With millions of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, Pepsi is one of the few big corporations who have a good handle on social media.
BigThink.com talked with Bonin Bough, Global Director of Digital and Social Media for PepsiCo, to uncover the company's secrets.
Bonin believes the biggest social media challenge for businesses is embracing innovation. "Social media doesn't have to be a conversation," he says. "It could be a sweepstakes exclusive to the Twitter community or a contest only for Facebook participants."
"The real [Pepsi social media goal] was less about what's the big strategy? and more about what are the small wins? How do we prove ourselves internally to the organization that these are viable platforms, and then prove successes [within the communities]?"
Scaling social communities is also a challenge. It takes a lot of work and media dollars. "I think [scaling users] is an interesting combination between using media dollars/techniques that are going to get you reach...as well as finding what the right participation in that community is," he says. According to Bonin, the social space is still one big experiment, but a lot can be learned from early pioneers like Guy Kawasaki.
PepsiCo is a mammoth of a company, with entire teams dedicated to measuring social media interaction. Bough offers advice to startups that lack such extensive man-power: Do only as much as your resources will allow. "If you don't have the means to have a person on Twitter 24/7, then don't do it that way....Have [something like] Follow Fridays were you spend two hours talking to the community if that's all you have to work with. There really are no set rules." Bonin believes companies should use social media to encourage brand dialogue among loyal users. Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, and give people who are passionate about products and companies a platform to express it."These are just new channels that we're going to talk to consumers in," Bonin explains. Why wouldn't we be innovative? Why wouldn't we be at the front of that and taking risks like we do in our business in general?"
It’s quickly becoming common wisdom among marketers that a strategy is needed to use social media effectively. Of course, that doesn’t mean a majority of those involved in the space have gotten on board yet and created such a well-thought-out approach. According to a May 2010 study by Digital Brand Expressions, 52% of social marketers are operating “without a game plan,” similar to the 50% found in April 2010 by R2integrated. Further, many that do have a strategy find it doesn’t address all their concerns or fit their needs. The most common elements included by companies with a social media communications plan were resource-allocation guidelines for ongoing activities, registration of branded usernames on social sites and research into competitors’ use of social media.
To be sure, those are all critical components of an effective strategy, but they are only the beginning.
When respondents were asked what they thought should be part of their company’s plan, their answers had a somewhat different focus. While resource allocation was still top of mind, 71% were concerned with preparing and distributing policies for ongoing communications, such as how to respond to comments on social sites. Just 45% of companies had such policies.
Respondents were equally concerned with the ongoing monitoring of brand reputation, at 71%, but only 52% had a plan for such activities. The greatest disparity related to departmental protocols detailing how social sites should be used by sales, human resources, customer service and other groups within the company. While more than two-thirds of respondents saw a need for these policies, 29% were prepared. That desire also highlights how social media has spread throughout many organizations and is not limited to marketing or PR departments. A majority of companies with a social strategy included marketing, PR and sales in their plans, but most respondents also thought that human resources and customer service should be added. Respondents agreed that, in general, responsibility for creating strategies should fall to marketing departments.
“Companies that have held back on adopting social media throughout their organizations would benefit from starting with a cohesive plan that involves all of the key groups within the organization,” said the report, while those that have already adopted the social channel should get all departments and employees on board with a complete strategy.
There’s a good chance that you’ve come across the word “meme” at some point or another in the past few years. It’s an arcane academic concept but at the same time it’s also one of those things that you can identify, but can’t describe easily. Richard Dawkins coined the phrase in an effort to help explain cultural evolution in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, where it’s defined as a shared element intended to be passed around within a culture, a societal analog to a gene. Everything from Tamagotchis to “That’s what she said” count as memes. On the Internet (), memes are more visible than ever before, and what’s more, they’re also serious business.
Now, even though it may not be immediately apparent, there are a number of universal qualities that all successful viral memes have in common.
1. Content is Everything
On the Internet, content is everything. It’s what will make or break a site. Why would anyone want to go to a website if there’s nothing interesting or entertaining to see? Visitors will flock to your creation so long as you consistently feed users good content that’s appropriately presented and packaged.
This may read like a page from the Book of ‘Duh’, but play to your strengths. For instance, if you’re not a fan of writing a whole lot, don’t start a long-form, text-heavy blog, and stick to editing incoming user-generated content.
2. Simplicity
“Going viral necessitates a universal understanding of the joke,” says Lauren Leto, co-founder of Texts from Last Night. “There’s a reason commentary on quantum physics doesn’t pull the attention of the masses, but a joke about a cat stuck in a box does – because it’s a quick laugh. The easier to digest, the more people will forward the content around.”
Beyond the content, your site should be simple to interact with as well. We all know that every type of person is on the web now, so by designing a simple, elegant, and intuitive site for users, as well as administrators, may save you a lot of headaches down the road.
Sometimes you don’t even need to build something fancy and custom yourself. This Is Why You’re Fat runs off of Tumblr (), which is a great platform for testing out whether or not the public will eat up your idea, and also has integrated sharing features which is helpful for growth. Depending on what your project is, you may not need to expand beyond it, but if you do, the next step up would be a service like Wordpress (), which affords the administrator more customized options. You can always build your own site, but that can often be time and cash-intensive.
3. Emote
The brain is very good at making associations. If your content is able to get people to respond emotionally, get people to laugh and enjoy themselves, you’re gold. That emotional connection serves as a sort of glue, binding the association between your content or site and enjoyment and with each exposure to entertaining, funny, or otherwise emotionally provocative content, that association between “your site” and “totally amazing” becomes stronger and stronger.
Here’s a quick case study: According to my network of unnamed spies, there are two groups of people who seem to be drawn to LOLCats. The first are people who just find it funny. The other group is made up of the passionate folks perhaps better known as “crazy cat ladies.” Their overwhelming love of cats drives them to spend time on the site as well as to spend money on the books that are available now as well. Think about that.
One of the biggest emotional hooks is empathy, which is where the success from sites like Awkward Family Photos and Shit My Dad Says come from. We’ve all got our own awkward family portraits, and we’ve all heard our parents say ridiculous things. White people will laugh at themselves reading Stuff White People Like, while non-white people will gladly laugh at the ironically accurate absurdity of “the definitive guide to the unique tastes of millions.” Note how race and family are some big-picture concepts. There’s lots of potential material in those spaces to play with, which can get users to respond to easily.
They’re original concepts unattached to any other properties, and by virtue of that, their owners can do things like make T-shirts, produce iPhone and iPad apps, and even develop TV shows (Shit My Dad Says landed a TV deal with CBS not too long ago and its slated to star William Shatner).
Then there are a those other sites that are inherently related to some third party “black box.” Sometimes that third party has no problem with what you’re doing (Remember Rick Astley Rickrolling the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?), sometimes they do. Avoid any potential messes by working on something completely unique and independent.
5. Share It
As with all things on the ever-growing social web, memes live and die by the ability to share content. If your content isn’t bite-sized and isn’t surrounded by some controls to share: Like, Tweet, Stumble, Digg (), or something else, you’re doing something wrong.
“Your content should be instantly identifiable no matter where it ends up on the web,” says Ben Bator, co-founder of Texts From Last Night. “Humorous material is meant to be shared, so don’t limit the possibilities.”
My personal favorite sharing control is the “share by e-mail” function found on ICanHasCheezburger. Remember how crazy cat ladies love that stuff? Guess what else they love to do – that’s right, forward everyone they know those pictures, so why not have that right on the site? Brilliant, though unfortunate for the rest of us.
If you’re using a blogging service like Wordpress or Tumblr, make sure that that sharing via third party services (Facebook (), Twitter ()) as well as controls like AddThis () are enabled.
At the launch of your project, you should also make sure that there are appropriate avenues for discussion, sharing, and fandom on third party services. Get yourself a Facebook Fan page, add certain pages to Stumble Upon, register appropriate Twitter handles, and popularize the hashtags you want to use. Being in control of your content outside of your site is important.
6. Protect Your Content
Because you’re working on the Internet, there’s a good chance that your content will spill out everywhere besides your website. Set Google Alerts for your site’s name and even for popular content (if it’s text-based) so that you can be alerted to copycat websites or apps.
You should have an attorney send any copycat sites cease and desist notices immediately to the owners of those sites. You don’t absolutely need an attorney to do this for you, but you’re usually guaranteed better results. Most copycats will stop immediately once they hear from you if you’ve done the job properly.
In addition, you should protect yourself from potentially angry users by creating a bulletproof “Terms of Service” page. “[It] should be the first page you complete. Make your intentions clear, otherwise you will just piss off your users (and possibly lose out on a book deal),” says Bator. Unless you’re an oracle, it’s unlikely that you know what direction your site will follow as it grows.
“Launch with a broad but legit terms of service and take it from there,” suggests Jessica Amason, co-creator of This Is Why You’re Fat and Viral Media Editor at BuzzFeed.
7. Listen
The only reason Chuck Norris Facts exist is because I asked the visitors to my site what they wanted to see. I had started my site with “Vin Diesel Facts” and after getting a few million hits and some mentions in the press, I put up a poll to ask visitors who the site should include next. The rest is history.
Don’t necessarily crowdsource your major decisions to your users since you probably don’t know or trust them that well, but it’s just as much their site as it is yours to a certain extent. Users/members ought to have a say in things, if only to let you know if you’re going in the right direction.
8. Don’t Force It
There’s a good chance you’ve heard this phrase in one context or another. Most memes seem to start and grow organically — their successes are a result of good content, stellar execution, and everything else previously mentioned. It’s really hard to work backwards.
Some people in the meme-machine world will actually start a large number of sites per year, expect most of them to fail, and just support the ones that take off. Others think that because they may have succeeded with one meme that they will be guaranteed success with their next venture. The best example of this in recent memory is follow-up project that the creator of the Million Dollar Homepage started after he finished making his million bucks. The man made a million dollars. Anyone in his shoes probably thought that the next move, whatever it might be, would be golden, but it was a total flop.
But hey, expect to make mistakes. You learn more from them anyway.
9. Love it, and Let it Go
All memes reach a point when their 15 minutes are up and the traffic levels off to die-hard fanatics, and a relatively constant stream of new visitors who come and go. As with all things in life, make sure you love what you’re doing. There’s a lot of work involved with running these things. I had to review thousands and thousands of submissions at my site’s peak. It’s hardly fun, especially knowing you’re on a ticking clock.
Also, be sure to consider the implications of being the face of your meme. The people who seem to be into it the meme I created most right now are annoying frat guys who spend their days “icing” their “bros,” and that’s not necessarily a group that I want to call myself the leader of. Sure, it’s great that so many people from around the world have enjoyed what I’m responsible for, but at the end of the day, it’s pretty ridiculous.
What are some of your favorite Internet memes? Tell us in the comments below.
Social media initiatives have become standard components of companies' marketing and communications strategies. Large or small—from the local bakery to General Motors (GM)—businesses see the value of engaging in online conversations already taking place about their brands. While social media best practices have emerged, brands still struggle with how best to engage with their consumers. Here are five common mistakes:
1. Not (or Barely) Monitoring: Companies that do not first "listen" and observe how their evangelists and detractors talk about their brand risk jumping into a cyclone of unanticipated activity. Constant monitoring is a must.
Even a well-liked Internet brand can fall victim to lack of social media monitoring. In 2009, hackers exploited a vulnerability in online retailer Amazon.com's (AMZN) site, causing all books by GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender) authors to disappear. Over the course of a weekend, thousands of consumers on Twitter, Facebook, and forums voiced their concern, suspecting that Amazon had made the authors unavailable deliberately. Two days later, when Amazon made an attempt to explain the glitch, people on Twitter already had created a hashtag further ridiculing the company's ineptitude.
2. "Down-sourcing" to Interns or Junior Staff: The fresh, young digital natives at your company embody a crucial resource in helping to navigate the emerging media waters. In some cases, however, their lack of business experience could imperil your brand's "social voice."
Recently, Nestlé's (NESN) Facebook page erupted in a flame war when Greenpeace staged a protest of the chocolate maker's alleged use of palm oil from deforested areas in Indonesia. The "official" posts in response to comments were overly flippant and defensive, which only fueled the firestorm.
3. Fast Beats Perfect: In the digital world, content can spread like wildfire. Immediate, authentic, and humble acknowledgements of your brand's social media kerfuffles are not only necessary but also expected. Taking the time to craft a perfect corporate response with layers of bureaucratic approvals will only cause more damage to your brand's social reputation.
In a matter of days, the now infamous Domino's YouTube video, in which employees did some highly unappetizing things to the chain's food, erupted into a full-fledged crisis. Although the chief executive officer provided a video statement/response, some felt the company's reply took far too long. (The company has since redeemed itself with its highly successful Pizza Turnaround campaign.)
4. Faking It: If you've failed to foster and energize a legitimate set of brand evangelists, don't attempt to disguise false engagement by having employees pretend to be customers (known as "astroturfing"). It will most certainly be found out.
Earlier this year, speculation was that Wal-Mart's (WMT) local Chicago PR agency was behind a fake community support group commenting on blogs in favor of the retail store coming to town.
5. Having an "Off" Switch: Your brand's involvement in social media should never have an end date, since at its core, that involvement is about nurturing customer relationships. While campaigns that have a social media extension may come and go, you must maintain an "always on" approach and outlook.
TGI Friday's September 2009 cross-channel campaign reached its goal of winning 500,000 fans of fictional character "Woody" on Facebook. In fact, it got close to 1 million fans. TGI Friday's ended the campaign and deleted the Facebook page without those fans converting to TGI Friday's official Facebook page, losing all the social capital built up over the course of the campaign.
As we're still in somewhat of a nascent period in social media marketing, brands will inevitably make mistakes and learn from them along the way. This learning process is exciting and offers marketers some unique opportunities to connect directly with consumers. At the end of the day, brands must earn their "social currency." There are no shortcuts or substitutes to authentic engagement in the realm of social media.
Ian Spector is the creator of Chuck Norris Facts. His latest book, 
