| There were a lot of good social media marketing | | | | personality to its Twitter profile. What are Zappos' |
| campaigns in 2009. There were a lot of bad ones, too. | | | | employees doing right now? What are they thinking? |
| We will skip the bad ones - here are the five that we | | | | What are they having for dinner? You will find it on the |
| like the most. They are original, creative and they | | | | employees' tweets. Zappos messages are personal |
| cut-through-the clutter with minimum expense and | | | | and not necessarily work related. This made it easier |
| maximum ROI. You may disagree, you may like others | | | | for Zappos to connect with their customers, keep the |
| and we probably missed a few. Please feel free to | | | | company's high profile and personalize the online store. |
| comment on these or any other social media | | | | Tony Hsieh now has 1.6 million followers on Twitter - |
| campaigns you like. | | | | more than either CBS News or the NFL - and he |
| Whopper Sacrifice | | | | inspires his followers with quotes, observations and |
| The idea behind "Whopper Sacrifice" was simple | | | | whatever is on his mind. Zappos knows how to sell |
| enough - delete ten of your Facebook friends and get | | | | shoes. Now it is hoping to profit from people's interest |
| a free Whopper. It caught on like wildfire because by | | | | in the friendly and playful way it conducts business. |
| the end of the campaign over 50,000 friends had been | | | | The Best Job in The World |
| deleted. | | | | How do you promote an exotic but remote tourist |
| It was brilliant in its timeliness. Networks on social media | | | | destination that very few people know about? The |
| sites are growing by leaps and bounds and more | | | | Australian Government did it with an internet contest |
| people keeping adding friends they don't even know. | | | | earlier this year called "The Best Job in the World." The |
| The thinking was that the value of these friends | | | | job paid $100,000 for the winner to be the caretaker |
| deteriorates - and removing ten of them for a free | | | | of some islands in the Great Barrier Reef off the |
| Whopper seemed like a good idea. | | | | Australian coast. The person selected for the job |
| But deleting friends is not what Facebook stands for. | | | | would broadcast weekly blogs promoting the area. It |
| Facebook is about making connections, not canceling | | | | was a big success. |
| them, and Burger King was eliminating more friendships | | | | OK - the campaign began with traditional media but it |
| than the giant social media site was comfortable with. | | | | was sustained over online sites like YouTube, Twitter, |
| All good things must come to an end - and ultimately | | | | and Facebook. The website for the contest received |
| the Whopper Sacrifice was sacrificed. It was a good | | | | a million hits the day after its launch. Additionally, the |
| campaign while it lasted - although some people are | | | | campaign attracted over 34,000 applicants and |
| now wondering if it was worth losing a friend over | | | | generated over $70 million worth of publicity. The |
| ahamburger. | | | | promotion continued throughout the year and the |
| Seaworld's Photo Challenge Contest | | | | winner, a British man named Ben Southall, regularly |
| This was a novel idea Buddy Media hatched up that | | | | posted blogs and promoted the islands over a |
| lets users interact around a brand. The premise is a | | | | network of social media sites. |
| photo challenge game where users are shown two | | | | Hotelicopter |
| pictures and they have to identify what is different | | | | You don't need to be a big company to make a big |
| between them. One example - a picture had a dolphin | | | | impact in social media. Two University of Virginia |
| with a fin and the other had a dolphin without a fin. | | | | graduate students dreamed up "hotelicopter" - the |
| When the user finished the score was sent back to | | | | world's largest helicopter that was modified into an |
| the social network and shared with friends. You could | | | | 18-room luxury hotel. Hotelicopter never existed but |
| also invite friends to play against you and the winner | | | | that it didn't stop it from being a huge viral hit. |
| was broadcast online. | | | | It started as an April Fool's Day prank but quickly grew |
| Buddy Media created something for Seaworld that | | | | in popularity. VibeAgent, a hotel search agency started |
| was different, viral and it integrated the brand into an | | | | by the two graduate students, wanted to rebrand the |
| experience. It seems like this is the direction where | | | | company in a fun and interesting way and they |
| social media campaigns are headed - doing something | | | | wanted to make news doing it. The fake hotelicopter |
| creative that engages customers with your product. | | | | site received more than 1.5 million page views in one |
| And with this campaign they put social back into social | | | | week alone. Sites like CNet and widely read blogs |
| media. | | | | buzzed with news about the hotelicopter and whether |
| Zappos @ Twitter | | | | it really existed. |
| Of all the ways Zappo - the online shoe retailer - uses | | | | Ian Skurnik, a University of Virginia professor, said, "You |
| social media marketing, none is more engaging than the | | | | want to stand out a bit without being so bizarre that |
| way it uses Twitter. Zappos came up an interesting | | | | you drive people away or don't have them take you |
| strategy - get all the their staff to communicate with | | | | seriously. A lot of names that sound odd initially stop |
| their customers via Twitter. @ Zappos features its | | | | sounding odd after they become more familiar. For |
| CEO, Tony Hsieh and all Zappos' employees have | | | | example, you can now say Hulu and it sounds |
| their own Twitter accounts, too. They have a leader | | | | semi-normal and people know what you're talking |
| board that ranks the employees according to the | | | | about." |
| number of followers they have and the staff is | | | | The idea wasn't that bizarre at all. The company |
| encouraged to use the leader board and promote | | | | rebranded its' name successfully and is now doing |
| Zappos at the same time. | | | | very well in the $100 billion online travel business. |
| Unlike other retailers, Zappos has successfully put a | | | | |