TWITTER FOLLOWERS - ETHICS
Are Twitter followers seen as a component and measurement of Brand
Equity?
Will there come a time when one will have to declare the number of followers purchased? As these followers are in essence not true followers of a Brand.
Will there come a time when one will have to declare the number of followers purchased? As these followers are in essence not true followers of a Brand.
Makes one think - who on earth would ever want ‘make-believe’ followers?
GMS Social
Media Services – X FACTOR Brands
In 2003 Brand Guru Kevin Lane Keller spoke at the
Gordon Institute of Business Science and as I sat in the GIBS forum I listened
to his words at the end of his presentation:
“Marketers must do
what the strong global brands do, and smart marketers will use every tool at
their disposal and devise ones that are not yet available in their relentless
pursuit of achieving brand pre-eminence”
Ten Years Later Kevin
Lane Keller espouses:
“Mixing and matching communications to both maximize sales in
the short run and brand equity in the long run”
Kevin Lane Keller – Global CMO Marketing Magazine – March 2013 Edition
Make the whole of the
marketing programme greater than the sum of its parts; develop fully integrated
channel and communication strategies that optimally blend their strengths and
weaknesses. The diversity of
means to communicate about and sell products and services to consumers has
grown exponentially in recent years. Marketers can combine push and pull
distribution strategies to maximize coverage and impact, selling directly via
email and the Internet.
Due to the
fragmentation of TV viewership, the increasing use of mobile phones, the
explosion of online blogs and social communities
and the greater importance of buzz marketing to develop successful
communication programmes, marketers must combine online / interactive
communications, “real-world” / experiential communications and traditional
mass-media communications. As more consumers
spend more time on the Internet, it is crucial to use interactive
communications to impact consumers at all stages of the decision
funnel-reinforcing any offline marketing efforts at the same time:
- Well designed website
- Emails
- Electronic advertisements
- Search advertising
- Social Media
To some companies the
most challenging is social media encompassing
online communities, forums, blogs and a presence on Facebook, Twitter & You
Tube. All provide an active means to create active engagement.
It is a brand
imperative to stay close to all customers and understand what they know and
like about brands and what they don’t know or don’t like. Brand resonance occurs
when consumers feel completely in sync with the brand. The best and most widely
admired marketers treat their brands with understanding and respect, as well as
a clear sense of commercial and social purpose.
Platform – Get Noticed in a Noisy World - Michael Hyatt – New York Best
Selling Author
When there were three RV channels and two kinds of
toothpaste, quality alone could sell itself. But in a global economy crowded
with millions of competitors, quality is just the beginning.
The real challenge is getting the attention of those
who might buy your product or service. Two
little words have combined to make this easier, less expensive, and more
possible than ever: social media. Websites,
blogs, apps, and social networks used in concert
and with savvy – can connect you with a global audience. No gatekeepers. No
massive fees.
All, the world’s a stage. But the stage has never been
more crowded and simply being on it doesn’t matter much if the lights are not
shining on you, or if there is no one in the audience.
30 Days to Online PR & Marketing Success - Gail Z. Martin
The 30-Day Results Guide to Making the Most of
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Blogging to Grab Headlines and Get Clients
Times have changed. The proliferation of cable
channels, satellite radio choices, online news magazines, and mobile phone
applications, as well as the demise of many long-running newspapers and
magazines has completely changed how consumers consume information. “Mass Media”
is now not nearly as “mass” as it used to be. So making the front page of a
major newspaper won’t help you sell products or services if your target
audience doesn’t read that newspaper.
Social Media becomes even more
important to your online PR and marketing campaign when you realise that a
growing majority of Facebook and Twitter users access their accounts via mobile
devices such as cell phones. Mobile phone marketing is rapidly gaining traction
in its ability to reach desirable consumers who are always on the go.
When you are active and present on social media, you are also reaching those consumers
via their mobile devices, so that they don’t have to log in to read your
message. For advertisers who want to reach today’s never sit-still consumer,
the combination of social media marketing and mobile
phone messaging is a powerful combination.
How Brands Grow - What Marketers Don’t Know - Byron Sharp
Light Buyers Matter
All brands have many light buyers. While these people
are only occasional buyers of a brand, there are so many of them that they
significantly contribute to sales volume.
TNS data shows that a typical Coca-Cola buyer
purchases just one or two cans or bottles a year. That’s
half of all Coke buyers. Only a tiny fraction of Coke buyers purchase
around the average amount of 12 purchases. Therefore, the average buyer is
certainly not typical.
Very light buyers dominate, even for Coca-Cola which
is a very large brand indeed.
The digital revolution is creating new opportunities
to reach consumers indifferent ways, at different times, to be more relevant,
and to fit in better to their heterogeneous lives. There are great
opportunities for sophisticated mass marketing.
Rather than striving for meaningful, perceived
differentiation, marketers should seek meaningless distinctiveness. Branding
lasts, differentiation doesn’t. These elements can include:
- Colours – such as Coca-Cola and Vodaphone red
- Logos – such as McDonald’s golden arches
- Taglines – such as Nike’s ‘Just do it’
- Symbols/characters – such as Mickey Mouse’s ears
- Celebrities – such as Tiger Wood for Nike
- Advertising styles – such as Master Card’s ‘priceless’ campaign
How Advertising Really Works
There is solid empirical evidence that brand advertising does produce
sales. Yet the effects of advertising are very difficult to see in sales
trends.
There are two reasons why advertising’s sales effects
are hard to see in weekly and monthly sales figures (i.e. sales neither jump
when advertising starts or increases, nor collapse when it is reduced). The
proper effect of advertising on sales is often missed because:
1. The aim of most advertising is to maintain market share. Few companies
spend enough (or create good enough advertising) to increase market share or
accelerate an upwards trend. Mostly, advertising is used to prevent what
(without any advertising) would be a gentle decline in sales. Much
advertising is aimed at preventing competitors’ advertising from stealing
future sales. This prevention means a brand gets sales, over a long period of
time, that it would not have obtained if it had not advertised. So advertising
causes sales even if a brand’s sales figures are flat.
2. Advertising’s sales effects are spread out in time. This means that the
effect of today’s advertising is layered very thinly across sales figures over
a long period. It typically takes dramatic bursts of expenditure to cause a
week’s figures to detectably increase.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Twitter Marketing -
Brett Petersel and Esther Schindler
Twitter Marketing Campaigns
The rudimentary sales
and marketing funnel AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action is just as
relevant to social media marketing efforts as it
is to the business niche with which you’re comfortable. A few reasons why you
might turn to Twitter:
- Build better customer relationships
- Twitter produces evangelists from happy customers
- Create a community for your fans
- Find out what your customers are saying about you
- Turn criticism into opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to quality
- Give your company a human voice – create a cheat sheet for FAQs
- Use external perceptions to help the business make internal decisions
- Incorporate customer feedback into product development
- Establish yourself as an expert voice in your community
- Establish or underscore your brand
- Generate sales leads
- Run special deals and promotions
- Establish thought leadership
- Build loyalty
How Brands Grow – What Marketer’s Don’t Know – Byron Sharp
Memory is Everything
Memory is the link between an ad and brand choice.
Advertising largely works by refreshing memory structures; occasionally it also
builds memory structures and creates a preference or an intention to purchase.
Advertising maintains and builds brand salience via creative publicity. Brands
don’t need to worry about having a persuasive message; even when they have one,
the message needs to be embedded within a framework of brand links and cues,
salience and long-term distinctiveness.
Busy Buyers
When people aren’t working they have many more
interesting things to think about than brands! I’m not just referring to the
really important things in life like family, friends, politics, hobbies, sport
and saving the planet. Yahoo reported that the top search terms for 2008 were:
1.
Britney Spears
|
6. Jessica
Alba
|
2.
WWE World Wrestling
Entertainment
|
7. Naruto
|
3.
Barack Obama
|
8. Lindsay
Lohan
|
4.
Miley Cyrus
|
9. Angelina
Jolie
|
5.
RuneScape
|
10. American Idol
|
How Brands Really Compete
Decades of research into the patterns in buying
behaviour and marketing metrics has led to the surprising conclusion that
brands compete for custom primarily in terms of mental and physical
availability. Brands that are easier to buy, for more people in more occasions,
get bought more often. Brands that have greater market share are better known
(and more noticed) by more people and are more widely available.
In other words, brands with larger market share have
greater physical and mental availability, and also have larger marketing
budgets to support these assets.
Mental Availability
Mental availability / brand salience is the propensity
for a brand to be noticed and / or thought of in buying situations. The term
brand salience is sometimes used synonymously with top-of mind brand awareness
measures.
The more extensive and fresher the network of memory
associations about a brand, the greater the brand’s chance of being notice or
thought of in the variety of buying situations experienced by customers.
Such memory associations also increase the chance of a
brand being selected when multiple options are present.
Therefore, building mental availability is about
developing different memory links (that relate to a brand) to increase the
scope of the brand-related network in people’s memories – the brand’s share of
mind.
A fine future for Social Media
and in particular using Twitter as a Marketing Tool!
Regular, consistent memory association and engagement on
Twitter directed to loyal brand followers, light buyers and new followers.
It won’t be long before Twitter followers are seen as
a component and measurement of Brand Equity!
Twitter Account Brand Comparison Use
Outsurance @OUTsurance
Tweets 5 115
(6 tweets a day)
Followers 3 933
(4 x more followers than Hollard)
Following 195
Favourites 48
Since September
2010 (2½ years)
Profile Outsurance
is the leading direct insurance company in South Africa offering car, home,
business and life insurance. Awesome service and value-for-money products! http://www.outsurance.co.za
Hollard Ins @Hollard
Tweets 481
(1 every 2 days)
Followers 984
(4 x less followers than Outsurance)
Following 308
Favourites 72
Since May
2010 (3 years)
Profile We
get you! Hollard is South Africa’s largest independent and privately owned
insurance group. http://www.hollard.co.za
Discovery SA @Discovery_SA
Tweets 5
889
Followers 7 617
Following 236
Favourites 22
Since October
2009 (3½ years)
Profile Financial
Services Co that looks after your health, life and well being. We strive to
make people healthier and protect and enhance their lives. https://www.discovery.co.za
Woolworths SA @Woolworths_SA
Tweets 16
842
Followers 56 049
(8 x number of people following)
Following 7 091
Favourites 15
Since November
2009 (3½ years)
Profile We’re
a passionate SA retailer dedicated to bringing you quality, style and value for
the last 80 years. http://www.woolworths.co.za
CocaCola @CocaCola (Atlanta)
Tweets 75 754
Followers 698 319
(10 x number of people following)
Following 67 729
Favourites 3
X Factor Brands @Gail_Mail (GMS Social Media
Services)
Tweets 3 192
Followers 516
Following 1 519
Favourites 132
Since 7
June 2012 (10 months)
Profile ‘X
Factor Brands’, ‘Angel Factor Brands’ and ‘Green Factor Brands’ showcase brands
via Twitter and Blogs. Distinctive brands that stand out and above the rest! http://xfactorbrands.blogspot.com
Twitter Account Celebrity Status Follower Numbers
Noeleen @Noeleen3Talk
Tweets 4 738
Followers 71 284
Following 163
Favourites 71
Since October
2010 (2½ years)
Profile No
detail given
DJ Fresh @DJFreshSA
DJ Fresh was live at the offices of Discovery Health on
a marketing campaign DJ-ing and Tweeting Monday 8 April 2013
Tweets 61 914
Followers 348 914
Following 8 571
Favourites 15
Since February
2009 (4 years)
