Challenge: Consumers have more avenues and channels to connect with brands than ever before. Therefore marketers need to embrace new ways to influence customer opinion and improve engagement across channels.
Influence marketing in social media has taken on a vital role in customer engagement strategies. In order to be one step ahead in terms of presenting a positive opinion and generating buzz marketers need to be in a position to influence conversations and experiences at every turn.
Influence marketing is important because it can:
* Mobilize opinion and create reactions.
* Increase exposure to a very large audience.
* Generate broad based conversations on a given subject.
A company that can teach us a lot about customer engagement, social media marketing and consumer opinion marketing is Oreo. They understand how to connect with customers through innovative engagement strategies.
As an international brand, Oreo enabled fans to send greetings to friends and family during the holidays via a single click and application. The program strengthened the emotional bond between customers and the Oreo brand. There have been more than 1 million impressions for the viral video and 31 million Facebook impressions. A total of 40,000 people used the application and of those, more than 40% shared their Oreo moment.
They have engaged with fans through emotional ads that let existing customers remember why they love the brand and influence new customers through viral ads that are viewed and shared tens of thousands of times through social media. As a result, Oreo has an enormous following on Social Media;
• Facebook – 35 Million+ fans
• Twitter – 301K+ followers
• YouTube – 20 Million+ views
• Instagram – 95K+ followers
• Pinterest – 3K+ followers.
Additionally, in a recent social media promotion at the SXSW Interactive Festival, Oreo custom-made vending machines enabled attendees to create and eat 3D-printed custom Oreo cookies based on trending Twitter conversations.
Users accessed the machines, located in an Oreo Trending Vending Lounge, to browse a selection of trending flavors displayed on a large touchscreen panel on the front of the machine. They choose from flavors and colors of creme that were trending. They then watched as their cookies were custom built, in under two minutes. Consumers everywhere were able to follow the conversation using the Twitter hashtag #eatthetweet
5 Key Takeaways to Improve Engagement
1. Develop innovative means of keeping both new and existing customers engaged with your brand. Give customers a reason to be involved and a reason to purchase your product. Per Oreo, think way out of the box!
2. Stay engaged at all times and on all channels with customers in order to influence opinions associated with your brand. Monitor conversations and interact in order to keep customers actively involved.
3. Develop promotions and new avenues that expand the audience exposed to your brand message across multiple channels.
4. Engage in active listening in order to understand what customers want and how they want to be engaged. In this way you can develop influence and engagement strategies that are relevant and impactful.
5. Don’t be afraid of customer input and customer opinion. Create response tactics that enable customers to feel a part of the brand and a member of a customer community.
Oreo is definitely leveraging its online presence, and utilizing it to build the overall brand franchise. They also have the ability to market, through social media, in real time. This was demonstrated in how quickly they jumped on utilizing the stadium electrical blackout to advantage during last year’s Super Bowl: http://customerthink.com/dunking_oreos_in_the_dark_creative_application_of_synergistic_omni_channel_marketing_and_real_t/
Thanks for your feedback Michael.
Oreo’s response to the stadium blackout last year was brilliant.
Ernan