Unless you’ve been hiding away on a deserted tropical island, you have probably heard some talk recently about the “new” Old Spice Man.  The nightly television newscasters are talking about him, women are calling in to their local radio stations to find out how to meet him and he has been the topic of the day across many internet sites.  Why all this buzz about a brand, that until recently was, well… old?

Talk about the power of utilizing social media to drive word of mouth and help reinvent a brand.

Acting on an off-the-wall idea of creating instant buzz by responding in real time to consumers questions/comments with short videos, Procter & Gamble produced funny YouTube videos about Old Spice.  The team leveraged Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and blogs sending out invitations to ask questions of The Old Spice Man.

As people responded, their comments were pulled in and tracked and those who had interesting questions or were high-profile users on social networks were responded to directly in real time with a personalized short video featuring the dashing shirtless actor and former football player Isaiah Mustafa.  Over 200 videos were posted to YouTube over the course of two days and featured everything from a marriage proposal to messages to celebrities.

Check out this one which includes the real-life marriage proposal:

You can see all of the videos here.

It turned out to be a huge success.  Old Spice received over 83 million YouTube video views and grew their Facebook fan base by 616K all in the the course of two days.

I love it when a campaign goes viral.   But what, besides a touch of good luck, makes a campaign like this so successful?  When a campaign becomes an overnight sensation, it’s always beneficial to look back at what worked and why.  Here are a few take-aways and tips from this campaign that can be applied in making other social media campaigns a success:

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If you’re lucky enough to be a friend of mine on Facebook, keep an eye out, I just might buy you a drink!  I’m not talking about a virtual drink, but one that you can sip (or chug) and enjoy.

Most of you, I’m sure, are familiar with the Facebook Gift Shop where you can purchase and send virtual gifts to your friends for their birthday’s or… just because.  And although the idea of sending a virtual gift is pretty silly in itself,  it was great fun and who didn’t feel special and cared about when receiving one?

Well, times are a-changin’.  Facebook is ready to move on and recently announced that on August 1st they are closing the doors to the virtual gift shop.  The question is… why?  Although there have been no official announcements, it could quite possibly be to open the door to a new era of e-commerce.  Where instead of purchasing and sending virtual gifts, you will be able to send bigger and better real-life items.

There has already been some movement in that direction as a few companies are developing e-gift apps which let’s users purchase real-life items for friends.  Cold Stone Creamery’s e-gift app sends a code for an actual product to one or more friends, which can then be redeemed at one of the chain’s 1,300 locations.  And Webtab’s Bartab app, which uses both Facebook Connect and mobile technology let’s users buy tickets for drinks to send to friends.  Then he or she goes to the bar, which must be part of the network, and redeems the digital ticket.

With the number of Facebook users topping 250+ million, as marketers, this opens up a whole new avenue for placing products or services in front of one of the largest communities on the web.  If you’re not already, now is the time to start thinking and planning for the development of an app for your company.  New opportunities are on the way and by planning for them now you will be fully prepared to take advantage of them when they arise.

So let’s bid farewell to all those virtual bears and cupcakes and say HELLO to new opportunities.

Cheers!

Is email marketing on its way out?  This is a question I hear posed often. With the rise in social media and marketers beginning to dedicate more of their budget to social media programs and with the onslaught of unsolicited email, is email becoming a less effective way of reaching customers?  Absolutely not. In fact, it’s more important than ever.

Consumers are pickier now about which email lists they subscribe to and what they spend time reading, but when a customer opens your email, for that moment, you have their personal attention.  And in a world where marketing messages are thrown in front of your customer from every direction, that moment of undivided attention is priceless.

Social media doesn’t eliminate the use of email for marketing, but what it does give you is a powerful opportunity to integrate the two and cross promote while interacting with your customer on multiple levels. With the use of your email list you can jump-start your following on your social media sites, then use these sites to invite more people to sign up for your email list.

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