Last night I had the opportunity to attend an event held by the Advertising Association of Baltimore about Digital Reputation Management. There were speakers from companies such as Google/YouTube, Pandora, and Wieden + Kennedy, and they provided useful tips for shaping the way we look at social media.
One of my favorite examples of an excellent use of social media and word of mouth was from Kris Hanson at Wieden + Kennedy. He gave this example of how they used integrated communications and fresh ideas to promote a different type of movie.
I found this example especially poignant because often clients come to us to “get into this social media thing” and give them a Facebook page and a Twitter account. We are happy to help them enter this sometimes-ambiguous and ever-increasing opportunity for communication (and we’re pretty darn good at it if I do say so myself), but we encourage a more holistic and integrated look at communication with audiences. Take the example above: if W+K had just sent the boxes to bloggers and that was the entire promotion of the movie, it would have helped, but it wouldn’t have had the epic effects of the more integrated approach that they actually used. Social media is growing, and clients do need to enter the conversations, but not as a seperate effort from traditional advertising and PR. And don’t worry, that doesn’t always require storefronts, newspapers, and TV promotions – just some creative thinking!
