Last week, @MobiCity keenly took on a social media challenge proposed by a mate of mine, @jwswj, which in my opinion, has paid off for them.
On 10 May 2010, @jwswj, tweeted:
@MobiCity I think you should give @jymmysim a @HTC Desire for 1/2 price - What do you think? We'll promise to tweet positively about you!
Shortly after, @MobiCity responded with a poll - "500 YES votes and @jymmysim will get a HTC Desire for 1/2 price". The social media campaign was on.
How has this campaign paid off for MobiCity?
- MobiCity is a brand that listens By responding so quickly over Twitter, MobiCity brands itself as a company that listens to it's audience (not it's customers - but it's audience). This is an important distinction, as MobiCity sets brands itself as a community participant within the mobile industry, as opposed to an out-right sell-sell-sell retailer.
- MobiCity became noisy over Twitter
Here's a graph of noise surrounding @MobiCity over the month of May. Notice the dramatic spike in noise on 10 May. The noise also seems to be denser (but only slightly) after the campaign's launch, compared to the period before the campaign.
There is no proof that this increased online buzz has converted to increased sales. But what it has achieved is increased the online promoter score - i.e. an estimate of the online chatter likely to lead to a recommendation.
- Increased Brand Awareness A work mate of mine, @chesterm8, didn't know of MobiCity before this campaign. And neither did 20 or more of us across our Sydney and Melbourne offices. Now we all do. More importantly, now we all have a positive sentiment towards the MobiCity brand.
- Cheap marketing & advertising MobiCity paid approx AUD $350 for this campaign - and all they had to do was set up a poll, and monitor their Twitter stream. In no way could they have gotten the same amount of exposure or air time over the radio waves or over television.MobiCity effectively shifted their marketing effort onto the consumer (me), and in return, gained massive exposure over Twitter & Yammer as well as a new Facebook Group (thanks @jessnichols).
Next steps...
Just a couple of takeaway ideas which @MobiCity could consider for future social media goodness:
- Blog about the campaign
- Measure pre & post campaign noise
- Consolidate your channels & drive traffic back home Rather than managing two channels - a polling channel and a Facebook fan page channel, can you integrate both of them together? Perhaps run a poll via your Facebook Fan Page?
- Correlate campaign noise against customer inquires about specific products and product sales
- Diversify the product reviews on the blog - create a YouTube channel and post video-recorded product reviews
A big thankyou to...
This is my running list of people who have helped me out. I'm super appreciative of all of the votes and the RT's. I don't think I've left anyone out, but let me know if it have :)
Thankyou...
@jwswj, @dkeeghan, @c0uP, @robertsparis, @justintunbridge, @naomieve, @jessnichols, @marawlings, @thushanee, @andrewlitvak, @jamescutts, @timmackay, @MikiRei, @hsterin, @k8linton, @Kylie_Martin, @zander1979, @gkshortee, @cerrykean, @jamiepride, @leondoyle, @amandamli, @jGalliers, @markpollard, @rosshill, @haribilalic, @jyesmith, @deepdesignuk, @chesterm8, @tomsaunders, @jamhos, @haichenw, @mattieryan, @akiellor, @KittyHybrid, @thatpatrickguy, @StephChevassus, @seanboange, @inspiredworlds, @cyanogen, @artrlee, @akafatty, @dunsy, @yghalia @netshroud,@lfeuerstein, @wittering, @ozdj, @rbyrnes