1. Simplicity- Tweetathons mostly rely on hash tags to get word out (which are the phrases that start with a “#” making it easy to search on Twitter). This means to spread awareness all you have to do is send out a tweet using the respective hash tag. You can do that in 140 characters or less and in less than 20 seconds. Also, for a Tweetathon, donations are typically all online so with just one click of a button (literally, if you are using PayPal and all your credit card information is already saved there) you can create your impact.
2. Speed - This one obviously goes hand in hand with the simplicity. Everything is so simple and it’s all done electronically so everything can be done in less than 2 minutes from spreading the word to making a donation.
3. Ease of transaction - There is no mail to open (although I am by no means discounting the impact of direct mail), no check to write, no postage to worry about. All of your philanthropic efforts can be done in one place…on your computer. You can discover the cause, donate, and help spread the word all within one social network, Twitter.
4. Community-like vibe - You’ll notice that people really seem to come together during a Tweetathon, even strangers. Through the use of the hash tags (mentioned earlier) people who have donated or spread the word can find one another and come together for conversation…and they typically do.
5. Immediate results - I recently participated in a Tweetathon that utilized Chip In which I think is a fantastic tool. Chip In visually shows the progress being made with each new donation and allows you to see the direct impact your individual donation has made and how much more is needed until the goal is reached.
6. Impending deadline – Tweetathons typically last 12 – 48 hours. This places a sense of urgency on potential donors and lead most of them to make that donation now.
7. Information at your fingertips – Say you have never heard of a particular cause or campaign but you see someone use a hash tag relating to it on Twitter. So what do you do? 99% of people would probably Google it and why not? They are already at their computer and spending time online. If the situation were to occur offline people may forget about it by the time they reach a computer or interest may wane by the time they have access to online resources. The more you know about a cause the more willing and likely you are going to be to donate. When you utilize Twitter or other social media sites to fundraise you are reaching people in the arena where they are most likely to donate in a short amount of time.

With all of this taken into account not to mention the growing popularity of Twitter it’s no wonder Tweetathons have proven themselves to be a success. There is also no direct monetary cost of running a Tweetathon. There is of course time that goes into it and possible costs associated with any extra elements you may add (i.e.-a raffle or prize). But if you are a nonprofit and have not taken this option into consideration yet maybe it’s time to look into Twitter as a valuable resource.

The only thing working against this phenomenon right now is the fact that not everyone has a smartphone which is needed to scan the code and be linked to the website associated with it. But it will only be a matter of time until everyone and their brother has smartphones. Non-smartphones will most likely suffer the same fate as VHS players that stopped being manufactured once DVD players hit the market. Now that smartphones are here, they are here to stay and will dominate until all other phones are eventually phased out. This growing market for smartphones means QR codes will become more and more relevant in consumers’ daily lives.

Just as we’ve (well most of us) have accepted social media as a permanent presence in our lives, professionally and personally, we will all most likely embrace QR codes as a common practice too. There is no going backwards in technology. I am sure more and more uses are going to become available for QR codes and they will become harder and harder to resist in marketing as was the case with social media.

Click here to see an example of a QR code in the Iron Man 2 movie poster.

Coca Cola and Ocean Conservancy have launched a social media campaign on April 14th in honor of Earth Month. They are hoping to raise $200,000 to support Ocean Conservancy’s efforts in keeping oceans and rivers clean and help raise general awareness of their marine debris programs.  This campaign involves a Facebook application where you can upload a photo to “oceanize” yourself and then use that photo as your profile picture in which case Coca Cola will then donate $1 to the Ocean Conservancy in your honor. Sounds all good right? Well there is some good, bad, and ugly here.

Good:

• There is incentive to share the photo and raise awareness for this cause…but mainly because you have to share it by making it your profile picture in order for Coca Cola to make the donation in your honor.
• There is the potential for this to go viral. Eyebrows will certainly be raised when your “friends’” profile pictures are of them snorkeling, swimming with sharks, or getting cozy with a dolphin.
• The campaign is on the “Live Positively” tab on the main Coca Cola fan page where there are already over 5,000,000 fans (a.k.a. “likes”). This means Coca Cola did not have to worry about creating a new platform or audience. People are already there (on the page) and are ready and willing to listen.
• They make uploading photos easy because you can choose one that is already in one of your Facebook albums.
• Coca Cola is using cross channel promotion to get word out about this. They are using print and online advertisements all with the tagline, “71% of the Earth’s surface is ocean. Shouldn’t 100% of it be clean?” to create consistency.

Bad:

• Profile pictures are not to be taken lightly in the Facebook world. While it seems to be the perfect opportunity for creating a viral campaign and a perfect tool for generating awareness, how many people are actually willing to de-glamorize their profile picture and dedicate it to a tightly cropped photo of their head in a wetsuit on a body that isn’t even theirs? So while there is great potential for success if people embrace this concept, there is also great potential for this campaign to be much less accepted than Coca Cola may have originally anticipated.

Ugly:

• Coca Cola missed an important segment. I am sure there are plenty of people who would have otherwise participated if they could have “oceanized” themselves but not been obligated to make it their profile picture. Not everyone may consider a $1 donation on Coca Cola’s behalf incentive enough to change their picture but perhaps some kind of stronger incentive would be enough? This segment should have been given more consideration so that Coca Cola could have better involved everyone in the campaign (not just one type of participation/engagement level).

Walmart and the ASPCA have launched the “Lend a Paw” campaign in honor of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month. Unlike Coca Cola’s campaign, this campaign has a Facebook page all on its own with over 2,000 fans (again, or “likes”) but perhaps taking the Coca Cola approach (making it a tab on the company’s main Facebook page) would have been better. There are almost 1,000,000 fans on the Walmart page and these fans are more likely to find this campaign on the pages which they are already spending time on. Anyway, Walmart will donate $1 (up to $100,000) for each wall post spreading the message about this campaign. (There is a pre-generated message and all you have to do is click the “Create a Lend a Paw Post” on their fan page). So what’s good, bad, and ugly here?

Good:

• Instant gratification – as soon as you click “share” you see your post and know that it equates to a donation from Walmart. There is a tally on the landing page too that lets you know how much money was raised so far (which was $872 at the time this post was written).
• Participants (or anyone for that matter) can view overall progress at any point by checking out the tally.
• It’s setting the scene for peer to peer fundraising because the wall posts are meant to encourage others in your social network to keep spreading the word in order to keep those donations rolling in from Walmart.
• There is integration with Twitter as well so you can share the same message via Tweets.
• The simplicity of the campaign is nice…

Bad:

• But is it too simple? Is there enough going on to generate buzz? Probably not.
• I have not seen any cross channel promotion for this campaign.
• There is no mention of this campaign on the Walmart Facebook page or the ASPCA Facebook page.

Ugly:

• So many missed opportunities here. There is very poor promotion surrounding this campaign. As already mentioned, there are no links to the Lend a Paw page on either organization’s main Facebook Page but there is also no mention of the campaign on either of their websites either! How do they plan on getting 100,000 posts?? The lack of effort is not good on their part. Do they really care or is this just a half-hearted PR thing?

So while Facebook is becoming more widely used in fundraising, it is looking there’s going to be an adjustment period until people figure out what works and what doesn’t and that will be different for every organization. As for Coca Cola and Walmart, I think these organizations will figure it out by trial and error but having a full understanding before diving into social media fundraising is obviously ideal. You have to understand the network, the users, the demographic, and behavior before it can be a success. Using Facebook as a fundraising tool has already proven to be a success with one of our clients. Click here to check out the case study. Results from this campaign included increasing the number of fans for their Facebook page from 39 to 268 and raising over $1,000 in donations in a short amount of time. With the right understanding and preparation and forward thinking Facebook fundraising can indeed bring in results.

People are giving social media credit for changing the way that things work in the marketing world. It’s being said that consumers are conversing on these platforms and you, as a company, now need to reach them on a personal and relevant level on the same platforms in order to earn their trust and respect. Wasn’t that how it’s always been?? This was especially noted in a blog post by Mark Schaefer, The Social Web: New Battlefield, Same War. Mark notes that marketing has always been based on this system of meritocracy. This is nothing new. Social media is just a new channel to market through using the same principles that have been around forever.

Also, this idea of people talking about products/services, providing reviews and recommendations, and participating in either positive or negative word of mouth is not new. The new platform to do this on (social media) has just expanded the reach of these messages and provides documentation since these conversations transpire via visible instant messages, newsfeeds, Tweets, Facebook posts, etc (which is actually great for companies/organizations because they can monitor what is being said). According to an article by Business Week, social media has just taken word of mouth marketing digital, nothing more, nothing less.

All in all social media is really not that much of a foreign concept and it does not change things as much as some people claim. Given all of this, it should not require that much of a change in thinking in order to perceive social media marketing as familiar and doable for your company/organization.

While the concept behind it is not new, social media itself does provide something new and exciting: opportunity. As usual it’s all about perception and how we look at things. If we view social media as this scary intimidating monster than that is what it’s going to be, but if you look at it as the same phenomenon that’s been going on all along just in a new playing field than that’s really all it is. Read this interesting post by Seth Godin on why some people may still be resistant to embracing this change. Social media marketing is a process you learn as you go along and you aren’t going to get anywhere until you actually just jump in. The opportunity is here and now is the time to start finding your place in the realm of social media. It is not the foreign land you may perceive it to be.

They have used some ways to get word out about their Twitter and Facebook Page that I have not come across before. The company runs videos/commercials throughout their stores featuring Carson Kressley who invites everyone to fan the brand on Facebook. He even creates a sense of urgency at the end by making a quick exit to go read the new promotion that was just posted on the NY & CO Fan Page. Getting word out about their social media presence while people are currently engaged with the brand (shopping in the store) is a great way to capture consumers’ attention. Not only that but I think it’s a great way to have them hear and retain the message. The brand also utilizes their shopping bags to advertise their social media avatars. You’ll find phrases like “Follow our CMO on Twitter.com/NYStyle” and advertisements for their Facebook Fan Page on the bags which are carried around the mall for everyone to see.

On Twitter, you can interact directly with the Chief Marketing Office of NY & CO. Follow @NYStyle to learn about promotions, stay on top of deals, be entered for a chance to win clothing, and be informed as to what is going on on the New York & Company Facebook Fan Page.

On the Facebook Page, again, you can find out about promotions and deals, have discussions, read/write reviews, watch videos, get a sneak peek of looks for the upcoming season, and learn about job opportunities with the company. A lot of the videos include Carson Kressley and some good-natured humor.

Just by visiting the website, nyandcompany.com, you would not know the company has a social media presence which is a little odd. Some companies do this to try and keep their website and social media sites separate but that should be a thing of the past. Companies/organizations should now be working to integrate social media with their websites to create a cohesive strategy and increase overall brand awareness. A majority of people and demographics have taken to social media by now so it would be wise to incorporate social media into an already existing strategy (or create a new fully integrated marketing strategy) rather than running it as a separate entity.

1. Pretend you can do without it. – Ms. Taylor is yet another source proclaiming that social media is not a fad and that it is indeed here to stay. It would be a huge mistake to pretend this new channel of communication does not exist. It is much like when the telephone was invented and telemarketing was born. Now that social media is here (forever and ever more) it is time to integrate a social media marketing plan into your company’s or organization’s agenda.
2. Play down the costs. – Yes, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are free for everyone to utilize but using these platforms properly and efficiently takes time and skill. In the long run however this investment of time can be worth it. These social media sites can be used for customer service, public relations, and market research, all projects that may have previously been outsourced.
3. Act like you own the conversation. – As quoted from the article, “Just as you wouldn’t walk into a cocktail party and start bragging about yourself, you shouldn’t just jump into the conversation in social media channels either,” according to Paul Cheney aka The Social Media Handyman. Listen first then ease your way into the conversation. Talk about things that don’t relate directly to your company and your business goals first to gain credibility and trust . Once that trust is gained then you increase the chances of people being more receptive to your business offers.
4. Being afraid to give employees control over social media communications – If you already trust employees to communicate with current and potential customers via phone and email then you should trust them to provide adequate customer service through sites such as Twitter as well. Zappos employs a very successful and efficient social media strategy that empowers their employees. Employees are given individual twitter accounts and blogs on the Zappos website. There are hundreds of Zappos employees tweeting on behalf of the company.
5. Assume you have little to learn. – You can learn a lot by listening to conversations that are going on within your target market. Dell was happily chugging along as a business until the company discovered “Dell Hell”, blog posts dedicated solely to Dell customer service horror stories. Thanks to this discovery Dell learned that they needed to better coordinate technical support and customer service to resolve issues more quickly. Since Dell has become active in social media themselves the company has brought in over $3 million in revenue through Twitter alone.
6. Take negative feedback personally. – There will always be people who will have something negative to say about your brand or company. You can’t take it personally but you can use it as an opportunity to hear things from other people’s perspective and address any real problems directly. Comcast has been on the receiving end of some negative talk about their customer service in the past but rather then hide from the issue or neglect it they have confronted it head on by opening a Twitter account and using it as a customer relationship management tool.
7. Fret about return on investment. - There is ROI with social media, it just may be tougher to measure than traditional marketing tactics. Just watch this video or read this article for proof of the potential ROI and tips on how to gain a near accurate measurement of it.
8. Underestimate the power of seemingly small efforts. – Social media is more about establishing real connections with current and potential customers than it is about achieving specific business goals. People need interaction and assurance from brands to make a real connection these days given all the different options available in the marketplace. In the Catharine Taylor’s blog post, one company’s president acknowledges that he would do a lot to build his brand regardless of immediate economic payback.

All of these mistakes are easy enough to avoid and with time, dedication, and persistence your social media strategy and marketing efforts can pay off.

The overall conclusion is that the future is looking bright for social media marketers. The number of people who are not using social media or are not interested in engaging with companies through social media is shrinking. “The study found that marketers who embrace the medium and communicate relevant messages in consumers’ language and on their terms could gain customers and grow sales,” says one article from Chief Marketer. Some findings from the study are as follows:

• 34% percent of respondents have used a search engine to find information on a product, service or brand after seeing an advertisement on a social networking site
• 30% of respondents have learned about a new product, service or brand from a social networking site
• 32% of respondents said messages about printable coupons on social sites resonate with them
• 28% percent of respondents said messages about sales or special deal notifications resonate with them

There were also findings relating to specific social network sites. “We knew that these sites are extremely popular for socializing, but the level of interest for branding and promotional marketing content is surprisingly large,” says Scott Haiges, President of ROI Research. Some of the findings related to specific sites are as follows:

• Forty-six percent of respondents say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook
• Forty-four percent of Twitter users have recommended a product
• Thirty-six percent of YouTube users say that they have gone to an online retailer or ecommerce site after learning about a brand on a social network site

This study provides significant insight to the potential success of social media marketing in increasing brand awareness and sales. We’ve been hearing about the possible impact of social media marketing long enough but now we have solid evidence indicating how powerful of a marketing tool it can really be.  After all, everyone who is one these social networking sites is a consumer as well.

Benefits of using Twitter for your business include increasing brand awareness, gaining competitive intelligence, promoting blog/website content, personifying your brand, and it can be an internal communication tool and a CRM tool. Twitter is being taken more seriously as a marketing tool by more companies each day and it will only increase in how beneficial it can be for your business. With the launch of social media search engines from Google and Bing, companies can more effectively search for their brand in social media and find out more telling information about their target market.

Examples of Twitter success stories include:

• Dell’s Twitter account brought in over $2 million in revenue from followers alone thanks to Twitter exclusive deals.
• Southwest was able to do major damage control on Twitter (which has over 815,000 followers) after a hole was found in one of its planes in July.
• Threadless, a community-based t-shirt company, has been recognized as one of Chicago’s top 10 most Gen-Y friendly companies thanks to their heavy interaction with consumers through Twitter (there are over 1,300,000 followers).
• BBgeeks, a blackberry troubleshooting and enthusiast site, developed a strategy to grow their Twitter account which resulted in over 500 followers who may not have heard of them had it not been for their activity on Twitter, several hundred site visits from Twitter each month, and has created networking opportunities that have led to gaining access to exclusive press conferences.
• Comcast uses Twitter as a CRM tool by monitoring all mentions of their brand and personally responding to comments, complaints, and concerns through phone calls, emails, and tweets.
• Through Twitter, American Apparel, a vertically integrated clothing manufacturer, linked up with a fan/photographer to advertise on his blog, pacingthepanicroom.com, and it became one of the top performing sites for American Apparel’s online ads.
• Zappos has successfully utilized Twitter as a tool to help employees communicate with each other more effectively and efficiently.

Proof that Twitter is here to stay can be found at a university in Australia. Griffith University has made Twitter a required class for journalism students. It’s time to really embrace Twitter whether you currently love it, are indifferent to it, or wish it would crash and diasppear from the earth forever. It’s proving that it’s not just a fad and here to stay as it’s becoming a tool that people are using on a daily basis to communicate and get things done.

Throughout their yearlong adventure the Happiness Ambassadors will share their experiences by posting blogs, tweeting, and sharing interviews, videos, and pictures. You can find them on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and other social networking sites as well as on the Expedition 206 website. People can interact with the bloggers at any point and offer suggestions on where to go and what to do. Adam Brown, director of Coca-Cola’s Office of Digital Communications and Social Media says, “It’s about telling the story that involves Coca-Cola, that involves the attributes of what Coca-Cola is about, optimism and joy.”

“So many things we normally think of as individualistic — like what our body size is, or what we think about a political topic, or whether we are happy — are actually collective phenomena,” says Christakis. For example, in their research Fowler and Christakis found that if a person is obese there is a 50% chance their closest friend is obese, a 20% chance of a friend of a friend being obese, and a 10% chance that a friend of a friend of a friend is obese. 

So what can this mean for Web 2.0 marketers who are using social media and online social networks to get word out about their brand? According to both Fowler and Christakis there is no real difference between face to face friends and virtual friends.  People meet in niche social network sites, customer review sites, forums, etc. to gather information and to help them form opinions and make decisions. Through communication on these sites people build influencial relationships where the Three Degrees of Influence rule may apply.

Throwing a message out into the universe and relying on word of mouth is not enough anymore. Targeting social media and those who are influential in the realm of social media should have a positive impact on how your message is received and how your brand is perceived. Those who have the most friends online are more likely to have the most friends offline as well according to a study that will be published next year in the American Behavioral Scientist journal. Those who have read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point can recognize these influencial people as “connectors” who “link us up with the world” and “have a special gift for bringing the world together” and realize the value they can add to a business.