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Be A Chunk Spelunker - Ben & Jerry's (Continued)

It's getting a little chilly these days but Ben&Jerry's is still doing fine.

As I continued to monitor their social media analytics data through the past month, I found more interesting stuff in Ben&Jerry's social media performances and was able to gather more data sets for comparison.

In my last post on Ben&Jerry's, it's obvious that they've been talked about online, mostly positively. And their cartoonish, childish key tone is adored by their customers and social media audience. Looking into their social media performances, you could easily see the seasonal variances. But overall, they have fairly good consistency as observed from the analytical results.

In this post, I'll present you my monitoring result from September 15 through November 3. By comparing and analyzing them, I'll point out Ben&Jerry's strengths and weaknesses in handling social media and what they could do to improve their performance to create a better connection with their audience and generate more buzz.  

The Scotchy Scotch Scotch Campaign

On October 22, Ben&Jerry's released a new flavor named Scotchy Scotch Scotch dedicated to Ron Burgundy, the famous San Diego newsman from the 2004 movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The launch of the Scotchy Scotch Scotch came one day prior to the release of the new trailer for the Anchorman sequel - Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.

Launching new flavors into the market is no news for Ben&Jerry's, especially when they just released the Pumpkin Cheesecake flavor on October 8. But this time it was more than a simple post and announcement online, Ben&Jerry's have actually carried out a campaign promoting this new limited edition flavor. And here's how they do it:

Website:

Ben&Jerry's seldom changes their front page for a new flavor. With the new campaign in full swing, Ben&Jerry's are committed to make a difference.

By recreating the famous newsroom scene and quoting one of the lines in the movie ("I'm kind of a big deal" when Ron was trying to pick up Victoria),  it has established a connection with the Anchorman fans.

And by creating a fan-generated "Find Your Scotchy Scotch Scotch" Flavor Locator, they are empowering the customers to help create a "Scotchy Scotch Scotch" map, which is normally taken care of by the company itself.

They've also added a Twitter tab on each flavor page for people to look into who's been talking about the flavor on Twitter. But unfortunately, the tabs are not working efficiently.

Overall, the changes on the website are surprising. It has generated a better link with the customers than it used to.






Facebook:

Ben&Jerry's have a fairly large Facebook fan base.

They have been talking about the new flavor release ever since October 20 and ask fans to guess what that would be. And it has definitely generated a buzz.

Twitter:

Ben&Jerry's have followed the same steps as Facebook in Scotchy Scotch Scotch's launch. Yet it has more consistency and some differences:

Of course Ben&Jerry's official Instagram and Youtube page have also participate in the campaign. But to my surprise, Instagram, often its best social media tools to communicate with the audience, only has two posts about the launch of the new flavor, and Youtube, which has lack of activity in comparison, has uploaded a new video:

A Buzz From the Scotch

So did the campaign make a difference in Ben&Jerry's social media performance? The answer is YES. 

Figure.1
B&J's social media analytic result between Sep.15-Oct.16

According to Social Mention, Ben&Jerry's held a steady performance on their social media platform (Figure.1) But when I was monitoring their performance throughout the campaign, I noticed something interesting.

Figure.2 shows the monitor results from Oct.13-Nov.3. So the Scotchy Scotch Scotch campaign has without a doubt generated a buzz in social media. Yet the passion dropped, meaning the likelihood of people who participated in the buzz talking about Ben&Jerry's again is less. And thus the result on Nov.3 was back to the normal steadiness.

Figure.2

This indicates that the campaign itself is successful in engaging the audience and in boosting Ben&Jerry's social media marketing result. But it lacks of long term effects. Also, it didn't create and participate in enough conversations to keep the buzz buzzing for long enough.

For individual social media platform performance analysis, I looked into their Facebook and Twitter trends over the campaign.

As shown in the Facebook insight, there's a buzz during the campaign period but then it dropped this week. And although they already have a pretty big fan base, it seemed that they have gained some new likes during the campaign. Socialbakers's data also proves this.

As for Twitter, the number of their followers are increasing steadily. However, you could also notice a little boost since the campaign, and the boost didn't slow down afterwards. That might be related to the fact that their effort on Twitter for Scotchy Scotch Scotch is more consistent - it didn't end after the launch, but rather, they were talking about it every couple days to keep audience's interest high.



How about search engine? Google Trends shows that people's interest in Ben&Jerry's are going down before October, which is normal since ice cream is a seasonal type of sweet/dessert. But as shown, there's a boost during the same time of the Scotchy Scotch Scotch campaign.

As for blog posts, according to Meltwater IceRocket, there's an obvious proportional relation between people's interest in Ben&Jerry's and the launch of Scotchy Scotch Scotch. Yet the boost didn't last long. 

I was also interested in seeing how Ben&Jerry's have been doing compared to two of its competitors: ColdStone Creamery and Hagen-Dazs. So I used Wildfire to compare their Facebook and Twitter performances.

Ben&Jerry's have a definite triumph on Facebook likes and a steady growth. The sudden drop in January might be a technical mistake or lack of data. Overall the popularity of its Facebook page is increasing. 

As for Twitter, I was again surprised by what I got. Ben&Jerry's and ColdStone were almost at the same place in May, 2010, and Hagen-Dazs joined in 2012 with the same base. Yet the ratio of growth of Ben&Jerry's over the past 3 months is astonishing.

Recommendation

Through my monitoring project, I found that Ben&Jerry's social media performances were astonishingly well. Originally a small  New England native ice cream factory, Ben&Jerry's transformed into an international ice cream manufactory brand. While its market is similar to fellow ice cream giants Coldstone Creamery and Hagen-dazs, it doesn't rely on traditional advertising like its competitors might have, rather, it has embraced the groundswell and utilized social media to make a difference. It's really impressive.

However, nobody is perfect, but we can give our best effort everyday. So I have a couple suggestions for Ben&Jerry's based on my observations and analysis.

1. "Who's talking on Twitter"

The idea of the "Who's talking on Twitter" tab is genius. But first it needs to be functional. Once it's working, people will be able to find Tweets about Ben&Jerry's and its flavors through this search engine easily. And then Ben&Jerry's should generate conversations with and between the audience by, for example, creating flavor hashtags, supporting fans to form a community or form one for them, encouraging retweets to create buzzes, etc.

2. Open the Flavor Locator to the Public

The fan-created Flavor Locator for the new flavor Scotchy Scotch Scotch is great. It empowered fans to create the flavor map by themselves. It's like a mapping version of wiki, it's new and it's fun to see a scoop being put up on the map because of the information you provide. So why not allow people to be the Flavor Locator themselves. Hashtags could be created for this, social media share buttons should be linked to encourage people to share their discovery with their friends. Also, what if you could also see who shares the same passion for your favorite Ben&Jerry's flavor geographically and maybe find yourself a new friend? The potential is unlimited.

3. Let the Buzz Continue

Creating a buzz is not a problem for Ben&Jerry's, but keeping it buzzing is. As shown in the data presented earlier, the buzz for Scotchy Scotch Scotch has only lasted for less then a month. But a great opportunity to boost the brand like this shouldn't be wasted. Hence creating conversation around campaigns, events, etc. is more important than simply talking to the audience. For example, for the launch of Scotchy Scotch Scotch, some simple Anchorman related Q&A with Ben&Jerry's new flavor as the reward could not only foster conversation by tapping into the movie, but also strengthen its funny brand image in fans' heart.


4. More Youtube Videos

Youtube is the weakest link of all Ben&Jerry's social media platform. It's rarely updated and has only 627 subscribers. Additionally, it's not easy to find the ONE official Youtube page because there are so many of them. So Ben&Jerry's should definitely get its Youtube page organized. Once it's done, create more videos monthly, or better, weekly, to engage the audience. For instance, film the processes of the Ben&Jerry's ice cream recipes that are posted on Instagram, Facebook, etc, or film the recipes provided by fans; encourage fans to send you original videos telling their stories with their favorite Ben&Jerry's ice cream. It's not that difficult but the influence would be worthy of the investment for sure.


5. More Events and Marketing Campaigns

Even though Ben&Jerry's marketing focus shifted to Europe and Asia a few years ago, I still think they should create more events and campaigns around their products, the brand, and their educational and environmental missions. Especially for new products, more should be done in the States for branding purposes. The Scotchy Scotch Scotch campaign has shown the potential for successful marketing and more campaigns like this should be conducted in the future. Ben&Jerry's have such a strong company culture; it should be promoting a life style instead of only ice cream.




It's interesting and impressive to see how an international brand rely more on social media marketing than traditional ones to promote itself in the States. I think it would be intriguing to see Ben&Jerry's social media performance when the movie Anchorman 2 comes out this December. Hopefully they will do even better than the launch of Scotchy Scotch Scotch.

Small Business - Market Yourself with Social Media

Music is a huge part of my life. I've created a lot of playlists for different occasions. One of them is filled with songs from The Piano Guys. So imagine my excitement when I learned that they are touring to Boston this October. There's no way that I would let this opportunity go so I am going to their concert next week! Can't wait!

The Piano Guys are a music group consisting of Jon Schmidt (Piano), Steven Sharp Nelson (Cello), Tel Stewart (Videographer/Editor), Paul Anderson (Videographer/Producer) and Al van der Beek(Music and Studio). Unlike most of the mainstream artists, they gained their fame via social media. They first started on Youtube, posting self-filmed and edited videos of mash-up pop songs, and already have over 2 million subscribers. After they were founded for six months, they did a "Without You" Cover dedicated to their fans and invited them to be a founder of the Piano Guys and help release their first album.

As their social media fame grew, The Piano Guys became increasingly interactive with fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

They basically just marketed themselves using social media and it has been a great success. Now they are touring around the world, releasing new albums, and producing accessories like posters, calendars, caps, etc. 

This got me thinking: social media is definitely a great marketing tool for small business; it's low cost, low risk, and high gain. But the question lies in “how”: how to best utilize social media for marketing yourself?

1. Locate your target customer. "Locate" doesn't mean you need to know where they live, where they work, but rather, are they online and which social media platform they are most active on. Then step by step build your stage and stretch onto other platforms. As for the Piano Guys, their target audience age is from teenagers to people in their 50s. And thus most of them are really active on social media. Choosing Youtube as a start is also very smart. Who doesn't enjoy good music with great scenery? Hence they've gradually built up a big fan base there.

2. Be interactive with your fans! Social media is all about creating relationships. And the Piano Guys are really good at this. They listen to their fans opinions and also would pick from fans' suggestions of songs to do mash-ups or covers on Youtube. Steve even asked the fans to help name his new born daughter! Also, they interact with fans on Facebook by letting them decide album covers, posters, etc. Recently (actually just yesterday), they hosted Live "Q&A" on Facebook and answered 1343 questions posted by the fans. 

3. Be humorous and be their friend. People are long tired of the traditional downward marketing campaign. So if you want success out of social media marketing, you need to be your audiences' friends. The Piano Guys have always been genuine, funny, and sometimes silly to their fans. It shows in their videos, interviews, social media posts and also their replies to the fans.

Well, obviously there are a lot of other tips, and you should never simply copy someone's success. But the Piano Guys definitely set a great example of how to market yourself with social media if you have limited budget. 

So if you are running a small business or thinking about starting one, why not give social media marketing a try!

  

 

#Get Beard!

Who doesn't love sports?

Well, I am a sports fan and my boyfriend's a crazy sports fan; by crazy I mean when most people check their Facebook page, he checks the Score Center app on his phone. But sports fans are all enthusiastic about their teams, who isn't? You get excited and scream when your team scores; you are frustrated and maybe angry (very angry in my boyfriend's case) when they lose; you buy their jerseys, caps, or other souvenirs, and you most likely have at least talked about them once on social media.

Living in New England, of course you need to root for the Bruins, Patriots, Celtics and Red Sox! I went to a Patriots' game last month and when I was posting on Instagram, people around seemed to be posting onto social media too. That got me thinking about sports teams' social media marketing or management. Then this caught my attention:

     

The Red Sox's Dollar Beard Night campaign totally got me! I don't know since when, but Red Sox players all seem to have beards now. Beards have become a Red Sox icon! They even have names for each Red Sox players beard:

Having beards as one of their distinguishing features is definitely a good social media marketing branding move. After the #GetBeard campaign launched, they started comparing players to celebrities who had/have the same shape of beard and ask fans to vote "who wore it better?".

This not only marketed/branded the players by connecting them to famous people, but the voting gave these enthusiastic fans a great way to engage. Then they came up with a even better idea: let the fans make their own virtual bearded photos! Like this:

So far, 2061 people have made their virtual beard pictures and tweeted them. Imagine how many likes these funny photos would gain from others. And in a world of mouth, these photos spread the word for the Red Sox's #GetBeard campaign better than any advertising! 

The only thing that I wished they could do better is to produce interactive video commercials for this campaign. They could simply have the star players on film for a couple seconds each to first attract fans to participate (they will, because most fans are enthusiastic!), and collect fans' video showing their similar-to-the-player beard, then edit the videos by beard categories. That would definitely get more attention. After all, this is a visual world and a good youtube video could easily go viral.

Yet still, this is a good and interesting social marketing/branding campaign for sports since it not only got Red Sox a buzz on social media, but also energized their fans. Although I really wanted to go, I gave up the opportunity to be a part of such a fun night for learning more in class. But according to my friends who went, this campaign definitely made Fenway wild. Some have even postulated that the beards gave the Red Sox luck and the winning record. #GetBeard! Go Red Sox!

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?