Last week on ViralBlog among others “How Branding Works In The Social Media Age”, “Why CMOs Will Adapt To F-Commerce In 2012?” and “Word-of-Mouth Marketing To Spur Business On”.

Why CMOs Will Adapt To F-Commerce In 2012?

CMOs tend to chase social channels and touch points, and think they need a Facebook App or Mobile App. CSOs however, like the opportunity to re-engineer brands in a real social way…

Will Airline KLM Launch Social Seating In 2012?

KLM has the digital DNA, drive for innovation and disruption to qualify as social business. They go beyond campaigns, claim activities, and add relevancy and pieces of value to the lives of individual travelers. Will KLM launch Social Seating in 2012?

How Social Media Is Reshaping The Job Search

Finding a job can be quite challenging these days. Are you searching for vacancies in the local newspaper? Or do you go to job listing sites every now and then?

Word-of-Mouth Marketing To Spur Business On

As a Chief Marketing Officer, you have more than enough on your plate to keep you busy. Whether it is the struggling economic scene that many business owners find themselves facing, lower ROI or issues with finding new customers when many consumers have tightened the grip on their wallets.

Viral Friday: I Gave My Kids A Terrible Present

A weekly viral video chart of ViralBlog, showing the 5 most popular viral videos, commercials, games or user-generated videos, carefully selected and ranked by popularity, viral impact & spread.

Sungevity – How Social is Solar?

Patrick Crane worked in Marketing at Yahoo then became CMO at LinkedIn during the 4 explosive years. After the IPO he wanted to do something usefull with his life and is now using his social media experience working at Sungevity.com.

VirComm Summit 2012

VirComm Summit 2012 is a one-day conference for online community professionals, to be held on February 9th at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London. Is community management high on your list of prioroties for 2012? This is an event you should not miss. SocialMedia8 will be attending and providing full coverage.

How Branding Works In The Social Media Age

With more than 100 million active users on Twitter and 800 million+ on Facebook, stunning growth rates of other major social networks, it’s already a part of daily life and culture around the globe. For the brands it’s important to know and understand how their fans, followers and prospects interact and engage with them in the vasts space of social media.

In a nutshell; social seating will enable KLM passengers to match their neighbor on their upcoming flight. How does that work?

During the online check-in process flyers can pick a seat next to somebody they might know from Facebook or LinkedIn. It could fuel speed dating on short flights, or relevant business meeting with peers during long flights…

The social seating service will be introduced in 2012 KLM admitted. It might even be in the beginning of 2012, but that’s just whispers from our sniper network.

We are pretty sure social seating will be perceived and rated as “a very smart and relevant service”, especially by the frequent flyers.

Is this the first social seating service? No. Giant Ticketmaster added location info and matching to its booking engine earlier in 2011 with its Interactive Seat Map, which lets you locate where your Facebook friends are sitting in a theater.

Why do I think KLM is qualifying for the status being a social business? Well I will give you some examples how KLM is claiming activities. And is adding relevant services and pieces of value to the lives of their individual travelers.

KLM Travlr is a search tool that helps people to discover holiday destinations.

The Travlr content is based on aggregated content and crowd sourced content. Next the content is curated by a community manager. It offers people smart, relevant and social results.

And since social will be the new normal soon, who would like to pick a holiday destination that is not recommended by like-minded peers?

How about KLM’s ability to do social media monitoring and tapping into real-time conversations on Twitter? KLM Fly2Miami all started with a Tweet.

Fly2Miami was not just claiming an activity or adding relevancy. KLM’s approach added a real piece of fun, entertainment and value to the lives of music freaks.

And by doing so, I can assure you, KLM has pulled many fans through their funnel, towards preference, loyalty and advocacy.

You probably do not even need a brand tracking study to do the math at Fly2Miami. And if you doubt it, here’s where we let CMOs discover their social VSPOT.

In this ViralBlog article you will be able to read more on KLM’s community and social strategies. The article reveals insights about KLM’s Club China, Club Africa, Flying Blue Golf.

In that same article (mentioned above) you will also find info and links to KLM’s first social campaign Fly For Fortune and Stop The Hassle.

In 2011 KLM has invested lot of time, money and people to launch an extended social media marketing unit. A team that Always Listens First. A team that translates real-time actionable insights to business opportunities. So to me KLM is on the tipping point of becoming a social business soon.

We hope you will share your opinion in the comments below: What will be the next brand that will qualify as the next social business in 2012? And please tell us the why as well…

We do hope some CMOs will look at above 4 C’s of Community. And hopefully they will understand that having a large fan base on Facebook is not only to brag about on the golf course. How brands treat their fans of Facebook is a reflection of the company’s DNA and soul.

A recent study from Socialbakers tells us that only 5% of wall posts on brand pages ever receive answers. Telecommunications and airline sectors had the highest rates of answered wall posts, but even those were woefully low, at 26 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the media industry seems to ignore the “media” in social media, responding to just 1% of wall posts, and the automotive industry has stalled on this front, as well, at around 2.5%.

We believe that a wow brand experience starts with a response rate to wall posts should at around 75%. A mark not even remotely approached by brands.

Brands should understand that a CRM driven approach is needed to create loyal fans that will turn into brand ambassadors and advocates eventually.

A wow brand experience in social media starts with managing your community. Moderate your social pages. Release compelling content and copy frequently. Ask questions. Answer questions. Brands should behave social in a social environment.

That starts with having the right heart, soul and DNA. And by hiring a great engagement strategist and community manager.

60 insights from experienced community managers in an interesting ebook can be found here. I suggest your read it and match the outcome with the DNA of your current organization.

Please be aware that your brand is your largest asset. And that ignoring fans and potential advocates is not really social.

Think beyond campaigns if you start a Facebook page and understand you are performing a CRM program with people that have high expectations if you tap into their social space.

Great community management, by very experienced community managers would be a great start. If you think your brand can be managed by an intern or inexperienced agency: think again. If you don’t believe me: your fans will tell you probably soon.

The best advise to brands when tapping into the social space? ALF! Always Listen First. Next: do respond to the questions of your fans.

Don’t ignore them because you are to busy bragging about your products. That is the one way approach, caused by TV, that has blinded us for over 60 years.

Social engagement and community management is about sharing campfire stories, about life, cultures, ideas, events, great content, personal details, and other likes of tribes.

And yes, products every now and then as well. But only the great or really bad products get talked about. Products are not always the epic center in social media spaces.

Readers, how you often have you been frustrated by ignored wall posts on Facebook brand pages? Any great examples to share too?

Source: All Facebook

Since this summer, Netflix is under fire for making 2 decisions that didn’t feel well at their customers’ incredible large base of clients, fans and followers.

What happened? And what should Netflix do next?

The first Netflix decision that did not go well was the fact that Netflix raised its prices: from $10 per month to $16 per month.

Next Netflix decided to split their company in two, with 2 sites for the same service: Netflix and Qwikster.

But after the stocks for Netflix dropped and the people complaining and making fun of the name Qwikster they decided not to split the company.

Well, what should Netflix do now? For starters what they did. Writing an “I’m very sorry message”, as was done by the Netflix Co-Founder and CEO: Reed Hastings here.

I do applaud the reaction by Reed Hastings. But also question myself: What was he really thinking? And why do not more brands use the idea generation box like Starbucks My Idea?

I do now going the Starbucks route might be scary as hell for brands. Being a CSO, my dialogue and listening strategies have been rejected about 90%, especially at brands that would rather spend their budget on “lipstick on pigs” (shouting ads that promote lousy products).

But in the era of power to the people, all brands should listen to their clients, fans and followers much better. They can use advanced social media monitoring tools for that. And invite customers and fans to share their ideas on their own website.

But all the tools in the world, will not change a company’s DNA nor make it a CRM driven company after decades of interruption marketing and shouting ads.

So the question that remains to Reed Hastings and his Netflix board: Shouldn’t or couldn’t you have listened much earlier to the opinions of the people to whom you own your existence and success?

ALF: Always Listen First! Especially in the era where the power is to the people…

Trust might be difficult to restore for Netflix. Maybe they can earn that respect again, but it will take time. And advertising? Well, that might be second best right now. Or maybe it’s even better not to shout right now…

Netflix offers a fully personalized social site where individual recommendations are offered in a wholly transparent way – for example, by displaying the ratings of the ‘members average’ versus Netflix’s ‘best guess for you’.

In addition, there is a substantial focus on community: advice is drawn from thousands of customer reviews and top 10 lists. And Netflix subs can filter through movie opinions by finding other like-minded customers.

Movie freaks who learn about films through other sites – such as RottenTomatoes, the movie review site of the New York Times – can add these reviews directly to their Netflix queues. CMO’s in the entertainment industry that want to inject social intensity and smartness to their web platforms, are invited to learn from Netflix.

Some of that juice Netflix translated into tangible steps for CMO’s: Do act as an Advertizer in Paid Media (ATL campaigns). Act as a Facilitator in Owned Media (your own site, community, platform).

For short term campaigns: creativity is key. For long term programs strategy will be key. Below visuals might help.

click the visual to enlarge it

Remember: Without good content, there is no engagement. And without engagement, there is no social and no community.

And if if you do not have great content, why not let your community members create it for you? You just moderate and manage.

click the visual to enlarge it

Brands are becoming our friends — on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and through blogs. Or at their owned media channels like their website or community.

Here CMO’s can re-engineer their brands, connect to their fans and to establish a new brand identity through storytelling and social interactions.

What’s your opinion on the Netflix approach?

Most retailers ignored Google for the first 5 years or more. The most heard reason for ignoring Google: “We do not have a webshop, so why should we be high ranked in Google?” Fully forgetting that in that period 5 out of 6 consumers with purchase intent looked for products in Google, that they would next buy in the nearest offline retail store.

So based on their own assumptions, many retailers missed out on great sales opportunities over and over again.

Groupon (Deal of the Day) is one of America’s hottest brands in 2010. The Chicago-based online company started 2010 with 125 employees and today counts more than 2,500 staffers worldwide who arrange, write and send its deals-of-the-day emails to an exploding subscriber base.

In less than a year, Groupon swelled from 3 million subscribers in the U.S. to 25 million subscribers in nearly 30 countries around the world, including Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Russia and Argentina.

While Groupon started out as a way for consumers to find neighborhood deals on manicures and pilates classes, it fast attracted interest from blue-chip marketers looking to goose sales using flash coupons.

September 2010 marked Groupon’s first national promotion, a partnership with Gap that sold 445,000 coupons for a total of $11 million. There are more national partnerships with retailers, restaurants and travel companies to come, and it’s not stopping there.

Groupon has built its brand organically, via advocates endorsing the service by word-of-mouth and online, but sometime in the near future there may be traditional advertising techniques.

It’s popularity is the social nature of each offer: subscribers are encouraged to share promotions with family and friends, and many of the deals are not only for products but experiences.

And yes some retailers have discovered the power of online coupons to drive offline retail sales. The success of Groupon is inspiring a crop of imitators, including Walmart, which recently launched a Facebook-based app called Crowdsaver that unlocks discounts once products get enough likes.

So I do hope Groupon will inspire many other retailers so they are finally convinced that online can really drive retail sales.

10 Other tips I have for retailers:
1. Start your online shop today. In 10 years 25% of your revenues might come through digital channels.
2. Start your own opt-in datase and send out special deals to loyal buyers every 2 weeks.
3. Start a Twitter page and offer followers your special deals (look at Dell).
4. Go beyond loyalty programs and embrace Social CRM.
5. Start a Facebook fanpage, and offer tour fans samples and special offers.
6. Start on Foursquare and test it for your stores.
7. Embrace Facebook Places, which might be the Foursquare for the masses.
8. Try the advertising opportunties in Google Maps and Google Earth.
9. Create a mobile site and iPhone App to get more traffic to your retail stores.

10. This is my most important tip to retail brands:
I do understand you want to embrace channels/apps/services that have reached critical mass already, in order to reach the maximum number of buyers. But please take a look at this from the other side as well: Why not trying new things, when they are still very new, niche and below the radar.

Why would you consider this advice? One: Because digital channels do offer more interesting clients, that will buy more products and will cost you less in terms of webcare and customer support. Would you rather have well informed customers that are easy buyers or expensive clients that buy less but will need more of your expensive services and support?

Two: Because by tapping into channels/apps/services in the early stages, would enable you to learn and improve your skills and presence in front of a small audience. And that would be really smart.

Because, if you step in at the moment these services (i.e. iPhone or Foursquare) have reached maximum uptake and are mainstream already, you will make your first mistakes in front of that large audience. Not really smart, because in front of the masses you would like your brand to shine like a star, not fale, right?

So practice when it’s still small. This way, you will hardly ever damage your brand reputation. Because people will be gently with you when you embrace innovation and technology in a very early stage. They will even help you and give you tips how to improve your stuff…

If you are a laggard, step in very late and then still make beginners mistakes, online consumers AKA digital dictators might just attack your brand and say you are a hopeless old fashioned and outdated brand. One that does not really understand consumers’ needs at all. Well, if consumers would feel about your brand and products this way, why would they ever consider to buy one of your products?

Last but not least my dear retailing friends: Tapping into innovations, technology, features and apps in an early stage, has earned these companies not only a very innovative brand image, but also earned them loads of free publicity! So, why wait?

If you have other tips for retailers, please post them below!

Groupon source: AdAge

The launch came after other Formula 1 teams such as Virgin Racing and Mercedes GP said digital channels, in particular social media, were central to their marketing plans for the season.

The online community of Red Bull allows fans to upload and share content such as pictures and videos, while blogs and competitions will provide a chance for fans to get involved with the teams and get exclusive news.

David Granger, website manager at Red Bull, said, “Formula 1 hasn’t been good at engaging with fans and has been a slightly stand-offish sport. This gives us the chance to put across the less serious side of the sport.”

Inside Red Bull Racing F1 Headquarters: Christian Horner Interview

Red Bull will run competitions for community members and invite them to contribute race reports. The site lets fans sign up either directly or using Facebook Connect, which also enables Red Bull to widen its reach as activity on its community site gets posted on users’ Facebook feeds.

The site also links to the Red Bull team’s Twitter feed, and e-mail newsletters sent to members will link to the Red Bull Racing YouTube and Flickr pages.

Source: newmediaage

As Mommy bloggers steadily grow in ranks, the segment is beginning to wield more influence in both the blogosphere and on the web as a whole. And it looks like NBC is waking up to the potential power of this audience, hence the introduction of TodayMoms.com.

TodayMoms.com will offer parenting news, advice and tips from the show, and wants to engages web-savvy mommies in engaging with the site. There will be a considerable amount of web-exclusive content, and NBC says that they want to create a mobile destination for the site, and perhaps in an iPhone app. It appears that the site will be partly a social network, as moms will be encouraged to create a profile, share photos and participate in the blog via comments and reviews.And the site features a large amount of video content, which is partly on-air segments from the Today show and original content.

“There are literally millions of moms engaging with TODAYshow.com each and every day. But not with each other,” said Catherine Captain, general manager of TODAYshow.com. “We want to activate that existing universe with a vibrant place to converse and connect.”

Another example of a site targetting mothers is Circle Of Moms. The “mommy” audience is a growing segment of web-users that are steadily looking to the web for advice, support and to simple express themselves thus NBC made a wise choice not forgetting this ever growing influential group.

Source: Yahoo

To be reviewed or ignored at your taste and opinion. Or continue to read more strategic insights and tips for Samsung how to improve their viral marketing ROI…

Also meet the Samsung Mobile USA YouTube channel or the Samsung Mobile USA website. Or check the Samsung Mobile Facebook Channel.

As I see the campaign and Facebook channel, I understand that Telco AT&T is an important partner and reseller of Samsung cell phones. But Samsung, here’s a piece of free advice, because I feel you have earned it…

You invested a lot of money in Ozzy, your online commercial and seeding of the commercial to create reach and awareness for your new Solstice cell phone. Next you have created a nice website and a YouTube channel and Facebook channel as well.

You seem to understand the 4 C’s of community very well: Content, Context, Continuity and Connectivity. But have you forgotten about C number 5: Commerce?

Because I see no links to your online shop? And I see no links to the online shop of AT&T? I see no links to online shops in your Facebook channel and I see no integrated Facebook shop?

Please see how Adidas has integrated and promoted it’s online store into Facebook and how 1-800-Flowers has created a Facebook Store.

It’s important to know that when you engage and seduce this target audience, you also close the loop of your marketing efforts by offering them instant satisfaction: an immediate opportunity to buy your product!

Next tip for Samsung Mobile: track the seeding power of your viral agency and your viral marketing ROI with ViralTracker.

This way you can learn about the creative power of your digital content, about the costs per contact reaching your target audience, and about the ratings and reviews on your Ozzy commercial.

Assuming you can appreciate this free piece of advice and that you would like to get the learning’s from all the other video portals besides YouTube as well?

Well, where should I start? I applaud KLM for their approach and attempts to innovate and learn. We bloggers quite easy tend to criticize all we see, but we forget too often give compliments to the ones who try to differentiate themselves. So I will try to be realistic and objective.

KLM has successfully tapped into social media marketing before with the 2006 campaign Fly For Fortune. Amongst other agencies, my agency SocialMedia8 was involved.

In the next campaign Stop the Hassle we were also involved and tried to make the campaign spread virally. But something that is not viral at heart (strategy and concept) can’t be made viral. We would have rather liked KLM to gather ideas from users to actually improve Hassles. Like Starbucks is refreshing it’s brand with MyStarbucksIdea.

But KLM has launched more social communities successfully, so my compliments for their strategic passion and drive to keep innovating. Really, something that more brands should do.

KLM’s communities Club China, Club Africa and Flying Blue Golf offer certain target groups extra benefits.

Air France KLM already founded a Facebook page in May 2004. Also at Dutch social network Hyves KLM has gained close to 110.000 friends.

Also Air France KLM meets their shareholders in Second Life. I understand Air France KLM’s need to push their innovative image. But the moment KLM announced it’s Second Life presence is poor timing.

To get free PR, buzz and an innovative brand image with Second Life, KLM should have done it years ago, when Second Life was compelling, trendy, new and hot. Second Life had only a very tiny reach at the start (about 2 MLN users), but was at that moment perceived as “hot”.

So if KLM had moved into Second Life as one of the first brands, it would not have reached a massive target audience, but it could have gotten lot’s of free PR and a more innovative brand image.

Tapping into Second Life at this moment, is not a strategically very smart move from KLM. And that’s an understatement. The moment KLM tapped into Second Life, it’s by far not innovative anymore. So KLM can’t reach it’s innovative brand image goals nor get the maximum free PR boost.

KLM can’t reach a massive audience with Second Life either at the moment, so besides not getting free PR and an extra innovative image, KLM will not reach it’s marketing or sales goals either within Second Life.

Basically, from a strategic point of view, KLM has tapped into Second Life at the moment Second Life is declared to be the “innovation graveyard”. And all strategic planners know that brands should definitely stay away from the innovation graveyard: the place where you can’t achieve any of the PR, Branding, Marketing, Communications or Sales goals.

So the innovation graveyard is like the holey and ancient Indian graveyard, where only ghosts belong. The borders of the innovation graveyard should never be crossed: so you’d better stay out!!

Okay, back to Air France KLM’s Bluenity. Why am I afraid this could potentially become a big failure in the history of branded social networks?

First of all, you are trying to reach a complicated audience such as the traveling community, and of course you are trying to copy sites like Dopplr, however if you want to do it right try and stick to some of the best practices when launching a networking community like this

To try and connect people traveling to same destinations or, in a terribly spooky way, the ones boarding on a same flight, why closing this only to KLM or Air France flyers? You are probably loosing 90% of new potential users who may even be interested in your brand.

Also, why would I want to meet these random people boarding on the same plane as me? I am not sure there’s been any thought behind this at all…

Building a branded cost-effective platform like a social network is one of the many good strategies to reach both a non-existing and a loyal customer and start creating a conversation with them. Around Bluenity there is no trace of this…

BA Metrotwin has got it right because of so many different elements. Users don’t have to be BA frequent flyers, to take advantage of any services offered by the site, and doing so BA is increasing the chance for people loving the site to retain a higher affinity to the brand.

Secondly, British Airways was smart enough to tap into one of the most frequent route BA has, London-New York, and creating a website users will find extremely useful when looking for hot-spots – even if I don’t fly BA or don’t fly at all!

Why should I be on Bluenity? What are the benefits for me to join such community?

Metrotwin is a great space for sharing information, gaining advice and connect with like minded individuals… even during you trip! Bluenity looks to me like a tedious space where I could start being stalked by random people just because we share a same flight, probably twice a year-zero content, no brand affinity and a dull approach!

Then some other strategic directions to KLM. I’m a frequent flyer at KLM. I like them for their innovative brand approach, but campaigns like Stop the Hassle do not change my opinion about the KLM planes, products and services, so not about the KLM brand either.

Because the KLM brand need’s better planes, better products and better services. I would rather like to see KLM open up to people that spend 50.000 to 100.000 miles per year in their planes, so they can really improve hassles that are really relevant to me as a frequent traveler.

If KLM would open up like Starbucks, I would fly KLM more frequently. At least, if they implemented some ideas of my fellow travelers and myself.

And that is what British Airways OpenSkies did very smart: being open to improve their core product (planes!!) with the input of their community.

Share us your thoughts and ideas.

Sources: Creative Expresso, Influential Marketing Blog and ViralBlog