To produce a modern brand a marketer should have a “conversation” among “friends ” ;.Okay, now so just how does a marketer create those “friendships” to own those “conversations” to produce those strong, effective, brands? An instance study in how to get this done is the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in 2008.
At the beginning of this informative article I wish to state this misnomer. President Obama is a lightning rod. Many people love him and many people hate him, but even his biggest detractors have to admit that his social media marketing strategy was a classic. Marketers should study this campaign since it is a tutorial on what modern products should be branded. I am hoping that the reader will give attention to the marketing and not the politics.
Barack Obama is a classic case in how a brand can be created in a New Media Age. To win the American presidency a candidate should have a great deal of money and a great deal of name recognition—a brand. If a candidate does not have a brand, if voters do not know who you are, you are not planning to be elected. If a marketer cannot distinguish their product in the market place, that product won’t be bought. This is why modern marketers should study the Obama campaign. Prior to the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama had no money and was unknown. By comparison, Hillary Clinton was a well-known senator from a large state. During 2006-2007, it absolutely was a foregone conclusion that Hilary would win the Democratic nomination She and her husband had created a vast political network to draw from, and she a lot of money—she had a powerful brand. Barack had no brand; even in their own household. When Barack broached a potential candidacy to Michelle, her response was, “This is actually the craziest thing you ever said to me. Nobody will beat Hilary this year…Get over it, kid” ;.Barack and his team did have knowledge of social media marketing and just how to use it in a campaign. This knowledge was his biggest asset.
The campaign of 2008 is analogous to the modern market place. In times past, it absolutely was very hard, and too costly to make a new product and brand it. This is why social media marketing is this kind of important element in modern marketing. A social media campaign allows a new product to be created and branded in the market place quickly, at very little cost. The present day market place is best explained by author Shiv Singh. There is a huge change in the market place. No longer are consumers interested in engaging with large impersonal brands. Consumers do not trust brands any longer—they trust their friends. In a current survey conducted by The Economist half the respondents stated they don’t trust big business. They trust the recommendations of these friends. Leveraging the recommendations of friends is the way to create brands. That is the key reason why the use of social media marketing is really critical to branding. Through social media marketing, friends meet, conversations happen, and brands are created.
This means that in case a product will be selected, the brand must become a “friend” to its consumer. This is exactly what the Obama Campaign did and the way in which that he did this should be studied by marketers since it is a case study in how to produce modern brands using social media. By combining social media marketing that creates micro-targeting, force multipliers are manufactured that are needed to produce world-class brands.
The knowledge of the modern market place allowed Barack and his team to quickly create a strong brand and overcome the Clinton campaign. At this time, I want to clear up one that I made in a previous article. Recently, I wrote an article entitled, “The Perfect Storm: Why Companies Should Adopt Social Media Marketing because the Center of Their Marketing” ;.In this informative article, I identified David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager as a genuine member of the Facebook management team. This is an error. The Obama staff member that I was thinking about was Chris Hughes, who served because the Obama Campaign Director of Online Organizing. Mr. Hughes had a good influence on the campaign social media marketing strategy.
The Obama campaign wasn’t the first campaign to utilize social media. They certainly were the first ever to co-ordinate social media marketing by having an entire campaign. They certainly were the first ever to organize the use of social media. For social media marketing to work, it has to be organized. John McCain and Howard Dean used the medium before Obama, but Obama and his staff could integrate and organize social media marketing into every part of the campaign in a smooth way. Due to this Barak could create “conversations” that engaged. He created enthusiasm, however the enthusiasm his sight created was smart enthusiasm. He used social media marketing sights in a way that targeted supporters and voters. This targeting allowed him to comprehend the important metrics that he needed to learn in order to win his campaign. He could target and give attention to his true supporters.
The strength of Obama’s social media marketing branding approach is so it was constructed to create and develop “friendships” ;.That is very important to marketers to realize. Once you meet someone there’s a veil between you and that person. As you’re able to know one another better, the veil comes down. As your relationship develops, trust develops, and deeper conversations begin. These conversations bring about deeper relationships on a human level. On an advertising level, these relationships become strong brands.
The Obama campaign knew so it had to activate people, but that engagement had to be based on trust. The Obama engaged people in what it called “the ladder” ; smm panel .You engage one step at the same time, build the connection deeper, and each step is a higher amount of commitment—a ladder. The steps of the ladder are on the basis of the comfort level of the individual with regards to the campaign. A marketer would call these steps creating touch points.
The initial touch point would be Personal. This is actually the point at which a marketer and customer first come right into contact and “friend” each other on a platform like Facebook. In the Obama case, it absolutely was at this stage when individuals are observing one another. A person signs ups for messages and emails. Another touch point is Social. It is this touch point that individuals start making posts or comments to a friend’s profile about your product. At this touch point, a pal explains with their friend why something is a good thing. In the Obama campaign, these profiles integrated using their web site. At the Website, an advocate may create an account. In the marketing area, an organization would integrate with a Facebook or Twitter. At this time, an individual may feel comfortable enough with a brand to participate a “group” or produce a “group” ;.
In the Obama campaign, another stage would be to become an Advocate. To drive interest, pictures may be posted, blogs written, or a video may be created and posted to You Tube, for instance. You will find analogies in the advocate stage for a marketer trying to converse about the merchandise with a “friend” (a customer) and vice versa. It is in the advocate stage that the supporter may have now feel committed enough to Obama to host an event, ask friends to donate money, or to join up to vote. In the Advocate stage, in an advertising situation, an individual might communicate with a pal and recommend something, creating a brand.
Another stage is the Empowering stage. This stage is for serious supporters of Obama. Here an advocate gets heavily involved. The campaign tracked volunteers and could target its most reliable supporters.
These committed people could create social and fundraising groups on MyBO Web site. The Obama campaign could now organize their very own networks of supporters that gave supporters usage of the Obama database, that they could pull phone numbers for doing phone banking from their living rooms. In reading this informative article, a marketer has to create an example in what the Obama campaign did to what each marketer can do with their very own brand to improve engagement using their customers. Perhaps some organizations could offer discounts with their customers if they introduce their friends to the marketers and solidify the brand. Here a marketer can be flexible in their very own situation to give their brand.
The reason why social media marketing platforms are very popular is that friends will have the way to share video, blogs, pictures, and posts using their friends. This can be a god-send for marketers as they try to produce and expand their brand. Ford Motor Company just did this in a fruitful campaign to introduce their new car, the Fiesta. Ford called this the Fiesta Project. In the same way that Ford extended brand awareness for the Fiesta, the Obama campaign provided source material for user-generated content. Here is where scale has play. The reason why Ford’s and Obama’s campaign was so effective was simply because they both had the scale for “friends” to “converse” to produce the brand. This is why the planning stage is really important in creating a brand. As Napolean said, “Every army has an agenda until the first shot is fired” ;.A marketing campaign is chaotic. Things happen. A marketer has to be flexible. The main reason Ford’s and Obama ‘s social media marketing campaign was so successful was because there is planning and enough scale was intended to engage “friends” ;.