Talking with the Groundswell - Marketing 2.0

If you are thinking about getting something, a new laptop, a new phone, cosmetic, or even just a simple bookcase for example, with so many options available in the market, what's the first thing most people would do? The answer is exactly what I would probably do: go online and search and look at the reviews, or some people might just go ask their friends. Under the influence of social media, opinions of customers matter in today's market.  And thus understand groundswell is vital for marketers to survive and rise in Marketing era 2.0.

As Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's Groundswell, winning in a world transformed by social technologies puts it, Groundswell is:

"A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations."

Of course, understanding the groundswell is the first step forward. After identifying your social media marketing objective and focus, you need to make your moves. And that is, talking with the groundswell.

Li and Bernoff's Groundswell caught my attention with Blendtec's Will It Blend campaign. I thought to myself, a $399 blender? WHAT?! That's ridiculous! So I YouTube it... 

And there are 132 more Will It Blend video, all having the funky nerdy funny style, and starred by Blendtec's CEO Tom Dickson, who always says "Don't smoke that." after the extreme blending experiments. 

But what really intrigued me after I went through some of these videos, its Facebook pages, and its website was that how Blendtec has used the groundswell to its benefit. Its least viewed video still gained 156,679 audiences and the most popular one that I show you earlier, has 16,236,899 views! And their Facebook pages for the Blendtec and Will It Blend, Twitter are really active and interactive. They are really listening and talking with the groundswell!

In the Groundswell, Li and Bernoff used the Will It Blend campaign as a good example of talking with the Groundswell by producing these videos and thus creating a brand out of it. They understand people's curiosity, people's need to engage, and people's desire for good quality product. As the result, the Will It Blend campaign serves them all. I consider listening and talking with the groundswell looping actions rather than single activities. And the Blendtec is defiantly a good model.

Blendtec and Will It Blend's Facebook page interact with their audiences by posting things that would be interested to blender users, such as smoothie recipes, breakfast recipes, and most important, Blendtec users' favorite, the Will It Blend videos. And they always use questions to forest conversation with the audience. With Twitter, it's even more obvious how they interact with the audiences.

According to Li and Bernoff, putting out a virtual video, engaging in social network and user generated content site, joining the blogsophere, and creating a community are the four good techniques for talking with the groundswell. When Tom Dickson says "You've asked us to blend ***, and now we are doing it!" in the Will It Blend videos, it makes people feel specially connected to the brand if your idea is taken. And being interactive with the audience on social network definitely forms a Blendtec community.

By talking to the audience and listening to what they want to see, Blendtec has without a doubt done a great job utilizing the groundswell to its benefit. How could you not like the funny 80s looking Will It Blend videos, or feel personally connected and important when you got a reply from them on social network? Or a better question should be, how could you not get hooked up when you see this:

Understanding and participate in the groundswell is, to most companies, beneficial and critical. Once done right, you will be astonished by the power of the groundswell and what it brings to the future of your market.

Social Media Profile Makes A Difference

Have you ever heard about the Color Run? It's a 5k paint race that takes place around the world, which, to me, seems to have married racing with the Holi Festival -- a festival of color in Hindu culture. For those who have no clue what it is, here's a video:

The Color Run 5k

Looks like fun, right? So a friend of mine and myself got swept off our feet when we learn about this "happiest 5k on the planet" almost 2 months ago and immediately decided that we wanted to sign up. But to our disappointment, Massachusetts is not on their tour list. Yet we found two other possible similar races: Color Vibe 5k and Splash of Color 5k. Without hesitation, we started our comparison research between them looking for the best race to get ourselves rainbow-painted.

It didn't take long for us to decide that we are going to Splash of Color 5k because it's a better timing. But till today, I still think Color Vibe 5k might be more fun. And my opinion is strongly influenced by their social profile.

First I went to their website. Splash of Color's homepage is simply designed with a banner, a documentary video of the race in Marlboro, and a piece of publicity material for the up-coming race in Worcester with registration link on the right. Color Vibe 5k's homepage is far more catchy. The flash banners present great photos taken at the race with their slogan designs: "We Bring the Party""Get Colorful!""Get Healthy""The Most Color Fun-filled Day of Your Life""Be VIBE-rant""Crazy Fun""So Much Fun!""Color Blast". Below the banners is a map and a table showing all the event times, locations, registration information for this year, which makes registration so much easier. Since this kind of paint race is targeting young people, Color Vibe's website has definitely done a better job in catching eyes.

Then I went on YouTube. Surprisingly Splash of Color only has this one official video and some other documentaries that are produced by participants, but none succeed in gaining my interest. And here's the official video of Color Vibe 5k which makes it look so cool!

So for those who are trying to decide which one to go to (since they all come to Worcester), Color Vibe's YouTube profile is without a doubt more appealing. After all, young people love doing things that are either cool or would make them look cool.

I also went to their Facebook pages. Facebook seems to be the only social media that Splash of Color is using for marketing and promotion. They have 924 Likes while Color Vibe's page has 808k. It's a huge difference but I wouldn't doubt since Color Vibe's mastering not just their Facebook page but also Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. According to the research result from Li and Bernoff's Groundswell, winning in a world transformed by social technologies, 58% of the participation in groundswell activities are visiting social network sites, and 48% are watching video from other users. And thus having a good social media profile with well-produced videos and images (obviously people love virtual posts much more than just words), is critical when it comes to social media marketing and branding.

Additionally, Color Vibe has paid Facebook to have their ads delivered to their target customers' Facebook page. This could really boost their social media campaign if they have a clear vision of their target group. And I think they do. So this investment is definitely worthy, as Groundswell has pointed out, this is "simple online economics: on the Internet, traffic equals money".

There are too much to talk about when it comes to how to create a great social media profile and my brief comparison of these two races' social media profile is barely a quick peek into the bunny hole. But one thing is very clear to me: social media profile makes a difference in how people think about you and your brand. Just ask yourself a simple question: have you ever make any decision under the influence of any social media?