Steve loved to dazzle his high school science students with cool and unusual experiments. One of his favorite experiments was to drop a couple of Mentos candies into a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke. Almost immediately, the soda in the bottle would erupt with a spectacular geyser—like Old Faithful blowing its top in Yellowstone National Park. However, then Steve got a brilliant idea. Instead of showing this experiment to a class of 30 students each year, why not share it with millions of people on the Internet? He posted streaming video of this seemingly trivial little demonstration on his blog. The rest is history - the candy in the soda “volcano” became one of the most downloaded videos on the Internet.
Unless you are living in a cave, you can’t help but notice the impact of, or at least the buzz about, social networking sites.
Who is frequenting these sites? As you might expect, large percentages are the younger generations, teens, high school and college students, and young professionals in their 20s. However, an increasing number of users at the sites are people who are older and want to use them for the same reasons as the younger generations, to connect with people more easily. Sites such as eons.com target older groups (in the case of eon.com, people 50 and older).
Why should agencies care about social networking sites? One reason is that all types of businesses are exploring how they can take advantage of these methods of communication. Using the sites as a marketing tool requires an understanding of a marketing technique called viral marketing.
Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to increase brand and product awareness. Viral marketing is analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be delivered by word-of-mouth or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.
Viral promotions take the form of funny video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even text messages. According to long-standing research, a satisfied customer tells an average of three people about a product or service that he or she likes, but 11 people share their dislike of a product or service. This natural human behavior forms the basis of viral marketing.
To attract younger generations as clients and employees, agencies need to market in different ways and in places that these generations frequent. Believe me, they frequent social networking sites. Just ask your kids about their Facebook accounts.
One of the characteristics of Gen X and Gen Y is that these groups rely on the opinions of friends and other people they trust when they’re deciding what services to purchase and from whom. They often do this on the Net. Creating a Facebook account is one small step toward learning what marketing looks like on a social networking site.
On a personal level, I recently experienced the power of social networking. I set up my own Facebook account after a musician friend of mine sent me an invitation to be his “friend.” I wrote him back saying, “Aren’t we too old for this?” His response was, “I’ll go anywhere people are talking to get my message out.” He has a point.
A few days after setting up my account, I received an e-mail from an individual who had attended the same university I had and who remembered me. We traded a few e-mails, catching up on the last 25 years. This is just one example of how these types of sites can help people connect in ways that they never could have before.
Here’s how to set up a social networking site:
- Go to the Web site and sign up for a new account.
- Create a profile that captures information about you. The profile can include as much, or as little, information as you’re willing to share. I’ve added information such as the high school and college I attended, the various places I’ve worked, hobbies and other interest, along with some basic demographic information.
- Once your profile is up and running, invite “friends” to link to your profile. Each site has created a unique method so that you can easily send a “Be my Friend” request. I allowed Facebook to review all of the contacts in my Outlook file to find matches for other people who had a Facebook account. Of the approximately 1,800 contacts, almost 50 had an existing Facebook profile. I reviewed the list and selected the people whom I specifically knew and sent a request that they become my friend and link to my profile.
- As people accept your invitation, your network grows. As your network grows, your potential “reach” increases from your friends, to whom your friends know, to those whom your friends’ friends know. This shows the power of networking.
Each social networking site has its own unique twist on how it manages the relationships among all the parties. On Facebook, for example, any time someone wants you to “friend” them, you have to approve the request.
An easy place to start experimenting with how social networking can increase customer satisfaction is to create a profile for your agency on one of the popular sites. For your Commercial clients, create a profile on LinkedIn. Once you’ve completed your agency profile, have someone in the office look up your existing clients to see if they are members. If they are, invite them to join your network. Once you make connections, you can then begin interacting with them.
You might be surprised at the number of existing clients who are already members of a social networking site. It’s worth some time to begin experimenting with how you can take advantage of social networking to build a deeper relationship with existing clients and prospects.