The Groundswell Today – Not A Thing of the Past

Stay updated through the groundswell

            Business strategy books run the risk of becoming outdated due to periodical changes in the business world. Groundswell, however, has not fallen into that dilemma. Ina way, the groundswell sticks to traditional marketing objectives used by businessesfor the past decade but it knows how best to adapt to changes. We are the user, moderators, facilitators…however you want to call us…of the groundswell. It is there for us to appropriate for the benefit of our company and customers. In conclusion to the Groundswell book, Li and Bernoff describe the evolution of the groundswell as the ‘ubiquitous groundswell’. “The net result of all thisaccelerating activity is that the groundswell is about to get embedded withinevery activity, not just the computers, but on mobile devices and in the realworld”. This ultimately means that social networks will connect people with the groups they care about.

            Don’t you think that everyday, we push the cyber boundaries of the groundswell and are taken by surprise? I certainly know from my personal experience that the future of the groundswell is happening everyday. I receive immediate updates on my iphone of new emails, I tweet to my followers and I geotag my instagrams. Throughout all of my social media activity, I am constantly learning something new. I am assimilated into social media, but I would not that that I am fully assimilated. “All that’s missing is participation – by more people, and by morecompanies – and that’s coming. Rapidly.” Li and Bernoff also remind us that it is not about the technology, because if we were to focus on that aspect alone, companies would get nowhere and companies will lose control. Their social media marketing strategies will be “outdated” if technology was a priority.

It is also important to learn from other social media marketing gurus. Tim Leberecht, chief marketing officer at Frog, helps to spark and nurture new thinking among marketers all over the world by teaching them “3 ways to (usefully) lose control of your brand”. First, you can give people more control through collaboration to create new ideas (embracing). The second, is to give people less control with more meaning. Giving people less control counters the abundance of choice that customers might have online. Letting employees and customers interact limits that radical openness of the company (speaking). The third is to stay true to the brand’s true self. Do you think your company could live by these three advices?

The groundswell can help any business, no matter which stage of success or failure they are at. From a dying business to a thriving one, the groundswell is always there to help. Patagonia is a outdoor clothing company that released a daring sustainability campaign online and offline called “Don’t Buy This Jacket”. It is a part of their mission to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. “It would be hypocritical for us to workfor environmental change without encouraging customers to think before they buy.” Patagonia is honest with their consumers, so much so that they are willing to address the need to reduce consumption event though they thrive on product sales. They used the groundswell, like blogging, to spread this campaign and their website to gather pledges from enthusiastic fans. They have acknowledged the reality that brand identity and staying true to their mission is put on a pedestal online. They are marketing their brand’s transparency and it is working.  

The future of the groundswell is what is happening right now, how we are using it today, and not what we can predict it will do tomorrow. Taking risks involve making immediately decisions and the groundswell encourages that because of its unlimited possibilities and outcomes. Patagonia took a might big risk. I want to encourage companies to do the same but to understand your objectives thoroughly first before submerging into the groundswell. Make Li and Bernoff proud!

Li and Bernoff Groundswell Lessons summarized:

• Never forget that the groundswell is about person-to-person activity
• Be a good listener – listen to customers, employees, etc.
• Be patient – take that first step towards your journey, it will take time
• Be opportunistic – progress is progress even if it is small
• Be flexible – continue to adjust and learn from decisions
• Be collaborative - use support from colleagues and customers
• Be humble – understand that power in the groundswell does not belong to you

Please feel free to leave me any questions or comments.

Lululemon Athletica

Social Monitoring Report 1

     As a loyal customer of Lululemon, I immediately felt drawn to monitor its social media presence. I believe in their brand, their mission and the products to deliver greatness with every Lululemon product I own. Choosing Lululemon as the case study in my social monitoring project will help me go beyond my relationship with the brand as just a customer. I will be dipping my toes into the marketing world and attempt to give back to the brand with the skills I have attained through amateur social media marketing experience. This social monitoring project aims to create a portfolio of Lululemon’s character, habits and voice in the social media world as well as a personal analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Lululemon Athletica is a self-described yoga-inspired athletic apparel company with stores in major cities all over the world. Their mission is to “create components for people to live long, healthy, and fun lives”. Their seven core values include: quality, product, integrity, balance entrepreneurship, greatness, and fun. 

Campaign Analysis

     Lululemon has created a campaign of brand ambassadors from all over the world. Selected to represent the Lululemon brand, these ambassadors are ordinary people who are passionate about certain athletic related activities. These individuals are chosen weekly and become the focus of their marketing. I have been monitoring Lululemon’s social media activities since September 29^th in an attempt to analyze the brand’s strengths, weaknesses and trends of their online marketing. Google Insights, Social Mention and  analytic tools that I have used to construct a overview of their social media presence. 

Social Media Presence

     There seems to be a lack of cohesion in the campaign idea, maybe because the campaign of ambassadors is not strong. I observe that Lululemon’s Facebook page is the only page that coincides with the main website and promotes the ambassador, however the other social media platforms do not. Their Twitter page is very vibrant and abstract unlike the others, perhaps because there are always so many tweets and so much going on. Their YouTube page offers funny and inspirational videos, but the uploads are random and there is not much emphasis on product-specific videos. Their blog is created as part of their website, which is clever because it makes their website much more user friendly and interactive. Based upon the comments and ‘likes’, the blog has little online activity. In addition, they also have social media sites with Pintrest, Flickr, and Instagram. 

Home webpage Lululemon.com

     The high-definition photography on the homepage is stunning and visually appealing. You can see how the ambassador truly becomes the focus of the website.

Target Audience

     Using the Alexa web information tool, the audience demographic for Lululemon is clearly represented in a chart. Based on Internet averages, lululemon.com is visited more frequently by females who are in the age range of 25-34, have no children, are college educated and browse this site from work. It is clear that males are greatly under-represented relative to the general population, even though Lululemon has a wide range of men’s wear. It successfully appeals to females but it fails to appeal to men.

Social Mention Analysis

 Social Mention showed that the percentage for strength and reach dipped and rose again over the course of 30 days. The sentiment steadily decreased over time from 10:1 to 9:1 and finally to 5:1. It shows that the number of positive sentiment has significantly decreased from 126 to 68 only, significantly affecting the ratio of positive and negative sentiment. This decrease in positivity reflects the recent customer posts on Facebook. Customer have been more likely to post about concerns and problems they have with the brand or product, and happy customers have not been posting much. The number of unique authors also decreased over time. The week of August 10 marked a slow social media presence for Lululemon with only 1% strength, 13 hours average per mention and 0 retweets. I expected the results to be more extensive, especially because it is such a popular brand.

Trends

• Facebook insights with Socialbakers - Lululemon online fans are growing positively and steadily over the past 30 days

• Twitter insights with TwitterReach, Socialbaker and Twitalyzer

• Decline in YouTube viewership of Lululemon Ambassador campaign videos

• Google Insights 30 days comparative analysis for Lululemon web search show that the company's social media campaign and marketing is more successful in 2012 than 2011

     Lululemon's Facebook and Twitter followers have significantly increased over the weeks.  Their facebook account receives a whopping average of 404 fan 'likes' per day! Their popularity is soaring according to social media statistics, but the change may not be due to their ambassador campaign. In fact, the section on qualitative analysis will go into detail about the effect of the ambassador campaign on facebook. I would attribute its online success to the forms of marketing that reinforces the brand, not so much the campaign. However, it is arguable that perhaps the ambassador campaign does have an impact. The highest peak in Google Insights "Interest Over Time" graph is dated October 15, which coincides with the blog post on Springfield Avenue ambassador Gina. The lowest drop occurs on October 11, with the blog post on "meditation for your yoga rut". The statistical trend seem to shock me because the comparison of these two topics posted on Lululemon's facebook timeline do not match the statistics of the blog posts. The facebook post on Gina received only 27 'likes', while the post on meditation received 327 'likes'. The decline of viewership of ambassador YouTube videos may prove how the campaign is not strong enough.

Qualitative Analysis

• Absence of buzz created with the Lululemon blog - even the blog post that coincided with the peak in 'interest over time' graph does not draw much attention

• Speaking: Transparency with customers on their products and materials - a very important trait for companies to grow a community of consumers loyal to the brand

• Energizing the groundswell: Active integration of alternative offline marketing strategies through Steve, the Pace Beaver (an innovative and in-your-face publicity tool), posted on facebook and on the blog to get consumers to market for them through word of mouth marketing

• Relevant humor created in response to social media movements - YouTube trends
• Embracing the groundswell: Lululemon really tries to embrace the groundswell through social media. The brand is most active with their customers on Facebook. Customers do comment on how the stitching comes undone or how their product should also be made for more voluptuous women. Customers are embraced by the Lululemon customer service team who respond to these disappointed customers in a way that is constructive and respectful. Lululemon does a very good job communicating with their customers to ensure that their product and brand lives up to their mission and the expectations of customers.
• The response team has a very personal and human tone of voice and sign off each comment with the name of the Lululemon team member that responded. At the same time, there are often complaints or concerns raised by unhappy customers that Lululemon does not respond to. If the question is too complicated, or Lululemon can't do anything about, there is usually no response at all. (see image on right)

Positive and Negative Feedback

• Personal test on social media response rate and customer service - 13 mins.
• Negative response rate is sometimes quite prompt and sometimes not attended to. The Lululemon customer service team is ready to handle certain types of complaints that concern the size of women or the shipping. However, when it appears that the negative comment has to deal with business policies, the response is straight forward without any follow up or solution. 

• Negative "tweets" observed through IceRocket seem to highlight the expensive prices or the status of people who wear the brand

• Response rate and reply of positive comments were always immediate, friendly and encouraging. The Lululemon team were very keen on answering all product related questions because their first priority is sales.

Conclusive Analysis

     On monitoring Lululemon Athletica's social media marketing, I am shocked to conclude that based upon my 30 day analysis, the Ambassador campaign is not very successful. It does not generate the most online traffic. The campaign, when posted on social media sites other than their website, is not given a heightened status unlike other companies. It is integrated into Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube in a way that portrays it as just another post, tweet or video. The differing social media platforms market generally the same 'concept' or 'news' for that day. Although it is the Lululemon blog that first posts the latest Lululemon news, it has the smallest online community and generates the least amount of traffic. These posts will reach Facebook, often one or two days later but receive a lot more buzz because it has a greater reach. It is also clear the although Lululemon is also a male clothing brand, men are underrepresented or simply not part of the marketing plan.

     There is more evidence showing the mild effect of the ambassador campaign. The ambassador campaign does not receive as much attention on Facebook compared to the timeline posts about new products or inspirational messages. Posted since October 10, the timeline post about Jill, the ambassador, only received 310 ‘likes’. However, the post about new running pants only posted three days ago already received 517 'likes'. Customers are still more interested in the new products posts according to the facebook analysis. Customers' communicate well with each other through helpful conversation. The ambassador campaign YouTube videos have significantly dropped in viewership despite Lululemon's attempts to integrate it onto their website, blog and Facebook page. It is also evident that Lululemon does not reply to customer comments and feedback on their homepage, and are more active on the facebook page returning responses to even the most mundane of questions. Lululemon certainly succeeds in a lot of areas of social media, but there are elements of it that are not delivering the ideal marketing plan.

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions for me!

Generate Buzz Online and Offline

Going back to the old-school word-of-mouth marketing: Share Magnet and Street Teams

      We have entered into the digital age…yet, the best advice Li and Bernoff can give us is to focus on word of mouth marketing? I thought we were moving forward here with the groundswell but it seems as though we needs to go back to old-school marketing tricks. “Word of mouth is a powerful amplifier of brand marketing marketing,achieving results no media campaign can achieve”. Word of mouth marketing succeeds because it’s believable, self-enforcing and self-spreading. 

     After watching that video, it’s hard to disprove that this form of marketing is the most credible and believable. For more information, you should check out WOMMA, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing and advocating the discipline of credible word of mouth marketing. They believe that it is a solution to business challenges and a key component in the creation of Talkable Brands. If you were a brand, wouldn’t you want online communities raving about your product? Of course! The reason why word of mouth marketing is so effective is because you are building up your brand’s list of loyal customers. Loyal customers who are enthusiastic about your product become brand ambassadors who will share powerful positive opinions with the online world. Let's learn more about Share Magnet...

     Share Magnet brings advertisers and customers together with the power of sharing. It relies on its users to spread advertisements with word-of-mouth advertising. Advertisers can set up a "magnet" which is a link that goes to their website. 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations! Users get paid a small amount per click. Share Magner is an advertising platform that brings together businesses ("advertisers") that create ads ("magnets"), with individuals who are willing to share those ads on their social media networks ("sharers"). Share Magnet's is clever by capitalizing on the popularity of social media and the amount of time we spend on it sharing information with each other. This sharing is advertising for them and they are willing to pay us for it! I would love to get paid to do what I love doing: sharing my interests with other online.

Clever brands have discovered ways to excite their existing customers, who in turn market to brand for this company. Getting your existing customers to identify personally with the brand is always the best way to start. Li and Bernoff argued that smart companies would design strategies and choose technologies that match the relationships they already had, and provided ways for their customers to extend those relationships. Spartan Race is an obstacle course racing company that is fully dedicated to social media marketing. Their product is experience-based, which means that every racer undoubtedly has the potential to become their best marketer. My boyfriend and I race with Spartan Race and promote their brand online through my facebook statuses, tweets or instagram photos. Spartan Race extended the whole idea of word of mouth marketing by encouraging people to join their ‘street team’. As part of their street team, you promote their brand in local communities by encouraging people to “step out of their comfort zone, lead healthier lives and ultimately try a Spartan Race’. An active street team spreads the Spartan message. Social media is a platform for affordable marketing strategies, but at the same time, what can be done online should also be translatable offline, and then into sales! 

Word of mouth marketing is powerful! Energize your customers and they will become your most loyal customers and your best marketers. Energizing will lead to embracing, whereby relationships between brand and customer deepen. Just a friendly caution note: tread carefully as the groundswell “leads you to a space where you’re less and less in control of your own business”.

Please share your thoughts, comments or questions.

Tweet Your Way to Success

Believe that twitter is more than just a 140 character status update

             Your favorite workout deserves a tweet. Your favorite brand of cheddar cheese deserves a tweet. What about a concert? Or a bad experience? Twitter integrated the concept of texting and social media in a way that transforms the way we communicate. Some people argue that social media may be sabotaging real communication. However, I believe that Twitter and other forms of social media provide an alternative platform for communication and strengthen it rather than 'sabotages' it. If you are a newbie in the Twitter world, you may not have been impressed or care about getting involved. I want buy your attention now and attempt to prove Twitter’s worth. Li and Bernoff, in Groundswell wrote that if you use it right, Twitter could be a force for connecting with your customers with the five groundswell strategy objectives: listening, talking, energizing,supporting, and embracing.

Co-founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, said that, “Twitter was originally designed as pretty much a broadcast medium, you send one message, it goes out to everybody and you receive the messages you are interested in. one of the many ways that users shaped the evolution of twitter was by inventing a way to reply to a specific person or specific message.” This proves that ‘listening’ to and ‘energizing’ your customers can ultimately help develop your product. Have I started to convince you that Twitter has so much marketing potential? Twitter has so much marketing potential that companies, like yours perhaps, need to take advantage of.

Begin by expanding your reach and richness. JUXT’s interactive billboard in Times Square NYC used Twitter in a innovative way to listen to their audience. JUXT was not selling a physical product but a concept or message. Their challenge: how to get customers to look at your media instead of others? Their solution was to make the audience the media and the Dunk Tank was born! The crowd-based gesture gameplay, social media and amazing creative features a camera on the crowd. The video feed and real time interactive elements to create media and draw crowds of people for the experience. The audience would use Twitter to vote for either the painted lady or the strong man, using either #dunkgirl or #dunkguy. The winner of the vote finds themselves on a diving board waiting to be dunked by the crowd that hits a beach ball into the Dunk Tank target. It exemplifies real time simple ‘listening’ because dunking decisions are made based upon what the audience want and are tweeting.

Special K is a food company that promotes healthy weight loss and inspires women to love themselves through their products. Special K energized the groundswell by integrating online marketing, Twitter, with real time marketing, a pop-up store. They took a risk people talk about their brand. Because of this, Special K received a lot of backlash from activist groups online targeting their use of genetically modified ingredients. Special K countered the backlash by strengthening their campaign with ‘The Tweet Shop’. It was a pop-up style store that turned social currency into real goods and positive sentiment. “Passers can walk into the store  sample the range of new cereal crisps and then tweet about them to buy a box to take home”. @Louinga said: ‘Having some rather nice SK Cracker crisps courtesy of #Tweetshop’ While ‏@CocoSchmitt: ‘OMG!!! You have to try Special K Cracker Crisps at the #tweetshop SOOOOOOOO good!!’ Each tweet from a customer reached their circle of friends, making it both a review and a peer recommendation. This is word of mouth marketing at its best! Tweeting for a box of cereal? Genius.

                  Twitter will be effective only if you choose a clear objective and develop a strategy to make progress toward that objective. Sold to Twitter for $15 million, Summize is an online Twitter search engine used to search and filter through any topics mentioned in tweets. Use this tool in your company to track your products, campaigns or services. Twitter works best when it is paired with other social networking sites. Have I convinced you that Twitter can do more than just let you update your status?

Please share any thoughts, comments or questions!