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The Facts: Of the Top 5 websites on the internet, Google and Yahoo! are first and second while numbers 3, 4, and 5 are major social networks MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. And YouTube just passed Yahoo! as the second most searched page on the internet, after Google.
The Benefit: By creating a presence on Google, Yahoo!, and the big social networks, your business can be in the forefront of your customer's eyes and minds, resulting in greater brand value, higher visibility, and increased profits.
How can your business harness social media forces like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, three of the top 5 websites on the internet, and use them as tools for branding, expanding, and increasing the visibility and profits? SociaLight Media can help!
How can you optimize your site to take advantage of organic page ranking and positioning on the internet's top 2 most visited sites, Google and Yahoo! and turn them into your greatest source of advertising? SociaLight Media can help!
Whether you've been in business for 30 years or 30 minutes, Socialight Media can help position you at the top of Web 2.0 using tools like Social Networks, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, and Google AdWords.
What's New in Social Media?
- Zappos : Social Media Marketing Example #26:
Zappos is one of those companies that gets thrown around whenever social media case studies come up. If you have followed the industry over the last 2 years you have undoubtedly seen them come up in PowerPoint presentations and various speeches on the topic of ‘who's doing it right’ in social media. And, for good reason. Zappos has really embraced social internally, and it shows.
Let's take a look at what Zappos has done over the past couple years in our last social media example, number 26.
Zappos Twitter Presence
Zappos was one of the first companies to embrace a Twitter aggregation page: http://twitter.zappos.com/. Essentially they created a page on their site that pulls in all the mentions of the company. This is a great way to show the authority of a brand. If there are lots of people discussing your brand then that tends to convey a strong level of legitimacy.
This is also a great way to cross promote the various Twitter accounts the company has, such as the Zappos CEO account which has well over 1 million followers.
Zappos as a company is an early adopter of technologies. It is one of the first companies to embrace Twitter like this and create an aggregation page that has garnered over 1,000 different mentions/links on various industry sites and blogs when looking directly at the link count for the twitter.zappos.com sub domain. This was a very smart move on their part and has paid dividends with an increase in links.
Link Acquisition
More often than not when companies discuss social media, SEO is not top of mind. But, this isn’t always the case as some agencies and consultants in the industry understand the power and importance of holistic social efforts, and Zappos is a perfect example of a company that thinks holistically.
Zappos.com’s link graph is a perfect example conveying the power of a true social mentality. Since June 2007, when Zappos joined Twitter, they have pushed their employees to embrace new media technologies and become active on those platforms. It is not a coincidence that Zappos has turned its link acquisition into overdrive since doing so. See the chart below which was pulled from MajesticSEO:
This sort of link worth will help their bottom line substantially. I am sure Zappos already ranked pretty well in the search engines, but this sort of link development can only help the entire site garner more search traffic and subsequent sales.
Zappos Facebook
If you peruse over to the Zappos Facebook account you will see once again, a company who understands social. Engagement of their followers is very high, with daily status updates on the page with either questions or sharing of internal Zappos activities. Talk about a great way to make a company seem human, eh?
Their Facebook Fan Page has acquired roughly 28,000 fans to date. This may be fewer than expected for a company that has over a million followers on Twitter; however, I would argue that these fans are very engaged as evidenced by the 63 comments incurred on the Jan 7 status update.
For the most part Zappos is doing a good job of engaging its users via their Facebook account. However, there is still room to grow with their account - something just seems missing from it overall. One area I feel could use more work is growing readership and subscribers via contests. I noticed a few contests they ran that were shared in status updates, but in large part they felt devoid of any social mechanism that would really cause them to be successful.
Zappos YouTube
As you can see above there is a lot of activity on the YouTube channel page for Zappos. This is in large part due to the sheer amount of upload activity going on. Since Zappos encourages their employees to be social, there is never a shortage of content. Although it might seem that Zappos is doing a good job on YouTube, I feel like there is some room for improvement.
Perhaps running more targeted campaigns and looking into channel sponsorships could help. At Ignite, we've found that YouTube can create great ROI, it’s just a matter of finding the right hook and empowering your customers to get creative.
On Site Page Sharing
Frequently a user will find something online that they want as a gift. However, they forget to tell their significant other that they want the item. If you use Amazon you can simply save the item to your wish list, or in this case, you can share the page with a friend using Zappos' share feature integrated on every page.
Zappos has implemented this pretty well throughout their site. If you click on the ‘add from address book’ above you can pull in contacts from various services such as your Google, Yahoo or MSN account, which makes it easy to find the person you are interested in sharing the page with.
Register on Zappos Contest – Free Schwag
The above example shows how Zappos is using a contest to increase email and user signups with the site. I pulled this in as an example to show how they could beef it up to make it more social. I understand that there are probably more benefits and greater value to have one more registered site user than a Facebook fan for example, but I still feel there are ways they could make this contest more social.
It would be interesting if they added another section of this form that allowed users to share the form with other users in exchange for additional chances of winning the prize (e.g., each email they send increases their odds by 1).
We have done this in the past for some of our clients at Ignite, and it has proven to be an effective way to get more subscribers, fans etc. Think of it partly as selling your friends for more chances to win. You would be surprised the effect this can have at spreading contest such as this.
Blog About This Item
Ecommerce sites that have the scale and traffic levels of a Zappos.com can really benefit from loading grabable widgets on product pages such as the example above. In this example the user can grab a badge saying they like the product http://www.zappos.com/5th-avenue-lx-champion-grey-suede , and place it on their site. This sort of sharing/fanning integration isn’t going to produce a ton of interest, but when you are working on the scale that Zappos is, this can prove to be a very viable way to build links and brand awareness.
I have a feeling you will see more e-commerce shops like Zappos in the future arming their customers with badges to show their appreciation.
Summary
One of the major problems you typically hear about companies like Zappos and what they are doing, is that it doesn't relate to you as a company. It is easy to see the amount of work and effort it takes to pull off the social efforts that they have employed. The key to really pulling this off, and what Zappos has done such a good job of, is training social tactics at the employee level like their Twitter aggregation page and their employee Facebook activity and YouTube uploads. Don't simply rely on your marketing team to pull this off, you need to integrate it into a corporate level strategy.
4 February 2010 | 11:47 am - Twitpic is Unique: Founder Noah Everett Explains Why: Noah Everett stopped by the office so I pulled him aside to get a bit of information on what sets Twitpic apart. Did you know the Hudson Plane Crash broke on Twitpic? Noah also gave us a little insight into just how much Twitpic has grown in the last year. Enjoy!
2 February 2010 | 11:18 am - Social Media Example # 25: Yoplait:
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I was pretty excited to research Yoplait because I'm a big fan of the brand and its delicious flavors; just thinking about Yoplait Delights has me salivating. Num Num. Additionally, Yoplait is a major advocate for Breast Cancer Awareness which is a cause that is very important to me and many of my friends and family. So without further ado, let's dig in (pun intended)!
Yoplait.com
Yoplait's main website is informative, I'll give them that and is also very aesthetically pleasing. It provides fun recipes, information on how yogurt helps your digestive tract (did you know yogurt can help with lactose intolerance?) and provides information on the cause it supports, Breast Cancer Awareness.
Unfortunately, there is nothing social. Though a couple of its individual brands are on Facebook, Yoplait doesn't bother to link to these pages. And with all of this great information, where is the health and wellness blog I'd expect them to have? What a way to truly reach their audience, right? But no, sadly they are neglecting what feels like a great opportunity for this brand.
Yoplait on Facebook
The one thing that bothers me most is that Yoplait does not link to any of its brands' Facebook pages from its home page (it makes sense to me that it would). Because of this I must sift through every Yoplait profile that has been created to identify the "real" Yoplait profile(s). Through this research, I discovered that there isn't an official facebook fan page (not that I could find anyway) dedicated to the Yoplait brand. However, I did find two of the brands have fan pages that appear successful.
One of those brands is Yoplait Delights which has managed to generate well over 24,697 fans since the page was founded in September 2009. Yep, in just four months and it appears they have done this with very little interaction. Don't get me wrong, there was that honeymoon phase (September and October) where they posted multiple times a week. But now a lot more nothingness (is that a word? Well, it is now). One post in November, one in December, one in January and ZERO response to fans and their comments. Yet, when they do post, they receive at least 50 comments and 30 likes, which means they know how to engage their audience, they just may not know how to be engaging- make sense? Because this treat is seemingly so popular, it makes me wonder what would happen if they spent a little more time interacting- how many fans would they have then? How often would they comment?
Yoplait on Twitter
I guess I should say Yoplait NOT on Twitter. I searched and searched for Yoplait's official Twitter account but came up empty handed. I feel this is yet another missed opportunity. I keep saying "missed oppportuinty" because rarely do organizations have the priviledge of haivng so many natural fans, consumers that simply LOVE this brand, its products and love talking about it. With such a fan base, Yoplait could boost sales by simply offering coupons via its Twitter account as well as perhaps bits of informaiton and health facts found on their main page. How about building better Breast Cancer advocates as that is the cause supported by Yoplait? The education they could provide through some of these public outlets is endless. As you can see below, Yoplait's fans are on Twitter and they're talking, so why not join the conversation?
Additinionally, being on Twitter will drive more buzz, create more conversation which in-turn can build more brand awareness. Every time I see someone tweet about Yoplait, the word "delicious" typcially closely follows. How much more buzz could Yoplait cause if they were actually on Twitter? But wait, maybe, just maybe they are working on it. Someone has snagged the twitter.com/Yoplait URL but haven't yet done anything with it. Yoplait, are you getting ready to join the fun? Please?
YouTube
Yoplait enthusiasts are everywhere, including YouTube. Yoplait commercials have been posted all over YouTube to fan's channels, but there is no official Yoplait channel. However, the commercials are all posted on Yoplait.com and it does offer the ability to embed the video on your site and to share, which is a step, but no offcial YouTube channel (sigh).
Final Thoughts
When I took on #25 on our list, compiled from Peter Kim's 2008 post "A List of Social Media Marketing Examples," I was excited. I just knew Yoplait had to be doing some cool stuff. What I didn't know was they were only on his list for their French blog, Bravo la petite fleur! , and what I'd find them doing in the US would be a big whopping bowl of nothing, nodda, zip, zilch...you get the point. If only I could get my hands on the brand to help get them started. I would have a blast.
Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean they won't get there. It appears they've taken a few baby steps, or at least some of the individual divisions, like Yoplait Delights, will surely begin to pave the way for the remaining divisions and overall brand to become more socially active. With all that said, I have to say what bothers me most about Yoplait brand being inactive within the social sphere while some of its divisions are, is that segmenting product lines makes it impossible for consumers to find new products. Everything should be done through Yoplait brand channels and networks and then broken off from there (if at all). By segmenting product lines, you make it nearly impossible for consumers to discover information outside of that specific product's information.
But for now, all this talk about Yoplait has brought on a craving for a Rasberry Chocolate Yoplait Delight so while I head to the grocery store, let me know what you think so I can read your thoughts while enjoying my tasty treat.
29 January 2010 | 9:50 am
FaceReviews: Facebook Applications Reviews and Facebook News
- NYC Social Media Event for Business: Gravity Summit NYC is an event that I am producing on November 16. This event is unlike most social media events as it is focused on the business world with real case studies and best practices from brands that are doing it right.
Register NOW
8:30 AM — Registration - Prepare for the day (please be on [...]
9 November 2009 | 11:42 am - Facebook Jumps the Walled Garden to Twitter: Facebook has had Twitter envy for the past 6 months.It was only a matter of time before facebook got it right and allowed actions on their site to jump over the facebook wall. Facebook just announced that you will be able to publish from facebook pages to twitter. Smart move for a variety of reason; [...]
20 August 2009 | 9:34 pm - Michael Jackson and Facebook: U Can’t Beat It: Here is a quick rundown of the final stats after today’s Michael Jackson Memorial service for the King of Pop. You were able to see users status updates that were entered on the CNN site and connected back to users facebook accounts. At one point in the morning users were posting Approx 6,000 status updates [...]
8 July 2009 | 1:02 am
- Blogging Dynamite: The Power of Connections: Far too often I find that people are getting caught up with the technical aspects of blogging like which plugins are the best, which designs are the most appealing, which methods of SEO yield the greatest results while at the same forgetting about the most important aspect of all, connecting with real people.
Original Post: Blogging Dynamite: The Power of Connections
9 March 2010 | 11:54 pm - Ever Considered Launching a Membership Site?: Created by Yaro Starak, this is a 6-week program that you'll give you all the information you need to launch a profitable membership site. The program was closed for the past six months, and today it is opening again for new members.
Original Post: Ever Considered Launching a Membership Site?
9 March 2010 | 12:29 pm - 5 Tips To Get The Most Out of Your 99Designs.com Contest: I’ve always considered logo’s the realm of big multinational companies. Companies like AOL or Amazon who have thousands of dollars to throw at new designs.
Therefore, despite being constantly told about their importance and the value of branding for my blog I’ve ignored the advice. I’ve put it to the back of my mind and decided to focus on other things. After all logo’s are really expensive aren’t they?
Original Post: 5 Tips To Get The Most Out of Your 99Designs.com Contest
8 March 2010 | 10:07 am