using the latest tool, network or gadget.

Social media is the shiny new toy that everyone wants to play with and it’s very easy to get caught up with what others are doing. We think that every business needs a Facebook page, even when they don’t. We believe every business should use social media, even if it’s not a fit. Although social media is a fantastic tool for business, it isn’t right for everyone. Or at least, it might not be the first weapon in your marketing arsenal.

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A Quiet Night Under the Arches

I know it has been a fortnight or more since I’ve posted, but I wanted to get back to the blog and talk about the multitude of activities going on at McDonald’s USA.

I am now 7 months in to my new role and feel I’ve gotten my sea legs on the massive and ever rolling ship that is McDonald’s. So what is going on?

TONS.

If you live under a rock, you might not know that the Mc Rib is back. Through a careful mix of pre-seeding and launch activities, we’ve been able to generate a HUGE amount of chatter about the national return of my personal favorite menu item…that is if you count Wall Street Journal, Colbert, John Stewart, USA Today, Google Trends, Yahoo Hot News and a few hundred millions other traditional and social media posts a big deal.

McRib turned in to a trending topic on Twitter (before our promoted trend) on Google and Yahoo (twice). Oh, and Bill Clinton also talked about how excited he was about it.

McRib was also our first test of promoted Tweets and Trends. Yes, there were some negative tweets, but there were nothing compared to the huge majority of fans showing uber excited about the return of McRib. Fortune had a great write up on this subject:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/17/why-it-doesn’t-mcmatter-if-you-dont-like-the-mcrib/

Beyond McRib, we had a great pilot program with Farmville. Great meaning engagement of many millions more than expected.

Our Facebook places launch is raising $50,000 for charity and our virtual hands program is kicking in another $10,000.

Once things settle down, I hope to post more about each program.

Rick Wion

Questions and Answers about Relationship Marketing and Relationship Commerce

Ted Rubin is the Chief Social Marketing Officer at OpenSky and also one of the early members of The Social CMO Crew! Based on his previous work at E.L.F. Cosmetics and now at Open Sky, Ted is leading the way and becoming clearly recognized as a leader in the emerging field of Social Media Relationship Marketing and the rapidly growing phenomena of advocacy triggered sales known as Relationship Commerce. Below is a Question and Answer piece first published earlier this week by SMM Magazine.

1: Relationships: how do you build them online?

I believe everything we do in our personal and business lives revolves around relationships—now more than ever. With effort, an online relationship may begin from the request of a Facebook friend or following someone on Twitter. But make no mistake—that initial request or follow will never create the relationship. Trust is built upon interaction, when you’re true to your word, authentic, and genuine. To build relationships online, you (as a brand or individual) have to offer value in return.

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