So this is a bit of a long time coming but part 2 of my twitter ‘experiments’ can be found below:
Experiment 2:
My second experiment involved messaging and how much interaction cans a personality or twitter brand can have with its followers. Yet again I decided to take a twitter alias(@socialmediabot2) as I’m far from the average twitter user. Going to wefollow I decided to follow 50 people (close to the average of 69 ) and posted intermittently hoping perhaps for some interaction with who I’m following … a bit of a downfall of this experiment lack of true connection with people.
Afterwards, starting on the Monday morning I started posting messages from another account. 1 for every half hour for 7.5 hours for a total of 14 with the messages ( TEST #_ ) to see how this would be viewed on my feed. I wanted to see how the everyday messaging from the people I followed would fit with the planned ‘corporate’ messaging and whether it would overload my feed and possibly cause me to want to unfollow the account
The Result:
Twitter Overload
As you can see there are portions of my feed where the messaging overlapped, for a casual user of twitter this may just be too much! Especially for accounts with little customer interaction ( just sharing links, company news etc) a strong consideration will have to be made regarding how many times to post daily will work to allow you to build and retain your audience.
Overall Takeaways:
Twitter is still a difficult area to get solid data from and you can’t just jump on twitter hoping for success in your campaigns or awareness.It takes planning and organization but even then trial and error is needed. I think something that is often missed with twitter for heavy users like myself is we forget that the vast majority of people don’t follow hundreds of people or have the equivalent # of followers .
They follow friends and organizations that they are close to and that needs to be considered when planning out a campaign. While heavy twitter users may be able to withstand messaging it probably would be seen as spam to these casual users. I think an excellent example of how to avoid this sort of twitter spam is from Best buy and their Twelpforce where they have once central account but many separate support accounts.
Have any questions/comments ? Contact me at kevin@kevrichard.com or send me a twitter message .
Having a traditional marketing background, for promotional actions I always consider the end result or goal. In terms of twitter and social media though there are a lot of unknowns and what ifs . Overall its untested territory for most people. Steming from a conversation I had recently I decided to do a bit of testing of the twitter platform and see if I can build a bit of test case. This is part 1 of 2 twitter experiments I completed, stay tuned for the second one to come soon! * Note these experiments are definitely not experimental and would probably not be replicated if redone, take my conclusions with your own judgement.
Experiment #1:
I think a lot of twitter users have come across the messages “Get more followers now” or ” Get X amount of followers today” and despite the general sentiment of quality of followers over quantity I’m sure everyone even for a moment where slightly tempted by this thinking that that more followers equals more people to get their messaging out to. This is especially relevant to traditional marketing mediums as more eyes =more marketing awareness= more customer action = money! So I decided to put this to the test, can someone get tons of followers overnight using these follower programs.
The Scenario:
Starting off with an empty account ( @socialmediabot1) I joined the following social media following programs:
Initially I started following 19 people and I noticed with all 3 of these programs that there were paid for premium options ( so basically paying for followers) I also noticed that I almost immediately started sending out auto posts from these programs. From there I left the account completely alone to let the followers come in, opting not to send out anything to not influence the result based on my content.
Result:
#FAIL
I started @socialmediabot1 on a Friday night, deciding to leave it over the weekend. Checking it once I noticed that I was following over 100 people and had just 19 followers, no where close to the promised massive amounts of followers. At the end of this experiment I come to above picture, no followers and 12 auto tweets and a suspended account. I wasn’t completely surprised.
Conclusion:
I am by no means a great twitter user but my account certainly didn’t popup over night and I certainly didn’t expect this one to. A major marketing/branding implication of this is communities need to be built and its not a matter of massively following people or hoping that people run to your brand. Relationships need to be formed and this takes a lot of time and effort.
Often times I feel that platforms like twitter are advertised as a panacea for marketing and that suddenly you’ll see huge results. FALSE! Like all marketing efforts hard work needs to be invested and careful planning and organizing should be done. Social Media is just another touch point to your customers, the only ‘magic’ there is the opportunity to have further communications with customers and the general public.
I’d like to hear what you think about twitter and any of your thoughts on best cases or usage scenarios for companies and organizations so please feel free to leave a comment, send me a twitter message or email me at kevin@kevrichard.com .
With such a large tech community in Toronto there has been a lot of growth this year in Toronto applicants to the 2010 SXSW convention ( held in Austin Texas, more info can be found here) as so many have now made it to the voting stages I thought it would make things a lot easier to have all the sessions in one place for everyone to vote and show your support . I hope to see everyone there!
A friend and fellow marketer Emma Brooks has declared today #InternetFAILday as a result of the multiple failures on social networking and commerce sites. This got me thinking what would happen if companies suddenly lost social media as a marketing/business tool? Especially now that many customers are accustomed to these practices , how could current social media practices be scaled down into real life settings? Here are a few of my thoughts on this issue:
Customer Service: Many companies are trying to improve their service offering through their online channels having ignored the poor service their customers receive in person. Without this tool sales/service people to be successful would need to be much more autonomous and have the tools they need in front of them instead of outsourced to call centers/outside locations.
This would be a major business shift for most companies. Instead of having a sales orientation in their stores where metrics and the bottom line is the most important part of operations, a customer service orientation would need to be taken where relationships and customer satisfaction would need to be seen as a major driver of sales.
Customer Connection: With the loss of internet tools customers would lose the sense of connection with companies and other customers. They would lose the ability to come together and discuss the direction and changes to the company. Companies would lose a great market research outlet but they also may lose the strong brand evangelists that spread word of mouth for their company as well .
A company I feel that takes this relationship building and does it well on a personal level is Lululemon. By supporting the local yoga communities and offering interaction mechanisms in store (little fun activities and yoga classes) customers feel connected to the company on a deeper level. Customers don’t think of the company as an organization that just sells them stuff but they also see them as a community hub. Social media places a large focus on grouping customers together and building communities, why can’t stores themselves work on building communities locally?
Customer Segmentation: Without social media some things could be much more costly to do. Customer segmentation would be one of them and without social media this would be a be a large strategic challenge for companies. Using the internet and social media , companies have often times tried to attract all groups through customized product offerings and communities. Knowing each individual customer and customizing their experience would be too hard to do in the offline world. It would mean that a company’s customer list would either need to be scaled down so they know each individual customer to place them in a specific category or there would be a big brother scenario where every action a customer takes is recorded (not a very friendly situation).
Social media offers information about customers that real world interactions don’t and in this case it would be strategically better to define the customer your company wishes to target instead. By doing this all efforts and resources are focused on being a strong product/service supplier for a single group building market and mind share among these customers. While the downfall of this would mean that your market is significantly smaller, this also means that your resources are more effectively used saving you money in the long run.
Conclusion:
In closing I think this is a great exercise for companies to be doing. If social media were to just suddenly end today how would their company operate? What changes would need to be made? Looking at how they could improve their operations in real life situations could be an opportunity to further strengthen the company as a whole and create a company much more focused around the customer.
As part of the University’s 6th decade plan the University of Waterloo is looking to revitalize itself, demonstrating its strengths as a technology oriented university and better position itself with the various programs and initiatives coming in the near future. Part of this positioning included a marketing logo to be used in their promotional and external pieces. Much to the chagrin of the university this logo was leaked and is now the end of many jokes for the university’s students.
The even larger issue to this story is the internet footprint that this student criticism has left. Discussion (or destruction) of this logo can be found on blogs, facebook, twitter ( #uwlogo, #pewpew, #uwlogogate) ,and even a mashup on youtube. Resulting from this there was also some negative news coverage . With all of this ridicule and critism its hard to say if this logo is really usable anymore, it was supposed to have all of this meaning for the university but now its just well….
Image from Steve Sauve
Picture from Brad Bushell
This article from the Imprint (Waterloo’s student newspaper) hits the issue right on the head. While there was a lot of concern over making the university more visible for external audiences, they had completely left the students out of the process and as a result of seeing this logo all at once instead of over time the logo came as a big shock. By not being consulted, students felt little connection to the logo and immediately felt negatively towards it. As a result of this negative sentiment Waterloo has had to work hard to do damage control.
I feel there are two lessons to be learned from this whole situation. Firstly stakeholders (customers, employees, shareholders etc) through social media are gaining a lot of power when it comes to public perception of an organization. Their complaints and criticisms are now becoming much more public and can often drown out the organization itself.
But also by not involving your stakeholders in organizational change, you will create a large reaction when it does get released whether planned or unplanned in this case. My alma mater Ryerson University is going through drastic changes as well but with a different approach. By involving the whole community in what it calls ‘The Master Plan’ stakeholders are buying in and while there may be detractors to some parts of the planning , overall members have been very open to discussion and working towards improvement.
Applying this to a business or another organization, it’s much more manageable and probably a more positive experience to keep your stakeholders involved in the process of major organizational change rather than keeping them in the dark. As much as organizations would like to control the message its impossible without having all those involved on side and to have that it can’t be forced it has to be earned.
Social Networks are a great way of connecting people who share the same interests and encourage community discussion. Thinking that this may be a great tool to connect its more than 200,000 members across North America the Sigma Chi Fraternity (of which I’m a member of ) decided to create a community for its members where they can interact and connect. Hosted by Affinity Circles its a pretty robust system that allows interaction at many different levels and members are able to form their own groups based on location or interest. Its a great tool and it would be very useful in achieving its purpose… if someone actually used it.
This was the old network ( I personally liked the layout)
As a an active member there was no discussion of this site within my chapter or when meeting members from other chapters, I only came across it when searching through Sigma Chi’s central site. Because no one was active on it and because there was no real life connection or use for it this network was empty and barren. Instead members have reverted to using larger networks such as Facebook to connect. The downfall with this is that disparate groups are made instead of gathering the organization together as a whole.
Can this be fixed?
Well the headquarters staff is trying its best to . At a recent Fraternity meeting this past weekend they launched a new network with toned down features and a simpler interface hoping that it will appeal to both younger and older generations. While this may address some issues in the end I feel it won’t fix the larger issue of participation.
The new network. Simplified and waiting to be used.
So how can this relaunch become successful so it doesn’t become yet another empty community? While I’m not claiming to be an expert here are some of my ideas in developing interest and use of this website by the general fraternity:
Community leaders: By getting volunteers ( either chapter presidents or designated geographic community managers) to actively use , connect, and discuss this site becoming evangelists for this initiative the hope will be to get people talking about it once again and encourage its use.By building its use in day to day tasks for active/alumni chapter operations or as a space for organizing events and initiatives among members, users will have a reason to return on a more regular basis and will come to associate the website as the space for Fraternity information/news .
Creating a Hub: Another important piece to this new site is making sure that it offers something that other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter don’t . A big part of this in my opinion is having a central interaction point. While Sigma Chi has a central website, by creating a page where news and events from the fraternity as a whole are posted members will come to this page to keep up to date with whats happening within the fraternity . This can be as simple as a weekly blog posting or advanced as a news feed where members can recieve news and updates from the entire site or just the networks they are involved in.
Connecting Content : Bringing in and organizing the content located on other sites will be a good community building tool as well. There are many facebook groups, flickr feeds, Youtube videos and blog entries related to Sigma Chi scattered across the net. Allowing members to either link or post this content up will encourage interaction and discussion. While this may be a bigger undertaking I also feel posting up materials such as pledge manuals, historic pictures and other memrobelia on this site will also build increased value with network users.
These are just a few points that I feel will help to ensure that this new site doesn’t go to waste. There will be a lot of work needed to build interest and to ensure the usability of this network. I’m curious to hear more about people’s experiences in building community and thoughts of how one can be started/restarted. Feel free to post your thoughts/ideas in the comments section below.
Have any questions/comments ? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message .
A story not so often heard about social media is how it can be a tool used by those who don’t wish to make a profit but rather by those who want to make a change in today’s society. This past week I was lucky enough to get myself out to see how some great people are looking to use social media tools for the better good and was able to lend my albeit limited knowledge to help out one organization in effectively using social media tools to reach their goals.
What was this? It was Net Change week described on their website as a week to connect Toronto’s digital natives with the city’s social change organizations. Held at MaRs discovery district with the backing of both for and non profit organizations the week looked like it was a great success. Now where did I come in? I had the pleasure of volunteering my time as one of the social media ‘experts’ in a one day session with a charity to analyze their current operations and develop strategies to implement social media in their work.
I had the opportunity to work with a good friend of mine Dan Hocking a partner in a digital agency. We were paired with Pencils for Kids a small charity based out of Markham who’s goal is to see all children with the tools needed to have an education. Currently they have projects in a community in Niger where they have worked to help provide the school supplies and facilities needed for an education. Overall an organization that despite only having one full time (unpaid) staff person has been doing great things to create social change.
While Pencils for Kids is doing some great things offline, Dan and I felt that building a stronger social media presence would work well in expanding their fund-raising efforts. Here’s a bit of what we were able to discuss in our meeting:
Telling their story: The founder of this organization , Robin Mednic who is in the thick of things when it comes to this organization’s projects has an uncanny ability to just grab you into the cause. By telling her experience with the organization and the changes Pencils for Kids has made she almost immediately sold me on the charity. We felt this strong message needed to be found on their website as well. By better integrating the photos they already had on flickr and placing the content amassed in her travels on the site in either blog or in web page form we felt Pencils for Kids could represent themselves as the amazing change creating organization that they are.
Fund-raising: We also got into the development of a fund-raising campaign with a strong on line component. Focused around the idea of providing every child in the community they support with text books Pencils for Kids would actively engage supporters in this campaign . Relying heavily on visual imagery ( X amount of money = X% of a child’s text books) Pencils for kids through its offline work could drive on line donations to its site. Through this campaign they would be able to directly demonstrate the effect an individual ‘s donation would have to the cause and they would appeal to literacy groups, schools and the general public in reaching their goal.
Awareness: Pencils are a strong source of imagery for the organization and Pencils for Kids uses it as a initial topic for discussion about their organization. To build stronger feelings for this organization it was felt that Pencils for Kids could engage the public by encouraging them to create content around this key item. Some suggested mediums were photos, drawings, and videos and these would be posted on the Pencils for Kids website where viewers could vote and comment on these pieces of work potentially with prizing to follow for the most votes.
Overall this was a great experience and I was happy to have been brought aboard. I think I took away something from this experience as well. In the social media realm a lot of people with knowledge feel that organizations should be on all the major tools and they will then seem to have this major success. I’ve learned that certain tools aren’t for every organization. Really I think that goes back to basic marketing. What tools will meet the organizations needs and goals? We didn’t go very heavy on a social media tool set in our ideas during the session because we knew that the volunteers of Pencils for Kids would be overwhelmed or not put in the large amount of effort needed to see what would probably be limited success. Instead we stuck to basics and worked on Pencils for Kids strengths.
PS: Remember how I said I was sold on this organization, after the session Dan and I put our names down for working with Pencils for Kids in the future.
Have any questions/comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message .
As reported by Engadget Dell has decided to dramatically change its recently posted Della Micro site after only 10 days of being online. Designed as a site to communicate with women offering them user tips and product suggestions Dell looked to create an environment that was welcoming and knowledgeable to the computing needs of this customer segment.
Interesting thinking but instead the project almost immediately blew up in their face. The initial content such as the tips and tricks can be found here and here but to give a brief discussion it spoke about things such as finding recipes on the net, counting calories and as we know every woman’s favorite color PINK (LIKE OMG!) . Instead of attracting women they were feeling put off and they were letting their voices heard online:
From their facebook page:
“Um, some of us ladies were checking out Dells new Della computer section and we think it is condescending of you to make a different one for women as though we are not as smart as men when it comes to computers??” – Wynter Gentry Nash
“….if it wasn’t for the tech tips section of the site, I wouldn’t be offended, but all it seems to imply is that women don’t care for anything but cooking and gossiping and looking fashionable with their computer.” Caily Jones as well as on the
On Della site itself:
“..This is a load of fluff that only serves to provide insight into how Dell perceives my demographic. Essentially, we women will buy anything if it comes in pink and fits in our purse.” User UmmmWhat
Overall Dell took a huge grilling from this audience they wanted to pursue and very smartly made some changes to the site such as updating the tips section and changing the Della name to ” Dell Lifestyle”. In my opinion the site is still a bit fashiony/ultra feminine but its passable.
Now the question is ,isn’t segmenting your market important in marketing?? Absolutely, and if Dell executed the site right it could have been successful but here are a few things that it seems they did wrong:
Stereotyping/Over Segmentation: My initial impression of the Della website was that it targeted women concerned about fashion and things that are ‘cute’ ( I’m thinking Paris hilton types) it didn’t delve into anything technical and rather focused on the smaller netbooks and that you can have colors on your laptops. Mistake: The majority of women haven’t been locked away and want more from a laptop than just email and facebook.They use it day to day at their work and they blog, make movies etc. They want to know which machine is going to suit the reasons they use their computer.
There are many women who know computers,advertising a pink computer isn't going to work anymore- Photo Via Flickr from TheSeafarer
Created a Man/Woman separation: looking again at the sites lack of any technical topics it didn’t acknowledge that there are women in the high tech industries. This was definitely an opportunity missed! There are many smart women out there who do tech ( I personally know a few ) but very often anything dealing with computers and things technical like that is seen as an area for men. Highlighting the successes of women in computers could have not only welcomed women into buying a dell but it could also left viewers of the site with a feeling of empowerment and wanting to go out and do the same. This also could have been a great opportunity to expand into mentioning Dell’s other business of computer accessories and products.
I think it was very smart of Dell to have listened to the negative feedback and react as soon as they did, it will definitely cut any negative coverage or drop in sales they would have suffered if it were online any longer. Unfortunately I think they lost out on a great opportunity , and had they been more careful with the execution they could have had a site for audiences to talk about . A website that embraced the needs of women in computing and helped women be successful with laptops and computers. In the end of it all when it comes down to segmentation I think it comes down to doing the research but also importantly when you’re online acknowledging all of the audiences that will be viewing your website and not making anyone feel inferior.
Have any questions/comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message .
Recently two major American restaurant chains, Popeye’s and KFC ran large promotions of their product. Starting off with Popeye’s who in a nation wide promotion slashed the price of their regular 8 piece bucket in half from $9.99 to $4.99 for a single day and most recently KFC with their even larger new product promotion through Oprah giving viewers the opportunity to receive a 2 piece roasted chicken meal and biscuit for free. From a short term consumer stand point this sounds amazing, the idea that there’s a recession going on and these companies are giving a little to help people out. From a corporation point of view not only is this a flash pan promotion, but as witnessed on media outlets this promotion is actually becoming a frustration for customers.
While this promotion was made with the best intentions, it seems that they didn’t consider the larger consequences. In this post I’d like to play devils advocate demonstrating why mass free campaigns should not be on a companies radar for selling their product , after demonstrating a case that did the the idea of free samples right.
So what are some of the problems with these large campaigns? :
1. Large Costs: Both of these companies will be taking a major hit when it comes to their bottom line with this promotion. To start off, they face major promotional costs with a national campaign but there are also the significant costs of giving away product and reimbursing their franchisees. Also an unforeseen cost is the temporary loss of regular paying customers as a result of this promotion, with long lines filled with people looking to get their free product paying customers with limited time and attention levels are more likely to avoid these restaurants till the promotion ends.
2. Lack of Relationship Building: Everyone enjoys a free product, it doesn’t matter what it is , if its placed in front of them they will want it because there is no cost. The downside of this is that the consumer has little to no interest in anything else. In my personal experience volunteering with the Canadian Liver Foundation, during a promotion with the Women’s health convention the CLF gave away mesh shopping bags which were a big success, people completely crowded the booth wanted to have these bags.
THE PROBLEM: the booth’s informational materials went completely ignored, people just grabbed the bag and left. The giveaway defeated the purpose of being there which was informing the public on liver diseases and the resources available to those who have them. Much like the Liver foundation , KFC and Popeyes wanted to expand their company awareness. KFC wanted to position itself as a place of healthy eating and Popeye’s wanted to increase its market position. While both companies allowed people to sample their product it created little to no change in perceptions or connections overall with the company.
Giving something away for free doesn’t inform anyone or build long term loyalty to a firm, it may build some short term good will but the bigger problem is that people are more interested in the free and not on considering the company on a deeper level.
3. Service Failure: Last and probably the longest lasting negative factor in giving away your product for free experienced through these campaign is when the promotion fails to meet expectations. Within the examples of KFC and Popeye’s deal seekers became angry and upset when they didn’t receive the promised product (as shown in the following You tube clips):
Service failure like this not only builds negative feelings among coupon users, but negative word of mouth among those that they interact with as they describe their negative experience. A promotion like this also effects the relationship held with current customers and franchises who’s regular habits are disrupted resulting in a loss of good will towards the firms.
Giveaway’s done right! : In a previous post of mine I discussed the case of Whopper Sacrifice, a promotion where consumers could get a coupon for a free Whopper by defriending 10 people they knew on Facebook. Yes it gives away a free product but here is what I felt they did right:
1.The Consumer was active in the process: instead of mindlessly printing off a coupon participants had an opportunity cost in receiving the product which was making the decision of which 10 friends they should sacrifice. This was more than just getting a product, the person was actually forced to think and have a memorable experience.
2.It was limited: This campaign was not made open to everyone as it only ran for a short period and had a limited run of coupons. This decreased the costs and demand on Burger King’s restaurants meaning there was very little opportunity for service failure for all parties involved . Also by creating exclusivity this also created a topic for discussion creating word of mouth for the brand.
3.Involved others: this promotion involved more than just the participant , those who were defriended were sent a notification that they were taken off someones’ friend list with a branded notice creating further discussion ( I’m worth 1/10 of a whopper wtf?!) and expanding into a larger audience.
Many people equate free with being a good idea , but without a well managed campaign and a way to build stronger attachment to the firm what the campaign really works out to is taking on a large cost with little reward. While KFC and Popeyes got a lot of attention for these large campaigns they will probably fail to see any long lasting effect.
Have any questions/comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message .
As I’ve learned through reading cases and witnessing first hand, word of mouth is HUGE when you’re looking to get a message across or a product sold. If you can get people talking positively about your company your message carries much further than any ad or commercial would. Interestingly enough, marketing agency Capital C has decided to do a full product launch using this idea but by primarily using social networks and social media tools.
The Campaign:
Coming in Spring of this year Nissan Canada is looking to release the Nissan Cube, an entry level vehicle positioned to compete with the likes of the Scion xB and the Kia Soul among others. These cars are targeted towards a younger audience but follow along the same shape,size and price so a large portion of how these cars will be competing is on personality and emotional connection with the car( personalization options, community etc).
Rather than go for the traditional route of placing advertisements which have little interaction and communication with the customer, Nissan through agency Capital C has opted to release the Cube differently and has decided to rely entirely on Social media to get its message out. The campaign called Hypercube which started in March relies on users of social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to get people talking about Nissan’s new product before it launches and build connection and strong interest among a potential customer base.
The Hypercube portal
How did they do this?
By setting up landing pages on Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace a competition was started where Canada’s creative population (considered influencers in this car’s segment) compete for the opportunity of owning one of 50 Nissan Cubes. Starting as a free for all ‘audition’ people would register through a main portal (hypercube.ca) where they are then whittled down through the use of audition profiles to 500 users who then must vie not only for the daily votes of their peers through whichever creative means possible, but impress a panel of judges who will in turn give away 50 of the little Cubes. Each of the 500 participants are provided with a ‘canvas’ where they may direct votes and be as creative as possible with. After the cars have been awarded winners are then obligated to post online about how they use and customize their newly won cars to demonstrate the usability and personality of this product.
Canvas of Hypercube contestant Michel Savoie
Outside of this contest Hypercube’s fans are not forgotten. People still interested in this contest/car still remain engaged in this campaign. Not only are the encouraged to check out each participants canvas and vote but through the social network Twitter they are interacted with and encouraged to build community. With posts in French and English @thehypercube interacts and gives mention to people who create content or ask questions about the Hypercube and the campaign, and more recently has even directly interacted with fans through the formation of Hypercube meetups.
Having consistently received Twitter messages, group requests and hearing about it in my interactions with him I figured by mentioning him in this blog post he might leave me alone! I kid! I feel he’s done a very good job in interacting with and building upon his social networks and with his success deserves the mention.
Using his Twitter nickname @photojunkie Rannie posses the question: ” Where should PhotoJunkie go in his Nissan Hyper Cube in Toronto?” Within his canvas Rannie uses his talents as a freelance photographer and takes panorama photographs at many known and unknown locales in Toronto demonstrating to people a new side of where they live ( many of his followers reside in Toronto).
Rannie's HyperCube Canvas
But I think this is only half of why he is currently at #18 of 500 participants. A very important part of his run for the car is the fact that he engages his network and makes them feel that they play a direct role in his success. Yes there is the constant posts and messages received by him asking “have you voted for me today” but its also like he’s bringing fans with him on these Panorama’s (in some cases actually doing so). Including a counter of photos’ distance traveled and total campaign stats he lets people know of his progress.
Roy Thompson Hall Panorama
Another important aspect of his Hypercube campaign is that he also directly involves his fans in the creation of these pictures, on a consistent basis he asks for suggestions of new photo locations as well as encourages people to tag along and be part of the locale itself. In this regard Rannie has harnessed what social media and word of mouth marketing aims to do and that is having people feel like they are part of the story and an active participant rather than having a message blasted in their face. By voting for him participants feel like they are part of his winning, almost like they are winning themselves.
