Tag: Brand Engagement

More Brands Adopting Google+

Interbrand, founded in 1974, and now the world’s largest brand consulting agency, has just revealed that two new brands that rank within its top 100 have adopted the Google + platform. Said brands are Xerox and Nike, and marketing data firm Simply Measured reports that average weekly Google+ circle engagement is up 112%, and content engagement is up 65%.

Interestingly, the top brands on Google+ are high-end names including Ferrari, Gucci and Burberry, with Gucci seeing circle growth of 55,925% between Q1 and Q2.

Again, average weekly circle engagement is up 112% since February, for Google+, but is still nowhere near the sort of engagement seen on Facebook.

The data is indicative of the future advertising viability of Google+, which the search giant is doing everything it can to promote – a practice which has angered some users – Google had slid a Google+ button where the “like” button on YouTube would normally be, for a time.

A recent study has shown that only 40% of brands are actually using Google+, but it would appear that the platform is plainly new, and will likely gain more appeal in time.

May 10, 2012
Luxury Brands Have Highest Google+ Brand Engagement

Google+ users apparently have some champagne tastes. A new survey from Simply Measured, a social media analytics firm, reveals that luxury brands like Ferrari, GUCCI, and Burberry rank the among highest among the Interbrand Top 100 brands on Google+ when it comes to consumer engagement.

These types of surveys show that not every big brand is diving in head first to the Google+ pool as only 64% of the Interbrand 100 even have Google+ brand pages. Nike and Xerox, which are household names of brands if there ever were one, just launched their respective Google+ pages this past quarter. One of the reasons that more brands may begin to gravitate to Google+ is because, whether people like it or not, Google is trying to wrangle in as many people as possible, therefore increasing the size of the consumer pool that brands can have access to. For example, in the previous quarter, there was a 138% increase in circles across all pages, which Simply Measured says indicates that brands are becoming more active while consumers continue to get comfortable with the environs of Google+.

For some reason, Google+ is the place to go if you’re in the automotive industry. By wide lengths, automotive bands blow away all other industries in a comparison of Google+ circle size. Ferrari alone is listed in 730,831 Google Circles (it’s actually gone up to 746,345 since this study was polished and sent out), which is more than what most other industries have combined.

Ferrari has figured out some magic formula for social media engagement. The company’s presence on Google+ is indisputably dominant, and over on Facebook it’s not doing too shabby, either. In fact, the top five brands in terms of number of fans are all automobile brands (Ferrari ranks #2 among them). If that’s any indication, then every industry should figure out what strange psychological hook automotive companies have in our collective conscience and take notes because obviously it’s got a powerful tug to it.

Simply Measured CEO Adam Schoenfeld expects that as Google+ continues to grow, more brands will adopt to the social network as a means to engage consumers. “Based on this most recent quarter, luxury and automotive brands are clearly finding Google+ to be an effective way to connect with consumers,” he said. “It will be interesting to watch the data unfold as we near the one-year anniversary of the platform.”

Google+ Top Consumer Brands” src=”http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/article_pics/googleplustopbrands.png” title=”Google+ Top Consumer Brands” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”288″ />

Google+” src=”http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/article_pics/topcircles.png” title=”Top Industries on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”100%” />

Concerning the first table, you’ll see that Google ranks as the #10 brand when it comes to the Circle tally. That almost seems a little unfair because of course Google, with its legion of Google+ accounts, would be among the highest brands, never mind the fact that Google+ is a Google enterprise.

I digress. However, speaking of Google’s appearance on that list, here’s a funny bit of trivia: even though Google has a bazillion Google+ accounts for its bazillion services, impossibly, H&M managed to out-post Google by quite a margin. In other words, H&M is on an all-out onslaught across Google+ to get their user engagement up, which appears to be a successful strategy given the company’s high ranking.

Google+ Brands by Posts” src=”http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/article_pics/hmblast.png” title=”Top Google+ Brands by Posts” class=”aligncenter” width=”555″ height=”541″ />

H&M: keeping you fashionable for less on Google+.

Here’s the full chart of the brands included in Simply Measured’s survey.

Google+ Top Brand Pages” class=”aligncenter” width=”100%” />

May 9, 2012
“Likeapella” By Kraft Thanks Facebook Users

Facebook has always been a great way of promoting products online, especially Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Who can’t resist the yummy cheesy flavor of the macaroni? Well, 4,632 Facebook users publicly announced they couldn’t by liking this post by Kraft. With the amount of responses Kraft received with this post, the well-known snack company has compiled a video thanking their fans for this generous support. The video that they released is appropriately named “Likeapella.”

Within Likeapella, a barbershop quintet appears singing thanks to their fans for liking the specific post. Along with their singing, a list of all of the names (shortened for length and privacy) appears of all of the people that liked the post that day. If you liked Kraft’s post on Tuesday, April 24th, more than likely your name will appear. To watch the video in its entirety, please click “play” on the YouTube video below.

With this video, this shows that brands actually do care about their social media following, and is also a great method to demonstrate engagement marketing.

The Twitter community has been busy reacting to Likeapella, and I have provided a few responses from the Twitterverse below:

(image)@ks_wordSmith
Kim SmithLove how Kraft is personally thanking individual Facebook fans with this ‘Likeapella’ music video http://t.co/tibAKR3U via @adweek(image) 1 hour ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

(image)@tentsocial
Jeff BereznyThere’s only so much ‘noodle-doo op’ one can take. But hats off to Kraft for its latest social media effort. http://t.co/GNjnYAWd(image) 1 day ago via Buffer ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

(image)@RachelleLacroix
RachelleLacroixNot all brands can go there, but props to @kraftmacncheese for showing how fun social can be w/ #Likeapella & #oldbirdsnewtweets(image) 6 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

(image)@cmtrapolino
Christina TrapolinoLove seeing #brands experiment with social strategies! Kraft’s thank you video to #Facebook fans: http://t.co/TRQesHzN(image) 4 hours ago via Spredfast ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

(image)@sparksandhoney
sparksandhoneyWhat a great way to humanize the brand! Reading: “Kraft Personally Thanks #Facebook Fans in ‘Likeapella’ Music Video” http://t.co/IYZOeFsS(image) 3 days ago via SocialFlow ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

May 1, 2012
Facebook Brand Engagement [Socialbakers Study]

As you already know, marketing space on Facebook is one of the hottest things going right now. People are engaged in all sorts of activities on Facebook; they send gifts, share photos, search for coupons, and yes, research products and brands. A new study by Socialbakers research has set out to nail down people’s advertising and brand viewing habits on Facebook. Because there’s big dollars involved, it’s a highly relevant and interesting effort.

So what’s the most popular thing going on Facebook as far as brands go? Automobiles, and more specifically BMW, Ferrari, Mercedes, Audi, and Ford Mustang. How many people who are fans of these pages can actually afford their products? Five, but that’s not the story here. These are the most engaging brands according to sheer number of fans.

Take a look at the results overall:

Surprisingly, alcohol products are the next most popular category of engaging brands as ranked by number of fans on pages. Probably the only thing to do after realizing you can’t afford a Ferrari or high-end Beamer is to get drunk and forget your worries. After all, the V6 Mustang might just be within your reach.

I guess the overall point is that these rankings are according to fans of pages not necessarily people who purchase the products. I could spend some time drooling over the latest Ferrari and eyeing up the latest innovations from BMW, but I probably won’t be buying anytime soon. So what about sales?

The average engagement rate, or daily page engagement rates might be something more highly associated with sales or conversion. Both of these metric take into account total fans, likes, number of comments, and shares. These activities are a better indicator of intent to purchase. Learn more by clicking here.

So while I may love BMW and Heineken, what I’m really buying when I go out and shop are products more like Friskies cat food, Hellman’s mayonnaise, and Rhino energy drinks. These are products I actually consume, not admire at a distance. In fact, the alcohol fans may actually buy those in contrast to the automobiles, but let’s be honest, a bottle of Jack Daniels is great, but many may pass it over for a more cost effective solution.

Who knows? You may want to explore the study from Socialbakers a little more, there’s a lot of information there and if you follow the link you can learn a lot more about brand engagement and they break it down by industry. They include fashion, media, electronics, telecom, and even airlines in the study, so it’s worth taking a closer look at.

Like I said, engagement doesn’t equal sales, but it is still an indicator in interest in your products. It can’t ever hurt to have a presence on Facebook, but I don’t know that it will help sales for certain brands.

May 1, 2012
Social Couponing Is Better for Targeting, According to SocialTwist CEO

Both the couponing and the deals’ industries have been receiving a tremendous amount of attention lately. Groupon’s IPO, obviously, has added to this hype as well as the fact that Coupons.com recently received $200 million from investors.

The popularity of both of these types of services indicate that consumers want deals and coupons. Everyone likes to save, and now that people have had a taste of some great savings, they will likely come to expect it in the future.

Have you come to depend on coupons and daily deals? Let us know.

These services have created an entirely new advertising model for businesses to utilize. As a result, traditional advertising, such as with newspapers, is becoming much less relevant for brands. In a report from Forbes, the redemption rate of coupons in newspapers is only 0.6 percent.

According to Vijay Pullur, the CEO of social couponing service SocialTwist, brands can’t target consumers effectively in print advertising. Digitally speaking, brands are better able to target since users can click on their preferences, but he believes that there is a better way to target.

He is proposing a new form of targeting through a platform called Tell-a-Friend that involves social sharing. While it is true that users can share daily deals and coupons through social sites like Groupon, SocialTwist allows users to share in order to receive a better bargain. For instance, a user could turn a $1 coupon into a $3 coupon if he shares it with 3 other people.

Pullur tells us that brand engagement is much higher with this model since marketers can target a specific segment and message. For example, a mom would likely take a Huggies coupon and share it with other moms that would need it. The benefits are two-sided in this case, because the mom is able to save more, and Huggies was able to reach a particular fragment of its market.

“The targeting that the social coupons provide is tremendously better than any other mechanism because it goes through sort of a human filtering,” said Pullur.

He went on to say that SocialTwist’s social coupons receive a 50-80 percent redemption rate as well.

It is a bit surprising that this idea hasn’t yet taken off with daily deals or other popular couponing sites, but, chances are, it’s coming.

July 3, 2011