Social Media and Marketing Case Studies - Introduction

Marketing via social networks: It's got to be more than uploading a commercial to YouTube

What does a brand have to do to get attention on a social networking site?

You might think that a short film starring Kate Moss wandering around in Agent Provocateur lingerie as directed by Mike Figgis (Internal Affairs, Leaving Las Vegas) would be a YouTube global hit. And you might well be completely wrong.

Screenshot: Kate Moss on YouTube - but no-one's watching

The most-viewed upload of The Four Dreams Of Miss X - Part 1 was seen only 74,750 times over four months between September 2006 and January 2007.

Yet YouTube is a social universe in which a laughing baby can gain more than eight million views in three months. Even comparing Kate Moss videos with each other, a user-created slideshow of classic Kate photos gained almost as many views – 61,450 over four months – as the Agent Provocateur film.

In YouTube terms, this is what it’s like when a piece of brand marketing is effectively ignored. But why?

It’s not because YouTubers are indifferent to Kate. Search the site for Kate Moss and there are no fewer than 400 results, ranging from her pole dancing in a White Stripes music video through to the infamous cocaine footage.

It might be argued that the film was too long at six minutes, but the top-rated video Evolution of Dance (40+ million views) is the same length. It’s not because Mike Figgis chose to shoot in black and white. The start of the Free Hugs campaign (9.5 million views) is black and white, too.

The reality is that YouTube is full of well-crafted, professionally produced commercials that no-one pays much attention to. For every ad like the Irn-Bru baby birth (one million views in four months) there are hundreds or thousands that are uploaded to oblivion.

A short film for the 2006 Land Rover G4 Challenge – with global footage from Bangkok to Brazil – gained a pitiful 426 views in four months, a figure no doubt inflated by views from company and agency staff.

As one planner summed up the challenge: “This is a creative space for engagement, not a media space for messages.”

So how can any commercial message, video, photo or text, find a place in a social networking site?

An essential starting point is to consider people’s motivations for participating in an online community. These include:

• Forming and reinforcing personal relationships
• Self-expression
• Creativity and playfulness
• Sharing enthusiasms or hobbies

Of course, many people have professional motivations for participating too: bands looking for a fan base, film students in search of an audience and both after their first big break into their respective industries. But most people’s use of social networking sites is not primarily motivated by money or career development.

And a whole range of other behaviours and emotions can manifest themselves within an online social setting, such as sharing concerns and altruism, offering further opportunities to connect with the communities’ users.

If the best way to approach marketing in a social networking site is from the perspective of an ordinary user, then how can a brand address people’s motivations and emotions to engage with them?

Futurescape’s analysis of marketing campaigns across different social networking systems has found several powerful role models for marketers aiming to start from the customer’s point of view. Read more in these case studies:

P&G Share Your Secret | Bazooka Joe | Coke’s Shadowman | WSPA | Recommendations