Scottsdale Airpark News: Social Media Profiles: China Mist

Posted by Kevin Spidel on Aug 4th, 2009 | Comments

China Mist Pure
Kiley Biggins, China Mist Brands
Photos by Seymour & Brody Photography Studios

This year, we launched China Mist Pure Bottled Organic Teas, six varieties of pure natural flavors. We took the same great fresh-brewed tea you find in your favorite restaurants, resorts and upscale grocery stores and put it in a contemporary hourglass-shaped bottle.

This isn’t your average bottled tea, and we just couldn’t enlist average marketing avenues to promote it. We needed a new kind of plan, so we plunged into the social-marketing world with a Facebook page and Twitter account. To date, we have 250 fans on Facebook.com and 1,391 followers on Twitter.com.

When we decided to tackle social marketing, we knew we’d need professional assistance. To devise a strategy and execution plan, we enlisted the help of Kevin Spidel of Activating Word of Mouth.

Take It to the Tweeple
Kevin sat down with me and China Mist Brands Co-founder John S Martinson many times to teach us a whole new language. We learned about Twitter, tweeps, re-tweeting and all kinds of important Twitter-y words that helped us promote our product. Getting information out by word-of-mouth advertising is considered one of the most viable sources for product information.

The China Mist Brands Facebook page shares news about China Mist Pure. Posts include new locations where the bottles can be purchased, free sa mpling events, photos of the marketing materials for China Mist Pure in Dubai, links to online voting for the bottled teas and much more.

With these outlets, we took that word-of-mouth advertising and amplified it by allowing it to be read online and spread more rapidly. As tweeters (people who post messages on Twitter.com) would engage in communication about the organic teas, we found an entire network of people who are avid China Mist Pure fans. They post photos, or Twitpics, of places they are drinking the teas as well as stores where the bottled teas can be found. Some of the followers liked the bottles so much they found ways to reuse them. We saw a Twitpic from a follower who reused her bottles as flower vases, and one who created a beautiful wind chime from the glass bottles. (more…)

Advertisers Kill Tradition

Posted by Kevin Spidel on Jul 20th, 2009 | Comments

Tonight in a Tweet, I realized how true this statement really is; advertisers who approach the social web as a communication vehicle, kill cultural norms within a given space. Case in point…Twitter. Twitter is not just a vehicle to communicate. It is not a tool. It is a culture.

Here at Activating Word of Mouth we focus on authentic word of mouth. This begins with relationships, not spam. We take the advertising out of marketing. Other marketing firms approach social networks as a new vehicle to get their products/services out in volume. They are about noise. Last night I noticed a new trending topic “Chris Brown.” My first thought was, did I miss the news? Did he do something to Rhianna again? I clicked on the search for “Chris Brown” in Twitter and saw this: (more…)

Respect Culture Within the Social Web

Posted by Kevin Spidel on Jul 16th, 2009 | Comments

In the offline world, respecting cultures is just common sense. Different ethnicities, different geographic locations, heritages, traditions, etc. are all around us.  People come from different backgrounds; in my opinion, cultural diversity is what makes the human race a beautiful thing.

Similarly, the online world is full of different cultures; however most assume online cultures consist of the same  factors that define culture offline. Sure social web users have diverse backgrounds that include religion, traditions, regional understandings, etc., but beyond these distinguishing elements lie cultures of each social network.

What does that mean?

People interact and consume information within a specific social network differently then they would others.  For example, if you are on Twitter and link your Facebook status to your Tweets, do you often get people within Facebook telling you to stop spamming their feed with all your status updates?  They might not even be involved with the same social networks as you and not understand that Twitter is about microblogging short posts.

In the case of Twitter and Facebook, these are two very different worlds. Facebook’s main landing page is a social stream of your network. Where folks can see photos, links, comments, events, etc from friends, family, and colleagues. This tends to be a more intimate interaction as posts are not limited to 140 characters like Twitter.

The point being, if one evolved within a given social network, they understand many social norms within that space that might not carry over to another space. If you tweet a lot, and carry that over to Facebook status updates, some might consider that spam. Or at the very least, see it as a social faux pas with that social space.

Social networks develop social norms within their space; be mindful and respect the given culture within that space.

Many large corporations hire anthropologists to understand the business etiquette of various nations in order to minimize the cultural gap.  Here at Activating Word of Mouth, consider us your cultural consultant to the online world.

There are many spaces that have different cultures. Make sure you don’t take that fact for granted.

Network Growing Pains…Don’t Let Them Cripple Your Authenticity

Posted by Jennifer Kindred on Jul 3rd, 2009 | Comments

Lately, I keep coming across services such as PMS Social Suite and Tweeterfollowers, which claim to grow your Twitter network to thousands of followers within 30 days. Who are these followers? Are they spam bots? People who have similar interests as you? Are they even people?

I am from Illinois and lived in Chicago for sometime. The City’s reputation for wind, beautiful lake paths, horrid winters, and corrupt politics are all right on. Growing up I recall hearing jokes and comments about dead people voting in Chicago…as a child I would try to picture a deceased person rising from their resting place and voting, then wondered how a cremated person could vote (yes I was a strange kid). Now I understand that dead people of course did not actually vote but their propensity to vote straight ticket Democrat preceded them into death thanks to Chicago party politics.

What does this diatribe have to do with Twitter and social networks? My anecdote poses a very important question, are these services akin to having dead people following you on Twitter?

There is an internal debate among the social web community regarding numbers v. authenticity, which is more important? Are they mutually exclusive? We argue that when numbers and authenticity coexist a very powerful network is born. For those that are entering the social web world for marketing purposes, we assert that the “magic sauce” exists in the strategy in which you engage your network. Meaning, if you opt to use a follower aggregator service, you must put extra time in auditing your network to ensure that your numbers reflect real authentic followers.

I think of “fake followers” as inflation, just because your numbers are bigger does not mean you can buy more influence as the influence price will also become higher. So 30,000 followers may seem like a lot but really you only have 2,000 engaged followers. Further, when you follow other artificial networks, your perceived influence becomes almost impossible to gauge. At the end of the day if you are using Twitter for marketing purposes, you must be able to measure your influence and potential ROI. Inflationary numbers will distort your true influences, just as it does in the monetary economy.

If you choose to use a service that automize your network growth there are several strategies you can take to also authenticate your network:

1. Review your new followers everyday.
2. Take out any spam bots or other fake profiles.
3. Go to new follower profile and look through Twitter feeds to see if they are interested in your brand/topic.
4. ENGAGE new followers through authentic conversation and mention of your brand/topic.

Follow these steps and not only will you have a large following but one that is engaged in your topic area. Activating WOM works with clients to develop network engagement strategy and produce marketing analytics to track your network’s influence in terms of sales, brand discussion, and network interaction.

Don’t let your network become dead, white noise…unlike Chicago politics, where a vote is a vote, in the social web world, an authentic follow is much more valuable than fake followers.

Viralocity Friend or Foe

Posted by Kevin Spidel on Jul 2nd, 2009 | Comments

You can trend your brand on Twitter fairly easy. But with that comes accountability. Two latest campaigns have showcased this well.

Brands on Twitter follow “hashtags” and topics that are trended in an attempt to be apart of the Tweeting action. Hashtags are # signs combined with terms that denote a conversation. Example, conferences use #BWE09 or #140conf to tag conversations about their conferences. #BWE09 = BlogWorld 2009 in Las Vegas and #140conf = the 140 Conference in New York City.

Hashtags create a vehicle to track and trend conversations about specific subjects. When the Iran Election protest blew up on twitter a hashtag became a trend using #iranelections. Brands use hastags for their own campaigns. Recently two similar companies (one US based the other UK based) have created and trended their own hashtags. One was a big fail in the Twitter universe and the other has hit in the community to the pont that the viral buzz around it has caught the eyes of main stream media.

SquareSpace and Moonfruit are “turn key” web development platforms for any type of user who wants to create a web presence. From the pro-webdeveloper to the novice, both these companies offer tools and packages to help build your website.

A few weeks back SquareSpace launched a campaign where they offered 30 new iPhones to 30 twitter users within a one month period. The only catch was that the Twitter user must use the hashtag #squarespace in their tweets. Our good friends over at Mashable wrote about the campaign here: http://mashable.com/2009/06/10/iphone-squarespace/

Folks began Tweeting #squarespace left and right. Congrats… it becomes a rapidly growing trending topic for the $6,000 campaign, but it became more. When people started asking about this hashtag they discovered the fine print and began tweeting about borderline false advertising using SquareSpace’s hashtag. Misleading and deceptive accusations were tweeted about the giveaway using the exact same brand vehicle that was associated with SquareSpace’s campaign.  All of this twittering began to trigger spam filters on Twitter. So now negative and positive tweets began to spread like wire fire. In the social web, it is very hard to recover, if even possible, to such a negative wild fire. Further, when your brand vehicle, in this case #squarespace, becomes a spam phrase on Twitter, you have just spent $6k to opt out of the fastest growing social network on the web. Wise?

The difference is, be clear and honest with the campaign. Moonfruit’s $15,000 week long campaign has successfully lead to nearly all positive tweets associated with this brand vehicle. Sure, the campaign is more expensive, but they also are getting great user generated content outside of the Twitter universe.

The most amazing thing about this is that the trend is about how real and honest the campaign is; most twitteres do not have brand loyalty or even really know about Moonfruit.  However, Moonfruit has created marketers who are saying positive things about your it brand by being honest about the campaign specifics.  Who knows these people might actually take the time to click on Moonfruit’s website.

Simply put, honesty and integrity results in respect and the ability to create marketers for you on the social web.

This is a word of mouth win.

The Social Web: Companies that are Catching on in a BIG Way!

Posted by Jennifer Kindred on Jun 29th, 2009 | Comments

When we sit down with potential clients, many are still trying to grasp the world of social marketing. During out pitch, there tends to be a lot of education about what the social web is, and what makes us different than other marketing/PR firms. Many think that volume is the key strategy to the social web. We feel that there is a fine line between spam and volume on the social web. So today we decided to post about different approaches to the social web and how our strategies coincide with these successful engagement methods.

Our specific strategies start with social networks…evaluating a brand’s digital foot print, determining which networks work best for the brand, and executing a specific strategy for the brand.  Obviously we add our special sauce that provides analytic reports. Evaluation is key. Our Managing Partner has spent nearly 10 years in political campaigns.  His specific background is in “field.”  Field work is about breaking apart the trend data of voter files and marketing lists to target a voting base and then “activate” them. With the social web, the data is there!  Marketing lists and social interaction data is resting in the code of the tweets and the pings.

The following are examples of brand sponsored social marketing strategies. Companies are catching on in a big way!

Last week we had the privilege to partner up with Jennifer Van Grove, the Associate Editor for Mashable.com, for the #sdtweetup with Shawne Merriman.  ActivatingWOM was a big part of the event.  Her latest post:

“brand sponsored social media campaigns are everywhere. From SeaWorld, Starbucks, and Dunkin’ Donuts, to Cadbury, A&E, and even Universal, it’s officially the hot trend to replace or supplement traditional marketing campaigns with social media.”

SeaWorld has created a Facebook game application where you can challenge friends to get the most points; Starbucks challenged its network followers to be the first to post pictures of new Starbucks advertisement signs. Cadbury has taken a page out of Ford’s viral marketing campaign and created a contest for Cadbury fans to get as many social media views and points as possible while participating in “Operation Goo.”The winner gets £20,000 ($32,900).

The newest social media campaign is coming from Huggies in partnership with the social site, Circle of Moms. Huggies will be putting its content directly in the path of its primary consumer group…moms.  The “Huggies Zone” will be an interactive site with advice columns, baby photo sharing space, parenting polls, and of course diaper information.

As these examples demonstrate, companies are approaching the social web in a variety of ways…everything from Facebook applications, to photo contests, to large scale viral marketing, to an interactive page focused on a specific consumer group.  Companies can spend and do as much or as little as they want on the social web.

Here at Activating WOM we understand different social media strategies, implementation, analytics/tracking, and most of all reporting.  Companies need to know if their marketing strategies are effective.  We believe in authentic marketing, which is what creates a viral marketing campaign.

When taking the social web plunge, companies should be opened minded …as demonstrated above there is a whole new world of online communication.

Companies should see the social web as a cost effective way to talk about brands, engage consumers, and most importantly track their progress.

The social web is here…. are you ready?

Should My Brand Be on Twitter?

Posted by Kevin Spidel on Jun 3rd, 2009 | Comments

By Jennifer Kindred

Tweet, tweeps, tweeter, twead, tweetup…the list goes on.  The phenomenon called Twitter has taken on a language and life of its own.

So what is all the Twitter hype really about?  Community.   The most recent numbers from Nielsen taken in January 2009 indicate that Twitter grew 1,382% year-over-year, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US. Not only is that huge growth in one year, but in one month like in January, Twitter.com clocked 4.5 million unique visitors in the US, meaning the service grew by more than 50 percent month-over-month.  7 million people (just in the US) are using Twitter…who are these people?  Its like knowing that there are millions of Brittany Spears fans but yet you have never met one of them.

Twitter is simply a social network where people are allowed to post comments to their “followers” (people in their network).  The catch is that the posts can only be 140 characters; given these restraints I have seen some interesting uses of the English language.  But what is Twitter really about….just posting random thoughts under 140 characters, surely there is more?  I argue that yes, Twitter is much more than random posts.  It is where millions of people have gathered to start conversations.  What are these conversations about, are they meaningful, or spamiful?

The Harvard Business School recently published a study of 300,000 randomly selected Twitter users during the month of May 2009.  Study results showed that the top 10% of Twitter users are responsible for 90% of the tweeting.  More numbers…what does this mean, is Twitter just a vehicle for white noise and spam?  We at ActivatingWOM argue, NO.

This study actually legitimizes the Web3 semantic marketing approach.  The 10% of Twitter users that use their social networks to engage in authentic, meaningful conversation are the most active and will receive the most responses from their networks because they are not spamming their followers.  The spamming/dark side of Twitter does not receive real interaction with their networks, the socialites of Twitter will not interact with spambots and therefore, those profiles become idle. It is about influence of these conversations.

So what can Twitter do for you, your brand, your company?  Build.  Twitter can be a vehicle to build a community of brand advocates for you, a social network of people interested in what you are talking about, producing, or selling.  However, in order to build on Twitter you must engage the community in a smart, meaningful and most importantly authentic way.  This is word of mouth marketing.

Use Twitter wisely and a whole Community will be there to Build for you!

China Mist’s Social Media Efforts Yield Tea Tweetup Tour

Posted by Kevin Spidel on Jun 1st, 2009 | Comments

China Mist hits Arizona Purely by Social Media Marketing

China Mist Brands introduced a bottled organic tea line, China Mist Pure, late last year.  Social media outlets have created interest and social buzz for the glass-bottled teas, and have been the main source for growing the new brand.

The ever-increasing popularity of social media sites, like Twitter.com and Facebook.com, have proven to be beneficial avenues for introducing the new brand to the community.  In just a few weeks of being online, ChinaMistTea has over 800 Twitter followers and China Mist Brands holds over 200 Facebook friends.

China Mist Brands Facebook friends were given a discount code to use at the chinamist.com online store for the month of April.  A strong rate of return on the coupon code was captured, giving China Mist strong confidence in the dedication of its social media friends and followers.

“China Mist is a great brand and has a following to begin with, activating the word-of-mouth marketing campaign on Twitter and Facebook was focused on authentic empowerment of those who are already fans of China Mist, to reach out and promote the newest line, China Mist Pure,” said Kevin Spidel of ActivatingWOM.com.

China Mist followers who regularly comment on the brand and new bottled tea have become a sort-of friend group via Twitter.  China Mist Brands is holding a “Tweet Up” for these newly made social friends at their corporate offices in the Scottsdale Airpark.

“We really appreciate all the twittering our new friends have been doing for the bottled tea,” said China Mist Brands Marketing Manager Kiley Biggins.  “We just want to invite them to our plant, let them see how our teas are made, give them the opportunity to meet each other face-to-face and personally thank each of them for promoting our China Mist Pure so diligently.”

The Tweet Up will be at China Mist Brands Corporate on June 25th, 6 – 8pm.  Social and Traditional Media are invited to attend.You can RSVP here: http://twtvite.com/4xxtjs