Case Studies
Morton's The Steakhouse Serves up Lots of Social Media
Morton’s The Steakhouse uses Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to spread the word about the restaurant chain and its events and to keep communicating and conversing with its customers. In a wide-ranging interview that appeared in Chain Leader, Roger Drake, the restaurant chain’s senior vice president of marketing and communications, talked about some of its social media efforts. …more…
The NHL's New Twitter Feeds
A real-time Twitter feed on the National Hockey League’s site is increasing interaction with fans. In December, the NHL became the first in a handful of companies to launch a white-label platform from TweetMixx that aggregates tweets from Twitter on websites and blogs.
The NHL has three Twitter feeds labeled Insiders, Chatter and Links. While all provide interesting information, the one with the greatest influence comes from the Insiders’ Tab, where tweets stream from influential North American hockey writers. In Canada and the United States, the NHL-related stream on Twitter appeared in the top 10 trending topics. Those tweets feed through the TweetMixx Channel and …more…
Social Media Aids the Brand of Toyota
Toyota’s aggressive social media efforts are helping it to avoid losing the public’s trust in its product. Toyota actually has grown its Facebook fan base more than 10% since late January, around the time of the marketer’s Jan. 21 recall announcement and its Jan. 26 stop-sale date. Toyota’s secret weapon: using one of the most important tools in a crisis-communications handbook: social media.
The marketer has been faulted for communicating too little and too late in traditional media, but it’s gone all out when it comes to Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social-media channels. Prior to the recall, Toyota didn’t have a reputation as an aggressive social-media adopter, yet it’s managed to increase the number of fans on its main …more…
Del Taco's Integrated Facebook, TV Promos Pay Off
Del Taco, a Mexican chain, grew its Facebook fan base from 20,000+ to 43,000+ in just five weeks after launching its entertainment webisodes platform, “The Del Taco Super Special Show,”on Facebook. The humorous webisodes are aimed at the chain’s core audience of men 18-39).
The chain’s TV spots now feature a clip from the webisode show at its start, and a shout-out for the Facebook page/show at its conclusion. Placements of online and social media ads for the show, as well as the creative and offers featured, are being tweaked daily based on impressions, click-throughs and other metrics. Tweets that promote the show and special offers are also ongoing. …more…
Appeal of Social Media Grows for Lunch Meat Makers
The New York Times‘ Stuart Elliott has a good look at a couple of social media campaigns that, as he says tongue-in-cheek, could be called “meatups.” The brands, Land O’Frost and Sara Lee Deli, both sell salami, bologna and other lunch meats.
For Land O’Frost, the campaign represents its first foray into the social media. There is a web community called Land O’Moms, where visitors can exchange recipes and parenting advice, download coupons, read articles from women’s magazines and communicate with popular mommy bloggers. Land O’Frost and the campaign also have …more…
JetBlue Marketer to Agencies: Find Me on Twitter
One basic way agencies can demonstrate digital chops to a potential client? Find him or her on Twitter. That’s the lesson to be learned from JetBlue’s senior VP-marketing and commercial, Marty St. George (who will be speaking on June 14 at TWTRCON NY), who decided to test agencies currently vying for the airline’s marketing account with this tweet: “We’re pitching our advertising AOR. Curious on digital savvy … first test is how many of the agencies will find me on Twitter.” …more…
Southwest Airlines Bumps the Wrong Passenger, DiscoversTwitter PR Mess
On Saturday, the crew of a Southwest Airlines flight between the California cities of Oakland and Burbank asked a passenger to leave the plane before takeoff because it deemed him too overweight to fly. Unfortunately, that passenger happened to be Clerks and Chasing Amy director Kevin Smith, who has more than 1.5 million Twitter followers and was willing to make sure that they all heard all about it.
“Dear @SouthwestAir – I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?” Smith asked in a heavily quoted tweet on Saturday evening. Smith eventually posted dozens of tweets about the …more…
How the PGA Tour Uses Social Media to Connect With Fans
The PGA Tour hired a dedicated social media employee in 2007 and has worked with its partner Turner Sports to make social media a core part of their editorial and marketing focus. Mashable has published an article detailing the league’s social media activities, and the business benefits it is seeing from that investment.
The league currently runs a number of active social media accounts. The central hubs are their Twitter account (~20,000 followers), their Facebook Fan Page (~37,000 fans), and their YouTube channel (~4 million views). Each of these social media outlets gives the PGA Tour a platform for posting news, scoring updates, calls to action, and multimedia, as well as a place for fans to sound off, ask questions, voice concerns, or generally connect with Tour officials and each other.
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Awe is Most Likely to Inspire Sharing (Among NYTimes Reades)
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have intensively studied the New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles, checking it every 15 minutes for more than six months, analyzing the content of thousands of articles and controlling for factors like the placement in the paper or on the Web home page. The results show that:
- People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes
- More emotional stories were more likely to be e-mailed
- They liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics (Editorial note: remember the audience)
- Most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list. In general, 20% of articles that appeared on the Times home page made the list, but the rate rose to 30% for science articles
- Surprising articles, like one about free-range chickens on the streets of New York, were also more likely to be e-mailed
Reaching Millions With Twitter: The Whole Foods Story
Marla Erwin, Interactive Art Director for Whole Foods Market, was instrumental in creating Whole Foods’ acclaimed social media program and the results have been phenomenal! For example, in the first year, Wholefoods gained a million Twitter followers. It has now surpassed 1.75 million people with its 150 different Twitter accounts (some are devoted to products, such as cheese or wine, for example).
Whole Foods uses Twitter primarily as a customer service tool. Erwin says Whole Foods does promote its blog content and may …more…
