Toyota uses social media like Facebook or Twitter, etc mainly in order to retain current customers. This is because the company has already a lot of consumers. In fact, the global market share ratio of Toyota is 13%, which is top ration among automotive manufacturers in 2013. Then, it will be effective to retain or recall them rather than acquire new customers. Reasonably, social media are oriented to the audience who are interested in the brand. This company uses them with four ways, such as imposing impression of the company works, gathering information or opinions from customer, retaining current customers, and obtaining new customers.
Firstly, it uses social media to improve the image of the company by posting impressive pictures. For example, they use pictures of wining a race, latest technologies, and new factories. It sometimes posts irrelevant ones directly to the products. For instance, attractive pictures of wining the first prize of a race are posted, which are not sold to general consumers. However, it will impose the impression of sporty brand and they remember it as a good company. Secondly, it can gather the information about statistics of preference of customers. It means that how many customers feel sympathy with their new products and how many ‘Like’ can be obtained from a post of new technology. It effectively uses pictures which have consumers to imagine utilities with new products. It often appears a car driving off road. Some consumers react like ‘ I will buy it’ or ‘ I’ve just bought it!’ Thirdly, photos of a car are intentionally posted to retain current or past customers, which may be competitors’ consumers, by showing old car pictures. They remind them of their old memories about 20-30 years ago. Some audience comments on the posts like ‘ I’d used this car for 20 years and it hadn’t broken at all’ and they feel sympathy with others by chatting old days. By doing this, Toyota’s fan becomes more loyal. Lastly, the company strategy expects current consumers to penetrate the brand to their children or neighborhood by introducing events of the company or promoting them to share these information. It can be more effective for beginners to be told by their friends they trust than to be directly explained by company. In this way, the company may acquire competitors’ consumers or nonuser.
It also uses twitter in different ways. The company retweets good comments from consumers like ‘I love Toyota’ or ‘Thank you Toyota for providing us new opportunities of employee’. Or it often retweets posts of an associated company. This company has a lot of association like finance, racing and so on. These tweets will be useful for heavy consumers of this firms, which means that they cherish a series of this company including parts of their cars, even credit cards.
Through doing so, it has created new value associated with car industry. For instance, Toyota has financial firm, insurance firm, racing company, and marine company.
In sum, social media strategy is to introduce or reuse the past products information as well as new products ones. On Hyde street journal, we can refer past posts on new posts, then these posts can be linked with each other. Thus one post will be more effective and manifold information.
COCA-COLA is a brand established around the world and it is the third largest global brand. Also almost the whole population of the world knows how a can of Coca-Cola looks. So it is easy to recognize this brand only with the red labeled can. The cause of this is the work of at marketing and year after year of hard investment on marketing.
Coca-cola partnership with Brazil
Coca-Cola invests its money on marketing in many ways. But one with better ROI is partnership. Like the American company did last summer with the World Soccer Cup in Brazil.
The target of the well-known company is a huge range of population, without boundaries of age, race, country or sex. But actually the range that buys more coke is the Latin American population at the age between 15 and 25 years old. Although those numbers Coca-Cola is investing in new products and niches to grow its revenues year per year. And the social media marketing is a tool to multiply marketing results. Lately Coca-Cola used social media tool to increase the result of “share a coke” marketing procedure. This is the second year that the soda company uses this slogan and marketing strategy.
2.- SHARE A COKE, CAN OF COCA COLA WITH PERSONAL NAMES AND NICKNAMES.
Coca-cola social media strategy
3.- COCA COLA LIFE, LESS CALORIES MADE OF NATURAL PRODUCTS.
Coca-Cola new product: Coca-Cola Life
“Coca-Cola Life is our newest innovation that provides consumers with an option with less sugar and fewer calories and that is sweetened from natural sources. It has been really well received in Argentina and Chile, and we think that consumers in GB will love it too.” Coca-Cola Company
GROWING NICHE:
Coca-Cola is not shying away from soda market, indeed is investing double and a addition to 1 billion in advertising through 2016. Even though Americans are drinking less these days, Coca-Cola’s big bet might not be a bad idea.
If it can get its marketing right, Coke expects forthcoming low-calorie products sold in smaller sizes and using new sweeteners will appeal to people who’ve been avoiding soda. The company is already selling a stevia-sweetened Coca-Cola Life, launched last year in Chile and Argentina. That might be enough to bring recent soda abstainers back to the vending machine.
Soda Market Sales Forecast
RESULTS OF MEDIA MARKETING:
A Coca-Cola Co. study finds online buzz has no measurable impact on short-term sales, but online display ads work about as well as TV, said a company executive in a presentation at the Advertising Research Foundation’s think 2013 conference in New York today.
It’s a stunning admission for a company whose flagship brand has 82 million fans, more than any other brand on Facebook. But Eric Schmidt, senior manager-marketing strategy and insights at Coca-Cola, is not giving up on buzz problem.
Now Mr. Schmidt said Coke is looking to refine how it measures buzz. In example, by getting a better idea of how many people buzz actually reaches rather than, just counting the raw publicly available comments from sources such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and YouTube.
Coca-cola social media effect
One problem Coca-Cola has is determining whether buzz is actually positive or negative in the first place. “When we say it’s positive, the machine about 21% of the time says it’s negative,” he said. Machines have the most trouble judging sentiment in longer posts such as those in blogs or Facebook and do much better on Twitter, he said.
But the good point is what Coca-Cola as a brand learns from their strategy:
Build central campaigns
Crowd-source, involve consumers
Interact directly with costumers
Embrace new mediums
Measure success
Is there evidence this strategy is working or will work in the future? Provide examples.
Coca-Cola has 2.4 million followers worldwide at Twitter. In the last month, @cocacola has Tweeted 1,994 times. It means more than 60 Tweets per day and created over 1 billion potential impressions the last 30 days.
Examples provided (campaign “share your coke”): The results across every medium show the campaign to be wildly successful. Those who saw the TV adverts are seven per cent more likely to consider buying Coke than the general population. Consumers who saw the campaign on Twitter are eight per cent more likely to recommend Coke to a friend. Those exposed to the campaign on Facebook are 18 per cent more likely to have a good impression of the brand than other Facebook users.
Through our online focus groups we found that the main reason Share a Coke worked so well is because it reached out to consumers as individuals, but at the same time didn’t exclude anyone. Some participants expressed disappointment at not finding their names on Coke bottles, but they could still get excited about the campaign by finding the names of their friends and family.
Coca-cola revenue per year
But comparing 2013 Ad result with 2014 now it is not working anymore. Coca-Cola’s definition of “Share a Coke” strategy:
“The concept of the ‘Share a Coke’ scheme is to bring friends and family together during social event over the summer. Have people been sharing the news about the personalized Coke’s comeback? Their Recommend score in 2013 started at 2.1 and ended up with an average score of 7.9 until the end of the scheme. However, we see a different pattern this year. Its score dropped from 3.6 on 15 June to -5.0 on 19 July, averaging at -0.9. Similarly, Diet Coke averaged at 7.9 in 2013’s campaign but figures dropped to -0.9 since 14 June”.
How can we apply their strategy to a small business or a blog like The Hyde Street Journal? Provide examples.
We could apply Coca-Cola strategy to a small business or our blog doing work at social medias as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. We will advise to our followers every time we have new posts in our blog. Or ask for their interests and do a basic newsletter one time per week or month.
Besides this, the best idea in one-to-one marketing is to be close to the costumer, like Coca-Cola does in Twitter. This tactic is employed both as a customer-service method, and to show some love for fans that show love to the brand:
The Company makes certain commitments concerning how we interact with the public and each other, and these commitments apply to interactions that occur on social media platforms as well. We expect the same commitments from all Company representatives, including Company associates and associates of our agencies, vendors and suppliers:
Coca-Cola will be transparent in every social media engagement.
Coca-Cola will protect our consumers’ privacy in compliance with applicable Privacy Policies, IT Security Policies, and laws, rules, and regulations.
Coca-Cola will respect copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity, and other third-party rights.
Coca-Cola will be responsible in our use of technology and will not knowingly align our Company with any organizations or Web sites that use excessive tracking software, adware, malware or spyware.
Coca-Cola will reasonably monitor our behavior in the social media space, establish appropriate protocols for establishing our social media presence, and keep appropriate records of our participation as dictated by law and/or industry best practices.
COMPANY AND AGENCY ASSOCIATES’ SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES
The Company respects the rights of its associates and its authorized agencies’ associates to use blogs and other social media tools not only as a form of self-expression, but also as a means to further the Company’s business. It is important our associates and our agencies are aware of the implications of engaging in social media and online conversations that reference the Company, its brands, or its business, and that they recognize when the Company might be held responsible for their behavior. Our expectations for personal and professional/official use of social media are set forth separately below.
PERSONAL USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: OUR EXPECTATIONS
Whether you are an authorized Company spokesperson or not, when you’re talking about our Company, our brands, or our business on your personal social networks, keep in mind that:
Our Company’s Information Protection Policy, Insider Trading Policy, and other policies still apply.
You are responsible for your actions. We encourage you to get online and have fun, but use sound judgment and common sense.
You are an important ambassador for our Company’s brands, and you’re encouraged to promote them as long as you make sure you disclose that you are affiliated with the Company. How you disclose can depend on the platform, but the disclosure should be clear and in proximity to the message itself.
When you see posts or commentary on topics that require subject matter expertise, such as ingredients, obesity, the Company’s environmental impacts, or the Company’s financial performance, avoid the temptation to respond to these directly unless you respond with approved messaging the Company has prepared for those topics. When in doubt, contact your local Public Affairs and Communications director.
Be conscientious when mixing your business and personal lives; be sure to know your work group’s policies regarding personal use of social media at work or on Company devices.
Babolat, is the first racket sports company and one of the most famous brands in the world. But their customer base is, of course, those who play racket sports. Also, it is mainly supported by serious players and students. The main company is located in Lyon, France and they use several social media methods to advertise their products. For instance, they use Facebook and Twitter by showing the players who contract with Babolat achieve amazing results and plays in order to advertise new products. These days, Li Na, a professional tennis player, declared retirement so they made a special logo, “LoveLi”, wishing her luck on her next adventure. This attitude of respect makes customers feel good. This leads them to buy the products in the future great.
Youtube is usually used to promote new products, to show us ads and to demonstrate how well the new product works or how differently they work in comparison to existing ones. Almost all people who watch these posts or videos are players, so it is effective to encourage customers to buy their goods. Moreover, the better results that a professional player records, the more opportunities there are for not only existing customers but also potential customers to see their products. Youtube allows those who use products of other brands to change their mind and buy Babolat’s products. This could cause the company to make more profit.
As previously stated, the customer base, as well as the target audience, of Babolat’s social media strategies is those who play racket sports. Babolat’s social media strategies can pull in potential customers easily. In this case, the target audience is people who use other brands. Seeing the videos of the player in action is more effective than picture imaging ( such as only pictures of rackets) to convince the customers to purchase the suggested item. This is how Babolat gets potential customers. It is the oldest and biggest brand in the world and main strategy of introducing products in a limited, controlled way in their home area, then patiently expand to other locations, seems to be working well. There is the evidence that they established the position as the best brand in ten years even though their products were not sold in America ten years ago. They have made a big success by following the strategy which is working and will work in the future.
We can apply this strategy to make small business or the blog like The Hyde Street Journal bigger than now. So they should reconsider about our home area and devote to making profit or making it bigger. Not every business grows up rapidly so they need patient in working on to expand it. It is important that they know what to do and if the strategy fits their attitude or policy, because, no matter how good strategies are, they do not work unless companies understand about that.
Founded in 1938 in Korea as a trading company for food before its work with electronics, Samsung Corporation was listed in 2012 as the world’s largest information technology company measured by revenues. Its value in the market is so impressive that if Samsung were to be an individual country, it would be the 35th richest with a revenue of US$ 212 billions in 2012 alone.
Such success is followed by high innovation, powerful presence in the technology field, and the an engagement with the public focusing on a goal of providing a variety of technological devices affordable to everyone.
Social Media marketing by a Korean Company
When the subject is marketing on social media, Samsung is considered a masterpiece. In 2013, reaching the number of 25 millions fans on
Facebook, Samsung reached in Europe the mark of brand no. 1 by numbers of fans. In the same year, according to Starcount, which compiles information from Social Networks, Samsung was the most popular social-media brand worldwide with 18 millions new followers among different Social Networks and 86 millions of views on YouTube.
Its strategy in the last years has showed how important are the community participation and the consumer engagement, what brings over three points that Samsung is looking forward to approach by cultivating its social currency: consideration, brand loyalty and brand awareness.
“Social media has always been about engagement, listening and responding and that’s what we strive to achieve. Our fans are invaluable to us.” says Suzy Lloyd, European Head of Samsung´s Social Media Marketing.
Moreover, the Korean company invested in an innovative and socially enabled website focusing on a direct link between the consumer and the brand by adding new features such as Facebook and Twitter buttons and quick consumer reviews. The new interactive experience suddenly and incredibly boosted the traffic on its site and the brand mentions online, keeping a short barrier between the consumers that now share their experiences on the website.
Some Individual Social Medias
Twitter:
Samsung nowadays has over 9 millions followers on Twitter and its account is based in quick informations about new launches and customer support.
A famous campaign made on Twitter was in a moment of advantage, which, however, was a boom: the Oscar’s Selfie. Samsung took advantage of the selfie had been taken from a Samsung Mobile and promoted the tweet. So far, such picture was the most retweed Tweet ever.
Facebook:
With 39 millions of fans, Samsung is the 4th largest brand on Facebook and the 2nd with the fastest growth. One of its goals is the community participation and spread its brand awareness among the online world.
In 2011, trying to reach new fans, Samsung made the successful campaign “Like it, Reveal it, Win it”. To take part, people had to like their Facebook page and recommend the content for their friends in order to reveal pieces from a product image hidden ,with the chance of earning weekly prizes as far they reveal the whole content. The number of new fans weekly was over 12 thousand and besides, it easily generated a close relation to the consumers.
Analysis
By reaching new fans Samsung is doing well since they are expanding their range of interaction and has been present on the online media. The customers base from its company is varied since they have a wide range of prices for its products and distribute technological devices more affordable than its biggest competitor Apple. However, the targets on Social Media aim more to young and “connected” people. Not focusing on the business field, which is still also one of the strong costumer bases for them.
Samsung teaches the lesson that companies – start-ups or established – should adapt to the new online world since their costumers are being part of it. So that, these businesses can boost its range of clientele and create loyalty. For example, The Hyde Street – journal from EFSF – can receive by far more awareness of its existence as long as each student publish or share the new articles on Facebook because such articles are written by people with the same age as the public on their page. Moreover, doing so with small companies is a great approach to receive a feedback from their customers and reach new public since the companies would be connected more personally with them.
Therefore, according to the present facts, Samsung knows how to deal the online marketing. For sure, it’s a prove that old and stablished companies can and should put social media to work.
Analyze their use of social media and how do the Louis Vuitton use Facebook or Twitter … etc?
The social media is that it’s social media needs to be fully integrated within the overall brand strategy. And it cannot be seen as just a trend anymore, nor as a new way to do marketing.
According to the research,they enabled users who are fans of Louis Vuitton to be a part of this exclusive crowd as they live streamed the event on their Facebook page. They succeeded in engaging with their community by living the Louis Vuitton dream.
They first got people excited by releasing a small amount of information about the event through their Facebook fan page:.
They also created an event on Facebook that is similar to an invitation you would receive to go to the actual event.
A Facebook app dedicated to this special event was created on Facebook. This very clever app was live streaming. It offered you the possibility to update your status with news about the event, comment on the video – and thus interact with worldwide users doing the same as you which reinforces the feeling of belonging to a community. The camera icon – as you can see on the image above – allowed you to take pictures from the live show. These pictures were then sent to a new Facebook album created on your profile. What is extremely clever is that this album would – as something new – directly appear on your news feed, exposing your Facebook friends to this incredible, high-quality content.
Social media is not an impossible challenge. With limited costs – regarding the digital part – it achieved amazing results. The one rule to respect is to use social media as a tool to reach a defined aim which is part of the brand’s marketing strategy.
Luxury brands have to understand that people who are Facebook users are not only millennials. Everyone is on Facebook; especially affluent people who are the target audience. Luxury brands need to adapt and build a new kind of relationship with their customers who want to be more engaged with their favorite brand. Social media is a way to create a more one – to – one relationship with your audience as social media is built on people. Louis Vuitton did very well because they understood that social media should not be used as an end in itself, but as a new and extremely powerful communication tool where your community does all the work.
Is there evidence this strategy is working or will work in the future?
Vuitton’s growth has slowed in recent months because luxury-hungry consumers in emerging markets like China are becoming rapidly more sophisticated; in essence, they want subtle leather bags instead of the logo-covered canvas pieces that are Vuitton’s bread and butter, in addition to being the brand’s most visible symbol.
Much of Vuitton’s recent success has been predicated on entry-level luxury consumers’ lust for the brand’s flashy canvas pieces. That group will be the one affected the most by Vuitton’s price-increase strategy because they’re the most price-sensitive segment of Vuitton’s consumer base; in losing some of what the brand seems to consider riff-raff, execs are hoping to gain new customers at the top end of the market. After all, Hermes increases its prices constantly (or at least it feels that way) and is growing at record rates, perhaps because the type of customer the brand attracts doesn’t care about an extra $500 on top of a $5,000 purchase. If Vuitton can’t buy Hermes, it seems hell-bent on trying to become its twin.
The second segment of Vuitton’s reported growth strategy – emphasizing its subtler, more expensive leather bags and accessories over its famous canvas – indicates that it’d like to at least attempt to become a similar brand, at least in the eyes of the purchasing public.
How can we apply their strategy to a small business or a blog like the The Hyde Street Journal?
In an age of unbridled competition, branding is often what sets businesses apart.
Consider an example: both Louis Vuitton and GAP sell clothes. Yet, Louis Vuitton is able to charge thousands of dollars for a suit, while GAP’s suits will rarely set you back by more than a couple hundred dollars.
This is because the Louis Vuitton brand is perceived as a luxury brand, and thus, can command luxury brand prices. GAP, on the other hand, has consciously positioned itself as a brand for the middle-class urban consumer, hence the lower prices.
Building a brand is often very different from building a business. It involves identifying and communicating the qualities that make your business special. It is largely a marketing enterprise, though to be successful, it must reflect qualities your business truly values.
Creating a successful brand positioning strategy requires a number of steps, such as:
Identify Values: Identify your brand’s primary values. Try to distill these values into a concise ‘mission statement’. Amazon’s mission statement, for instance, is to create ‘Earth’s most customer-centric company’.
Identify Competitors: Who are your primary competitors? What values do they espouse? How do they differentiate themselves? Answering these questions will help you understand competition and thus, create your own brand identity.
Differentiate: Identify what makes your brand different from competitors. Maybe you have a larger portfolio of products, maybe you use better ingredients/construction material, or maybe you have better customer service. This is a crucial step as it will dictate much of your brand marketing.
Communicate: The last step is communicating your brand’s values and what makes it different to consumers. This can be done through advertising, PR campaigns, media, etc.
McDonald’s is using a lot of different social media websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vine, Snapchat, Instagram and Google Plus (which hasn’tbeen updated since 2011).
According to Tybout Calder, a buyer’s decisions have a lot to do with emotions[1]. It is therefore a good idea, that McDonald’s isusing social media websites like Pinterest and Instagram since they are founded with focus on pictures, which are good for provoking emotions.
However, some can also state, that humans have a need for food and you therefore buy McDonald’s in relation to a functional goal. At some point, that can be true, but I think that people mostly are buying McDonald’s because of the taste, the brand and the reliability of the food.
Due to limitations of this assignment, the text below will only focus on McDonald’s’ use of Facebook.
1)
McDonald’s hasa very broad customer base, as a lot of different types of people are eating their food. This statement is also symbolized in their way of using Facebook, where they have a big differentiation of their posts. Some posts are related to people interested in sport, others to current events and some to kids.
McDonald’s are trying to focusing more on healthy food, because more and more people prefer this. By focusing on the behavior of healthy people, McDonald’s tries target ‘noncategory users’ and convince them to choose McDonald’s. This focus on ‘noncategory users’, calls Tybout Calder, the most effective way of increasing a company’s profit in the long term[2]. McDonald’s challenge for the future are, that the earnings from the unhealthy food are more valuable compared to the healthy variations[3].
Furthermore, each McDonald’s shop has a fanpage on Facebook, where news about the given shop is presented. In this way, McDonald’s can be specific with the posts which probably results in increased engagement from the fans. Moreover, McDonald’s is focusing on current events, for example a special burger in relation to the World Cup in soccer[4].
2)
In overall, McDonald’s strategy is a good one, where they try to be active on a lot of different social media platforms. When that it said, there is space for improvements. They haven’t posted on their Google+ profile in around three years and this is not acceptable for a brand like McDonald’s. If they have an account on a big social media, they have to engage with the users on the platform (even though there areprobably not that many active users), otherwise it is better just to delete the profile.
Personally, I am also disappointed that they aren’t trying to get more in touch with their fans. Compared to how big a brand they are, they don’t get much response on their posts. When that is said, it is pleasant that they try using special hashtags, and make the users create a lot of content by referring to this. In these days, they are offering a free coffee in relation to the #sipandtell[5].
3)
By analyzing the social media use of McDonald’s, I think there is more not to learn, than to learn. Compared to The Hyde Street Journal, we should be aware ofnot creating to many profiles on social media platforms. The exact number depends on how many capabilities there are, because the different profiles have to be managed. If they are not updated regularly and users not are getting answers on their questions, then you lose more than if you didn’t have any profile.
It will therefore probably be preferable, starting by using just a few social media platforms and slowly increase the number as the first ones are established. Of course, it can be a good idea just to register the blog’s name on a lot of social media sites, just to be sure that the names are available, but it shouldn’t look like that users can connect with us on the social media site, if we are not active.
[1] Calder, T., Kellogg on Marketing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010, 2nd edition, page 7-8.
[2] Calder, T., Kellogg on Marketing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010, 2nd edition, page 46-49.
HYDE STREET JOURNAL 