“The Power in Using Consumer-Generated Marketing from Social
Networks”
The use of consumer-generated marketing from social networks
has become a significant marketing force; a strong relationship built on communication
between companies, brands, and consumers. It has become a potent influencer in
consumer decision making. Consumers now have a bigger role and an increasing
say in shaping their own brand experiences by using different types of social
networks.
The emergence of social networking has changed the
way many companies reach out their consumers. Nowadays these companies are
inviting their consumers to play an active role in shaping ads by participating
in conversations, brand messages, and expressing their own opinions about what
brand they like the most, and what it means to them; based on the
experiences they have had with their brand.
The main objective of using consumer-generated marketing
from social media, is the “consumer’s collaboration with word-of-mouth
advertising” by sharing weblogs, online message boards,
Facebook apps to obtain customer suggestions,
online conversations, YouTube videos made by fans, interactive broadband TV, and many other different kinds of social
networks that exist nowadays. For
example, The Coca Cola Company created a Facebook app to invite customers to
participate in a marketing campaign called “Flavor Creator Lab” for their
VitaminWater brand. Its goal was to get more fans involved in the social media
environment, by getting customers’ suggestions for a new flavor.
Consumers will choose the flavor idea they like best, then Coca Cola will
manufacture it, give a $5,000 cash prize to the winner and finally sell it to
the public. Coca Cola’s goal was to get more fans involved to create a new flavor
and that way they could increase its sales as well. Thanks to this Facebook app, they are
getting more consumers involved with and talking about this brand. It is interesting how "Coca Cola’s
VitaminWater" has been successful using social networks and social media,
to create strong “consumer-generated marketing”, in order to be successful in
the market and create customer loyalty.
Another example I think
is interesting is the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, an innovative
marketing campaign created by PepsiCo’s Doritos brand, in which fans were invited to create their own Doritos
commercials and the best one was aired during the game. We all know there are
millions of football fans. Some of these fans also love to make videos. There
are so many mobile apps today that allow their users to easily post video clips.
These users love to share crazy videos on social networks and make people laugh
and get comments back. PepsiCo’s Doritos
brand takes advantage of these kinds of users because they know that by
creating this video content for social media, fans will be more likely to
participate in these types of campaigns, especially when they offer money for
the best video clip. Thanks to social media,
this campaign has been a huge success. PepsiCo now has more followers on Facebook,
Twitter and other social media networks and, as a result, they have increased
their sales.
http://mashable.com/2009/09/08/vitamin-water-flavor-creator/
